From swiggard at comcast.net  Thu Dec  1 03:57:49 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Thu Dec  1 04:10:18 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] An Offering of Detail But No New Substance - Washington
	Post
Message-ID: <438EE53D.9000306@comcast.net>

An Offering of Detail But No New Substance

By Peter Baker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 1, 2005; A01

Thirty-two months after U.S. forces invaded Iraq, President Bush's 
advisers concluded that his message of "stay the course" has been 
translated by a weary American public as "stay forever." And so 
yesterday the president tried to reassure the nation that he has a 
comprehensive vision for beating the insurgency and eventually bringing 
U.S. troops home.

The message was hardly subtle as the White House posted a 35-page 
"National Strategy for Victory in Iraq" on its Web site and hung dozens 
of "Plan for Victory" signs behind Bush as he addressed midshipmen in 
Annapolis. But it was intended to reshape the argument against critics 
who have been gaining traction with congressional calls to withdraw 
troops immediately or at least set a timetable for pulling out.

Instead of sticking to general statements of resolve as in the past, 
Bush offered specific examples of what he called progress in building an 
Iraqi army that can take over the fight from U.S. troops. And in a rare 
move for a president loath to admit mistakes, he admitted some without 
ever using the word, granting that "we've faced some setbacks" and that 
"we learned from our early experiences."

But broadly Bush gave no ground to critics who want a major course 
change, and the plan he released yesterday offered nothing new 
substantively. Short of changing conditions on the ground, Bush faces 
enormous challenges in turning around public attitudes on the war. The 
American people have grown increasingly sour on Iraq in public polls, 
and most no longer approve of the way the president is handling the war.

"That's the trick for the president -- he has to turn around public 
opinion when he's at a low point in the polls," said John Weaver, a 
political strategist for Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). "What they've got 
to do is win this argument and correct the misinformation that's out 
there about what's going on in Iraq and do so while leveling with the 
American people that it's going to be a long, hard slog."

The latest speech won Bush few converts in Washington, with opposition 
leaders rushing out critiques, in some cases even before he had finished 
speaking in Annapolis. "The president was basically repackaging things 
and saying everything's fine when every day we read that things are not 
fine," said former secretary of state Madeleine K. Albright. "I so wish 
I could believe him. I like to believe an American president. But he's 
got such a credibility issue."

Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (Del.), the senior Democrat on the Foreign 
Relations Committee, offered a more measured response, calling Bush's 
remarks a "positive step." "The president did a better job laying out 
where we are and where we're trying to go in Iraq," Biden said in a 
statement, "but failed to tell us how or when we're going to get there."

The debate in Washington has evolved sharply in the past few weeks after 
the U.S. military death toll topped 2,000. While Bush traveled through 
Asia for trade and security talks, Congress engaged in its most robust 
debates on the war since voting to authorize the use of force in October 
2002. Bush and Vice President Cheney launched a sharp counterattack on 
critics, accusing them of demoralizing troops and wanting to "surrender 
to terrorists."

Now back from Asia and a Thanksgiving sojourn in Texas, Bush intends a 
sustained defense of his Iraq policy in the weeks leading up to the Dec. 
15 parliamentary elections there, starting with yesterday's speech and 
continuing with at least two and perhaps three more. He dropped the 
acrid rhetoric yesterday and professed that "we should not fear the 
debate in Washington. It's one of the great strengths of our democracy 
that we can discuss our differences openly and honestly even at times of 
war."

He summoned a leading Democrat to his own defense, citing an op-ed 
article opposing timetables for withdrawal that was written by Sen. 
Joseph I. Lieberman (Conn.), who ran for vice president on the ticket 
opposing Bush in 2000 and lost his bid for the party's presidential 
nomination to challenge Bush in 2004. In doing so, the White House hoped 
to turn the tables on the Democrats. "What it does is highlight a split 
within the Democratic Party," said a senior official who spoke on the 
condition of anonymity.

Privately, though, officials acknowledge that they have failed to 
communicate their message to the public.

"We haven't put it out there in a fashion that has sunk in," said a 
second official who was not authorized to speak on the record. Advisers 
were struck by polls showing that a sizable share of the public did not 
think Bush had a plan for victory in Iraq. "There's a sense that the 
public does not have a good understanding of what our strategy is and is 
confused about the level of progress we've made."

Administration officials believe much of the public is still eager for 
victory and open to persuasion if the president can make the case that 
he has made progress. They took heart in a survey last week by RT 
Strategies, a bipartisan polling firm, that found that 49 percent of 
Americans favor bringing troops home when only "specific goals and 
objectives" are met, 30 percent want a fixed timetable for pulling out 
and 16 percent support immediate withdrawal. The middle 30 percent, they 
figure, is the real political battleground.

Thomas Riehle, a Democrat who runs RT along with Republican V. Lance 
Tarrance Jr., said many Americans are suspicious of war critics as well 
as the war. "What is shifting is the sense that the military and White 
House do not have a good plan to proceed to victory or troop 
withdrawal," Riehle said in an e-mail. At the same time, he said, the 
Democrats "don't seem to be in a position to drive opinion . . . where 
Bush is vulnerable."

Amid such skepticism, Bush has retreated to mainly military settings to 
defend his policy. Yesterday's speech at the U.S. Naval Academy was his 
fourth before a military audience in three weeks.

But in subtle ways, he and the administration are adjusting the message 
to reflect Iraq realities.

No longer are they declaring that the insurgency is in its "last 
throes," as Cheney did last spring. Instead, they emphasize in their new 
strategy document that "it is not realistic to expect a fully 
functioning democracy, able to defeat its enemies" to be built in three 
years. And Bush acknowledged yesterday what U.S. military and 
intelligence experts have said for months, that terrorists make up the 
smallest group opposing coalition forces and that "ordinary Iraqis, 
mostly Sunni Arabs" represent "by far the largest group."

W. Patrick Lang, a former Defense Intelligence Agency expert on Iraqi 
affairs, said that Bush's language "changes the frame of reference," 
because the president acknowledged "for the first time this is 
essentially an Iraqi insurrection." Lang said Bush's previous emphasis 
on the foreign makeup of the insurgency "made it impossible for U.S. 
forces to deal with the enemy because we needed to defeat them totally." 
Now, Lang suggested, U.S. military officers have room to try to work out 
deals with Iraqi opposition fighters.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/30/AR2005113002159.html
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Thu Dec  1 04:00:56 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Thu Dec  1 04:13:23 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Democrats Attack Iraq Strategy - Washington Post
Message-ID: <438EE5F8.5000404@comcast.net>

Democrats Attack Iraq Strategy
Sen. Kerry, Sen. Reed Say Bush Plan Ignores Basic Realities

By William Branigin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 30, 2005; 4:39 PM

Democratic lawmakers charged today that President Bush has failed to set 
forth a coherent strategy to win the war in Iraq and called for the 
establishment of measurable benchmarks for progress so that U.S. troops 
can be gradually withdrawn.

The Democratic criticism came in response to a presidential speech at 
the U.S. Naval Academy today and the release of a new 35-page White 
House document entitled, "National Strategy for Victory in Iraq." In the 
speech, Bush denounced critics who he said want "an artificial 
timetable" for drawing down the nearly 160,000 U.S. troops now in Iraq. 
Bush said that "setting an artificial deadline to withdraw" would send a 
message that America is "weak" and "unreliable," would signal enemies in 
Iraq to wait out the United States and would "vindicate terrorist 
tactics of beheading and mass murder."

In a Capitol Hill news conference, Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) and Sen. 
Jack Reed (D-R.I.) said they were disappointed by Bush's plan, which 
they said fell short on specifics and ignored basic realities in Iraq.

"The president," Reed said, "failed to answer the question that all 
Americans are asking: how do we know progress is being made there?"

Kerry accused Bush of resorting to "straw man" arguments in denouncing 
his critics' calls for a drawdown of U.S. forces.

"This debate is not about an artificial date for withdrawal," Kerry 
said. He said a Nov. 15 Senate resolution, which called on the 
administration to hasten an eventual U.S. pullout by turning over more 
control to Iraqis, did not advocate "an artificial date for withdrawal" 
but sought to "set an estimated timetable for success which will permit 
the withdrawal of our troops." The resolution, which passed 79 to 19, 
said 2006 should be "a period of significant transition to full Iraqi 
sovereignty," creating conditions for "the phased redeployment of United 
States forces from Iraq."

"No one has ever suggested or believes that we should run in the face of 
car bombers or assassins," Kerry said, referring to a passage in Bush's 
speech. "No one is talking about running in the face of a challenge. 
We're talking about how to win, how to succeed, how do you best achieve 
our goals? That's the choice here. And what the president did not do 
today again is acknowledge the fundamental reality of the insurgency."

Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) called the resolution two 
weeks ago "a vote of no confidence in the president's current policy in 
Iraq" and said Bush in response today merely "recycled his tired 
rhetoric of 'stay the course.'"

In a statement, Reid said, "After nearly 1,000 days of war in Iraq, our 
troops, their families, and the American people deserve more than just a 
Bush-Cheney public relations campaign. They deserve a clear strategy 
with military, economic and political measures to be met in order to 
successfully complete our mission. The president's continued refusal to 
provide that plan does nothing to support our troops or their families. 
Simply staying the course is no longer an option, we must change the 
course."

The top Democrat in the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi of 
California, today threw her support behind a proposal by Rep. John P. 
Murtha (D-Pa.) for a prompt pullout of U.S. troops from Iraq. Murtha, a 
former Marine with a reputation as a hawk on military issues, stunned 
Washington two weeks ago when he said U.S. troops have done all they can 
in Iraq and should be withdrawn within six months.

"We should follow the lead of Congressman John Murtha, who has put forth 
a plan to make America safer, to make our military stronger, and to make 
Iraq more stable," Pelosi said in a news conference.

She also sharply criticized Bush's speech, dismissing the "Plan for 
Victory" slogan that appeared behind him today as "no more accurate than 
the 'Mission Accomplished' backdrop he used two and a half years ago on 
the USS Abraham Lincoln."

"What we heard today was a commitment to the status quo -- a status quo 
that is not working," Pelosi said. "The President did not have a plan 
for victory when he went into his war of choice in Iraq, and he did not 
have a plan for victory today. The American people expected that the 
president would do more today than just put a new cover and 35 pages of 
rhetoric on old sound bites."

Bush "fails to understand that a new course is needed in Iraq" and 
instead has "dug us into a deep hole," she said. "It is time for him to 
stop digging."

But Sen. Ken Salazar (D-Colo.) called the speech "a step in the right 
direction" that "begins to address the Senate's call for a successful 
exit strategy with measurable benchmarks." He said, "I look forward to 
hearing more, including information about the specific benchmarks we 
expect to achieve, and when we expect to achieve them."

Republican lawmakers voiced strong support for the speech and strategy 
document.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) said, "I hope the partisan claims that our 
military does not have a plan in Iraq will cease. We are making 
significant progress training Iraqi security forces which will allow 
American forces to return home. However, we must not prematurely leave 
Iraq, which would be a disaster for Iraq and for our security."

Rep. Mike Conaway (R-Tex.) said, "The only exit strategy for Iraq is 
victory, and we will not leave the Iraqis defenseless until they have 
the full capacity to protect themselves."

In his news conference, Kerry said Bush is ignoring advice from Iraqi 
leaders and his own generals, including the top U.S. commander in Iraq, 
Gen. George W. Casey Jr., who said in recent congressional testimony 
that the large U.S. military presence in Iraq is helping to fuel the 
insurgency.

"General Casey has said very clearly that it is the large presence of 
American forces on the ground that feeds the insurgency and makes it 
more difficult for the Iraqis to assume responsibility because they 
don't have to," Kerry told reporters. "The president did not acknowledge 
that today, but gave us the same talk about simply staying as long as it 
takes to get them [Iraqi forces] to stand up." He cited a poll showing 
that 45 percent of Iraqis "believe it is all right to injure and kill 
Americans" and that 80 percent "want us to withdraw."

Kerry added, "So what the president did not acknowledge today at all is 
that the presence of our troops itself is a part of the current reality 
on the ground that presents food for the insurgency. And you need to 
reduce that presence over a period of time in order to be able to 
succeed, not fail." He said no senator wants the United States to "leave 
a failed state or to withdraw precipitously," but that "in the end, the 
strategy for exit is in fact part of the strategy for success."

Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), a member of the Senate Armed Services 
Committee, said he agreed with Bush that the United States should not 
set a firm timetable for withdrawal, but he expressed support for 
"measurable goals" -- such as levels of Iraqi troops capable of 
operating independently -- that would provide the benchmarks for a 
staged U.S. drawdown.

"I believe we can only draw down when we have a plan in place that tells 
us we're getting to our stated objective," Nelson said on CNN. "I think 
we all want to stay the course," he said. "What we want to know is what 
the course is and what it's going to take in terms of preparation."

Sen. Russell D. Feingold (D-Wis.) condemned Bush's plan as "filled with 
the same rhetoric we've all heard before." Noting that the strategy 
document says it "articulates the broad strategy the President set forth 
in 2003," Feingold said, "That alone makes it clear that the president 
seems more dug in than ever to the same old 'stay the course' way of 
thinking. This is not a strategy, and it certainly is not a plan to 
complete the military mission in Iraq."

Feingold said in a statement, "We need leadership, and we need a policy 
on Iraq that includes a flexible timetable for completing our military 
mission there, so that we can focus on our national security priority -- 
defeating the global terrorist networks that threaten the U.S. The 
president missed a vital opportunity today."

Feingold has introduced a resolution calling on the administration to 
provide what he calls a "flexible, public timetable" for the U.S. 
mission in Iraq, with Dec. 31, 2006, set as a "target date to complete 
the military mission there."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/30/AR2005113001136.html
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Thu Dec  1 04:02:21 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Thu Dec  1 04:14:43 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] A Pox on Both Parties - David S. Broder - Washington
	Post Op-Ed
Message-ID: <438EE64D.3070604@comcast.net>

A Pox on Both Parties

By David S. Broder
Thursday, December 1, 2005; A25

To understand why the level of public disillusionment with politics is 
so high in this country right now, it helps to go back a dozen years.

The Democrats took power in 1993 with a young and obviously talented 
Bill Clinton succeeding George H.W. Bush, who seemingly had played out 
the string on the shift to conservative government Ronald Reagan 
launched in 1980. Clinton took office as a plurality president, but with 
Democratic majorities in both the House and Senate seemingly primed for 
action.

His first year did not go well. His first budget -- with a tax increase 
for top-bracket earners and benefits for lower-income families -- barely 
survived in Congress. He found himself snarled in unproductive fights 
over gays in the military and other side issues, and in the fall, his 
big initiatives -- reorganization of government, approval of the North 
American Free Trade Agreement and passage of health care reform -- were 
piling up in Congress.

By the spring of his second year, the most politically important of 
those priorities -- the overhaul of the health care delivery system -- 
was hopelessly mired in committee, unable to muster enough support even 
to bring it to a floor vote in the House or Senate. The problem that 
Clinton had recognized as most disturbing for families, for business and 
for all levels of government was left to fester, unsolved.

In November 1994, with thousands of disillusioned Democrats boycotting 
the polling places, the Republicans won nearly everything, retaking the 
Senate, capturing the House for the first time in 40 years and boosting 
their strength in the state capitols.

The lingering effects of that failure in one-party Democratic government 
are still felt. While Clinton was able to win a second term and to avoid 
conviction on the Lewinsky scandal impeachment charges, he was never 
again able -- while campaigning for himself or others -- to persuade 
voters to entrust his party with the reins of government.

At some level, the message that many voters took away from the 
experience was that Democrats may talk a good game, but they don't 
deliver. It has not helped that the subsequent Democratic nominees, Al 
Gore and John Kerry, were people who had built their careers in the 
Senate, a place where the public knows that talk is cheap and action rare.

Fast-forward now to 2005, five years after the voters (with a nudge from 
the Supreme Court) entrusted Republicans with complete control of the 
elected branches of the federal government. What do they have to show 
for it?

Well, as promised, taxes have been cut, more for the wealthy than for 
others, but that promise has been kept. The overall economy has grown, 
but -- in part because of tax policy -- the gap between the rich and the 
rest has increased. The nation, caught unawares, has suffered a grievous 
homeland attack, and the chief instigator of that Sept. 11 savagery 
remains at large. We have invaded two countries seeking out terrorists 
-- and years later, violence continues to cost the lives of Americans 
trying to pacify both Iraq and Afghanistan.

President Bush's chief domestic initiative -- reform of the Social 
Security system -- suffered the same fate as Clinton's health care 
effort: so little agreement within his own party that he was never even 
able to bring it to a vote.

The self-described "compassionate conservative" has been so lax in his 
budgetary policy that deficits have reached dismaying levels, and 
compassion was compromised by gross incompetence in the response to 
Hurricane Katrina.

Meanwhile, after 11 years of unbroken majority, congressional 
Republicans are displaying the same personal arrogance (in grabbing for 
favors) and the same penchant for petty scandals that plagued the 
Democrats after their 40-year run.

There is one difference. Congressional Republicans by and large have 
maintained greater cohesion and discipline than did the Democrats under 
Clinton. But the price has been subservience to White House whims and 
wishes. This has been the most compliant congressional leadership in 
modern times, one that until very recently was unwilling or incapable of 
asserting itself against even a minor presidential preference.

Now, with Bush weakened by the war and other problems, Republicans on 
Capitol Hill are beginning to scramble for safety by voting their 
districts, not heeding partisan commands.

It is not an edifying spectacle. And the result may well be what it was 
for the Democrats in 1994, when the cry, "Every member for himself!" 
turned into a rout.

Leaving behind one big question: When both parties have lost public 
confidence, where do voters turn?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/30/AR2005113001817.html
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Thu Dec  1 04:03:43 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Thu Dec  1 04:16:13 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Hope Over History - Richard Cohen - Washington Post Op-Ed
Message-ID: <438EE69F.4060402@comcast.net>

Hope Over History

By Richard Cohen
Thursday, December 1, 2005; A25

If, as Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill once said, all politics is local, I 
direct your attention from President Bush's speech on Iraq yesterday to 
the District of Columbia and its police department. Back in 1989 and 
1990, the city of Washington was under orders from Congress to quickly 
hire 1,800 police officers or lose a substantial amount of federal aid. 
The city did what it was told -- and crime on the police force went way up.

Within four years, the police academy classes of 1989 and 1990 comprised 
about one-third of the police force. They also accounted for a 
disproportionate share of rotten, corrupt and downright criminal cops. 
Astoundingly, Washington had 185 police officers of such dubious 
character or outright criminality that prosecutors would not put them on 
the stand as witnesses. In Washington, for a time, the term "crooked 
cop" amounted to a redundancy.

Washington's lamentable experience may soon be duplicated in Iraq. The 
results might be better, but nothing about human nature suggests any 
cause for optimism. Just as Washington hurried to sign up new cops -- 
cutting all sorts of corners (psychological testing, extensive 
background checks, etc.) -- so is the United States creating an Iraqi 
security force, and doing so on the double. These are the troops that 
constitute the entire exit strategy for America in Iraq. As these forces 
get better and bigger, U.S. troop levels can be drawn down. Such, as 
Bush made plain in his speech at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, is the 
plan.

To hear the president tell it, the plan is working splendidly. Should 
you be so inclined, you can measure progress by going to a government 
Web site ( http://www.mnstci.iraq.centcom.mil/ ) and seeing for 
yourself. Everything is going swimmingly. "Mechanized Division puts 
T-72s, BMPs on parade" is one headline. It tells the tale of one 
November day when the tanks and armored personnel carriers were turned 
over to the Iraqi army's 9th Division, with "all the pomp and 
circumstance befitting the largest NATO-driven equipment donation to date."

Another story tells of basic training where, for some reason, "[t]he 
soldiers here don't spend their time shining boots, singing cadences or 
doing countless push-ups." Wonderful! But they do, however, shout "Long 
live Iraq!" in what is described as "unison." No doubt.

The Web site is a cheerful place of nothing but good news. But there was 
less happy news recently about elements of the Iraqi army carrying out 
abductions, torture and executions. This report, by the New York Times 
and others, is a bit tough to read, describing how bodies have been 
found with acid burns on the skin and holes made by electric drills. It 
is not clear if these atrocities, purportedly by Shiites against Sunnis, 
were carried out by regular army units or whether Shiite militias have 
infiltrated the army. In fact, very little is clear.

I am not -- not yet, anyway -- a pulloutnik. In the apt Pottery Barn 
analogy, we broke Iraq and we own it. The National Security Council's 
"National Strategy for Victory in Iraq" -- a numbingly repetitive 
document -- nevertheless makes a convincing case that chaos, a civil 
war, a bloodbath, and a precipitous loss of American prestige and 
influence would follow an abrupt U.S. withdrawal. A repeat of the 
shameful exit from Vietnam has to be avoided -- if only because Iraq is 
in the center of the Middle East, not a small country on the periphery 
of Asia.

Still, the hard thinking that was not done before the war, or even 
during it, has to be done now. If, really, reliance on the Iraqi army is 
just a fig leaf to cover what ultimately will be a sorry U.S. withdrawal 
anyway, then it would be best to leave now rather than later. Maybe the 
administration is justified in reporting some progress in the war 
against the insurgents -- some journalists are finding confirmation -- 
but this is an administration famous for its happy talk and mindless 
optimism. It has shown itself capable of becoming intoxicated on its own 
ideology, and it has, as a result, deservedly earned our deepest skepticism.

Iraq is not Washington, D.C., I know. (It's probably better managed.) 
But if the nation's capital did not know who was joining its police 
force, if it was hiring criminals and psychopaths, giving them a badge 
and gun, then what, really, can Americans know about the Iraqi army? The 
barriers of language and culture, of religion and custom, necessarily 
leave us in the dark. We will, I'm sure, somehow reconstitute the Iraqi 
army. That will be good for us. But whether it will be good for Iraq is 
something any Washingtonian with a memory has reason to doubt.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/30/AR2005113001818.html?nav=hcmodule
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Thu Dec  1 04:05:28 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Thu Dec  1 04:17:47 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Gaps in Bush's Plan - Jim Hoagland - Washington Post
	Op-Ed
Message-ID: <438EE708.1030605@comcast.net>

Gaps in Bush's Plan

By Jim Hoagland
Thursday, December 1, 2005; A25

President Bush held out the promise yesterday of reductions of American 
troop levels in Iraq next year -- if they can be made on his terms. His 
speech at the Naval Academy took a necessary step toward hedging his 
Iraq policy in the face of popular discontent. But it is unlikely to be 
sufficient to change hearts and minds.

Bush's political purpose was spelled out on the signboards posted behind 
him for the television audience: "Plan for Victory." I have one, the 
president argued in his words and his resolute style. But there were 
crucial omissions in his attempt to take back the momentum in a national 
debate that has turned against him.

An effective endgame strategy must center on making U.S. withdrawal the 
primary catalyst for change in Iraq, rather than a grudging response to 
the political pressures at home and continuing losses in Iraq.

Those forces helped spark Bush's speech and the elaboration of his 
conditions for withdrawal. They also prompted the timing of the White 
House's release of a 35-page "National Strategy for Victory in Iraq."

Both the speech and the strategy document restate and refine Bush's 
still-firm commitment to finishing what he has started in Iraq. But they 
also understated or avoided the concrete details of the risks that any 
form of withdrawal, hedged or precipitous, will raise.

Making withdrawal a catalyst for change means equipping Iraqi forces 
with lethal U.S. weaponry -- something the Pentagon is reluctant to do. 
It means letting an elected Iraqi government run its own internal 
intelligence organization -- something the CIA is reluctant to do. It 
means taking the kind of big risks on Iraqis that Bush has been 
reluctant to take since the beginning of the war.

"I am dancing as fast as I can" seemed to be the true subtext of Bush's 
address. But he failed to show conclusively that his pace is fast enough 
to calm public opinion or to lead events in Iraq once withdrawals do begin.

Bush did make his first significant admissions that -- in the classic 
Washington phrase for refusing to assign responsibility -- mistakes were 
made. He highlighted failures in organizing Iraqi police and security 
forces into small units that were lightly armed with discarded 
Soviet-made weapons, if they were armed at all. Nothing more would be 
needed in the wake of a rapid U.S. battlefield victory and the centering 
of power in the hands of an occupation authority, it had been assumed.

His admissions indicate an awareness that Iraq turned out to be a very 
different, much more fragmented and inherently violent land than U.S. 
policymakers anticipated. Or, worse, than they were willing to admit in 
the first year of occupation, which featured experiments with 
sophisticated but unworkable caucus arrangements to choose local 
officials and idealistic, irrelevant free-market scenarios for a 
war-devastated economy.

"I watched as we destroyed every weapon we found and assumed that we 
would be reequipping friendly units with U.S. arms. I was stunned when I 
saw I was wrong," says a former Defense Intelligence Agency analyst who 
worked in Iraq after the invasion. He concluded that U.S. commanders did 
not have enough confidence in the Iraqis they were recruiting to give 
them effective weapons.

"We lost a year on training and equipping an effective Iraqi force," 
Sen. John Warner (R-Va.) told me after listening to the president's 
speech, which he warmly praised.

Warner, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, confirmed 
that he has been urging the Pentagon to begin arming Iraqi units with 
standardized U.S. vehicles, rifles and other equipment to replace the 
hodgepodge of obsolete weaponry that the previous Iraqi interim 
government bought from former Soviet satellites in often dubious deals.

One quick way to accomplish this would be for U.S. units that are 
withdrawn to leave behind at least a portion of their equipment. Warner 
is considering legislation that would authorize that step if the 
Pentagon can work out details, he indicated.

"Yes, there are risks. But we have to take them, to say to the Iraqis: 
'It's yours. You're a fully sovereign nation.' That will be the tipping 
point," says Warner.

Americans still have a limited understanding of -- and ability to mold 
-- Iraqi society. Neither wars nor speeches can change that. But the 
president needs to return to this subject again in the near future and 
demonstrate a deepening awareness that the war in Iraq must be fought 
first of all on Iraqi terms, by Iraqis, for Iraqi reasons.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/30/AR2005113001815.html?nav=hcmodule
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Thu Dec  1 04:07:48 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Thu Dec  1 04:20:03 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Keeping the promise on AIDS - Peter Lamptey - Boston
	Globe Op-Ed
Message-ID: <438EE794.1060300@comcast.net>


  Keeping the promise on AIDS

By Peter Lamptey  |  December 1, 2005  |  The Boston Globe

IT'S LONG been clear that political will and astute leadership play a 
central role in the global fight against the AIDS epidemic. The theme of 
this year's World AIDS Day, ''Keep the Promise," urges leaders in 
developing countries to work toward the HIV prevention and treatment 
goals of international agreements initiated by the United Nations and 
World Health Organization.

Many nations are meeting these goals and achieving even more. Their 
dedication demonstrates that the most effective policymaking to fight 
AIDS takes place not in New York or Geneva but on the front lines of the 
epidemic. The leaders of these countries are taking aggressive, 
visionary action to protect their citizens and mitigate the economic and 
social impact of this devastating global health crisis.

In 1996, spurred by activist lobbying, Brazilian legislators mandated 
free antiretroviral treatment for all HIV-positive citizens eligible for 
national insurance -- the first such legislation in the developing 
world. At the time, HIV prevalence in Brazil was among the highest in 
the Americas; one in three Latin Americans with HIV lived in Brazil. 
This historic decision represented a huge investment in public health 
for Brazil that the country would struggle to fund and maintain.

That investment soon paid off. Within two years, AIDS mortality in S?o 
Paulo State, which had the country's highest HIV prevalence, dropped an 
astonishing 32 percent. Today, more than 170,000 HIV-positive Brazilians 
receive antiretroviral therapy. The national AIDS mortality rate has 
been slashed in half, with AIDS-related hospitalizations in public 
health facilities down by 80 percent. Brazil's bold initiative proved to 
its neighbors and to skeptical public health experts worldwide that 
universal access to HIV treatment in developing countries is not only 
feasible but highly effective in saving lives. Brazil's example helped 
other Latin American nations establish their own treatment programs.

Brazil's comprehensive prevention, care, and treatment programs operate 
throughout the country. HIV prevention messages and activities are woven 
into everyday life, in the schools, streets, workplaces, and 
entertainment centers. As a result, national HIV prevalence dropped to 
0.6 percent in 2000 and has remained low.

Botswana has played a similar role in Africa, pioneering widespread 
access to antiretroviral treatment for its citizens. Burdened with one 
of the most severe HIV epidemics in the world, nearly four of every 10 
adult Botswanans are infected. In 2002, this mortal threat prompted 
President Festus Mogae and other national leaders to create Africa's 
first free AIDS treatment services, called the Masa (''New Dawn") 
Program. Now, some 42,000 Botswanans receive antiretroviral treatment, 
about 56 percent of the total who currently need it.

As the country improves public health infrastructure to handle more 
patients, health officials are actively promoting widespread HIV 
counseling and testing. Botswanans are learning their HIV status 
earlier, which allows them to get timely medical help and avoid 
infecting others.

Cambodia is among the poorest countries in the developing world, with 
the highest HIV prevalence in Asia yet too few resources to enact 
universal treatment. But this did not stop its leaders from acting early 
to slow HIV transmission by adopting the innovative prevention 
strategies that lowered transmission rates in neighboring Thailand.

Uganda has also provided legendary leadership in HIV prevention, with 
its focus on the ABC strategy: abstinence, be faithful, and consistent 
condom use. Identified in the 1980s as the epicenter of the epidemic, 
Uganda experienced an early and severe peak in HIV prevalence that 
caused horrific suffering throughout the country. Its leaders, most 
prominently President Yoweri Museveni, fought back by speaking frankly 
and directly to the Ugandan population. They urged citizens to protect 
themselves by taking charge of their sexual behavior. New data show that 
Ethiopia, Kenya, South Africa, and Zambia are achieving similar 
successes in prevention.

The US government provides significant funding and technical assistance 
to help dozens of countries provide its citizens with prevention, care, 
and treatment services -- and it does so most effectively by working 
hand in hand with political and public health leaders. Collaborating 
with governments throughout the developing world, the President's 
Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief is now helping to expand AIDS programs to 
even more nations, including some of the poorest of the poor. These 
partnerships -- fueled by true political will -- remain the backbone for 
action in the global campaign against AIDS.

Dr. Peter Lamptey, a native of Ghana, is president of the Institute for 
HIV/AIDS at the nongovernmental organization Family Health International.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/12/01/keeping_the_promise_on_aids/
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Thu Dec  1 04:09:41 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Thu Dec  1 04:22:01 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] What Bush didn't say about the war - Thomas Oliphant -
 Boston Globe Op-Ed
Message-ID: <438EE805.2090507@comcast.net>


  What Bush didn't say about the war

By Thomas Oliphant, Globe Columnist  |  December 1, 2005

WASHINGTON
HAD PRESIDENT Bush chosen to be candid and honest yesterday at the Naval 
Academy, he could have added a simple sentence to his oration on how 
marvelously things are going in Iraq.

That sentence would read: Representative Jack Murtha is correct. In 
fact, if anything, the pro-military Democrat from Pennsylvania probably 
understated his case that the United States can and should withdraw its 
troops from Iraq over the next six months, leaving only a rapid response 
force in one of the Persian Gulf emirates.

Had Bush chosen candor and honesty, he could have said flat-out that 
Hillary Clinton was correct this week in calling for a plan to withdraw 
troops next year in the aftermath of December's parliamentary elections.

The president didn't do either because he was not being candid or honest 
about the situation in a place where he insists on an open-ended 
military commitment.

It was Senator Clinton, in an e-mail to New York supporters this week, 
who framed the issue in exactly the manner that caught Bush in his 
latest deception. ''Given years of assurances that the war was nearly 
over and that the insurgents were in their 'last throes,' this 
administration was either not being honest with the American people or 
did not know what was going on in Iraq," she wrote.

Looking ahead, Clinton offered her own version of Murtha's 
recommendation that differs from his in its absence of a timetable and 
its intentional vagueness about whether a residual force should be 
inside or just beyond Iraq's border.

Her key words: ''I believe we are at a critical point with the Dec. 15 
elections that should, if successful, allow us to start bringing home 
our troops in the coming year, while leaving behind a small contingent 
in safer areas with greater intelligence and quick strike capabilities."

The question Bush was unable to confront, much less answer yesterday, is 
what requires the presence of 160,000 US troops in Iraq.

He did, however, unconsciously provide fodder for his critics. That was 
especially so on the subject of training Iraqis to defend themselves 
from an insurgency that while obscenely violent is also comparatively 
small and unable to occupy, much less rule, any significant hunk of 
territory even in Sunni Arab communities.

As even Bush acknowledged, this is hardly a huge or complex enemy. It 
has terrorists, machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades, and some 
mortars. This is not high-tech warfare, rather the reverse. Against this 
insurgency, even he said, there is a large and growing number of trained 
soldiers. It takes at most two months or so to train a battalion of 
Iraqi soldiers and 3,000 or so police officers. Obviously, the problem 
is not numbers. Over a year, even starting from scratch, which the 
Iraqis are not doing, this produces a force that dwarfs the insurgents' 
numbers.

Clearly, the real problem involves will and strategy. What Bush didn't 
talk about was the burden now on American forces that Iraqi leaders are 
unwilling, but not unable to shoulder. That is why so many experts 
believe that lighting a fire under the Iraqis, for example with a 
withdrawal timetable, would provide motivation to defend themselves and 
start building a country.

Instead, Shi'ite and Kurdish political forces seem content to let 
Americans bear a burden that should be theirs. Bush is not entitled to 
support for an open-ended war that puts Americans in a mercenary role.

Another topic Bush chooses not to address is the role of militias in 
Iraq's evolving society. As experts here and military people over there 
keep reporting, both the Kurds in the north and the Shi'ites in the 
south use militias for ''security." Increasingly, Americans are hearing 
reports that they have units that go around and kill opponents in large 
numbers. In the shadows, there is something very close to a low-grade 
civil war going on in Iraq. The basic security of the Kurdish and 
Shi'ite areas, moreover, is not in serious doubt. What is in doubt is 
their will to use force to suppress insurgents in the Sunni communities 
and in Baghdad, and the ability of Sunnis who want a role in a new Iraq 
to organize themselves.

Instead of staying a course to nowhere, the opportunity for Americans 
now is to recognize that in a few weeks Iraq will have an elected 
government and tens of thousands of armed adults who need to take the 
next step.

The final topic Bush did not address yesterday is the impact of the 
American occupation in both fomenting and sustaining the insurgency and 
in attracting foreign terrorists. It is a topic that many of his own 
people -- including Donald Rumseld -- occasionally face; it is also a 
topic that had much to do with Murtha's gutsy move.

For their sake, as well as ours, we need to begin standing down so 
Iraqis can stand up. Bush has that exactly backwards.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/12/01/what_bush_didnt_say_about_the_war/
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From harperalexander at mail.com  Thu Dec  1 07:33:43 2005
From: harperalexander at mail.com (Alexander Harper)
Date: Thu Dec  1 07:47:18 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Robert May - The core values of science are under threat.
Message-ID: <20051201153343.B40F41F50FA@ws1-2.us4.outblaze.com>

Robert May, the President of the Royal Society, Britain's most venerable scientific institution is not some scaremongering bullshitter. The fact that he appears to be so worried by the way fundamentalists are changing the world's attitudes towards science should be a cause of great concern to all of us.
Here  are some extracts from a recent spech.
Al B



Robert May: 'The core values of science are under threat' 

>From an annual address to the Royal Society, entitled Threats to Tomorrow's World, by the society's president 

Published: 01 December 2005 

The values of the Enlightenment have on balance - often one step backward for two steps forward - made the world a better place. Today, however, fundamentalist forces are again on the march, West and East. 

In the US, the aim of a growing network of fundamentalist foundations and lobby groups reaches well beyond "equal time" for creationism, or its disguised variant "intelligent design", in the science classroom. Rather, the ultimate aim is the overthrow of "scientific materialism", in all its manifestations.

In the Islamic world, we also see enlightenment threatened by extremist sects, whose acts evoke the brutal practices which gave us the word "assassin". The really sad thing is that none of these fundamentalist beliefs are grounded on, or representative of, the mainstream religions they profess to serve. Fundamentalist Christianity is widely considered as irrelevant to modern theology as it is to modern science. The extremist views and acts of fundamentalist Islam find little sanction in the Koran.

More generally, many of the "moral dilemmas" that are said to arise from scientific advances - such as stem cell research - do not in fact arise from any conflict between science and ethical universals.

Ahead of us lie dangerous times. There are serious problems that derive from the realities of the external world: climate change, loss of biological diversity, new and re-emerging diseases, and more. Many of these threats are not immediate, yet their nonlinear character is such that we need to be acting today. And we have no evolutionary experience of acting on behalf of a distant future; we even lack basic understanding of important aspects of our own institutions and societies.

Sadly, for many, the response is to retreat from complexity and difficulty by embracing the darkness of fundamentalist unreason. The Enlightenment's core values, free, open, unprejudiced, uninhibited questioning and enquiry; individual liberty; separation of church and state - are under serious threat from resurgent fundamentalism, West and East. 

The values of the Enlightenment have on balance - often one step backward for two steps forward - made the world a better place. Today, however, fundamentalist forces are again on the march, West and East. 

In the US, the aim of a growing network of fundamentalist foundations and lobby groups reaches well beyond "equal time" for creationism, or its disguised variant "intelligent design", in the science classroom. Rather, the ultimate aim is the overthrow of "scientific materialism", in all its manifestations.

In the Islamic world, we also see enlightenment threatened by extremist sects, whose acts evoke the brutal practices which gave us the word "assassin". The really sad thing is that none of these fundamentalist beliefs are grounded on, or representative of, the mainstream religions they profess to serve. Fundamentalist Christianity is widely considered as irrelevant to modern theology as it is to modern science. The extremist views and acts of fundamentalist Islam find little sanction in the Koran.
More generally, many of the "moral dilemmas" that are said to arise from scientific advances - such as stem cell research - do not in fact arise from any conflict between science and ethical universals.

Ahead of us lie dangerous times. There are serious problems that derive from the realities of the external world: climate change, loss of biological diversity, new and re-emerging diseases, and more. Many of these threats are not immediate, yet their nonlinear character is such that we need to be acting today. And we have no evolutionary experience of acting on behalf of a distant future; we even lack basic understanding of important aspects of our own institutions and societies.

Sadly, for many, the response is to retreat from complexity and difficulty by embracing the darkness of fundamentalist unreason. The Enlightenment's core values, free, open, unprejudiced, uninhibited questioning and enquiry; individual liberty; separation of church and state - are under serious threat from resurgent fundamentalism, West and East. 


-- 
___________________________________________________
Play 100s of games for FREE! http://games.mail.com/


From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Thu Dec  1 08:21:56 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (mblaxill@yahoo.com)
Date: Thu Dec  1 08:37:36 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Headlines for December 1, 2005
Message-ID: <20051201162156.7538.qmail@trinity.democracynow.org>

Mike Blaxill  ( mblaxill@yahoo.com )
sent you this story from democracynow.org



+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
|  Headlines for December 1, 2005
|  http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/01/1525249
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+


- Bush Launches “National Strategy for Victory in Iraq” 
- Pelosi Backs Murtha Call for Withdrawal 
- CA Supreme Court Rejects Bid to Reopen Tookie Williams Case 
- Alito Sought to Undo Roe v. Wade 
- Peres Leaves Labour Party to Back Sharon 
- Ethiopian Opposition Leaders Launch Hunger Strike 
- Dec. 1st Marks 25th Anniversary of World AIDS Day 
This story continues at: 
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/01/1525249

From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Thu Dec  1 08:37:33 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Thu Dec  1 08:47:34 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: A Grotesque Weapon Used in This War (3
	Letters)
Message-ID: <20051201163733.9941F3AE57F@lax-gw06.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: ialterman@nyc.rr.com.

What we're saying...


OPINION | December 1, 2005
A Grotesque Weapon Used in This War (3 Letters)

To the Editor:.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/01/opinion/l01iraq.html?emc=eta1




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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Thu Dec  1 08:38:23 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Thu Dec  1 08:48:33 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: U.S. Is Said to Pay to Plant Articles in
	Iraq Papers
Message-ID: <20051201163823.0F3603AE564@lax-gw06.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: ialterman@nyc.rr.com.

Well, hey - if they can do it here, certainly they can do it there, no?


WASHINGTON | December 1, 2005
U.S. Is Said to Pay to Plant Articles in Iraq Papers
By JEFF GERTH and SCOTT SHANE
A covert campaign is under way to plant paid propaganda in the Iraqi news media and pay Iraqi journalists monthly stipends.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/01/politics/01propaganda.html?emc=eta1



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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Thu Dec  1 08:38:36 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Thu Dec  1 08:50:12 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: For New Court, Abortion Case Takes Old Path
Message-ID: <20051201163836.0A55824B0C3@lax-gw02.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: ialterman@nyc.rr.com.

WASHINGTON / WASHINGTON SPECIAL | December 1, 2005
For New Court, Abortion Case Takes Old Path
By LINDA GREENHOUSE
The justices appeared to agree that laws regulating teenagers' access to abortion must make allowances for medical emergencies.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/01/politics/politicsspecial1/01scotus.html?emc=eta1



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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Thu Dec  1 08:36:24 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Thu Dec  1 08:52:13 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Scientists Say Slower Atlantic Currents
	Could Mean a Colder Europe
Message-ID: <20051201163624.E958CA0235@lax-gw05.mroute.net>

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SCIENCE / ENVIRONMENT | December 1, 2005
Scientists Say Slower Atlantic Currents Could Mean a Colder Europe
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
Scientists say they have measured a significant slowing in the Atlantic currents that carry warm water toward Northern Europe.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/01/science/earth/01climate.html?emc=eta1



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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Thu Dec  1 08:36:25 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Thu Dec  1 08:52:23 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Terror Trial Hits Obstacle, Unexpectedly
Message-ID: <20051201163625.74B8BA0247@lax-gw05.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: ialterman@nyc.rr.com.

WASHINGTON | December 1, 2005
Terror Trial Hits Obstacle, Unexpectedly
By NEIL A. LEWIS
A judicial panel suggested it might withdraw an earlier opinion that gave President Bush powers to detain Jose Padilla indefinitely without trial.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/01/politics/01padilla.html?emc=eta1



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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Thu Dec  1 08:39:03 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Thu Dec  1 08:52:27 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Alito File Shows Strategy to Curb Abortion
	Ruling 
Message-ID: <20051201163903.10E8E13B8E3@lax-gw04.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: ialterman@nyc.rr.com.

Surprise, surprise!


WASHINGTON / WASHINGTON SPECIAL | December 1, 2005
Alito File Shows Strategy to Curb Abortion Ruling 
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
As a lawyer in the Reagan Justice Department, the Supreme Court nominee supported states in adding restrictions to abortion.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/01/politics/politicsspecial1/01confirm.html?emc=eta1



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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Thu Dec  1 08:36:37 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Thu Dec  1 08:52:31 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Plan: We Win
Message-ID: <20051201163637.B7062A0267@lax-gw05.mroute.net>

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OPINION | December 1, 2005
Editorial: Plan: We Win

A president who seems less in touch with reality than Richard Nixon needs to get out more.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/01/opinion/01thur1.html?emc=eta1




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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Thu Dec  1 08:36:49 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Thu Dec  1 08:53:19 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: The State of AIDS
Message-ID: <20051201163649.2B1F12373C5@lax-gw01.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: ialterman@nyc.rr.com.

OPINION | December 1, 2005
Editorial: The State of AIDS

The AIDS story this year is mostly one of failure - the failure of rich countries to give the promised money, the failure to muster the political will in poor nations. 
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/01/opinion/01thur2.html?emc=eta1




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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Thu Dec  1 08:40:00 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Thu Dec  1 08:56:28 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: A Man's Right to Choose
Message-ID: <20051201164000.4C87E9FF18@lax-gw05.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: ialterman@nyc.rr.com.

An important, forgotten issue - and a must-read. Peace.


OPINION | December 1, 2005
Op-Ed Contributor: A Man's Right to Choose
By DALTON CONLEY
Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. didn’t go far enough on spousal notification.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/01/opinion/01conley.html?emc=eta1




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From ebooker at pacbell.net  Thu Dec  1 07:57:35 2005
From: ebooker at pacbell.net (ebooker@pacbell.net)
Date: Thu Dec  1 09:08:52 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] From Erroll
Message-ID: <E1Ehrjl-0007M0-6N@smtpauth02.mail.atl.earthlink.net>

Michael:

Hollywood couldn't have thought up something this crazy. If any of this is
true....Delay and Abramoff just keep popping up.

Erroll Booker


#########################################################################

  Cunningham Stripped $700 Million from U.S. Defense

'Dukester's' Epic Boo-Hoo Hiding Massive Pentagon Rip-Off



*World Exclusive*
Nov 30 2005--Venice,FL.
by Daniel Hopsicker



The MadCowMorningNews has learned that California Republican Congressman
Randy ?Duke? Cunningham steered $500 million in defense contracts in less
than a decade, according to the company?s own website, to a start-up San
Diego software firm which?and here?s the beauty part?doubled as a lobbying
firm.

The lobbying firm then gratefully kicked back?at a bare minimum?hundreds of
thousands of dollars annually to a Jack Abramoff-directed Washington D.C.
lobbying and consulting firm run by two former senior staffers of Texas
Republican Tom DeLay.

It offered, in other words, one-stop shopping.
While the focus was on the $2 million in bribes paid to Cunningham after his
guilty plea, the question of just what the Congressman had done for all that
long green received scant media attention.


The GOPMOB's Magic Horn of Plenty

But as the extent of the damage to America?s national security wrought by
the bribes which crossed Cunningham?s greasy palm begins to come into focus,
the fraud being revealed is orders of magnitude greater than has been hinted
at so far.

Here?s how it worked:

Money budgeted for U.S. Defense went in at the ADCS end of something called
the ?Wilkes Corporation? for services which the Pentagon protested it never
requested, and out the other end came a magical cornucopia of bribes,
kick-backs, campaign contributions, yachts, Lear jets and Rolls Royce?s.

Over the course of almost an entire decade, from 1994 to 2001, Cunningham?s
Appropriations Committee repeatedly added funding to the Pentagon budget for
a previously non-existent (prior to 1995) software company, ADCS, owned by
the ?Wilkes Corporation,? a private company (natch) owned by San Diego
businessman Brent Wilkes.

The money then made a short trip?courtesy the wonders of modern
accounting?from one of Brent Wilkes? pants pocket to another, called ?Group
W Advisors,? which proceeded to obligingly send hundreds of thousands of
dollars in ?client fees? annually to The Alexander Strategy Group, a
lobbying and consulting firm currently under scrutiny in the Justice
Department's investigation of Casino Jack Abramoff.

"A little trouble keeping the company names straight, is all."

Wilkes himself even seems to have had trouble distinguishing between his
various legal fictions...

Newspaper reports state his deal grew out of requests from the House
National Security Committee, of which Cunningham was then a member, for the
military to add an automated-document program to its budget.

His firm ADCS, according to Government Computer News, began by selling $5
million in document conversion software to the Pentagon. But the website of
his lobbying firm, Group W Advisors, claims it is the entity "instrumental
in introducing (digital document) technology to the Department of Defense,?
as well as that the company's document-automation work, which began as a
small ?congressionally-mandated pilot project," has since generated more
than $500 million in appropriations.

If you're wondering which company deserves the "credit," you may be missing
the point.

Picture the memorable scene in the movie ?Chinatown? where Fay Dunaway
explains to Jack Nicholson what may have been a similarly-complicated state
of affairs...

?She?s my sister! (Slap.) She?s my daughter! (Slap.) She?s my sister AND my
daughter!?

See, the pea is under one of the shells; it doesn't really matter which.

In its blatant disregard for anything resembling reality, the scheme
resembles nothing so much as the blatantly phony Abramoff-sponsored
Institutes, Foundations, and political ?think tanks? (whose ?scholars in
residence? turn out to be lifeguards and yoga instructors) which were
exposed in recent Senate Hearings as vehicles used to move money through the
bank accounts of a network of DeLay cronies and former aides.


"Thinking outside the think tank"

Not one to rest when America's national security can be used as a cover for
making a buck, Cunningham was also steering Pentagon money to a second tiny
?defense contractor,? MZM Inc, which had the great good fortune to go from
zero dollars in Federal contracts to $169 million in two short years,
through the simple expedient of indulging Cunningham?s taste for expensive
yachts and a new $2 million dollar mansion in ritzy Rancho Santa Fe,
California, to go with the trophy wife, also on the payroll.

Here's a photo taken of a Washington D.C. bask thrown by MZM Inc to further
U.S.-Panama friendship. MZM Inc founder Mitchell Wade is the beefy fellow
with the self-satisfied smile.

And why not? He's dining out on your money.

While the story has its humorous aspects, the money involved is nothing if
not serious... A (highly preliminary) total of almost $700 million earmarked
for national security going to ?defense contractors? which just a few years
earlier didn?t exist which provide services the Pentagon didn?t ask for or
presumably need.

The companies involved would also share another characteristic as well: they
were very very grateful.

The point man on the Group W ?account? for the Alexander Strategy Group,
which received almost $200,000 of gratitude for "client services," was
former DeLay aide Karl Gallant, who apparently made a specialty of stealing
money from widows and orphans, having signed Enron Corp. to a $750,000
lobbying contract a few years earlier.

(Maybe he can someday share a cell with Ken Lay. We hope its not in one of
those federal tennis camps. Pelican Bay might do nicely.)

"Eschewing the soft sell"

"Buckham and that crew, they were Tom DeLay,? a senior GOP House member,
careful to remain anonymous, told Congressional Quarterly Weekly.

?The Alexander lobbyists' sales pitch was, ?Either you hire me or DeLay is
going to screw you,?? said a top Republican lobbyist. "It was not really a
soft sell."

Alas for Karl Gallant, his chances of pleading lack of premeditation are
dimmed somewhat by his participation way back in 1990 in a Heritage
Foundation report entitled, no doubt with tongue place firmly in cheek, ?A
CONSERVATIVE AGENDA FOR COMPREHENSIVE CAMPAIGN REFORM.?

We only mention this because we found it so funny: "Defense contractor cum
lobbyist" Brent Wilkes was recently appointed by California Governor Arnold
Schwarzenegger to the State Race Track Leasing Commission, which oversees
thoroughbred racing at Del Mar Race Track near San Diego.

Del Mar of course was where FBI head J. Edgar Hoover used to vacation yearly
as the guest of Texas oil man Clint Murchison. A Senate committee discovered
in 1955 that 20 per cent of Murchison?s Oil Lease Company was owned by Mob
Boss Vito Genovese.

A sordid episode involving Hoover at Del Mar was relayed to author Anthony
Summers in ?The Secret Life of J Edgar Hoover," by veteran film producer Joe
Pasternak.

"He was a homosexual," Pasternak told Summers. "Every year he used to come
down to the Del Mar racetrack with a different boy. He was caught in a
bathroom by a newspaperman. They made sure he didn't speak. . . Nobody dared
say anything because he was so powerful."

La plus ca change.

"Great humanitarians know how to spread it around."

Wilkes is also the proud papa of his very own foundation (de rigueur in
certain circles.) The Wilkes Foundation sponsored the second annual San
Diego Tribute to Heroes Gala recently, we discovered. It honored the no
doubt heroic Congressman Duncan Hunter, who just happens, as they say, to
currently be chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.

For the Congressman's sake, we hope he doesn't dock a yacht anywhere near
Duke Cunningham's

We thought he was exaggerating when former Ambassador Wilson wrote in his
recent book that the sordid spectacle we have all been forced to witness has
been caused by ?a small pack of zealots whose dedication has spanned
decades, and that through years of selective recruitment has become a
government cult with cells in most of the national security system.?

Guess what? He's not...

A news account in the San Diego Union-Tribune about the Lear jet used by
Cunningham and DeLay, paid for by you and I from money "passed through" to
San Diego "businessman" Wilkes, told of a flight DeLay flew from Dulles
Airport in Washington, D.C., to John Wayne Airport in Orange County to
appear at a campaign dinner for Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Huntington Beach.

Dana Rohrabacher will appear again (several times) in our story... He gave a
sterling personal recommendation, for example, to Adam Kidan, the "dunsky
(John Gotti's phrase) about to be indicted for paying for the brutal murder
of Sun Cruz Casino Line owner Gus Boulis... with a check.

The original bad penny

Rohrabacher was there when the cult first began to do business as The
Enterprise, in Angola, for example, with Jack Abramoff... and Oliver North.

The same group involved in the Cunningham affair will soon be seen to have
their fingerprints all over the Boulis hit, as well as a host of recent
activities of individuals for whom the noun ?baseball bat? is a verb...

As in: "We shoulda baseball-batted him."

Emilia DiSanto is a staffer on Capital Hill working for Senator Charles
Grassley, currently investigating Abramoff. She was attacked with a baseball
bat on November 8 by a mysterious masked man trying to hide his identity by
wearing a hood and black gloves, who said nothing and made no demands before
attacking the 49-year-old staffer. The FBI is investigating it as being
?work-related.?

Or FRANK Mosco, a whistleblower whose testimony convicted another figure in
the Cunningham scandal, a man named Thomas Kontogiannis, to whom Cunningham
sold his yacht at an inflated price, just as he?d sold his house to Mitchell
Wade of MZM Inc.

Today Mosco won't leave his home without his bulletproof vest. He started
wearing body armor a few months ago after four goons attacked him on a
Queens street, bashing him on the head, pummeling him to the ground and
throwing him into a van, where he was threatened to "keep [his] mouth shut."

The brazen beating occurred just days after Queens District Attorney Richard
Brown issued grand jury subpoenas to targets of a massive kickback and
corruption probe which eventually fingered Duke Cunningham.

When Cunningham learned that the prosecutor in the case against Kontogiannis
knew of the attack, he wrote telling him that there may be a political
agenda against the school official (who he now admits had been paying him
bribes) by what he termed a "disgruntled contractor (Mosco.)

A crime spree by the "baseball bat boys"

A short list of recent violent crime suspected of having been committed by
Abramoff associates makes for fascinating reading, and we will regale you
with it at a later date. But we just wanted to mention it now, in case
anyone thinks we may be being too hard on a former war hero who's become a
broken man who simply misplaced his moral compass, or as Rush Limbaugh
characterized it, "made a mistake."

Locking your keys in your car is "making a mistake."

When the San Diego Union-Tribune detailed charges of Congressman Cunningham?
s questionable activates in December 1997, Cunningham told the paper?s
reporter that anyone who questioned his actions in lobbying for ADCS could
?go to hell.?

After Cunningham's sniveling performance yesterday, its safe to assume he
was still at that point exhibiting the bravado of the not-yet indicted.

Less we forget, moat of this happened during a time period in which the U.S.
was to war, after 3000 innocent people were murdered in an attack which our
nation, which spends more on defense than most of the rest of the world
combined, was unable to thwart.

Its a good thing for Cunningham that people seem willing to cut him some
slack, because of his service as an ace Marine pilot during the Vietnam War,
keeping the U.S. West Coast from being invaded by fleets of Viet Cong
sampans that somebody must have feared mightily, given the costs of that
struggle?which lasted twice as long as World War Two?to our nation.

Otherwise there might be calls for Cunningham to be indicted for treason.


From michael at intrafi.com  Thu Dec  1 09:58:51 2005
From: michael at intrafi.com (michael@intrafi.com)
Date: Thu Dec  1 10:14:30 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] FT.com / World / US - Justices shy away from fight on
	abortion
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From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Thu Dec  1 10:10:29 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (Mike Blaxill)
Date: Thu Dec  1 10:20:34 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Journalist Hall of Shame
Message-ID: <20051201181029.59803.qmail@web53005.mail.yahoo.com>

http://www.newtimesbpb.com/Issues/2005-12-01/news/norman.html

Spreading the Plame
It's time more journalists were called on the
carpet for bad judgment
By Bob Norman

It's time to come to the defense of Judith
Miller. 

Yes, the former New York Times reporter served as
a mouthpiece for the Bush administration during
the buildup to the Iraq War. And she certainly
had a dubious role in the Plamegate scandal. But
the way her colleagues have been going after her,
you'd think Miller was the only journalist who
abetted the Bush administration's rush to war. Or
that she was the only reporter who got too cozy
with officials when they maliciously leaked a CIA
agent's identity. 

There are lots of them. Just last week, another
war accomplice, New Yorker writer George Packer,
spoke at the Miami Book Fair. Packer, you might
remember, was a leading pro-war voice from the
left. As talk of "regime change" crescendoed in
late 2002, Packer wrote a tortured pro-war piece
in the New York Times Magazine that left the Gray
Lady naked and trembling. 

Things have changed a little. On November 19, he
told a Miami-Dade College auditorium crowd that
he's now of "two minds" about the Iraq venture
and quoted F. Scott Fitzgerald, saying the true
test of intelligence is the ability to hold
opposing viewpoints and still function. 

In other words, Packer is confused. Damned
confused. And he's still an apologist for the
war, playing the blame game for why it hasn't
come out well. He hasn't completely escaped
ridicule. Harper's publisher, John R. MacArthur,
recently referred to Packer as
"handwringer-in-chief" and, less diplomatically,
a "useful idiot." 

C'mon, John, let's not resort to name-calling.
That's supposed to be done only behind backs.
Journalism, like Congress, prides itself on its
collegiality. And that's a big reason why they're
both incredibly effective institutions with such
high public regard. 

After Packer's talk, I politely asked him if he
regretted his support for the war. He did. "I
wish I would have had more information at the
time," he told me. 

Please, not that old chestnut. All the
information anybody needed was on the table ? and
at least 35 percent of Americans were bright
enough to oppose the thing from the get-go. If
you don't believe that a large chunk of America
saw through this charade from the beginning, go
to Amazon.com and get a copy of Outcry, a book of
mostly pre-Iraq War essays compiled and edited by
Marie Spike of Coral Springs. 

The only real intelligence failure came from the
Bush administration and the war supporters. There
was no proof that Saddam Hussein had weapons of
mass destruction and, weakened and humiliated as
he was, the thug was no threat to the United
States. And please don't talk about genocide.
Saddam was in a box and hadn't dug a mass grave
in a decade. An Iraqi is 58 times more likely to
die a violent death now than before the war,
according to the Lancet medical journal. 

The real reason for the war is obvious. It was
all about America's role in the Middle East. And
that was all about oil, more specifically our
desire for it. All the rest of the excuses were
just window-dressing. 

People are coming around. Congressman John
Murtha, a career Marine and former backer of the
war, last week described the Iraq venture as
"failed policy wrapped in illusion." True that.
And giving power and texture to that illusion
were a flawed media. Forget about Judith Miller
for a moment and look at Teflon Tim. I'm talking
about Tim Russert, of course, the front man for
Meet the Press. He coddled Dick Cheney on a
string of shows before and after the war began,
letting Vice's lies about Iraq go unchecked.
Turns out ol' Russ was chummy with Cheney's
former chief of staff, Plamegate indictee Scooter
Libby, passing on his criticisms of NBC coverage
to network executives. 

Surprise, surprise. In playing footsie with Bush
administration bigs, Russert failed America. And
what did he get for it? A recent puff piece in
the New York Times. 

Politicians of both parties will ultimately be
held accountable for the Iraq debacle, but will
pundits? And I'm not talking about Fox News or
the Washington Times. They are what they are. I'm
talking about mainstream journalists,
specifically those who work at the big and
bloated newspapers and magazines in New York and
Washington. 

Five of the worst offenders: 

Thomas L. Friedman, New York Times. I'll start
with the biggest, mushiest target of all.
Friedman, who likes to pretend he's The Most
Reasonable Man Anywhere, backed the war from day
one. But what do you expect from a guy who thinks
that the spread of McDonald's to every nook and
cranny of the world is a good thing? A born
imperialist, Friedman argues that we need
democracy in the Middle East but doesn't seem to
understand that bombing people might not be the
best way to achieve it. And he seems utterly
incapable of realizing that there were darker
motives behind this war than a love of freedom,
truth, and the American Way. On November 6, 2003,
he called the invasion, with that trembling
earnestness of his, a "radically liberal war."
Today, Friedman harps on "staying the course" and
insists the war is "winnable." A frequent tack of
late has been to rail against the insurgents for
blowing things up. That's right, he's come out
strongly against suicide bombers. He's like a
mouse on a sinking ship, running from nook to
nook as the water comes to flood his excuses.
Friedman simply can't accept that we were sunk in
Iraq before the first tank hit the sand. 

Jim Hoagland, Washington Post: This is sort of
the Post's version of Miller, only he gets more
leeway because he's an op-ed columnist. A
veritable Dr. Strangelove of the war, he carried
on a bizarre one-way discourse with Saddam
Hussein before it started, referring to the
dictator as "old chum" and gleefully chiding him
about his imminent destruction. At the heart of
Hoagland's madness was Ahmad Chalabi, the
huckster who ran the Iraqi National Congress and
was used as a chief source by the Bush
administration in the buildup to war. Hoagland,
to his great detriment, forged a too-close,
30-year friendship with Chalabi. It obviously
skewed the man's logic. In 2001, he criticized
the L.A. Times for repeating claims that Chalabi,
wanted on embezzlement charges in Jordan, was a
"crook." Then he waxed poetic about how Chalabi
sacrificed "most of his fortune so he can risk
his life to fight Saddam." Too bad he forgot to
report that the man and the INC were paid tens of
millions of dollars by the Pentagon for Chalabi's
often faulty ? but oh so handy ? "intelligence."
If Hoagland had any left, he'd pull a Murtha. 

Kingsley Guy, Sun-Sentinel. I put Guy's name here
only because he runs the Sun-Sentinel's editorial
page, where numerous unsigned and unintelligible
commentaries have appeared regarding Iraq. And
the Sun-Sentinel isn't really a major player in
the media's failure, just a good example of a
medium-sized newspaper that blew it on Iraq in an
XL way. During the buildup, the editorialists
wrote repeatedly of how "strong" the case was for
war. On October 12, 2002, they made like Thomas
Paine when they wrote, "The United States can't
stand by as Hussein seeks nuclear weapons and
refines his other weapons of mass destruction."
March, young man, march. Shortly after the
bombing began, Guy's guys wrote, "It's time for
Americans to unite behind their president and
their troops." Troops, yes, but president? That's
flat-out un-American. Repent, Kingsley. 

Nicholas D. Kristof, New York Times. Kristof
didn't cheerlead for the war. In fact, he
routinely refers to himself, gaggingly, as a
"dove." But reading his columns during the past
couple of years reveals something more akin to a
chicken. Or maybe a dodo. A month before the
invasion, he wrote: "President Bush and Colin
Powell have adroitly shown that Iraq is hiding
weapons." A week later, he typed: "As best one
can tell, the war plans are now smart,
meticulous, and comprehensive." Brilliant
analysis there, Nick. If anyone so much as
suggested that Bush might have oil or revenge on
his mind, Kristof gave them a right-good smack.
Last year, he compared blaming Bush for his
oil-lust or revenge for his father to arguing
that Bill Clinton was a serial killer. Kristof
has repeatedly written that if there's anything
wrong with this war, it's that America was
suffering from "an overdose of moral clarity."
We're just too darned good, people. After bombs
began falling on Baghdad, he wrote: "Let's be
clear: Iraq will not turn into another Vietnam...
[T]he U.S. will easily win this war." He added
that it would wind up like Lebanon or Gaza only
forgot to say it would be more like Lebanon and
Gaza on crack. Here's my advice to Mr. Kristof:
Stop trying to fly with the hawks. They're
smarter and meaner than you are. If you're a
dove, be a damned dove. 

Jeffrey Goldberg, New Yorker. In fairness, I
believe that all the journalists so far mentioned
thought they were doing the right thing. I'm not
sure with Goldberg, though. Apparently under the
direction of Paul Wolfowitz, Goldberg ginned up
fears in the pages of what was once my favorite
magazine that Saddam was going to unleash a
horrible chemical assault on the "countries of
the West" and bolstered the equally false notion
that the dictator was walking arm-in-arm with
Osama bin Laden (see his 2002 award-winning
masterpiece "The Great Terror"). There seemed to
be design in Goldberg's drivel, which was lauded
around the world by the Bush administration. I
think Vanity Fair writer James Wolcott got it
right when he described Goldberg's prose as
"neocon propaganda and scaremongering
disseminated under the guise of reporting." Such
tripe should never have appeared in the pages of
the once-great magazine. To blame is Editor David
Remnick, who himself gave mealy-mouthed support
to the war (only Seymour Hersh saved the magazine
from absolute disgrace). And how has Remnick
responded to the failures? He promoted Goldberg
to Washington Bureau chief and hired Packer after
they all got it wrong. 

Now for the good news. All these guys ? even
Goldberg, God help us ? can still come clean.
They just need to admit they were dead wrong and
stop writing specious pieces that continue to
rationalize one of the worst crimes in American
history. 

Then we can all go back to doing what we should
have been doing in the first place. Bashing
Judith Miller. 

From michael at intrafi.com  Thu Dec  1 09:59:52 2005
From: michael at intrafi.com (michael@intrafi.com)
Date: Thu Dec  1 10:21:28 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] FT.com / Middle East & Africa / Iraq - Bush hits back at
	his critics over Iraq war
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From OpTruth at democracyinaction.org  Thu Dec  1 11:16:27 2005
From: OpTruth at democracyinaction.org (Paul Rieckhoff)
Date: Thu Dec  1 10:24:40 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Page One of the NY Times: OpTruth Veterans Abbie Pickett
 and Ben Flanders
Message-ID: <E1Ehswp-0005KS-1T@smtpauth02.mail.atl.earthlink.net>

Dear Operation Truth Supporter,

Success! Last Saturday, OpTruth veterans Abbie Pickett and Ben Flanders were featured in a front-page article about Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and the difficulties facing Troops returning home from war.

Since the start of the war, the mental strain put on our Troops has been hidden from public view. But now the tide is turning. The Troops facing these issues are finally beginning to get the attention they deserve.

You can help. Go to www.operationtruth.com and download our new flier on PTSD, which includes an excerpt from the New York Times article, and educate people in your community about the effects of war on the people who fought it.

It is small steps like this that are changing the public understanding of the war. We couldn?t do it without you.

Thanks for REALLY supporting the Troops.
Sincerely,

Paul Rieckhoff

/*Your email ID. <diaEmailID='59264914' thread=7479/>--*/
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From hecate at diamonddragon.com  Thu Dec  1 10:37:35 2005
From: hecate at diamonddragon.com (Hecate)
Date: Thu Dec  1 10:48:04 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] BBC E-mail: US 'admits' Iraq propaganda drive
Message-ID: <20051201_183735_047374.hecate@diamonddragon.com>

Hecate saw this story on BBC News Online and thought you
should see it.



** US 'admits' Iraq propaganda drive **
The US military in Iraq implicitly acknowledges it is running a campaign to plant articles in Iraqi papers.
< http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/2/hi/middle_east/4489696.stm >


** BBC Daily E-mail **
Choose the news and sport headlines you want - when you want them, all
in one daily e-mail
< http://www.bbc.co.uk/dailyemail/ >


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The BBC is not responsible for the content of this e-mail, and anything written in this e-mail does not necessarily reflect the BBC's views or opinions. Please note that neither the e-mail address nor name of the sender have?been verified.

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From michael at michaelbutler.com  Thu Dec  1 10:54:38 2005
From: michael at michaelbutler.com (Michael Butler)
Date: Thu Dec  1 11:06:12 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] At Hussein's Hearings, US May Be on Trial
Message-ID: <BFB4B11E.26511%michael@michaelbutler.com>

    Go to Original

    At Hussein's Hearings, US May Be on Trial
    By Juan Cole
    Truthdig.com

    Monday 28 November 2005

    The ongoing trial of Saddam Hussein could prove increasingly
uncomfortable for the Bush administration. The first crime of which the
deposed dictator is accused, the secret execution of 143 Shiites arrested in
1982, seems an odd choice for the prosecution, and politics may be behind
it. Hussein is accused of using poison gas against Iranian troops, of
genocide against the Kurds and of massacring tens of thousands to end the
1991 uprising after his defeat in the Gulf War. The problem for the Bush
administration with these other, far graver charges, is that the Americans
are implicated in them either through acts of commission or omission.

    The saga of Dujail began, as the BBC explained recently, with Hussein's
visit to the mixed Shiite and Sunni town north of Baghdad in summer of 1982.
Many of the young men in Dujail were conscripts fighting at the front
against Khomeini's Islamic Republic of Iran, which Hussein had invaded in
1980. Hussein appears to have gone there to drum up support for his war,
which had quickly become a costly and dangerous quagmire. Worse, many Iraqi
Shiites were members of the fundamentalist Dawa Party. They were willing to
fight Iran to stop it from taking over Iraq, but they hated Hussein, who had
made membership in their party a capital crime. As Hussein was leaving
Dujail, Shiite assassins tried to kill him.

    Hussein responded in typical brutal and immediate fashion by rounding up
dozens of Shiites in Dujail (in all likelihood especially those families
that his secret police suspected of being Dawa). One hundred forty-three
never came home and are probably in a mass grave of the sort that dots the
Iraqi landscape. Given that the Shiite fundamentalist parties came to power
in the Jan. 30, 2005, elections, and that the leader of the Dawa Party,
Ibrahim Jaafari, became the prime minister, the conviction of Hussein first
on these charges would gratify Jaafari's party base and add to his faltering
popularity.

    The Dujail charges have the advantage for Washington of stemming from an
incident that occurred a year before the US rapprochement with the Iraqi
Baath Party in 1983. In the 1970s, Iraq under Baath Party dictator Brigadier
General Ahmad Hassan al-Bakr had grown close to the Soviet Union, with which
it signed a treaty of friendship in 1972 and from which it began importing
arms. In 1973, al-Bakr supported the Syrians in their war with Israel.

    The ensuing poor relations with Washington were not repaired until 1983.
Persistent allegations are made by some observers, including journalist
Christopher Hitchens, that then-President Jimmy Carter put Hussein up to
invading Iran in September of 1980. These allegations seem implausible on
their face, and there is no documentary proof for them. A former National
Security Council staffer for Gulf affairs, Gary Sick, has told this author
that Hussein's invasion of Iran came as a shock to the NSC in 1980. Sick's
impression of continued frost between Washington and Baghdad is borne out by
documents published by the National Security Archive, housed at George
Washington University.

    The turning point came in 1983, as the Reagan administration reevaluated
its policy toward the Middle East. Note that it does not appear to have been
deterred by a small matter such as Hussein's propensity to massacre
townspeople like those at Dujail. The threat that Khomeinism posed to US
interests in the region had been underlined by the rise of Shiite radicalism
in Lebanon. The US suspected extremist Shiites of blowing up the US embassy
and killing 63 persons in Beirut on April 18, 1983. Hussein's invasion of
Iran had been stopped dead in its tracks by Iranian military and irregular
forces, and by 1982 Iran was beginning an effective counterattack. Ayatollah
Ruhollah Khomeini desperately wanted Baghdad. Ronald Reagan's special envoy
to the Middle East, Donald Rumsfeld (then also CEO of G.D. Searle & Co.),
began worrying about the implications if the Iranians succeeded in taking
it, as did the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, William Casey.

    One possible impediment to better relations between the US and Iraq was
the latter's use of chemical weapons. The 1925 Geneva Protocol, which
forbade the use of chemical weapons, specified that it "shall be universally
accepted as a part of International Law, binding alike the conscience and
the practice of nations." The Reagan State Department was well aware that
Hussein had begun using chemicals against Iranian troops at the front, and
by Nov. 1 was actively considering [PDF] what punitive measures might be
taken against Iraq.

    Nevertheless, Reagan sent Rumsfeld to Baghdad in December, 1983. The
National Security Archive has posted a brief video of his meeting with
Hussein and the latter's vice president and foreign minister, Tariq Aziz.
Rumsfeld was to stress his close relationship with the US president. The
State Department summary [PDF] of Rumsfeld's meeting with Tariq Aziz stated
that "the two agreed the US and Iraq shared many common interests: peace in
the Gulf, keeping Syria and Iran off balance and less influential, and
promoting Egypt's reintegration into the Arab world." Aziz asked Rumsfeld to
intervene with Washington's friends to get them to stop selling arms to
Iran. Increasing Iraq's oil exports and a possible pipeline through Saudi
Arabia occupied a portion of their conversation.

    The US and Iraq were well on the way toward a restoration of diplomatic
relations (broken off in 1967 by the colonels' regime that preceded the
Baath) and a military alliance against Iran. The State Department, however,
issued a press statement on March 5, 1984, condemning Iraqi use of chemical
weapons. This statement appears to have been Washington's way of doing
penance for its new alliance.

    Unaware of the depths of Reagan administration hypocrisy on the issue,
Hussein took the March 5 State Department condemnation extremely seriously,
and appears to have suspected that the United States was planning to stab
him in the back. Secretary of State George Shultz notes in a briefing for
Rumsfeld in spring of 1984 [PDF] that the Iraqis were extremely confused by
concrete US policies toward Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Jordan, Israel and
combating Khomeini. "In each case," Shultz observes, "Iraqi officials have
professed to be at a loss to explain our actions as measured against our
stated objectives. As with our CW statement, their temptation is to give up
rational analysis and retreat to the line that US policies are basically
anti-Arab and hostage to the desires of Israel."

    Rumsfeld had to be sent back to Baghdad for a second meeting, to smooth
ruffled Baath feathers. The above-mentioned State Department briefing notes
for this discussion remarked that the atmosphere in Baghdad (for Rumsfeld)
had worsened for two reasons. First, Iraq had failed to completely repulse a
major Iranian offensive and had lost the "strategically significant Majnun
Island oil fields and accepting heavy casualties." Second, the March 5
scolding of Iraq for its use of poison gas had "sharply set back" relations
between the two countries.

    The relationship was repaired, but on Hussein's terms. He continued to
use chemical weapons and, indeed, vastly expanded their use as Washington
winked at Western pharmaceutical firms providing him materiel. The only
conclusion one can draw from available evidence is that Rumsfeld was more or
less dispatched to mollify Hussein and assure him that his use of chemical
weapons was no bar to developing the relationship with the US, whatever the
State Department spokesman was sent out to say. As former National Security
Council staffer Howard Teicher affirmed, "Pursuant to the secret NSDD
[National Security Directive], the United States actively supported the
Iraqi war effort by supplying the Iraqis with billions of dollars of
credits, by providing US military intelligence and advice to the Iraqis, and
by closely monitoring third country arms sales to Iraq to make sure that
Iraq had the military weaponry required." The requisite weaponry included
cluster bombs. Whether it also included, from Washington's point of view,
chemical weapons and biological precursors for anthrax, Teicher does not
say.

    Teicher adds that the CIA had knowledge of, and US officials encouraged,
the provisioning of Iraq with high-powered weaponry by US allies. He adds:
"For example, in 1984, the Israelis concluded that Iran was more dangerous
than Iraq to Israel's existence due to the growing Iranian influence and
presence in Lebanon. The Israelis approached the United States in a meeting
in Jerusalem that I attended with Donald Rumsfeld. Israeli Foreign Minister
Ytizhak Shamir asked Rumsfeld if the United States would deliver a secret
offer of Israeli assistance to Iraq. The United States agreed. I traveled
with Rumsfeld to Baghdad and was present at the meeting in which Rumsfeld
told Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz about Israel's offer of assistance.
Aziz refused even to accept the Israelis' letter to Hussein ...." It might
have been hoped that a country that arose in part in response to Nazi uses
of poison gas would have been more sensitive about attempting to ally with a
regime then actively deploying such a weapon, even against its own people
(some gassing of Kurds had already begun).

    The new American alliance might have been a public relations debacle if
Iran succeeded in its 1984 attempt to have Iraq directly condemned at the
United Nations for use of chemical weapons. As far as possible, Shultz
wanted to weasel out of joining such a U.N. condemnation of Iraq. He wrote
in a cable that the US delegation to the U.N. "should work to develop
general Western position in support of a motion to take 'no decision' on
Iranian draft resolution on use of chemical weapons by Iraq. If such a
motion gets reasonable and broad support and sponsorship, USDEL should vote
in favor. Failing Western support for 'no decision,' USDEL should abstain."
Shultz in the first instance wanted to protect Hussein from condemnation by
a motion of "no decision," and hoped to get US allies aboard. If that ploy
failed and Iraq were to be castigated, he ordered that the US just abstain
from the vote. Despite its treaty obligations in this regard, the US was not
even to so much as vote for a U.N. resolution on the subject!

    Shultz also wanted to throw up smokescreens to take the edge off the
Iranian motion, arguing that the U.N. Human Rights Commission was "an
inappropriate forum" for consideration of chemical weapons, and stressing
that loss of life owing to Iraq's use of chemicals was "only a part" of the
carnage that ensued from a deplorable war. A more lukewarm approach to
chemical weapons use by a rogue regime (which referred to the weapons as an
"insecticide" for enemy "insects") could not be imagined. In the end, the
U.N. resolution condemned the use of chemical weapons but did not name Iraq
directly as a perpetrator.

    When the Dujail case is resolved and the tribunal trying Hussein goes on
to other crimes, sooner or later the issue of chemical weapons use must
arise. Iran is already furious that the tribunal seems unlikely to charge
Hussein for his battlefield deployment of this weapon. When the issue
arises, it will be difficult for Donald Rumsfeld to avoid sharing the
docket, at least symbolically, with his old friend, Hussein. Rumsfeld helped
to forge the US alliance with Iraq that lasted from 1984 until Hussein's
invasion of Kuwait in August of 1991. He did so in full knowledge that the
Baath regime was using mustard gas - which severely burns the lungs -
against the Iranian children sent by Khomeini to launch "human wave"
attacks. One Iranian survivor commented that with each flaming breath he
takes, he wishes the gas had killed him. The pogrom against the Shiites of
Dujail was a horrible crime. Far more horrible ones, in which the US
government was intimately complicit, were to follow.

    Juan Cole is professor of Middle East and South Asian history at the
University of Michigan and author of Sacred Space and Holy War (London: I.B.
Tauris, 2002). He maintains the weblog Informed Comment.

 

From hecate at diamonddragon.com  Thu Dec  1 11:13:26 2005
From: hecate at diamonddragon.com (Hecate)
Date: Thu Dec  1 11:23:30 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] BBC E-mail: Russian squirrel pack 'kills dog'
Message-ID: <20051201_191326_032278.hecate@diamonddragon.com>

Hecate saw this story on BBC News Online and thought you
should see it.

** Message **
 A Lazo man who called himself only Mikhalich said there had been "no pine cones at all" in the local forests this year. 

"The little beasts are agitated because they have nothing to eat," he said


** Russian squirrel pack 'kills dog' **
Squirrels bite a stray dog to death in a park in the Russian far east, Russian media report.
< http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/2/hi/europe/4489792.stm >


** BBC Daily E-mail **
Choose the news and sport headlines you want - when you want them, all
in one daily e-mail
< http://www.bbc.co.uk/dailyemail/ >


** Disclaimer **
The BBC is not responsible for the content of this e-mail, and anything written in this e-mail does not necessarily reflect the BBC's views or opinions. Please note that neither the e-mail address nor name of the sender have?been verified.

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From swiggard at comcast.net  Thu Dec  1 11:13:39 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (swiggard@comcast.net)
Date: Thu Dec  1 11:23:51 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] A washingtonpost.com article from: swiggard@comcast.net
Message-ID: <11354469.1133464420107.JavaMail.wlogic@sane6>

You have been sent this message from swiggard@comcast.net as a courtesy of washingtonpost.com 
 
 Ruling Puts BlackBerry Maker at Crossroads
 
 By Yuki Noguchi
 
  The maker of the popular BlackBerry e-mail device is facing a critical decision: Pony up a lot of money to settle a long-term patent dispute or inform most of its 3.65 million U.S. subscribers that it may have to shut off service.
 
 The company, Research in Motion Ltd., was dealt legal blows yesterday when a judge invalidated an earlier settlement with Arlington-based NTP Inc., which holds the patents to the wireless technology. The judge also declined to stay a permanent injunction, which means BlackBerry service could face a shutdown of its operations in coming months.
 
 "This is the end of the line," said Rebecca Arbogast, an analyst with research firm Stifel, Nicolaus & Co. "RIM kept betting that it would get lucky, but they kept losing every time a decision came up. This is about the worst possible outcome for them."
 
 RIM says it is working on a technology work-around that would maintain service, but it has not provided details.
 
 As the company finds itself on the losing side of a four-year court battle that seems to be coming to an end, fear of going dark spread among BlackBerry loyalists who rely heavily on their devices. In a statement, the company pledged to wage arguments against an injunction but said "there can never be an assurance of a favorable outcome in any litigation."
 
 In coming weeks, RIM's fate lies in the hands of Judge James R. Spencer of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, who will hear the parties' arguments and decide whether to grant NTP an injunction, which could give RIM as little as 30 days to settle the case before service would shut down for U.S. customers. About 70 percent of the company's subscribers are in the United States. Service to subscribers in other countries would not be affected by the ruling.
 
 NTP, which first filed its patent-infringement suit in 2001, has said it will not cut off service for government and emergency workers, who make up about 10 percent of RIM's user base. The Department of Justice has asked for a 90-day grace period to ensure continued service to government users.
 
 Because Spencer's language in yesterday's decision suggests that he will issue the injunction, RIM may have to pay about $2 billion in cash and stock to NTP to settle the case and keep the service turned on, said Pablo Perez-Fernandez, senior analyst with ThinkEquity Partners LLC, a research and investment firm. "They don't have much of an option at this point."
 
 In June, RIM and NTP's talks proposing a $450 million settlement broke down. RIM declined to discuss its willingness to enter new talks, but NTP attorney James Wallace said, "We would hope [yesterday's] development would bring them back to the table."
 
 As of August, NTP is also due $210 million in damages from RIM for patent infringement, a penalty that increases by about $9 million every month, Wallace said.
 
 Since it was introduced in 1998, the BlackBerry has become a mainstay for executives, Capitol Hill staffers and other businesspeople whose jobs require them to stay connected to their e-mail while away from their office computers. The handheld devices, which are equipped with tiny keyboards that allow users to send and reply to e-mails by typing with their thumbs, are priced at about $250 and also require service plans that cost about $50 per month.
 
 News of the potential injunction forced Peter O'Keefe, a Washington-based financial and political consultant, to discuss BlackBerry alternatives with his co-workers yesterday.
 
 "[RIM] better settle ASAP and take this issue off the table," said O'Keefe, a frequent traveler who said he's constantly checking his BlackBerry for updates and information from clients. "I'm not going to go back to sitting at my desk 24 hours a day," he said, adding that he also won't wait much longer before buying another device if the case isn't settled.
 
 Likewise, Tricia Lilly was forced to imagine life without her BlackBerry, which keeps her connected to clients, distributors, subcontractors and friends.
 
 "It's a frightening prospect," said Lilly, director of product development for McLean real estate development firm Lilly Homes Inc. Without it, she'd have to shuttle into the office and into Kinko's to check her e-mail periodically -- which seems like a laughable inconvenience, she said.
 
 RIM's software and its BlackBerry hardware still dominate the wireless e-mail market, but that success has spawned rapidly growing competition from companies such as Good Technology Inc., Microsoft Corp., Intellisync Corp., and device makers Palm Inc. and Nokia Corp.
 
 "We've seen a heightened level of concern from customers," Terry Austin, president of worldwide sales and marketing for Good Technology, which licenses NTP's technology, said in an e-mailed statement. "Many want a back-up plan, and all want to minimize their risk with a wireless messaging system that is future proof."
 
 RIM, which is based in Ontario, has asked the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to review the validity of NTP's patents and also has asked the Supreme Court to hear its case. In a statement yesterday, the company said it would argue against the injunction, citing "public interest concerns relating to any potential suspension or interruption of BlackBerry service" as part of its argument.
 
 "As a contingency, RIM has also been preparing software workaround designs which it intends to implement if necessary to maintain the operation of BlackBerry service," the company said.
 
 A company spokeswoman would not discuss the work-around, and analysts said it is unclear whether such a technical fix will sufficiently prevent disruption in service.
 
 "Maybe they have a work-around, but I don't have time to think about that," said Jeffrey J. Kimbell, a health care lobbyist and president of an entertainment company.
 
 Kimbell says the RIM patent case has been as important to him as the Supreme Court's Bush v. Gore presidential vote recount case in 2000.
 
 "Everybody in the business community has followed this case," he said. "Everybody in business has a BlackBerry. It is simply part of the new economy."
 
 
 Would you like to send this article to a friend? Go to 
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/emailafriend?contentId=AR2005113002122&sent=no&referrer=emailarticle
 
 

Visit washingtonpost.com today for the latest in:

News - http://www.washingtonpost.com/?referrer=emailarticle

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From hecate at diamonddragon.com  Thu Dec  1 11:14:39 2005
From: hecate at diamonddragon.com (Hecate)
Date: Thu Dec  1 11:24:45 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] BBC E-mail: Tibetan monks 'held over protest'
Message-ID: <20051201_191439_033964.hecate@diamonddragon.com>

Hecate saw this story on BBC News Online and thought you
should see it.



** Tibetan monks 'held over protest' **
Five Tibetan monks are arrested for opposing a Chinese political campaign, a pro-democracy campaign group says.
< http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/2/hi/asia-pacific/4489912.stm >


** BBC Daily E-mail **
Choose the news and sport headlines you want - when you want them, all
in one daily e-mail
< http://www.bbc.co.uk/dailyemail/ >


** Disclaimer **
The BBC is not responsible for the content of this e-mail, and anything written in this e-mail does not necessarily reflect the BBC's views or opinions. Please note that neither the e-mail address nor name of the sender have?been verified.

If you do not wish to receive such e-mails in the future or want to know more about the BBC's Email a Friend service, please read our frequently asked questions. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/help/4162471.stm

From maillist at michaelmoore.com  Thu Dec  1 03:37:17 2005
From: maillist at michaelmoore.com (maillist@michaelmoore.com)
Date: Thu Dec  1 11:47:10 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] 50 Years Ago Today... From Michael Moore
Message-ID: <E1EhuEt-00065W-TW@smtpauth02.mail.atl.earthlink.net>

December 1, 2005

Friends,

I just thought we should all pause for a moment today to remember the simple act of courage, defiance and dignity committed by Rosa Parks when she refused to move to the back of the bus because the law said she had the wrong skin color. The greatest moments in history, the ones that have truly mattered and have taken us to a better place, are made up of scores of these singular acts by ordinary, everyday people who could no longer tolerate the crap and the nonsense of those in charge. 

Today, whether it is a student who holds a sit-in to get the army recruiters off his campus, or the mother of a dead soldier who refuses to leave the front gate of the president's ranch, we continue to be saved by brave people who risk ridicule and rejection but end up turning huge tides of public opinion in the direction of righteousness. We owe them enormous debts of gratitude. It is not easy to stand up for what is right, especially when everyone else is afraid to leave the comfortable path of conformity. 

Rosa Parks may have been alone on that bus at the moment of her arrest but she wasn't alone for long. The old order was shaken, the world was upended and, as a people, we were given a chance for a bit of redemption. 

Perhaps the best way to celebrate this most important day in American history is to ask yourself what it is that you can do today to make a difference. What risk can you take to move the ball forward? What is that one thing you've been wanting to say to your co-workers or classmates that you've been afraid to say -- but in your heart of hearts you know needs to be said? Why wait another day to say it or do it?

There is probably no better way to honor Rosa Parks -- and yourself -- than for you to put a stop to an injustice you see, not allowing it to continue for one more second. Do something. Then send me an email ( contributions@michaelmoore.com ) and tell all of us what you did (I'll post as many as I can). 

Fifty years later, the bus we're on could use a few more people simply saying, "No. I'm sorry. I've had enough. I'm not going to take it anymore."

Yours,

Michael Moore
www.michaelmoore.com


---

You are currently subscribed to Mike's Message.

To unsubscribe click on the link below:

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From michael at intrafi.com  Thu Dec  1 12:22:33 2005
From: michael at intrafi.com (michael@intrafi.com)
Date: Thu Dec  1 12:32:38 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Alternet: A History of (Pro-Life) Violence
Message-ID: <20051201202233.E9780B8081@alternet.org>


This story has been forwarded to you from
http://www.alternet.org by michael@intrafi.com



-------------------------------------
A History of (Pro-Life) Violence
http://www.alternet.org/story/28838

Not all anti-abortionists kill people. But all share a histrionic view of themselves as heroic rescuers aligned against Godless fornicators.
-------------------------------------

From nwonline at toronto.cbc.ca  Thu Dec  1 16:45:49 2005
From: nwonline at toronto.cbc.ca (CBC News Online)
Date: Thu Dec  1 16:56:29 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] CBC News - CONRAD BLACK PLEADS NOT GUILTY 
Message-ID: <20051202004549.A6C361B690@nmweb07.nm.cbc.ca>

This email has been sent to you by harry.sifton@sympatico.ca
The following is a news item posted on CBC NEWS ONLINE
at http://www.cbc.ca/news
____________________________________________________
CONRAD BLACK PLEADS NOT GUILTY 
WebPosted Thu Dec  1 15:31:36 2005

---Conrad Black pleaded not guilty to eight fraud charges at an
arraignment hearing in Chicago Thursday and had bail set at $20
million US.

He was freed without having to post cash bail, but the U.S. government
has protective liens on his multi-million dollar home in Palm Beach,
Fla., and his New York apartment.

 INDEPTH: Conrad Black His U.S. lawyer, Edward Genson, entered the plea
 on Black's behalf. Genson accompanied Black to the U.S. District Court
 along with his Canadian lawyer, Edward Greenspan.

The U.S court also allowed Greenspan to defend Black. He will be the lead
attorney in the case.



Black faces a number of other restrictions. He will be able to live only
in Canada, Chicago, or Florida.

Black was finger-printed and had mugshots taken just before the
arraignment.

The arraignment is the first step in what is expected to be a long legal
battle for the 61-year-old Black.

Black surrendered to U.S. authorities two weeks after he was indicted for
wire fraud and mail fraud relating to his conduct while he led the
Hollinger publishing empire.

 FROM Nov. 17, 2005: Conrad Black charged with 8 counts of fraud The
 former media baron is accused, along with several former Hollinger
 executives, of orchestrating a scheme to divert more than $80 million US
 from Hollinger International and its shareholders.

Black is also accused of abusing company perks to support a lifestyle
that the U.S. Attorney's Office said included having Hollinger pay
$42,000 US towards the cost of a lavish birthday party for his wife.

He faces up to 40 years in jail and a $2 million US fine if convicted on
all counts.

Last week, Black said he was the victim of a "massive smear job from A to
Z," and said he expected to be fully vindicated in court.

 FROM NOV. 25, 2005: Black predicts 'complete vindication' Peter
 Atkinson, a former Hollinger executive vice-president, was also
 arraigned Thursday with Black. Atkinson also pleaded not guilty. He
 faces six counts of fraud.

Former Hollinger exec and long-time Black associate David Radler is
widely expected to testify against Black. Earlier this year, Radler
agreed to plead guilty to a single charge of mail fraud and serve a
reduced sentence of 29 months. The deal is conditional on Radler's
cooperation with authorities.

The trial is likely months away.

Copyright (C) 2005 CBC. All rights reserved.
From michael at intrafi.com  Thu Dec  1 17:00:03 2005
From: michael at intrafi.com (Michael)
Date: Thu Dec  1 17:01:49 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Article from Tom Dispatch
Message-ID: <200512020100.jB2103XI028393@thor.thenation.com>

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From harry.sifton at sympatico.ca  Thu Dec  1 18:57:36 2005
From: harry.sifton at sympatico.ca (harry.sifton@sympatico.ca)
Date: Thu Dec  1 19:07:38 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Kurdish Oil Deal Shocks Iraq's Political Leaders
Message-ID: <12642914.1133492256768.JavaMail.turbine@s76>

This story was sent to you by: Harry

--------------------
Kurdish Oil Deal Shocks Iraq's Political Leaders 
--------------------

A Norwegian company begins drilling in the north without approval from Baghdad.

By Borzou Daragahi
Times Staff Writer

December 1 2005

BAGHDAD &#8212; A controversial oil exploration deal between Iraq's autonomy-minded Kurds and a Norwegian company got underway this week without the approval of the central government here, raising a potentially explosive issue at a time of heightened ethnic and sectarian tensions. 

The complete article can be viewed at:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-oildeal1dec01,0,4057840.story?coll=la-home-headlines 

Visit latimes.com at http://www.latimes.com
From newsletter at villagevoice.com  Thu Dec  1 14:52:25 2005
From: newsletter at villagevoice.com (Village Voice Newsletter)
Date: Fri Dec  2 04:05:53 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Today's 'Voice': Homos on the Range in 'Brokeback
	Mountain'
Message-ID: <20051201225225.67209.qmail@www3.villagevoice.com>

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From swiggard at comcast.net  Fri Dec  2 04:23:44 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Fri Dec  2 04:36:15 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Justice Staff Saw Texas Districting As Illegal -
	Washington Post
Message-ID: <43903CD0.4000108@comcast.net>

Justice Staff Saw Texas Districting As Illegal
Voting Rights Finding On Map Pushed by DeLay Was Overruled

By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, December 2, 2005; A01

Justice Department lawyers concluded that the landmark Texas 
congressional redistricting plan spearheaded by Rep. Tom DeLay (R) 
violated the Voting Rights Act, according to a previously undisclosed 
memo obtained by The Washington Post. But senior officials overruled 
them and approved the plan.

The memo, unanimously endorsed by six lawyers and two analysts in the 
department's voting section, said the redistricting plan illegally 
diluted black and Hispanic voting power in two congressional districts. 
It also said the plan eliminated several other districts in which 
minorities had a substantial, though not necessarily decisive, influence 
in elections.

"The State of Texas has not met its burden in showing that the proposed 
congressional redistricting plan does not have a discriminatory effect," 
the memo concluded.

The memo also found that Republican lawmakers and state officials who 
helped craft the proposal were aware it posed a high risk of being ruled 
discriminatory compared with other options.

But the Texas legislature proceeded with the new map anyway because it 
would maximize the number of Republican federal lawmakers in the state, 
the memo said. The redistricting was approved in 2003, and Texas 
Republicans gained five seats in the U.S. House in the 2004 elections, 
solidifying GOP control of Congress.

J. Gerald "Gerry" Hebert, one of the lawyers representing Texas 
Democrats who are challenging the redistricting in court, said of the 
Justice Department's action: "We always felt that the process . . . 
wouldn't be corrupt, but it was. . . . The staff didn't see this as a 
close call or a mixed bag or anything like that. This should have been a 
very clear-cut case."

But Justice Department spokesman Eric W. Holland said the decision to 
approve the Texas plan was vindicated by a three-judge panel that 
rejected the Democratic challenge. The case is on appeal to the U.S. 
Supreme Court.

"The court ruled that, in fact, the new congressional plan created a 
sufficient number of safe minority districts given the demographics of 
the state and the requirements of the law," Holland said. He added that 
Texas now has three African Americans serving in Congress, up from two 
before the redistricting.

Texas Republicans also have maintained that the plan did not dilute 
minority votes and that the number of congressional districts with a 
majority of racial minorities remained unchanged at 11. The total number 
of congressional districts, however, grew from 30 to 32.

The 73-page memo, dated Dec. 12, 2003, has been kept under tight wraps 
for two years. Lawyers who worked on the case were subjected to an 
unusual gag rule. The memo was provided to The Post by a person 
connected to the case who is critical of the adopted redistricting map. 
Such recommendation memos, while not binding, historically carry great 
weight within the Justice Department.

Under the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Texas and other states with a 
history of discriminatory elections are required to submit changes in 
their voting systems or election maps for approval by the Justice 
Department's Civil Rights Division.

The Texas case provides another example of conflict between political 
appointees and many of the division's career employees. In a separate 
case, The Post reported last month that a team was overruled when it 
recommended rejecting a controversial Georgia voter-identification 
program that was later struck down as unconstitutional by a court.

Mark Posner, a longtime Justice Department lawyer who now teaches law at 
American University, said it was "highly unusual" for political 
appointees to overrule a unanimous finding such as the one in the Texas 
case.

"In this kind of situation, where everybody agrees at least on the staff 
level . . . that is a very, very strong case," Posner said. "The fact 
that everybody agreed that there were reductions in minority voting 
strength, and that they were significant, raises a lot of questions as 
to why it was" approved, he said.

The Texas memo also provides new insight into the highly politicized 
environment surrounding that state's redistricting fight, which prompted 
Democratic state lawmakers to flee the state in hopes of derailing the 
plan. DeLay and his allies participated intensively as they pushed to 
redraw Texas's congressional boundaries and strengthen GOP control of 
the U.S. House.

DeLay, the former House majority leader, is fighting state felony counts 
of money laundering and conspiracy -- crimes he is charged with 
committing by unlawfully injecting corporate money into state elections. 
His campaign efforts were made in preparation for the new congressional 
map that was the focus of the Justice Department memo.

One of two DeLay aides also under indictment in the case, James W. 
Ellis, is cited in the Justice Department memo as pushing for the plan 
despite the risk that it would not receive "pre-clearance," or approval, 
from the department. Ellis and other DeLay aides successfully forced the 
adoption of their plan over two other versions passed by Texas 
legislators that would not have raised as many concerns about voting 
rights discrimination, the memo said.

"We need our map, which has been researched and vetted for months," 
Ellis wrote in an October 2003 document, according to the Justice 
Department memo. "The pre-clearance and political risks are the 
delegation's and we are willing to assume those risks, but only with our 
map."

Hebert said the Justice Department's approval of the redistricting plan, 
signed by Sheldon T. Bradshaw, principal deputy assistant attorney 
general, was valuable to Texas officials when they defended it in court. 
He called the internal Justice Department memo, which did not come out 
during the court case, "yet another indictment of Tom DeLay, because 
this memo shows conclusively that the map he produced violated the law."

DeLay spokesman Kevin Madden called Hebert's characterization 
"nonsensical political babble" and echoed the Justice Department in 
pointing to court rulings that have found no discriminatory impact on 
minority voters.

"Fair and reasonable arguments can be made in favor of the map's merits 
that also refute any notion that the plan is unfair or doesn't meet 
legal standards," Madden said. "Ultimately the court will decide whether 
the criticisms have any weight or validity."

Testimony in the civil lawsuit demonstrated that DeLay and Ellis 
insisted on last-minute changes during the Texas legislature's final 
deliberations. Ellis said DeLay traveled to Texas to attend many of the 
meetings that produced the final map, and Ellis himself worked through 
the state's lieutenant governor and a state senator to shape the outcome.

In their analysis, the Justice Department lawyers emphasized that the 
last-minute changes -- made in a legislative conference committee, out 
of public view -- fundamentally altered legally acceptable redistricting 
proposals approved separately by the Texas House and Senate.

"It was not necessary" for these plans to be altered, except to advance 
partisan political goals, the department lawyers concluded.

Jerry Strickland, a spokesman for Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, 
said he did not have any immediate comment.

The Justice Department memo recommending rejection of the Texas plan was 
written by two analysts and five lawyers. In addition, the head of the 
voting section at the time, Joseph Rich, wrote a concurring opinion. 
Rich has since left the department and declined to comment on the memo 
yesterday.

The complexity of the arguments surrounding the Voting Rights Act is 
evident in the Justice Department memo, which focused particular 
attention on seats held in 2003 by a white Democrat, Martin Frost, and a 
Hispanic Republican, Henry Bonilla.

Voting data showed that Frost commanded great support from minority 
constituents, while Bonilla had relatively little support from 
Hispanics. The question to be considered by Justice Department lawyers 
was whether the new map was "retrogressive," because it diluted the 
power of minority voters to elect their candidate of choice. Under the 
adopted Texas plan, Frost's congressional district was dismantled, while 
the proportion of Hispanics in Bonilla's district dropped significantly. 
Those losses to black and Hispanic voters were not offset by other 
gains, the memo said.

"This result quite plainly indicates a reduction in minority voting 
strength," Rich wrote in his concurring opinion. "The state's argument 
that it has increased minority voting strength . . . simply does not 
stand up under careful analysis."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/01/AR2005120101927.html?referrer=email
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Fri Dec  2 04:26:25 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Fri Dec  2 04:38:59 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] More in U.S. Expressing Doubts About Death Penalty -
	Washington Post
Message-ID: <43903D71.7020302@comcast.net>

More in U.S. Expressing Doubts About Death Penalty

By Peter Slevin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, December 2, 2005; 4:06 AM

AUSTIN, Dec. 1 -- Ruben Cantu is long gone, executed by Texas 
authorities in 1993 after he was convicted of murdering a man during a 
San Antonio robbery when he was 17 years old. To the end, Cantu insisted 
he had been framed, and now his co-defendant and the sole surviving 
witness both say he was telling the truth.

A state legislator called for an investigation this week as prosecutors 
moved to study the 20-year-old case. Opponents of the death penalty 
suspect that Cantu may be what they have long expected to find: an 
innocent person put to death. Houston law professor David Dow said the 
case shows that "we make mistakes in death penalty cases, too."

The nation's 1,000th execution since the Supreme Court reinstated the 
death penalty in 1976 took place Friday morning at 2:15. The execution 
of Kenneth Boyd in North Carolina for murdering his wife and her father 
comes at a time of growing misgivings over the death penalty, as 
reflected in jury verdicts, opinion polls and the actions of courts and 
state legislatures.

Death sentences have declined to their lowest level in three decades, 
with juries sentencing 125 people to death last year, compared with an 
average of 290 per year in the 1990s. The number of inmates executed 
last year was the lowest since 1996, and the Supreme Court has twice in 
the past three years limited who can be punished with death.

In Virginia, which has executed more people since 1976 than any state 
but Texas, Gov. Mark R. Warner (D) commuted the death sentence of Robin 
M. Lovitt this week because the state had thrown out what may have been 
conclusive evidence, making this the first year since 1983 that Virginia 
will not have had an execution.

In Maryland, Cardinal William H. Keeler, the archbishop of Baltimore, 
prayed with Wesley E. Baker this week and said he would appeal to Gov. 
Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R) to commute his death sentence to life without 
parole. Baker is on death row for murdering teacher's aide Jane Tyson 
during a robbery outside a Catonsville mall.

Public opinion polls show that nearly two-thirds of Americans support 
the death penalty, but that is a significant drop from the peak, in 
1994, when 80 percent of respondents told Gallup pollsters they were in 
favor of capital punishment. When asked if they would endorse executions 
if the alternative sentence of life without parole were available, 
support fell to 50 percent.

Amid the refinement of DNA techniques and the sporadic release of 
inmates from death row because of uncertain guilt, a growing number of 
people tell pollsters they believe that innocent prisoners have been 
executed. Although the majority of cases over the past three decades 
have been upheld, legal errors and sometimes poor defense work revealed 
during layers of appeals have convinced many Americans that the system 
is imperfect.

"There's a skepticism about the accuracy of the system and, to some 
degree, the fairness," said Richard C. Dieter, executive director of the 
Death Penalty Information Center. "It's not quite the ticket to the 
statehouse if you promise to execute more and more and speed it up. You 
have religious leaders voicing concerns. You have conservatives. The 
lines aren't as clear as they were before."

One place to observe the recent push and pull is Illinois, where 
outgoing Gov. George Ryan (R) commuted the sentences of the state's 167 
death row inmates in 2003, calling the state's death penalty "arbitrary 
and capricious."

A 2000 moratorium on executions continues in Illinois, but 10 more 
defendants have been sentenced to die since Ryan acted. At the same 
time, the state legislature has reformed death penalty rules, provided 
more money for defense lawyers and required police to videotape the 
questioning of homicide suspects.

"The playing field has been leveled. We think that's fine," said Paul A. 
Logli, a prosecutor in Rockford, Ill., who said he thinks Ryan's 
clemency move was a mistake. "In one broad brush, he swept death row, 
even of those people who had never asserted their innocence. I believe 
the better choice is that governors should do it on a case-by-case basis."

Logli, who is also president of the National District Attorneys 
Association, said prosecutors in the 38 states with a death penalty "by 
and large believe in it as a deterrent and believe it should be used 
wisely, sparingly."

The New York legislature this year stopped short of renewing the state's 
death penalty law, which a court had declared invalid. North Carolina, 
where condemned prisoner Alan Gell was acquitted in a retrial with the 
help of evidence that was initially suppressed, created a commission to 
study how the death penalty operates. California, home to the nation's 
largest death row, with 648 inmates, did likewise.

Elsewhere, legislation on the desk of Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle (D) is 
designed to improve witness-identification procedures, require 
electronic recording of interrogations and ensure the preservation of 
DNA evidence. If the interviews are not recorded, juries are to be told 
that police violated the law.

Texas has executed more than one-third of the men and women put to death 
since 1976, as well as 19 of the 55 inmates executed this year. With no 
more executions scheduled there this month, the state's total this year 
will fall well below its eight-year average of 28.

Jordan M. Steiker, a death penalty expert at the University of Texas, 
attributes the slowdown largely to federal court concerns, notably the 
2002 Supreme Court decision to bar the execution of the mentally 
retarded and this year's ruling prohibiting the execution of juveniles.

Gov. Rick Perry (R) has signed a law that offers juries a chance to 
sentence capital defendants to life without parole. He also created a 
Criminal Justice Advisory Council, which has a committee that will focus 
on the death penalty.

State Rep. Elliott Naishtat (D), a death penalty opponent from Austin, 
said: "We are seeing a mood change. Legislative and executive branches 
are responding to a clear change in public confidence."

A poll conducted by Rice University sociologist Stephen L. Klineberg 
found that even in Harris County, where more defendants are sentenced to 
die than anywhere else in the country, support for the death penalty 
fell from 68 percent in 1999 to 60 percent this year. In response to a 
separate question, 53 percent favored life without parole as an alternative.

The latest survey was conducted before last month's Houston Chronicle 
series on Ruben Cantu.

Prosecutors presented no physical evidence linking Cantu to the 1984 
nighttime attack in San Antonio. Nor did they call the 15-year-old 
co-defendant, who had pleaded guilty to the lesser crime of robbery and 
identified Cantu, an admitted thief, as his partner. The principal 
witness was Juan Moreno, the wounded worker.

The jury did not believe Cantu, who said he had been in another city 
that night, and ordered him to die. He was executed on Aug. 24, 1993.

The Chronicle found numerous gaps and flaws in the investigation. 
Further, Moreno told the newspaper that he had accused Cantu under 
police pressure.

Cantu's co-defendant, David Garza, signed a sworn statement saying he 
lied when he told police that Cantu was with him that night, the 
newspaper reported. He now says he knew who the true killer was, but 
honored a neighborhood code of silence in not naming him.

"You've got a 17-year-old who went to his grave for something he didn't 
do," Garza said, adding that he was speaking now because of a guilty 
conscience. He said that as Cantu's execution date neared, he wrote 
Cantu's unpaid appellate lawyer from prison to say the case was "real 
messed up" and added: "Hope to hear from you real soon."

The lawyer told the Chronicle that she doubted the worth of Garza's 
comments and did not inquire further. Roy R. Barrera Jr., the trial 
judge, told the newspaper that he was shocked that no defense lawyer 
interviewed Moreno or compelled Garza to testify during the appeal. But 
he also said he believes Garza is now lying "because he has nothing 
better to do and wants to put everybody on a guilt trip."

Guilty or innocent, Cantu could not have been executed if he were 
prosecuted now. According to this year's Supreme Court ruling, he was 
too young at the time of the crime.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/02/AR2005120200146.html
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Fri Dec  2 04:30:24 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Fri Dec  2 04:43:18 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] MUST READ: Business As Usual: Corrupt - Michael Kinsley
 - Washington Post Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43903E60.60508@comcast.net>

Business As Usual: Corrupt

By Michael Kinsley
Friday, December 2, 2005; A23

It used to be said that the moral arc of a Washington career could be 
divided into four parts: idealism, pragmatism, ambition and corruption. 
You arrive with a passion for a cause, determined to challenge the 
system. Then you learn to work for your cause within the system. Then 
rising in the system becomes your cause. Then, finally, you exploit the 
system -- your connections in it, and your understanding of it -- for 
personal profit.

And it remains true, sort of, but faster. Even the appalling Jack 
Abramoff had ideals at one point. But he took a shortcut straight to 
corruption. On the other hand, you can now trace the traditional moral 
arc in the life of conservative-dominated Washington itself, which began 
with Ronald Reagan's inauguration and marks its 25th anniversary in 
January. Reagan and Co. arrived to tear down the government and make 
Washington irrelevant. Now the airport and a giant warehouse of 
bureaucrats are named after him.

By the 20th anniversary of their arrival, when an intellectually corrupt 
Supreme Court ruling gave them complete control of the government at 
last, the conservatives had lost any stomach for tearing it down. George 
W. Bush's "compassionate conservatism" was more like an apology than an 
ideology. Meanwhile, Tom DeLay -- the real boss in Congress -- openly 
warned K Street that unless all the choice lobbying jobs went to 
Republicans, lobbyists could not expect to have any influence with the 
Republican Congress. This warning would be meaningless, of course, 
unless the opposite was also true: If you hire Republican lobbyists, you 
and they will have influence over Congress. And darned if DeLay didn't 
turn out to be exactly right about this.

No prominent Republican upbraided DeLay for his open invitation to 
bribery. And bribery is what it is: not just campaign contributions but 
the promise of personal enrichment for politicians and political aides 
who play ball for a few years before cashing in.

When Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham pleaded guilty this week to accepting 
a comic cornucopia of baubles, plus some cash, from defense contractors, 
the vast right-wing conspiracy acted with impressive speed and 
forcefulness to expel one of its most doggedly loyal loudmouths and pack 
him off to a long jail term. Even Bush, whose affable capacity for 
understanding and forgiveness on the personal level is one of his 
admirable qualities, seized an unnecessary opportunity to wish the 
blackguard ill. There was no talk of "sadness" -- the usual formula for 
expressing sympathy without excusing guilt.

This astringent response would be more impressive if the basic facts 
about Cunningham's corruption hadn't been widely known for months. The 
San Diego Union-Tribune reported in June that a company seeking business 
from the Pentagon had bought Cunningham's Southern California house from 
him, held it unoccupied briefly and sold it -- in the hottest real 
estate market in human history -- for a $700,000 loss. You didn't need 
to know that Duke's haul included two antique commodes to smell the 
stench. Yet all the Republican voices now saying that Cunningham 
deserves his punishment were silent until he clearly and unavoidably was 
going to get it.

Like medieval scholastics counting the angels on the head of a pin, 
Justice Department lawyers are struggling with the question of when 
favors to and from a member of Congress or a congressional aide take on 
the metaphysical quality of a corrupt bribe. The brazenness of the 
DeLay-Abramoff circle has caused prosecutors to look past traditional 
distinctions, such as that between campaign contributions and cash or 
other favors to a politician personally. Or the distinction between 
doing what a lobbyist wants after he has taken you to Scotland to play 
golf and promising to do what he wants before he takes you to Scotland 
to play golf.

These distinctions don't really touch on what's corrupt here, which is 
simply the ability of money to give some people more influence than 
others over the course of a democracy where, civically if not 
economically, we are all supposed to be equal. So where do you draw the 
line between harmless favors and corrupt bribery?

It's not an easy question if you're talking about sending people to 
prison. But it's a very easy question if you're just talking: The answer 
is that it's all corrupt bribery. People and companies hire lobbyists 
because it works. Lobbyists get the big bucks because their efforts earn 
or save clients even bigger bucks in their dealings with the government. 
Members of Congress are among the world's greatest bargains: What is a 
couple of commodes compared with $163 million worth of Pentagon contracts?

Perhaps conceding more than he intended, former Democratic senator John 
Breaux, now on K Street, told the New York Times that a member of 
Congress will be swayed more by 2,000 letters from constituents on some 
issue than by anything a lobbyist can offer. I guess if it's a lobbyist 
vs. 1,900 constituents, it's too bad for the constituents. That seems fair.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/01/AR2005120101173.html
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Fri Dec  2 04:32:23 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Fri Dec  2 04:44:45 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Progress in The Mideast - Charles Krauthammer -
	Washington Post Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43903ED7.8020203@comcast.net>

Progress in The Mideast
Peace Without Treaties

By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, December 2, 2005; A23

Because we Americans tend to gauge Middle East success by White House 
signing ceremonies complete with dignitaries, three-way handshakes and 
pages of treaty provisions, no one seems to have noticed how, in the 
absence of any of that, there has been amazing recent progress in 
defusing the Arab-Israeli dispute.

First, the more than four-year-long intifada, which left more than 1,000 
Israelis and 3,000 Palestinians dead, is over. And better than that, 
defeated. There's no great Palestinian constituency for starting another 
one. In Israel, tourism is back, the economy has recovered to 
pre-intifada levels, and the coffee shops and malls are full again.

Second, the Gaza withdrawal was a success. On the Israeli side, it was 
accomplished with remarkable speed and without any of the great social 
upheaval and civil strife that had been predicted. As for the 
Palestinians, without any fanfare whatsoever, their first-ever state has 
just been born. They have political independence for 1.3 million of 
their people, sovereignty over all of Gaza and, for the first time, a 
border to the outside world (the Rafah crossing to Egypt) that they control.

Third, on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian line, vigorous electoral 
campaigns are underway. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has abandoned Likud, 
established a new centrist party that leads all others in the polls, 
effectively marginalized those remaining Israelis who want to hold on 
forever to all the territories, and set Israel on a path to a modest and 
attainable territorial solution to the century-old conflict.

As a result, Israel's regional isolation is easing, as Islamic countries 
from Pakistan to Qatar to Morocco openly extend or intensify relations, 
while anti-Israel rejectionists such as Syria and Hezbollah are isolated 
and even condemned by name in the U.N. Security Council.

How did this come about? Israeli unilateralism and Palestinian maturation.

After a year and a half of unparalleled terror, culminating with the 
Passover massacre of 2002, the Israelis finally decided that they had to 
give up the illusion of a Palestinian peace partner and take things into 
their own hands. They did. Israel reoccupied the West Bank cities it had 
ceded to Yasser Arafat, who had used them as havens of terrorism; began 
an extremely effective campaign of targeted assassinations of terrorist 
leaders that ultimately induced their successors to declare a truce with 
Israel; and, most important, decided to unilaterally draw the border 
between Israel and Palestine.

Gaza is now 100 percent Palestinian. The security fence Israel is 
building in the West Bank will, in effect, create a second Palestinian 
sovereignty on 92 percent of that territory. Everyone knows what that 
fence means. Israelis on the Palestinian side of the fence will 
ultimately leave one way or the other. And, in a final settlement -- if 
and when the Palestinians ever decide to make their peace with a Jewish 
state -- that remaining 8 percent could be exchanged for pieces of 
Israel transferred to Palestine. (The New Republic of Nov. 28 has a 
must-read article on the land swaps that could once and for all end the 
Arab-Israeli dispute.)

The other great watershed has been the maturation of the Palestinian 
national movement. Arafat was a revolutionary who disdained 
nation-building. Revolutionaries destroy the old order. His mission was 
to destroy Israel. Which is why, to the consternation of his Western 
admirers, in 10 years he built not a single schoolhouse, hospital or 
road in the territory he controlled. Instead, he built a dozen private 
militias and a state propaganda machine designed to poison the new 
generation against Israel. Now that he is gone, the Palestinian cause 
can begin the demystification from revolution to nation-building.

The other demystification was Gaza. The Gaza Palestinians have just 
received exactly what they wished for: self-government, borders, 
openings to the outside world and an absence of any Jews. As a result, 
however, they are now faced with the distinctly unromantic task of 
creating their new state. It's not that many Gazans would not like to 
continue the romance of revolutionary terrorism and jihad. But they no 
longer have the means. The separation fence makes it almost impossible 
to launch attacks into Israel. And rockets launched into Israeli towns 
are met by retaliatory Israeli artillery barrages that make the 
rocketeers rather unpopular at home. A similar equilibrium will be 
achieved on the West Bank when the fence is completed next year.

Sharon represents the majority of Israelis bent on achieving that 
equilibrium. It will not only bring stability and relative peace, but it 
also offers the contours of an ultimate settlement. That's why even old 
regional antagonists see the promise of this moment -- all achieved, 
mind you, without a single Rose Garden ceremony.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/01/AR2005120101172.html
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Fri Dec  2 04:34:24 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Fri Dec  2 04:46:53 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] The Politics of Punishment - E. J. Dionne - Washington
	Post Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43903F50.3030908@comcast.net>

The Politics of Punishment

By E. J. Dionne Jr.
Friday, December 2, 2005; A23

Virginia Gov. Mark Warner's decision this week to grant clemency in a 
death penalty case will be seen in coming years as a landmark in the 
nation's debate over capital punishment.

In sparing the life of Robin M. Lovitt, a convicted murderer, Warner was 
responding not simply to facts that weighed heavily in favor of stopping 
the execution. He was also operating in a changed political climate. 
Even supporters of the death penalty now have doubts about how it is 
administered. Leading conservative Christians are struggling with their 
consciences over how to square their opposition to abortion with support 
for death sentences.

Warner, who is considering running for president in 2008, will win 
courage points from liberals, who play a large role in the Democratic 
primaries. But it takes nothing away from the decency of Warner's choice 
in the Lovitt case to see it as politically shrewd rather than 
politically dangerous.

Shifts in public opinion on capital punishment, developments in DNA 
technology and high-profile news stories about wrongful executions have 
opened room in a debate that only a decade ago seemed closed.

Support for the death penalty hit 84 percent in one poll in the 
mid-1980s and stood at 80 percent as recently as 1994. Then it began to 
decline as crime rates dropped in the 1990s. Polling in recent years has 
generally found support for capital punishment in the 66 to 68 percent 
range.

That is a substantial but less intimidating majority, and it leaves 
space for a governor to break from a lock-step insistence that every 
death sentence be carried out. Warner was tipped toward clemency by the 
fact that a court clerk, without authorization, destroyed DNA evidence 
that -- in theory, at least -- could have given Lovitt a chance to prove 
his innocence. Virginia, Warner said in words that will always do him 
honor, "must ensure that every time this ultimate sanction is carried 
out, it is done fairly."

And Warner was given cover by some very important conservative voices. I 
never, ever expected to write the following words, but -- gulp! -- here 
goes: Three cheers for Ken Starr.

Yes, the Whitewater prosecutor and Bill Clinton nemesis who represented 
Lovitt in his quest for clemency made exactly the right case. "A 
compassionate and decent society has to ensure that a death penalty 
regime is as error-free as humanly possible and as fair as humanly 
possible," Starr told Post staff writer Donna St. George in March. "The 
fact that evidence would be destroyed where additional testing could be 
done is extraordinary and, frankly, outrageous." I can't wait for 
someone to attack Warner in 2008 on this and have him refer all calls to 
Ken Starr.

Then there was former Virginia attorney general Mark Earley, the 
Republican who lost to Warner in the 2001 governor's race. Earley said 
that "it would be morally unfair to execute Mr. Lovitt."

Earley now serves as president of Prison Fellowship Ministries, a group 
inspired by Christian evangelical and former Richard Nixon lieutenant 
Chuck Colson. Earley's admirable stand is one reflection of a salutary 
moral rumbling among religious conservatives about the fairness of the 
death penalty.

Would that Clinton had enjoyed so much moral guidance (and political 
help) when, as governor of Arkansas, he refused to commute the death 
sentence of Ricky Ray Rector. Rector, who had an IQ estimated at 70, was 
executed on Jan. 24, 1992, during Clinton's Democratic primary campaign.

Clinton's decision was, to put it gently, widely interpreted in 
political terms. The day after Rector's death, ABC News's Mike Von Fremd 
noted the "bashing" that Democrat Michael Dukakis, a capital punishment 
foe, had taken on the issue from George H.W. Bush in the presidential 
campaign four years earlier. With a touch of understatement, Von Fremd 
said: "Political analysts say the death penalty is a winning issue with 
voters, particularly in the South."

Note that phrase: particularly in the South . It is especially 
heartening that Warner is the moderate governor of Virginia, not a 
flaming liberal from a deeply blue state. His state's voters helped 
Warner do the right thing by rejecting a nasty pro-death penalty 
campaign against Gov.-elect Tim Kaine, who personally opposes capital 
punishment.

There can be no illusions here. It still takes guts for a politician to 
oppose the death penalty, and Warner, after all, has presided over 11 
executions. But on capital punishment, it's not 1992 anymore. One person 
who clearly knows this is Mark Warner.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/01/AR2005120101420.html?nav=hcmodule
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Fri Dec  2 04:37:54 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Fri Dec  2 04:50:27 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] EXCELLENT AND RECOMMENDED: Nature or nurture? - Ellen
 Goodman - Boston Globe Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43904022.9010901@comcast.net>


  Nature or nurture?

By Ellen Goodman  |  December 2, 2005  |  The Boston Globe

SOMEWHERE ALONG the way, the dividing line over gay issues picked up and 
moved. It's no longer between red and blue states, or left and right 
wings, but between nature and nurture. Or to be more precise, between 
those who believe that homosexuality is a choice and those who believe 
that homosexuality is innate.

Remember the moment in the 2004 debate when CBS's Bob Schieffer asked 
Bush and Kerry whether they thought homosexuality was a choice? The 
president answered, ''I don't know," and the senator replied, ''We're 
all God's children."

Well, it turns out that the more you believe homosexuality is innate, 
the more accepting you are of gay rights. A full 79 percent of people 
who think human beings are born with a sexual orientation support gay 
rights, including civil unions or marriage equality. But only 22 percent 
of those who believe homosexuality is a choice agree.

The same line can be found in the religious world between those who 
regard homosexuality as a (bad) choice and those who see it as a 
(biological) trait. The most conservative Protestant churches that talk 
about the homosexual ''lifestyle" prohibit gay ministers. Religious 
liberals who see sexual orientation as an inborn trait, are more open to 
gays in the pulpit.

All and all, Americans seem reluctant to condemn people for who they 
simply are.

What then do we make of the Catholic Church's banning -- and perhaps 
purging -- of gay priests? On Tuesday, the much-leaked and much-awaited 
document from the Vatican said the church ''cannot admit to the seminary 
or to Holy Orders those who practice homosexuality, present deep-seated 
homosexual tendencies, or support the so-called gay culture."

What was painful to many Catholics was the obvious scapegoating of gays 
for the church sexual abuse scandal. But there was something less obvious.

Thirty years ago the Catholic Church accepted the view that some were 
definitively gay. Church teachings said ''they do not choose their 
homosexual condition." Nevertheless, the new document doesn't just ban 
gays who ''practice" homosexuality, breaking the vows of celibacy. It 
bans all those with homosexual ''tendencies."

In the strange new backsliding language of the Vatican, homosexuality is 
a ''tendency." The church doesn't define tendency, nor does it say 
whether such a tendency is biological. Voluntary or not, it marks a man 
permanently. As Matt Foreman, a gay activist raised Catholic, says, 
''Doesn't matter what you do or believe or practice. If you are gay, 
there is no making that better in the eyes of the church."

Ironically, the only exemptions are offered to men who were not ''real" 
homosexuals but ''transitory" ones. They're given a pass, in the words 
of a Vatican cardinal, for ''some curiosity during adolescence or 
accidental circumstances in a state of drunkenness or particular 
circumstances like someone who was in prison for many years." A drunk or 
ex-con is OK; a chaste, gay seminarian is not.

The same cardinal said that banning gays was no more discriminatory than 
''if a person who suffers from vertigo is not admitted to a school for 
astronauts." Such a dizzying analogy overlooks the fact that gay men are 
already among the stars of the priesthood.

The document does more than denigrate the priests who have given their 
lives to the ministry. In the face of a conflict between biology and 
sin, the church has labeled homosexuality as ''intrinsically disordered."

Let's remember that the evidence is with those on the nature side of the 
dividing line. While we don't know the precise biology, the weight of 
research suggests that sexual orientation is indeed something we are 
born with. Perhaps there is a ''gay gene." Perhaps the Japanese 
scientists who found how a gene alters the sexual orientation of the 
fruit fly will find a similar switch for people.

Science may well offer some future shocks. Imagine, for a moment, we 
could tweak the ''gay gene" in a petri dish or a womb. What would the 
religious right, which opposes both homosexuality and embryonic 
research, say about eliminating the ''sin"? What would the left, which 
favors reproductive choice but is appalled at the idea of ''curing" a 
population of homosexuals, say?

For now, however, the church has run directly into a conflict. 
Increasingly, Americans accept homosexuality as something that isn't 
chosen and cannot easily be changed. Meanwhile, the Catholic Church has 
moved in the opposite direction, rejecting men with ''deep-seated 
tendencies."

Once, even the most conservative churches proclaimed they could love the 
sinner and hate the sin. The new pope's Vatican has labeled homosexuals 
themselves as the sin. The case is closed and so are the doors to the 
seminary.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/12/02/nature_or_nurture/
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Fri Dec  2 04:41:19 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Fri Dec  2 04:53:54 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] The trouble with Turkey - John Tirman - Boston Globe
	Op-Ed
Message-ID: <439040EF.4050507@comcast.net>


  The trouble with Turkey

By John Tirman  |  November 30, 2005  |  The Boston Globe

IN THE ONGOING debate about ''democratization," Turkey is a vivid 
example of how difficult it can be. Its inability to end old habits of 
repression and embrace democratic values presents an agonizing dilemma 
for Europe and a reminder of failed policies of the United States.

Formally a republic since the early 1920s, when its great military hero, 
Kemal Ataturk, carved out the modern Turkish state from the remains of 
the Ottoman Empire, Turkey has mostly had elected governments ever 
since. But it has been a ''guided" democracy, and the guide in this case 
is the iron fist of the military. It remains so to this day, despite 
Turkey's professed desire to become a member of the European Union.

The powerful military, itself guided by Ataturk's extreme nationalism, 
is now demanding the prosecution of some 50 writers and publishers for 
insulting the state, raising issues about Kurds in Turkey, and exploring 
the Armenian genocide of the First World War. Among those being 
prosecuted is Fatih Tas, the publisher of a book I wrote in 1997 about 
US-Turkish relations, which he had translated and released in Turkey 
earlier this year. Among the cited crimes are my many interviews with 
Kurds who had been forcibly evacuated by the military and descriptions 
of the scale of human rights abuse, including 1 million displaced 
people, many of whom now live in shantytowns on the outskirts of 
Istanbul. He could go to prison.

Suppression of speech is not the only problem. Turkish forces recently 
bumbled a covert operation in the Kurdish areas of southwest Turkey, 
where they planted and exploded bombs to make it appear that the old 
Kurdish rebel group, the PKK, remained active and a threat to state 
security. It's not the first time such nefarious activities have been 
exposed.

These are the actions of the ''deep state," that part of the permanent 
governing structure -- security forces, intelligence operatives, 
paramilitaries -- which abhors the possibility of EU standards being 
applied to them. So they create phony crises and arbitrary prosecutions 
to subvert those in Turkey who seek EU membership.

Politicians are typically afraid to confront the military over the 
abuses and bullying. Prime ministers have been overthrown by the 
military and even executed; the current constitution was written by the 
generals after a 1980 coup. Political discourse has always been 
curtailed, and most journalists, party leaders, and other public figures 
censor themselves.

For Europe, the dilemma in all this bad news is obvious. Does Turkey 
deserve EU membership? Many Europeans, some of them anti-Muslim, harbor 
grave doubts about admitting a poor country of 70 million whose 
dispossessed may swarm into the prosperous parts of the continent. They 
prefer to highlight the alarming human rights violations. But Turkey is 
serving up a ready-made excuse for rejection, with the state firmly in 
the grip of hard-line militarists.

For the US government, the chief promoter of Turkey's EU ambitions, the 
policy choices are less stark but fraught with embittering irony. Turkey 
was for years the largest recipient of US military assistance after 
Israel and Egypt, including massive arms transfers -- ostensibly as a 
hedge against the Soviet Union, and then Iran and Iraq. But Turkey 
refuses to do Washington's bidding in the region, and anti-Americanism 
is at an all-time high. And the weapons Turkey received were used in the 
civil war with the Kurds that resulted in 40,000 killed.

Meanwhile, the United States is protecting Kurdish ambitions in Iraq, 
including its bid for the oil-rich city of Kirkuk. Turkey has vowed to 
''take action" should Kirkuk fall into Kurdish hands, since that would 
be the missing piece the Kurds need for secession and an independent 
Kurdish state. Turkey could intervene militarily, close oil pipelines, 
shut off water supplies, support militias and death squads -- generally 
adding to the myriad forms of extreme violence that the war in Iraq has 
bred.

So the United States finds itself frustrated by a military it helped 
strengthen and train. And that explains why American political leaders 
have been mute on Turkey's repression of free speech and the cascade of 
other misdeeds by the military. We need them to behave in Iraq, and the 
price for that is silence on the relentless abuses of democratic values. 
It is reminiscent of America's lavish support for the Shah of Iran in 
the 1970s and of Saddam Hussein in the 1980s.

Such stratagems never work in the end. Democracy can't flourish without 
sunlight, and now it is Washington, again, that is in the way.

John Tirman is executive director of the Center for International 
Studies at MIT. 


http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/11/30/the_trouble_with_turkey/
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From nwonline at toronto.cbc.ca  Fri Dec  2 06:44:42 2005
From: nwonline at toronto.cbc.ca (CBC News Online)
Date: Fri Dec  2 06:55:20 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] CBC News - WAL-MART HIRED SECURITY GUARDS TO SPY ON
	QUEBEC EMPLOYEES: CBC INVESTIGATION
Message-ID: <20051202144442.2335569AFB@nmweb09.nm.cbc.ca>

This email has been sent to you by harry.sifton@sympatico.ca
The following is a news item posted on CBC NEWS ONLINE
at http://www.cbc.ca/news
____________________________________________________
WAL-MART HIRED SECURITY GUARDS TO SPY ON QUEBEC EMPLOYEES: CBC INVESTIGATION
WebPosted Fri Dec  2 05:35:06 2005

---Employees at a Quebec Wal-Mart store that closed after a successful
union drive were spied upon by undercover security guards, according to
an investigation by Radio-Canada.

Guards told journalists at CBC's French-language service, that Wal-Mart
had hired them to spy on employees at the store in Jonquière, 200
kilometres north of Quebec City, early in 2005. It corresponded to the
time the world's largest retailer announced the store would close for
financial reasons.

                      FROM FEB. 14, 2005: Wal-Mart
                     to close unionized Quebec store

A documentary on the subject will be broadcast Friday on the program Zone
Libre. In it, the guards say their surveillance targeted union leaders
and workers sympathetic to the drive.

One former guard said he patrolled the store in civilian clothes,
watching employees. Another agent said the store's surveillance cameras
were used to follow certain workers.

Wal-Mart Canada president and CEO Mario Pilozzi denied the allegations.

"No, we wouldn't tolerate the situation you mentioned," Pilozzi told Radio-
Canada. "No idea about what you're talking about."

Spying on union leaders or sympathizers is illegal under the Quebec
Labour Code.

In August 2004, the United Food And Commercial Workers succeeded in a
drive to unionize the store's 200 workers. But a contract was never
signed. The store closed in April.

A second Wal-Mart in Saint-Hyacinthe, Quebec, won union certification in
January 2005.

In February, Wal-Mart was chastised by the Quebec Labour Relations Board
for attempting to intimidate workers who wanted to form a union at a
third Quebec store in Sainte-Foy, just outside Quebec City.

Wal-Mart has 235 stores in Canada, employing more than 60,000 people.

Copyright (C) 2005 CBC. All rights reserved.
From list at freepress.net  Thu Dec  1 23:17:46 2005
From: list at freepress.net (Robert W. McChesney, President)
Date: Fri Dec  2 07:49:32 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Update: Bush's War on the Press
Message-ID: <E1EiD0V-00030l-0i@smtpauth01.mail.atl.earthlink.net>

Dear Friend:

A host of recent developments have made it clear that the Bush White House is doing battle with the journalistic standards and practices that underpin our democracy. With its unprecedented campaign to undermine and stifle independent journalism, Bush & Co. have demonstrated brazen contempt for the Constitution and considerable fear of an informed public.

Free Press has launched a campaign at http://www.freepress.net/presswar to chronicle and combat Bush?s war on the press. Today, we published a new report showing the scope and intensity of the administration?s assault on press freedoms. The growing list of attacks on the press is truly astonishing:

Infiltrating Public Broadcasting
White House loyalists inside the Corporation for Public Broadcasting have launched a crusade to remake PBS, NPR and other public media into official mouthpieces. Kenneth Tomlinson?s tenure at the CPB was characterized by targeting journalists like Bill Moyers who dared to air dissenting voices or prepare investigative reports on the administration.

Tomlinson's goal was clearly to fire a shot across the bow of all public stations so managers would shy away from the sort of investigative journalism that might expose Bush administration malfeasance. Tomlinson resigned in disgrace but left behind a cast of cronies to carry out his partisan crusade. And we still don?t know the extent to which Karl Rove and others at the White House orchestrated his efforts.

Manufacturing Fake News
Under Bush administration directives, at least 20 federal agencies have produced and distributed scores of "video news releases" out of a $254 million slush fund set up to manufacture taxpayer-funded propaganda. These bogus and deceptive stories have been broadcast on TV stations nationwide without any acknowledgment that they were prepared by the government rather than local journalists.

The segments ? which trumpeted administration ?successes,? promoted its controversial line on issues like overhauling Medicare, and featured Americans "thanking" Bush ? have been repeatedly labeled "covert propaganda" by investigators at the Government Accountability Office.

Bribing Journalists
The administration has paid pundits to sing its praises. Earlier this year, TV commentator Armstrong Williams pocketed $240,000 in taxpayer money to laud Bush?s education policies. Three other journalists have since been discovered on the government dole; and Williams admits that he has "no doubt" that other paid Bush shills are still on the loose.

The administration has even exported these tactics. According to the Los Angeles Times, the U.S. military is now secretly paying Iraqi newspapers to publish stories written by American troops.

Lying about the Iraq War
The White House saw the battle for domestic popular opinion as one of the main fronts in the war in Iraq. With the help of a compliant media, truth became the first casualty in their campaign to whip up support. But rather than admit to their lies and misinformation, the administration continues to attack those reporting the truth.

As Frank Rich recently wrote in the New York Times, the administration?s "web of half-truths and falsehoods used to sell the war did not happen by accident; it was woven by design and then foisted on the public by a P.R. operation built expressly for that purpose in the White House."

Eliminating Dissent in the Mainstream Media
Bush has all but avoided traditional press conferences, closing down a prime venue for holding the executive accountable. On those rare occasions when he deigned to meet reporters, presidential aides turned the press conferences into parodies by seating a friendly right-wing ?journalist,? former male escort Jeff Gannon, amid the reporters and then steering questions to him when tough issues arose.

They have effectively silenced serious questioners, like veteran journalist Helen Thomas, by refusing to have the president or his aides call on reporters who challenge them. And they have established a hierarchy for journalists seeking interviews with administration officials, which favors networks that give the White House favorable coverage.

Gutting the Freedom of Information Act
The administration has scrapped enforcement of the Freedom of Information Act and has made it harder for reporters to do their jobs by refusing to cooperate with even the most basic requests for comment and data from government agencies. This is part of a broader clampdown on access to information that has made it virtually impossible for journalists to cover vast areas of government activity.

Consolidating Media Control
The administration continues to make common cause with the most powerful broadcast corporations in an effort to rewrite ownership laws in a manner that favors monopoly control of information. The Federal Communications Commission will announce plans to rewrite the ownership rules soon ? it could happen as early as February ? with aims of unleashing a new wave of media consolidation. The administration?s desired rules changes would strike a mortal blow to local reporting and further squeeze journalists.


In a famous 1945 opinion, Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black said that "the First Amendment rests on the assumption that the widest possible dissemination of information from diverse and antagonistic sources is essential to the welfare of the public, that a free press is a condition of a free society." In other words, a free press is the sine qua non of the entire American Constitution and republican experiment.

We started Free Press because our democracy demands a diverse and independent media. The Bush administration?s attack on the foundations of self-government requires a response of similar caliber. I hope you?ll join me in the year ahead as Free Press works to hold the administration accountable for all its attacks on journalism and see that such abuses will not be repeated in the future.

Please take a moment to visit our online campaign to defend democracy from the White House assault on the media. Go to http://www.freepress.net/presswar

Onward,

Robert W. McChesney
President
Free Press
www.freepress.net

P.S. Know more people who would like to keep updated on this and other media reform issues? Urge them to join our e-activist list. The more people you enlist in the movement for media reform, the better our chances of success. Go to http://www.freepress.net/action/signup.php

/*Your email ID. <diaEmailID='59443601' thread=7479/>--*/
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From michael at intrafi.com  Fri Dec  2 07:52:14 2005
From: michael at intrafi.com (michael@intrafi.com)
Date: Fri Dec  2 08:02:19 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] FT.com / World / International economy - US calls for
	larger EU farm tariff cuts
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From michael at intrafi.com  Fri Dec  2 07:56:28 2005
From: michael at intrafi.com (michael@intrafi.com)
Date: Fri Dec  2 08:06:32 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] FT.com / Comment & analysis / Comment - Not yet time to
	finalise Iraq strategy
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From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Fri Dec  2 08:32:59 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (mblaxill@yahoo.com)
Date: Fri Dec  2 08:43:04 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Headlines for December 2, 2005
Message-ID: <20051202163259.12876.qmail@trinity.democracynow.org>

Mike Blaxill  ( mblaxill@yahoo.com )
sent you this story from democracynow.org



+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
|  Headlines for December 2, 2005
|  http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/02/1451216
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+


- 1,000th Capital Punishment Death Reached in North Carolina 
- Justice Dept.: Delay Redistricting Plan Violated Voting Act 
- Families Plead for Release of CPT Hostages 
- Insurgents Attack Military Base in Ramadi 
- Senate Committee to Hold Session on Newspaper Propaganda  
- South African Court Approves Gay Marriage 
- Events Mark 50th Anniversary of Montgomery Bus Boycott 
This story continues at: 
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/02/1451216

From ean at sbcglobal.net  Thu Dec  1 18:06:31 2005
From: ean at sbcglobal.net (ean@sbcglobal.net)
Date: Fri Dec  2 08:56:42 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Why China Must Change
Message-ID: <E1EiE3M-0000TP-Au@smtpauth01.mail.atl.earthlink.net>

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/20051128/why_china_must_change.
php
 	
Why China Must Change
Thomas I. Palley
November 28, 2005

Dr. Thomas Palley was chief economist of the US?China Economic 
and Security Review Commission. Prior to joining the Commission, he 
was director of the Open Society Institute?s Globalization Reform 
Project. He has written for The Atlantic Monthly, American Prospect 
and The Nation magazines. He can be reached at 
www.thomaspalley.com.

For the past five years, the global economy has been flying on one 
engine. That engine is the U.S. consumer who has been on a 
consumption binge financed by borrowing?in turn backed by a 
housing price bubble. This situation poses the threat of a serious hard 
landing when that engine eventually stalls, as it must. Ever-inflating 
house prices and rising debt-to-income levels are not sustainable. And 
as the late Herbert Stein, chairman of President Nixon?s Council of 
Economic Advisers, wryly observed: ?If something cannot go on 
forever, it will stop.?

This view, regarding the global economy?s excessive dependence on 
the United States and the financial fragility of the U.S. economy, is not 
just held by progressive economists. It is also shared by Wall Street. 
Thus, Stephen Roach, chief economist for Morgan Stanley, recently 
wrote in the Financial Times (Nov. 4, 2005): ?there is now about a forty 
percent probability of a hard landing in the next twelve months.? And in 
a research brief, Roach singles out China as being particularly 
dependent on the U.S.: ?China?s export prowess is balanced on the 
head of a pin?a pin made in America. Fully thirty-five percent of 
Chinese exports go to the United States.?

Roach?s Wall Street warnings are sobering. But they miss a more 
profound point, which is that the global economy has been heading in 
the wrong direction, hollowing out the middle class in America while 
failing to create a big enough middle class in the developing world. 
That hollowing-out process has long been visible in U.S. statistics on 
wages and family income distribution, and it has been rendered keenly 
concrete by Delphi Corp.?s recent bankruptcy filing. It is only because 
of successive stock market and housing price bubbles, combined with 
a massive increase in consumer access to credit, that the hollowing-
out has not been worse.

The cause of these dangerous trends is the flawed structure of the 
global economy. Spurred by our own policy makers, the International 
Monetary Fund and the World Bank, developing countries have 
adopted an export-led approach to manufacturing growth and 
development. This approach has two critical features. First, countries 
rely on selling in foreign markets rather than their own domestic 
markets. Second, countries use undervalued exchange rates to 
subsidize their products, thereby making them hypercompetitive. China 
exemplifies this model, exporting more than half of its manufacturing 
output and having an exchange rate that is up to 40 percent 
undervalued.

The focus on export-led growth has distorted the global economy. 
First, it has created the global financial imbalances that Wall Street is 
so apprehensive about, as manifested in the record U.S. trade deficit. 
Second, U.S. manufacturing has been undermined by unfair 
competition subsidized by under-valued currencies. This, in turn, has 
accelerated the hollowing of America?s middle. Third, export-led growth 
promotes the global race-to-the-bottom since countries look for 
international competitive advantage however possible. Consequently, 
workplace standards, wages and the environment are all subject to 
persistent retrograde pressures, impeding the development of a middle 
class in developing countries.

The implication is that the global economy must shift from export-led 
development to domestic market-led development. In an export-led 
world, higher wages undermine employment. In a domestic market-led 
world, higher wages can promote employment. This is where labor 
standards and unions enter. The challenge is to establish a system 
that has wages rising with productivity so that workers can buy what 
they produce, rather than dumping it on world markets. Setting wages 
by government edict does not work, as evidenced by the former 
socialist economies. Instead, labor standards and unions are the way 
forward, since they provide a decentralized mechanism that links 
wages and productivity through bargaining. History supports this. Every 
country that has ever made the transition to developed industrialized 
status has traveled this route.

China is the poster child for export-led manufacturing growth. It has the 
most undervalued exchange rate, the worst labor repression, and is by 
far the largest developing country exporter. As such, China is the 
gravitational attractor for the race to the bottom. Other countries must 
change too, but they can only do so if China changes so that none lose 
relative competitive advantage. If China revalues its exchange rate, 
other East Asian countries can also do so. Likewise, if China raises 
wages, so too can others.

One area where China is showing leadership is its stated commitment 
to increase social spending. This will be good for China?s citizenry, and 
it will also contribute to incomes and domestic demand in China, which 
will be good for the global economy. However, there is also a problem 
that is unique to China. Labor standards and trade unions are key to 
domestic market-led development, but China?s political system 
prevents them. That creates an additional political roadblock that must 
be solved. Democratic reform in China is not a nicety. It is a necessity 
for the global economy to work.

-- 
You are currently on Mha Atma's Earth Action Network email list, 
option D (up to 3 emails/day).  To be removed, or to switch options 
(option A - 1x/week, option B - 3/wk, option C - up to 1x/day, option D - 
up to 3x/day) please reply and let us know!  If someone forwarded you 
this email and you want to be on our list, send an email to 
ean@sbcglobal.net and tell us which option you'd like.


"A war of aggression is the supreme international crime." -- Robert Jackson,
 former U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice and Nuremberg prosecutor

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From michael at michaelbutler.com  Fri Dec  2 09:10:02 2005
From: michael at michaelbutler.com (Michael Butler)
Date: Fri Dec  2 09:21:34 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Brokeback Mountain - Village Voice
Message-ID: <BFB5EA1A.265B4%michael@michaelbutler.com>


West of Eden
Daring to be different, Ang Lee's epic gay romance goes looking for love in
the heartland
by Gary Indiana
November 29th, 2005 11:47 AM
    






This thing called love: Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger
photo: Kimberly French
See also:

# The Scripting News Brokeback writers on the road from page to screen
by Jessica Winter

# Blazing Saddles Stable relationship: Gay frontier weepie is Hollywood's
straightest love story in years
by J. Hoberman
You could infer from the production notes that Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain
would be useful if it came in a spray can: Spritz a little on a
fundamentalist and change him into a liberal, or neutralize a whole church
basement of rednecks with a full blast.

This film is inflected to instill something akin to high moral dudgeon. Its
depiction of ordinary Americans trapped in loveless marriages and dead-end
jobs, its laconic naturalism, and the . . . well, natural way its two male
protagonists find themselves, one drunken night on the mountain, riding
bareback in a sleeping bag, build an industrial-strength case for breaking
the mold, following your heart, and Daring To Be Different. How can anyone
find happiness otherwise? On the other hand, the film makes the explicit
point that deviating just a tad from the norm will probably lead you to a
brutally violent end at the hands of your neighbors. But maybe if they saw
this movie . . . ?

The "problem film" often equates sexual excitement with "love," and often
ends with the reconciled lovers implicitly living happily ever after?not the
case here, but probably never the case when sex is the only real adhesive
between two people, anyway. Even so, Brokeback Mountain (opening December 9)
suggests that the opposite could be true, if only other people could respect
all kinds of love, not just the kind they imagine they themselves enjoy.

One summer of love leaves cowpokes Ennis and Jack in an insoluble quandary.
Seasonal workers, they're soon divided by a lot of wide-open space,
marriages, families, and in Ennis's case, guilt and ambivalence. Probably
the best thing about Brokeback Mountain is its portraiture of grim, idiotic
family gatherings where brewing antagonisms explode into open hostility, and
shit-kicker country barrooms full of squat, ugly men with stringy beards
itching for a brawl: the whole nine yards of ghoulish Americana, for which
the film rather perversely demands an overgenerous degree of sympathy. It's
important, as actors like to tell us in interviews, for even the nastiest or
most vapid characters to have something "human" about them, something?why
not say it??lovable. Because let's face it, in the end, you've really got to
love everybody.

Four years after the first taste of carnal knowledge, Jack's reappearance
rekindles Ennis's kundalini into a veritable bonfire, followed by 20 years
of sporadic "fishing trips" where they restage that ever receding time up on
Brokeback Mountain. Ennis divorces. Jack, the less inhibited and more
insatiable of the two, makes furtive excursions to Mexico when his Uranian
urges overpower him in Ennis's absence.

What Ennis and Jack both refer to as "this thing," established early, is
more or less the same thing that glued Rock Hudson and Jane Wyman together
in Magnificent Obsession, yet separated them in All That Heaven Allows?a
socially inappropriate love, rendered acceptable in the former movie by Rock
Hudson's dedication and skills as an eye surgeon, but made impossible in the
latter by his low station as a gardener. Needless to say, "this thing"
activates Neanderthal reactions in the rowdy cultural backwaters of the
film, necessitating a tragic conclusion with calculated echoes of the
Matthew Shepard murder.

The case has already been made by some critics that Ang Lee's is the first
"mainstream" movie with "A-list stars" to deal with a gay male
relationship?a weird assertion, given how narrowly "mainstream" would have
to be defined for this to be true, and how small the theater audience for
mainstream films, however you define them, has become, and how wholly
dependent on DVD sales and rentals this putative mainstream currently is.
(As far as that goes, Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger, remarkable as they
are as Jack and Ennis, respectively, have been "A-list" stars for about six
months, which isn't the same thing as being Barbra Streisand or Warren
Beatty.)

I'm not sure what this type of claim is supposed to signify?that Hollywood
is on the cutting edge of social progress? That every other movie on this
subject has been merely a "festival film" or in some other way unimportant
compared to one with saturation booking in a thousand multiplexes? Or could
it mean that we prefer to think we're making progress when the clock is
running backwards?

Consider Brokeback Mountain's overt pandering to Rousseauian notions of the
American West and its insularity, the toughness and self-sufficiency of its
tight-lipped, xenophobic denizens, its rituals of faith and patriotism. You
could say that simply depicting this hillbilly heaven accurately is itself
an unsettling criticism, yet the effect, again, is to make it seem, in many
ways, admirable?its unflagging work ethic, its quasi-mystical connection to
harvest, soil, livestock, and weather.

Just as Capote's eastern Kansans referred to western Kansas as "out there,"
Brokeback Mountain's characters seem to shun the wider world as "out there."
No one ever refers to the large events of the day, or to places outside his
or her immediate ken. Between 1963 and somewhere in the early 1980s, the
only evidence of a realm beyond the rodeo circuit and the ranch is the
cathode eye in the living room, the slowly mutating look of motor vehicles
and supermarket wares, and an occasional reference to the state of the
economy.

In effect, two decades of history produce no important effects in the
communities and individuals under scrutiny. Attitudes and opinions remain
obstinately immobile, without any help from televangelists or Phyllis
Schlafly. Even TV, which replaced verbalization in so many American homes
during the period spanned, can only emit meaningless images to people who
have nothing to say to each other in the first place.

This is depressingly credible. Tight-knit communities, like tight-knit
families, manage to stay tight by deflecting any strong sense of connection
with larger social configurations?"America," to this mindset, is, or ought
to be, a country whose norms are indistinguishable from their own, ergo not
such a big place after all.

The insular quality of American life reinforces a stubborn na?vet? about
sexual matters that's been part of our national character from the outset.
The hermetic communities pictured in Brokeback Mountain illustrate
sociologist Kai T. Erikson's findings in Wayward Puritans (1966)?that
American communities have always defined themselves in terms of who doesn't
belong in them. The deviant, whether religious, political, or sexual, has
always needed to be identified from among the existing population, then
exterminated or expelled. The expunged have tended to found their own little
territories, which in turn establish their identities by driving out the
unorthodox?who have to be invented if they don't already exist. (Slaves, of
course, were imported, and assigned a negative status as legitimate
inhabitants.) From the days of the Massachusetts Bay Colony to the present,
American exceptionalism begins on the microcosmic level. In this respect,
Brokeback Mountain is a pungent slice of an essentially unchanging reality.

What seems less real, despite the months that separate each of Jack and
Ennis's reunions, is the unfailing high voltage of their sexual connection.
It's not implausible for two people who love each other to continue for 20
or even 60 years to love each other. But it's rare for people to stay
sexually interested in someone they love for much longer than two years. If
things were otherwise, the world's oldest profession would probably be arms
dealing.

On this point, denial mechanisms become mobilized in defense of
institutionalized couplehood, not only by liturgical types but their
surrogates in Congress, manifested in submental decrees like the Defense of
Marriage Act. One wonders if marriage needs defending, or ought to be more
lucidly understood as a property arrangement, which any two individuals
should be able to enter as a legally binding thing.

The relatively recent repackaging of homosexuality as an arrangement of
committed couples takes the arrangements of heterosexuals for granted as an
ideal. "We love just like you, and have families just like you," the
argument runs. Yes and no. Not everyone wants to be in a family, or a
"relationship," or any kind of marriage, and not everyone wants to love
whomever he or she happens to be having sex with. It's often easier to do
things you enjoy with somebody you merely like, or don't know.

As the brilliant author of Our Lady of the Assassins, Fernando Vallejo, says
in Luis Ospina's documentary The Supreme Uneasiness, "Sex is innocent, no
matter who or what it's with. Reproduction is another matter. In animals
it's blind. For the majority of mankind, even now, it is still blind. People
reproduce blindly because they relate the two things." Even Jack and Ennis,
who know they don't want any such thing, blindly father children as if it
were an uncontrollable biological imperative. It isn't. In fact, you could
well argue that homosexuality ought to be encouraged over procreative sex.
The world has too many babies being born for no good reason. (And Vallejo is
perfectly correct in saying that it's stupid to defend the huge families
engendered by parents too poor to take care of themselves, let alone their
offspring. If they don't know any better, teach them.)

"Love," an opaque if many splendored quantity, isn't much of an antidote to
the kind of ignorant attitudes movies like Brokeback Mountain seem
determined to change. Some people are just shits, as the wise old drag queen
told William Burroughs. The more pointlessly fecund our species, the more
shits we are likely to have.

Propaganda on behalf of gay couplehood, even intelligent and well-made
propaganda, invariably addresses the social question with a defense of
"love." "Everybody has a right to love," "if you have love, you should hold
on to it," and "a pure and beautiful love story" are a few quotes plucked at
random from Brokeback Mountain's press kit.

Yet love, in this context, is little more than a euphemism for sex?Ennis and
Jack never do shack up in the little ranch Jack dreams about them playing
house in, hence never experience the downside of cohabitation; this seems
like too much love for too little content. And there's too little sex to
make a good argument for needing it eternally from the same person, given
that there's one fairly explicit rear entry and otherwise as much steam as
Peter Finch's smooch with Murray Head in Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971).

As for the idea of Brokeback Mountain as a reinvention of the western genre,
Andy Warhol went much, much further with Lonesome Cowboys back in 1968.
Heath Ledger, who plays Ennis, gives the most revealing read on Brokeback
Mountain: "I find there's not a lot of mystery left in stories between guys
and girls. It's all been done or seen before." The truth is, there's not
much mystery left in stories of this kind anyway, no matter who's riding
high in the saddle.



More by Gary Indiana
Northern Exposures:
Clinton Does the Democratic Primaries

Susan Sontag (1933-2004)
Remembering the voice of moral responsibility?and unembarrassed hedonism

Kiss Your Rights Goodbye
>From John Ashcroft's lips to God's ear

Wonder When You'll Miss Me
Defending Bill Clinton's My Life

Disorganized Conspiracy
When you've got money and power, who needs meetings in secret boardrooms?

    
.. 


From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Fri Dec  2 09:23:11 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (Mike Blaxill)
Date: Fri Dec  2 09:33:15 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Krugman
Message-ID: <20051202172311.96457.qmail@web53004.mail.yahoo.com>

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/120205Z.shtml

Bullet Points over Baghdad
????By Paul Krugman
????The New York Times

????Friday 02 December 2005

????The National Security Council document
released this week under the grandiose title
"National Strategy for Victory in Iraq" is
neither an analytical report nor a policy
statement. It's simply the same old talking
points - "victory in Iraq is a vital U.S.
interest"; "failure is not an option" -
repackaged in the style of a slide presentation
for a business meeting.

????It's an embarrassing piece of work. Yet it's
also an important test for the news media. The
Bush administration has lost none of its
confidence that it can get away with fuzzy math
and fuzzy facts - that it won't be called to
account for obvious efforts to mislead the
public. It's up to journalists to prove that
confidence wrong.

????Here's an example of how the White House
attempts to mislead: the new document assures us
that Iraq's economy is doing really well. "Oil
production increased from an average of 1.58
million barrels per day in 2003, to an average of
2.25 million barrels per day in 2004." The
document goes on to concede a "slight decrease"
in production since then.

????We're not expected to realize that the daily
average for 2003 includes the months just before,
during and just after the invasion of Iraq, when
its oil industry was basically shut down. As a
result, we're not supposed to understand that the
real story of Iraq's oil industry is one of
unexpected failure: instead of achieving the
surge predicted by some of the war's advocates,
Iraqi production has rarely matched its prewar
level, and has been on a downward trend for the
past year.

????What about the security situation? During
much of 2004, the document tells us: "Fallujah,
Najaf, and Samara were under enemy control.
Today, these cities are under Iraqi government
control."

????Najaf was never controlled by the "enemy," if
that means the people we're currently fighting.
It was briefly controlled by Moktada al-Sadr's
Mahdi Army. The United States once vowed to
destroy that militia, but these days it's as
strong as ever. And according to The New York
Times, Mr. Sadr has now become a "kingmaker in
Iraqi politics." So what sort of victory did we
win, exactly, in Najaf?

????Moreover, in what sense is Najaf now under
government control? According to The Christian
Science Monitor, "Sadr supporters and many Najaf
residents say an armed Badr Brigade" - the
militia of a Shiite group that opposes Mr. Sadr
and his supporters - "still exists as the Najaf
police force."

????Meanwhile, this is the third time that
coalition forces have driven the insurgents out
of Samara. On the two previous occasions, the
insurgents came back after the Americans left.
And there, too, it's stretching things to say
that the city is under Iraqi government control:
according to The Associated Press, only 100 of
the city's 700 policemen show up for work on most
days.

????There's a lot more like that in the document.
Refuting some of the upbeat assertions about Iraq
requires specialized knowledge, but many of them
can be quickly debunked by anyone with an
Internet connection.

????The point isn't just that the administration
is trying, yet again, to deceive the public. It's
the fact that this attempt at deception shows
such contempt - contempt for the public, and
especially contempt for the news media. And why
not? The truth is that the level of
misrepresentation in this new document is no
worse than that in a typical speech by President
Bush or Vice President Dick Cheney. Yet for much
of the past five years, many major news
organizations failed to provide the public with
effective fact-checking.

????So Mr. Bush's new public relations offensive
on Iraq is a test. Are the news media still too
cowed, too addicted to articles that contain
little more than dueling quotes to tell the
public when the administration is saying things
that aren't true? Or has the worm finally turned?

????There have been encouraging signs, notably a
thorough front-page fact-checking article - which
even included charts showing the stagnation of
oil production and electricity generation! - in
USA Today. But the next few days will tell. 
From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Fri Dec  2 09:24:07 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (Mike Blaxill)
Date: Fri Dec  2 09:34:14 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Bob Herbert
Message-ID: <20051202172407.16461.qmail@web53015.mail.yahoo.com>

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/120105K.shtml

Bush Hits Rewind
????By Bob Herbert
????The New York Times

????Thursday 01 December 2005

????It's weird. It's like watching a computerized
model of a president. Somebody programs George W.
Bush, carefully embedding the information to be
dispensed over the next several hours, and then
he goes out and addresses the nation - as a
computerized bundle of administration talking
points.

????"We will never back down," said Mr. Bush in
his speech at the U.S. Naval Academy yesterday.
"We will never give in. And we will never accept
anything less than complete victory."

????I don't think there were many people who
believed him. Members of Mr. Bush's own party are
nervously eyeing next year's Congressional
elections. They would abandon Iraq in a heartbeat
if it meant the difference between getting
re-elected or having to hunt for a real job.

????This war (which has already cost the lives of
more than 2,100 Americans and tens of thousands
of Iraqis) was cynically launched (it was never
about Sept. 11) and incompetently fought (we have
never sent enough troops or sufficient
equipment), and will be brought to a close by
people obsessed not with the security of the
United States and the welfare of the troops, but
with the political calendar.

????"I will settle for nothing less than complete
victory," said Mr. Bush. He then dutifully
defined victory as follows:

????"Victory will come when the terrorists and
Saddamists can no longer threaten Iraq's
democracy, when the Iraqi security forces can
provide for the safety of their own citizens, and
when Iraq is not a safe haven for terrorists to
plot new attacks on our nation."

????Those were some of yesterday's talking
points. Here's today's reality: the
$6-billion-a-month U.S. military mission in Iraq
is unsustainable, as is the political support for
the war. There is now a virtual consensus that a
significant American troop withdrawal will get
under way in 2006.

????Meanwhile, the Iraqi security forces are ill
equipped, understaffed and widely infiltrated by
private militia members and insurgents. In many
ways, it's an amateurish operation.

????As Senator Jack Reed, a Rhode Island Democrat
who served in the 82nd Airborne, told reporters
this week:

????"Without an effective ministry that can keep
track of soldiers and police, pay those soldiers
and police, apply those soldiers and police and
essentially provide the foundation, then you're
going to have some tactically trained units, but
they're not going to be a coherent or effective
force."

????Despite the rosy scenarios offered by
President Bush, American-style democracy is
nowhere in sight in Iraq. Among other things, the
evidence of horrific human rights abuses by Iraqi
forces allied with us - including kidnappings,
torture and murders - is increasing.

????In short, the picture in Iraq is not a pretty
one, and there is no indication that substantial
improvements are coming soon.

????If the president gets any of this, you
couldn't tell it by his appearance yesterday. He
stuck to his talking points. "To all who wear the
uniform," he said, "I make you this pledge:
America will not run in the face of car bombers
and assassins so long as I am your commander in
chief."

????We may not cut and run in Iraq, but with the
G.O.P. sweating out next year's elections, the
plans are already under way for American forces
by the tens of thousands to cut and speed-walk
toward the exits. Mr. Bush could have been honest
about this yesterday, but he chose not to be.

????If the administration does not address this
inevitable pullout, or pullback, seriously, it
will be conducted as incompetently as the
post-invasion operation.

????The inevitable drawdown of U.S. forces is
hardly a secret. In addition to the political
pressures coming from the G.O.P., there's the
fact that we don't have enough people in the
military - and can't entice enough people into
the military - to back up the president's blithe
promises.

????Senator Joseph Biden, a Delaware Democrat,
said in an op-ed article in The Washington Post
that it was likely that 50,000 troops would be
redeployed out of Iraq by the end of next year
and "a significant number" of the remainder in
2007.

????A president who's little more than a bundle
of talking points cannot possibly maintain the
long-term trust and confidence of the public.
There's a disturbing remoteness to President Bush
that seems especially odd in a politician who was
selected by his party because of his supposed
ability to project warmth and the kind of
fundamental authenticity that his Democratic
opponents lacked.

From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Fri Dec  2 09:25:34 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (Mike Blaxill)
Date: Fri Dec  2 09:35:39 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Ray McGovern
Message-ID: <20051202172534.93825.qmail@web53011.mail.yahoo.com>

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/120105I.shtml

Bush Speech Offers "Clear Strategy"- For Victory
or Disaster?
????By Ray McGovern
????t r u t h o u t | Perspective

????Thursday 01 December 2005

????He says "victory." But the bromide-heavy
speech that President George W. Bush gave
yesterday at the Naval Academy presents a clear
strategy for quagmire and eventual disaster.
Despite the gathering storm of opposition to his
approach to the war in Iraq, the speech was
bereft of new ideas, calling to mind the words of
Emerson: "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin
of little minds."

????The problem is that this hobgoblin has
consequences. Bush's renewed warning of a future
"Islamic empire from Indonesia to Spain" at first
seemed to me as outlandish as President Ronald
Reagan's warning that the Russians planned to
transit Nicaragua to invade Texas. On second
thought, Bush's concern may become
self-fulfilling prophecy, since the course he is
on could hardly be better designed to usher in an
eventual Islamic, rather than American, "empire."

????Iraqi Security Forces: A Pathetic Pillar

????The president indicated that in the days
ahead he would be addressing various pillars of
his policy in Iraq. Yesterday's speech was
devoted largely to the training of Iraqi army and
security forces, and he protested too much in his
efforts to accentuate the positive. His tortured
attempt to explain why, after so many months of
US training, only one Iraqi army battalion can
fight independently was no more convincing that
earlier attempts by Defense Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld and his star-bedecked generals.
Statistics just confuse the issue, we have been
told; progress is being made. Trust us.

????All this is reminiscent of the rhetoric at a
similar juncture at the beginning - yes, the
beginning - of US involvement in the Vietnam War.
The Lyndon Johnson tapes show how in February
1964 President Johnson found fault with a draft
of a major policy speech by then-Defense
Secretary Robert McNamara:

????LBJ: "I wonder if you shouldn't find two
minutes to devote to Vietnam."

????McN: "The problem is what to say about it."

????LBJ: "I would say that we have a commitment
to Vietnamese freedom ... Our purpose is to train
[the South Vietnamese] people, and our training's
going good."

????The training was not going good then, and
it's not going good now. The Johnson
administration's self-deception helped usher in a
decade of war resulting in 2-3 million Vietnamese
and 58,000 American servicemen killed. The
parallel is eerie. Just a few months ago Rumsfeld
was talking about the need for US forces to
remain in Iraq for perhaps as long as 12 years.

????Let "Freedom" Ring

????As for LBJ's commitment to "freedom" for a
foreign client, Bush's speechwriters would not be
outdone. In his speech the president used
"freedom" or "free" no fewer than 36 times. The
nine-paragraph coda, apparently orchestrated by
Bush speechwriter and ambassador Karen Hughes,
Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy, was
a veritable free-for-all - with 19 "frees" or
"freedoms."

????...and "Real Progress" in Preparing Iraqi
Forces

????I found it embarrassing to listen to
President Bush stretch for evidence of "real
progress" in readying Iraqi army and security
forces to "stand up [so that we] can stand down."
Did you know that, because of our help, the
Iraqis now have their own supply depot north of
Baghdad; simulation models for roadblocks; a bomb
disposal school; a training program for squad
leaders? Bush even quoted a US soldier saying,
"We have turned the corner." For veteran
observers of the Vietnam, this brings on a very
troubling flashback.

????How Many "Insurgents?"

????Missing from the president's words was any
information on how many "insurgents" there are.
No surprise here. Rumsfeld, whose fingerprints
are all over the speech, is apparently still
seeking "situational awareness," the lack of
which he has famously bemoaned time and again.

????Those of us with experience on Vietnam
remember only too well that the Pentagon kept the
count of Vietnamese Communist forces at an
artificially low level, lest its claims of "real
progress" be given the lie. It is hard to know
which is worse - artificially low numbers, or
none at all. It is, in fact, quite telling that
Rumsfeld and the president prefer to leave enemy
strength in the Rumsfeldian category of "known
unknowns." And it is small solace that this
category is one step higher than the "unknown
unknowns" in his lexicon.

????Still, does it not seem odd that no figures
are ever offered on the "insurgents" that are
causing such havoc in Iraq; or on whether we are
"killing or capturing more terrorists each day
than are being recruited against us" - the
question Rumsfeld posed to Pentagon brass more
than a year ago?

????A pity that those running the war in Iraq
found ways to sit out Vietnam. For there, too,
was a guerrilla war in which it was very
difficult to estimate the number of "insurgents,"
without including thousands and thousands of the
populace supporting the resistance, with many of
them acting as night-time guerrillas. The lesson
is that an army trained and supplied by foreign
occupiers can almost always eventually be
outmatched and out-waited in a guerrilla war, no
matter how many billions are pumped into things
like simulation models for roadblocks.

????Don't take my word for it. Professor Martin
van Creveld of the Hebrew University in
Jerusalem, the only non-American military
historian on the US Army's list of required
reading for officers, recently criticized
President Bush for "launching the most foolish
war since Emperor Augustus in 9 BC sent his
legions in to Germany and lost them."

????Staying the Course

????The president's words struck an overall
defensive tone, especially when he took on
critics of his policy of "staying the course."
Bush rang a number of changes on the theme of how
"flexible and dynamic" our military has become in
"adapting and adjusting" to the situation in
Iraq. As an example, he noted: "We have changed
the way we train Iraqi troops."

????There was no sign in the president's speech
that this flexibility includes openness to the
step that is the sine qua non for the US to climb
out of the Iraqi quagmire. As author Robert
Dreyfuss has emphasized, that step is to sit down
face-to-face with representatives of the Baath
party - not the Quisling Sunnis with whom US
officials prefer to deal. Why? Because the
Baathists are the backbone of the
resistance/insurgency.

????The good news is that a peace process has
begun, despite Washington's decision to boycott
it because of its allergic reaction to dealing
with the real resistance/insurgents. At a
Reconciliation Conference ten days ago in Cairo,
Shia, Sunni, and Kurdish representatives sat down
together under the auspices of the Arab League
and reached a surprising degree of consensus,
including agreement on a demand for a timetable
for withdrawal of foreign forces from Iraq. A
second, much larger session will convene in
February but, if the president's speech is any
indication, Washington will continue to frown on
such talks, and may continue to shun them. This,
of course, raises the question as to whether the
Bush administration really desires a political
solution at this point.

????The failure to take advantage of this
potentially fertile path out of Iraq opened up in
Cairo, together with the "Same Old, Same Old"
character of yesterday's speech, strongly suggest
that the "Cheney-Rumsfeld cabal" is still telling
the president what to say and do.

????--------

????Ray McGovern works for Tell the Word, the
publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the
Saviour in Washington, DC. He was a CIA analyst
from the administration of John Kennedy to that
of George H.W. Bush, and is co-founder of Veteran
Intelligence Professionals for Sanity.


From hotprojects at nyc.rr.com  Fri Dec  2 14:56:02 2005
From: hotprojects at nyc.rr.com (richard haase)
Date: Fri Dec  2 15:06:32 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] i just had an odd thought
Message-ID: <000101c5f793$a16f8260$f1476c42@hotprojects>

If Michael were a right winger which hes not
with his pedigree
he really could have been president
strange thought michael

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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Fri Dec  2 15:19:35 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (Ian)
Date: Fri Dec  2 15:29:34 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] i just had an odd thought
References: <000101c5f793$a16f8260$f1476c42@hotprojects>
Message-ID: <014801c5f796$dd095aa0$99ca6c42@iancn2ccrvzt0j>

Actually, he probably would have been emperor...LOL
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: richard haase 
  To: mb-hair@islandlists.com ; mb-civic@islandemail.com 
  Sent: Friday, December 02, 2005 5:56 PM
  Subject: [Mb-civic] i just had an odd thought


  If Michael were a right winger which hes not
  with his pedigree
  he really could have been president
  strange thought michael




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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Fri Dec  2 15:27:39 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Fri Dec  2 15:37:50 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Lobbyist's Role in Hiring Aides Is
	Investigated
Message-ID: <20051202232739.1E8C29FC77@lax-gw05.mroute.net>

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WASHINGTON | December 2, 2005
Lobbyist's Role in Hiring Aides Is Investigated
By ANNE E. KORNBLUT
Prosecutors are examining whether Jack Abramoff brokered lucrative jobs for Congressional aides at lobbying firms.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/02/politics/02abramoff.html?emc=eta1



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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Fri Dec  2 15:28:06 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Fri Dec  2 15:38:16 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Senate Panel Will Investigate Paid Articles
	in Iraq
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INTERNATIONAL / MIDDLE EAST | December 2, 2005
Senate Panel Will Investigate Paid Articles in Iraq
By DAVID STOUT
Senator John W. Warner said today that he was "gravely concerned" about a secret military campaign to plant tailored "news" in Iraqi papers.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/02/international/middleeast/02cnd-propaganda.html?emc=eta1



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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Fri Dec  2 15:28:29 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Fri Dec  2 15:38:30 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Pentagon Describes Iraq Propaganda Plan
Message-ID: <20051202232829.DDD9083D2A@lax-gw03.mroute.net>

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NATIONAL | December 2, 2005
Pentagon Describes Iraq Propaganda Plan
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Military officials in Baghdad for the first time Friday described a Pentagon program that pays to plant stories in the Iraqi media, an effort the top U.S. military commander said was part of an effort to ''get the truth out'' there.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Iraq-News-Stories.html?emc=eta1



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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Fri Dec  2 15:29:00 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Fri Dec  2 15:39:03 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Rights Group Lists 26 It Says U.S. Is
	Holding in Secret Abroad
Message-ID: <20051202232900.7A67183DB5@lax-gw03.mroute.net>

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INTERNATIONAL / EUROPE | December 2, 2005
Rights Group Lists 26 It Says U.S. Is Holding in Secret Abroad
By IAN FISHER
The list was released amid heightened debate over possible torture of U.S.-held detainees overseas and rising anger in Europe.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/02/international/europe/02detainees.html?emc=eta1



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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Fri Dec  2 15:29:32 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Fri Dec  2 15:39:43 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: In C.I.A. Leak, More Talks With Journalists
Message-ID: <20051202232932.2E78F9FC17@lax-gw05.mroute.net>

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WASHINGTON | December 2, 2005
In C.I.A. Leak, More Talks With Journalists
By RICHARD W. STEVENSON and DOUGLAS JEHL
A conversation between Karl Rove's lawyer and a journalist for Time magazine led Mr. Rove to change his testimony in the C.I.A. leak case.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/02/politics/02leak.html?emc=eta1



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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Fri Dec  2 15:29:50 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Fri Dec  2 15:40:04 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Openly Gay Student's Lawsuit Over Privacy
	Will Proceed
Message-ID: <20051202232950.437EE13B7CC@lax-gw04.mroute.net>

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EDUCATION | December 2, 2005
Openly Gay Student's Lawsuit Over Privacy Will Proceed
By TAMAR LEWIN
The student brought the lawsuit against her California high school after a principal called her mother about her sexual orientation.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/02/education/02schools.html?emc=eta1



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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Fri Dec  2 15:30:09 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Fri Dec  2 15:40:10 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: After Memo,
	Democrats Are Taking Firmer Stance Against Alito Nomination
Message-ID: <20051202233009.EB561249CD1@lax-gw08.mroute.net>

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WASHINGTON / WASHINGTON SPECIAL | December 2, 2005
After Memo, Democrats Are Taking Firmer Stance Against Alito Nomination
By CARL HULSE and DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
For moderates, new disclosures about Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr.'s positions on abortion are complicating the Supreme Court nomination process.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/02/politics/politicsspecial1/02confirm.html?emc=eta1



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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Fri Dec  2 15:30:57 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Fri Dec  2 15:41:08 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Vietnam War Intelligence 'Deliberately
	Skewed, ' Secret Study Says
Message-ID: <20051202233057.A681A9FC67@lax-gw05.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: ialterman@nyc.rr.com.

No surprise here...


WASHINGTON | December 2, 2005
Vietnam War Intelligence 'Deliberately Skewed,' Secret Study Says
By SCOTT SHANE
The National Security Agency has released hundreds of pages of long-secret documents on the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/02/politics/02tonkin.html?emc=eta1



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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Fri Dec  2 15:31:32 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Fri Dec  2 15:41:38 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Senate Summons Pentagon to Explain Effort
	to Plant News Stories in Iraqi Media
Message-ID: <20051202233132.4A307237037@lax-gw01.mroute.net>

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WASHINGTON | December 2, 2005
Senate Summons Pentagon to Explain Effort to Plant News Stories in Iraqi Media
By ERIC SCHMITT and DAVID S. CLOUD
The White House spokesman also expressed deep concern over a reported secret campaign to plant paid propaganda.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/02/politics/02propaganda.html?emc=eta1



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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Fri Dec  2 15:31:37 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Fri Dec  2 15:41:42 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Blocking Reform at the U.N.
Message-ID: <20051202233137.ADC3424AE4B@lax-gw02.mroute.net>

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OPINION TIMESSELECT | December 2, 2005
Editorial: Blocking Reform at the U.N.

U.S. Ambassador John Bolton's latest threat, to block the next U.N. budget, is likely to be counterproductive. 
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/02/opinion/02fri1.html?emc=eta1




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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Fri Dec  2 15:32:15 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Fri Dec  2 15:42:15 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Was Bush Persuasive About Iraq? (7 Letters)
Message-ID: <20051202233215.3342624AE50@lax-gw02.mroute.net>

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What we're saying...


OPINION TIMESSELECT | December 2, 2005
Was Bush Persuasive About Iraq? (7 Letters)

To the Editor:.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/02/opinion/l02iraq.html?emc=eta1




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From michael at intrafi.com  Fri Dec  2 15:53:43 2005
From: michael at intrafi.com (michael butler)
Date: Fri Dec  2 16:01:25 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] =?iso-8859-1?q?TruthDig=3A_Inventing_Sin=3A_Religion?=
	=?iso-8859-1?q?=A0and_Homosexuality?=
Message-ID: <4390de87f0971@intrafi.com>

Hi,

 I read this on Truthdig and thought you would find it interesting.

 =-=-=-=-=-=-=
Inventing Sin: Religion and Homosexuality

No matter their own scandals, religious institutions through history have a 
consistent scapegoat: homosexuals.  Larry Gross digs into why churches 
condemn gays to damnation.  

http://www.truthdig.com/dig/item/religion_homosexuality/

 Copyright © 2005 Truthdig, L.L.C. All rights reserved.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=
This is a one-time mailing from
TruthDig.com
on behalf of the sender.
Please report any misuse to editor-at-truthdig.com

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From geomilman at milman.com  Fri Dec  2 16:58:47 2005
From: geomilman at milman.com (George R. Milman)
Date: Fri Dec  2 17:09:00 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] 9/11 Panel Gives Gov't Poor Marks on Reform
Message-ID: <004401c5f7a4$b7e9d7a0$8c00a8c0@george>

More than four years after the Sept. 11 attacks, U.S. intelligence agencies
still are failing to share information while Congress battles over security
funding, a panel that investigated the terrorist hijackings will conclude in
a new report.

 

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/sept11_commission;_ylt=AiZLzzAu.t4RxiAbFypxqcSs0N
UE;_ylu=X3oDMTA2Z2szazkxBHNlYwN0bQ--

 

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From ean at sbcglobal.net  Thu Dec  1 18:12:40 2005
From: ean at sbcglobal.net (ean@sbcglobal.net)
Date: Fri Dec  2 19:36:23 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] As bas as under Saddam..and..10 common defenses of US
	presence in Iraq--and rebuttals
Message-ID: <E1EiO2N-00061d-R5@smtpauth01.mail.atl.earthlink.net>

Abuse worse than under Saddam, says Iraqi 
leader 

? Allawi in damning indictment of new regime 
? Bush prepares way for US troop pull-out 

Peter Beaumont, foreign affairs editor
Sunday November 27, 2005
The Observer 

Human rights abuses in Iraq are now as bad as they were under 
Saddam Hussein and are even in danger of eclipsing his record, 
according to the country's first Prime Minister after the fall of Saddam's 
regime. 

'People are doing the same as [in] Saddam's time and worse,' Ayad 
Allawi told The Observer. 'It is an appropriate comparison. People are 
remembering the days of Saddam. These were the precise reasons 
that we fought Saddam and now we are seeing the same things.'

In a damning and wide-ranging indictment of Iraq's escalating human 
rights catastrophe, Allawi accused fellow Shias in the government of 
being responsible for death squads and secret torture centres. The 
brutality of elements in the new security forces rivals that of Saddam's 
secret police, he said.

Allawi, who was a strong ally of the US-led coalition forces and was 
prime minister until this April, made his remarks as further hints 
emerged yesterday that President George Bush is planning to 
withdraw up to 40,000 US troops from the country next year, when 
Iraqi forces will be capable of taking over.

Allawi's bleak assessment is likely to undermine any attempt to 
suggest that conditions in Iraq are markedly improving.

'We are hearing about secret police, secret bunkers where people are 
being interrogated,' he added. 'A lot of Iraqis are being tortured or killed 
in the course of interrogations. We are even witnessing Sharia courts 
based on Islamic law that are trying people and executing them.'

He said that immediate action was needed to dismantle militias that 
continue to operate with impunity. If nothing is done, 'the disease 
infecting [the Ministry of the Interior] will become contagious and 
spread to all ministries and structures of Iraq's government', he said.

In a chilling warning to the West over the danger of leaving behind a 
disintegrating Iraq, Allawi added: 'Iraq is the centrepiece of this region. 
If things go wrong, neither Europe nor the US will be safe.'

His uncompromising comments came on the eve of Saddam's latest 
court appearance on charges of crimes against humanity. They seem 
certain to fuel the growing sense of crisis over Iraq, both in the country 
itself and in the US, where political support for the occupation 
continues to plummet.

Allawi was selected to serve as prime minister of the first interim 
government, before last January's first national elections. Admired in 
both Downing Street and the White House as a non-sectarian politician 
committed to strong centralised government representing all Iraqis, 

Allawi's supporters struggled in last January's elections, where they 
were eclipsed by Shia religious parties, some of which have been 
implicated in the violence.

Recently, however, his reputation has enjoyed a resurgence as he has 
tried to build alliances with Sunni political groups ahead of next 
month's national elections.

His comments come as a blow to those hoping that Iraq was moving 
towards normalisation under the new government. In a speech on 
Wednesday, Bush is expected to hail the improved readiness of Iraqi 
troops, which he has identified as the key condition for withdrawing US 
forces.

But the proximity of the latest round of elections appears to have only 
intensified political murders and intimidations, including members of 
Allawi's own list, who have been killed and attacked by political rivals.
Despite denials of wrongdoing by the Ministry of the Interior, which has 
been implicated in much of the abuse, a series of damaging 
disclosures, including the discovery of a secret detention centre run by 
the ministry, has heaped embarrassment on the Iraqi government and 
its foreign supporters.

The intervention by one of Iraq's most prominent political figures 
promises to turn human rights abuses into a key election issue.
Allawi's scathing assessment of the collapse of human rights in Iraq 
under the country's first democratically elected government came amid 
an angry denunciation of the involvement of the Iraq government's 
institutions in widespread disappearances, torture and assassinations.
He added that he now had so little faith in the rule of law that he had 
instructed his own bodyguards to fire on any police car that attempted 
to approach his headquarters without prior notice, following the 
implication of police units in many of the abuses.

Allawi saved his strongest condemnation for the Ministry of the Interior, 
whose personnel have been accused of being behind much of the 
abuse: 'The Ministry of the Interior is at the heart of the matter. I am 
not blaming the minister [Bayan Jabr] himself, but the rank and file are 
behind the secret dungeons and some of the executions that are 
taking place.'

Responding to the former prime minister's comments, Sir Menzies 
Campbell, the Lib Dem foreign affairs spokesman, said: 'It is 
inconceivable in the higher reaches of the command of the 
multinational forces that there was not an awareness of what is being 
done by some Iraqis to their own countrymen.

'The assertions by Mr Allawi simply underline the catastrophic failure to 
have a proper strategy in place for the post-war period in Iraq.'




Michael Schwartz wrote: 
HERE IS A NOTE FROM A READER OF MY RECENT "IMMEDIATE WITHDRAWAL" 
ARTICLE, WITH A LIST OF TEN THINGS I LEFT OUT OF MY COMMENTARY.  THE 
TEN QUESTIONS ARE COMMONLY EXPRESSED BY PEOPLE AND MEDIA 
REPORTS, SO I TOOK THE TIME TO OFFER MY RESPONSES TO EACH OF THE 
10 CRITICISMS 

I read your article on withdrawal of American troops and questioned 
the lack of discussion of the following.
 
1.  Nothing was mentioned about improvements in Iraq (elections, 
water and energy, schools)   No Saddam to fear!  Water, energy, 
and schools are worse off than before the US attacked.  Ditto 
hospitals, highways, and oil production.  Elections are a positive, but 
have not produced the ability of the people to make real choices about 
their future:  one critical example, the political coalition that is now in 
power ran on a platform promising their voters that they would set and 
enforce a timetable for US withdrawal.  As soon as they took power, 
they reneged on this promise (apparently under pressure from the US).  
They have also failed to fulfill any other campaign promises about 
restoring services, etc, and the Shia citizens are becoming more and 
more disillusioned with the current government.  Shia now are about 
70% in favor of US withdrawal.  Why is our government unwilling to 
fulfill the wishes of the majority of Iraq  
 
2.  Nothing was mentioned about Iraqis that want the U.S. to 
remain (especially the Kurds and majority of Iraqi women) It is true 
that the Kurds favor the US remaining (they constitute about 20% of 
the population).  However, they do not want any US troops in their 
territory (and there are none).  They have their own militias there.  So 
they have what the other sections of the country want.  They desire a 
US occupation for someone else, not themselves.   I know of no study 
that indicates that women favor the U.S. presence;  I would be most 
interested to be referred to such a study.  (In fact, my understanding is 
that women who are upset over the erosion of their rights since the fall 
of Saddam largely blame the U.S. for installing the current government 
and allowing it to abridge their rights.)
 
3.  Nothing was mentioned about the benefits of the U.S. military 
gaining valuable experience and knowledge daily Certainly the US 
gains experience, but at the expense of many deaths (2,000) and 
injuries (15,000)  (And, beyond this, the New York Times just had a 
front page article (Sat 11/26) saying that a recent army study shows 
that 17% of all personnel sent to Iraq have "serious symptoms of 
depression, anxiety or post-traumatic stress disorder."   Since about a 
million U.S. troops have now seen service in Iraq, that is 170,000 with 
severe mental problems.)   And this does not count the 25,000 to 
40,000 Iraqi civilians dying each year ?and the multitudes injured.  
Certainly there is a better way to gain experience than this.   Moreover, 
this experience is so demoralizing to the military that many of the best 
soldiers are leaving at the end of their tours, instead of staying on in 
active or reserve status.  This is undermining the viability of the 
military, long term. (See NY Times 11/18/05)
 
4.  Nothing was mentioned about the future benefits of a strong 
democracy in the Middle East We can all agree that a strong 
democracy in the Middle East would have huge benefits for Iraq and 
for its neighbors, as well as for the rest of the world.  If I thought that 
our actions there were actually helping to bring this about, I might think 
that these benefits outweighed the many problems that we are 
creating.  However, even the top Americans on the ground in Iraq are 
now telling the president that any thought of anything resembling 
democracy there is visionary at best.  I have just written an article in 
which I describe the behavior of the Iraqi military, under the direct 
command of our army.  It leveled a village, killing many innocent 
civilians, as a way of punishing it for allowing insurgents to hide there.  
Actually, the village had harbored Iraqi army members who had just 
been defeated by the insurgents.  But, either way, we are training an 
army that engages in state terrorism?punishing civilians for the actions 
of those who oppose it.   Even Iwad Allawi, the former prime minister 
installed by the U.S., says that  the political leadership we have 
installed in more corrupt and more vicious than Saddam (today's 
Washington Post).   There is no sign of democracy developing under 
the U.S. occupation.  

5.  Nothing was mentioned about the future benefits of oil 
reserves.  While I agree with you that this war was intended to give 
American oil companies privileged access to the Iraq oil reserves, I 
disagree that such access would have helped the American people.  
The oil companies have a long history of (pardon my language) 
screwing the American people in order to obtain huge profits?the latest 
example being their massive price increases after Katrina.   Moreover, 
such privileged access would deprive the Iraqis of their right to use the 
oil to their own benefit.  Our best bet is to buy our oil on the open 
market, put our research money into conservation and renewable fuels 
instead of military adventures, and avoid trying to get "control" of 
something that doesn't belong to us.   
 
6.  Nothing was mentioned about what fundamentalist Muslims 
would like to achieve. First, I disagree with your designation of the 
terrorists who attacked the World Trade Center as "fundamentalist 
Muslims," as though all fundamentalist Muslims participate in or 
support terrorism (that would be like characterizing those who bombed 
the Oklahoma City Federal Building as "fundamentalist Christians.").   
Second,  I disagree that I didn't mention the terrorists in Iraq.  I had a 
whole discussion about how the leadership of the Zarqawi wing of the 
resistance wanted to use terror to establish an Islamist state that would 
oppress the Shia (and probably much worse).  And I also pointed out 
that the U.S. actions are strengthening Zarqawi and weakening the 
nationalist resistance whose primary goal is to expel the U.S.  The 
longer the U.S. stays, the more the Islamic terrorists in Iraq will gain 
strength. 

7. Nothing was mentioned about the results of the U.S. 
evacuation from Southeast Asia (over a million killed within 5 
years).  I think you have your facts wrong here.  The histories I have 
read about the War in Vietnam say that the war itself killed about three 
million Vietnamese, mostly through U.S. military action.  And that the 
bloodbath that was always predicted never took place--that the deaths 
may have numbered in the thousands or even ten thousands, but that 
they were tiny compared to the daily toll taken by the war.  If I am 
wrong about this, please provide me with cites to sources that 
document the million-death figure.  (If you want cites to my sources, I 
will be happy to send them)

8.  Nothing was mentioned about the reputation of the U.S. if it 
retreats. Don't forget the quotes about Somalia from Osama Bin 
Laden. "Cut and Run".   Here we agree.  If the U.S. withdraws, this 
retreat will undermine U.S. credibility when the it. threatens to use 
military power to force another country to submit to U.S. demands.    
But I have two observations that you will probably disagree with.  First, 
this has already happened.  The most crystalline case is Iran, which 
was much more compliant to U.S. demands before the Iraq invasion 
than it is now, once it has seen how the Iraqi resistance has frustrated 
the U.S. military. (In fact, the invasion of Iraq has probably done more 
to strengthen the oppressive Iranian regime, domestically and in the 
Middle East, than any set of events in the past 25 years.  See my 
recent article on this in TomDispatch.)  So, if you are worried about 
U.S. reputation, you want the U.S. to cut its losses now, instead of 
continuing to flounder in Iraq and therefore make it clear that we are--
to use the old Vietnamese epithet--a paper tiger.   

 Second, I think it is a good thing if the world is not intimidated by U.S. 
threats of military invasion.  I do not believe that good has come from 
U.S. military adventures; quite the contrary, the Bush Administration 
(and the Clinton , Bush I, and Reagan Administrations before it) have 
used U.S. military power to impose bad policies all around the world.  
We would be much better off with the multi-polar world that many 
Americans advocate, in which no country (including the U.S.) could 
impose itself on others without at least the support of a great many 
other countries.  And we would be far better off if the U.S. stopped 
spending more on military than the rest of the world combined (!!) and 
started spending more of that money on things that would actually 
improve the welfare of our people.  We would be much better off that 
way.  

9. Nothing was mentioned about Germany, Japan, Korea, and the 
former Yugoslavia.  Should we get out of those?   Where was the 
pre war planning to get out of all those locations. Did Lincoln 
have a pre war plan to leave the South? If you are arguing that 
some wars, and some interventions and  some occupations are a good 
thing, I agree  (without evaluating the particulars of the examples you 
offer).  That does not mean that all of them are good.  The invasion, 
occupation, and destruction of Iraq is not either justified or moral.  

10 Nothing was mentioned about 9/11,  were we attacked by 
fundamentalist Muslims?  How do we change their attitudes?  
This comment is sounds like you think that changing the attitudes of  
those who are fighting the U.S. involves "whipping their ass."  You 
never change attitudes that way.  Every sociologist who studies 
terrorism agrees on this point:  it derives from the misery that so many 
people are forced to live in.  It is misguided and criminal, but it 
nevertheless derives from complaints people have about their daily 
lives, and about the impossibility of living a decent life.  The best way 
to change attitudes would be to take a fraction (a fraction!!) of the 
money we are now spending on the war and on the military and put it 
into foreign aid.  One example: a panel of expert development 
economists just delivered a report to the UN saying that for $40 billion 
we could bring the income of the poorest people of the world up to a 
level that would eradicate the famines and mass starvation that are 
currently spreading from one continent to another.  That project, if 
enacted, would do more to reduce terrorism than all the "anti-terrorist" 
activities of the U.S. government including the entire defense budget 
(about $400 Billion a year), the $200 billion for the war in Iraq, and the 
$80 or so billion for the Department of Homeland Security.   


Michael Schwartz
Director, Undergraduate College of Global Studies
Professor of Sociology
University at Stony Brook
Stony Brook NY 11794
Phone: (cell) 516 356-4078
Cell Phone: 516 356-4078
Fax 631 331-6120
 
 

-- 
You are currently on Mha Atma's Earth Action Network email list, 
option D (up to 3 emails/day).  To be removed, or to switch options 
(option A - 1x/week, option B - 3/wk, option C - up to 1x/day, option D - 
up to 3x/day) please reply and let us know!  If someone forwarded you 
this email and you want to be on our list, send an email to 
ean@sbcglobal.net and tell us which option you'd like.


"A war of aggression is the supreme international crime." -- Robert Jackson,
 former U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice and Nuremberg prosecutor

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From swiggard at comcast.net  Sat Dec  3 06:06:07 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Sat Dec  3 06:18:49 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Alito Distances Himself From 1985 Memos
Message-ID: <4391A64F.1040007@comcast.net>

Alito Distances Himself From 1985 Memos
Senator Says Nominee Drew a Line Between Expressed Views and Potential 
Rulings

By Charles Babington
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, December 3, 2005; A01

Supreme Court nominee Samuel A. Alito Jr. yesterday tried to tamp down 
criticisms of several past statements -- including his assertion that 
the Constitution does not protect the right to abortion -- by saying 
they were personal views or an advocate's work and not necessarily 
indications of how he might rule if confirmed, according to a key 
senator who quizzed him for more than an hour.

Alito's effort to distance himself from the recently disclosed 1985 
documents came as liberal groups said the writings show him to be much 
more conservative than the newly confirmed chief justice, John G. 
Roberts Jr. Alito's explanation was meant to lessen the documents' 
impact, but it may expose him to accusations of insincerity or 
irresolution, advocates said.

Left-leaning groups, and at least one prominent conservative, said it is 
ludicrous for Alito to play down the significance of memos he wrote as a 
Justice Department lawyer in the Reagan administration in which he said 
he was "particularly proud" of fighting affirmative action programs and 
was looking forward to the day the Roe v. Wade abortion ruling is 
overturned.

Alarmed that commentary on Alito, from the political left and right, was 
getting increasingly negative, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen 
Specter (R-Pa.) asked the nominee this week to answer several questions 
in writing. The White House asked Specter to meet with Alito, instead, 
and then relay his comments, which the senator did in a news conference 
at the Capitol.

At issue are two memos that Alito, 55, wrote in 1985. In the first, a 
bid for a promotion, Alito wrote that he was "particularly proud" of 
contributing to cases arguing "that racial and ethnic quotas should not 
be allowed and that the Constitution does not protect a right to an 
abortion." He was pleased, he wrote, "to help to advance legal positions 
in which I personally believe very strongly."

In the second memo, he outlined a strategy for attacking the landmark 
1973 court ruling that legalized abortion nationwide. "What can be made 
of this opportunity to advance the goals of bringing about the eventual 
overruling of Roe v. Wade and, in the meantime, of mitigating its 
effects?" he wrote, after volunteering to help in the matter.

Specter, referring to notes as he briefed reporters, said Alito 
discussed both memos "and raised a sharp distinction, as he put it, 
between his role as an advocate and his role as a judge." Especially 
concerning the second memo, Specter said, Alito "said he was writing it 
as an advocate; that his role as a judge would be different."

As for the earlier memo, the senator said, "I asked him about the line 
here, 'The Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion.' And he 
identifies that as a personal opinion . . . and he said that his 
personal opinion would not be a factor in his judicial decision."

Asked whether Alito's explanations satisfied him, Specter said, "I'm 
here to report on his answers. . . . I am not satisfied; I am not 
dissatisfied."

Specter, who supports abortion rights, said Alito appeared sympathetic 
to the argument that Roe should be treated with great respect because it 
has been the law for 32 years. "Judge Alito says that when a matter is 
embedded in the culture, it's a considerable factor in the application 
of stare decisis ," Latin for "to stand by that which is decided," 
Specter said. Asked for details, Specter said: "I'm not going to 
interpret his words. I think those words are very meaningful as to 
jurisprudence and as to weight." He added: "I did not ask him whether he 
would push to overturn Roe v. Wade. "

Several liberal groups said it was absurd for Alito, a federal appeals 
court judge, to try to distance himself from the memos because he 
clearly described his views as deeply held. Judith C. Appelbaum of the 
National Women's Law Center said Alito applied his sentiments about 
abortion rights in 1991, when he ruled in a major case -- Casey v. 
Planned Parenthood -- that a married woman must inform her husband 
before having an abortion. The Supreme Court in 1992 overturned that 
provision of a law.

Conservative lawyer Bruce Fein, who was a Justice Department official in 
the Reagan administration, said he is baffled that Alito is pulling back 
from his well-argued 1985 memos. "I think the administration is 
misreading the Senate and the public, because you end up losing more if 
your credibility is strained and people think you're playing them for 
dupes," Fein said.

But Janet M. LaRue of the conservative group Concerned Women for America 
said she is not bothered that Alito is putting space between himself and 
his 20-year-old memos. "I would have been surprised if he had said 
anything else," she said. All her group wants, she said, is a judge "to 
make an objective ruling based on the law and the facts. It's a joke for 
the left to pretend that none of their favorite judges have deeply held 
beliefs."

Several conservative groups, meanwhile, plan a major push beginning 
Monday to portray Alito's opponents as anti-God. Talking points for the 
effort, which will involve ads and grass-roots organizations, were laid 
out in a strategy memo by Grassfire.org, which opposes abortion and 
same-sex marriage. Alito's opponents are united by "an agenda to purge 
any and all references to religion from our public life," the memo says.

The coalition, which includes the Judicial Confirmation Network, plans 
to send 2.3 million e-mails on the subject and hopes to "flood Senate 
offices with letters, faxes and phone calls." It will be joined in the 
effort by Fidelis, a Roman Catholic organization that describes itself 
as "pro-life, pro-family and pro-religious liberty."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/02/AR2005120200962.html?referrer=email
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Sat Dec  3 06:08:06 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Sat Dec  3 06:20:41 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Muted Support for GOP Change Grows (DeLay's Reign May
 End) - Washington Post
Message-ID: <4391A6C6.6020704@comcast.net>

Muted Support for GOP Change Grows
Amid Scandals, Some Republicans Push to Permanently Replace DeLay as Leader

By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, December 3, 2005; A02

Widening corruption scandals in Washington are heightening Republican 
sentiments for a GOP leadership shake-up early next year that would 
permanently replace former majority leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.), according 
to House members and GOP leadership sources.

Many Republicans say they are troubled that DeLay's political 
money-laundering trial in Texas could drag on for months, leaving the 
question of leadership in limbo. And they are increasingly anxious that 
DeLay may be implicated in the bribery and corruption investigations of 
Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff and former representative Randy "Duke" 
Cunningham (R-Calif.). But with few members willing to publicly 
challenge DeLay's return, leadership aides still give the lawmaker a 
strong shot at a comeback, provided a Texas court exonerates him of 
charges that he illegally funneled corporate campaign contributions to 
state legislative candidates. Much will depend on whether DeLay can get 
the case thrown out or win acquittal by the time Congress convenes Jan. 
30 for President Bush's State of the Union address, some GOP lawmakers 
and aides say.

"No question, there's considerable discontent in the conference about 
DeLay's return, but nobody's talking on the record," said a House 
Republican political strategist who spoke on the condition of anonymity 
for fear of crossing DeLay, should he return. "If he beats this rap in 
Austin, he will be back as majority leader, because nobody's going to 
tell him no."

DeLay was forced to step down as majority leader in September 
immediately after his indictment. House Majority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) 
assumed the majority leader's post on a temporary basis. It is a measure 
of DeLay's lingering power on Capitol Hill that a dozen interviews on 
DeLay's future elicited almost no named responses -- either from DeLay 
allies or from lawmakers and congressional aides ready to see him replaced.

"There is a lot of sentiment out there about DeLay's radioactivity," 
said a leadership source close to DeLay and House Speaker J. Dennis 
Hastert (R-Ill.).

The issue of DeLay's future could come to a head as soon as Tuesday, 
when Texas District Court Judge Pat Priest said he will rule on a motion 
by DeLay's lawyers to dismiss the conspiracy and money-laundering 
charges. If Priest dismisses the case, DeLay will immediately inform 
Hastert and House Republican Conference Chairman Deborah Pryce (R-Ohio) 
that he intends to reclaim his title as majority leader, DeLay spokesman 
Kevin Madden said.

At that point, "it's our understanding he would be majority leader 
again," Madden said.

The only thing that could derail DeLay is the signatures of 50 House 
Republicans calling for a leadership election. For now, such a petition 
could attract at most 20 to 30 signatures, a close DeLay associate said.

If the charges are not dismissed, DeLay's lead lawyer, Dick DeGuerin, 
will simultaneously press to have the case moved out of Austin, a 
Democratic bastion in Texas, to a venue with a more sympathetic jury 
pool, and for a speedy trial that would begin in early January. DeGuerin 
said any trial should be over in two weeks. That would yield a verdict 
well before enough House members convene to mobilize a drive for 
leadership elections.

But he also conceded that Texas prosecutor Ronnie Earle, a Democrat, 
could drag out the court fight with lengthy pretrial and discovery 
motions. That would put DeLay's leadership future in jeopardy, as 
members return to Washington next year to find Blunt continuing to serve 
as majority leader.

DeLay's legal problems could well extend beyond the Austin case. Former 
DeLay aide Michael Scanlon pleaded guilty to bribery charges Nov. 21, 
agreeing to cooperate in the widening investigation of his business 
associate, Abramoff. Six days later, Cunningham pleaded guilty to 
pocketing $2.4 million in bribes, also promising to help prosecutors.

DeLay aides say neither investigation has directly targeted the former 
majority leader. But Abramoff's interactions with DeLay and his staff -- 
including lavish trips to the Northern Mariana Islands and the famed 
golf course of St. Andrews, Scotland -- has created considerable 
trepidation among rank-and-file lawmakers, House members and GOP aides say.

In addition, DeLay was ferried three times in 2003 and 2004 on corporate 
jets owned by the company of Brent Wilkes, a California defense 
contractor who allegedly made illicit payments to Cunningham in exchange 
for legislative favors. Neither DeLay nor the company has disclosed the 
purpose or destination of the trips, which were billed to one of DeLay's 
PACs at a commercial flight rate as permitted under election law.

"The Scanlon thing, the Cunningham thing, I think you have more people 
waiting for the other shoe to drop," said Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.).

Justice Department investigators are trying to link campaign 
contributions to official legislative actions. Nobody knows how wide a 
net the investigators will cast, a DeLay adviser conceded. Such charges 
of quid pro quo are extremely difficult to prove but very easy to level, 
in light of the large amounts of lobbyist money sloshing around Capitol 
Hill.

Even if DeLay is never implicated, his return to the majority leader's 
post would create political "havoc," said one Republican House member, 
who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The lawmaker pointed to DeLay's 
decision in October to fly to Texas ahead of his first courtroom 
appearance aboard a corporate jet owned by R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co.

"The fact that he flew down on a corporate jet for his mug shot, and not 
just any corporate jet but Big Tobacco's corporate jet, that's a double 
whammy," the lawmaker said. "A number of my colleagues say he just 
doesn't get it. He doesn't understand how this plays."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/02/AR2005120201945.html
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Sat Dec  3 06:11:00 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Sat Dec  3 06:23:31 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] EXCELLENT AND RECOMMENDED:  Finally,
 Taking On The Patriot Act - David Broder - Washington Post Op-Ed
Message-ID: <4391A774.3080100@comcast.net>

Finally, Taking On The Patriot Act

By David Broder
Sunday, December 4, 2005; B07

When Lindsey Graham and John Sununu joined the ranks of Republican 
senators, the last thing the White House expected was that they would 
start challenging administration policies on national security.

Graham, 50, came to the Senate in 2002 after a career as an Air Force 
officer and lawyer and as a member, for eight years, of the House, where 
his most notable service was on the team pressing impeachment charges 
against Bill Clinton.

Sununu, who is 41, also won his first term in 2002, after six years in 
the House. An engineer by training, he learned politics from his father 
and namesake, who served as governor of New Hampshire and later as chief 
of staff to the first President Bush.

Both of them had shown early streaks of independence. Graham led an 
abortive conservative rebellion against House Speaker Newt Gingrich and 
supported John McCain over George Bush in the 2000 South Carolina 
primary. Sununu challenged and defeated incumbent Republican Sen. Bob 
Smith in a hard-fought primary before beating Democratic Gov. Jeanne 
Shaheen in the general election.

Graham and Sununu have been supportive of most Bush policies, but their 
current objections illustrate the way in which some of the president's 
anti-terrorism methods have caused grave concerns among libertarian 
conservatives.

Sununu has taken the lead in a group of senators pressing for changes in 
the Patriot Act, the legislation expanding FBI powers that the 
administration rushed through Congress after the attacks of Sept. 11, 
2001. Many of the changes they wanted were made in the Senate bill, but 
administration objections have stymied their acceptance in a 
House-Senate conference.

Sununu and the others, who range from senators as conservative as Larry 
Craig of Idaho to those as liberal as Russ Feingold of Wisconsin and 
Dick Durbin of Illinois, have threatened a filibuster to force further 
negotiations.

What Graham, Sununu and their brethren are looking for is specific and 
significant: a requirement that the government convince a judge that a 
search of records has a direct connection, not just vague "relevance," 
to a suspected terrorist; a right of judicial appeal to challenge gag 
orders on such searches; a requirement that targets of "sneak-and-peek" 
searches be notified within seven days of their occurrence; and a 
four-year "sunset" clause for these special powers.

Sununu and his allies have been discussing these points with the Justice 
Department and the White House for two years. What is frustrating, he 
told me in an interview, "is that they will not debate these specific 
changes; they respond only with sweeping generalizations that we need to 
reauthorize the Patriot Act. That's not good enough."

For Graham, the issue is the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay 
and other (still secret) overseas facilities. Like 89 other senators, he 
supported McCain's legislation barring the use of torture or the extreme 
measures publicized at Abu Ghraib.

When Vice President Cheney lobbied the House to kill the McCain 
restriction, Graham jumped in to offer additional leverage to the 
administration's critics.

He first framed an amendment -- welcomed by the White House -- to bar 
enemy combatants held at Guantanamo Bay from taking their cases into 
U.S. courts, then enlisted liberal Democratic Sen. Carl Levin of 
Michigan and conservative Republican Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona in a 
bipartisan resolution to provide automatic judicial review of all 
military trial sentences of at least 10 years. The resulting compromise 
gained 84 votes and, Graham told me, sends a strong message to the House 
that both the McCain language and this compromise must be included in 
the final legislation -- the White House notwithstanding.

What came through most clearly to me, in talking with both senators, was 
their sense that Congress as an institution must assert itself and take 
responsibility for setting policy on these national security issues.

For too long, they both said, it has been too easy to say -- or imply -- 
that it's the president's job alone to decide how to protect the 
nation's safety and vital interests. That complacent attitude may have 
been tolerable during the false lull after the end of the Cold War, but 
it cannot be accepted during a time of war and continuing terrorist threats.

Last month the Senate asserted itself by passing a meaningful, 
bipartisan declaration that 2006 must be a "year of transition" in which 
Iraqis take over major responsibility for the security and stability of 
their own country.

That younger senators such as Graham and Sununu are organizing 
bipartisan coalitions on such corollary national security issues as the 
Patriot Act and treatment of detainees is good news for the country. It 
is time for a similar effort in the House.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/02/AR2005120201749.html
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Sat Dec  3 06:14:04 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Sat Dec  3 06:26:35 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Junkyard Dogs of War - Richard Lugar and Barack Obama -
 Washington Post Op-Ed
Message-ID: <4391A82C.5040607@comcast.net>

Junkyard Dogs of War

By Richard G. Lugar and Barack Obama
Saturday, December 3, 2005; A23

At a sprawling, run-down industrial complex in Donetsk, Ukraine, weeds 
grow along a rusty rail spur that winds among World War II-era 
warehouses and factories. Little security is evident, and the facility 
looks like a giant junkyard.

In a way, it is -- except the "junk" consists of thousands of tons of 
live military munitions. When we went there last summer, we saw mortar 
rounds, land mines and artillery shells of all sizes stacked in huge 
piles and strewn carelessly about.

Sold on the black market, these conventional weapons could end up in the 
hands of terrorists or militant extremists anywhere in the world. 
Donetsk is only one of several ill-secured stockpiles of conventional 
weapons in Ukraine, a major dumping ground for weapons, and there are 
perhaps scores more in dozens of countries around the world.

These vast numbers of unused conventional weapons, particularly 
shoulder-fired antiaircraft missiles that can hit civilian airliners, 
pose a major security risk to America and democracies everywhere. That's 
why we have introduced legislation to seek out and destroy surplus and 
unguarded stocks of conventional arms in Asia, Europe, Latin America, 
Africa and the Middle East.

Our bill would launch a major nonproliferation initiative by addressing 
the growing threat from unsecured conventional weapons and by bolstering 
a key line of defense against weapons of mass destruction. Modeled after 
the successful Nunn-Lugar program to dismantle former Soviet nuclear 
weapons, the Lugar-Obama bill would seek to build cooperative 
relationships with willing countries.

One part of our initiative would strengthen and energize the U.S. 
program against unsecured lightweight antiaircraft missiles and other 
conventional weapons, a program that has for years been woefully 
underfunded. There may be as many as 750,000 missiles, known formally as 
man-portable air defense systems, in arsenals worldwide. The State 
Department estimates that more than 40 civilian aircraft have been hit 
by such weapons since the 1970s. Three years ago terrorists fired 
missiles at -- and missed -- a jetliner full of Israeli tourists taking 
off from Mombasa, Kenya. In 2003 a civilian cargo plane taking off from 
Baghdad was struck but landed safely.

Loose stocks of small arms and other weapons also help fuel civil wars 
in Africa and elsewhere and, as we have seen repeatedly, provide 
ammunition for those who attack peacekeepers and aid workers seeking to 
stabilize and rebuild war-torn societies. The Lugar-Obama measure would 
also seek to get rid of artillery shells like those used in the 
improvised roadside bombs that have proved so deadly to U.S. forces in Iraq.

Some foreign governments have already sought U.S. help in eliminating 
their stocks of lightweight antiaircraft missiles and millions of tons 
of excess weapons and ammunition. But low budgets and insufficient 
leadership have hampered destruction. Our legislation would require the 
administration to develop a response commensurate with the threat, 
consolidating scattered programs at the State Department into a single 
Office of Conventional Weapons Threat Reduction. It also calls for a 
fivefold increase in spending in this area, to $25 million -- a 
relatively modest sum that would offer large benefits to U.S. security.

The other part of the legislation would strengthen the ability of 
America's friends and allies to detect and intercept illegal shipments 
of weapons of mass destruction or material that could be used in a 
nuclear, chemical or biological weapon. Stopping weapons of mass 
destruction in transit is an important complement to our first line of 
defense, the Nunn-Lugar program, which aims to eliminate weapons of mass 
destruction at their source.

We cannot do this alone. We need the vigilance of like-minded nations, 
and the existing Proliferation Security Initiative can enlist their 
help. But while the Proliferation Security Initiative has been 
successful in creating cooperative arrangements, many of our partners 
lack the capability to detect hidden weapons and interdict shipments. 
Our bill would address that gap.

The legislation would create an office at the State Department to 
support detection and intervention regarding weapons of mass 
destruction. It would set aside $110 million to start up the program and 
proposes an innovative use of our current assistance to other nations: 
The president would ensure that countries receiving foreign military 
financing to purchase U.S. equipment use 25 percent of the funds on 
interdicting weapons of mass destruction. This offers a potent but 
flexible tool to build a robust international network for detecting and 
interdicting weapons of mass destruction.

A thorough, multifaceted nonproliferation strategy is essential to fully 
defend the American people. The Nunn-Lugar program has provided a solid 
foundation, valuable experience and measurable results. With the 
Lugar-Obama legislation, we could take the next critical step forward to 
reshape, refocus and reinvigorate our country's nonproliferation mission.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/02/AR2005120201509.html?nav=hcmodule
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Sat Dec  3 06:15:44 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Sat Dec  3 06:28:15 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Oversight for Sore Eyes - Dana Milbank - Washington Post
	Op-Ed
Message-ID: <4391A890.20204@comcast.net>

Oversight for Sore Eyes

By Dana Milbank
Saturday, December 3, 2005; A03

It sounded on Thursday as if Senate committee chairmen were about to 
flex their oversight muscles.

An angry Armed Services Committee Chairman John W. Warner (R-Va.) 
summoned Pentagon officials for a briefing on the military's paying for 
favorable coverage in Iraqi newspapers. And a concerned Judiciary 
Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) ordered President Bush's 
Supreme Court nominee, Samuel A. Alito Jr., to explain documents he 
wrote expressing his opposition to Roe v. Wade .

But the senators, looking for answers, emerged instead from their 
meetings yesterday with questions.

"We can't verify this question of payments to the journalists," Warner 
reported to journalists in the Senate television gallery after his 
session with Pentagon officials. "More facts are needed."

Does he see evidence of illegality? "We simply do not have all of the 
facts."

Does the practice need to be stopped? "I wouldn't want to render 
judgment to stop something until I have all the facts."

Was the distinction between propaganda and factual information blurred? 
"I don't have enough facts."

What's the most important unanswered question that you have? "Well, 
seriously, there's so many questions that are unanswered," he replied.

Part of the problem, Warner explained, is that pieces of the program in 
question are classified, "to protect the interests of our troops."

This started a new line of questioning. If the purpose of the military 
project is to "get the truth and the facts out," as Warner put it, why 
is it classified?

"That's the ultimate question you've got to answer," explained Warner, 
who had apparently not answered it himself. "And, at this moment, I 
can't give you any facts to help you on that. . . . I have only but a 
bare initial understanding of why classification is needed."

Specter fared little better than his colleague when he sat down with 
Alito to talk about the judge's 1985 statement that he did not believe 
that the Constitution protected a right to abortion, and the legal 
arguments he later made against the Roe decision but did not mention in 
his response to a questionnaire from the Judiciary Committee.

Specter, also using the Senate television gallery, gave an account of 
his hour-long meeting with Alito. "With respect to his personal views on 
a woman's right to choose," Specter reported, "he says that that is not 
a matter to be considered in the deliberation on a constitutional issue 
of a woman's right to choose."

A reporter raised some doubt about whether stating that "the 
Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion" is really a 
personal opinion rather than a legal opinion. "He identifies that as a 
personal opinion, as I said before," Specter repeated. "And he said that 
his personal opinion would not be a factor in his judicial decision."

Well, does he still hold this "personal" opinion? "He did not indicate," 
Specter said.

The audience was growing more skeptical. "Senator, I'm curious," one of 
the reporters asked. "Are you here simply to report objectively on what 
his answers were to you today? Or are you here to say that you were 
satisfied, even reassured, by the answers he gave you?"

"I'm here to report on his answers," said Specter, who finally 
acknowledged that he did not share Alito's view that this was a matter 
of personal opinion.

"Judge Alito categorizes it as a personal opinion; I don't," the senator 
said.

As politicians, Specter and Warner are at the pinnacle of their 
profession, both leaders of powerful committees. But they are not quite 
so practiced as messengers -- Specter describing Alito's abortion views 
and Warner explaining the Pentagon's position on propaganda. In 
fairness, they had tough tasks: The Pentagon gave Warner little 
information, and Alito left Specter with the difficult argument that his 
belief that a right to abortion is not protected by the Constitution is 
not a judicial opinion.

Both men dutifully read from handwritten notes of their meetings. 
Specter, without reading glasses, held his notes at a distance as he 
tried to read them. Warner announced that he lost a page of notes and 
asked if anybody had seen it. No one had.

Though lacking answers to crucial questions, the chairmen were certain 
that nobody was hiding anything. Warner reported that Defense Secretary 
Donald H. Rumsfeld "has been 100 percent cooperative," and he added: "I 
don't detect any effort on the part of Defense . . . of trying to cover 
up anything. They are working diligently to get the facts out."

Specter, likewise, vouched that "there has not been a coverup" of 
Alito's abortion views. True, Alito did not include, in his response to 
the Senate questionnaire seeking any briefs he had worked on, his memo 
on a prominent abortion case. But, the chairman said, "I think it's a 
fair conclusion that there's no effort to make any concealment."

Still, Specter couldn't pretend to be satisfied with Alito's answers. 
"I'm going to reserve judgment on the question as to whether Judge Alito 
can fairly judge an abortion case until he testifies," Specter said. "It 
will give considerably greater opportunity for discussion than I had 
with him today."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/02/AR2005120201755.html?nav=hcmodule
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Sat Dec  3 06:18:45 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Sat Dec  3 06:31:20 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Bah, Hummerbug - Derrick Z. Jackson - Boston Globe Op-Ed
Message-ID: <4391A945.9040309@comcast.net>


  Bah, Hummerbug

By Derrick Z. Jackson  |  December 3, 2005  |  The Boston Globe

IT WAS always absurd for giant American flags to fly over our most 
visible wastelands, car dealerships strewn with gargantuan gas guzzlers. 
This phenomenon became even more strange when General Motors CEO Rick 
Wagoner recently announced 30,000 job cuts. This was part of GM's long 
slide into petrofication. In the 1960s, GM sold about half of the cars 
and trucks in the United States. Today it sells 26.6 percent and likely 
will lose its status as the world's largest automaker to Toyota in 2006 
or 2007.

Amazingly, just a week after Wagoner's grim announcement, the Wall 
Street Journal ran a feature on GM's plans to expand its global market 
for Hummers!

Last year, GM sold 30,000 of the vehicles that symbolize America's 
blithe dismissal of global warming. The H2 Hummer was notorious for 
getting only 10 miles per gallon. The so-called more 
environmental-friendly H3 is rated by the Environmental Protection 
Agency at 16 miles per gallon of gasoline in the city and 19 mpg on the 
highway. Reviewers for The Los Angeles Times and The Florida Times Union 
respectively found it to average 12.5 mpg and 13 mpg. This is while 
Toyota pumps out Corollas, Camrys, and Avalons that get more than 30 mpg 
on the highway.

GM's plans to double its sales by inflicting the Hummer on places like 
Japan, which, according to Forbes magazine last month, has 10 times more 
people per square mile than the United States and 6 million more cars 
than parking spaces in urban landscapes ''where most roads are too 
narrow even to allow room for a sidewalk."

GM wants to build Hummers in South Africa. That is cruel excess in a 
nation where between one of 10 and one of eight people has the HIV virus 
for AIDS and only a fraction can get the drugs to fight the disease. GM 
wants to sell them in dense Europe. It is looking into pushing Hummers 
into China, which already has plenty of environmental worries without 
these mechanical monsters spewing more greenhouse gases into the air.

This Hummer is symbolic of a company and a Detroit that has no clue. Its 
lobbyists, long successful on Capitol Hill in blocking any serious 
improvements in federal fuel efficiency standards, are running all over 
the nation trying to block states from creating their own tougher 
standards. American automakers have claimed for years that fuel 
efficiency costs jobs. They keep begging for time to deliver SUVs that 
creep toward 20 miles per gallon.

With gasoline prices floating between $2 and $3 a gallon and jobs 
disappearing anyway, Detroit is in the breakdown lane. All one has to do 
is read the latest sales figures. Compared to last November, GM's 
overall sales were down 11 percent and its SUV and truck sales were down 
16.7 percent. The Ford brand was down 14 percent with its Expedition and 
Explorer SUVs down by 43 percent and 52 percent, respectively. Chrysler 
was down 7 percent, with its SUVs and trucks down 11 percent.

Meanwhile, Toyota, while suffering drops in its SUV line, still gained 
5.5 percent on the strength of its smaller cars. Hyundai was up 7.9 
percent. For the first 11 months of this year, sales at Nissan, Toyota, 
Hyundai, and Honda were up 11, 11, 8, and 6 percent respectively. The 
Ford brand was down 4.2 percent, and GM was down 3 percent. Only 
Chrysler was up for the last 11 months, by 6 percent.

With the United States once again refusing this week in Montreal to 
participate in the Kyoto climate change accords, it is time to question 
the meaning of those flags flying above America's testament to 
environmental destruction. In the 1970s and '80s, Detroit, instead of 
adjusting to gasoline shortages, wrapped itself in the flag for 
protectionism against Japanese small cars. The week after the terrorist 
attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Detroit auto executives stood in front of a 
large American flag with White House officials to declare unity in 
keeping cars coming off the assembly line. GM followed up with its 
''Keep America Rolling" campaign with no-interest loans.

None of that had anything to do with matching Japan's foresight and 
retooling America away from its outrageous consumption of the world's 
oil. Thirty thousand more job cuts later, we are paying for it. The 
flags flying above GM and Ford SUVs are becoming grave markers. The 
flags above Japanese car dealerships are a mockery of our own making. 
Defined by fuel efficiency, the true patriotic car is a Camry. The 
Hummers, on the other hand, are leading us on a fruitless Expedition.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/12/03/bah_hummerbug/
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Sat Dec  3 06:20:41 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Sat Dec  3 06:33:14 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Google search and seizure - Boston Globe Op-Ed
Message-ID: <4391A9B9.1020007@comcast.net>


  Google search and seizure

By Robert Kuttner  |  December 3, 2005  |  The Boston Globe

THE NEW York Times recently reported that in a North Carolina 
strangulation-murder trial, prosecutors introduced as evidence the fact 
that the defendant's Google searches had included the words ''neck" and 
''snap." The Times noted that the evidence had come from the defendant's 
home computer, but could just as easily have come from Google.

Google's whole business-model includes keeping track of users' searches 
by putting ''cookies" (tracking devices) on users' own computers, and 
then using the results to customize ad offerings that pop up when we use 
their ingenious free search service.

In the era of the misnamed USA Patriot Act, which allows warrantless 
police searches that are not even disclosed to the target, Google plus 
Dick Cheney is a recipe for undoing the liberties for which the original 
patriots of the American Revolution bled and died. Under the Patriot 
Act, anyone suspected of enabling terrorism can be subjected to these 
fishing expeditions. Depending on a prosecutor's whims, that includes 
all of us.

In the 18th-century era of star-chamber courts and despotic monarchs, 
the US Constitution put an end to government as prosecutor, judge, and 
jury. Unreasonable searches and seizures were explicitly prohibited by 
the Sixth Amendment. People (not just citizens) were guaranteed the 
right to confront their accusers and to know the charges against them. 
There were no ''national security" loopholes.

Google's internal slogan is, charmingly, ''Don't be evil." Well, the 
interaction of cyber-snooping and the unreasonable searches authorized 
by the Patriot Act is pure evil.

Herewith an idea that I am putting into the public domain, which could 
make some computer-whiz a billionaire: One of Google's competitors could 
guarantee users of its search engines that all data keeping track of 
searches will be permanently discarded after 24 hours. The search 
process could still learn a broad pattern of users' purchasing tastes, 
if we wish to be party to a bargain of being marketed to in exchange for 
the convenience of free searches.

The same libertarian computer entrepreneur could offer e-mail software, 
in which old messages are permanently erased unless the user 
deliberately opts to retain them.

Google, like Microsoft and IBM before it, may be the current market 
leader in whiz-bang technology based on sheer inventive genius. But if 
Google is not careful, some competitor with a genuine regard for privacy 
could displace it.

We all grew up vaguely knowing that 20th century technology, under 
fairly narrow circumstances, could invade privacy. The phone company 
kept track of everyone's calling records. These could be subpoenaed. 
Prosecutors and detectives, with warrants approved by judges, could 
deploy telephone wiretaps. There were occasional abuses, as in the witch 
hunts of the 1950s, but for the most part these technological invasions 
of privacy were used against bad guys, not for broad fishing 
expeditions. And there was no e-mail and no Google.

Today, however, the explosion of computer technology coupled with the 
discarding of prosecutorial restraints is leading to a Big-Brother 
society. Unless we pay attention, the technology is so seductive that we 
become enablers of our own enslavement.

The universal information that is so empowering could be enslaving in 
another respect. Check out a little satire available on the Internet 
titled EPIC 2014. It is a short, dystopian picture of the next 10 years.

EPIC stands for the Evolving Personalized Information Construct. In this 
grim view of the near future, Google merges with Amazon and becomes 
''Google-zon," the ultimate information market monopoly.

By 2014, the press as we know it no longer exists. Google-zon usurps the 
press's advertising base by ultra-customizing all ads. There is no 
longer the traditional craft of reporter or editor. Newspapers go out of 
business or become small niche products.

''Everyone contributes now -- from blog entries to phone-cam images, to 
video reports, to full investigations," the video says. Everyone is a 
news producer as well as a news consumer, and it's almost impossible to 
differentiate journalism from junk. Computers strip and splice items, 
based on each user's past interests, pattern of use, and declared 
preferences. News is prioritized according to how many users read each 
item. Ads are similarly customized. We are universally connected, but 
universally fragmented and universally vulnerable to misinformation and 
government and commercial snooping.

The marketplace may solve this dilemma by offering privacy-sensitive 
products, but entrepreneurs may also make the problem worse. The moment 
cries out for political as well as commercial leadership.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/12/03/google_search_and_seizure/
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From michael at michaelbutler.com  Fri Dec  2 18:46:21 2005
From: michael at michaelbutler.com (Michael Butler)
Date: Sat Dec  3 07:08:29 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] This Makes One Think
In-Reply-To: <242.2c1cf54.30c25eb3@cs.com>
Message-ID: <BFB6712D.2660B%michael@michaelbutler.com>


------ Forwarded Message
From: Hawaiipolo@cs.com
Date: Fri, 2 Dec 2005 21:36:35 EST
To: becca@hawaii.rr.com
Subject: (no subject)

I pass this on...John is the poet laureate of Samoa and an interesting
fellow...this was sent to me by North Shore based writer and archeologist
friend Joe 
Kennedy..a powerful piece of writing...MD


My old friend John Enright has just published his latest set of poems under
the title On Turning Sixty. I got copy #5 of the "special secret cohort
edition."

I take the time to keyboard the masterpiece from this work. I was going to
pass along "A little stoned, a little drunk, a little late" which is very,
very good - but this one is better.


It is the Dawning of
the Age of Leviticus

America, I am so afraid for you
with your tobacco taliban
your airport no-joke zones
your fear and enclosure laws
your half cooked theocracy
and your declared state of war
on anyone who does not look
like you in the mirrors of
public bathrooms or the camera
eyes of your Republican god.

America, I am so sick for you
who wants to eat my children
calling them battalions and platoons,
who wants to suck the planet dry because it can, who can cancel
all futures to feed its own present obscene in its feasting on ignorance
obese from eating its own offspring
and then suckling itself on its own engorged and cancerous teats.

America, I am so ashamed for you.
You are just a drunken whore
asking for more, the child with a gun
in a high school classroom killing
anyone who reads, everyone who thinks.
You are the demigod that does not care
obedient to a power that is not there.
America, your mindlessness has become
the new definition of evil, but
what does that mean to you?
Nothing.

Joseph Kennedy
Principal Investigator
Archaeological Consultants of the Pacific


------ End of Forwarded Message

From jack at visit.ie  Sat Dec  3 07:57:43 2005
From: jack at visit.ie (Jack Sullivan)
Date: Sat Dec  3 07:50:55 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] This Makes One Think
References: <BFB6712D.2660B%michael@michaelbutler.com>
Message-ID: <005201c5f822$57a49eb0$6402a8c0@jack>

A postulant polemic went looking for dinner
a meal of the mind would do.
But the letter of Leviticus sorted a beginner
and sanctioned his dishwater served up as hot soup.


Dublinjack



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Michael Butler" <michael@michaelbutler.com>
To: "SPECIAL from Michael Butler" <michael@michaelbutler.com>
Sent: Saturday, December 03, 2005 2:46 AM
Subject: [Mb-civic] This Makes One Think


>
> ------ Forwarded Message
> From: Hawaiipolo@cs.com
> Date: Fri, 2 Dec 2005 21:36:35 EST
> To: becca@hawaii.rr.com
> Subject: (no subject)
>
> I pass this on...John is the poet laureate of Samoa and an interesting
> fellow...this was sent to me by North Shore based writer and archeologist
> friend Joe
> Kennedy..a powerful piece of writing...MD
>
>
> My old friend John Enright has just published his latest set of poems
under
> the title On Turning Sixty. I got copy #5 of the "special secret cohort
> edition."
>
> I take the time to keyboard the masterpiece from this work. I was going to
> pass along "A little stoned, a little drunk, a little late" which is very,
> very good - but this one is better.
>
>
> It is the Dawning of
> the Age of Leviticus
>
> America, I am so afraid for you
> with your tobacco taliban
> your airport no-joke zones
> your fear and enclosure laws
> your half cooked theocracy
> and your declared state of war
> on anyone who does not look
> like you in the mirrors of
> public bathrooms or the camera
> eyes of your Republican god.
>
> America, I am so sick for you
> who wants to eat my children
> calling them battalions and platoons,
> who wants to suck the planet dry because it can, who can cancel
> all futures to feed its own present obscene in its feasting on ignorance
> obese from eating its own offspring
> and then suckling itself on its own engorged and cancerous teats.
>
> America, I am so ashamed for you.
> You are just a drunken whore
> asking for more, the child with a gun
> in a high school classroom killing
> anyone who reads, everyone who thinks.
> You are the demigod that does not care
> obedient to a power that is not there.
> America, your mindlessness has become
> the new definition of evil, but
> what does that mean to you?
> Nothing.
>
> Joseph Kennedy
> Principal Investigator
> Archaeological Consultants of the Pacific
>
>
> ------ End of Forwarded Message
>
> _______________________________________________
> Mb-civic mailing list
> Mb-civic@islandlists.com
> http://www.islandlists.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mb-civic
>
>


From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Sat Dec  3 09:03:24 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Sat Dec  3 09:13:28 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Wearying Wait for Federal Aid in New Orleans
Message-ID: <20051203170324.2BA1783CEE@lax-gw03.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: ialterman@nyc.rr.com.

Months later and they STILL can't get it right! This is beyond imcompetent! Peace.


NATIONAL / NATIONAL SPECIAL | December 3, 2005
Wearying Wait for Federal Aid in New Orleans
By ADAM NOSSITER
Three months after Hurricane Katrina, hidden behind politicians' rosy talk of the progress that has been made, are thousands of people still waiting for FEMA assistance. 
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/03/national/nationalspecial/03fema.html?emc=eta1



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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Sat Dec  3 09:04:04 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Sat Dec  3 09:14:07 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Military Admits Planting News in Iraq
Message-ID: <20051203170404.34FDB249BCA@lax-gw08.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: ialterman@nyc.rr.com.

It just gets more and more Orwellian... Peace.


WASHINGTON | December 3, 2005
Military Admits Planting News in Iraq
By ERIC SCHMITT
Pentagon officials acknowledged that news articles supporting the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq were placed in publications there.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/03/politics/03propaganda.html?emc=eta1



----------------- Advertisement --------------------------

The Academy loved these movies enough to name each
one Best Picture.  What did the original New York
Times movie reviews have to say about these Oscar
winning films?  
Go to the Best Pictures review archive:

http://ads.nyt.com/th.ad/nytnyt-textEmailThisdefault-Center1A/academyawards_text/?_RM_REDIR_=http://www.nytimes.com/ref/movies/oscars/bestpictures.html




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0


----------------------------------------------------------

ABOUT THIS E-MAIL
This e-mail was sent to you by a friend through NYTimes.com's E-mail This Article service.  For general information about NYTimes.com, write to help@nytimes.com.

NYTimes.com 500 Seventh Avenue New York, NY 10018

Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Sat Dec  3 09:04:36 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Sat Dec  3 09:14:38 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Leak Ruling Has Mystery, 8 Blank Pages
Message-ID: <20051203170436.4D51013B6A6@lax-gw04.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: ialterman@nyc.rr.com.

Curiouser and curiouser, said Alice...


WASHINGTON | December 3, 2005
Leak Ruling Has Mystery, 8 Blank Pages
By ADAM LIPTAK
There are eight blank pages in the public version of a decision that ordered two reporters jailed in the C.I.A. leak case unless they testified.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/03/politics/03leak.html?emc=eta1



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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Sat Dec  3 09:04:49 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Sat Dec  3 09:14:53 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: New Twist in Texas Districting Dispute
Message-ID: <20051203170449.044B7236F8D@lax-gw01.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: ialterman@nyc.rr.com.

WASHINGTON | December 3, 2005
New Twist in Texas Districting Dispute
By DAVID E. ROSENBAUM and ERIC LICHTBLAU
Justice Department officials defended the approval of a Texas redistricting plan, which helped Republicans gain seats in Congress.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/03/politics/03texas.html?emc=eta1



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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Sat Dec  3 09:05:37 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Sat Dec  3 09:16:11 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Police Searches in the Subways Are Upheld
Message-ID: <20051203170537.2A606A1039@lax-gw09.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: ialterman@nyc.rr.com.

Bummer.


NEW YORK REGION | December 3, 2005
Police Searches in the Subways Are Upheld
By JULIA PRESTON
A federal judge ruled that random searches of bags and backpacks in New York City subways were legal because they could help prevent an attack.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/03/nyregion/03search.html?emc=eta1



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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Sat Dec  3 09:08:48 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Sat Dec  3 09:18:54 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Judge Alito and Abortion
Message-ID: <20051203170848.CFCFB249C79@lax-gw08.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: ialterman@nyc.rr.com.

OPINION TIMESSELECT | December 3, 2005
Editorial: Judge Alito and Abortion

The Senate needs to look through the cloud of explanations and excuses and examine where Judge Samuel Alito Jr. really stands on abortion rights.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/03/opinion/03sat1.html?emc=eta1




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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Sat Dec  3 09:09:14 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Sat Dec  3 09:19:17 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: U.S. Propaganda in the Iraqi Press (3
	Letters)
Message-ID: <20051203170914.3995413B72C@lax-gw04.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: ialterman@nyc.rr.com.

What we're saying...


OPINION TIMESSELECT | December 3, 2005
U.S. Propaganda in the Iraqi Press (3 Letters)

To the Editor:.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/03/opinion/l03iraq.html?emc=eta1




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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Sat Dec  3 09:09:33 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Sat Dec  3 09:19:36 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Bush's Slipping Support (2 Letters)
Message-ID: <20051203170933.DAAB13AE551@lax-gw06.mroute.net>

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What we're saying...(2)


OPINION TIMESSELECT | December 3, 2005
Bush's Slipping Support (2 Letters)

To the Editor:.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/03/opinion/l03bush.html?emc=eta1




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From barbarasiomos38 at msn.com  Sat Dec  3 12:20:52 2005
From: barbarasiomos38 at msn.com (Barbara Siomos)
Date: Sat Dec  3 12:31:03 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Urgent Action: Protest and Crackdown at Drepung Monastery
Message-ID: <20051203202052.22248.172.qmail@web7.getactive.com>

Dear Friend,

I thought you might be interested in this Students for a Free
Tibet's Online Action Center e-activism campaign. If you go to
the URL below you can check out what is at stake and send your
own message directly to the relevant decision makers.

http://actionnetwork.org/campaign/Drepungmonastery?rk=y11jumM1tX7uW

***********************************
Powered by GetActive Software, Inc.
Relationship Management for Member Organizations (tm)
http://www.getactive.com
***********************************



From barbarasiomos38 at msn.com  Sat Dec  3 12:24:38 2005
From: barbarasiomos38 at msn.com (Barbara Siomos)
Date: Sat Dec  3 12:34:42 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] I am so proud of this person~Students for a Free
	Tibet:Photo of the Week
Message-ID: <BAY5-DAV6BE7399BA813A20BD0885AB4F0@phx.gbl>

This person that flashed the Tibetan Flag is so brave... peace, barbara

Barbara Siomos <barbarasiomos38@msn.com> has sent you the following web link:

http://studentsforafreetibet.org/article.php?id=701



From barbarasiomos38 at msn.com  Sat Dec  3 12:28:30 2005
From: barbarasiomos38 at msn.com (Barbara Siomos)
Date: Sat Dec  3 12:38:36 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Fw: [sft-sector2] Candle Light Vigil on Monday - Support
 the Drepung Monks' protest in Tibet
Message-ID: <BAY5-DAV497BA4C623A44807BDACDAB4F0@phx.gbl>

For those of you in NYC PLEASE support this....  Thank you,
barbara

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Subject: [sft-sector2] Candle Light Vigil on Monday - Support the Drepung
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Date: Fri, 02 Dec 2005 16:52:09 -0500
Size: 17824
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From hhoward at pcmagic.net  Sat Dec  3 12:34:35 2005
From: hhoward at pcmagic.net (Henry Howard)
Date: Sat Dec  3 12:47:02 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] New Poem about an Old Horror
Message-ID: <4392015B.5030900@pcmagic.net>

Hi, all of you awesome tribe members!

    Every once in a while, as a fan an vicarious friend, I poke my head 
in to say hello and even contribute.  With all the importance of Iraq, 
and the absolute necessity of publicizing it and stopping an insane war, 
other atrocities lurk like shadows at the edges of our consciousness, 
refusing to fade entirely.  Here is a poem I just finished about 
something that has haunted me, as a women's rights activist, for 
years--namely, the ongoing killings with impunity of young women and 
girls in Mexico's Ciudad Juarez. This rough and fear-filled border city 
is right across the Rio Grande from the glitter and promise of El Norte; 
thousands of residents of El Paso cross every day to shop for bargains 
or kick back a few cold cervezas in the cantinas, without even being 
aware that perhaps 400 women and girls, many of them virtual 
slave-laborers in the U.S.-owned Maquiladoras, have been murdered or 
disappeared since 1993.  No one claims to have a definitive answer, or 
ANY answer that could actually result in prosecution and a halt to the 
madness, as to why this horror continues to this day.  Politicians, 
police, judges, human rights groups, sociologists--all opine and argue, 
publish their dissertations or their books, resign under death threats 
or pressure--or reward--from unspecified sources, and still the women 
and girls keep dying.  If you like this poem, show it around; talk about 
Ciudad Juarez.  Make people LISTEN.  Then take ACTION.  I am proud to be 
another man against violence against women!  In solidarity,

            Henry Howard
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From barbarasiomos38 at msn.com  Sat Dec  3 12:45:05 2005
From: barbarasiomos38 at msn.com (Barbara Siomos)
Date: Sat Dec  3 12:55:08 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] New Poem about an Old Horror
Message-ID: <BAY5-DAV221497420A3266A9F91FDBAB4F0@phx.gbl>

Thank you Henry Howard....

peace,
barbara

-----Original Message-----
From: Henry Howard
Sent: Sat, 3 Dec 2005 12:34:35 -0800
To: mb-civic@islandlists.com
Subject: [Mb-civic] New Poem about an Old Horror

Hi, all of you awesome tribe members!

    Every once in a while, as a fan an vicarious friend, I poke my head 
in to say hello and even contribute.  With all the importance of Iraq, 
and the absolute necessity of publicizing it and stopping an insane war, 
other atrocities lurk like shadows at the edges of our consciousness, 
refusing to fade entirely.  Here is a poem I just finished about 
something that has haunted me, as a women's rights activist, for 
years--namely, the ongoing killings with impunity of young women and 
girls in Mexico's Ciudad Juarez. This rough and fear-filled border city 
is right across the Rio Grande from the glitter and promise of El Norte; 
thousands of residents of El Paso cross every day to shop for bargains 
or kick back a few cold cervezas in the cantinas, without even being 
aware that perhaps 400 women and girls, many of them virtual 
slave-laborers in the U.S.-owned Maquiladoras, have been murdered or 
disappeared since 1993.  No one claims to have a definitive answer, or 
ANY answer that could actually result in prosecution and a halt to the 
madness, as to why this horror continues to this day.  Politicians, 
police, judges, human rights groups, sociologists--all opine and argue, 
publish their dissertations or their books, resign under death threats 
or pressure--or reward--from unspecified sources, and still the women 
and girls keep dying.  If you like this poem, show it around; talk about 
Ciudad Juarez.  Make people LISTEN.  Then take ACTION.  I am proud to be 
another man against violence against women!  In solidarity,

            Henry Howard


From webmizz at freepress.com  Sat Dec  3 13:18:05 2005
From: webmizz at freepress.com (freepress.com)
Date: Sat Dec  3 13:28:09 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Nation/World - U.S. propaganda effort described
Message-ID: <20051203211806.3258524AE50@lax-gw02.mroute.net>

You have been sent the following article from Harry as a courtesy of the Detroit Free Press.

"Nation/World - U.S. propaganda effort described"

To view this article on the Detroit Free Press site, go to:

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2005512030326


The following is a short message from Harry:

So is anyone telling the truth?
From geomilman at milman.com  Sat Dec  3 12:33:18 2005
From: geomilman at milman.com (George R. Milman)
Date: Sat Dec  3 13:41:06 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] FW: 
Message-ID: <E1Eieg1-0007xM-3M@smtpauth09.mail.atl.earthlink.net>


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From harry.sifton at sympatico.ca  Sat Dec  3 20:10:16 2005
From: harry.sifton at sympatico.ca (harry)
Date: Sat Dec  3 20:20:39 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] BBC E-mail: CIA flights 'landed in Germany'
Message-ID: <20051204_041016_094443.harry.sifton@sympatico.ca>

harry saw this story on BBC News Online and thought you
should see it.



** CIA flights 'landed in Germany' **
Germany's government has a list of 437 flights suspected of being used by the CIA in its airspace, reports Der Spiegel.
< http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/1/hi/world/americas/4496322.stm >


** BBC Daily E-mail **
Choose the news and sport headlines you want - when you want them, all
in one daily e-mail
< http://www.bbc.co.uk/dailyemail/ >


** Disclaimer **
The BBC is not responsible for the content of this e-mail, and anything written in this e-mail does not necessarily reflect the BBC's views or opinions. Please note that neither the e-mail address nor name of the sender have?been verified.

If you do not wish to receive such e-mails in the future or want to know more about the BBC's Email a Friend service, please read our frequently asked questions. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/help/4162471.stm

From jefbek at mindspring.com  Sat Dec  3 21:54:01 2005
From: jefbek at mindspring.com (Jef Bek)
Date: Sat Dec  3 22:04:23 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] New Poem about an Old Horror
In-Reply-To: <BAY5-DAV221497420A3266A9F91FDBAB4F0@phx.gbl>
Message-ID: <BFB7C479.1440%jefbek@mindspring.com>

Dear Barbara,

I've sent 3 requests to your personal e-mail asking you to kindly remove me
from your group e-mails. But I still get your group e-mails in my personal
e-mails. So now I will try again, this time on the civic list. I read the
Mb-civic e-mails, I don't need to receive your civic list e-mails in my
personal e-mails. When I write to my friends I don't attach a copy to you so
why should I receive all of your civic e-mails in my personal e-mails?

PLEASE REMOVE ME!

Thanks,

Jef



On 12/3/05 12:45 PM, "Barbara Siomos" <barbarasiomos38@msn.com> wrote:

> Thank you Henry Howard....
> 
> peace,
> barbara
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Henry Howard
> Sent: Sat, 3 Dec 2005 12:34:35 -0800
> To: mb-civic@islandlists.com
> Subject: [Mb-civic] New Poem about an Old Horror
> 
> Hi, all of you awesome tribe members!
> 
>   Every once in a while, as a fan an vicarious friend, I poke my head
> in to say hello and even contribute.  With all the importance of Iraq,
> and the absolute necessity of publicizing it and stopping an insane war,
> other atrocities lurk like shadows at the edges of our consciousness,
> refusing to fade entirely.  Here is a poem I just finished about
> something that has haunted me, as a women's rights activist, for
> years--namely, the ongoing killings with impunity of young women and
> girls in Mexico's Ciudad Juarez. This rough and fear-filled border city
> is right across the Rio Grande from the glitter and promise of El Norte;
> thousands of residents of El Paso cross every day to shop for bargains
> or kick back a few cold cervezas in the cantinas, without even being
> aware that perhaps 400 women and girls, many of them virtual
> slave-laborers in the U.S.-owned Maquiladoras, have been murdered or
> disappeared since 1993.  No one claims to have a definitive answer, or
> ANY answer that could actually result in prosecution and a halt to the
> madness, as to why this horror continues to this day.  Politicians,
> police, judges, human rights groups, sociologists--all opine and argue,
> publish their dissertations or their books, resign under death threats
> or pressure--or reward--from unspecified sources, and still the women
> and girls keep dying.  If you like this poem, show it around; talk about
> Ciudad Juarez.  Make people LISTEN.  Then take ACTION.  I am proud to be
> another man against violence against women!  In solidarity,
> 
>           Henry Howard
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Mb-civic mailing list
> Mb-civic@islandlists.com
> http://www.islandlists.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mb-civic

From swiggard at comcast.net  Sun Dec  4 07:30:46 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Sun Dec  4 07:43:35 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] MUST READ: Wrongful Imprisonment: Anatomy of a CIA
 Mistake - Washington Post
Message-ID: <43930BA6.3010508@comcast.net>

Wrongful Imprisonment: Anatomy of a CIA Mistake
German Citizen Released After Months in 'Rendition'

By Dana Priest
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, December 4, 2005; A01

In May 2004, the White House dispatched the U.S. ambassador in Germany 
to pay an unusual visit to that country's interior minister. Ambassador 
Daniel R. Coats carried instructions from the State Department 
transmitted via the CIA's Berlin station because they were too sensitive 
and highly classified for regular diplomatic channels, according to 
several people with knowledge of the conversation.

Coats informed the German minister that the CIA had wrongfully 
imprisoned one of its citizens, Khaled Masri, for five months, and would 
soon release him, the sources said. There was also a request: that the 
German government not disclose what it had been told even if Masri went 
public. The U.S. officials feared exposure of a covert action program 
designed to capture terrorism suspects abroad and transfer them among 
countries, and possible legal challenges to the CIA from Masri and 
others with similar allegations.

The Masri case, with new details gleaned from interviews with current 
and former intelligence and diplomatic officials, offers a rare study of 
how pressure on the CIA to apprehend al Qaeda members after the Sept. 
11, 2001, attacks has led in some instances to detention based on thin 
or speculative evidence. The case also shows how complicated it can be 
to correct errors in a system built and operated in secret.

The CIA, working with other intelligence agencies, has captured an 
estimated 3,000 people, including several key leaders of al Qaeda, in 
its campaign to dismantle terrorist networks. It is impossible to know, 
however, how many mistakes the CIA and its foreign partners have made.

Unlike the military's prison for terrorist suspects at Guantanamo Bay, 
Cuba -- where 180 prisoners have been freed after a review of their 
cases -- there is no tribunal or judge to check the evidence against 
those picked up by the CIA. The same bureaucracy that decides to capture 
and transfer a suspect for interrogation-- a process called "rendition" 
-- is also responsible for policing itself for errors.

The CIA inspector general is investigating a growing number of what it 
calls "erroneous renditions," according to several former and current 
intelligence officials.

One official said about three dozen names fall in that category; others 
believe it is fewer. The list includes several people whose identities 
were offered by al Qaeda figures during CIA interrogations, officials 
said. One turned out to be an innocent college professor who had given 
the al Qaeda member a bad grade, one official said.

"They picked up the wrong people, who had no information. In many, many 
cases there was only some vague association" with terrorism, one CIA 
officer said.

While the CIA admitted to Germany's then-Interior Minister Otto Schily 
that it had made a mistake, it has labored to keep the specifics of 
Masri's case from becoming public. As a German prosecutor works to 
verify or debunk Masri's claims of kidnapping and torture, the part of 
the German government that was informed of his ordeal has remained 
publicly silent. Masri's attorneys say they intend to file a lawsuit in 
U.S. courts this week.

Masri was held for five months largely because the head of the CIA's 
Counterterrorist Center's al Qaeda unit "believed he was someone else," 
one former CIA official said. "She didn't really know. She just had a 
hunch."

The CIA declined to comment for this article, as did Coats and a 
spokesman at the German Embassy in Washington. Schily did not respond to 
several requests for comment last week.

CIA officials stress that apprehensions and renditions are among the 
most sure-fire ways to take potential terrorists out of circulation 
quickly. In 2000, then-CIA Director George J. Tenet said that 
"renditions have shattered terrorist cells and networks, thwarted 
terrorist plans, and in some cases even prevented attacks from occurring."

The Counterterrorist Center

After the September 2001 attacks, pressure to locate and nab potential 
terrorists, even in the most obscure parts of the world, bore down hard 
on one CIA office in particular, the Counterterrorist Center, or CTC, 
located until recently in the basement of one of the older buildings on 
the agency's sprawling headquarters compound. With operations officers 
and analysts sitting side by side, the idea was to act on tips and leads 
with dramatic speed.

The possibility of missing another attack loomed large. "Their logic 
was: If one of them gets loose and someone dies, we'll be held 
responsible," said one CIA officer, who, like others interviewed for 
this article, would speak only anonymously because of the secretive 
nature of the subject.

To carry out its mission, the CTC relies on its Rendition Group, made up 
of case officers, paramilitaries, analysts and psychologists. Their job 
is to figure out how to snatch someone off a city street, or a remote 
hillside, or a secluded corner of an airport where local authorities wait.

Members of the Rendition Group follow a simple but standard procedure: 
Dressed head to toe in black, including masks, they blindfold and cut 
the clothes off their new captives, then administer an enema and 
sleeping drugs. They outfit detainees in a diaper and jumpsuit for what 
can be a day-long trip. Their destinations: either a detention facility 
operated by cooperative countries in the Middle East and Central Asia, 
including Afghanistan, or one of the CIA's own covert prisons -- 
referred to in classified documents as "black sites," which at various 
times have been operated in eight countries, including several in 
Eastern Europe.

In the months after the Sept. 11 attacks, the CTC was the place to be 
for CIA officers wanting in on the fight. The staff ballooned from 300 
to 1,200 nearly overnight.

"It was the Camelot of counterterrorism," a former counterterrorism 
official said. "We didn't have to mess with others -- and it was fun."

Thousands of tips and allegations about potential threats poured in 
after the attacks. Stung by the failure to detect the plot, CIA officers 
passed along every tidbit. The process of vetting and evaluating 
information suffered greatly, former and current intelligence officials 
said. "Whatever quality control mechanisms were in play on September 
10th were eliminated on September 11th," a former senior intelligence 
official said.

J. Cofer Black, a professorial former spy who spent years chasing Osama 
bin Laden, was the CTC's director. With a flair for melodrama, Black had 
earned special access to the White House after he briefed President Bush 
on the CIA's war plan for Afghanistan.

Colleagues recall that he would return from the White House inspired and 
talking in missionary terms. Black, now in the private security 
business, declined to comment.

Some colleagues said his fervor was in line with the responsibility Bush 
bestowed on the CIA when he signed a top secret presidential finding six 
days after the 9/11 attacks. It authorized an unprecedented range of 
covert action, including lethal measures and renditions, disinformation 
campaigns and cyber attacks against the al Qaeda enemy, according to 
current and former intelligence officials. Black's attitude was exactly 
what some CIA officers believed was needed to get the job done.

Others criticized Black's CTC for embracing a "Hollywood model" of 
operations, as one former longtime CIA veteran called it, eschewing the 
hard work of recruiting agents and penetrating terrorist networks. 
Instead, the new approach was similar to the flashier paramilitary 
operations that had worked so well in Afghanistan, and played well at 
the White House, where the president was keeping a scorecard of captured 
or killed terrorists.

The person most often in the middle of arguments over whether to 
dispatch a rendition team was a former Soviet analyst with spiked hair 
that matched her in-your-face personality who heads the CTC's al Qaeda 
unit, according to a half-dozen CIA veterans who know her. Her name is 
being withheld because she is under cover.

She earned a reputation for being aggressive and confident, just the 
right quality, some colleagues thought, for a commander in the CIA's 
global war on terrorism. Others criticized her for being overzealous and 
too quick to order paramilitary action.

The CIA and Guantanamo Bay

One way the CIA has dealt with detainees it no longer wants to hold is 
to transfer them to the custody of the U.S. military at Guantanamo Bay, 
where defense authorities decide whether to keep or release them after a 
review.

About a dozen men have been transferred by the CIA to Guantanamo Bay, 
according to a Washington Post review of military tribunal testimony and 
other records. Some CIA officials have argued that the facility has 
become, as one former senior official put it, "a dumping ground" for CIA 
mistakes.

But several former intelligence officials dispute that and defend the 
transfer of CIA detainees to military custody. They acknowledged that 
some of those sent to Guantanamo Bay are prisoners who, after 
interrogation and review, turned out to have less valuable information 
than originally suspected. Still, they said, such prisoners are 
dangerous and would attack if given the chance.

Among those released from Guantanamo is Mamdouh Habib, an Egyptian-born 
Australian citizen, apprehended by a CIA team in Pakistan in October 
2001, then sent to Egypt for interrogation, according to court papers. 
He has alleged that he was burned by cigarettes, given electric shocks 
and beaten by Egyptian captors. After six months, he was flown to 
Guantanamo Bay and let go earlier this year without being charged.

Another CIA former captive, according to declassified testimony from 
military tribunals and other records, is Mohamedou Oulad Slahi, a 
Mauritanian and former Canada resident, who says he turned himself in to 
the Mauritanian police 18 days after the 9/11 attacks because he heard 
the Americans were looking for him. The CIA took him to Jordan, where he 
spent eight months undergoing interrogation, according to his testimony, 
before being taken to Guantanamo Bay.

Another is Muhammad Saad Iqbal Madni, an Egyptian imprisoned by 
Indonesia authorities in January 2002 after he was heard talking -- he 
says jokingly -- about a new shoe bomb technology. He was flown to Egypt 
for interrogation and returned to CIA hands four months later, according 
to one former intelligence official. After being held for 13 months in 
Afghanistan, he was taken to Guantanamo Bay, according to his testimony.

The Masri Case

Khaled Masri came to the attention of Macedonian authorities on New 
Year's Eve 2003. Masri, an unemployed father of five living in Ulm, 
Germany, said he had gone by bus to Macedonia to blow off steam after a 
spat with his wife. He was taken off a bus at the Tabanovce border 
crossing by police because his name was similar to that of an associate 
of a 9/11 hijacker. The police drove him to Skopje, the capital, and put 
him in a motel room with darkened windows, he said in a recent telephone 
interview from Germany.

The police treated Masri firmly but cordially, asking about his 
passport, which they insisted was forged, about al Qaeda and about his 
hometown mosque, he said. When he pressed them to let him go, they 
displayed their pistols.

Unbeknown to Masri, the Macedonians had contacted the CIA station in 
Skopje. The station chief was on holiday. But the deputy chief, a junior 
officer, was excited about the catch and about being able to contribute 
to the counterterrorism fight, current and former intelligence officials 
familiar with the case said.

"The Skopje station really wanted a scalp because everyone wanted a part 
of the game," a CIA officer said. Because the European Division chief at 
headquarters was also on vacation, the deputy dealt directly with the 
CTC and the head of its al Qaeda unit.

In the first weeks of 2004, an argument arose over whether the CIA 
should take Masri from local authorities and remove him from the country 
for interrogation, a classic rendition operation.

The director of the al Qaeda unit supported that approach. She insisted 
he was probably a terrorist, and should be imprisoned and interrogated 
immediately.

Others were doubtful. They wanted to wait to see whether the passport 
was proved fraudulent. Beyond that, there was no evidence Masri was not 
who he claimed to be -- a German citizen of Arab descent traveling after 
a disagreement with his wife.

The unit's director won the argument. She ordered Masri captured and 
flown to a CIA prison in Afghanistan.

On the 23rd day of his motel captivity, the police videotaped Masri, 
then bundled him, handcuffed and blindfolded, into a van and drove to a 
closed-off building at the airport, Masri said. There, in silence, 
someone cut off his clothes. As they changed his blindfold, "I saw seven 
or eight men with black clothing and wearing masks," he later said in an 
interview. He said he was drugged to sleep for a long plane ride.

Afghanistan

Masri said his cell in Afghanistan was cold, dirty and in a cellar, with 
no light and one dirty cover for warmth. The first night he said he was 
kicked and beaten and warned by an interrogator: "You are here in a 
country where no one knows about you, in a country where there is no 
law. If you die, we will bury you, and no one will know."

Masri was guarded during the day by Afghans, he said. At night, men who 
sounded as if they spoke American-accented English showed up for the 
interrogation. Sometimes a man he believed was a doctor in a mask came 
to take photos, draw blood and collect a urine sample.

Back at the CTC, Masri's passport was given to the Office of Technical 
Services to analyze. By March, OTS had concluded the passport was 
genuine. The CIA had imprisoned the wrong man.

At the CIA, the question was: Now what? Some officials wanted to go 
directly to the German government; others did not. Someone suggested a 
reverse rendition: Return Masri to Macedonia and release him. "There 
wouldn't be a trace. No airplane tickets. Nothing. No one would believe 
him," one former official said. "There would be a bump in the press, but 
then it would be over."

Once the mistake reached Tenet, he laid out the options to his 
counterparts, including the idea of not telling the Germans. Condoleezza 
Rice, then Bush's national security adviser, and Deputy Secretary of 
State Richard L. Armitage argued they had to be told, a position Tenet 
took, according to one former intelligence official.

"You couldn't have the president lying to the German chancellor" should 
the issue come up, a government official involved in the matter said.

Senior State Department officials decided to approach Interior Minister 
Schily, who had been a steadfast Bush supporter even when differences 
over the Iraq war strained ties between the two countries. Ambassador 
Coats had excellent rapport with Schily.

The CIA argued for minimal disclosure of information. The State 
Department insisted on a truthful, complete statement. The two agencies 
quibbled over whether it should include an apology, according to officials.

Meanwhile, Masri was growing desperate. There were rumors that a 
prisoner had died under torture. Masri could not answer most questions 
put to him. He said he steadied himself by talking with other prisoners 
and reading the Koran.

A week before his release in late May 2004, Masri said he was visited in 
prison by a German man with a goatee who called himself Sam. Masri said 
he asked him if he were from the German government and whether the 
government knew he was there. Sam said he could not answer either question.

"Does my wife at least know I'm here?" Masri asked.

"No, she does not," Sam replied, according to Masri.

Sam told Masri he was going to be released soon but that he would not 
receive any documents or papers confirming his ordeal. The Americans 
would never admit they had taken him prisoner, Sam added, according to 
Masri.

On the day of his release, the prison's director, who Masri believed was 
an American, told Masri that he had been held because he "had a 
suspicious name," Masri said in an interview.

Several intelligence and diplomatic officials said Macedonia did not 
want the CIA to bring Masri back inside the country, so the agency 
arranged for him to be flown to Albania. Masri said he was taken to a 
narrow country road at dusk. When they let him off, "They asked me not 
to look back when I started walking," Masri said. "I was afraid they 
would shoot me in the back."

He said he was quickly met by three armed men. They drove all night, 
arriving in the morning at Mother Teresa Airport in Tirana. Masri said 
he was escorted onto the plane, past all the security checkpoints, by an 
Albanian.

Masri has been reunited with his children and wife, who had moved the 
family to Lebanon because she did not know where her husband was. 
Unemployed and lonely, Masri says neither his German nor Arab friends 
dare associate with him because of the publicity.

Meanwhile, a German prosecutor continues to work Masri's case. A 
Macedonia bus driver has confirmed that Masri was taken away by border 
guards on the date he gave investigators. A forensic analysis of Masri's 
hair showed he was malnourished during the period he says he was in the 
prison. Flight logs show a plane registered to a CIA front company flew 
out of Macedonia on the day Masri says he went to Afghanistan.

Masri can find few words to explain his ordeal. "I have very bad 
feelings" about the United States, he said. "I think it's just like in 
the Arab countries: arresting people, treating them inhumanly and less 
than that, and with no rights and no laws."


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/03/AR2005120301476.html?referrer=email
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Sun Dec  4 07:34:31 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Sun Dec  4 07:47:39 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Cunningham Friends Baffled By His Blunder Into Bribery -
 Washington Post
Message-ID: <43930C87.6030309@comcast.net>

Cunningham Friends Baffled By His Blunder Into Bribery
Navy Ace-Turned-Congressman Didn't Act Like Big Spender

By Lois Romano
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, December 4, 2005; A06

For those who have observed Duke Cunningham's behavior in Washington for 
15 years, especially those who have felt his scorn, his remorseful exit 
from the House last week carried no surprises. Since his early days in 
Congress, Cunningham's behavior has been predictable: ad hominem attacks 
followed by tearful apologies.

In one now-famous incident, Cunningham and Rep. James P. Moran Jr. 
(D-Va.) got in a shoving match over sending troops to Bosnia. Moran 
confronted Cunningham, triggering a partisan melee among other members 
-- and Cunningham fled.

Moran found him crying in the cloakroom.

"I thought he had been bullying too many people for too long, and I told 
him so," Moran recalled. "He said he didn't mean to be so accusatory. . 
. . After that, he would bring me candy from California."

Randy "Duke" Cunningham, a California Republican, can no longer smooth 
over his bluster and lapses in judgment with a See's Candies party 
assortment. The eight-term congressman and decorated Navy pilot resigned 
his seat Monday after tearfully confessing to accepting at least $2.4 
million in bribes from defense contractors that included $100,000 in 
cash, a Rolls-Royce and a 42-foot yacht. He pleaded guilty in federal 
court and awaits sentencing Feb. 27.

The news -- the sheer magnitude of the graft -- was met with incredulity 
throughout Washington. How could Cunningham, a member of the 
Appropriations Defense subcommittee, have been so stupid, so craven, so 
greedy? Even President Bush weighed in, calling the crimes "outrageous."

Cunningham, who turns 64 next week, and his wife, Nancy, a school 
administrator, are back in California and have no plans to return to 
Washington, a source close to them said. He no longer has a home, having 
agreed to forfeit his personal property related to the bribery. He is 
staying with family until he knows what the future brings. He has 
apologized to his staff.

No one could say for sure why this Vietnam War hero went astray, when he 
stopped living on his $158,000 salary, how he thought he could get away 
with driving a Rolls-Royce and moving into a $2.5 million house in 
Rancho Santa Fe with the financial help of a defense contractor. The 
allegations make no mention of debts or financial troubles -- just high 
living: a contractor's credit card for a leather sofa and a sleigh bed; 
a $1,500 gift card for a pair of earrings; a new boat, "Duke-Stir," 
docked at a slip in Washington; and a graduation party for one of his 
two daughters. (He has a son from his first marriage.)

Those who worked for Cunningham and who have associated with him on the 
Hill said they saw none of the trappings of extravagance. His biggest 
joy, they said, was skeet shooting, for which he won an award from the 
Congressional Sportsmen's Caucus. The joke at his office used to be, one 
former aide said, that he shopped at Costco and bought three of 
everything to save money. A defense lobbyist who knows Cunningham well 
and golfed with him said that the congressman never had his hand out 
with him. "I'm just stunned," the lobbyist said. "He was a 'dems' and 
'dose' kind of guy, a little rough around the edges -- a regular guy."

A source close to Cunningham's office pointed out that the Rolls-Royce 
was not in great shape, and that because Cunningham had previously lived 
on a boat, the new one did not draw any attention. "It's not like he was 
sitting around in a silk smoking jacket," the source said.

If someone suspected what was happening, few are talking. Unlike the 
allies of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby who jumped to his defense last month 
after the former White House aide was indicted for perjury, Cunningham's 
friends seem to be distancing themselves. Republican Hill chums -- such 
as California Reps. Duncan Hunter and Jerry Lewis -- did not respond to 
requests for interviews. Former representative Ron Packard (R-Calif.) 
said he felt betrayed, having believed Cunningham's denials for months 
and publicly defending him. Packard said he found the charges "beyond 
comprehension."

Cunningham's career in politics began like those of other high-profile 
war heroes -- catapulted into the profession by name recognition and his 
district's appreciation for his patriotism. He had enlisted at age 25, 
after a stint as a high school swim coach, and became the Navy's first 
ace pilot of the Vietnam War and a legend after shooting down five enemy 
planes. He was shot down once, and avoided capture with great daring. He 
earned medals for valor, including the prestigious Navy Cross, before 
retiring from the military in 1987.

But according to "Fall From Glory," a book about the naval Tailhook 
Association's bacchanalias, Cunningham's superiors questioned his 
leadership abilities and resisted giving him a permanent commission. (He 
eventually got one.) The book, by Gregory L. Vistica, reports that 
Cunningham once broke into a superior's office to read his own fitness 
report but was spared discipline because the Navy did not want to 
generate bad publicity.

After briefly working in business after the military, Cunningham was 
courted in 1990 by the GOP to run in an affluent Republican district. 
His high name recognition and gung-ho conservative credentials carried 
him to a narrow victory over the Democratic incumbent. He has been 
reelected handily ever since.

>From his arrival in Congress in 1991, Cunningham was branded as volatile 
and a flamethrower who challenged members to fistfights -- and not 
someone slated for leadership.

Packard, who sat with Cunningham on the Appropriations Committee, said 
he had a short fuse. Early on, Packard recalled, Cunningham became angry 
and emotional at a California delegation meeting when it became clear he 
did not have the support for a committee assignment he sought. "He was 
extremely upset and threatened to quit Congress. That was the first 
indication that he didn't have control of his emotions," Packard said.

Then there were the biting attacks on colleagues -- mainly partisan -- 
for which he usually apologized.

In 1992, Cunningham suggested that the Democratic House leadership 
should be "lined up and shot." A few years later, a House debate over 
water pollution turned ugly when Cunningham said lawmakers backing a 
particular amendment were the same people who support "homos in the 
military."

During remarks in his district in 1998 to a gathering of prostate cancer 
patients, Cunningham commiserated by describing a rectal procedure he 
had undergone as "just not natural, unless maybe you're Barney Frank."

"He was a blustery fool," said Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), who is 
openly gay. He said Cunningham apologized to him for the remark and 
noted that he thought Cunningham had "calmed down" in recent years.

On his first trip back to Vietnam, Cunningham sat down with Vietnamese 
officials for a formal dinner, and his first words of the evening were: 
"You gooks shot me down."

"It's not exactly the way to start a diplomatic dinner," said Moran, who 
was on the trip with Cunningham. "I told him quietly that he had bombed 
them, too."

Those close to Cunningham say the gaffes coupled with the charges create 
a caricature, and not the man they know -- the kind individual who sent 
an aide home the minute her grandfather died and a softie who fretted 
over his dog's health when the animal was injured. One Navy friend, 
George Nesby, said that as an African American, he will forever be loyal 
to Cunningham for giving him support and promotions as a young pilot.

Cunningham's legal troubles were triggered when the San Diego 
Union-Tribune reported in June on his 2003 lucrative house deal. He sold 
his Del Mar, Calif., house for the inflated price of $1.675 million to 
"Conspirator No. 2," -- identified through other sources as defense 
contractor Mitchell Wade of MZM Inc. -- who then sold it at a $700,000 
loss nine months later. Cunningham was charged with using his influence 
to award federal contracts to MZM in return for payoffs.

The housing transactions did not go unnoticed by neighbors. "We all knew 
it was a shady deal as soon as we saw it," next-door neighbor Kent 
Greene said. "The market stated very clearly it [$1.675 million] was not 
an appropriate price." Victoria Konopacke, who bought a house across the 
street three months before the Cunningham sale, said, "We bought ours 
for $915,000, and I hate to say it, but ours is a lot nicer than theirs."

Congressional ethics laws prohibit members from accepting any largess 
over $100 per year from any one source, and only $50 at one time. While 
the rules are sometime subtly skirted, rarely so in such a blatant fashion.

"I think the only defense he could possibly have is stupidity," said 
Samuel L. Popkin, a professor of political science at University of 
California at San Diego, who has followed Cunningham's career. "But he's 
smart enough to know the rules -- which he thinks don't apply to him."

A friend had another explanation: "I know what happened, and I know how 
it happened," Nesby said. "It's really very simple. In the political 
arena, what at first seems abnormal becomes normal. . . . It's very easy 
in this environment for one to lose their moral compass."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/03/AR2005120301046.html?nav=hcmodule
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Sun Dec  4 07:42:47 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Sun Dec  4 07:55:37 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] RE: BOYS overdiagnosed w/"ADHD": 'Disappearing Act:
 Where Have the Men Gone?' - Michael Gurian - Washington Post
Message-ID: <43930E77.1030501@comcast.net>

Disappearing Act
Where Have the Men Gone? No Place Good

By Michael Gurian
Sunday, December 4, 2005; B01

In the 1990s, I taught for six years at a small liberal arts college in 
Spokane, Wash. In my third year, I started noticing something that was 
happening right in front of me. There were more young women in my 
classes than young men, and on average, they were getting better grades 
than the guys. Many of the young men stared blankly at me as I lectured. 
They didn't take notes as well as the young women. They didn't seem to 
care as much about what I taught -- literature, writing and psychology. 
They were bright kids, but many of their faces said, "Sitting here, 
listening, staring at these words -- this is not really who I am."

That was a decade ago, but just last month, I spoke with an 
administrator at Howard University in the District. He told me that what 
I observed a decade ago has become one of the "biggest agenda items" at 
Howard. "We are having trouble recruiting and retaining male students," 
he said. "We are at about a 2-to-1 ratio, women to men."

Howard is not alone. Colleges and universities across the country are 
grappling with the case of the mysteriously vanishing male. Where men 
once dominated, they now make up no more than 43 percent of students at 
American institutions of higher learning, according to 2003 statistics, 
and this downward trend shows every sign of continuing unabated. If we 
don't reverse it soon, we will gradually diminish the male identity, and 
thus the productivity and the mission, of the next generation of young 
men, and all the ones that follow.

The trend of females overtaking males in college was initially measured 
in 1978. Yet despite the well-documented disappearance of ever more 
young men from college campuses, we have yet to fully react to what has 
become a significant crisis. Largely, that is because of cultural 
perceptions about males and their societal role. Many times a week, a 
reporter or other media person will ask me: "Why should we care so much 
about boys when men still run everything?"

It's a fair and logical question, but what it really reflects is that 
our culture is still caught up in old industrial images. We still see 
thousands of men who succeed quite well in the professional world and in 
industry -- men who get elected president, who own software companies, 
who make six figures selling cars. We see the Bill Gateses and John 
Robertses and George Bushes -- and so we're not as concerned as we ought 
to be about the millions of young men who are floundering or lost.

But they're there: The young men who are working in the lowest-level 
(and most dangerous) jobs instead of going to college. Who are sitting 
in prison instead of going to college. Who are staying out of the 
long-term marriage pool because they have little to offer to young 
women. Who are remaining adolescents, wasting years of their lives 
playing video games for hours a day, until they're in their thirties, by 
which time the world has passed many of them by.

The old industrial promise -- "That guy will get a decent job no matter 
what" -- is just that, an old promise. So is the old promise that a man 
will be able to feed his family and find personal meaning by "following 
in his father's footsteps," which has vanished for millions of males who 
are not raised with fathers or substantial role models. The old promise 
that an old boys' network will always come through for "the guys" is 
likewise gone for many young men who have never seen and will never see 
such a network (though they may see a dangerous gang). Most frightening, 
the old promise that schools will take care of boys and educate them to 
succeed is also breaking down, as boys dominate the failure statistics 
in our schools, starting at the elementary level and continuing through 
high school.

Of course, not every male has to go to college to succeed, to be a good 
husband, to be a good and productive man. But a dismal future lies ahead 
for large numbers of boys in this generation who will not go to college. 
Statistics show that a young man who doesn't finish school or go to 
college in 2005 will likely earn less than half what a college graduate 
earns. He'll be three times more likely to be unemployed and more likely 
to be homeless. He'll be more likely to get divorced, more likely to 
engage in violence against women and more likely to engage in crime. 
He'll be more likely to develop substance abuse problems and to be a 
greater burden on the economy, statistically, since men who don't attend 
college pay less in Social Security and other taxes, depend more on 
government welfare, are more likely to father children out of wedlock 
and are more likely not to pay child support.

When I worked as a counselor at a federal prison, I saw these statistics 
up close. The young men and adult males I worked with were mainly 
uneducated, had been raised in families that didn't promote education, 
and had found little of relevance in the schools they had attended. They 
were passionate people, capable of great love and even possible future 
success. Many of them told me how much they wanted to get an education. 
At an intuitive level, they knew how important it was.

Whether in the prison system, in my university classes or in the schools 
where I help train teachers, I have noticed a systemic problem with how 
we teach and mentor boys that I call "industrial schooling," and that I 
believe is a primary root of our sons' falling behind in school, and 
quite often in life.

Two hundred years ago, realizing the necessity of schooling millions of 
kids, we took them off the farms and out of the marketplace and put them 
in large industrial-size classrooms (one teacher, 25 to 30 kids). For 
many kids, this system worked -- and still works. But from the 
beginning, there were some for whom it wasn't working very well. 
Initially, it was girls. It took more than 150 years to get parity for them.

Now we're seeing what's wrong with the system for millions of boys. 
Beginning in very early grades, the sit-still, read-your-book, 
raise-your-hand-quietly, don't-learn-by-doing-but-by-taking-notes 
classroom is a worse fit for more boys than it is for most girls. This 
was always the case, but we couldn't see it 100 years ago. We didn't 
have the comparative element of girls at par in classrooms. We taught a 
lot of our boys and girls separately. We educated children with greater 
emphasis on certain basic educational principles that kept a lot of boys 
"in line" -- competitive learning was one. And our families were deeply 
involved in a child's education.

Now, however, the boys who don't fit the classrooms are glaringly clear. 
Many families are barely involved in their children's education. Girls 
outperform boys in nearly every academic area. Many of the old 
principles of education are diminished. In a classroom of 30 kids, about 
five boys will begin to fail in the first few years of pre-school and 
elementary school. By fifth grade, they will be diagnosed as learning 
disabled, ADD/ADHD, behaviorally disordered or "unmotivated." They will 
no longer do their homework (though they may say they are doing it), 
they will disrupt class or withdraw from it, they will find a few 
islands of competence (like video games or computers) and overemphasize 
those.

Boys have a lot of Huck Finn in them -- they don't, on average, learn as 
well as girls by sitting still, concentrating, multitasking, listening 
to words. For 20 years, I have been taking brain research into homes and 
classrooms to show teachers, parents and others how differently boys and 
girls learn. Once a person sees a PET or SPECT scan of a boy's brain and 
a girl's brain, showing the different ways these brains learn, they 
understand. As one teacher put it to me, "Wow, no wonder we're having so 
many problems with boys."

Yet every decade the industrial classroom becomes more and more 
protective of the female learning style and harsher on the male, 
yielding statistics such as these:

The majority of National Merit scholarships, as well as college academic 
scholarships, go to girls and young women.

Boys and young men comprise the majority of high school dropouts, as 
high as 80 percent in many cities.

Boys and young men are 1 1/2 years behind girls and young women in 
reading ability (this gap does not even out in high school, as some have 
argued; a male reading/writing gap continues into college and the 
workplace).

The industrial classroom is one that some boys do fine in, many boys 
just "hang on" in, many boys fall behind in, many boys fail in, and many 
boys drop out of. The boys who do fine would probably do fine in any 
environment, and the boys who are hanging on and getting by will 
probably re-emerge later with some modicum of success, but the millions 
who fall behind and fail will generally become the statistics we saw 
earlier.

Grasping the mismatch between the minds of boys and the industrial 
classroom is only the first step in understanding the needs of our sons. 
Lack of fathering and male role models take a heavy toll on boys, as 
does lack of attachment to many family members (whether grandparents, 
extended families, moms or dads). Our sons are becoming very lonely. And 
even more politically difficult to deal with: The 
boys-are-privileged-but-the-girls-are-shortchanged emphasis of the last 
20 years (an emphasis that I, as a father of two daughters and an 
advocate of girls, have seen firsthand), has muddied the water for child 
development in general, pitting funding for girls against funding for boys.

We still barely see the burdens our sons are carrying as we change from 
an industrial culture to a post-industrial one. We want them to shut up, 
calm down and become perfect intimate partners. It doesn't matter too 
much who boys and men are -- what matters is who we think they should 
be. When I think back to the kind of classroom I created for my college 
students, I feel regret for the males who dropped out. When I think back 
to my time working in the prison system, I feel a deep sadness for the 
present and future generations of boys whom we still have time to save.

And I do think we can save them. I get hundreds of e-mails and letters 
every week, from parents, teachers and others who are beginning to 
realize that we must do for our sons what we did for our daughters in 
the industrialized schooling system -- realize that boys are struggling 
and need help. These teachers and parents are part of a social movement 
-- a boys' movement that started, I think, about 10 years ago. It's a 
movement that gets noticed for brief moments by the media (when 
Columbine happened, when Laura Bush talked about boys) and then goes 
underground again. It's a movement very much powered by individual women 
-- mainly mothers of sons -- who say things to me like the e-mailers who 
wrote, "I don't know anyone who doesn't have a son struggling in 
school," or, "I thought having a boy would be like having a girl, but 
when my son was born, I had to rethink things."

We all need to rethink things. We need to stop blaming, suspecting and 
overly medicating our boys, as if we can change this guy into the 
learner we want. When we decide -- as we did with our daughters -- that 
there isn't anything inherently wrong with our sons, when we look 
closely at the system that boys learn in, we will discover these boys 
again, for all that they are. And maybe we'll see more of them in 
college again.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/02/AR2005120201334.html
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Sun Dec  4 07:46:26 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Sun Dec  4 07:59:04 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] MUST READ: Do These Two Have Anything in Common? -
 Zbigniew Brzezinski - Washington Post Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43930F52.4080808@comcast.net>

Do These Two Have Anything in Common?
President Bush has equated Islamic radicalism with communism. Is the 
comparison sound? Is it wise?

By Zbigniew Brzezinski
Sunday, December 4, 2005; B02

In a series of recent speeches to the American people, President Bush 
has sought to equate the current terrorist threat with the 20th-century 
menace of communist totalitarianism. His case is that the terrorist 
challenge is global in scope, "evil" in nature, ruthless toward its 
foes, and eager to control every aspect of life and thought. Thus, he 
argues, the battle against terrorism demands nothing "less than a 
complete victory."

In making this case, the president has repeatedly invoked the adjective 
"Islamic" when referring to terrorism and he has compared the "murderous 
ideology of Islamic radicalism" to the ideology of communism.

Is the president historically right in his diagnosis of the allegedly 
similar dangers posed by Islamic extremism and by totalitarian 
communism? The differences between the two may be more telling than 
their similarities. And is he wise to be expounding such a thesis?

By asserting that Islamic extremism, "like the ideology of communism . . 
. is the great challenge of our new century," Bush is implicitly 
elevating Osama bin Laden's stature and historic significance to the 
level of figures such as Lenin, Stalin or Mao. And that suggests, in 
turn, that the fugitive Saudi dissident hiding in some cave (or perhaps 
even deceased) has been articulating a doctrine of universal 
significance. Underlying the president's analogy is the proposition that 
bin Laden's "jihad" has the potential for dominating the minds and 
hearts of hundreds of millions of people across national and even 
religious boundaries. That is quite a compliment to bin Laden, but it 
isn't justified. The "Islamic" jihad is, at best, a fragmented and 
limited movement that hardly resonates in most of the world.

Communism, by comparison, undeniably had worldwide appeal. By the 1950s, 
there was hardly a country in the world without an active communist 
movement or conspiracy, irrespective of whether the country was 
predominantly Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Jewish, Buddhist or Confucian. 
In some countries, such as Russia and China, the communist movement was 
the largest political formation, dominating intellectual discourse; in 
democratic countries, such as Italy and France, it vied for political 
power in open elections.

In response to the dislocations and injustices precipitated by the 
Industrial Revolution, communism offered a vision of a perfectly just 
society. To be sure, that vision was false and was used to justify 
violence that eventually led directly to the Soviet gulag, Chinese labor 
and "reeducation" camps, and other human rights abuses. Nonetheless, for 
a while, communism's definition of the future bolstered its 
cross-cultural appeal.

In addition, the intellectual and political challenge of the communist 
ideology was backed by enormous military power. The Soviet Union 
possessed a huge nuclear arsenal, capable of launching in the course of 
a few minutes a massive atomic attack on America. Within a few hours, 
upwards of 120 million Americans and Soviets could have been dead in an 
apocalyptic mutual cross-fire. That was the horrible reality.

Contemporary terrorism -- though nasty and criminal, whether Islamic or 
otherwise -- has no such political reach and no such physical 
capability. Its appeal is limited; it offers no answers to the novel 
dilemmas of modernization and globalization. To the extent that it can 
be said to possess an "ideology," it is a strange blend of fatalism and 
nihilism. In al Qaeda's case, it is actively supported by relatively 
isolated groupings, and its actions have been condemned without 
exception by all major religious figures, from the pope to the grand 
mufti of Saudi Arabia.

Its power is circumscribed, too. It still relies largely on familiar 
tools of violence. Unlike communist totalitarian regimes, al Qaeda does 
not use terror as an organizing tool but rather, because of its own 
organizational weakness, as a disruptive tactic. Its members are bound 
together by this tactic, not by an ideology. Ultimately, al Qaeda or 
some related terrorist group may acquire truly destructive power, but 
one should not confuse potentiality with actuality.

But in the meantime, is Bush smart to be making this comparison?

The analogy to communism may have some short-term political benefit, for 
it can rekindle the fears of the past while casting the president in the 
mold of the historic victors of the Cold War, from Harry Truman to 
Ronald Reagan. But the propagation of fear also has a major downside: It 
can produce a nation driven by fear, lacking in self-confidence and thus 
less likely to inspire trust among America's allies, including Muslim 
ones, whose support is needed for an effective and intelligent response 
to the terrorist phenomenon.

It is particularly troubling that Bush has also relied heavily in his 
recent speeches on what to many Muslims is bound to sound like 
Islamophobic language. His speeches, though occasionally containing 
disclaimers that he is not speaking of Islam as a whole, have been 
replete with references to "the murderous ideology of the Islamic 
radicals," "Islamic radicalism," "militant jihadism," "Islamofascism" or 
"Islamic Caliphate."

Such phraseology can have unintended consequences. Instead of mobilizing 
moderate Muslims to stand by our side, the repetitive refrain about 
Islamic terrorism may not only offend moderate Muslims but could 
eventually contribute to a perception that the campaign against 
terrorism is also a campaign against Islam as a whole. They may note 
that the United States, in condemning IRA terrorism in Northern Ireland 
or Basque terrorism in Spain, does not describe it as "Catholic 
terrorism," a phrase that Catholics around the world would likely find 
offensive.

Bush's recent speeches also stand in sharp contrast to his mid-September 
address to the United Nations, in which he not only refrained entirely 
from labeling terrorism in any religious terms but also spoke 
thoughtfully of social "anger and despair" as contributing to the rise 
of terrorism. He stressed that the war against terrorism "will not be 
won by force alone. . . . We must change the conditions that allow 
terrorists to flourish and recruit." By contrast, Bush recently has 
dismissed altogether the notion that there could be any "set of 
grievances that can be soothed and addressed" in order to eliminate the 
sources of terrorism.

It should be cause for concern to U.S. policymakers that only one major 
foreign statesman comes close to emulating Bush's rhetorical emphasis on 
the Islamic aspects of the current terrorist threat, and that is Russian 
President Vladimir Putin. Putin has deliberately seized upon the theme 
of Islamic terrorism to justify his relentless war against the Chechens' 
aspirations for self-determination. That war has the dangerous effect of 
generating rising tensions with Russia's sizable Muslim population.

It certainly is not in the United States's interest, especially in the 
Middle East, to prompt a fusion of Muslim political resentments against 
America with a wider and stronger sense of Islamic religious identity. 
When the president talks of Iraq as "the central front" in the war 
against Islamic terrorism, he links Iraqi and Arab anti-American 
nationalism with outraged Muslim religious feelings, thereby reinforcing 
the case for bin Laden's claim that the struggle is, indeed, against 
"the crusaders."

That fusion could endow terrorism with fanatical intensity, compensating 
for the weakness that it suffers in comparison to the organizational and 
military threat posed earlier by communism. Indeed, the limitations of 
al Qaeda and similar organizations could change, especially if the 
president fails to pursue policies that aim at isolating terrorist 
groups as well as undercutting their recruitment campaigns.

Unfortunately, the military character of our presence in the Middle East 
may be helping to bring this change about. Robert A. Pape, a political 
science professor at the University of Chicago, has analyzed the 
motivations of contemporary suicide-attackers. He demonstrates that in 
the majority of cases, the attackers' basic impulse has been hostility 
toward foreign invaders, and he concluded a recent TV interview by 
observing that "the longer our forces stay on the ground in the Arabian 
Peninsula, the greater the risk of the next 9/11."

America would be better served if Bush avoided semantic traps that 
create uncertainty about our true motives or fuel the worst suspicions 
regarding U.S. strategy in the Middle East. Neither Islamophobic 
terminology nor evocations of the victorious struggle with communism 
help generate a better public understanding of what policies are needed 
in order to pacify the Middle East and to speed the fading away of 
terrorism, whose origins lie mostly in that region of the world. 
Americans need to hear more of what Bush was saying not long ago to the 
United Nations and less of what he has been propagating lately in the 
United States.

Zbigniew Brzezinski was national security adviser to President Jimmy 
Carter. He is a professor of American foreign policy at Johns Hopkins 
University's School of Advanced International Studies and a trustee of 
the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/02/AR2005120201308.html?nav=hcmodule
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Sun Dec  4 07:49:48 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Sun Dec  4 08:02:25 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Finally,
	Congress Stands Up - David Broder - Washington Post Op-Ed
Message-ID: <4393101C.1040904@comcast.net>

Finally, Congress Stands Up

By David Broder
Sunday, December 4, 2005; B07

When Lindsey Graham and John Sununu joined the ranks of Republican 
senators, the last thing the White House expected was that they would 
start challenging administration policies on national security.

Graham, 50, came to the Senate in 2002 after a career as an Air Force 
officer and lawyer and as a member, for eight years, of the House, where 
his most notable service was on the team pressing impeachment charges 
against Bill Clinton.

Sununu, who is 41, also won his first term in 2002, after six years in 
the House. An engineer by training, he learned politics from his father 
and namesake, who served as governor of New Hampshire and later as chief 
of staff to the first President Bush.

Both of them had shown early streaks of independence. Graham led an 
abortive conservative rebellion against House Speaker Newt Gingrich and 
supported John McCain over George Bush in the 2000 South Carolina 
primary. Sununu challenged and defeated incumbent Republican Sen. Bob 
Smith in a hard-fought primary before beating Democratic Gov. Jeanne 
Shaheen in the general election.

Graham and Sununu have been supportive of most Bush policies, but their 
current objections illustrate the way in which some of the president's 
anti-terrorism methods have caused grave concerns among libertarian 
conservatives.

Sununu has taken the lead in a group of senators pressing for changes in 
the Patriot Act, the legislation expanding FBI powers that the 
administration rushed through Congress after the attacks of Sept. 11, 
2001. Many of the changes they wanted were made in the Senate bill, but 
administration objections have stymied their acceptance in a 
House-Senate conference.

Sununu and the others, who range from senators as conservative as Larry 
Craig of Idaho to those as liberal as Russ Feingold of Wisconsin and 
Dick Durbin of Illinois, have threatened a filibuster to force further 
negotiations.

What Graham, Sununu and their brethren are looking for is specific and 
significant: a requirement that the government convince a judge that a 
search of records has a direct connection, not just vague "relevance," 
to a suspected terrorist; a right of judicial appeal to challenge gag 
orders on such searches; a requirement that targets of "sneak-and-peek" 
searches be notified within seven days of their occurrence; and a 
four-year "sunset" clause for these special powers.

Sununu and his allies have been discussing these points with the Justice 
Department and the White House for two years. What is frustrating, he 
told me in an interview, "is that they will not debate these specific 
changes; they respond only with sweeping generalizations that we need to 
reauthorize the Patriot Act. That's not good enough."

For Graham, the issue is the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay 
and other (still secret) overseas facilities. Like 89 other senators, he 
supported McCain's legislation barring the use of torture or

the extreme measures publicized at Abu Ghraib.

When Vice President Cheney lobbied the House to kill the McCain 
restriction, Graham jumped in to offer additional leverage to the 
administration's critics.

<>He first framed an amendment -- welcomed by the White House -- to bar 
enemy combatants held at Guantanamo Bay from taking their cases into 
U.S. courts, then enlisted liberal Democratic Sen. Carl Levin of 
Michigan and conservative Republican Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona in a 
bipartisan resolution to provide automatic judicial review of all 
military trial
sentences of at least 10 years. The resulting compromise gained 84 votes 
and, Graham told me, sends a strong message to the House that both the 
McCain language and this compromise must be included in the final 
legislation -- the White House notwithstanding.

What came through most clearly to me, in talking with both senators, was 
their sense that Congress as an institution must assert itself and take 
responsibility for setting policy on these national security issues.

For too long, they both said, it has been too easy to say -- or imply -- 
that it's the president's job alone to decide how to protect the 
nation's safety and vital interests. That complacent attitude may have 
been tolerable during the false lull after the end of the Cold War, but 
it cannot be accepted during a time of war and continuing terrorist threats.

Last month the Senate asserted itself by passing a meaningful, 
bipartisan declaration that 2006 must be a "year of transition" in which 
Iraqis take over major responsibility for the security and stability of 
their own country.

That younger senators such as Graham and Sununu are organizing 
bipartisan coalitions on such corollary national security issues as the 
Patriot Act and treatment of detainees is good news for the country. It 
is time for a similar effort in the House.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/02/AR2005120201749.html?nav=hcmodule
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Sun Dec  4 07:52:41 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Sun Dec  4 08:05:23 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Don't tell me what to do with my embryos - Pamela Madsen
 - Boston Globe Op-Ed
Message-ID: <439310C9.8060907@comcast.net>


  Don't tell me what to do with my embryos

By Pamela Madsen  |  December 4, 2005  |  The Boston Globe

There's a whole lot of noise out there from everyone -- and I mean 
everyone -- about what ought to be done with frozen embryos. I'm 
impressed that so many pundits, politicians, religious leaders, 
scientists, and celebrities can be so confident about making the right 
choice for others when they've never been up against reproductive 
difficulties themselves.

I know it took me and my husband years of intense wrangling to figure 
out what to do with our remaining embryos after we were fortunate enough 
to have our children. From my perch as founder and executive director of 
one of the largest US fertility patient advocacy groups, I know we're 
not unique. I hear from thousands of people how grueling it is to reach 
a decision about when and how to relinquish embryos forever.

It wasn't until our two sons -- both conceived via in vitro 
fertilization, the process by which embryos are created in a laboratory 
-- were little kids that we even talked about our four unused embryos. 
Those microscopic cell clusters weren't surplus or extras until we 
discussed whether to try for a third child. I wanted to; he didn't.

Embryos do not come easily. IVF is arduous, stressful, life altering, 
and expensive. It can be heartbreaking when it doesn't work. And even 
when things look optimal, embryos don't assure a live birth. That's one 
critical fact that's lost in the cacophony of strident opinions. The 
three- to five-day-old fertilized eggs IVF patients produce are the 
embodiment of potential, not a guarantee. Fortunate people end treatment 
with children. The others don't. In either case, the cryogenically 
protected embryos not used by those who made them are just as much the 
result of love and great sacrifice as the ones they do use.

Frankly, most of us trekking down IVF Street never believed we'd have 
any embryos, let alone a surplus. When there are extras, we do not make 
our decisions lightly.

Given that I wasn't going to add to the family without my husband's 
enthusiastic consent, we began to tussle over the limited options for 
embryo disposition. ''Embryo disposition" is a very clinical-sounding 
term for one of the most emotionally fraught decisions the infertile 
confront. The alternatives are limited: donation to other infertile 
couples willing to take the odds, donation to research, nonviable 
thawing, or keeping embryos in the deep freeze.

Each route is laden with psychological and emotional grenades. They 
don't necessarily detonate, but people must be prepared. Like me and my 
husband, the infertile must weigh each option against their consciences, 
personal ethics, and morality, their cultures, religious convictions, 
and community values. Ultimately the choice each individual or couple 
makes must be a function of what gives them the most comfort as they 
close the book on their struggles to procreate. Each decision is hard 
won and deserves respect.

The debate in our house stretched from days to months to years -- 
flaring, then subsiding. Parenting our sons pushed disposition to the 
back burner until time forced it to the front.

First, my husband proposed that we transfer our embryos to my uterus at 
a time when it was certain no pregnancy would result. I balked. Why not 
let them thaw without transferring? For many, that option provides the 
solace of finally grieving all that will never be.

We made neither choice and kept paying for storage while we dickered. 
There were protracted conversations about donating to another couple. 
The more we considered this option, the more we recognized its profound 
generosity. Donors must accept that they may have a full genetic son or 
daughter they will never know; that their children, if they have any, 
may have a full sibling living as a stranger. They must be at peace with 
those possibilities. We weren't. I realized then that if we were forced 
to surrender our genetic material -- if it was pushed on us -- we would 
be haunted forever.

In the end, we opted to donate our four embryos to stem cell research (a 
surprisingly complicated endeavor, but that's another story). It's our 
life-affirming hope that they will help some other mother's child in 
need of a cure. But that's us.

And that's the point. What happens to these embryos is a personal 
decision that belongs to no one but the people who created them. Those 
of us who undergo IVF -- a technology for which we are inexpressibly 
grateful and which we will fight to preserve -- are already laboring 
under enormous pressures. We get little, if any, support, financial or 
otherwise, to pursue assisted reproductive technologies. Certainly not 
from the grandstanding politicians, religious, social, or scientific 
leaders who want to lay claim to our embryos.

If they want to provide us with information about and support for 
disposition options, that's great. That's important. Just don't try to 
mandate or legislate what we do with our embryos. At the end of the day, 
it's our choice and ours alone.

Pamela Madsen is the founder and executive director of the American 
Fertility Association. 


http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/12/04/dont_tell_me_what_to_do_with_my_embryos/
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Sun Dec  4 07:56:07 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Sun Dec  4 08:08:44 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Massachusetts and genocide - Peter Balakian & George H.
 Stanton - Boston Globe Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43931197.1060608@comcast.net>


  Massachusetts and genocide

By Peter Balakian and George H. Stanton  |  December 4, 2005  |  The 
Boston Globe

THE RECENT lawsuit filed on behalf of the Assembly of Turkish American 
Associations, a student, and two teachers claims that the Massachusetts 
Board of Education is censoring history and denying freedom of speech. 
Why? Because educational materials about genocide and human rights, 
approved by the board, removed reference to a Turkish government website 
that denies the historical reality of the Armenian Genocide of 1915. If 
the board were to endorse websites denying the reality of the Holocaust, 
Massachusetts citizens would be justifiably outraged.

The lawsuit is wrong in claiming that extermination of the Armenians by 
the Ottoman Turkish government in 1915 is a disputed history. There is a 
profound difference between disputed history and denialist propaganda.

Scholarly agreement on the Armenian Genocide is overwhelming; and 
scholars of genocide are unequivocal about the reality and scope of the 
Armenian Genocide, in which the Ottoman Turkish government exterminated 
over one million Armenians, eliminating almost all of the Armenians in 
Turkey. The International Association of Genocide Scholars (the 
definitive group of scholars on the subject), the Institute on the 
Holocaust and Genocide in Jerusalem, and the Institute for the Study of 
Genocide have repeatedly affirmed the historical facts of the Armenian 
Genocide.

Exasperated with the Turkish government's campaign to falsify the 
history of the Armenian Genocide, the International Association of 
Genocide Scholars unanimously ratified an open letter to the Turkish 
prime minister last June, noting that Polish jurist Raphael Lemkin, when 
he coined the term genocide in 1944, used the Turkish extermination of 
the Armenians and the Nazi extermination of the Jews as defining 
examples of what he meant by genocide; and that the killing of the 
Armenians is genocide as defined by the 1948 United Nations Genocide 
Convention. The Armenian Genocide has a crucial place in every book on 
comparative genocide in the English language.

The Board of Education's decision to drop Turkish websites from a 
curriculum aimed at teaching about genocide was a corrective to an 
egregious situation in which a foreign government managed to intervene 
(with the help of the ATAA) to insert historical falsehoods in a 
Massachusetts curriculum. It seems clear that the lawsuit, initiated by 
the Assembly of Turkish American Associations, has a blatant political 
subtext, which is to aid the Turkish government's 90-year campaign to 
deny the Armenian Genocide. The politics are transparent; the 
intellectual discourse on the Armenian Genocide is the result of 
mainstream, international scholarship over many decades, while Turkey's 
denial is the product of its government and a few scholars who work with it.

Finally, this is not a First Amendment issue. States have the right to 
shape their own curriculums and educational goals. Freedom and 
educational ethics are at stake here. The leading scholar on Holocaust 
denial, Deborah Lipstadt, put it well in a statement she made to 
Congress in 2000: ''Denial of genocide -- whether that of the Turks 
against the Armenians, or the Nazis against the Jews -- is not an act of 
historical reinterpretation . . . The deniers aim at convincing innocent 
third parties that there is 'another side of the story,' when there is 
not. Free speech does not guarantee the deniers the right to be treated 
as the 'other side of a legitimate debate,' when there is no credible 
'other side'; nor does it guarantee the deniers space in the classroom 
or curriculum, or in any other forum."

The issue, Lipstadt demonstrates, is not about free speech, but about 
endorsing a foreign government's propaganda. The Turkish government and 
its supporters are free to express their thoughts, but it does not 
follow that their genocide denial websites are entitled to endorsement 
in Massachusetts classrooms.

The First Amendment permits us to express anything, but is does not 
enable a foreign government's falsification of history to be taught in 
our public schools. When Elie Wiesel wrote to the governor of 
Massachusetts in 1999 urging the state to drop the Turkish denial 
website from resources recommended in the genocide curriculum, he said: 
''Nothing that is in any way related to genocide must be distorted or 
diminished. No human rights curriculum sponsored by the state should be 
teaching the untruths put forth by the perpetrator. Our dignity as human 
beings is at stake."

Peter Balakian, Donald M. and Constance H. Rebar Professor of the 
Humanities at Colgate University, is the winner of the 2005 Raphael 
Lemkin Prize for ''The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and 
America's Response." Gregory H. Stanton is James Farmer Professor of 
Human Rights at University of Mary Washington and vice president of the 
International Association of Genocide Scholars.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/12/04/massachusetts_and_genocide/
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From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Sun Dec  4 09:15:25 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (Mike Blaxill)
Date: Sun Dec  4 09:25:37 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Frank Rich
Message-ID: <20051204171525.68790.qmail@web53015.mail.yahoo.com>

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/120405Z.shtml

All the President's Flacks
    By Frank Rich
    The New York Times

    Sunday 04 December 2005

    When "all of the facts come out in this
case," Bob Woodward told Terry Gross on NPR in
July, "it's going to be laughable because the
consequences are not that great."

    Who's laughing now?

    Why Mr. Woodward took more than two years to
tell his editor that he had his own personal Deep
Throat in the Wilson affair is a mystery best
tackled by combatants in the Washington Post
newsroom. (Been there, done that here at The
Times.) Mr. Woodward says he wanted to avoid a
subpoena, but he first learned that Joseph
Wilson's wife was in the C.I.A. in mid-June 2003,
more than six months before Patrick Fitzgerald or
subpoenas entered the picture. Never mind. Far
more disturbing is Mr. Woodward's utter failure
to recognize the import of the story that fell
into his lap so long ago.

    The reporter who with Carl Bernstein turned a
"third-rate burglary" into a key for unlocking
the true character of the Nixon White House still
can't quite believe that a Washington leak story
unworthy of his attention has somehow become the
drip-drip-drip exposing the debacle of Iraq. "I
don't know how this is about the buildup to the
war, the Valerie Plame Wilson issue," he said on
"Larry King Live" on the eve of the Scooter Libby
indictment. Everyone else does. Largely because
of the revelations prompted by the marathon
Fitzgerald investigation, a majority of Americans
now believe that the Bush administration
deliberately misled the country into war. The
case's consequences for journalism have been
nearly as traumatic, and not just because of the
subpoenas. The Wilson story has ruthlessly
exposed the credulousness with which most (though
not all) of the press bought and disseminated the
White House line that any delay in invading Iraq
would bring nuclear Armageddon.

    "W.M.D. - I got it totally wrong," Judy
Miller said, with no exaggeration, before leaving
The Times. The Woodward affair, for all its
superficial similarities to the Miller drama,
offers an even wider window onto the White House
flimflams and the press's role in enabling them.
Mr. Woodward knows more about the internal
workings of this presidency than any other
reporter. He has been granted access to all its
top officials, including lengthy interviews with
the president himself, to produce two Bush best
sellers since 9/11. But he was gamed anyway by
the White House, which exploited his special
stature to the fullest for its own propagandistic
ends.

    Mr. Woodward, to his credit, is not guilty of
hyping Saddam's W.M.D.'s. And his books did
contain valuable news: of the Wolfowitz axis'
early push to take on Iraq, of the president's
messianic view of himself as God's chosen
warrior, of the Powell-Rumsfeld conflicts that
led to the war's catastrophic execution. Yet to
reread these Woodward books today, especially the
second, the 2004 "Plan of Attack," is to
understand just how slickly his lofty sources
deflected him from the big picture, of which the
Wilson case is just one small, if illuminating,
piece.

    In her famous takedown of Mr. Woodward for
The New York Review of Books in 1996, Joan Didion
wrote that what he "chooses to leave unrecorded,
or what he apparently does not think to elicit,
is in many ways more instructive than what he
commits to paper." She was referring to his
account of Hillary Clinton's health care fiasco
in his book "The Agenda," but her words also fit
his account of the path to war in Iraq. This
time, however, there is much more at stake than
there was in Hillarycare.

    What remains unrecorded in "Plan of Attack"
is any inkling of the disinformation campaign
built to gin up this war. While Mr. Woodward
tells us about the controversial posturing of
Douglas Feith, the former under secretary of
defense for policy, there's only an incidental,
even dismissive allusion to Mr. Feith's Policy
Counterterrorism Evaluation Group. That was the
secret intelligence unit established at the
Pentagon to "prove" Iraq-Qaeda connections, which
Vice President Dick Cheney then would trumpet in
arenas like "Meet the Press." Mr. Woodward
mentions in passing the White House Iraq Group,
convened to market the war, but ignores the
direct correlation between WHIG's inception and
the accelerating hysteria in the Bush-Cheney-Rice
warnings about Saddam's impending mushroom clouds
in the late summer and fall of 2002. This story
was broken by Barton Gellman and Walter Pincus in
Mr. Woodward's own paper eight months before
"Plan of Attack" was published.

    Near the book's end, Mr. Woodward writes of
some "troubling" tips from three sources "that
the intelligence on W.M.D. was not as conclusive
as the C.I.A. and the administration had
suggested" and of how he helped push a Pincus
story saying much the same into print just before
the invasion. (It appeared on Page 17.) But Mr.
Woodward never seriously investigates others'
suspicions that the White House might have
deliberately suppressed or ignored evidence that
would contradict George Tenet's "slam-dunk" case
for Saddam's W.M.D.'s. "Plan of Attack" gives
greatest weight instead to the White House spin
that any hyped intelligence was an innocent error
or solely the result of the ineptitude of Mr.
Tenet and the C.I.A.

    Dick Cheney and Scooter Libby are omnipresent
in the narrative, and Mr. Woodward says now that
his notes show he had questions for them back
then about "yellowcake" uranium and "Joe Wilson's
wife." But the leak case - indeed Valerie Wilson
herself - is never mentioned in the 400-plus
pages, even though it had exploded more than six
months before he completed the book. That's the
most damning omission of all and suggests the
real motive for his failure to share what he did
know about this case with either his editor or
his readers. If you assume, as Mr. Woodward
apparently did against mounting evidence to the
contrary, that the White House acted in good
faith when purveying its claims of imminent
doomsday and pre-9/11 Qaeda-Saddam
collaborations, then there's no White House
wrongdoing that needs to be covered up. So why
would anyone in the administration try to do
something nasty to silence a whistle-blower like
Joseph Wilson? The West Wing was merely gossiping
idly about the guy, Mr. Woodward now says, in
perhaps an unconscious echo of the Karl Rove
defense strategy.

    Joan Didion was among the first to point out
that Mr. Woodward's passive notion of
journalistic neutrality is easily manipulated by
his sources. He flatters those who give him the
most access by upholding their version of events.
Hence Mary Matalin, the former Cheney flack who
helped shape WHIG's war propaganda, rushed to
defend Mr. Woodward last week. Asked by Howard
Kurtz of The Post why "an administration not
known for being fond of the press put so much
effort into cooperating with Woodward," Ms.
Matalin responded that he does "an extraordinary
job" and that "it's in the White House's interest
to have a neutral source writing the history of
the way Bush makes decisions." You bet it is.
Sounds as if she's read Didion as well as
Machiavelli.

    In an analysis of Mr. Woodward written for
The Huffington Post, Nora Ephron likens him to
Theodore H. White, who invented the modern
"inside" Washington book with "The Making of the
President 1960." White eventually became such an
insider himself that in "The Making of the
President 1972," he missed Watergate, the story
broken under his (and much of the press's) nose
by Woodward and Bernstein. "They were outsiders,"
Ms. Ephron writes of those then-lowly beat
reporters, "and their lack of top-level access
was probably their greatest asset."

    INDEED it's reporters who didn't have
top-level access to the likes of Mr. Bush and Mr.
Cheney who have gotten the Iraq story right. In
the new book "Feet to the Fire: The Media After
9/11," Kristina Borjesson interviews some of
them, including Jonathan Landay of Knight Ridder,
who heard early on from a low-level source that
"the vice president is lying" and produced a
story headlined "Lack of Hard Evidence of Iraqi
Weapons Worries Top U.S. Officials" on Sept. 6,
2002. That was two days before administration
officials fanned out on the Sunday-morning talk
shows to point ominously at the now-discredited
front-page Times story about Saddam's aluminum
tubes. Warren Strobel, a frequent reportorial
collaborator with Mr. Landay at Knight Ridder,
tells Ms. Borjesson, "The most surprising thing
to us was we had the field to ourselves for so
long in terms of writing stuff that was critical
or questioning the administration's case for
war."

    Such critical stories - including those at
The Post and The Times that were too often
relegated to Page 17 - did not get traction until
the failure to find W.M.D.'s and the Wilson
affair made America take a second look. Now that
the country has awakened to that history, it will
take more to shock it than the latest revelation
that the Defense Department has been paying Iraqi
newspapers to print its propaganda. Thanks in
large part to the case Mr. Woodward found so
inconsequential, everyone knows that much of the
American press did just the same before the war -
and, unlike those Iraqi newspapers or, say,
Armstrong Williams, did so gratis.
From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Sun Dec  4 09:17:44 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (Mike Blaxill)
Date: Sun Dec  4 09:27:54 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Maureen Dowd
Message-ID: <20051204171744.4192.qmail@web53009.mail.yahoo.com>

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/120305F.shtml

W.'s Head in the Sand 
    By Maureen Dowd 
    The New York Times

    Saturday 03 December 2005

    In the Christmas spirit, the time has come
for the reality-based community to reach out to
the White House.

    The Bush warriors are so deluded, they're
even faking their fakery.

    This week, the president presented a
plan-like plan for "victory" in Iraq, which Scott
McClellan rather pompously called the
unclassified version of their super secret master
plan. But there's no way to achieve victory from
the plan even if there were a real plan. If this
is what they're telling themselves in the Sit
Room, we're in bigger trouble than we thought.

    Talk about your unknown unknowns, as Rummy
would say.

    The National Strategy for Victory must have
come from the same P.R. genius who gave President
Top Gun the "Mission Accomplished" banner about
48 hours before the first counterinsurgency war
of the 21st century broke out in Iraq.

    It's not a military strategy - classified or
unclassified. It's political talking points - and
not even good ones. Are we really supposed to
believe that anybody, even the most deeply
delusional Bush sycophant, believes the phrase
"Our strategy is working"?

    The president talked about three neatly
definable groups of insurrectionists. But, as
Dexter Filkins reported in yesterday's New York
Times, there are dozens, perhaps as many as a
hundred, groups fighting the US Army in Iraq, and
they have little, if anything, in common.

    Mr. Bush's presentation claimed that the US
was actually making progress in Iraq. But outside
the Bush-Cheney-Rummy bubble, 10 more marines
were killed by a roadside bomb outside Fallujah,
for a total of 2,125 US military deaths so far.

    The administration must realize it needs a
real exit strategy, because it's advertising for
one. The US Agency for International Development
is offering more than $1 billion for anyone -
anyone at all - who can come up with a plan to
pacify and rebuild 10 Iraqi cities seen as vital
in the war.

    Maybe the White House should apply - Usaid's
proffer says the "invitation is open to any type
of entity."

    When Bush officials weren't telling us fairy
tales about the big, bad W.M.D. in Iraq, they
were assuring us that the unprovoked war would be
a kindness for Iraq, giving it democracy. But not
only are they failing to bring democracy to Iraq,
they are also degrading democracy in America as
they help Iranian-backed mullahs install an
Islamic republic with Saddamist torture chambers.

    They've tarnished American moral leadership
with illegal detentions, torture, secret CIA
prisons in countries only recently liberated from
the Soviet gulag, and Soviet-style propaganda
both at home and in Iraq.

    Guess the Bush administration didn't learn
anything this fall when federal auditors charged
it with violating the law by buying favorable
news coverage of education polices. The
administration got right back into the fake news
business, paying to plant propaganda in the Iraqi
press. They outsourced this disinformation
campaign to something called the Lincoln Group -
have they no shame?

    You have to admire Scott McClellan, the
president's spokesman. He kept a straight face
when he called the US "a leader when it comes to
promoting and advocating a free and independent
media around the world." He added, "We've made
our views very clear when it comes to freedom of
the press."

    Exceedingly clear. The Bushies don't believe
in it. They disdain the whole democratic system
of checks and balances.

    At the Naval Academy, President Bush talked
about how well the Iraqi security forces were
fighting. He claimed that 40 Iraqi battalions
were taking the lead in the fight against
insurgents, and that in the battle of Tal Afar
this year, "the assault was primarily led by
Iraqi security forces - 11 Iraqi battalions
backed by 5 coalition battalions providing
support."

    Anderson Cooper of CNN swiftly produced
Time's Baghdad bureau chief, Michael Ware, who
was embedded with the US military during the
entire Tal Afar battle. "With the greatest
respect to the president, that's completely
wrong," Mr. Ware said, adding: "I was with Iraqi
units right there on the front line as they were
battling with al Qaeda. They were not leading."

    He also told Mr. Cooper: "I have had a very
senior officer here in Baghdad say to me that
there's never going to be a point where these
guys will be able to stand up against the
insurgency on their own."

    Mr. Ware recalled that in a battle two weeks
ago, he saw an Iraqi security officer put down
his weapon and curl up into a ball when he was
under attack. "I have seen that on - on many,
many occasions," he said.

    Curling up in a ball. Good National Strategy
for Victory.
From IHHS at aol.com  Sun Dec  4 01:24:06 2005
From: IHHS at aol.com (IHHS@aol.com)
Date: Sun Dec  4 09:43:27 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] girls being girls, big pharma is willing to help
Message-ID: <E1Eixjf-0007ja-Tm@smtpauth04.mail.atl.earthlink.net>

Skipped content of type multipart/related
From michael at michaelbutler.com  Sun Dec  4 09:38:01 2005
From: michael at michaelbutler.com (Michael Butler)
Date: Sun Dec  4 09:49:38 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] From A Friend
In-Reply-To: <BAY107-DAV1464493291B2F54DF48EFED74E0@phx.gbl>
Message-ID: <BFB893A9.266C7%michael@michaelbutler.com>



Don't show my name if you forward this; I'm living in a stealth world.


BATTLE HYMN OF THE REPUBLICANS

Mine Eyes have seen the bungling of that stumbling moron Bush;
he has blathered all the drivel that the neo-cons can push;
he has lost sight of all reason 'cause his head is up his tush;
The Doofus marches on.

I have heard him butcher syntax like a kindergarten fool;
There is warranted suspicion that he never went to school;
Should we fault him for the policies - or is he just their tool?
The lies keep piling on.

Glory! Glory! How he'll Screw Ya!
Glory! Glory! How he'll Screw Ya!
Glory! Glory! How he'll Screw Ya!
The Doofus marches on!

I have seen him cut the taxes of the billionaires' lone heir;
As he spends another zillion on an aircraft carrier;
Let the smokestacks keep polluting - do we really need clean air?
The surplus is now gone.

Glory! Glory! How he'll Screw Ya!
Glory! Glory! How he'll Screw Ya!
Glory! Glory! How he'll Screw Ya!
Your safety net is gone!

Now he's got a mighty hankerin' to bomb a prostrate state;
Though the whole world knows its crazy and the U.N. says to wait;
When he doesn't have the evidence, "We must prevaricate."
Diplomacy is done!

Oh, a trumped-up war is excellent; we have no moral bounds;
Should the reasons be disputed, we'll just make up other grounds;
Enraging several billions -- to his brainlessness redounds;
The Doofus marches on!

Glory! Glory! How he'll Screw Ya!
Glory! Glory! How he'll Screw Ya!
Glory! Glory! How he'll Screw Ya!
The Doofus marches on!

------ End of Forwarded Message

From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Sun Dec  4 10:02:53 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (Mike Blaxill)
Date: Sun Dec  4 10:13:07 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Ford Co's Nazi past and anti-gay present
Message-ID: <20051204180253.7320.qmail@web53001.mail.yahoo.com>

>From AmericaBog - this is fascinating stuff...the
Nazis and ole Henry were tight...you learn
something new every day (or at least i do) -
there's also a history between Hitler and
Prescott Bush if i'm not mistaken - gotta love
those unfettered capitalists

2 separate stories and links below

-----------------------------
http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/12/international-jew-worlds-foremost.html

"The International Jew, the World's Foremost
Problem," by Henry Ford 
by John in DC - 12/03/2005 01:39:00 PM 

>From Wikipedia:

Henry Ford began publication of a newspaper, The
Dearborn Independent, in 1919. The paper ran for
eight years, during which it republished
"Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion," which
has since been discredited as an anti-Semitic
forgery. The American Jewish Historical Society
describes the ideas presented in it as
"anti-immigrant, anti-labor, anti-liquor, and
anti-Semitic".

The Independent also published, in Ford's name,
several anti-Jewish articles which were released
in the early 1920s as a set of four bound
volumes, cumulatively titled "The International
Jew, the World's Foremost Problem." These volumes
were distributed through Ford's car dealerships.
Denounced by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL),
the articles nevertheless explicitly condemned
pogroms and violence against Jews (Volume 4,
Chapter 80), preferring to blame incidents of
mass violence on the Jews themselves. None of
this work was actually penned by Ford, though
they required his tacit approval since he was the
paper's publisher....

In the years between the wars, Henry Ford
supported Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime. His support
abated as the United States entered WWII. There
is also some evidence that Henry Ford gave Adolf
Hitler direct financial backing when Hitler was
first starting out in politics. This can in part
be traced to statements from Kurt Ludecke,
Germany's representative to the U.S. in the
1920s, and Winifred Wagner, daughter-in-law of
Richard Wagner, who said they requested funds
from Ford to aid the National Socialist movement
in Germany. However, a 1933 Congressional
investigation into the matter was unable to
substantiate whether contributions were actually
sent. Regardless of whether direct financial
support was provided, Ford repeatedly voiced his
overt approval of Hitler's theories.

Ford's indirect financial backing of the Nazis
was also undeniable, as Ford Motor Company was
active in Germany's military buildup prior to
World War II. In 1938, for instance, Ford
assisted to construct an assembly plant in
Berlin, the purpose of which was to supply trucks
to the Wehrmacht. Forced labor was employed to
produce 78,000 trucks and 14,000 track vehicles.
In July of that year, Ford was awarded (and
accepted) the Grand Cross of the Order of the
German Eagle (Gro?kreuz des Deutschen
Adlerordens). Ford was the first American and the
fourth person given this award, at the time Nazi
Germany's highest honorary award given to
foreigners. The decoration was given "in
recognition of [Ford's] pioneering in making
motor cars available for the masses." The award
was accompanied by a personal congratulatory
message from Adolf Hitler. [Detroit News, July
31, 1938.] A portrait of Ford was hung at the
Nazi party's headquarters in Munich.

(Note from John: You'd think Ford would recognize
it's unique historical burden to remember the
wrongs of the past and not cave yet again to the
prejudiced whims of jack-booted bigots. You'd
think that. But you'd be wrong.

-------------------------------------

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/12/ford-motor-company-embraces-homophobia.html

Ford Motor Company embraces homophobia in order
to appease religious right 
by John in DC - 12/03/2005 11:59:00 AM 

Well, we just got our new campaign. Ford needs to
be taught a lesson. If they think they're above
the fray and too big to be influenced by the mean
homosexuals, they ought to give Bill Gates a call
and see what happened to Microsoft when they
endorsed outright bigotry in order to appease
America's Taliban.

In a nutshell, the rabid homophobes at the
American Family Association threatened Ford with
a boycott earlier this year because they were
advertising in the gay press. Suddenly in June
the AFA called off their threatened boycott
because local Ford dealers had contacted the
national Ford office and, apparently, suggested
Ford might be amenable to working out a deal. Now
we find out that Ford is pulling its gay ads and
that Ford even tells the Advocate that the AFA's
press release claiming credit for this entire
thing is accurate.

Ford wants to dance with bigots, that's fine. But
you don't get to do that in the year 2005 and
remain a prosperous company in America.

I want phone numbers and email contacts for all
of Ford's top executives and public relations
people. Go to it folks.

More from the Advocate:
The antigay American Family Association claimed a
cultural victory on Thursday and called off its
threatened boycott of Ford Motor Co. On Friday,
Ford spokesman Mike Moran confirmed to
Advocate.com that the company will stop
advertising its Jaguar and Land Rover brands in
gay publications but insisted it was strictly a
business decision.

The Dearborn, Mich., automaker came under fire
from the AFA in May for its longtime efforts to
increase LGBT workplace diversity and support gay
rights causes. Ford has long been a regular
advertiser within gay media, including The
Advocate, and has donated significant sums to
LGBT causes and nonprofit groups such as the
Human Rights Campaign.

Threatened with a boycott by the
Mississippi-based AFA, Ford and some of its
dealers agreed to negotiate, and the AFA
announced in June that it would hold off on its
planned action. On Thursday, AFA announced the
boycott would be canceled altogether.

"They've heard our concerns; they are acting on
our concerns. We are pleased with where we are,"
said Donald Wildmon, AFA?s chairman, in a
statement. "Obviously there are still some small
matters of difference, as people will always
have, but generally speaking, we are pleased with
the results?and therefore the boycott that had
been suspended [is] now officially ended."

Specific terms of any formal agreement between
the AFA and Ford?and whether any such agreement
has in fact been reached?remain unclear.

When first contacted, Ford spokesman Moran
referred Advocate.com to the AFA statement,
suggesting that the company had no disagreement
with Wildmon's assertions. In a second
conversation he confirmed that the company would
no longer advertise Jaguar and Land Rover
products in the gay media, saying that the
decision was strictly "business."
More info, here is Ford's Board of Directors.
Anyone got contact info:

Sir John R. H. Bond 
Ellen R. Marram
Stephen G. Butler 
Homer A. Neal
Kimberly A. Casiano 
Jorma Ollila
Edsel B. Ford II 
James J. Padilla
William Clay Ford, Jr. 
Carl E. Reichardt
Irvine O. Hockaday, Jr. 
Robert E. Rubin
Marie-Jos?e Kravis 
John L. Thornton
Richard A. Manoogian

What would be most useful is if someone inside
Ford can send us a copy of the entire company
phone directory. The folks at Paramount did it
during our StopDrLaura.com campaign, it was quite
helpful.

UPDATE: Some initial contact info for Ford's
public relation's people. Let's fill their voice
mail boxes over the weekend. Ask them if they'd
pull all their advertising in black media or
Jewish media if the Klan gave them a call:

Contact: Rosemary Mariniello, Jaguar Land Rover
North America, (201) 818-8010
Contact: Jim Cain, Ford Division, (313) 248-6288
Contact: Sara Tatchio, Lincoln and Mercury, (313)
594-3744
Contact: Roger Ormisher, Volvo Cars of North
America, Inc., (800) 970-0888
Contact: George Pipas, Ford Motor Company, (313)
323-9216
Contact: Dan Bedore, Ford Division, (313)
323-7045

From mark.petracca at verizon.net  Sun Dec  4 07:25:21 2005
From: mark.petracca at verizon.net (Mark J.Petracca)
Date: Sun Dec  4 10:22:48 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] What's Wrong With This Picture...
Message-ID: <E1EiyLD-0002lF-Ls@smtpauth04.mail.atl.earthlink.net>

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From hecate at diamonddragon.com  Sun Dec  4 11:42:55 2005
From: hecate at diamonddragon.com (Hecate)
Date: Sun Dec  4 11:53:28 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] BBC E-mail: Thousands march for HK democracy
Message-ID: <20051204_194255_031940.hecate@diamonddragon.com>

Hecate saw this story on BBC News Online and thought you
should see it.



** Thousands march for HK democracy **
Tens of thousands join a protest in Hong Kong demanding a fully-democratic political system.
< http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/2/hi/asia-pacific/4496556.stm >


** BBC Daily E-mail **
Choose the news and sport headlines you want - when you want them, all
in one daily e-mail
< http://www.bbc.co.uk/dailyemail/ >


** Disclaimer **
The BBC is not responsible for the content of this e-mail, and anything written in this e-mail does not necessarily reflect the BBC's views or opinions. Please note that neither the e-mail address nor name of the sender have?been verified.

If you do not wish to receive such e-mails in the future or want to know more about the BBC's Email a Friend service, please read our frequently asked questions. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/help/4162471.stm

From michael at michaelbutler.com  Sun Dec  4 14:07:30 2005
From: michael at michaelbutler.com (Michael Butler)
Date: Sun Dec  4 14:19:07 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] GREAT STUFF
Message-ID: <BFB8D2D2.266E6%michael@michaelbutler.com>

Bill thanks for your latest-particularly Brzezinski.
Mike thanks for Ford Company reports
Michael 

From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Sun Dec  4 15:14:38 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Sun Dec  4 15:24:50 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Bush's Speech on Iraq War Echoes Voice of
	an Analyst
Message-ID: <20051204231438.C59693AE5D3@lax-gw06.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: ialterman@nyc.rr.com.

WASHINGTON | December 4, 2005
Bush's Speech on Iraq War Echoes Voice of an Analyst
By SCOTT SHANE
The address, influenced by a new White House adviser, appeared to be designed to turn around flagging public support.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/04/politics/04strategy.html?emc=eta1



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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Sun Dec  4 15:15:15 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Sun Dec  4 15:25:23 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Pro-Democracy Protesters March in Hong Kong
Message-ID: <20051204231515.0A48883D3B@lax-gw03.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: ialterman@nyc.rr.com.

INTERNATIONAL / ASIA PACIFIC | December 4, 2005
Pro-Democracy Protesters March in Hong Kong
By KEITH BRADSHER
The throng of protesters defied warnings from Chinese officials, who have refused to set a timetable for general elections.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/04/international/asia/04cnd-hong.html?emc=eta1



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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Sun Dec  4 15:15:41 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Sun Dec  4 15:25:50 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Conservative Poland Roils European Union
Message-ID: <20051204231541.B38C324AED8@lax-gw02.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: ialterman@nyc.rr.com.

INTERNATIONAL / EUROPE | December 4, 2005
Conservative Poland Roils European Union
By GRAHAM BOWLEY International Herald Tribune
Poles and other newcomers are intensifying a culture clash in Brussels. 
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/04/international/europe/04brussels.html?emc=eta1



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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Sun Dec  4 15:16:27 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Sun Dec  4 15:26:34 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Report Finds Cover-Up in an F.B.I. Terror
	Case
Message-ID: <20051204231627.A95CA24AEFB@lax-gw02.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: ialterman@nyc.rr.com.

WASHINGTON | December 4, 2005
Report Finds Cover-Up in an F.B.I. Terror Case
By ERIC LICHTBLAU
F.B.I. officials falsified documents and retaliated against an agent who complained about problems, investigators concluded.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/04/politics/04fbi.html?emc=eta1



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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Sun Dec  4 15:17:11 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Sun Dec  4 15:27:23 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Election Fraud Is the Target of F.B.I. Sting
Message-ID: <20051204231711.F13D7A0FC9@lax-gw09.mroute.net>

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Too bad they weren't there in Ohio...


NATIONAL | December 4, 2005
Election Fraud Is the Target of F.B.I. Sting
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
In southern West Virginia, the F.B.I. used a politician under investigation to help set up a sting to find evidence of vote-buying.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/04/national/04west.html?emc=eta1



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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Sun Dec  4 15:17:28 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Sun Dec  4 15:27:35 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Group of 7 Is Still Split on Subsidies
Message-ID: <20051204231728.419E2249CA1@lax-gw08.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: ialterman@nyc.rr.com.

INTERNATIONAL / EUROPE | December 4, 2005
Group of 7 Is Still Split on Subsidies
By GRAHAM BOWLEY International Herald Tribune
The Group of 7 of the world's leading industrial nations called for "renewed momentum" in negotiations to prevent a breakdown in scheduled global trade talks.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/04/international/europe/04london.html?emc=eta1



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one Best Picture.  What did the original New York
Times movie reviews have to say about these Oscar
winning films?  
Go to the Best Pictures review archive:

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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Sun Dec  4 15:19:08 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Sun Dec  4 15:29:19 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: This Season's War Cry: Commercialize
	Christmas, or Else
Message-ID: <20051204231908.99906237255@lax-gw01.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: ialterman@nyc.rr.com.

I am preparing a lengthy, Op-Ed style response to this. Though I doubt it will be published, I will send it along when it's done. Peace.


OPINION TIMESSELECT | December 4, 2005
Editorial Observer: This Season's War Cry: Commercialize Christmas, or Else
By ADAM COHEN
Religious conservatives have a cause this holiday season: the commercialization of Christmas. They're for it.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/04/opinion/04sun3.html?emc=eta1




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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Sun Dec  4 15:19:25 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Sun Dec  4 15:29:33 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: What Would J.F.K. Have Done?
Message-ID: <20051204231925.AC299236F35@lax-gw01.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: ialterman@nyc.rr.com.

MUST READ!


OPINION TIMESSELECT | December 4, 2005
Op-Ed Contributors: What Would J.F.K. Have Done?
By THEODORE C. SORENSEN and ARTHUR SCHLESINGER Jr.
What President Bush could learn from John F. Kennedy about Iraq.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/04/opinion/04sorensen.html?emc=eta1




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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Sun Dec  4 15:20:14 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Sun Dec  4 15:30:31 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: The War in Iraq and Our Self-Esteem (5
	Letters)
Message-ID: <20051204232014.1C676A0FF2@lax-gw09.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: ialterman@nyc.rr.com.

What we're saying...


OPINION TIMESSELECT | December 4, 2005
The War in Iraq and Our Self-Esteem (5 Letters)

To the Editor:.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/04/opinion/l04brooks.html?emc=eta1




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From nwonline at toronto.cbc.ca  Sun Dec  4 17:12:02 2005
From: nwonline at toronto.cbc.ca (CBC News Online)
Date: Sun Dec  4 17:22:34 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] CBC News - MAOIST REBELS EXTEND CEASEFIRE IN NEPAL
Message-ID: <20051205011202.EEC2D1B69B@nmweb06.nm.cbc.ca>

This email has been sent to you by harry.sifton@sympatico.ca
The following is a news item posted on CBC NEWS ONLINE
at http://www.cbc.ca/news
____________________________________________________
MAOIST REBELS EXTEND CEASEFIRE IN NEPAL
WebPosted Fri Dec  2 19:50:46 2005

---Maoist rebels in Nepal have extended a unilateral three-month
ceasefire by one month.

Rebel leader Prachanda announced the move in a statement just a few hours
before the truce was set to expire on Friday.

The announcement has been welcomed by six other mainstream opposition
parties, which have agreed to form an alliance with the Maoists aimed at
restoring democracy in Nepal.

The announcement also comes ahead of the return of King Gyanendra to
Nepal after an African tour.

The Himalayan country has been shaken by repeated strikes and protests
since the king fired the multi-party government in February and seized
power. The monarch justified the move by saying the government had failed
to quell the Maoist revolt.

The Maoists have been fighting for a communist republic since 1996 and
the conflict has killed more than 12,000 people.

Meanwhile, tens of thousands of anti-royal protesters took to the
streets in Kathmandu, as the king returned from his Africa trip. A
brief clash between demonstrators and monarchists erupted and dozens
have been injured.

Friday's protest marks the first of a month-long series of anti-royal
protests planned by the Nepal Communist Party-United Marxist and Leninist
(NCP-ML) and six other opposition parties.

Copyright (C) 2005 CBC. All rights reserved.
From michael at michaelbutler.com  Sun Dec  4 13:49:14 2005
From: michael at michaelbutler.com (Michael Butler)
Date: Sun Dec  4 17:26:02 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] MUST READ
Message-ID: <BFB8CE8A.266DE%michael@michaelbutler.com>

Bill Swiggard, a Tribal Civic Editor gave us this MUST READ

Do These Two Have Anything in Common?
President Bush has equated Islamic radicalism with communism. Is the
comparison sound? Is it wise?

By Zbigniew Brzezinski
Sunday, December 4, 2005; B02

In a series of recent speeches to the American people, President Bush
has sought to equate the current terrorist threat with the 20th-century
menace of communist totalitarianism. His case is that the terrorist
challenge is global in scope, "evil" in nature, ruthless toward its
foes, and eager to control every aspect of life and thought. Thus, he
argues, the battle against terrorism demands nothing "less than a
complete victory."

In making this case, the president has repeatedly invoked the adjective
"Islamic" when referring to terrorism and he has compared the "murderous
ideology of Islamic radicalism" to the ideology of communism.

Is the president historically right in his diagnosis of the allegedly
similar dangers posed by Islamic extremism and by totalitarian
communism? The differences between the two may be more telling than
their similarities. And is he wise to be expounding such a thesis?

By asserting that Islamic extremism, "like the ideology of communism . .
. is the great challenge of our new century," Bush is implicitly
elevating Osama bin Laden's stature and historic significance to the
level of figures such as Lenin, Stalin or Mao. And that suggests, in
turn, that the fugitive Saudi dissident hiding in some cave (or perhaps
even deceased) has been articulating a doctrine of universal
significance. Underlying the president's analogy is the proposition that
bin Laden's "jihad" has the potential for dominating the minds and
hearts of hundreds of millions of people across national and even
religious boundaries. That is quite a compliment to bin Laden, but it
isn't justified. The "Islamic" jihad is, at best, a fragmented and
limited movement that hardly resonates in most of the world.

Communism, by comparison, undeniably had worldwide appeal. By the 1950s,
there was hardly a country in the world without an active communist
movement or conspiracy, irrespective of whether the country was
predominantly Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Jewish, Buddhist or Confucian.
In some countries, such as Russia and China, the communist movement was
the largest political formation, dominating intellectual discourse; in
democratic countries, such as Italy and France, it vied for political
power in open elections.

In response to the dislocations and injustices precipitated by the
Industrial Revolution, communism offered a vision of a perfectly just
society. To be sure, that vision was false and was used to justify
violence that eventually led directly to the Soviet gulag, Chinese labor
and "reeducation" camps, and other human rights abuses. Nonetheless, for
a while, communism's definition of the future bolstered its
cross-cultural appeal.

In addition, the intellectual and political challenge of the communist
ideology was backed by enormous military power. The Soviet Union
possessed a huge nuclear arsenal, capable of launching in the course of
a few minutes a massive atomic attack on America. Within a few hours,
upwards of 120 million Americans and Soviets could have been dead in an
apocalyptic mutual cross-fire. That was the horrible reality.

Contemporary terrorism -- though nasty and criminal, whether Islamic or
otherwise -- has no such political reach and no such physical
capability. Its appeal is limited; it offers no answers to the novel
dilemmas of modernization and globalization. To the extent that it can
be said to possess an "ideology," it is a strange blend of fatalism and
nihilism. In al Qaeda's case, it is actively supported by relatively
isolated groupings, and its actions have been condemned without
exception by all major religious figures, from the pope to the grand
mufti of Saudi Arabia.

Its power is circumscribed, too. It still relies largely on familiar
tools of violence. Unlike communist totalitarian regimes, al Qaeda does
not use terror as an organizing tool but rather, because of its own
organizational weakness, as a disruptive tactic. Its members are bound
together by this tactic, not by an ideology. Ultimately, al Qaeda or
some related terrorist group may acquire truly destructive power, but
one should not confuse potentiality with actuality.

But in the meantime, is Bush smart to be making this comparison?

The analogy to communism may have some short-term political benefit, for
it can rekindle the fears of the past while casting the president in the
mold of the historic victors of the Cold War, from Harry Truman to
Ronald Reagan. But the propagation of fear also has a major downside: It
can produce a nation driven by fear, lacking in self-confidence and thus
less likely to inspire trust among America's allies, including Muslim
ones, whose support is needed for an effective and intelligent response
to the terrorist phenomenon.

It is particularly troubling that Bush has also relied heavily in his
recent speeches on what to many Muslims is bound to sound like
Islamophobic language. His speeches, though occasionally containing
disclaimers that he is not speaking of Islam as a whole, have been
replete with references to "the murderous ideology of the Islamic
radicals," "Islamic radicalism," "militant jihadism," "Islamofascism" or
"Islamic Caliphate."

Such phraseology can have unintended consequences. Instead of mobilizing
moderate Muslims to stand by our side, the repetitive refrain about
Islamic terrorism may not only offend moderate Muslims but could
eventually contribute to a perception that the campaign against
terrorism is also a campaign against Islam as a whole. They may note
that the United States, in condemning IRA terrorism in Northern Ireland
or Basque terrorism in Spain, does not describe it as "Catholic
terrorism," a phrase that Catholics around the world would likely find
offensive.

Bush's recent speeches also stand in sharp contrast to his mid-September
address to the United Nations, in which he not only refrained entirely
from labeling terrorism in any religious terms but also spoke
thoughtfully of social "anger and despair" as contributing to the rise
of terrorism. He stressed that the war against terrorism "will not be
won by force alone. . . . We must change the conditions that allow
terrorists to flourish and recruit." By contrast, Bush recently has
dismissed altogether the notion that there could be any "set of
grievances that can be soothed and addressed" in order to eliminate the
sources of terrorism.

It should be cause for concern to U.S. policymakers that only one major
foreign statesman comes close to emulating Bush's rhetorical emphasis on
the Islamic aspects of the current terrorist threat, and that is Russian
President Vladimir Putin. Putin has deliberately seized upon the theme
of Islamic terrorism to justify his relentless war against the Chechens'
aspirations for self-determination. That war has the dangerous effect of
generating rising tensions with Russia's sizable Muslim population.

It certainly is not in the United States's interest, especially in the
Middle East, to prompt a fusion of Muslim political resentments against
America with a wider and stronger sense of Islamic religious identity.
When the president talks of Iraq as "the central front" in the war
against Islamic terrorism, he links Iraqi and Arab anti-American
nationalism with outraged Muslim religious feelings, thereby reinforcing
the case for bin Laden's claim that the struggle is, indeed, against
"the crusaders."

That fusion could endow terrorism with fanatical intensity, compensating
for the weakness that it suffers in comparison to the organizational and
military threat posed earlier by communism. Indeed, the limitations of
al Qaeda and similar organizations could change, especially if the
president fails to pursue policies that aim at isolating terrorist
groups as well as undercutting their recruitment campaigns.

Unfortunately, the military character of our presence in the Middle East
may be helping to bring this change about. Robert A. Pape, a political
science professor at the University of Chicago, has analyzed the
motivations of contemporary suicide-attackers. He demonstrates that in
the majority of cases, the attackers' basic impulse has been hostility
toward foreign invaders, and he concluded a recent TV interview by
observing that "the longer our forces stay on the ground in the Arabian
Peninsula, the greater the risk of the next 9/11."

America would be better served if Bush avoided semantic traps that
create uncertainty about our true motives or fuel the worst suspicions
regarding U.S. strategy in the Middle East. Neither Islamophobic
terminology nor evocations of the victorious struggle with communism
help generate a better public understanding of what policies are needed
in order to pacify the Middle East and to speed the fading away of
terrorism, whose origins lie mostly in that region of the world.
Americans need to hear more of what Bush was saying not long ago to the
United Nations and less of what he has been propagating lately in the
United States.

Zbigniew Brzezinski was national security adviser to President Jimmy
Carter. He is a professor of American foreign policy at Johns Hopkins
University's School of Advanced International Studies and a trustee of
the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

From harry.sifton at sympatico.ca  Sun Dec  4 17:24:01 2005
From: harry.sifton at sympatico.ca (harry.sifton@sympatico.ca)
Date: Sun Dec  4 17:34:12 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Lennon remembered 25 years after his death
Message-ID: <17708626.1133745841775.JavaMail.turbine@s79>

This story was sent to you by: Harry

--------------------
Lennon remembered 25 years after his death 
--------------------

BY STEVE KNOPPER

John Lennon wouldn't sing.

It was 1974, and he was deep into his breakup with his wife, Yoko Ono, when New York DJ and longtime Beatles friend "Cousin" Brucie Morrow invited him to a benefit concert in Central Park. A crowd of 100,000 people showed up to the event, and a nervous Lennon, wearing a T-shirt, jeans and a butterfly belt buckle, turned to Morrow and said, "Cousin, promise me they know I'm not going to sing."

Morrow, who recently recalled that day, said, "John, all they want to do is share space with you.'

When the former Beatle and author of songs "Imagine" and "Give Peace a Chance" walked on stage, the crowd went wild.

"It didn't matter if he gave an hour concert or if he just stood there and talked," said Morrow, who's now a DJ for Sirius Satellite Radio. "He was accepted in major cities all over the world. He was born in Liverpool, not exactly a small hamlet, and grew up in London. But New York City had the greatest appeal for John Lennon because of its emotional acceptance. He was very comfortable here."

As the 25th anniversary of John Lennon's death approaches on Thursday -- he was gunned down by a deranged fan in front of his apartment building, the Dakota, on Dec. 8, 1980 -- New York City remains the geographic symbol of his post-Beatles life and career. Thousands of fans continue to pay homage to Lennon with visits to the Dakota as well as Strawberry Fields in Central Park.

During his time in the city -- a tumultuous nine-year period that encompassed a nasty separation, reconciliation, the birth of a son, political upheaval and the recording of his swan-song album, "Double Fantasy" -- Lennon came to appreciate little things like his ability to walk down the street at 4 a.m. and buy a loaf of bread at a grocery store. The British rocker died a New Yorker.

Lennon moved to Manhattan in 1971, at a time when the British press was particularly brutal to his new wife, Ono, widely viewed as an interloper who broke up the beloved Beatles the previous year. Fans who spotted him on the London streets had a tendency to be overly aggressive, sometimes hostile, and Lennon, 31 at the time, craved a more welcoming environment.

"He was cocooned in New York from '71 to his death. It's a bit like Woody Allen, really -- you feel like he couldn't really be transplanted," said veteran British singer-songwriter Robyn Hitchcock, whose work is strongly influenced by Lennon's Beatles and solo material. "The first part of his time [in Manhattan] he was a very public figure -- blowing his whistle and wearing his John Lennon badge. After [his son] Sean was born, he was kind of a recluse. People would have seen him padding around the shops. He was a person experiencing 24-hour New York City and rather like one of those old ladies living in Central Park East, up there with dogs."

During his early years in the city, Lennon's thirst for politically charged events clicked with Manhattan's environment. He hooked up with the Harlem Community Choir for 1971's "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)," drove around all night in friends' Volkswagens and produced a 1972 album, "The Pope Smokes Dope," for Yippie activist David Peel and his band, the Lower East Side.

"John called it Rome," said Lennon's friend Steve Gebhardt, a Cincinnati filmmaker who directed "One to One," the Madison Square Garden concert film released in 1972 as a TV special. "Creativity was all over the place, and there was a wonderfully thriving art culture."

Lennon was interested in the idea of spontaneous art and radical politics; after moving into an East Village apartment with Ono, one of the first things he did was hook up with Elephant's Memory, a loose and energetic rock and roll band he met at a club.

Inspired by his friendships with radicals Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman, Lennon recorded some of the most overtly political songs of his career, including "Woman Is the -- -- of the World," "John Sinclair" and "Sunday Bloody Sunday," all on the 1972 album "Some Time In New York City." He also performed with the band twice that year in Madison Square Garden.

"Radical politics were very big in the East Village at that time and Lennon wanted to go in that direction -- writing political songs, engaging in activist things," said author Tim Riley, whose as-yet-untitled Lennon biography is due in 2007. "One guy told me this story: He was on the streets in New York City, a truck pulls off and a band is playing on the back of this flatbed truck. And it's John Lennon and his band."

It wasn't all a metropolitan Utopia, though. Lennon's newfound politics caught the attention of the Nixon administration, as well as Senate Republicans, who believed the ex-Beatle would show up to disrupt the Republican National Convention in Miami Beach. Later, the Immigration and Naturalization Service told Lennon his 1968 guilty plea in a British marijuana-possession case meant he had to vacate the United States. Lennon sued and won, although the case dragged on through 1975. And the stress took its toll: Ono dumped him and Lennon moved briefly to Los Angeles, where he infamously took a lover, May Pang, and spent his days and nights hitting nightclubs with singer-songwriter Harry Nilsson.

After releasing two melancholy albums that reflected his depression of the time -- "Mind Games" and "Walls and Bridges" -- Lennon gave his last-ever public performance with Elton John at Madison Square Garden in 1974. Ono went to the show and later invited her husband to return to their Dakota apartment. In 1975, Ono gave birth to the couple's only son, Sean, and Lennon became a stay-at-home dad. "I am carrying the baby nine months, and that is enough," Ono told Lennon, according to Rolling Stone. "You take care of it afterward."

Around that time, Lennon and Ono recorded his last album, "Double Fantasy," at Manhattan's famous Hit Factory studio. The album was uneven, but it produced Lennon's final No. 1 single, "(Just Like) Starting Over," as well as one fascinating piece of trivia for rock fans. While recording "Double Fantasy," Lennon and Ono invited two members of Cheap Trick to play on several songs. Although they were preparing for a major tour in Japan, Trick guitarist Rick Nielsen and drummer Bun E. Carlos -- both Beatles fanatics -- agreed.

Carlos played on "Losing You" and Ono's "Moving On" -- neither of which made it to the album -- and the drummer was struck by just how isolated Lennon was from the outside world.

"We were sitting in the booth ... he had a guitar and said, 'This is my "Day Tripper" guitar.' It was refinished," Carlos recalled. "I said 'Day Tripper' is No. 10 in Phoenix this week.' He said, 'What do you mean?' I said, 'We got a live version out and it hit No. 10 in Phoenix.' He was like, 'Okaaaay.' If he had known we were Beatle nuts, he might not have wanted us in there."

By all accounts, Lennon was a happy family man when he returned to the Dakota on that night in December holding a tape of Ono's "Walking on Thin Ice." At the entrance, Mark David Chapman shot him five times. Lennon died en route to the hospital.

But while the post-Beatles Lennon has come to represent New York in a way, the iconic images of him flashing the peace sign in front of the Statue of Liberty and wearing a "NEW YORK CITY" T-shirt do not a native make. "I honestly believe he was not perceived as a New Yorker but more as a citizen of the world," says Ed Koch, who was mayor when Lennon died. "But we had the privilege of having him in our midst."

Steve Knopper is a freelance writer. 

Copyright (c) 2005, Newsday, Inc. 

--------------------

This article originally appeared at:
http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/nyc-etlennon1204,0,4548495.story?coll=ny-homepage-bigpix2005 

Visit Newsday online at http://www.newsday.com
From harry.sifton at sympatico.ca  Sun Dec  4 17:36:23 2005
From: harry.sifton at sympatico.ca (Harold Sifton)
Date: Sun Dec  4 17:46:47 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Lennon's death 25 yrs later, who was there.
Message-ID: <002501c5f93c$50278b50$063fe440@Harold>

John's death, remembered by who were there. The Doorman, the Police, the Doctor..........

http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/print?id=1371622

Peace on Earth

H

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From peace2b at uversa.net  Sun Dec  4 16:06:39 2005
From: peace2b at uversa.net (Jonathon Johnson)
Date: Sun Dec  4 17:50:03 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Paging Frank Rich! GAO confirms - 2004 Election Was
	Stolen - Lyn Davis Lear 
Message-ID: <E1Ej5KK-0002b5-0H@smtpauth04.mail.atl.earthlink.net>

Paging Frank Rich! GAO confirms - 2004 Election Was Stolen  - Lyn Davis
Lear - Sun Dec 4,12:29 AM ET
 
http://news.yahoo.com/s/huffpost/20051204/cm_huffpost/011483;_ylt=Aik3FY
y34u9UHmx79tkbrrqs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3YWFzYnA2BHNlYwM3NDI-
 
I had a chance to talk to my hero, Frank Rich, a few months ago about
election fraud and he claimed he didn't know much about it. Perhaps he
has his plate full unraveling the administration's lies about     Iraq,
but with the midterm elections coming up someone has to take this issue
on. I was listening to NPR yesterday and they had some young computer
hackers on bragging about how easy, embarrassingly easy, it is to switch
votes on the Diebold machines.     Bill Clinton once mentioned that
India has flawless electronic voting while ours is mired in
unaccountability. I hope Frank and other journalists and bloggers of his
caliber read this article by Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman about the
GAO report on the 2004 election. Paul Krugman and the NYTimes editorial
board have been good on this issue in the past, but it has been a while
since anyone has raised the subject. 
 
The     Government Accountability Office is the only government office
we have left that is ethical, non-partisan and incorruptible. They
investigate and tell it like it is. Thank God for them. This report is
very serious and must get more attention. It has taken years for the
mainstream press and Congress to finally understand what we in the
blogisphere have known since 2000. This administration will distort and
cheat about anything and everything to get its way. If this report got
the attention it deserves and broke through the static of our
500-channel universe, it could be the coup de grace of the Bush White
House.
 
Powerful Government Accountability Office report confirms key 2004
stolen election findings by Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman October 26,
2005
 
As a legal noose appears to be tightening around the Bush/Cheney/Rove
inner circle, a shocking government report shows the floor under the
legitimacy of their alleged election to the White House is crumbling.
 
The latest critical confirmation of key indicators that the election of
2004 was stolen comes in an extremely powerful, penetrating report from
the Government Accountability Office that has gotten virtually no
mainstream media coverage.
 
The government's lead investigative agency is known for its general
incorruptibility and its thorough, in-depth analyses. Its concurrence
with assertions widely dismissed as "conspiracy theories" adds crucial
new weight to the case that Team Bush has no legitimate business being
in the White House.
 
Nearly a year ago, senior Judiciary Committee Democrat John Conyers
(D-MI) asked the GAO to investigate electronic voting machines as they
were used during the November 2, 2004 presidential election. The request
came amidst widespread complaints in Ohio and elsewhere that often
shocking irregularities defined their performance.
 
According to CNN, the U.S.     House Judiciary Committee received "more
than 57,000 complaints" following Bush's alleged re-election. Many such
concerns were memorialized under oath in a series of sworn statements
and affidavits in public hearings and investigations conducted in Ohio
by the Free Press and other election protection organizations.
 
The non-partisan GAO report has now found that, "some of [the] concerns
about electronic voting machines have been realized and have caused
problems with recent elections, resulting in the loss and miscount of
votes."
 
The United States is the only major democracy that allows private
partisan corporations to secretly count and tabulate the votes with
proprietary non-transparent software. Rev.     Jesse Jackson, among
others, has asserted that "public elections must not be conducted on
privately-owned machines." The CEO of one of the most crucial suppliers
of electronic voting machines, Warren O'Dell of Diebold, pledged before
the 2004 campaign to deliver Ohio and thus the presidency to George W.
Bush.
 
Bush's official margin of victory in Ohio was just 118,775 votes out of
more than 5.6 million cast. Election protection advocates argue that
O'Dell's statement still stands as a clear sign of an effort, apparently
successful, to steal the White House.
 
Among other things, the GAO confirms that:
 
1. Some electronic voting machines "did not encrypt cast ballots or
system audit logs, and it was possible to alter both without being
detected." In other words, the GAO now confirms that electronic voting
machines provided an open door to flip an entire vote count. More than
800,000 votes were cast in Ohio on electronic voting machines, some
seven times Bush's official margin of victory.
 
2. "It was possible to alter the files that define how a ballot looks
and works so that the votes for one candidate could be recorded for a
different candidate." Numerous sworn statements and affidavits assert
that this did happen in Ohio 2004.
 
3. "Vendors installed uncertified versions of voting system software at
the local level." 3. Falsifying election results without leaving any
evidence of such an action by using altered memory cards can easily be
done, according to the GAO.
 
4. The GAO also confirms that access to the voting network was easily
compromised because not all digital recording electronic voting systems
(DREs) had supervisory functions password-protected, so access to one
machine provided access to the whole network. This critical finding
confirms that rigging the 2004 vote did not require a "widespread
conspiracy" but rather the cooperation of a very small number of
operatives with the power to tap into the networked machines and thus
change large numbers of votes at will. With 800,000 votes cast on
electronic machines in Ohio, flipping the number needed to give Bush
118,775 could be easily done by just one programmer.
 
5. Access to the voting network was also compromised by repeated use of
the same user IDs combined with easily guessed passwords. So even
relatively amateur hackers could have gained access to and altered the
Ohio vote tallies.
 
6. The locks protecting access to the system were easily picked and keys
were simple to copy, meaning, again, getting into the system was an easy
matter. 
 
7. One DRE model was shown to have been networked in such a rudimentary
fashion that a power failure on one machine would cause the entire
network to fail, re-emphasizing the fragility of the system on which the
Presidency of the United States was decided. 
 
8. GAO identified further problems with the security protocols and
background screening practices for vendor personnel, confirming still
more easy access to the system. 
 
In essence, the GAO study makes it clear that no bank, grocery store or
mom & pop chop shop would dare operate its business on a computer system
as flimsy, fragile and easily manipulated as the one on which the 2004
election turned. 
 
The GAO findings are particularly damning when set in the context of an
election run in Ohio by a Secretary of State simultaneously working as
co-chair of the Bush-Cheney campaign. Far from what election theft
skeptics have long asserted, the GAO findings confirm that the
electronic network on which 800,000 Ohio votes were cast was vulnerable
enough to allow a a tiny handful of operatives -- or less -- to turn the
whole vote count using personal computers operating on relatively simple
software. 
 
The GAO documentation flows alongside other crucial realities
surrounding the 2004 vote count. For example: 
 
The exit polls showed Kerry winning in Ohio, until an unexplained last
minute shift gave the election to Bush. Similar definitive shifts also
occurred in Iowa, Nevada and New Mexico, a virtual statistical
impossibility. 
 
A few weeks prior to the election, an unauthorized former ES&S voting
machine company employee, was caught on the ballot-making machine in
Auglaize County 
 
Election officials in Mahoning County now concede that at least 18
machines visibly transferred votes for Kerry to Bush. Voters who pushed
Kerry's name saw Bush's name light up, again and again, all day long.
Officials claim the problems were quickly solved, but sworn statements
and affidavits say otherwise. They confirm similar problems inFranklin
County (Columbus). Kerry's margins in both counties were suspiciously
low. 
 
A voting machine in Mahoning County recorded a negative 25 million votes
for Kerry. The problem was allegedly fixed. 
 
In Gahanna Ward 1B, at a fundamentalist church, a so-called "electronic
transfer glitch" gave Bush nearly 4000 extra votes when only 638 people
voted at that polling place. The tally was allegedly corrected, but
remains infamous as the "loaves and fishes" vote count. 
 
In Franklin County, dozens of voters swore under oath that their vote
for Kerry faded away on the DRE without a paper trail. 
 
In Miami County, at 1:43am after Election Day, with the county's central
tabulator reporting 100% of the vote - 19,000 more votes mysteriously
arrived; 13,000 were for Bush at the same percentage as prior to the
additional votes, a virtual statistical impossibility. 
 
In Cleveland, large, entirely implausible vote totals turned up for
obscure third party candidates in traditional Democratic
African-American wards. Vote counts in neighboring wards showed
virtually no votes for those candidates, with 90% going instead for
Kerry. 
 
Prior to one of Blackwell's illegitimate "show recounts," technicians
from Triad voting machine company showed up unannounced at the Hocking
County Board of Elections and removed the computer hard drive. 
 
In response to official information requests, Shelby and other counties
admit to having discarded key records and equipment before any recount
could take place. 
 
In a conference call with Rev. Jackson, Attorney Cliff Arnebeck,
Attorney Bob Fitrakis and others,     John Kerry confirmed that he lost
every precinct in New Mexico that had a touchscreen voting machine. The
losses had no correlation with ethnicity, social class or traditional
party affiliation---only with the fact that touchscreen machines were
used. 
 
In a public letter, Rep. Conyers has stated that "by and large, when it
comes to a voting machine, the average voter is getting a lemon - the
Ford Pinto of voting technology. We must demand better." 
 
But the GAO report now confirms that electronic voting machines as
deployed in 2004 were in fact perfectly engineered to allow a very small
number of partisans with minimal computer skills and equipment to shift
enough votes to put George W. Bush back in the White House. 
 
Given the growing body of evidence, it appears increasingly clear 
that's exactly what happened. 
 
 
 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Good HAIR Days: A Personal Journey with the American Tribal Love-Rock
Musical HAIR, by Jonathon Johnson. For more information on the book and
how to order it, visit www.goodhairdays.net
<http://www.goodhairdays.net/> . Visit our other websites at
www.uversa.net <http://www.uversa.net/>  and
www.kidstherapyassociates.com <http://www.kidstherapyassociates.com/> . 
 
 
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From michael at intrafi.com  Sun Dec  4 17:56:14 2005
From: michael at intrafi.com (Michael)
Date: Sun Dec  4 17:57:31 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Article from Tom Dispatch
Message-ID: <200512050156.jB51uEOr021007@thor.thenation.com>

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From ean at sbcglobal.net  Sun Dec  4 17:45:05 2005
From: ean at sbcglobal.net (ean@sbcglobal.net)
Date: Sun Dec  4 18:52:42 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Google search and seizure
Message-ID: <E1Ej6J9-0002YL-N5@smtpauth04.mail.atl.earthlink.net>


  Google search and seizure

By Robert Kuttner  |  December 3, 2005  |  The Boston Globe

THE NEW York Times recently reported that in a North Carolina 
strangulation-murder trial, prosecutors introduced as evidence the fact
that the defendant's Google searches had included the words ''neck" and
''snap." The Times noted that the evidence had come from the defendant's
home computer, but could just as easily have come from Google.

Google's whole business-model includes keeping track of users' searches by
putting ''cookies" (tracking devices) on users' own computers, and then
using the results to customize ad offerings that pop up when we use their
ingenious free search service.

In the era of the misnamed USA Patriot Act, which allows warrantless
police searches that are not even disclosed to the target, Google plus
Dick Cheney is a recipe for undoing the liberties for which the original
patriots of the American Revolution bled and died. Under the Patriot Act,
anyone suspected of enabling terrorism can be subjected to these fishing
expeditions. Depending on a prosecutor's whims, that includes all of us.

In the 18th-century era of star-chamber courts and despotic monarchs, the
US Constitution put an end to government as prosecutor, judge, and jury.
Unreasonable searches and seizures were explicitly prohibited by the Sixth
Amendment. People (not just citizens) were guaranteed the right to
confront their accusers and to know the charges against them. There were
no ''national security" loopholes.

Google's internal slogan is, charmingly, ''Don't be evil." Well, the
interaction of cyber-snooping and the unreasonable searches authorized by
the Patriot Act is pure evil.

Herewith an idea that I am putting into the public domain, which could
make some computer-whiz a billionaire: One of Google's competitors could
guarantee users of its search engines that all data keeping track of
searches will be permanently discarded after 24 hours. The search process
could still learn a broad pattern of users' purchasing tastes, if we wish
to be party to a bargain of being marketed to in exchange for the
convenience of free searches.

The same libertarian computer entrepreneur could offer e-mail software, in
which old messages are permanently erased unless the user deliberately
opts to retain them.

Google, like Microsoft and IBM before it, may be the current market 
leader in whiz-bang technology based on sheer inventive genius. But if
Google is not careful, some competitor with a genuine regard for privacy
could displace it.

We all grew up vaguely knowing that 20th century technology, under 
fairly narrow circumstances, could invade privacy. The phone company kept
track of everyone's calling records. These could be subpoenaed.
Prosecutors and detectives, with warrants approved by judges, could deploy
telephone wiretaps. There were occasional abuses, as in the witch hunts of
the 1950s, but for the most part these technological invasions of privacy
were used against bad guys, not for broad fishing expeditions. And there
was no e-mail and no Google.

Today, however, the explosion of computer technology coupled with the
discarding of prosecutorial restraints is leading to a Big-Brother
society. Unless we pay attention, the technology is so seductive that we
become enablers of our own enslavement.

The universal information that is so empowering could be enslaving in
another respect. Check out a little satire available on the Internet
titled EPIC 2014. It is a short, dystopian picture of the next 10 years.

EPIC stands for the Evolving Personalized Information Construct. In this
grim view of the near future, Google merges with Amazon and becomes
''Google-zon," the ultimate information market monopoly.

By 2014, the press as we know it no longer exists. Google-zon usurps the
press's advertising base by ultra-customizing all ads. There is no longer
the traditional craft of reporter or editor. Newspapers go out of business
or become small niche products.

''Everyone contributes now -- from blog entries to phone-cam images, to
video reports, to full investigations," the video says. Everyone is a news
producer as well as a news consumer, and it's almost impossible to
differentiate journalism from junk. Computers strip and splice items,
based on each user's past interests, pattern of use, and declared
preferences. News is prioritized according to how many users read each
item. Ads are similarly customized. We are universally connected, but
universally fragmented and universally vulnerable to misinformation and
government and commercial snooping.

The marketplace may solve this dilemma by offering privacy-sensitive
products, but entrepreneurs may also make the problem worse. The moment
cries out for political as well as commercial leadership.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/12/0
3/google_search_and_seizure/
-- 
You are currently on Mha Atma's Earth Action Network email list, 
option D (up to 3 emails/day).  To be removed, or to switch options 
(option A - 1x/week, option B - 3/wk, option C - up to 1x/day, option D - 
up to 3x/day) please reply and let us know!  If someone forwarded you 
this email and you want to be on our list, send an email to 
ean@sbcglobal.net and tell us which option you'd like.


"A war of aggression is the supreme international crime." -- Robert Jackson,
 former U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice and Nuremberg prosecutor

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From harry.sifton at sympatico.ca  Sun Dec  4 19:14:02 2005
From: harry.sifton at sympatico.ca (harry.sifton@sympatico.ca)
Date: Sun Dec  4 19:24:11 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] A friend thought you might be interested in this article
Message-ID: <200512050314.jB53E2Q17794@strweb1-05.websys.aol.com>

harry.sifton@sympatico.ca thinks you may be interested in this article:

Business 2.0 - Magazine Article - Printable Version - The Constant Gardener

To view the article, go to:
http://www.business2.com/b2/web/articles/print/0,17925,1133905,00.html

Message from harry.sifton@sympatico.ca:



Business 2.0
http://www.business2.com




From harry.sifton at sympatico.ca  Sun Dec  4 19:17:00 2005
From: harry.sifton at sympatico.ca (harry.sifton@sympatico.ca)
Date: Sun Dec  4 19:27:19 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] [The Star Article]
Message-ID: <9957172.1133752618403.JavaMail.csuser@windsor.thestar.com>

>From harry.sifton@sympatico.ca

null

Report: U.S. admits illegal kidnapping

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&pubid=968163964505&cid=1133700724593&col=968705899037&call_page=TS_News&call_pageid=968332188492&call_pagepath=News/News

Sun Dec 04 22:16:58 EST 2005
From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Sun Dec  4 19:53:42 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (Ian)
Date: Sun Dec  4 20:04:26 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Lennon's death 25 yrs later, who was there.
References: <002501c5f93c$50278b50$063fe440@Harold>
Message-ID: <003f01c5f94f$7e2d5580$99ca6c42@iancn2ccrvzt0j>

I would like to humbly add a couple of related anedotes.

When the first report of Lennon's shooting came over the radio at approximately 11:00 (it took only ten minutes for news to reach WNEW-FM, despite what the article says), I was having a minor spat with my wife.  The moment the news came on, my world - except for the radio - went silent: my wife's mouth moved, but no sound came out.  All background noise disappeared.  All I heard was the WNEW DJ audibly crying.  I became an automaton - I was emotionally numb - and simply said to my wife, "I have to leave."

I got on my bicycle and rode to the Dakota, just a few blocks from where I live.  I was one of the first 20 people to arrive there: the police car with John and Yoko was screaming down the block toward me as I approached, and when I got to Central Park West, Chapman was still sitting outside in handcuffs, surrounded by police.

Someone had brought a boombox, and we listened to WNEW.  Within an hour, there were about 200 people.  This group heard the first news that Lennon had actually died.  The radio was turned off, and everyone stood silently, candles or lighters raised, crying openly.  I cannot remember how long we stood that way, but minutes seemed like hours.

By 2am, there were between 500 and 1000 people, and the crowd had spilled over into what would later become Strawberry Fields in Central Park.

I stayed until 3, and then, numb from both the shock and the cold, I got on my bike, went home, and fell asleep on the couch.  It was, unquestionably, among the worst days of my life, and one which, as you can see, I recall vividly to this day, 25 years later.

----

As an aside, I worked with Dr. Lynn's wife, Tamar, for four years, and knew him socially to a small degree.  However, it was not until days later, when I next saw Tamar, that I realized he was the doctor who had tried to revive John.

As a final and somewhat ironic aside, for the past four years I have been Vice President of the Executive Board of the "liaison council" of the very police precinct in which all of this occurred - the one in which John lived, and I have lived for 40 years.

Peace.
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Harold Sifton 
  To: MB Civic 
  Sent: Sunday, December 04, 2005 8:36 PM
  Subject: [Mb-civic] Lennon's death 25 yrs later, who was there.


  John's death, remembered by who were there. The Doorman, the Police, the Doctor..........

  http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/print?id=1371622

  Peace on Earth

  H




------------------------------------------------------------------------------


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  Mb-civic@islandlists.com
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Mon Dec  5 03:57:50 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Mon Dec  5 04:10:14 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Democrats Find Iraq Alternative Is Elusive - Washington
	Post
Message-ID: <43942B3E.9070102@comcast.net>

Democrats Find Iraq Alternative Is Elusive
Party's Elite Differ on How to Shift U.S. Policy

By Robin Wright
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, December 5, 2005; A01

Around the country, many grass-roots Democrats are clamoring for a quick 
withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq. On Capitol Hill, Democratic 
politicians have grown newly aggressive in denouncing the Bush 
administration's war strategy and outlining other options.

But among the Democratic foreign-policy elite, dominated by people who 
previously served in the top ranks of government, there are stark 
differences -- and significant vagueness -- about a viable alternative.

In interviews, veteran policymakers offered no end of criticism about 
how President Bush maneuvered the United States into its present 
predicament, but only one had a clear vision of what he would do if the 
Iraq problem were handed over to a Democratic administration tomorrow. 
Several accept Bush's premise that a rapid withdrawal anytime soon would 
leave Iraq unstable and risk a strategic disaster in the broader Middle 
East.

"I'm not prepared to lay out a detailed policy or strategy," said former 
U.N. ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke, who was widely considered the 
leading candidate to be secretary of state if Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.) 
had won the presidency last year. "It's not something you can expect in 
a situation that is moving this fast and has the level of detail you're 
looking for."

The difficulty that the Democratic foreign-policy elite has in coming 
together around a crisp alternative to the Bush administration has 
consequences that echo beyond the warren of think tanks, universities 
and consulting shops where most of its members now bide their time. On 
complicated policy questions, candidates and elected officials usually 
turn to respected and experienced policy experts to fashion their own 
platforms.

Highlighting the lack of consensus, some Democrats advocate withdrawing 
apace to change the dynamics in Iraq and the Middle East -- and to avoid 
getting bogged down or discrediting the United States. Others argue that 
it is a mistake to even talk about a timed drawdown. In between, still 
others propose an initial cut, while keeping a sizable force in Iraq or 
the region to promote stability and avoid repeating the Afghanistan 
debacle of the 1990s that helped produce Taliban rule.

The biggest common denominator was the anguish of trying to define a 
Democratic alternative.

"I believe the assessment that if we pull out it will leave an unsettled 
situation that is bad for the neighborhood and bad for us. Therefore I'd 
be willing to stay longer if I believed what we're doing would lead to 
progress in six to 12 months," said former defense secretary William J. 
Perry. "But I have not seen that evidence, so I'm skeptical that it will."

Zbigniew Brzezinski is emerging as the most outspoken Democratic 
policymaker with an unambiguous alternative. He says it is time for 
Washington to "bite the bullet" and withdraw U.S. troops "rapidly," no 
later than the end of 2006. A more prolonged disengagement would 
jeopardize remaining U.S. troops.

"We have to face the fact that the war is not going well and is costing 
us too much, not only in blood and money but also in the U.S. position 
in the world, discrediting our legitimacy, credibility and morality 
even," said Brzezinski, who was President Jimmy Carter's national 
security adviser.

Among several steps during and after a transition, Brzezinski favors 
keeping some U.S. forces in Kuwait.

Like Perry, Brzezinski said he would be willing to support current 
policy if there were more signs of success. But to win, the U.S. 
military would need to double or triple its size in Iraq, a step 
Washington will not take, he said.

But three top strategists from the Clinton administration -- Holbrooke, 
former secretary of state Madeleine K. Albright and former NATO 
commander Gen. Wesley K. Clark -- argue vehemently against imposing a 
deadline, timetable or politically driven drawdown on Iraq.

"I don't believe in an arbitrary drawdown, whether it's Vietnam or 
Bosnia or Iraq," said Holbrooke, adding that a departure must be "based 
on realities on the ground."

Holbrooke said he shares the bleak assessment of Rep. John P. Murtha 
(D-Pa.) about the military situation in Iraq. He sees a country enmeshed 
in civil war, with "no purely military strategy available."

He predicted that Sunni insurgents cannot win but said U.S. troops also 
cannot eliminate multiple insurgencies. But rather than a prescription, 
Holbrooke preferred to talk about goals -- reaching a point at which 
U.S. troops are not participants in a civil war, while still protecting 
U.S. interests in oil, regional stability, counterterrorism and Israel.

Albright has been hosting Democratic analysts at her Georgetown home to 
debate how to help Iraq stand on its own without raising the danger of a 
"chaotic mess," she said by telephone during a trip in the Middle East. 
Rather than a deadline, she favors outlining formal, public benchmarks 
to determine an orderly U.S. transfer of power to Iraq, and removing 
troops from the front lines to behind Iraqi troops as quickly as is 
feasible -- a position reflected in the recent bipartisan Senate resolution.

"The American military is both the problem and the solution. They are a 
magnet [for insurgents] but they're also helping with security," she 
said, adding that Washington needs to ease Middle East anxieties by 
declaring it wants no permanent bases in Iraq.

To improve the situation, Albright and Clark advocate more aggressive 
diplomacy, including the kind of regional contact group that was used to 
deal with crises after Yugoslavia's break-up and in Afghanistan after 
the Taliban's ouster. The Bush administration did foster a contact group 
and meetings among Iraq's six neighbors, but little came from the 
initial talks.

"Everybody wants to talk troops, but everyone knows we can't win this 
with troops alone," Clark said. The United States needs to make Iraq's 
neighbors, including Syria and Iran, "part of the solution, not part of 
the problem."

"The U.S. can't succeed by focusing on Iraq alone," Clark said. "As NATO 
commander, I brought a coalition together to defeat [Yugoslav President 
Slobodan] Milosevic. We did that through diplomacy. That's what forced 
him [to back down], not the bombing."

Other Democrats have staked out various middle-ground approaches. James 
Steinberg wants the United States to limit the mission to training and 
more focused counterterrorism, while ceding the counterinsurgency 
against Sunnis to Iraq's military.

After 2006, he says the United States should be down from the current 
150,000 troops to between 25,000 and 35,000. "The precise number is less 
important than the principle," said Steinberg, the Clinton 
administration's deputy national security adviser and new dean of the 
University of Texas's Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs.

The United States should not base combat forces in Iraq after 2006, 
because the U.S. military presence makes reconciliation more difficult, 
he said. Much of the insurgency is also related to the local shift in 
the balance of power rather than the U.S. presence, Steinberg said.

Among the rising generation of Democratic foreign-policy thinkers, Derek 
Chollet advocates a "reverse shock and awe," including the withdrawal of 
40,000 to 50,000 troops over the next six months, to prove dramatically 
that the United States does not intend to stay long term.

The goal should also be prodding Iraqis to take more responsibility for 
their own security without waiting until they are "as fully capable as 
we hope they will be," said Chollet, 35, who has not served in a 
policymaking post but was foreign policy adviser to Democratic vice 
presidential nominee John Edwards.

But even with his more aggressive approach to bringing troops home, 
Chollet does not favor timelines for complete withdrawal, and 
acknowledges "I don't know" when that will be.

The uncertainty among Democrats is reflected by the most prominent 
former policymaker of all -- Bill Clinton. In an interview on CNN last 
week, he used words that suggested strong disagreement with the 
administration: "I didn't agree with what was done when it was done, but 
we are where we are."

But he was vague on his proposed remedy. "We don't want to set a fixed 
timetable if that led to chaos" and a terrorist haven in the Middle 
East, he said. But he added, "It seems to me the best thing to do is to 
heed the wishes of all the leaders of Iraq . . . who say they want us to 
draw down our forces."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/04/AR2005120400965.html?referrer=email
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Mon Dec  5 03:59:08 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Mon Dec  5 04:11:23 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] McCain Will Not Bend On Detainee Treatment - Washington
	Post
Message-ID: <43942B8C.8030609@comcast.net>

McCain Will Not Bend On Detainee Treatment
He Pushes White House to Ban Torture

By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, December 5, 2005; A18

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said yesterday he would not compromise with 
the White House on the words in his amendment that would put into law 
the banning of cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment of detainees.

Asked on NBC's "Meet the Press," in light of his current discussions 
with national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley, whether he would 
accept any compromise, McCain, answered, "No . . . I won't. We won't." 
McCain was tortured while a prisoner of the North Vietnamese.

McCain, whose language was approved by the Senate in a 90 to 9 vote, 
said the talks with Hadley were "on aspects of this" and would not 
speculate on whether they would be successful. Appearing on ABC's "This 
Week," Hadley said, "We have competing objectives here," indicating that 
perhaps at issue was whether the McCain language could be viewed as 
Congress interfering with the executive powers of the president to carry 
out his duties to protect the nation.

"We're trying to find a way, as we say, where we can strike the balance 
between being aggressive to protect the country against the terrorists, 
and at the same time comply with the law," Hadley said.

McCain, as in the past, noted that the United States' use of torturelike 
techniques could lead to them being used against captured Americans, has 
damaged U.S. prestige abroad and produced unreliable intelligence. He 
pointed out that some intelligence "used in one of the president's 
speeches . . . concerning the threat of weapons of mass destruction . . 
. was later recanted."

Although McCain did not say so, it was an apparent reference to prewar 
information on Saddam Hussein training al Qaeda terrorists in the use of 
chemical and biological weapons. The information was given by a detainee 
questioned at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, who later recanted.

Hadley also said on "Fox News Sunday" that Secretary of State 
Condoleezza Rice will be discussing "in a comprehensive way" foreign 
government concerns about CIA covert prisons during her trip to Europe 
this week. He said she will emphasize that all nations threatened by 
terrorism must cooperate and that "we do not move people around the 
world so that they can be tortured."

Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.), also on ABC's "This Week," said a 
distinction had to be drawn between fighting terrorism and the 
insurgency when it comes to Iraq. "Terrorism is in Afghanistan," Murtha 
said, "and the insurgency is in Iraq. The insurgents are all internal. 
Just 3 to 7 percent are al Qaeda."

Noting that polls show 80 percent of Iraqis want U.S. forces out of Iraq 
and 45 percent say it is justified to kill U.S. soldiers, Murtha said, 
"There's more chance of democracy, less chance of terrorism [and] the 
insurgency will be reduced if we get out of there."

Hadley, on the same program, said, "If we pull out now, it will mean 
handing over Iraq to the Zarqawi [terrorist] faction." Murtha, appearing 
later, answered that only 7 percent of those opposing the U.S.-led 
coalition forces are followers of Abu Musab Zarqawi. The main 
insurgents, he said, are Iraqis who are involved in an internal civil 
war between Shiite and Sunni factions. "Our troops are the targets of 
the civil war. They're the only people that could have unified the 
various factions in Iraq, and they're unified against us. And every day 
we're there means more casualties."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/04/AR2005120400966.html?nav=hcmodule
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Mon Dec  5 04:02:57 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Mon Dec  5 04:15:13 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Detroit's Next Big Threat = Sebastian Mallaby -
	Washington Post Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43942C71.4030702@comcast.net>

Detroit's Next Big Threat

By Sebastian Mallaby
Monday, December 5, 2005; A21

CHENNAI, India -- The next wave of globalization is swelling here, in 
this southern Indian city that was battered by a real wave during last 
year's tsunami. This new wave is not about Gap T-shirts or Dell laptops, 
the poster children for the light industries that already have global 
supply chains. And it is not about software and/or call centers, the 
industries for which India is famous. Instead, this new globalization is 
about heavier manufacturing, particularly cars. Detroit's panicking 
firms know it.

Cars? They are not what spring to mind when you say "Indian economic 
miracle." India's economy has grown at more than 6 percent per year 
since market reforms began in 1991. But it has scrambled the classic 
transition from agriculture to manufacturing and then eventually to 
services. Indian agriculture has indeed shrunk from 30 percent of output 
to 22 percent since the reforms began. But manufacturing has not 
increased its share. The entire shift has been to services.

You can see why this is so the moment you arrive in Chennai. On Saturday 
the airport was teeming; the roads are always an exuberant mess; 
businessmen complain about the creaking infrastructure. Compare that to 
Ningbo, a medium-size coastal Chinese city I visited six months ago, 
where the roads, airport and docks are all new and shiny. In the 
just-in-time manufacturing culture, delays mean money down the drain. 
That's why China is the manufacturing platform for the world -- and why 
India, so far, isn't.

Chennai also shows why India succeeds in software and services. To do 
software, you don't need a broad infrastructure base; you need one 
functional building. I visited Tidel Park, a gleaming office block here 
that houses 31 software firms, two-thirds of which are foreign. There 
aren't any power cuts here because the building has its own backup 
generators. There are no connectivity worries because it is served by 
six competing broadband providers. And it certainly is safe. Tidel Park 
boasts 150 guards and a security control room that would not look out of 
place on Darth Vader's Death Star.

Chennai's boosters say they've learned some Chinese lessons. 
Jayalalithaa, the authoritarian former actress who leads the state 
government of Tamil Nadu, has thrown money at the infrastructure 
deficit. When government workers went on strike, Jayalalithaa turned a 
bit Chinese and arrested thousands of them. (Although her Bollywood 
career was based on eye-fluttering and dance, she makes California's 
governator look like, well, a girlie man.) Chennai is also proud of its 
new Special Economic Zones, modeled on China's tax-free export hubs. The 
promotional literature promises "complete freedom in fixing working 
hours" and a chance to "totally eliminate any unlawful/illegal strikes."

This tough approach may be good for manufacturing investment. But the 
main force behind the next globalization wave comes from something 
different. Until the reforms of the 1990s, India had good engineers but 
lousy manufacturing because high tariff walls made its firms complacent. 
But the opening of India's economy has forced its manufacturers to 
reinvent themselves.

Chennai's auto-components firms have done this almost manically. Ten 
years ago, their brakes and valves were crummy enough to scare away the 
international car majors that considered manufacturing in India. Today, 
you can't spend an hour with any of the components firms without hearing 
about the international quality certifications they've amassed; the 
Deming Prize, awarded for manufacturing excellence by a Japanese 
committee, has acquired talismanic status. Much as Chennai's government 
leaders look to China, the city's business leaders pepper their 
conversation with Japanese management lingo.

The results are dramatic. The TVS Group, the largest of India's 
auto-components firms, now exports around a third of its output -- proof 
that it meets international standards. The rival Rane Group reports that 
it has reduced defects from 10,000 parts per million to 250 and that 28 
percent of its engine valves are now exported. One of the TVS companies, 
Sundram Fasteners, has won a General Motors "Supplier of the Year" award 
five times, and it supplies 100 percent of GM's radiator caps.

Because Indian car parts are now reliable, international car majors have 
reversed their attitude. Ford and Hyundai have opened factories in 
Chennai; BMW recently announced that it would follow; Volkswagen and GM 
seem interested. Multinational parts makers are arriving, too, 
strengthening Chennai's attraction as a hub. Saint-Gobain, a French 
glassmaker, has built a brand new production line that may foretell 
Chennai's future. It's designed so that the initial capacity of 500,000 
windshields per year can be cheaply scaled up to 3 million.

In short, Chennai's car industry is reaching critical mass, and its 
output is good enough to compensate for dodgy (though improving) 
infrastructure. The same story is playing itself out in India's two 
other automotive hubs, around Delhi and Mumbai, and to an even larger 
extent in Mexico, Thailand and (yes) China. The McKinsey consultancy 
projects that the outsourcing of car parts, relatively limited until 
now, will sextuple from $65 billion in 2002 to $375 billion in 2015, 
with India's share soaring from around $1 billion to $25 billion. If you 
think Detroit is ailing now, wait until you see what's coming.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/04/AR2005120401094.html
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Mon Dec  5 04:04:08 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Mon Dec  5 04:16:30 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Mubarak Outdoes Himself - Jackson Diehl - Washington
	Post Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43942CB8.5020901@comcast.net>

Mubarak Outdoes Himself
Election Fraud Backfires

By Jackson Diehl
Monday, December 5, 2005; A21

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, a former general, practices politics 
with martial crudeness, so his latest scheme for thwarting the Bush 
administration's pro-democracy agenda wasn't hard to discern. Under 
pressure from Washington to hold free and fair elections for his 
formerly rubber-stamp parliament, Mubarak set out this fall to crush his 
secular and liberal opposition, which has been growing in strength all 
this year, while allowing the banned Muslim Brotherhood to nominate a 
limited number of candidates and campaign relatively freely. The goal 
was to eliminate all moderate opposition and present the United States 
with a choice between his continuing rule -- and the eventual succession 
of his son Gamal -- and an Islamic fundamentalist movement.

In the first of three rounds of voting last month, the strategy played 
out beautifully in the Cairo district of Ayman Nour, the liberal 
democratic runner-up to Mubarak in September's unfree presidential 
election and the greatest potential threat to his son. The president's 
party nominated a former state security police officer against Nour; the 
Muslim Brotherhood's candidate cooperatively withdrew and endorsed 
Mubarak's man. Some 2,000 government supporters were then illegally 
registered in the district and, in defiance of a court order, bused in 
to vote against the local favorite. Nour was declared the loser, and 
last week the government resumed his criminal prosecution on trumped-up 
forgery charges.

Yet as it turned out, Mubarak's plan worked too well. Egypt's democratic 
opposition was all but eliminated from parliament -- but the Muslim 
Brotherhood trounced the government at the polls. In the first two 
rounds 65 percent of Brotherhood candidates were elected, compared with 
only 42 percent from Mubarak's National Democratic Party. Because the 
Islamists, in a tacit deal with the government, limited themselves to 
contesting fewer than one-third of the districts, Mubarak still holds a 
majority of the decided seats.

But the Brotherhood's proportional victory nevertheless triggered panic 
in the state security apparatus. In the most recent three days of 
voting, security forces indulged in an orgy of fraud and thuggery in an 
attempt to prevent more losses -- in full view of Egyptian and 
international observers, Western journalists, and Arab satellite 
channels. More than 1,300 Brotherhood activists were arrested and at 
least three persons killed, in one case when security forces opened fire 
on people trying to vote.

Though the last runoff elections won't be held until Wednesday, the 
results of this most squalid process are already in: The Muslim 
Brotherhood will hold at least 76, and as many as 100, seats in the 
Egyptian parliament, out of 454. Other opposition groups will be reduced 
to a couple of dozen. But the price has been to enrage much of the 
Egyptian political and business elite, and even the usually docile 
official press, which has begun denouncing the government's cynical 
tactics and subsequent brutishness.

"The parliamentary elections have been tainted with flagrant fraud and 
unprecedented violence," said a statement issued by 44 prominent 
intellectuals and writers and posted on the Internet site of Egypt's 
leading newspaper, Al Ahram. "The fraud may lead to a collapse in the 
legitimacy of the state and the current regime, in light of the fact 
that political reform was a major element in the justification for a 
fifth term for the president."

Mubarak's 24-year-old autocracy probably won't collapse anytime soon -- 
but it has lost the support of most of the moderate Egyptians who hoped 
it would carry out a gradual political liberalization. That should force 
some hard decisions by the Bush administration, which also has banked on 
a regime-led reform; its characterization of the elections last week as 
"an important step on Egypt's path toward democratic reform" was 
ludicrous, and indefensible.

What to do? First, President Bush should refuse to be spooked by 
Mubarak's would-be boogeyman. Though the Muslim Brotherhood is indeed 
fundamentalist, it renounced violence decades ago and has joined with 
secular opposition groups in calling for a genuine parliamentary 
democracy in Egypt. "[W]e are serious about pushing forward the process 
of reform, actualising democratic transformation and building a 
development renaissance on all fronts," said an essay published in Al 
Ahram last week by a senior Brotherhood figure, Essam Erian. That's an 
agenda the administration should be able to endorse -- and promote as an 
example for other Islamic movements in the Middle East.

Second, the administration should make clear, starting now, that it 
won't tolerate a future undemocratic transfer of power from Mubarak to 
his son, or anyone else. The 77-year-old president is just beginning a 
new six-year term; the United States should explicitly link the 
continuation of the billions of dollars in official aid that prop up his 
regime to steps toward the democratic election of his successor. If 
Egyptian political life is freed, there will be plenty of good 
candidates by 2011; like Ayman Nour, they just won't be members of 
Mubarak's parliament.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/04/AR2005120401021.html?nav=hcmodule
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Mon Dec  5 04:06:26 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Mon Dec  5 04:18:39 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Confronting the haters - William G. Hamilton - Boston
	Globe Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43942D42.9080400@comcast.net>


  Confronting the haters

By William G. Hamilton  |  December 5, 2005

''THE MOST dangerous thing for a nation or an individual is to plead 
guilty to imaginary sins." A century ago the Jewish thinker Ahad Ha'am 
penned these words. Today they seem just as compelling with the release 
of Marc Levin's unnerving new film, ''Protocols of Zion," which 
documents a furious resurgence in their global popularity.

The Protocols are a hatred-riddled forgery that finds every malady, 
misfortune, and calamity winding back to a sinister plot of Jewish 
Elders in pursuit of world domination. For a century the Protocols have 
incited and virtually required violence against Jews. Because the Jews 
are purported to be engaged in a satanic mission, murdering them 
necessitates neither explanation nor guilt. This worldwide best-seller 
is the catalytic converter for justifying brutality under the delusional 
trance of victimhood.

Levin's documentary is very much a personal awakening. From the streets 
of North Jersey to the jail-cells of Trenton, he encounters the 
ridiculous claim that no Jews died in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist 
attacks. What follows is an exposition of the latest chapter of 
history's oldest, most reliable hatred -- anti-Semitism.

Often documentaries favor the predigested insights of scholars, world 
leaders, and ivory towers. This film more credibly appraises post-9/11 
urban anti-Semitism by presenting one Jew's unfiltered confrontation 
with haters. Yet as his own personal journey, Levin's street tilts 
slightly right with an anticorporate and ideological extremist bent -- 
leaving virtually untouched a dramatic reemergence of left leaning 
European anti-Semitism and anti-Israel bias in academia. Admittedly, 
21st century anti-Semitism has become too large a subject, varying from 
one continent to the next, to be captured in a single sitting.

An incredulous Levin wonders why the Jews are blamed so often for so 
much by so many. He scratches the surface of deeply seeded cultures of 
blame and contempt. An indoctrinated world-view rejects any assertion 
that a Jewish prominence in the media, policymaking, and finance is 
coincidental. The claim of the Protocols is validated by Jewish 
proximity to power and influence.

Yet simply asking ''who benefits most" from a turn of events implies 
flawless implementation and design by the beneficiary. Outcomes based 
reasoning is murky science. But any excuse will serve the hater. Jews 
have been hated for being capitalists and communists, separatists and 
assimilationists, homeless and nationalist, weak and strong.

Levin's film localizes Jew hatred to the street and the extreme. Yet a 
blood-soaked history has taught that anti-Semitism is a disease for 
which education, talent, even genius provides no effective vaccination.

One generation rarely follows precisely a prior generation's blueprint. 
Inquisitions differed from expulsions, massacres differed from pogroms, 
and the Holocaust stands alone. Suicide killings represent hatred's 
latest packaging as a twisted expression of sacred violence. Zealots 
seek to preserve hostile designs in the garb of religious conviction. 
Yet this is often little more than another form of identity theft, a 
''religious opportunism" that is dishonest to motivation and 
dishonorable to communities of faith.

Certainly hatred for Jews is hardly the world's only hatred. There is an 
egalitarian distribution today of crimes against humanity. What haters 
share is a reflexive tendency to externalize responsibility for their 
condition and their plight. They also share a venomous small-soulness 
that diminishes their humanity, perverting the purpose and promise of 
life itself. The world's great religious traditions won't continue to 
abide such no-fault hostility.

Contemporary culture's emphasis on rights more than responsibilities is 
rooted in virtues like compassion, the promotion of justice, and the 
urge to help. But taken to an extreme, they turn people into objects. 
People become done-to, not doers. By locating the cause for their 
circumstance outside of themselves, they become totally dependent on 
others -- so often locating something or someone else to blame.

In a world of finger-pointing and scapegoating, can one ever accept too 
much responsibility? Why is it so dangerous to plead guilty to imaginary 
sins? Perhaps responsibility has an equilibrium. Assuming too much of it 
breeds neuroses. Too little entitles one to a litany of blame, 
resentment, and contempt for the other.

Levin's film rouses us from our slumber. We are too wise to be paranoid, 
too old to be na?ve, too experienced to be blind.

May we not prove too neurotic to concede guilt for the contemptuous 
imaginings of haters. And may the haters, before they further downgrade 
their own humanity to their ruin, accept responsibility to build a 
better tomorrow for themselves without tearing down the tomorrow of others.

William G. Hamilton is rabbi of Congregation Kehillath Israel in 
Brookline.  

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/12/05/confronting_the_haters/
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Mon Dec  5 04:08:05 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Mon Dec  5 04:20:18 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] How much torture is OK? - Cathy Young - Boston Globe
	Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43942DA5.7050704@comcast.net>


  How much torture is OK?

By Cathy Young  |  December 5, 2005  |  The Boston Globe

IT IS A shocking sign of the times that we are having a debate about the 
appropriateness of torture. Some would say that it's a sign of our 
democracy's moral decline; others, of the desperate times that have 
driven us to desperate measures. Either way, those of us who do not want 
the free world to lose its soul to terrorism must stand up and be counted.

Credible reports that detainees in Afghanistan and Iraq have been abused 
in US custody have generated widespread outrage, as have revelations 
that the White House and the Justice Department had authorized 
''coercive interrogation" techniques -- some of which are widely 
regarded as forms of torture -- for some prisoners held by the CIA. 
Senator John McCain has spearheaded an amendment to the annual defense 
appropriations bill banning ''cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment" 
of prisoners by any US personnel. In October, the Republican-controlled 
Senate passed this amendment by a vote of 90-9. The Bush administration, 
meanwhile, insists that it does not authorize torture -- even as it 
seeks to block the McCain legislation. The issue has bitterly divided 
conservatives.

It is said, rightly, that torture degrades both its victims and its 
perpetrators. The debate has also degraded the moral caliber of 
discourse among supporters of the war on terror. Outrageously, the 
editorial page of The Wall Street Journal has argued that such 
techniques as exposure to extreme heat or cold, or ''waterboarding" 
(which induces a drowning sensation) are not torture but merely 
''psychological techniques."

A much more thoughtful ''antiantitorture" argument is made by Charles 
Krauthammer in The Weekly Standard. Krauthammer agrees that torture is 
''terrible and monstrous," and he does not deny that such practices as 
''waterboarding" are torture. But he also asserts that some forms of 
this monstrous thing must remain permissible in extreme cases: the 
''ticking time bomb" scenario, in which a captured terrorist knows the 
location of a bomb that could kill thousands; and the high-level 
terrorist who possesses a treasure trove of information about the terror 
network and its plots.

Yet the ''ticking time bomb" scenario is not only extremely improbable, 
it's also one in which torture is most likely to be useless. If the 
terrorist knows the bomb will go off in two hours, all he has to do is 
stall by giving false information until it does go off. And with 
high-level terrorists, psychological manipulation may prove much more 
effective in extracting accurate information than physical suffering.

McCain has cited Israel as a model of fighting terror without resorting 
to torture: Physical coercion in interrogations was banned by the 
Israeli Supreme Court in 1999. Krauthammer disagrees, pointing out that 
since the start of the second Palestinian uprising, coercive tactics 
toward detainees in Israel have been commonly used under the radar, with 
widespread acceptance from the public.

But the 2004 Washington Post article Krauthammer cites actually 
demonstrates two things. First, while interrogations in Israel were 
toughened, there has been no return to pre-1999 techniques that included 
physical brutality; today, Israeli interrogators rely mainly on 
psychological pressure (including sleep deprivation). Second, the 
allegations of physical abuse in the story involve maltreatment of 
detainees by soldiers, not interrogators. The allegations, if true, are 
troubling and suggest that acceptance of abuse ''for a good cause" may 
foster a climate of abuse with no information-extracting purposes.

Krauthammer also that notes McCain's opposition is not as absolutist as 
he makes it out to be. The senator has said that in a ''ticking time 
bomb" emergency, the president may be able to authorize the use of 
illegal techniques. Legal experts also believe the ban on ''cruel, 
inhuman, or degrading" treatment may allow the harshness of 
interrogation methods to be calibrated to the urgency of the situation. 
Krauthammer concludes that McCain's uncompromising stance is partly for 
show. He urges us to abandon ''moral preening" and honestly admit that 
sometimes, ''we must all be prepared to torture."

Yet what good will such honesty accomplish? Yes, a ''no torture" stance 
is likely to be qualified with tacit acknowledgment that, under narrow 
and extreme circumstances, the rules may be bent. That seems vastly 
preferable to open endorsement of torture. If we start with a ''thou 
shalt not torture" absolute, we are likely to be vigilant about lapses 
from this commandment, limiting them only to absolute necessity. If we 
start with the premise that torture is sometimes acceptable, there's no 
telling how low we're going to go on that slippery slope.

Cathy Young is a contributing editor at Reason magazine. Her column 
appears regularly in the Globe.  

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/12/05/how_much_torture_is_ok/
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Mon Dec  5 04:10:38 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Mon Dec  5 04:22:52 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] The basilica of denial - James Carroll - Boston Globe
	Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43942E3E.2020604@comcast.net>


  The basilica of denial

By James Carroll  |  December 5, 2005  |  The Boston Globe

LAST WEEK'S Vatican ''instruction" restricting admission to the 
priesthood to heterosexuals was an exploitation of prejudice about 
homosexuality aimed at drawing attention away from the real crisis 
facing the Catholic Church.

If any one group ''caused" the priest sex-abuse scandal, it was not 
gays, but rather the bishops themselves, who now scapegoat gays. The 
truly scandalous fact remains that, while a small percentage of priests 
abused children, the overwhelming majority of bishops knowingly 
protected the abusers instead of the abused. And as periodic news 
reports demonstrate, this pattern continues, with the uncovered secrets 
of deal-making, plea-bargaining, asset-protection -- and the vengeful 
punishing of priests who dared to challenge bishops on the issue.

What the scandal reveals is the moral bankruptcy of the entire Catholic 
clerical culture, but in order to deal with that, basic questions about 
celibacy, women's ordination, the role of the laity, and repressive 
authority would have to be asked. Obviously, those are questions the 
Vatican is desperate to deflect, and that is the purpose of this new ruling.

The instruction is the second large signal that the Vatican has no real 
interest in reckoning with the priest-abuse catastrophe. The first 
signal was in the Vatican's own reiteration of the preference of abuser 
over abused when it appointed Cardinal Bernard Law to the prestigious 
position of archpriest of Rome's Basilica of St. Mary Major. Cardinal 
Law, recall, not only sponsored some of the most lecherous abusers, 
repeatedly sending them out among the defenseless young, but he betrayed 
the church's own most sacred traditions when, for example, he tried to 
use the seal of confession as a way of protecting the secret of abuse.

Cardinal Law is guilty of crimes and should have been punished. Instead 
he was honored. In doing that, the Vatican was not so much standing by a 
favored prelate as it was defending the authority structure over which 
it presides.

Some church figures were embarrassed by Law's appointment as archpriest 
of St. Mary Major and have described his sinecure there as not really 
important, yet the basilica is one of the greatest churches in the world 
(Bernini not only contributed to its decoration, but is buried there), 
and its palace was once home to the popes. With Law ensconced there, it 
seems especially significant that St. Mary Major is not only an emblem 
of church triumphalism, but, from its earliest days, was an instrument 
of it.

Although renovated repeatedly over the centuries, the basilica dates to 
the year 438. Its stunning fifth-century mosaics enshrine the aesthetic 
marvel that occurred when faith was joined to beauty, but those same 
artworks served a darker purpose. In dozens of panels, scenes from the 
Hebrew scriptures (Abraham, Isaac, Moses) are counterpoised to scenes 
from the life of Jesus (Annunciation, nativity, flight into Egypt), a 
deliberate contrasting to show that Christian revelation has fulfilled 
-- and therefore replaced -- Jewish religion.

As I learned from the scholar Margaret Miles, the mosaics are the first 
visual representation of the supersessionist theology that took hold 
once Christians could use the power of the state against their religious 
rivals. ''The Jew carries the book from which the Christian takes his 
faith," St. Augustine preached. ''They have become our librarians, like 
slaves who carry books behind their masters."

Miles makes the point: Exactly as St. Mary Major was being completed, 
the Christian emperor Theodosius II issued an edict forbidding Jews to 
hold office and making proselytizing by Jews a capital crime. Bishops 
now justified the burning of synagogues, and history's first pogroms 
occurred. The Basilica of St. Mary Major both signified and advanced 
this violent triumphalism.

It took the Holocaust to lay bare the terrible corruption of 
Christianity's contempt for Jews and Judaism. In the last 60 years, 
Christians, in dialogue with Jewish partners, have begun to dismantle 
the structures of anti-Semitism, including the replacement theology that 
reduced Judaism to a Christian library. For the Catholic Church, 
Cardinal Law was one of the leaders of that reckoning, which makes his 
new role all the more tragic.

One need not equate the Holocaust to the priest sex-abuse scandal to see 
that an analogous laying bare of a deep corruption has occurred again. 
As St. Mary Major was being built, the church was choosing power over 
love, and that choice, as last week's ''instruction" shows, remains the 
pillar of the clerical establishment.

The Basilica of St. Mary Major is a symbol of one church disaster, which 
is being reckoned with. Its archpriest is the symbol of another, which 
is still being denied.

James Carroll's column appears regularly in the Globe.  


http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/12/05/the_basilica_of_denial/
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From michael at intrafi.com  Mon Dec  5 06:54:47 2005
From: michael at intrafi.com (michael@intrafi.com)
Date: Mon Dec  5 07:05:06 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] FT.com / Europe / German election - US-German relations
	undermined by CIA flights
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From michael at intrafi.com  Mon Dec  5 06:56:47 2005
From: michael at intrafi.com (michael@intrafi.com)
Date: Mon Dec  5 07:07:01 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] FT.com / Comment & analysis / Analysis - Turkey019s
 nightmare: an obstacle on road to Europe
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From michael at intrafi.com  Mon Dec  5 06:57:42 2005
From: michael at intrafi.com (michael@intrafi.com)
Date: Mon Dec  5 07:07:55 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] FT.com / Comment & analysis / Comment - Terror suspects
	are entitled to legal protection
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From michael at intrafi.com  Mon Dec  5 07:04:20 2005
From: michael at intrafi.com (michael@intrafi.com)
Date: Mon Dec  5 07:14:31 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] FT.com / Comment & analysis - Observer from Caracas
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From michael at intrafi.com  Mon Dec  5 07:23:13 2005
From: michael at intrafi.com (michael@intrafi.com)
Date: Mon Dec  5 07:33:23 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Alternet: Neil Bush Meets the Messiah
Message-ID: <20051205152313.1F190B8093@alternet.org>


This story has been forwarded to you from
http://www.alternet.org by michael@intrafi.com



-------------------------------------
Neil Bush Meets the Messiah
http://www.alternet.org/story/29054

Why is the President's younger brother, Neil, touring with the leader of the Moonies?
-------------------------------------

From michael at intrafi.com  Mon Dec  5 07:28:32 2005
From: michael at intrafi.com (michael@intrafi.com)
Date: Mon Dec  5 07:38:43 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Alternet: Filling in for God
Message-ID: <20051205152832.C553CB8095@alternet.org>


This story has been forwarded to you from
http://www.alternet.org by michael@intrafi.com



-------------------------------------
Filling in for God
http://www.alternet.org/story/29061

Certain politicians should do a lot more listening to the Lord, and a lot less talking for Him.
-------------------------------------

From michael at michaelbutler.com  Mon Dec  5 08:14:50 2005
From: michael at michaelbutler.com (Michael Butler)
Date: Mon Dec  5 08:26:32 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Don't Let It Bring You Down
Message-ID: <BFB9D1AA.26746%michael@michaelbutler.com>

    Don't Let It Bring You Down
    By William Rivers Pitt
    t r u t h o u t | Perspective

    Monday 05 December 2005

    Don't let it bring you down,
    It's only castles burning,
    Find someone who's turning,
    And you will come around...

    -- Neil Young

    Wolf Blitzer got up on his hind legs during his Sunday morning confab
with Senator Biden on CNN and expressed his outrage that the Iraqi people
and their so-called leaders have not thanked the United States for invading
and occupying their country. "There was not one word of appreciation," said
Blitzer, "to the United States for liberating Iraq from Saddam Hussein."
Wolf went on to ask Biden if the Senator found this as alarming and
depressing as he did.

    The disconnection is staggering, the comment so two years ago. Remember
when Dick Cheney told us before the war that, "My belief is we will, in
fact, be greeted as liberators"? The vast gulf between our present reality
and Cheney's pre-invasion optimism is wide enough to sail the Sixth Fleet
through with room to spare. Yet there was Wolf, still waiting for the hearts
and flowers.

    Blitzer, one can assume, would be appalled by another video on the 'net
of a caravan of oil tankers being driven by US troops through Iraq. One
troop, driving the tanker and narrating the video, tells the viewer to be
ready for the next stretch of road. Children, it seems, gather on that
stretch of road to throw rocks at the passing soldiers. The video clearly
shows young Iraqis pelting the truck as it rolls along; one rock smashes the
windshield. The soldier in the video is vocally frustrated by the rules of
engagement which keep him from shooting the rock-throwers.

    Maybe those kids are foreign fighters, insurgents shipped in from Iran
and Syria to disrupt the march of democracy.

    Let's see. Tens of thousands of Iraqis have been killed and maimed
during this occupation. 70% of the population is unemployed. Long gas lines
are the rule of the day. Hospitals don't work. Electricity is intermittent.
Potable water is hard to come by. Bombs go off every day, slaying civilians,
police and soldiers indiscriminately. Iraqis disappear into torture
chambers. Religious factions growl at each other like dogs in a fighting
pit. Even the children throw rocks.

    Where's the love, Wolf? Where's the thanks?

    Don't let it bring you down, Wolf. It's merely an accent in the
symphony. There are a number of people walking around these days groaning
for a little love, for those good old days when things like rules and laws
were for other people. The Abramoff scandal has a whole pile of Republican
trough-diggers in Congress thinking about keeping a bail-bondsman on speed
dial. It didn't used to be this way for them, and more than a few are
wondering when the rug is going to get jerked out from under them.

    Big George and the boys are likewise feeling the heat, and have coughed
up a scattered bag of platitudes and blue-sky predictions in the form of a
"plan" to "win" in Iraq. Rep. Murtha put a burr under their collective
saddle when he demanded a withdrawal from Iraq, and the White House PR
mavens still haven't quite figured out how to deal with him. The old
chestnuts about elitist liberal weenies don't scan with Murtha; the only
time he ever stuck his pinkie finger out while drinking a latte was so he
could pick up the Distinguished Service Cross he earned after a lifetime in
the Marine Corps.

    There is video from Al Jazeera floating around on the 'net allegedly
showing the explosion that killed ten Marines in Fallujah last week. The
Pentagon folks are vehemently denying that this video actually shows those
ten Marines getting blown up. Perhaps they are correct, but one thing is
certain. The video definitely shows a crowd of American soldiers and a
Humvee disappearing into the vortex of a terrible detonation.

    Those ten Marines who died last week, by the way, had names and homes.
Almost half of them were not old enough to legally buy a beer in America
when they died in Iraq.

    Adam Kaiser was 19, and was from Naperville, Illinois. Andrew Patten was
also 19, and was from Byron, Illinois. Anthony McElveen was 20, and was from
Little Falls, Minnesota. Robert Martinez was also 20, and was from
Splendora, Texas. Craig Watson was 21, and was from Union City, Michigan.
John Holmason was also 21, and was from Scappoose, Oregon. Scott Modeen was
24, and was from Hennepin, Minnesota. David Huhn was also 24, and was from
Portland, Michigan. Daniel Clay was 27, and was from Pensacola, Florida.
Andy Stevens was 29, and was from Tomah, Wisconsin.

    It is important to know their names, because you will never get to meet
them.

    Since January 2001, we have lost faith in the idea that our votes
matter, we have lost two towers in New York, we have lost an entire city in
Louisiana, we have lost two thousand one hundred and twenty nine soldiers to
Iraq, somewhere along the way we lost a whole pile of weapons of mass
destruction those soldiers died trying to find, we have lost a substantial
portion of our children's future by spending hundreds of billions of dollars
so those soldiers could die far from home, we have lost our standing with
the international community, and a good portion of the planet looks long and
hard at us, wondering if we have also lost our minds.

    Don't let it bring you down, though. We're staying the course, fighting
them over there so we don't have to fight them here, spreading democracy,
rolling with the noble cause, doing the Lord's work and saving Christmas,
all at the same time. It's all good.

 

From reuteb at austin.rr.com  Mon Dec  5 07:37:20 2005
From: reuteb at austin.rr.com (reute)
Date: Mon Dec  5 08:37:49 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Jane Smiley's Prius
Message-ID: <E1EjJB1-0006fj-Cr@smtpauth04.mail.atl.earthlink.net>

Brilliant article by Jane Smiley. I shop @ costco too and buy  
organic. My next car will be fuel efficient also. xox, R

> Subject: Jane's Prius
>>
>> The Huffington Post:
>>
>>      _Jane  Smiley_ (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jane-smiley)   
>> _Bio_
>> (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/contributors/bio.php?nick=jane- 
>> smiley&name=Jane%20Smil
>> ey)    (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/theblog/index/)
>> (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/syndication/)
>>
>> (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB113332075479109882-search.html? 
>> KEYWORDS=holman+w.+jenkins&COLLECTION=wsjie/6month)
>
>>   in  the Wall Street Journal yesterday, only because it was about  
>> the
>> Prius -- a  car that I own. The photo of the author, Holman W.  
>> Jenkins,
>> Jr., had  that  sneering look that free-marketers often adopt  
>> before they
>> are indicted for  tax  fraud or accounting irregularities.
>> I have to say that Junior did not disappoint. He belittled Prius  
>> drivers
>> for   having fallen for Hybrid Synergy Drive hype, sneered at the
>> "emotional"   relationship Prius drivers seem to have with their  
>> vehicles,
>> and eventually got   around (toward the end of the piece) to  
>> calling Prius
>> drivers "suckers." Junior
>>  caused me to reflect upon my Prius, and to compare it to the  
>> other cars
>> I've  bought in the last eight years -- a Chevy diesel truck, a Mazda
>> van, a Saab,
>> a  Subaru Outback sedan, and, of course, the Prius. All of these  
>> cars cost
>>  between  twenty and twenty-five grand. I still have the truck. It  
>> once
>> had a  sudden  stopping problem that got fixed after the dealer  
>> rummaged
>> through the  paperwork  and found an old recall notice, but it's  
>> been fine
>> since. The Mazda  van gave me  serious back pain, so I bought the  
>> Saab.
>> The Saab rode very rough.  Every bump  was like a pothole, so I  
>> bought the
>> Outback, which had a very  smooth ride, but  only got about twenty  
>> miles
>> to the gallon. When I tried the  Prius, which rode  nearly as well  
>> as the
>> Outback, cost less, and had more cargo  room and leg room  in the
>> backseat, I decided that the two were comparable, as  cars go.
>> The Prius has been entirely reliable, comfortable, and useful.  
>> There have
>>  been recalls -- Toyota notified me and fixed the potential problems
>> during   regular servicing. As far as I can tell, the Prius's only
>> disadvantage is that  if  the dogs aren't looking at you when you are
>> backing up, they don't realize   that you are coming toward them  
>> (since it
>> backs up silently, on electric  power).  Since all my cars have  
>> seemed
>> comparable to me, I have not felt like a  "sucker"  in the Prius.  
>> And when
>> I am driving on the highway and the car tells me  it is  getting  
>> 53 or 54
>> miles to the gallon and when I am driving around my    
>> neighborhood, which
>> is hilly, and it tells me I am getting 41-43 miles to the    
>> gallon, and
>> when I was stuck in traffic in LA it told me I was getting 72   
>> miles  to
>> the gallon, it seems more like a bonus and a pleasure than the  
>> reason I
>> bought the Prius, which cost me more than the Saab and less than  
>> the Mazda
>>  and  the Subaru. I like how it looks, too -- I am tall, and it  
>> fits me.
>> Junior Jenkins doesn't say what sort of car he drives in his  
>> satire upon
>> Prius drivers, but no doubt his car reflects something about who  
>> he thinks
>> he   is, and if I am to go by the article he wrote, his only value is
>> money. He   writes as though he is a dedicated comparison shopper,  
>> never
>> settling for less   than the most he can get for his money. In  
>> that case,
>> I am sure he drives a   Dodge or a GM, which he probably bought  
>> when those
>> less than successful   companies lured some people that you might  
>> call
>> "suckers" into the showrooms  with big  rebates and financing  
>> deals. He
>> congratulates himself everyday on what  a  good deal he got, and  
>> no doubt
>> Junior keeps a running tab on how much he is   paying for gas in
>> comparison to how much he saved on the deal he made.  The problem  
>> with
>> Junior, though, is that he epitomizes more than just the   sneering,
>> know-it-all attitude of the free market conservatives who pride
>> themselves on gaming the system to their own advantage. He  
>> epitomizes the
>> greedy   egotism that is their only value and is the only value  
>> that they
>> attribute to   everyone else.
>> Personally, I'm in favor of government regulation of economic life. I
>> think   the deregulation fad of the 1980s was the beginning of the  
>> end of
>> American   democracy. One of my favorite injustices is a small one  
>> -- it's
>> the way that   economics professors at places like the University of
>> Chicago prescibe "creative
>>  destruction," economic insecurity, and low wages for others but  
>> reserve
>> special  treatment (tenure, for example) for themselves. At any  
>> rate, the
>> reason I  am in  favor of government regulation is that intellectual
>> leaders who  promote free  market orthodoxy, like Junior Jenkins,  
>> are so
>> shallow, and theorizing  about the  free market has made them that  
>> way.
>> Oh, those free marketers always give lip-service to actual freedom  
>> in the
>>  market -- the idea that people like me might be willing to pay a  
>> premium
>> for   some other value than getting the most for your money. I  
>> also pay a
>> premium for   free range chickens, grass-fed beef, and organically  
>> grown
>> produce. I pay the
>>  premium not only because I believe in genetic and environmental  
>> diversity,
>> good  flavor, and boosting my family's omega-3 fatty acids, but  
>> also so
>> that  those who  are doing the growing can make a living and  
>> refine their
>> techniques  on the  off-chance that in the future, such a large  
>> premium
>> will not have to be  paid. I  would prefer, in fact, that the  
>> government
>> had regulated the big  agricultural  companies so that they had never
>> contaminated the plant gene pool,  the water  systems, the soil,  
>> and our
>> own DNA to begin with, but it's too late  for that  now. In fact,  
>> every
>> free market correction comes after the fact. In  addition to   
>> "creative
>> destruction," of course, there is "destructive  destruction," but get
>> some orthodox free marketer to talk about that!  Likewise, I wish  
>> that
>> government regulation had preserved us from the melting
>>  Greenland ice cap, the freshening North Atlantic that is  
>> endangering the
>> Gulf  Stream, the melting permafrost in Siberia that is giving off  
>> extra
>> methane,  and  Dick Cheney's 2001 Energy Taskforce, which seems to  
>> have
>> made him think  that the  war in Iraq was a good idea. I wish we  
>> had used
>> less oil in the last  twenty  years. I once had another sucker car  
>> -- an
>> '86 Toyota Tercel wagon  that got 45  miles to the gallon on the  
>> highway
>> without hybrid synergy drive. It  was totally  reliable -- once I  
>> checked
>> the oil and left the cap off, then  drove 240 miles.  Five of the six
>> quarts of oil blew out of the engine, but it  was fine. "It's a   
>> Toyota,"
>> said the dealer. It was so obviously the car of the  future. But  
>> greed
>> (of the oil companies and the automakers) said otherwise.  At the  
>> very
>> most basic level, government regulation describes what sort of    
>> society
>> citizens want to live in, whether or not all the regulations work  
>> or  all
>> of them are wise ones. I would like to live in a society where the
>> government  says to the corporations, "first, do no harm":
>> "Don't sell poison and call it food"
>> "Don't pay your workers such a low  wage that they can't have both  
>> food
>> and  lodging"
>> "Don't leave millions of  citizens without elementary healthcare"
>> "Leave the natural world better than  you found it."
>> "Don't cheat on your taxes, your accounting, or your business   
>> practices."
>> "Don't steal elections."
>> "All citizens have basic human  worth."
>> Instead, thanks to the theorists of the free market, we live in a  
>> country
>>  where the corporations tell the government -- "We are going to do
>> whatever we   want, and you are going to do whatever we want, too.
>> Citizens will be valued   according to their financial assets. The  
>> natural
>> world will be ruthlessly mined
>>  for 'wealth creation.' And everyone is going pretend that this is  
>> not only
>> more  profitable for us, it is morally better."
>> What sort of people produce Wal-Mart? Why, people like Junior  
>> Jenkins, people
>>  for whom cheapness is all, no matter what the cost. Every time  
>> Junior
>> sees a  Prius (or a working stiff), he sees only a price tag. And  
>> even
>> though, in
>> the  absence of decent regulations, people like me, Prince  
>> Charles, and
>> Larry  David  have to actually fund new ideas (and shop at  
>> Costco), Junior
>> laughs at  us. He  points out that even though we aren't using as  
>> much
>> fuel or giving off  as many  emissions, the oil "is not saved."  
>> Well, no,
>> it isn't, right now. But  let's try  an analogous argument -- just  
>> because
>> Junior isn't as promiscuous  as he used to  be, that doesn't mean any
>> fewer girls (or guys) are having sex.  Junior Jenkins has only one  
>> value
>> (getting the most for his money) and one   fear (of getting  
>> suckered), but
>> he doesn't have to be our model citizen. Until   the glorious era of
>> re-regulation dawns, I am going to pretend, in spite of  the  Wall  
>> Street
>> Journal, that the free market is on my side. I am going to   drive my
>> Prius and eat my organic veggies and vote against the
>> Diebold/Republican axis of evil on, as long as I can procure it,  
>> my paper
>> ballot. Actually,  the free market has left me no  choice.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
?

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From JorieSells at aol.com  Mon Dec  5 07:12:06 2005
From: JorieSells at aol.com (JorieSells@aol.com)
Date: Mon Dec  5 08:47:54 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Fwd: I remember this incident well....do you?
Message-ID: <E1EjIi5-0003gc-35@smtpauth04.mail.atl.earthlink.net>

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From: DawnUGo@aol.com
Subject: I remember this incident well....do you?
Date: Sun, 4 Dec 2005 18:20:37 EST
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From hecate at diamonddragon.com  Mon Dec  5 09:07:46 2005
From: hecate at diamonddragon.com (Hecate)
Date: Mon Dec  5 09:18:22 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] BBC E-mail: Powerful quake rocks East Africa
Message-ID: <20051205_170746_055035.hecate@diamonddragon.com>

Hecate saw this story on BBC News Online and thought you
should see it.



** Powerful quake rocks East Africa **
A strong earthquake hits eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, sending shocks across East Africa.
< http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/2/hi/africa/4499938.stm >


** BBC Daily E-mail **
Choose the news and sport headlines you want - when you want them, all
in one daily e-mail
< http://www.bbc.co.uk/dailyemail/ >


** Disclaimer **
The BBC is not responsible for the content of this e-mail, and anything written in this e-mail does not necessarily reflect the BBC's views or opinions. Please note that neither the e-mail address nor name of the sender have?been verified.

If you do not wish to receive such e-mails in the future or want to know more about the BBC's Email a Friend service, please read our frequently asked questions. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/help/4162471.stm

From hecate at diamonddragon.com  Mon Dec  5 09:08:31 2005
From: hecate at diamonddragon.com (Hecate)
Date: Mon Dec  5 09:18:42 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] BBC E-mail: Rice defends US terror policies
Message-ID: <20051205_170831_028655.hecate@diamonddragon.com>

Hecate saw this story on BBC News Online and thought you
should see it.



** Rice defends US terror policies **
The secretary of state admits that terror suspects are flown abroad by the US, but denies they are tortured.
< http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/2/hi/americas/4499648.stm >


** BBC Daily E-mail **
Choose the news and sport headlines you want - when you want them, all
in one daily e-mail
< http://www.bbc.co.uk/dailyemail/ >


** Disclaimer **
The BBC is not responsible for the content of this e-mail, and anything written in this e-mail does not necessarily reflect the BBC's views or opinions. Please note that neither the e-mail address nor name of the sender have?been verified.

If you do not wish to receive such e-mails in the future or want to know more about the BBC's Email a Friend service, please read our frequently asked questions. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/help/4162471.stm

From jameshburns at webtv.net  Mon Dec  5 09:14:42 2005
From: jameshburns at webtv.net (Jim Burns)
Date: Mon Dec  5 09:24:59 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Two Wolves...
In-Reply-To: mb-civic-request@islandlists.com's message of Mon, 5 Dec 2005
	08:48:00 -0800
Message-ID: <5653-43947582-896@storefull-3278.bay.webtv.net>


One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes
on inside people.

He said, "My son, the battle is between two "wolves" inside us all.

One is Evil.? 

It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance,
self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride,
superiority, and ego.

The other is Good.? 

It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence,
empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith."

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his
grandfather:? "Which wolf wins?"

The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one you feed."


From geomilman at milman.com  Mon Dec  5 09:28:31 2005
From: geomilman at milman.com (George R. Milman)
Date: Mon Dec  5 09:39:03 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Perspective:  E-tracking, coming to a DMV near you
Message-ID: <001401c5f9c1$51c24e20$8c00a8c0@george>

Trust federal bureaucrats to take a good idea and transform it into a
frightening proposal to track Americans wherever they drive.

 

http://news.com.com/2010-1071_3-5980979.html

 

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From clhpas at peoplepc.com  Thu Dec  1 18:34:12 2005
From: clhpas at peoplepc.com (clhpas@peoplepc.com)
Date: Mon Dec  5 09:47:07 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Fw:  Joe L.
Message-ID: <E1EjKGi-0001op-N5@smtpauth04.mail.atl.earthlink.net>

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From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Mon Dec  5 10:49:27 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (mblaxill@yahoo.com)
Date: Mon Dec  5 10:59:48 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Headlines for December 5, 2005
Message-ID: <20051205184927.12489.qmail@trinity.democracynow.org>

Mike Blaxill  ( mblaxill@yahoo.com )
sent you this story from democracynow.org



+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
|  Headlines for December 5, 2005
|  http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/05/1455234
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+


- Tens of Thousands in 30 Cities Protest Global Warming 
- Kidnappers Threaten to Kill Four Peace Activists In Iraq
- 10 Marines Killed in Fallujah
- Saddam's Lawyers Walk Out Of Trial In Protest
- Report: CIA Drone Assassinates Al Qaeda Leader in Pakistan
- Court Nominee Samuel Alito Justified Police Killing of Teen
- Tens of Thousands Protest in Nepal Against Monarchy
- Connecticut Passes Sweeping Campaign Finance Law
This story continues at: 
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/05/1455234

From hecate at diamonddragon.com  Mon Dec  5 11:25:05 2005
From: hecate at diamonddragon.com (Hecate)
Date: Mon Dec  5 11:35:19 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] BBC E-mail: Russia confirms Iran missile deal
Message-ID: <20051205_192505_095748.hecate@diamonddragon.com>

Hecate saw this story on BBC News Online and thought you
should see it.



** Russia confirms Iran missile deal **
Russia says it is selling surface-to-air missiles to Iran and insists they are only defensive.
< http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/2/hi/europe/4500878.stm >


** BBC Daily E-mail **
Choose the news and sport headlines you want - when you want them, all
in one daily e-mail
< http://www.bbc.co.uk/dailyemail/ >


** Disclaimer **
The BBC is not responsible for the content of this e-mail, and anything written in this e-mail does not necessarily reflect the BBC's views or opinions. Please note that neither the e-mail address nor name of the sender have?been verified.

If you do not wish to receive such e-mails in the future or want to know more about the BBC's Email a Friend service, please read our frequently asked questions. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/help/4162471.stm

From hecate at diamonddragon.com  Mon Dec  5 11:36:25 2005
From: hecate at diamonddragon.com (Hecate)
Date: Mon Dec  5 11:46:40 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] BBC E-mail: US 'is failing to protect itself'
Message-ID: <20051205_193625_054545.hecate@diamonddragon.com>

Hecate saw this story on BBC News Online and thought you
should see it.



** US 'is failing to protect itself' **
The US is still vulnerable to terror attacks, say former members of the 11 September commission.
< http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/2/hi/americas/4500856.stm >


** BBC Daily E-mail **
Choose the news and sport headlines you want - when you want them, all
in one daily e-mail
< http://www.bbc.co.uk/dailyemail/ >


** Disclaimer **
The BBC is not responsible for the content of this e-mail, and anything written in this e-mail does not necessarily reflect the BBC's views or opinions. Please note that neither the e-mail address nor name of the sender have?been verified.

If you do not wish to receive such e-mails in the future or want to know more about the BBC's Email a Friend service, please read our frequently asked questions. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/help/4162471.stm

From michael at michaelbutler.com  Mon Dec  5 13:15:14 2005
From: michael at michaelbutler.com (Michael Butler)
Date: Mon Dec  5 13:27:12 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] A Response to Brezinski's Must Read
In-Reply-To: <4D34AAD15D24624B9B78FA5132C6C42921C48C@suzanne.PortCarlingCorp.com>
Message-ID: <BFBA1812.2677E%michael@michaelbutler.com>


------ Forwarded Message
From: "Alan Hamel" <Alan@PortCarlingCorp.com>
Date: Sun, 4 Dec 2005 14:50:07 -0800
To: "Michael Butler" <michael@michaelbutler.com>
Subject: RE: MUST READ

 
IT'S DIFFICULT TO TAKE BRZEZINSKI SERIOUSLY IN HIS ANTI-BUSH CRITIQUE.
HIS RECORD DURING HIS TIME WITH PRESIDENT CARTER WAS SERIOUSLY LACKING
IN SUBSTANCE AND VISION AND DIRECTION.
HE IS THE PERFECT INTELLECTUAL TO OFFER PROBLEMS WITHOUT EVER ONCE
OFFERING SOLUTIONS.

 WHEN HE CRITICIZES BUSH FOR REFERENCING "ISLAMIC" TERROR AGAINST
DESCRIBING THE BASQUES AND IRA, HE IS PURPOSELY AVOIDING THE FACT THAT
THE BASQUES  AND THE IRA  ARE NATIONALISTIC TERRORIST ORGANIZATIONS THAT
WORKED TO OVERTHROW THE STATUS QUO IN THEIR OWN COUNTRIES,  NOT TO
DESTROY EVERY "ISLAMIC NON-BELIEVER" IN THE ENTIRE WORLD NO MATTER WHERE
THEY LIVE IF THEY DON'T BUY ISLAM.  THEY ARE NOW EVEN DESTROYING THEIR
OWN;  I.E. AMMAN AND DARFUR.

THE ISLAMIC TERRORISTS COME FROM MANY DIFFERENT COUNTRIES WITHIN THE
MIDDLE EAST AND SOUTHERN ASIA AND AFRICA AND EUROPE AND EVEN THE UNITED
STATES AND CANADA.  AND THE ONLY COMMON THREAD THEY HAVE IS THAT THEY
ARE ALL ISLAMISTS;  THEREIN, THE REFERENCE TO "ISLAMIC TERRORISM".
THE TIME FOR INTELLECTUAL RHETORIC AND DIPLOMACY WITH THIS INVISIBLE
ENEMY IS LONG PAST AND IF HISTORY IS ANY INDICATION OF OUR GLOBAL
FUTURE,  CHECK OUT WHAT PRECIPITATED THE CRUSADES AFTER THE ISLAMIC
RELIGION WAS ESTABLISHED IN 610 AD.

AS FOR NAME CALLING AND GETTING  RESULTS,  PLEASE RECALL THAT THE BERLIN
WALL AND THE SOVIET UNION DID NOT FALL UNDER THE POLITE INTELLECTUAL
DIPLOMATIC SERVICE OF CARTER/BRZEZINSKI,  BUT WHEN A FORMER
GOVERNOR/ACTOR AS PRESIDENT STARTED REFERRING TO "THE EVIL EMPIRE" AND
DEMANDING THAT MR. GORBACHEV TEAR DOWN THE WALL.  MIRACULOUSLY,  IT CAME
DOWN BIG TIME AND THE UNION DISSOLVED.

LET'S LEARN FROM THE ISRAELIS.  UP UNTIL THE END OF WW2,  JEWS
OBEDIENTLY WALKED INTO CAMPS AND OVENS TO  HORRIBLE DEATHS.  THEY JUST
COULDN'T BELIEVE THEIR FELLOW COUNTRYMEN WOULD SENTENCE THEM TO THEIR
UNTIMELY DEMISE.  
TO-DAY,  THE ISRAELIS RECOGNIZE THAT ISLAMIC TERRORISTS WILL CONTINUE TO
KILL AND MAIM THEIR INNOCENT CITIZENS AND THEY WILL CONTINUE TO
RETALIATE AND DESTROY THEIR ENEMIES, BUT BY BEING PROACTIVE,  THEY WILL
MINIMIZE THE TERRORIST EFFECT;  THERE IS NO WAY TO ELIMINATE IT, EVER.

AND WE SEE EVERY DAY THAT THE NEW PALESTINIAN LEADER HAS ABSULUTELY NO
CONTROL OVER HIS OWN PEOPLE WHO CONTINUE TO SEND YOUNG SUICIDE BOMBERS
INTO JEWISH CITIES TO KILL AS MANY AS POSSIBLE.
TERRORISTS ARE PROFESSIONALS.  THEY GET PAID TO KILL, NOT TO MAKE PEACE.

TERRORISM IS A BUSINESS.    THAT'S THEIR JOB.  NO DIPLOMATIC INITIATIVE
CAN WORK THERE BECAUSE THE PRECEPTS THEMSELVES DON'T WORK.
SO LIKE CANCER,  WE MUST DESTROY THE TUMOR AND HOPE WHEN IT RETURNS,  WE
CAN DESTROY IT AGAIN.

IT IS UNFORTUNATE FOR THE MAJORITY OF MOSLEM ISLAMISTS THAT THEY HAVE
THIS CANCER GROWING IN THEIR MIDST AND ARE HELPLESS TO STOP IT.   THEY
ARE TERRIFIED TO EVEN OFFER A CRITICISM WHICH COULD BRING ON IMMEDIATE
PUNISHMENT OR DEATH.

EVER HEARD AN INFLUENTIAL ISLAMIC CLERIC EVER DEMAND THAT THE CRAZINESS
STOPS?  AND YOU WILL NEVER HEAR IT MAINLY BECAUSE THEY TOO ARE AFRAID OF
LOSING THEIR JOBS OR THEIR LIVES.

I AM NOT A REPUBLICAN.  MATTER OF FACT, I VOTED FOR GORE THE FIRST TIME
AROUND.  BUT I AM A REALIST AND WHEN I LOOK AT THESE PEOPLE KILLING US
EVERY DAY,  I FEEL OBLIGED TO DO SOMETHING TO OBLITERATE THEM.

THE BIG PICTURE...  DEMOCRACIES IN AFGHANISTAN AND IRAQ,  ELECTIONS IN
KUWAIT AND SAUDI,  KHADDAFI VOLUNTEERING TO GET OUT OF THE NUCLEAR
BUSINESS.  IT'S HAPPENING UNDER THE AWKWARD GUIDANCE OF THE BUSH
ADMINISTRATION.
WOULDN'T IT BE IRONIC IF 10 YEARS FROM NOW,  WE ALL LOOK BACK AT THIS
GOVERNMENT AND GIVE IT CREDIT FOR DEMOCRATIZING THE ENTIRE MIDDLE EAST
AND ELIMINATING SAFE HAVENS FOR WOULD-BE TERRORISTS.
HOW MANY ANTI-BUSHIES WOULD EVEN THEN BE WILLING TO GIVE OUR COWBOY
PRESIDENT THAT KIND OF CREDIT.

WHEN MR. BRZEZINSKI CAN OFFER SOLUTIONS RATHER THAN JUST INTELLECTUAL
AMBUSH AND FINGER POINTING FROM BEHIND HIS PROTECTED UNIVERSITY CHAIR,
WE WILL LISTEN AND TAKE THE MAN SERIOUSLY.






Do These Two Have Anything in Common?
President Bush has equated Islamic radicalism with communism. Is the
comparison sound? Is it wise?

By Zbigniew Brzezinski
Sunday, December 4, 2005; B02

In a series of recent speeches to the American people, President Bush
has sought to equate the current terrorist threat with the 20th-century
menace of communist totalitarianism. His case is that the terrorist
challenge is global in scope, "evil" in nature, ruthless toward its
foes, and eager to control every aspect of life and thought. Thus, he
argues, the battle against terrorism demands nothing "less than a
complete victory."

In making this case, the president has repeatedly invoked the adjective
"Islamic" when referring to terrorism and he has compared the "murderous
ideology of Islamic radicalism" to the ideology of communism.

Is the president historically right in his diagnosis of the allegedly
similar dangers posed by Islamic extremism and by totalitarian
communism? The differences between the two may be more telling than
their similarities. And is he wise to be expounding such a thesis?

By asserting that Islamic extremism, "like the ideology of communism . .
. is the great challenge of our new century," Bush is implicitly
elevating Osama bin Laden's stature and historic significance to the
level of figures such as Lenin, Stalin or Mao. And that suggests, in
turn, that the fugitive Saudi dissident hiding in some cave (or perhaps
even deceased) has been articulating a doctrine of universal
significance. Underlying the president's analogy is the proposition that
bin Laden's "jihad" has the potential for dominating the minds and
hearts of hundreds of millions of people across national and even
religious boundaries. That is quite a compliment to bin Laden, but it
isn't justified. The "Islamic" jihad is, at best, a fragmented and
limited movement that hardly resonates in most of the world.

Communism, by comparison, undeniably had worldwide appeal. By the 1950s,
there was hardly a country in the world without an active communist
movement or conspiracy, irrespective of whether the country was
predominantly Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Jewish, Buddhist or Confucian.
In some countries, such as Russia and China, the communist movement was
the largest political formation, dominating intellectual discourse; in
democratic countries, such as Italy and France, it vied for political
power in open elections.

In response to the dislocations and injustices precipitated by the
Industrial Revolution, communism offered a vision of a perfectly just
society. To be sure, that vision was false and was used to justify
violence that eventually led directly to the Soviet gulag, Chinese labor
and "reeducation" camps, and other human rights abuses. Nonetheless, for
a while, communism's definition of the future bolstered its
cross-cultural appeal.

In addition, the intellectual and political challenge of the communist
ideology was backed by enormous military power. The Soviet Union
possessed a huge nuclear arsenal, capable of launching in the course of
a few minutes a massive atomic attack on America. Within a few hours,
upwards of 120 million Americans and Soviets could have been dead in an
apocalyptic mutual cross-fire. That was the horrible reality.

Contemporary terrorism -- though nasty and criminal, whether Islamic or
otherwise -- has no such political reach and no such physical
capability. Its appeal is limited; it offers no answers to the novel
dilemmas of modernization and globalization. To the extent that it can
be said to possess an "ideology," it is a strange blend of fatalism and
nihilism. In al Qaeda's case, it is actively supported by relatively
isolated groupings, and its actions have been condemned without
exception by all major religious figures, from the pope to the grand
mufti of Saudi Arabia.

Its power is circumscribed, too. It still relies largely on familiar
tools of violence. Unlike communist totalitarian regimes, al Qaeda does
not use terror as an organizing tool but rather, because of its own
organizational weakness, as a disruptive tactic. Its members are bound
together by this tactic, not by an ideology. Ultimately, al Qaeda or
some related terrorist group may acquire truly destructive power, but
one should not confuse potentiality with actuality.

But in the meantime, is Bush smart to be making this comparison?

The analogy to communism may have some short-term political benefit, for
it can rekindle the fears of the past while casting the president in the
mold of the historic victors of the Cold War, from Harry Truman to
Ronald Reagan. But the propagation of fear also has a major downside: It
can produce a nation driven by fear, lacking in self-confidence and thus
less likely to inspire trust among America's allies, including Muslim
ones, whose support is needed for an effective and intelligent response
to the terrorist phenomenon.

It is particularly troubling that Bush has also relied heavily in his
recent speeches on what to many Muslims is bound to sound like
Islamophobic language. His speeches, though occasionally containing
disclaimers that he is not speaking of Islam as a whole, have been
replete with references to "the murderous ideology of the Islamic
radicals," "Islamic radicalism," "militant jihadism," "Islamofascism" or
"Islamic Caliphate."

Such phraseology can have unintended consequences. Instead of mobilizing
moderate Muslims to stand by our side, the repetitive refrain about
Islamic terrorism may not only offend moderate Muslims but could
eventually contribute to a perception that the campaign against
terrorism is also a campaign against Islam as a whole. They may note
that the United States, in condemning IRA terrorism in Northern Ireland
or Basque terrorism in Spain, does not describe it as "Catholic
terrorism," a phrase that Catholics around the world would likely find
offensive.

Bush's recent speeches also stand in sharp contrast to his mid-September
address to the United Nations, in which he not only refrained entirely
from labeling terrorism in any religious terms but also spoke
thoughtfully of social "anger and despair" as contributing to the rise
of terrorism. He stressed that the war against terrorism "will not be
won by force alone. . . . We must change the conditions that allow
terrorists to flourish and recruit." By contrast, Bush recently has
dismissed altogether the notion that there could be any "set of
grievances that can be soothed and addressed" in order to eliminate the
sources of terrorism.

It should be cause for concern to U.S. policymakers that only one major
foreign statesman comes close to emulating Bush's rhetorical emphasis on
the Islamic aspects of the current terrorist threat, and that is Russian
President Vladimir Putin. Putin has deliberately seized upon the theme
of Islamic terrorism to justify his relentless war against the Chechens'
aspirations for self-determination. That war has the dangerous effect of
generating rising tensions with Russia's sizable Muslim population.

It certainly is not in the United States's interest, especially in the
Middle East, to prompt a fusion of Muslim political resentments against
America with a wider and stronger sense of Islamic religious identity.
When the president talks of Iraq as "the central front" in the war
against Islamic terrorism, he links Iraqi and Arab anti-American
nationalism with outraged Muslim religious feelings, thereby reinforcing
the case for bin Laden's claim that the struggle is, indeed, against
"the crusaders."

That fusion could endow terrorism with fanatical intensity, compensating
for the weakness that it suffers in comparison to the organizational and
military threat posed earlier by communism. Indeed, the limitations of
al Qaeda and similar organizations could change, especially if the
president fails to pursue policies that aim at isolating terrorist
groups as well as undercutting their recruitment campaigns.

Unfortunately, the military character of our presence in the Middle East
may be helping to bring this change about. Robert A. Pape, a political
science professor at the University of Chicago, has analyzed the
motivations of contemporary suicide-attackers. He demonstrates that in
the majority of cases, the attackers' basic impulse has been hostility
toward foreign invaders, and he concluded a recent TV interview by
observing that "the longer our forces stay on the ground in the Arabian
Peninsula, the greater the risk of the next 9/11."

America would be better served if Bush avoided semantic traps that
create uncertainty about our true motives or fuel the worst suspicions
regarding U.S. strategy in the Middle East. Neither Islamophobic
terminology nor evocations of the victorious struggle with communism
help generate a better public understanding of what policies are needed
in order to pacify the Middle East and to speed the fading away of
terrorism, whose origins lie mostly in that region of the world.
Americans need to hear more of what Bush was saying not long ago to the
United Nations and less of what he has been propagating lately in the
United States.

Zbigniew Brzezinski was national security adviser to President Jimmy
Carter. He is a professor of American foreign policy at Johns Hopkins
University's School of Advanced International Studies and a trustee of
the Center for Strategic and International Studies.


------ End of Forwarded Message

From michael at michaelbutler.com  Mon Dec  5 13:21:26 2005
From: michael at michaelbutler.com (Michael Butler)
Date: Mon Dec  5 13:33:21 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Further on Brzezinski's MUST READ
In-Reply-To: <001d01c5f9dd$a9f6a750$1e458156@D612PJ1J>
Message-ID: <BFBA1986.26782%michael@michaelbutler.com>


------ Forwarded Message
From: "WS" <Zacharias@btinternet.com>
Date: Mon, 5 Dec 2005 20:51:28 -0000
To: "Michael Butler" <michael@michaelbutler.com>
Subject: Re: MUST READ

    Actually, they are both correct. Islamic Fundamentalism, particularly
Wahabi, was alive, well and being taught in Saudi Arabia for 80 years of the
last century. The Saudi 'Royal' family exists because of the original and
present support of the Wahabes. Fortunately for all of us the Whahabi
clerics (like most of them) are mostly quite corrupt , are bought off by the
Royals and politicians and care far more for the comforts of life  than
anything else. A few fundamentalists, like Oman, have slipped through the
net. They are a threat to us all including the Royals. Did you know that I
was the Witness at the senior binLaden's widow's marriage? He was a great
guy and a credit to Islam.  In 1978  I learned that the son of a friend of
mine, who was a senior General and a member of an influential tribe,  became
an intellectual terrorist. He was shunned by his elders and treated like
they treat their  unbalanced family members (Hidden).
    The fundamentalists, like the communists before them, and similar to the
'Brotherhood' in Egypt and elsewhere) are extra territorial. They cut across
all aspects of Islam. The Wahabi despises the Palestinian, and the Egyptian,
and the Shiites, and the Sunnis and visa versa.  The Fundamentalists have a
little support among them ...and...they are despised by the vast majority of
Islam.
    As we all know fundamentalism grows in the warm feted climate of the
upper the middle class, not the slums, or the unemployed. 9/11 demonstrated
this. Since then most of the 'handful's of the suicide bombers apparently
have been recruited by the upper middle class. (how many have their been? a
few hundred, a thousand ?)  Even so most of them have been employed, so the
argument that we must improve their lot is not compelling. From my
observation their standard of living in the govt housing in the UK is
demonstrably better that it is in Pakistan or Angola.
    The politically correct notion that we should not identify these
terrorists as Moslems seems to have been brought to us by the tooth fairy.
The terrorists  share one thing only, and that is their religion. A spade is
a spade is a spade. Not even Jimmy Carter can change this. Was the
Inquisition Catholic?
    Written in haste. Unedited

From: "Michael Butler" <michael@michaelbutler.com>
To: "Wharton Shober" <Zacharias@btinternet.com>
Sent: Monday, December 05, 2005 3:12 PM
Subject: FW: MUST READ


> Whartie,
> Received your comments, thanks. You might be interested in the comments
> below.
> You, better than almost all on the list, understand this area and the
> subject.
> To my thinking Alan Hamel really does not understand what Brzezinski is
> writing.
> Michael
>
> ------ Forwarded Message
> From: "Alan Hamel" <Alan@PortCarlingCorp.com>
> Date: Sun, 4 Dec 2005 14:50:07 -0800
> To: "Michael Butler" <michael@michaelbutler.com>
> Subject: RE: MUST READ
>
>
> IT'S DIFFICULT TO TAKE BRZEZINSKI SERIOUSLY IN HIS ANTI-BUSH CRITIQUE.
> HIS RECORD DURING HIS TIME WITH PRESIDENT CARTER WAS SERIOUSLY LACKING
> IN SUBSTANCE AND VISION AND DIRECTION.
> HE IS THE PERFECT INTELLECTUAL TO OFFER PROBLEMS WITHOUT EVER ONCE
> OFFERING SOLUTIONS.
>
> WHEN HE CRITICIZES BUSH FOR REFERENCING "ISLAMIC" TERROR AGAINST
> DESCRIBING THE BASQUES AND IRA, HE IS PURPOSELY AVOIDING THE FACT THAT
> THE BASQUES  AND THE IRA  ARE NATIONALISTIC TERRORIST ORGANIZATIONS THAT
> WORKED TO OVERTHROW THE STATUS QUO IN THEIR OWN COUNTRIES,  NOT TO
> DESTROY EVERY "ISLAMIC NON-BELIEVER" IN THE ENTIRE WORLD NO MATTER WHERE
> THEY LIVE IF THEY DON'T BUY ISLAM.  THEY ARE NOW EVEN DESTROYING THEIR
> OWN;  I.E. AMMAN AND DARFUR.
>
> THE ISLAMIC TERRORISTS COME FROM MANY DIFFERENT COUNTRIES WITHIN THE
> MIDDLE EAST AND SOUTHERN ASIA AND AFRICA AND EUROPE AND EVEN THE UNITED
> STATES AND CANADA.  AND THE ONLY COMMON THREAD THEY HAVE IS THAT THEY
> ARE ALL ISLAMISTS;  THEREIN, THE REFERENCE TO "ISLAMIC TERRORISM".
> THE TIME FOR INTELLECTUAL RHETORIC AND DIPLOMACY WITH THIS INVISIBLE
> ENEMY IS LONG PAST AND IF HISTORY IS ANY INDICATION OF OUR GLOBAL
> FUTURE,  CHECK OUT WHAT PRECIPITATED THE CRUSADES AFTER THE ISLAMIC
> RELIGION WAS ESTABLISHED IN 610 AD.
>
> AS FOR NAME CALLING AND GETTING  RESULTS,  PLEASE RECALL THAT THE BERLIN
> WALL AND THE SOVIET UNION DID NOT FALL UNDER THE POLITE INTELLECTUAL
> DIPLOMATIC SERVICE OF CARTER/BRZEZINSKI,  BUT WHEN A FORMER
> GOVERNOR/ACTOR AS PRESIDENT STARTED REFERRING TO "THE EVIL EMPIRE" AND
> DEMANDING THAT MR. GORBACHEV TEAR DOWN THE WALL.  MIRACULOUSLY,  IT CAME
> DOWN BIG TIME AND THE UNION DISSOLVED.
>
> LET'S LEARN FROM THE ISRAELIS.  UP UNTIL THE END OF WW2,  JEWS
> OBEDIENTLY WALKED INTO CAMPS AND OVENS TO  HORRIBLE DEATHS.  THEY JUST
> COULDN'T BELIEVE THEIR FELLOW COUNTRYMEN WOULD SENTENCE THEM TO THEIR
> UNTIMELY DEMISE.
> TO-DAY,  THE ISRAELIS RECOGNIZE THAT ISLAMIC TERRORISTS WILL CONTINUE TO
> KILL AND MAIM THEIR INNOCENT CITIZENS AND THEY WILL CONTINUE TO
> RETALIATE AND DESTROY THEIR ENEMIES, BUT BY BEING PROACTIVE,  THEY WILL
> MINIMIZE THE TERRORIST EFFECT;  THERE IS NO WAY TO ELIMINATE IT, EVER.
>
> AND WE SEE EVERY DAY THAT THE NEW PALESTINIAN LEADER HAS ABSULUTELY NO
> CONTROL OVER HIS OWN PEOPLE WHO CONTINUE TO SEND YOUNG SUICIDE BOMBERS
> INTO JEWISH CITIES TO KILL AS MANY AS POSSIBLE.
> TERRORISTS ARE PROFESSIONALS.  THEY GET PAID TO KILL, NOT TO MAKE PEACE.
>
> TERRORISM IS A BUSINESS.    THAT'S THEIR JOB.  NO DIPLOMATIC INITIATIVE
> CAN WORK THERE BECAUSE THE PRECEPTS THEMSELVES DON'T WORK.
> SO LIKE CANCER,  WE MUST DESTROY THE TUMOR AND HOPE WHEN IT RETURNS,  WE
> CAN DESTROY IT AGAIN.
>
> IT IS UNFORTUNATE FOR THE MAJORITY OF MOSLEM ISLAMISTS THAT THEY HAVE
> THIS CANCER GROWING IN THEIR MIDST AND ARE HELPLESS TO STOP IT.   THEY
> ARE TERRIFIED TO EVEN OFFER A CRITICISM WHICH COULD BRING ON IMMEDIATE
> PUNISHMENT OR DEATH.
>
> EVER HEARD AN INFLUENTIAL ISLAMIC CLERIC EVER DEMAND THAT THE CRAZINESS
> STOPS?  AND YOU WILL NEVER HEAR IT MAINLY BECAUSE THEY TOO ARE AFRAID OF
> LOSING THEIR JOBS OR THEIR LIVES.
>
> I AM NOT A REPUBLICAN.  MATTER OF FACT, I VOTED FOR GORE THE FIRST TIME
> AROUND.  BUT I AM A REALIST AND WHEN I LOOK AT THESE PEOPLE KILLING US
> EVERY DAY,  I FEEL OBLIGED TO DO SOMETHING TO OBLITERATE THEM.
>
> THE BIG PICTURE...  DEMOCRACIES IN AFGHANISTAN AND IRAQ,  ELECTIONS IN
> KUWAIT AND SAUDI,  KHADDAFI VOLUNTEERING TO GET OUT OF THE NUCLEAR
> BUSINESS.  IT'S HAPPENING UNDER THE AWKWARD GUIDANCE OF THE BUSH
> ADMINISTRATION.
> WOULDN'T IT BE IRONIC IF 10 YEARS FROM NOW,  WE ALL LOOK BACK AT THIS
> GOVERNMENT AND GIVE IT CREDIT FOR DEMOCRATIZING THE ENTIRE MIDDLE EAST
> AND ELIMINATING SAFE HAVENS FOR WOULD-BE TERRORISTS.
> HOW MANY ANTI-BUSHIES WOULD EVEN THEN BE WILLING TO GIVE OUR COWBOY
> PRESIDENT THAT KIND OF CREDIT.
>
> WHEN MR. BRZEZINSKI CAN OFFER SOLUTIONS RATHER THAN JUST INTELLECTUAL
> AMBUSH AND FINGER POINTING FROM BEHIND HIS PROTECTED UNIVERSITY CHAIR,
> WE WILL LISTEN AND TAKE THE MAN SERIOUSLY.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Do These Two Have Anything in Common?
> President Bush has equated Islamic radicalism with communism. Is the
> comparison sound? Is it wise?
>
> By Zbigniew Brzezinski
> Sunday, December 4, 2005; B02
>
> In a series of recent speeches to the American people, President Bush
> has sought to equate the current terrorist threat with the 20th-century
> menace of communist totalitarianism. His case is that the terrorist
> challenge is global in scope, "evil" in nature, ruthless toward its
> foes, and eager to control every aspect of life and thought. Thus, he
> argues, the battle against terrorism demands nothing "less than a
> complete victory."
>
> In making this case, the president has repeatedly invoked the adjective
> "Islamic" when referring to terrorism and he has compared the "murderous
> ideology of Islamic radicalism" to the ideology of communism.
>
> Is the president historically right in his diagnosis of the allegedly
> similar dangers posed by Islamic extremism and by totalitarian
> communism? The differences between the two may be more telling than
> their similarities. And is he wise to be expounding such a thesis?
>
> By asserting that Islamic extremism, "like the ideology of communism . .
> . is the great challenge of our new century," Bush is implicitly
> elevating Osama bin Laden's stature and historic significance to the
> level of figures such as Lenin, Stalin or Mao. And that suggests, in
> turn, that the fugitive Saudi dissident hiding in some cave (or perhaps
> even deceased) has been articulating a doctrine of universal
> significance. Underlying the president's analogy is the proposition that
> bin Laden's "jihad" has the potential for dominating the minds and
> hearts of hundreds of millions of people across national and even
> religious boundaries. That is quite a compliment to bin Laden, but it
> isn't justified. The "Islamic" jihad is, at best, a fragmented and
> limited movement that hardly resonates in most of the world.
>
> Communism, by comparison, undeniably had worldwide appeal. By the 1950s,
> there was hardly a country in the world without an active communist
> movement or conspiracy, irrespective of whether the country was
> predominantly Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Jewish, Buddhist or Confucian.
> In some countries, such as Russia and China, the communist movement was
> the largest political formation, dominating intellectual discourse; in
> democratic countries, such as Italy and France, it vied for political
> power in open elections.
>
> In response to the dislocations and injustices precipitated by the
> Industrial Revolution, communism offered a vision of a perfectly just
> society. To be sure, that vision was false and was used to justify
> violence that eventually led directly to the Soviet gulag, Chinese labor
> and "reeducation" camps, and other human rights abuses. Nonetheless, for
> a while, communism's definition of the future bolstered its
> cross-cultural appeal.
>
> In addition, the intellectual and political challenge of the communist
> ideology was backed by enormous military power. The Soviet Union
> possessed a huge nuclear arsenal, capable of launching in the course of
> a few minutes a massive atomic attack on America. Within a few hours,
> upwards of 120 million Americans and Soviets could have been dead in an
> apocalyptic mutual cross-fire. That was the horrible reality.
>
> Contemporary terrorism -- though nasty and criminal, whether Islamic or
> otherwise -- has no such political reach and no such physical
> capability. Its appeal is limited; it offers no answers to the novel
> dilemmas of modernization and globalization. To the extent that it can
> be said to possess an "ideology," it is a strange blend of fatalism and
> nihilism. In al Qaeda's case, it is actively supported by relatively
> isolated groupings, and its actions have been condemned without
> exception by all major religious figures, from the pope to the grand
> mufti of Saudi Arabia.
>
> Its power is circumscribed, too. It still relies largely on familiar
> tools of violence. Unlike communist totalitarian regimes, al Qaeda does
> not use terror as an organizing tool but rather, because of its own
> organizational weakness, as a disruptive tactic. Its members are bound
> together by this tactic, not by an ideology. Ultimately, al Qaeda or
> some related terrorist group may acquire truly destructive power, but
> one should not confuse potentiality with actuality.
>
> But in the meantime, is Bush smart to be making this comparison?
>
> The analogy to communism may have some short-term political benefit, for
> it can rekindle the fears of the past while casting the president in the
> mold of the historic victors of the Cold War, from Harry Truman to
> Ronald Reagan. But the propagation of fear also has a major downside: It
> can produce a nation driven by fear, lacking in self-confidence and thus
> less likely to inspire trust among America's allies, including Muslim
> ones, whose support is needed for an effective and intelligent response
> to the terrorist phenomenon.
>
> It is particularly troubling that Bush has also relied heavily in his
> recent speeches on what to many Muslims is bound to sound like
> Islamophobic language. His speeches, though occasionally containing
> disclaimers that he is not speaking of Islam as a whole, have been
> replete with references to "the murderous ideology of the Islamic
> radicals," "Islamic radicalism," "militant jihadism," "Islamofascism" or
> "Islamic Caliphate."
>
> Such phraseology can have unintended consequences. Instead of mobilizing
> moderate Muslims to stand by our side, the repetitive refrain about
> Islamic terrorism may not only offend moderate Muslims but could
> eventually contribute to a perception that the campaign against
> terrorism is also a campaign against Islam as a whole. They may note
> that the United States, in condemning IRA terrorism in Northern Ireland
> or Basque terrorism in Spain, does not describe it as "Catholic
> terrorism," a phrase that Catholics around the world would likely find
> offensive.
>
> Bush's recent speeches also stand in sharp contrast to his mid-September
> address to the United Nations, in which he not only refrained entirely
> from labeling terrorism in any religious terms but also spoke
> thoughtfully of social "anger and despair" as contributing to the rise
> of terrorism. He stressed that the war against terrorism "will not be
> won by force alone. . . . We must change the conditions that allow
> terrorists to flourish and recruit." By contrast, Bush recently has
> dismissed altogether the notion that there could be any "set of
> grievances that can be soothed and addressed" in order to eliminate the
> sources of terrorism.
>
> It should be cause for concern to U.S. policymakers that only one major
> foreign statesman comes close to emulating Bush's rhetorical emphasis on
> the Islamic aspects of the current terrorist threat, and that is Russian
> President Vladimir Putin. Putin has deliberately seized upon the theme
> of Islamic terrorism to justify his relentless war against the Chechens'
> aspirations for self-determination. That war has the dangerous effect of
> generating rising tensions with Russia's sizable Muslim population.
>
> It certainly is not in the United States's interest, especially in the
> Middle East, to prompt a fusion of Muslim political resentments against
> America with a wider and stronger sense of Islamic religious identity.
> When the president talks of Iraq as "the central front" in the war
> against Islamic terrorism, he links Iraqi and Arab anti-American
> nationalism with outraged Muslim religious feelings, thereby reinforcing
> the case for bin Laden's claim that the struggle is, indeed, against
> "the crusaders."
>
> That fusion could endow terrorism with fanatical intensity, compensating
> for the weakness that it suffers in comparison to the organizational and
> military threat posed earlier by communism. Indeed, the limitations of
> al Qaeda and similar organizations could change, especially if the
> president fails to pursue policies that aim at isolating terrorist
> groups as well as undercutting their recruitment campaigns.
>
> Unfortunately, the military character of our presence in the Middle East
> may be helping to bring this change about. Robert A. Pape, a political
> science professor at the University of Chicago, has analyzed the
> motivations of contemporary suicide-attackers. He demonstrates that in
> the majority of cases, the attackers' basic impulse has been hostility
> toward foreign invaders, and he concluded a recent TV interview by
> observing that "the longer our forces stay on the ground in the Arabian
> Peninsula, the greater the risk of the next 9/11."
>
> America would be better served if Bush avoided semantic traps that
> create uncertainty about our true motives or fuel the worst suspicions
> regarding U.S. strategy in the Middle East. Neither Islamophobic
> terminology nor evocations of the victorious struggle with communism
> help generate a better public understanding of what policies are needed
> in order to pacify the Middle East and to speed the fading away of
> terrorism, whose origins lie mostly in that region of the world.
> Americans need to hear more of what Bush was saying not long ago to the
> United Nations and less of what he has been propagating lately in the
> United States.
>
> Zbigniew Brzezinski was national security adviser to President Jimmy
> Carter. He is a professor of American foreign policy at Johns Hopkins
> University's School of Advanced International Studies and a trustee of
> the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
>
>
> ------ End of Forwarded Message
> 


------ End of Forwarded Message

From barbarasiomos38 at msn.com  Mon Dec  5 13:24:51 2005
From: barbarasiomos38 at msn.com (Barbara Siomos)
Date: Mon Dec  5 13:35:08 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Lennon remembered 25 years after his death
Message-ID: <BAY5-DAV7F94EF2096361D75DEB72AB410@phx.gbl>

Harry...

Thank you for sending the Lennon piece... it brings back sad but nice memories of an average fellow living amongst the celebs and loving the average folk.

peace,
barbara

-----Original Message-----
From: harry.sifton@sympatico.ca
Sent: Sun, 4 Dec 2005 17:24:01 -0800
To: mb-civic@islandlists.com
Subject: [Mb-civic] Lennon remembered 25 years after his death

This story was sent to you by: Harry

--------------------
Lennon remembered 25 years after his death 
--------------------

BY STEVE KNOPPER

John Lennon wouldn't sing.

It was 1974, and he was deep into his breakup with his wife, Yoko Ono, when New York DJ and longtime Beatles friend "Cousin" Brucie Morrow invited him to a benefit concert in Central Park. A crowd of 100,000 people showed up to the event, and a nervous Lennon, wearing a T-shirt, jeans and a butterfly belt buckle, turned to Morrow and said, "Cousin, promise me they know I'm not going to sing."

Morrow, who recently recalled that day, said, "John, all they want to do is share space with you.'

When the former Beatle and author of songs "Imagine" and "Give Peace a Chance" walked on stage, the crowd went wild.

"It didn't matter if he gave an hour concert or if he just stood there and talked," said Morrow, who's now a DJ for Sirius Satellite Radio. "He was accepted in major cities all over the world. He was born in Liverpool, not exactly a small hamlet, and grew up in London. But New York City had the greatest appeal for John Lennon because of its emotional acceptance. He was very comfortable here."

As the 25th anniversary of John Lennon's death approaches on Thursday -- he was gunned down by a deranged fan in front of his apartment building, the Dakota, on Dec. 8, 1980 -- New York City remains the geographic symbol of his post-Beatles life and career. Thousands of fans continue to pay homage to Lennon with visits to the Dakota as well as Strawberry Fields in Central Park.

During his time in the city -- a tumultuous nine-year period that encompassed a nasty separation, reconciliation, the birth of a son, political upheaval and the recording of his swan-song album, "Double Fantasy" -- Lennon came to appreciate little things like his ability to walk down the street at 4 a.m. and buy a loaf of bread at a grocery store. The British rocker died a New Yorker.

Lennon moved to Manhattan in 1971, at a time when the British press was particularly brutal to his new wife, Ono, widely viewed as an interloper who broke up the beloved Beatles the previous year. Fans who spotted him on the London streets had a tendency to be overly aggressive, sometimes hostile, and Lennon, 31 at the time, craved a more welcoming environment.

"He was cocooned in New York from '71 to his death. It's a bit like Woody Allen, really -- you feel like he couldn't really be transplanted," said veteran British singer-songwriter Robyn Hitchcock, whose work is strongly influenced by Lennon's Beatles and solo material. "The first part of his time [in Manhattan] he was a very public figure -- blowing his whistle and wearing his John Lennon badge. After [his son] Sean was born, he was kind of a recluse. People would have seen him padding around the shops. He was a person experiencing 24-hour New York City and rather like one of those old ladies living in Central Park East, up there with dogs."

During his early years in the city, Lennon's thirst for politically charged events clicked with Manhattan's environment. He hooked up with the Harlem Community Choir for 1971's "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)," drove around all night in friends' Volkswagens and produced a 1972 album, "The Pope Smokes Dope," for Yippie activist David Peel and his band, the Lower East Side.

"John called it Rome," said Lennon's friend Steve Gebhardt, a Cincinnati filmmaker who directed "One to One," the Madison Square Garden concert film released in 1972 as a TV special. "Creativity was all over the place, and there was a wonderfully thriving art culture."

Lennon was interested in the idea of spontaneous art and radical politics; after moving into an East Village apartment with Ono, one of the first things he did was hook up with Elephant's Memory, a loose and energetic rock and roll band he met at a club.

Inspired by his friendships with radicals Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman, Lennon recorded some of the most overtly political songs of his career, including "Woman Is the -- -- of the World," "John Sinclair" and "Sunday Bloody Sunday," all on the 1972 album "Some Time In New York City." He also performed with the band twice that year in Madison Square Garden.

"Radical politics were very big in the East Village at that time and Lennon wanted to go in that direction -- writing political songs, engaging in activist things," said author Tim Riley, whose as-yet-untitled Lennon biography is due in 2007. "One guy told me this story: He was on the streets in New York City, a truck pulls off and a band is playing on the back of this flatbed truck. And it's John Lennon and his band."

It wasn't all a metropolitan Utopia, though. Lennon's newfound politics caught the attention of the Nixon administration, as well as Senate Republicans, who believed the ex-Beatle would show up to disrupt the Republican National Convention in Miami Beach. Later, the Immigration and Naturalization Service told Lennon his 1968 guilty plea in a British marijuana-possession case meant he had to vacate the United States. Lennon sued and won, although the case dragged on through 1975. And the stress took its toll: Ono dumped him and Lennon moved briefly to Los Angeles, where he infamously took a lover, May Pang, and spent his days and nights hitting nightclubs with singer-songwriter Harry Nilsson.

After releasing two melancholy albums that reflected his depression of the time -- "Mind Games" and "Walls and Bridges" -- Lennon gave his last-ever public performance with Elton John at Madison Square Garden in 1974. Ono went to the show and later invited her husband to return to their Dakota apartment. In 1975, Ono gave birth to the couple's only son, Sean, and Lennon became a stay-at-home dad. "I am carrying the baby nine months, and that is enough," Ono told Lennon, according to Rolling Stone. "You take care of it afterward."

Around that time, Lennon and Ono recorded his last album, "Double Fantasy," at Manhattan's famous Hit Factory studio. The album was uneven, but it produced Lennon's final No. 1 single, "(Just Like) Starting Over," as well as one fascinating piece of trivia for rock fans. While recording "Double Fantasy," Lennon and Ono invited two members of Cheap Trick to play on several songs. Although they were preparing for a major tour in Japan, Trick guitarist Rick Nielsen and drummer Bun E. Carlos -- both Beatles fanatics -- agreed.

Carlos played on "Losing You" and Ono's "Moving On" -- neither of which made it to the album -- and the drummer was struck by just how isolated Lennon was from the outside world.

"We were sitting in the booth ... he had a guitar and said, 'This is my "Day Tripper" guitar.' It was refinished," Carlos recalled. "I said 'Day Tripper' is No. 10 in Phoenix this week.' He said, 'What do you mean?' I said, 'We got a live version out and it hit No. 10 in Phoenix.' He was like, 'Okaaaay.' If he had known we were Beatle nuts, he might not have wanted us in there."

By all accounts, Lennon was a happy family man when he returned to the Dakota on that night in December holding a tape of Ono's "Walking on Thin Ice." At the entrance, Mark David Chapman shot him five times. Lennon died en route to the hospital.

But while the post-Beatles Lennon has come to represent New York in a way, the iconic images of him flashing the peace sign in front of the Statue of Liberty and wearing a "NEW YORK CITY" T-shirt do not a native make. "I honestly believe he was not perceived as a New Yorker but more as a citizen of the world," says Ed Koch, who was mayor when Lennon died. "But we had the privilege of having him in our midst."

Steve Knopper is a freelance writer. 

Copyright (c) 2005, Newsday, Inc. 

--------------------

This article originally appeared at:
http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/nyc-etlennon1204,0,4548495.story?coll=ny-homepage-bigpix2005 

Visit Newsday online at http://www.newsday.com
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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Mon Dec  5 13:35:02 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Mon Dec  5 13:45:27 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Sunni Candidates in Iraq Find Enemies on
	All Sides
Message-ID: <20051205213502.A7ED583E2D@lax-gw03.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: ialterman@nyc.rr.com.

INTERNATIONAL / MIDDLE EAST | December 5, 2005
Sunni Candidates in Iraq Find Enemies on All Sides
By EDWARD WONG
Sunni politicians taking part in the elections denounce the Shiite-led government, yet Sunni militants brand them as traitors.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/05/international/middleeast/05sunnis.html?emc=eta1



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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Mon Dec  5 13:36:00 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Mon Dec  5 13:46:24 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Signs of Big Win for Kazakhstan President
	in Peaceful Election
Message-ID: <20051205213600.2EC0D249DCC@lax-gw08.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: ialterman@nyc.rr.com.

INTERNATIONAL / ASIA PACIFIC | December 5, 2005
Signs of Big Win for Kazakhstan President in Peaceful Election
By C. J. CHIVERS
Early signs indicated a landslide victory for President Nursultan Nazarbayev, but opposition candidates claimed vote fraud.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/05/international/asia/05kazakhstan.html?emc=eta1



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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Mon Dec  5 13:37:58 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Mon Dec  5 13:48:13 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Fixing the Game
Message-ID: <20051205213758.62B1D83DE2@lax-gw03.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: ialterman@nyc.rr.com.

OPINION | December 5, 2005
Editorial: Fixing the Game

The Bush administration seems to be losing sight of the fact that the majority party may not use its powers to strip citizens of their rights, politicize the judicial system or rig the election process.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/05/opinion/05mon1.html?emc=eta1




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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Mon Dec  5 13:37:18 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Mon Dec  5 13:48:48 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Navy to Expand Fleet With New Enemies in
	Mind
Message-ID: <20051205213718.E7B51A10E2@lax-gw09.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: ialterman@nyc.rr.com.

Exactly what "new" enemies are they talking about? Has Botswana finally developed a navy? Has Papua New Guinea created an armada? What kind of taxpayer waste it this?


NATIONAL | December 5, 2005
Navy to Expand Fleet With New Enemies in Mind
By DAVID S. CLOUD
The plans would reverse years of decline in naval shipbuilding and add dozens of warships designed to defeat emerging adversaries.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/05/national/05navy.html?emc=eta1



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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Mon Dec  5 13:39:25 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Mon Dec  5 13:49:39 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: A Formula for Disaster
Message-ID: <20051205213925.B8C319FD5F@lax-gw05.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: ialterman@nyc.rr.com.

OPINION TIMESSELECT | December 5, 2005
Op-Ed Contributors: A Formula for Disaster
By THOMAS H. KEAN and LEE H. HAMILTON
Congress has a golden opportunity to repair the USA Patriot Act to make sure national security resources are allocated on the basis of risk.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/05/opinion/05kean.html?emc=eta1




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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Mon Dec  5 13:39:48 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Mon Dec  5 13:52:03 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Give the United Nations a Little Competition
Message-ID: <20051205213948.42EFEA111C@lax-gw09.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: ialterman@nyc.rr.com.

A very bad idea...


OPINION TIMESSELECT | December 5, 2005
Op-Ed Contributor: Give the United Nations a Little Competition
By RUTH WEDGWOOD
If the United Nations can't reform on its own, America needs to support other multilateral venues.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/05/opinion/05wedgewood.html?emc=eta1




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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Mon Dec  5 14:33:02 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (Ian)
Date: Mon Dec  5 14:43:20 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Alternet: Filling in for God
References: <20051205152832.C553CB8095@alternet.org>
Message-ID: <008901c5f9eb$db3dac10$99ca6c42@iancn2ccrvzt0j>

All I can say to this is...Amen!

Peace.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: <michael@intrafi.com>
To: <mb-civic@islandlists.com>; <mb-hair@islandlists.com>
Sent: Monday, December 05, 2005 10:28 AM
Subject: [Mb-civic] Alternet: Filling in for God


>
> This story has been forwarded to you from
> http://www.alternet.org by michael@intrafi.com
>
>
>
> -------------------------------------
> Filling in for God
> http://www.alternet.org/story/29061
>
> Certain politicians should do a lot more listening to the Lord, and a lot 
> less talking for Him.
> -------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> Mb-civic mailing list
> Mb-civic@islandlists.com
> http://www.islandlists.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mb-civic
> 


From jefbek at mindspring.com  Mon Dec  5 18:10:42 2005
From: jefbek at mindspring.com (Jef Bek)
Date: Mon Dec  5 18:21:04 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Lennon remembered 25 years after his death
In-Reply-To: <BAY5-DAV7F94EF2096361D75DEB72AB410@phx.gbl>
Message-ID: <BFBA3322.1463%jefbek@mindspring.com>

Can some one please help Barbara take Jef off of her group e-mails!

On 12/5/05 1:24 PM, "Barbara Siomos" <barbarasiomos38@msn.com> wrote:

> Harry...
> 
> Thank you for sending the Lennon piece... it brings back sad but nice memories
> of an average fellow living amongst the celebs and loving the average folk.
> 
> peace,
> barbara
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: harry.sifton@sympatico.ca
> Sent: Sun, 4 Dec 2005 17:24:01 -0800
> To: mb-civic@islandlists.com
> Subject: [Mb-civic] Lennon remembered 25 years after his death
> 
> This story was sent to you by: Harry
> 
> --------------------
> Lennon remembered 25 years after his death
> --------------------
> 
> BY STEVE KNOPPER
> 
> John Lennon wouldn't sing.
> 
> It was 1974, and he was deep into his breakup with his wife, Yoko Ono, when
> New York DJ and longtime Beatles friend "Cousin" Brucie Morrow invited him to
> a benefit concert in Central Park. A crowd of 100,000 people showed up to the
> event, and a nervous Lennon, wearing a T-shirt, jeans and a butterfly belt
> buckle, turned to Morrow and said, "Cousin, promise me they know I'm not going
> to sing."
> 
> Morrow, who recently recalled that day, said, "John, all they want to do is
> share space with you.'
> 
> When the former Beatle and author of songs "Imagine" and "Give Peace a Chance"
> walked on stage, the crowd went wild.
> 
> "It didn't matter if he gave an hour concert or if he just stood there and
> talked," said Morrow, who's now a DJ for Sirius Satellite Radio. "He was
> accepted in major cities all over the world. He was born in Liverpool, not
> exactly a small hamlet, and grew up in London. But New York City had the
> greatest appeal for John Lennon because of its emotional acceptance. He was
> very comfortable here."
> 
> As the 25th anniversary of John Lennon's death approaches on Thursday -- he
> was gunned down by a deranged fan in front of his apartment building, the
> Dakota, on Dec. 8, 1980 -- New York City remains the geographic symbol of his
> post-Beatles life and career. Thousands of fans continue to pay homage to
> Lennon with visits to the Dakota as well as Strawberry Fields in Central Park.
> 
> During his time in the city -- a tumultuous nine-year period that encompassed
> a nasty separation, reconciliation, the birth of a son, political upheaval and
> the recording of his swan-song album, "Double Fantasy" -- Lennon came to
> appreciate little things like his ability to walk down the street at 4 a.m.
> and buy a loaf of bread at a grocery store. The British rocker died a New
> Yorker.
> 
> Lennon moved to Manhattan in 1971, at a time when the British press was
> particularly brutal to his new wife, Ono, widely viewed as an interloper who
> broke up the beloved Beatles the previous year. Fans who spotted him on the
> London streets had a tendency to be overly aggressive, sometimes hostile, and
> Lennon, 31 at the time, craved a more welcoming environment.
> 
> "He was cocooned in New York from '71 to his death. It's a bit like Woody
> Allen, really -- you feel like he couldn't really be transplanted," said
> veteran British singer-songwriter Robyn Hitchcock, whose work is strongly
> influenced by Lennon's Beatles and solo material. "The first part of his time
> [in Manhattan] he was a very public figure -- blowing his whistle and wearing
> his John Lennon badge. After [his son] Sean was born, he was kind of a
> recluse. People would have seen him padding around the shops. He was a person
> experiencing 24-hour New York City and rather like one of those old ladies
> living in Central Park East, up there with dogs."
> 
> During his early years in the city, Lennon's thirst for politically charged
> events clicked with Manhattan's environment. He hooked up with the Harlem
> Community Choir for 1971's "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)," drove around all night
> in friends' Volkswagens and produced a 1972 album, "The Pope Smokes Dope," for
> Yippie activist David Peel and his band, the Lower East Side.
> 
> "John called it Rome," said Lennon's friend Steve Gebhardt, a Cincinnati
> filmmaker who directed "One to One," the Madison Square Garden concert film
> released in 1972 as a TV special. "Creativity was all over the place, and
> there was a wonderfully thriving art culture."
> 
> Lennon was interested in the idea of spontaneous art and radical politics;
> after moving into an East Village apartment with Ono, one of the first things
> he did was hook up with Elephant's Memory, a loose and energetic rock and roll
> band he met at a club.
> 
> Inspired by his friendships with radicals Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman,
> Lennon recorded some of the most overtly political songs of his career,
> including "Woman Is the -- -- of the World," "John Sinclair" and "Sunday
> Bloody Sunday," all on the 1972 album "Some Time In New York City." He also
> performed with the band twice that year in Madison Square Garden.
> 
> "Radical politics were very big in the East Village at that time and Lennon
> wanted to go in that direction -- writing political songs, engaging in
> activist things," said author Tim Riley, whose as-yet-untitled Lennon
> biography is due in 2007. "One guy told me this story: He was on the streets
> in New York City, a truck pulls off and a band is playing on the back of this
> flatbed truck. And it's John Lennon and his band."
> 
> It wasn't all a metropolitan Utopia, though. Lennon's newfound politics caught
> the attention of the Nixon administration, as well as Senate Republicans, who
> believed the ex-Beatle would show up to disrupt the Republican National
> Convention in Miami Beach. Later, the Immigration and Naturalization Service
> told Lennon his 1968 guilty plea in a British marijuana-possession case meant
> he had to vacate the United States. Lennon sued and won, although the case
> dragged on through 1975. And the stress took its toll: Ono dumped him and
> Lennon moved briefly to Los Angeles, where he infamously took a lover, May
> Pang, and spent his days and nights hitting nightclubs with singer-songwriter
> Harry Nilsson.
> 
> After releasing two melancholy albums that reflected his depression of the
> time -- "Mind Games" and "Walls and Bridges" -- Lennon gave his last-ever
> public performance with Elton John at Madison Square Garden in 1974. Ono went
> to the show and later invited her husband to return to their Dakota apartment.
> In 1975, Ono gave birth to the couple's only son, Sean, and Lennon became a
> stay-at-home dad. "I am carrying the baby nine months, and that is enough,"
> Ono told Lennon, according to Rolling Stone. "You take care of it afterward."
> 
> Around that time, Lennon and Ono recorded his last album, "Double Fantasy," at
> Manhattan's famous Hit Factory studio. The album was uneven, but it produced
> Lennon's final No. 1 single, "(Just Like) Starting Over," as well as one
> fascinating piece of trivia for rock fans. While recording "Double Fantasy,"
> Lennon and Ono invited two members of Cheap Trick to play on several songs.
> Although they were preparing for a major tour in Japan, Trick guitarist Rick
> Nielsen and drummer Bun E. Carlos -- both Beatles fanatics -- agreed.
> 
> Carlos played on "Losing You" and Ono's "Moving On" -- neither of which made
> it to the album -- and the drummer was struck by just how isolated Lennon was
> from the outside world.
> 
> "We were sitting in the booth ... he had a guitar and said, 'This is my "Day
> Tripper" guitar.' It was refinished," Carlos recalled. "I said 'Day Tripper'
> is No. 10 in Phoenix this week.' He said, 'What do you mean?' I said, 'We got
> a live version out and it hit No. 10 in Phoenix.' He was like, 'Okaaaay.' If
> he had known we were Beatle nuts, he might not have wanted us in there."
> 
> By all accounts, Lennon was a happy family man when he returned to the Dakota
> on that night in December holding a tape of Ono's "Walking on Thin Ice." At
> the entrance, Mark David Chapman shot him five times. Lennon died en route to
> the hospital.
> 
> But while the post-Beatles Lennon has come to represent New York in a way, the
> iconic images of him flashing the peace sign in front of the Statue of Liberty
> and wearing a "NEW YORK CITY" T-shirt do not a native make. "I honestly
> believe he was not perceived as a New Yorker but more as a citizen of the
> world," says Ed Koch, who was mayor when Lennon died. "But we had the
> privilege of having him in our midst."
> 
> Steve Knopper is a freelance writer.
> 
> Copyright (c) 2005, Newsday, Inc.
> 
> --------------------
> 
> This article originally appeared at:
> http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/nyc-etlennon1204,0,4548495.story?coll=ny-
> homepage-bigpix2005
> 
> Visit Newsday online at http://www.newsday.com
> _______________________________________________
> Mb-civic mailing list
> Mb-civic@islandlists.com
> http://www.islandlists.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mb-civic
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Mb-civic mailing list
> Mb-civic@islandlists.com
> http://www.islandlists.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mb-civic

From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Mon Dec  5 18:21:35 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Mon Dec  5 18:31:50 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] CNN.com - Study: Coffee reduces liver risk - Dec 5, 2005
Message-ID: <19814007.1133835695525.JavaMail.tomcat@localhost>



*Please note, the sender's email address has not been verified.



Interesting - and based on a long-term study (19 years) and a large group (10,000).

Peace.



 
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Title: CNN.com - Study: Coffee reduces liver risk - Dec 5, 2005
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Tue Dec  6 04:03:24 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Tue Dec  6 04:16:03 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] U.S. Is Given Failing Grades By 9/11 Panel - Washington
	Post
Message-ID: <43957E0C.5030209@comcast.net>

U.S. Is Given Failing Grades By 9/11 Panel
Bipartisan Group Faults Counterterrorism Progress

By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, December 6, 2005; A01

The federal government received failing and mediocre grades yesterday 
from the former Sept. 11 commission, whose members said in a final 
report that the Bush administration and Congress have balked at enacting 
numerous reforms that could save American lives and prevent another 
terrorist attack on U.S. soil.

The 10-member bipartisan panel -- whose book-length report about the 
Sept. 11, 2001, attacks became a surprise bestseller -- issued a "report 
card" that included 5 F's, 12 D's and two "incompletes" in categories 
including airline passenger screening and improving first responders' 
communication system.

The group also said there has been little progress in forcing federal 
agencies to share intelligence and terrorism information and sharply 
criticized government efforts to secure weapons of mass destruction or 
establish clear standards for the proper treatment of U.S. detainees.

"We believe that the terrorists will strike again," the panel's 
chairman, Thomas H. Kean, a former Republican governor of New Jersey, 
told reporters in Washington. "If they do, and these reforms that might 
have prevented such an attack have not been implemented, what will our 
excuses be?"

Leading Democrats on Capitol Hill immediately seized on the report, 
accusing the Bush administration and the GOP-controlled Congress of 
failing to adequately prepare for future terrorist strikes. Republicans 
and the White House countered that the government has adopted many of 
the commission's proposed changes and that administration policies have 
helped prevent additional catastrophic attacks in the United States.

The report card -- which assigns letter grades to the panel's 41 key 
recommendations -- marks the last official act by commission members, 
whose hearings and findings have sparked three years of public debate 
over the extent of government mistakes before the Sept. 11 attacks. 
After the release of the "9/11 Commission Report" last year, the 
commission re-created itself as a private nonprofit group focused on 
pressuring Congress and the Bush administration to adopt its 
recommendations.

According to the panel, the government deserves only one top grade, an 
A-minus, for its "vigorous effort against terrorist financing." The 
panel gave out B's and C's for government performance on issues such as 
the creation of a director of national intelligence and an ongoing 
presence in Afghanistan.

But in nearly half the categories, the government merited a D, an F or 
an incomplete grade, according to the report card. Kean and other 
commission members said at a news conference in Washington that all the 
goals should be achievable, but that many have languished amid political 
skirmishing and bureaucratic turf battles.

"None of this is rocket science," said John F. Lehman (R), a Navy 
secretary in the Reagan administration. "None of it is in the 'too hard' 
category."

One of his colleagues, former Indiana congressman Timothy J. Roemer (D), 
said that "al Qaeda is quickly changing and we are not. Al Qaeda is 
highly dynamic and we are not. Al Qaeda is highly imaginative and we are 
not."

Kean and other panel members focused particular attention on two issues 
currently stalled in Congress. One proposal would change the way the 
Department of Homeland Security distributes state grant money, most of 
which is allocated evenly among the states -- leading sparsely populated 
states such as Wyoming to receive nearly twice as much money per capita 
as major terrorist targets such as New York.

An amendment to a House bill reauthorizing the USA Patriot Act would 
place primary emphasis for homeland security funding on risk 
assessments, but the proposal is not included in a House-Senate 
compromise bill because of opposition from small-state senators.

The panel also sharply criticized Congress for failing to enable first 
responders to communicate easily by setting aside part of the broadcast 
spectrum for their use. A pending budget bill would open part of the 
spectrum for first responders in 2009, but the Sept. 11 panel said that 
date is "too distant given the urgency of the threat."

These and other criticisms prompted a flurry of news releases and 
statements from congressional Democrats, who said Republicans had failed 
to make the country safe. Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) 
said that "an F is too high a grade for the Bush White House and 
Washington Republicans," while House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi 
(D-Calif.) called the report an "indictment of continued failure by the 
administration."

But in a document distributed to reporters, the White House outlined a 
lengthy list of changes already implemented after the commission's 
findings and highlighted other areas, such as the homeland security 
funding issue, in which the administration has supported changes.

"We have taken significant steps to better protect the American people 
at home," White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters. "There 
is more to do. This is the president's highest responsibility."

The FBI received a C grade from the Sept. 11 panel, which said that the 
bureau was transforming itself too slowly and that "significant 
deficiencies remain." Although FBI officials "agree that more remains to 
be done," Assistant Director John Miller said, "the pace of the FBI's 
change has been sweeping and continuous."

Mary Fetchet, founder and director of Voices of September 11th, one of 
the victims' groups that has closely monitored the commission's work, 
tearfully praised the commission during yesterday's news conference. She 
said she was disappointed that more has not been done since the attacks.

"I really do feel that it's only a matter of time before our country is 
going to be struck again, and it would just be tragic if there were 
other families like ours that suffered a tragic loss," said Fetchet, 
whose son, Brad, was killed at the World Trade Center.

But another prominent relative of a Sept. 11 victim, Kristen 
Breitweiser, said yesterday that the panel undercut its credibility by 
failing to publicly identify those within the government responsible for 
mistakes before the attacks.

"Part of the problem is that the commission didn't hold anyone 
accountable," said Breitweiser, whose husband, Ronald, was killed at the 
Trade Center. "When you don't name names, people don't tend to take you 
seriously."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/05/AR2005120500097.html?referrer=email
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Tue Dec  6 04:05:12 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Tue Dec  6 04:17:40 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] FBI Bungled Florida Terrorism Investigation,
 Justice Department Finds - Washington Post (AP)
Message-ID: <43957E78.3050105@comcast.net>

FBI Bungled Florida Terrorism Investigation, Justice Department Finds

By Mark Sherman
Associated Press
Tuesday, December 6, 2005; A12

FBI agents botched a terrorism investigation in Florida and tried to 
cover up mistakes, said Justice Department investigators, who also 
concluded that a high-ranking official retaliated against the longtime 
undercover agent who pointed out the problems.

The findings were included in a draft report by the Justice Department's 
inspector general on a complaint made by former agent Michael German 
about an investigation in Orlando that he believed showed promising 
signs of a link between terrorism financing and the sale of illegal drugs.

The inspector general's office "substantiated German's allegations that 
the Orlando case was mishandled and mismanaged by the FBI's Tampa 
Division," the report said. German, who left the FBI in 2004 after 16 
years, received the Nov. 15 draft and made it public.

But the inspector general did not back up German's contention that the 
agent in Orlando and FBI supervisors missed the chance to unravel a 
terrorism financing operation, concluding that there was no evidence to 
undermine earlier reviews that the suspect had no link to terrorists.

German said yesterday that the inspector general gave too much credence 
to those reviews, especially after documenting other significant problems.

Among the most serious issues investigators found in an inquiry that 
began in January 2004 was the use of correction fluid to alter dates on 
three FBI forms to obscure an apparent violation of a federal wiretap 
law. But the investigation did not determine who made the changes.

The agent who handled the terrorism investigation in 2002 misdated 
reports to make it appear he completed them much earlier than he had. 
One account of a key meeting between an informant and the main subject 
of the investigation was not entered into the FBI database for 10 
months, the report said. FBI policy says such reporting normally should 
be done within five days.

German sought protection as a whistle-blower in September 2002, by which 
time he believed his complaints were being ignored. Government employees 
who report allegations of wrongdoing are supposed to be shielded from 
retaliation.

Yet the report found that Jorge Martinez, then chief of the FBI's 
Undercover and Sensitive Operations Unit, excluded German from serving 
as an instructor in undercover training programs in response to German's 
persistent questions about the case.

Martinez told another FBI official he would not use German in the 
training programs -- despite his previously regular participation in 
such training -- because he lacked confidence in him, the report said. 
Martinez said that he did not recall saying that, but that if he did, it 
was a "knee-jerk reaction but did not mean to indicate I was retaliating 
against him."

The FBI had no comment on the report.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/05/AR2005120502034.html?nav=hcmodule
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Tue Dec  6 04:07:26 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Tue Dec  6 04:19:47 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Let Rumsfeld Go - Richard Cohen - Washington Post Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43957EFE.6040908@comcast.net>

Let Rumsfeld Go

By Richard Cohen
Tuesday, December 6, 2005; A29

Subjecting the newly declassified White House "National Strategy for 
Victory in Iraq" to a cynically inspired computer search, I find that 
the name "Donald Rumsfeld" is missing from the document's 35 pages. A 
reasonable person would be confounded by this. How can we have "Victory 
in Iraq" if the man in command has already brought us defeat?

"Defeat" may be too strong a word, but if so, that's only for the 
moment. If, in fact, U.S. troops pull out of Iraq anytime before their 
mission is accomplished -- the plan of some Democrats and the wish of a 
few Republicans -- then defeat is surely what this debacle will be 
called. Even if that does not happen, any victory that comes three years 
and more than 2,000 U.S. military deaths later than promised cannot be 
considered a triumph. Call it what you will, but at the very least it's 
a tragedy.

Yet the man who has had prime responsibility for Iraq, for planning for 
the war, waging it and then occupying the country, remains precisely 
what he has been all this time -- the head of the American military, the 
secretary of defense, the very honorable (but not very capable) Donald 
Rumsfeld. His mistakes, miscalculations and arrogant dismissal of 
dissent have cost American (and Iraqi) lives and prolonged the conflict. 
If there has been a worse secretary of defense, it could only be Robert 
McNamara. History has hung Vietnam around his neck like a noose.

Similarly, Iraq will be Rumsfeld's constant companion. He will be 
faulted for insisting on fighting the war on the cheap -- in terms of 
both manpower and money. He did not bring enough troops to the task, and 
when one of his senior generals, the Army chief of staff, Eric K. 
Shinseki, warned before the war that the occupation would require 
"something on the order of several hundred thousand soldiers," he was 
quickly steered to his next assignment, a retirement community. A 
four-star had been humbled, and all down the line the brass got the 
message: Stick with the program.

That program was Rumsfeld's. Early on it meant that the Bush 
administration eschewed "nation-building," which was some sort of 
do-gooder enterprise favored by the dreamy Clinton people. Rumsfeld gave 
a speech titled "Beyond 'Nation-Building,' " which said the United 
States was out of that line of work. Unfortunately, it is precisely what 
the United States needed to do in Iraq. The Pentagon left it to others.

Under Rumsfeld's plan, the United States never had enough troops on the 
ground -- still doesn't, actually. It was Rumsfeld who thought the 
United States would get into Iraq and then swiftly get out -- leaving 
nation-building to the United Nations and similar agencies, maybe the 
Boy Scouts. He dismissed the looting that stripped Iraq bare following 
the war, setting the stage for the chaos and lawlessness that persist to 
this day. He made Jay Garner the viceroy of Iraq and then replaced him 
with L. Paul "Jerry" Bremer, who sacked the Iraqi army and much of the 
bureaucracy -- a huge mistake. Under Rumsfeld, just about nothing has 
gone right.

The guy who should pay for the debacle of Iraq is George Bush. 
Unfortunately, the American people reelected him, and that, as they say, 
is that. But Rumsfeld serves at the pleasure of the president. He is a 
man of substantial charm, not to mention monumental self-confidence, but 
no one can claim he has been a success. He has failed at the task he set 
for himself -- a swift victory in Iraq. Almost nothing has turned out 
anything like he said it would. If he were still the chief executive of 
G.D. Searle & Co., he'd expect the board to fire him. The same standard 
should apply at the Pentagon.

The "board" in this case is the president. By sticking with Rumsfeld, 
Bush presumably thinks he is showing that no mistakes were made in the 
handling of the war -- that the plan is on course. Unfortunately, no one 
believes that. Common sense rebuts it. If Bush is going to continue to 
call on Americans to die in Iraq, he at least has to show that he 
recognizes his mistakes and is willing to change what needs to be 
changed. (Didn't he learn anything at Harvard Business School?) The 
sacking of Rumsfeld would be one such signal -- a sign that this 
intellectually apathetic president is willing to question his 
assumptions, challenge his convictions and admit that he has been wrong. 
When it comes to Iraq, if the United States is going to stay, then 
Rumsfeld has to go.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/05/AR2005120501575.html
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Tue Dec  6 04:09:09 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Tue Dec  6 04:21:34 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Dodging Debate On Alito - E. J. Dionne - Washington Post
	Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43957F65.1010800@comcast.net>

Dodging Debate On Alito

By E. J. Dionne Jr.
Tuesday, December 6, 2005; A29

When conservatives revolted against President Bush's nomination of 
Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court, they proudly proclaimed their desire 
for a big debate over constitutional principles. Now they are running 
from the fight.

No, they are not giving up on Samuel "I am and always have been a 
conservative" Alito. They just want to act as if their ardent support 
for Alito has nothing to do with his ideas or how he might rule. 
Whatever Alito said in the past that proves conservatives are right in 
seeing him as a comrade in arms is supposed to be irrelevant to the 
Senate's debate over his confirmation.

Last week a 1985 memo emerged in which Alito, then a Reagan 
administration lawyer, outlined a strategy to "advance the goals of 
bringing about the eventual overruling of Roe v. Wade and, in the 
meantime, of mitigating its effects."

Alito seems, really and truly, to believe that Roe was a mistake. In his 
now famous letter seeking a promotion during the Reagan years, Alito 
said that he was proud of his work in the administration advancing 
arguments "that the Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion."

Believing that Roe was wrongly decided is a perfectly respectable 
position. Many, perhaps most, conservatives hold this view. So do some 
liberal supporters of abortion rights.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has said that the court overreached in Roe . 
In his indispensable new book, "Radicals in Robes: Why Extreme 
Right-Wing Courts Are Wrong for America," University of Chicago law 
professor Cass Sunstein -- obviously no conservative -- sees Roe as 
having "shaky constitutional foundations."

While Sunstein questions the wisdom of overturning Roe now, he 
understands why it enraged so many conservatives. "With its ambitious 
ruling, not at all firmly rooted in precedent," Sunstein writes, "the 
court allowed pro-life citizens to think that they had been treated with 
contempt -- as if their own moral commitments could be simply brushed 
aside by federal judges."

You would think that Alito and his supporters would welcome a principled 
discussion of Roe. In fact, they want to change the subject. When Sen. 
Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) asked Alito about that letter seeking a 
promotion, she said he told her: "First of all, it was different then. . 
. . I was an advocate seeking a job. It was a political job. And that 
was 1985."

Rather than defend his letter, in other words, Alito preferred to leave 
the impression that he might have been engaging in a bit of opportunism. 
Does that mean that 20 years from now, he will say that his statements 
to members of the Senate Judiciary Committee were simply those of an 
appeals court judge seeking a promotion and were never intended to be 
taken too seriously?

Alito's supporters also tried hard to minimize the importance of the Roe 
strategy memo. Steve Schmidt, the White House official who is managing 
the Alito confirmation, said reading the memo as an indication of "how 
he would rule as a Supreme Court justice" is "a fairly absurd proposition."

When it comes to having an argument about abortion, the administration's 
strategy is to cut and run.

There are some conservatives who realize the danger for Alito and their 
cause if he is seen as evasive. Writing in the Weekly Standard, Terry 
Eastland, who served in the Justice Department during the Reagan 
administration, noted that "the views Alito stated in his 1985 essay 
were plainly and proudly his own, and for that reason they cannot so 
easily be set aside." Eastland added: "The better strategy for Alito is 
the more credible one of straightforwardly discussing the substance of 
what he wrote."

Bruce Fein, a conservative legal scholar who supports Alito and worked 
with him in the Reagan years, has been outspoken in questioning the 
conservative strategy of distancing Alito from his own writing. "This 
idea that all the folks in the Reagan administration were all 
apparatchiks who didn't believe what they were saying and writing is 
surreal," Fein told The Post. Over the weekend, Fein warned that "you 
end up losing more if your credibility is strained and people think 
you're playing them for dupes."

Some conservatives believe that doing that is the only way to win this 
game. They point to the defeat of Robert Bork in 1987 to argue that 
Supreme Court appointees are better off with a strategy of evasion. But 
there is quiet grumbling among members of the Senate Judiciary Committee 
that Alito may be telling both sides what they want to hear. That's a 
long way from the searching discussion of constitutional principles that 
his nomination once promised to occasion.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/05/AR2005120501547.html?nav=hcmodule
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Tue Dec  6 04:11:11 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Tue Dec  6 04:23:31 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Rules for Our War - Lindsey Graham - Washington Post
	Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43957FDF.1010003@comcast.net>

Rules for Our War

By Lindsey Graham
Tuesday, December 6, 2005; A29

In my view, the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, were an act of war, not a 
mere crime. Our terrorist enemies don't represent a sovereign nation, 
wear a uniform, follow the rules of armed conflict or show any regard 
for humanity. The key difference between them and us is that we care 
about these things.

Even during a time of war, we have chosen to be a nation of laws, with a 
different, higher set of values than the terrorists. We should always 
remember that we are Americans, possessing values superior to those of 
our enemy, and that there is a proper balance between the protection of 
our troops and the humane treatment of detainees. This value system is 
our national strength, not a weakness.

I support President Bush's statement that all detainees should be 
treated humanely, and I agree with Sen. John McCain that his detainee 
treatment amendment is about us, not them. With these concepts in mind, 
the Senate recently acted in a bipartisan fashion in two critical areas 
of detainee policy.

First, by a vote of 90 to 9 we passed the McCain amendment, which would 
require all Defense Department interrogation techniques to be 
standardized and contained within the Army Field Manual. As a military 
lawyer, I know our original policies concerning interrogation were 
confusing and contradictory. Unfortunately, our troops have suffered in 
trying to implement these flawed policies.

By standardizing procedures in one document, our troops will know what's 
in and out of bounds. To attempt to recapture the moral high ground, we 
also reaffirm our long-held position that federal agencies will not 
engage in techniques that violate standards against torture or inhumane 
treatment of detainees under the laws of armed conflict.

Any efforts to create exemptions to the McCain amendment will, in my 
opinion, do far more harm than good, as they may set precedents that 
could jeopardize our troops in future conflicts. We will win this war by 
showcasing the differences between the United States and the enemy.

I believe we can have sound interrogation techniques and aggressive 
detention and prosecution policies for enemy combatants without eroding 
the values for which we are fighting.

The second bipartisan Senate action was the passage, 84 to 14, of the 
Graham-Levin-Kyl amendment, which would create a balanced approach to 
the laws governing detention and prosecution of enemy combatants.

Congress has been virtually AWOL on the status of enemy combatants, 
resulting in contradictory federal court decisions about detainees' 
legal rights. Because of Congress's inaction, the Supreme Court's ruling 
in the case of Rasul v. Bush allowed foreign national enemy combatants 
at Guantanamo Bay to be granted habeas corpus rights like American citizens.

In the past, federal courts have reviewed military tribunal verdicts 
involving enemy combatants who were charged with war crimes, but for the 
first time in the history of warfare, enemy prisoners were granted 
access to our federal courts to bring lawsuits against our own forces 
regarding their detention.

There are now close to 200 habeas petitions filed by enemy combatants 
requesting better mail delivery, more exercise, judge-supervised 
interrogation, Internet access and the right to view DVDs.

These lawsuits are undermining our ability to gain good intelligence and 
are placing federal courts in a role never before known in wartime.

Did we ever intend for enemy combatants captured on the battlefield to 
be given the same rights as U.S. citizens in our federal courts? The 
answer from a bipartisan majority in the Senate was a resounding no.

The courts asked Congress to get involved in these issues, and finally, 
through passage of the Graham-Levin-Kyl amendment, we did.

The amendment replaces unlimited habeas petitions with a one-time appeal 
right to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. 
The review covers whether the formulation and implementation of the 
practices in place at Guantanamo Bay are constitutional and, in each 
individual case, whether the military correctly followed procedures.

In addition, the amendment requires federal court review of any military 
commission conviction involving a war crime and a sentence of 10 or more 
years. The court can choose to review cases with sentences of less than 
10 years, and the Supreme Court will have the right to review lower 
court actions if petitioned.

The Senate has created legal and congressional oversight over enemy 
combatant interrogation, detention, and prosecution -- all in excess of 
what is required by the laws of armed conflict. This is something of 
which our nation can be proud.

The McCain and Graham-Levin-Kyl amendments, taken together, provide a 
package of detainee reforms recognizing that we're in a war and striking 
a balance between protecting our nation's interests and ensuring that we 
adhere to the values for which we are fighting. They should be adopted 
in the House-Senate conference committee and by Congress as a whole.

The writer is a Republican senator from South Carolina.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/05/AR2005120501926.html
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Tue Dec  6 04:15:49 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Tue Dec  6 04:28:17 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] SHOULD READ: The king of congressional corruption -
 Thomas Oliphant - Boston Globe Op-Ed
Message-ID: <439580F5.6030703@comcast.net>


  The king of congressional corruption

By Thomas Oliphant, Globe Columnist  |  December 6, 2005

WASHINGTON
THOSE OF US who are true fans of hypocrisy and corruption need to pause 
and salute Randy Cunningham on his way out of town toward the beckoning 
slammer.

He was the king, and one can hope the disgraced, now-former California 
congressman will be the gift that keeps on giving.

Otherwise mere fans will be left with the improbable assertion that this 
right-wing buffoon went on a defense contractor's arm for the gigantic 
sum of $2.4 million all by his lonesome in order to steer scores of 
millions of dollars in military business the guy's way.

Those of us who have derived comic relief from Cunningham's career know 
that this guy would screw up a two-car motorcade. Frustration looms, 
however, because the House leadership's ''ethics" machinery has been so 
completely and intentionally crippled that we will have to depend on the 
obligation in Cunningham's plea agreement to sing like a canary, and 
that means depending on Cunningham -- always a lousy bet.

Until he came along, we had to rely for bemusement on garden variety 
scandals like members taking money from undercover FBI agents posing as 
rich Arabs, turning postage stamps into cash, or bouncing checks at 
their credit union.

The most recent exposed crook -- Jim Trafficant, an entertaining 
Democrat from the Youngstown area in Ohio who had a penchant for 
hilariously bombastic rhetoric -- went away for hiding no more than 75 
grand from his tax return and forcing employees to do work on his farm.

Cunningham left his federal court plea proceeding in tears. Trafficant, 
at least, had more flair as he was kicked out of the House and sent to 
the clink. Said the great man: ''When I get out I will grab a sword like 
Maximus Meridius Demisius (he ruined the name of the Russell Crowe 
character from ''Gladiator"), and as a gladiator I will stab people in 
the crotch."

Cunningham, his sentence still to be determined, bemoaned his shame and 
blubbered through his regrets. They don't make 'em like they used to.

Cunningham was one of the conservative movement's favorite wind-up toys, 
guaranteed to hold forth whenever it seemed useful to question another 
public official's patriotism, to disparage minorities be they racial or 
gay, or to claim the tough guy, masculine upper hand even by challenging 
colleagues to the fistfights he always seemed to walk away from.

His Republican colleagues rewarded the northern San Diego County 
congressman with the seat on the Appropriations Committee he used as the 
platform for his graft. He was, after all, a fighter pilot Vietnam vet, 
a highly decorated ace at that, and got away for years with making his 
war record seem synonymous with expertise on military matters and using 
it as an excuse for his bizarre behavior.

On a trip back to Vietnam a few years ago, he called his hosts ''gooks," 
he tried to make fun of Representative Barney Frank, and, in a famous 
moment in the mid-1990s, ran away from a physical challenge by 
Democratic Representative Jim Moran of Virginia, who chased him off the 
House floor and into the cloakroom, where Moran found him weeping.

In April 2004, Cunningham and Armed Forces Committee chairman Duncan 
Hunter of California took to the floor to denounce highly decorated 
Vietnam vet John Kerry for near treason in turning against the war. 
Kerry had ''energized the enemy," Cunningham thundered, adding that he 
voted as if he were Jane Fonda.

What no one knew then was that precisely one week before Cunningham had 
so loudly defended America, he had defrauded America by failing to 
disclose two $500,000 payments from the defense contractor on whose pad 
he served on his income tax returns.

In August 2004, as the defamatory attacks on Kerry were escalating, 
Cunningham affixed his name to a letter denouncing the Democratic 
nominee that the Bush campaign arranged. He signed it, according to the 
federal charging papers, on the same day he was cut two more checks for 
a half-million dollars.

One of my personal favorites happened during Bill Clinton's 1992 
campaign. Cunningham got into the first President Bush's office with 
three House colleagues (Hunter, Sam Johnson of Texas, and Robert Dornan 
of California). They urged Bush to make an issue of a brief trip Clinton 
made to Moscow as a young man in the late 1960s and to suggest he might 
have been recruited by the KGB.

It would all be hilarious if the government had not charged Cunningham 
with accepting such a huge amount of money to fix the defense 
contracting process in recent years.

It takes a lot more than one unguided congressional missile to pull off 
a stunt like that, which is why -- for once in Cunningham's pathetic 
political life -- the time may have finally arrived for him to tell the 
truth.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/12/06/the_king_of_congressional_corruption/
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From hotprojects at nyc.rr.com  Tue Dec  6 04:21:24 2005
From: hotprojects at nyc.rr.com (richard haase)
Date: Tue Dec  6 04:32:38 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] SHOULD READ: The king of congressional corruption -
	Thomas Oliphant - Boston Globe Op-Ed
References: <439580F5.6030703@comcast.net>
Message-ID: <001601c5fa5f$aa816110$f1476c42@hotprojects>

and what i keep asking myself
is why people like this arent funding my shows
and what can i do to reach out to them?
those are the questions that haunt a mans soul in the middle of the night bill
peace
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: William Swiggard 
  To: mb-civic 
  Sent: Tuesday, December 06, 2005 7:15 AM
  Subject: [Mb-civic] SHOULD READ: The king of congressional corruption - Thomas Oliphant - Boston Globe Op-Ed


  The king of congressional corruption
  By Thomas Oliphant, Globe Columnist  |  December 6, 2005

  WASHINGTON
  THOSE OF US who are true fans of hypocrisy and corruption need to pause and salute Randy Cunningham on his way out of town toward the beckoning slammer.

  He was the king, and one can hope the disgraced, now-former California congressman will be the gift that keeps on giving.

  Otherwise mere fans will be left with the improbable assertion that this right-wing buffoon went on a defense contractor's arm for the gigantic sum of $2.4 million all by his lonesome in order to steer scores of millions of dollars in military business the guy's way.

  Those of us who have derived comic relief from Cunningham's career know that this guy would screw up a two-car motorcade. Frustration looms, however, because the House leadership's ''ethics" machinery has been so completely and intentionally crippled that we will have to depend on the obligation in Cunningham's plea agreement to sing like a canary, and that means depending on Cunningham -- always a lousy bet.

  Until he came along, we had to rely for bemusement on garden variety scandals like members taking money from undercover FBI agents posing as rich Arabs, turning postage stamps into cash, or bouncing checks at their credit union.

  The most recent exposed crook -- Jim Trafficant, an entertaining Democrat from the Youngstown area in Ohio who had a penchant for hilariously bombastic rhetoric -- went away for hiding no more than 75 grand from his tax return and forcing employees to do work on his farm.

  Cunningham left his federal court plea proceeding in tears. Trafficant, at least, had more flair as he was kicked out of the House and sent to the clink. Said the great man: ''When I get out I will grab a sword like Maximus Meridius Demisius (he ruined the name of the Russell Crowe character from ''Gladiator"), and as a gladiator I will stab people in the crotch."

  Cunningham, his sentence still to be determined, bemoaned his shame and blubbered through his regrets. They don't make 'em like they used to.

  Cunningham was one of the conservative movement's favorite wind-up toys, guaranteed to hold forth whenever it seemed useful to question another public official's patriotism, to disparage minorities be they racial or gay, or to claim the tough guy, masculine upper hand even by challenging colleagues to the fistfights he always seemed to walk away from.

  His Republican colleagues rewarded the northern San Diego County congressman with the seat on the Appropriations Committee he used as the platform for his graft. He was, after all, a fighter pilot Vietnam vet, a highly decorated ace at that, and got away for years with making his war record seem synonymous with expertise on military matters and using it as an excuse for his bizarre behavior.

  On a trip back to Vietnam a few years ago, he called his hosts ''gooks," he tried to make fun of Representative Barney Frank, and, in a famous moment in the mid-1990s, ran away from a physical challenge by Democratic Representative Jim Moran of Virginia, who chased him off the House floor and into the cloakroom, where Moran found him weeping.

  In April 2004, Cunningham and Armed Forces Committee chairman Duncan Hunter of California took to the floor to denounce highly decorated Vietnam vet John Kerry for near treason in turning against the war. Kerry had ''energized the enemy," Cunningham thundered, adding that he voted as if he were Jane Fonda.

  What no one knew then was that precisely one week before Cunningham had so loudly defended America, he had defrauded America by failing to disclose two $500,000 payments from the defense contractor on whose pad he served on his income tax returns.

  In August 2004, as the defamatory attacks on Kerry were escalating, Cunningham affixed his name to a letter denouncing the Democratic nominee that the Bush campaign arranged. He signed it, according to the federal charging papers, on the same day he was cut two more checks for a half-million dollars.

  One of my personal favorites happened during Bill Clinton's 1992 campaign. Cunningham got into the first President Bush's office with three House colleagues (Hunter, Sam Johnson of Texas, and Robert Dornan of California). They urged Bush to make an issue of a brief trip Clinton made to Moscow as a young man in the late 1960s and to suggest he might have been recruited by the KGB.

  It would all be hilarious if the government had not charged Cunningham with accepting such a huge amount of money to fix the defense contracting process in recent years.

  It takes a lot more than one unguided congressional missile to pull off a stunt like that, which is why -- for once in Cunningham's pathetic political life -- the time may have finally arrived for him to tell the truth.

  http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/12/06/the_king_of_congressional_corruption/



------------------------------------------------------------------------------


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From harry.sifton at sympatico.ca  Tue Dec  6 08:04:10 2005
From: harry.sifton at sympatico.ca (Harold Sifton)
Date: Tue Dec  6 08:15:11 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] tamiflu is useless
Message-ID: <000801c5fa7e$b4e2e880$3427e440@Harold>

Dr Nguyen Tuong Van of the Centre for Tropical Diseases in Hanoi and says the Tamiflu had no effect!

http://www.sciencedaily.com/upi/?feed=TopNews&article=UPI-1-20051203-21493000-bc-britain-tamiflu.xml

This will be a story to follow. Rummy will not want his stock to nose dive.

H
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Tue Dec  6 04:19:07 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Tue Dec  6 08:16:43 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] The race to stand down - H.D.S. Greenway - Boston Globe
	Op-Ed
Message-ID: <439581BB.1060203@comcast.net>


  The race to stand down

By H.D.S. Greenway  |  December 6, 2005  |  The Boston Globe

IF YOU want to learn more about George W. Bush's exit strategy, come 
with me into Baghdad's hyper-protected Green Zone, into what soldiers 
tell me used to be an elementary school for the children of Saddam's 
henchmen. There you will find the offices of the Multi-National Security 
Transition Command-Iraq and the NATO Training Mission Command-Iraq. 
Every war has its own set of acronyms, and this one sounds like 
''Minsticky," for MNSTC-I, just as ''Macvee" once stood for MAC-V, 
Military Assistance Command -- Vietnam.

At MNSTC-I you will find bright and dedicated men and women who are 
trying to train Iraqi army and police forces to take over the defense of 
the realm so that American and allied forces can go home. This is where 
''Iraqization" begins. ''Iraqi fingers on Iraqi triggers," the Americans 
say, and they are well aware of the time lost by the fitful American 
stops and starts under Jay Garner and Paul Bremmer.

''A race against time" is an expression you hear a lot among Americans 
at MNSTC-I. They know that this war is becoming increasingly 
unsustainable at home. There isn't much talk about ''victory." That's an 
illusory concept that President Bush wants to push, but it has little 
reality in Iraq. The Americans on the ground know that they can do 
little more than disrupt the insurgency. In the end only Iraqis 
themselves can prevail.

The goal is to have 325,000 Iraqi army and special police forces up and 
running by July of 2007. But there are difficulties ahead. Bush may say 
that the Americans will stand down when the Iraqis stand up, but in 
Baghdad the growing feeling is that the Iraqis won't stand up until we 
start standing down.

Today the Iraqi forces are disproportionately Shi'ites from the south or 
Kurds from the north. This makes them foreigners in the Sunni towns 
where the insurgency rages.

The Americans hope to train a truly Iraqi army, with Sunnis, Shi'ites, 
Kurds, and even Christians mixed together with an overarching loyalty to 
the state. But no one at MNSTC-I is underestimating the difficulty of 
weaning Iraqis away from their particular ethnic or sectarian group. 
This is especially true of the police, who are hired locally. The 
American in command, Lieutenant General Martin Dempsey, told reporters 
recently that police ''tend to be of a single ethnic group and are 
conflicted" in their loyalties. With the chaos in Iraq and the weakness 
of the central state, there is little incentive for various militias to 
disband, so you find men in Iraqi uniforms who are first and foremost 
sectarian militiamen.

Dempsey told me that he is getting cooperation from the Iraqi 
ministries, however. Recently he asked the Ministry of the Interior to 
help him recruit more Christians, and an official ''got on the phone 
with me sitting next to him, and the next day we had 100 Christian 
volunteers," Dempsey said.

Besides building a nonsectarian national force that can marginalize the 
militias, the United States wants a professional, Western-style army in 
which noncommissioned officers can use their initiative rather than the 
Soviet-style, top-down army that Saddam had. When it comes to armor, 
however, the Iraqis are getting Russian tanks from former East bloc NATO 
allies, such as Hungary, because they are easier to maintain and run 
than modern American tanks.

Harder than training Iraqis to fight is building the whole logistical 
train necessary to equip them. Even such mundane matters as making sure 
the soldiers are paid on time is a challenge in today's Iraq.

But the real Achilles' heel in all this will be at the ministerial 
level. Training troops to stand up in combat is comparatively easy 
compared with ensuring that the top Iraqi officials in the ministries 
are reading from the same page. If the ministries of interior and 
defense turn out to be sectarian strongholds for various factions in the 
next government, if cronyism and corruption reign with funds siphoned 
off and ranks inflated by ''ghost battalions," as happens today, then 
the goal of a true national army will recede before us no matter how 
good the military training is.

Only the Iraqis themselves can guarantee honest and efficient officials 
at the ministerial level, and, unfortunately, nothing in Iraqis' history 
has given Shi'ites and Kurds a reason for thinking of themselves as 
Iraqi first and Kurds or Shi'ites second. That is beyond anything that 
Dempsey and his excellent team can provide.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/12/06/the_race_to_stand_down/
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From harry.sifton at sympatico.ca  Tue Dec  6 08:14:50 2005
From: harry.sifton at sympatico.ca (Harold Sifton)
Date: Tue Dec  6 08:27:00 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] CIA's prisoners moved from Europe before Rice's arrival.
Message-ID: <001001c5fa80$3265d6e0$3427e440@Harold>

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From hecate at diamonddragon.com  Tue Dec  6 09:11:41 2005
From: hecate at diamonddragon.com (Hecate)
Date: Tue Dec  6 09:22:01 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] BBC E-mail: 'New mammal' seen in Borneo woods
Message-ID: <20051206_171141_005372.hecate@diamonddragon.com>

Hecate saw this story on BBC News Online and thought you
should see it.



** 'New mammal' seen in Borneo woods **
A cat-sized mammal which appears to be new to science is spotted in the forests of Borneo.
< http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/4501152.stm >


** BBC Daily E-mail **
Choose the news and sport headlines you want - when you want them, all
in one daily e-mail
< http://www.bbc.co.uk/dailyemail/ >


** Disclaimer **
The BBC is not responsible for the content of this e-mail, and anything written in this e-mail does not necessarily reflect the BBC's views or opinions. Please note that neither the e-mail address nor name of the sender have?been verified.

If you do not wish to receive such e-mails in the future or want to know more about the BBC's Email a Friend service, please read our frequently asked questions. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/help/4162471.stm

From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Tue Dec  6 10:02:07 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (mblaxill@yahoo.com)
Date: Tue Dec  6 10:12:35 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Headlines for December 6, 2005
Message-ID: <20051206180207.12059.qmail@trinity.democracynow.org>

Mike Blaxill  ( mblaxill@yahoo.com )
sent you this story from democracynow.org



+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
|  Headlines for December 6, 2005
|  http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/06/152217
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+


- Rice Denies U.S. Engages In Torture
- U.S. Moves Detainees From Secret European Prison
- Report: U.S. Lied to Italy About Kidnapping of Islamic Cleric
- Female Suicide Bombers Kill 27 in Iraq
- 9/11 Commissioners Warn U.S. Is Unprepared For Attack 
- Judge Upholds Money Laundering Charge Against Tom Delay
- Anti-War Democrats to Challenge Sen. Hillary Clinton's Re-Election Bid
This story continues at: 
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/06/152217

From michael at intrafi.com  Tue Dec  6 10:10:22 2005
From: michael at intrafi.com (michael@intrafi.com)
Date: Tue Dec  6 10:22:00 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] FT.com / International Economy / Oil - Big oil facing
	biofuel burden
Message-ID: <29251833.1133892622449.JavaMail.tomcat@localhost>



*Please note, the sender's email address has not been verified.



You have received the following link from michael@intrafi.com

 
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From michael at intrafi.com  Tue Dec  6 10:13:28 2005
From: michael at intrafi.com (michael@intrafi.com)
Date: Tue Dec  6 10:24:51 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] FT.com / World / US - Rumsfeld tells Iraq critics to
	look beyond attacks
Message-ID: <32881665.1133892808332.JavaMail.tomcat@localhost>



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You have received the following link from michael@intrafi.com

 
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Title: FT.com / World / US - Rumsfeld tells Iraq critics to look beyond attacks
 
  
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From michael at intrafi.com  Tue Dec  6 10:23:15 2005
From: michael at intrafi.com (michael@intrafi.com)
Date: Tue Dec  6 10:35:05 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Alternet: Donald Rumsfeld Is Mad As a Hatter
Message-ID: <20051206182315.A9C7BB819C@alternet.org>


This story has been forwarded to you from
http://www.alternet.org by michael@intrafi.com



-------------------------------------
Donald Rumsfeld Is Mad As a Hatter
http://www.alternet.org/story/29101

We now have a certifiable loon in charge of the most powerful military on the face of the earth. Shouldn't someone do something? 
-------------------------------------

From michael at intrafi.com  Tue Dec  6 10:31:45 2005
From: michael at intrafi.com (michael@intrafi.com)
Date: Tue Dec  6 10:42:03 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Alternet: Liberalism's Brain on Drugs
Message-ID: <20051206183145.A0FBBB80A5@alternet.org>


This story has been forwarded to you from
http://www.alternet.org by michael@intrafi.com



-------------------------------------
Liberalism's Brain on Drugs
http://www.alternet.org/story/29112

If we live in a fundamentally free society, how does confining a drug offender to 17 years in prison jive with America's values of equality and liberty?
-------------------------------------

From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Tue Dec  6 11:00:54 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (Mike Blaxill)
Date: Tue Dec  6 11:11:31 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Krugman
Message-ID: <20051206190054.63883.qmail@web53009.mail.yahoo.com>

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/120505K.shtml

The Joyless Economy
????By Paul Krugman
????The New York Times

????Monday 05 December 2005

????Falling gasoline prices have led to some
improvement in consumer confidence over the past
few weeks. But the public remains deeply unhappy
about the state of the economy. According to the
latest Gallup poll, 63 percent of Americans rate
the economy as only fair or poor, and by 58 to 36
percent people say economic conditions are
getting worse, not better.

????Yet by some measures, the economy is doing
reasonably well. In particular, gross domestic
product is rising at a pretty fast clip. So why
aren't people pleased with the economy's
performance?

????Like everything these days, this is a
political as well as factual question. The Bush
administration seems genuinely puzzled that it
isn't getting more credit for what it thinks is a
booming economy. So let me be helpful here and
explain what's going on.

????I could point out that the economic numbers,
especially the job numbers, aren't as good as the
Bush people imagine. President Bush made an
appearance in the Rose Garden to hail the latest
jobs report, yet a gain of 215,000 jobs would
have been considered nothing special - in fact, a
bit subpar - during the Clinton years. And
because the average workweek shrank a bit, the
total number of hours worked actually fell last
month.

????But the main explanation for economic
discontent is that it's hard to convince people
that the economy is booming when they themselves
have yet to see any benefits from the supposed
boom. Over the last few years G.D.P. growth has
been reasonably good, and corporate profits have
soared. But that growth has failed to trickle
down to most Americans.

????Back in August the Census bureau released
family income data for 2004. The report, which
was overshadowed by Hurricane Katrina, showed a
remarkable disconnect between overall economic
growth and the economic fortunes of most American
families.

????It should have been a good year for American
families: the economy grew 4.2 percent, its best
performance since 1999. Yet most families
actually lost economic ground. Real median
household income - the income of households in
the middle of the income distribution, adjusted
for inflation - fell for the fifth year in a row.
And one key source of economic insecurity got
worse, as the number of Americans without health
insurance continued to rise.

????We don't have comparable data for 2005 yet,
but it's pretty clear that the results will be
similar. G.D.P. growth has remained solid, but
most families are probably losing ground as their
earnings fail to keep up with inflation.

????Behind the disconnect between economic growth
and family incomes lies the extremely lopsided
nature of the economic recovery that officially
began in late 2001. The growth in corporate
profits has, as I said, been spectacular. Even
after adjusting for inflation, profits have risen
more than 50 percent since the last quarter of
2001. But real wage and salary income is up less
than 7 percent.

????There are some wealthy Americans who derive a
large share of their income from dividends and
capital gains on stocks, and therefore benefit
more or less directly from soaring profits. But
these people constitute a small minority. For
everyone else the sluggish growth in wages is the
real story. And much of the wage and salary
growth that did take place happened at the high
end, in the form of rising payments to executives
and other elite employees. Average hourly
earnings of nonsupervisory workers, adjusted for
inflation, are lower now than when the recovery
began.

????So there you have it. Americans don't feel
good about the economy because it hasn't been
good for them. Never mind the G.D.P. numbers:
most people are falling behind.

????It's much harder to explain why. The
disconnect between G.D.P. growth and the economic
fortunes of most American families can't be
dismissed as a normal occurrence. Wages and
median family income often lag behind profits in
the early stages of an economic expansion, but
not this far behind, and not for so long. Nor, I
should say, is there any easy way to place more
than a small fraction of the blame on Bush
administration policies. At this point the
joylessness of the economic expansion for most
Americans is a mystery.

????What's clear, however, is that advisers who
believe that Mr. Bush can repair his political
standing by making speeches telling the public
how well the economy is doing have misunderstood
the situation. The problem isn't that people
don't understand how good things are. It's that
they know, from personal experience, that things
really aren't that good. 
From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Tue Dec  6 11:02:04 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (Mike Blaxill)
Date: Tue Dec  6 11:12:46 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Bob Herbert
Message-ID: <20051206190204.64555.qmail@web53009.mail.yahoo.com>

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/120505L.shtml

A Black Hole
????By Bob Herbert
????The New York Times

????Monday 05 December 2005

????The news last week that 10 marines had been
killed in Falluja in yet another improvised bomb
attack sent a familiar feeling of dread surging
through Paul Shroeder.

????Every morning, when Mr. Shroeder awakens, he
feels normal for the first 5 or 10 seconds. And
then it dawns on him that his son, Augie - Lance
Cpl. Edward August Shroeder II - is no longer
around. Then an awful sadness descends, like a
black curtain, over the rest of the day.

????Corporal Shroeder, 23, was one of 14 marines
killed last August in a roadside explosion in
Haditha, in western Iraq. Just two days earlier,
six marines from the same reserve unit - the
Ohio-based Third Battalion, 25th Marine Regiment
- had been killed in an ambush.

????"When you have one or two guys get killed,
it's back by the truss ads," said Mr. Shroeder.
"It's not on the front page. But when you have 20
killed from the same unit in the space of 48
hours, that's big news."

????The deaths of the 10 marines last week
generated big headlines. But there was
considerably less coverage the day before, when
the Defense Department announced that four other
servicemen had been killed in separate incidents
in Iraq. The coverage fluctuates, but the
suffering and dying of young American troops in
this hellish meat grinder of a war goes on day by
day, without end.

????(Two more soldiers were reported killed
yesterday in a roadside bomb attack in southeast
Baghdad.)

????Mr. Shroeder (pronounced SHRAE-der) and his
wife, Rosemary Palmer, who live in Cleveland, and
who are facing the Christmas season with eyes
swollen and raw from crying, believe enough is
enough. They have gone public with their view
that the war has been wasteful and foolish and
not worth the lives lost.

????"We have to come up with a plan to get us out
of there," said Mr. Shroeder. "What we're saying
is that we need a serious debate about all
options to end this. We cannot have the
open-ended, ongoing, stay-the-course thing,
because it's killing people."

????Mr. Shroeder said he and his wife are not
calling for an immediate withdrawal, "just
willy-nilly," of American troops. But they
believe it is essential that a workable plan for
an orderly withdrawal be developed - and
developed quickly - because the present policy,
reaffirmed by President Bush in his speech at
Annapolis last week, "is not working."

????In Mr. Shroeder's view, President Bush's war
policies have been both tragic and futile.
"Staying the course," he said, is like continuing
to pour water into a hole in the sand at the
beach, "a process that gets you nowhere."

????"My son told us two weeks before he died that
he felt the war was not worth it," Mr. Shroeder
said. "His complaint was about having to go back
repeatedly into the same towns, to sweep the same
insurgents, or other insurgents, out of these
same towns without being able to hold them,
secure them. It just was not working, and that's
what he wanted to get across."

????Mr. Shroeder dismissed the idea that
criticism of the administration and the war was
evidence of a lack of support for the men and
women fighting in Iraq. "You can support the
troops and be critical of the policy that put
them there," he said.

????He took issue with the public officials who
insist that his son died for a "noble cause,"
however comforting that might be to believe. On
the contrary, he feels that Augie's life "was
wasted."

????Recalling his last conversation with his son,
Mr. Schroeder said, "I asked him, 'Do you feel
like you're protecting your family and other
Americans back here?' And he said, 'No. Not at
all.' "

????He said Augie felt that he was not
accomplishing anything. "He thought it was a
waste."

????Mr. Shroeder, 56, is a partner in a trading
company. His wife, 58, is a high school Spanish
teacher. They've started a small nonprofit
organization called Families of the Fallen for
Change (fofchange.org) that they hope will help
push Congress to take steps to bring the U.S.
involvement in the war to an end.

????I asked Mr. Shroeder how life has been for
him and his wife since Augie's death. He paused
for a long time, then said:

????"Life is not the same. The holidays are not
good. We both are church people and we sing in
the choir, and this is the Christmas season. So
normally it's a time of great music and wonderful
singing. But I can't participate this year
because - well, because he's just not here." 
From hecate at diamonddragon.com  Tue Dec  6 11:39:29 2005
From: hecate at diamonddragon.com (Hecate)
Date: Tue Dec  6 11:49:53 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] BBC E-mail: Man sues CIA over torture claims
Message-ID: <20051206_193929_059302.hecate@diamonddragon.com>

Hecate saw this story on BBC News Online and thought you
should see it.



** Man sues CIA over torture claims **
A man who says he was a victim of the CIA's alleged secret jails sues the agency's ex-chief over torture claims.
< http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/2/hi/americas/4504292.stm >


** BBC Daily E-mail **
Choose the news and sport headlines you want - when you want them, all
in one daily e-mail
< http://www.bbc.co.uk/dailyemail/ >


** Disclaimer **
The BBC is not responsible for the content of this e-mail, and anything written in this e-mail does not necessarily reflect the BBC's views or opinions. Please note that neither the e-mail address nor name of the sender have?been verified.

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From harry.sifton at sympatico.ca  Tue Dec  6 12:34:01 2005
From: harry.sifton at sympatico.ca (Harold Sifton)
Date: Tue Dec  6 12:45:12 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] lets try again,
	CIA's prisoners moved from Europe before Rice's arrival
Message-ID: <000c01c5faa4$67367590$0327e440@Harold>

ABC News, secret CIA prisoners moved out of Europe.

http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/print?id=1375123

Later H

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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Tue Dec  6 14:44:09 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Tue Dec  6 14:55:15 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Questions About Secret Prisons Follow Rice
	in Europe
Message-ID: <20051206224409.A5FA53AE67A@lax-gw06.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: ialterman@nyc.rr.com.

INTERNATIONAL / EUROPE | December 6, 2005
Questions About Secret Prisons Follow Rice in Europe
By JOEL BRINKLEY
The German leader said she had wrested an admission from the U.S. over the mistaken imprisonment of a German citizen.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/06/international/europe/06cnd-rice.html?emc=eta1



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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Tue Dec  6 14:44:39 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Tue Dec  6 15:00:14 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Texas Judge Lets Stand 2 of 3 Charges
	Against DeLay
Message-ID: <20051206224439.21B7124B130@lax-gw02.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: ialterman@nyc.rr.com.

NATIONAL | December 6, 2005
Texas Judge Lets Stand 2 of 3 Charges Against DeLay
By RALPH BLUMENTHAL and CARL HULSE
The judge dropped conspiracy from Tom DeLay's indictment, but let stand the more serious accusation of money-laundering.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/06/national/06delay.html?emc=eta1



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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Tue Dec  6 14:46:50 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Tue Dec  6 15:02:02 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Rumsfeld Says the Media Focus Too Much on
	Negatives in Iraq
Message-ID: <20051206224650.87D3513BA95@lax-gw04.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: ialterman@nyc.rr.com.

I'm shocked that he didn't say "the LIBERAL media," since FOX News certainly isn't saying anything negative about Bush & Co... Peace.


INTERNATIONAL / MIDDLE EAST | December 6, 2005
Rumsfeld Says the Media Focus Too Much on Negatives in Iraq
By DAVID S. CLOUD
The defense secretary said the media was failing to provide a full picture of the progress toward stabilizing Iraq.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/06/international/middleeast/06rumsfeld.html?emc=eta1



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Times movie reviews have to say about these Oscar
winning films?  
Go to the Best Pictures review archive:

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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Tue Dec  6 14:48:31 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Tue Dec  6 15:03:26 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Separate and Inequitable
Message-ID: <20051206224831.788A613BA33@lax-gw04.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: ialterman@nyc.rr.com.

OPINION | December 6, 2005
Editorial: Separate and Inequitable

The fact that Washington provides money for legal representation does not give it unlimited authority to control what lawyers say or do.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/06/opinion/06tue2.html?emc=eta1




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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Tue Dec  6 14:49:22 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Tue Dec  6 15:03:52 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Looking at Polls for 'Victory' in Iraq (5
	Letters)
Message-ID: <20051206224922.E664B13B9EA@lax-gw04.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: ialterman@nyc.rr.com.

What we're saying...


OPINION | December 6, 2005
Looking at Polls for 'Victory' in Iraq (5 Letters)

To the Editor:.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/06/opinion/l06iraq.html?emc=eta1




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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Tue Dec  6 14:47:18 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Tue Dec  6 15:07:03 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Court to Rule on What Constitutes Employer
	Retaliation
Message-ID: <20051206224718.E206483F50@lax-gw03.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: ialterman@nyc.rr.com.

WASHINGTON | December 6, 2005
Supreme Court Roundup: Court to Rule on What Constitutes Employer Retaliation
By LINDA GREENHOUSE
WASHINGTON, Dec. 5 - For more than 40 years, federal law has prohibited employers from retaliating against employees who complain about discrimination on the job. But neither Congress, which included the anti-retaliation protection in the Civil Rights Act of 1964, nor the Supreme Court has ever defined "retaliation.".
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/06/politics/06scotus.html?emc=eta1



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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Tue Dec  6 14:48:41 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Tue Dec  6 15:08:05 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Profiles in Pusillanimity
Message-ID: <20051206224841.BFF498450B@lax-gw03.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: ialterman@nyc.rr.com.

OPINION | December 6, 2005
Editorial: Profiles in Pusillanimity

The vote to cut food stamps and other safety-net programs for the poor was an appalling display of budget theatrics over responsible lawmaking.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/06/opinion/06tue3.html?emc=eta1




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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Tue Dec  6 14:49:01 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Tue Dec  6 15:08:15 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: The Next Iraq Offensive
Message-ID: <20051206224901.011BC84566@lax-gw03.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: ialterman@nyc.rr.com.

OPINION | December 6, 2005
Op-Ed Contributor: The Next Iraq Offensive
By WESLEY K. CLARK
We need to keep our troops in Iraq, but we need to modify the strategy far more drastically than anything President Bush called for last week. 
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/06/opinion/06clark.html?emc=eta1




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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Tue Dec  6 14:49:59 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Tue Dec  6 15:08:51 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: The U.S. and Torture
Message-ID: <20051206224959.0107483F03@lax-gw03.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: ialterman@nyc.rr.com.

What we're saying (3)...


OPINION | December 6, 2005
The U.S. and Torture

To the Editor:.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/06/opinion/l06torture.html?emc=eta1




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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Tue Dec  6 14:45:36 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Tue Dec  6 15:11:20 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: U.S. Interrogations Are Saving European
	Lives, Rice Says
Message-ID: <20051206224536.B88122379DA@lax-gw01.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: ialterman@nyc.rr.com.

This is the same kind of backward logic (or simply false premise) behind "fight them there so we don't have to fight them here." Total poppycock. Peace.


INTERNATIONAL / EUROPE | December 6, 2005
U.S. Interrogations Are Saving European Lives, Rice Says
By JOEL BRINKLEY
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice chastised European leaders for complaining about secret jails for terror suspects.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/06/international/europe/06rice.html?emc=eta1



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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Tue Dec  6 14:49:42 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Tue Dec  6 15:14:20 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Protecting Whistle-Blowers,
	and the Public Interest (2 Letters)
Message-ID: <20051206224942.231FF237EF4@lax-gw01.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: ialterman@nyc.rr.com.

What we're saying (2)...


OPINION | December 6, 2005
Protecting Whistle-Blowers, and the Public Interest (2 Letters)

To the Editor:.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/06/opinion/l06rich.html?emc=eta1




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Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
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From michael at intrafi.com  Tue Dec  6 16:09:51 2005
From: michael at intrafi.com (Michael)
Date: Tue Dec  6 16:11:01 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Article from Tom Dispatch
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From barbarasiomos38 at msn.com  Tue Dec  6 17:15:34 2005
From: barbarasiomos38 at msn.com (Barbara Siomos)
Date: Tue Dec  6 17:25:54 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Lennon remembered 25 years after his death
Message-ID: <BAY5-DAV125223DFCAD84891EDC541AB430@phx.gbl>

I was repying to the list Jef.... YOU are NOT on any of my group emails.

peace,
barbara 

-----Original Message-----
From: Jef Bek
Sent: Mon, 5 Dec 2005 18:10:42 -0800
To: Civic List
Subject: Re: [Mb-civic] Lennon remembered 25 years after his death

Can some one please help Barbara take Jef off of her group e-mails!

On 12/5/05 1:24 PM, "Barbara Siomos" <barbarasiomos38@msn.com> wrote:

> Harry...
> 
> Thank you for sending the Lennon piece... it brings back sad but nice memories
> of an average fellow living amongst the celebs and loving the average folk.
> 
> peace,
> barbara
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: harry.sifton@sympatico.ca
> Sent: Sun, 4 Dec 2005 17:24:01 -0800
> To: mb-civic@islandlists.com
> Subject: [Mb-civic] Lennon remembered 25 years after his death
> 
> This story was sent to you by: Harry
> 
> --------------------
> Lennon remembered 25 years after his death
> --------------------
> 
> BY STEVE KNOPPER
> 
> John Lennon wouldn't sing.
> 
> It was 1974, and he was deep into his breakup with his wife, Yoko Ono, when
> New York DJ and longtime Beatles friend "Cousin" Brucie Morrow invited him to
> a benefit concert in Central Park. A crowd of 100,000 people showed up to the
> event, and a nervous Lennon, wearing a T-shirt, jeans and a butterfly belt
> buckle, turned to Morrow and said, "Cousin, promise me they know I'm not going
> to sing."
> 
> Morrow, who recently recalled that day, said, "John, all they want to do is
> share space with you.'
> 
> When the former Beatle and author of songs "Imagine" and "Give Peace a Chance"
> walked on stage, the crowd went wild.
> 
> "It didn't matter if he gave an hour concert or if he just stood there and
> talked," said Morrow, who's now a DJ for Sirius Satellite Radio. "He was
> accepted in major cities all over the world. He was born in Liverpool, not
> exactly a small hamlet, and grew up in London. But New York City had the
> greatest appeal for John Lennon because of its emotional acceptance. He was
> very comfortable here."
> 
> As the 25th anniversary of John Lennon's death approaches on Thursday -- he
> was gunned down by a deranged fan in front of his apartment building, the
> Dakota, on Dec. 8, 1980 -- New York City remains the geographic symbol of his
> post-Beatles life and career. Thousands of fans continue to pay homage to
> Lennon with visits to the Dakota as well as Strawberry Fields in Central Park.
> 
> During his time in the city -- a tumultuous nine-year period that encompassed
> a nasty separation, reconciliation, the birth of a son, political upheaval and
> the recording of his swan-song album, "Double Fantasy" -- Lennon came to
> appreciate little things like his ability to walk down the street at 4 a.m.
> and buy a loaf of bread at a grocery store. The British rocker died a New
> Yorker.
> 
> Lennon moved to Manhattan in 1971, at a time when the British press was
> particularly brutal to his new wife, Ono, widely viewed as an interloper who
> broke up the beloved Beatles the previous year. Fans who spotted him on the
> London streets had a tendency to be overly aggressive, sometimes hostile, and
> Lennon, 31 at the time, craved a more welcoming environment.
> 
> "He was cocooned in New York from '71 to his death. It's a bit like Woody
> Allen, really -- you feel like he couldn't really be transplanted," said
> veteran British singer-songwriter Robyn Hitchcock, whose work is strongly
> influenced by Lennon's Beatles and solo material. "The first part of his time
> [in Manhattan] he was a very public figure -- blowing his whistle and wearing
> his John Lennon badge. After [his son] Sean was born, he was kind of a
> recluse. People would have seen him padding around the shops. He was a person
> experiencing 24-hour New York City and rather like one of those old ladies
> living in Central Park East, up there with dogs."
> 
> During his early years in the city, Lennon's thirst for politically charged
> events clicked with Manhattan's environment. He hooked up with the Harlem
> Community Choir for 1971's "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)," drove around all night
> in friends' Volkswagens and produced a 1972 album, "The Pope Smokes Dope," for
> Yippie activist David Peel and his band, the Lower East Side.
> 
> "John called it Rome," said Lennon's friend Steve Gebhardt, a Cincinnati
> filmmaker who directed "One to One," the Madison Square Garden concert film
> released in 1972 as a TV special. "Creativity was all over the place, and
> there was a wonderfully thriving art culture."
> 
> Lennon was interested in the idea of spontaneous art and radical politics;
> after moving into an East Village apartment with Ono, one of the first things
> he did was hook up with Elephant's Memory, a loose and energetic rock and roll
> band he met at a club.
> 
> Inspired by his friendships with radicals Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman,
> Lennon recorded some of the most overtly political songs of his career,
> including "Woman Is the -- -- of the World," "John Sinclair" and "Sunday
> Bloody Sunday," all on the 1972 album "Some Time In New York City." He also
> performed with the band twice that year in Madison Square Garden.
> 
> "Radical politics were very big in the East Village at that time and Lennon
> wanted to go in that direction -- writing political songs, engaging in
> activist things," said author Tim Riley, whose as-yet-untitled Lennon
> biography is due in 2007. "One guy told me this story: He was on the streets
> in New York City, a truck pulls off and a band is playing on the back of this
> flatbed truck. And it's John Lennon and his band."
> 
> It wasn't all a metropolitan Utopia, though. Lennon's newfound politics caught
> the attention of the Nixon administration, as well as Senate Republicans, who
> believed the ex-Beatle would show up to disrupt the Republican National
> Convention in Miami Beach. Later, the Immigration and Naturalization Service
> told Lennon his 1968 guilty plea in a British marijuana-possession case meant
> he had to vacate the United States. Lennon sued and won, although the case
> dragged on through 1975. And the stress took its toll: Ono dumped him and
> Lennon moved briefly to Los Angeles, where he infamously took a lover, May
> Pang, and spent his days and nights hitting nightclubs with singer-songwriter
> Harry Nilsson.
> 
> After releasing two melancholy albums that reflected his depression of the
> time -- "Mind Games" and "Walls and Bridges" -- Lennon gave his last-ever
> public performance with Elton John at Madison Square Garden in 1974. Ono went
> to the show and later invited her husband to return to their Dakota apartment.
> In 1975, Ono gave birth to the couple's only son, Sean, and Lennon became a
> stay-at-home dad. "I am carrying the baby nine months, and that is enough,"
> Ono told Lennon, according to Rolling Stone. "You take care of it afterward."
> 
> Around that time, Lennon and Ono recorded his last album, "Double Fantasy," at
> Manhattan's famous Hit Factory studio. The album was uneven, but it produced
> Lennon's final No. 1 single, "(Just Like) Starting Over," as well as one
> fascinating piece of trivia for rock fans. While recording "Double Fantasy,"
> Lennon and Ono invited two members of Cheap Trick to play on several songs.
> Although they were preparing for a major tour in Japan, Trick guitarist Rick
> Nielsen and drummer Bun E. Carlos -- both Beatles fanatics -- agreed.
> 
> Carlos played on "Losing You" and Ono's "Moving On" -- neither of which made
> it to the album -- and the drummer was struck by just how isolated Lennon was
> from the outside world.
> 
> "We were sitting in the booth ... he had a guitar and said, 'This is my "Day
> Tripper" guitar.' It was refinished," Carlos recalled. "I said 'Day Tripper'
> is No. 10 in Phoenix this week.' He said, 'What do you mean?' I said, 'We got
> a live version out and it hit No. 10 in Phoenix.' He was like, 'Okaaaay' If
> he had known we were Beatle nuts, he might not have wanted us in there."
> 
> By all accounts, Lennon was a happy family man when he returned to the Dakota
> on that night in December holding a tape of Ono's "Walking on Thin Ice." At
> the entrance, Mark David Chapman shot him five times. Lennon died en route to
> the hospital.
> 
> But while the post-Beatles Lennon has come to represent New York in a way, the
> iconic images of him flashing the peace sign in front of the Statue of Liberty
> and wearing a "NEW YORK CITY" T-shirt do not a native make. "I honestly
> believe he was not perceived as a New Yorker but more as a citizen of the
> world," says Ed Koch, who was mayor when Lennon died. "But we had the
> privilege of having him in our midst."
> 
> Steve Knopper is a freelance writer.
> 
> Copyright (c) 2005, Newsday, Inc.
> 
> --------------------
> 
> This article originally appeared at:
> http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/nyc-etlennon1204,0,4548495.story?coll=ny-
> homepage-bigpix2005



From jefbek at mindspring.com  Tue Dec  6 18:28:36 2005
From: jefbek at mindspring.com (Jef Bek)
Date: Tue Dec  6 18:39:00 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Technical difficulties
In-Reply-To: <BAY5-DAV125223DFCAD84891EDC541AB430@phx.gbl>
Message-ID: <BFBB88D4.1484%jefbek@mindspring.com>

Dear Barbara,

I think I figured out why your e-mails were coming to my personal in-box.
I've taken care of it. Sorry for the confusion.

peace,
Jef

On 12/6/05 5:15 PM, "Barbara Siomos" <barbarasiomos38@msn.com> wrote:

> I was repying to the list Jef.... YOU are NOT on any of my group emails.
> 
> peace,
> barbara 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jef Bek
> Sent: Mon, 5 Dec 2005 18:10:42 -0800
> To: Civic List
> Subject: Re: [Mb-civic] Lennon remembered 25 years after his death
> 
> Can some one please help Barbara take Jef off of her group e-mails!
> 
> On 12/5/05 1:24 PM, "Barbara Siomos" <barbarasiomos38@msn.com> wrote:
> 
>> Harry...
>> 
>> Thank you for sending the Lennon piece... it brings back sad but nice
>> memories
>> of an average fellow living amongst the celebs and loving the average folk.
>> 
>> peace,
>> barbara
>> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: harry.sifton@sympatico.ca
>> Sent: Sun, 4 Dec 2005 17:24:01 -0800
>> To: mb-civic@islandlists.com
>> Subject: [Mb-civic] Lennon remembered 25 years after his death
>> 
>> This story was sent to you by: Harry
>> 
>> --------------------
>> Lennon remembered 25 years after his death
>> --------------------
>> 
>> BY STEVE KNOPPER
>> 
>> John Lennon wouldn't sing.
>> 
>> It was 1974, and he was deep into his breakup with his wife, Yoko Ono, when
>> New York DJ and longtime Beatles friend "Cousin" Brucie Morrow invited him to
>> a benefit concert in Central Park. A crowd of 100,000 people showed up to the
>> event, and a nervous Lennon, wearing a T-shirt, jeans and a butterfly belt
>> buckle, turned to Morrow and said, "Cousin, promise me they know I'm not
>> going
>> to sing."
>> 
>> Morrow, who recently recalled that day, said, "John, all they want to do is
>> share space with you.'
>> 
>> When the former Beatle and author of songs "Imagine" and "Give Peace a
>> Chance"
>> walked on stage, the crowd went wild.
>> 
>> "It didn't matter if he gave an hour concert or if he just stood there and
>> talked," said Morrow, who's now a DJ for Sirius Satellite Radio. "He was
>> accepted in major cities all over the world. He was born in Liverpool, not
>> exactly a small hamlet, and grew up in London. But New York City had the
>> greatest appeal for John Lennon because of its emotional acceptance. He was
>> very comfortable here."
>> 
>> As the 25th anniversary of John Lennon's death approaches on Thursday -- he
>> was gunned down by a deranged fan in front of his apartment building, the
>> Dakota, on Dec. 8, 1980 -- New York City remains the geographic symbol of his
>> post-Beatles life and career. Thousands of fans continue to pay homage to
>> Lennon with visits to the Dakota as well as Strawberry Fields in Central
>> Park.
>> 
>> During his time in the city -- a tumultuous nine-year period that encompassed
>> a nasty separation, reconciliation, the birth of a son, political upheaval
>> and
>> the recording of his swan-song album, "Double Fantasy" -- Lennon came to
>> appreciate little things like his ability to walk down the street at 4 a.m.
>> and buy a loaf of bread at a grocery store. The British rocker died a New
>> Yorker.
>> 
>> Lennon moved to Manhattan in 1971, at a time when the British press was
>> particularly brutal to his new wife, Ono, widely viewed as an interloper who
>> broke up the beloved Beatles the previous year. Fans who spotted him on the
>> London streets had a tendency to be overly aggressive, sometimes hostile, and
>> Lennon, 31 at the time, craved a more welcoming environment.
>> 
>> "He was cocooned in New York from '71 to his death. It's a bit like Woody
>> Allen, really -- you feel like he couldn't really be transplanted," said
>> veteran British singer-songwriter Robyn Hitchcock, whose work is strongly
>> influenced by Lennon's Beatles and solo material. "The first part of his time
>> [in Manhattan] he was a very public figure -- blowing his whistle and wearing
>> his John Lennon badge. After [his son] Sean was born, he was kind of a
>> recluse. People would have seen him padding around the shops. He was a person
>> experiencing 24-hour New York City and rather like one of those old ladies
>> living in Central Park East, up there with dogs."
>> 
>> During his early years in the city, Lennon's thirst for politically charged
>> events clicked with Manhattan's environment. He hooked up with the Harlem
>> Community Choir for 1971's "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)," drove around all night
>> in friends' Volkswagens and produced a 1972 album, "The Pope Smokes Dope,"
>> for
>> Yippie activist David Peel and his band, the Lower East Side.
>> 
>> "John called it Rome," said Lennon's friend Steve Gebhardt, a Cincinnati
>> filmmaker who directed "One to One," the Madison Square Garden concert film
>> released in 1972 as a TV special. "Creativity was all over the place, and
>> there was a wonderfully thriving art culture."
>> 
>> Lennon was interested in the idea of spontaneous art and radical politics;
>> after moving into an East Village apartment with Ono, one of the first things
>> he did was hook up with Elephant's Memory, a loose and energetic rock and
>> roll
>> band he met at a club.
>> 
>> Inspired by his friendships with radicals Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman,
>> Lennon recorded some of the most overtly political songs of his career,
>> including "Woman Is the -- -- of the World," "John Sinclair" and "Sunday
>> Bloody Sunday," all on the 1972 album "Some Time In New York City." He also
>> performed with the band twice that year in Madison Square Garden.
>> 
>> "Radical politics were very big in the East Village at that time and Lennon
>> wanted to go in that direction -- writing political songs, engaging in
>> activist things," said author Tim Riley, whose as-yet-untitled Lennon
>> biography is due in 2007. "One guy told me this story: He was on the streets
>> in New York City, a truck pulls off and a band is playing on the back of this
>> flatbed truck. And it's John Lennon and his band."
>> 
>> It wasn't all a metropolitan Utopia, though. Lennon's newfound politics
>> caught
>> the attention of the Nixon administration, as well as Senate Republicans, who
>> believed the ex-Beatle would show up to disrupt the Republican National
>> Convention in Miami Beach. Later, the Immigration and Naturalization Service
>> told Lennon his 1968 guilty plea in a British marijuana-possession case meant
>> he had to vacate the United States. Lennon sued and won, although the case
>> dragged on through 1975. And the stress took its toll: Ono dumped him and
>> Lennon moved briefly to Los Angeles, where he infamously took a lover, May
>> Pang, and spent his days and nights hitting nightclubs with singer-songwriter
>> Harry Nilsson.
>> 
>> After releasing two melancholy albums that reflected his depression of the
>> time -- "Mind Games" and "Walls and Bridges" -- Lennon gave his last-ever
>> public performance with Elton John at Madison Square Garden in 1974. Ono went
>> to the show and later invited her husband to return to their Dakota
>> apartment.
>> In 1975, Ono gave birth to the couple's only son, Sean, and Lennon became a
>> stay-at-home dad. "I am carrying the baby nine months, and that is enough,"
>> Ono told Lennon, according to Rolling Stone. "You take care of it afterward."
>> 
>> Around that time, Lennon and Ono recorded his last album, "Double Fantasy,"
>> at
>> Manhattan's famous Hit Factory studio. The album was uneven, but it produced
>> Lennon's final No. 1 single, "(Just Like) Starting Over," as well as one
>> fascinating piece of trivia for rock fans. While recording "Double Fantasy,"
>> Lennon and Ono invited two members of Cheap Trick to play on several songs.
>> Although they were preparing for a major tour in Japan, Trick guitarist Rick
>> Nielsen and drummer Bun E. Carlos -- both Beatles fanatics -- agreed.
>> 
>> Carlos played on "Losing You" and Ono's "Moving On" -- neither of which made
>> it to the album -- and the drummer was struck by just how isolated Lennon was
>> from the outside world.
>> 
>> "We were sitting in the booth ... he had a guitar and said, 'This is my "Day
>> Tripper" guitar.' It was refinished," Carlos recalled. "I said 'Day Tripper'
>> is No. 10 in Phoenix this week.' He said, 'What do you mean?' I said, 'We got
>> a live version out and it hit No. 10 in Phoenix.' He was like, 'Okaaaay' If
>> he had known we were Beatle nuts, he might not have wanted us in there."
>> 
>> By all accounts, Lennon was a happy family man when he returned to the Dakota
>> on that night in December holding a tape of Ono's "Walking on Thin Ice." At
>> the entrance, Mark David Chapman shot him five times. Lennon died en route to
>> the hospital.
>> 
>> But while the post-Beatles Lennon has come to represent New York in a way,
>> the
>> iconic images of him flashing the peace sign in front of the Statue of
>> Liberty
>> and wearing a "NEW YORK CITY" T-shirt do not a native make. "I honestly
>> believe he was not perceived as a New Yorker but more as a citizen of the
>> world," says Ed Koch, who was mayor when Lennon died. "But we had the
>> privilege of having him in our midst."
>> 
>> Steve Knopper is a freelance writer.
>> 
>> Copyright (c) 2005, Newsday, Inc.
>> 
>> --------------------
>> 
>> This article originally appeared at:
>> 
http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/nyc-etlennon1204,0,4548495.story?coll=ny>>
-
>> homepage-bigpix2005
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Mb-civic mailing list
> Mb-civic@islandlists.com
> http://www.islandlists.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mb-civic

From swiggard at comcast.net  Wed Dec  7 02:24:59 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Wed Dec  7 02:38:15 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Likelihood of Battle Increasing Over DeLay's Future as
 Leader - Washington Post
Message-ID: <4396B87B.4020206@comcast.net>

Likelihood of Battle Increasing Over DeLay's Future as Leader

By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 7, 2005; A04

A Texas judge's decision to let stand a felony indictment against former 
House majority leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) has emboldened the 
congressman's opponents and raised the likelihood that one of the 
architects of the House GOP's rise to power will not be returning to the 
leadership, lawmakers said yesterday.

Acting House Majority Leader Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) sought to reassure 
members that DeLay will return to prominence, telling reporters he still 
believes DeLay will beat the charges before an election to replace him 
is necessary. If an end to DeLay's case is in sight next month, members 
will not petition for a leadership shake-up.

But yesterday opponents who have remained largely anonymous began to 
speak out.

"If it becomes clear in January that the trial is not going to start for 
several more months, I think there will be a call from members to hold 
elections," said Rep. Ray LaHood (R-Ill.). "We can't simply muddle along 
with this interim arrangement and think we can accomplish the major 
things we want to accomplish. And we need to get this off the front 
pages of the newspapers for those members in close districts."

He added, "It's pretty clear it's not going to be resolved in January."

Rep. Charles Bass (R-N.H.) released a statement demanding that 
leadership elections be conducted as soon as possible: "The House 
Republican Conference should now elect a permanent leadership structure 
for 2006, so that we can move forward with a positive agenda that 
focuses on issues, not personalities."

Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.), a longtime critic of DeLay's ethical 
practices, lit into the Republican leadership as a whole: "Ethical 
leadership is the foundation of trust with our constituents, and my 
leadership is not hearing that."

DeLay spokesman Kevin Madden said that lawmakers are "entitled to their 
opinion," but that the judge's decision to throw out the original 
conspiracy charge against DeLay proved the congressman is the victim of 
a partisan prosecutor. "It's been very clear that there's a lot of 
support for Mr. DeLay to fight these charges," Madden said.

The likelihood of a showdown next month over DeLay's political future 
seemed to increase as House Republicans returned from a two-week break 
and assessed the damage from the mushrooming scandals. During their 
absence, former DeLay aide Michael Scanlon pleaded guilty to bribery 
charges and promised to cooperate with a federal corruption 
investigation. Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-Calif.) tearfully 
confessed to accepting millions of dollars in bribes from defense 
contractors with ties to several other lawmakers, including DeLay.

On Monday, a Texas judge dismissed a conspiracy charge against DeLay but 
upheld felony charges stemming from alleged money laundering in 
connection with the 2002 Texas election.

DeLay aides and leadership officials continue to say the congressman has 
the calendar on his side. House leaders intend to adjourn for the year 
by Dec. 20. Lawmakers are expected to return at the end of January for 
President Bush's State of the Union address, then probably will return 
to their districts until mid-February. With so much time away from 
Washington, opponents will have little time to organize the 50 
signatures necessary to move for a shake-up, and at the moment there are 
no more than 30 willing to publicly call for DeLay's replacement.

Meanwhile, DeLay's lawyers will move to have the remaining indictment 
tossed out on grounds of misconduct by Texas prosecutor Ronnie Earle, a 
Democrat. If that fails, they will press for a court date early next 
month that probably would produce a verdict within two weeks.

But by January, opposition to DeLay's return is likely to become more 
public, LaHood said, as other investigations move closer to the former 
majority leader, especially that of Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff 
and Scanlon, his business associate.

"Scanlon, I'm sure, is singing like a canary," LaHood said.

Democrats are pushing legislation to curtail the influence of lobbyists 
on Capitol Hill, and soon Republicans will feel pressure to join that 
movement, LaHood and Shays said.

"January will be a time when people talk about new leaders and talk 
about some reforms to get us back to the party that we were when we were 
elected to a majority," LaHood said. "I think in January you'll see a 
lot of courageous people around here. I really do."

Already, GOP leaders are scrambling to distance themselves from the rash 
of corruption investigations, while circling around the leadership 
structure. Last night, Rep. Thomas M. Reynolds (N.Y.), who has often 
been named as a possible challenger in a majority leader's race, said he 
would not be leaving his post as chairman of the National Republican 
Congressional Committee. House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (Ill.) rushed 
out a note of thanks.

"If there were to be a leadership race, Tom Reynolds would be considered 
a very serious contender," Hastert spokesman Ron Bonjean said. "However, 
he has chosen to be a team player, and the speaker greatly appreciates 
that."

Meanwhile, Blunt, Hastert and House Republican Conference Chairman 
Deborah Pryce (Ohio) released statements yesterday denouncing 
Cunningham's behavior, upon formal receipt of his resignation letter.

"Today is a sad day for the U.S. House of Representatives and Duke 
Cunningham. How a decorated war veteran sank to the level of bribery and 
corruption is a personal and public tragedy," said Pryce, deploring what 
she called "an isolated event."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/06/AR2005120601516.html
-------------- next part --------------
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Wed Dec  7 02:29:37 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Wed Dec  7 02:42:39 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] The Liberal on Karl Rove's Case - Washington Post
Message-ID: <4396B991.9090004@comcast.net>

The Liberal on Karl Rove's Case
Politics Aside, Robert Luskin May Be Just What the Bush Aide Needs

By Richard Leiby
Washington Post Staff Writer

Karl Rove's greatest defender in Washington these days is a Democratic 
lawyer and onetime newspaper reporter named Robert Luskin. He is Rove's 
attorney in the high-stakes CIA leak case, and is widely credited with 
sparing his client from indictment so far.

But perhaps more intriguing is Luskin's other role. He plays the Anti-Rove.

Just look at the guy: Luskin, 55, wears a gold hoop earring and Euro-hip 
eyeglasses. He's buff and bald. (But bald in a good way.) He rides a 
black Ducati Monster motorcycle, which its maker touts as the bike of 
choice of "top designers" and "Hollywood stars." In his office he spins 
the CDs of antiwar balladeer Steve Earle and ex-punk Paul Westerberg.

Rove, the pudgy uber-operative also known as Bush's Brain, helped put a 
brush-clearing conservative Christian into the White House by 
bad-mouthing the liberal elites of this world -- people just like Luskin.

So how is it that a man of somewhat Neiman-Marxist tastes, a 
self-described liberal on social issues, became the potential rescuer of 
Rove, whom many on the left are salivating to see frog-marched from 1600 
Pennsylvania Ave.?

If you have to ask, say observers of the Rove-Luskin alliance, then you 
obviously haven't been in Washington very long.

"Bob Luskin is the perfect person for Rove," says Lanny Davis, a Clinton 
White House damage-control veteran and Luskin's former law partner at 
Patton Boggs, the power firm where Luskin plies his trade. "He is one of 
the few lawyers I know who gets it."

By that he means Luskin knows how to do the sharp lawyering required to 
wage a strong criminal defense -- all the while nudging reporters toward 
his position, attempting to soften public perception of Rove and getting 
out his client's side of the story.

Having worked in Washington for a quarter-century, and spending part of 
the Clinton years as a scandal attorney, Luskin has seen it all before. 
"Same plot, different characters," he says of the investigative dramas, 
such as the Valerie Plame outing case, that periodically grip Washington.

"Many lawyers are, media-wise, brain-dead," declares Davis, who served 
as special counsel to President Bill Clinton. "Bob gets how to be a 
lawyer and communicate effectively. Lawyers cannot operate just by 
no-commenting anymore."

And so it is that we find ourselves in Luskin's sunny corner office on 
the outskirts of Georgetown, listening to him comment. For three hours. 
It's never dull: There are stories about covering a '60s student revolt 
at Harvard; his stint as a speechwriter on Geraldine Ferraro's vice 
presidential campaign; his work cleaning up a Mafia-infested labor 
union; and the time he accepted payment from a client in gold bars and 
took heat from the feds for it.

His office decor reflects a raffish personality. On the coffee table 
sits a life-size articulated wooden hand, the kind figure-drawing 
students use, with its middle finger upraised. The words "Free Karl!" 
are scrawled in chalk on a slate clock hanging on the wall above his 
desk. (A flourish added by his colleagues, Luskin says.)

For those who've managed to lose the plot since all this began two years 
ago, we offer some boilerplate: Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is 
probing whether White House officials disclosed the identity of CIA 
operative Plame to reporters as a way to discredit her husband, Iraq war 
foe Joseph Wilson. In October, a grand jury indicted Vice President 
Cheney's chief of staff, Scooter Libby, for allegedly lying and 
obstructing justice. Rove, who is known to have talked to Time 
magazine's Matthew Cooper and syndicated columnist Robert Novak about 
Plame, was not indicted. But he remains under investigation.

The otherwise voluble Luskin clams up when the topic shifts to the 
latest development in the case: Time reporter Viveca Novak has agreed to 
provide sworn testimony about a conversation she had with . . . yes . . 
. Luskin. As reported last week by this newspaper, Novak -- a longtime 
friend of Luskin's -- is "central to White House senior adviser Karl 
Rove's effort to fend off an indictment in the two-year-old 
investigation, according to two people familiar with the situation."

Hmmm. As if this case weren't absurdly convoluted enough, now we've got 
two Novaks in the mix, along with all manner of attribution-cloaking 
devices. (Time's Novak is no relation to Robert Novak, whose 2003 column 
identified Plame as a CIA operative.)

Might this development be possibly favorable to Rove?

"I can't talk about it on any basis," Luskin says. "Not at all, in any 
way, shape or form. I'm really sorry."

But otherwise his spin is direct: Fitzgerald will ultimately conclude 
that "Karl didn't do anything wrong" because Rove has "the virtue of 
being innocent," says Luskin. Rove did not push disclosure of Plame's 
identity to reporters, the attorney says, or attempt to cover up his 
conversations with them.

To the Bush administration's foes, Rove's alleged complicity presents 
the possibility of divine payback. For some, the notion of the 
Machiavellian Rove plotting reprisals against Wilson is "the story too 
good not to be true," Luskin says.

"It is a much better story if he is playing a central role in this, and 
it is a much less interesting story if it turns out that there is no 
evidence to suggest, as was initially argued, that this was a White 
House plot to disclose the identity of a covert agent in order to punish 
a critic. . . .

"If folks believe they can gain political advantage by climbing up his 
back, they will do so."

Karl Rove, victim of attack politics? Perish the thought! At this point, 
the room itself is practically spinning.

* * *

Robert D. Luskin grew up in what he calls a "fairly conservative Jewish 
family" in Chicago, his mother a public school teacher and his father an 
attorney who did private labor arbitration. As a youth at the dinner 
table he acquired a respect for "the dignity of the working man and 
woman," Luskin says, and friends say he never came off as a snob, 
despite his intellect and accomplishments (Harvard undergrad, Rhodes 
scholar, Harvard Law Review).

"He spent a lot of time talking to me, and there were people who would 
not give you the time of day," recalls M.J. Anderson, who met Luskin in 
1978 when she was a secretary at the prestigious publication. "He was 
one of the least conventional people on the law review when he was 
there." (Among Luskin's classmates and fellow law review editors: John 
Roberts, who would become chief justice.)

Before pursuing a law career, Luskin worked as a general-assignment 
reporter at the Providence Journal in the mid-1970s. (He briefly covered 
Washington.) He had become enamored of journalism as a Harvard freshman, 
back when a lot of the students -- Luskin included -- had shaggy hair 
and mutton chops.

Working at the school radio station, he found himself inside University 
Hall when 500 cops ended a takeover by protesters in April 1969: "I 
basically did the play-by-play of the bust while it was happening," he 
says. Luskin and three other student reporters secured a book contract 
and quickly produced "The Harvard Strike," which placed the incident 
into a wider context of radical politics.

"He really wanted to be a writer but didn't see a way to stay in it and 
make a living," says Anderson, now an editorial writer at the Providence 
Journal. "He ended up in law school in spite of himself."

Luskin explains: "I think I was probably getting family pressure that 
being a journalist was an utterly disreputable profession." He laughs 
heartily. "It was neither a doctor nor a lawyer and, therefore, by 
definition, not totally acceptable. But I loved being a reporter . . . 
and still miss it."

That part of his background may redound to Rove's benefit. Journalists 
tend to like Luskin: He's smooth and personable but manages not to come 
off as unctuous. Like many others in the capital's permanent scandal 
infrastructure, he knows fully the art of leak-and-tip, but he also has 
the advantage of understanding what it was like to be on the other side. 
He gamely calls that attribute part of his "skill set."

"I think the picture is of a very good reporter who turned out to be an 
ace lawyer, with a sort of humility and charm to boot. That's hard to 
beat," says Harvard law professor Philip B. Heymann, who served as a top 
Justice Department official. (On his referral, Luskin went to work for 
the department's organized-crime section in 1980.)

"I could easily imagine his being a friend-making, humanizing force for 
anybody he is representing. I've never met Rove, but he looks like he 
could use it."

Because of Luskin, "you think better of Karl," concurs Mark Corallo, who 
is handling PR for Rove and Luskin. (Even a mouthpiece needs a 
mouthpiece in this town.)

Luskin's resume includes scandal experience dating back to the Abscam 
bribery case. He weathered some of the most subpoena-happy Hill 
investigations of the Clinton years -- Whitewater, Vince Foster, 
campaign fundraising. He earned particularly good notices in Democratic 
power circles when he represented a former Clinton aide named Mark 
Middleton in front of ravening Hill Republicans. (Rep. Dan Burton's 
committee linked Middleton to all manner of allegations involving the 
Chinese government, the Lippo Group, Charlie Trie, John Huang, Johnny 
Chung et al., but Middleton was never charged.)

Luskin had to do a lot of spinning for himself when the U.S. attorney in 
Rhode Island accused him of "willful blindness" for accepting 45 gold 
bars worth more than $505,000, as well as Swiss wire transfers of 
$169,000, for his work on the case of a precious-metals dealer convicted 
of laundering millions in drug money. In 1998 Luskin settled with the 
government, forfeiting $245,000 in fees.

Luskin says he did due diligence to assure that the money he got was 
legit, even if it was paid in "a somewhat unusual fashion," but now 
admits it looked bad. "I kind of got lost in what I thought were the 
legalities of the situation and didn't take a step back and say, you 
know, how would people regard something like this?"

* * *

Another part of Luskin lore is a historic fashion breakthrough that 
occurred in 1995, when he evidently became the first man to wear an 
earring while arguing before the Supreme Court. The Post at the time 
described it as a "tasteful silver stud in his left ear" and recounted 
the hubbub that ensued.

These days Luskin sports a barely noticeable gold hoop. "It takes next 
to nothing at all to vault you outside the mainstream," he says with 
some amusement. "It is a very strange profession, indeed."

Divorced seven years ago after a 20-year marriage, Luskin has two sons 
in college, a townhouse in Georgetown and a home on Martha's Vineyard. 
He describes himself simply as a bachelor. He's a licensed glider pilot, 
weightlifter and runner, and plays baseball in an over-30 league.

Predicting Rove's exoneration, he goes with a Fitzgeraldian baseball 
metaphor: "If Fitzgerald does what he ought to do, and what I think he 
will do here, it won't be because I threw him a two-strike fastball on 
the outside corner; it will be because it will be the right outcome on 
the merits. . . . It isn't the product of my particular skill or 
cleverness."

Washington is full of capable and loyal Republican white-shoe attorneys 
whom Rove could have picked. Why Luskin? Rove declined to comment, but 
he came to Luskin via a referral from Patton Boggs partner Ben Ginsberg, 
who works on the same floor as Luskin and considers him "wonderfully 
capable." (Ginsberg was chief outside counsel to President Bush's 
reelection campaign.)

Rove, according to Luskin, "made it clear that as far as he was 
concerned, the relevant issue for him was whether or not I had the 
appropriate experience and not what my politics were."

Some who know Luskin brush off any deeper meaning in Rove's 
counterintuitive choice. "The important part is the IQ around 200 -- 
that might be an exaggeration, but it wouldn't shock me if Bob were in 
Mensa," says W. Kenneth O'Donnell, a Providence attorney who has worked 
with Luskin. "The guy is brilliant. I can certainly understand why 
[Rove] would want him to represent him."

Because, sometimes, even Bush's Brain needs a brain.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/06/AR2005120601689.html?nav=hcmodule
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Wed Dec  7 02:31:24 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Wed Dec  7 02:44:02 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Courage In Their Coverage - David Ignatius - Washington
	Post Op-Ed
Message-ID: <4396B9FC.4080101@comcast.net>

Courage In Their Coverage

By David Ignatius
Wednesday, December 7, 2005; A25

DUBAI -- Talking with brave Arab journalists such as Hussein Shobokshi, 
I hear the passion that animates good reporting everywhere. And it makes 
me all the more disgusted by recent revelations that my own government 
has been corrupting the nascent Iraqi free press by planting stories.

Shobokshi was fired by the Jiddah daily paper Okaz in 2003 after he 
wrote a column imagining a democratic Saudi future in which his daughter 
could drive, leaders were elected and the budget was public. This June 
he was attacked for writing a column in Asharq al-Awsat titled, "Why Do 
We Hate the Jews?" He described "a very noble and polite" Jewish doctor 
in America who had treated his young nephew for a rare cancer, and he 
asked why Saudis were encouraged "to hate Jews and pray against them, too."

I spent the past few days with Shobokshi and other Arab journalists at a 
conference here sponsored by the Aspen Institute and the Arab Thought 
Foundation. I heard some of the rote criticism of the United States and 
Israel that has given the Arab press a bad name over the years. But far 
more often I heard a new voice of professionalism and accountability 
that is shaping the movement for change in the Arab world.

The best of the Arab journalists are my heroes. They are risking 
imprisonment and death to tell the truth. At a time when U.S. media are 
having an identity crisis, they remind me what the news business is all 
about. I want to describe several of them, so readers will understand 
the energy they are bringing to the Arab debate.

Let me start with Lebanese journalist Samir Kassir, who lost his life 
this year because he refused to trim the facts. Kassir was a columnist 
for the Beirut daily An Nahar who wrote fearlessly about Syria's brutal 
military occupation of Lebanon. Friends warned him of the risks; some 
pleaded with him to stop. But he wouldn't bend, couldn't bend. In June 
he was assassinated.

At a memorial service in Beirut a week later, I stood at the spot where 
a car bomb killed Kassir. All around me, Lebanese journalists held 
candles and sang the national anthem. I will mention just two, who stand 
for dozens of others: my friend Jamil Mroue, editor and publisher of the 
Daily Star, who was early to write and speak honestly about the Syrian 
occupation; and his editorial page editor, Lebanese American Michael 
Young, who has written brilliantly about Syria and Lebanon.

I've met some brave Syrian journalists on several trips to Damascus this 
year. I won't add to the danger by naming them, but I can summarize 
their message: They love their country, and they want political change. 
They remind me of the samizdat writers I met in Moscow a generation ago. 
If Syria's rulers think they can be intimidated into silence, they're wrong.

I visited here with Palestinian journalist Daoud Kuttab, who has been 
arrested by both the Palestinian Authority and the Israelis for trying 
to do his job. Now he's based in Amman, running a wide-open Internet 
radio station for the Arab world, Ammannet.net, and training radio 
journalists from Saudi Arabia.

And there's the new generation of Arab television journalists. Some of 
the best work for al-Arabiya, a satellite news channel created three 
years ago as a competitor to al-Jazeera. When I ask al-Arabiya's general 
manager, Abdul Rahman Rashed, to describe his mission, he keeps 
repeating the same word: "professionalism." Seven al-Arabiya journalists 
have been killed in Iraq, taking fire from both sides as they try to do 
their jobs.

Touring al-Arabiya's studios here, I meet a 28-year-old reporter, Wael 
Essam, who just left Baghdad after three years. He covered the battle of 
Fallujah last year from both sides, behind insurgent lines and as an 
embedded reporter with the U.S. Army, and he has been held captive by 
both sides, too. Known to his colleagues as "Wild Wael," he is pleading 
with his editors to send him back to the war zone. "If I stay in the 
newsroom, I'll die," he tells me.

Against this background of courageous Arab reporters risking everything 
for their journalism, what do I see? The U.S. government has been 
bribing Iraqi newspapers to run "good news" stories about the American 
occupation of Iraq. This at a time when real Iraqi reporters are risking 
their lives to work for The Post and other news organizations in Baghdad 
because they believe in honest journalism. Here's a thought for an 
administration that claims to love freedom and democracy: Let's try 
living our values, rather than just talking about them.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/06/AR2005120601216.html
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Wed Dec  7 02:33:54 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Wed Dec  7 02:47:33 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] The Reimaginator - Harold Meyerson - Washington Post
	Op-Ed
Message-ID: <4396BA92.8070301@comcast.net>

The Reimaginator

By Harold Meyerson
Wednesday, December 7, 2005; A25

Until two weeks ago, George W. Bush and Arnold Schwarzenegger were 
having a remarkably similar, and disastrous, year. Each began 2005 at 
the top of his game -- the president reelected with enhanced 
congressional majorities, the governator boasting an approval rating of 
65 percent. Each then chose to govern well to the right of his 
electorate -- Bush promoting the privatization of Social Security, 
Arnold sponsoring ballot measures that would have cut spending on 
schools and diminished the power of the state's unions. Despite rising 
public discontent, each elected not to alter his course -- Bush refusing 
to scale back his war in Iraq, Arnold declining to cancel California's 
special election and call off his war on the labor movement.

And last month, each experienced unprecedented defeat. In the House, 
Republican moderates opposed the spending cuts backed by Bush and their 
leaders, and California voters rejected all of Schwarzenegger's 
propositions. Today these two once-brightest stars in the Republican 
firmament sputter along with approval ratings in the high thirties.

But in the final days of November, their stories finally diverged. While 
the president admits no errors of policy or judgment, clings to Karl 
Rove, and refuses to dump Donald Rumsfeld for reasons that confound all 
understanding, the governor has gone in for a full-body makeover. In 
rapid succession, he apologized to California voters for having saddled 
them with his special election, hatched a $50 billion-plus bond measure 
that exceeds anything California liberals could have conceived, and 
appointed as his new chief of staff a former director of the state 
Democratic Party and the California Abortion Rights Action League whose 
most recent Sacramento stint was as the top aide to Gov. Gray Davis, 
whom Schwarzenegger unseated in the recall election of 2003.

Even for those accustomed to the malleability of Hollywood identity, the 
rollout of the new Arnold is mind-boggling. After all his talk about 
holding down spending, the governator now says it's time to renew the 
legacy of Pat Brown, the great Democratic governor of the late 1950s and 
early '60s who built the state's freeways, aqueducts and universities. 
It's time, says Arnold, for a mega-bond issue that would fund more 
schools, shore up levees, repave roads and build affordable housing. 
He's still nobody's redistributionist, but the new Arnold apparently, 
and rightly, believes that big government can fuel big growth.

And to push his program through, he has replaced Patricia Clarey, his 
chief of staff, who had worked for former Republican governor Pete 
Wilson, with Susan Kennedy, who was Gray Davis's enforcer. In her 
quarter-century in politics, Kennedy, who began her career as a student 
organizer for Tom Hayden and Jane Fonda's Campaign for Economic 
Democracy, has moved steadily rightward: She backed all of Arnold's 
ballot measures this fall, and as a member of the state's Public 
Utilities Commission since 2003 she has gleefully comforted utilities 
and afflicted consumers. Nonetheless, she's still a registered Democrat, 
and Phil Angelides, the erstwhile state party chairman who hired her to 
run the party back in 1992, is today the state treasurer and Arnold's 
leading opponent in next year's gubernatorial contest. Add to that the 
fact that Kennedy is an open lesbian who exchanged vows with her partner 
in a ceremony on Maui a few years back, and you begin to get some sense 
of why many California Republicans are both stunned and apoplectic.

In the aftermath of his electoral debacle, Schwarzenegger has realized 
that in a state where Democrats outnumber Republicans by more than a 
million voters, and where independents are nearly as liberal as 
Democrats, governing from the right is a prescription for disaster. 
Still, no one courts defeat like rank-and-file California Republicans, 
who'd rather Schwarzenegger be far right than governor and who may back 
a primary challenge to him next spring.

Clearly, the prez and the guv have learned very different lessons from 
life. The distinctive feature of Bush's career, as he moved from one 
floundering oil company to the next, was that there never were any 
negative consequences for failure, that any need to admit error and 
instigate change was always obviated by the willingness of his father's 
friends to bail him out. Schwarzenegger, meanwhile, comes from a culture 
where you're only as good as your last picture, where chins are lifted, 
tummies tucked, scenes reshot and careers reconfigured if the box office 
demands it.

That said, I'm not sure what upsets me more -- Schwarzenegger's makeover 
or Bush's obdurate refusal to change anything. Representative democracy 
requires some consistency of identity in our elected officials, and 
Arnold has become a blur of reinvention. The most corporeal figure in 
American political history has crossed the line from particle to wave, 
while our president is as steadfast, and as open to experience, as a 
bump on a log.

Characterologically, at least, the Republicans might consider a Third Way.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/06/AR2005120601219.html?nav=hcmodule
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Wed Dec  7 02:36:21 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Wed Dec  7 02:50:06 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] It's Not Whether You 'Win' or 'Lose' . . . - Anne
 Applebaum - Washington Post Op-Ed
Message-ID: <4396BB25.7000603@comcast.net>

It's Not Whether You 'Win' or 'Lose' . . .

By Anne Applebaum
Wednesday, December 7, 2005; A25

In recent months it has become common practice to talk about what it 
will take to "win" -- or what it would mean to "lose" -- the war in 
Iraq. Recently the pace of that talk has accelerated. Just last week 
President Bush published a "National Strategy for Victory in Iraq," 
presumably a follow-up to the speech in which he talked of "defeating 
the enemy." Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has also assured Congress 
that "we are not losing this war." Both were responding to politicians 
such as Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel, who worried out loud a few months 
ago that "we're losing in Iraq," as well as the experts who voice the 
opinion, as one did in Foreign Affairs, that "the ongoing war in Iraq is 
not one that the United States can win."

But what if all of this vocabulary -- winning, losing, victory, defeat 
-- is simply misplaced? There are, after all, wars that are not actually 
won or lost. There are wars that achieve some of their goals, that 
result only in partial solutions and that leave much business 
unfinished. There are wars that do not end with helicopters evacuating 
Americans from the embassy roof but that do not produce a victorious 
march into Berlin, either. There are wars that end ambivalently -- wars, 
for example, such as the one we fought in Korea.

I hasten to explain that the comparison between Iraq and Korea does not 
come from nowhere: It has been suggested, implicitly and explicitly, by 
the Bush administration itself. In a speech last year, Vice President 
Cheney spoke of Harry Truman, the president who took us into Korea, as a 
model of "the kind of leadership required to defend freedom in our 
time." Rumsfeld has also pointed out that Truman, like Bush, suffered 
from low popular approval because of the Korean War: "Back then a great 
many people questioned whether young Americans should face death and 
injury in Korea, thousands of miles from home, for a result that seemed 
uncertain at best. And today the answer is the Korean Peninsula."

Well, yes -- but actually it isn't all that clear that "the Korean 
Peninsula" really represents a slam-dunk victory, to use Bush 
administration terminology. Certainly in 1953, when the cease-fire was 
signed, no one thought so. More than 33,000 Americans died -- more than 
15times as many as have died so far in Iraq -- and more than 103,000 
were wounded. Gen. Douglas MacArthur had defined "victory" as "the 
unification of the Korean Peninsula," but in fact the war merely 
preserved the status quo. The South Korean government was independent, 
but too weak to survive without an American military presence. Red 
China, as we then called it, was probably strengthened by the war, as 
was the tyrannical North Korean dictator, Kim Il Sung.

Fifty years later, the picture is indeed more nuanced: South Korea is a 
democracy, an economic success, and proof that it was right to fight 
communism and prevent it from spreading. And yet North Korea, which we 
didn't manage to push back, not only remains one of the world's most 
repressive and paranoid dictatorships but has also become a nuclear 
power that poses a continuing threat to its neighbors. Good things came 
out of the war. Bad things came out of the war as well.

Iraq is not Korea, of course, and the Middle East is not Asia. But it is 
perfectly possible that the two conflicts might eventually resemble one 
another in the ambivalence of their conclusions. Although both the 
administration and its antiwar opponents speak as if there must be an 
either/or solution for Iraq -- either democracy or Islamic fascism -- it 
is perfectly possible that we end up with both. We may indeed create the 
first truly democratic Arab regime, with independent media, real 
elections and a relatively liberal political culture. But we may also, 
simultaneously, strengthen al Qaeda and its radical Islamic allies, in 
Iraq and the entire region. We may create a more entrepreneurial, 
globally integrated Iraq that can inspire economic reform throughout the 
Middle East. We may also create a deep well of international 
anti-American resentment that hampers our ability to conduct everything 
from trade negotiations to counterintelligence for decades to come.

It is even possible, in the end, that we really will help bring into 
existence a new generation of democratic Arab reformers across the 
Middle East -- and that we will need to keep troops in the region for 
five decades to defend them. Would such an outcome mean the war was a 
"defeat"? Not necessarily. Would it mean the war was a "victory"? Not 
exactly. Can we, the nation that invented the Hollywood happy ending, 
live with such a conclusion? Hard to imagine, but we might not have a 
choice.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/06/AR2005120601217.html?nav=hcmodule
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Wed Dec  7 02:40:35 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Wed Dec  7 02:53:33 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Uncle Sam wants you - Alan Khazei,
	Michael Brown - Boston Globe Op-Ed
Message-ID: <4396BC23.9040205@comcast.net>


  Uncle Sam wants you

By Alan Khazei and Michael Brown  |  December 7, 2005  |  The Boston Globe

OUR TIMES have been dramatically altered by two defining events: the 
tragedy of Sept. 11 and Hurricane Katrina.

A prescription for these times has roots in the nation's successful 
response to the crises of the last century. The GI Bill was an enormous 
success: Between 1945 and 1956, more than 8 million returning veterans 
received debt-free educations, low-interest mortgages, and 
small-business loans, making the United States, in the words of one 
historian, ''the predominantly middle-class nation it had always 
believed itself to be."

It is time for a new call to service to meet the pressing needs of the 
nation, reinvigorate American citizenship, and provide access to the 
American dream.

Our nation needs universal, voluntary national service -- the 
expectation that everyone should serve and the opportunity for everyone 
to do so -- linked to a new GI Bill that dramatically changes the life 
prospects of those who serve in the military and those who serve in our 
neediest schools and neighborhoods.

Service to the nation -- whether in the armed services or a civilian 
service corps -- should become a defining emblem of the United States 
and a civic rite of passage for all young Americans. The most commonly 
asked question of an 18-year-old should be: ''Where will you do your 
citizen service? The Army or AmeriCorps? The Marines or the National 
Civilian Community Corps? The Navy or the Peace Corps?"

A new GI Bill could make this promise to every young American: ''If you 
invest in your country, your country will invest in you. For every year 
you serve, America guarantees a year of tuition at a qualifying college, 
makes a down payment toward your first home, or provides a voucher to 
start a business, nonprofit organization, or IRA." Military service, 
which demands greater sacrifice, would garner higher benefits, but all 
who serve should be rewarded.

There is a new generation ready to build a stronger America. Recent 
research has shown that 9/11 was a transformational event for 18- to 
24-year-olds: They have a significantly higher civic commitment. The 
tragedies of that day inspired a sharp increase in applications to the 
military, the Peace Corps, and AmeriCorps.

Over 16 years, led by three successive presidents, America has built a 
strong civilian national service system, which is now ready to be 
brought to scale. George H.W. Bush established the Commission on 
National and Community Service and the Points of Light Foundation. Bill 
Clinton created the Corporation for National and Community Service and 
AmeriCorps. George W. Bush launched the USA Freedom Corps and expanded 
AmeriCorps and the Peace Corps.

National service has had a profound impact on America. AmeriCorps has 
enabled more than 400,000 citizens to serve with more than 2,500 
nonprofit and faith-based organizations. These leaders have built 
affordable homes, helped thousands of children to read, provided 
millions of hours of after-school programs, reduced gang involvement, 
transformed blighted lots into community gardens and playgrounds, served 
as role models to children at risk, and generated millions of hours of 
service by the volunteers they recruit. A cost-benefit study of 
AmeriCorps determined that every federal dollar invested results in at 
least $1.60 to $2.60 in direct, measurable benefits. It is time for a 
dramatic increase in AmeriCorps, from 75,000 annually to 1 million 
strong, a domestic force against poverty and hopelessness.

Around the world, over four decades, more than 175,000 Americans have 
served in the Peace Corps. However, the 7,700 currently in service are a 
far cry from President John F. Kennedy's vision of 100,000 ''citizen 
ambassadors." It is time to reach that goal.

Both military and civilian service provide young Americans with an 
opportunity to work side by side across lines of race and class. 
Expanding and uniting military and civilian service under one GI Bill 
can further close the gap between military and civilian cultures. At its 
widest during the Vietnam War era, this gap has diminished since 9/11. 
It is time to close it altogether.

A system that unites military and civilian service, launched with a new 
''Uncle Sam wants you!" campaign, should offer one-stop recruitment 
centers in colleges, malls, neighborhood store fronts, and online. ROTC 
should be restored to all campuses and its mission expanded to prepare 
young leaders for military and civilian service. A US Civic Leadership 
Academy should develop civilian leaders just as the four major military 
academies prepare the leaders of our armed forces.

Every generation can be the ''greatest generation" -- if only it is 
called to serve a cause larger than self. Nothing could be more 
American, or more invigorating to the very idea of America.

Alan Khazei and Michael Brown are cofounders of City Year.  

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/12/07/uncle_sam_wants_you/
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Wed Dec  7 02:44:04 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Wed Dec  7 02:57:11 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] SHOULD READ: Invisible integrity - Derrick Z. Jackson -
 Boston Globe Op-Ed
Message-ID: <4396BCF4.2090201@comcast.net>


  Invisible integrity

By Derrick Z. Jackson  |  December 7, 2005  |  The Boston Globe

WE WERE promised transparent dignity. We got the invisible dungeon.

All during the 2000 presidential campaign, George W. Bush and Dick 
Cheney leaped all over President Clinton's sexual controversies. ''We 
want to restore honor and integrity to the White House," Bush said. 
Cheney echoed, ''It is absolutely essential for us to do whatever has to 
be done to restore honor and integrity to the Oval Office."

It was a refrain that Senator John McCain used himself in the Republican 
primaries. When he was beaten into submission by Bush, McCain said, ''My 
primary reason for endorsing Governor Bush is based less on policy than 
it is principle. Quite simply, I believe that he is our best hope to end 
the Clinton-Gore era and restore honor and integrity back to the White 
House."

By the end of his third debate against Al Gore, Bush went so far as to 
mix church with his stated pledge. ''Should I be fortunate to become 
your president, when I put my hand on the Bible, I will swear to not 
only uphold the laws of the land, but I will also swear to uphold the 
honor and dignity of the office to which I have been elected, so help me 
God."

What America did not know at the time or chose not to believe was which 
part of the Bible Bush would emphasize. It must have been Psalm 115. 
That passage says, ''They have mouths, but they cannot speak; eyes have 
they, but they cannot see. They have ears, but they cannot hear; noses, 
but they cannot smell. They have hands, but they cannot feel; feet but 
they cannot walk; They make no sound with their throat."

That would certainly explain prisoners held without charge for years, 
ghost detainees, CIA secret prisons, the prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib, 
and beatings and dog attacks in immigration detention centers on our 
soil. This week, National Public Radio broadcast a gut-wrenching feature 
on Richard Rust, an immigrant detainee who died last year at the federal 
prison in Oakdale, La. According to witnesses, Rust collapsed but did 
not receive medical attention for 20 minutes. The ambulance did not 
arrive for another 20 minutes.

Besides the death, which prisoner rights advocates say could constitute 
''deliberate indifference" and thus cruel and unusual punishment, 
current and former detainees talked about daily dehumanization such as 
being called boy and being told to go back where they came from. They 
said that the day after Rust's death, guards swept up friends of Rust 
and put them in windowless punishment cells for up to three months. They 
said they were intimidated by staff not to talk about Rust.

It all adds up to why the members of the 9/11 Commission this week gave 
the Bush administration an F for coalition detention standards, saying, 
''The US has not engaged in a common coalition approach to developing 
standards for detention and prosecution of captured terrorists. Indeed, 
US treatment of detainees has elicited broad criticism and makes it 
harder to build the necessary alliances to cooperate effectively with 
partners in a global war on terror." It was one of 17 F's or D's the 
bipartisan commissioners gave the administration for its responses to 
9/11. It awarded no A's and just one A-minus -- for shutting down 
funding of terrorist networks.

This is despite Bush's demand for transparency from the North Koreas, 
the Cubas, and the Irans of the world. In 2002, he said; ''People who 
love freedom understand that we cannot allow nations that aren't 
transparent, nations with a terrible history, nations that are so 
dictatorial they're willing to starve their people, we can't allow them 
to mate up with terrorist organizations." The current reports of secret 
prisons come a year and a half after Bush promised tough investigations 
over Abu Ghraib. ''Here in America, in our system," Bush said, ''the 
judicial process will be fully transparent."

The only thing transparent about the administration are its excuses. 
This week, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice neither confirmed nor 
denied the existence of secret prisons in Europe for terror suspects. 
All she said was that intelligence gathered from interrogations has 
''saved European lives." Typical of the administration, she offered no 
proof how.

You would expect no proof from an administration that deceived the world 
about weapons of mass destruction, has not punished higher-ups for the 
prisoner abuse, and had Vice President Dick Cheney leading the fight to 
have the CIA declared exempt from laws banning torture. For four years 
of the so-called war on terror, Bush promised transparency. You can see 
right through him.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/12/07/invisible_integrity/
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From michael at intrafi.com  Wed Dec  7 09:35:44 2005
From: michael at intrafi.com (michael@intrafi.com)
Date: Wed Dec  7 09:46:15 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] FT.com / Comment & analysis / Comment - US needs to talk
	about the weather
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From drmhaatma at yahoo.com  Tue Dec  6 19:37:38 2005
From: drmhaatma at yahoo.com (Mha Atma Khalsa)
Date: Wed Dec  7 09:49:22 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] The GOP's Roe Gamble
Message-ID: <E1Ek3Fq-0001z1-Dz@smtpauth06.mail.atl.earthlink.net>

      
  The GOP's Roe Gamble
  Froma Harrop
  December 06, 2005
  
  http://www.tompaine.com/articles/20051206/the_gops_roe_gamble.php 
  

              
  
  Froma Harrop is a syndicated columnist at the Providence Journal.
  
  ?More tears are shed over answered prayers than unanswered prayers,?  Truman Capote wrote, quoting St. Teresa. As Republicans push a Supreme  Court nominee who plotted to overturn Roe v. Wade , the long quest to  end the constitutional right to abortion could become a social reality.
  
  But there?s also a political reality, and it has made some far-seeing  Republicans fearful: The striking down of Roe v. Wade would be one of  the worst things that ever happened to the Republican Party.
  
  Rep. Tom Davis, the Virginia Republican who in 2002 helped expand his  party?s majority in the House, spoke to this point. If the Supreme  Court overturns Roe, he said recently, ?you?re going to have a lot of  very nervous suburban candidates.?? He was talking about Republican  candidates.
  
  I wouldn?t want to be a Republican politician the day suburban mothers  learn there?s no legal way to end their 16-year-old daughter?s unwanted  pregnancy. Republicans err in assuming that, on this subject, mothers  in the old suburbs differ greatly from mothers in the new exurbs.
  
  Republicans have long talked up the exurbs as their ticket to permanent  power. The outer suburbs, they hold, are where good middle-class  families go to escape high taxes, urban immorality and Democrats. These  areas have seen explosive growth in recent years.
  
  Such complacency appears premature. In the recent governor?s race in  Virginia, Democrat Timothy Kaine defeated Republican Jerry Kilgore.  Republicans had expected to lose the fairly liberal suburbs right  outside Washington, D.C., but they thought they owned the exurbs. They  did not. Both Prince William and Loudoun counties, thought to be in the  Republican bag, went for the Democrat. One reason was Kilgore?s  anti-abortion stand, which Kaine attacked.  
  
  The Republican party's increasing hostility toward abortion rights has  already cost it the posh and formerly Republican suburbs near New York,  Seattle, Philadelphia and other big cities. And these are people who  did royally well with the Bush tax cuts. Even super-rich Greenwich,  Conn.?home of Prescott Bush, the president?s grandfather and a U.S.  senator?gave Bush only 55 percent of its vote. The rest of wealthy  Fairfield County supported Kerry by a wide margin. 
  
  Ask people there why they deserted the Republican Party, and they will  cite its abortion policy as one of the chief irritants. Bring up such  specifics as Bush?s executive order denying federal funds to  international family-planning groups that offer abortion, and they turn  purple with apoplexy. Small wonder that Christopher Shays, the moderate  Republican representing Fairfield County, hails Roe as ?an  extraordinarily important document.?
  
  Once reliably Republican, New Hampshire has become a swing state  because of such issues as abortion. Even the Republicans there tend to  be fiscally conservative but socially moderate. Libertarianism runs  strong, as does support for keeping abortion legal. The Supreme Court  is now hearing a challenge to a New Hampshire law requiring parental  notification for minors seeking an abortion. The issue is the absence  in the law of an exception to preserve the health of the woman, as  required by Roe . In 2004, the voters retaliated, booting three of the  law?s four sponsors out of the state legislature.
  
  Many Americans do say they want more restrictions on abortion. But the  easier actions, such as laws calling for parental notification and  24-hour waiting periods, have already been taken. Congress voted in  2003 to ban nearly all late-term abortions. (Several courts have  declared it unconstitutional mainly because it doesn?t include a health  exception.)
  
  The next step would be overturning Roe itself, and here the support  crumbles. During the Supreme Court nomination of John Roberts, a poll  showed that 65 percent of Americans wanted the new chief justice to  uphold Roe.
  
  As for the issue in general, an ABC/Washington Post poll found that  only 17 percent of respondents backed a total ban on abortion. Over  half, 55 percent, wanted abortion kept legal in all or most cases, with  most of the others calling for new restrictions. 
  
  Even a majority of Republicans are pro-choice. The Republican  organization supporting abortion rights calls itself The Republican  Majority for Choice.
  
  For most Americans, the restrictions on abortion have so far limited  the freedom only of others. For example, a law forbids abortions in  military hospitals. That creates a world of complications for female  soldiers fighting in countries where local hospitals don?t perform  abortions. But women in Pittsburgh, Omaha or Dallas could always obtain  safe abortions at local hospitals.
  
  An overturn of Roe would send the matter of abortion down to the  states. Probably 21 states would ban abortion, according to a study by  the Center for Reproductive Rights. Of course, well-to-do women in  these states could fly to California or New York for the procedure. My  guess is that the imposition would make them hopping mad.   
  
  The tea leaves don?t tell us how Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito  would vote on Roe v. Wade. Yes, he said in a 1985 application for a  post in the Reagan Justice Department that ?the Constitution does not  guarantee a right to an abortion.? And as a Justice Department lawyer,  he offered advice on how to get rid of Roe. But Alito now says that he  holds great respect for precedent. Roe has been around for 30 years.  And he recently assured Sen. Arlen Specter, the pro-choice Pennsylvania  Republican who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, that his personal  feelings about abortion would not interfere with his rulings. In sum,  we have no way of knowing what Alito would do.
  
  But the day can?t be far off when a Supreme Court with whoever replaces  Sandra Day O?Connor again passes judgment on Roe v. Wade . If it  upholds the law, anti-abortion activists will feel vast frustration,  while Republican strategists will take secret gasps of relief.
  
  If the law goes down, then the multitudes who took the right to  abortion for granted will seek revenge at the polls. And a lot of  Republicans will be shedding tears because they got what they said they  wanted.
  
  
  

			
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From activist at democrats.com  Wed Dec  7 05:12:52 2005
From: activist at democrats.com (Democrats.com)
Date: Wed Dec  7 12:00:25 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] End Torture Committed in America's Name
Message-ID: <20051207081252.281070@democrats.com>

HTML Message - End Torture Committed in America's Name
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From hecate at diamonddragon.com  Wed Dec  7 13:29:12 2005
From: hecate at diamonddragon.com (Hecate)
Date: Wed Dec  7 13:39:31 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] BBC E-mail: Bush and Blair slated by Pinter
Message-ID: <20051207_212912_031599.hecate@diamonddragon.com>

Hecate saw this story on BBC News Online and thought you
should see it.



** Bush and Blair slated by Pinter **
Politicians must be held to account for telling "a vast tapestry of lies" about the Iraq war, Harold Pinter says.
< http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/2/hi/entertainment/4505874.stm >


** BBC Daily E-mail **
Choose the news and sport headlines you want - when you want them, all
in one daily e-mail
< http://www.bbc.co.uk/dailyemail/ >


** Disclaimer **
The BBC is not responsible for the content of this e-mail, and anything written in this e-mail does not necessarily reflect the BBC's views or opinions. Please note that neither the e-mail address nor name of the sender have?been verified.

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From hecate at diamonddragon.com  Wed Dec  7 13:29:44 2005
From: hecate at diamonddragon.com (Hecate)
Date: Wed Dec  7 13:40:04 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] BBC E-mail: US 'shifts' position on torture
Message-ID: <20051207_212944_084133.hecate@diamonddragon.com>

Hecate saw this story on BBC News Online and thought you
should see it.



** US 'shifts' position on torture **
Condoleezza Rice says the UN treaty on torture applies to US interrogators both in the US and abroad.
< http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/2/hi/americas/4506682.stm >


** BBC Daily E-mail **
Choose the news and sport headlines you want - when you want them, all
in one daily e-mail
< http://www.bbc.co.uk/dailyemail/ >


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From hecate at diamonddragon.com  Wed Dec  7 13:30:31 2005
From: hecate at diamonddragon.com (Hecate)
Date: Wed Dec  7 13:40:50 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] BBC E-mail: US says N Korea 'criminal regime'
Message-ID: <20051207_213031_071880.hecate@diamonddragon.com>

Hecate saw this story on BBC News Online and thought you
should see it.



** US says N Korea 'criminal regime' **
A senior US diplomat calls North Korea a "criminal regime" involved in drug trafficking and forgery.
< http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/2/hi/asia-pacific/4505960.stm >


** BBC Daily E-mail **
Choose the news and sport headlines you want - when you want them, all
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< http://www.bbc.co.uk/dailyemail/ >


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From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Wed Dec  7 13:46:57 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (mblaxill@yahoo.com)
Date: Wed Dec  7 13:57:16 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Headlines for December 7, 2005
Message-ID: <20051207214657.11153.qmail@trinity.democracynow.org>

Mike Blaxill  ( mblaxill@yahoo.com )
sent you this story from democracynow.org



+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
|  Headlines for December 7, 2005
|  http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/07/1519220
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+


- Government Fails to Convict Palestinian Professor on Terror Charges 
- German Citizen Files Rendition Lawsuit Against US 
- Rice Secures New Military Base in Romania 
- Tehran Plane Crash Kills Over 110 People 
- US Security Consultant Kidnapped in Iraq 
- Hundreds of Families Flee US Offensive in Ramadi 
This story continues at: 
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/07/1519220

From Robert_Scheer at lb.bcentral.com  Wed Dec  7 05:47:55 2005
From: Robert_Scheer at lb.bcentral.com (RobertScheer.com)
Date: Wed Dec  7 14:17:39 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Today's Robert Scheer column
Message-ID: <E1Ek7RD-0007Qr-8l@smtpauth04.mail.atl.earthlink.net>

Sent at your request from www.robertscheer.com 

Don't forget to visit Robert Scheer's spanking-new Web site, Truthdig.com!

                                   * * * 

Right's Claim to Moral High Ground Exposed as Fraud 

December 7, 2005 -- Call it Tonto's revenge: The outrageous rip-off of Native American tribes by a top Republican lobbyist is leading inexorably to a reckoning for the allegedly morally superior religious and political right. 

"I don't think we have had something of this scope, arrogance and sheer venality in our lifetimes," Norman J. Ornstein, of the conservative American Enterprise Institute, wrote in Roll Call. "It is building to an explosion, one that could create immense collateral damage within Congress and in coming elections." 

Selling firewater to the natives ?- or in this case charging them $82 million for government breaks on slot machine and other gaming licenses ?- is not exactly what the high-minded prophets of the Republican revolution promised. And to see behind the scenes as Christian right superstar Ralph Reed, bought off by top Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff, dupes his grassroots "pro-family" followers into unwittingly supporting casino-rich Indian tribes under the guise of anti-gambling initiatives, is to glimpse moral corruption of biblical proportion. 

Reed, now a Republican candidate for lieutenant governor in Georgia, at first denied knowing the $4 million he acknowledges receiving from Abramoff and his closet associate, public-relations expert Michael Scanlon, to run the pseudo anti-gambling campaigns in the South came from tribes hoping to retain local monopolies for themselves. Once the investigation picked up steam this past summer, however, he changed his mind and said he was assured that the tribal money didn't come directly from casino proceeds ?- a hair-splitting attempt at face-saving ethics, indeed, since the goal of the payments was so clearly to benefit the casinos. 

Furthermore, the release of a treasure trove of documentation on the Abramoff investigation to the Internet by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., chair of the Senate's Indian Affairs Committee, makes it clear that Abramoff and his colleagues had no interest in the finer points of morality when they were transferring huge sums of cash from the tribes to the accounts of such allegedly high-minded heavyweight pro-Republican outfits as Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform. 

"This town has become very corrupt, there's no doubt about it,'' McCain said Sunday on "Meet the Press," adding that he expects "lots" of indictments and that there is "strong evidence" of "significant wrongdoing" by some legislators. 

Reading the documents, in fact, is a horrifying look at democracy for sale. For example, an Abramoff e-mail to Reed about a conversation the lobbyist had with Nell Rogers, a Choctaw representative: "Spoke with Nell. They have a budget issue. They want to know if we can get through to October on $1 million. Can we? If not, let me know." 

In response, Reed lays out what it costs, in very precise amounts, to kill legislation on Capitol Hill to favor of a wealthy entity: "I believe [$1 million will be enough]. If we can kill it in the House [,] definitely. If it goes to the Senate, the worst case scenario is what the pro-family groups spent to defeat video poker and the lottery -- each about $1.3 million. . . . We will be doing all we can to raise money from national anti-gambling groups, Christian CEOs and national pro-family groups." 

Overall, both Reed, once the religious right's boy savior, and Abramoff, the former head of the College Republicans, a "pioneer"-grade fundraiser for President Bush, and a stalwart friend of Texas Rep. Tom DeLay, come off as morally degenerate political savants in the Senate committee's files. Reed seems possessed by the gods of greed as he exults, "I need to start humping in corporate accounts!" 

But Abramoffgate goes much higher than these two political pimps. In those e-mails between Abramoff and Scanlon, it is clear that they trafficked in their ties to DeLay and others in the Republican leadership. As the Washington Post reported, Abramoff "cultivated a reputation as the best-connected Republican lobbyist in Washington," and it was not a false claim. DeLay, who referred to Abramoff as "one of my closest and dearest friends," received no fewer than three free golf trips to Scotland from Abramoff, among other payoffs. 

Both DeLay and Abramoff are under indictment for charges in other cases but not, as of yet, this one. Scanlon has already pleaded guilty to conspiring with Abramoff to defraud various Indian tribes and bribe government officials. Former White House official David Safavian has been indicted for lying about his ties to Abramoff. The bet now is that Abramoff will also cop a plea bargain instead of spending many years in jail and paying even larger fines than the $19.7 million Scanlon has accepted. 

If so, more depressing tales of corruption may be detailed publicly. But what is already clear is that the Republicans' reputation for moral superiority is as dead as the Lone Ranger. 


E-mail Robert Scheer at rscheer@truthdig.com 

Copyright 2005 Robert Scheer 

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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Wed Dec  7 14:30:58 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Wed Dec  7 14:41:27 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Not Guilty Verdicts in Florida Terror Trial
	Are Setback for U.S.
Message-ID: <20051207223058.812263AE536@lax-gw06.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: ialterman@nyc.rr.com.

NATIONAL / THREATS AND RESPONSES | December 7, 2005
Not Guilty Verdicts in Florida Terror Trial Are Setback for U.S.
By ERIC LICHTBLAU
A former professor and three co-defendants were acquitted on a number of charges in a major defeat for federal law enforcement.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/07/national/nationalspecial3/07verdict.html?emc=eta1



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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Wed Dec  7 14:31:28 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Wed Dec  7 14:41:51 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Rice Is Challenged in Europe Over Secret
	Prisons
Message-ID: <20051207223128.09AC613B747@lax-gw04.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: ialterman@nyc.rr.com.

INTERNATIONAL / EUROPE | December 7, 2005
Rice Is Challenged in Europe Over Secret Prisons
By JOEL BRINKLEY
The secretary of state declined to answer most of the questions concerning covert prisons and a mistaken, secret arrest. 
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/07/international/europe/07rice.html?emc=eta1



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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Wed Dec  7 14:32:18 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Wed Dec  7 14:42:38 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Skepticism Seems to Erode Europeans' Faith
	in Rice
Message-ID: <20051207223218.CF65B11F9AB@lax-gw07.mroute.net>

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Is it too much to hope that U.S. foreign policy is falling apart at the seams? Peace.


INTERNATIONAL / EUROPE | December 7, 2005
Skepticism Seems to Erode Europeans' Faith in Rice
By RICHARD BERNSTEIN
It would be hard to imagine a more sudden and thorough tarnishing of the Bush administration's credibility.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/07/international/europe/07react.html?emc=eta1



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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Wed Dec  7 14:33:01 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Wed Dec  7 14:43:21 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Syria Attacks Evidence as U.N. Case Turns
	More Bizarre
Message-ID: <20051207223301.EB68613B813@lax-gw04.mroute.net>

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INTERNATIONAL / MIDDLE EAST | December 7, 2005
Syria Attacks Evidence as U.N. Case Turns More Bizarre
By MICHAEL SLACKMAN
The inquiry of the assassination of the ex-Lebanese premier is beginning to show some cracks.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/07/international/middleeast/07syria.html?emc=eta1



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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Wed Dec  7 14:34:45 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Wed Dec  7 14:45:04 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Hussein, at Lectern,
	Delivers Diatribe About U.S. and His Prison Treatment
Message-ID: <20051207223445.2A76911F8D7@lax-gw07.mroute.net>

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I'm beginning to like this guy (sort of)... True, he committed an atrocity or two against his own people. But it is equally true that this trial is a farce in as much as it would not even be happening if we had not invaded a sovereign country in an unprovoked, aggressive, pre-emptive manner... Think about that. Peace.


INTERNATIONAL / MIDDLE EAST | December 7, 2005
Hussein, at Lectern, Delivers Diatribe About U.S. and His Prison Treatment
By ROBERT F. WORTH and JOHN F. BURNS
His notes spread before him, Saddam Hussein excoriated America for running "a theatrical play which they call a trial."
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/07/international/middleeast/07saddam.html?emc=eta1



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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Wed Dec  7 14:35:38 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Wed Dec  7 14:45:57 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: White House and McCain Near Deal on Torture
Message-ID: <20051207223538.8658A3AE56D@lax-gw06.mroute.net>

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The very premise of this is bizarre: how does one make "deals" re torture? Peace.


WASHINGTON | December 7, 2005
White House and McCain Near Deal on Torture
By ERIC SCHMITT and DAVID E. SANGER
The White House has all but abandoned its effort to persuade Senator John McCain to exempt C.I.A. employees.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/07/politics/07mccain.html?emc=eta1



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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Wed Dec  7 14:36:23 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Wed Dec  7 14:46:42 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Governor's Relative Is Big Contract Winner
Message-ID: <20051207223623.667F23AE52D@lax-gw06.mroute.net>

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A sticky wicket at best... Peace.


NATIONAL / NATIONAL SPECIAL | December 7, 2005
Governor's Relative Is Big Contract Winner
By ERIC LIPTON
A relative of the Mississippi governor is one of the biggest Mississippi-based winners of federal contracts for Hurricane Katrina recovery efforts.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/07/national/nationalspecial/07barbour.html?emc=eta1



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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Wed Dec  7 14:39:58 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Wed Dec  7 14:50:17 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Gesture From Venezuela Heats the Bronx
Message-ID: <20051207223958.4B17511F9C6@lax-gw07.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: ialterman@nyc.rr.com.

If I ever need a PR firm, I'm hiring the one that Chavez/Venezuela is using: for a guy the administration tried to oust in a failed coup, he is doing an amazing job of garnering goodwill over here. Note, by the way, that it is probably no coincidence that this was the only headline that did not appear on the Metro headlines list on the web: I had to actually search for it, despite the fact that it was bigger and more important than some of the other "headlines." Peace.


NEW YORK REGION | December 7, 2005
Gesture From Venezuela Heats the Bronx
By MANNY FERNANDEZ and JUAN FORERO
In a gesture combining generosity and high theater, a subsidiary of Venezuela's state-owned oil company will offer discounts to low-income residents in the Bronx.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/07/nyregion/07heat.html?emc=eta1



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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Wed Dec  7 14:42:49 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Wed Dec  7 14:53:11 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: In Mongolia, an 'Extinction Crisis' Looms
Message-ID: <20051207224249.4911C24AF8B@lax-gw02.mroute.net>

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SCIENCE | December 6, 2005
In Mongolia, an 'Extinction Crisis' Looms
By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD
Wildlife is dwindling under relentless siege by overhunting and excessive trade in skins and other animal products.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/06/science/06WILD.html?emc=eta1



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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Wed Dec  7 14:43:02 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Wed Dec  7 14:53:21 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Scientists Say Recovery of the Ozone Layer
	May Take Longer Than Expected
Message-ID: <20051207224302.6F2E583DD3@lax-gw03.mroute.net>

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SCIENCE | December 7, 2005
Scientists Say Recovery of the Ozone Layer May Take Longer Than Expected
By KENNETH CHANG
Until now, the ozone layer had been expected to return to its 1980 condition by 2050.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/07/science/07ozone.html?emc=eta1



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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Wed Dec  7 14:43:21 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Wed Dec  7 14:53:42 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Secretary Rice's Rendition
Message-ID: <20051207224321.EB7D5237237@lax-gw01.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: ialterman@nyc.rr.com.

OPINION | December 7, 2005
Editorial: Secretary Rice's Rendition

Condoleezza Rice is in no position to convince the world that the United States has not, does not and will not torture prisoners.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/07/opinion/07wed1.html?emc=eta1




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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Wed Dec  7 14:43:51 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Wed Dec  7 14:54:14 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Senator Clinton, in Pander Mode
Message-ID: <20051207224351.934589FBB9@lax-gw05.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: ialterman@nyc.rr.com.

She just lost any support I might have given her. This is outrageous!


OPINION | December 7, 2005
Senator Clinton, in Pander Mode

Hillary Clinton's decision to co-sponsor a bill to criminalize the burning of the American flag should be seen as pandering.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/07/opinion/07wed2.html?emc=eta1




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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Wed Dec  7 14:45:40 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Wed Dec  7 14:56:19 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Don't Marginalize the United Nations (2
	Letters)
Message-ID: <20051207224540.66FD2249E17@lax-gw08.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: ialterman@nyc.rr.com.

What we're saying...


OPINION | December 7, 2005
Don't Marginalize the United Nations (2 Letters)

To the Editor:.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/07/opinion/l07un.html?emc=eta1




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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Wed Dec  7 14:46:49 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Wed Dec  7 14:57:13 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Of Christmas and Commerce (4 Letters)
Message-ID: <20051207224649.447F1249DA1@lax-gw08.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: ialterman@nyc.rr.com.

What we're saying (2), as follow-up to the article sent yesterday. Watch for my Op-Ed response 9via civic) in the next 24 hours (though I seriously doubt it will be published by the NYT). Peace.


OPINION | December 7, 2005
Of Christmas and Commerce (4 Letters)

To the Editor:.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/07/opinion/l07christmas.html?emc=eta1




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From grgolsorkhi at earthlink.net  Wed Dec  7 10:20:19 2005
From: grgolsorkhi at earthlink.net (Golsorkhi)
Date: Wed Dec  7 15:50:06 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] FW: Must Read Report !
In-Reply-To: <550E95DB-EE1D-48E0-B9C0-E0BEF7A49996@thesamiis.com>
Message-ID: <E1Ek8sr-0006bN-0g@smtpauth04.mail.atl.earthlink.net>


------ Forwarded Message
From: Samii Shahla <shahla@thesamiis.com>
Date: Thu, 1 Dec 2005 15:39:45 -0500
Subject: Must Read Report !


Launch Regional Initiatives

By Michael Rubin, Alex Alexiev, Christopher Brown, Caroline B. Glick, Lt.
Gen. Tom McInerney, USAF (Ret.), Kenneth R. Timmerman, Maj. Gen. Paul E.
Vallely, USAF (Ret.)
Posted: Wednesday, November 30, 2005

PAPERS AND STUDIES
War Footing: 10 Steps America Must Take to Prevail in the War for the Free
World? 
Publication Date: November 30, 2005




A. Defend and Foster Freedom in the Middle East and Its Periphery

Any discussion of regional initiatives against terrorism must begin with the
Middle East. Unlike some recent discussions of the Middle East, however,
this will not be a list of potential targets for hypothetical American
military strikes. Instead, it is designed to provide a truly strategic
examination of the threat we face from several of the regimes in this
general region and the framework for applying the political warfare strategy
outlined in Step 8.

A comprehensive history of this region, or even a proper examination of the
current social, political, and religious situation there, is well outside
the scope of this book. However, the brief overview provided here concerning
the most strategically important states in the region and nearby should
suffice for the current purpose: to help Americans understand the imperative
to place our country on a true War Footing and how to prevail in the current
global conflict.

Iran

It is surprising to most terrorism experts that, even after four years of a
global war on terror, there has yet to be any serious national debate about
the need and the means to confront Iran. Consider the following:
* Prior to the attacks of September 11, 2001, Iran was responsible for the
deaths of more than fifteen hundred Americans--more than any other state
sponsor of terror or terrorist organization in history.[1]
* The U.S. Department of State has designated the government of Iran as the
?the most active state sponsor of terrorism.?[2]
*  According to press accounts, a report by the Israeli secret service
estimates that Iran has ?invested more than $10 million to encourage
terrorist activity against Israel.?[3]
*  Iran is responsible for developing Hezbollah in Lebanon, contributing
training, equipment, funds, and political support. Hezbollah is by far the
best organized and best developed terrorist organization in the world and
the only such organization that exercises physical control over an
international border (between Lebanon and Israel). Hezbollah has, moreover,
followed in the footsteps of its Iranian patrons in developing strategic
ties with Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and others in Latin America (see Part C
of this step).
* There are many indicators that Iran is connected to al-Qaeda, both
ideologically--despite their religious differences, they share a commitment
to radicalized political Islam--and operationally.
* Finally, there is the matter of Iran?s acquisition of nuclear weapons and
ballistic missiles.
?Death to America?

The birth of the current Iranian regime is best remembered by Americans for
the sacking of the U.S. embassy in Tehran and the subsequent hostage crisis
that occurred early in the 1979 revolution. The new president of Iran,
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was in fact one of the leaders of the student group
responsible for seizing our embassy.

It is often forgotten, however, that the Iranian revolution was originally
composed of three factions: the democratic nationalists; the Soviet-backed
Marxists; and the Islamists, inspired by the radical Shi?ite Ayatollah
Ruhollah Khomeini. The democratic forces were quickly marginalized and then
violently eliminated by the joint forces of the Marxists and the
Islamists--and soon afterward, the Islamists did the same to the Marxist
forces. Hence, what began as a broad-based revolution comprising many
factions morphed into ?the Islamic revolution.? Its transformation and
success have become inspirations for Islamist movements around the world,
including Sunni variants such as al-Qaeda.

Triumph of the Jihadists

Khomeini soon put into place his ideology of Velayat-e Faqih (?Governance of
the Jurist?). In practice, this meant that the supreme leader (then
Khomeini, currently Ayatollah Khamenei) would exercise absolute control of
the Iranian government (see Figure 1). Iranian elections include only
candidates preapproved by the supreme leader, through the Council of
Guardians; claims of democracy in Iran are a sham.

The direct exercise of power by the clerical leaders of Iran is in fact
heretical to the teachings of traditional Shi?a Islam. For this reason,
Khomeini created a program to spread his own version of Islamist ideology,
and to impose it on others using violence in the form of terrorism. This
instrument enabled the regime first to consolidate power within Iran and
then to seek power elsewhere, beginning with Lebanon.

Iran in Lebanon. In April 1983, an Iranian intelligence operative named Imad
Mugniyeh organized an attack that blew up the U.S. embassy in Lebanon,
killing 63 people. In October of the same year, Mugniyeh orchestrated
another suicide truck attack, this time targeting the Marine barracks
housing part of the U.S. peacekeeping contingent, killing 241 U.S.
servicemen.[4] Almost simultaneously, another truck bomb exploded at the
headquarters of French paratroopers.[5] A third suicide truck attack,
against the Italian headquarters, was apparently thwarted by the dispersal
of Italian forces.[6]

Interestingly, the use of simultaneous attacks was a signature technique of
Mugniyeh (and the Iranian-backed Hezbollah terrorist organizations)
throughout the 1980s; only later, beginning with the attack on U.S.
embassies in East Africa in 1998, did the technique become associated with
al-Qaeda. This similarity was no accident: beginning at least in 1993,
al-Qaeda operatives were receiving terrorist training from Iran, through
Mugniyeh himself.[7]

This orchestrated onslaught was rewarded. The multinational military forces
were withdrawn in the same year.

The Islamist perpetrators were powerfully affected by the success of these
attacks and their results. Take, for example, the subsequent Iran-sponsored
truck-bomb attack in June 1996 on U.S. forces housed in the Khobar Towers in
Saudi Arabia. The attack killed 19 U.S. airmen. Upon learning of its
success, the commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards told his son that
Islamic Republic leaders expected that this would compel the United States
to withdraw from the Persian Gulf. ?If we kill just one US soldier, the
others will withdraw,? he predicted, explicitly invoking the Lebanon
experience.[8]

Iran versus the Free World

As these episodes make clear, Iran began to wage war against America more
than three decades ago and has drawn inspiration ever since from our retreat
from Lebanon. It continues to threaten us and our interests in many ways.
* Iran directly supports most of the Shi?ite-based political movements in
Iraq and their militias. Indeed, Iran largely created the revolt in Najaf
fomented by the radical Shi?a cleric Muqtada al
Sadr. (Al-Sadr?s troops were
reportedly trained at camps inside Iran.[9])
* The Iranians are actively supporting the flow of money, weapons, and
people not only across the Iran-Iraq border but also through Syria as well.
* Iranian intelligence and other elements are working to destablize the
pro-Western government in Afghanistan and the regime of Gen. Pervez Musharaf
in Pakistan.
* Iran is the patron of Hezbollah, its radical Shi?a terrorist proxy that
seeks to deny freedom to the people of Lebanon and threatens American and
Israeli interests and assets.
* Despite differences on some religious points, Iran also directly supports
the despotic regime in Syria, as well as such Palestinian terrorist groups
as Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Fatah. Iran is dedicated to helping Hamas
emerge as the dominant power in the Palestinian areas as an ally with the
shared goal of destroying Israel.
* There are many indicators that Iran is actively supporting al-Qaeda?s
operations inside Iraq, led by the Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
The chief Iranian terrorist operative, Mugniyeh, has reportedly recommended
coalescing the operational forces of al-Qaeda with other groups inside
Iraq.[10] The regime in Tehran is also providing safe haven to al-Qaeda
members and leaders inside Iran.[11]
* Significantly, Iran has never renounced its stated ambition to spread its
Islamic Revolution throughout the Persian Gulf.
A Nuclear-Armed Iran

The most ominous development, however, is Tehran?s increasingly blatant
disregard of its obligations to remain a non-nuclear weapons state under the
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. In the context of its aggressive program
for refining and deploying ballistic missiles for the delivery of nuclear
arms (and possibly other weapons of mass destruction), and given the
mullahs? oft-stated determination to destroy America and Israel, this
posture must be viewed as extremely dangerous.

The latest U.S. National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran, leaked to the
media in August 2005, states that the Islamic Republic is unlikely to
produce the fissile material it needs for a nuclear weapon until ?early to
mid-next decade.?[12] If correct, this time line would indicate that a
nuclear-armed Iran is at least five to ten years away--a sufficiently
disturbing prospect.

But administration officials who track Iran?s nuclear programs provide
evidence that this time line is far too optimistic. The NIE estimate was
influenced by the defensive mindset of the intelligence community, which was
severely criticized for overestimating Iraq?s WMD capabilities in 2003 (see
Step 2).[13]

Since late 2002, a great deal of information about Iran?s previously
clandestine nuclear programs has become known. Following revelations by an
Iranian opposition group, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
demanded that Iran allow international inspectors to visit undeclared sites
(in Tehran, Isfahan, and Natanz) where the regime had launched a massive
program to enrich uranium.

Communist China?s bait-and-switch. Particularly problematic is the
nuclear-related facility that the United States attempted (as early as
October 1997) to prevent Iran from building with Chinese help--successfully
so, we thought initially. Indeed, the Clinton administration publicly stated
that China had agreed to cancel its plans to build the ?hex? plant in Iran,
in exchange for a U.S. agreement to sell nuclear power technology to the
PRC.[14]

Once the American government declared the ?case closed,? however, the
Chinese proceeded to deliver the design information for the entire facility
to the Iranians--including, according to former State Department official
Robert Einhorn, blueprints of equipment critical to the operation of the
plant.[15] The Iranians were then able to build the facility themselves,
while China ostensibly adhered to its agreement with the United States.

As a result of these sustained efforts, Iran is probably in a position to
acquire nuclear weapons within a short period of time. (Some believe they
may already have done so by purchasing them on the black market.) Especially
in light of the mullahs? stated willingness to ?share? their nuclear
technology with other Islamic countries, the threat from Iran and its
activities must be viewed as a ticking time bomb--and perhaps a mortal
danger.

What do we do about the Iranian threat?

D?tente Is Not an Option

It is vain to hope that the existing mullahocracy will become more moderate
while its power to inflict violence on others increases. The regime has
tolerated no substantial political or legal reforms but rather has used
misleading rhetoric to clothe one of the world?s most destructive regimes
with a veneer of respectability.

Former president Mohammed Khatami--once the great hope of antiregime
elements in Iran and of many of their friends elsewhere--repeatedly made
clear that he favored ?democracy,? but not in the traditional Western sense
of that word. For example, while serving as a deputy in the Iranian
parliament prior to becoming president, Khatami wrote in the official daily,
Keyhan, that, because ordinary people cannot comprehend God?s will, the full
privileges of democracy should only extend to those with clerical
education.[16] He has never repudiated this view.

In fact, during his eight-year presidency, Khatami failed to implement a
single substantive reform. Cosmopolitan Iranian diplomats and reformists may
enjoy some stature in Western circles, but true power inside Iran continues
to reside in an unelected supreme leader, who wields ultimate power over
every aspect of Iranian policy, including the military.

Attempting to bribe or appease Tehran is not a viable alternative, either.
Western think tanks, foreign policy and trade experts, and past and present
government officials periodically propose ?engaging? the Islamic
Republic.[17] There is just one problem: Islamofascists in Iran, like their
counterparts elsewhere, are deeply uninterested in peace with the West. They
wish to destroy us. Their leaders have made clear that the sole purpose of
negotiations with us is to buy time to realize their nuclear ambitions and
to advance their jihad.[18]

Even as the European Union has sought to purchase a negotiated end to the
Iranian nuclear weapons program--reluctantly supported by a Bush
administration, for want of a better plan--the Islamists in Tehran have been
holding their ground. The mullahs? oppression of civil society in Iran is as
intense as ever. The media, for example, is under excruciating pressure from
the regime: during the past five years, Iranian authorities have closed more
than fifty newspapers. According to Reporters Sans Fronti?res, the Islamic
Republic has the second-greatest number of imprisoned journalists in the
world.

Indeed, far from changing Iranian behavior, the so-called EU 3 initiative
(so named for its architects: Britain, France, and Germany) merely serves to
convince the mullahs that they can act without consequence. It is
instructive that executions in Iran have risen proportionally with European
trade. Under Khatami, capital punishment ballooned. Iranian newspapers
regularly announce public executions, including those of minors.[19]

Despite all this, a fragile civil society has managed thus far to survive
the brutal dictatorship of the mullahs. Students, journalists, lawyers,
businessmen, and others have created pockets of resistance. They speak on
behalf of the millions of their countrymen who are too cowed by the regime?s
terror and repression to express their opposition openly.

What Needs to Be Done

These Iranians are desperately crying out for secular government. We should
heed their call and adopt a comprehensive strategy designed to help them
bring down an Islamist regime that poses a mortal threat to them and to us.
Some essential components of such a strategy are the following:

 1. Make freedom in Iran America?s declared policy. It must become the
official policy of the government of the United States to support regime
change in Iran. We must abandon approaches that rely on voluntary behavior
modification on the part of the mullahs--a stance they correctly regard as a
sign of our weakness.

 2. Do as Reagan did. We must seek to delegitimize the Tehran regime in
every possible venue. A key part of Ronald Reagan?s strategy against the
Soviet Union was to deny it legitimacy by, among other things, properly
calling it ?the Evil Empire.? The same must now be done with the Islamist
regime in Iran.

 3. Pursue two tracks. The new policy would have both economic and political
elements:
* Economic warfare. An economic offensive would include key steps that the
American people can promote, such as the energy security initiative (Step 3)
and the divest terror strategy (Step 4).
* Political warfare. The United States must wage total political war against
the Islamofascists in Tehran, both inside Iran and from the outside. This
war should be designed to keep the Iranian regime off balance (including,
where necessary, through the use of covert means), with the ultimate goal of
undermining its control.
By exacerbating the mullahs? internal problems, we would also ease the
burden of citizens of Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, and Israel, who are
currently under assault from Iran and its proxies.

 4. Support resistance movements. An important part of such a proactive
strategy must be an immediate commitment of significant financial resources
to help prodemocracy groups in Iran. The Iran Freedom Support Act,
introduced by U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum in February 2005, would authorize the
president to spend $10 million to support the resistance. This is a good
start--but something closer to $300 million will be needed. Such a
substantial expenditure would be fully justified if it would help rid the
world of one of its most dangerous regimes without recourse to war.

 These funds need to be spent effectively: an earlier appropriation of $3
million to promote pro-democracy groups inside Iran was still unexpended in
July 2005 because of the adamant opposition of a single, low-level State
Department officer named Suzanne Maloney.[20]

 In particular, we need to provide resistance groups with training in the
tactics and tools of nonviolent conflict. One place to do so would be
through the creation of independent trade unions in Iran. Like the Communist
government in Poland, the Islamic Republic seeks to regulate and control all
union activity. Unions can be powerful catalysts for liberty by channeling
public discontent into irresistible forces for change.

5. Develop intensive public diplomacy and strategic communications. The
president should appoint a U.S. ambassador to the people of Iran, based in
Washington, D.C. This ambassador would convene an Iranian-style majlis, or
national congress, composed of respected leaders of various Iranian
communities:
* Well-known exiles who have been working against the regime for more than
two decades.
* Young people who led the student uprising of July 1999 or more recent
protests and had to flee Iran.
* Representatives of pro-democracy groups inside Iran should also be sought
out and, if possible, enabled to participate safely.
This initiative must involve a no-holds-barred campaign to counteract the
regime?s influence throughout the region and beyond. That will require
greatly expanding the public and private means of communicating directly
with the Iranian people, including U.S.-based Iranian expatriate radio
networks (see Step 8).

 The United States and the Free World must also help the Iranian people make
their voices heard by providing the technical means (such as digital video
cameras and satellite phones) to show the world what is happening inside
Iran. In our cable news?driven policy debate, if an event is not seen on
television, it is widely considered not to have happened.

 6. Confront Iran?s nuclear threat. Last, but hardly least, the United
States must come to grips with the reality of Tehran?s incipient nuclear
weapons program. The Board of Governors of the IAEA agreed in September 2005
to refer Iran?s violations of its nuclear safeguards agreements to the UN
Security Council for further action--but this is by no means the end of the
story. We must expect that China and Russia (and perhaps others) will play
the same sort of delaying game in the UN as we saw in the case of Iraq (see
Step 2). Time is not on our side; we must develop political, economic, and
military strategies to counter a nuclear-armed Iran.

 In the best case, this political and economic strategy would succeed in
helping the Iranian people bring about regime change. Even if we start
implementing it today, however, results may not be realized for some
considerable period. The stakes are sufficiently high that we must also be
prepared to use military force--alone if necessary, with others if
practicable--to disrupt Iran?s known and suspected nuclear operations.

 The United States can never win the War for the Free World as long as the
most active state sponsor of terrorism is allowed to continue unchecked its
support of violence against freedom-loving nations--not least, the emerging
ones in Afghanistan and Iraq. We have for too long allowed Iran?s nearly
three-decade war against the United States to go unanswered. And, unless we
deal with it effectively in the immediate future, we will be faced with a
nuclear-armed terrorist regime that has shown no reluctance to attack
American citizens and American interests throughout the world.

---

Link to complete 
article:?http://www.aei.org/publications/filter.all,pubID.23499/pub_detail.a
sp




------ End of Forwarded Message

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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Wed Dec  7 15:49:49 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (Ian)
Date: Wed Dec  7 16:00:14 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Op-Ed Submission
Message-ID: <005801c5fb88$e9abc680$99ca6c42@iancn2ccrvzt0j>

As promised, here is my Op-Ed submission to the Times in response to certain recent events relating to Christmas, and specifically some religious conservatives' comments and actions.

As noted, it is highly unlikely that the Times will publish it, both because it is lengthy for a first-timer (1,200 words) and because it is more than just slightly controversial.

Comments and discussion are welcome, if appropriate.

Peace.

--------------

Is "Christmas" "Christian?"

 

By Rev. Ian Alterman

 

First, conservative commentator Bill O'Reilly claimed that Christmas was "under attack" by the secular community.  Then the American Family Association and The Catholic League, among other conservative Christian groups, called for the increased commercialization of Christmas. Now comes word that some megachurches will close on Christmas, ostensibly because they expect people to stay home with their families.  These and other recent events are finally bringing an important faith-based issue into the open.  However, the answer for people of faith may not be the one they want to hear.  Because setting aside the crass commercialism associated with what we know as "Christmas," there is some question as to whether "Christmas" is "Christian" at all.  Herewith, some things to consider.

 

Jesus' birth.  Even many atheists are familiar with Luke's gospel account of the events surrounding Jesus' birth.  Yet little is known about the timing of those events; we certainly have no record of Jesus' actual birth date.  However, a few facts and Scriptural passages provide guidance as to when it is most likely to have been.

 

Josephus, a first-century historian, alludes to the birth of John the Baptist as having been in the Spring, probably March or April.  And as the angel tells Mary at the time of her conception: "Now, indeed, Elizabeth.has also conceived a son.and [she] is now in the sixth month..."  Given this six-month difference in age, Jesus would have had to be born in September or October.  Luke also relates that ".there were.shepherds living out in the fields, keeping watch over their flocks by night."  It is unlikely that shepherds would be living in fields watching flocks "by night" in December; they would more likely have been doing this in the still-warm months of September or October.

 

Thus, while we have no solid evidence of the exact date of Jesus' birth, what evidence we do have points to an early Fall birth.

 

"Christmas."  Type "History of Christmas" into any Internet search engine and you will find that every site - both secular and Christian - agrees on its history.  Christmas as we know it developed from the Roman holiday of "Saturnalia," which honors the pagan god, Saturn, and was celebrated from mid-December to early January.  Here is a quote from one site: "Saturnalia was a fun and festive time for the Romans, but the Christians thought it an abomination to honor the pagan god.As Christianity spread, they were alarmed by the continuing celebration of pagan customs.At first the church forbid this kind of celebration.  But it was to no avail. Eventually it was decided that the celebration would be tamed and made into a celebration fit for the Christian Son of God.The Church eventually was successful in taking the merriment [and] lights.from the Saturnalia festival and bringing them to the celebration of Christmas.In 350 A.D., Julius I (Bishop of Rome) chose December 25th as the observance of Christmas."  A deeper study reveals that Julius I was not the first to choose late December: in 217 A.D., Macrinus Caesar, concerned about the "independence" of the celebration of Jesus' birth, decreed that it had to be "subsumed" into a Roman holiday.  The nearest Roman holiday was Saturnalia.

 

Scripturally, Christians are reminded "not to do as the pagans [or heathens] do."  Yet they have happily subsumed the celebration of the birth of their Savior into a pagan festival!  A related aside comes from Jeremiah: "Learn not the ways of the heathen.For one cutteth a tree out of the forest.deck[s] it with silver and with gold, and.fasten[s] it with nails and hammers, that it move not."  That sounds like an early description of what has become the "Christmas tree." And, again, it is considered a "heathen" (i.e., pagan) practice.

 

Santa Claus.  "Santa Claus" was based on the real-life priest, St. Nicholas, a wealthy Turk in the third century A.D.  From Bozeman's "Brief History of Santa Claus": "[H]e gave his wealth away in the form of gifts to those in need, especially children.  Legends tell of him dropping bags of gold down chimneys or throwing the bags through the windows where they landed in stockings hung near the fireplace to dry.Nicholas [later] became a Bishop; hence the long-flowing gown, white beard and red cape.Eventually.the Catholic Church started celebrating Christmas, and 'St. Nicholas' was incorporated into the season.  When the reformation took place, the new Protestants no longer desired St. Nicholas as their 'gift-giver,' as he was too closely associated with the Catholic Church.Each country or region developed its own gift-giver: in France, he was known as Pere Noel; in England, he was Father Christmas.To the Dutch, he was Sinterklass, which eventually.became 'Santa Claus.'"

 

Christmas Carols.  "[E]arly Christian compositions are regarded as chants and hymns.  The original carols referred to a [pagan] circle dance which did not have any singing - that came later.  As the church struggled against the influences of pagan customs.carols were barred from sacred services."  (From "Looking at the History of Carols.")  Note also that the vast majority of popular Christmas carols were written in the 16th to mid-19th centuries, and were introduced by the Protestant Church less than 200 years ago.

 

In summary, Jesus was almost certainly not born in December: even the Church admits that the December celebration of His birth is the subsuming of a Christian celebration into a pagan festival.  According to Jeremiah, the "Christmas tree" is a "heathen" practice.  Gift-giving during the holiday season has nothing to do with Jesus, but with St. Nicholas.  Christmas carols are a recent introduction into the already pagan-derived celebration of Christmas, and were "struggled against" by the early Church.

 

Some Christians believe that anything that brings people closer to Christ is okay.  However, Scripture does not support Christians using "negative" (i.e., pagan) means to achieve positive ends.

 

In asking the now-clich?, but nonetheless relevant, question "What would Jesus do?," it is unlikely that He would support the celebration of a pagan festival under any rubric.  Indeed, given that there is not a single mention of his birthday in the New Testament, we can assume it did not mean much either to Him or to the apostles or disciples.  On the other hand, it seems safe to assume that it would mean something to Him that Christians have allowed themselves to be "gulled" into celebrating a pagan festival, even if they do not see it that way.

 

Is there an alternative?  Should we choose an arbitrary date in late September/early October and have the Christian celebration then?  Should we celebrate a "gift-giving" holiday in December, but "get Christ out of 'Christmas'?"  Should we be "scrooges" and stop celebrating at all, especially since Jesus apparently didn't care enough about His birthday even to mention it?

 

I don't have the answers.  However, as a Christian, I have to consider how I believe Jesus would feel in this regard.  And I believe strongly that, while He would be pleased with Christians' wish to give Him praise, we should be doing this every day, and not just on one particular day - especially one that is at best fraught with possible apostasy, and at worst a direct "affront" to Him, in as much as we are celebrating a pagan holiday in His name.
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From michael at intrafi.com  Wed Dec  7 15:55:30 2005
From: michael at intrafi.com (michael butler)
Date: Wed Dec  7 16:02:24 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] TruthDig: Who Will Rule After Bush's 'Victory'?
Message-ID: <4397767251e67@intrafi.com>

Hi,

 I read this on Truthdig and thought you would find it interesting.

 =-=-=-=-=-=-=
Who Will Rule After Bush's 'Victory'?

The big winners in Iraq will be Iran’s ayatollahs, sponsors of their fellow 
Shiite theocrats who are the main U.S. surrogates on the ground in Iraq.  To 
make sure, they’ve arranged a double whammy:  

http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/who_will_rule/

 Copyright © 2005 Truthdig, L.L.C. All rights reserved.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=
This is a one-time mailing from
TruthDig.com
on behalf of the sender.
Please report any misuse to editor-at-truthdig.com

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From hecate at diamonddragon.com  Wed Dec  7 15:57:30 2005
From: hecate at diamonddragon.com (Hecate Gould)
Date: Wed Dec  7 16:07:46 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Current Crop of Bumper Stickers
Message-ID: <QkpUNFE3TylSJVEjNCosNjQyNjU0@Dragon>

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From tell_a_friend at petitiononline.com  Wed Dec  7 16:13:43 2005
From: tell_a_friend at petitiononline.com (tell_a_friend@petitiononline.com)
Date: Wed Dec  7 16:24:06 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Hecate sends you stw4804/petition.html
Message-ID: <200512080013.jB80DhPK079248@petitiononline.com>

Hecate, hecate@diamonddragon.com, sends you the enclosed page from PetitionOnline.com:

   http://www.PetitionOnline.com/stw4804/petition.html

    **    **    **

Personal comments from "hecate@diamonddragon.com":

Petition to the Governator to spare Stanley "Tookie" Williams.
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From barbarasiomos38 at msn.com  Wed Dec  7 16:31:00 2005
From: barbarasiomos38 at msn.com (Barbara Siomos)
Date: Wed Dec  7 16:41:19 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Baltimore activists join others in march through Cuba to
	US base.
Message-ID: <BAY5-DAV114F02571152AED69E0C04AB420@phx.gbl>

The Baltimore Sun - Dec 6, 2005 
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/custom/attack/bal-te.md.guantanamo06dec06,1,5926127.story


Baltimore activists will join others in march through Cuba to US base

By Matthew Hay Brown

More than two dozen activists from Baltimore and elsewhere have arrived in 
Cuba to protest the U.S. detention-and-
interrogation operation at  Guantanamo Bay.

The activists, most of them Christian, have broken U.S. law by traveling to the
communist nation. They were planning to
set out this morning for the Navy base in
southeastern Cuba where the United
States is holding about 500 foreign terror
suspects without prisoner-of-war status or
criminal charges.

They expect the 50-mile march from the 
city of Santiago to take four or five days. If
they reach the installation - which is 
guarded by U.S. and Cuban checkpoints
and surrounded by a minefield - they will
demand to see the detainees.

"There is in our faith the tradition of the
corporal works of mercy," the Rev. Steve
Kelly, a Jesuit priest, said before leaving for
Cuba. "It's only Christian of us to comfort
those who are imprisoned."

The activists, many of whom have been
imprisoned themselves for protesting at
U.S. military and defense contractor sites,
have been meeting at Jonah House, the
Catholic Worker community in West
Baltimore that was co-founded in 1973 by
war resisters Philip F. Berrigan and Liz
McAlister. Berrigan gained national 
prominence in 1968 as a leader of the
Catonsville Nine Vietnam War draft protest.

Their daughter Frida Berrigan is an 
organizer of the Cuba trip. The activists
include veterans of inner-city poverty work
and pacifist actions in Iraq and Israel, and 
they oppose U.S. military policy generally.
They have seized on claims of prisoner
abuse at Guantanamo Bay, where a U.S. 
joint task force has been holding and
interrogating foreigners captured in
Afghanistan and the region after the
attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Interrogators there have used cold, heat,
loud music and sleep deprivation on their
subjects, according to a militar 
investigation this year. In one case, a
female interrogator smeared what she
described as menstrual blood - it was fake -on a prisoner. In another, a Navy officer
threatened to harm the family of a
detainee, in violation of U.S. military law.

The investigation followed allegations by FBI agents who said they had seen
interrogators insert lit cigarettes into 
prisoners' ears and chain prisoners to the
floor in the fetal position for extended
periods.

Detainees who have been released have
spoken of being forced to look at pornographic images, menaced with dogs
and beaten.

"I think it's important for the world to
know that there's not a consensus in this
country that torture is OK," said Susan
Crane, a resident of Jonah House.

Bush administration and Pentagon officials
have said repeatedly that the United States
does not condone the torture of prisoners.

"There's an enemy that lurks and plots and
plans and wants to hurt America again,"
President Bush said last month. "So you
bet we will aggressively pursue them, but
we will do so under the law. ... We do not
torture."

Key members of Congress are pushing for
a formal ban on torture. Vice President
Dick Cheney has lobbied to exempt the CIA
from such a prohibition.

At Guantanamo Bay, the activists plan to
confront one of the U.S. military's most
sensitive installations during a time of war.
Even as opposition to U.S. policy in Iraq 
grows, there has been little call to close
what's known as Joint Task Force 
Guantanamo.

Nor is the activists' opposition to military
action universal among Christians. Many
Christians support U.S. military policy in
Iraq and elsewhere as a righteous response
to the problem of evil.

"I would not reject out of hand the present
administration's attempts to liberate a
particular people," said J. Daryl Charles, the
author of Between Pacifism and Jihad: Just
War and Christian Tradition.

"We use force morally," said Charles, a
professor of religion and ethics at Union
University in Jackson, Tenn. "We apply it in
order to prevent the greater evil."

Crane called Christian support for war
"very sad."

"The early Christians knew you couldn't be
Christian and serve in the military," she 
said. "You had to make a choice. Jesus was
talking about loving your enemies."

Crane said the group has informed Cuban
officials of its plans but has neither sought
nor received Cuban permission or support.

If the activists reach the base, Crane said,
they will demand to see the detainees. If
unable to proceed, they will attempt to
hold a prayer vigil.

"I've been in prison when people outside
were holding a vigil," said Crane, who has
been arrested for demonstrating at U.S.
military bases. "I could feel the 
encouragement - not just me, but the
other women, that people were praying for
me. It brings hope."

Jonah House resident Gary Ashbeck 
traveled through Iraq before the U.S.-led
invasion in 2003. He spoke of the need for
accountability at Guantanamo Bay.

"This idea of just holding people, taking
them prisoners, and just the sketchiness of
how they're getting these prisoners ... 
everything about it just really needs 
oversight," he said. "What [U.S. officials 
have] done is they've created a location
that completely has no oversight."

The Pentagon has allowed teams from the
International Committee of the Red Cross
to visit the prisoners, but the committee
does not report its findings publicly.

Crane said the U.S. war on terror would
not bring security. She said the only way
the country can protect itself is by 
changing its attitudes and actions toward
the rest of the world.








From isn at sipo.gess.ethz.ch  Wed Dec  7 15:24:20 2005
From: isn at sipo.gess.ethz.ch (isn@sipo.gess.ethz.ch)
Date: Wed Dec  7 17:35:18 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] An ISN Security Watch article forwarded by Harry
Message-ID: <10675648.1133997860193.JavaMail.SYSTEM@canary>

Harry has forwarded an ISN Security Watch article to you.

Iraqi oil industry in crisis
Iraqi oil exports fell to their lowest level in two years in November 2005. Bad management of the reconstruction effort, widespread corruption among government figures, and sabotage by insurgents are the reasons for the decline. Experts say that the US strategy of military intervention in oil-rich regions can only diminish, rather than increase, the supply to world markets. By Heiko Flottau in Cairo for ISN Security Watch (7/12/2005) <br>


Two-and-a-half years after the US invasion of Iraq, the country's oil industry is still in disarray. An official of the Oil Ministry in Baghdad told ISN Security Watch, on condition of anonymity: ?We do not know the exact quantity of oil we are exporting, we do not exactly know the prices we are selling it for, and we do not know where the oil revenue is going to.?



According to Baghdad press reports, export revenues are still not sufficient to cover the Iraqi state budget. The government is forced to take loans from international banks to cover its running expenses.



Although the US invested around US$1.3 billion in the rehabilitation of oil plants damaged by lack of maintenance during 13 years of UN sanctions, the daily output of approximately 1.3 million barrels remains far below Iraq?s pre-war production level of 2.5 million barrels.



The production goal for December 2004 of 3 million barrels per day, set by the US and the Iraqi government, cannot be reached in the near future, according to experts within the Iraqi Oil Ministry who talked to ISN Security Watch.



The Iraqi government looks set to lose US$8 billion a year in potential oil revenue, due to the poor current state of the oil industry.
 

<h5>Botched reconstruction</h5>


One of the reasons for the decline of the industry is a lack of progress in the reconstruction effort, due to serious managerial deficiencies.



For instance Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR) was awarded a US$225 million contract, without a tender, to rehabilitate the Qarmat Ali Water Plant in southern Iraq, according to a report in the Los Angeles Times.
 


The plant is used to pump water into the ground in order to build pressure that brings the oil to the surface.
  


However, the contract did not include the repair of the pipelines carrying the water to the oilfields. When the water was pumped into the ground, the old pipes burst, spilling large amounts of water into the desert. In addition, farmers often tap the water pipes in order to irrigate their fields.
 


US officials apportion some of the blame for the delay in rehabilitating the oil industry to their own Army Corps of Engineers. During the first months after the war, the Corps was given responsibility for the first phase of repairs to oil pumps and pipelines.
 


Members of the Corps lacked experience in handling the complicated, outdated technology that was imported by Iraq from the former Soviet Union. A member of the Corps later told a Congress hearing: "The Corps of Engineers had absolutely no abilities as far as oil production is concerned."



In Kurdistan, KBR signed a US$70 million contract to rehabilitate part of the pipeline system. According to the Los Angeles Times, KBR was only able to fulfill half of the contract. A couple of million barrels that had already been pumped could not be transported, and had to be re-injected into the ground ? a practice that engineers regard as harmful to oilfields.


<h5>Insurgent attacks</h5>

Analysts identify the constant attacks by insurgents on pipelines as a further obstacle to the recovery of the oil industry. Between May 2003 and late October 2005, observers counted 282 attacks on Iraq's oil transportation system.



The first incident was an attack on 1 June 2003 against the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline, which carries oil from northern Iraq to Turkey's Mediterranean coast. According to observers, the most recent attack was on 24 October 2005 in the same area near Kirkuk.



Although US forces try to protect the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline and Iraq's offshore loading terminals in the northern Persian Gulf, oil exports are frequently interrupted.



In April 2004, suicide bombers attacked the Iraqi Khor al-Amaya offshore loading terminal in the Gulf from a speedboat, killing three US troops.
 


 ISN Security Watch spoke to a journalist from Baghdad's Al-Mada newspaper, who did not wish to be identified, on this topic: ?The Iraqi government pays a lot of money to tribal chiefs, who say they will protect pipelines. But nobody can completely secure the thousands of kilometers of pipelines crossing the deserts."
 


The Brookings Institution warned in June 2004 that the new ?oil terrorism? could become a model for militant Islamists. The report said that pipelines, which carry more than 40 per cent of the world's oil production through insecure regions such as the Middle East, could easily become ?attractive terrorist targets.?



On 6 December, the al-Qaida leadership issued a call to jihadists in the region to attack oil installations, "in order to fight Western companies that are dispossessing Muslims of their oil".



In another study, released in 2003, the Brookings Institution warned that the sabotage campaign against Iraqi pipelines could harm the US economy. ?Without the Iraqi oil,? the report argues, ?the US taxpayer will have to carry a heavier than anticipated burden of the reconstruction cost.?
 


The report added that oil terrorism is contributing to high-risk premiums for the transport of oil. Every one-dollar increase per barrel is costing the US economy approximately US$4 billion a year.
  

<h5>Corruption</h5>


Analysts say that the third reason for the decline in Iraqi oil production is widespread corruption within the Iraqi Oil Ministry. In March of this year, the ministry sacked 450 employees for the illegal sale of oil and oil products.
 


In the same month, the Oil Ministry?s Director General for Drilling Mohammed al-Abudi said that ?administrative corruption? was taking many forms. ?The robberies and thefts are taking place on a daily basis on all levels [?] committed by low-level government employees and by high officials in leadership positions of the Iraqi state,? he added



Instances of fraud include the manipulation of measuring instruments at the end of pipelines and the provision of inaccurate data on tanker oil loads. The supervision of tanker loads, which is usually done through the checking of insurance papers, has ceased in many cases.



Oil industry experts say that corruption has not ended with the sacking of the 450 ministry employees.
 


Often, tribal chiefs and criminal gangs tap the pipelines, depriving the government of significant oil revenue. Trucks carrying gasoline to gas stations are robbed by gangsters, while gunmen frequently attack gasoline stations, even in town centers.
   


The oil acquired in this way is sold on the black market or transported to neighboring countries like Iran.



Responding to questions from ISN Security Watch, Oil Ministry officials in Baghdad predicted that reconstruction efforts and the fight against corruption will not produce significant results in coming years. Rather, they expect a continuous stagnation, and even a further downturn in production.


<h5>A failing strategy</h5>


Oil terrorism and corruption, if allowed to continue, will seriously harm Iraq's future. The country's economy, damaged by two Gulf wars, the 2003 invasion and 13 years of UN sanctions, urgently needs a period of peaceful reconstruction and the exploration of new oilfields. Only 15 of over 70 known fields have been developed properly. It usually takes at least five years to bring a new field into operation.



The seizure of the Iraqi oil fields and the raising of the country?s oil production were two of the most important motives for the US invasion of Iraq. When asked, in September 2002, whether the US could afford a costly military operation like the one planned in Iraq, White House economic adviser Larry Lindsay told the Wall Street Journal: ?We can afford it.?



Lindsay added that, after a regime change in Iraq, three to five million barrels per day could be added to the world oil supply and that Iraqi oil would bring in over US$50 billion in coming years. Lindsay said that Iraq would easily be able to pay for the reconstruction effort.



Michael T. Klare, a Professor of Peace and World Security at Hampshire College and author of the book ?Blood and Oil?, wrote that it is ?an article of faith among America's senior policymakers ? Democrats and Republicans alike ? that military force is an effective tool for ensuring control over foreign sources of oil.?
 


He predicts that the US will continue to send troops into politically fragile regions in future due to the dilemma of US dependence on oil sourced from these areas.



However, Klare concludes that ?the growing Iraqi quagmire has demonstrated that the application of military force can have the very opposite effect; it can diminish ? rather than enhance ? America's access to foreign oil.?
  

<br>Heiko Flottau is ISN Security Watch's senior correspondent for Egypt. He wrote for many years for Sueddeutsche Zeitung in Belgrade, Warsaw, and Cairo. Heiko is the author of "From the Nile to the Hindukush - The Middle East and the new World Order" (German, 2004).

ISN Security Watch - Your daily security check on the Euro-Atlantic region. For our full news service visit our website, http://www.isn.ethz.ch


From paidbcs at aabol.com  Wed Dec  7 16:53:08 2005
From: paidbcs at aabol.com (brigit)
Date: Wed Dec  7 17:35:24 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Fw: Pearl Harbor Day
Message-ID: <E1EkAPO-0007M7-Hi@smtpauth04.mail.atl.earthlink.net>


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Wild Iris" <wildiris@aptalaska.net>
To: "AJeff" <shieldsj@aptalaska.net>
Sent: Wednesday, December 07, 2005 2:15 PM
Subject: Pearl Harbor Day


>
>
>
>
> Today, December 7th, Pearl Harbor Day, here are the words of General Omar
> Bradley, the first Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the GI's
> Soldier General of WW II.
>
> "We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the
> Mount. The world has achieved brilliance without wisdom, power without
> conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know
> more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know
> about living."
>
> Jim Windmeier
>
>
>

From harry.sifton at sympatico.ca  Wed Dec  7 17:35:41 2005
From: harry.sifton at sympatico.ca (Harold Sifton)
Date: Wed Dec  7 17:46:03 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] ISN, Iraq Oil Issues
Message-ID: <001d01c5fb97$b6274eb0$9427e440@Harold>

I'm resending this in case original forward did not get posted because of tech.

Iraqi Oil issues, not going well, corruption, theft and US failures!


Interesting news site, go to their home page after reading this article

http://www.isn.ethz.ch/news/sw/details.cfm?ID=13770

Harry
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From harry.sifton at sympatico.ca  Wed Dec  7 20:45:56 2005
From: harry.sifton at sympatico.ca (Harold Sifton)
Date: Wed Dec  7 20:56:44 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Fear of the Flu repaces Nukes
Message-ID: <000701c5fbb2$4aad29a0$9427e440@Harold>

Flu Fear in America, 

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-12-06-bird-flu-prepare_x.htm

Sorry, I just had to post this..........

H
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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Wed Dec  7 21:18:02 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (Ian)
Date: Wed Dec  7 21:29:31 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Re VERY CONTROVERSIAL - WORTH READING
Message-ID: <008201c5fbb6$c416b7d0$99ca6c42@iancn2ccrvzt0j>

Although I can certainly understand his frustration, to paraphrase Shakespeare, "methinks he doth protest too much."

First, let me respond to some of the specific things he says.

1.  "The level of atheism throughout the rest of the developed world refutes any argument that religion is somehow a moral necessity. Countries like Norway, Iceland, Australia, Canada, Sweden, Switzerland, Belgium, Japan, the Netherlands, Denmark and the United Kingdom are among the least religious societies on Earth. According to the United Nations' Human Development Report (2005) they are also the healthiest, as indicated by measures of life expectancy, adult literacy, per capita income, educational attainment, gender equality, homicide rate and infant mortality.  The United States is unique among wealthy democracies in its level of religious literalism and opposition to evolutionary theory; it is also uniquely beleaguered by high rates of homicide, abortion, teen pregnancy, STD infection and infant mortality. The same comparison holds true within the United States itself: Southern and Midwestern states, characterized by the highest levels of religious superstition and hostility to evolutionary theory, are especially plagued by the above indicators of societal dysfunction, while the comparatively secular states of the Northeast conform to European norms."

I would like to know on what he is basing the second part of this statement.  Because every study I have ever seen - and I have seen many - refutes the entire second half of this statement.  That is, while there is certainly homicide, abortion, etc. in the Christian community, including the South and Midwest, the rates of such things - homicide, abortion, teen pregnancy, STDs, infant mortality, etc. - are consistently lowest within Christian communities.  This has been proven in study after study.

2.  "Countries with high levels of atheism also are the most charitable in terms of giving foreign aid to the developing world."

Perhaps.  But "giving" and "acting" are two different things.  The Christian community, especially in America, has consistently - for well over 100 years - been the "first responder" (and sometimes only responder) in times of crisis - whether at home or abroad.  Thus, unlike the well-meaning atheists who sit home and write checks, Christians actually go out there and do something.  This does not mean there are not atheists who also "act."  However, it would be spurious to argue that the Christian community is not, ans has not always been, the first to act, and the most active of all groups in times of crisis.

3.  "People of faith regularly claim that atheism is responsible for some of the most appalling crimes of the 20th century. Although it is true that the regimes of Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot were irreligious to varying degrees, they were not especially rational. In fact, their public pronouncements were little more than litanies of delusion, race, economics, national identity, the march of history or the moral dangers of intellectualism...In a world riven by ignorance, only the atheist refuses to deny the obvious: Religious faith promotes human violence to an astonishing degree."

I have deliberately juxtaposed the above two statements to show how wily his reasoning is.  He largely attempts to "gloss over" the atrocities of atheist leaders, and then has the temerity to state that fiath "promotes...violence to an astonishing degree."

Poppycock.  History proves otherwise.  You could take every religious war ever fought, including the Crusades, and the dead would not equal one-half the number murdered by Hitler, Stalin and Mao - a number which some estimates put at well over 100 million (Stalin being responsible for fully half that number).

And make no mistake about it: as I have explained ad nauseam here, Hitler and Naziism had little or nothing to do with any religious belief (Hitler was basically a pagan), but with "bloodlines": "Aryan" is not a faith or religion, it is a bloodline; Hitler had made it clear that after exterminating the Jews, he would exterminate all others - including Christians - who were not of the Aryan bloodline.  As for the populace, there is no proof whatsoever - let me repeat that: whatsoever - that the German or Austrian people were driven by hatred of the Jews: they had lived side by side with Jews - peacefully if not "happily" - for decades.  Rather, they were driven by Hitler's propaganda, and by fear of the SS - i.e., fear of intimidation, arrest, torture and/or death at the hands of the SS if they did not "report on" Jews, much less if they gave Jews solace or hiding place.

In this regard, Harris' comments are the most dangerous, inflammatory form of historical revisionism, and he should be roundly chastised for fomenting hatred where little or none exists.

4.  "These facts notwithstanding, religious moderates tend to imagine that human conflict is always reducible to a lack of education, to poverty or to political grievances. This is one of the many delusions of liberal piety. To dispel it, we need only reflect on the fact that the Sept. 11 hijackers were college educated and middle class and had no discernable history of
political oppression. They did, however, spend an inordinate amount of time at their local mosque talking about the depravity of infidels and about the
pleasures that await martyrs in Paradise."

This is incorrect in two regards.  First, it is insulting at best to lump all "religious moderates" together under the rubric that they reduce the reasons for human conflict to the suggested three.  Poppycock again.  Indeed, if he wants to make this argument, he would be better accusing the religious conservatives of such a stance, not the moderates.  Because it is the religious moderates who are open-minded enough to see that human conflict cannot be explained in simplistic terms.  Harris fails utterly with this argument.

-----

Harris then makes three claims as to why he believes that religion contributes to confrontation and violence.  I would like to take each one in turn.

1.  "Our religions are intrinsically incompatible with one another. Either Jesus rose from the dead and will be returning to Earth like a superhero or not; either the Koran is the infallible word of God or it isn?t. Every
religion makes explicit claims about the way the world is, and the sheer profusion of these incompatible claims creates an enduring basis for conflict."

It may create a basis for conflict, but that does not mean it need create conflict itself.  It is dependent upon how one understands and practices one's faith.  In this regard, all three of the Abrahamic faiths (Judaism, Christianity, and, yes, even Islam) teach - as primary tenets - love, peace, brotherhood and community.  And these stand above all other tenets in all three of these faiths - including the relatively few (and they are relatively few) instances of "jihadism" in the Qur'an.  Thus, were they practiced as intended, there would be no confrontation between them: yes, there would be doctrinal and other differences.  But they would all be - are - "live and let live" faiths.

Yes, there is a "conversion" factor (i.e., seeking converts) in all three, but stronger in Islam and Christianity.  However, even that conversion factor is tempered by the texts, and is not intended to be "coercive."

What Harris refuses to acknowledge is the degree to which all three faiths (though Judaism is to the smaller degree) have been "hijacked" at various times toward less-than-Scriptural ends - e.g., the Crusades, and more recently "radical fundamental jihadist Islam" and the "Christian Right" - and the fact that these are not the "normal" (i.e., intended) states of those faiths.  In this regard, I would have to agree with his tacit belief (and some of your overt beliefs...) that bringing those faiths back to a sense of "normality" does not look good.  However, his premise - that religion is per se violence-prone - is false.

2.  "There is no other sphere of discourse in which human beings so fully articulate their differences from one another, or cast these differences in terms of everlasting rewards and punishments. Religion is the one endeavor in which us-them thinking achieves a transcendent significance. If a person really believes that calling God by the right name can spell the difference between eternal happiness and eternal suffering, then it becomes quite reasonable to treat heretics and unbelievers rather badly. It may even be
reasonable to kill them. If a person thinks there is something that another person can say to his children that could put their souls in jeopardy for all eternity, then the heretic next door is actually far more dangerous than the child molester. The stakes of our religious differences are immeasurably higher than those born of mere tribalism, racism or politics."

Again, he makes blanket statements that are simply insupportable: "If a person really believes that calling God by the right name can spell the difference between eternal happiness and eternal suffering, then it becomes quite reasonable to treat heretics and unbelievers rather badly. It may even be reasonable to kill them."  Poppycock thrice.

Indeed, he seems to want it both ways: that people of faith are coercive in gaining converts, but that they also treat unbelievers badly, or even kill them.  If one is seeking concerts, one does not treat them badly, much less kill them.  And if one is treating unbelievers badly, or killing them, then they are obviously not seeing converts.

Harris is clearly taking very specific instances - e.g., the Crusades, suicide bombers - and, once again, applying them with the broadest brush.  This is not simply phony, it is insulting and demeaning.

As for "The stakes of our religious differences are immeasurably higher than those born of mere tribalism, racism or politics," he provides little or no evidence to support this claim; indeed, "politics" (especially recently) has arguably caused far more suffering, strife, hunger, poverty (and possibly even death) globally than any other factor in human history.

3.  " Religious faith is a conversation-stopper. Religion is only area of our discourse in which people are systematically protected from the demand to give evidence in defense of their strongly held beliefs. And yet these beliefs often determine what they live for, what they will die for, and all too often stakes are high, human beings have a simple choice between conversation and violence. Only a fundamental willingness to be reasonable beliefs about the world revised by new evidence and new arguments can
guarantee that we will keep talking to one another. Certainty without evidence is necessarily divisive and dehumanizing. While there is no guarantee that rational people will always agree, the irrational are certain
to be divided by their dogmas."

Re "...these beliefs often determine what they live for, what they will die for, and all too often stakes are high, human beings have a simple choice between conversation and violence."  Really?  Only two choices?  Who is he kidding?  There are any number of possibilities, avenues, stances, conditions under which people with different belief systems can live - and interact civilly.  Given that he accuses religious moderates of a "reducto absurdum" stance re "human conflict," his "reducto absurdum" stance here is blatantly hypocritical.

As for "Only a fundamental willingness to be reasonable beliefs about the world revised by new evidence and new arguments can guarantee that we will keep talking to one another," this is extremely insulting, in that it essentially dismisses all faith-based people as incapable of learning and growing, and engaging in intelligent, even intellectual discourse.  Here again, his broad-brush approach is as phony as a six-dollar bill.

Finally, re "Certainty without evidence is necessarily divisive and dehumanizing. While there is no guarantee that rational people will always agree, the irrational are certain to be divided by their dogmas," again he reverts to broad-brush insult (all faith-based people are "irrational") and generalization (all faith-based people are epithetically "dogmatic").

Again, although I understand his frustration - and even some of his badly-disguised anger - I believe that Mr. Harris has allowed his emotions to get the better of him, and in doing so he has undermined much of his argument by resorting to (i) unsupported or easily refuted statements, (ii) broad-brush generalizations, (iii) historical revisionism and omission of information, and (iv) insult, denigration, and dismissal.

However, I can undo virtually his entire diatribe with a single sentence: Mr. Harris, as an evangelical minister, I fully support your choice to be an atheist, and wish you only the best.

Let's see him deconstruct that.

Peace.
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From jameshburns at webtv.net  Wed Dec  7 23:14:00 2005
From: jameshburns at webtv.net (Jim Burns)
Date: Wed Dec  7 23:24:27 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] These, Who Yawn, at a City on the Rack
In-Reply-To: mb-civic-request@islandlists.com's message of Wed, 7 Dec 2005
	21:29:26 -0800
Message-ID: <10350-4397DD38-1258@storefull-3275.bay.webtv.net>


I think my biggest shock is with the Army Corp of Engineers. In the
past, and otherwise, they have performed miracles...

Pompeii On The Mississippi-Boston Globe 
Published on Wednesday, December 7, 2005 by the Boston Globe

Pompeii on the Mississippi
by Jason Berry
?
NEW ORLEANS -- Three months after the epic flood, we are specimens of
congressional torture. Network celebrities who swept through for
disaster backdrops are gone. The suffering in the Superdome and
Convention Center is old footage. Torturing a city is tougher coverage
for soft newsbodies.
Galatoire's restaurant will open in January. Come for Mardi Gras. Catch
a night parade. Tour our dead neighborhoods. See Fats Domino's dead
home. Picnic on the levee of our Pompeii.
The city flooded because the US Army Corps of Engineers failed at its
job of levee management. FEMA failed to provide interim housing for tens
of thousands of people displaced. A city of 450,000 has about 100,000
back.
Entire neighborhoods go dark at night -- no power, no people. Those
clamoring to return -- to demolish or rebuild -- cannot. No place to
live.
Apathy toward the dying neighborhoods stains the Social Darwinists who
run Congress. They wear the masks of prolife Christians. As Nero fiddled
while Rome burned, these Jesus-lovers yawn at a city on the rack, their
pensions safe in the mammoth debt furnished by the worst US president
ever.
President Bush came to Jackson Square in September and promised a
sweeping recovery. His backers in Congress recoiled from the cost.
True, our senators, Mary Landrieu and David Ritter, floated a $250
billion recovery bill ''that surprised even jaded Washington veterans
with the extent of its overreach into unrelated special-interest
projects," as one veteran insider confides. Does that warrant euthanasia
for a city? Congress gave funds to FEMA and to investigate the levee
failure under the US Army Corps of Engineers.
A National Science Foundation report has found that the Army Corps and
its subcontractors did not dig deep enough to secure the 17th Avenue
Canal floodwall, a flashpoint in TV shots. ''This is the largest civil
engineering disaster in the history of the United States," Robert Bea, a
University of California at Berkeley consulting professor told the
Times-Picayune.
The ''target neighborhoods," as Mayor C. Ray Nagin calls those that have
rebounded, lie on dry ridges of the sub-sea-level terrain, notably the
French Quarter, the Garden District, Algiers, and Uptown, where life is
seminormal with stores and restaurants. Drive a few minutes and you'll
see mounds of debris, trashed buildings, brown water lines on houses,
shattered lives.
Entergy, the utility company, lost much of its infrastructure and filed
for temporary relief from creditors. Day by day, power trickles back,
while the economy starves. Federally paid contractors and salvage
workers pour in from other states while locals struggle without homes to
find jobs.
The leadership vacuum from the White House to Baton Rouge to City Hall
is frightening. There is no other word for it. Bush makes nebulous
remarks about helping ''the people down in Katrina" (we are a new
geography), but his priority is counterattacking critics of the Iraq
war. The storm-ravaged Gulf South won't recover without a sane tax
policy to generate revenues.
Time Magazine selected Governor Kathleen Blanco (known here as ''Mee
Maw") one of America's three worst governors. She did appoint a
blue-ribbon Louisiana Recovery Authority after Mayor C. Ray Nagin
appointed his Bring New Orleans Back Commission, the two ventures
encompassing some 35 experts. Nagin got the Urban Land Institute, a
Washington think tank financed by real estate developers, to produce a
sweeping design for a ''new" city with parks supplanting dead houses and
medium-rise buildings on dry ground.
Beyond the fairness issues, how to pay for any plan?
Nagin's angry criticism of Washington during the flood softened into a
lack of urgency after dinners with Bush. The detached mayor vacationed
in sunny Jamaica over Thanksgiving with his wife and children, who have
been staying in Texas.
Our public school system, once mired in corruption, is being dismantled.
A charter-school movement of parents seeking grassroots involvement has
won support of the Legislature.
The old city was 67 percent African-American with a quarter of those at
poverty level. Violent crime has plummeted; the new city is much whiter.
Academics say that when masses of poor folk leave, they're unlikely to
return. Optimists here who say ''Now we can get it right" (read: all the
culture, but better schools and infrastructure) ignore housing for
workers at the hotels and restaurants on which tourism thrived.
Are we in the country that put men on the moon?
Jason Berry, a native New Orleanian, is the author of ''Up From the
Cradle of Jazz," ''Lead Us Not Into Temptation," and ''Vows of Silence."
? 2005 Boston Globe
###


From swiggard at comcast.net  Thu Dec  8 03:49:29 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Thu Dec  8 04:02:09 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] New Grand Jury in CIA Leak Case Hears From Prosecutor -
 Washington Post
Message-ID: <43981DC9.9060801@comcast.net>

New Grand Jury in CIA Leak Case Hears From Prosecutor

By Carol D. Leonnig
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 8, 2005; A17

The CIA leak investigation returned to a more active stage yesterday as 
a special prosecutor presented information to a grand jury for the first 
time in six weeks.

Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald's decision to enlist a new grand 
jury comes as he continues to investigate possible criminal charges 
against senior White House adviser Karl Rove. Rove faces possible legal 
consequences for not telling investigators for months that he had 
provided information about CIA operative Valerie Plame to Time magazine 
reporter Matt Cooper in July 2003.

Rove disclosed the conversation only after Cooper was subpoenaed to 
testify about their discussions, said sources familiar with Rove's 
account. Rove maintains that he initially forgot about the contact, the 
sources said.

Yesterday was the first time a grand jury has met to consider the case 
since Oct. 28, when a previous grand jury indicted I. Lewis "Scooter" 
Libby, Vice President Cheney's chief of staff. Fitzgerald, who arrived 
with four deputies, an FBI agent and boxes of files, declined to comment 
on the three-hour session as he left the courthouse. No witnesses were 
seen entering the grand jury room.

But several legal experts and sources involved in the case said 
Fitzgerald was probably providing the new grand jury with a primer on 
what has been learned in the investigation and what remains unresolved. 
They said the prosecutor's move into a more active probe could spell 
trouble for Rove, or for other people enmeshed in more recent 
developments in the case.

Fitzgerald has spent two years investigating whether White House 
officials knowingly disclosed Plame's identity and undercover status in 
2003 to discredit allegations made by her husband, former ambassador 
Joseph C. Wilson IV, that the Bush administration twisted intelligence 
in the run-up to the Iraq war.

The term of the previous grand jury expired on the day it indicted Libby 
on five felony counts of lying, perjury and obstruction of justice. 
Fitzgerald said then that he would continue to look into lingering 
issues, and he privately told Rove's attorney that Rove remained under 
investigation.

Two other revelations have been made since then. Washington Post 
Assistant Managing Editor Bob Woodward disclosed that, unbeknown to 
Fitzgerald, an administration source had told him about Plame's CIA role 
in June 2003, before Libby allegedly disclosed similar information to 
another reporter. In a Nov. 14 deposition, Woodward answered questions 
under oath from Fitzgerald about the mid-June 2003 conversation with his 
source. The source, whose identity has not been revealed, had testified 
much earlier in Fitzgerald's investigation but did not mention the 
conversation, said two sources familiar with the investigation.

Time magazine disclosed on Nov. 27 that one of its reporters, Viveca 
Novak, would soon answer Fitzgerald's questions about conversations she 
had with Rove attorney Robert Luskin in 2004. Sources familiar with the 
case said Luskin told Fitzgerald in October that those conversations 
would help buttress Luskin's argument that Rove did not intentionally 
conceal his contacts with reporters from the grand jury.

Novak is scheduled to give a deposition under oath to Fitzgerald today, 
two sources close to the case said.

Luskin declined to comment on the grand jury session yesterday. "What I 
can say is, there's been no change in Karl's status since late October," 
he said. At that time, Fitzgerald told Luskin that Rove remained under 
investigation but that he would hold off on charging him because of 
information Luskin had provided late that month.

Randall D. Eliason, who headed public corruption prosecutions in the 
U.S. attorney's office in Washington, said Fitzgerald would not go 
through the trouble of repeating information to a new grand jury unless 
he is considering criminal charges or there are significant, potentially 
criminal matters he wants to resolve.

"The fact that Fitzgerald is going through the effort to re-present is 
certainly a sign that the investigation is active," Eliason said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/07/AR2005120700545.html
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Thu Dec  8 03:50:56 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Thu Dec  8 04:03:34 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] In Dog Genome,
	Scientists See Man's Best Hope - Washington Post
Message-ID: <43981E20.2010400@comcast.net>

In Dog Genome, Scientists See Man's Best Hope

By David Brown
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 8, 2005; A01

There probably isn't a tail-wagging gene or a face-licking gene. But 
there undoubtedly are groups of genes that explain why retrievers chase 
sticks, spaniels jump in the water at every opportunity, and border 
collies like to herd sheep and small children.

The biological basis of the astonishing variety of behaviors of man's 
best friend is a big step closer to comprehension today with the 
publication of the dog's genome -- its 2.41 billion nucleotides, or DNA 
"letters."

The dog -- in the form of a female boxer named Tasha -- joins the human, 
the chimpanzee, the mouse and the rat on the list of mammals whose 
genetic instruction manual has been transcribed. The genomes of the 
fruit fly, a microscopic worm, yeast and several bacteria have also been 
decoded.

But the dog genome is far more than a curiosity. It is already providing 
insights into evolution and will probably make dogs the chief tool for 
understanding the genetic diseases of people.

Certain breeds are at much higher risk than others for specific 
ailments. Samoyeds have a tendency to become diabetic, Rottweilers 
develop the bone cancer osteosarcoma, springer spaniels are at risk for 
epilepsy, and Doberman pinschers suffer from narcolepsy much more often 
than other canines. All these diseases have human counterparts.

"This offers a strategy for tracking down the location of genes involved 
in medical conditions that in the past we have just not been able to 
tackle," said Francis S. Collins, director of the National Human Genome 
Research Institute, which helped pay for the work.

Eric S. Lander, director of the Broad Institute in Cambridge, Mass., 
where the research was done, said: "The genetic structure of dog breeds 
is so much clearer than in the human population that it will make 
genetic analysis much simpler."

The work is the product of nearly 250 scientists organized through the 
institute, which is affiliated with Harvard and the Massachusetts 
Institute of Technology. A much less detailed version of the dog genome 
by a different research group was published two years ago.

In size, appearance and behavior, the dog is the most diverse species on 
Earth. It was the first animal domesticated from the wild, at least 
15,000 years ago. Its many subspecies, or breeds, were sculpted by man, 
so it's no surprise that man should want to shine the illuminating light 
of genome science on his longtime companion.

A genome is the total mass of genetic instruction an organism inherits. 
It consists of strings of DNA nucleotides, the biological equivalent of 
letters. The instructions on how to build a body -- including permanent 
structures such as teeth and brain cells as well as short-lived 
substances such as blood and hormones -- are contained in the order of 
the nucleotide "letters" on the strings. Humans have about 3 billion 
nucleotides in their genome.

Stretches of hundreds or thousands of nucleotides are copied inside 
cells and direct them to produce specific proteins, the building blocks 
of organisms. These stretches are called genes.

Humans have about 22,000 genes. Dogs, according to the new research, 
have about 19,300. A given gene usually comes in slightly different 
variations, similar to pencils with different colored lead, or scissors 
of varying size and shape.

All dogs are descended from gray wolves, which were originally 
domesticated in East Asia. Some breeds, such as the Akita, have existed 
for more than 1,000 years. Most, though, are the product of selective 
breeding in the past 400 years to create specific characteristics.

That breeding has, in effect, concentrated specific versions of specific 
genes in specific populations of dogs. The result is a breed with 
physical and behavioral traits that existed in ancestral dogs but are 
now greatly magnified.

This results in animals that can look and act very different even though 
they scarcely differ from one another in their genetic identity. On a 
genetic level, breeds differ from one another only about as much as 
humans do. Gray wolves have more in common with Mexican hairless 
Chihuahuas than with coyotes, which they more closely resemble.

As traits have coalesced in breeds, so have specific diseases. That 
happened because genes involved in the diseases are physical neighbors 
of the trait genes; they move together in long stretches of DNA called 
haplotype blocks.

The blocks are 50 times as long in dogs as in people. This is because 
most breeds are only 30 to 90 generations old, much younger than human 
populations.

By studying the genomes of dogs of the same breed that have the same 
disease -- for example, a group of German shepherds with kidney cancer 
-- scientists can identify the genes responsible. Because the blocks are 
so large, researchers can narrow the possible location of disease genes 
to a few "neighborhoods" in the genome. They can then search in those 
stretches of DNA for the culprit genes.

"Breed-creation gives us a genome structure that makes it very easy to 
find disease genes," said Kerstin Lindblad-Toh, the lead author of the 
paper, which appears in the journal Nature. "We now have the tools; we 
have actually started cancer studies."

Similarly, scientists may be able to figure out what genes contribute to 
complex behaviors such as retrieving and pointing. They will look for 
haplotype blocks shared by different breeds with the same trait -- all 
retrievers or all pointers -- but that aren't found in breeds lacking 
the trait.

That work will be harder, Lindblad-Toh said. Nevertheless, it may 
provide insights into behavioral genetics, which historically have been 
the murkiest and most controversial part of the field.

Other less practical but equally interesting insights are already 
arising from the dog genome.

As with human DNA, only about 5 percent of dog DNA carries genetic 
information. The function, if any, of the rest (often termed "junk DNA") 
is unknown.

The exact number of genes in people, chimpanzees, mice, rats and dogs is 
uncertain, but it is now clear that of the 5 percent of genetic 
information in the genome, less than half that represents "classical" 
genes that encode the instructions to make proteins. The rest is DNA 
that regulates the activity of those genes.

The dog researchers identified 0.2 percent of the genome that comprises 
"highly conserved" DNA -- the stretches that are essentially identical 
in all individuals and across species -- but that do not code for 
proteins. They found that half of this favored DNA resides in the 
neighborhood of only 200 genes, some of which are involved in embryonic 
development and nerve growth. It appears to be crucial in the regulation 
of those genes.

"Which is to say, those genes must be very special. You just don't want 
to mess with them," Collins said. "This will undoubtedly cause other 
investigators to look at those 200 genes and ask why they are so important."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/07/AR2005120702457.html
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Thu Dec  8 03:52:19 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Thu Dec  8 04:04:56 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Time for a House-Cleaning - David S. Broder - Washington
	Post Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43981E73.2060604@comcast.net>

Time for a House-Cleaning

By David S. Broder
Thursday, December 8, 2005; A33

If the House of Representatives were a person, it would be blushing 
these days. Unfortunately, the House is beyond embarrassment.

Its once (and maybe future) majority leader, Tom DeLay, is under 
indictment on money-laundering charges in Texas. One of its more 
colorful members, Randy "Duke" Cunningham of California, resigned last 
week after pleading guilty to shaking down lobbyists and contractors for 
$2.4 million in cash and gifts.

DeLay's former press secretary, lobbyist Michael Scanlon, has copped a 
plea and is busy explaining to federal prosecutors how he funneled money 
to perhaps half a dozen other compliant members of the House. Scanlon's 
former partner, lobbyist Jack Abramoff, is at the center of separate 
investigations that could implicate still other legislators of both parties.

And in the midst of all these shenanigans, the House staged a mock 
debate about the legitimate issue of American troops in Iraq that was as 
uncouth as it was unproductive.

Alumni of the House -- men and women of both parties -- will tell you 
that they are appalled or nauseated by what has happened there. Last 
week, in a downtown restaurant, I ran into a former member of the GOP 
leadership who said, "I'm so thankful I got out when I did."

The place needs a good scrubbing, and that is what it would get if the 
leadership were somehow to embrace a set of rules changes put forward 
this week by several longtime members. But because the authors are 
Democrats -- and in some cases liberal as well -- the receptivity of the 
Republicans managing the House is not likely to be great.

The four members involved -- David Obey of Wisconsin, Barney Frank of 
Massachusetts, David Price of North Carolina and Tom Allen of Maine -- 
held a news conference on Monday at the Center for American Progress to 
introduce their 14-point plan. It is strong medicine -- a stiff enough 
dose of salts that even a watered-down version would mark a major change 
in the ethical environment of Capitol Hill.

On the lobbying front, for example, it would bar any reimbursed travel 
by a member of the House or its staff unless that person could certify 
in writing that no lobbyists were invited on the trip, no lobbyists 
attended the meetings, and whoever sponsored the gathering does not 
lobby or pay for lobbying.

It would also require former members who exercise their prerogative of 
visiting the floor of the House while it is in session to guarantee that 
the House is not debating a subject in which they have a financial 
interest and that the alumni will not advocate for or against any matter 
during the visit.

It cracks down on some of the favorite devices that Republicans have 
used to stifle genuine debate and deliberation in the House. To end the 
practice of lengthy roll calls -- some as long as three hours -- during 
which Republican arms are twisted to produce party-line victories, the 
rule would limit voting on any bill or amendment to 20 minutes, unless 
the leaders of both parties agreed to extend the time.

It would halt the spread of "earmarks," the spending targeted toward 
individual projects in members' districts, which are used to punish 
dissenters or reward reluctant supporters, thereby enforcing party 
discipline on bigger bills. And it would strike a further blow for 
budgetary sanity by requiring that reconciliation bills -- the 
end-of-the-line spending measures -- must be tailored to reduce the 
budget deficit, not increase it, except by a two-thirds vote of the House.

Finally, it would put teeth into two rules now often ignored by the 
majority party: It would require that printed copies of all bills be 
available at least 24 hours before they are called up for a vote, and it 
would insist that conference committees of the House and Senate actually 
meet and vote in open session, rather than having brief pro forma 
gatherings and then turning everything over to staff members or 
leadership aides to be negotiated in secret.

As I said, this is strong medicine. At the briefing, Tom Mann of the 
Brookings Institution, a scholar of Congress, asked the right question 
when he wondered whether the Democrats would actually adhere to such 
requirements if they became the House majority in a future election. 
Price said the requirements would be endorsed by the Democratic caucus 
and become part of the permanent rules. Frank added that the press would 
not allow the Democrats to backslide.

The Democrats' record during their 40-year reign in the House gives 
reason for skepticism. But something must be done to cleanse the House 
-- and this points the way.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/07/AR2005120701892.html
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From michael at michaelbutler.com  Wed Dec  7 18:28:07 2005
From: michael at michaelbutler.com (Michael Butler)
Date: Thu Dec  8 04:15:00 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] VERY CONTROVERSIAL-WORTH READING
Message-ID: <BFBD0467.268E1%michael@michaelbutler.com>

Truthdig

An Atheist Manifesto
http://www.truthdig.com/dig/item/200512_an_atheist_manifesto
Posted on Dec. 7, 2005

By Sam Harris

Editor?s Note: At a time when fundamentalist religion has an unparalleled
influence in the highest government levels in the United States, and
religion-based terror dominates the world stage, Sam Harris argues that
progressive tolerance of ?faith-based unreason? is as great a menace as
religion itself.  Harris, a philosophy graduate of Stanford who has studied
eastern and western religions, won the 2004 PEN Award for nonfiction for The
End of Faith, which powerfully examines and explodes the absurdities of
organized religion. Truthdig asked Harris to write a charter document for
his thesis that belief in God, and appeasement of religious extremists of
all faiths by moderates, has been?and continues to be?the greatest threat to
world peace and a sustained assault on reason.

Somewhere in the world a man has abducted a little girl. Soon he will rape,
torture and kill her. If an atrocity of this kind is not occurring at
precisely this moment, it will happen in a few hours, or days at most. Such
is the confidence we can draw from the statistical laws that govern the
lives of 6 billion human beings. The same statistics also suggest that this
girl?s parents believe?at this very moment?that an all-powerful and
all-loving God is watching over them and their family. Are they right to
believe this? Is it good that they believe this?

No.

The entirety of atheism is contained in this response. Atheism is not a
philosophy; it is not even a view of the world; it is simply a refusal to
deny the obvious.  Unfortunately, we live in a world in which the obvious is
overlooked as a matter of principle. The obvious must be observed and
re-observed and argued for. This is a thankless job. It carries with it an
aura of petulance and insensitivity. It is, moreover, a job that the atheist
does not want.

It is worth noting that no one ever needs to identify himself as a
non-astrologer or a non-alchemist. Consequently, we do not have words for
people who deny the validity of these pseudo-disciplines. Likewise, atheism
is a term that should not even exist. Atheism is nothing more than the
noises reasonable people make when in the presence of religious dogma. The
atheist is merely a person who believes that the 260 million Americans (87%
of the population) who claim to ?never doubt the existence of God? should be
obliged to present evidence for his existence?and, indeed, for his
benevolence, given the relentless destruction of innocent human beings we
witness in the world each day. Only the atheist appreciates just how uncanny
our situation is: Most of us believe in a God that is every bit as specious
as the gods of Mount Olympus; no person, whatever his or her qualifications,
can seek public office in the United States without pretending to be certain
that such a God exists; and much of what passes for public policy in our
country conforms to religious taboos and superstitions appropriate to a
medieval theocracy. Our circumstance is abject, indefensible and terrifying.
It would be hilarious if the stakes were not so high.

We live in a world where all things, good and bad, are finally destroyed by
change. Parents lose their children and children their parents. Husbands and
wives are separated in an instant, never to meet again. Friends part company
in haste, without knowing that it will be for the last time. This life, when
surveyed with a broad glance, presents little more than a vast spectacle of
loss. Most people in this world, however, imagine that there is a cure for
this. If we live rightly?not necessarily ethically, but within the framework
of certain ancient beliefs and stereotyped behaviors?we will get everything
we want after we die. When our bodies finally fail us, we just shed our
corporeal ballast and travel to a land where we are reunited with everyone
we loved while alive. Of course, overly rational people and other rabble
will be kept out of this happy place, and those who suspended their
disbelief while alive will be free to enjoy themselves for all eternity.

We live in a world of unimaginable surprises?from the fusion energy that
lights the sun to the genetic and evolutionary consequences of this light?s
dancing for eons upon the Earth?and yet Paradise conforms to our most
superficial concerns with all the fidelity of a Caribbean cruise. This is
wondrously strange. If one didn?t know better, one would think that man, in
his fear of losing all that he loves, had created heaven, along with its
gatekeeper God, in his own image.

Consider the destruction that Hurricane Katrina leveled on New Orleans. More
than a thousand people died, tens of thousands lost all their earthly
possessions, and nearly a million were displaced. It is safe to say that
almost every person living in New Orleans at the moment Katrina struck
believed in an omnipotent, omniscient and compassionate God. But what was
God doing while a hurricane laid waste to their city? Surely he heard the
prayers of those elderly men and women who fled the rising waters for the
safety of their attics, only to be slowly drowned there. These were people
of faith. These were good men and women who had prayed throughout their
lives. Only the atheist has the courage to admit the obvious: These poor
people died talking to an imaginary friend.

Of course, there had been ample warning that a storm ?of biblical
proportions? would strike New Orleans, and the human response to the ensuing
disaster was tragically inept. But it was inept only by the light of
science. Advance warning of Katrina?s path was wrested from mute Nature by
meteorological calculations and satellite imagery. God told no one of his
plans. Had the residents of New Orleans been content to rely on the
beneficence of the Lord, they wouldn?t have known that a killer hurricane
was bearing down upon them until they felt the first gusts of wind on their
faces. Nevertheless, a poll conducted by The Washington Post found that 80%
of Katrina?s survivors claim that the event has only strengthened their
faith in God.

As Hurricane Katrina was devouring New Orleans, nearly a thousand Shiite
pilgrims were trampled to death on a bridge in Iraq. There can be no doubt
that these pilgrims believed mightily in the God of the Koran: Their lives
were organized around the indisputable fact of his existence; their women
walked veiled before him; their men regularly murdered one another over
rival interpretations of his word. It would be remarkable if a single
survivor of this tragedy lost his faith. More likely, the survivors imagine
that they were spared through God?s grace.

Only the atheist recognizes the boundless narcissism and self-deceit of the
saved. Only the atheist realizes how morally objectionable it is for
survivors of a catastrophe to believe themselves spared by a loving God
while this same God drowned infants in their cribs. Because he refuses to
cloak the reality of the world?s suffering in a cloying fantasy of eternal
life, the atheist feels in his bones just how precious life is?and, indeed,
how unfortunate it is that millions of human beings suffer the most
harrowing abridgements of their happiness for no good reason at all.

One wonders just how vast and gratuitous a catastrophe would have to be to
shake the world?s faith. The Holocaust did not do it. Neither did the
genocide in Rwanda, even with machete-wielding priests among the
perpetrators. Five hundred million people died of smallpox in the 20th
Century, many of them infants. God?s ways are, indeed, inscrutable. It seems
that any fact, no matter how infelicitous, can be rendered compatible with
religious faith. In matters of faith, we have kicked ourselves loose of the
Earth.

Of course, people of faith regularly assure one another that God is not
responsible for human suffering. But how else can we understand the claim
that God is both omniscient and omnipotent? There is no other way, and it is
time for sane human beings to own up to this. This is the age-old problem of
theodicy, of course, and we should consider it solved. If God exists, either
he can do nothing to stop the most egregious calamities or he does not care
to. God, therefore, is either impotent or evil. Pious readers will now
execute the following pirouette: God cannot be judged by merely human
standards of morality. But, of course, human standards of morality are
precisely what the faithful use to establish God?s goodness in the first
place. And any God who could concern himself with something as trivial as
gay marriage, or the name by which he is addressed in prayer, is not as
inscrutable as all that. If he exists, the God of Abraham is not merely
unworthy of the immensity of creation; he is unworthy even of man.

There is another possibility, of course, and it is both the most reasonable
and least odious: The biblical God is a fiction. As Richard Dawkins has
observed, we are all atheists with respect to Zeus and Thor. Only the
atheist has realized that the biblical god is no different. Consequently,
only the atheist is compassionate enough to take the profundity of the
world?s suffering at face value. It is terrible that we all die and lose
everything we love; it is doubly terrible that so many human beings suffer
needlessly while alive. That so much of this suffering can be directly
attributed to religion?to religious hatreds, religious wars, religious
delusions and religious diversions of scarce resources?is what makes atheism
a moral and intellectual necessity. It is a necessity, however, that places
the atheist at the margins of society. The atheist, by merely being in touch
with reality, appears shamefully out of touch with the fantasy life of his
neighbors.

Continued: The Nature of Belief

The Nature of Belief
According to several recent polls, 22% of Americans are certain that Jesus
will return to Earth sometime in the next 50 years. Another 22% believe that
he will probably do so. This is likely the same 44% who go to church once a
week or more, who believe that God literally promised the land of Israel to
the Jews and who want to stop teaching our children about the biological
fact of evolution. As President Bush is well aware, believers of this sort
constitute the most cohesive and motivated segment of the American
electorate. Consequently, their views and prejudices now influence almost
every decision of national importance. Political liberals seem to have drawn
the wrong lesson from these developments and are now thumbing Scripture,
wondering how best to ingratiate themselves to the legions of men and women
in our country who vote largely on the basis of religious dogma. More than
50% of Americans have a ?negative? or ?highly negative? view of people who
do not believe in God; 70% think it important for presidential candidates to
be ?strongly religious.? Unreason is now ascendant in the United States?in
our schools, in our courts and in each branch of the federal government.
Only 28% of Americans believe in evolution; 68% believe in Satan. Ignorance
in this degree, concentrated in both the head and belly of a lumbering
superpower, is now a problem for the entire world.

Although it is easy enough for smart people to criticize religious
fundamentalism, something called ?religious moderation? still enjoys immense
prestige in our society, even in the ivory tower. This is ironic, as
fundamentalists tend to make a more principled use of their brains than
?moderates? do. While fundamentalists justify their religious beliefs with
extraordinarily poor evidence and arguments, they at least they make an
attempt at rational justification. Moderates, on the other hand, generally
do nothing more than cite the good consequences of religious belief. Rather
than say that they believe in God because certain biblical prophecies have
come true, moderates will say that they believe in God because this belief
?gives their lives meaning.? When a tsunami killed a few hundred thousand
people on the day after Christmas, fundamentalists readily interpreted this
cataclysm as evidence of God?s wrath. As it turns out, God was sending
humanity another oblique message about the evils of abortion, idolatry and
homosexuality. While morally obscene, this interpretation of events is
actually reasonable, given certain (ludicrous) assumptions. Moderates, on
the other hand, refuse to draw any conclusions whatsoever about God from his
works. God remains a perfect mystery, a mere source of consolation that is
compatible with the most desolating evil. In the face of disasters like the
Asian tsunami, liberal piety is apt to produce the most unctuous and
stupefying nonsense imaginable. And yet, men and women of goodwill naturally
prefer such vacuities to the odious moralizing and prophesizing of true
believers. Between catastrophes, it is surely a virtue of liberal theology
that it emphasizes mercy over wrath. It is worth noting, however, that it is
human mercy on display?not God?s?when the bloated bodies of the dead are
pulled from the sea. On days when thousands of children are simultaneously
torn from their mothers? arms and casually drowned, liberal theology must
stand revealed for what it is?the sheerest of mortal pretenses. Even the
theology of wrath has more intellectual merit. If God exists, his will is
not inscrutable. The only thing inscrutable in these terrible events is that
so many neurologically healthy men and women can believe the unbelievable
and think this the height of moral wisdom.

It is perfectly absurd for religious moderates to suggest that a rational
human being can believe in God simply because this belief makes him happy,
relieves his fear of death or gives his life meaning. The absurdity becomes
obvious the moment we swap the notion of God for some other consoling
proposition: Imagine, for instance, that a man wants to believe that there
is a diamond buried somewhere in his yard that is the size of a
refrigerator. No doubt it would feel uncommonly good to believe this. Just
imagine what would happen if he then followed the example of religious
moderates and maintained this belief along pragmatic lines: When asked why
he thinks that there is a diamond in his yard that is thousands of times
larger than any yet discovered, he says things like, ?This belief gives my
life meaning,? or ?My family and I enjoy digging for it on Sundays,? or ?I
wouldn?t want to live in a universe where there wasn?t a diamond buried in
my backyard that is the size of a refrigerator.? Clearly these responses are
inadequate. But they are worse than that. They are the responses of a madman
or an idiot.

Here we can see why Pascal?s wager, Kierkegaard?s leap of faith and other
epistemological Ponzi schemes won?t do. To believe that God exists is to
believe that one stands in some relation to his existence such that his
existence is itself the reason for one?s belief. There must be some causal
connection, or an appearance thereof, between the fact in question and a
person?s acceptance of it. In this way, we can see that religious beliefs,
to be beliefs about the way the world is, must be as evidentiary in spirit
as any other. For all their sins against reason, religious fundamentalists
understand this; moderates?almost by definition?do not.

The incompatibility of reason and faith has been a self-evident feature of
human cognition and public discourse for centuries. Either a person has good
reasons for what he strongly believes or he does not. People of all creeds
naturally recognize the primacy of reasons and resort to reasoning and
evidence wherever they possibly can. When rational inquiry supports the
creed it is always championed; when it poses a threat, it is derided;
sometimes in the same sentence. Only when the evidence for a religious
doctrine is thin or nonexistent, or there is compelling evidence against it,
do its adherents invoke ?faith.? Otherwise, they simply cite the reasons for
their beliefs (e.g. ?the New Testament confirms Old Testament prophecy,? ?I
saw the face of Jesus in a window,? ?We prayed, and our daughter?s cancer
went into remission?). Such reasons are generally inadequate, but they are
better than no reasons at all. Faith is nothing more than the license
religious people give themselves to keep believing when reasons fail. In a
world that has been shattered by mutually incompatible religious beliefs, in
a nation that is growing increasingly beholden to Iron Age conceptions of
God, the end of history and the immortality of the soul, this lazy
partitioning of our discourse into matters of reason and matters of faith is
now unconscionable.

Continued: Faith and the Good Society

Faith and the Good Society
People of faith regularly claim that atheism is responsible for some of the
most appalling crimes of the 20th century. Although it is true that the
regimes of Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot were irreligious to varying
degrees, they were not especially rational. In fact, their public
pronouncements were little more than litanies of delusion?delusions about
race, economics, national identity, the march of history or the moral
dangers of intellectualism. In many respects, religion was directly culpable
even here. Consider the Holocaust: The anti-Semitism that built the Nazi
crematoria brick by brick was a direct inheritance from medieval
Christianity. For centuries, religious Germans had viewed the Jews as the
worst species of heretics and attributed every societal ill to their
continued presence among the faithful. While the hatred of Jews in Germany
expressed itself in a predominately secular way, the religious demonization
of the Jews of Europe continued. (The Vatican itself perpetuated the blood
libel in its newspapers as late as 1914.)

Auschwitz, the gulag and the killing fields are not examples of what happens
when people become too critical of unjustified beliefs; to the contrary,
these horrors testify to the dangers of not thinking critically enough about
specific secular ideologies. Needless to say, a rational argument against
religious faith is not an argument for the blind embrace of atheism as a
dogma. The problem that the atheist exposes is none other than the problem
of dogma itself?of which every religion has more than its fair share. There
is no society in recorded history that ever suffered because its people
became too reasonable.

While most Americans believe that getting rid of religion is an impossible
goal, much of the developed world has already accomplished it. Any account
of a ?god gene? that causes the majority of Americans to helplessly organize
their lives around ancient works of religious fiction must explain why so
many inhabitants of other First World societies apparently lack such a gene.
The level of atheism throughout the rest of the developed world refutes any
argument that religion is somehow a moral necessity. Countries like Norway,
Iceland, Australia, Canada, Sweden, Switzerland, Belgium, Japan, the
Netherlands, Denmark and the United Kingdom are among the least religious
societies on Earth. According to the United Nations? Human Development
Report (2005) they are also the healthiest, as indicated by measures of life
expectancy, adult literacy, per capita income, educational attainment,
gender equality, homicide rate and infant mortality. Conversely, the 50
nations now ranked lowest in terms of human development are unwaveringly
religious. Other analyses paint the same picture: The United States is
unique among wealthy democracies in its level of religious literalism and
opposition to evolutionary theory; it is also uniquely beleaguered by high
rates of homicide, abortion, teen pregnancy, STD infection and infant
mortality. The same comparison holds true within the United States itself:
Southern and Midwestern states, characterized by the highest levels of
religious superstition and hostility to evolutionary theory, are especially
plagued by the above indicators of societal dysfunction, while the
comparatively secular states of the Northeast conform to European norms. Of
course, correlational data of this sort do not resolve questions of
causality?belief in God may lead to societal dysfunction; societal
dysfunction may foster a belief in God; each factor may enable the other; or
both may spring from some deeper source of mischief. Leaving aside the issue
of cause and effect, these facts prove that atheism is perfectly compatible
with the basic aspirations of a civil society; they also prove,
conclusively, that religious faith does nothing to ensure a society?s
health.

Countries with high levels of atheism also are the most charitable in terms
of giving foreign aid to the developing world. The dubious link between
Christian literalism and Christian values is also belied by other indices of
charity. Consider the ratio in salaries between top-tier CEOs and their
average employee: in Britain it is 24 to 1; France 15 to 1; Sweden 13 to 1;
in the United States, where 83% of the population believes that Jesus
literally rose from the dead, it is 475 to 1. Many a camel, it would seem,
expects to squeeze easily through the eye of a needle.

Continued: Religion as a Source of Violence

Religion as a Source of Violence
One of the greatest challenges facing civilization in the 21st century is
for human beings to learn to speak about their deepest personal
concerns?about ethics, spiritual experience and the inevitability of human
suffering?in ways that are not flagrantly irrational. Nothing stands in the
way of this project more than the respect we accord religious faith.
Incompatible religious doctrines have balkanized our world into separate
moral communities?Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, etc.?and these
divisions have become a continuous source of human conflict. Indeed,
religion is as much a living spring of violence today as it was at any time
in the past. The recent conflicts in Palestine (Jews versus Muslims), the
Balkans (Orthodox Serbians versus Catholic Croatians; Orthodox Serbians
versus Bosnian and Albanian Muslims), Northern Ireland (Protestants versus
Catholics), Kashmir (Muslims versus Hindus), Sudan (Muslims versus
Christians and animists), Nigeria (Muslims versus Christians), Ethiopia and
Eritrea (Muslims versus Christians), Sri Lanka (Sinhalese Buddhists versus
Tamil Hindus), Indonesia (Muslims versus Timorese Christians), Iran and Iraq
(Shiite versus Sunni Muslims), and the Caucasus (Orthodox Russians versus
Chechen Muslims; Muslim Azerbaijanis versus Catholic and Orthodox Armenians)
are merely a few cases in point. In these places religion has been the
explicit cause of literally millions of deaths in the last 10 years.

In a world riven by ignorance, only the atheist refuses to deny the obvious:
Religious faith promotes human violence to an astonishing degree. Religion
inspires violence in at least two senses: (1) People often kill other human
beings because they believe that the creator of the universe wants them to
do it (the inevitable psychopathic corollary being that the act will ensure
them an eternity of happiness after death). Examples of this sort of
behavior are practically innumerable, jihadist suicide bombing being the
most prominent. (2) Larger numbers of people are inclined toward religious
conflict simply because their religion constitutes the core of their moral
identities. One of the enduring pathologies of human culture is the tendency
to raise children to fear and demonize other human beings on the basis of
religion. Many religious conflicts that seem driven by terrestrial concerns,
therefore, are religious in origin. (Just ask the Irish.)

These facts notwithstanding, religious moderates tend to imagine that human
conflict is always reducible to a lack of education, to poverty or to
political grievances. This is one of the many delusions of liberal piety. To
dispel it, we need only reflect on the fact that the Sept. 11 hijackers were
college educated and middle class and had no discernable history of
political oppression. They did, however, spend an inordinate amount of time
at their local mosque talking about the depravity of infidels and about the
pleasures that await martyrs in Paradise. How many more architects and
mechanical engineers must hit the wall at 400 miles an hour before we admit
to ourselves that jihadist violence is not a matter of education, poverty or
politics? The truth, astonishingly enough, is this: A person can be so well
educated that he can build a nuclear bomb while still believing that he will
get 72 virgins in Paradise. Such is the ease with which the human mind can
be partitioned by faith, and such is the degree to which our intellectual
discourse still patiently accommodates religious delusion. Only the atheist
has observed what should now be obvious to every thinking human being: If we
want to uproot the causes of religious violence we must uproot the false
certainties of religion.

Why is religion such a potent source of human violence?

    * Our religions are intrinsically incompatible with one another. Either
Jesus rose from the dead and will be returning to Earth like a superhero or
not; either the Koran is the infallible word of God or it isn?t. Every
religion makes explicit claims about the way the world is, and the sheer
profusion of these incompatible claims creates an enduring basis for
conflict.
    * There is no other sphere of discourse in which human beings so fully
articulate their differences from one another, or cast these differences in
terms of everlasting rewards and punishments. Religion is the one endeavor
in which us-them thinking achieves a transcendent significance. If a person
really believes that calling God by the right name can spell the difference
between eternal happiness and eternal suffering, then it becomes quite
reasonable to treat heretics and unbelievers rather badly. It may even be
reasonable to kill them. If a person thinks there is something that another
person can say to his children that could put their souls in jeopardy for
all eternity, then the heretic next door is actually far more dangerous than
the child molester. The stakes of our religious differences are immeasurably
higher than those born of mere tribalism, racism or politics.
    * Religious faith is a conversation-stopper. Religion is only area of
our discourse in which people are systematically protected from the demand
to give evidence in defense of their strongly held beliefs. And yet these
beliefs often determine what they live for, what they will die for, and?all
too often?what they will kill for. This is a problem, because when the
stakes are high, human beings have a simple choice between conversation and
violence. Only a fundamental willingness to be reasonable?to have our
beliefs about the world revised by new evidence and new arguments?can
guarantee that we will keep talking to one another. Certainty without
evidence is necessarily divisive and dehumanizing. While there is no
guarantee that rational people will always agree, the irrational are certain
to be divided by their dogmas.


It seems profoundly unlikely that we will heal the divisions in our world
simply by multiplying the opportunities for interfaith dialogue. The endgame
for civilization cannot be mutual tolerance of patent irrationality. While
all parties to liberal religious discourse have agreed to tread lightly over
those points where their worldviews would otherwise collide, these very
points remain perpetual sources of conflict for their coreligionists.
Political correctness, therefore, does not offer an enduring basis for human
cooperation. If religious war is ever to become unthinkable for us, in the
way that slavery and cannibalism seem poised to, it will be a matter of our
having dispensed with the dogma of faith.

When we have reasons for what we believe, we have no need of faith; when we
have no reasons, or bad ones, we have lost our connection to the world and
to one another. Atheism is nothing more than a commitment to the most basic
standard of intellectual honesty: One?s convictions should be proportional
to one?s evidence. Pretending to be certain when one isn?t?indeed,
pretending to be certain about propositions for which no evidence is even
conceivable?is both an intellectual and a moral failing. Only the atheist
has realized this. The atheist is simply a person who has perceived the lies
of religion and refused to make them his own.
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From newsletter at villagevoice.com  Wed Dec  7 22:51:18 2005
From: newsletter at villagevoice.com (Village Voice Newsletter)
Date: Thu Dec  8 04:15:06 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Today's 'Voice': The 9-11 Files
Message-ID: <20051208065118.74888.qmail@www3.villagevoice.com>

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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Thu Dec  8 06:07:05 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (Ian)
Date: Thu Dec  8 06:17:40 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Addendum
Message-ID: <001001c5fc00$ac6d2200$99ca6c42@iancn2ccrvzt0j>

All:

In re-reading my lengthy response to Harris' article, I note that I left ou to important points.

First, re his comments on the 9/11 hijackers and their "faith," I forgot to add that this would be true if 9/11 were the result of 19 men using box cutters to hijack four planes and fly them into buildings.  However, you all know I do not believe this is what happened; so the faith, non-faith, or misguided faith of the "hijackers" is a moot point.

Second, and perhaps most importantly, after he spends almost the first quarter to third of his article on the old "where is God?" and "why does God allow bad things to happen to good people (or any people)?" questions, he then notes that "68% of American Christians believe in Satan."  Yet he never makes the connection here.

To address the God/Satan, good/evil, spiritual/temporal issue properly would take far too long here - though I am happy to do so at some other time.  In brief, Scripturally, Satan is "the ruler of this world," meaning the temporal, earthly world we live in.  Thus, almost all the "bad" things that occur are his doing, not God's.  A good example of how the tension between them works is the following.  Let's assume that the 9/11 attacks were exactly what we have been told (Arab hijackers, etc.).  Many people asked, "Where was God" when 2,900 people died at the WTC?  Seen from a proper understanding of the relationship between God and Satan, the answer is "He was saving the other 30,000+ people in the buildings."

Again, this is admittedly overly simplistic, and a clearer, more thorough understanding can only be gotten by reading and understanding Scripture.

In any event, Harris is certainly a good example of one for whom the following phrase is true: "The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was to convince people that he doesn't exist."  Except for noting Christians' belief in Satan, Harris completely ignores his influence in "world affairs."

Peace.
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From nwonline at toronto.cbc.ca  Thu Dec  8 06:35:35 2005
From: nwonline at toronto.cbc.ca (CBC News Online)
Date: Thu Dec  8 06:46:36 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] CBC News - U.S. BANS USE OF TORTURE
Message-ID: <20051208143535.DDE271B695@nmweb07.nm.cbc.ca>

This email has been sent to you by harry.sifton@sympatico.ca
The following is a news item posted on CBC NEWS ONLINE
at http://www.cbc.ca/news
____________________________________________________
U.S. BANS USE OF TORTURE
WebPosted Wed Dec  7 17:39:09 2005

--- The United States has made a clear, direct, unequivocal statement
about the use of torture. Its official policy now is to honour the United
Nations ban on cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment, not just at home,
but around the world as well.

                Questions about torture, secret prisons and mysterious
                CIA flights have been dogging U.S. Secretary of State
                Condaleezza Rice for months and helped prompt her visit
                this week to European allies, who have expressed concern
                over the reports.

        The White House has tried to argue that rules against torture
        don't apply beyond U.S. soil, in places like Guantanamo Bay,
        Cuba, or Afghanistan. But on Wednesday that all changed.

                Speaking in Kiev, Rice made a definitive statement.
                "Those obligations [against the use of torture] extend to
                U.S. personnel wherever they are, whether they are in the
                United States or outside of the United States," she said.

        House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi said it was "about time."
        "Shame on us that it took so long for the administration" to make
        the determination not to use torture, she said.

        A Democratic Senator called Rice's statement an "almost total
        reversal of U.S. policy."

Ivo Daalder a foreign policy expert at the Brookings Institution said
Rice "is now saying the thing that the administration has not wanted to
say for four years, which is that when Americans have in their possession
non-Americans believed or thought to be terrorists, they will be treated
humanely."

Rice's statement set off a confusing reaction within the U.S. government.

On the one hand, White House spokesman Scott McLellan called it
nothing new. "Is this existing policy? As I stated earlier, yes it is
existing policy."

                But at the State Department spokesman Adam Ereli
                said Rice's statement "is a statement of policy and
                it's been the U.S. policy ... at least since the
                secretary said it."

Rice was hardly definitive and there are still plenty of loopholes such
as what is the definition of cruel and will the rules apply to foreigners
hired by the U.S.

But her statement should please the U.S. allies and it may signal that
the Bush administration has resigned itself to accepting a ban on torture
that the Congress is about to enact.

Copyright (C) 2005 CBC. All rights reserved.
From nwonline at toronto.cbc.ca  Thu Dec  8 06:44:51 2005
From: nwonline at toronto.cbc.ca (CBC News Online)
Date: Thu Dec  8 06:55:38 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] CBC News - RED CROSS PICKS NEUTRAL SYMBOL 
Message-ID: <20051208144451.33EE21B6A3@nmweb06.nm.cbc.ca>

This email has been sent to you by harry.sifton@sympatico.ca
The following is a news item posted on CBC NEWS ONLINE
at http://www.cbc.ca/news
____________________________________________________
RED CROSS PICKS NEUTRAL SYMBOL 
WebPosted Wed Dec  7 21:49:51 2005

--- A new, neutral symbol for the International Committee of the Red
Cross (ICRC) has been approved - one that will allow its use by countries
that may suspect the old red cross, or red crescent, might not be
respected by combatants.

        The new symbol, which will be used alongside the red cross and
        the red crescent as a third symbol of humanitarian relief, will
        be known as the red crystal.

"It will appear as a red frame in the shape of a square on edge, on a
white background, and is free from any religious, political or other
connotation," said the ICRC in a news release.

        The decision means that after six decades of negotiations, Israel
        will be able to join the international humanitarian movement.
        Until now, Israel has used a red Star of David as its symbol,
        which represents the Jewish state. Many Muslim nations object to
        that symbol.

                                Syria objected to the change and Damascus
                                tried to use the issue to gain access to
                                Syrian citizens on the Golan Heights,
                                which have been occupied by Israel for
                                nearly 40 years.

        The ICRC said an agreement signed last month between the
        Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) and Israel's Magen David
        Adom, or Red Shield of David, also contributed to the success
        of the vote.

More than 190 countries were eligible to vote on the new design. The vote
was 98 in favour, 27 against and 10 abstentions. A number of small states
were absent.

        A conference will be held in 2006 "to amend the statutes of the
        Movement [of the Geneva Conventions], to take into account the
        creation of the new emblem, in order to realize the objective of
        universality," said the news release.

Copyright (C) 2005 CBC. All rights reserved.
From nwonline at toronto.cbc.ca  Thu Dec  8 06:47:37 2005
From: nwonline at toronto.cbc.ca (CBC Arts)
Date: Thu Dec  8 06:58:20 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] CBC Arts - PINTER'S NOBEL SPEECH CONDEMNS U.S. POLICY
Message-ID: <20051208144737.8751869AFD@nmweb08.nm.cbc.ca>

This email has been sent to you by harry.sifton@sympatico.ca
The following is a news item posted on CBC ARTS
at http://www.cbc.ca/arts
____________________________________________________
PINTER'S NOBEL SPEECH CONDEMNS U.S. POLICY
WebPosted Wed Dec  7 16:45:30 2005

---Ailing playwright Harold Pinter used his Nobel Prize lecture on
Wednesday to deliver a fierce attack on U.S. foreign policy.

Pinter, 75, who has been battling cancer for years, was forbidden by
doctors from going to Stockholm to receive his Nobel Prize. Instead he
sent a video recording of himself in a wheelchair with his legs under a
red blanket.

RELATED STORY: Pinter hospitalized days before Nobel Prize ceremony

In a speech peppered with the potent silences that are often called
"Pinteresque", he accused the U.S. and its ally Britain of trading in
death and employing "language to keep thought at bay."

His lecture, entitled Art, Truth and Politics, emphasized the importance
of truth in art before decrying its perceived absence in politics.

In a voice that was sometimes hoarse with illness, he said politicians
feel it is "essential that people remain in ignorance, that they live in
ignorance of the truth, even the truth of their own lives."

President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair came in
for the harshest criticism, but Pinter expanded the criticism to "the
majority of politicians" who weave "a vast tapestry of lies" to keep
themselves in power.

Pinter said post-Second World War history was full of examples of
Washington exercising "a clinical manipulation of power worldwide while
masquerading as a force for universal good."

The war in Iraq was just the latest example, he said, citing the U.S.-
backed Contra rebels in Nicaragua and U.S. intervention in Greece,
Indonesia, Guatemala, Haiti and Chile, among many examples.

"Hundreds of thousands of deaths took place throughout these countries.
But you wouldn't know it. It never happened. Even while it was happening
it wasn't happening. It didn't matter. There was no interest," he said.

He concluded by calling for an "unflinching, unswerving and fierce
intellectual determination as citizens to define the real truth of our
lives and our societies.

"If such a determination is not embodied in our political vision, we have
no hope of restoring what is so nearly lost to us: the dignity of man."

Even while discussing his plays, he made digs at the U.S., saying of his
own use of humour that "torturers become easily bored; they need a bit of
a laugh to keep their spirits up."

Pinter gave insight into the genesis of his plays, saying the first seed
was often a single line like the opening of The Homecoming : "What have
you done with the scissors?"

The next stage of his creative process is to imagine characters, at first
called A, B and C, who would later become people with names, made of
"flesh and blood," he said.

Pinter's publisher will be in Stockholm Saturday to collect his prize,
valued at 10 million Swedish crowns ($1.4 million).

Copyright (C) 2005 CBC. All rights reserved.
From harry.sifton at sympatico.ca  Thu Dec  8 06:55:59 2005
From: harry.sifton at sympatico.ca (Harry)
Date: Thu Dec  8 07:06:22 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] BBC E-mail: US attacks UN official on 'jails'
Message-ID: <20051208_145559_059019.harry.sifton@sympatico.ca>

Harry saw this story on BBC News Online and thought you
should see it.



** US attacks UN official on 'jails' **
Washington says the UN human rights commissioner had no authority to criticise its anti-terror tactics.
< http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/1/hi/world/europe/4508892.stm >


** BBC Daily E-mail **
Choose the news and sport headlines you want - when you want them, all
in one daily e-mail
< http://www.bbc.co.uk/dailyemail/ >


** Disclaimer **
The BBC is not responsible for the content of this e-mail, and anything written in this e-mail does not necessarily reflect the BBC's views or opinions. Please note that neither the e-mail address nor name of the sender have?been verified.

If you do not wish to receive such e-mails in the future or want to know more about the BBC's Email a Friend service, please read our frequently asked questions. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/help/4162471.stm

From sierrapecheur at verizon.net  Thu Dec  8 07:04:13 2005
From: sierrapecheur at verizon.net (Sierra Pecheur)
Date: Thu Dec  8 07:14:50 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] letter from Pakistan
Message-ID: <002a01c5fc08$a71200c0$7b6a6947@xplcp>

Here is a letter forwarded to me from a friend in Paris. Happy Holidays, Sierra

Here below is a very moving letter I just received from a young Estonian friend, working in Pakistan that demands fowarding.  

Tony


Hello everyone,
    No, I am not missing, everything is ok with me - I was just not able to get to Internet for a while.Now I have sometimes access and apparently soon even more often, which is of course most welcomed! 
    I have now been almost a month here in Muzaffarabad, Pakistan, working every day since we are racing with the upcoming winter. The latter has been very considering this year, since normally at this time of the year it is already much colder and it is snowing in the mountains. The local people say that first the nature was angry with them, the God punished them (earthquake), but now they are taken care of..
    Since I am still kind of in the adaptation phase, it feels in a way a bit difficult to draw a certain picture of my life here - I am still in the "taking in" phase, but for writing I need to have time to "digest" the things and to find myself in this new context.So sorry, if I do not make much sense and the letter will be in a way full of gaps and will not give a good overview..
    This earthquake was a very devastating one - in addition to the more than 70 000 casualties in Pakistan (it is my free time and I do not have my materials with me, so I do not guarantee the accurate dataJ), it destroyed the livelihoods of people in an extremely large mountainous region.In the areas where we are working, in Kashmir, the destruction rate of houses is about 70%. In a way, the first initial phase of the emergency is over - the wounded treated, bodies buried and people start slowly come out of the initial, very strong shock. All people I have met have lost very closed family members - their children, parents, cousins etc However, they have started to build up their lives, look for the things in the ruins and many construct the temporary shelter for the winter. Unfortunately, one cannot really reuse the things that are dig out of what once used to be their home, since most of the houses were made from mud and stones and the rain that followed  right after damaged the leftovers once more..  The cold weather - it is very cold, I am wearing thermals, double socks, one of them the military ones and heavy boots, good jacket and many sweaters, double trousers -pushes them also to react, but many are still reluctant to construct, afraid of the aftershocks and landslides.It breaks my heart to see the children barefoot, only wearing the open, often broken, sandals.you take their hands and they are SO cold.of course, these mountain people are used to difficult weather conditions, but they are also only humans.they do have cold. Some prognosis, and I agree with them, say that the second emergency is coming in the winter and many kids under 5 years will die of cold-related diseases and hunger. I am lacking of words to describe what I see in these completely destroyed remote mountain villages where the helicopter drops me in the morning.Sometimes I really want to think that I am not part of the same race as them, because I am under so many warm cloths and I am still freezing, whereas they seem to be ok with their few things around them..Yes, the cold is the first visible threat, but according to the specialists, the hunger is not far behind.I arrived here at the time when there were no more serious medical evacuations so I guess I do not really realize the horror that happened here during the first weeks that followed the October, 8.I guess a lot of you have seen some images via media and I will try to send you some photos..
    As to my life, I have been working without having a day off since I arrived here. 90% of my days I spend in the mountain villages that are more or less cut off from the rest of the world, at very high altitude.Tomorrow for example, I will be working at 9000 feet that is about 3000 meters over the sea level. The landscape is breathtaking - before people used to call Kashmir "the Heaven on the Earth" - the mountains are really so wild and magnificent! It is the beginning of Himalaya. I wake up around about 6:30; it takes me about 15 minutes to put all my cloths on and then I head toward the delegation, where I have a quick (I am usually late, so I have to eat more or less walkingJ) breakfast, check my flight plan, gather my team and we head toward the helipad.Then you will be dropped to your destination, varies often, were you will be waiting for your rotations.The number of flights you receive varies a lot - some day you might have 3-5 helicopters dropping food, cloths or shelter (tarps and blankets), another day till 20.The work is very physical and one needs to be resistant, since you stay all day outside, are constantly in the turmoil of amazing amount of dust, very strong wind and noise, caused by helicopters.In addition, you eat the food that people offer you to thank you and often the hygiene has not been the priority of the cook.However, the food is delicious! In spite of the tremendous amount of energy one looses in the field, I have put on already several kilos! I am definitely a fan of Pakistan food now! My job is to organize the unloading of the helicopter, count the things and hand them over to community. It is kind of easy since it is not individual distribution, but what makes it difficult are the decisions I have to make as a team leader - should I evacuate this medical case, what about this widow who is not on the distribution list since she is not on the papers from this village - should I include her knowing that tomorrow there might be 20 more who need exceptions and I do not have enough.If I have time and energy, especially when it is a new distribution point, I talk to people, try to find out how they used to live and how do they manage now.The people are amazing here - a month after the earthquake I expected to see a lot of crying people, very sad and passive, weak victims, trying to get everything out of you.This was absolutely not the case - people are very strong here - physically as well as mentally! I have a lot to learn from them. They reflect a beautiful combination of pride and humility and when I say I will be here for 9 months and we will help you also in spring, they say: "Thank you, but we will be ok then. If you can, help us only through the winter." They are smiling, positive, so peaceful somehow.in spite of all the horror and loss.
    The living conditions are improving fast - every day when we get back to our residence, we find new things. First it was warm water, beds, dishes and some days ago it was TV! So the period when people were sleeping in the tents and in the office, is now already far past. We do have big cracks in the walls, but I guess there is no house in Muzaffarabad who does not have.
    It is a community life and it is not easy to find privacy. I share my room with a girl from Macedonia, she is nice and we have found good balance. She will be leaving in 6 days and then I will stay alone and will probably decorate my room and have more "normal" life.
    I am happy here and somehow found my place from the first day. The atmosphere is very good and I enjoy my time here - the beautiful landscape, flying by helicopters, chatting in Russian with pilots who are mostly from ex-soviet republics, carrying the babies of women or listening women singing me, discussing the day at the daily meeting, joking with local staff with whom we work, listening the mission-stories from oldcomers at dinner table and drinking tea and gossiping in the evening in pyjamas with girls in our residence..
    But I do miss you all and would love to have some news. One of the best moments is the minutes I have chance to check e-mail and I find letters from some of you.Sorry, that I am not able to write long personal letters, but slowly I try to catch up now, when I have more possibilities to go to Internet.
    Lots of love and hugs,
    V................
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Thu Dec  8 07:34:02 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Thu Dec  8 07:46:41 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Truth for the Troops - Richard Cohen - Washington Post
	Op-Ed
Message-ID: <4398526A.3000203@comcast.net>

Truth for the Troops

By Richard Cohen
Thursday, December 8, 2005; A33

If, as Samuel Johnson said, "patriotism is the last refuge of a 
scoundrel," then "support our troops" is very close by. It is being used 
to deflect criticism of the war in Iraq, or to rebut those who call for 
a pullout or question how incompetents seized control of the government 
in a coup by ideologues. In the lexicon of some, the only way to support 
our troops is to ensure that more of them die.

The utter tastelessness of this approach was on display Tuesday when 
Vice President Cheney spoke to the 10th Mountain Division and the 
National Guard's 42nd Infantry Division at Fort Drum, N.Y. These are 
storied outfits. The Mountain Division is Bob Dole's own, and those of 
us who followed him as he campaigned for the presidency in 1996 will 
never forget the day in New Hampshire when some of the division's World 
War II veterans gathered to hear from their old comrade in arms. There 
was Dole, trying as ever to be stoical, but that day his voice cracked 
and emotion rocked him and, along the wall of the hall, a mighty cynical 
press corps fought hard to hold back the tears.

As for the 42nd Division, it is my own. Its famous Rainbow Patch -- 
Douglas MacArthur said "the 42nd Division stretches like a rainbow from 
one end of America to the other" -- is among my mementos. I make no 
great claim to military service -- I was a reluctant Vietnam-era 
enlistee in the National Guard -- but I trained at Fort Drum, wore the 
Rainbow Patch and keep it to this day on the bulletin board in my 
office. By accident and happenstance, it's my outfit. Somehow, it matters.

So I don't need any cheap reminders about supporting the troops. On the 
contrary, it's the other way around. It is the reminders who need 
reminding that they owe the troops the highest level of respect. That 
means, among other things, explaining clearly and honestly why they are 
being sent into harm's way. If that cannot be done -- if you cannot tell 
soldiers why they might die -- then you cannot send them. At the very 
least, you must stick to the strictest truth.

But Cheney was not strictly truthful. He turned the war in Iraq into a 
war against terrorism, when it is only partly that. The Sunni insurgents 
have no designs on America. And to say, as Cheney did, that terrorists 
"believe that, by controlling an entire country, they will be able to . 
. . establish a radical Islamic empire that encompasses a region from 
Spain, across North Africa, through the Middle East and South Asia, all 
the way to Indonesia" is to give credence to the fantasies of Islamic 
nut cases. This may or may not be the goal of certain terrorists, but it 
is clearly beyond their reach -- and no reason to fight in Iraq.

Similarly, Cheney once again implied a link between the terrorist 
attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and Saddam Hussein. His words were slippery, 
but his meaning was clear: "Some have suggested that by liberating Iraq 
. . . we simply stirred up a hornet's nest. They overlook a fundamental 
fact: We were not in Iraq . . . and the terrorists hit us anyway." Yes, 
and the crowing of the rooster makes the sun come up. Cause and effect 
is being mocked here.

As I recently wrote, I do not favor an immediate pullout from Iraq -- 
not yet, anyway. The arguments advanced for staying make sense to me, 
and Cheney mentioned some of them in his speech. There is reason to fear 
civil war in Iraq, the country's dissolution, the creation of a haven 
for terrorists and the precipitous loss of American prestige, which 
could encourage even more terrorism.

But I do not fear the emergence of a vast, radical Islamic empire 
stretching from Granada to Jakarta, and neither do I believe that 
toppling Hussein dealt a blow to terrorists or made the United States 
one iota safer. Soon enough we will exceed in military deaths the number 
of civilians killed on Sept. 11 -- and the culprits, including Osama bin 
Laden, are still on the loose, still posing a threat. This is a policy 
that collapsed of its own stupidity.

By dint of heroic effort, the Bush administration long ago lost any 
credibility. But if we are going to stay in Iraq -- if additional 
Americans are going to be asked to die -- then Bush, Cheney and others 
should avoid emotionally compelling, but intellectually fatuous, 
arguments. As far as the troops are concerned, pay them the ultimate 
respect for their ultimate sacrifice: Stick to the truth.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/07/AR2005120701893.html?nav=hcmodule
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Thu Dec  8 07:36:27 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Thu Dec  8 07:49:04 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Wolves in the Gulf - Jim Hoagland - Washington Post Op-Ed
Message-ID: <439852FB.6000308@comcast.net>

Wolves in the Gulf
Arabs' Two Fears: The U.S. and Radical Islam

By Jim Hoagland
Thursday, December 8, 2005; A33

BAHRAIN -- The wolf is no longer at the door of the wealthy Arab 
kingdoms and emirates of the Persian Gulf. It is now in their midst, 
threatening to devour these plump, slow-moving gazelles of states from 
inside their fragile defense lines.

That was the consensus I heard expressed by Gulf Arab leaders, 
intellectuals, senior military officers and national security officials 
who gathered here last weekend to compare notes with each other and 
their Western counterparts. They quickly agreed that both the severity 
and proximity of the existential threat they face have changed dramatically.

They could hardly do otherwise. The bomb blasts in nearby Iraq 
reverberated through two days of speeches and informal exchanges 
organized by the London-based International Institute for Strategic 
Studies. Regional security in the Gulf is now a daily concern to be 
lived and breathed, not an abstract concept left to policymakers to debate.

Even a decade or so ago, their deep (and deeply justified) distrust of 
each other would have prevented such a collection of Bahrainis, 
Kuwaitis, Omanis, Saudis, Yemenis and others from gathering to seek 
common ground on military and counterterrorist strategies.

They would have also been deterred by concern about reactions from Iran 
and Iraq, the outside predators that the smaller oil-producing states 
most feared then. (Iran and Iraq were represented here as well.) This 
greater semblance of seeking cooperation now springs from the challenge 
that radical Islamic groups such as al Qaeda pose to all Arab 
governments. Traditional balance-of-power strategies to import security 
through bilateral agreements with outside protectors have been upended 
by three decades of revolution, conventional wars and the lengthening 
reach of organized terrorism in the Gulf.

Differences remain among and within the states that gathered here -- and 
those differences may have been exacerbated by the conflicting, at times 
confrontational, advice they heard from high-ranking U.S., French and 
British envoys. Those stunningly discordant Western views are the 
subject for another day.

The more immediate and important divide was over the nature and identity 
of the new wolf that the Gulf Arabs see stalking the region.

Government representatives described Islamic-inspired terrorist networks 
as the urgent threat to citizens and to stability -- and then put 
forward some fresh ideas on what Muslims themselves must do to defeat 
the terrorists. Those suggestions constituted the originality and the 
promise of this conclave.

"The terrorists have instrumentalized religion for their illegal 
purposes," Sheik Sabah Khalid Hamad Sabah, Kuwait's national security 
adviser, told those gathered. "We now face a multinational terrorist 
threat that is no longer isolated geographically or organized in small 
secret cells." He then outlined a six-point plan that emphasized the 
need for a balance of tolerance in Muslim countries as well as a balance 
of power in military terms.

The keys to achieving tolerance and social peace, Sabah said, will 
include curbing hate speech through the training of Islamic clerics who 
preach in mosques, barring charities from contributing to terrorist 
groups and "deepening democratic practices, including greater 
participation by women" in government and the economy. He called this 
"the Middle Way" in Islam and urged other countries to adopt the Kuwaiti 
program.

Muslim nations have for too long shied away from openly talking about 
the need to wage, and win, a spiritual battle within Islam. The 
willingness of a member of Kuwait's ruling family to do just that in 
proceedings that were televised on Bahrain's national television is a 
step forward.

But Arab academics suggested that the most threatening sources of 
destabilization lay elsewhere. They identified U.S. mishandling of the 
war on terrorism and the large American combat presence in Iraq as the 
new and urgent security problems confronting the region.

"The U.S. image is not what it was," observed Abdullah Shayji, a 
professor at Kuwait University. He cited reports of secret American 
prisons for torture abroad, the Abu Ghraib scandal and U.S. military 
actions in Iraq that he asserted "have made people in the region feel 
less secure. You should be setting the example" if you are going to 
preach about democracy and freedom, he added.

It is tempting for an American to focus exclusively on the promising 
emphasis on moderation within Islam that emerged from the Bahrain 
meeting, and to argue that the U.S. intervention and military presence 
in Iraq have contributed in important ways to bringing that about.

But the troubling concerns of Shayji and others that even a well-meaning 
wolf can be a dangerous and destructive partner need to be taken into 
account as well. The Bush White House has, in fact, paid too little 
attention to the example its actions and words set abroad.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/07/AR2005120701912.html?nav=hcmodule
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Thu Dec  8 07:48:11 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Thu Dec  8 08:00:50 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] A tap dance on torture - Thomas Oliphant - Boston Globe
	Op-Ed
Message-ID: <439855BB.5000108@comcast.net>


  A tap dance on torture

By Thomas Oliphant  |  December 8, 2005  |  The Boston Globe

WASHINGTON
EVEN BEFORE Condoleezza Rice's Air Force jet left Andrews Air Force Base 
this week, it was clear that her important journey to Europe would be a 
flop -- not as photogenic theater, in which she indulges too frequently, 
but as foreign policy.

Defending the indefensible is often part of the portfolio for a 
secretary of state, and watching diplomats dance is always entertaining, 
but in Rice's case the extra measure of entertainment is the conflict 
between her ambition and her boss's requirements.

Rice's challenge was going to be to find some words to soften the impact 
of The Washington Post's disclosure last month that the United States 
has been stashing Al Qaeda people secretly in European clinks where they 
are, to use a Bush administration phrase, aggressively questioned.

It didn't take long -- about a day -- for the human rights community to 
come up with Poland and Romania as the most likely venues. The question 
naturally occurred as to how Rice was going to deal with this explosive 
topic on her trip. It also hadn't taken long for public opinion to turn 
nasty in Europe, as the European Union mobilized to let relatively new 
member Poland, aspiring member Romania, and every other country on the 
continent know that complicity in human rights violations is frowned 
upon over there.

To make matters worse, Rice's trip was marred before it even started by 
the surfacing of more stories about the outrageous habit the United 
States has had ever since 9/11 of grabbing people off the streets abroad 
and spiriting them off to be held in secret for months, only to be 
quietly released when it turned out we had grabbed innocent people as 
well as people involved in terrorism.

Two stories, one involving Germany and the other Italy, added to the 
foul atmosphere surrounding Rice's journey, with added spice from 
disclosures about the United States buying favorable Iraqi press 
coverage, the activities of Shi'ite death squads, and the continuing 
carnage from the war. Europe did not seem to have paid attention to 
President Bush's poll-driven oration on the war at Annapolis last week 
and his poll-driven use of the word ''victory" a couple of dozen times 
in his latest effort to turn around negative US public opinion.

By the time Rice got to Europe, the media were filled with rumors of 
prisoners being secretly hauled off to new locations so they could 
continue to be ''aggressively questioned."

The European Union wanted clarification, but what Rice offered was 
political spin and the kind of genteel in-your-faceism she used to 
peddle as Bush's national security adviser when she was warning with a 
straight face before the invasion that no one wanted the smoking-gun 
proof of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction to be a mushroom 
cloud.

The day before she left, the White House whip cracked and ''senior 
administration officials" passed the word that instead of being meek or 
apologetic, she would ''go on the offensive" in Europe and remind our 
friends that we are all in this war on terrorism together and that 
solidarity in times of stress is required.

Deconstructing a misbehaving secretary of state is challenging because 
the people who work for them are very smart, but what was odd about 
Rice's defense was how transparently silly it was.

Part one of her spin insists that the United States has never, not once, 
''authorized" or ''condoned" the torture of any detainee anywhere. It 
sounds strong until you simply ask what the United States means by 
''torture." It turns out that it is not torture to dunk people's heads 
in water until they almost drown, to stage fake executions of prisoners, 
or to come within an hour or so of freezing them to death. The late Pat 
Moynihan called this defining deviancy down.

Part two of the case is her assurance that American behavior is 
''consistent" with its obligation under international law that bans 
torture. Once again, that sounds clear until you simply inquire what 
behavior is in fact consistent with those obligations. It turns out that 
anything goes as long as it occurs outside the United States -- be that 
a secret prison abroad or a facility on rented land at Guantanamo Bay. 
That is why we hold ''suspects" on foreign soil or spirit them off to 
countries known to torture people -- a practice with the 1984 title of 
''rendition," which Rice claimed is central to the war on terrorism.

Naturally, this mumbo-jumbo has failed all week. There was one delicious 
moment on Tuesday, when the new German chancellor, Angela Merkel, said 
Rice had acknowledged that one particularly ugly abduction of an 
innocent German had been a mistake. Not so, the spin doctors quickly 
claimed. She had only said the United States would respond appropriately 
''if" any mistakes had been made.

It made me proud to be an American.


http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/12/08/a_tap_dance_on_torture/
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Thu Dec  8 07:53:12 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Thu Dec  8 08:05:53 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Democratic doublespeak - Joan Vennochi - Boston Globe
	Op-Ed
Message-ID: <439856E8.4090209@comcast.net>


  Democratic doublespeak

By Joan Vennochi  |  December 8, 2005  |  The Boston Globe

IN WASHINGTON, Democrats are challenging the nomination of Samuel A. 
Alito Jr. to the Supreme Court because he opposes abortion. In 
Pennsylvania, those same Democrats are working to help Robert P. Casey 
Jr. topple Republican Senator Rick Santorum -- because Casey opposes 
abortion.

When it comes to abortion, Democrats are embracing the position John 
Kerry tried to establish during the 2004 presidential campaign: for it 
and against it. The Democratic presidential nominee said he was 
personally opposed to abortion, but in favor of the basic right 
protected by Roe v. Wade.

At the time, Republicans scoffed. But the GOP is not immune from the 
lure of the straddle. Representative Tom Davis of Virginia, a 
Republican, recently warned that overturning a woman's right to an 
abortion could hurt the party. As Davis explained to a breakfast 
gathering, now ''you can be prolife and no one feels that's a threat to 
someone having to make a difficult decision."

Still, when it comes to taking both sides, it is hard to top the Democrats.

They actively scoped out Casey as their weapon of choice against 
Santorum; Casey's antiabortion stance, they believed, would strengthen 
his chances against the much-despised Santorum. Casey, the current state 
treasurer of Pennsylvania, was recruited by party leaders, including 
Senator Charles Schumer of New York -- who believes that fealty to the 
precedent established by Roe is required of any Supreme Court nominee. 
Prominent prochoice Democrats such as Kerry, DNC chairman Howard Dean, 
and Senator Hillary Clinton of New York made fund-raising pitches on 
Casey's behalf.

To add to the irony, Casey is the son of the late Pennsylvania Governor 
Robert P. Casey, the defendant in a famous abortion rights case -- 
Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey. The suit 
challenged a 1989 Pennsylvania law that included a list of restrictions 
on abortion, including the requirement that a woman notify her husband.

Before the case made it to the Supreme Court, it came before the Third 
US Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia. Alone on the three-person 
panel, then-Appeals Court Judge Alito voted in 1991 to let the spousal 
notification restriction stand. He argued that it did not put an ''undue 
burden" on the woman. The Supreme Court disagreed.

Today, Alito's dissent in the case is used by Democrats as an example of 
Alito's antiabortion extremism. These are the same Democrats who back an 
anti-abortion candidate for the US Senate, one who happens to be related 
to the defendant in this very case and who, so far, declines to say 
where he stands on Alito. Asked yesterday whether Casey backs the right 
protected by Roe, a Casey campaign spokesman answered by saying, ''He is 
prolife."

How do Democrats juggle their enthusiasm for Casey against their lack of 
enthusiasm for Alito? Kerry spokesman Setti Warren explained it this 
way, via e-mail: ''As you know, the Senate hangs in balance, the 
Democrats need to be in a majority, and Casey is a vote for a Democratic 
majority that will be good for healthcare, wages, poverty, better war 
policy . . . whereas the court is being crammed with conservatives to 
push it to the right."

Of course, that ignores the obvious. As a US senator voting on a Supreme 
Court nominee, Casey would have to make a choice. That's where everyone, 
Democrats and Republicans, put behind the straddling and cast a vote.

The expected showdown between Santorum and Casey is billed as the 
nation's marquee Senate race. Meanwhile, Casey has two underfinanced, 
lesser-known, and more liberal challengers for the Democratic nomination.

One of those challengers is Chuck Pennacchio, a university professor, 
who has been pressing Casey to no avail on the Alito nomination. ''What 
would Bob do?" Pennacchio asked in a press release that challenged Casey 
to take a stand on Alito. Casey did not respond, according to a 
spokesperson for Pennacchio.

Santorum's campaign is also pushing Casey on Alito.

In response, Casey said he does not believe in a litmus test.

If Democrats believe a Supreme Court nominee must state a commitment to 
the precedent set by Roe, why not hold a candidate for US Senate who 
will vote on a nominee to the same standard?

At a certain point, having it both ways is hypocritical. Voters can tell 
when you are speaking out of both sides of your mouth.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/12/08/democratic_doublespeak/
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From michael at intrafi.com  Thu Dec  8 08:44:31 2005
From: michael at intrafi.com (michael@intrafi.com)
Date: Thu Dec  8 08:54:56 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] FT.com / US / CIA - Nato ministers welcome US shift on
	interrogation
Message-ID: <3078893.1134060271036.JavaMail.tomcat@localhost>



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From michael at michaelbutler.com  Thu Dec  8 08:57:23 2005
From: michael at michaelbutler.com (Michael Butler)
Date: Thu Dec  8 09:09:16 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] =?iso-8859-1?q?=8CDark_matter=B9?= makes the US deficit
	disappear
Message-ID: <BFBDD023.26935%michael@michaelbutler.com>


 
FT.com     
 
Click Here to Print
      EMAIL THIS | Close
 
?Dark matter? makes the US deficit disappear
>By Ricardo Hausmann and Federico Sturzenegger
>Published: December 7 2005 20:40 | Last updated: December 7 2005 20:40
>>

In 2005 the US current account deficit is expected to top $700bn. It comes
after 27 years of unbroken deficits that have totalled more than $5,000bn,
leading to concerns of an impending global crisis. Once the massive
financing required to keep on paying for such a widening gap dries up, there
will be an ugly adjustment in the world economy. The dollar will collapse,
triggering a stampede away from US debt, interest rates will shoot up and a
sharp global recession will ensue.

But wait a minute. If this is such an open and shut case, why have markets
not precipitated the crisis already?

Maybe it is because there is something wrong with the diagnosis. Let us look
at some facts. The Bureau of Economic Analysis indicates that in 1980 the US
had about $365bn of net foreign assets that rendered a net return of about
$30bn. Between 1980 and 2004, the US accumulated a current account deficit
of $4,500bn. You would expect the net foreign assets of the US to have
fallen by that amount to, say, minus $4,100bn. If it paid 5 per cent on that
debt, the net return on its financial position should have moved from an
income of $30bn in 1982 to an expenditure of $210bn a year in 2004. Right?
After all, debtors need to service their debt. But the number for 2004 was,
still, an income of $30bn, just like in 1980. The US has spent $4,500bn more
than it has earned (which is what the cumulative current account deficit
implies) for free.

How could this be? Here the official story becomes murky. Part of the answer
is that the US benefited from about $1,600bn of net capital gains (which, at
best, cuts the puzzle in half). The other part of the official answer is
that the US earns a higher return on its holdings of foreign assets than it
pays to foreigners on its liabilities. But where did those large capital
gains come from? Or, why are US investors abroad so much smarter than
foreign investors in the US?

We propose a different way of describing the facts.* We measure the assets
according to how much they earn and the current account by how much these
assets change over time. This is just like valuing a company by calculating
its earnings and multiplying by a price-earnings ratio. Of course this opens
up methodological questions, but the discrepancies with official numbers are
so big that the details do not matter. To keep things simple in what follows
we just take an arbitrary 5 per cent rate of return, which implies a
price-earnings ratio of 20.

Let?s get to work. We know that the US net income on its financial portfolio
is $30bn. This is a 5 per cent return on an asset of $600bn. So the US is a
$600bn net creditor, not a $4,100bn net debtor. Since the assets have
remained stable then on average the US has not had a current account deficit
at all over the past 25 years. That is why it is still a net creditor.

We call the $4,700bn difference between our measure of US net assets and the
standard numbers ?dark matter?, because it corresponds to assets that
generate revenue but cannot be seen. The name is taken from a term used in
physics to account for the fact that the world is more stable than you would
think if it were held together only by gravity emanating from visible
matter.

There are several reasons why dark matter exists. The most obvious is
superior returns on US foreign direct investment. Why do US assets earn such
returns? Because that investment comes with a substantial amount of know-how
that increases its earning potential. It explains why the US can earn more
on its assets than it pays on its liabilities and why foreigners cannot do
the same. In measuring FDI, the value of the know-how is poorly accounted
for. There are other sources of dark matter, but FDI is where the big bucks
are. Once dark matter is considered, the world is surprisingly balanced. The
US and European Union essentially cover their apparent imbalance with the
export of dark matter, emerging markets use their surplus to import dark
matter and Japan finances the rest of the world. Net asset positions of all
big regions are fairly small.

Is US dark matter a stable asset? We find that it is. It now stands at more
than 40 per cent of gross domestic product and has fallen in only six of the
last 25 years, never by more than 1.9 per cent of GDP.

In a nutshell our story is simple. Once assets are valued according to the
income they generate, there has not been a big US external imbalance and
there are no serious global imbalances.

Ricardo Hausmann is director of the Center for International Development at
Harvard University?s Kennedy School of Government; Federico Sturzenegger is
visiting professor of public affairs.

*US and Global Imbalances: Can Dark Matter Prevent a Big Bang?

www.cid.harvard.edu

>
>
>
 
 
 
Find this article at:
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t_ftarc_ftcol_ftfre_ftindsum_ftmywap_ftprem_ftspecial_ftsurvey_ftworldsub_ft
ym_ftymarc_ic_ipadmintool_nbe_poapp_printedn_psapp_reg,s01=1.html
 
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From barbarasiomos38 at msn.com  Thu Dec  8 10:02:55 2005
From: barbarasiomos38 at msn.com (Barbara Siomos)
Date: Thu Dec  8 10:13:22 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] I Miss you John Lennon
Message-ID: <BAY5-DAV22D30E30E2A81F096313A4AB420@phx.gbl>




From michael at intrafi.com  Thu Dec  8 10:09:33 2005
From: michael at intrafi.com (michael@intrafi.com)
Date: Thu Dec  8 10:22:03 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] FT.com / Comment & analysis - Observer: Blunt tactics
Message-ID: <8456277.1134065373430.JavaMail.tomcat@localhost>



*Please note, the sender's email address has not been verified.



You have received the following link from michael@intrafi.com

 
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From hecate at diamonddragon.com  Thu Dec  8 11:00:49 2005
From: hecate at diamonddragon.com (Hecate)
Date: Thu Dec  8 11:11:27 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] BBC E-mail: Iran's president says move Israel
Message-ID: <20051208_190049_054039.hecate@diamonddragon.com>

Hecate saw this story on BBC News Online and thought you
should see it.



** Iran's president says move Israel **
Iran's hardline President Ahmadinejad says that Germany and Austria should give up land to host Israel.
< http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/2/hi/middle_east/4510922.stm >


** BBC Daily E-mail **
Choose the news and sport headlines you want - when you want them, all
in one daily e-mail
< http://www.bbc.co.uk/dailyemail/ >


** Disclaimer **
The BBC is not responsible for the content of this e-mail, and anything written in this e-mail does not necessarily reflect the BBC's views or opinions. Please note that neither the e-mail address nor name of the sender have?been verified.

If you do not wish to receive such e-mails in the future or want to know more about the BBC's Email a Friend service, please read our frequently asked questions. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/help/4162471.stm

From michael at michaelbutler.com  Thu Dec  8 11:32:42 2005
From: michael at michaelbutler.com (Michael Butler)
Date: Thu Dec  8 11:44:36 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] FW: car runs on air
In-Reply-To: <BAY104-F69068E859E61B6A9FCC27D5420@phx.gbl>
Message-ID: <BFBDF48A.2696E%michael@michaelbutler.com>


------ Forwarded Message
From: "ernesto ciccarelli" <chiosceola@hotmail.com>
Date: Wed, 07 Dec 2005 23:34:27 -0500
To: publicalpha@adelphia.net, chicorelli@netscape.com,
michael@michaelbutler.com
Subject: FW: car runs on air





>Subject: car runs on air
>Date: Mon, 5 Dec 2005 20:26:36 -0500
>


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/988265.stm



------ End of Forwarded Message

From barbarasiomos38 at msn.com  Thu Dec  8 12:05:34 2005
From: barbarasiomos38 at msn.com (Barbara Siomos)
Date: Thu Dec  8 12:16:14 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Just a little tribute to John L. 25 years since he has
	been gone.
Message-ID: <BAY5-DAV1828D80819F7F98844EE1FAB420@phx.gbl>

This is a page from his official website, just (I think) a nice tribute to him on this day.

peace,
barbara

 Barbara Siomos <barbarasiomos38@msn.com> has sent you the following web link:

http://www.johnlennon.com/html/biography.aspx



From drmhaatma at yahoo.com  Wed Dec  7 22:58:39 2005
From: drmhaatma at yahoo.com (Mha Atma Khalsa)
Date: Thu Dec  8 12:26:06 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] The Revolt of the Generals
Message-ID: <E1EkRzE-0006wh-Ch@smtpauth09.mail.atl.earthlink.net>

 December 3/4, 2005
  
  "Broken, Worn Out" and "Living Hand to Mouth"
  The Revolt of the Generals
  
  By ALEXANDER COCKBURN
  
  http://www.counterpunch.org/
  
  The immense significance of Rep John Murtha's November 17 speech
  calling for immediate withdrawal from Iraq is that it signals mutiny in
  the US senior officer corps, seeing the institution they lead as "broken,
  worn out" and "living hand to mouth", to use the biting words of their
  spokesman, John Murtha, as he reiterated on December his denunciation of
  Bush's destruction of the Army.
  
  A CounterPuncher with nearly 40 years experience working in and around the
  Pentagon told me this week that "The Four Star Generals picked Murtha to
  make this speech because he has maximum credibility." It's true. Even in
  the US Senate there's no one with quite Murtha's standing to deliver the
  message, except maybe for Byrd, but the venerable senator from West
  Virginia was a vehement opponent of the war from the outset , whereas
  Murtha voted for it and only recently has turned around.
  
  So the Four-Star Generals briefed Murtha and gave him the state-of-the-art
  data which made his speech so deadly, stinging the White House into
  panic-stricken and foolish denunciations of Murtha as a clone of Michael
  Moore.
  
  It cannot have taken vice president Cheney, a former US Defense Secretary,
  more than a moment to scan Murtha's speech and realize the import of
  Murtha's speech as an announcement that the generals have had enough.
  
  Listen once more to what the generals want the country to know:
  
  "The future of our military is at risk. Our military and our families are
  stretched thin. Many say the Army is broken. Some of our troops are on a
  third deployment. Recruitment is down even as the military has lowered its
  standards. They expect to take 20 percent category 4, which is the lowest
  category, which they said they'd never take. They have been forced to do
  that to try to meet a reduced quota.
  
  "Defense budgets are being cut. Personnel costs are skyrocketing,
  particularly in health care. Choices will have to be made. We cannot allow
  promises we have made to our military families in terms of service
  benefits, in terms of their health care to be negotiated away. Procurement
  programs that ensure our military dominance cannot be negotiated away. We
  must be prepared.
  
  "The war in Iraq has caused huge shortfalls in our bases at home. I've
  been to three bases in the United States, and each one of them were short
  of things they need to train the people going to Iraq.
  
  "Much of our ground equipment is worn out.
  
  "Most importantly -- this is the most important point -- incidents have
  increased from 150 a week to over 700 in the last year. Instead of attacks
  going down over a time when we had additional more troops, attacks have
  grown dramatically. Since the revolution at Abu Ghraib, American
  casualties have doubled."
  
  What happened on the heels of this speech is very instructive. The
  Democrats fell over themselves distancing themselves from Murtha,
  emboldening the White House to go one the attack.
  
  From Bush's presidential plane, touring Asia, came the derisive comment
  that Murtha was of "endorsing the policies of Michael Moore and the
  extreme liberal wing of the Democratic Party."
  
  It took the traveling White House about 48 hours to realize that this was
  a dumb thing to have said. Murtha's not the kind of guy you can slime, the
  way Bush and Co did the glass-jawed Kerry in 2004. The much decorated vet
  Murtha snapped back publicly that he hadn't much time for smears from
  people like Cheney who'd got five deferments from military service in
  Vietnam.
  
  By the weekend Bush was speaking of Murtha respectfully. On Monday,
  gritting his teeth, Cheney told a Washington audience that though he
  disagreed with Murtha ihe's a good man, a Marine, a patriot, and he's
  taking a clear stand in an entirely legitimate discussion."
  
  One day later Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told Fox News, ``I do
  not think that American forces need to be there in the numbers that they
  are now because -- for very much longer -- because Iraqis are stepping
  up.'' A week later Bush was preparing a speech laying heavy emphasis on US
  withdrawals as the Iraqi armed forces take up the burden.
  
  Are there US-trained Iraqi detachments ready in the wings? Not if you
  believe reports from Iraq, but they could be nonagenarians armed with bows
  and arrows and the Bush high command would still be invoking their superb
  training and readiness for the great mission.
  
  Ten days after Murtha's speech commentators on the tv Sunday talk shows
  were clambering aboard the Bring eem home bandwagon. Voices calling for
  America to istay the course" in Iraq were few and far between. On December
  1 Murtha returned to the attack in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, telling a civic
  group there that he was wrong to have voted for the war and that most U.S.
  troops will leave Iraq within a year because the Army is "broken, worn
  out" and "living hand to mouth".
  
  The stench of panic in Washington that hangs like a winter fog over
  Capitol Hill intensified. The panic stems from the core concern of every
  politician in the nation's capital: survival. The people sweating are
  Republicans and the source of their terror is the deadly message spelled
  out in every current poll: Bush's war on Iraq spells disaster for the
  Republican Party in next year's midterm elections.
  
  Take a mid-November poll by SurveyUSA: in only seven states did Bush's
  current approval rating exceed 50 per cent. These consisted of the thinly
  populated states of Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Alabama and
  Mississippi. In twelve states, including California, New York, Illinois,
  Pennsylvania and Michigan, his rating was under 35.
  
  You have to go back to the early 1970s, when a scandal-stained Nixon was
  on the verge of resignation, to find numbers lower than Bush's. Like Bush,
  Nixon had swept to triumphant reelection in 1972. Less than two years
  later he turned the White House over to vice president Ford and flew off
  into exile.
  
  No one expects Bush to resign, or even to be impeached (though vice
  president Cheney's future is less assured) and his second term has more
  than three years to run.
  
  But right now, to use a famous phrase from the Nixon era, a cancer is
  gnawing at his presidency and that cancer is the war in Iraq. The American
  people are now 60 per cent against it and 40 per cent think Bush lied to
  get them to back it.
  
  Hence the panic. Even though the seats in the House of Representatives are
  now so gerrymandered that less than 50 out of 435 districts are reckoned
  as ever being likely to change hands, Republicans worry that few seats,
  however gerrymandered, can withstand a Force 5 political hurricane.
  
  What they get from current polls is a simple message. If the US has not
  withdrawn substantial numbers of its troops from Iraq by the fall of next
  year, a Force 5 storm surge might very well wash them away.
  
  Amid this potential debacle, the Republicans' only source of comfort is
  the truly incredible conduct of the Democrats. First came the Democrats'
  terrified reaction to Murtha, symbolized by Democratic minority leader
  Nancy Pelosi's cancellation of a press conference supporting Murtha. This
  prompted the Republicans to realize that the Democrats were ready to have
  their bluff called by the Republican- sponsored resolution calling for
  immediate withdrawal, for which only three Democrats voted, while
  so-called progressives like Kucinich and Sanders and Conyers ran for
  cover.
  
  Listen to any prominent Democrat senator, like Kerry or Clinton or
  Feingold or Obama and you get the same adamant refusal to go beyond the
  savage characterization by Glenn Ford and Peter Gamble of the Black
  Commentator, of Obama's address to the Council on Foreign Relations:
  
  U.S. Senator Barack Obama has planted his feet deeply inside the Iraq
  war-prolongation camp of the Democratic Party, the great swamp that, if
  not drained, will swallow up any hope of victory over the GOP in next
  year's congressional elections. In a masterpiece of double-speak before
  the prestigious Council on Foreign Relations, November 22, the Black
  Illinois lawmaker managed to out-mush-mouth Sen. John Kerry - a prodigious
  feat, indeed.
  
  In essence, all Obama wants from the Bush regime is that it fess up to
  having launched the war based on false information, and to henceforth come
  clean with the Senate on how it plans to proceed in the future. Those
  Democrats who want to dwell on the past - the actual genesis and rationale
  for the war, and the real reasons for its continuation - should be quiet.
  
  "Withdrawal" and "timetables" are bad words, and Obama will have
  nothing to do with them.
  
  Of course, the "insurgents" are not a "faction," and must therefore be
  defeated. On this point, Obama and the Bush men agree: "In sum, we have to
  focus, methodically and without partisanship, on those steps that will:
  one, stabilize Iraq, avoid all out civil war, and give the factions within
  Iraq the space they need to forge a political settlement; two, contain and
  ultimately extinguish the insurgency in Iraq; and three, bring our troops
  safely home."
  
  Nobody in the White House would argue with any of these points. Point #
  two in Obama's "pragmatic" baseline is, the containment and elimination of
  the "insurgency." Of course, one can only do that by continuing the war.
  Indeed, it appears that Obama and many of his colleagues are more intent
  on consulting the Bush men on the best ways to "win" the war than in
  effecting an American withdrawal at any foreseeable time.
  
  They want "victory" just as much as the White House; they just don't want
  the word shouted at every press conference.
  
  The Black Commentator concludes its excoriation of Obama and his fellow
  Democrats with these words:
  
  By late summer of 2006, when voters are deciding what they want their
  Senate and House to look like, if the Democrats have not caught up to
  public opinion to offer a tangible and quick exit from Iraq, the
  Republicans will retain control of both chambers of congress.
  
  All that will be left in November is mush from Kerry, Hillary, Biden,
  Edwards - and Obama's - mouths.
  
  Here at CounterPunch we heartily endorse this sentiment
  
  
  

			
---------------------------------
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From geomilman at milman.com  Wed Dec  7 22:25:06 2005
From: geomilman at milman.com (George R. Milman)
Date: Thu Dec  8 12:32:00 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Cool
Message-ID: <E1EkSGC-0006RK-Vb@smtpauth09.mail.atl.earthlink.net>

http://www.pelourinho.com/movies/c003702/



From michael at michaelbutler.com  Thu Dec  8 12:57:49 2005
From: michael at michaelbutler.com (Michael Butler)
Date: Thu Dec  8 13:10:44 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Iraq and the Democrats     By William Rivers Pitt
Message-ID: <BFBE087D.2698E%michael@michaelbutler.com>

    Iraq and the Democrats
    By William Rivers Pitt
    t r u t h o u t | Perspective

    Thursday 08 December 2005

    There is a tactic in the art of debate and argument known as "Rejecting
the premise." To wit: when someone tosses a straw-man into a debate, you are
wise to point it out as such, instead of validating its existence by arguing
against it. A perfect example of where this can apply comes in the latest
round of nonsense from the far Right about a so-called "War on Christmas."

    Person #1: "Do you think the liberal elite are aiding in the war against
Christmas?"

    Person #2: "I reject the premise. There is no war against Christmas.
Christmas is doing just fine."

    Here's another good one. Vice President Cheney was speaking on Tuesday
to troops at Fort Drum, NY.

    Cheney: "Some have suggested that by liberating Iraq, we simply stirred
up a hornet's nest. They overlook a fundamental fact: We were not in Iraq,
and the terrorists hit us anyway."

    Me: "I reject the premise. The fact that we had not invaded Iraq had
nothing whatsoever to do with 9/11. As Richard Cohen said of Cheney's
comments in Thursday's Washington Post, 'Yes, and the crowing of the rooster
makes the sun come up. Cause and effect is being mocked here.'"

    See? It's that simple. By the way, when did you stop beating your wife?

    There is a cluster of Democrats who could learn about rejecting the
premise, especially when it comes to the occupation of Iraq. The most recent
and galling example came after Congressman John Murtha made his courageous
demand for a withdrawal from Iraq. Murtha is the guy the generals talk to,
because the generals know they are wasting their breath trying to talk to
Rumsfeld, Cheney or Bush. Murtha knows exactly how bad things are in Iraq.
His call for withdrawal specifically said that such an action should come
"at the earliest practicable date."

    Nowhere but nowhere in the text of Murtha's resolution were the words
"immediate withdrawal" to be found. The reaction of congressional
Republicans, however, was to paint Murtha's call as exactly that, a
"cut-and-run" demand for immediate withdrawal from Iraq. The "immediate
withdrawal" GOP talking point was broadbanded across the media spectrum, and
was used in a farcical legislative attempt to derail the conversation.
Congressional Republicans tossed up a resolution demanding "immediate
withdrawal," daring the Democrats to vote for it.

    Scott Shields, writing on the MyDD blog, pegged it perfectly. "My advice
to the entire Democratic caucus," wrote Shields when this garbage GOP
resolution was introduced, "is to not take the bait. Theentire caucus should
abstain from voting altogether. And the Republicans should be called out for
their bullying tactics. The Democrats must make it clear to anyone who will
listen that this 'Murtha vote' is not a vote on the Murtha resolution at
all, but rather a caricature of his resolution, thrown together by hot
headed Republicans, eager to jam up the opposition."

    Was this advice heeded? Did we hear, "I reject the premise that Murtha's
resolution called for immediate withdrawal" and expose the GOP's scurrilous
actions for what they were? Hardly. A bunch of dumb Democrats instead took
the bait and threw Rep. Murtha under the bus. They knocked over furniture
and old people in their rush to the microphones, where they validated the
GOP talking point about "immediate withdrawal" by defending themselves
against it.

    Senator Clinton got up and said immediate withdrawal would be a "big
mistake" before beginning a hare-brained crusade against flag-burning.

    Senator Biden echoed Clinton by saying immediate withdrawal would be a
mistake, never bothering to point out that "immediate withdrawal" was not
part of Murtha's resolution.

    Governor Mark Warner of Virginia, in rejecting Murtha's non-existent
call for immediate withdrawal, said, "This Democrat doesn't think we need to
re-fight how we got into the Iraq war. I think we need to focus more on how
to finish it." Great work, Governor. Rather than call this administration to
account for the manner in which we were dragged into this disaster, let's
give them a pass and trust them to do the right thing in the future.
Brilliant. Oh, psssst, Murtha never said "immediate withdrawal" in his
resolution. Pass it on.

    Senator Lieberman, whose pandering to Republican extremism has reached
an extraordinary level of sublime hilarity, outstripped his fellow Democrats
by orders of magnitude. On top of dismissing "immediate withdrawal," he went
on to say, "It's time for Democrats who distrust President Bush to
acknowledge he'll be commander-in-chief for three more years. We undermine
the president's credibility at our nation's peril."

    It should be noted that Murtha thumped Lieberman's defense of Bush but
good. "Undermining his credibility?" asked Murtha. "What has he said that
would give him credibility?" That, friends and neighbors, is a golden
example of rejecting the premise.

    Joementum wants us to do as we are told, shut up, and accept the
Bush/Cheney view of things. Criticism of the administration is tantamount to
treason. Let the word go forth from this time and place that silence is
golden and critics are aiding terrorism. Even for Joe, this was a
spectacular statement. One wonders if the word on the street about him
replacing Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense has anything to do with this
gibberish. From the sound of things, he already believes himself to be a
member of Bush's Cabinet.

    Sadly, four Democratic ninnies cuddled right up to it, validating a GOP
talking point intended to destroy debate on the signal issue of our day.
Clinton, Biden, Warner, Lieberman ... what do these four have in common? As
far as can be seen, they share one common characteristic: they all think
they will be President after 2008.

    Wesley Clark, another Democrat who hopes to be redecorating the Oval in
2009, took the whole thing one big step further with an editorial in
Tuesday's New York Times titled "The Next Iraq Offensive." The article
detailed a series of troop maneuvers that would redeploy American and Iraqi
forces along the borders with Syria and Iran. Clark warned that Iraq was
becoming a Shia-dominated buffer state that serves to protect Iran, and that
a radical shift in tactics must be undertaken to avoid the creation of an
Iran/Iraq superstate. At bottom, Clark said the United States must remain in
Iraq, and that his plan was one that could achieve victory in this conflict.

    It was a cogent and effective argument centered around an undeniable
fact: this occupation has empowered Shia fundamentalism in Iraq, said
fundamentalism being deeply tied to Shia fundamentalism in Iran. This union
poses a danger to the Mideast region and, in the long run, a danger to the
United States both at home and abroad. There is one significant dent in
Clark's thinking, however. In making his argument, he accepted a number of
premises that should be rejected as deeply flawed.

    Here's the deal: we invaded Iraq to establish a permanent, muscular
military presence in the Middle East; we invaded Iraq to take control of
their petroleum reserves for the next hundred years, a pretty little piggy
bank in a world where oil is becoming harder to find; we invaded Iraq so we
could use our military presence there to attack and invade several other
countries in the region; we invaded Iraq to establish strategic positioning
for any economic and/or resource struggles with China and Russia; we invaded
Iraq because administration officials who think they are members of the
Likud Party believed this war would serve to protect and defend the state of
Israel; we invaded Iraq so a bunch of military contractors with umbilical
ties to the administration could get paid.

    All of this is enshrined in the codicils of the Project for a New
American Century, the organization whose membership rolls include Cheney,
Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Abrams, Libby and a pile of others who have crafted our
insane foreign policy and thrown us into this mess. This is what they
wanted. They've been planning it for years, well before they ever got into
the White House with Bush. For them, victory had nothing to do with
defeating Hussein or fighting terrorism or establishing democracy. Victory
means we stay in Iraq forever.

    Period. End of file.

    When Wesley Clark and these other Democratic aspirants talk about
"winning" in Iraq before we get out, they accept a premise that should be
rejected out of hand. For the architects of this war, victory has already
been achieved, and all arguments in favor of remaining in Iraq until
impossible goals are reached strengthen that victory. There is no democracy
at the end of this tunnel, only more tunnel.

    When Wesley Clark and these other Democratic aspirants talk about
"winning" in Iraq, they buy into the fantasy that there is anything to win.
The invasion and occupation created a breeding ground for terrorism,
immeasurably strengthened the resolve of Islamic fanaticism, ravaged the US
treasury, and has seriously weakened our ability to defend ourselves against
other global threats.

    We cannot stay in Iraq. Were we to withdraw tomorrow, we would sow the
seeds of future bloodshed and risk an all-out civil war. We would compound
the crime already committed against the Iraqi people. But if we stay, if we
buy into the idea that remaining in Iraq will cure these problems, we do
exactly the same thing.

    Rep. Murtha was right. It is the presence of American troops in Iraq
that inspires the violence today. The solution, therefore, is beyond
sloganeering or open-ended promises that cannot be fulfilled. We have to
exit Iraq, but we must do so far more responsibly than the manner in which
we first arrived there. We need a plan that involves international
cooperation with organizations like NATO and the Arab League. The Iraqi
people must be given the help they need to take over the security and
economy of their own country, but this help cannot be provided by the United
States. We do no good there, but only harm.

    We absolutely need a timetable established for this to happen. Some have
argued that the "terrorists" will use a timetable for withdrawal against us.
This may be true, but such statements blue-sky right past a glaring reality:
they are presently using the lack of a timetable for withdrawal against us,
they are doing so effectively, and the body count continues to rise because
of it.

    An exit from Iraq is the only rational course of action. How and when we
do it must become the central point of discussion in American politics.
Timetables for that withdrawal must be established, and a real plan must be
agreed upon. This administration, which has no interest in withdrawal for
its own nefarious reasons, must be forced to accept this.

    Democrats who aspire to higher office must not derail this process by
accepting GOP talking points, talking points which serve to do little more
than ensure that we will still be in Iraq when our great-grandchildren are
old enough to vote.

    Take all the rhetoric you've heard from Republicans and Democrats alike
regarding "winning" in Iraq, wad it up, throw it into a metal wastecan, and
set it on fire. Put all the talk about weapons of mass destruction and al
Qaeda alliances and Hussein was a bad man and bringing democracy to the
torch. Give this nonsense a good, old-fashioned Viking funeral, which
provides far more of a dignified departure from this world than it deserves.
Cast the ashes to the wind. Salt the earth where the ashes fall so that
nothing so pestilently wrong can grow there.

    We can win nothing in Iraq. We can only hope to survive the incredible
disaster that has been foisted upon us. Rejecting the premise of "winning"
is the first step toward that survival. Rejecting wrong-headed, deliberately
misleading GOP talking points would be a good idea, as well. Getting out of
Iraq is the only sane, sensible, responsible course of action. Any Democrats
who hope to be President should heed this. They are ten steps behind the
rest of the country, and when they buy into the nonsense, they only ensure
their electoral doom.

 

From michael at intrafi.com  Thu Dec  8 14:05:48 2005
From: michael at intrafi.com (michael@intrafi.com)
Date: Thu Dec  8 14:16:14 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Alternet: Real Leaders Have Heart
Message-ID: <20051208220548.E4547B80A8@alternet.org>


This story has been forwarded to you from
http://www.alternet.org by michael@intrafi.com



-------------------------------------
Real Leaders Have Heart
http://www.alternet.org/story/28782

In her new book about Abraham Lincoln, historian Doris Kearns Goodwin reveals the quality that makes a president great -- his capacity for empathy.
-------------------------------------

From harry.sifton at sympatico.ca  Thu Dec  8 14:12:04 2005
From: harry.sifton at sympatico.ca (harry.sifton@sympatico.ca)
Date: Thu Dec  8 14:22:28 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] TIME.com: Eyewitness: "I Never Heard the Word 'Bomb'" --
	Page 1
Message-ID: <16806689.1134079924655.JavaMail.tomcat@localhost>



*Please note, the sender's email address has not been verified.



You have received the following link from harry.sifton@sympatico.ca

 
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Title: TIME.com: Eyewitness: "I Never Heard the Word 'Bomb'" -- Page 1
 
  
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From michael at intrafi.com  Thu Dec  8 14:12:45 2005
From: michael at intrafi.com (michael@intrafi.com)
Date: Thu Dec  8 14:23:06 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Alternet: Transformation Hillary
Message-ID: <20051208221245.316EFB807C@alternet.org>


This story has been forwarded to you from
http://www.alternet.org by michael@intrafi.com



-------------------------------------
Transformation Hillary
http://www.alternet.org/story/29215

According to a secret memo leaked by a senior, fictional Clinton official, the worst is yet to come from Hillary.
-------------------------------------

From michael at intrafi.com  Thu Dec  8 14:18:33 2005
From: michael at intrafi.com (michael@intrafi.com)
Date: Thu Dec  8 14:28:58 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Alternet: That End-Of-Empire Feeling
Message-ID: <20051208221833.BBE55B807C@alternet.org>


This story has been forwarded to you from
http://www.alternet.org by michael@intrafi.com



-------------------------------------
That End-Of-Empire Feeling
http://www.alternet.org/story/29239

Bush's ill-advised foray into Iraq may well prove the beginning of the end of America's global economic dominance.
-------------------------------------

From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Thu Dec  8 14:26:15 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Thu Dec  8 14:36:38 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: British Court Rules Against Evidence Gained
	in Torture 
Message-ID: <20051208222615.D05379FCF1@lax-gw05.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: ialterman@nyc.rr.com.

INTERNATIONAL / EUROPE | December 8, 2005
British Court Rules Against Evidence Gained in Torture 
By SARAH LYALL
Britain's highest court declared today that evidence obtained through torture was not admissible in British courts.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/08/international/europe/08cnd-britain.html?emc=eta1



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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Thu Dec  8 14:26:47 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Thu Dec  8 14:37:13 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: More Questions as Rice Asserts Detainee
	Policy
Message-ID: <20051208222647.9E95513B7D9@lax-gw04.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: ialterman@nyc.rr.com.

WASHINGTON | December 8, 2005
More Questions as Rice Asserts Detainee Policy
By RICHARD W. STEVENSON and JOEL BRINKLEY
The secretary of state did little to clear up widespread confusion about where the administration draws the line. 
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/08/politics/08detain.html?emc=eta1



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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Thu Dec  8 14:27:23 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Thu Dec  8 14:37:46 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Playwright Takes a Prize and a Jab at U.S.
Message-ID: <20051208222723.8018F83D48@lax-gw03.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: ialterman@nyc.rr.com.

Bravo!!


INTERNATIONAL / EUROPE | December 8, 2005
Playwright Takes a Prize and a Jab at U.S.
By SARAH LYALL
Harold Pinter turned his Nobel acceptance speech into a howl of outrage against U.S. foreign policy.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/08/international/europe/08pinter.html?emc=eta1



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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Thu Dec  8 14:28:00 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Thu Dec  8 14:38:24 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: U.S. Resists New Targets for Curbing
	Emissions
Message-ID: <20051208222800.C584F9FC84@lax-gw05.mroute.net>

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Surprise, surprise...


SCIENCE / ENVIRONMENT | December 8, 2005
U.S. Resists New Targets for Curbing Emissions
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
The Bush administration has maintained its opposition to new targets for cutting emissions linked to global warming.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/08/science/earth/08climate.html?emc=eta1



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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Thu Dec  8 14:28:33 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Thu Dec  8 14:39:02 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Will Politics Tame Egypt's Muslim
	Brotherhood?
Message-ID: <20051208222833.ECDAF237146@lax-gw01.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: ialterman@nyc.rr.com.

INTERNATIONAL / MIDDLE EAST | December 8, 2005
Stirrings in the Desert | Islamists as Players: Will Politics Tame Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood?
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR
The Islamist group gained parliamentary seats, raising the question whether success will moderate its image.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/08/international/middleeast/08brother.html?emc=eta1



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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Thu Dec  8 14:29:11 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Thu Dec  8 14:39:34 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: President's Accounts of Gains Depict Only
	Part of the Picture
Message-ID: <20051208222911.092583AE5FB@lax-gw06.mroute.net>

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More dissembling...


INTERNATIONAL / INTERNATIONAL SPECIAL | December 8, 2005
President's Accounts of Gains Depict Only Part of the Picture
By JAMES GLANZ
A hospital in Najaf has been most notable as a place where claims of success have fallen far short of reality.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/08/international/worldspecial/08rebuild.html?emc=eta1



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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Thu Dec  8 14:30:15 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Thu Dec  8 14:40:39 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Democrats Still Search for Plan on How to
	Deal With Iraq
Message-ID: <20051208223015.A184F83CFC@lax-gw03.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: ialterman@nyc.rr.com.

This is the problem with the Democrats: they have had almost four years to do this, and they still have no clue... What a pity.


WASHINGTON | December 8, 2005
Democrats Still Search for Plan on How to Deal With Iraq
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
Some experts say they will suffer at the polls unless they can present a unified front in convincing the public they would do better.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/08/politics/08dems.html?emc=eta1



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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Thu Dec  8 14:30:33 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Thu Dec  8 14:40:57 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Student Debt Collectible by Social Security
Message-ID: <20051208223033.23C8024AF83@lax-gw02.mroute.net>

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Obnoxious...


WASHINGTON / WASHINGTON SPECIAL | December 8, 2005
Student Debt Collectible by Social Security
By LINDA GREENHOUSE
The Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the government may withhold Social Security benefits in order to collect old student loan debts.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/08/politics/politicsspecial1/08scotus.html?emc=eta1



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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Thu Dec  8 14:31:25 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Thu Dec  8 14:41:49 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: After 24 Years in Prison,
	Man Has a Reason to Smile
Message-ID: <20051208223125.72DD811F9EB@lax-gw07.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: ialterman@nyc.rr.com.

And we are still the only civilized, First World country to have the death penalty... Peace.


NATIONAL | December 8, 2005
After 24 Years in Prison, Man Has a Reason to Smile
By SHAILA DEWAN
In Marietta, Ga., Robert Clark Jr. is expected to be freed on DNA evidence in a rape, robbery and kidnapping case.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/08/national/08convict.html?emc=eta1



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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Thu Dec  8 14:32:08 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Thu Dec  8 14:42:31 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Again,
	Torture Rears Its Ugly Head (5 Letters)
Message-ID: <20051208223208.90F1D23714A@lax-gw01.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: ialterman@nyc.rr.com.

What we're saying...


OPINION TIMESSELECT | December 8, 2005
Again, Torture Rears Its Ugly Head (5 Letters)

To the Editor:.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/08/opinion/l08torture.html?emc=eta1




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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Thu Dec  8 14:32:34 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Thu Dec  8 14:42:57 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Prescription for Iraq,
	From General Clark (4 Letters)
Message-ID: <20051208223234.7E18183D08@lax-gw03.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: ialterman@nyc.rr.com.

What we're saying (2)...


OPINION TIMESSELECT | December 8, 2005
Prescription for Iraq, From General Clark (4 Letters)

To the Editor:.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/08/opinion/l08iraq.html?emc=eta1




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From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Thu Dec  8 15:46:42 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (mblaxill@yahoo.com)
Date: Thu Dec  8 15:57:20 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Headlines for December 8, 2005
Message-ID: <20051208234642.30536.qmail@trinity.democracynow.org>

Mike Blaxill  ( mblaxill@yahoo.com )
sent you this story from democracynow.org



+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
|  Headlines for December 8, 2005
|  http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/08/1421208
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+


- Captors Extend Deadline on Western Aid Workers 
- Suicide Bombing Kills 30 in Iraq 
- Air Marshalls Shoot and Kill Passenger in Miami 
- Pinter Blasts US, UK in Nobel Acceptance Speech 
- Mumia Abu-Jamal Wins Right to Appeal 
- Explosion  Kills Over 60 Workers in Chinese Mine 
- Police Kill Eight in Egyptian Election Clashes 
- Global Remembrances on 25th Anniversary of John Lennon Slaying 
This story continues at: 
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/08/1421208

From michael at michaelbutler.com  Thu Dec  8 16:20:47 2005
From: michael at michaelbutler.com (Michael Butler)
Date: Thu Dec  8 16:32:44 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Rumsfeld's Handshake Deal with Saddam: History out of
	Media Bounds
Message-ID: <BFBE380F.269D9%michael@michaelbutler.com>

    Rumsfeld's Handshake Deal with Saddam: History out of Media Bounds
    By Norman Solomon
    t r u t h o u t | Perspective

    Thursday 08 December 2005

    Christmas came 11 days early for Donald Rumsfeld two years ago, when the
news broke that American forces had pulled Saddam Hussein from a spidery
hole. During interviews about the capture, on CBS and ABC, the Pentagon's
top man was upbeat. And he didn't have to deal with a question that Lesley
Stahl or Peter Jennings could have logically chosen to ask: "Secretary
Rumsfeld, you met with Saddam almost exactly 20 years ago and shook his
hand. What kind of guy was he?"

    Now, Saddam Hussein has gone on trial, but such questions remain unasked
by mainstream US journalists. Rumsfeld met with Hussein in Baghdad on behalf
of the Reagan administration, opening up strong diplomatic and military ties
that lasted through six more years of Saddam's murderous brutality.

    As it happens, the initial trial of Saddam and co-defendants is focusing
on grisly crimes that occurred the year before Rumsfeld gripped his hand.
"The first witness, Ahmad Hassan Muhammad, 38, riveted the courtroom with
the scenes of torture he witnessed after his arrest in 1982, including a
meat grinder with human hair and blood under it," the New York Times
reported Tuesday. And: "At one point, Mr. Muhammad briefly broke down in
tears as he recalled how his brother was tortured with electrical shocks in
front of their 77-year-old father."

    The victims were Shiites - 143 men and adolescent boys, according to the
charges - tortured and killed in the Iraqi town of Dujail after an
assassination attempt against Saddam in early July of 1982. Donald Rumsfeld
became the Reagan administration's Middle East special envoy 15 months
later.

    On December 20, 1983, the Washington Post reported that Rumsfeld
"visited Iraq in what US officials said was an attempt to bolster the
already improving US relations with that country." A couple of days later,
the New York Times cited a "senior American official" who "said that the
United States remained ready to establish full diplomatic relations with
Iraq and that it was up to the Iraqis."

    On March 29, 1984, the Times reported: "American diplomats pronounce
themselves satisfied with relations between Iraq and the United States and
suggest that normal diplomatic ties have been restored in all but name."
Washington had some goodies for Saddam's regime, the Times account noted,
including "agricultural-commodity credits totaling $840 million." And while
"no results of the talks have been announced" after the Rumsfeld visit to
Baghdad three months earlier, "Western European diplomats assume that the
United States now exchanges some intelligence on Iran with Iraq."

    A few months later, on July 17, 1984, a Times article with a Baghdad
dateline sketchily filled in a bit more information, saying that the US
government "granted Iraq about $2 billion in commodity credits to buy food
over the last two years." The story recalled that "Donald Rumsfeld, the
former Middle East special envoy, held two private meetings with the Iraqi
president here," and the dispatch mentioned in passing that "State
Department human rights reports have been uniformly critical of the Iraqi
President, contending that he ran a police state."

    Full diplomatic relations between Washington and Baghdad were restored
11 months after Rumsfeld's December 1983 visit with Saddam. He went on to
use poison gas later in the decade, actions which scarcely harmed relations
with the Reagan administration.

    As the most senior US official to visit Iraq in six years, Rumsfeld had
served as Reagan's point man for warming relations with Saddam. In 1984, the
administration engineered the sale to Baghdad of 45 ostensibly civilian-use
Bell 214ST helicopters. Saddam's military found them quite useful for
attacking Kurdish civilians with poison gas in 1988, according to US
intelligence sources. "In response to the gassing," journalist Jeremy
Scahill has pointed out, "sweeping sanctions were unanimously passed by the
US Senate that would have denied Iraq access to most US technology. The
measure was killed by the White House."

    The USA's big media institutions did little to illuminate how Washington
and business interests combined to strengthen and arm Saddam Hussein during
many of his worst crimes. "In the 1980s and afterward, the United States
underwrote 24 American corporations so they could sell to Saddam Hussein
weapons of mass destruction, which he used against Iran, at that time the
prime Middle Eastern enemy of the United States," writes Ben Bagdikian, a
former assistant managing editor of the Washington Post, in his book The New
Media Monopoly. "Hussein used US-supplied poison gas" against Iranians and
Kurds "while the United States looked the other way."

    Of course the crimes of the Saddam Hussein regime were not just in the
future when Rumsfeld came bearing gifts in 1983. Saddam's large-scale
atrocities had been going on for a long time. Among them were the methodical
torture and murders in Dujail that have been front-paged this week in
coverage of the former dictator's trial; they occurred 17 months before
Rumsfeld arrived in Baghdad.

    Today, inside the corporate media frame, history can be supremely
relevant when it focuses on Hussein's torture and genocide. But the historic
assistance of the US government and American firms is largely off the
subject and beside the point.

    A photo of Donald Rumsfeld shaking Saddam's hand on December 20, 1983,
is easily available. (It takes a few seconds to find via Google.) But the
picture has been notably absent from the array of historic images that US
media outlets are providing to viewers and readers in coverage of the Saddam
Hussein trial. And journalistic mention of Rumsfeld's key role in aiding the
Iraqi tyrant has been similarly absent. Apparently, in the world according
to US mass media, some history matters profoundly and some doesn't matter at
all.

 

From michael at michaelbutler.com  Thu Dec  8 15:18:11 2005
From: michael at michaelbutler.com (Michael Butler)
Date: Thu Dec  8 16:50:59 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] REPLY TO VERY CONTROVERSIAL
Message-ID: <BFBE2966.269B2%michael@michaelbutler.com>

Ian has responded to Sam Harris's article "An Atheist Manifesto"

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From harry.sifton at sympatico.ca  Thu Dec  8 16:57:57 2005
From: harry.sifton at sympatico.ca (Harold Sifton)
Date: Thu Dec  8 17:08:24 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] British Law Lords ban evidence gained under torture
Message-ID: <002b01c5fc5b$9ac2d350$613fe440@Harold>

Article from The Independent, by Nigel Morris

The British law lords were unanimous in their decision to ban evidence gained under torture.

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/legal/article331969.ece

Later H
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From harry.sifton at sympatico.ca  Thu Dec  8 20:30:58 2005
From: harry.sifton at sympatico.ca (Harold Sifton)
Date: Thu Dec  8 20:41:54 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Spin Doctors to deal with Man shot on Airplane
Message-ID: <000801c5fc79$5d20cc00$613fe440@Harold>

At the end of the day, Home Land Security spin doctors will say the under paid/poorly trained Air Marshals did the right thing, shoot first ask later.
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20051208/D8ECB8B8K.html
They are protecting America from terrorists. Who these terrorists are we really do not know, but according to Bush they are every where and America must defend itself and Billy Joe Bob and his buddies with a couple weeks training will do so.
If an innocent is killed because they are scared/sick, well that is ok, because Billy Joe Bob is not taking a chance.

My sarcasm is not enough. What happened was a tragic event of inevitable circumstances created by the Bush Administration.

Think about it, fear kills inocents..........

Later H
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From hary.sifton at sympatico.ca  Thu Dec  8 20:10:10 2005
From: hary.sifton at sympatico.ca (Harry)
Date: Fri Dec  9 04:50:14 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] BBC E-mail: US blocks ICRC access to suspects
Message-ID: <20051209_041010_039583.hary.sifton@sympatico.ca>

Harry saw this story on BBC News Online and thought you
should see it.

** Message **
Wag the Dog

** US blocks ICRC access to suspects **
The US admits for the first time that it has not given the Red Cross access to all detainees in its custody.
< http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/1/hi/world/americas/4512192.stm >


** BBC Daily E-mail **
Choose the news and sport headlines you want - when you want them, all
in one daily e-mail
< http://www.bbc.co.uk/dailyemail/ >


** Disclaimer **
The BBC is not responsible for the content of this e-mail, and anything written in this e-mail does not necessarily reflect the BBC's views or opinions. Please note that neither the e-mail address nor name of the sender have?been verified.

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From swiggard at comcast.net  Fri Dec  9 05:15:13 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Fri Dec  9 05:27:59 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] U.S. Military Probing Video Of Road Violence -
	Washington Post 
Message-ID: <43998361.9020407@comcast.net>

U.S. Military Probing Video Of Road Violence
British Contractors Appear To Shoot at Iraqi Civilians

By Jonathan Finer and Ellen Knickmeyer
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, December 9, 2005; A01

BAGHDAD, Dec. 8 -- A silver Mercedes swings into the passing lane when a 
machine gun opens fire, sending the car smashing into a taxi, whose 
terrified occupants scatter. Moments later on the video, posted on the 
Internet and apparently recorded in Iraq, a white sedan is riddled with 
bullets as it accelerates on an open highway.

Framed as if on a movie screen by the outline of a sport-utility 
vehicle's rear window, those scenes and others show what appear to be 
private security contractors firing on Iraqi civilians. The video 
footage has prompted an investigation by the U.S. military, a spokesman 
said Thursday, and by the company linked to the incidents. It even has a 
soundtrack: Elvis Presley's upbeat "Mystery Train."

Details about the origin of the video clip and the location shown in it 
are unknown. It was originally posted last month on a Web site 
maintained by former employees of Aegis Specialist Risk Management, a 
London-based company that has a $293 million U.S. government contract to 
provide security services in Iraq. The video has since been removed from 
the site.

"Aegis has established a formal board of enquiry, in cooperation with 
the U.S. military authorities, to investigate whether the footage has 
any connection with the company and, should this prove to be the case, 
under what circumstances any incident took place," the company said in a 
statement about the incident.

A public relations representative for Aegis said the company's findings 
could come within the next week.

"An investigation has been initiated, but we do not have any details at 
this time," Army Capt. Bill Roberts, a U.S. military spokesman, said in 
an e-mail message Thursday.

There are more than 25,000 private security contractors working in Iraq, 
according to industry estimates. In an effort to limit the number of 
U.S. soldiers in Iraq, the military employs private contractors to 
handle jobs that would otherwise be performed by troops. But the conduct 
of security contractors has occasionally come under scrutiny, and Iraqi 
civilians and military commanders have charged that they shoot 
indiscriminately and flout local laws with impunity.

The companies, whose employees have been frequent targets of insurgent 
attacks and perform some of the country's most dangerous jobs, such as 
guarding highway convoys, maintain that they use force only when 
necessary for protection. The rules of engagement "allow for a 
structured escalation of force to include opening fire on civilian 
vehicles under certain circumstances," Aegis said in its statement about 
the video.

Aegis typically performs 100 "escort assignments" per week on roads in 
Iraq, according to its Web site.

But many Iraqis complain that the force used by contractors, who are 
immune from prosecution under an order signed into Iraqi law last year, 
is often excessive.

"At least the police and army are recognized in the street, and they 
have the right to shoot because they are security forces," said Qasim 
Muhammed, 44, a Baghdad taxi driver. "But who gave those civilians the 
right to shoot?"

The newly released video, which was broadcast widely on Arabic-language 
satellite television stations in recent days, shows no faces and 
contains few audible bits of dialogue. Because of that, identifying 
those involved will be difficult, a U.S. military official said on 
condition of anonymity.

The video contains four segments that appear to have been shot from the 
type of vehicle often used by security companies, and which often have 
cameras mounted in the back. In some of the segments, it cannot be 
determined where the bullets are striking. It is also not possible to 
determine whether anyone was injured in the shootings.

In the first segment, a man's voice can be heard, along with the music, 
saying, "These two aren't stopping," as a white sedan emerges from the 
traffic and travels toward the camera. Machine-gun fire erupts, and the 
white car slows down. Then a van swings into the passing lane and begins 
to accelerate, and the machine gun sounds again, continuing to fire as 
the van fades into the distance.

The scene quickly shifts to the silver Mercedes on a rural highway. In 
the third part of the video, someone in the vehicle with the camera 
throws what appears to be a smoke canister toward oncoming traffic, in 
an apparent attempt to encourage those vehicles to slow down. When they 
continue to advance, the vehicle with the camera slows to a crawl and 
the machine gun fires. An approaching red sedan swerves off the right 
side of the road.

The final segment shows the white sedan being riddled with bullets, as a 
convoy of U.S. military Humvees passes about 60 feet away on a parallel 
highway.

Founded three years ago, Aegis is run by Tim Spicer, a former lieutenant 
colonel in the Scots Guards, a British army unit. A previous firm run by 
Spicer, Sandline International, was disbanded in the late 1990s after it 
was accused of breaking an embargo on the sale of arms to Sierra Leone.

The site where the video was first posted ( http://www.aegisiraq.co.uk/ 
) does not belong to Aegis, according to a statement on its main page. 
"It belongs to the men and women on the ground who are the heart and 
soul of the company," the statement says.

Another message on the site is said to have been posted by Spicer. 
"Remember that your job and those of your colleagues indirectly relies 
on the maintenance of our contract," it reads. "Refrain from posting 
anything which is detrimental to the company since this could result in 
the loss or curtailment of our contract with resultant loss for everybody."

Although the video has been removed, its contents were debated on the 
message board attached to the Web site.

"although i haven't viewed this footage ive read a lot of posts 
condenming it. All i can say is if you havent been there you dont have a 
say," an anonymous poster wrote. "Its the lonliest job on the planet as 
im sure guys will agree. You and you alone have to make the decision 
wether to open fire or not."

Other videos apparently shot by contractors have been made public in 
recent months. One circulating in Baghdad shows contractors returning 
fire after being ambushed on the road to Baghdad's international 
airport. At least one contractor in the video appears to have been killed.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/08/AR2005120802356.html
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Fri Dec  9 05:29:35 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Fri Dec  9 05:42:23 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Time Reporter Testifies in Leak Case - Washington Post
Message-ID: <439986BF.5090009@comcast.net>

Time Reporter Testifies in Leak Case
Rove Lawyer Was Deposed Last Week by Special Prosecutor

By Carol D. Leonnig and Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, December 9, 2005; A08

A special prosecutor questioned Time magazine reporter Viveca Novak 
under oath yesterday about a conversation she had with the attorney for 
presidential adviser Karl Rove that has become part of the CIA leak 
investigation, according to a top editor at the magazine.

In another twist, the lawyer, Robert D. Luskin, was deposed on the same 
issue last Friday, a source close to the case said.

Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald's questions in both sessions 
focused on the same subject: the conversation that Luskin and Novak, 
longtime friends, had over drinks sometime in the first half of 2004 
about Rove's potential exposure in the probe.

Fitzgerald's decision to delve into the once-removed chat between a 
reporter and the lawyer for the top Bush political adviser comes as the 
prosecutor considers whether to charge Rove. For more than a year after 
the investigation began, Rove failed to reveal to the FBI and the grand 
jury that he had privately told another reporter for Time, Matthew 
Cooper, about the CIA role of undercover operative Valerie Plame.

Novak was deposed a day after Fitzgerald spent three hours meeting with 
a new grand jury in the leak inquiry. A previous grand jury 
investigating the case indicted Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, 
I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, on Oct. 28 and then disbanded. At the time, 
Fitzgerald warned Luskin that Rove remained under investigation, and he 
said in public filings that he would probably present information to a 
new grand jury.

Fitzgerald has spent two years investigating whether White House 
officials leaked Plame's name in the summer of 2003 to discredit 
allegations made by her husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, 
that the Bush administration twisted intelligence in the run-up to the 
Iraq war.

Viveca Novak is not related to columnist Robert D. Novak, who disclosed 
Plame's identity in July 2003.

According to sources familiar with Rove's status, Luskin persuaded 
Fitzgerald in late October to postpone indicting Rove by alerting 
Fitzgerald to Luskin's previous conversation with Novak, among other 
things. Luskin argued that these private discussions helped show Rove 
did not intentionally conceal his conversation with Cooper from 
investigators. Rove has argued he forgot about the chat he had with 
Cooper on the phone in the summer of 2003.

Sources familiar with their conversations say Novak's and Luskin's 
accounts to Fitzgerald appear to conflict on when they spoke.

The timing of Rove's actions since the leak investigation began in 
September 2003 have been of keen interest to Fitzgerald, according to 
sources familiar with the prosecutor's questions. Rove did not mention 
his contact with Cooper to the FBI during interviews in 2003, or to the 
grand jury in February 2004.

He revealed to the grand jury that he spoke with Cooper on Oct. 15, 
2004. That was one month after Fitzgerald subpoenaed Cooper to testify 
about his confidential conversations with administration sources other 
than Libby. It also came two days after a federal judge ordered that 
Cooper cooperate.

Viveca Novak and Luskin refused to comment yesterday. Fitzgerald and his 
spokesman have declined to comment on the Novak-Luskin conversation.

A source familiar with Novak's account said she believes the 
conversation took place in March or May, and definitely took place after 
February 2004, when Rove first testified before the grand jury.

But one person close to the case said the conversation took place before 
Rove's first grand jury appearance in February. This person said the 
conversation was not the event that led Rove to change his testimony.

Time's managing editor, Jim Kelly, said yesterday that the magazine will 
publish Novak's account of her testimony in its Monday edition, and it 
will be available in an online edition Sunday. Kelly said he did not yet 
know and could not comment on the full details of Novak's testimony or 
Fitzgerald's questions because he had not spoken with the reporter.

Novak was traveling from Washington to New York yesterday afternoon, he 
said, and planned to brief him and other Time editors at the magazine's 
headquarters about her testimony.

"To be fair, I need to speak with Viveca now that she has testified 
under oath," he said. "We felt it important to let Viveca prepare for 
her testimony. Now we'll be looking at the questions that have been 
raised by this whole incident."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/08/AR2005120802136.html?nav=hcmodule
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Fri Dec  9 05:31:59 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Fri Dec  9 05:44:47 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Plea Deal Near With 2nd Abramoff Associate - Washington
	Post
Message-ID: <4399874F.6070900@comcast.net>

Plea Deal Near With 2nd Abramoff Associate
Kidan Has Agreed to Cooperate in Probes

By Susan Schmidt and James V. Grimaldi
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, December 9, 2005; A08

Federal prosecutors have all but finalized a plea agreement with a 
second business partner of former lobbyist Jack Abramoff in exchange for 
cooperation in the ongoing criminal investigations of Abramoff, 
congressional aides and Rep. Robert W. Ney (R-Ohio), lawyers in the case 
said yesterday.

Adam Kidan, a longtime confidant of Abramoff's, has agreed to testify 
against Abramoff in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., next month when he is to face 
trial on fraud and conspiracy charges in connection with their purchase 
of a fleet of Florida casino boats. A Kidan plea would tie Abramoff's 
legal troubles in Florida more closely to the Washington investigation 
into his lobbying practices, pressuring Abramoff to reach a deal of his 
own that could implicate members of Congress and other government 
officials, lawyers involved in the case said.

More than two weeks ago, another Abramoff business partner -- public 
relations executive Michael Scanlon -- reached a plea deal in Washington 
and agreed to cooperate in the wide-ranging bribery probe.

Kidan, who has known Abramoff since their student days when they were 
members of the College Republicans, has agreed to plead guilty to 
conspiracy and wire fraud in connection with the purchase of the SunCruz 
fleet in the fall of 2000.

"Adam will testify against Abramoff and Ney if he is given an 
opportunity to do so," said Joseph Conway, an attorney for Kidan.

Prosecutors in the case declined to comment. Abramoff's Florida trial is 
scheduled for Jan. 9. A hearing for Kidan to enter a new plea has been 
scheduled for next week, a development reported yesterday in the South 
Florida Sun-Sentinel. "We don't have a signed plea agreement yet," 
Conway said. "It is certainly going that way, but it is not totally done 
yet."

Stephen L. Braga, Scanlon's attorney, said: "That's a very surprising 
development that will only increase pressure on Mr. Abramoff to cut a deal."

Neal Sonnett, a Florida lawyer representing Abramoff in the SunCruz 
case, declined to say whether his client is in plea negotiations with 
the government. Andrew Blum, a spokesman for Abramoff's Washington 
attorneys, also declined to comment on whether plea negotiations are 
underway.

Prosecutors have told Ney they are preparing a possible bribery 
indictment against him over official acts that benefited clients of 
Abramoff. Ney inserted comments in the Congressional Record at Scanlon's 
request praising Kidan and castigating the reputation of SunCruz's 
then-owner, Konstantinos "Gus" Boulis, during contentious purchase 
negotiations. Six weeks ago, prosecutors got agreements from Abramoff, 
Kidan, Ney and former Ney aide Neil Volz to suspend the five-year 
statute of limitations while the investigation continues.

Ney's spokesman declined to comment. Ney has said he was defrauded by 
Abramoff and Scanlon.

Ney placed a newspaper ad in his district this month saying that he has 
asked the House ethics committee to investigate the Abramoff allegations 
but that he has not heard from the panel. "I recognize that questions 
have been raised in recent months regarding my association with 
disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff," Ney said in the ad. "As I await the 
opportunity to clear my name and as I continue to get attacked by the 
media and my political opponents, I am working as hard as ever on behalf 
of those that I represent."

Abramoff and Kidan were indicted in August by a federal grand jury in 
Fort Lauderdale on five counts of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy 
relating to their $147.5 million SunCruz purchase. Prosecutors alleged 
that Abramoff and Kidan faked a wire transfer of $23 million -- the down 
payment they had agreed to put into the deal. The $23 million became the 
subject of a dispute between the Abramoff group and Boulis.

Boulis was killed in a gangland-style hit in Fort Lauderdale on Feb. 6, 
2001. Three men -- Anthony Moscatiello, Anthony Ferrari and James 
Fiorillo -- were charged last month in the Boulis murder. Kidan had 
hired Moscatiello and Ferrari to provide catering and surveillance 
services to SunCruz.

Moscatiello, identified by authorities as a former bookkeeper for the 
Gambino crime family, asserted after his arrest that Ferrari had 
admitted to him that he and another man killed Boulis after getting a 
call from Kidan, according to court filings. Conway declined to comment 
on the Moscatiello assertions.

Abramoff's SunCruz world frequently overlapped with his lobbying 
activities. For example, as the casino deal was closing, Abramoff 
introduced then-House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) to his lender in 
a private box at FedEx Field. DeLay's deputy chief of staff, Tony Rudy, 
was listed as a reference on loan papers, as was Rep. Dana Rohrabacher 
(R-Calif.). Kidan attended an exclusive party in DeLay's office on 
Inauguration Day 2001 in Washington. During the purchase negotiations, 
Boulis received from DeLay's office a flag that had flown over the Capitol.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/08/AR2005120802232.html?nav=hcmodule
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Fri Dec  9 05:34:54 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Fri Dec  9 05:47:41 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Where's The Oil Money? - David Ignatius - Washington
	Post Op-Ed
Message-ID: <439987FE.6010504@comcast.net>

Where's The Oil Money?

By David Ignatius
Friday, December 9, 2005; A31

DUBAI -- If you've been wondering what happens to that extra money 
you're paying at the gas pump, take a stroll amid the skyscrapers and 
super-luxury hotels of this desert emirate, which is becoming the global 
economy's biggest boomtown.

The pace of development in Dubai makes you dizzy: This tiny country is 
planning the world's tallest building, the world's biggest shopping 
mall, the world's largest fleet of jumbo airplanes. It is building a 
$4.3 billion World Trade Center, an $11 billion Festival City, a $10 
billion theme park known as Dubailand. One measure of the boom here is 
that the real estate listings in Monday's Gulf News ran to 148 pages.

The hotels are so fancy they're giving themselves extra stars beyond the 
usual five -- the trademark Burj al Arab, built in the shape of an 
Arabian dhow's sail, calls itself the world's first seven-star hotel, 
for example. Giorgio Armani, who's joining the Dubai mania by building 
his first hotel here, enthused in the local paper this week: "Dubai is 
the new New York." And that may be an understatement.

The Dubai investment craze helps answer a question that has been 
puzzling economists over the past few months -- namely, what's happening 
to the estimated $400 billion current account surplus harvested this 
year by oil exporters? Economist Stephen Roach of Morgan Stanley 
described the issue in a recent commentary as "The Case of the Missing 
Petro-Dollars." Well, as Roach noted, some of that missing money is 
right here in Dubai, fueling what's either a development miracle or an 
Arabian asset bubble, depending on how you look at it.

What's clear is that the current oil boom is leading to different 
patterns of investment from those of the 1970s. That's the conclusion of 
the Bank for International Settlements in its December quarterly review. 
The bank found that a smaller share of the oil windfall is being 
invested in Western banks this time around -- and that about 70 percent 
of investable funds generated in the current oil boom can't be tracked 
by conventional measures.

The BIS speculates that the petrodollars are going into hedge funds, 
private equity funds and regional stock markets. Certainly far more is 
being pumped into the stock markets of the Gulf countries themselves. A 
recent study by the International Monetary Fund calculated that the 
Qatar stock market's capitalization nearly tripled from 2001 to 2004, 
the Saudi market's more than tripled and the United Arab Emirates market 
increased sevenfold.

Who's not sharing in the current petrodollar windfall at the same rate 
as in the 1970s? If you guessed the United States, you're right. The BIS 
noted that evidence suggests "a smaller share of investable funds has 
been channeled into U.S. securities in the most recent cycle." And a 
recent study found that OPEC holdings of Treasury securities fell from a 
peak of $67.6 billion in February to $54.6 billion in September. For 
economists, the question isn't "Why do they hate us?" Instead it's "Why 
don't they invest with us?" The basic reason, surely, is that investors 
think they'll do better in the booming emerging markets than in a flat 
U.S. equity market.

Each oil boom seems to carry the seeds of a later financial bust, as 
funds are recycled into speculative lending and investments that 
eventually crash. This time the speculative frenzy isn't operating 
mainly through New York banks but through financial institutions in 
places such as Dubai, which will be left with the IOUs, Paul Blustein 
suggested in The Post this week.

The Dubai bubble will eventually burst, but that "eventually" may be a 
way off. One perverse dynamic is what I would call the bin Laden factor. 
Every Arab investor in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar has to worry that 
Islamic fundamentalists will someday upset the money machine -- and in 
anticipation of that disaster, they all want somewhere to run. As the 
Arab world's ultimate gated community, Dubai probably looks like the 
safest bet in the region. That fear factor is helping sell out the 
scores of new apartment towers sprouting here.

And then there's the durability of the oil boom itself. Many analysts 
doubt it will end soon -- without a global economic crash, that is. 
Fareed Mohamedi of PFC Energy reckons that the new appetite for spending 
in Dubai and other Gulf states will require producers to maintain oil 
prices indefinitely at $50 to $60 a barrel.

You're paying for the new oil boom, and if you can't beat it, perhaps 
you should consider a visit to "Ski Dubai," the indoor Alpine resort 
that just opened here in the scorching desert. It's a snapshot of life 
in the new fast lane of the global economy.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/08/AR2005120801486.html?nav=hcmodule
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Fri Dec  9 05:38:33 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Fri Dec  9 05:51:19 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] MUST READ:  Many Words,
 Little Clarity From Rice - Eugene Robinson - Washington Post Op-Ed
Message-ID: <439988D9.8060406@comcast.net>

Many Words, Little Clarity From Rice

By Eugene Robinson
Friday, December 9, 2005; A31

I've been trying my best to follow the "clarifications" on kidnapping 
and torture that Condoleezza Rice has been offering to our European 
allies, and there seems to be only one clear message: Shut up and don't 
ask too many questions.

When Rice was in Kiev, Ukraine, the other day, I thought I heard her say 
that the United States government has never tortured people we suspect 
of being terrorists -- How could anyone even think such a thing? -- or 
maybe she said that, in any event, we promise to stop doing this awful 
thing we've never done.

The secretary of state pledged that we wouldn't inflict "cruel and 
inhumane and degrading treatment" on anyone, even foreign nationals on 
foreign soil. But was she doing to the words "cruel, inhumane and 
degrading" what Bill Clinton did to the word "is"? And did this new 
policy apply not only to U.S. personnel but also to civilian contractors 
working for the military or the CIA? Just as I was starting to get lost 
in the tall weeds of the U.N. Convention Against Torture, the White 
House helpfully explained that Rice's comments didn't represent a change 
of policy at all.

Glad we cleared that up.

Earlier in her trip I'm sure I heard Rice say that we would continue 
abducting terrorist suspects and making them vanish into months or years 
of secret detention. She didn't want to talk much about those 
clandestine "black site" CIA prisons in Eastern Europe, which of course 
don't exist, depending on what the meaning of the word "exist" is. I'm 
pretty sure I heard her say we still reserve the right to hold people in 
these nonexistent prisons as long as we want, without charges or due 
process. I guess if she told us anything more about the nonexistent 
prisons, she'd have to kill us.

I'm certain I heard from Rice's lips a not-so-veiled threat to any 
European governments that might be inclined to play holier-than-thou on 
the issue of these "extraordinary renditions," which normal people would 
call "kidnappings." (Remember when "extraordinary rendition" meant 
nothing more sinister than what Jimi Hendrix did to "The Star-Spangled 
Banner" at Woodstock?) "Some governments choose to cooperate with the 
United States in intelligence, law enforcement or military matters," she 
said as she embarked on her trip. "It is up to those governments and 
their citizens to decide if they wish to work with us to prevent 
terrorist attacks against their own country or other countries, and 
decide how much sensitive information they can make public. They have a 
sovereign right to make that choice."

In other words, all you sanctimonious Eurocrats, it's your choice: Keep 
your mouths shut about the kidnappings and the secret CIA prisons, or 
else one day you might find yourselves in a dark alley on the bad side 
of town and maybe the cavalry won't arrive in time. Tony Soprano 
couldn't have said it better.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel believed she had heard Rice admit that 
the United States made a "mistake" when it sent one of the CIA's 
ninja-style squads to kidnap Khaled Masri, a German citizen whose only 
crime was that his name sounds like that of some suspected terrorist. 
Rice's people say Merkel misunderstood; Rice merely acknowledged that 
unspecified mistakes might have been made.

Masri says he was vacationing in Macedonia on New Year's Eve 2003 when 
local authorities arrested him and handed him over to the Americans. 
Five months later, long after it was clear this was a case of mistaken 
identity, he was released on a lonely hill in Albania.

We know the details of Masri's case, or at least his version of events, 
because earlier this week he filed suit in U.S. District Court in 
Alexandria against the CIA, former director George Tenet, the operators 
of the CIA-front air transport firm that flew him from Macedonia to a 
prison in Afghanistan, and the "John Doe" ninjas who kidnapped him.

Here is the lawsuit's account of the moment when, after Masri had been 
stripped naked, the CIA -- representing you and me and our great nation 
-- took him into custody:

"[He] saw seven or eight men dressed in black and wearing black ski 
masks. One of the men placed him in a diaper. . . . Mr. El-Masri was 
marched to a waiting plane, with the shackles cutting into his ankles. 
Once inside, he was thrown to the floor face down and his legs and arms 
were spread-eagled and secured to the sides of the plane. He felt an 
injection in his shoulder, and became lightheaded. He felt a second 
injection that rendered him nearly unconscious."

I'm still puzzling over Rice's words. Masri's, though, are quite clear.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/08/AR2005120801322.html?nav=hcmodule
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Fri Dec  9 05:45:55 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Fri Dec  9 05:58:40 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] RE: CHRISTMAS: What would the Druids do? - Ellen Goodman
 - Boston Globe Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43998A93.6020300@comcast.net>


  What would the Druids do?

By Ellen Goodman  |  December 9, 2005  |  The Boston Globe

WASHINGTON
SOME YEARS ago my husband was a last-minute draft pick to play the role 
of godfather at a young friend's naming ceremony. Admittedly, his 
relationship to organized religion was a bit dicey, but you know how it 
is in the understudy business.

In any case, at the end of the home ceremony, he leaned over and 
stage-whispered into the ear of the infant the promise that her training 
as a Druid would now commence.

You may be relieved to know that Laura was raised in a somewhat more 
traditional church. But now it appears that her few homilies on Druidry 
may come in handy.

This year, as you may know, a Christmas tree donated by Nova Scotia 
arrived in Boston disguised as a holiday tree. After much too much ado, 
it was finally lit as a Christmas tree. Meanwhile in Washington, the 
Capitol Holiday Tree was also rechristened by Dennis Hastert as the 
Capitol Christmas Tree. In Georgia too, the tree at the governor's 
mansion underwent a similar conversion.

In short, the sacred and co-opted evergreens of the Druids have become 
the symbols of the purist Christmas Christians. Somebody hug a tree for 
me; here we go again.

There are a dwindling number of battling days until Christmas. The malls 
are filled with so much Christmas Muzak that we are all longing for a 
silent night. Nevertheless, we are again treated to the notion that 
Christmas is beleaguered and besieged and battered by the forces of 
diversity and secularism.

Jerry Falwell's Liberty Counsel is running a ''Friend or Foe Christmas 
Campaign." James Dobson's Alliance Defense Fund is running a ''Christmas 
Project" with the motto: ''Merry Christmas. It's OK to say it."

Fox News's John Gibson has killed who knows how many trees to print 
''The War on Christmas." The combined forces of the Catholic League, the 
American Family Association, and Bill O'Reilly have accused Target and 
others of banning Christmas by wishing their customers a ''Happy 
Holiday." And to top it all off, the Committee for Justice is running 
ads that promote Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito as a sort of Father 
Christmas figure who will defend religion.

On the one hand, the Christmas defense team is portraying its side as 
the overwhelming majority, the 90 percent who celebrate Christmas. On 
the other hand they are describing themselves as oppressed, indeed 
victimized.

On the one hand they want more Christ in Christmas; on the other hand 
they want more Christmas in the marketplace. It makes one long for the 
screeds against commercialism.

The last real war against Christmas was, in fact, a religious war. It 
was waged in my hometown by Puritans who banned mince pies and plum 
puddings and declared that celebrating Christmas was a criminal offense. 
In 1711, Cotton Mather gave his famous lecture against ''mad mirth," 
''long-eating," hard-drinking, and reveling ''fit for not but a Saturn 
or Bacchus."

As for American history, let us remember that Congress convened on the 
first Christmas of the new Republic, Dec. 25, 1789. Christmas wasn't a 
federal holiday until 1870.

I admit to being bemused with today's one-size-fits-all ''holiday" 
season. How did the celebration of the birth of Christ elevate Hanukkah 
from minor to major league status?

But living in an extended family as well as a country that celebrates 
holidays that range from Hanukkah and Christmas to the Chinese New Year 
with stops along the way for Druidism, I also understand why ''holiday" 
appears on everything from the president's greeting card -- with three 
pets frolicking in the snow -- to the office party. Conversely, one of 
the hallmarks of the culture wars is the way tolerance of diverse 
beliefs is reframed as intolerance for the majority.

We are familiar with seasonal blow-ups over church and state. Some end 
in absurd compromises that put Baby Jesus, the Maccabees, and Frosty in 
a December trinity. These cases are often thinly veiled battles for 
ownership of public space.

But this year's blow-up over church and store? A battle between Merry 
Christmas and Happy Holidays? I thought religion was supposed to remind 
us that there's a separation between pew and marketplace.

If the religious right is worrying about the erosion of Christmas, maybe 
they should focus more on the megachurches around the country that 
colluded to close on Sunday, Dec. 25, for fear they wouldn't have enough 
customers. Christmas, they demurred, is a family day. Happy Familyday to 
you?

As for this orchestrated seasonal battle, let's give the final word to 
the Druids. The mistletoe was also sacred to our Celtic forebears. That 
ritual kiss beneath the mistletoe was meant to seal the end of a dispute.

The war against Christmas? How about a little peace on earth.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/12/09/what_would_the_druids_do/
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Fri Dec  9 05:48:45 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Fri Dec  9 06:01:29 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Where the little guy can win - Gary Hart - Boston Globe
	Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43998B3D.8020403@comcast.net>


  Where the little guy can win

By Gary Hart  |  December 9, 2005  |  The Boston Globe

MY MANY New Hampshire friends have been in contact recently to seek help 
in defense of the New Hampshire primary, a subject I know something 
about. To honor their friendship and loyalty and, once again, to show my 
respect for the voters of New Hampshire, I submit these thoughts.

For the Democratic Party to place large population states ahead of New 
Hampshire would be a tragedy. I say that not only as the proud winner of 
the New Hampshire primary. I say it more as a concerned citizen. New 
Hampshire is human scale. It enables unknown candidates such as I was to 
meet people face-to-face, to present their ideas, and to have those 
ideas tested by real people in real living rooms in real towns.

We all know what has happened to politics in America. It is corrupt. It 
is corrupted by money, interest groups, and mass media. Every political 
force in the past three decades has been directed toward bigger, more 
expensive, more media-oriented campaigns that avoid, wherever possible, 
candidate exposure to everyday people with individual concerns they want 
their president to address.

Since the South Carolina Republican primary in 2000, it is my belief 
that George W. Bush has not appeared before any audience representing a 
cross-section of America. All his public appearances for the past five 
years have been before hand-picked audiences of supporters guaranteed to 
applaud his every utterance before national television cameras. When was 
the last time Bush had to answer a question from a main-street American?

I say to my party: Don't do this. Don't move New Hampshire into the 
background just to provide larger playing fields for political 
consultants and interest-group candidates. A new candidate from a small 
state with no money, however interesting, provocative, or challenging 
his or her ideas are, will not stand a chance.

New Hampshire gave me a chance. According to one revisionist political 
theory, I ''peaked" in New Hampshire in 1984. That theory avoids the 
fact that, after the voters of New Hampshire gave me a chance, with the 
help of tens of thousands of volunteers and small donors, I was able to 
go on and win all the New England states, eight of nine Super Tuesday 
states, 11 of the 12 last primaries, including California, and end up 
with 25 primary and caucus victories and 1,200 loyal delegates at the 
last contested nominating conventions in more than 30 years.

Unless the Democratic Party wants to limit its pool of candidates to 
those with tens of millions of dollars in the bank, largely from 
interest groups, with highly paid political consultants and with 
multi-million-dollar television campaigns, the nomination process must 
begin in a human-scale state like New Hampshire. It is the last and only 
chance the ''dark-horse" candidate has to show what he or she is really 
all about and what they have to offer.

One would have to be more cynical than I to believe there are those in 
power in my party who do not want to see people like me have a chance, 
people who have not already made their deals with interest groups and 
powerful contributors, people who really do have new ideas and fresh 
approaches, and perhaps even uncorrupted leadership to offer. I choose 
not to believe this. But if the Democratic Party puts the big states 
ahead of New Hampshire, I, and a lot of other people, may have to 
reconsider.

Gary Hart is a former US senator from Colorado who twice ran for president. 

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/12/09/where_the_little_guy_can_win/
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From Reeeees at aol.com  Thu Dec  8 18:57:05 2005
From: Reeeees at aol.com (Reeeees@aol.com)
Date: Fri Dec  9 08:10:53 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Pinter's Devastating Assault on US Foreign Policy 
Message-ID: <E1EkkfW-0007OU-4e@smtpauth04.mail.atl.earthlink.net>

Published on Thursday,  December 8, 2005 by the Guardian / UK

Passionate  Pinter's Devastating Assault on US Foreign Policy
Shades of Beckett as  ailing playwright delivers powerful Nobel lecture

by Michael  Billington
 
There was something oddly  Beckettian about Harold Pinter's Nobel lecture, 
which was broadcast yesterday by  More4, and which even now is blazing its way 
across the world's media. It was  Beckettian in that Pinter sat in a 
wheelchair, with a rug over his knees and  framed by an image of his younger self, 
delivering his sombre message: memories  of Hamm in Beckett's Endgame came to mind. 
But if Pinter's frailty was  occasionally visible, there was nothing ailing 
about his passionate and  astonishing speech, which mixed moral vigour with 
forensic detail. 
 
In fact, the speech was all  the more powerful because it was delivered in a 
husky, throaty rasp. The facts  are that Pinter, having recovered from cancer 
of the oesophagus, was earlier  this year stricken by a condition in the mouth 
which affected his vocal chords.  Then 10 days ago he was re-admitted to 
hospital with severe leg pains. But he  briefly emerged on Sunday to record his 
Nobel speech, and the good news is that  he should be back home early next week. 
 
Although the speech obviously  was a physical strain to deliver, it was 
impressively structured. It began with  Pinter talking about his art - something he 
rarely does in public. In  particular, he drew a clear distinction between 
the necessary ambivalence of art  and the duty of the citizen to ask: "What is 
true? What is false?" Pinter even  gave fascinating examples of the way in 
which his plays start with a line, a  word or an image and then proceed on their 
journey into the  unknown.
 
Warming to his theme, Pinter  argued that while language is, for the 
dramatist, an ambiguous transaction, it  is something that politicians distort for the 
sake of power. And, in making his  point, Pinter deployed a variety of 
tactics: the charged pause, the tug at the  glasses, the unremitting stare at the 
camera. I am told by Michael Kustow, who  co-produced the lecture, that after a 
time he stopped giving Pinter any  instructions. He simply allowed him to rely 
on his actor's instinct for knowing  how to reinforce a line or heighten 
suspense.
 
Although the content of the  speech was highly political, especially in its 
clinical dissection of post-war  US foreign policy, it relied on Pinter's 
theatrical sense, in particular his  ability to use irony, rhetoric and humour, to 
make its point. This was the  speech of a man who knows what he wants to say 
but who also realises that the  message is more effective if rabbinical fervour 
is combined with oratorical  panache.
 
At one point, for instance,  Pinter argued that "the United States supported 
and in many cases engendered  every rightwing military dictatorship in the 
world after the end of the second  world war". He then proceeded to reel off 
examples. But the clincher came when  Pinter, with deadpan irony, said: "It never 
happened. Nothing ever happened.  Even while it was happening, it wasn't 
happening. It didn't matter. It was of no  interest." In a few sharp sentences, 
Pinter pinned down the willed indifference  of the media to publicly recorded 
events. He also showed how language is  devalued by the constant appeal of US 
presidents to "the American people". This  was argument by devastating example. 
As Pinter repeated the lulling mantra, he  proved his point that "The words 
"the American people" provide a truly  voluptuous cushion of reassurance." Thus 
Pinter brilliantly used a rhetorical  device to demolish political rhetoric. 
 
But it was the black humour  of the speech I liked best. At one point, Pinter 
offered himself as a  speechwriter to President Bush - an offer unlikely, on 
this basis of this  speech, to be quickly accepted. And Pinter proceeded to 
give us a parody of the  Bush antithetical technique in which the good guys and 
the bad guys are thrown  into stark contrast: "My God is good.  Bin Laden's 
God is bad.  His is  a bad God.  Saddam's God was bad except he didn't have one. 
 He was a  barbarian.  We are not barbarians."  Pinter's poker face as he  
delivered this only reinforced its satirical power.
 
One columnist predicted,  before the event, that we were due for a Pinter 
rant. But this was not a rant in  the sense of a bombastic declaration. This was 
a man delivering an attack on  American foreign policy, and Britain's 
subscription to it, with a controlled  anger and a deadly irony. And, paradoxically, 
it reminded us why Pinter is such  a formidable dramatist. He used every weapon 
in his theatrical technique to  reinforce his message. And, by the end, it 
was as if Pinter himself had been  physically recharged by the moral duty to 
express his innermost  feelings.
 
Michael Billington is the  Guardian's theatre critic.
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From michael at intrafi.com  Fri Dec  9 08:34:49 2005
From: michael at intrafi.com (michael@intrafi.com)
Date: Fri Dec  9 08:45:35 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] FT.com / US / CIA - McCain continues drive to ban
	torture by US
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From michael at intrafi.com  Fri Dec  9 08:37:53 2005
From: michael at intrafi.com (michael@intrafi.com)
Date: Fri Dec  9 08:48:38 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] FT.com / Comment & analysis / Comment - Look further
	than trade to save Doha
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From michael at intrafi.com  Fri Dec  9 08:39:50 2005
From: michael at intrafi.com (michael@intrafi.com)
Date: Fri Dec  9 08:50:22 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] FT.com / Comment & analysis / Comment - Why the US
	cannot circumvent torture law
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From barbarasiomos38 at msn.com  Fri Dec  9 09:45:15 2005
From: barbarasiomos38 at msn.com (Barbara Siomos)
Date: Fri Dec  9 09:55:46 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] The Silencing of Carlos Delgado
Message-ID: <BAY5-DAV686154A855349FA30D34FAB450@phx.gbl>

 
Dear EmailNation Subscriber,

Sometimes sports mirrors politics with such accuracy you don't know whether to laugh, cry or hide in the basement. Just as the Bush Administration shows its commitment to democracy by operating secret offshore gulags and buying favorable news coverage in Iraq, the New York Mets have made it clear to new player Carlos Delgado that freedom of speech stops once the blue and orange uniform--their brand--is affixed to his body. Read Dave Zirin's new Nation online piece for more. http://www.thenation.com/doc/20051219/zirin

And if you like this piece, make sure to check out Zirin's "What's My Name, Fool?" Recently published by Haymarket Press, the book draws on interviews with former heavyweight champ George Foreman, Olympian and black power saluter John Carlos, NBA player and activist Etan Thomas, antiwar women's college hoopster Toni Smith, Olympic Project for Human Rights leader Lee Evans and many others. As rapper, radio host and sports fan Chuck D. says, the book "beautifully illustrates the connection between sports, struggle, politics, and resistance."

For more info and to order copies:
http://www.edgeofsports.com/product/book/index.html

And check out the Haymarket Books site:
http://haymarketbooks.org/


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John Nichols reports on Jonathan Tasini's new antiwar challenge to Hillary.
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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Fri Dec  9 10:11:27 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Fri Dec  9 10:22:07 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Qaeda-Iraq Link U.S. Cited Is Tied to
	Coercion Claim
Message-ID: <20051209181127.361E213B81E@lax-gw04.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: ialterman@nyc.rr.com.

A blatant attempt to redirect blame... How transparent. Peace.


WASHINGTON | December 9, 2005
Qaeda-Iraq Link U.S. Cited Is Tied to Coercion Claim
By DOUGLAS JEHL
Officials said an inmate in Egyptian custody made up details about ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda in order to escape abuse.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/09/politics/09intel.html?emc=eta1



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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Fri Dec  9 10:13:08 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Fri Dec  9 10:23:37 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Youths Make Spirited Case at Climate Meeting
Message-ID: <20051209181308.26C9424AE4A@lax-gw02.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: ialterman@nyc.rr.com.

This should warm the cockles of Michael's heart...youth in action... Peace.


INTERNATIONAL / AMERICAS | December 9, 2005
Youths Make Spirited Case at Climate Meeting
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
More than 500 young attendees in Montreal have been staging demonstrations to highlight the importance of the treaty talks.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/09/international/americas/09climate.html?emc=eta1



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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Fri Dec  9 10:13:32 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Fri Dec  9 10:24:00 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Rice Appears to Reassure Some Europeans on
	Treatment of Terror Detainees
Message-ID: <20051209181332.4F92583E1A@lax-gw03.mroute.net>

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INTERNATIONAL / EUROPE | December 9, 2005
Rice Appears to Reassure Some Europeans on Treatment of Terror Detainees
By JOEL BRINKLEY
But at a meeting in Brussels of NATO, a plan to send 6,000 more troops to Afghanistan became entangled in the issue.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/09/international/europe/09rice.html?emc=eta1



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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Fri Dec  9 10:14:33 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Fri Dec  9 10:25:05 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Move Israel to Europe, Iran Leader Suggests
Message-ID: <20051209181433.E656E2371F5@lax-gw01.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: ialterman@nyc.rr.com.

!...


INTERNATIONAL / MIDDLE EAST | December 9, 2005
Move Israel to Europe, Iran Leader Suggests
By REUTERS
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad also expressed doubt that the Holocaust took place. The remarks drew swift rebukes from Israel and Washington.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/09/international/middleeast/09iran.html?emc=eta1



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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Fri Dec  9 10:15:31 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Fri Dec  9 10:25:59 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Before 9/11, Warnings on bin Laden
Message-ID: <20051209181531.B3D1711FA3E@lax-gw07.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: ialterman@nyc.rr.com.

Assuming 9/11 was a "staged event," this article is actually "spinning" what was already a lie to begin with... Peace.


NATIONAL / THREATS AND RESPONSES | December 9, 2005
Before 9/11, Warnings on bin Laden
By SCOTT SHANE
American diplomats warned Saudi officials that Osama bin Laden might target civilian aircraft, a newly declassified cable shows.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/09/national/nationalspecial3/09documents.html?emc=eta1



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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Fri Dec  9 10:16:16 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Fri Dec  9 10:26:43 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Compromise Reached on Renewing Patriot Act
Message-ID: <20051209181616.8FAF013B72C@lax-gw04.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: ialterman@nyc.rr.com.

NATIONAL / THREATS AND RESPONSES | December 9, 2005
Compromise Reached on Renewing Patriot Act
By ERIC LICHTBLAU
Critics from both parties said they found the plan unacceptable because it did not go far enough in protecting Americans' civil liberties.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/09/national/nationalspecial3/09patriot.html?emc=eta1



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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Fri Dec  9 10:16:34 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Fri Dec  9 10:27:04 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Bid for Prewar Iraq Files Raises Political
	Heat
Message-ID: <20051209181634.1B3AF11F87A@lax-gw07.mroute.net>

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WASHINGTON | December 9, 2005
Bid for Prewar Iraq Files Raises Political Heat
By SCOTT SHANE
Democrats pressed their demand for White House documents on prewar intelligence in the House Committee on International Relations.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/09/politics/09yellow.html?emc=eta1



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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Fri Dec  9 10:17:28 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Fri Dec  9 10:27:58 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Deconstructing the Realities of Politics
	and Terrorism
Message-ID: <20051209181728.6033711F824@lax-gw07.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: ialterman@nyc.rr.com.

Anyone know anything about this? Never heard of it, but it sounds interesting. Peace.


MOVIES | December 9, 2005
Movie Review | 'The Power of Nightmares': Deconstructing the Realities of Politics and Terrorism
By A. O. SCOTT
A sprawling, intellectually ambitious documentary about the political phenomenon usually referred to in journalistic shorthand as the war on terror. 
http://movies2.nytimes.com/2005/12/09/movies/09nigh.html?emc=eta1



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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Fri Dec  9 10:19:38 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Fri Dec  9 10:30:07 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Fighting on the Wrong Front
Message-ID: <20051209181938.C571B83DB8@lax-gw03.mroute.net>

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OPINION | December 9, 2005
Op-Ed Contributor: Fighting on the Wrong Front
By PETER H. SCHUCK
In their opposition to the Solomon Amendment, universities are not only on shaky legal ground, but intellectually inconsistent.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/09/opinion/09schuck.html?emc=eta1




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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Fri Dec  9 10:20:02 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Fri Dec  9 10:30:29 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Tax Cut Showdown
Message-ID: <20051209182002.F06F911F8B5@lax-gw07.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: ialterman@nyc.rr.com.

OPINION | December 9, 2005
Editorial: Tax Cut Showdown

The House of Representatives passed two major tax-cut bills this week. One deserves to become law; the other deserves to die.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/09/opinion/09fri1.html?emc=eta1




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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Fri Dec  9 10:21:01 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Fri Dec  9 10:31:28 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Senator Clinton's Flag Maneuver (5 Letters)
Message-ID: <20051209182101.E6A5F9FBAF@lax-gw05.mroute.net>

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What we're saying...


OPINION | December 9, 2005
Senator Clinton's Flag Maneuver (5 Letters)

To the Editor:.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/09/opinion/l09hillary.html?emc=eta1




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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Fri Dec  9 10:22:24 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Fri Dec  9 10:32:55 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: The Problem in Iraq
Message-ID: <20051209182224.1D18F249D2A@lax-gw08.mroute.net>

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What we're saying (2)...


OPINION | December 9, 2005
The Problem in Iraq

To the Editor:.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/09/opinion/l09iraq-clark.html?emc=eta1




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From harry.sifton at sympatico.ca  Fri Dec  9 12:02:46 2005
From: harry.sifton at sympatico.ca (Harold Sifton)
Date: Fri Dec  9 12:13:18 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] US still denies Red Cross access to detaniees
Message-ID: <000a01c5fcfb$89298e40$9d27e440@Harold>

The US is still denying the ICRC access to detainees

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20051209/red_cross_051209/20051209?hub=World


Later H
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From world at worldtribune.com  Fri Dec  9 10:43:30 2005
From: world at worldtribune.com (world@worldtribune.com)
Date: Fri Dec  9 13:41:55 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Harry recommends this page to you
Message-ID: <MAXVPS004XvpFVjCRGr00002b62@MAXVPS004.maximumasp.com>

China now top arms supplier to Sudan. Oil for Arms!

 This message was sent by the recommend service at: 
http://www.WorldTribune.com 

From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Fri Dec  9 15:25:38 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (Mike Blaxill)
Date: Fri Dec  9 15:36:08 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Ray McGovern
Message-ID: <20051209232538.90587.qmail@web53013.mail.yahoo.com>

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/120905Z.shtml

Rice with Indefensible Brief; Cheney in Last
Throes
????By Ray McGovern
????t r u t h o u t | Perspective

????Friday 09 December 2005

????European reaction to visiting Secretary of
State Condoleezza Rice's statements on torture
can be summed up in lead commentary Wednesday in
the Sueddeutsche Zeitung, among the most widely
respected German newspapers. Under the title
"Justice ? la Rice," the editor "translated" her
message into these words: "The end justifies the
means and terrorism can be fought with borderline
methods on the outer edges of legality." He
added: "Rice came to Germany to begin a new era.
She has resoundingly failed to do so. Injustice
remains injustice, and a wrong policy remains a
wrong policy. On this basis you cannot re-launch
the trans-Atlantic relationship."

????There was no mushroom cloud, but Rice is
radioactive nonetheless. No matter how much she
and the embedded reporters traveling with her
tried to spin her words, they are falling on deaf
ears in Europe. Even here at home, the
administration is encountering unusual skepticism
in the heretofore-domesticated media. The
normally sleepy editorial side of the Washington
Post, for example, found it possible to lead its
first editorial yesterday by reminding readers
that Rice broke no new ground in claiming
Wednesday that US personnel - "wherever they are"
- are prohibited from using cruel or inhuman
interrogation techniques. This is hardly a
profile in courage for the Post: The president's
spokesman, Scott McClellan, had already told
reporters that Rice was merely expressing
existing policy.

????Trouble on the Home Front

????With attention riveted on the cause c?l?bre
occasioned by revelations concerning CIA-run
prisons abroad, kidnapping, and "extraordinary
renditions" of captives to torture-prone foreign
countries - and the predictably neuralgic
reaction among our allies - it is easy to miss
the likely political fallout here at home.

????Vice President Dick Cheney, whose unbridled
chutzpah has led him to take public and well as
private credit for being the intellectual author
of US policy on torture, has become such a
glaring liability that his tenure may be
short-lived. There is a growing possibility that
the vice president will resign at the turn of the
year "for reasons of health," and that his
partner-in-crime - in what Colin Powell's former
chief of staff at the State Department, Col.
Lawrence Wilkerson, has labeled the
"Cheney-Rumsfeld cabal" - will choose to retire
to his home in Taos early next year.

????Never in the sixty years since World War II
has an American secretary of state been received
with such hostility by our erstwhile friends in
Europe. In one sense, it can be seen as poetic
justice that Rice, who as national security
adviser to the president never heard a Cheney
suggestion she didn't like, is taking the heat,
while the vice president hides behind her skirts.
Poetic justice for Cheney himself, though, may be
just around the corner.

????It is no secret that Cheney bears primary
responsibility for making our country a pariah
among nations by punching a gaping hole in the
(until now) absolute ban on torture under
international and US law. Under international
treaties, including treaties ratified by the US
Senate and thus the supreme law of the land,
civilized societies have long since prohibited
practices widely recognized as torture. No
matter. At the instigation of the Cheney-Rumsfeld
cabal, the inherent human right to physical
integrity and personal dignity has become an
early casualty of the US "war on terror."

????We did not need Col. Wilkerson to tell us
that. What he has revealed in tracing
responsibility for the US rogue policy on torture
to the office of the vice president and Rumsfeld
merely confirmed much of what is already known,
but reported meagerly - if at all - in US media.

????Just five days after 9/11, the vice president
told Tim Russert on NBC's Meet the Press:

????"We also have to work, though, sort of the
dark side ... a lot of what needs to be done here
will have to be done quietly, without any
discussion, using sources and methods that are
available to our intelligence agencies ... it's
going to be vital for us to use any means at our
disposal, basically, to achieve our objective."

????At that same time President George W. Bush
reportedly issued instructions to the CIA to take
a no-holds-barred approach when interrogating
suspected terrorists and, according to
counter-terrorism czar Richard Clarke, used
colorful language to impress his attitude upon
Clarke and Rumsfeld: "I don't care what the
international lawyers say, we are going to kick
some ass." The head of the Counter-terrorism
Center at the CIA conveyed the atmosphere quite
well when he testified to Congress that after
9/11 "the gloves were off."

????This was the message conveyed to CIA director
George Tenet, who dutifully marched off to find
interrogators to be set loose on "suspected
terrorists" likely to be captured in Afghanistan
- and then Iraq. For it was clear from the start
that Iraq, too, was in the gun sights of Cheney,
Rumsfeld, and the president himself.

????"Dark-side" operations, using "any means at
our disposal" - like, say, "enhanced
interrogation techniques" - by law require a
"finding" signed by the president. Before
signing, Bush would have sought the advice of his
White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales - the more
so, since this particular finding raised serious
questions with regard not only to international
law but also to US criminal statutes, and
particularly the War Crimes Act of 1996 (18
U.S.C. 2441).

????Enter the (in)famous memorandum of January
25, 2002, from Gonzales to the president, in
which some provisions of the Geneva Conventions
on prisoners of war were described as "quaint"
and "obsolete." Referring to the US War Crimes
Act, the author of that memorandum argued that
there was a "reasonable basis in law" that Bush
could escape future criminal prosecution for
violating that law.

????Powell Protests ... Not Too Much

????Then-Secretary of State (and former Chairman
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff) Colin Powell
protested, and his warning, which was inserted
into the January 25 memorandum to the president,
speaks volumes:

????"A determination that the GPW [Geneva
Convention on Prisoners of War] does not apply to
al-Qaeda and the Taliban could undermine US
military culture which emphasizes maintaining the
highest standards of conduct in combat, and could
introduce an element of uncertainty in the status
of adversaries."

????In a memo dated January 26, 2002, Powell also
warned that such behavior by the US would
"undermine public support among critical allies
[and] reverse over a century of US policy and
practice in supporting the Geneva conventions and
undermine the protections of the law of war for
our own troops." But Powell was a day late and a
penny short with these latter warnings. And it is
altogether likely that then-national security
adviser Rice, at the prompting of the cabal,
never showed the president Powell's January 26
memorandum. As for the Cheney/Rumsfeld/Bush-shy
Powell, he confined himself to sending memos to
the president's lawyer.

????And so, on February 7, 2002, Bush signed the
watershed memorandum telling our armed forces "to
treat detainees humanely and, to the extent
appropriate and consistent with military
necessity, in a manner consistent with the
principles of Geneva." Therein lies the gaping
loophole that largely accounts for the widespread
practice of torture of the kind so graphically
represented in the photos from Abu Ghraib. It was
not a "few bad apples" at the bottom. The bad
apples were at the very top of the barrel.

????But Who Wrote the January 25 Memorandum?

????The author was Cheney's legal counsel, David
Addington, whom the vice president had the gall
to promote to be his chief of staff after I.
Lewis ("Scooter") Libby was indicted. Addington's
authorship has been openly acknowledged, and
Cheney appears to regard it as a feather in
Addington's cap. One searches in vain, however,
for legal experts who support Addington's
tortured (no pun intended) reasoning. Indeed, in
November 2004, 130 prominent jurists - including
twelve federal judges, eight former American Bar
Association presidents, and former FBI director
William Sessions - issued a highly unusual
statement criticizing Addington and others by
name for failing in their "high obligation to
defend the Constitution."

????Bypassing the "Six Blind Mice"

????What is new is the willingness of patriotic
officials within the government to put their
country before their career and go to the media
to blow the whistle on the various indignities
and crimes they have witnessed. Those officials,
initially cowed by the object lesson served up by
White House retaliation against former ambassador
Joseph Wilson, have become increasingly
scandalized at the jettisoning of long accepted
practices like those that used to govern
interrogations. And so, officials with first-hand
knowledge have now begun to come forward and tell
what has been going on, in hopes of getting the
country back on track. Cheney no longer has Libby
to keep his finger in the dike to prevent leaks
that are fast becoming a flood, and Karl Rove is
preoccupied with his own efforts to avoid
indictment.

????Most important, Cheney's formidable power has
been deeply dented by the indictment of his
closest aide Libby, and the vice president's
unabashed support of torture has prompted old
friends and colleagues like Gen. Brent Scowcroft
to say, "I don't know Dick Cheney." Absolute
power may still corrupt absolutely even when it
is deeply dented, but then it is not as
threatening to those with the courage to confront
it.

????It is no surprise that patriotic
truth-tellers within the government have chosen
to go to the fourth estate rather than to a
Congress controlled by the president's party.
Their choice reflects a realization that little
but trouble can be expected in seeking recourse
from those who have become known as "the six
blind mice" - Senators Pat Roberts, John Warner,
and Richard Lugar, who chair the committees with
jurisdiction in the Senate; and Congressmen Pete
Hoekstra, Duncan Hunter, and Henry Hyde in the
House.

????--------

????Ray McGovern works for Tell the Word, the
publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the
Saviour in Washington, DC. He was an analyst with
the CIA for 27 years and is co-founder of Veteran
Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS). 
From michael at intrafi.com  Fri Dec  9 15:42:30 2005
From: michael at intrafi.com (michael@intrafi.com)
Date: Fri Dec  9 15:52:57 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Alternet: Class Warfare With Taxes
Message-ID: <20051209234230.6B5CCB809E@alternet.org>


This story has been forwarded to you from
http://www.alternet.org by michael@intrafi.com



-------------------------------------
Class Warfare With Taxes
http://www.alternet.org/story/29294

When the tax cut battle is between the wealthy and super wealthy, it looks like both groups win. So, guess who's going to foot the bill.   
-------------------------------------

From michael at intrafi.com  Fri Dec  9 15:46:59 2005
From: michael at intrafi.com (michael@intrafi.com)
Date: Fri Dec  9 15:57:25 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Alternet: Goodbye, New Orleans
Message-ID: <20051209234659.E9D78B8092@alternet.org>


This story has been forwarded to you from
http://www.alternet.org by michael@intrafi.com



-------------------------------------
Goodbye, New Orleans
http://www.alternet.org/story/29274

The Bush administration has given New Orleans a quiet kiss of death with its final Katrina budget package. If we can't rebuild it right, we may as well kiss it goodbye.
-------------------------------------

From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Fri Dec  9 16:34:32 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (mblaxill@yahoo.com)
Date: Fri Dec  9 16:45:04 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Headlines for December 9, 2005
Message-ID: <20051210003432.8616.qmail@trinity.democracynow.org>

Mike Blaxill  ( mblaxill@yahoo.com )
sent you this story from democracynow.org



+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
|  Headlines for December 9, 2005
|  http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/09/1443234
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+


- Group Claims to Have Killed US Worker in Iraq 
- Ex-Gitmo Detainee Calls for Peacemakers’ Release 
- Al-Libi Fabricated Iraq Claims to Avoid Torture in Egypt 
- US Military to Probe Video of Contractor Shootings 
- Iranian President Says Israel Should Be Moved to Europe 
- Schwarzenegger Holds Clemency Hearing for "Tookie" Williams 
- NYU Bans Coca-Cola on Campus 
This story continues at: 
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/09/1443234

From IHHS at aol.com  Fri Dec  9 16:46:35 2005
From: IHHS at aol.com (IHHS@aol.com)
Date: Fri Dec  9 17:17:12 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] constitution
Message-ID: <E1EktC6-0004Dy-3x@smtpauth04.mail.atl.earthlink.net>

Bush - Constitution 
'Just A Goddamned
Piece Of Paper' 
?

By Doug Thompson

Capitol Hill Blue
12-9-5

?

Last month, Republican Congressional leaders filed into the Oval Office to 
meet with President George W. Bush and talk about renewing the controversial USA 
Patriot Act. Several provisions of the act, passed in the shell shocked 
period immediately following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, caused enough anger that 
liberal groups like the American Civil Liberties Union had joined forces with 
prominent conservatives like Phyllis Schlafly and Bob Barr to oppose renewal. 
GOP leaders told Bush that his hardcore push to renew the more onerous 
provisions of the act could further alienate conservatives still mad at the President 
from his botched attempt to nominate White House Counsel Harriet Miers to the 
Supreme Court. "I don't give a goddamn," Bush retorted. "I'm the President and 
the Commander-in-Chief. Do it my way." "Mr. President," one aide in the 
meeting said. "There is a valid case that the provisions in this law undermine the 
Constitution." "Stop throwing the Constitution in my face," Bush screamed 
back. "It's just a goddamned piece of paper!" I've talked to three people present 
for the meeting that day and they all confirm that the President of the United 
States called the Constitution "a goddamned piece of paper." And, to the Bush 
Administration, the Constitution of the United States is little more than 
toilet paper stained from all the shit that this group of power-mad despots have 
dumped on the freedoms that "goddamned piece of paper" used to guarantee. 
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, while still White House counsel, wrote that the 
"Constitution is an outdated document." Put aside, for a moment, political 
affiliation or personal beliefs. It doesn't matter if you are a Democrat, 
Republican or Independent. It doesn't matter if you support the invasion or Iraq or 
not.? Despite our differences, the Constitution has stood for two centuries as 
the defining document of our government, the final source to determine ? in 
the end ? if something is legal or right. Every federal official ? including 
the President ? who takes an oath of office swears to "uphold and defend the 
Constitution of the United States." Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia says he 
cringes when someone calls the Constitution a "living document." ""Oh, how I 
hate the phrase we have-a 'living document,'" Scalia says. "We now have a 
Constitution that means whatever we want it to mean. The Constitution is not a 
living organism, for Pete's sake." As a judge, Scalia says, "I don't have to prove 
that?the Constitution is?perfect; I just have to prove that it's better than 
anything else." President Bush has proposed seven amendments to the 
Constitution over the last five years, including a controversial amendment to define 
marriage as a "union between a man and woman."? Members of Congress have proposed 
some 11,000 amendments over the last decade, ranging from repeal of the right 
to bear arms to a Constitutional ban on abortion. Scalia says the danger of 
tinkering with the Constitution comes from a loss of rights. "We can take away 
rights just as we can grant new ones," Scalia warns. "Don't think that it's a 
one-way street." And don't buy the White House hype that the USA Patriot Act 
is a necessary tool to fight terrorism. It is a dangerous law that infringes on 
the rights of every American citizen and, as one brave aide told President 
Bush, something that undermines the Constitution of the United States. But why 
should Bush care? After all, the Constitution is just "a goddamned piece of 
paper." ? Copyright 2005 by Capitol Hill Blue 
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_7779.shtml    



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From michael at michaelbutler.com  Fri Dec  9 17:13:01 2005
From: michael at michaelbutler.com (Michael Butler)
Date: Fri Dec  9 17:24:58 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Clinton Says Bush Is 'Flat Wrong' on Kyoto By Charles J.
	Hanley
Message-ID: <BFBF95CD.26A75%michael@michaelbutler.com>

    Go to Original

    Clinton Says Bush Is 'Flat Wrong' on Kyoto
    By Charles J. Hanley
    The Associated Press

    Friday 09 December 2005

    Montreal - Former President Clinton told a global audience of diplomats,
environmentalists and others Friday that the Bush administration is "flat
wrong" in claiming that reducing greenhouse-gas emissions to fight global
warming would damage the US economy.

    With a "serious disciplined effort" to develop energy-saving technology,
he said, "we could meet and surpass the Kyoto targets in a way that would
strengthen and not weaken our economies."

    Clinton, a champion of the Kyoto Protocol, the existing
emissions-controls agreement opposed by the Bush administration, spoke in
the final hours of a two-week UN climate conference at which Washington has
come under heavy criticism for its stand.

    Most delegations appeared ready Friday to leave an unwilling United
States behind and open a new round of negotiations on future cutbacks in the
emissions blamed for global warming.

    "There's no longer any serious doubt that climate change is real,
accelerating and caused by human activities," said Clinton, whose address
was interrupted repeatedly by enthusiastic applause. "We are uncertain about
how deep and the time of arrival of the consequences, but we are quite clear
they will not be good."

    Canadian officials said the US delegation was displeased with the
last-minute scheduling of the Clinton speech. But US delegation chief Paula
Dobriansky issued a statement saying events like Clinton's appearance "are
useful opportunities to hear a wide range of views on global climate
change."

    The former president spoke between the official morning and afternoon
plenary sessions of the conference, representing the William J. Clinton
Foundation, which includes a climate-change program in its activities.

    In the real work of the conference, delegates from more than 180
countries bargained behind closed doors until 6:30 a.m. Friday, making final
adjustments to an agreement to negotiate additional reductions in carbon
dioxide and other gases after 2012, when the Kyoto accord expires.

    Efforts by host-country Canada and others to draw the United States into
the process were failing. The Bush administration says it favors a voluntary
approach, not global negotiations, to deal with climate issues.

    "It's such a pity the United States is still very much unwilling to join
the international community, to have a multilateral effort to deal with
climate change," said Kenya's Emily Ojoo Massawa, chair of the African group
of nations at the two-week long conference.

    Clinton's vice president, Al Gore, was instrumental in final
negotiations on the 1997 treaty protocol that was initialed in the Japanese
city of Kyoto and mandates cutbacks in 35 industrialized nations of
emissions of carbon dioxide and five other gases by 2012.

    A broad scientific consensus agrees that these gases accumulating in the
atmosphere, byproducts of automobile engines, power plants and other fossil
fuel-burning industries, contributed significantly to the past century's
global temperature rise of 1 degree Fahrenheit. Continued warming is
expected to disrupt the global climate.

    In the late 1990s the US Senate balked at ratifying Kyoto, and the
incoming President Bush in 2001 formally renounced the accord, saying it
would harm the US economy.

    The Montreal meeting, attended by almost 10,000 delegates,
environmentalists, business representatives and others, was the first annual
UN climate conference since Kyoto took effect in February.

    The protocol's language requires its member nations to begin talks now
on emissions controls after 2012, when the Kyoto regime expires. The
Canadians and others also saw Montreal as an opportunity to draw the
outsider United States into the emission-controls regime, through
discussions under the broader 1992 UN climate treaty.

    But the Americans have repeatedly rejected the idea of rejoining future
negotiations to set post-2012 emissions controls. The Canadians continued to
press for agreement early Friday, offering the US delegation vague,
noncommittal language by which Washington would join only in "exploring"
"approaches" to cooperative action.

    While rejecting mandatory targets, the Bush administration points to $3
billion-a-year US government spending on research and development of
energy-saving technologies as a demonstration of US efforts to combat
climate change.

 

From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Fri Dec  9 08:45:03 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (Ian)
Date: Fri Dec  9 18:05:09 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Re: Re: REPLY TO VERY CONTROVERSIAL
References: <BFBF19C9.26A26%michael@michaelbutler.com>
Message-ID: <E1EkrJg-0000kZ-K3@smtpauth04.mail.atl.earthlink.net>

dreamgrifter:

In case you are unaware, what you have stated is the summation of what is 
called "Pascal's wager."  Pascal put forward four premises.  Simply stated 
they are:

"If I believe in God and there is no God, no harm is done.  If I believe in 
God and there is a God, no harm is done, and good may come.  If I do not 
believe in God and there is no God, no harm is done.  If I do not believe in 
God and there is a God, then harm may come.  Thus, in three out of four 
cases, it is better (i.e., "safer") to believe in God than not to."

While this argument is certainly "logical" (which was Pascal's reason for 
stating it, given that he was a logician, among other things), attempting to 
"hedge one's bets" by following it is, unfortunately, not enough.

Even my atheist older brother (a philosophy professor) was able to explain 
to my atheist younger brother (an amateur philosopher of sorts) why: because 
if there is a God, He knows our HEARTS.  Thus, simply "believing" in Him - 
i.e., stating such belief without "true, heartfelt faith" behind it - will 
not fool Him, and thus our "wager" ("hedging our bet") will ultimately fail.

Peace.


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Michael Butler" <michael@michaelbutler.com>
To: "Ian Alterman" <ialterman@nyc.rr.com>
Sent: Friday, December 09, 2005 11:23 AM
Subject: FW: REPLY TO VERY CONTROVERSIAL


>
> ------ Forwarded Message
> From: "d st.b" <dreamgrifter@yahoo.com>
> Date: Thu, 8 Dec 2005 22:01:11 -0800 (PST)
> To: Michael Butler <michael@michaelbutler.com>
> Subject: Re: REPLY TO VERY CONTROVERSIAL
>
> And on a much further and deeper note still....
>  "I'd rather live my life believing in God, die and find out that I was
> wrong,
>  Than live my life disbelieving in God, die and find that I was wrong."
>
> Michael Butler <michael@michaelbutler.com> wrote:
>  Ian has responded to Sam Harris's article "An Atheist Manifesto"
>
>
>
>
>
> ---------------------------------
> Yahoo! Shopping
> Find Great Deals on Holiday Gifts at Yahoo! Shopping
>
> ------ End of Forwarded Message
> 


From swiggard at comcast.net  Sat Dec 10 05:39:05 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Sat Dec 10 05:52:08 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Psychiatry Ponders Whether Extreme Bias Can Be an
 Illness - Washington Post
Message-ID: <439ADA79.3050108@comcast.net>

Psychiatry Ponders Whether Extreme Bias Can Be an Illness

By Shankar Vedantam
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, December 10, 2005; A01

The 48-year-old man turned down a job because he feared that a co-worker 
would be gay. He was upset that gay culture was becoming mainstream and 
blamed most of his personal, professional and emotional problems on the 
gay and lesbian movement.

These fixations preoccupied him every day. Articles in magazines about 
gays made him agitated. He confessed that his fears had left him 
socially isolated and unemployed for years: A recovering alcoholic, the 
man even avoided 12-step meetings out of fear he might encounter a gay 
person.

"He had a fixed delusion about the world," said Sondra E. Solomon, a 
psychologist at the University of Vermont who treated the man for two 
years. "He felt under attack, he felt threatened."

Mental health practitioners say they regularly confront extreme forms of 
racism, homophobia and other prejudice in the course of therapy, and 
that some patients are disabled by these beliefs. As doctors 
increasingly weigh the effects of race and culture on mental illness, 
some are asking whether pathological bias ought to be an official 
psychiatric diagnosis.

Advocates have circulated draft guidelines and have begun to conduct 
systematic studies. While the proposal is gaining traction, it is still 
in the early stages of being considered by the professionals who decide 
on new diagnoses.

If it succeeds, it could have huge ramifications on clinical practice, 
employment disputes and the criminal justice system. Perpetrators of 
hate crimes could become candidates for treatment, and physicians would 
become arbiters of how to distinguish "ordinary prejudice" from 
pathological bias.

Several experts said they are unsure whether bias can be pathological. 
Solomon, for instance, is uncomfortable with the idea. But they agreed 
that psychiatry has been inattentive to the effects of prejudice on 
mental health and illness.

"Has anyone done a word search for 'racism' in DSM-IV? It doesn't 
exist," said Carl C. Bell, a Chicago psychiatrist, referring to 
psychiatry's manual of mental disorders. "Has anyone asked, 'If you have 
paranoia, do you project your hostility toward other groups?' The answer 
is 'Hell, no!' "

The proposed guidelines that California psychologist Edward Dunbar 
created describe people whose daily functioning is paralyzed by 
persistent fears and worries about other groups. The guidelines have not 
been endorsed by the American Psychiatric Association, which publishes 
the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM); 
advocates are mostly seeking support for systematic study.

Darrel A. Regier, director of research at the psychiatric association, 
said he supports research into whether pathological bias is a disorder. 
But he said the jury is out on whether a diagnostic classification would 
add anything useful, given that clinicians already know about disorders 
in which people rigidly hold onto false beliefs.

"If you are going to put racism into the next edition of DSM, you would 
have enormous criticism," Regier said. Critics would ask, " 'Are you 
pathologizing all of life?' You better be prepared to defend that 
classification."

"I think it's absurd," said Sally Satel, a psychiatrist and the author 
of "PC, M.D.: How Political Correctness Is Corrupting Medicine." Satel 
said the diagnosis would allow hate-crime perpetrators to evade 
responsibility by claiming they suffered from a mental illness. "You 
could use it as a defense."

Psychiatrists who advocate a new diagnosis, such as Gary Belkin, deputy 
chief of psychiatry at New York's Bellevue Hospital, said social norms 
play a central role in how all psychiatric disorders are defined. 
Pedophilia is considered a disorder by psychiatrists, Belkin noted, but 
that does not keep child molesters from being prosecuted.

"Psychiatrists who are uneasy with including something like this in the 
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual need to get used to the fact that the 
whole manual reflects social context," said Belkin, who is planning to 
launch a study on pathological bias among patients at his hospital. 
"That is true of depression on down. Pathological bias is no more or 
less scientific than major depression."

Advocates for the new diagnosis also say most candidates for treatment, 
such as the man Solomon treated, are not criminals or violent offenders. 
Rather, they are like the young woman in Los Angeles who thought Jews 
were diseased and would infect her -- she carried out compulsive 
cleansing rituals and hit her head to drive away her obsessions. She 
realized she needed help but was afraid her therapist would be Jewish, 
said Dunbar, a Los Angeles psychologist who has amassed several case 
studies and treated several dozen patients for racial paranoia and other 
forms of what he considers pathological bias.

Another patient was a waiter so hostile to black people that he flung 
plates on the table when he served black patrons and got fired from 
multiple jobs.

A third patient was a Vietnam War veteran who was so fearful of Asians 
that he avoided social situations where he might meet them, Dunbar said.

"When I see someone who won't see a physician because they're Jewish, or 
who can't sit in a restaurant because there are Asians, or feels 
threatened by homosexuals in the workplace, the party line in mental 
health says, 'This is not our problem,' " the psychologist said. "If 
it's not our problem, whose problem is it?"

Opponents say making pathological bias a diagnosis raises the specter of 
social engineering -- brainwashing individuals who do not fit society's 
norms. But Dunbar and others say patients with disabling levels of 
prejudice should be treated for the same reason as are patients with any 
other disorder: They would feel, live and function better.

"They are delusional," said Alvin F. Poussaint, a professor of 
psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, who has long advocated such a 
diagnosis. "They imagine people are going to do all kinds of bad things 
and hurt them, and feel they have to do something to protect themselves.

"When they reach that stage, they are very impaired," he said. "They 
can't work and function; they can't hold a job. They would benefit from 
treatment of some type, particularly medication."

Doctors who treat inmates at the California State Prison outside 
Sacramento concur: They have diagnosed some forms of racist hatred among 
inmates and administered antipsychotic drugs.

"We treat racism and homophobia as delusional disorders," said Shama 
Chaiken, who later became a divisional chief psychologist for the 
California Department of Corrections, at a meeting of the American 
Psychiatric Association. "Treatment with antipsychotics does work to 
reduce these prejudices."

* * *

Amid a profusion of recent studies into the nature of prejudice, 
researchers have found that biases are very common. Almost everyone 
harbors what might be termed "ordinary prejudice," the research indicates.

Anthony Greenwald, a psychologist at the University of Washington in 
Seattle, and Mahzarin R. Banaji, a psychologist at Harvard, developed 
tests for such biases. By measuring the speed with which people make 
mental associations, the psychologists found that biases affect even 
those who actively resist them.

"When things are more strongly paired in our minds, we can respond to 
them more quickly," Banaji said. "Large numbers of Americans cannot as 
swiftly make the association between 'black' and 'good' as they can 
between 'white' and 'good.' "

Similarly, psychologist Margo Monteith at the University of Kentucky in 
Lexington found that people can have prejudices against groups they know 
nothing about. She administered a test in which volunteers, under time 
pressure, had to associate a series of words with either "America" or a 
fictitious country she called "Marisat."

Volunteers more easily associated Marisat with such words as "poison," 
"death" and "evil," while associating America with "sunrise," "paradise" 
and "loyal."

"A large part of our self-esteem derives from our group membership," 
Monteith said. "To the extent we can feel better about our group 
relative to other groups, we can feel good about ourselves. It's likely 
a built-in mechanism."

If biases are so common, many doctors ask, can racism really be a mental 
illness?

"I don't think racism is a mental illness, and that's because 100 
percent of people are racist," said Paul J. Fink, a former president of 
the American Psychiatric Association. "If you have a diagnostic category 
that fits 100 percent of people, it's not a diagnostic category."

But Poussaint said there is a difference between ordinary prejudice and 
pathological bias -- the same distinction that psychiatrists make 
between sadness and depression. All people experience sadness, anxiety 
and fear, but extreme, disabling forms of these emotions are called 
disorders.

While people with ordinary prejudice try very hard to conceal their 
biases, Solomon said, her homophobic patient had no embarrassment about 
his attitude toward gays. Dunbar said people with pathological prejudice 
often lack filtering capabilities. As a result, he said, they face 
problems at work and home.

"Everyone is inculcated with stereotypes and biases with cultural 
issues, but some individuals not only hold beliefs that are very rigid, 
but they are part of a psychological problem," Dunbar said.

The psychologist said he has helped such patients with talk therapy, 
which encourages patients to question the basis for their beliefs, and 
by steering them toward medications such as antipsychotics.

The woman with the bias against Jews did not overcome her prejudice, 
Dunbar said, but she learned to control her fear response in social 
settings. The patient with hostility against African Americans realized 
his beliefs were "stupid."

Solomon discovered she was most effective dealing with the homophobic 
man when she was nonjudgmental. When he claimed there were more gays and 
lesbians than ever before, she presented him with data showing there was 
no such shift.

At those times, she reported in a case study, the patient would say, "I 
know, I know." He would recognize that he was not being logical, but 
then get angry and return to the same patterns of obsession. Solomon did 
not identify the man because of patient confidentiality.

Standing in the central yard of the maximum-security California State 
Prison with inmates exercising around her, Chaiken explained how she 
distinguished pathological bias from ordinary prejudice: A prisoner who 
belonged to a gang with racist views might express such views to fit in 
with his gang, but if he continues "yelling racial slurs, assaulting 
others when it's clear there is no benefit" after he leaves the gang, 
the behavior was no longer "adaptive."

Prison officials declined to identify inmates who had been treated, or 
make them available for interviews.

Chicago psychiatrist Bell said he has not made up his mind on whether 
bias can be pathological. But in proposing a research agenda for the 
next edition of psychiatry's DSM of mental disorders, Bell and 
researchers from the Mayo Clinic, McGill University, the University of 
California at Los Angeles and other academic institutions wrote: 
"Clinical experience informs us that racism may be a manifestation of a 
delusional process, a consequence of anxiety, or a feature of an 
individual's personality dynamics."

The psychiatrists said their profession has neglected the issue: "One 
solution would be to encourage research that seeks to delineate the 
validity and reliability of racism as a symptom and to investigate the 
possibility of including it in some diagnostic criteria sets in future 
editions of DSM."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/09/AR2005120901938.html
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Sat Dec 10 05:41:27 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Sat Dec 10 05:54:20 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Lieberman Wins Republican Friends,
 Democratic Enemies With Support for War - Washington Post
Message-ID: <439ADB07.10306@comcast.net>

Lieberman Wins Republican Friends, Democratic Enemies With Support for War

By Shailagh Murray
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, December 10, 2005; A01

Five years ago, Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman was one of President Bush's 
arch political rivals. Now many in his party complain that he sounds 
more like Bush's running mate.

The Connecticut Democrat's strong public defense of Bush's handling of 
the Iraq war has provided the White House with an invaluable rejoinder 
to intensifying criticism from other Democrats. In public statements and 
a newspaper column, Lieberman has argued that Bush has a strategy for 
victory in Iraq, has dismissed calls for the president to set a 
timetable for troop withdrawal, and has warned that it would be a 
"colossal mistake" for the Democratic leadership to "lose its will" at 
this critical point in the war.

Lieberman's contrarian behavior is not out of character -- he is far 
more hawkish than the majority of Democrats, and he has vigorously 
backed invading Iraq and toppling Saddam Hussein from the beginning. But 
the latest defense of Bush and his stinging salvos at some in his own 
party have infuriated Democrats, who say he is undercutting their effort 
to forge a consensus on the war and draw clear distinctions with 
Republicans before the 2006 elections.

Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) is troubled by Lieberman's 
comments, Reid's aides said. "I've talked to Senator Lieberman, and 
unfortunately he is at a different place on Iraq than the majority of 
the American people," Reid said yesterday.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) told reporters this week 
that "I completely disagree" with Lieberman. She added: "I believe that 
we have a responsibility to speak out if we think that the course of 
action that our country is on is not making the American people safer, 
making our military stronger and making the region more stable."

Liberal political groups, including Democracy for America and 
MoveOn.org, are considering ways to retaliate, including backing a 
challenge to Lieberman in next year's Democratic primary. Former senator 
and Connecticut governor Lowell P. Weicker Jr., an opponent of the war, 
has vowed to run as an independent, absent a strong Democratic or 
Republican challenge to Lieberman.

The administration, on the other hand, can't stop gushing over 
Lieberman. Vice President Cheney called him "a fine U.S. senator," and 
Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman contrasted him with 
his "retreat and defeat" Democratic colleagues. White House spokesman 
Scott McClellan cited Lieberman, the Democrats' 2000 vice presidential 
nominee, as an exception in a party otherwise "trying to score political 
points off the situation."

There have even been rumors that Lieberman is being considered as a 
replacement for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, if the embattled 
Pentagon boss retires. Lieberman dismisses the speculation as a 
"Washington fantasy." But he caused tongues to wag when he had breakfast 
with Rumsfeld at the Pentagon on Thursday.

Lieberman shrugs off the criticism by fellow Democrats and seems 
perfectly comfortable with the compliments he has received from 
Republicans about his views on Iraq. "They're not misquoting me," he 
said in an interview this week. "I've had this position for a long time 
-- that we need to finish the job."

But Lieberman, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Homeland Security and 
Governmental Affairs Committee, acknowledged that his words in support 
of the administration's war policy carry a different weight. "Somehow it 
gets more notice when it's coming from a member of the other party," he 
said.

Lieberman, 63, a former Connecticut attorney general, has long been 
admired within his party for his independence of thought and his 
civility, although he is more conservative than most Democrats on 
cultural issues and foreign policy. He played a leading role in helping 
pass the Persian Gulf War resolution in January 1991, after Iraq's 
invasion of Kuwait, and he called for a "final victory" over Hussein.

After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, Lieberman 
strongly backed Bush's call for a war against terrorism in Afghanistan. 
Later that year, he was one of 10 lawmakers who signed a letter urging 
Bush to target Iraq next.

Lieberman reached the peak of his popularity as Al Gore's running mate 
in 2000. But his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004 
flopped, in part because he was out of step with most party politicians 
on the war.

The latest flap began after Lieberman traveled to Iraq last month. He 
returned to write a Nov. 29 Wall Street Journal column in which he 
contradicted a core Democratic criticism -- that the administration has 
no strategy for victory in Iraq. "Yes, we do," Lieberman wrote, brushing 
aside calls from Democrats and some Republicans for Bush to set a 
timetable for bringing troops home.

"What a colossal mistake it would be for America's bipartisan political 
leadership to choose this moment in history to lose its will and, in the 
famous phrase, to seize defeat from the jaws of the coming victory," 
Lieberman wrote. Bush repeated the statement in a speech meant to 
bolster sagging public support for the war.

Then, at a Tuesday news conference on Iraq, Lieberman gave his party a 
tongue-lashing for pressing Bush too forcefully.

"History will judge us harshly if we do not stretch across the divide of 
distrust to join together to complete our mission successfully in Iraq," 
Lieberman said. "It's time for Democrats who distrust President Bush to 
acknowledge that he will be the commander in chief for three more 
critical years, and that in matters of war, we undermine presidential 
credibility at our nation's peril."

Many Democrats were appalled by Lieberman's comments, although few were 
willing to reprimand him publicly.

"Senator Lieberman is past the point of being taken seriously in the 
caucus because everything he does is seen as advancing his own 
self-interest, instead of the Democratic interest," said a senior Senate 
Democratic aide, who described discontent in that chamber as "widespread."

The liberal antiwar group MoveOn.org is weighing whether to back a 
challenger to Lieberman. MoveOn Washington director Tom Matzzie called 
Weicker "a very attractive candidate" but added that "the easiest way to 
take out Joe Lieberman would be in a Democratic primary."

Weicker was a Republican when Lieberman ousted him from the Senate in 
1988. Weicker is facing some pressure to enter the race as a Democrat 
but says he is not much happier with that party on Iraq.

"The Democratic silence has been deafening on this for the past two 
years," Weicker said in an interview. "I have no more respect for them." 
But if Lieberman doesn't begin to distance himself from Bush's war 
policies, he said, "that's it -- we go to the mat."

Lieberman said the backlash against him deepens a concern that he has 
harbored for much of his political career: the lack of civility in 
Washington. In war matters in particular, he said, "politics should stop 
at the water's edge."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/09/AR2005120901934.html
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Sat Dec 10 05:48:26 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Sat Dec 10 06:01:19 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] The Mideast's Battle of Ideas - Jim Hoagland -
	Washington Post Op-Ed
Message-ID: <439ADCAA.5050401@comcast.net>

The Mideast's Battle of Ideas

By Jim Hoagland
Sunday, December 11, 2005; B07

BAHRAIN -- East is East and West inalterably West, Rudyard Kipling 
maintained. But the international gathering held on this Persian Gulf 
island last weekend suggested that today East is increasingly West, the 
West is less and the twain do meet in a Middle East that is up for grabs.

This contemporary East is dominated by China and India. West means 
Britain, France and the United States. And the Middle East is a battle 
zone of ideas, religions, oil and a cultural use of tribal violence that 
is now projected onto the global stage.

But increased interdependence -- whether forged by trade or by mutual 
bloodshed -- does not a unified globe make. Disconnects and divergences 
were on display from the moment the two-day conference on security and 
terrorism in the Gulf region began.

Lavishly robed Arab leaders listened with disciplined courtesy as a 
trim, intense American woman perhaps half the age of some in the 
audience crisply framed the need for "robust information sharing" and 
the adoption of "best practices standards" in cargo screening, financial 
controls and other tools of law enforcement to defeat "transnational 
terrorism."

Speaking was Frances Fragos Townsend, White House adviser on homeland 
security and counterterrorism. Listening were princes, sheiks, assistant 
emirs and various nabobs from the Arab side of the Gulf.

Many of them wore gold-braided headdresses or elaborately wrapped 
turbans and wispy beards that denote authority -- unquestionable, 
undemocratic authority -- in the traditional societies they rule in 
Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and elsewhere.

Looks of puzzlement spread across some faces as Townsend urged the 
autocrats to embrace "the ideology of reform" that will make "freedom, 
democracy and human rights . . . the future of the Gulf region." That 
is, a future that would sideline most of this audience.

When Arabs spoke, most of them focused instead on what America should 
do: Help jail or eliminate the violent extremists of the al Qaeda 
network. Grant more visas for their citizens to study in the United 
States. Pressure Israel to grant concessions to the Palestinians. 
"American ears are not open to what we are saying," a Saudi general 
protested.

These complaints triggered the brisk articulation and the dramatically 
earnest entreaties that have won Townsend the respect and the ear of 
President Bush, whom she briefs almost daily.

Bush recognizes that a post-Sept. 11 drop in visas for Arab students and 
others is "a national security problem" that requires increased 
resources, Townsend said. Homeland Security Department staffers are 
being posted to Saudi Arabia to speed visa processing, she offered.

And she noted that the audience had missed the emphasis she placed on 
Palestine -- including her view that Mahmoud Abbas's Palestinian 
Authority is "the best hope for peace" in upcoming Palestinian 
elections. "This is not typical" of a U.S. speech on terrorism, she 
accurately added. Her listeners agreed. For them, she had just 
inadvertently blurted out the heart of the problem.

France's defense minister, Michele Alliot-Marie, astonishingly did the 
same thing. She told the Arabs not to let the Gulf be "an exclusive 
preserve of the United States" and waved off an Arab official's 
suggestion that NATO play a greater military role in the region.

<>The European Union is forming a "battle group" of 1,500 troops that 
can be deployed within 15 days for "crisis stabilization," she 
trumpeted. Alliot-Marie also pushed bilateral security accords that 
would increase French arms sales to the Persian Gulf as an answer to 
terrorism, in contrast to Townsend's call for reform.

"In a crisis we won't need 1,500 troops, we will need tens of 
thousands," responded a Qatari sheik. "You seem to want the Europeans to 
cooperate with everyone except the Americans," added a British participant.

British Defense Minister John Reid's subtle and effective speech defies 
easy summation here. He alone gave no appearance of lecturing his 
audience -- even while advancing the case for greater British influence 
through the Arab League and London's traditional clients in the region. 
"Regional Arab involvement is part of the solution" in Iraq, he asserted 
against much contrary evidence.

The special envoys from China and India who addressed the gathering 
underlined their nations' separate bids to become manufacturing, 
financial and information powers on a par with the developed nations of 
North America and Europe. If a surplus of American-style optimism about 
the future exists anywhere on the globe today, it is in these emerging 
Asian powers.

Margaret Thatcher, a Kipling admirer no doubt, was given to talking on 
occasion about this being "a crazy old world." Had she come to Bahrain, 
she might have concluded that it is a crazy new world we inhabit.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/09/AR2005120901772.html
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Sat Dec 10 05:51:00 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Sat Dec 10 06:03:52 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Holiday Spirit: From the Heart,
 Not the Mall - Colbert I. King - Washington Post Op-Ed
Message-ID: <439ADD44.90909@comcast.net>

Holiday Spirit: From the Heart, Not the Mall

By Colbert I. King
Saturday, December 10, 2005; A21

Silly me! And here I've been thinking that Target, Home Depot, Wal-Mart, 
Kmart and America's malls are places where people go this time of year 
to shop. But thanks to the Rev. Jerry Falwell and others in his wing of 
Christendom, I now know that those stores are there during the holiday 
season to serve as places of worship. What other conclusion can be drawn?

Falwell, as he desires his flock to know, wants Americans to do their 
shopping at stores that greet you with "Merry Christmas" and that 
celebrate the birthday of Jesus in carols, religious decorations and 
marketing displays. In my old neighborhood, that used to be called 
"church." Not in Falwell's world. Retailers inclined to greet their 
customers with the inclusive "Happy Holidays" are being branded by him 
and his bunch as "anti-Christmas" and have been threatened with 
boycotts, petitions and letter-writing campaigns. The use of "Season's 
Greetings" is viewed by religious rabble-rousers as a sign of 
discrimination against Christianity and a weak-kneed concession to 
people who hate Christmas.

On the other hand, retailers displaying Christian symbols are considered 
friends rather than foes of Christmas, and thus worthy of Falwell's 
blessings. Shame, however, on those stores that celebrate the holiday 
season in a way that doesn't show favoritism to one religion over 
another -- turn thy face away from those retailers who embrace customers 
of all faiths or those of none at all. They are regarded in Falwell's 
world as enlistees in the war against Christmas. Falwell's fellow 
traveler Pat Buchanan wrote in a column titled "Christianophobia" a year 
ago that "it needs to be said. What we are witnessing here are hate 
crimes against Christianity -- the manifestations, the symptoms of a 
sickness of the soul . . . the fear and loathing of all things 
Christian, coupled with a fanatic will to expunge from the public life 
of the West all reminders that ours was once a Christian civilization 
and America once a Christian country."

News Flash, Pat: Stores sell stuff. To everyone. That's what they do. 
They're not churches. They are stores.

I confess to being confused. Why is it that, as a lifelong Christian, I 
am not the least bit offended if a store clerk or a newsroom colleague 
greets me with "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas"? And if my 
employer chooses to go without Christmas displays in the workplace, why 
should I really care? (The Post has a huge Christmas tree in its lobby.) 
What's more, suppose a store's advertising is stingy with the mentions 
of "Christmas," or President Bush decides to send out 1.4 million 
Christmas cards with the word "Christmas" missing? (Bush did. We got 
one, too.) The Christian faith, I fervently believe, will somehow manage.

How does a retailer's decision to not make any customer feel like an 
outsider take Christmas away from me, or affect my decision to call the 
evergreen in my living room a Christmas tree or ruin my celebration of 
the birth of Jesus Christ with my family and friends in church and in 
our homes? And Jerry Falwell notwithstanding, I'd just as soon keep 
Christmas as far away as possible from stores and the commercialization 
that has taken over our religious holiday. Spending and making loads of 
money in a crowded store with "Silent Night" floating in the background 
hardly strikes me as the way to celebrate what happened in Bethlehem 
more than 2,000 years ago.

And speaking of places of worship, I don't know where Falwell, Buchanan 
and all the other troublemakers go for services, but Christmas has no 
chance of diminishing in churches that I know, in particular St. Columba's.

I can't imagine that this year there will be one less Christmas carol 
sung, one less Christmas decoration hung, one less Christmas tree 
bought, one less church pew filled, or one less prayer of gratitude 
offered because a retail store somewhere in America substituted "Happy 
Holidays" for "Merry Christmas." One surefire way religion can get 
marginalized in this country is by religious forces marginalizing 
themselves. That is what happens to figures such as Falwell when they 
puff themselves up and undertake such a nonsensical campaign against a 
manufactured bogeyman.

Recognizing the obvious -- that we live in an increasingly diverse 
society with different religious viewpoints -- in no way promotes 
disrespect for Christianity, the holiday that Christians celebrate, or 
poses a threat to our freedom to express devotion to our faith. What is 
being denigrated as "political correctness" should be regarded as common 
courtesy and respect. We live in a country where the First Amendment 
guarantees everybody -- Christian and non-Christian alike -- the right 
to embrace whatever religion they choose, with the government giving 
preference to none. Why can't that apply to America's retail industry?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/09/AR2005120901395.html?nav=hcmodule
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From nwonline at toronto.cbc.ca  Sat Dec 10 05:56:53 2005
From: nwonline at toronto.cbc.ca (CBC News Online)
Date: Sat Dec 10 06:07:45 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] CBC News - BUSH IS 'FLAT WRONG' ABOUT KYOTO,
	CLINTON TELLS CLIMATE MEETING
Message-ID: <20051210135653.0E9AB61DA2@nmweb05.nm.cbc.ca>

This email has been sent to you by harry.sifton@sympatico.ca
The following is a news item posted on CBC NEWS ONLINE
at http://www.cbc.ca/news
____________________________________________________
BUSH IS 'FLAT WRONG' ABOUT KYOTO, CLINTON TELLS CLIMATE MEETING
WebPosted Fri Dec  9 15:09:24 2005

---Former U.S. president Bill Clinton dismissed President George W.
Bush's claim that the Kyoto Protocol would slow economic growth, while at
a UN conference on climate change Friday.

Bush's criticism is "just flat wrong," Clinton told diplomats,
environmentalists and other delegates to the conference, which
ends Friday.

The United States could meet Kyoto Protocol targets to reduce greenhouse
gas emissions and strengthen the economy, Clinton said.



RELATED STORY: Washington furious over Martin's climate change comments
As president, Clinton championed the Kyoto Protocol. In 2001, Bush
opposed the pact, saying it would slow economic growth. The U.S. has
since repeatedly refused to accept mandatory targets.

A serious, large-scale effort to apply energy conservation technologies
"could meet and surpass the Kyoto targets easily in a way that would
strengthen, not weaken our economy," Clinton said.

Changing household light bulbs from incandescent to fluorescent or
increasing the fuel efficiency of hybrid cars would create jobs in the
U.S. while reducing greenhouse gas emissions, he said.

Failure to agree on targets should not be excuse to cut emissions,
Clinton said, noting some hopeful signs: In the U.S., 140 mayors have
agreed to meet Kyoto targets. Some states have pledged to reduce car and
power plants emissions. A carbon market is emerging to allow cities and
companies to buy and sell emissions. Other countries are proud of
shifting energy production to renewable solar and wind technologies.

Clinton said if the U.S. will not accept targets then the goal of
reducing emissions in a multilateral approach could still be achieved by
following example of the mayors, who are working on hundreds of projects.

Targets remain important for Kyoto participants to ensure the carbon
trading market works, he told a news conference.

Copyright (C) 2005 CBC. All rights reserved.
From swiggard at comcast.net  Sat Dec 10 05:55:53 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Sat Dec 10 06:08:46 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] What 'War on Christmas'? - Ruth Marcus - Washington Post
	Op-Ed
Message-ID: <439ADE69.1080909@comcast.net>

What 'War on Christmas'?

By Ruth Marcus
Saturday, December 10, 2005; A21

I've been hearing about this "War on Christmas," so I headed to the 
Heritage Foundation the other day for a briefing from one of the 
defending army's generals: Fox News anchor John Gibson, author of "The 
War on Christmas: How the Liberal Plot to Ban the Sacred Christian 
Holiday Is Worse Than You Thought." Gibson -- and Bill O'Reilly, his 
comrade in the Fox-hole -- see this as a two-front war: Assaulting 
Christmas from the government end, they say, are pusillanimous school 
principals, politically corrected city managers and their ilk, bullied 
by the ACLU types into extirpating any trace of Christmas from the 
public square. Battering the holiday from the private sector are infidel 
retailers such as Target and Wal-Mart, which balk at using the C-word in 
their advertising in favor of such secularist slogans as "Happy Holidays."

The assault, Gibson told the Heritage crowd, has reached a "shocking 
level this year."

After the lecture, I wandered over to Union Station to check out a 
retail battlefield. Inside and out, the station was festooned with giant 
You Know What wreaths. A huge You Know What tree, with presents wrapped 
in red and green underneath, stood in the main hall, near a placard 
announcing "Norwegian Christmas at Union Station." A high-tech player 
piano was playing "Go Tell It on the Mountain," proclaiming the birth of 
You Know Who; the next selection was You Know Who Else Is Coming to 
Town. The most generic element was a small sign reading "Happy 
Holidays," but even then the words were bracketed by reindeer -- and 
let's just say, they weren't eating latkes. It was beginning to look a 
lot like You Know What.

If the anti-Christmas forces are winning, then the war in Iraq is 
nothing short of total victory.

It may seem strange -- even foolhardy -- for a nice Jewish girl to be 
writing about Christmas. So let me say: I'm a huge fan, always have 
been, in a kind of nose-pressed-against-the-glass sort of way. When I 
was growing up in the New Jersey suburbs, my family used to pile into 
the car every Christmas and drive around looking at the lights, with my 
mother and I engaging in earnest discussion of what color scheme we'd 
choose. If I were Christian, I suspect, I'd be the sort of over-the-top 
type who buys ornaments year-round and has a drawer full of Christmas 
sweaters, the kind featuring pompoms as tree ornaments.

This is the time of year, though, when those of us who aren't Christian, 
or who don't celebrate Christmas, most feel our minority status. I've 
experienced this especially acutely since my children started to look 
longingly at shopping mall Santas (Santa's a nice guy, honey, but he's 
not for us) and ask why there are so few menorahs or dreidels among the 
reindeer and Christmas trees. (How to break this gently? Their team has 
a lot more players.)

I'm not one who would argue that we ought to Grinch our way out of this 
discomfort by aggressively de-Christmafying. And to the extent that the 
war-on-Christmas crowd is simply reacting to knee-jerk political 
correctness, I'm with them. It's idiotic to call the Capitol conifer a 
Holiday Tree -- as it has been for the past several years, until it was 
re-, um, christened this year. If, as Gibson reports, the Plano, Tex., 
schools really have an edict banning red-and-green decorations (was it 
either color or just the combination?) -- well, you don't have to be 
Christian to find this more than a little silly.

But there is an ugly, bullying aspect to this dispute, in which the 
pro-Christmas forces are not only asking, reasonably, that their 
religion be treated with equal status and respect but in which they are 
attacking legitimate efforts at inclusivity. It's this sense of 
aggrieved victimhood that confuses me: What, exactly, is so threatening 
about calling the school holiday a winter break rather than Christmas 
vacation?

The latest alleged perfidy is the failure of the White House Christmas 
card to mention Christmas, instead expressing "best wishes for a holiday 
season of hope and happiness" and featuring a verse from Psalms. William 
A. Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil 
Rights, calls this evidence that the administration has "capitulated to 
the worst elements in our culture." I call it a recognition, especially 
welcome at a time of sectarian violence, that not all the 1.4 million 
folks on the Christmas list are Christian.

This has reached its most imposition-of-Sharia-law-like level of 
intolerance in the campaign to cow stores into saying Christmas. 
O'Reilly, escalating his "Christmas Under Siege" campaign, has posted a 
list of naughty and nice retailers. The American Family Association goes 
further, calling for a boycott of stores -- it's targeted Target -- that 
fail to use the word Christmas in their advertising or in-store 
promotions. "Target doesn't want to offend a small minority who oppose 
Christmas," says AFA's chairman, Donald Wildmon. "But they don't mind 
offending Christians who celebrate the birth of Christ."

Really? I've just gone on the Target Web site and plugged Christmas into 
my product search. "We found 39,197 match(es) for 'Christmas' at 
Target," it reported. How offensive is that?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/09/AR2005120901357.html?nav=hcmodule
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Sat Dec 10 06:00:09 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Sat Dec 10 06:13:02 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Scrooge in the House - Derrick Z. Jackson - Boston Globe
	Op-Ed
Message-ID: <439ADF69.90104@comcast.net>


  Scrooge in the House

By Derrick Z. Jackson  |  December 10, 2005  |  The Boston Globe

'Twas two weeks before Christmas, and all through the House, $50 billion 
was cut for those considered a mouse. Tax breaks instead hung by the 
chimney with care, for investors and CEOs, hands already there. 
America's rich nestled all snug in their beds as $95 billion danced in 
their heads.

IT WAS expected, of course, that the House of Representatives would do 
the deed they promised to do before Thanksgiving. They cut $50 billion 
last month from programs serving low-income Americans. This week they 
passed the final part of what amounts to $95 billion in tax cuts. It 
represents a height of taking from the poor to give to the rich. Out 
went billions for student loans, Medicaid, and food stamps. In came 
billions for stock dividends and capital gains.

Regardless of political leanings, economists know where the money is going.

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimates that $70 billion of 
the $95 billion in tax cuts will go to households making over $100,000. 
That category accounts for 14 percent of households. According to the 
center, that 14 percent will get 74 percent of the money.

The Brookings Institution's and the Urban Institute's Tax Policy Center 
calculate that the top 20 percent of American households would get 88.9 
percent of the House's tax-cut benefits while the bottom 20 percent 
would get only 11.1 percent. Twenty-four percent of the benefits would 
go to Americans who make more than $1 million a year. Such people make 
up only 0.2 percent of the population.

This is not only Scroogian, it is, ''unmoral, uncaring and without 
compassion," said Georgia Representative John Lewis.

Lewis, a Democrat, can smell immorality as well as any of the 534 other 
members of the House and Senate, having risked his life in the civil 
rights movement. He added, ''We're ballooning the debt, selling our 
children and grandchildren with the deal."

It is a fire sale that betrays the piousness so many of the members 
pushing hardest for the cuts. For instance, Jeb Hensarling, a Texas 
Republican, was one of 68 members of Congress who a couple of years ago 
signed a friend-of-the-court brief urging the Supreme Court to uphold 
the ''under God" portion of the Pledge of Allegiance. He has voted to 
approve federal funds for church-based Head Start programs and against 
an amendment that would have prohibited religious discrimination by 
faith-based groups seeking community services block grants.

Representative Peter Dreier of California said that the Democrats' 
complaints about the Republican lack of compassion were ''pathetic 
arguments" and ''nothing but the ideological baggage of the past." The 
ideological baggage of the present, as Dreier sees it, is joining 
Hensarling on support of faith-based discrimination of federal funds.

This week, our faith-based president, George W. Bush, was in North 
Carolina for a pro-tax-cut speech. Throughout his presidency, Bush has 
referred to tax cuts and faith-based initiatives in the same speech. In 
one such speech this year, he said, ''We understand that government 
can't love. Government can pass law, government can hand out money, but 
government cannot put hope in a person's heart or a sense of purpose in 
a person's life.

''That's done when a loving citizen puts their arm around somebody who 
hurts and says, 'How can I help you? . . . the best way to bring hope 
into the dark corners of our country, the best way to bring optimism 
into people's lives, is to stand squarely on -- side by side with 
faith-based organizations and community-based organizations whose 
members have heard that call to love a neighbor just like you would like 
to love -- be loved yourself."

It is the foremost hypocrisy practiced by the Bush presidency outside of 
Iraq. Bush guarantees that government cannot show love by using it to 
cut the heart out of hope for the poor, then showers love on the most 
fortunate among us with unabashed displays of selfishness such as, ''I 
called on the United States Congress to let the people keep more of 
their own money, to cut their taxes and Congress responded. We lowered 
your taxes and gave you an opportunity to keep more of what you earn."

Odd, there are plenty of religious teachings that direct people to share 
time and money with the poor. There is no commandment that says, ''Thou 
Shalt Love Thy Neighbor With a Tax Cut."

'Twas two weeks before Christmas. The stockings hung by the chimney are 
full for the rich. The poor are even more invisible than a mouse. Their 
hopes smolder in the chimney, in the dimming lumps of coal.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/12/10/scrooge_in_the_house/
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From ean at sbcglobal.net  Fri Dec  9 20:20:43 2005
From: ean at sbcglobal.net (ean@sbcglobal.net)
Date: Sat Dec 10 07:13:51 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Class Warfare With Taxes
Message-ID: <E1El6Fm-0007pL-Ra@smtpauth06.mail.atl.earthlink.net>

 	
Class Warfare With Taxes
Robert Reich
December 08, 2005

	
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/20051208/class_warfare_with_taxes.
php		

Robert B. Reich is the Maurice B. Hexter Professor of Social and 
Economic Policy at Brandeis University, and was the secretary of labor 
under former President Bill Clinton.

Tax bills now wending their way through the House and Senate would 
cut about $60 billion in taxes next year. But there?s a huge difference 
between the two. The biggest item in House bill is a two-year extension 
of the president?s tax cuts on stock dividends and capital gains. The 
House bill doesn?t touch what?s called the Alternative Minimum Tax 
(AMT). By contrast, the biggest item in Senate bill is temporary relief 
from the AMT. But the Senate bill doesn?t extend the dividend and 
capital gains tax cuts.

No legislative choice in recent years has so clearly pitted the super-rich 
against the suburban middle class. Most of benefits of the House?s 
proposed extension of the dividend and capital gains tax cuts would go 
to the top one percent of taxpayers, with average annual incomes of 
more than $1 million. Most of the benefits of the Senate?s cut in the 
AMT would go to households earning between $75,000 and $100,000 
a year, who would otherwise get slammed.

The AMT was enacted more than three decades ago to prevent the 
super-rich from using tax breaks to avoid paying income taxes. But it?s 
now the super-rich who are making off like bandits, while the AMT is 
about to hit the middle class. That?s because the AMT was never 
indexed to inflation, which means it?s starting to reach taxpayers 
considerably below the super-rich.

This year. the AMT will affect more than three million middle-class 
taxpayers who will no longer be able to deduct state and local taxes or 
use the child tax credit. Next year, if not adjusted, it will affect ten 
million more taxpayers. So unless the Senate version of the new tax 
bill prevails, middle-class taxes will rise?even as the Bush tax cuts of 
2001 and 2003 continue to reduce taxes on the very wealthy.

Here?s where things get politically interesting. Both groups?the super-
rich and the upper middle class?have lots of political clout in 
Washington, especially in Republican circles. So as these two tax bills 
move on a collision course, the multi-billion dollar question is: Which 
group will win?

The likely answer: Both! Here?s betting the Senate and House will 
compromise by extending the dividend and capital gains tax cuts and 
cutting the AMT. It?s an elegant compromise, of the sort Washington is 
skilled at making. There?s only one problem. With it, the budget deficit 
will explode even more.

The underlying question is, who ends up paying for Iraq, the Katrina 
cleanup, the Medicare drug benefit, homeland security, everything 
else? If the House has its way, it won?t be the super-rich, who will get 
their capital gains and dividend tax cuts extended. If the Senate gets 
its way, it won?t be the middle class, who would otherwise be hit by the 
AMT. If the House and Senate compromise by giving both groups what 
they want, there?s only one group left.

That group is the poor and near-poor. Cut more taxes on the super-
rich and the middle class, and the only way Congress can say it?s 
grappling with the soaring budget deficit is to cut more programs for 
the poor. That means fewer food stamps, less Medicaid and vanishing 
housing assistance.

Of course, this won?t be nearly enough to shrink the deficit. So in order 
to extend the tax breaks for the rich and to avoid the AMT, America will 
have to rely even more on foreigners?from whom we?re already 
borrowing more than $2 billion a day.

In the end, it will be our kids and grandchildren who get the tab, 
because they?ll have to pay foreigners back. And our current political 
leaders? They couldn?t care less?because by then, they?ll be long 
gone.


-- 
You are currently on Mha Atma's Earth Action Network email list, 
option D (up to 3 emails/day).  To be removed, or to switch options 
(option A - 1x/week, option B - 3/wk, option C - up to 1x/day, option D - 
up to 3x/day) please reply and let us know!  If someone forwarded you 
this email and you want to be on our list, send an email to 
ean@sbcglobal.net and tell us which option you'd like.


"A war of aggression is the supreme international crime." -- Robert Jackson,
 former U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice and Nuremberg prosecutor

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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Sat Dec 10 08:07:38 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Sat Dec 10 08:18:14 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: U.S., Under Fire,
	Eases Its Stance in Climate Talks
Message-ID: <20051210160738.E450B9FDB4@lax-gw05.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: ialterman@nyc.rr.com.

INTERNATIONAL / AMERICAS | December 10, 2005
U.S., Under Fire, Eases Its Stance in Climate Talks
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
The United States dropped its opposition early Saturday morning to nonbinding talks on addressing global warming.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/10/international/americas/10climate.html?emc=eta1



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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Sat Dec 10 08:07:55 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Sat Dec 10 08:18:26 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Lieberman's Iraq Stance Brings Widening
	Split With His Party
Message-ID: <20051210160755.47BFA9FD9A@lax-gw05.mroute.net>

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WASHINGTON | December 10, 2005
Lieberman's Iraq Stance Brings Widening Split With His Party
By RAYMOND HERNANDEZ and WILLIAM YARDLEY
Some Democrats are saying Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut is more of a wayward son than a favorite son.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/10/politics/10lieberman.html?emc=eta1



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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Sat Dec 10 08:08:14 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Sat Dec 10 08:18:43 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Live Tracking of Mobile Phones Prompts
	Court Fights on Privacy
Message-ID: <20051210160814.28CF43AE62B@lax-gw06.mroute.net>

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!!!


TECHNOLOGY | December 10, 2005
Live Tracking of Mobile Phones Prompts Court Fights on Privacy
By MATT RICHTEL
In recent years, law enforcement officials have turned to cellular technology for monitoring the movements of individuals. 
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/10/technology/10phone.html?emc=eta1



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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Sat Dec 10 08:09:00 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Sat Dec 10 08:19:34 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Hold the Limo: The Prom's Canceled as
	Decadent
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NEW YORK REGION | December 10, 2005
Hold the Limo: The Prom's Canceled as Decadent
By PAUL VITELLO
 Prom night is about social manners, class, gender roles; and to a more or less open degree, it is about sex.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/10/nyregion/10prom.html?emc=eta1



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one Best Picture.  What did the original New York
Times movie reviews have to say about these Oscar
winning films?  
Go to the Best Pictures review archive:

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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Sat Dec 10 08:09:20 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Sat Dec 10 08:19:50 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Illegal, Immoral and Pointless
Message-ID: <20051210160920.8B0A83AE7A8@lax-gw06.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: ialterman@nyc.rr.com.

OPINION | December 10, 2005
Illegal, Immoral and Pointless

America's elected representatives must stand on principle and vote against torture.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/10/opinion/10sat1.html?emc=eta1




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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Sat Dec 10 08:09:47 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Sat Dec 10 08:20:16 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] =?iso-8859-1?q?NYTimes=2Ecom=3A_Hugo_Ch=E1vez_and_His?=
	=?iso-8859-1?q?_Helpers?=
Message-ID: <20051210160947.4129424AFC0@lax-gw02.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: ialterman@nyc.rr.com.

With this one, you really have to read between the lines; the truth is almost 180 degrees from what is being reported...


OPINION | December 10, 2005
Hugo Chávez and His Helpers

High oil prices, inept opposition and the Bush administration's neglect of South America have allowed the Venezualan president strong regional influence.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/10/opinion/10sat2.html?emc=eta1




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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Sat Dec 10 08:10:00 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Sat Dec 10 08:20:36 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: A Republican Tom DeLay Problem
Message-ID: <20051210161000.DCF1424AFE2@lax-gw02.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: ialterman@nyc.rr.com.

OPINION | December 10, 2005
A Republican Tom DeLay Problem

Whatever the outcome of his trial on money laundering, Tom DeLay's outsized hubris is ever clearer to the public and ever more a G.O.P. millstone.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/10/opinion/10sat3.html?emc=eta1




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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Sat Dec 10 08:10:26 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Sat Dec 10 08:20:55 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Defining the Modern Conservative (6 Letters)
Message-ID: <20051210161026.820E183E54@lax-gw03.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: ialterman@nyc.rr.com.

What we're saying...


OPINION | December 10, 2005
Defining the Modern Conservative (6 Letters)

To the Editor:.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/10/opinion/l10brooks.html?emc=eta1




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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Sat Dec 10 08:10:39 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Sat Dec 10 08:21:10 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Torture Is No Path To National Security
Message-ID: <20051210161039.C5AEF249ECF@lax-gw08.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: ialterman@nyc.rr.com.

What we're saying (2)...


OPINION | December 10, 2005
Torture Is No Path To National Security

To the Editor:.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/10/opinion/l10qaeda.html?emc=eta1




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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Sat Dec 10 08:11:00 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Sat Dec 10 08:21:30 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: When the Military Seeks to Hire on Campus
	(2 Letters)
Message-ID: <20051210161100.1EB9313B8A7@lax-gw04.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: ialterman@nyc.rr.com.

What we're saying (3)...


OPINION | December 10, 2005
When the Military Seeks to Hire on Campus (2 Letters)

To the Editor:.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/10/opinion/l10military.html?emc=eta1




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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Sat Dec 10 08:11:17 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Sat Dec 10 08:21:49 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Questioning Evolution
Message-ID: <20051210161117.CC7FE13B89C@lax-gw04.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: ialterman@nyc.rr.com.

What we're saying (4)...


OPINION | December 10, 2005
Questioning Evolution

To the Editor:.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/10/opinion/l10design.html?emc=eta1




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From michael at intrafi.com  Sat Dec 10 08:14:48 2005
From: michael at intrafi.com (michael@intrafi.com)
Date: Sat Dec 10 08:25:18 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Alternet: Corporate Globalization in Crisis
Message-ID: <20051210161448.C7F79B8076@alternet.org>


This story has been forwarded to you from
http://www.alternet.org by michael@intrafi.com



-------------------------------------
Corporate Globalization in Crisis
http://www.alternet.org/story/29326

The potential failure of the WTO meetings in Hong Kong may well spell the end of the corporate-controlled trade agreements.
-------------------------------------

From grgolsorkhi at earthlink.net  Sat Dec 10 12:10:07 2005
From: grgolsorkhi at earthlink.net (Golsorkhi)
Date: Sat Dec 10 14:25:27 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] FW: Amir Taheri: Bianca the torture expert ( A MUST READ
	)
In-Reply-To: <5D0E3214-A1B1-4AF3-BF5A-3BA759E85516@thesamiis.com>
Message-ID: <E1ElCzV-0006TS-CF@smtpauth06.mail.atl.earthlink.net>


------ Forwarded Message
From: Samii Shahla <shahla@thesamiis.com>
Date: Fri, 9 Dec 2005 18:23:47 -0500
Subject: Amir Taheri: Bianca the torture expert ( A MUST READ )



Begin forwarded message:

> 
> 
>  
> ?
> BIANCA THE TORTURE EXPERT
> by Amir Taheri
> New York Post 
> December 9, 2005
> December 9, 2005 -- IT had all started as a rather pleasant, if not exciting
> evening. We had heard a speech from British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw once
> again trying to "explain" the evil of Islamofascim in pseudo-theological,
> rather than political, terms. But that had been compensated by the recitation
> of a poem of the great mystic poet Roumi by Iranian journalist Nazanin Ansari.
> 
> Apart from the usual contingent of "the great and the good," most of the 800
> or so people present were media people and their friends, come to cheer or boo
> as the Foreign Press Association in London distributed its annual prizes.
> 
> The evening was of special interest to me not only because I had been one of
> the judges but also because so much of the news stories, articles, and radio
> and TV programs submitted for consideration dealt with issues that, in one way
> or another, had something to do with Islam and the Middle East. In fact almost
> two-thirds of the prizes eventually awarded went to items dealing with those
> issues.
> 
> But there was an even bigger reason why I was interested in the occasion. The
> FPA had decided to award its very first prize for a dialogue of cultures to
> Akbar Ganji, an Iranian investigative reporter who is on a hunger strike in
> Tehran's Evin Prison.
> 
> Together with several colleagues, I had been trying for months to persuade the
> Western media to take an interest in Ganji, a former Khomeinist revolutionary
> who is now campaigning for human rights and democracy. But we never got
> anywhere because of one small hitch: President Bush had spoken publicly in
> support of Ganji and called for his immediate release.
> 
> And that, as far as a good part of the Western media is concerned, amounts to
> a kiss of death. How could newspapers that portray Bush as the world's biggest
> "violator of human rights" endorse his call in favor of Ganji?
> 
> To overcome that difficulty, some of Ganji's friends had tried to persuade him
> to make a few anti-American, more specifically anti-Bush, pronouncements so
> that the Western media could adopt him as a "hero-martyr." Two years ago,
> similar advice had been given to Shirin Ebadi, the Iranian lawyer who was
> awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. She was made to understand one stark fact of
> contemporary life: You will not be accepted as a champion of human rights
> unless you attack the United States.
> 
> Ebadi had accepted the advice and used her address during the prize ceremony
> in Oslo to launch a bitter attack on the United States as the arch-violator of
> human rights. To the surprise of many Iranians, she had eulogized the 400 or
> so alleged terrorists held in Guantanamo Bay, but made no mention of the
> thousands of political prisoners, including some of her own friends and
> clients, who languish in mullah-run prisons throughout Iran.
> 
> Would Ganji adopt a similar tactic in order to get media attention in the
> West? The answer came last January and it was a firm no.
> 
> The result was that Ganji, probably the most outspoken and courageous prisoner
> of conscience in the Islamic Republic today, became a non-person for the
> Western media. Even efforts by the group Reporters Without Frontiers, and the
> International Press Institute, among other organizations of journalists,
> failed to change attitudes towards Ganji.
> 
> Hundreds of editorials have been published in major Western publications in
> sympathy with the prisoners in Guantanamo Bay or Abu Ghraib. But, to my
> knowledge, there has been none in support of Ganji or the thousands of
> political prisoners held by the mullahs.
> 
> So, it was heart-warming to see the FPA honor Ganji as a champion of freedom.
> An audio-message from Ganji's wife, smuggled out of Iran, was broadcast,
> creating the evening's highest moment.
> 
> But then things went pear-shape as a petite middle-aged lady dressed all in
> black was invited to come on stage to make a symbolic offer of the award to an
> absent Ganji. (The mullahs had not even allowed Ganji's wife to travel to
> London to attend the occasion.)
> 
> The lady in question was introduced as one Bianca Jagger, whose title is
> UNICEF Ambassador. What her day job is, however, is a mystery to me.
> 
> She started by telling us about her recent trips to Tehran and Damascus,
> presumably the two capitals of human rights that she likes best, and how she
> had been told "by officials and others" that she and other Westerners had "no
> moral authority" to talk about human rights and freedom.
> 
> She then proceeded by saying it is all very well to remember Ganji but that
> should not prevent us from remembering "those held in Guantanamo Bay and Abu
> Ghraib, and all other secret prisons" that the United States is supposed to be
> running all over the world.
> 
> The rest of the little speech had nothing to do with Ganji and everything to
> do with the claim that the United States is drawing an almost sadistic
> pleasure by practicing torture. I couldn't believe my ears.
> 
> There was this caricature of a "UNICEF ambassador" equating Ganji ? a man who
> has fought only with his pen ? with men captured armed in hand on the
> battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq.
> 
> Those men at least had access to lawyers and could be visited by the Red
> Cross. Ganji's lawyer, however, had himself become a prisoner after trying to
> defend his client.
> 
> Nor is the Red Cross, or anybody else, allowed to visit Ganji.
> 
> I was also surprised that the "UNICEF Ambassador" had no difficulty in
> equating the United States, which, after all, is a democracy with checks and
> balances, with the Islamic Republic in which a self-styled "Supreme Guide"
> claims to rule on behalf of God.
> 
> In his "Nichomachaean Ethics," Aristotle warns against any confusion of
> categories when it comes to good and evil. Translated into modern discourse,
> this means that imposing a moral equivalence in the name of multiculturalism ?
> or the Nietzschean scheme of transcending good and evil ? is a sign of crass
> immorality.
> 
> Having swallowed my anger, I gave the "UNICEF Ambassador" a piece of my mind.
> She seemed surprised. No one had ever told her such things, especially not in
> a polite society of dinner jackets and long robes. "Is Ganji the same as the
> alleged terrorists in Guantanamo Bay?" I asked.
> 
> "Well, yes, I mean no, I mean yes," she mumbled. "But they are all prisoners,
> aren't they?"
> 
> Having witnessed the verbal altercation, a colleague from the BBC filled me in
> on the background of the "UNICEF Ambassador." It seems that she had once been
> married to a British pop singer. And that, of course, is enough to qualify you
> as a "UNICEF Ambassador" touring the world, attacking Western democracies and
> flattering the tyrants of Tehran, Damascus and Havana among others.
> 
> Well, it had been a good evening. In the end, however, as the lady's husband
> had once crooned: I could get no satisfaction.
> 
> 



------ End of Forwarded Message

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From harry.sifton at sympatico.ca  Sat Dec 10 14:34:44 2005
From: harry.sifton at sympatico.ca (Harold Sifton)
Date: Sat Dec 10 14:45:15 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Make Some Noise
Message-ID: <002601c5fdd9$ee57cff0$9327e440@Harold>

FYI my civic friends

Amnesty International project "Make Some Noise"

http://www.amnesty.org/noise/?tr=y&auid=1276387

Harry
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From michael at intrafi.com  Sat Dec 10 17:18:54 2005
From: michael at intrafi.com (michael@intrafi.com)
Date: Sat Dec 10 17:29:24 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Alternet: Corporate Globalization in Crisis
Message-ID: <20051211011854.8E8F0B8076@alternet.org>


This story has been forwarded to you from
http://www.alternet.org by michael@intrafi.com

MUST READ

-------------------------------------
Corporate Globalization in Crisis
http://www.alternet.org/story/29326

The potential failure of the WTO meetings in Hong Kong may well spell the end of the corporate-controlled trade agreements.
-------------------------------------

From nwonline at toronto.cbc.ca  Sat Dec 10 18:08:02 2005
From: nwonline at toronto.cbc.ca (CBC News Online)
Date: Sat Dec 10 18:18:58 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] CBC News - COMEDIAN RICHARD PRYOR DIES 
Message-ID: <20051211020802.938281B69F@nmweb06.nm.cbc.ca>

This email has been sent to you by harry.sifton@sympatico.ca
The following is a news item posted on CBC NEWS ONLINE
at http://www.cbc.ca/news
____________________________________________________
COMEDIAN RICHARD PRYOR DIES 
WebPosted Sat Dec 10 17:01:54 2005

---Groundbreaking American comedian and actor Richard Pryor has died of a
heart attack at the age of 65.

Widely considered to have been one of the most influential comedians in
the United States, Pryor broke many barriers for African Americans in the
business during his heyday in the 1960s and 1970s.

He had been battling multiple sclerosis since 1986 and the debilitating
disease forced him to quit performing in 1997. In 2004, it was revealed
that he could no longer speak because of the illness.

Born in Peoria, Ill., in December 1940, Pryor had a grandmother who owned
a string of brothels and his mother was a prostitute.

He was renowned as a gifted storyteller known for his blunt, often
raunchy examinations of race and modern life.

He used vulgarities as well as racial epithets in his desire to reflect
real life.

"You can do anything you want and you can say anything that comes to
mind, just so long as it's funny," said Pryor.



Pryor, who battled cocaine addiction, often took the tragic events in his
life and made them a part of his concert movies and recordings including
1971's Richard Pryor: Live & Smokin' , Richard Pryor: Wanted: Live In
Concert (1979) and Richard Pryor: Live on the Sunset Strip (1982).

He has several Grammys for his comedy recordings.

He has admitted that a 1980 fire that nearly killed him while free-basing
cocaine was actually a suicide attempt.

Pryor appeared in several popular films including Lady Sings the Blues ,
The Mack , Uptown Saturday Night , Silver Streak , Which Way Is Up? , Car
Wash , The Toy , Superman III and Stir Crazy .

In four of his films, he co-starred with Gene Wilder.

In 1998, Pryor won the inaugural Mark Twain Prize for American Humor from
the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Among other kudos, in
2004, the television network Comedy Central voted him the top standup
comedian of all time.

He is survived by his fifth wife, Jennifer Lee, and seven children.

Copyright (C) 2005 CBC. All rights reserved.
From nwonline at toronto.cbc.ca  Sat Dec 10 18:09:50 2005
From: nwonline at toronto.cbc.ca (CBC News Online)
Date: Sat Dec 10 18:20:39 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] CBC News - POLAND TO INVESTIGATE SECRET CIA PRISON CLAIMS
Message-ID: <20051211020950.BB2001B69F@nmweb06.nm.cbc.ca>

This email has been sent to you by harry.sifton@sympatico.ca
The following is a news item posted on CBC NEWS ONLINE
at http://www.cbc.ca/news
____________________________________________________
POLAND TO INVESTIGATE SECRET CIA PRISON CLAIMS
WebPosted Sat Dec 10 14:10:26 2005

---Poland has ordered an investigation into reports that the CIA has run
prisons for terror suspects in the country.

INDEPTH: Human Rights

Prime Minister Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz on Saturday said Poland
would "check if there is any proof that such an event took place in
our country."

He promised a tough investigation, but did not reveal how it would
proceed.

He was responding to allegations that the U.S. has captured or taken
charge of terror suspects and then transported them to secret prisons,
dubbed "black sites," for interviewing.

Critics say CIA planes have flown all over Europe and the Canadian
government is looking into reports that there have been 55 questionable
takeoffs and landings in Canada.

FROM DEC. 5, 2005: Canada will investigate allegations of secret
CIA flights

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has refused to answer questions
about whether the U.S. operates secret prisons in Europe, but has said it
acts within the law.

There are several investigations into the prison allegations, including
one by the human-rights organization the Council of Europe looking at
charges European airports were used in transporting suspects.

There have been claims that al-Qaeda suspects were tortured in secret
locations, or transported to countries where torture took place.

Top Polish politicians have denied that there are any CIA prisons in the
country, but Polish newspapers have published reports saying CIA or FBI
planes repeatedly landed in the country.

"We have collected information that CIA airplanes traveling from
Afghanistan in 2003 and 2004 made direct flights to remote airfields
in Poland and Romania," Human Rights Watch, a U.S.-based group,
reported recently.

Copyright (C) 2005 CBC. All rights reserved.
From nwonline at toronto.cbc.ca  Sat Dec 10 18:11:59 2005
From: nwonline at toronto.cbc.ca (CBC News Online)
Date: Sat Dec 10 18:22:43 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] CBC News - UN NUCLEAR CHIEF ACCEPTS NOBEL PRIZE
Message-ID: <20051211021159.0B33E1B69F@nmweb06.nm.cbc.ca>

This email has been sent to you by harry.sifton@sympatico.ca
The following is a news item posted on CBC NEWS ONLINE
at http://www.cbc.ca/news
____________________________________________________
UN NUCLEAR CHIEF ACCEPTS NOBEL PRIZE
WebPosted Sat Dec 10 08:50:31 2005

---Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy
Agency, spoke out against nuclear weapons as he accepted the 2005 Nobel
Peace Prize on Saturday.

ElBaradei is sharing the award with the IAEA, which he has run since
December 1997.

"I have no doubt that if we hope to escape self-destruction, then nuclear
weapons should have no place in our collective conscience, and no role in
our security," he said.

ElBaradei and the chairman of the board of governors of the IAEA, Yukiya
Amano, received gold medals and Nobel diplomas at a ceremony at Oslo
City Hall.

They will also share 10 million Swedish kroner ($1.25 million US).

ElBaradei, 63, said he will use the money to support an orphanage in
Egypt, his home country.

The IAEA, based in Vienna, has 138 member states. A key role is to
investigate suspected violations of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
and, if necessary, refer cases to the United Nations.

On Friday, ElBaradei urged Iran to stop hindering an investigation into
the country's nuclear energy program. The United States and other
observers have expressed concern that Iran could be using the program as
a cover for the development of nuclear weapons.

"The international community has begun to lose its patience," he told
reporters in Oslo before Saturday's ceremony.

Copyright (C) 2005 CBC. All rights reserved.
From harry.sifton at sympatico.ca  Sat Dec 10 18:22:28 2005
From: harry.sifton at sympatico.ca (Harold Sifton)
Date: Sat Dec 10 18:33:04 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] MPA drops the ball, lawyers look for revenue
Message-ID: <000a01c5fdf9$bf205b60$9327e440@Harold>

The Music Publishers Association is trying to prohibit amateur/professional musicians interacting on web sites.

http://www.cbc.ca/story/arts/national/2005/12/09/Arts/music_copyright_051209.html

To try and figure out how to play certain cords on the internet is not allowed by the MPA!

This is so weak, it is obvious that it is driven only by lawyers for income.

Shame on the MPA

Later H
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From barbarasiomos38 at msn.com  Sat Dec 10 22:02:33 2005
From: barbarasiomos38 at msn.com (Barbara Siomos)
Date: Sat Dec 10 22:13:12 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Richard Pryor
Message-ID: <BAY5-DAV249ECAB17A62169C3C402AB470@phx.gbl>

Folks Richard Pryor died this morning!

Sad day.

R.I.P. Richard you were a treasure and one of a kind.

peace,
barbara


From swiggard at comcast.net  Sun Dec 11 02:46:47 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Sun Dec 11 02:59:56 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] With Humor and Anger On Race Issues,
 Comic Inspired a Generation - Washington Post
Message-ID: <439C0397.4010209@comcast.net>

With Humor and Anger On Race Issues, Comic Inspired a Generation

By Matt Schudel
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, December 11, 2005; A01

Richard Pryor, the outrageously raunchy and uproariously funny comedian 
and actor who defied the boundaries of taste, decency and race to become 
the comic voice of a generation, died yesterday at a Los Angeles 
hospital, where he had been taken after a heart attack. Pryor, who was 
65, had been in deteriorating health for years because of multiple 
sclerosis.

Throughout the 1970s and early '80s, Pryor rode his uninhibited and 
foul-mouthed comedy to the heights of stardom, notching one hit movie 
after another, selling millions of recordings and drawing huge audiences 
to his one-man show, which treated some of the most volatile social 
issues of the time with a penetrating, unsparing comic eye. In 1998, he 
was the first person to receive the Kennedy Center's Mark Twain Prize 
for American Humor.

After beginning his career with relatively tame, race-neutral comedy, he 
delved deep into his experiences and anger as a black American and 
emerged with a fresh, daring approach that put race, sex and obscenity 
-- and all the anxieties these once-taboo subjects evoked -- at the 
forefront of his almost stream-of-consciousness comedy.

He drew his humor straight from the lives and speech of working-class 
black Americans in an overt, unapologetic way never before seen. In so 
doing, he helped bring black customs and language into the American 
mainstream and exerted a lasting influence on the nation's humor and 
cultural life. He assailed the nation's inequities, unabashedly used the 
n-word and adopted a variety of exaggerated facial expressions to touch 
on some of the deepest and unspoken fears of all Americans.

Once forced off a Las Vegas stage for obscenity, Pryor saw his ribald 
routines adopted as the standard comic fare of a later generation of 
comedians of all races. Without his bold example, the careers of Eddie 
Murphy, Whoopi Goldberg, Robin Williams, Dave Chappelle, Margaret Cho 
and Chris Rock would scarcely be possible.

An article in Ebony magazine in the 1970s said Pryor "mirrors the black 
condition without exploiting it" and called his comedy "a major step 
forward in the evolution of a true black humor in the United States."

In 1998, comedian Damon Wayans told The Washington Post that "Richard 
basically blazed a trail for black comedy; he defined what it is. As a 
young black man he was saying what he felt -- and that was shocking."

Pryor had his first gold record in 1974 with his provocatively titled, 
"That Nigger's Crazy." He followed that a year later with an album whose 
cover showed him questioning a group of Ku Klux Klansmen about to burn 
him at the stake, under the title "Is It Something I Said?"

He recorded more than 20 albums in a period of 14 years, including the 
landmark "Richard Pryor Live on the Sunset Strip" (1982), which was a 
distillation of his acerbic, lacerating style. Pryor received five 
Grammy Awards for his comedy albums. He also received an Emmy Award for 
writing and was nominated for an Academy Award as an actor.

During his prime, almost every joke included a spate of blue language 
that can't be printed in a newspaper but induced uncontrollable laughter 
in his audiences. Beneath the humor, though, there lay a raw edge of 
barely tempered anger. Nothing was too sensitive for his barbs. In a 
joke about black men in prison, Pryor said: "You go down there looking 
for justice; that's what you find: just us."

Pryor's humor reflected the turbulence and anger in his life, which was 
marked by arrests, outbursts of violence, failed marriages and a long 
history of drug abuse. On June 9, 1980, he almost died when he was 
freebasing cocaine at his Los Angeles home, set himself on fire and 
received severe burns on half his body. With his body ablaze, he jumped 
out a window and onto a city street.

As usual, he turned the episode into humor: "You know something I 
noticed? When you run down the street on fire, people will move out of 
your way."

Early in his career, Pryor modeled himself after comedian Bill Cosby, 
who in turn became an ardent admirer of his protege.

"For Richard," Cosby once told People magazine, "the line between comedy 
and tragedy is as fine as you can paint it."

Richard Franklin Lennox Thomas Pryor III was born Dec. 1, 1940, in 
Peoria, Ill. Much of his youth is murky or mired in contradictions. His 
parents were not married when he was born. Pryor variously claimed that 
his mother was a prostitute or worked as a bookkeeper in a brothel. 
Little is known about his father except that he was a boxer and had 
little to do with Pryor as a child.

He was largely raised by his grandmother, who operated a brothel. As a 
preteen, he was apparently molested -- the perpetrator later asked for 
an autograph, Pryor said -- but he found solace in amateur theatrics and 
in improvising jokes and skits for his classmates.

He dropped out of school at 14, took a few menial jobs and enlisted in 
the Army when he was 18. He participated in amateur shows in Germany and 
by 1960 was back in Peoria, working in small clubs and modeling his act 
on Cosby and, to a lesser extent, Redd Foxx and Jerry Lewis. He made his 
way to New York in 1963 and had his major national break in 1966, when 
he appeared on network television programs such as "The Kraft Summer 
Music Hall" and "The Ed Sullivan Show."

Pryor wrote for "The Flip Wilson Show" in the 1960s while polishing his 
stand-up act and pushing his humor toward the outer reaches of 
acceptable taste.

"Back between '65 and '68, I had a metamorphosis," he told The 
Washington Post in 1978. "I found out who I wanted to be. And who I 
wanted to be was the same guy who used to rap on the street corner back 
on North Washington Boulevard in Peoria."

In his 1995 memoir, "Pryor Convictions and Other Life Sentences," he 
wrote: "There was a world of junkies and winos, pool hustlers and 
prostitutes, women and a family screaming inside my head, trying to be 
heard."

He invented a series of exaggerated characters, often brought to life 
with goggle-eyed mugging and obscenities, including the n-word.

"I decided to take the sting out of it," he told The Post. "As if saying 
it over and over again would numb me and everybody else to its 
wretchedness."

Chastened by a trip to Africa in 1979, he vowed never to use the word in 
his act again.

In addition to his stand-up comedy, Pryor became a prolific actor, 
appearing in more than 30 feature films between 1968 and 1997. He was 
nominated for an Academy Award in 1972 for his dramatic role as a 
musician in "Lady Sings the Blues."

He wrote for others, including the TV series "Sanford and Son," and won 
his Emmy in 1974 for his work writing "Lily," a comedy special for Lily 
Tomlin. Pryor helped Mel Brooks with the script of "Blazing Saddles" 
(1974) and was credited with two of the most memorable parts of the 
movie: the bean scene around the campfire and Madeline Kahn's gasped 
exclamation, after a private moment with the black sheriff, "It's twue, 
it's twue!"

By 1974, when he appeared in the film "Uptown Saturday Night," Pryor had 
found a comic acting formula that led to a string of box office hits. 
 From "The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars and Motor Kings" (1976) to 
"Which Way Is Up?" (1977), and "Bustin' Loose" (1981), he seemed to take 
over the screen with characters that were often elaborations of his 
stand-up personas.

"Richard Pryor works directly with the life around him, and he digs 
deeper in to fear and lust and anger and pain than many of the novelists 
and playwrights now taken seriously," David Denby wrote in New York 
magazine.

As his fame increased, so did his troubles. In the 1970s, he had been 
charged with failing to pay income taxes from 1967 to 1970, and he was 
convicted of marijuana possession.

He had a heart attack in 1978 and the same year was charged with firing 
a .357 magnum at his wife's car. Then came the freebasing episode in 
1980, which Pryor later half-admitted was a suicide attempt.

In 1986, he made "Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling," an 
autobiographical film about a comedian looking back on his life after 
nearly dying. That year, after he began to grow weak, Pryor received a 
diagnosis of multiple sclerosis.

He attempted a comeback as a stand-up comedian in 1992, but by then his 
failing health was evident. Nonetheless, he continued to perform 
throughout the 1990s.

Pryor had a tumultuous personal life. He married and divorced his fifth 
wife twice. His fourth wife, Jennifer Lee, whom Pryor had physically 
abused during their marriage, became his caregiver. He had seven children.

Upon receiving the Kennedy Center's Mark Twain Award, Pryor said: "I am 
proud that, like Mark Twain, I have been able to use humor to lessen 
people's hatred."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/10/AR2005121001406.html
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Sun Dec 11 02:48:23 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Sun Dec 11 03:01:28 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] In Iraq,
	Bush Pushed For Deadline Democracy - Washington Post
Message-ID: <439C03F7.7070102@comcast.net>

In Iraq, Bush Pushed For Deadline Democracy
Timeline Yields Constitutional Order, Not Peace

By Peter Baker and Robin Wright
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, December 11, 2005; A01

Whenever he was asked in public last winter about the prospect of 
delaying Iraq's first election since the fall of Saddam Hussein, 
President Bush flatly dismissed it. His administration, he insisted, was 
"very firm" on going forward.

But inside the White House, Bush's team was anything but firm. A 
powerful debate was raging, officials now acknowledge, among the 
president's top advisers over postponing the Jan. 30 interim election in 
hopes of first tamping down the flaring insurgency and bringing 
disaffected factions to the table.

"There was a good debate in front of the president," recalled national 
security adviser Stephen J. Hadley. "It was a close question and if it 
had gone to consensus, I don't know how it would have come out."

Ultimately, it did not go to a consensus decision but to Bush, who opted 
to stick with the election, a decision with distinct costs and benefits 
as the United States labored to build a democratic government in Iraq 
from the ground up. When U.S. administrator L. Paul Bremer transferred 
sovereignty to Iraqi authorities in June 2004, he left behind a script 
with hard-and-fast deadlines for drafting a constitution and forming a 
government, a script that culminates Thursday with another election for 
a permanent parliament.

The story of the 18-month process that unfolded after Bremer left 
Baghdad was one of steadfast fidelity to the script, as well as a costly 
period of U.S. inattention and endless frustrations with squabbling 
Iraqi leaders, according to a wide array of Bush advisers, Iraqi 
politicians and others involved in the effort. While Bush refuses to set 
a timetable for military withdrawal, he has stuck doggedly to the Bremer 
political timetable despite qualms of his staff, relentless violence on 
the ground and disaffection of Iraq's minority Sunni Arabs.

Bush's deadline democracy managed to propel the process forward and 
appears on the verge of creating a new government with legitimacy earned 
at the ballot box. His approach resulted in a constitution often 
described as more democratic than any in the Arab world. Yet by pushing 
forward without Sunni acceptance, the Bush team failed to produce the 
national accord it sought among Iraq's three main groups, leaving a 
schism that could loom beyond Thursday's election. And the Sunni-powered 
insurgency that was supposed to be marginalized by an inclusive 
democracy remains as lethal as ever.

"The key for a long time in Iraq to stabilization . . . has been to pull 
in significant elements of Sunnis near the insurgency into the political 
process," said Larry Diamond, a Stanford University scholar who for a 
short time advised U.S. authorities in Iraq, only to become a scathing 
critic. The press to meet the Bremer deadlines, starting in January, he 
said, only fueled the militants. "Much of the violence after that was 
entrenched or reinforced by the elections when the Sunnis were pressed 
to the margins."

In private, Bush aides agree there were tradeoffs but found no better 
alternatives, and they take heart from signs that Sunnis who boycotted 
the January election plan to participate this week. "Perfect wasn't on 
offer," a senior administration official said. "It's not that anyone 
thought it was a great idea, but that was the path we were on. No one 
had the confidence to think of moving along another path. The biggest 
fear was that things would get slowed down."

In the end, according to participants, the political process has both 
succeeded and failed. It produced elections and soon a permanent 
government, but did not end the war, at least not yet. "I believed -- 
and I said from the podium -- that as Iraqis became more politically 
empowered, the insurgency would become politically weakened," said Dan 
Senor, a top Bremer adviser. "That hasn't happened. The political 
process has been resilient -- and so has the insurgency."

Reality Steps In

The Bremer script was never the administration's first choice. Instead, 
it was a compromise forced by powerful political realities, especially 
by the Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the spiritual leader of the majority 
Shiites who after years of oppression under Hussein's Sunni leadership 
wanted their own government. It laid out a quick succession of goals 
starting with the January interim election, followed by a draft 
constitution in August, a referendum to approve it in October and now 
this week's vote.

The idea behind it was to put the Iraqis in the lead. And so as soon as 
Bremer turned over sovereignty in June 2004, the Bush administration 
made a pivotal decision to take a back seat -- literally.

As the one-man ruler of Iraq, Bremer had alienated many Iraqis with what 
they saw as an imperial style, and the new U.S. ambassador was 
determined to take a different tack. Iraqi officials were startled when 
John D. Negroponte sat in a chair against the wall during meetings. He 
was the anti-Bremer.

"There was a deliberate hands-offness during Negroponte," said a former 
State Department official. "We went from blowing hot to blowing cold. . 
. . Those were his instructions."

Michael Rubin, who worked in Iraq for the U.S. government, said 
Negroponte served as a necessary transition. "In a multi-course dinner," 
Rubin said, "he was the sherbet meant to cleanse your palate between 
courses."

At the White House, however, there was considerable frustration among 
aides who felt the ambassador was too passive and seemed to consider 
himself unaccountable to Washington. Looking back, current and former 
officials said, Negroponte's eight-month stint marked a period of drift 
followed by a diplomatic void when he abruptly departed to become the 
new U.S. intelligence director and was not replaced for four months.

He oversaw the January elections, which proved a symbolically powerful 
moment with Iraqis waving purple-stained fingers indicating they had 
voted. As negotiations to name a prime minister stalemated, though, 
Negroponte left the ornate Republican Palace on the banks of the Tigris 
River and the momentum generated by the election faded. "We stepped 
back, and back, and then back some more," said a former official. "The 
thought was good -- we have to now re-gear ourselves down. But then we 
went too far -- we turned the engine off."

A new interim government was not sworn in until May, three months after 
the election and six weeks after Negroponte's departure.

"It took the shining moment, where there was so much positive energy, 
and the negotiations descended into the pettiest infighting," said Les 
Campbell, the National Democratic Institute's Middle East director, who 
has made 13 trips to Iraq. "The government that rose from that election 
never once was able to rise to the hopes generated by that election."

More important was the missed opportunity to capitalize on a Sunni 
change of heart. In a dramatic shift after the January vote, Sunni 
groups that had boycotted the election and therefore won only 16 of 275 
seats in parliament declared they wanted to help write the constitution. 
But Shiites and Kurds took until June to add 25 Sunni members and 
advisers to the constitutional drafting commission -- just two months 
before the deadline.

As talks opened, Shiite and Kurdish leaders wanted to score the greatest 
possible gains. "They knew they had the Sunni community at a 
disadvantage and they decided to forge ahead," Campbell said. "Looking 
back on it, they may see it as a mistake as it led to a hardening of 
moderate Sunni attitude."

Another New Face

Zalmay Khalilzad finally arrived in Baghdad in July after four months 
with no U.S. ambassador. If Negroponte was the anti-Bremer, Khalilzad 
was the anti-Negroponte. Outgoing, charming and prone to wheedle and 
cajole until he gets what he wants, Khalilzad was never one to sit on a 
back bench, but the Afghan-born envoy had to get up to speed and found a 
jumbled situation as constitutional negotiators bogged down.

Under the Bremer timetable, they had until Aug. 15 to forge a compact 
resolving the most divisive issues in the new Iraq, such as the role of 
Islam and rights of women. Sunnis wanted the constitution to preserve a 
strong central state, while Shiites and Kurds were determined to carve 
out or preserve autonomy in their regions. But the Sunnis had no 
cohesive organization; Khalilzad would receive a list of demands from 
one faction, then a contradictory list from another.

As the deadline approached, Bush and his advisers meeting at his Texas 
ranch once again were consumed with the same debate as in January -- 
whether to break the schedule to craft a deal that would satisfy the Sunnis.

Bush, who instinctively dismisses doubters and abhors changing course, 
again stuck to the plan. "We've got to keep the deadline there to force 
the parties to make the hard decisions to reach compromise," Bush told 
advisers, according to Hadley.

With Khalilzad shuttling between parties, Bush delved into the talks 
personally, calling Shiite leader Abdul Aziz Hakim. "You've got to agree 
to some things that the Sunnis need to come into the process," Hadley 
remembered Bush telling Hakim.

This time the deadline passed without agreement. The interim Iraqi 
parliament just before midnight amended the transitional law to allow 
more time. It took two more weeks, but over gallons of tea at late-night 
sessions, the Shiites and Kurds did reach a deal -- bypassing the Sunni 
Arabs.

Although the deadline had officially passed and the draft constitution 
was being printed for voters, Khalilzad pressed the Iraqis to keep 
negotiating. Under his pressure, they finally cut a deal just three days 
before the Oct. 15 referendum -- they would hold the vote but put off 
the disputed issues until a new government formed in 2006.

That defused Sunni opposition enough to let the constitution pass, 
although most Sunnis still voted against it, exposing the fault lines in 
the new Iraq. Still, more Sunnis participated than in January, with 
overall turnout rising from about 8.5 million to some 9.8 million. To 
keep to the script and preserve the sense of momentum, the Bush 
administration had finessed the deadlines, punted the hard choices to 
the future and gambled that the Sunnis would continue to participate.

"The one single worst mistake was the rigid, shortsighted adherence to 
the August 15 deadline," said Jonathan Morrow of the U.S. Institute of 
Peace, who advised constitutional drafters. That "had consequences for 
Sunnis buying into the constitutional text. . . . It's a hopeless 
situation and it's progressively more difficult to remedy."

Fareed Yaseen, an Iraqi official, disagreed: "I used to think that a 
slight delay might have been useful. But it turned out what was the most 
important thing was the political process and adhering to it. . . . To 
get things done in Iraq, you have to have a deadline. If you push it 
forward, then nothing gets done."

A Vote in Fallujah

In a sign of shifting political winds, the embattled city of Fallujah 
will be open for voting on Thursday -- with its own Sunnis staffing the 
polls. In January, few were willing to vote in a city that served as an 
early bellwether of the insurgency, and election workers had to be 
imported from elsewhere.

This time, Iraqi and U.S. officials expect a decent turnout. The 
Association of Muslim Scholars, which called for a boycott in January, 
now urges followers to vote. Considering the turbulent year, U.S. 
officials are almost optimistic about the final phase of the Bremer script.

Former undersecretary of defense Douglas J. Feith, a key architect of 
the war, said the political process has not been perfect but that Bush 
was right to stick rigorously to the timetable. "That was a 
calculation," he said. "It involved some risk. It turned out not only 
not to be a disaster but a great success."

Yet the vote that was supposed to end Iraq's transition will not be the 
last. The consequence of sticking to the schedule without Sunni 
agreement will be another year of haggling. The issues that most divide 
Iraq's factions have been put off until the new government opens a 
four-month debate on constitutional amendments. If there is agreement, 
then Iraqis will go to polls again -- part of a compromise that was not 
part of the Bremer script -- to vote on a revised constitution.

"It remains to be seen whether it works," cautioned Morrow. "We can't 
assume there will be enthusiasm by the Shiites and Kurdish parties for 
far-reaching amendments." Without compromise, the danger of civil war 
deepens.

For all that, some of the administration's toughest critics still see a 
chance for success. "Despite all the mistakes in our myopic clinging to 
arbitrary deadlines and our vision of what the political transition and 
pace should be, and our succession of lost opportunities to broaden the 
arena, I think we're finally beginning to get it right," said Diamond. 
"There are some tantalizing signs of a political breakthrough."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/10/AR2005121001379.html
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Sun Dec 11 02:50:19 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Sun Dec 11 03:03:19 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Iraqis Will Learn to Deal - Barbara K. Bodine -
 Washington Post Sunday Outlook
Message-ID: <439C046B.5070201@comcast.net>

Iraqis Will Learn to Deal

By Barbara K. Bodine
Sunday, December 11, 2005; B02

Our occupation perpetuates political paralysis as much as it fuels the 
insurgency. It blunts the necessity for Iraqis to make the political 
choices required for them to achieve sustainable legitimacy. The Kurds 
have the cockiness of a 15-year-old American patron e; the majority 
Shiites the arrogance that comes with the promise of compensatory power; 
and the Sunnis have read U.S. policy, correctly, as sealing their fate 
of marginalization. All have established a form of co-dependency with 
the U.S. presence, and there is little incentive for any of them to 
compromise.

The consequence of ending our military occupation -- if done in a 
planned manner -- could be to force Iraqis to recognize the very real 
need for internal political compromise.

None of these three major groups can defeat the other militarily, but 
each has the capacity to wreak havoc. Economically, none can survive 
long without the others, if only because of oil pipelines that traverse 
the country and the perceptions of jittery foreign investors.

Politically, majoritarianism is as untenable as was Baathism. And a 
hollowed-out national government saddled with an unworkable resource 
allocation plan, militias posing as an army and competing legal systems 
is unsustainable.

The belief in the United States, however ephemeral, that Iraq would 
become a fully formed, mature Western-style democracy in a matter of 
years was naive. Whether the Iraqi government at the time of our 
withdrawal is an American-style democracy is not the issue.

What it must be is national, legitimate and on the path toward 
developing Iraqi-style democratic governance. It will take political 
courage and political wisdom born as much of self-interest and survival 
instincts as altruism for the government to achieve this kind of 
legitimacy, which cannot be determined by force of arms or by an ad hoc 
campaign for Iraqi hearts and minds.

Not much of our domestic debate prior to the U.S.-led invasion focused 
on the kind of Iraq that would emerge from the ashes of the regime of 
Saddam Hussein. Our working assumption was that we would be there for 
regime change, not nation-building.

We assumed we would find an intact civil bureaucracy and a redeemable 
army, absent the Baath Party, the Revolutionary Guard and other 
instruments of Saddam's control. We had an unabashed belief in "imposed 
democracy"; the successor government simply needed to be stable, unitary 
and friendly.

Each step in Iraq's post-Saddam political evolution has reflected 
American domestic dynamics more than Iraqi ones. At each point, debate 
raged here over whether the Iraqi political leadership, mechanisms or 
people were ready. And at each point -- faced with unavoidable necessity 
-- the Iraqis proved that they were.

We should learn from that lesson. The Iraqis pulled themselves back from 
a precipice in October with the "grand bargain" to open their new 
constitution to immediate amendment in exchange for Sunni participation 
in the political process. The challenge now is not to squander that advance.

For this reason, we must help provide the new parliament with the 
incentive to further its grand bargain and thus provide the government 
with legitimacy in the eyes not only of Iraqis but the rest of the 
region. An explicit U.S. commitment soon after the election to disengage 
militarily by certain dates could have just such a salutary effect on 
all the major players within Iraq. They will be left to rise to the 
political challenge -- and with no one else to blame if they don't.

Author's e-mail :

barbara_bodine@ksg.harvard.edu <mailto:barbara_bodine@ksg.harvard.edu>

Barbara Bodine is director of the Governance Initiative in the Middle 
East at the Kennedy School of Government. She was ambassador to Yemen 
from 1997 to 2001 and coordinator for post-conflict reconstruction for 
Baghdad and the central region of Iraq in 2003.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/10/AR2005121000112.html
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Sun Dec 11 02:52:08 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Sun Dec 11 03:05:07 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] 'Center Aisle' Civility - David S. Broder - Washington
	Post Op-Ed
Message-ID: <439C04D8.5040302@comcast.net>

'Center Aisle' Civility

By David S. Broder
Sunday, December 11, 2005; B07

Having bashed the House of Representatives in my last column -- for its 
ethical lapses and for its strangulation of genuine debate -- let me 
hasten to provide some good news about that part of Congress. A couple 
of self-described "gym rats" have taken the lead in an effort that could 
genuinely change and improve the tone of the place.

Steve Israel, a Democrat from Long Island, and Tim Johnson, a Republican 
from central Illinois, are fellow members of the Class of 2000 who 
became acquainted on treadmills in the House gym. Beyond their exercise, 
they seemingly had little in common:

Johnson, 59, is a veteran of the Illinois legislature who represents a 
largely rural district where President Bush won almost 6 out of 10 votes 
in 2004.

Israel, 47, is a former congressional staffer and local elected official 
with a diverse working-class constituency that is 25 percent minority. 
Bush lost his district by a wide margin.

On 12 key votes in the last Congress highlighted by the National 
Journal, Johnson and Israel split six times, disagreeing on such basic 
issues as tax cuts, Medicare drug benefits, restrictions on gun 
liability, and bans on cloning, "partial birth" abortions and same-sex 
marriages.

Yet, as Israel told me, he and Johnson discovered from their 
conversations in the gym that "we could have really interesting 
arguments about the issues -- and still remain civil -- while we'd go up 
to the floor and hear our colleagues screaming insults at each other."

Johnson, who for years has made dozens of random phone calls every day 
to his Illinois constituents, said that "the message I hear over and 
over from the folks back home is, 'You are the 435 most powerful people 
in Washington. Why do you act like third-graders? Why don't you ever 
find out what you agree on?' "

Their conversation became the spur for the formation earlier this year 
of what they call the Center Aisle Caucus, a forum for communication 
across party lines. In a few months the invited membership has grown to 
47, roughly balanced between the parties. The founders say they have 
turned down some applicants, because -- as Israel put it -- "we don't 
want people who will put it on their rsum and then go out and act like 
flame-throwers on the floor."

At their first meeting, their effort was endorsed by two former leaders 
who embody the traits of mutual respect the Center Aislers want to 
encourage: former House speaker Tom Foley, a Democrat from Washington 
state, and former House minority leader Bob Michel, a Republican from 
Illinois.

Subsequent caucuses have featured political scientists and historians of 
Congress, and next year, Johnson said, the caucus will begin trying to 
identify issues where the members can see possibilities of agreement -- 
or at least of clarifying debate.

"We know that most Republicans and most Democrats will take different 
positions maybe 70 percent of the time," Johnson said. "But if we could 
find ways of at least talking about the other 30 percent, the country 
would be 100 percent better off than it is now."

<>The world "civility" comes up often in their conversation, but they 
both know that earlier efforts to encourage cross-party friendships by 
such devices as occasional weekend "family retreats" largely failed to 
improve the atmosphere. "We have to change more than the rhetoric," 
Israel said. "We have to change the rules and change the culture."

The rules changes they have in mind mirror those suggested earlier by 
some Democrats. They are designed to assure all members, but especially 
those in the minority party, access to information about the issues 
coming up for action and their right to participate in shaping the result.

<>Changing the culture of the House will be more difficult, because it 
implies changing the gerrymandered districts that virtually guarantee 
victory for one party or the other and make it a priority for most 
members to satisfy the most rabid partisans among their constituents.

But Johnson and Israel say that leaders of their parties have done 
nothing to discourage their efforts -- and, at least in some cases, have 
been encouraging. "I get flak from the far left of my caucus," Israel 
said. "And I do from the far right," Johnson broke in to say. But both 
find that the constituents who hear about what they're doing are 
supportive of their effort to make the House once again a place where 
people can talk to each other.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/09/AR2005120901773.html
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Sun Dec 11 02:56:27 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Sun Dec 11 03:09:27 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] A Nation's Politics Can Evolve - Rami G. Khouri -
 Washington Post Sunday Outlook
Message-ID: <439C05DB.6040302@comcast.net>

A Nation's Politics Can Evolve

By Rami G. Khouri
Sunday, December 11, 2005; B02

BEIRUT The single most important thing Iraq needs today is a politically 
legitimate government, from which security and other attributes of 
national and social normalcy would follow. America's military presence, 
and its political intervention in Iraq, are the main obstacles to such a 
government and to a secure society in that country. Withdrawing U.S. 
military forces would prod and push Iraqis to agree more quickly on an 
inclusive and, ideally, democratic governance system.

A continued American military presence only generates more attacks from 
Iraqis who see themselves as resistance fighters, and by Abu Musab 
Zarqawi and his band of jihadi terrorists, who are inspired in large 
part by a desire to liberate this part of the Islamic realm from foreign 
military occupation. Washington's most practical move would be to 
announce that it is starting an immediate but gradual withdrawal of its 
troops, and that it does not intend to maintain long-term military bases 
in Iraq. Such a strategy could start to reverse the seven key dimensions 
of the lingering, low-intensity catastrophe that has resulted from U.S. 
military and political domination of Iraq. Among a variety of beneficial 
consequences, it would:

    return national sovereignty to Iraqis.

    generate political legitimacy for a government by and for Iraqis, 
one not choreographed by American vice consuls like L.         Paul 
Bremer, John Negroponte or the current U.S. ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad.

    reassert day-to-day security and ensure delivery of basic services, 
as an American withdrawal would likely reduce                 attacks 
against infrastructure facilities such as oil, electricity and water 
networks.

    reverse the current, often American-prompted national fragmentation 
into ethnic and religious subgroups and their                     militias.

    reduce meddling by powerful neighbors -- especially Iran, Syria and 
Turkey -- some of whom see a chaotic, violent Iraq         as the best 
way to resist the United States. An American withdrawal could trigger 
their cooperation on stabilizing Iraq         and perhaps also on a 
regional security system, partly because Washington would have new 
incentives to improve             ties with those it now confronts for 
the sake of leaving behind a stable rather than a shattered Iraq.

    promote vital Arab and international engagement and assistance. 
Europeans, Arabs, Turks, Indians and many others                 would 
respond more generously to invitations to work for reconstruction in 
Iraq if such calls came from the United                 Nations or an 
Iraqi government not installed and protected by American guns and tanks.

    quickly reduce, then end, anti-American and anti-Iraqi terrorism and 
insurgency by many differently motivated groups             from the 
Middle East and beyond (as evidenced by a recent female Belgian suicide 
bomber).

The neocon-driven American fantasy strategy in Iraq brought together a 
peculiarly American form of intellectual terrorism and an unprecedented 
and deadly combination of exported arrogance and ordnance. Announcing 
the imminent end of this strategic atrocity is probably the only 
feasible way to bring Iraq back to normal -- and perhaps also to bring 
America back to normal.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/10/AR2005121000115.html
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Sun Dec 11 02:58:15 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Sun Dec 11 03:11:20 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Firms get scrutiny over CIA captures - The Boston Globe
Message-ID: <439C0647.4030303@comcast.net>


  Firms get scrutiny over CIA captures


    Companies' roles in flights questioned

By Farah Stockman, Globe Staff  |  December 11, 2005

WASHINGTON -- Private American contractors who help the CIA capture 
terrorism suspects abroad and transfer them to secret jails are 
increasingly becoming the target of investigations in Europe and at home.

In Italy, Sweden, Germany, and the United States, lawmakers, public 
prosecutors, and human rights groups are scrutinizing the role of the US 
companies, which are far easier to track down and hold accountable than 
the CIA.

In some cases, inquiries focus on companies that appear to be thinly 
veiled CIA fronts. A lawsuit brought last week by the American Civil 
Liberties Union against three obscure companies accused of conspiring 
with the secret agency is seeking financial compensation for a German 
man who alleges he was wrongfully imprisoned and tortured by the CIA. 
But in other cases, scrutiny by European investigators and human rights 
advocates has focused on mainstream companies whose part-time work for 
the CIA now threatens to leave a permanent mark on their reputations.

The lawsuit and the European inquiries -- which have named a handful of 
private aircraft charter companies -- could help to peel back the veil 
of secrecy surrounding the ''rendition" operations, which have provoked 
widespread criticism and concerns that terrorism suspects are taken to 
countries where they might be tortured. Last week on a trip to Europe, 
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice defended the practice as a necessary 
tactic in the war on terrorism, but underscored the need for secrecy.

In addition to the ACLU lawsuit, attention has also come from Amnesty 
International, which is investigating hundreds of flights made by 
private US companies, from an Italian prosecutor, and even from ordinary 
citizens who look for the private planes.

New-York based Richmor Aviation, one of the nation's oldest aircraft 
chartering and management companies, has borne the brunt of Europe's 
outrage over the secret CIA flights and detentions. In February 2003, 
according to flight records, it provided a private jet and a pilot for a 
trip from a US military base in Germany to Cairo.

European investigators now believe that flight was part of a CIA 
rendition mission in Milan that secretly captured Osama Moustafa Hassan 
Nasr, a Muslim cleric suspected of terrorism, and flew him via Germany 
to Egypt, where he alleged later that he had been tortured.

The case has prompted Italian prosecutors to charge 22 purported CIA 
operatives with kidnapping, although Italian prosecutors acknowledge 
they may never be able to find and arrest the agents.

Law enforcement officials in Germany, a newspaper in Portugal, and 
researchers with Amnesty have begun examining Richmor's flight records 
for signs that the flights may have violated local or international laws.

The Gulfstream jet that Richmor leased to the CIA, owned by Red Sox 
part-owner Phillip H. Morse,, is followed by plane-spotting hobbyists 
all over the world who report on the Internet when they spot the plane 
landing at airports and track its tail number -- originally N85VM -- in 
Federation Aviation Administration records. Every trip seems to spark 
scrutiny, said Mahlon Richards, a co-owner of the company.

''It has a very negative effect on our business," Richards said. ''It is 
getting out of hand."

Recently Swedish members of parliament announced an inquiry into a 2002 
flight by a Richmor jet to Sweden, even though the company says the 
flight was just a private tour for a wedding party.

Specialists say the CIA uses private companies as a means of hiding 
agency involvement in secret operations. But those companies are far 
easier to punish than the CIA, as they are vulnerable to sanctions, 
crippling lawsuits, or simply bad publicity.

''People are starting to talk about what they are going to do. Are we 
going to recommend that these planes not be allowed to land?" said Anne 
Fitzgerald, a senior adviser at Amnesty International, who is helping to 
analyze the logs of thousands of flights -- including some by Richmor 
planes -- for a report on rendition due out next year. ''I guess if you 
are met by Germans waving placards, you are bound to think twice about 
traveling there."

On Friday, Italian prosecutor Armando Spataro, said in a telephone 
interview that he is ''very interested in pursuing" any private 
companies that might have been involved in Nasr's capture, but that he 
has no information so far about them.

Richmor was a subcontractor with little knowledge about the larger 
missions of the flights, Richards said in an earlier interview. He 
referred initial questions about the flights to Computer Sciences Corp., 
a large California-based federal contractor that provides a range of 
services, from managing facilities to information technology work. The 
company also has offices in Singapore, Australia, and Britain.

Last March, an employee for Computer Sciences Corporation who asked not 
to be named said that the company did not transport terrorism suspects 
but that it does transport senior US officials who want to keep a low 
profile.

On Friday, Michael Dickerson, spokesman for the company, said ''as a 
matter of policy, CSC does not comment on rumors or speculation 
regarding the existence of contractual relationships with the US 
intelligence community."

Government contracts involving intelligence matters are almost always 
kept from the public, said Steven Aftergood, director of the project on 
government secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists, a public 
policy, research, and advocacy organization.

''I don't even think you can get a copy of the CIA contract on 
janitorial services," he said. ''They consider that sensitive information."

The Associated Press reported in September that Richmor was one of 10 
private aviation companies to be issued classified contracts in 2001 and 
2002 by the Navy Engineering Logistics Office for the ''occasional 
airlift of [US Navy] cargo worldwide."

The Massachusetts-based Premier Executive Transport Services was also 
cited as having received a classified contract.

Last week, Premier was named alongside two other private companies in an 
ACLU lawsuit filed against former CIA director George Tenet and a host 
of ''John Doe" CIA operatives in another controversial rendition case. 
The suit was filed on behalf of Khaled al-Masri, a German man who says 
he was snatched from Macedonia in December 2003 and flown to 
Afghanistan, where he was then beaten and held incommunicado for five 
months before US officials determined they had captured the wrong man 
and let him go. Last week, German Chancellor Angela Merkel told 
reporters that Rice had admitted that Masri's abduction had been a 
''mistake."

Steven Watt, a lawyer working on the lawsuit, acknowledged that it will 
be difficult -- if not impossible -- to uncover the true identities of 
the ''John Doe" operatives he is seeking to sue, but says he is 
optimistic that he can hold the private companies accountable.

''At least with the corporations, they have agents, we know where these 
people are," he said.

Watt said that in the case of Premier, which allegedly owned the 
executive jet that transported Masri to Afghanistan, he will deliver the 
legal papers to the company's registered agent, the Dedham-based law 
firm, Hill & Plakias.

Premier has no other physical address. Neither do its officers, who can 
only be traced to post office boxes in Virginia and Maryland.

Hill & Plakias has become the only public face of the company, bearing 
the brunt of a public protest in front of its offices in December 2004, 
after the Globe published an article disclosing Premier's connection to 
another rendition case in Sweden.

A second company named in the ACLU lawsuit on Masri's behalf is the 
North Carolina-based Aero Contractors, which allegedly provided the 
pilot and crew that flew him from Macedonia to Afghanistan. The New York 
Times has reported that Areo appears to be controlled by the CIA.

The third company named in the Masri suit is Keeler and Tate Management, 
a Nevada corporation that bought the Gulfstream jet shortly after the 
plane's Massachusetts connection was brought to light. It has no listed 
telephone number or physical address, and no phone number or address for 
its manager, Tyler Edward Tate, could be found.

Watt said that even if Keeler and Tate do not have a phone number, 
offices, or any employees, the company still has at least one asset that 
a court can seize to pay off damages to Masri: a plane. 

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2005/12/11/firms_get_scrutiny_over_cia_captures/
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Sun Dec 11 03:00:54 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Sun Dec 11 03:13:52 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] MUST READ: The new machismo - Joan Vennochi - Boston
	Globe Op-Ed
Message-ID: <439C06E6.9040408@comcast.net>


  The new machismo

By Joan Vennochi  |  December 11, 2005  |  The Boston Globe

IT'S MACHO time in America.

When Democrats challenge the Bush administration regarding its policy in 
Iraq, Republicans challenge their patriotism and toughness.

On Friday, the Republican National Committee released a new Web video. 
It features a white flag of surrender and this theme: ''Our country is 
at war. Our soldiers are watching, and our enemies are too. Message to 
Democrats: Retreat and Defeat is not an option." The video highlights 
recent critical comments about the Iraq war made by Howard Dean, 
chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Senator John Kerry of 
Massachusetts, and Senator Barbara Boxer of California.

In essence, to the GOP, ''staying the course" is a measure of strength 
and masculinity, whether or not the course proves to be successful. And 
some top Democrats buy into the thesis.

''When people feel uncertain, they would rather have someone who's wrong 
and strong than somebody who is weak and right," Bill Clinton said in a 
much-quoted speech to the Democratic Leadership Council in December 2002.

This ''wrong and strong" theory helped George W. Bush win reelection in 
2004. This ''wrong and strong" theory continues to help Bush at a time 
of great doubt about an unpopular war in Iraq.

When it comes to national security policy today, only the most macho of 
men can afford to show their ''sensitive" side. Senator John McCain, 
Republican of Arizona, can call for the country to renounce torture 
because of his personal credentials -- a POW who was tortured by the 
enemy during the Vietnam War. Others are labeled as weaklings and 
cowards if they suggest that stooping to the enemies' tactics is poor 
policy that so far achieved poor results.

Democrats who question administration policy regularly find their 
manhood under attack. It happened to Kerry during the last presidential 
contest, even though he was the Vietnam War veteran running against an 
opponent who served stateside in the National Guard.

Just last month, Vice President Dick Cheney thought nothing of 
questioning the backbone of Representative John P. Murtha, the 
Pennsylvania Democrat whose speech calling for a speedy withdrawal of 
troops set off a national debate. But Murtha, a Marine intelligence 
officer in Vietnam, did not take Cheney's attack quietly. He shot back 
angrily: ''I like guys who've never been there that criticize us who've 
been there. I like that. I like guys who got five deferments and never 
been there and send people to war, and then don't like to hear 
suggestions about what needs to be done."

Bush, sensing who had more machismo in this matchup, ended the hostile 
exchange by calling Murtha a fine man and a supporter of the military. 
But Democrats remain afraid of looking weak if they sound too antiwar; 
and the GOP is masterful at exploiting that fear, as the new RNC video 
demonstrates.

Take Senator Hillary Clinton of New York, whose position on Iraq is no 
immediate withdrawal, no open-ended commitment to remain there. Her 
stance infuriates Democrats on the left, a consequence which delights 
centrist Democrats. Standing up to the peaceniks is not only cool, it's 
tough. It's another variation of the Clinton-Bush credo: Wrong and 
strong beats weak and right.

Charles Knight of the Commonwealth Institute, a public policy research 
center in Cambridge, has spent time analyzing what he calls the 
''toughness discourse" in American politics, especially after 9/11. When 
it comes to national security, he says, ''tough" means ''using violence 
as a priority tool for international relations."

Backed into a corner by conservatives who equate ''liberal" with unmanly 
and weak, Democrats are buying into their opponents' definition. 
Accepting it means agreeing that a punch is the answer to every insult, 
that violence solves every dispute.

It is believing brawn always beats brains, a conclusion that defies 
logic, reason, and reality.

Toughness defined in a strictly physical way does not always achieve 
victory. Might does not make right, nor does it always make everything 
right. And it is not unmanly to say that.

Might makes right is the credo of the warrior. But there is simple power 
in right as might.

It is the power of great leaders in religion and politics, from Jesus 
Christ to Martin Luther King. Throughout history, brave men and women 
have taken the high moral ground.

Only in America today do we dare call them wimps.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/12/11/the_new_machismo/
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Sun Dec 11 03:02:41 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Sun Dec 11 03:15:41 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Out in the cold - G Naheed Usmani - Boston Globe Op-Ed
Message-ID: <439C0751.2070304@comcast.net>


  Out in the cold

By G Naheed Usmani  |  December 11, 2005  |  The Boston Globe

AS 2005 comes to a close, humanity has been reduced to a ragged, worn, 
and defeated lot. Death and suffering have become commonplace.

The year started with the tsunami, turning many New Year celebrations 
into fund-raisers as we tried to take care of this global tragedy that 
killed 200,000 and displaced one million people. Images from the 
destroyed regions flooded our homes.

Then, Katrina. In the minute-to-minute videos we saw the cries for help 
and anguish of people stranded in Louisiana, waving at the passing 
helicopters. We opened our homes and wallets to help in any way possible.

On Oct. 8, a 6 a.m. call from my brother informed me of the devastating 
earthquake, with the epicenter just 80 miles from my birthplace in 
Pakistan. As time has passed, this tragedy has continued to unfold. The 
official count of people killed has escalated to 86,000, and of people 
left homeless to 3.3 million. Rescue teams are still making first 
contact with stranded inhabitants of remote valleys.

As a pediatrician and oncologist, I fight the battle of life and death 
on a daily basis, but this tragedy affecting a whole generation of 
children has become a living nightmare. They were in their schools when 
the earthquake hit; 40,000 children may have been buried alive under the 
rubble! Another million children are at risk of dying from exposure, 
starvation, and disease. Countless are now orphans.

Physician friends who went to help have written harrowing accounts. One 
wrote: ''I have just come back from Muzaffarabad. It is the vision of 
Apocalypse. Mountains have been split almost in halves and 80 percent of 
buildings have been destroyed in this city of 200,000 people. CMH 
hospital collapsed and most doctors, nurses, and patients were buried 
alive. The stench of dead bodies is so bad that one can not walk on any 
city road without a nasal mask. People are bringing their injured . . . 
with maggots in their compound fractures."

Another account: ''I helped set up the field hospital. The major 
abdominal/thoracic injured were already dead. What we saw were heavily 
infected wounds, open fractures. I lost count of guillotine amputations 
that were done. Florid tetanus, meningitis, sepsis, pelvic fractures, 
numerous paraplegics and quadriplegics, people with jelly for spines, 
brain exuding from open skull fractures, ruptured bladders. We were busy 
from 0600 to midnight."

Parents had to abandon family members to certain death when they could 
carry only some of the injured down tortuous mountain trails to field 
hospitals. Many survivors amputated their own arms or legs with crude 
knives and saws to free themselves from collapsed buildings. Hundreds of 
women are paraplegics with broken spines because they instinctively bent 
down to protect themselves when roofs fell.

The disaster galvanized Pakistanis and South Asians worldwide. 
Volunteers poured in from around the country and the world to help. Here 
in New England, Pakistani and Indian physicians joined hands in 
fund-raising. Our wonderful patients and hospital colleagues opened 
their wallets and purses. There were drives for blankets, tents, 
medicines. Doctors from New England hospitals went to work in the 
disaster area. But our efforts are a mere drop in the bucket as winter 
arrives bringing still more hardship and death.

I have been deeply touched by the generosity of so many but am also left 
feeling that my fellow Americans do not yet comprehend the extent of 
this tragedy. American private donations for earthquake victims have 
totaled $13.1 million vs. $1.3 billion for tsunami victims, a 100 times 
difference for two not dissimilar disasters.

I find it hard to believe that we have exhausted our willingness to 
give. Could the media coverage of the disaster have a role in shaping 
our responses? Television and newspapers which kindled our humanity by 
letting us share the experiences of Katrina, and tsunami victims have 
focused on the political in their earthquake coverage. Earthquake 
stories have regularly included pictures of Osama bin Laden, who might 
be hiding somewhere in the vast mountainous region which stretches 
across Pakistan, Afghanistan, and India. Earthquake victims have somehow 
been tainted with this inappropriate and tangential association.

Thousands of orphaned children, paraplegic mothers, and poor farmers who 
are all desperately trying to survive the harsh Himalayan winter without 
shelter, warm clothing, and adequate sustenance are humanitarian, not 
political concerns. We rendered help in tsunami-affected areas without 
focusing on religious beliefs or the terrorist Bali bombings. We must 
not be robbed of our humanity by inserting politics here.

I wish the media would accord us a level of intimacy with these 
earthquake victims as it did with Katrina and tsunami victims. The world 
needs to witness their stories, so lives can be salvaged and homes 
rebuilt. If politics must enter the equation, it should only be about 
winning hearts and minds and putting America's generous, compassionate, 
caring side on display for the world. This is the season for giving. Let 
us all make a present of a holiday meal or a new life to an earthquake 
or Katrina survivor.

Dr. G Naheed Usmani is president of the Association of Pakistani 
Physicians of New England and associate professor at UMass Medical School.  

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/12/11/out_in_the_cold/
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From harry.sifton at sympatico.ca  Sun Dec 11 07:37:28 2005
From: harry.sifton at sympatico.ca (harry.sifton@sympatico.ca)
Date: Sun Dec 11 07:48:02 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Military's Information War Is Vast and
	Often Secretive
Message-ID: <20051211153728.F2EDC13B8F4@lax-gw04.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: harry.sifton@sympatico.ca.

WASHINGTON | December 11, 2005
Propaganda: Military's Information War Is Vast and Often Secretive
By JEFF GERTH
The Bush administration's costly propaganda campaign aims to counter anti-American sentiment in the Muslim world.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/11/politics/11propaganda.html?emc=eta1



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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Sun Dec 11 08:06:23 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Sun Dec 11 08:17:01 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Military's Information War Is Vast and
	Often Secretive
Message-ID: <20051211160623.5811F9FE30@lax-gw05.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: ialterman@nyc.rr.com.

WASHINGTON | December 11, 2005
Propaganda: Military's Information War Is Vast and Often Secretive
By JEFF GERTH
The Bush administration's costly propaganda campaign aims to counter anti-American sentiment in the Muslim world.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/11/politics/11propaganda.html?emc=eta1



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one Best Picture.  What did the original New York
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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Sun Dec 11 08:06:22 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Sun Dec 11 08:17:09 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Politics, Iraqi Style: Slick TV Ads,
	Text Messaging and Gunfire
Message-ID: <20051211160622.DE17F9FE16@lax-gw05.mroute.net>

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INTERNATIONAL / MIDDLE EAST | December 11, 2005
Politics, Iraqi Style: Slick TV Ads, Text Messaging and Gunfire
By ROBERT F. WORTH and EDWARD WONG
Iraq is in the final days of a campaign that is at once more ruthless and more sophisticated than anything yet seen there.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/11/international/middleeast/11campaign.html?emc=eta1



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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Sun Dec 11 08:07:01 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Sun Dec 11 08:17:35 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Villagers Tell of Lethal Attack by Chinese
	Forces on Protesters
Message-ID: <20051211160701.0B9A513B8F2@lax-gw04.mroute.net>

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INTERNATIONAL / ASIA PACIFIC | December 10, 2005
Villagers Tell of Lethal Attack by Chinese Forces on Protesters
By HOWARD W. FRENCH
Residents of Dongzhou, China, said that police continued to make arrests and bar outsiders from their hamlet.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/10/international/asia/11china-web.html?emc=eta1



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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Sun Dec 11 08:07:30 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Sun Dec 11 08:18:06 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: As NATO Forces Ease Role of G.I.'s in
	Afghanistan, the Taliban Steps Up Attacks
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They're ba-a-a-ck!


INTERNATIONAL / ASIA PACIFIC | December 11, 2005
As NATO Forces Ease Role of G.I.'s in Afghanistan, the Taliban Steps Up Attacks
By CARLOTTA GALL
By June or July, the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force will become the main military force in Afghanistan, allowing a reduction in the overall U.S. presence.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/11/international/asia/11kandahar.html?emc=eta1



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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Sun Dec 11 08:07:55 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Sun Dec 11 08:18:28 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] 
	NYTimes.com: Rice's Visit: Official Praise, Public Doubts
Message-ID: <20051211160755.6EB7B13B8EB@lax-gw04.mroute.net>

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INTERNATIONAL / EUROPE | December 11, 2005
News Analysis: Rice's Visit: Official Praise, Public Doubts
By RICHARD BERNSTEIN
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's reassurances on torture eased the fears of some European leaders, but not all.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/11/international/europe/11rice.html?emc=eta1



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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Sun Dec 11 08:08:30 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Sun Dec 11 08:19:07 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Glacial Gains in Global Talks on Cleaner Air
Message-ID: <20051211160830.1E674237312@lax-gw01.mroute.net>

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INTERNATIONAL / AMERICAS | December 11, 2005
News Analysis: Glacial Gains in Global Talks on Cleaner Air
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
The United Nations conference on climate change ended with only a modest agreement to keep talking about how to proceed.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/11/international/americas/11climate.html?emc=eta1



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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Sun Dec 11 08:09:02 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Sun Dec 11 08:19:35 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: At F.B.I.,
	Frustration Over Limits on an Antiterror Law
Message-ID: <20051211160902.956E024B059@lax-gw02.mroute.net>

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NATIONAL / THREATS AND RESPONSES | December 11, 2005
At F.B.I., Frustration Over Limits on an Antiterror Law
By ERIC LICHTBLAU
Some agents have been frustrated by what they see as the Justice Department's reluctance to let them demand records in terrorism cases.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/11/national/nationalspecial3/11patriot.html?emc=eta1



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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Sun Dec 11 08:10:31 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Sun Dec 11 08:21:04 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: He Says Yes to Legalized Torture
Message-ID: <20051211161031.0D1A813B8C5@lax-gw04.mroute.net>

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Frighteningly, Krauthammer's first hypothetical scenario supports his view very well... 


WEEK IN REVIEW | December 11, 2005
The Nation: He Says Yes to Legalized Torture
By ANNE E. KORNBLUT
In the debate over torture, as in so many others, Charles Krauthammer found himself at the nexus of debate among conservatives.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/11/weekinreview/11kornblut.html?emc=eta1



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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Sun Dec 11 08:10:53 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Sun Dec 11 08:21:25 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: The Siren Song of Sex With Boys
Message-ID: <20051211161053.D2FE5249E1C@lax-gw08.mroute.net>

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An interesting, if lesser, issue...


WEEK IN REVIEW | December 11, 2005
Ideas & Trends: The Siren Song of Sex With Boys
By KATE ZERNIKE
When women face prison for having sex with boys, questions are raised about where to set the age of consent.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/11/weekinreview/11zern.html?emc=eta1



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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Sun Dec 11 08:11:30 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Sun Dec 11 08:22:01 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Russia Tries P.R. to Brighten Its Dismal
	Image
Message-ID: <20051211161130.744392373D2@lax-gw01.mroute.net>

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See second entry ("I'm OK, You're OK").


WEEK IN REVIEW | December 11, 2005
Reading File: Russia Tries P.R. to Brighten Its Dismal Image
By THE NEW YORK TIMES
The Web site for Foreign Policy magazine has an essay that looks at how Russia under President Vladimir V. Putin is working on its image.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/11/weekinreview/11read.html?emc=eta1



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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Sun Dec 11 08:12:19 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Sun Dec 11 08:22:51 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Death of an American City
Message-ID: <20051211161219.2EA4A249DCB@lax-gw08.mroute.net>

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OPINION | December 11, 2005
Editorial: Death of an American City

We in New York remember well what it was like for the country to rally around our city in a desperate hour. New York survived and has flourished. New Orleans can too.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/11/opinion/11sun1.html?emc=eta1




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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Sun Dec 11 08:12:52 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Sun Dec 11 08:23:28 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Iraq,
	New Orleans and Bush's Promises (3 Letters)
Message-ID: <20051211161252.D273C249E56@lax-gw08.mroute.net>

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What we're saying...


OPINION | December 11, 2005
Iraq, New Orleans and Bush's Promises (3 Letters)

To the Editor:.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/11/opinion/l11krugman.html?emc=eta1




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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Sun Dec 11 08:13:09 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Sun Dec 11 08:23:41 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: U.N. Reform
Message-ID: <20051211161309.36BCB9FE24@lax-gw05.mroute.net>

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What we're saying (2)...


OPINION | December 11, 2005
U.N. Reform

To the Editor:.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/11/opinion/l11nations.html?emc=eta1




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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Sun Dec 11 08:14:30 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Sun Dec 11 08:25:05 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Present at the Disintegration
Message-ID: <20051211161430.BB7C913B80D@lax-gw04.mroute.net>

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OPINION | December 11, 2005
Op-Ed Contributor: Present at the Disintegration
By KANAN MAKIYA
As I've seen as a participant in political discussions both before and after the war in Iraq, we Iraqis have failed to lay the ground for a new order.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/11/opinion/11makiya.html?emc=eta1




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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Sun Dec 11 08:16:26 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Sun Dec 11 08:26:59 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Las Vegas Nearing Its Water Allotment From
	the Colorado
Message-ID: <20051211161626.93036249F13@lax-gw08.mroute.net>

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This is not a small matter. Because while the world worries about oil, the far more serious problem is water.


NATIONAL | December 11, 2005
Las Vegas Nearing Its Water Allotment From the Colorado
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
LAS VEGAS, Dec. 10 (AP) - The booming Las Vegas area's water demands could outstrip the region's share of the Colorado River by 2007, according to the 2006 water budget approved by the Southern Nevada Water Authority board this week.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/11/national/11vegas.html?emc=eta1



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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Sun Dec 11 08:27:18 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (Ian)
Date: Sun Dec 11 10:06:40 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Re: REPLY TO VERY CONTROVERSIAL
References: <BFC0CBE8.26AD6%michael@michaelbutler.com>
Message-ID: <E1ElVQV-0001XG-16@elasmtp-kukur.atl.sa.earthlink.net>

Hayden:

First, hello, and I hope all is well with you and Yitka.

I want to applaud your basic premise here, one which I have tried, almost 
always unsuccessfully, to get across to people who worry about the 
"destruction of the earth" via pollution, environmental disaster, etc.

Nothing we puny humans can do can possibly "destroy" the earth - in any way 
at all.  The earth has been here for 5 billion years, and no matter how much 
we "damage" it - poison its land, air and water, and even engage in a 
nuclear war leading to the annhilation of humankind - the earth will, over 
time, heal itself.

As you note, what we SHOULD be worried about is destroying OURSELVES.

This is why I have always felt that, while it is a fine thing to be an 
environmentalist and seek to protect the land, air and water, the 
environmental movement would meet with far more success if they "told the 
real truth," which is that we are causing OUR OWN demise, not that of the 
planet.  Because, frankly, the average Joe (or Jane) doesn't care one whit 
for the planet itself (okay, maybe I'm being slightly unkind...).  However, 
they might care - just a tad more - for their own lives and those of their 
children and their children's children (though even THIS is not always the 
case...)

Bravo to you.

Peace.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Michael Butler" <michael@michaelbutler.com>
To: "Ian Alterman" <ialterman@nyc.rr.com>
Sent: Saturday, December 10, 2005 6:16 PM
Subject: FW: REPLY TO VERY CONTROVERSIAL


>
> ------ Forwarded Message
> From: "hayden wayne" <haydenwayne@hotmail.com>
> Date: Sat, 10 Dec 2005 13:52:43 +0000
> To: michael@michaelbutler.com
> Subject: RE: REPLY TO VERY CONTROVERSIAL
>
>
> Dear Michael:
>
> I hadn't replied to your e-mail because I didn't think it needed replying.
> But now with Ian's ... I have to say ...
>
> What's the point not wanting to be in a place of Satwa. Why would any
> creature not want to believe that we are part of a greater whole and thus,
> by recognizing this connection, and the subsequent responsibility to stay
> connected and synergistically opened, that we have no other choice but to
> patiently stay the course and, as our duty, try to educate as many as we
> possibly can. Otherwise, we are doomed as a race, a species, a living
> organism.
>
> Does the human race really believe that Mother Nature gives a rats ass if 
> we
> destroy ourselves. She will only replenish the earth in some additional
> millions or billions of years. WE are what is inconsequential. The only
> thing that will prove to give man any real purpose, is his enlightened
> understanding that creating, and specifically creating a Satwic resolve is
> to keep  Entire Consciousness, where with us or without us, it continues,
> fulfilling its master plan.
>
> Love,
>
> Hayden
>
>
>
> ------ End of Forwarded Message
> 


From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Sun Dec 11 09:23:17 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (Ian)
Date: Sun Dec 11 10:20:13 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Reply
Message-ID: <E1ElVdc-0000mP-Pd@elasmtp-kukur.atl.sa.earthlink.net>

Dear Judy and Kevin:

First, it is clear from the way Pascal writes the statement that he is referring to "harm" to the individual, and not on an external, "collective" basis.  So while you may be correct that harm is done "in the name of God" whether or not one believes in Him, you are incorrect in your interpretation of Pascal's statements.

That said, you are quite correct that killing in the name of God has always been rampant.  There are Old Testament stories relating how God told the Jews to go into particular towns and villages and kill everyone, including women and children.  The Crusades and the Inquisition were examples of "wars" being fought in the name of the Christian God.  And the media every day brings us news of the atrocities (suicide bombings, etc.) committed by Muslims in the name of Allah.

So, yes, killing in the name of God has been rampant throughout history.  However, the facts above require a little bit more parsing before we can accept them at face value.

In the case of the Jews, the stories of God telling them to kill entire villages full of people are related exactly that way: God told them to do it.  In the case of the Muslims, they, too, refer to the Qur'an's passages relating to "jihad" against the "infidels" to support their actions.

However, this has never been the case with Christianity.  There is nothing in the New Testament - not a single word - that would support what occurred during the Crusades, Inquisition, etc.  Nor did those who carried them out refer to specific Scriptural passages to support their cause.  That is, there is nothing in the New Testament about promised lands, jihads, infidels, etc.

Rather, what they did was to infer from the Scripture that the Jews had been responsible for the death of Christ, so the Jews were were "Christ-killers" and should be killed themselves.  However, even this was an "afterthought." The primary motive for the Crusades was to "liberate" Jerusalem from its occupation (which included Muslims but not, obviously, Jews).  Killing the Jews became a "convenient" (and to them "appropriate") sidebar.

Essentially, what occurred during the Crusades (particularly) was that Christianity was "hijacked" by a relatively small group of people who were deliberately misinterpreting the Scripture in order to justify what was clearly an un-Christian action.  As well, the number of people actually involved in the Crusades and Inquisition was relatively small compared to the number of Christians at that time.

I am not attempting to play semantics to excuse what occurred.  However, it is critical that you understand that, unlike the Jewish and Muslim texts, the Christian text does not have a single word that would support the killing of anyone in the name of God or Christ.  Indeed, re the Jews, one need only read Romans 11 to understand that, from the Christian perspective, the Jews were to be revered, since (among other reasons) Jesus was a Jew, and Christianity is only a "branch" on the "tree" whose root is Judaism.

As well, although historically you are correct, let us look at the present.  True, Israel is engaged in back-and-forth "actions" with the Palestinians.  Yet, however, you view the creation of the State of Israel, the Israeli actions are always "in response," are rarely if ever "pre-emptive," and attempt (admittedly not always successfully) to target specific people or places.  After all, have you ever heard of a Jewish suicide bomber?  On the other hand, actions taken by the Palestinians are almost always "pre-emptive" (i.e., unprovoked by specific actions of the Israelis), and almost always target public places, and thus the civilian population.

Thus, other than "retaliating" for Palestinian atrocities, the Jews no longer engage in war or violence "because God told them to."

As for Christianity, I think I am on safe and unarguable ground to say that not only has the Christian God not been "used" to support violence or killing on His behalf (with the exception of those few rabid right-wing Christians who think the war on terror is a the equivalent of a "crusade") , but that Christians as a whole are not only non-violent, but are always the first to respond in times of crisis, including going into the middle of wars abroad to bring water, food, comfort, etc.  Certainly you would agree that there is no such thing as a "Christian suicide bomber," or anything even close.

Re Islam, what is occurring today is similar to what occurred during the Crusades: Islam has been "hijacked" by a comparatively small number of radically fundamental imams who are taking passages from the Qur'an out of context to support an extremely narrow and violent view.  I have read the Qur'an - three times.  So I can tell you without fear of rebuttal that it is not what the fundamentalist imams would have their people believe.

Very briefly, the word "jihad" has three meanings in Arabic.  The primary meaning - used in at least 80% of cases in the text - means "internal struggle"; i.e., a person's personal, private struggle to live up to the precepts of the faith - the four primary ones of which are peace, compassion, brotherhood and community.  The secondary meaning of "jihad" is "holy war," and this is used in perhaps 10% of the text.  Yet even here, the majority of uses are "historical," and not applicable to the present.  Only perhaps 10%-25% of that 10% is used in the sense of a current or future holy war - and even then the application of those passages is dependent upon things said before and after them.  (The third meaning of "jihad" is somewhat obscure, and is used in about 10% of the text).

So currently, the only "faith" that engages in open, aggressive, violent action "in the name of God" is Islam.  No one is being killed in the name of the Jewish or Christian Gods.

Finally, it is simply not true - historically or otherwise - that more people have been killed in the name of religion than for any other cause.  That is a canard that has become "rote," but has never been true.

To begin with, the number of people killed under the atheist regimes of Stalin, Mao and Hitler alone far exceeds the number killed in the name of religion.  The estimated number killed under those three atheist regimes alone is between 100,000,000 and 150,000,000 (for half of which Stalin is solely responsible).  This is at least twice the number estimated to have been killed in the name of religion during the entire course of history.

However, setting that aside, the number one cause of violence and unnecessary death throughout history has been politics, particularly as it relates to economics.  More hunger, poverty, disease, strife, and death have come about from the politico-economic policies of rulers and governments than all other causes combined.

Indeed, one need only look at two examples in the U.S. alone - a country with a mere 250-year history - to see this.

As a result of politics, economics and general hubris, we engaged in the largest genocide in the history of the world when we slaughtered an estimated 80,000,000 Native Americans.  No single atrocity in the history of mankind comes even close to this.  Shortly thereafter, we engaged in a slave trade which led to the deaths of an estimated 50,000,000 to 100,000,000 Africans.  Thus, just between these two, we caused the deaths of some 150,000,000to 180,000,000 people.  And that's just in the U.S., and only in the last 200 years.  We have not even begun talking about Asia, Europe and Africa, where there have been genocides, ethnic cleansings and other atrocities that have killed tens if not hundreds of millions of others - all in the name of politics, economics and other non-religion-based causes.

Forgive me if I sound flip, but a little knowledge of history goes a long way.  Again, there are no excuses for the atrocities caused in the name of God and religion.  But to single that out for opprobrium is simply ignoring the facts of history - which show, without argument, that far more people have died under atheist regimes, and in the name of politics and economics, than have died as a result of misguided faith.

Peace.
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From michael at intrafi.com  Sun Dec 11 10:17:27 2005
From: michael at intrafi.com (michael@intrafi.com)
Date: Sun Dec 11 10:28:08 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Accepting Nobel,
	ElBaradei Urges a Rethinking of Nuclear Strategy
Message-ID: <20051211181727.4F9593AE725@lax-gw06.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: michael@intrafi.com.

INTERNATIONAL / EUROPE | December 11, 2005
Accepting Nobel, ElBaradei Urges a Rethinking of Nuclear Strategy
By WALTER GIBBS
The director of the U.N.'s nuclear monitoring agency said that the world should stop treating the nuclear ambitions of Iran and North Korea as isolated cases.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/11/international/europe/11oslo.html?emc=eta1



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From michael at intrafi.com  Sun Dec 11 10:34:09 2005
From: michael at intrafi.com (michael@intrafi.com)
Date: Sun Dec 11 10:44:44 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: It Takes a Potemkin Village
Message-ID: <20051211183409.24A4683DF5@lax-gw03.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: michael@intrafi.com.

OPINION | December 11, 2005
Op-Ed Columnist: It Takes a Potemkin Village
By FRANK RICH
Since we don't get honest information from this White House, we must instead, as the Soviets once did, decode our rulers' fictions to discern what's really happening.
http://select.nytimes.com/2005/12/11/opinion/11rich.html?emc=eta1




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From michael at intrafi.com  Sun Dec 11 10:39:35 2005
From: michael at intrafi.com (michael@intrafi.com)
Date: Sun Dec 11 10:50:09 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Bush Meets St. Peter
Message-ID: <20051211183935.267AB3AE76E@lax-gw06.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: michael@intrafi.com.

OPINION | December 11, 2005
Op-Ed Columnist: Bush Meets St. Peter
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
As for the "war on Christmas," heaven has other priorities.
http://select.nytimes.com/2005/12/11/opinion/11kristof.html?emc=eta1




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From michael at intrafi.com  Sun Dec 11 10:43:34 2005
From: michael at intrafi.com (michael@intrafi.com)
Date: Sun Dec 11 10:54:08 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Death of an American City
Message-ID: <20051211184334.3E9219FE10@lax-gw05.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: michael@intrafi.com.

OPINION | December 11, 2005
Editorial: Death of an American City

We in New York remember well what it was like for the country to rally around our city in a desperate hour. New York survived and has flourished. New Orleans can too.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/11/opinion/11sun1.html?emc=eta1




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From michael at intrafi.com  Sun Dec 11 10:46:05 2005
From: michael at intrafi.com (michael@intrafi.com)
Date: Sun Dec 11 10:56:37 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Present at the Disintegration
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This page was sent to you by: michael@intrafi.com.

OPINION | December 11, 2005
Op-Ed Contributor: Present at the Disintegration
By KANAN MAKIYA
As I've seen as a participant in political discussions both before and after the war in Iraq, we Iraqis have failed to lay the ground for a new order.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/11/opinion/11makiya.html?emc=eta1




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From fotoblue at flash.net  Sun Dec 11 12:31:04 2005
From: fotoblue at flash.net (fotoblue@flash.net)
Date: Sun Dec 11 13:35:27 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] RE: [Mb-hair] Richard Pryor, mb-hair@islandlists.com
Message-ID: <380-220051201120314507@M2W068.mail2web.com>


Wish I knew what he is finding out today!

Dagmar

Original Message:
-----------------
From: Barbara Siomos barbarasiomos38@msn.com
Date: Sun, 11 Dec 2005 06:02:33 GMT
To: mb-civic@islandlists.com, mb-hair@islandlists.com
Subject: [Mb-hair] Richard Pryor


Folks Richard Pryor died this morning!

Sad day.

R.I.P. Richard you were a treasure and one of a kind.

peace,
barbara


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From harry.sifton at sympatico.ca  Sun Dec 11 13:57:52 2005
From: harry.sifton at sympatico.ca (harry.sifton@sympatico.ca)
Date: Sun Dec 11 14:08:27 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] The Observer: MI6 and CIA 'sent student to Morocco to be
	tortured'
Message-ID: <20051211215752.B02FF8518E@mussel.gul3.gnl>

Harry spotted this on the The Observer site and thought you should see it.

-------
Note from Harry:

This is not a good article to read. This whole legal thing that if they are tortured there, then we are are not accountable is so so wrong!
-------

To see this story with its related links on the The Observer site, go to http://www.observer.co.uk

MI6 and CIA 'sent student to Morocco to be tortured'
An Ethiopian claims that his confession to al-Qaeda bomb plot was signed after beatings, reports David Rose in New York
Sunday December 11 2005
The Observer


An Ethiopian student who lived in London claims that he was brutally tortured with the involvement of British and US intelligence agencies.

Binyam Mohammed, 27, says he spent nearly three years in the CIA's network of 'black sites'. In Morocco he claims he underwent the strappado torture of being hung for hours from his wrists, and scalpel cuts to his chest and penis and that a CIA officer was a regular interrogator.

After his capture in Pakistan, Mohammed says British officials warned him that he would be sent to a country where torture was used. Moroccans also asked him detailed questions about his seven years in London, which his lawyers believe came from British sources.

Western agencies believed that he was part of a plot to buy uranium in Asia, bring it to the US and build a 'dirty bomb' in league with Jose Padilla, a US citizen. Mohammed signed a confession but told his lawyer, Clive Stafford Smith, he had never met Padilla, or anyone in al-Qaeda. Padilla spent almost four years in American custody, accused of the plot. Last month, after allegations of the torture used against Mohammed emerged, the claims against Padilla were dropped. He now faces a civil charge of supporting al-Qaeda financially.

A senior US intelligence official told The Observer that the CIA is now in 'deep crisis' following last week's international political storm over the agency's practice of 'extraordinary rendition' - transporting suspects to countries where they face torture. 'The smarter people in the Directorate of Operations [the CIA's clandestine operational arm] know that one day, if they do this stuff, they are going to face indictment,' he said. 'They are simply refusing to participate in these operations, and if they don't have big mortgage or tuition fees to pay they're thinking about trying to resign altogether.'

Already 22 CIA officers have been charged in absentia in Italy for alleged roles in the rendition of a radical cleric, Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, seized - without the knowledge of the Italian government - on a Milan street in February 2003.

The intense pressure on US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice last week, coupled with Friday's condemnation of the use of evidence extracted under torture by the House of Lords, has intensified concerns within the CIA. The official said: 'Renditions and torture aren't just wrong, they also expose CIA personnel and diplomats abroad to enormous future risk.'

Mohammed arrived in Britain in 1994. He lived in Wornington Road, North Kensington, and studied at Paddington Green College. For most of this time, said his brother, he rarely went to a mosque. However, in early 2001 he became more religious.

The Observer has obtained fresh details of his case which was first publicised last summer. He went to Pakistan in June 2001 because, he says, he had a drug problem and wanted to kick the habit. He was arrested on 10 April at the airport on his way back to England because of an alleged passport irregularity. Initially interrogated by Pakistani and British officials, he told Stafford Smith: 'The British checked out my story and said they knew I was a nobody. They said they would tell the Americans.'

He was questioned by the FBI and began to hear accusations of terror involvement. He says he also met two MI6 officers. One told him he would be tortured in an Arab country.

The interrogations intensified and he says he was taken to Islamabad; then, in July 2002, on a CIA flight to Morocco. His description of the process matches independent reports. Masked officers wore black. They stripped him, subjected him to a full body search and shackled him to his seat wearing a nappy.

In Morocco he was told he had plotted with Padilla and had dinner in Pakistan with Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the planner of 9/11, and other al-Qaeda chiefs. 'I've never met anyone like these people,' Mohammed told Stafford Smith. 'How could I? I speak no Arabic... I never heard Padilla's name until they told me.'

During almost 18 months of regular beatings in Morocco, Mohammed says he frequently met a blonde woman in her thirties who told him she was Canadian. The US intelligence officer told The Observer this was an 'amateurish' CIA cover. 'The only Americans who historically pretended to be Canadian were backpackers travelling in Europe during the Vietnam war. Apart from the moral issues, what disturbs me is that, as an attempt to create plausible deniability, this is so damn transparent.'

According to Mohammed, he was threatened with electrocution and rape. On one occasion, he was handcuffed when three men entered his cell wearing black masks. 'That day I ceased really knowing I was alive. One stood on each of my shoulders and a third punched me in the stomach. It seemed to go on for hours. I was meant to stand, but I was in so much pain I'd fall to my knees. They'd pull me back up and hit me again. They'd kick me in the thighs as I got up. I could see the hands that were hitting me... like the hands of someone who'd worked as a mechanic or chopped with an axe.'

Later he was confronted with details of his London life - such as the name of his kickboxing teacher - and met a Moroccan calling himself Marwan, who ordered him to be hung by his wrists. 'They hit me in the chest, the stomach, and they knocked my feet from under me. I have a shoulder pain to this day from the wrenching as my arms were almost pulled out of their sockets.'

Another time, he told Stafford Smith: 'They took a scalpel to my right chest. It was only a small cut. Then they cut my left chest. One of them took my penis in his hand and began to make cuts. He did it once, and they stood still for maybe a minute watching. I was in agony, crying, trying desperately to suppress myself, but I was screaming... They must have done this 20 to 30 times in maybe two hours. There was blood all over.'

In September he was taken to Guantanamo Bay where he has been charged with involvement in al-Qaeda plots and faces trial there by military commission. Stafford Smith said: 'I am unaware of any evidence against him other than that extracted under torture.'

The Foreign Office, the Moroccan Embassy and the CIA refused to comment yesterday.

Copyright Guardian Newspapers Limited
From swiggard at comcast.net  Mon Dec 12 03:50:39 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Mon Dec 12 04:05:03 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Tracing Iraq's Painful Arc,
 From the Past to the Future - Washington Post
Message-ID: <439D640F.6060309@comcast.net>

Tracing Iraq's Painful Arc, From the Past to the Future
A Professor's Life Is Bound in the Fortunes, Frustrations of His Country

By Anthony Shadid
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, December 12, 2005; A18

BAGHDAD -- The doors of Wamidh Nadhme's stately house along the Tigris 
River open to the discord of today's Iraq. In his neighborhood of 
Adhamiyah, a campaign poster for Ahmed Chalabi, the often-reinvented 
U.S. ally, proclaims, "We liberated Iraq." Another slogan declares a 
vote in Thursday's election "a nail in the coffin of the occupation." 
Congesting the streets are the other promises for a country on a 
precipice: prosperity, security, stability or, in the simple words of 
one, "a better life."

"In the past, I used to see things more clearly," said Nadhme, a burly, 
64-year-old professor of political science with short-cropped gray hair 
and a cough from a lifelong cigarette habit, as he sat at his home. "But 
now I'm getting confused."

Nadhme is a Sunni Muslim, though he would identify himself as such only 
after a series of insistent qualifications. He is an Arab, but he 
eschews the chauvinism that colors Arab culture's most nationalist 
currents. He is an Iraqi first and foremost, he likes to say. He utters 
the word with pride, as though it justifies a lifetime of sacrifices, 
challenges and compromises: the torture he endured as a young activist, 
years of sometimes lonely exile in Egypt, a precarious, admittedly odd 
protection under Saddam Hussein that allowed him to speak out at the 
height of the Baath Party's tyranny, and a determination since then to 
salvage his country's future.

In three years of conversations, beginning before the U.S. invasion of 
March 2003, Nadhme has gone from hope, underlined by suspicion, to 
anger, resignation and, often these days, despair. It would probably go 
too far to call his beliefs representative of all Sunnis' opinions ahead 
of this week's vote to choose a new parliament. His words are too 
careful -- sometimes soulful, always precise, delivered in the didactic 
cadence of a teacher. His feelings are too conflicted, often too 
nuanced. But in his sentiments is a tale of the fortunes, frustrations 
and sense of siege of his community, forced these days, sometimes 
reluctantly, to organize itself solely around the axis of sect, in a 
country whose borders between Shiite Arab, Sunni Arab and Kurd are ever 
hardening.

Nadhme laments that future. He still chafes at the U.S. occupation. He 
dismisses the prospect of the coming election as a force for 
reconciliation. And he cringes at the prospect, however remote, of an 
eventual victory by insurgents.

To make sense of it all, he recalls a line he has uttered often these 
years: "Wrong beginnings tend to lead to wrong ends." And he falls back 
on the hope that springs from his identity as an Iraqi: reconciliation 
that will create a homeland for all, rather than a country in name only. 
In his house, as the sound of occasional gunfire and the melancholy call 
to prayer drift through an open door, he pondered that fading hope. Even 
he wonders whether his words are a relic of the past or a voice for the 
future.

Nadhme paused, letting the silence accent his uncertainty. He sat back 
in his chair, his moustache melting into a beard of a few days. He was 
tired, recovering from a hospital stay this fall. His doctor had told 
him to quit smoking; he had cut down from two packs to 15 cigarettes a 
day. The doctor had told him to exercise -- a daily walk, perhaps -- but 
it was too dangerous to stroll through the streets.

In all, the professor admitted feeling glum. "It is partly because of 
the heart attack," he said, relishing one of the cigarettes that his 
children were rationing, "but more than that, I'm depressed because I 
can't find a way out, an exit, from this whole problem."

A Political Life

The son of a government official and member of parliament, Nadhme 
entered politics young. He was drawn to communism and nationalism, 
ideologies shaped less by sect and ethnicity than by the currents 
redefining the Third World at the time: class and colonialism. In 1956, 
at age 15, he joined the party that would one day become Hussein's, the 
Baath Party. The party was radical, secular and modernizing, and its 
platform stood on two pillars: Arab unity and socialism, seen by some as 
a way to redistribute the oil wealth transforming the Middle East. In 
those days, the party had yet to be corrupted by time in power.

Nadhme endured the consequences of his activism. At age 20, imprisoned 
on suspicion of subversion, he was tortured so badly that, on his 
release, he began carrying a gun. He vowed never to be taken alive 
again. He went underground. In time, he chose exile in Egypt, beginning 
an academic career that culminated with his dissertation on the 1920 
revolt against the British, a revolt that has emerged as the modern 
country's founding myth. He returned permanently to Iraq in 1974.

In Egypt, he had made an acquaintance that shadowed his later years. In 
October 1959, a group of young Baathists -- Hussein among them -- 
ambushed the car of Iraq's leader. The assassination attempt in Baghdad 
failed, but some of the assailants escaped and eventually made their way 
to Cairo. Nadhme met their bus coming from the Cairo airport and brought 
Hussein and another conspirator to his modest apartment. Hussein stayed 
three nights, then went off on his own, but he and Nadhme remained 
acquaintances.

In 1960, when Hussein had his tonsils taken out at Cairo's Kasr al-Aini 
hospital, Nadhme thought it proper to pay his fellow Iraqi a visit. He 
was the only one to do so, and he stayed until Hussein awoke from the 
anesthesia. Nadhme's face was the first he saw. Hussein apparently 
remembered the gesture, even after Nadhme left the party, disillusioned, 
in 1961.

"It was really accidental," Nadhme recalled. "I usually don't like 
waking up early in the morning. But I thought, you know, he's by 
himself, so I went to the hospital. Perhaps this is one of the reasons 
why Saddam did not cut off my head."

On the Eve of War

Nadhme wonders if he was somehow protected by the experience and credits 
it with his own willingness to speak openly, sometimes startlingly so, 
in those days before the U.S. invasion. One such conversation took place 
after Hussein freed all prisoners on Oct. 20, 2002. The amnesty 
unleashed its own dynamic: Two days later, a protest erupted in Baghdad, 
organized by relatives of prisoners who never emerged and who had 
probably been killed in custody.

The defiance was unprecedented. "I have never heard of it," an excited 
Nadhme kept repeating then, shaking his head at the idea of a protest. 
The events seemed to embolden him. The government, Nadhme went on, was 
"utterly unpopular." He was tired of wars for "dignity, pride and conceit."

"I have always thought that one day people will have their say, and I 
hoped I would live to see people force their will on these regimes," he 
said. "What I hope is that it will be civilized, rational and will not 
lead to civil war and unnecessary violence."

In those days, the U.S. invasion was imminent, as was its consequence -- 
Hussein's fall and an eventual occupation. Haggard already, Baghdad was 
becoming accustomed to war -- with Iran, the United States and against 
its own people. Nadhme's hope for change notwithstanding, he was 
suspicious of American intentions, fearful of the conflict's aftermath.

"I won't hide my feelings -- the American invasion has nothing to do 
with democracy and human rights. It is basically an angry response to 
the survival of Saddam Hussein, and it has something to do with oil 
interests in the area," he said then. "It will bring more destruction, 
more civil war, and a nationalist war against American intervention in 
the internal affairs of Iraqis."

"This is not politics," he said. "This is a circus."

An Occupation

Baghdad's fall on April 9, 2003, shamed Nadhme. A capital that embodied 
a country, a country that represented his identity, had fallen to 
foreigners with barely a fight. His words echoed sentiments some Arabs 
express about the brief 1967 war with Israel: humiliation at their own 
weakness.

"I prefer to be shot than to cooperate with the invaders," he said in 
those days.

He looked out his window as a haze of pollution and shimmering heat 
settled over the river. Looting engulfed the capital, exacting far more 
damage than the invasion did. U.S. soldiers in armor barreled through 
his neighborhood of Adhamiyah, the last to surrender. For the first time 
since his activist youth, he was carrying a pistol. It was not bravado; 
he felt he had to defend himself.

"How did we allow such a perversion to come and why couldn't the country 
reform the regime of Saddam or put an end to it except by the coming of 
foreign troops?" he said. "It's a very sad situation in Iraq. Really."

An Elusive Unity

As the months passed in 2003 and into 2004, Nadhme's anger faded. He 
resigned himself to the reality of the U.S. presence. He became the 
leader of the Arab Nationalist Trend and served as a spokesman for a 
coalition of Sunni and Shiite groups opposed to the occupation. He 
worked as the editor in chief of a weekly newspaper. But in those 
months, what had replaced his fury was a gloomier sentiment. His anger 
had turned to grief, and his grief was reflective.

"The Americans have opened a Pandora's box," he said.

Even before the war, Nadhme held Hussein responsible for the wreckage of 
Iraq's body politic. Its destruction, he feared, meant that people were 
speaking not in the interests of the country, but rather on behalf of 
their communities. Compromise was a foreign word, the culture too 
brutalized to embrace it; everything, to him, seemed a zero-sum game.

When people criticize Hussein, Nadhme said in the spring of 2004, they 
are accused of being American apologists. When people criticize the 
occupation, he said, they are called puppets of Hussein.

"Both arguments are wrong," Nadhme said. "It is true some people came on 
top of American tanks. It is true that some people benefited from 
Saddam. But there are a lot of people who fit in neither category."

Nadhme was particularly grim on that spring day. A friend and former 
student of his, Abdel-Latif Mayah, a professor at Mustansariya 
University in Baghdad, had been assassinated a short time before. The 
killing was well planned. Eight people, their faces covered, stopped his 
car. They ordered Mayah into the street, then pumped 35 bullets into his 
body. No one knew why.

"I have stopped believing that Iraqis are capable of sorting out these 
problems," Nadhme said. "Fanatics are growing on every side -- Shiites, 
Sunnis and Kurds. Most of the problems are solvable. But we need 
political leaders of charisma, wise judgment, foresight and tolerance. 
Unfortunately, we don't have such leaders." He dragged on his cigarette, 
a long ash hanging precariously over his lap.

"Who is going to be the catalyst of this unity?" he asked.

A Vote for the Nation?

In the January election, hardly a campaign poster was visible in 
Nadhme's neighborhood. Few voted, for fear of reprisals or in adherence 
to a boycott called by Sunni Arab political figures and clerics. Nadhme 
stayed home.

Today, campaign posters blanket Adhamiyah -- on billboards, along 
lampposts, plastered over a statue in Antar Square and draped between 
palm trees. To the most optimistic in the country, they are a sign of 
the inclusion of Sunni Arabs in a political process still shadowed by 
the U.S. presence. Nadhme says he may vote this time.

But there is a desperate feel to the slogans, crafted as they are in an 
interim, between Hussein's fall and the future, that somehow feels 
permanent. "Vote for the unity of Iraq . . . its land, people and 
future," reads a yellow banner draped across the Abu Hanifa mosque.

Before the invasion, the world Nadhme had known for decades was 
crumbling. The prospect imbued him with hope and fear. In its aftermath, 
the presence of foreign troops in his city humiliated and bewildered 
him. Ahead of the election, his country's future is in all likelihood 
being written again; as he sat in his home, recuperating, he was simply 
unsure of what that history would say. "Perhaps I was never optimistic 
about the future," he said, sipping a small cup of coffee.

As for many in Baghdad, there is a menace to life. The danger lingers, 
shading routine. Mayah was among the first he knew to be killed. More 
than 100 have followed. He wonders about his own safety -- men of less 
history, of less stature have been killed.

"You just go down the drain, as you say it in America," Nadhme said.

As he talked, the weary generator gave out. Darkness cloaked the house. 
The conversation remained seamless.

"I fear for my children more than I fear for my life. I've had a long 
life, a risky and difficult one. Now, I would like to know who is going 
to kill me," he said. He laughed, then grinned. "At least to punish him 
in heaven or hell, or whatever it might be."

Nadhme remains a man of nuance, of the unexpected comment. He calls 
himself neutral about Hussein's trial in the U.S.-guarded Green Zone. 
The court itself is illegitimate, he said, formed under occupation. But 
the former Iraqi leader has to be held accountable for his crimes. 
Nadhme views insurgent attacks on U.S. troops as legitimate, what some 
Sunnis call "honorable resistance." But his greatest worry is an 
insurgent victory, a possibility dismissed less in Iraq than in the 
United States.

"My persistent fear is that the resistance will win," Nadhme said. "And 
at that time, I will be scared of the revenge they will take on the 
Shiites and the Kurds. This is going to lead us into a vicious circle -- 
of perhaps having a unified country, but not a homeland, in the sense of 
people existing together, tolerating each other, accepting each other."

A homeland -- the word sits at the intersection of Nadhme's views today. 
He never identifies himself as a Sunni Muslim. He is an Iraqi. And he 
bristles at the growing identification along communal lines. It is a 
process he believes was unleashed by the occupation and its import of 
formerly exiled parties. It is a process now being aggravated by the 
"political class" of each group. Shiite, Sunni, Kurd -- to him, the 
insistence on those terms is akin to reading American politics solely 
through the lens of race relations.

He struggles with questions: How can you accept diversity without 
division? How does citizenship transcend a narrower identity? He has no 
answers. He remains confused, eased only by the faith that somehow, 
sometime in the future, the country's cleavages will be bridged. "The 
idea of belonging to a sect without being sectarian is crucial to the 
survival of our society," he said.

He paused, taking a moment, as he often does, to formulate his thoughts. 
A jet droned overhead. Gunshots echoed again in the distance. The lights 
in his house finally returned, and he dragged on his Dunhill cigarette.

"We have to find a way to end this bloodshed," he said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/11/AR2005121100981.html?nav=hcmodule
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Mon Dec 12 03:53:48 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Mon Dec 12 04:06:56 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Time Reporter May Have Tipped Rove's Lawyer to Leak -
 Washington Post
Message-ID: <439D64CC.5060500@comcast.net>

Time Reporter May Have Tipped Rove's Lawyer to Leak

By Carol D. Leonnig and Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, December 12, 2005; A04

A Time magazine reporter testified in the CIA leak case that she alerted 
Karl Rove's lawyer in early 2004 that the top Bush adviser had leaked 
information to her colleague about Valerie Plame, according to a 
first-person account published yesterday in Time.

The reporter, Viveca Novak, did not initially tell her bosses at Time 
that she may have tipped off Rove's lawyer or that the special 
prosecutor in the CIA leak was interested in the details of her 
conversation with Robert D. Luskin, Rove's lawyer. As a result, she and 
Time editors agreed she would take a leave of absence while they 
contemplate her future at the magazine.

The casual chat between Novak and Luskin, which took place in the first 
half of 2004, is now central to Rove's efforts to avoid indictment in 
the more than two-year-old case. Novak's account in this week's issue of 
Time does little to explain how a conversation over drinks between 
Rove's lawyer and a reporter chasing the story could help clear the 
senior Bush adviser. In addition to raising new questions about the role 
of journalists in the Plame affair, Novak's testimony provides fresh and 
significant insight into Rove's campaign to avoid charges in a case that 
threatens the man President Bush once called the "architect" of his 
reelection.

Rove is believed to be under investigation for providing false 
statements about his role in the public disclosure of Plame's CIA 
employment.

Prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald -- who charged I. Lewis "Scooter" 
Libby, then chief of staff to Vice President Cheney, with lying and 
obstructing justice -- recently presented evidence to a new grand jury. 
Sources close to the case said that one of the biggest pieces of 
unfinished business is whether to indict Rove -- and that a decision 
could come as early as this month.

The sources, all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity because 
they have been urged by Fitzgerald not to discuss the case, said Luskin 
told the prosecutor about the conversation with Novak a few days before 
Libby was indicted on Oct. 28.

It was only part of what the sources described as a furious, last-minute 
effort by Luskin to convince the prosecutor that Rove was guilty of 
nothing more than a bad memory -- and certainly not of trying to cover 
up his role in the Plame case. Of the information presented by Luskin 
that day, the Novak conversation is the only piece known to require 
additional investigation. Now that Fitzgerald has deposed Luskin and 
Novak, some close to the case think Rove's fate could soon be known.

Novak, according to her first-person account, testified Thursday that in 
early 2004 she met with Luskin. She told him Time reporters were buzzing 
that Rove was one of the sources who told Matthew Cooper, a reporter at 
the magazine, in July 2003 that Plame worked at the CIA.

This became a big deal once Fitzgerald started investigating whether 
anyone in the Bush administration illegally disclosed Plame's CIA 
identity as part of a broader White House effort to discredit 
allegations made by Plame's husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson 
IV, that Bush had hyped intelligence to justify the Iraq war.

According to Novak's account, she mentioned to Luskin only the 
speculation about the identity of Cooper's confidential source because 
she felt Luskin was "spinning" her. She and Luskin met for drinks 
occasionally after work at Cafe Deluxe on Wisconsin Avenue, and at one 
of those meetings, she said, Luskin insisted to her that Rove faced no 
legal exposure in the investigation. She said she pushed back, saying to 
the attorney, "Are you sure about that?" and remarked that she had heard 
from Time colleagues that Rove was Cooper's source for a story he did on 
Plame in July 2003. "He looked surprised and very serious," Novak wrote 
in the Time article.

It is not clear why this matters. Novak wrote that Luskin told her the 
tip set in motion a cycle of events that led Rove and his lawyers to 
search phone logs and other material to determine whether Rove had 
talked to Cooper -- and eventually prompted Rove to change his 
testimony. But another lawyer in the case said Luskin had a different 
strategy in mind when alerting Fitzgerald to the conversation.

Until he testified for a second time in October 2004, Rove maintained he 
did not recall talking to Cooper. Shortly before testifying, Luskin 
found an e-mail written by Rove to then-deputy national security adviser 
Stephen J. Hadley in July 2003 in which Rove mentioned the conversation 
with Cooper. Rove then testified that the e-mail jarred his memory, a 
lawyer close to the case said.

It appears the timing of the Luskin-Novak conversation is crucial to 
Rove's defense. Novak said she does not recall the precise date but said 
she talked with Luskin in January, March and May 2004. She wrote that 
she believed the talk probably took place in May.

A lawyer close to the case said Luskin has contended the conversation 
happened before Rove's first appearance before the grand jury in 
February 2004, when he testified he did not recall discussing Plame with 
Cooper. Luskin refused to comment. A spokesman for Rove's defense said 
in a statement that Rove is cooperating and that private discussions 
with the prosecutor will not be discussed publicly.

One possible explanation of why the date is so important is that Luskin 
could contend it would have been foolish for Rove to try to cover up his 
role when he knew -- because of Novak's disclosure to Luskin -- that a 
number of people knew he had talked to Cooper and that it probably would 
soon become public.

Novak is not related to Robert D. Novak, the conservative columnist who 
was the first person to disclose Plame's CIA employment in a July 2003 
column.

Viveca Novak's standing at Time is in doubt as a result of the episode. 
She waited to alert her editors for nearly a month after it appeared she 
might become a part of the leak investigation story -- rather than a 
writer helping to cover it, according to the dates provided in her account.

She said she hoped she would not have to go before the grand jury. She 
hired a lawyer and opted not to tell her editors in hopes that she would 
not become a figure in the story and the subject of news accounts. But 
on the day she was writing a story about Washington Post reporter and 
Assistant Managing Editor Bob Woodward being deposed in the 
investigation, she learned Fitzgerald wanted to interview her under oath.

Time Managing Editor Jim Kelly said yesterday he and Novak agreed in 
conversations Saturday evening that she needed to "take a deep breath," 
and that Kelly needed time to deliberate about her performance and 
future. "Clearly, there was a failure to keep her bureau chief posted 
about this," he said. "It's fair to say I am disturbed by that."

Kelly added, "there was no struggle" and the two agreed to temporarily 
part ways. "I take very seriously what's happened, and Viveca takes it 
very seriously, too," he said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/11/AR2005121100400.html?nav=hcmodule
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Mon Dec 12 03:57:03 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Mon Dec 12 04:10:09 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] A Reticent Senator Who Inspired
Message-ID: <439D658F.4080203@comcast.net>

A Reticent Senator Who Inspired

By David S. Broder
Monday, December 12, 2005; A25

Former senator Eugene J. McCarthy, who died Saturday at 89, was the most 
paradoxical of the major political figures of his time. A deeply serious 
and religious man, an educator and a poet, he also had a wicked sense of 
humor and a great gift for satire. One day in the late 1950s, when 
liberal maverick Sens. Wayne Morse of Oregon and Ernest Gruening of 
Alaska, who were always in the doghouse of Senate Majority Leader Lyndon 
Johnson, fell into a dispute with each other, McCarthy strolled by the 
press table in the Senate restaurant.

"Trouble in the leper colony," he observed, deadpan.

McCarthy defied easy categorization. A product of rural Minnesota, 
educated by the Benedictines and married to a woman, the former Abigail 
Quigley, every bit as capable a writer and thinker as himself, he was 
taken up in his thirties by the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, 
led then and for decades afterward by Hubert H. Humphrey.

He ousted a Republican incumbent to win the House seat from St. Paul, 
became an early ringleader of the reform-minded Democratic Study Group 
and moved on to the Senate in the big Democratic sweep of 1958. A 
renowned orator, he wrote and delivered a nominating speech for Adlai 
Stevenson at the 1960 Democratic National Convention that set off a wild 
demonstration in the galleries in Los Angeles -- and gained him the 
enduring enmity of the Kennedy clan, which was about to nominate one of 
its own for president.

However, McCarthy was hardly a national figure when Allard Lowenstein 
and other leaders of the dump-Johnson movement approached him in 1967, 
seeking an anti-Vietnam candidate who would challenge the president in 
the 1968 primaries. McCarthy had broken publicly with Johnson on the 
war, and he was still nursing personal wounds from being passed over by 
Johnson in 1964, when the Texan chose Humphrey as his running mate.

But McCarthy was characteristically reticent and ambivalent at the 
outset of the campaign, insisting in almost academic fashion that he was 
not "running" for president but was "willing" to serve.

For all his reluctance, he was a magnetic figure for young people in 
particular and for the broad swath of Democrats who had come to oppose 
the war. If Vietnam fueled his dissent, he insisted that his purpose was 
larger -- and less personal -- than for most candidates. In his fine 
double-biography of McCarthy and Humphrey, "Almost to the Presidency," 
journalist and fellow Minnesotan Albert Eisele quotes this passage from 
McCarthy's November 1967 declaration of candidacy:

"I am hoping that this challenge I am making, which I am hoping will be 
supported by other members of the Senate and by other politicians, may 
alleviate the sense of political helplessness and restore to many people 
a belief in the processes of American politics and of American 
government." No more selfless manifesto was imaginable.

The response was extraordinary. College students by the thousands 
scrubbed up "Clean for Gene" and hit the campaign trail in New Hampshire 
and later primaries. Even after all the stunning events that followed -- 
Robert Kennedy's entry into the race, Kennedy's murder, the bloody 
Chicago convention that nominated but crippled Humphrey, and the 
election of Richard Nixon -- scores of those McCarthy volunteers 
remained in politics, fueling a generation of Democratic activism.

Oddly, McCarthy was uncomfortable with the personal adulation. As 
ambitious as Humphrey, he was far more remote and self-centered -- the 
opposite of a glad-handing politician. I saw him as someone who 
deliberately distanced himself from even his closest political allies -- 
and not just when he lived with the Minnesota delegation at the 
Democratic convention of 1964 but also when he pursued his own ambition 
to become Johnson's running mate, while almost all of his old comrades 
labored to get Humphrey onto the ticket.

In 1966, when his Minnesota party was tearing itself apart in a 
protracted convention struggle for power between the governor and the 
lieutenant governor, McCarthy isolated himself in a remote hotel suite, 
refusing to intervene with the delegates but pouring drinks for 
reporters and discoursing on the Treaty of Ghent.

This history made his action a year later in plunging into the Vietnam 
debate and the presidential campaign all the more remarkable.

His last years were not happy ones. I heard him in a forum a few years 
ago, and his talk was a recital of grievances -- directed at people 
either dead or long retired, who had failed in McCarthy's still-harsh 
judgment to meet their responsibilities in that 1968 crucible.

But in that moment of history almost four decades ago, he stood alone -- 
an example of courage that resonates right down to this day.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/11/AR2005121101103.html
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Mon Dec 12 04:00:20 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Mon Dec 12 04:13:29 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Chinks in the Republican Armor - Fred Hiatt - Washington
	Post Op-Ed
Message-ID: <439D6654.7040105@comcast.net>

Chinks in the Republican Armor

By Fred Hiatt
Monday, December 12, 2005; A25

Not so long ago the talk was all about the self-perpetuating machine the 
Republicans were constructing in Washington.

The image was of links in a chain of power that the Democrats could 
never break. The GOP, having captured both houses of Congress and the 
White House, could press lobbyists to hire only Republicans and give 
money only to Republicans. The money would guarantee dominance in state 
legislatures. The legislatures would redraw congressional districts so 
that Democrats could never win. And if anyone objected, too bad; 
Republican-appointed judges could be counted on to slap down any 
complainers.

All in all, a perfect loop. Even when House Majority Leader Tom DeLay 
was indicted in September, he was depicted as a no-longer-essential cog 
in the apparatus he had helped design and build. People could come and 
go, the chain would remain.

The mood in Washington today is different. It's been remembered that the 
chain holds only as long as most people vote next year the way they 
voted last year.

Today it is conceivable, though by no means assured, that Democrats' 
vote total in 2006 could grow, and Republicans' shrink, by enough to 
shift control of the House or Senate. Even a whiff of such uncertainty 
may prompt donors to hedge their bets.

It may seem obvious, but the distinction between what the Republicans 
have created and a government truly impervious to public sentiment is 
worth noting. After all, there are regimes -- in Russia, for example -- 
that so pervert the forms of democracy that they insulate themselves 
from changes in public sentiment, unless those are drastic or somehow 
expressed outside the law. That's not where we are. A healthy dose of 
cynicism about the goings-on here is appropriate; an overdose of 
cynicism is not.

This doesn't mean the analysis of Republican ambitions was wrong. Much 
of it was right, and much of what the Republicans have done -- their 
Texas redistricting, for example -- merits all the contempt that it has 
engendered, and more.

Norman J. Ornstein, an expert on Congress at the American Enterprise 
Institute, says that a shift in public sentiment comparable to the one 
that swept Republicans into the House majority in 1994, with a gain of 
more than 50 seats, would produce a shift of only 20 or so seats for 
Democrats today. That would be enough to unhorse the Republicans, but 
barely. And that's in large part because Republicans have given 
themselves larger cushions in nominally competitive districts, he says. 
So the House, which was designed to be most responsive to public 
opinion, may now be less responsive than the Senate.

"There's no such thing as a perfect machine," he said. "But they have 
built in a lot of advantages, and Texas may have made the difference."

But the imperfections are increasingly visible. Some are internal: the 
arrogance, greed and complacency that swell with time in office, and the 
disparate interests of supporters that become harder to paper over. Drug 
companies, seniors' lobbies and chambers of commerce may all support 
you, but they also may have different ideas of the proper design and 
cost of a Medicare drug benefit. The result may make no one happy.

There are external stresses, too. Unlike in Russia, it turns out that 
prosecutors and judges can't be controlled, no matter who appoints them: 
just ask DeLay, Jack Abramoff or Scooter Libby. Unlike in Russia, 
neither can the press. The congressional Republicans' cringing 
abdication of their branch's traditional oversight role has helped 
diminish attention to scandal and malfeasance, but it can't erase bad 
news altogether.

And unlike in many pseudo-democracies, the mechanics of elections, 
including, not least, the counting, can't be controlled by those in 
power -- which means that they do need to worry about what voters think.

None of this guarantees that the Democrats will win next year. But it 
does mean their fate isn't entirely out of their hands; much will depend 
on them -- on the policies they develop, the candidates they recruit. 
The machine isn't indestructible.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/11/AR2005121101098.html?nav=hcmodule
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Mon Dec 12 04:03:29 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Mon Dec 12 04:16:36 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Bill Gates's Test of Rationalism - Sebastian Mallaby -
 Washington Post Op-Ed
Message-ID: <439D6711.40601@comcast.net>

Bill Gates's Test of Rationalism

By Sebastian Mallaby
Monday, December 12, 2005; A25

CHENNAI, India -- They've met the transvestites and transsexuals, sat 
with them on bright drapes and cushions, and heard about sex work. 
They've inspected the lifesaving beauty salon, where the transvestites 
get reminders about condoms while flowers are woven into their hair. Now 
they're on their way to call on female sex workers, who will greet them 
with heart-breaking personal stories and an ear-breaking drum troupe. 
But just for the moment they are stuck in traffic. So Bill and Melinda 
Gates are talking about their favorite subject: the world's biggest 
challenge and what can be done.

The challenge is global health inequity. Only a fraction of the billions 
spent on medical research targets illnesses that affect poor countries, 
even though these same illnesses account for 90 percent of the world's 
disease burden. Each year some 10 million children die before their 
fifth birthday -- that's almost as though the population of two 
Marylands were wiped out annually -- and around three-quarters could be 
saved by basic medicines that already exist. Fixing the twin injustices 
of skewed research dollars and haphazard deployment is the mission of 
the foundation set up by Bill Gates and his wife, Melinda, who is a 
director of The Washington Post Co.

Until just a few years ago, history's most generous philanthropist was 
John D. Rockefeller, whose dominance of the oil industry in the late 
19th century made him the Bill Gates of his time. But the Gateses have 
already given $28.8 billion, four times as much as Rockefeller measured 
in inflation-adjusted dollars, and whereas Rockefeller was two months 
shy of his 70th birthday when he made his first blockbuster donation, 
the Gateses have taken to philanthropy while still comparatively young. 
Yet it's not just the giving that's important. "We don't sit there and 
say, 'Hey, we gave away $9 billion,' " Bill Gates remarks in another 
conversation later. "We ask, 'How are we doing against malaria?' "

It's a question that engages the couple on multiple levels. Helping the 
world's poor is a moral mission, certainly: Gates describes his visit 
last Monday to a Bangladeshi project as "a religious experience." 
Battling disease is a scientific puzzle, equally, and Gates exudes a 
boyish delight in the new vaccine technologies that the foundation is 
backing. It's also a business challenge: How do you structure incentives 
for pharmaceutical companies to research diseases that kill people who 
have no purchasing power? And finally, most treacherously, the Gateses' 
philanthropy is a test of their most basic assumption: that brilliant 
intellects applied to urgent questions can improve the human lot.

Commentators, particularly conservative ones, love to bemoan the 
post-1960s relativism that is said to dominate our culture: "Truth" is 
relative; there is no right and wrong. But to listen to Gates is to 
realize how overblown this is. The people who have made the most impact 
on our society as inventors and creators of wealth believe passionately 
in truth and falsity, right answers and wrong answers, and in the 
Enlightenment faith that reason brings progress. Scientists necessarily 
believe in truth and reason, but so, too, do business leaders. 
Management -- some would say, the science of management -- is based on 
smart analysis of organizational psychology and consumer data. The 
Gateses revere Alfred P. Sloan Jr., the legendary boss of General 
Motors, who coined the anti-relativist injunction to "manage with the 
force of facts."

The Enlightenment rationalists were tested by revolutions and 
romanticism, then later by Freud's speculations on the irrational 
drivers of human conduct, and still later by modern economics, which 
explains why even rational individual behavior can sometimes lead to 
irrational societal outcomes. But if you visit health projects in India, 
you see how the Gateses have signed up for their very own test of the 
rationalist credo. It's one thing to finance health projects in 
villages. It's another to expect that villagers will make rational use 
of them.

On Tuesday, Melinda Gates asked a slum dweller in Delhi what she had 
learned from local health workers, and the answer was "nothing"; "The 
biggest challenge is the mind-set of the people," sighed the Indian 
doctor leading the tour. It's the same story in Uttar Pradesh, a bit 
east of Delhi, where the organizers of an immunization drive battle to 
reach villagers who don't want to be vaccinated, and even at the AIDS 
counseling centers in Chennai, where the challenge is to get the 
prostitutes to act rationally on medical advice. Sitting on those 
cushions with the Gateses, a transsexual with a blouse stretched over 
her broad back explained her confused feelings. She is lonely, she said 
simply. "It's out of love that you don't use condoms."

The Gateses are not the first people to fight global diseases -- the 
Rockefeller Foundation battled malaria and tuberculosis years ago -- and 
it's natural to ask whether they can succeed where others have not. But 
for every depressing moment during visits to health projects, there are 
three or four uplifting ones. At the slum in Delhi, a nurse estimates 
that the proportion of women who spurn medical advice has fallen from 
around nine in 10 to one in 10 since "link workers" were recruited from 
the community to change people's attitudes. In Uttar Pradesh the vaccine 
strategists marvel at how new syringes, designed to jam after one use so 
they don't spread viruses from patient to patient, have cut the 
incidence of painful abscesses and so boosted compliance. At the 
community center in Chennai, Bill Gates asks whether the transsexuals 
have had HIV tests. An emphatic babble greets him: All the people at the 
center are tested every three months.

Sometimes medicine is as elegant as computing: You invent a brilliant 
vaccine, and one shot protects a patient for the rest of his life. Most 
of the time medical advances are murkier, and yet the Enlightenment 
faith remains justified. Though it never triumphed against malaria, the 
Rockefeller Foundation made great strides against hookworm and sponsored 
the creation of a vaccine for yellow fever that saved millions of lives. 
The Gates Foundation has already backed vaccination drives that have 
saved more than a million lives since 2000. With the advantages of 
modern science and huge financial resources, it will one day claim 
successes that go beyond even that.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/11/AR2005121100749.html
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Mon Dec 12 04:06:41 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Mon Dec 12 04:20:15 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] The baffling Gene McCarthy - The Boston Globe
Message-ID: <439D67D1.7090802@comcast.net>


  The baffling Gene McCarthy

By Martin F. Nolan  |  December 12, 2005

AN EARLY SNOWFALL covered Washington on Nov. 30, 1967. In the Senate 
caucus room, Senator Eugene J. McCarthy stood up, took a risk, and 
changed American politics forever. He announced his intention to run 
against President Lyndon B. Johnson in Democratic primaries. ''The 
administration seems to have set no limits on the price that it will pay 
for military victory," the Minnesota senator said in a short statement. 
''I am hopeful that a challenge may alleviate the sense of political 
helplessness and restore to many people a belief in the process of 
American politics."

''Don't you believe we should stop communism?" a reporter asked. ''Yes, 
I do," McCarthy replied, ''And South Vietnam is the worst possible place 
to try."

McCarthy, who died Saturday at 89 in Washington, outlived all the 
political giants of that tumultuous year of 1968. He fascinated 
Republicans Richard Nixon, Nelson Rockefeller, and George Romney. He 
infuriated Democrats Lyndon Johnson, Hubert Humphrey, and Robert Kennedy.

On March 12, 1968, voters in New Hampshire gave McCarthy 42 percent of 
the vote in the Democratic presidential primary against Johnson's 49 
percent. By the end of the month, LBJ had withdrawn from politics. In 
that year's primaries, Kennedy and McCarthy won almost 70 percent of the 
popular voter. Humphrey won only 2 percent, but was nominated at the 
Chicago convention. That would never happen again because McCarthy 
fumigated the smoke-filled rooms and evicted the bosses.

He could be ambitious and diffident, mystical and malicious. Gene 
McCarthy baffled everybody. ''Why does a man pursue the job, a grueling 
job, of the presidency? . . . Why does somebody want that?" Johnny 
Carson asked him on NBC's ''Tonight Show." McCarthy answered: ''I have 
never said that I wanted it, really. I have gone so far as to say that I 
would be willing to take it."

I once asked Hubert Humphrey, who had known him for decades, to describe 
McCarthy. ''Oh, Gene is witty, handsome, an Irish poet," the vice 
president said, ''and a clever politician, all the more clever for 
denying it." Bobby Kennedy even doubted the Irishness. Fixing me with 
his blue eyes, he earnestly told me, ''Gene's not all Irish, you know." 
''You're kidding, Senator," I protested. ''You sound like a guy from 
South Boston smearing an opponent who might be Lithuanian or Canadian." 
''I'm serious," RFK said. ''Gene's mother was German. That's why he's so 
mean." ''What's your excuse?" I asked. Kennedy blushed with embarrassment.

In early 1968, after RFK chose not to run, he saw college students flock 
to McCarthy's antiwar campaign. Kennedy's reaction, Mary McGrory wrote, 
evoked ''a Victorian whose daughter has run off with the dustman." The 
feud, which echoes today, split the Democratic left. ''Why are liberals 
different from cannibals?" Lyndon Johnson used to ask. ''Cannibals eat 
only their enemies."

After 1968, McCarthy ran repeatedly for president, emulating his fellow 
Minnesotan, Harold Stassen. In the precision of the clich?, it was a 
quixotic path. ''I like New Hampshire," he used to say.

Among American poets, he liked Robert Frost but disdained James Whitcomb 
Riley. During the 1968 Indiana primary, he said of the Hoosier bard with 
amazement, ''They actually call him The Poet, not a poet, but The Poet."

In September the Minnesota-born author and journalist Al Eisele invited 
me to visit with McCarthy in Georgetown. His voice was weak, but his 
smile was still wicked and his handshake steady. By his chair was The 
Washington Post sports section and a volume of William Butler Yeats.

In 1968, after losing the Indiana and Nebraska primaries, McCarthy was 
campaigning in California, talking to college students in Fresno. His 
old friend Orville Freeman, a member of LBJ's cabinet, had attacked him 
as irrelevant. ''The secretary of agriculture has said we will be 'only 
a footnote in history,' " McCarthy said. ''But I think we can say with 
Churchill, 'What a footnote.' And I think it could well be that we will 
become part of the main text."

When McCarthy announced for president, the number of US combat dead was 
15,858. At the end of the war, the number was more than 58,000. He never 
called himself a prophet but seemed more like a character in one of his 
poems, ''The Smuggler Speaks."

I am not a salesman I am not a manufacturer's agent  I am not a priest 
of God. . . .The Hapsburgs were against borders  So am I.  I am a poet.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/12/12/the_baffling_gene_mccarthy/
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Mon Dec 12 04:10:13 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Mon Dec 12 04:23:24 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] MUST READ: Hair trigger nation - James Carroll - Boston
	Globe Op-Ed
Message-ID: <439D68A5.3040309@comcast.net>


  Hair trigger nation

By James Carroll  |  December 12, 2005  |  The Boston Globe

IS IT WRONG to second-guess the split-second decision an air marshal 
made last week in shooting to death a disturbed, but apparently harmless 
man on an airplane in Miami?

For an instant, according to some accounts, it looked like the man had a 
bomb. On the same day, a man rushed onto a bus into Baghdad, detonated 
himself, and killed 30 people. Miami may not think of itself as a war 
zone, but air marshals are primed to act as if it is -- together with 
every other US city. When something unexpected happens, it will be taken 
as a threat. Every threat will be met with swift and overwhelming force. 
Better safe than sorry. Welcome to the new America.

But when the perceived suicide bomber, say, turns out to have been an 
innocent man who had only failed to take his medication, being safe and 
sorry amount to the same thing. Get used to it. Curb your enthusiasm, 
especially in airport security lines.

Odd behavior used to be only that, but now it can get you in deep 
trouble. When I heard the news of the man shot dead in Miami, it struck 
me with rare clarity that we all live in a war zone now. In the flash of 
anyone's mistake -- yours or theirs -- our armed protectors can turn 
into our accidental killers. If we can't second-guess the decisions they 
make when faced with the unexpected, can we reflect on the process by 
which we all came to be here?

When I was very young, my father was an FBI agent. I was obsessed with 
the knowledge that he carried a gun, but he protected me and my brothers 
from its implications by never showing it to us. I saw his weapon only 
once, sitting in its holster on my parents' bedroom bureau. Later, I 
remember a disturbing conversation in which Dad told me that an FBI 
agent was trained only to shoot to kill. Thinking of Hopalong Cassidy, I 
protested that an agent should first aim at the bad guy's gun-hand, or, 
if necessary, at his arm or leg. ''Why not shoot to disable?" was the 
way my question was put by a critic of the air marshals last week.

My father told me that because an FBI agent understood that his weapon 
was only to be used as deadly force, and then only in the extreme 
circumstance of protecting his own life or the lives of others, the gun 
would hardly ever come out of its holster. Don't draw a firearm merely 
to threaten, or imagining that the perpetrator can be ''winged." Once a 
weapon is deployed, it has moved most of the way to being used.

The decision that counts is not made in the split-second of a rushed 
confrontation, but weeks and months earlier, on the practice range and 
in training sessions. FBI agents, my father was telling me, ask 
questions first, and shoot later. The surest course to mistaken violence 
is not so much in the instantaneous decision made once the weapon is 
drawn, but in the premature drawing of it.

I have no way of measuring what my father told me against what was 
actual at the time, and I know nothing about contemporary FBI attitudes. 
But in the American war zone today, a public mood that is so attuned to 
threats assumes the ready deployment of deadly force -- sooner rather 
than later. It is not only that weapons are so readily at hand, but also 
that the guns have been put on hair trigger.

In my youth, it was only in strife-torn foreign places that one could 
imagine armed soldiers patrolling civilian areas; I think of an 
intimidating visit to Paris during the Algerian war in the late 1950s, 
when sullen legionnaires flaunted their machine guns in the streets. Now 
combat-ready soldiers pace our airports. The extreme circumstance that 
my father described has become the normal condition of ordinary life. Of 
course the guns are drawn.

Is this a prudent response to changed conditions in the age of terror? 
The possibility of miscreant violence is real, and the proactive savvy 
of law enforcement is essential. But is there, perhaps, a disproportion 
between what actually threatens and the licensed jitters of our armed 
patrol? Or is this only the domestic equivalent of the nation's 
hair-trigger foreign policy? Did we think we could be so quick to draw 
and shoot, even without aiming, in places far away without turning 
ourselves into targets?

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/12/12/hair_trigger_nation/
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From marylouiseparis at hotmail.com  Mon Dec 12 04:15:27 2005
From: marylouiseparis at hotmail.com (Mary Louise smn)
Date: Mon Dec 12 04:26:07 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Bill Gates's Test of Rationalism - Sebastian Mallaby -
	Washington Post Op-Ed
In-Reply-To: <439D6711.40601@comcast.net>
Message-ID: <BAY107-F22F6937ED48264A7EC4097B8460@phx.gbl>




>From: William Swiggard <swiggard@comcast.net>
>Reply-To: mb-civic@islandlists.com
>To: mb-civic <mb-civic@islandlists.com>
>Subject: [Mb-civic] Bill Gates's Test of Rationalism - Sebastian Mallaby - 
>Washington Post Op-Ed
>Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2005 07:03:29 -0500
>
>Bill Gates's Test of Rationalism
>
>By Sebastian Mallaby
>Monday, December 12, 2005; A25
>
>CHENNAI, India -- They've met the transvestites and transsexuals, sat with 
>them on bright drapes and cushions, and heard about sex work. They've 
>inspected the lifesaving beauty salon, where the transvestites get 
>reminders about condoms while flowers are woven into their hair. Now 
>they're on their way to call on female sex workers, who will greet them 
>with heart-breaking personal stories and an ear-breaking drum troupe. But 
>just for the moment they are stuck in traffic. So Bill and Melinda Gates 
>are talking about their favorite subject: the world's biggest challenge and 
>what can be done.
>
>The challenge is global health inequity. Only a fraction of the billions 
>spent on medical research targets illnesses that affect poor countries, 
>even though these same illnesses account for 90 percent of the world's 
>disease burden. Each year some 10 million children die before their fifth 
>birthday -- that's almost as though the population of two Marylands were 
>wiped out annually -- and around three-quarters could be saved by basic 
>medicines that already exist. Fixing the twin injustices of skewed research 
>dollars and haphazard deployment is the mission of the foundation set up by 
>Bill Gates and his wife, Melinda, who is a director of The Washington Post 
>Co.
>
>Until just a few years ago, history's most generous philanthropist was John 
>D. Rockefeller, whose dominance of the oil industry in the late 19th 
>century made him the Bill Gates of his time. But the Gateses have already 
>given $28.8 billion, four times as much as Rockefeller measured in 
>inflation-adjusted dollars, and whereas Rockefeller was two months shy of 
>his 70th birthday when he made his first blockbuster donation, the Gateses 
>have taken to philanthropy while still comparatively young. Yet it's not 
>just the giving that's important. "We don't sit there and say, 'Hey, we 
>gave away $9 billion,' " Bill Gates remarks in another conversation later. 
>"We ask, 'How are we doing against malaria?' "
>
>It's a question that engages the couple on multiple levels. Helping the 
>world's poor is a moral mission, certainly: Gates describes his visit last 
>Monday to a Bangladeshi project as "a religious experience." Battling 
>disease is a scientific puzzle, equally, and Gates exudes a boyish delight 
>in the new vaccine technologies that the foundation is backing. It's also a 
>business challenge: How do you structure incentives for pharmaceutical 
>companies to research diseases that kill people who have no purchasing 
>power? And finally, most treacherously, the Gateses' philanthropy is a test 
>of their most basic assumption: that brilliant intellects applied to urgent 
>questions can improve the human lot.
>
>Commentators, particularly conservative ones, love to bemoan the post-1960s 
>relativism that is said to dominate our culture: "Truth" is relative; there 
>is no right and wrong. But to listen to Gates is to realize how overblown 
>this is. The people who have made the most impact on our society as 
>inventors and creators of wealth believe passionately in truth and falsity, 
>right answers and wrong answers, and in the Enlightenment faith that reason 
>brings progress. Scientists necessarily believe in truth and reason, but 
>so, too, do business leaders. Management -- some would say, the science of 
>management -- is based on smart analysis of organizational psychology and 
>consumer data. The Gateses revere Alfred P. Sloan Jr., the legendary boss 
>of General Motors, who coined the anti-relativist injunction to "manage 
>with the force of facts."
>
>The Enlightenment rationalists were tested by revolutions and romanticism, 
>then later by Freud's speculations on the irrational drivers of human 
>conduct, and still later by modern economics, which explains why even 
>rational individual behavior can sometimes lead to irrational societal 
>outcomes. But if you visit health projects in India, you see how the 
>Gateses have signed up for their very own test of the rationalist credo. 
>It's one thing to finance health projects in villages. It's another to 
>expect that villagers will make rational use of them.
>
>On Tuesday, Melinda Gates asked a slum dweller in Delhi what she had 
>learned from local health workers, and the answer was "nothing"; "The 
>biggest challenge is the mind-set of the people," sighed the Indian doctor 
>leading the tour. It's the same story in Uttar Pradesh, a bit east of 
>Delhi, where the organizers of an immunization drive battle to reach 
>villagers who don't want to be vaccinated, and even at the AIDS counseling 
>centers in Chennai, where the challenge is to get the prostitutes to act 
>rationally on medical advice. Sitting on those cushions with the Gateses, a 
>transsexual with a blouse stretched over her broad back explained her 
>confused feelings. She is lonely, she said simply. "It's out of love that 
>you don't use condoms."
>
>The Gateses are not the first people to fight global diseases -- the 
>Rockefeller Foundation battled malaria and tuberculosis years ago -- and 
>it's natural to ask whether they can succeed where others have not. But for 
>every depressing moment during visits to health projects, there are three 
>or four uplifting ones. At the slum in Delhi, a nurse estimates that the 
>proportion of women who spurn medical advice has fallen from around nine in 
>10 to one in 10 since "link workers" were recruited from the community to 
>change people's attitudes. In Uttar Pradesh the vaccine strategists marvel 
>at how new syringes, designed to jam after one use so they don't spread 
>viruses from patient to patient, have cut the incidence of painful 
>abscesses and so boosted compliance. At the community center in Chennai, 
>Bill Gates asks whether the transsexuals have had HIV tests. An emphatic 
>babble greets him: All the people at the center are tested every three 
>months.
>
>Sometimes medicine is as elegant as computing: You invent a brilliant 
>vaccine, and one shot protects a patient for the rest of his life. Most of 
>the time medical advances are murkier, and yet the Enlightenment faith 
>remains justified. Though it never triumphed against malaria, the 
>Rockefeller Foundation made great strides against hookworm and sponsored 
>the creation of a vaccine for yellow fever that saved millions of lives. 
>The Gates Foundation has already backed vaccination drives that have saved 
>more than a million lives since 2000. With the advantages of modern science 
>and huge financial resources, it will one day claim successes that go 
>beyond even that.
>
>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/11/AR2005121100749.html


>_______________________________________________
>Mb-civic mailing list
>Mb-civic@islandlists.com
>http://www.islandlists.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mb-civic

_________________________________________________________________
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From IHHS at aol.com  Sun Dec 11 12:15:38 2005
From: IHHS at aol.com (IHHS@aol.com)
Date: Mon Dec 12 06:31:37 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Fwd: some interesting topics
Message-ID: <E1EloXu-0007Jy-RP@smtpauth04.mail.atl.earthlink.net>

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From michael at intrafi.com  Mon Dec 12 06:43:46 2005
From: michael at intrafi.com (michael@intrafi.com)
Date: Mon Dec 12 06:54:27 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] FT.com / World / Americas - Bush plans overhaul of US
	foreign aid system
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From michael at intrafi.com  Mon Dec 12 06:50:26 2005
From: michael at intrafi.com (michael@intrafi.com)
Date: Mon Dec 12 07:01:09 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] FT.com / Comment & analysis / Comment - A joint effort
	is needed to eradicate poverty
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From hecate at diamonddragon.com  Mon Dec 12 09:44:30 2005
From: hecate at diamonddragon.com (Hecate)
Date: Mon Dec 12 09:55:09 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] BBC E-mail: New 'torture jail' found in Iraq
Message-ID: <20051212_174430_025724.hecate@diamonddragon.com>

Hecate saw this story on BBC News Online and thought you
should see it.



** New 'torture jail' found in Iraq **
A packed detention centre is found in Baghdad where 13 inmates need medical care amid claims of torture.
< http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/2/hi/middle_east/4520714.stm >


** BBC Daily E-mail **
Choose the news and sport headlines you want - when you want them, all
in one daily e-mail
< http://www.bbc.co.uk/dailyemail/ >


** Disclaimer **
The BBC is not responsible for the content of this e-mail, and anything written in this e-mail does not necessarily reflect the BBC's views or opinions. Please note that neither the e-mail address nor name of the sender have?been verified.

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From hecate at diamonddragon.com  Mon Dec 12 09:44:57 2005
From: hecate at diamonddragon.com (Hecate)
Date: Mon Dec 12 09:55:34 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] BBC E-mail: Second night of riots hits Sydney
Message-ID: <20051212_174456_009236.hecate@diamonddragon.com>

Hecate saw this story on BBC News Online and thought you
should see it.



** Second night of riots hits Sydney **
Fresh violence breaks out in Sydney, despite PM John Howard's condemning the weekend's race riots.
< http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/2/hi/asia-pacific/4521442.stm >


** BBC Daily E-mail **
Choose the news and sport headlines you want - when you want them, all
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From hecate at diamonddragon.com  Mon Dec 12 09:45:33 2005
From: hecate at diamonddragon.com (Hecate)
Date: Mon Dec 12 09:56:13 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] BBC E-mail: Magnetic north pole drifting fast
Message-ID: <20051212_174533_098822.hecate@diamonddragon.com>

Hecate saw this story on BBC News Online and thought you
should see it.



** Magnetic north pole drifting fast **
The Earth's north magnetic pole is drifting away from North America so fast that it could end up in Siberia within 50 years.
< http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/4520982.stm >


** BBC Daily E-mail **
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From hecate at diamonddragon.com  Mon Dec 12 09:46:55 2005
From: hecate at diamonddragon.com (Hecate)
Date: Mon Dec 12 09:57:37 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] BBC E-mail: Arctic orcas highly contaminated
Message-ID: <20051212_174655_030419.hecate@diamonddragon.com>

Hecate saw this story on BBC News Online and thought you
should see it.



** Arctic orcas highly contaminated **
Killer whales have become the most contaminated mammals in the Arctic, new research indicates.
< http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/4520104.stm >


** BBC Daily E-mail **
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From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Mon Dec 12 13:37:25 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (mblaxill@yahoo.com)
Date: Mon Dec 12 13:48:04 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Headlines for December 12, 2005
Message-ID: <20051212213725.2674.qmail@trinity.democracynow.org>

Mike Blaxill  ( mblaxill@yahoo.com )
sent you this story from democracynow.org




+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
|  Headlines for December 12, 2005
|  http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/12/1446249
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+


- Car Bombing Kills Anti-Syrian Politician in Beirut
- Stanley Tookie Williams Scheduled to be Executed Tonight  
 - Torture Reported in Second Iraqi-Run Prison 
- Red Cross Criticizes U.S. For Hiding Prisoners
- China Accused of Covering Up Killing of 20 Protesters
- 10,000 Gather to Protest in Hong Kong Outside WTO
- Report: Israeli Army Prepares to Attack Iran in March
- 20,000 Soldiers Hospitalized After Anthrax Vaccine
- Sen. Eugene McCarthy, 89, Dies
- Comedian Richard Pryor, 65, Dies
This story continues at: 
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/12/1446249

From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Mon Dec 12 14:30:01 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (mblaxill@yahoo.com)
Date: Mon Dec 12 14:41:47 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Supreme Court to Review Texas Redistricting
	Dispute
Message-ID: <20051212223001.17B72249DC1@lax-gw08.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: mblaxill@yahoo.com.

back on the beat!


WASHINGTON | December 12, 2005
Supreme Court to Review Texas Redistricting Dispute
By DAVID STOUT
The redistricting has been credited with helping the G.O.P. gain five more seats in the Texas delegation to the House.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/12/politics/12cnd-scotus.html?emc=eta1



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From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Mon Dec 12 14:30:57 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (mblaxill@yahoo.com)
Date: Mon Dec 12 14:41:57 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Immigrants' Dreams Mix With Fury Near Paris
Message-ID: <20051212223057.834D311FA90@lax-gw07.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: mblaxill@yahoo.com.

INTERNATIONAL / EUROPE | December 12, 2005
Immigrants' Dreams Mix With Fury Near Paris
By ELAINE SCIOLINO
The town of La Courneuve has become a symbol of France's failure to integrate Arab and African immigrants.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/12/international/europe/12suburb.html?emc=eta1



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From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Mon Dec 12 14:31:55 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (mblaxill@yahoo.com)
Date: Mon Dec 12 14:42:32 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Reporter Recounts Talk About C.I.A. Leak
Message-ID: <20051212223155.7421F11F98A@lax-gw07.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: mblaxill@yahoo.com.

WASHINGTON | December 12, 2005
Reporter Recounts Talk About C.I.A. Leak
By DAVID JOHNSTON
Karl Rove's lawyer was surprised to hear that Mr. Rove had probably been a source for Time magazine's July 2003 article that discussed the C.I.A. officer at the heart of the leak case, a Time reporter wrote.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/12/politics/12leak.html?emc=eta1



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one Best Picture.  What did the original New York
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From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Mon Dec 12 14:32:47 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (mblaxill@yahoo.com)
Date: Mon Dec 12 14:43:38 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: After Success as Governor in G.O.P.
	Stronghold, Democrat Seeks a National Identity
Message-ID: <20051212223247.64F9B24AF7E@lax-gw02.mroute.net>

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NATIONAL | December 12, 2005
After Success as Governor in G.O.P. Stronghold, Democrat Seeks a National Identity
By RAYMOND HERNANDEZ
Gov. Mark Warner of Virginia has begun a major foray onto the national stage, raising millions of dollars for his likely presidential bid.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/12/national/12warner.html?emc=eta1



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From michael at intrafi.com  Mon Dec 12 13:39:17 2005
From: michael at intrafi.com (michael@intrafi.com)
Date: Mon Dec 12 14:55:51 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] How the President Got A Life 
Message-ID: <200512122139.jBCLdHY15632@linux19272.dn.net>



How the President Got A Life 

Bush was a leader adrift. Then came September 11—and the world it wrought.

by Tom Engelhardt

December 08, 2005

     
     
The "usually disengaged" President, as columnist Maureen Dowd labeled him, had just returned from a prolonged, brush-cutting Crawford vacation to much criticism and a nation in trouble.  (One Republican congressman complained that "it was hard for Mr. Bush to get his message out if the White House lectern had a 'Gone Fishing' sign on it.")  Democrats were on the attack.  Journalistic coverage seemed to grow ever bolder.  Bush's poll figures were dropping.  A dozen prominent Republicans, fearful of a President out of touch with the national mood, gathered for a private dinner with Karl Rove to "offer an unvarnished critique of Mr. Bush's style and strategy."  Next year's congressional elections suddenly seemed up for grabs.  The President's aides were desperately scrambling to reposition him as a more "commanding" figure, while, according to the polls, a majority of Americans felt the country was headed in the wrong direction. At the Pentagon, Donald Rumsfeld had "crate!
red"; in the Middle East "violence was rising."  
     
An editorial in the New York Times caught the moment this way in its opening sentence:  "A simple truth of human existence is that it is vastly easier to amplify fear than it is to assuage it."  Now, there was a post-9/11 truth -- except that the editorial was headlined "The Statistical Shark" and its next sentence wasn't about planes smashing into buildings or the way the Bush administration had since wielded the fear card, but another hot-button issue entirely.  It went:  "Consider the shark attacks that have occurred in Florida, Virginia and North Carolina this summer."  
     
This was, in fact, September 6, 2001, the waning days of a man-bites-dog summer in which headlines had been dominated by the deaths of David Peltier, a 10 year-old boy in Florida, and Sergei Zloukaev, a 27-year-old in North Carolina in fatal shark attacks.  Just the day before, in fact, the Times had carried a piece by William J. Broad reassuring readers that scientists did not believe the world was facing a shark "rampage."  "If anything," Broad concluded, "the recent global trend in shark attacks is down."   
     
It was just past Labor Day.  Congress was barely back in session.  Heywood Hale Broun, the sportswriter, would die at 83 that relatively quiet week, while Mexican President Vicente Fox swept triumphantly into Washington and a new book, featured on Newsweek's cover, would carry the title, The Accidental President.  The Sunday New York Times Arts & Leisure section was promoting "the new season" in entertainment, while that night a highly publicized 10-part mini-series was premiering on HBO -- Band of Brothers, a Tom Hanks/Steven Speilberg production that followed a platoon of Greatest-Generation soldiers deep into Germany.  If World War II nostalgia was on the tube, war elsewhere in the American world was also largely on screen.  On September 7, Times journalist Thom Shanker reported on a classified war game, a computer-generated simulation played out by "the nation's senior commanders" which determined that the U.S. military could "decisively defeat one potential advers!
ary, North Korea, while repelling an attack from Iraq" -- even if "terrorists [attacked] New York City with chemical weapons."  
     
All in all, that week before September 11th was a modestly uneventful one.  An afternoon spent revisiting the New York Times' version of it, via a library microfiche machine, making my way through that paper, day by day, section by section, plunged me into a nearly forgotten world in which the Democrats still controlled the Senate by a single vote and key Republican senators -- it was Texan Phil Gramm's turn to announce his retirement that week -- were going down like bowling pins.  (Jesse Helms and Strom Thurmond had preceded Gramm "adding a new element of uncertainty to the 2002 race.")  The President had been met by exceedingly gloomy economic news as the unemployment rate jumped that Saturday to 4.9% -- another 100,000 jobs lost -- a full point above election day, ten months earlier; and Wall Street responded with a sell-off that dropped the Dow Jones to 9,600.  Republicans were "panicked," the administration adrift, and we wouldn't see the likes of it again for fo!
ur years.
     
Eerie Resonances  
     
A number of post-9/11 subjects would be in the paper that week:
     
Torture was in the headlines -- leading off the culture page that Saturday ("Torture Charge Pits Professor vs. Professor") in a memory piece, datelined Santiago, on Augusto Pinochet's brutal military rule in Chile.  (The anniversary of his bloody coup -- September 11, 1973 -- was approaching.)  
     
Then, too, an American citizen had been imprisoned without charges for 18 months -- but it was electrical engineer Fuming Fong and China was holding him.    
     
Anthrax made the op-ed page -- but only because Russian scientists had developed a new type that could "overcome the standard Russian and American vaccines."  
     
Terrorism in the U.S. was in the news -- an Oklahoma prosecutor was seeking the death penalty for Terry L. Nichols in the Oklahoma City Murrah Federal Building bombing.
     
"Violence in the Middle East" was on the front page -- but in that week, it had only one meaning, the endless Israeli/Palestinian conflict.  (The first Israeli-Arab suicide bomber had just struck.)  
     
The Taliban could be found on the front page on September 7 (and inside on subsequent days) -- but only because the mullahs were trying eight foreign aid workers for preaching Christianity.  The bemused articles ("Another Strange Kabul Problem:  Finding a Lawyer") were of the weird-foreigners variety.  
     
Military recruitment was a topic of interest then as now -- the Army, after switching ad agencies and slogans ("Army of One" for "Be All You Can Be") had just conducted an "elaborate event" at the Pentagon, swearing into service its 75,800th recruit of the year, 19 year-old Rodrigo Vasquez III of Karnes City, Texas, in order to highlight meeting its recruitment goals a month ahead of schedule in the "most successful recruiting year since at least 1997."  
     
Howard Dean made the inside pages of the paper that week -- the little-known Vermont governor (tagged with "fiscal conservativism/social liberalism") announced that he would not seek reelection to his fifth two-year term.  There was "speculation" that he might even "run for the Democratic nomination for President."  
     
Missing in Action
     
And then there were -- in terms of what we've been used to ever since -- the missing, or almost missing.  Saddam Hussein didn't make it into the paper that week.  Kim Il Sung was nowhere in sight.  Osama bin Laden barely slipped into print -- twice deep into articles -- as "the accused terrorist" being hosted by the strange Taliban government.  The Axis of Evil, of course, did not exist, nor did the Global War on Terror, and the potential enemy of the week, pushed by Donald Rumsfeld (himself on the defensive over the military budget and arguments with his generals), was "the rising China threat."  Iran was scarcely a blip on the news radar screen; Syria rated not a mention.  Also missing were just about any of the names we now consider second nature to the post-9/11 news.  No "Scooter" Libby.  No Valerie Plame.  No Paul Wolfowitz, John Bolton, or Douglas Feith.  In fact, not a neocon made it into the pages of the paper over those seven days, and Judy Miller, the neocon!
s' future dream reporter, who would soon enough storm the front page of the Times and take it for her own, had two pieces that week, a September 5th page-five article about a former Arms Control and Disarmament Agency general counsel challenging the administration's "assertion that the global treaty banning biological weapons permits nations to test such arms for defensive purposes"; and, two days later, a tiny Israel piece tucked away at the bottom of page fifteen on "the alleged [on-line] support for terrorism" by Islamic groups and charities.  The Vice President, seen silently at the President's side at a "hastily arranged" and awkward "appearance" on the White House grounds after the unemployment figures broke, was otherwise nowhere to be seen, though the Times speculated on its editorial page ("The Bush Merry-Go-Round") that he was "losing influence." ("Mr. Cheney's heart problems and his ardent embrace of the coal, oil and gas industries seem to have hobbled him.")
     
 Though the sharks in the world's oceans that week were feeding on something other than humans, there were still "sharks" around.  Allison Mitchell began a Sunday lead Week in Review piece ("Face Off: Which Way to Win Control of Congress?") this way:  "Talk about shark season, Congress came back into session last week and the Democrats were circling, sensing blood in the political waters."  Little wonder.  This was, after all, a non-majoritarian President who had, as Times writers didn't hesitate to remind people, just squeaked through with a helping hand from the Supreme Court.  After managing to get one massive tax cut by Congress, he began to drift like a lost lifeboat at sea, while his advisers fretted over polls "showing that many people still view Mr. Bush not as decisive but as tentative and perhaps overly scripted."  He was, as a front-page piece by Richard L. Berke and David E. Sanger, put it on September 9th, "essentially out of economic ammunition."  
 
 
     
 The nature of politics in Washington that week could be caught in lines like:  "Democrats go on the attack?" and "Democrats intensified their attacks against Mr. Bush?"  Less than a year into a Bush presidency, Columnist Tom Friedman was already offering the faltering leader heartfelt advice on how not to lose the next election.  Be "Clinton-minus," not "Reagan-squared" was the formula he offered.  As the Mitchell piece made clear, this was a presidency under siege as well as a Republican Party -- so "everyone" in Washington agreed -- "in peril."  In the sort of action not to be seen again for years, a Senate committee actually cut money from the defense budget that week, an act Shanker of the Times termed "another stark challenge" from committee Chairman Carl Levin of Michigan.  The political failure of the President's father was evidently on Washington minds as well, and so the paper in a number of pieces linked father and son.  The father's bid for reelection had, !
after all, gone down in flames in the nation's previous recession or, as the headline of one story put it, "Like Father, Bush Is Caught in a Politically Perilous Budget Squeeze."  
 
 
     
 A few aspects of our post-9/11 political world were quite recognizable even then.  That week, the Bush administration was easing up on Big Tobacco ("Justice Official Denies Pressure to Settle Tobacco Suit") and Big Computer ("U.S. Abandoning Its Effort to Break Apart Microsoft"), while preparing to bail from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.  And as the administration pushed for legislation to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, a "hobbled" Dick Cheney was already stonewalling about what had occurred when his Energy Task Force of Big Oil met earlier in 2001.  
 
 
     
 The two days before 9/11 were so quiet that you could practically hear a news pin drop.  In the Times of September 11th  -- in that moment before the Internet took full possession of us, a day's lag between events and the news was a print norm -- the major story ("Key Leaders Talk of Possible Deals to Revive Economy, Bush is Under Pressure") indicated that "some Republicans" were anxiously bringing up the 1982 midterm elections when President Reagan "told the nation to ?stay the course' in a recession" and the Party dropped numerous House seats in the midterm elections.  
 
 
     
 At the bottom of the front page was a plane-hijacking story, though it was thirty years old.  ("Traced on Internet, Teacher Is Charged In '71 Jet Hijacking.")  Across the rest of the page-bottom on that final morning were: "In a Nation of Early Risers, Morning TV Is a Hot Market" and "School Dress Codes vs. a Sea of Bare Flesh."
 
 
     
 For intimations of what was to come, you would have had to move inside.  On page 3, Douglas Frantz reported, "Suicide Bomb Kills 2 Police Officers in Istanbul," a bombing for which no one took credit and which was automatically attributed to "a leftist terrorist group" (something that would not happen again soon).  A page farther on, you could find Barry Bearak and James Risen's piece "Reports Disagree on Fate of Anti-Taliban Rebel Chief" about the assassination of Ahmed Shah Massoud, an anti-Taliban warlord, by two Arabs posing as journalists (which we now know was connected to the September 11 plot).  In its penultimate paragraph was this:  "If the would-be assassins were indeed Arabs? the fact would lend credibility to those who contend that foreigners, including Osama bin Laden, are playing an ever bigger decision-making role among the Taliban."
 
 
     
 Peering further into the future -- on page 8, under World Briefs, was a throwaway paragraph on the low-level air war even then being conducted against Saddam Hussein's Iraq ("Iraq said eight civilians were killed and three wounded when Western planes attacked farms 100 miles southeast of Baghdad.  The Pentagon said American and British warplanes attacked three surface-to-air missile sites in the so-called no-fly zone?"); and another, "Iran:  Denial on nuclear weapons," that began:  "The government rejected charges by the United States that it was seeking nuclear weapons?"    
 
 
     
 And then, of course, there was nothing to do but oh-so-slowly turn the microfiche dial, knowing exactly what was around the corner of time and, after a pitch-black break between days, stumble into those mile-high headlines -- "U.S. Attacked, Hijacked Jets Destroy Twin Towers and Hit Pentagon in Day of Terror" -- and, despite yourself, experience with a kind of gasp the sky in your brain filling with falling bodies.  
 
 
     
 Here, by the way, is how that September 6th Times shark editorial ended.  If it doesn't give you a little chill for what we've lost, I don't know what will.  "Life is full of things that carry more risk than swimming in the ocean.  Most of them are inevitably the byproducts of daily life, like falling televisions and car accidents, because daily life is where we spend most of our time.  It may lack the visceral fears aroused by the unlikely threat of a shark attack, but it is also far more lethal."
 
 
     
 Only five days after that was written, almost three thousand New Yorkers, some adopted from countries around the globe, would face a danger far more shocking -- and, until that moment, far less imaginable to most of us, than any shark attack.  Things would indeed fall from the sky -- and from a history so many Americans knew nothing about -- and visceral fears would be aroused that would drive us, like the Pearl Harbor-ish headlines that greeted the audacious act not of a major power but of 19 fanatics in four planes prepared to die, into a future even more unimaginable.
 
 
     
 Put another way, an afternoon spent in the lost world of September 5-10, 2001, reminds us that the savage attacks of the following day would, in fact, buy a faltering, confused, and weak administration as well as a dazed and disengaged President a new life, a "calling" as he would put it, and almost four years to do its damnedest.  It would be 2004 before the President's polling figures settled into the levels of that long-lost September 10th.  It would be the summer of 2005 ?- and the administration's disastrous handling of hurricanes Sheehan, Katrina, and Iraq -- before the President would again be criticized for his "gone fishing" summer vacation; before the Democrats would again begin to attack; before newspapers would again be relatively uncowed; before the Republicans would again gather in those private (and then public) places and begin to complain; before Congress would again be up for grabs.  Four long years to make it back to September 10th, 2001 in an Ameri!
can world now filled to the brim with horrors, a United States which is no longer a "country," but a "homeland" and a Homeland Security State.  
 
 
     
 [Note: This is the first of two pieces.  The second, to appear sometime next week, will be on the world of Bushism after Bush and Cheneyism after Cheney, the American world our children will inherit.]
 
 
     
 Tom Engelhardt, who runs the Nation Institute's Tomdispatch.com ("a regular antidote to the mainstream media"), is the co-founder of the American Empire Project and the author of The End of Victory Culture, a history of American triumphalism in the Cold War. His novel, The Last Days of Publishing, has just come out in paperback. 
 
 
     
 Copyright 2005 Tom Engelhardt
 
 
     This piece first appeared at Tomdispatch.com.
 
 



     
@2005 The Foundation for National Progress

Read the article online:

     http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/columns/2005/12/shark-bit_world.html
     
Check out the latest from Mother Jones at:

     http://www.motherjones.com
     
From michael at intrafi.com  Mon Dec 12 15:11:20 2005
From: michael at intrafi.com (Michael)
Date: Mon Dec 12 15:12:04 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Article from Tom Dispatch
Message-ID: <200512122311.jBCNBKcG031578@thor.thenation.com>

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From ean at sbcglobal.net  Sun Dec 11 21:00:33 2005
From: ean at sbcglobal.net (ean@sbcglobal.net)
Date: Mon Dec 12 15:23:02 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] How Greenspan Skewered America 
Message-ID: <E1ElwqE-0004Xb-89@smtpauth04.mail.atl.earthlink.net>

Debt, Unemployment, Privatization and 
War 

How Greenspan Skewered 
America 

By Mike Whitney 

http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/december2005/071205howgreen
span.htm

No one has done more to ensure the ultimate demise of the American 
middle class than Alan Greenspan. 

No one. 

In the stately pantheon of class-warriors, Greenspan's spectral-image 
looms larger than any other; the foremost proponent of hardnosed 
social-Darwinism and exclusionary economics. Even his carpet-
bagging consort, G.W. Bush, pales in comparison. 

In just under 5 years the Fed-master has engineered a coup so vast 
and devastating that $1.3 trillion of borrowed revenue has been adroitly 
shifted from the beleaguered middle class to the privileged 1% that 
Greenspan represents. 

Whoa! 

It is the biggest heist in the history of the planet, and it was designed 
and executed within the leather-bound citadel of the Federal Reserve. 

Thanks, Alan. 

The partnership of Bush and Greenspan has been the moral 
equivalent of the sacking of Rome; maxing out the nation's credit card 
until every last farthing has been drained from the public till. 
Greenspan's tenure has left America bobbing atop an ocean of red ink 
ready to capsize with the first gust of recession. 

Greenspan was a key player in facilitating the Iraq war, pushing 
interest rates to their lowest level 6 months before the war to keep the 
economy on life-support while the propaganda campaign burst from 
the front pages of the New York Times and the Washington Post. 

It worked like a charm. 

The American people were hoodwinked by White House fabrications 
and anesthetized by cheap money. They began a borrowing frenzy that 
sluiced zillions into a hyper-inflated housing market that is timed to 
detonate just as wistful Alan picks up his gold watch and heads for the 
exit. 

Good thinking, Alan. 

Now, after years of mismanagement, Greenspan is offering caveats 
about the chaos he's leaving behind. In his typical gibberish the 
chairman has warned of "painful" adjustments if deficits are not 
brought under control. 

"Painful" or life threatening? 

It was Greenspan, the budget-busting tote for the patrician-class, who 
defended the lavish Bush tax cuts that put the country on the fast-track 
to doomsday. Now, he's joined Grover Norquist and the "privatization-
kooks" who want to dismantle the tattered ruins of the social safety net 
and christen the new epoch of predatory capitalism. Alan is a big 
supporter of "survival of the fittest" economics; the notion that people 
at the bottom of the societal food-chain deserve to be there so their 
Nietzschean overlords, like the Fed-chair, can rule supreme. 

As Greenspan applies the last few turns of the screw (raising interest 
rates twice more before he leaves) we're bound to see the credit-
shackled middle class begin an orderly march towards the nearest cliff 
where they will quickly disappear lemming-like into the sea. 

Seriously, the American people have no idea of the economic firestorm 
that's just around the corner. 

The economy is underwritten by $8 trillion of debt, requiring massive 
$2 billion infusions of foreign capital EVERY DAY. As former Fed-chief 
Volker noted, "It can't go one for ever." 

No it can't. Besides, it's all part of a neoliberal plan that has been 
successfully executed throughout the third world; plunging the host 
nation into insurmountable debt with the help of crooked regime (Bush 
and Co.) and then pulling the rug out from under the shocked public. 
The massive and calculated deficits are intended to create a crisis of 
insolvency, resulting in the same type of "shock therapy" and 
"structural readjustment"programs the IMF applies to bankrupt nations 
around the world. Greenspan has moved the country closer to his goal 
of dismantling popular social programs so the captains of industry can 
privatize the public's assets. 

So, how did Greenspan pull it off? 

How did he keep the somnolent American public from noticing the 
widening deficits and the alarming transfer of wealth from one class to 
another? 

The answer is; low interest rates, the toxic elixir that can incapacitate 
an entire nation, leaving its people drowsy and indifferent to imminent 
disaster. 

Recently, Greenspan has begun warning of the difficulties ahead, 
cautioning that our problems will only be "compounded by a 
protectionist reversal of globalization". In other words, prepare yourself 
to compete with the lowest paid worker in Canton province. The 
hemorrhaging of high-paying jobs that sustain the middle class doesn't 
bother the Fed-chief. Greenspan has the same irksome sense of 
equity as his ideological-twin at New York Times, Tom Friedman. 
Friedman has been preaching the gospel of "free market"capitalism for 
years. Neither one tries to conceal their contempt for organized labor 
or the redistribution of profits. Friedman's Brigadoon is identical to 
Greenspan's; a land of milk and honey where 99% of the denizens live 
in abject poverty scraping to get by and where the not-so-invisible hand 
is savagely affixed to the throat of a permanent underclass. 

Welcome to Greenspan's nirvana. 

Greenspan also warned that the budget "will substantially worsen in 
the coming years unless major deficit-reducing measures are taken." 

"Deficit-reducing measures"? You mean, like rolling back the Bush tax 
cuts? 

Hell no; class-warrior Alan said "he did not believe that major 
increases in taxes were the solution". 

Of course, not. Why should the fat-cats in the silk suits and Ferraris 
have to pay their share? After all, we can just raise the payroll tax 
again (Greenspan's earlier plan) and take another pound of flesh from 
the middle class? No one will notice. 

Baby boomers retirement? 

Not to worry; Greenspan suggests we extend the age of retirement to 
some imaginary date when the wealthy will stop fleecing the poor and 
the national ledger will magically balance. 

Cradle to grave; Americans are being prepared for the slaughter. The 
chances for upward mobility or even subsistent living are being 
eclipsed by the day. The yolk that one shoulders at birth will follow him 
until his death. 

Greenspan's racketeers have absconded with the nation's bounty 
behind a smokescreen of low interest rates. They lulled us to sleep 
with soothing words of "no-interest loans", no down payments, and a 
real estate windfall for anyone bold enough to sign on the dotted line. 

Now, the grim reality has begun to set in. Interest rates are rising, the 
dollar is reeling, energy costs are skyrocketing, consumer confidence 
is plummeting, and gold is shooting through the roof. When China and 
Japan decide to jettison their worthless US Savings Bonds; 
Greenspan's mighty fortress will collapse in a heap. 

The American people are crazy to think that a privately owned 
institution like the Federal Reserve will ever function in the public 
interest. The Fed operates behind an iron-curtain of secrecy to protect 
the interests of its primary constituents; the parasite class. It was 
authorized under executive order by Woodrow Wilson who was 
coerced into putting the country's future into the hands of its central 
bankers so he could finance World War 1. Bankers have always 
understood that the one who holds the purse-strings calls the shots. 
This explains what Thomas Jefferson meant when he said, "Banking 
establishments are more dangerous than standing armies." 

While Greenspan teeters off to retirement, he can be confident that his 
trap has already sprung. The country is dead-broke and will be forced 
to comply with the demands of its creditors. The impending "austerity 
measures" will be used to reshape the fabric of American life; a 
complete reordering of society to meet the standards of a modern 
capitalist utopia; Greenspan's paradise, the United States of 
Destitution. 

Mike Whitney lives in Washington state. He can be reached at: 
fergiewhitney@msn.com 


-- 
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 former U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice and Nuremberg prosecutor

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From grgolsorkhi at earthlink.net  Mon Dec 12 06:30:23 2005
From: grgolsorkhi at earthlink.net (Golsorkhi)
Date: Mon Dec 12 15:24:18 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] FW: What 'Munich' (Spielberg's new movie)  Left Out 
In-Reply-To: <9C9FD578-E3B9-4733-BA10-510F0F18DE9F@thesamiis.com>
Message-ID: <E1ElwrR-0005VV-PN@smtpauth04.mail.atl.earthlink.net>


------ Forwarded Message
From: Samii Shahla <shahla@thesamiis.com>
Date: Sun, 11 Dec 2005 14:40:39 -0500
Subject: What 'Munich' (Spielberg's new movie)  Left Out

NY Times
December 11, 2005
Op-Ed Columnist

What 'Munich' Left Out

By DAVID BROOKS

Every generation of Americans casts Israel in its own morality tale. For a
time, Israel was the plucky underdog fighting for survival against larger
foes. Now, as Steven Spielberg rolls out the publicity campaign for his new
movie, "Munich," we see the crystallization of a different fable. In this
story, the Israelis and the Palestinians are parallel peoples victimized by
history and trapped in a cycle of violence.

In his rollout interview in Time, Spielberg spoke of the Middle East's
endless killings and counterkillings. "A response to a response doesn't
really solve anything. It just creates a perpetual motion machine,"
Spielberg said. "There's been a quagmire of blood for blood for many decades
in that region. Where does it end?"

The main problem, he concluded, is intransigence itself. "The only thing
that's going to solve this is rational minds, a lot of sitting down and
talking until you're blue in the gills."

"Munich" the movie is a brilliant representation of this argument. Its hero,
Avner, has been called in by Golda Meir to assassinate the terrorists
responsible for the murder of 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics. Over
the course of the movie, as assassination piles upon assassination, Avner
descends into a pit of Raskolnikovian hell. Israelis kill Palestinians and
Palestinians kill Israelis and guilt piles upon paranoia. Eventually, Avner
loses faith in his mission, in Zionism, in Israel itself.

This is a new kind of antiwar movie for a new kind of war, and in so many
ways it is innovative, sophisticated and intelligent.

But when it is political, Spielberg has to distort reality to fit his
preconceptions. In the first place, by choosing a story set in 1972,
Spielberg allows himself to ignore the core poison that permeates the Middle
East, Islamic radicalism. In Spielberg's Middle East, there is no Hamas or
Islamic Jihad. There are no passionate anti-Semites, no Holocaust deniers
like the current president of Iran, no zealots who want to exterminate
Israelis.

There is, above all, no evil. And that is the core of Spielberg's fable. In
his depiction of reality there are no people so committed to a murderous
ideology that they are impervious to the sort of compromise and dialogue
Spielberg puts such great faith in.

Because he will not admit the existence of evil, as it really exists,
Spielberg gets reality wrong. Understandably, he doesn't want to portray
Palestinian terrorists as cartoon bad guys, but he simply doesn't portray
them. There's one speech in which a Palestinian terrorist sounds like
Mahmoud Abbas, but beyond that, the terrorists are marginal and opaque.

And because there is no evil, Spielberg gets the Israeli fighters wrong.
Avner is an American image of what an Israeli hero should be. The real
Israeli fighters tend to be harder and less sympathetic, and they are made
that way by an awareness of the evil implacability of those who want to
exterminate them.

In Spielberg's Middle East the only way to achieve peace is by renouncing
violence. But in the real Middle East the only way to achieve peace is
through military victory over the fanatics, accompanied by compromise
between the reasonable elements on each side. Somebody, the Israelis or the
Palestinian Authority, has to defeat Hamas and the other terrorist groups.
Far from leading to a downward cycle, this kind of violence is the
precondition to peace.

Here too, Spielberg's decision to tell a story set in the early 1970's makes
"Munich" a misleading way to start a larger discussion.

In 1972, Israel was just entering the era of spectacular terror attacks and
didn't know how to respond. But over the years Israelis have learned that
targeted assassinations, which are the main subject of this movie, are one
of the less effective ways to fight terror.

Israel much prefers to arrest suspected terrorists. Arrests don't set off
rounds of retaliation, and arrested suspects are likely to provide you with
intelligence, the real key to defanging terror groups.

Over the past few years Israeli forces have used arrests, intelligence work,
the security fence and, at times, targeted assassinations to defeat the
second intifada. As a result, the streets of Jerusalem are filled with
teenagers, and the political climate has relaxed, allowing Ariel Sharon to
move to the center.

Recent history teaches what Spielberg's false generalization about the
"perpetual motion machine" of violence does not: that some violence is
constructive and some is destructive. The trick is knowing the difference.
That's a recognition that comes from reality, not fables.


Copyright 2005The New York Times Company
---

URL:?http://select.nytimes.com/2005/12/11/opinion/11brooks.html?th&emc=th?


------ End of Forwarded Message

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From nwonline at toronto.cbc.ca  Mon Dec 12 16:41:27 2005
From: nwonline at toronto.cbc.ca (CBC News Online)
Date: Mon Dec 12 16:52:32 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] CBC News - MISTRIAL DECLARED IN U.S. VIOXX TRIAL
Message-ID: <20051213004127.38F1D69AFB@nmweb09.nm.cbc.ca>

This email has been sent to you by harry.sifton@sympatico.ca
The following is a news item posted on CBC NEWS ONLINE
at http://www.cbc.ca/news
____________________________________________________
MISTRIAL DECLARED IN U.S. VIOXX TRIAL
WebPosted Mon Dec 12 13:11:02 2005

---The first federal lawsuit over the anti-inflammatory drug Vioxx has
ended in a mistrial in the U.S.

Merck & Co. was being sued by the widow of a 53-year-old Florida man who
died in 2001 after taking Vioxx for back pain.

U.S. District Judge Eldon Fallon declared a mistrial Monday after jurors
could not unanimously agree on a verdict after 18 hours of deliberations
over four days.

The nine jurors in Houston couldn't decide if Vioxx contributed to the
Richard Irvin Jr.'s fatal heart attack. Lawyers said a retrial would
probably occur in February.

Irvin's family accused Merck of rushing Vioxx to the market before all
risks were known.

But Merck argued that Irvin had clogged arteries and a blood clot that
caused a blockage triggering his heart attack. Taking Vioxx for a few
weeks did not play a role in his death, the company's lawyers said.

Merck faces more than 7,000 lawsuits over Vioxx in the U.S. The company
lost a negligence lawsuit in Texas and won one another case in New
Jersey. Several lawsuits have also been filed across Canada.

Vioxx was pulled from the market worldwide in September 2004 after a long-
term study showed it could double the risk of heart attack or stroke if
taken for at least 18 months.

Last week, an editorial in The New England Journal of Medicine said Merck
withheld key information on the heart risks of the drug in a study
published in 2000.

But Merck said the results were disclosed "promptly and appropriately."


Also last week, Dr. Eric Topol, a cardiologist and the head of Cleveland
Clinic at Case Western Reserve University, lost his leadership position
at the medical school after testifying at the federal trial that Vioxx
posed an "extraordinary risk" of causing heart attacks.

Copyright (C) 2005 CBC. All rights reserved.
From nwonline at toronto.cbc.ca  Mon Dec 12 16:44:31 2005
From: nwonline at toronto.cbc.ca (CBC News Online)
Date: Mon Dec 12 16:55:31 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] CBC News - POLICE WORRIED OVER INCREASING CRIMINAL USE
	OF STUN GUNS 
Message-ID: <20051213004431.6F80F69AFB@nmweb09.nm.cbc.ca>

This email has been sent to you by harry.sifton@sympatico.ca
The following is a news item posted on CBC NEWS ONLINE
at http://www.cbc.ca/news
____________________________________________________
POLICE WORRIED OVER INCREASING CRIMINAL USE OF STUN GUNS 
WebPosted Mon Dec 12 18:12:43 2005

---Police across the country are noticing that more and more crimes are
being committed with illegal stun guns, designed to cause temporary
paralysis.

The weapons that are turning up on the streets don't look like the ones
police forces in Canada use. They're smaller, about the size of a cell
phone and the electricity comes from two prongs on top which can pack
300,000 volts, enough to disable anyone who gets zapped.

Authorities are concerned about the increasing number being used to
commit crimes and how easy they are to get. Police say most of the
weapons are being ordered over the internet and delivered by mail. The
prohibited weapons are also easy to conceal.

Metro Toronto police detective Chris Neal knows of one case of a
prostitute who was lured into a car then stunned with one of the
devices. "They're obviously a concern because generally when they are
used, they are used in the commission of some very serious charges,
usually sexually assault."

Police say some of the weapons are being ordered online from the U.S.
where the guns are legal in some states.

The Canada Border Services Agency is supposed to stop the delivery of
the weapons, but it only searches about three per cent of all packages
entering the country. Already this year it has found more than 200 of
the stun guns, but no one can say for sure how many more are actually
getting through.

John Thompson, of the MacKenzie Institute, a Toronto based think tank,
has studied the smuggling of everything from tobacco to firearms. He says
Canadians should expect to see a lot more stun guns on the streets.

"By the time you start to notice the appearance of an illicit commodity,
it's already too late. It's the tip of the iceberg. It means there's
already a demand for it - a means of supplying that demand - and a lot
more of the product out there than you realize."

Copyright (C) 2005 CBC. All rights reserved.
From annabel_leventon at hotmail.com  Mon Dec 12 16:52:09 2005
From: annabel_leventon at hotmail.com (annabel leventon)
Date: Mon Dec 12 18:56:36 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] FW: A criminal conviction for reading out the names of
 the British soldiers killed in Iraq
Message-ID: <E1Em0Aq-0001CT-1N@smtpauth04.mail.atl.earthlink.net>

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From harry.sifton at sympatico.ca  Mon Dec 12 19:18:51 2005
From: harry.sifton at sympatico.ca (Harry)
Date: Mon Dec 12 19:29:30 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] BBC E-mail: US ex-gang boss denied clemency
Message-ID: <20051213_031851_036491.harry.sifton@sympatico.ca>

Harry saw this story on BBC News Online and thought you
should see it.

** Message **
This man was the founder of the Crips...... need I say any more. The Crips are a national drug organization and are responsible for thousands of murders in the US.



** US ex-gang boss denied clemency **
Former gang leader Stanley "Tookie" Williams exhausts his legal appeals, and is now due for execution in a few hours.
< http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/1/hi/world/americas/4523098.stm >


** BBC Daily E-mail **
Choose the news and sport headlines you want - when you want them, all
in one daily e-mail
< http://www.bbc.co.uk/dailyemail/ >


** Disclaimer **
The BBC is not responsible for the content of this e-mail, and anything written in this e-mail does not necessarily reflect the BBC's views or opinions. Please note that neither the e-mail address nor name of the sender have?been verified.

If you do not wish to receive such e-mails in the future or want to know more about the BBC's Email a Friend service, please read our frequently asked questions. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/help/4162471.stm

From harry.sifton at sympatico.ca  Mon Dec 12 19:34:29 2005
From: harry.sifton at sympatico.ca (Harold Sifton)
Date: Mon Dec 12 19:45:13 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] China hacks US sites!!
Message-ID: <000801c5ff96$22f75920$bd27e440@Harold>

Chinese hackers attack US sites

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2005/12/12/051212224756.jwmkvntb.html

Why the US bends over backwards to please China, while China criminally exploits America I do not know. Is Nike that powerful??

Later H

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From swiggard at comcast.net  Tue Dec 13 03:48:21 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Tue Dec 13 04:01:47 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Justices To Review DeLay-Led Districting - Washington
	Post 
Message-ID: <439EB505.8010803@comcast.net>

Justices To Review DeLay-Led Districting
Texas Plan Has Been Called Discriminatory

By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, December 13, 2005; A01

The Supreme Court agreed yesterday to consider the legality of Texas's 
2003 congressional redistricting plan, which was engineered by 
then-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) and helped cement GOP 
control of the House.

The court will hear challenges from Democrats and minority groups who 
say that the mid-decade redistricting unlawfully diluted the strength of 
minority voters, injected undue partisanship into the congressional map 
and violated the concept of one person, one vote by drawing district 
lines with outdated census data.

Justice Department lawyers initially recommended rejecting Texas's plan, 
saying it would harm black and Hispanic voters, but were overruled by 
senior Justice officials. A special three-judge panel has upheld the 
redistricting map in two rulings.

Election law experts said the justices' acceptance of the case suggests 
that they may be prepared to craft clearer guidelines for politicians to 
follow when redrawing congressional maps. "It could be that a majority 
is ready to impose new standards," said Richard L. Hasen, a professor at 
Loyola Law School in Los Angeles who teaches election law.

The court said it will consider the case on an expedited schedule, 
hearing oral arguments March 1, just one week before congressional 
candidates are to square off in primary races.

The Texas plan has been at the heart of legal and ethical troubles 
facing DeLay. Though it allowed the GOP to pick up six congressional 
seats, DeLay's efforts on behalf of the plan resulted in his being 
admonished by the House Ethics Committee and indicted on charges of 
illegally diverting money to the campaigns of state legislators who drew 
the new map.

Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D), who saw his compact Austin and Travis County 
district dismantled in 2003, welcomed the court's decision to hear the case.

"With all this talk of spreading democracy abroad, I'm hopeful there 
might be some spreading of democracy at home now," he said.

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott said: "Given the importance of the 
issues at stake, it is not surprising for the court to choose to allow 
oral argument before deciding the merits of the case. After hearing the 
case, we expect the court will agree . . . that the Texas redistricting 
plan is wholly constitutional."

A federal court had redrawn a congressional map after the 2000 census, 
but DeLay said it was too Democratic for a majority-Republican state. In 
2002, Texans sent 17 Democrats and 15 Republicans to Congress.

DeLay and his political action committees pumped tens of thousands of 
dollars into state elections in 2002 to win Republican control of the 
Texas legislature. That fundraising led to his indictment in September 
and his resignation from the House leadership.

In 2003, at DeLay's urging, the legislature and Gov. Rick Perry (R) 
redrew the congressional map in three special sessions. Democratic 
legislators tried to thwart the effort, at one point fleeing to Oklahoma 
to deny the legislature a quorum. The Ethics Committee rebuked DeLay for 
using the Federal Aviation Administration to track down a private plane 
that was shuttling Democrats out of the state.

Critics say the new map was drawn in violation of the Constitution and 
the Voting Rights Act. The Supreme Court will hear one lawsuit, by 
Travis County and the city of Austin, that contends the redistricting 
violated the concept of one person, one vote by using three-year-old 
census data -- rather than remapping immediately after the census, which 
is customary. The plaintiffs said they made no effort to update that 
data to reflect more than 1 million new people -- predominantly Latinos 
-- who had entered the state between 2000 and 2003.

Two other suits, by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational 
Fund and the League of United Latin American Citizens, say that the plan 
itself violated the Voting Rights Act by diluting the voting strength of 
minorities.

"When you set out to hammer the Democrats, it's going to be difficult to 
do that without hammering minorities' rights as well," said Rolando L. 
Rios, lead attorney for the Latin American citizens league.

The voting rights suits point to two districts in particular, Doggett's 
old 10th District, which covered one county and now stretches eastward 
to Houston, and Republican Rep. Henry Bonilla's 23rd District.

In 2001, the voting-age population of the 10th District was 55 percent 
non-Hispanic white, while Latinos and blacks made up 39 percent. Now, 
the white voting-age population is nearly 70 percent, while minorities 
are just over 25 percent. A district that gave Doggett 84 percent of its 
votes in 2002 gave Republican Michael T. McCaul 84 percent two years later.

The federal courts had deemed the 23rd District a Latino opportunity 
district, but Latino groups have said that white voters gave Bonilla his 
razor-thin margin of victory in 2002 over a Latino Democrat. That year, 
the voting-age population of his district was 63 percent Latino and 33 
percent non-Hispanic white.

For Republicans in Austin, Bonilla's victory was too shaky. After 
redistricting, he cruised to victory with 69 percent of the vote. That 
time, the Latino population was 51 percent, while the white population 
had climbed to 45 percent.

"To dismantle a Latino-majority district for the explicit purpose of 
making sure they can't elect a candidate of their choice is a violation 
of the Voting Rights Act," said Nina Perales, southwestern regional 
counsel for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

Bolstering that case are the Justice lawyers. A December 2003 memo 
obtained this month by The Washington Post shows that six staff lawyers 
and two analysts from the voting section concluded that the Texas plan 
should be rejected because it would harm black and Hispanic voters. 
Senior Justice officials overruled that recommendation and issued an 
approval a week later.

Under the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Texas and other states with a 
history of discriminatory election practices must submit any voting or 
election changes to Justice for review. The department has the power to 
block any changes with an objection if discriminatory impact or intent 
is found.

Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and other Justice officials have 
defended approval of the Texas plan, saying the three-judge panel's 
findings showed that the decision was sound. Legal experts have noted, 
however, that the court's decision rested on different legal standards 
than those Justice considered.

Rios said he hopes to use the Justice memo to bolster his case before 
the Supreme Court, at least to counter Texas's claims that the 
department had upheld the plan.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/12/AR2005121200415.html?nav=hcmodule
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Tue Dec 13 03:56:26 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Tue Dec 13 04:09:56 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Beyond The War Spin - E. J. Dionne - Washington Post
	Op-Ed
Message-ID: <439EB6EA.3050907@comcast.net>

Beyond The War Spin

By E. J. Dionne Jr.
Tuesday, December 13, 2005; A27

After this week's elections in Iraq, will our national debate be about 
what the United States should do to salvage the best outcome it can from 
a war policy that has been riddled with errors and miscalculations? Or 
will we mostly discuss how politicians should position themselves on the 
war?

Here's a bet on the triumph of spin. Politicians, especially Democrats, 
will be discouraged from saying what they really believe about Iraq for 
fear of offending "swing voters." Slogans about "victory" and 
"defeatism" will be thrown around promiscuously.

The administration's defenders have enjoyed short-term political success 
by turning attention away from President Bush's Iraq policies and toward 
divisions in the Democratic Party on the subject. The Republicans 
particularly enjoy assailing Democrats who have called for the rapid 
withdrawal of American troops.

The neat summary of the new Republican home-front offensive was the tag 
line on a Republican National Committee ad: "Our country is at war. Our 
soldiers are watching and our enemies are too. Message to Democrats: 
Retreat and Defeat is not an option." Republican House Speaker Dennis 
Hastert helpfully explained: "The Democratic Party sides with those who 
wish to surrender."

Attacks of this sort on Democrats are effective because Democrats help 
make them so. Democrats are so obsessed with not looking "weak" on 
defense that they end up making themselves look weak, period, by the way 
they respond to Republican attacks on their alleged weakness. Oh my 
gosh, many Democrats say, we can't associate ourselves with the likes of 
Howard Dean or Nancy Pelosi, the House Democratic leader who recently 
called for a troop withdrawal within six months. Let's knife them before 
Karl Rove gets around to knifing us. Talk about a recipe for retreat and 
defeat.

But the Democrats' problem is not just one of political tactics. It's 
also rooted in a simple reality: Democrats in both houses of Congress 
have been divided on this war from the very beginning. House Democrats 
are, on the whole, more dovish than Senate Democrats. And the party's 
rank and file are, on the whole, more dovish than its congressional wing.

There is no magic solution to this problem, and Republicans will 
continue to exploit it. But if they do nothing else, Democrats have to 
stop being defensive in the face of Republican attacks. To suggest that 
the United States might be stronger if it found a way out from under an 
open-ended commitment in Iraq is neither weak nor unpatriotic. For a 
party to have differences over how to solve the seemingly intractable 
problems the Bush policy has created in Iraq is neither surprising nor 
feckless.

And to question this administration's optimistic claims is simply good 
sense in light of what has happened in Iraq up to now. After all, it's 
the administration's wildly optimistic assumptions that led us to fight 
a war with too few troops, too little planning, and Rodney King-like 
expectations that the Shiites, the Sunnis and the Kurds would all just 
get along. In any event, why shouldn't Democrats be divided on the war? 
So is the rest of the country. And so are Republicans.

What's gone largely unnoticed is that while Democrats show their 
divisions on the war in Congress, Republicans are more divided at the 
grass roots. In the most recent New York Times/CBS News Poll, 76 percent 
of Democrats favored reducing our commitment to Iraq -- 40 percent were 
for pulling all the troops out, 36 percent for decreasing their numbers 
-- while 13 percent favored keeping current troop levels and 6 percent 
preferred increasing their ranks. Among Republicans, 16 percent favored 
increasing our troop levels, while 37 percent would keep them constant. 
On the other side, 41 percent supported decreasing our commitment, 
including the 10 percent who were for full withdrawal.

These are remarkable numbers: 16 percent of Republicans are more hawkish 
than the president, 41 percent are more dovish. Even in the president's 
own party, a majority has doubts about our current course.

The real patriots are not those who fall into line behind everything 
Bush says. They are the Republican and Democratic doubters who have 
pressured Bush into realizing that he has limited time in Iraq and an 
imperative to speak more realistically. In his speech yesterday, Bush 
actually admitted that "things did not always go as planned" in Iraq and 
that last January's elections "were not without flaws." From an 
administration that never admits mistakes, that's progress.

Message to Democrats: Buck up. Message to Republican ad makers: 
Democracy is about improving government through the uninhibited exchange 
of ideas. And, yes, our soldiers and enemies are watching.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/12/AR2005121201264.html
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Tue Dec 13 03:59:13 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Tue Dec 13 04:12:28 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Richard Pryor: Preacher of Truth - Eugene Robinson -
 Washington Post Op-Ed
Message-ID: <439EB791.8090805@comcast.net>

Richard Pryor: Preacher of Truth

By Eugene Robinson
Tuesday, December 13, 2005; A27

Whenever he took the stage, Richard Pryor brought with him a collection 
of lost souls -- manic cokeheads with eyes as big as saucers, pimps so 
cool they couldn't be bothered to move their lips when they spoke, women 
of exceedingly loose morals, prison inmates who richly deserved their 
incarceration, sex fiends whose energy and imagination would have made 
both Masters and Johnson blush.

But along with the fallen, Pryor also portrayed men of the cloth -- 
black preachers whom he cleverly used to deliver social commentary. It 
didn't matter how puffed-up he made them sound, or how foolishly he had 
them preen and strut; it didn't matter that they might be paying undue 
attention to shapely female parishioners or the contents of the 
collection plate. Pryor always gave his preachers an air of dignity and 
command that their sins could not diminish. On a 1975 album -- " . . . 
Is It Something I Said?" -- Pryor complained that "white church" was 
"too scary for me," with its otherworldly music and somber iconography. 
"In black church," he said, "you get a show for your money."

It makes perfect sense that the most influential comedian of his time 
would identify with preachers who knew how to put on a proper show, who 
gave a committed performance, who refused to hold anything back -- and 
who told the truth. If the preacher was delivering a eulogy and the 
dearly departed had been a no-good dirty dog, well, that's what the 
preacher said. And the church said amen.

Comedians, critics and scholars are almost unanimous in citing Pryor, 
who died Saturday morning at 65, as the creator of modern stand-up 
comedy. He was the genius who saw and realized possibilities that others 
couldn't even imagine -- just as Picasso somehow had seen that an 
Avignon demoiselle's face would reveal a new kind of truth and beauty if 
he gave it the nose of an African mask. Comedian Damon Wayans best 
described Pryor's amazing technical skill in a tribute on Pryor's Web 
site: "There are many different kinds of comedians . . . the 
observational humorist, the impressionist, the character creator, the 
physical comedian, the self-deprecator, and the dirty-joke teller. What 
made Richard Pryor so brilliant is he was able to incorporate all these 
styles at once."

Pryor wasn't the first African American comedian who made it big in the 
television era -- Nipsey Russell, Bill Cosby, Flip Wilson and Godfrey 
Cambridge preceded him. But those great comics produced mainstream art, 
unthreatening to white audiences, while Pryor's stunning cultural impact 
came from his decision to present his comedy unfiltered. What came out 
of Pryor's mouth was black and raw.

Black audiences were accustomed to hearing ribald, race-specific comedy 
from artists such as Moms Mabley and Redd Foxx, who could be as daring 
and risque -- actually, nasty is what I'm trying to say -- as any comic 
working today. Sex, after all, is not a recent invention. But when 
Mabley and Foxx appeared on Ed Sullivan, they cleaned up their acts to 
the point that America came to think of them as sweet, kindly, eccentric 
senior citizens. Black folks knew better.

Pryor gave black people permission to laugh in front of white America 
the way we laughed among ourselves. The shock was not just that he said 
the things he said, but that he said them in front of white people. 
You'd hear the words coming out of his mouth, and all you could say was, 
"Oh no, he didn't !" But he did, again and again.

Those who took the ghetto world Pryor created as a literal 
representation of reality were as misguided as those who would look for 
literal, three-dimensional space in a Matisse or a de Kooning. Pryor was 
an artist, not a journalist; he exaggerated, flattened, telescoped, 
stretched and technicolored ordinary reality until it told a heightened 
truth.

He used his own messy life as raw material. Some critics have blasted 
Pryor for being a negative role model, but he always turned his manifold 
weaknesses and failings into cautionary tales. Take one riff on his drug 
use: "I snorted cocaine for 15 years, with my dumb [self]. I must have 
snorted up Peru. I could have bought Peru for all the [stuff] I 
snorted." That's not exactly an advertisement for drug use.

Pryor even came back to the stage after a cocaine-fueled attempt at 
suicide by self-immolation and managed to make people laugh about it. 
"When you run down the street on fire," he observed, "people will move 
out of your way."

He was a lot like those preachers he portrayed -- foolish, human, 
perceptive, painfully honest. And even when it hurt unbearably, he 
always gave people a show.

I say amen.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/12/AR2005121201252.html?nav=hcmodule
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Tue Dec 13 03:51:54 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Tue Dec 13 04:13:04 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] FluMist Excels In Key Trial,
	Maker Says - Washington Post 
Message-ID: <439EB5DA.6070207@comcast.net>

FluMist Excels In Key Trial, Maker Says

By Michael Rosenwald and Justin Gillis
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, December 12, 2005; 11:36 PM

MedImmune Inc. said yesterday that a new version of its nasal-spray 
influenza vaccine had proved superior for young children to the standard 
flu shot in a large global test, a finding that could revive the 
fortunes of a flagging product and potentially give the world an 
important tool against pandemic flu.

In a test of 8,492 children in 16 countries, the Gaithersburg 
biotechnology company compared standard injected vaccine with a new 
version of its FluMist product, which is delivered as two puffs of mist 
in the nose. Only 3.9 percent of children receiving FluMist got the flu, 
versus 8.6 percent of those who received standard flu shots, a 55 
percent drop.

This is the third, and by far the largest, study to show superiority for 
FluMist, which has sold poorly despite periodic shortages of flu shots. 
The new product still awaits approval from federal regulators, who had 
previously balked at allowing its use in children.

The $90 million study was MedImmune's last-ditch effort to revive 
FluMist by proving the product was better at preventing the flu in 
children under 5 -- a crucial age group for whom regulators did not 
originally recommend the vaccine when they approved it in 2003.

MedImmune, the region's most successful biotech firm and employer of 
nearly 2,000 people, appeared to have achieved its goal, even 
demonstrating that FluMist can protect against circulating flu strains 
not contained in the vaccine. Company executives had said that poor test 
results probably would have caused them to dump FluMist.

"The injectable vaccine has been used for more than 40 years," MedImmune 
chief executive David Mott said in an interview. "We have just 
demonstrated that with [FluMist] we have the potential to demonstrate 55 
percent better efficacy at preventing influenza. That's a pretty 
important finding."

But several hurdles remain for FluMist, most notably whether the Food 
and Drug Administration will even approve the product for children under 
5 and, if so, whether the agency will let the company claim superiority 
over flu shots. The study confirmed previous findings that FluMist poses 
a slight risk of precipitating wheezing episodes among some children.

If the company can make the case that FluMist is better than the flu 
shot -- and that the wheezing risk is outweighed by better protection 
against a serious virus -- the company could well have an important 
product on its hands, although some analysts question whether MedImmune 
will ever make the $800 million a year on the product that it once 
promised investors. MedImmune and a pharmaceutical partner, Wyeth, 
launched FluMist in 2003 with a $25 million advertising campaign. They 
offered it at more than $40 a dose, at least three times the price of 
standard vaccine, declaring that people would pay a premium to squirt 
mist up their noses instead of getting a shot in the arm.

But doctors balked at the price and at a burdensome requirement that the 
vaccine be stored frozen. Most doctors' offices are equipped only to 
refrigerate vaccines, not freeze them. The new FluMist can be 
refrigerated. Most important, the FDA refused to approve the original 
FluMist in young children and the elderly, the groups that need flu 
vaccine most. FluMist uses a live, weakened version of the virus, which 
appears to make it more effective at inducing immunity. But it is also 
theoretically riskier in vulnerable groups than the injected vaccine, 
which contains only dead flu viruses.

The 2003 FluMist launch was considered a dramatic setback, and Wyeth 
eventually walked away from the product. But despite calling the launch 
"a debacle of the first order," Mott stuck with FluMist through 
withering investor criticism.

While saying he hoped the new version would win approval in time for the 
2007-08 flu season, Mott acknowledged that there are still issues to 
work through.

In addition to questions about assertions the company can make in 
marketing materials, Mott said it is unlikely that the FDA will allow 
the company to claim superiority for the product in official 
instructions for doctors, though MedImmune will probably be able to 
include summary results of the recent study.

Also crucial for MedImmune is whether medical groups and public health 
officials revise guidelines on how to use the product. MedImmune 
appeared to win support yesterday from a member of the committee that 
makes vaccine recommendations for the American Academy of Pediatrics.

"This is a better vaccine," said John Bradley, a pediatrician at 
Children's Hospital in San Diego and a member of the academy's committee 
on infectious diseases. "It's not as though the old one is worthless. 
It's just that this one is better enough that I think in the future 
we're going to move toward giving children the best protection possible."

MedImmune will have to overcome concerns about wheezing, which was seen 
in 3.2 percent of children using its product versus 2 percent of 
children who received a conventional shot. It remains to be seen whether 
other doctors will agree with Bradley that the "risk of wheezing is 
offset by the benefit of improved protection."

While FluMist is intended mainly for use against seasonal flu, a version 
could be developed rapidly for a more dangerous strain. Because it is a 
live vaccine that induces immunity by reproducing in the body, it would 
most likely be effective with one low dose, whereas studies suggest an 
injected vaccine would require two large doses a month apart.

In principle, the nasal vaccine could offer crucial advantages in a 
pandemic, allowing authorities to make many more doses and protect many 
more people in a given period.

"Historically, a live vaccine induces more potent, lasting and broader 
immune responses than a killed vaccine," said Anthony S. Fauci, director 
of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. "The body 
is seeing the microbe in a way that is much more analogous to a real 
infection."

MedImmune shares closed at $35.71 yesterday, up 4.5 percent.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/12/AR2005121200622.html
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Tue Dec 13 04:04:34 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Tue Dec 13 04:17:55 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] MUST READ: At war: government and the media - Michael
 Socolow - Boston Globe Op-Ed
Message-ID: <439EB8D2.2000702@comcast.net>


  At war: government and the media

By Michael Socolow  |  December 13, 2005  |  The Boston Globe

SIXTY-FOUR years ago, the governments of Germany and Italy declared war 
on the United States. Congress replied in kind later that same 
afternoon. The government had been quietly preparing for modern war, but 
once it arrived few understood the demands it would make on American 
society.

At some point on that day, President Roosevelt told press adviser 
Stephen Early that the government needed to acquire one of the national 
radio networks. Now that America was at war, the government's 
requirement for unmediated and direct communication was essential. Early 
telephoned Federal Communications Commission chairman James L. Fly and 
ordered him to speak to David Sarnoff, NBC's chairman. Fly and Sarnoff 
were ''to work out, confidentially for the time being, ways and means by 
which the government can utilize the [NBC] Blue Network for the period 
of the war." Roosevelt, Early told Fly, suggested that the government 
could ''rent the Blue Network facilities for the duration of the war and 
for the use of such time as the government needs in order to disseminate 
its own information."

Ultimately, the government did not assume control over NBC Blue, or any 
other private commercial radio network, during the war. Fly convinced 
Early that the networks would work closely with the Office of War 
Information to ensure access to the airwaves.

Roosevelt's desire to control communication with the public is symbolic 
of a peculiarly American dilemma: how to speak directly to the American 
people in times of war, national emergency, and crisis. Journalists -- 
then as now -- interpret the government's actions and words. The 
American media system, in which the press receives constitutional 
protection and private, independent broadcasters operate as government 
licensees, was designed to create an unofficial auditing system for 
government communication. In 1941, America was singular in structuring 
its communications sphere in this manner; today, the majority of people 
in the world still live without an independent media.

Too often we in the United States forget the radical, even revolutionary 
implications of our media system. It trusts an essentially indefinable 
group of people (''the press") to serve the public interest by 
interposing itself between political authority and the citizenry. The 
concept of a government pledged to protect independent reporting on its 
own behavior remains subversive to most authorities around the globe.

The conversations held in Roosevelt's White House are clearly relevant 
to today's climate of press-government tension. Just as Roosevelt, in a 
1942 fireside chat, inveighed against ''the typewriter strategists who 
expound their views in the press or on the radio," the Bush 
administration fumes over reporting it considers inaccurate, 
unrepresentative of reality, and antagonistic. The current 
administration continues to develop multiple strategies to connect 
directly with people -- whether in the United States, Iraq, or 
elsewhere. The recent furor over payments to Iraqi journalists in 
exchange for publication of US government-authorized news accounts 
attests to a level of desperation. This administration's recurrent 
attempts at direct communication demonstrate an intention to subvert the 
purpose of the First Amendment.

But the government is not acting in a vacuum. It is reacting to a media 
environment marked by enormous hostility. Skepticism is healthy, but too 
many journalists practice reporting informed by a pessimistic cynicism. 
This corrosive attitude is damaging the news industry; newspaper 
circulation and TV news viewership continue to decline.

The tension between the press and the government has hypertrophied to 
the point that neither is acting in the public interest. It is time for 
these two adversaries to discuss the patterns of behavior creating such 
rancor and frustration. Both sides must be willing to exchange and 
recognize legitimate criticism in an open forum. Grievances may not be 
easily resolved. But discussion in the spirit of inquiry rather than 
recrimination will initiate a more constuctive relationship.

This is not to say that the press must abandon the critical skepticism 
that informs its watchdog role; nor that the government should stop 
promoting efforts to reach citizens directly. But the mutual antagonism 
has confused and angered the public. It's a troubling situation, bad for 
both democratic governance and the news industry. But the real loser is 
the constituency that both claim to be serving: the American people.

Michael Socolow teaches journalism at the University of Maine.  

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/12/13/at_war_government_and_the_media/
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Tue Dec 13 04:01:09 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Tue Dec 13 04:18:05 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Gerhard Schroeder's Sellout - Washington Post Editorial
Message-ID: <439EB805.2030700@comcast.net>

Gerhard Schroeder's Sellout

Tuesday, December 13, 2005; A26

IT'S THE SORT of behavior we have -- sadly -- come to expect from some 
in Congress. But when Gerhard Schroeder, the former German chancellor, 
announced last week that he was going to work for Gazprom, the Russian 
energy behemoth, he catapulted himself into a different league. It's one 
thing for a legislator to resign his job, leave his committee 
chairmanship and go to work for a company over whose industry he once 
had jurisdiction. It's quite another thing when the chancellor of 
Germany -- one of the world's largest economies -- leaves his job and 
goes to work for a company controlled by the Russian government that is 
helping to build a Baltic Sea gas pipeline that he championed while in 
office. To make the decision even more unpalatable, it turns out that 
the chief executive of the pipeline consortium is none other than a 
former East German secret police officer who was friendly with Vladimir 
Putin, the Russian president, back when Mr. Putin was a KGB agent in 
East Germany. If nothing else, Mr. Schroeder deserves opprobrium for his 
bad taste.

But the announcement should also raise questions in German voters' minds 
about the real reasons Mr. Schroeder was so keen to see this pipeline 
project launched. The pipeline has cost Germany diplomatically by 
infuriating its Central European and Baltic neighbors. They point out 
that the Russian government chose to use the sea route rather than run a 
new pipeline alongside one that already exists on land, despite the far 
greater expense. The only possible reason for doing so was political: 
The Baltic Sea pipeline could allow Russia, a country that has made 
political use of its energy resources, to cut off gas to Central Europe 
and the Baltic states while still delivering gas to Germany. Many have 
wondered why Germany chose to go along with this project. Could it have 
been because the former chancellor realized that he was, in effect, 
creating his own future place of employment?

On a broader level, Mr. Schroeder's decision to swap his job with the 
German government for a job funded by the Russian government should 
raise questions for German voters about their country's relationship 
with Russia. During his seven years as chancellor, Mr. Schroeder went 
out of his way to ignore the gradual suppression of political rights in 
Russia and to play down the significance of Russia's horrific war in 
Chechnya. Throughout his term in office, Mr. Schroeder thwarted attempts 
to put unified Western pressure on Russia to change its behavior. We can 
only hope that Germany's new chancellor, Angela Merkel, uses this 
extraordinary announcement as a reason to launch a new German policy 
toward Russia, one based on something other than Mr. Schroeder's private 
interests.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/12/AR2005121201060.html?nav=hcmodule
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Tue Dec 13 04:07:21 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Tue Dec 13 04:20:37 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] SHOULD READ: McCarthy's lasting message - Thomas
 Oliphant - Boston Globe Op-Ed
Message-ID: <439EB979.4090207@comcast.net>


  McCarthy's lasting message

By Thomas Oliphant, Globe Columnist  |  December 13, 2005  |  The Boston 
Globe

WASHINGTON

''HE WAS the wrong man in the right place at the right time," said 
writer Marylouise Oates the day Gene McCarthy died.

Oates was one of the thousands of people who went ''clean for Gene" just 
before the earthquake of 1968 -- the New Hampshire primary. Oates toiled 
in one of the most delightfully chaotic press offices I have ever seen 
that pivotal winter. The boss in Manchester was supposed to be a pre-My 
Lai Massacre Seymour Hersh, but even to a young newspaper reporter it 
was apparent that hierarchy meant nothing -- my first exposure to the 
truism that presidential campaigns largely reflect the candidate.

The candidate, however, was less important than the campaign, another 
truism that McCarthy acknowledged. He was exasperating, inspiring, 
profound, petty, reticent, outspoken, wise and obtuse. And, of course, 
it would have been unthinkable that he might have become president -- 
which was beside the point of his lasting contribution to modern 
American history.

I say ''lasting" because I suspect the great man himself would have 
gotten a chuckle out of his continued relevance -- even on the weekend 
he died. Once again, the issue of executive branch war and the moral 
dilemmas associated with supporting or opposing war were in the news. 
There was even a relevant subplot -- the meeting of a Democratic Party 
commission to debate the future of what McCarthy taught us all remains a 
singular opportunity for conversation among candidates and voters -- the 
New Hampshire primary.

One of the few who saw the present and not just the past on the day he 
died, not surprisingly, was Senator Edward Kennedy, whose brother Bob 
did not declare for president against Lyndon Johnson throughout 1967 and 
whose late entry after New Hampshire ignited a bitter quarrel that 
continues today. Kennedy noted the eternal linkage of McCarthy-Kennedy 
but dwelt on the moral courage of the man who stood up to ''challenge a 
war America never should have fought."

''His life speaks volumes to us today," Kennedy said, ''as we face a 
similar, critical time for our country."

On his best days, McCarthy offered himself and his campaign as vehicle 
and vessel for others and for a larger cause. In the early weeks, when 
he was given no chance by the same establishment he challenged, he 
openly wished for others to run and said repeatedly that he was in the 
race to give citizens some reason to believe that there was an 
alternative to blind or reluctant acquiescence in Johnson's futile, 
savage war in Vietnam. In today's Iraq war climate, McCarthy's life 
teaches the lesson of taking a stand. Of all today's politicians, 
Senator Hillary Clinton is the one who should think about the limits of 
quiet positioning as opposed to speaking up when the country is 
clamoring for clarity.

McCarthy gained ground slowly in New Hampshire, but more steadily than 
is popularly remembered. His catalyst in early February was the Tet 
offensive, one of those great military ''victories" that proved the war 
could escalate but not end. His own ''victory" was, technically, a 
seven-point defeat to Johnson, though McCarthy did win more delegates 
under the rules. It was the first time a candidate succeeded in 
officially doing ''better than expected" -- a tribute to the time New 
Hampshire gives a candidate to make progress without gobs of money. 
Today's Democrats will fiddle with New Hampshire at their peril.

For those of us who did the grunt work of talking to voters that famous 
winter, McCarthy's showing was not surprising, but it was complex. 
McCarthy loved the anecdotes we would tell him that showed the very 
mixed views of those who supported him. As often as not, they were hawks 
as well as doves, mostly fed up with the status quo in that murderous 
quagmire.

McCarthy was properly praised as an elegant first baseman who played in 
the (sort of) professional Great Soo League in his native Minnesota as a 
young man, but I prefer to remember him as an all-star hockey player, a 
dangerous center iceman. Once, he crossed the red line with the puck and 
found himself going in on goal alone against Frankie Brimsek -- another 
Minnesotan who would go on to a Hall of Fame career in the nets for the 
Boston Bruins. No goal.

''I just couldn't pull the trigger," he told me once with a wink.

But when it truly counted, he did, and changed the course of history. 
McCarthy's moment illustrated a favored maxim of his long-ago nemesis, 
the Kennedys -- all of us can make a difference and each of us should try.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/12/13/mccarthys_lasting_message/
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From michael at intrafi.com  Tue Dec 13 06:14:38 2005
From: michael at intrafi.com (michael@intrafi.com)
Date: Tue Dec 13 06:25:28 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] FT.com / International economy / WTO meeting - Poor
	nations the priority in Doha talks
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From michael at intrafi.com  Tue Dec 13 06:15:37 2005
From: michael at intrafi.com (michael@intrafi.com)
Date: Tue Dec 13 06:26:21 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] FT.com / World / US - America019s super-rich feel
 018under assault019 by the media 
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From michael at intrafi.com  Tue Dec 13 06:17:23 2005
From: michael at intrafi.com (michael@intrafi.com)
Date: Tue Dec 13 06:28:06 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] FT.com / Comment & analysis / Comment - Doha round is
	missing the point on poor countries
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From ean at sbcglobal.net  Mon Dec 12 21:16:51 2005
From: ean at sbcglobal.net (ean@sbcglobal.net)
Date: Tue Dec 13 06:35:34 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Condi's Trail of Lies & House of Lords takes a stand
Message-ID: <E1EmB53-0002JE-MK@smtpauth02.mail.atl.earthlink.net>

Condi's Trail of Lies
    By Sidney Blumenthal
    Salon.com

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/120805Z.shtml

    Thursday 08 December 2005

    Condoleezza Rice's contradictory, misleading and outright false statements 
about the US and torture have taken America's moral standing - and her own - to 
new depths.

    The metamorphosis of Condoleezza Rice from the chrysalis of the prot?g? into 
the butterfly of the State Department has not been a natural evolution but has 
demanded self-discipline. She has burnished an image of the ultimate loyalist, yet 
betrayed her mentor, George H.W. Bush's national security advisor Brent 
Scowcroft. She is the team player, yet carefully inserted knives in the back of her 
predecessor, Colin Powell, climbing up them like a ladder of success. She is the 
person most trusted on foreign policy by the president, yet was an enabler for 
Vice President Cheney and the neoconservatives. Now her public relations team 
at the State Department depicts her as a restorer of realism, builder of alliances 
and maker of peace.

    On her first trip to Europe early this year she left the sensation of being fresh 
by listening rather than lecturing. The flirtation of power appeared to have a more 
seductive effect than arrogance. So the old face became a new face. But on this 
week's trip the iron butterfly emerged.

    Rice arrived as the enforcer of the Bush administration's torture policy. She 
reminded the queasy Europeans that their intelligence services, one way or 
another, are involved in the rendition of hundreds of suspected terrorists 
transported through their airports for harsh interrogation in countries like Jordan 
and Egypt or secret CIA prisons known as "black sites." With her warnings, Rice 
recast the Western alliance as a partnership in complicity. In her attempt to 
impose silence, she spread guilt. Everybody is unclean in the dirty war and 
nobody has any right to complain. "What I would hope that our allies would 
acknowledge," she said, "is that we are all in this together."

    For the European leaders, facing publics hostile to U.S. policy in Iraq and 
torture, Rice's visit was disquieting. In Italy, prosecutors have issued indictments 
of 22 current and former CIA operatives for their "extraordinary rendition" of an 
Egyptian suspect; among those indicted is the former Rome CIA station chief, 
whom an Italian judge has ruled has no immunity from prosecution. Italian 
Foreign Minister Gianfranco Fini, asked about renditions, said, "We know 
absolutely nothing. We have not one single piece of knowledge." If the Italian 
government knew the facts, it would investigate, he added.

    In Britain, the Foreign Office released a diplomatic disclaimer that it has "no 
evidence to corroborate media allegations about the use of UK territory in 
rendition operations." But upset members of the House of Commons have 
launched a parliamentary inquiry into whether the U.K. has violated the European 
Convention on Human Rights and the United Nations Convention Against 
Torture. Foreign Minister Jack Straw sent Rice a letter requesting any 
"clarification the U.S. can give about these reports in the hope that this will allay 
parliamentary and public concerns."

    When the Washington Post reported on the eve of Rice's trip that CIA prisons 
holding U.S. detainees exist in Romania, Poland and other Eastern European 
nations, it triggered an explosion. Even though Romania and Poland denied the 
report, the European Commission and the Council of Europe began 
investigations. The E.C. declared that for any member state to harbor a CIA 
prison would be "extremely serious" and bring down sanctions upon it.

    In Germany, Rice was greeted by the new chancellor, Angela Merkel, eager to 
repair relations with the Bush administration made awkward by former 
Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's opposition to the Iraq war. Rice's visit was 
supposed to smooth over the conflicts of the past, but instead it surfaced new 
ones that indicated that the divisions between Germany - and Europe - and the 
U.S. are rooted in the Bush administration's fundamental policies.

    Rice arrived in Berlin on the heels of a Washington Post report about the 
rendition, to a secret CIA jail in Afghanistan called the Salt Pit, of a German 
citizen, Khaled el-Masri, who was tortured and imprisoned for five months in a 
case of mistaken identity. After meeting with Rice, Merkel announced that Rice 
had acknowledged that the U.S. had made a "mistake" in the case. But Rice 
countered with a statement denying she had said that at all. The reconciliation 
with Germany was botched; Merkel was embarrassed; and Rice's credibility, at 
least in the German press, was left in tatters.

    Rice had hoped to quell the controversy before she landed. On Monday, as she 
boarded her plane at Andrew Air Force base in Washington, she delivered a 
lengthy statement on torture. Her speech was remarkable for its defensive, dense 
and evasive tone. It was replete with half-truths, outright falsehoods, distortions 
and subterfuges.

    Her remarks can never sway or convince any European leader, foreign ministry 
or intelligence service, which have the means to make their own judgments. In 
her effort to persuade world opinion and reassure the American public, she raised 
the debate over torture to greater prominence and virtually invited inspection of 
her claims.

    Rice has made memorable statements in the past. There was her appearance 
before the 9/11 Commission, in which she had trouble recalling the CIA's 
Presidential Daily Briefing of Aug. 6, 2001, titled "Bin Laden Determined to 
Strike in US," and dismissed its significance. There were her many assertions 
about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear 
weapons: "We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud." There was 
her attack on Richard Clarke, the former counterterrorism chief on the National 
Security Council, for his disclosure that both she and the president did not regard 
al-Qaida as an urgent threat before Sept. 11, 2001, as a "scurrilous allegation." 
But her remarks on torture may turn out to be her most unforgettable full-length 
speech, tainting her tenure as secretary of state as indelibly as Colin Powell's 
speech making the case for the Iraq war before the United Nations blotted him.

    "Torture is a term that is defined by law," said Rice. "We rely on our law to 
govern our operations." She neglected to explain that "torture" as she used it has 
been defined by presidential findings to include universally defined methods of 
torture, such as waterboarding, for which U.S. soldiers were court-martialed in 
1902 and 1968 specifically on the basis of having engaged in torture.

    But the Bush administration has rejected adherence to the Geneva Conventions 
as "quaint," in the term of then White House legal counsel and now Attorney 
General Alberto Gonzales; rejects torture as it is defined in the United Nations 
Convention Against Torture (although the U.S. is a signatory); and rejects torture 
as it is interpreted by other international expert bodies, including the European 
Human Rights Court, whose judgments are binding on the nations of the Council 
of Europe.

    "The United States does not permit, tolerate or condone torture under any 
circumstances," Rice insisted in her statement. "Moreover, in accordance with the 
policy of this administration: The United States has respected - and will continue 
to respect - the sovereignty of other countries." But was the kidnapping of the 
Egyptian suspect in Italy that has resulted in the 22 indictments of CIA operatives 
a fiction? Have the Italian prosecutors been made aware that the event was a 
figment of their imaginations? Was holding el-Masri, the innocent German, not a 
violation of the sovereignty of another country?

    Rice continued: "The United States does not transport, and has not transported, 
detainees from one country to another for the purpose of interrogation using 
torture. The United States does not use the airspace or the airports of any country 
for the purpose of transporting a detainee to a country where he or she will be 
tortured." But the German government was reported to have a list of 400 flights 
over European airspace for the purpose of renditions. And Amnesty International 
reports that there have been 800 such flights. Once again, Rice relies upon her 
own definition of "torture" to deny it.

    She went on: "The United States has not transported anyone, and will not 
transport anyone, to a country when we believe he will be tortured. Where 
appropriate, the United States seeks assurances that transferred persons will not 
be tortured." In fact, the U.S. receives assurances from those countries that it 
would be unlikely that the suspects will be tortured, a technical loophole that 
provides for a washing of hands. Everybody on all sides understands that there 
will be torture, as there has been.

    Rice's legal interpretations were authoritative, bland and bogus. It is hard to 
say whether they should be called Orwellian for their intentional falsity or 
Kafkaesque for their unintentional absurdity.

    "International law allows a state to detain enemy combatants for the duration 
of hostilities," she said. But the administration has vitiated international law with 
its presidential findings. The "global war on terror" is a conflict without end; its 
time limit extends into perpetuity. So long as terror is used as a tactic, or the 
threat of terror exists, which it always does, a state of war, such as it is, justifies 
indefinite detention.

    Then, Rice presented as the administration's position precisely the position it 
opposes: "Detainees may only be held for an extended period if the intelligence 
or other evidence against them has been carefully evaluated and supports a 
determination that detention is lawful. The U.S. does not seek to hold anyone for 
a period beyond what is necessary to evaluate the intelligence or other evidence 
against them, prevent further acts of terrorism, or hold them for legal 
proceedings." But the Bush administration has refused to place detainees within 
the criminal justice system. Instead, they have been kept in a legal limbo, denied 
the protections of both the U.S. justice system and the Geneva Conventions. The 
administration has hid "ghost detainees" from the International Red Cross. If the 
suspects are criminals, they have not been tried as criminals.

    Rice cited two cases to make her point: Carlos the Jackal, the international 
terrorist captured in Sudan in 1994, and Ramzi Youssef, the 1993 World Trade 
Center bomber. But, unlike current detainees, both were put on public trial, 
Carlos in France, Youssef in the United States. And the European Commission 
on Human Rights issued a report that Carlos' rights were not violated. Both cases 
refuted in their particulars the larger argument Rice was making.

    One case Rice did not cite was that of Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, a captured al-
Qaida operative, whose claims about Saddam Hussein's possession of WMD 
were used by the administration to build the case for the Iraq war. "We've learned 
that Iraq has trained Al Qaeda members in bomb-making and poisons and deadly 
gases," President Bush said on Oct. 7, 2002, drawing on al-Libi's information. 
Al-Libi also provided the basis for a dramatic high point of Secretary of State 
Powell's U.N. speech: "the story of a senior terrorist operative telling how Iraq 
provided training in these weapons to Al Qaeda. Fortunately, this operative is 
now detained, and he has told his story. I will relate to you now, as he himself, 
described it." But al-Libi had been tortured and repeated to his interrogators what 
they had suggested to him. The Defense Intelligence Agency reported in 
February 2002 that al-Libi's information was dubious, and the CIA also 
questioned its credibility in a report in January 2003 - both reports made before 
the war. Rice's various statements created a pandemonium across Europe that she 
tried to quiet with a clarification Wednesday in Ukraine. The policy she had just 
declared we did not follow she announced we would no longer pursue. "As a 
matter of U.S. policy, the United States' obligations under the CAT [U.N. 
Convention Against Torture], which prohibits cruel, inhumane and degrading 
treatment - those obligations extend to U.S. personnel wherever they are, whether 
they are in the United States or outside of the United States," Rice said at a press 
conference with Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko.

    Rice's erratic journey also raises the question of her own part in the policy. The 
Washington Post story on el-Masri reports that Rice intervened on the side of 
informing the German government, a disclosure that resulted in el-Masri's 
release. This fact suggests that Rice has a degree of authority and knowledge in 
the realm of detainees and "black sites."

    Since 2003, Rice has repeatedly told representatives of Human Rights Watch 
and other similar organizations that the U.S. does not torture. There is no trail of 
memos tracing her involvement in the titanic struggle over U.S. torture policy 
between Powell and the senior military on one side and Dick Cheney, Donald 
Rumsfeld and John Ashcroft's Justice Department on the other. Was the national 
security advisor completely out of the loop? On Nov. 19., ABC News reported, 
"Current and former CIA officers tell ABC News there is a presidential finding, 
signed in 2002, by President Bush, Condoleezza Rice and then-Attorney General 
John Ashcroft, approving the [harsh interrogation] techniques, including 
waterboarding."

    That technique has its origin in the Spanish Inquisition. Indeed, in 1490, a 
baptized Christian who was a secret Jew, a converso named Benito Garcia, was 
subjected to water torture. The process drew out of him a confession of the ritual 
murder of a Christian child by crucifixion to get his blood for a magic ceremony 
to halt the Inquisition and bring about Jewish control. The incident greatly helped 
whip up the fear that led to the expulsion of the Jews in 1492, as described by 
James Reston Jr. in his new book, "Dogs of God: Columbus, the Inquisition, and 
the Defeat of the Moors."

    Since the Inquisition, the method of waterboarding has been little refined. But 
Rice, like Bush, says we did not and will not torture anymore.

  -------

***

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/09/international/europe/09britain.html?th&e
mc=th

Britain's Top Court Rules Information Gotten by Torture Is Never
Admissible Evidence By SARAH LYALL NY Times Lead News Article: 
December 9,
2005

LONDON, Dec. 8 - Britain's highest court thrust itself into the middle of
a roiling international debate on Thursday, declaring that evidence
obtained through torture - no matter by whom - was not admissible in
British courts. It also said Britain had a "positive obligation" to uphold
antitorture principles abroad as well as at home.

"The issue is one of constitutional principle, whether evidence obtained
by torturing another human being may lawfully be admitted against a party
to proceedings in a British court, irrespective of where, or by whom, or
on whose authority the torture was inflicted," said Lord Bingham, writing
the lead opinion in a unanimous ruling for the Law Lords. "To that
question I would give a very clear negative answer."

The ruling dealt specifically with 10 men who were detained after the
attacks on the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, and were held without
charge in Britain on suspicion of being terrorists. But while the question
at hand concerned only British courts, the ruling seems to have been made
with the current international situation very much in mind. Several of the
concurring opinions referred explicitly, and not flatteringly, to the
United States.

Speaking of what he said was England's justifiable pride in its common-law
rejection, centuries ago, of torture as a means to an end, Lord Hoffman
brought his argument forward to the current era. "In our own century," he
wrote, "many people in the United States, heirs to that common-law
tradition, have felt their country dishonored by its use of torture
outside the jurisdiction, and its practice of extra-legal 'rendition' of
suspects to countries where they would be tortured."

The 10 men are known informally as the Belmarsh detainees, after the
prison where many of them were held. The case against them has been long,
complicated and thick with secrecy. But the issue of torture came up as a
result of the detainees' appeals to the Special Immigration Appeals
Commission, which asserted its right to consider evidence that may have
been obtained under torture in other countries.

Last year, the Court of Appeal ruled that such evidence was admissible and
that the government had no obligation to investigate how possibly suspect
evidence had been gathered.

Gareth Peirce, who represents eight of the detainees, said the judgment by
the Law Lords, which applies to England and Wales, would reverberate.

"It's a modern judgment, in December 2005, but it's steeped in the legal
and moral history not just of this country but also of the United States
and international treaty obligations," she said in an interview. "We
believe our colleagues in the United States who are fighting for the rule
of law will take strength from the judgment."

Human rights groups applauded the ruling as a landmark that set a
civilized standard for evidence in terror cases.

"The Law Lords' ruling has overturned the tacit belief that torture can be
condoned under certain circumstances," Amnesty International said in a
statement. "This ruling shreds any vestige of legality with which the U.K.
government had attempted to defend a completely unlawful and reprehensible
policy, introduced as part of its counterterrorism measures."

Similar questions - What constitutes torture? Is evidence obtained through
torture admissible when the torture does not happen on American soil and
is not explicitly authorized? - are being debated in the United States.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, in Europe this week, has been trying
to answer charges that America routinely practices so-called extraordinary
rendition, sending terror detainees abroad to places where they face
possible torture.

Britain, America's firmest ally in the antiterror campaign, has been
accused of allowing its airports to be used by American planes
transporting such detainees. Members of Parliament are calling for an
investigation into the charges.

Asked for his response, Prime Minister Tony Blair told the House of
Commons on Wednesday, "In respect of airports, I don't know what you're
talking about."

It is unclear what practical or immediate effect the Lords' ruling
overturning the Court of Appeal's decision will have.

Rights groups that had brought the case said the ruling would force the
government to do three things: re-evaluate any pending or future terrorism
cases to determine whether evidence had been extracted by torture; stop
seeking to deport terror suspects to countries where they might be
tortured; investigate possible complicity in the American policy of
rendition.

But in a statement, the home secretary, Charles Clarke, said the ruling
would have no substantive effect on the suspects whose cases were at
issue. Nor, he said, would the judgment have any bearing on the
government's antiterrorism policies.

"The government has always made it clear that we do not condone torture in
any way, nor would we carry out this completely unacceptable behavior, or
encourage others to do so," Mr. Clarke said.

The Law Lords struck down the Court of Appeal decision in strong,
stirring, indignant language that referred to centuries of English
common-law precedent, to the moral weight of international treaties and
obligations like the United Nations Convention Against Torture, and to the
rights of individuals as enshrined in the European Convention on Human
Rights.

"The principles of the common law, standing alone, in my opinion compel
the exclusion of third-party torture evidence as unreliable, unfair,
offensive to ordinary standards of humanity and decency and incompatible
with the principles which should animate a tribunal seeking to administer
justice," Lord Bingham wrote.

He referred to authorities from as far back as the 15th century to make
the case that torture has no place in English law, or indeed in any law.
He quoted the historian Sir William Holdsworth, who wrote in 1945 that
"once torture has been acclimatized in a legal system, it spreads like an
infectious disease" and "hardens and brutalizes those who have become
accustomed to it."

The prohibition against torture "has now become one of the most
fundamental standards of the international community," Lord Bingham
continued.

"This prohibition is designed to produce a deterrent effect, in that it
signals to all members of the international community and the individuals
over whom they wield authority that the prohibition of torture is an
absolute value from which nobody must deviate."


-- 
You are currently on Mha Atma's Earth Action Network email list, option D 
(up to 3 emails/day).  To be removed, or to switch options (option A - 
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"A war of aggression is the supreme international crime." -- Robert Jackson,
 former U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice and Nuremberg prosecutor

-------------- next part --------------
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From harperalexander at mail.com  Tue Dec 13 07:01:09 2005
From: harperalexander at mail.com (Alexander Harper)
Date: Tue Dec 13 07:11:55 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Bosnia's rape babies
Message-ID: <20051213150110.1D2BA101D9@ws1-3.us4.outblaze.com>

I am afraid that this story will do nothing to cheer anybody up.
Al B

Bosnia's rape babies: abandoned by their families, forgotten by the state 
By Kate Holt in Sarejevo and Sarah Hughes 
Published: 13 December 2005 

Suzanna is 12 years old. In the eyes of the law she does not exist. She has no family, no birth certificate. The place that she calls home is the state-run orphanage in Zenica in Bosnia, a run-down building with broken windows. 

The orphanage is home to just over 150 children. Some of them have lost their families to war and sickness, others, like Suzanna, were abandoned as "rape babies" - children born during the war to women who had been raped - and left unacknowledged by families and state alike.

"She is a very loving child sometimes has problem socialising," says Enisa Herzeg, a social worker at the orphanage. "We have had money donated for her care but we can't open a bank account in her name because she has no birth certificate, because the Croatian authorities refused to register when she was born." Suzanna's mother abandoned her when she was born and has never visited. "We have no way of finding her," Herzeg says. "There are many children here with equally sad stories ."

Ten years after the war in Bosnia ended we have come back with Channel 4 news to meet the forgotten victims of sexual violence. Despite the widespread publicity concerning the atrocities committed during that time little has been done to help the thousands of women who suffered extreme sexual violence and torture, or the children born as a consequence of this abuse.

Abandoned by the state, many of these women are not only traumatised by their horrific experiences but also impoverished. Cast out from their communities, often abandoned by their husbands, few of them can hold down jobs. Only a handful have received compensation for their suffering, which continues in the form of nightmares, physical injury and mental ill-health.

"I was raped for over a year by Serbian soldiers," says Mirella, a softly spoken woman of 33. "They kept me prisoner in my house and raped me day and night in front of my children. When I became pregnant I had an abortion - I never told my husband about it or about the other terrible things that happened, although I'm sure he knows." Once the war had ended Mirella and her family, unable to return to their home town of Brcko, found their way to Sarejevo. Life is hard here. Mirella suffers from severe gynaecological problems as a result of her rape and has been diagnosed with depression.

"I have tried to take my life three times," she admits. "I get 36km (?10) from the government every month and each child gets 26km. My husband gets 56km because he was in a war camp. I have to spend most of my money on medicines to stay calm and to help with the pain. I feel as though no one cares what has happened to our family. I only keep going because of my children." Mirella's experience is not unusual. In 1998 the International War Crimes Tribunal condemned rape as a crime against humanity, yet there is still no formal international or state response to sexual violence, the related trauma caused by rape or to what happens to the children born of it. In July this year, Unicef in Bosnia commissioned a report on the children born as a result of war rape. It is the first time any organisation has focused on these children. The report, however, remains unpublished.

Marijana Senjak, a psychologist working for the NGO Medica in Zenica, which assists women who have been abused, says ' A lot of politicians have taken advantage of the women's plight and used the issues of war rape for their own ends. The state has done nothing to organise a unified response to women's needs.

"It has used war rape as a political tool and a means to get money, nothing else.'

Amma was raped during the war when only 16 years old and became pregnant. Without the financial means to keep her child she was forced to place her in care. A frail woman now at 29 years old, tormented by her past and suffering from mental and physical health problems, Amma's eyes fill with tears as she recalls the few precious years she had with her daughter.

"I remember celebrating her first birthday and the naming ceremony we had," she says. "I kept her with me till she was five years old. I loved her. I had another child a few years later and that was hard - two young children, no job and the war going on which made everything very expensive. Nobody in the community wanted to help me because they knew where the first child had come from and hated me for it. I couldn't work because no one wanted to look after the child. I went to the centre for support but they gave me nothing and took away my children."

For women such as Amma the situation is made worse by the Bosnian government's reluctance to recognise women as civilian victims of war. In October it agreed to pay compensation, but this has led to further problems as many within the government claim that women are falsifying claims of rape to receive money.

"In a traditional society with a huge stigma attached to rape it is unusual for women to report it, and at a later stage it is difficult to establish it medically," says Slobodan Nagradic, Deputy Minister for Human Rights and Refugees. "So now women are coming forward and we have no way of knowing if they have really been raped or not. There are no living eyewitnesses and 10 to 12 years later it is difficult to establish the authenticity of these women's claims. Many are very poor and may just be doing it for the money."

Nagradic opposes publication of the Unicef report: "The children born of war rape are in a very vulnerable position compared to other children," he says. "It is the obligation of our society to ensure that these children are not discriminated against and that is why we are being very careful about drawing attention to them. Women do not traditionally talk about rape here, he says, and those that do are using rape for political manipulation."

It is not a line of argument with which Sanella would agree. Now 32, she was raped repeatedly by Serbian soldiers in her home town of Visegrad, became pregnant and then miscarried. She now works for a woman's organisation in Bosnia, supporting fellow rape victims and says that she lives in fear that the soldiers who raped her will find her and refuses to testify in The Hague.

"I don't believe that this war has stopped," she says. "The war criminals are still around and we still have to see them. The police in charge know who they are and do nothing. We women, the victims of the war, have become its policemen. We have photographs of those who raped us and killed our men but there has been no care or help for women like me who have experience sexual violence on this level. "

Nadia made the difficult choice to keep her son, now aged 10. She became pregnant after being repeatedly raped by soldiers while interned in a concentration camp. She says that she wanted an abortion, but by the time she had escaped to Sarajevo it was too late. Her husband does not know that the child is not his.

"My husband and son were taken away during the war and I was put in a camp," she says. "The soldiers would taunt me, calling me a Turkish whore. Then they began to rape me. I would cry every time and when I passed out I would wake up with a different soldier in the room and they would keep going until I didn't come round any more. When they found out I was pregnant they put me on a truck and I arrived in Sarejevo. I had to take medicines to calm me down and I think this is why my son is so nervous and has to have therapy."Nadia will not abandon her son as so many women have done with their children born of rape. "I love my son," she says. "Sometimes I look at him and feel very angry though - I see him as a focus for what has gone wrong with my family and our lives."

The full report: 'Bosnian Rape Babies' will be broadcast by Channel 4 news tonight from 7pm 


-- 
___________________________________________________
Play 100s of games for FREE! http://games.mail.com/


From michael at intrafi.com  Tue Dec 13 07:01:50 2005
From: michael at intrafi.com (michael@intrafi.com)
Date: Tue Dec 13 07:12:32 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Alternet: The 14 Worst Corporate Evildoers
Message-ID: <20051213150150.A79ECB8099@alternet.org>


This story has been forwarded to you from
http://www.alternet.org by michael@intrafi.com



-------------------------------------
The 14 Worst Corporate Evildoers
http://www.alternet.org/story/29337

On issues like war crimes, torture, toxic dumping and stifling freedom of speech, corporations like Coca Cola, Chevron and Philip Morris are way out ahead of the rest.
-------------------------------------

From michael at intrafi.com  Tue Dec 13 07:02:56 2005
From: michael at intrafi.com (michael@intrafi.com)
Date: Tue Dec 13 07:13:34 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Alternet: The End of Democracy in Ohio?
Message-ID: <20051213150256.DE44AB809B@alternet.org>


This story has been forwarded to you from
http://www.alternet.org by michael@intrafi.com



-------------------------------------
The End of Democracy in Ohio?
http://www.alternet.org/story/29292

New legislation passed by Ohio Republicans may just institutionalize those famous "voting irregularities." 
-------------------------------------

From michael at intrafi.com  Tue Dec 13 07:07:17 2005
From: michael at intrafi.com (michael@intrafi.com)
Date: Tue Dec 13 07:19:10 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Alternet: Excerpt: The Fog That Cloaks Hypocrisy
Message-ID: <20051213150717.00D7DB809B@alternet.org>


This story has been forwarded to you from
http://www.alternet.org by michael@intrafi.com



-------------------------------------
Excerpt: The Fog That Cloaks Hypocrisy
http://www.alternet.org/story/29266

Like Bush's dreams of democracy in Iraq, most of the worst lies in our society find their source in colossal delusion.
-------------------------------------

From geomilman at milman.com  Tue Dec 13 11:01:57 2005
From: geomilman at milman.com (George R. Milman)
Date: Tue Dec 13 11:16:45 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Perspective: Must we renew the Patriot Act? - By Declan
	McCullagh C-Net
Message-ID: <000001c60017$b104afc0$8c00a8c0@george>

What do mandatory drug testing, cigarette taxes and methamphetamine
restrictions have to do with protecting America from terrorists?

 

 

http://news.com.com/Must+we+renew+the+Patriot+Act/2010-1028_3-5989887.html

 

 

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From marylouiseparis at hotmail.com  Tue Dec 13 13:06:42 2005
From: marylouiseparis at hotmail.com (Mary Louise smn)
Date: Tue Dec 13 13:23:24 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Bosnia's rape babies
In-Reply-To: <20051213150110.1D2BA101D9@ws1-3.us4.outblaze.com>
Message-ID: <BAY107-F30D93480CE9D1C332D186DB8390@phx.gbl>


         As a mother I am heartbroken to read of their plight.    As a women 
I am outraged that political pressure has blocked the Unicef report.   As a 
concerned human being I ask is this to the bleak future of women and 
children not only in Bosnia but also Iraq?    Is the political tolerance of 
suppression to be ignored by the supporters of Unicef?       Marylouise


>From: "Alexander Harper" <harperalexander@mail.com>
>Reply-To: mb-civic@islandlists.com
>To: MB-Civic@islandlists.com
>Subject: [Mb-civic] Bosnia's rape babies
>Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2005 12:01:09 -0300
>
>I am afraid that this story will do nothing to cheer anybody up.
>Al B
>
>Bosnia's rape babies: abandoned by their families, forgotten by the state
>By Kate Holt in Sarejevo and Sarah Hughes
>Published: 13 December 2005
>
>Suzanna is 12 years old. In the eyes of the law she does not exist. She has 
>no family, no birth certificate. The place that she calls home is the 
>state-run orphanage in Zenica in Bosnia, a run-down building with broken 
>windows.
>
>The orphanage is home to just over 150 children. Some of them have lost 
>their families to war and sickness, others, like Suzanna, were abandoned as 
>"rape babies" - children born during the war to women who had been raped - 
>and left unacknowledged by families and state alike.
>
>"She is a very loving child sometimes has problem socialising," says Enisa 
>Herzeg, a social worker at the orphanage. "We have had money donated for 
>her care but we can't open a bank account in her name because she has no 
>birth certificate, because the Croatian authorities refused to register 
>when she was born." Suzanna's mother abandoned her when she was born and 
>has never visited. "We have no way of finding her," Herzeg says. "There are 
>many children here with equally sad stories ."
>
>Ten years after the war in Bosnia ended we have come back with Channel 4 
>news to meet the forgotten victims of sexual violence. Despite the 
>widespread publicity concerning the atrocities committed during that time 
>little has been done to help the thousands of women who suffered extreme 
>sexual violence and torture, or the children born as a consequence of this 
>abuse.
>
>Abandoned by the state, many of these women are not only traumatised by 
>their horrific experiences but also impoverished. Cast out from their 
>communities, often abandoned by their husbands, few of them can hold down 
>jobs. Only a handful have received compensation for their suffering, which 
>continues in the form of nightmares, physical injury and mental ill-health.
>
>"I was raped for over a year by Serbian soldiers," says Mirella, a softly 
>spoken woman of 33. "They kept me prisoner in my house and raped me day and 
>night in front of my children. When I became pregnant I had an abortion - I 
>never told my husband about it or about the other terrible things that 
>happened, although I'm sure he knows." Once the war had ended Mirella and 
>her family, unable to return to their home town of Brcko, found their way 
>to Sarejevo. Life is hard here. Mirella suffers from severe gynaecological 
>problems as a result of her rape and has been diagnosed with depression.
>
>"I have tried to take my life three times," she admits. "I get 36km (£10) 
>from the government every month and each child gets 26km. My husband gets 
>56km because he was in a war camp. I have to spend most of my money on 
>medicines to stay calm and to help with the pain. I feel as though no one 
>cares what has happened to our family. I only keep going because of my 
>children." Mirella's experience is not unusual. In 1998 the International 
>War Crimes Tribunal condemned rape as a crime against humanity, yet there 
>is still no formal international or state response to sexual violence, the 
>related trauma caused by rape or to what happens to the children born of 
>it. In July this year, Unicef in Bosnia commissioned a report on the 
>children born as a result of war rape. It is the first time any 
>organisation has focused on these children. The report, however, remains 
>unpublished.
>
>Marijana Senjak, a psychologist working for the NGO Medica in Zenica, which 
>assists women who have been abused, says ' A lot of politicians have taken 
>advantage of the women's plight and used the issues of war rape for their 
>own ends. The state has done nothing to organise a unified response to 
>women's needs.
>
>"It has used war rape as a political tool and a means to get money, nothing 
>else.'
>
>Amma was raped during the war when only 16 years old and became pregnant. 
>Without the financial means to keep her child she was forced to place her 
>in care. A frail woman now at 29 years old, tormented by her past and 
>suffering from mental and physical health problems, Amma's eyes fill with 
>tears as she recalls the few precious years she had with her daughter.
>
>"I remember celebrating her first birthday and the naming ceremony we had," 
>she says. "I kept her with me till she was five years old. I loved her. I 
>had another child a few years later and that was hard - two young children, 
>no job and the war going on which made everything very expensive. Nobody in 
>the community wanted to help me because they knew where the first child had 
>come from and hated me for it. I couldn't work because no one wanted to 
>look after the child. I went to the centre for support but they gave me 
>nothing and took away my children."
>
>For women such as Amma the situation is made worse by the Bosnian 
>government's reluctance to recognise women as civilian victims of war. In 
>October it agreed to pay compensation, but this has led to further problems 
>as many within the government claim that women are falsifying claims of 
>rape to receive money.
>
>"In a traditional society with a huge stigma attached to rape it is unusual 
>for women to report it, and at a later stage it is difficult to establish 
>it medically," says Slobodan Nagradic, Deputy Minister for Human Rights and 
>Refugees. "So now women are coming forward and we have no way of knowing if 
>they have really been raped or not. There are no living eyewitnesses and 10 
>to 12 years later it is difficult to establish the authenticity of these 
>women's claims. Many are very poor and may just be doing it for the money."
>
>Nagradic opposes publication of the Unicef report: "The children born of 
>war rape are in a very vulnerable position compared to other children," he 
>says. "It is the obligation of our society to ensure that these children 
>are not discriminated against and that is why we are being very careful 
>about drawing attention to them. Women do not traditionally talk about rape 
>here, he says, and those that do are using rape for political 
>manipulation."
>
>It is not a line of argument with which Sanella would agree. Now 32, she 
>was raped repeatedly by Serbian soldiers in her home town of Visegrad, 
>became pregnant and then miscarried. She now works for a woman's 
>organisation in Bosnia, supporting fellow rape victims and says that she 
>lives in fear that the soldiers who raped her will find her and refuses to 
>testify in The Hague.
>
>"I don't believe that this war has stopped," she says. "The war criminals 
>are still around and we still have to see them. The police in charge know 
>who they are and do nothing. We women, the victims of the war, have become 
>its policemen. We have photographs of those who raped us and killed our men 
>but there has been no care or help for women like me who have experience 
>sexual violence on this level. "
>
>Nadia made the difficult choice to keep her son, now aged 10. She became 
>pregnant after being repeatedly raped by soldiers while interned in a 
>concentration camp. She says that she wanted an abortion, but by the time 
>she had escaped to Sarajevo it was too late. Her husband does not know that 
>the child is not his.
>
>"My husband and son were taken away during the war and I was put in a 
>camp," she says. "The soldiers would taunt me, calling me a Turkish whore. 
>Then they began to rape me. I would cry every time and when I passed out I 
>would wake up with a different soldier in the room and they would keep 
>going until I didn't come round any more. When they found out I was 
>pregnant they put me on a truck and I arrived in Sarejevo. I had to take 
>medicines to calm me down and I think this is why my son is so nervous and 
>has to have therapy."Nadia will not abandon her son as so many women have 
>done with their children born of rape. "I love my son," she says. 
>"Sometimes I look at him and feel very angry though - I see him as a focus 
>for what has gone wrong with my family and our lives."
>
>The full report: 'Bosnian Rape Babies' will be broadcast by Channel 4 news 
>tonight from 7pm
>
>
>--
>___________________________________________________
>Play 100s of games for FREE! http://games.mail.com/
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>Mb-civic mailing list
>Mb-civic@islandlists.com
>http://www.islandlists.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mb-civic

_________________________________________________________________
Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today it's FREE! 
http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/

From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Tue Dec 13 13:36:24 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (mblaxill@yahoo.com)
Date: Tue Dec 13 13:47:10 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Hot Technology for Chilly Streets in Estonia
Message-ID: <20051213213624.36938249D73@lax-gw08.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: mblaxill@yahoo.com.

TECHNOLOGY | December 13, 2005
Hot Technology for Chilly Streets in Estonia
By MARK LANDLER
Skype has become a hot calling card for Estonia, which has turned itself into a sort of Silicon Valley on the Baltic Sea.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/13/technology/13skype.html?emc=eta1



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one Best Picture.  What did the original New York
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winning films?  
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From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Tue Dec 13 13:34:24 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (mblaxill@yahoo.com)
Date: Tue Dec 13 13:48:33 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Headlines for December 13, 2005
Message-ID: <20051213213424.9152.qmail@trinity.democracynow.org>

Mike Blaxill  ( mblaxill@yahoo.com )
sent you this story from democracynow.org




+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
|  Headlines for December 13, 2005
|  http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/13/1524248
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+


- California Executes Stanley Tookie Williams
- Protests Mark Start of WTO in Hong Kong
- Australia Prepares For Third Night of Racial Violence
- Bush: 30,000 Iraqis Dead So Far in War 
- Bush Blames Arabic Media For The Deteriorating Image of U.S. 
- Poll: More Than 2/3 of Iraqis Oppose U.S. Troops
- Supreme Court to Hear Texas Redistricting Case
- U.S. Activists Hold Vigil Outside Guantanmo 
This story continues at: 
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/13/1524248

From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Tue Dec 13 13:35:33 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (mblaxill@yahoo.com)
Date: Tue Dec 13 13:49:32 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: U.S. Envoy Says Detainee Abuse Was Worse
	Than Described
Message-ID: <20051213213533.31CD69FD20@lax-gw05.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: mblaxill@yahoo.com.

INTERNATIONAL / MIDDLE EAST | December 13, 2005
U.S. Envoy Says Detainee Abuse Was Worse Than Described
By KIRK SEMPLE br / and CHRISTINE HAUSER
Zalmay Khalilzad said today that more than 100 detainees had been abused in two Iraqi detention facilities.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/13/international/middleeast/13cnd-iraq.html?emc=eta1



----------------- Advertisement --------------------------

The Academy loved these movies enough to name each
one Best Picture.  What did the original New York
Times movie reviews have to say about these Oscar
winning films?  
Go to the Best Pictures review archive:

http://ads.nyt.com/th.ad/nytnyt-textEmailThisdefault-Center1A/academyawards_text/?_RM_REDIR_=http://www.nytimes.com/ref/movies/oscars/bestpictures.html




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From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Tue Dec 13 13:37:06 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (mblaxill@yahoo.com)
Date: Tue Dec 13 13:50:32 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Fed Raises Rates Again and Hints They May
	Go Higher
Message-ID: <20051213213706.103F59FD6B@lax-gw05.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: mblaxill@yahoo.com.

BUSINESS | December 13, 2005
Fed Raises Rates Again and Hints They May Go Higher
By EDMUND L. ANDREWS
After 13 back-to-back increases, the Fed is entering an uncertain phase when the need for higher rates is less clear.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/13/business/13cnd-fed.html?emc=eta1



----------------- Advertisement --------------------------

The Academy loved these movies enough to name each
one Best Picture.  What did the original New York
Times movie reviews have to say about these Oscar
winning films?  
Go to the Best Pictures review archive:

http://ads.nyt.com/th.ad/nytnyt-textEmailThisdefault-Center1A/academyawards_text/?_RM_REDIR_=http://www.nytimes.com/ref/movies/oscars/bestpictures.html




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From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Tue Dec 13 13:41:46 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (mblaxill@yahoo.com)
Date: Tue Dec 13 13:54:44 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: A New Law in Tijuana Regulates the Oldest
	Profession
Message-ID: <20051213214146.0C73E237230@lax-gw01.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: mblaxill@yahoo.com.

INTERNATIONAL / AMERICAS | December 13, 2005
A New Law in Tijuana Regulates the Oldest Profession
By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr.
The city has legalized the sex trade for all intents and purposes, in hopes of stopping the spread of disease.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/13/international/americas/13prostitutes.html?emc=eta1



----------------- Advertisement --------------------------

The Academy loved these movies enough to name each
one Best Picture.  What did the original New York
Times movie reviews have to say about these Oscar
winning films?  
Go to the Best Pictures review archive:

http://ads.nyt.com/th.ad/nytnyt-textEmailThisdefault-Center1A/academyawards_text/?_RM_REDIR_=http://www.nytimes.com/ref/movies/oscars/bestpictures.html




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From harry.sifton at sympatico.ca  Tue Dec 13 13:58:29 2005
From: harry.sifton at sympatico.ca (Harold Sifton)
Date: Tue Dec 13 14:09:27 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Earth Policy News - Bicycle Production Remains Strong
	Worldwide
Message-ID: <001301c60030$61982930$9627e440@Harold>

FYI

Harry


> Eco-Economy Indicator - BICYCLES
> December 13, 2005
>
> Eco-Economy Indicators are twelve trends that the Earth Policy Institute
> tracks to measure progress in building an eco-economy. Bicycle production
> is included because it measures our ability to provide affordable
> transportation, reduce traffic congestion, lower air pollution, increase
> mobility, and provide exercise to the world's growing population.
>
> BICYCLE PRODUCTION REMAINS STRONG WORLDWIDE
> by Elizabeth Mygatt
>
> In 2003, global production of bicycles hit 105 million-two-and-a-half
> times the record 42 million cars produced. During the 1950s and 1960s,
> bicycle and automobile production were nearly equal. In the decades
> following, however, bike output soared, reaching 91 million in 1990, when
> car production totaled 36 million. Since then, with the exception of 1997
> and 1998 (when output dropped to 90 million and then 87 million), about
> 100 million bikes have been produced each year.
>
> For entire text see http://www.earthpolicy.org/Indicators/Bike/2005.htm
> For data see http://www.earthpolicy.org/Indicators/Bike/Bike_data.htm
>
> For an index of Earth Policy Institute resources related to BICYCLES and
> TRANSPORTATION see http://www.earthpolicy.org/Indicators/Bike/index.htm
>
> And for more thoughts on "Redesigning Cities for People" (not cars), see
> Chapter 9 of Lester Brown's ECO-ECONOMY: Building an Economy for the
> Earth, at  http://www.earthpolicy.org/Books/Eco/index.htm
> ---
> You are currently subscribed to public as: harry.sifton@sympatico.ca
> To unsubscribe send a blank email to 
> leave-public-1356419E@lists.earth-policy.org
> 


From michael at intrafi.com  Tue Dec 13 15:42:38 2005
From: michael at intrafi.com (Michael)
Date: Tue Dec 13 15:43:16 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Article from Tom Dispatch
Message-ID: <200512132342.jBDNgctN007737@thor.thenation.com>

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From michael at michaelbutler.com  Tue Dec 13 15:39:54 2005
From: michael at michaelbutler.com (Michael Butler)
Date: Tue Dec 13 15:52:14 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Byrd Warns Frist against "Nuclear Option"
Message-ID: <BFC4C5FA.26C9C%michael@michaelbutler.com>

    Go to Original

    Byrd Warns Frist against "Nuclear Option"
    The Associated Press

    Monday 12 December 2005

    Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia said Monday he doesn't expect
Democrats to filibuster the nomination of Supreme Court nominee Samuel
Alito, but he still chastised Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist for
threatening to stop any such effort through a drastic parliamentary effort
that has been dubbed the "nuclear option."

    "If he ever tries to exercise that, he's going to see a real filibuster
if I'm living and able to stand on my feet or sit in my seat," Byrd said in
a Senate debate with Frist, R-Tenn.

    "If the senator wants a fight, let him try it," said Byrd, the Senate's
senior Democrat. "I'm 88 years old, but I can still fight, and fight I will
for freedom of speech. I haven't been here for 47 years to see that freedom
of speech whittled away and undermined. "

    The animated exchange, springing from the majority leader's threat on
Sunday to block judicial filibusters, featured Frist waving his hands and
wiping his brow in exasperation.

    Byrd insisted that Democrats have not threatened to filibuster Alito,
who was chosen by President Bush as the replacement for retiring Justice
Sandra Day O'Connor. In response, Frist read from a half-dozen news stories
that quoted Democrats mentioning the option, looking back at Byrd after each
item.

    "I will do everything I possibly can if your side chooses, if the
Democrat side chooses to filibuster," Frist said.

    Senate Democrats have questioned whether Alito, a federal appeals court
judge, has the proper judicial temperament and ideology to replace O'Connor.
Some have said Alito's views on issues such as voting rights and abortion
could provoke a filibuster unless he allays their concerns about his
commitment to civil rights at his confirmation hearings, beginning Jan. 9.

    The filibuster is a parliamentary tactic whereby senators use their
right to virtually unlimited debate to block measures, legislation or
nominations. It takes 60 votes in the 100-member Senate to stop a
filibuster.

    Under Frist's scenario, the GOP would seek a parliamentary ruling that
declares filibusters are not permitted against judicial nominees. That
ruling ultimately would go before the full Senate for a vote, with a simple
majority required to prevail. Republicans hold 55 seats.

    Democrats like Byrd have threatened to retaliate with a fight that could
snarl Senate business for months.

    With the Senate back in town, Progress for America, a conservative
advocacy group, launched a new television ad supporting Alito in Washington,
D.C., Maine, Rhode Island and Nebraska. It will run for four days on cable
stations, costs $150,000 and features two former Alito clerks praising the
judge.

    The Fraternal Order of Police announced Monday that it will support
Alito's nomination. "We believe that he will be an outstanding addition to
the Supreme Court," said FOP President Chuck Canterbury.

    And the National Association of Manufacturers was expected to endorse
Alito on Tuesday.

    Several gay and lesbian rights groups announced their opposition to
Alito's confirmation Monday. They include the Human Rights Campaign,
National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, Lambda Legal, National Center for
Lesbian Rights, and Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays.

    Disability rights groups planned to announce their opposition to Alito
on Wednesday. They include ADA Watch/National Coalition for Disability
Rights, Alliance of Disability Advocates, Bazelon Center for Mental Health
Law, Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund, National Council on
Independent Living and World Association of People with Disabilities.

 

From harry.sifton at sympatico.ca  Tue Dec 13 16:15:01 2005
From: harry.sifton at sympatico.ca (Harold Sifton)
Date: Tue Dec 13 16:25:48 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] US enters Canadian election
Message-ID: <003501c60043$6f448c50$9627e440@Harold>

The US Ambassador to Canada has entered the field.

The Republican attack machine is at work against the Liberal Party and Canada's Prime Minister.

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20051213/wilkins_canada_051213/20051213?s_name=election2006

Wilkins/Bush want the Conservative Party leader Harper to be in power. He is weak, wants power at all cost, will be a good little US soldier.

Harper is anti gay, Religious Right, Pro Military, pretty much everything the US Republican administration in power stands for.

Harper is also from Alberta, Canada's most right wing Province and also Canada's wealthiest because of its Oil, which rivals Saudi Arabia's reserves.

US meddling will not be helpful, as others meddling as mentioned before in which I was seriously lambasted for.......

Let Canada decide for itself!!

This is a concern

H

PS Most Canadians are not stupid, they know Harper has an agenda for himself, but *&%&& happens, like Ohio and Florida. Harper is trying to sell a tax break issue, and claims the existing Liberal Party is corrupt. What's new, its all lies, but it is media bites.... The Canadian Media sadly/disappointingly loves it, promotes it, creates it, because it sells papers/space/ads!! The Media does not care who wins, it is all about sales to them.

There use to be a ethical rule that Editorial and Advertising would never interfere with each other. At the end of the day advertising rules today, shareholders want dividends!

Venting again

H



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From nwonline at toronto.cbc.ca  Tue Dec 13 16:37:50 2005
From: nwonline at toronto.cbc.ca (CBC News Online)
Date: Tue Dec 13 16:48:55 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] CBC News - CONSERVATIONISTS PAY MORE THAN $1 MILLION TO
	END TROPHY BEAR HUNT 
Message-ID: <20051214003750.DF0E269AFB@nmweb09.nm.cbc.ca>

This email has been sent to you by harry.sifton@sympatico.ca
The following is a news item posted on CBC NEWS ONLINE
at http://www.cbc.ca/news
____________________________________________________
CONSERVATIONISTS PAY MORE THAN $1 MILLION TO END TROPHY BEAR HUNT 
WebPosted Tue Dec 13 14:44:28 2005

---An environmental group has bought the trophy hunting rights in one of
the most valuable guide-outfitting territories in British Columbia
&#8211; to stop foreign hunters from killing bears and wolves in a
coastal rainforest.

The Raincoast Conservation Society spent $1.35 million to buy out Bella
Coola Guide Outfitters, which had the exclusive trophy hunting rights in
the area known as the Great Bear Rainforest.

The old-growth forest stretches along the coast for 500 kilometres from
Knight Inlet to the Alaskan Panhandle, covering a 20,000-square-kilometre
area centred around Bella Coola.



The purchase, which was supported by five coastal First Nations, was made
with the intention of changing the focus of the economy there from the
trophy-hunting of large carnivores to more conservation-based activities
such as wildlife-viewing and photography.

The society's Ian McAllister said the wilderness supports "globally rare"
wildlife, including one of the world's last large populations of
grizzlies and a rare, pure-white variation of the black bear &#8211; the
Kermode or "Spirit" bear.

"It's an area where the Spirit bear is found," McAllister said. Some of
the largest grizzly and black bears in Canada live there. "It's just one
of those spectacular places on the planet."

Some hunting will still be allowed

The purchase won't put an end to all hunting in the area,
McAllister said.

He said the society won't take foreign hunters, but people who live in
British Columbia will still be entitled to hunt in the territory.

"People shouldn't get confused with this as a hunting versus anti-hunting
issue. It's not that at all.

"It's strictly focused on the sport hunting of large carnivores like
bears and wolves."

                         FROM CBC ARCHIVES: The
                         fight over Spirit bear

Trophy hunting in the area has been controversial for years. The First
Nations in the area have opposed the sport hunt and the European Union
banned all imports of grizzly bear parts from B.C.

First Nations to focus on wildlife-viewing industry

The Raincoast Conservation Society and First Nations groups plan to
offset the loss of income from foreign hunters by developing conservation-
based industries such as wildlife photography for tourists.

"We view this unprecedented initiative as part of a larger effort to
create a conservation-based economy on the central coast," Wuikinuxv
Nation Chief Alex Chartrand said in a news release issued Tuesday.

"Our value system does not support killing animals for trophies and our
communities are working hard to develop a sustainable wildlife-viewing
industry."

McAllister said the $1.35 million was a lot of money to raise, but
stressed that not a dime of it came from government.

"The interesting thing is this didn't take a single taxpayer dollar, and
the vast majority of it was raised [and] supported by Canadian
individuals."

Copyright (C) 2005 CBC. All rights reserved.
From nwonline at toronto.cbc.ca  Tue Dec 13 16:42:16 2005
From: nwonline at toronto.cbc.ca (CBC News Online)
Date: Tue Dec 13 16:53:11 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] CBC News - DEAL LIMITS MASS DIVERSIONS OF GREAT LAKES
	WATER
Message-ID: <20051214004216.EA54169AFB@nmweb09.nm.cbc.ca>

This email has been sent to you by harry.sifton@sympatico.ca
The following is a news item posted on CBC NEWS ONLINE
at http://www.cbc.ca/news
____________________________________________________
DEAL LIMITS MASS DIVERSIONS OF GREAT LAKES WATER
WebPosted Tue Dec 13 05:44:49 2005

---Political leaders from Ontario, Quebec and eight U.S. states have
signed a deal aimed at banning large-scale water diversion projects from
the Great Lakes.

The agreement, signed at the Great Lakes Governors Leadership Summit in
Milwaukee on Tuesday, will block parched southern states from siphoning
off huge amounts of Great Lakes water.

The Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Basin Sustainable Water Resources
Agreement still needs to be endorsed by the U.S. Congress before it
becomes law.

Then each separate state would have to introduce its own law to prohibit
massive, bulk water exports to areas outside the Great Lakes region.

In Canada, out-of-basin transfers are already banned.

In the U.S., large-scale diversions can only take place if all eight
Great Lake states &#8211; Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New
York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin &#8211; approve.

Ontario praises historic deal

Ontario's Natural Resources Minister David Ramsay said the agreement was
likely to pass easily through Congress and would protect the lakes for
decades ahead.

He said it was primarily spurred out of concern over a growing pressure
for water from southwestern states, such as Arizona, New Mexico and
California.

The five lakes contain 20 per cent of the world's fresh surface water.

An estimated 45 million people &#8211; including 10 million Canadians
&#8211; live in the Great Lakes basin.

FROM NOV. 14, 2005: Rare Great Lakes species mapped

FROM NOV. 20, 2004: Great Lakes plan raises diversion fears



The agreement reached Tuesday also calls for new measures to prevent
invasive species from entering the lakes and to reduce the levels of
PCBs, dioxin, mercury, pesticides and other toxins.

Environmental groups applaud agreement

The new deal drew applause from environmental groups.

"It's way long overdue," Sarah Miller of the Canadian Environmental Law
Association told CBC.ca.

"It's putting us on a path toward having more resilient and sustainable
Great Lakes in the future," she said.

Miller also noted the deal comes amid growing water shortages in the
southwestern United States &#8211 shortages which are expected to worsen
in the coming decades especially as the population there grows.

The population shift in those "thirsty areas," she said, could one day
fuel demands for large-scale water diversion.

Copyright (C) 2005 CBC. All rights reserved.
From nwonline at toronto.cbc.ca  Tue Dec 13 16:44:55 2005
From: nwonline at toronto.cbc.ca (CBC News Online)
Date: Tue Dec 13 16:55:38 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] CBC News - U.S. TO CREATE MAP OF CANCER GENOME
Message-ID: <20051214004456.11EE469AFB@nmweb09.nm.cbc.ca>

This email has been sent to you by harry.sifton@sympatico.ca
The following is a news item posted on CBC NEWS ONLINE
at http://www.cbc.ca/news
____________________________________________________
U.S. TO CREATE MAP OF CANCER GENOME
WebPosted Tue Dec 13 13:18:44 2005

---A $100 million US pilot project aims to understand the genetic makeup
of cancer to improve diagnosis and treatment.

The U.S. National Institutes of Health announced the launch of the Cancer
Genome Atlas on Tuesday in Washington.

                             INDEPTH: Human
                             Genome Project

The project will systematically explore changes in the human genetic
blueprint involved in all types of human cancer, which includes more than
200 different diseases.

"This atlas of genomic changes will provide new insights into the
biological basis of cancer, which in turn will lead to new tests to
detect cancer in its early, most treatable stages; new therapies to
target cancer at its most vulnerable points; and, ultimately, new
strategies to prevent cancer," said NIH director Dr. Elias Zerhouni in
a release.

Dr. Francis Collins, the NIH genetics chief, compared the cancer
    project to "thousands of Human Genome projects." He helped direct
    that project.

"We have the opportunity, because of advances in technology, to really
look at the global nature of what is wrong with the cancer cell in a way
that frankly we could not have dreamed of even a few years ago," Collins
said at the announcement.

In some cases, one genetic mutation can spark the uncontrolled cell
growth in a tumour, or increase susceptibility to the disease.

Usually cancer is more complex, involving dozen of genetic changes that
differ in malignancy. Small molecules added or removed from DNA can also
change how genes function.

Understanding the molecular basis of cancer has allowed researchers to
develop the first drugs that target specific faulty genes, such as
Herceptin for one form of breast cancer and Gleevec for chronic
myeloid leukemia.

The three-year pilot project will focus on two or three types of cancer
to determine the feasibility of a larger-scale effort.

The data will be available to researchers worldwide.

Copyright (C) 2005 CBC. All rights reserved.
From Reuters_News at reuters.com  Tue Dec 13 16:55:25 2005
From: Reuters_News at reuters.com (Reuters_News@reuters.com)
Date: Tue Dec 13 17:24:46 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Reuters.com - Ex-Enron chief Lay blasts prosecutors,
	Fastow - Tue Dec 13, 2005 3:09 PM ET
Message-ID: <015a01c60049$11a311b0$a69e4ca7@RCUSSTLA5>

HS (harry.sifton@sympatico.ca) has sent you this article.

Personal Message:
	Lay points finger at others, a man in denil.

Reuters.com - Ex-Enron chief Lay blasts prosecutors, Fastow
	http://today.reuters.com/news/NewsArticle.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyID=2005-12-13T200918Z_01_DIT372495_RTRUKOC_0_US-ENRON-LAY.xml

This service is not intended to encourage spam. The details provided by your colleague have been used for the sole purpose of facilitating this email communication and have not been retained by Reuters. Your personal details have not been added to any database or mailing list.

If you would like to receive news articles delivered to your email address, please subscribe at www.reuters.com

From harry.sifton at sympatico.ca  Tue Dec 13 17:24:39 2005
From: harry.sifton at sympatico.ca (Harry)
Date: Tue Dec 13 17:35:57 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Only because they have dropped the recruiting standards
Message-ID: <200512140124.jBE1OdsM008307@margaret6.newsworld.net>


Harry has sent you an article from The Washington Times.

Harry's comments: You get what you paid for, drop the standards you get what you get.
The Marines are the only properly trained force in Iraq, the rest are sub standard acording to Jane\'s.
-----------------------------------------------------------
ARMY RECRUITING TOPS NEW GOALS
By Rowan Scarborough
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
-----------------------------------------------------------
The Army has exceeded recruiting goals in the first two months of this fiscal year, reversing a trend that had some Iraq critics saying the armed services branch was "broken."

    The Pentagon yesterday said the Army signed up 5,856 recruits in November, 5 percent above its goal. It previously announced the Army also exceeded its target in October, the first month of the 2006 fiscal year.

    The Army has that hit its recruiting mark for six straight months, a promising development for the Bush administration. President Bush's critics had cited the Army's failure to achieve its recruiting goals in fiscal 2005 as proof that the war in Iraq is breaking the force.

    Rep. John P. Murtha, Pennsylvania Democrat and one of the party's chief Iraq war critics, has called the Army "broken" and urged the White House to withdraw all U.S. troops from the country.

    But Lt. Col. Bryan Hilferty, an Army spokesman at the Pentagon, said the service is more confident of filling the ranks as the recruiting year unfolds.

    "Part of the reason is it's like steering a boat," he said. "The changes we made in the last year take a while to take effect."

    Those changes included putting more recruiters on the street and offering specific assignment incentives. If a high school graduate was willing to commit to the 3rd Infantry Division bound for Iraq, for example, he could receive a bonus of several thousand dollars. Enlistees can receive up to a $20,000 bonus depending on the length of commitment and their job skills. The Army also changed its ad campaign to focus more on patriotism.

    "I think the Army as a whole is working harder at recruiting," Col. Hilferty said.

    Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and other officials explained the 2005 recruiting shortfall this way: the active-duty Army is growing by 30,000, making the sign-up goal larger, and parents in some cases are counseling against joining the combat arms at a time when more than 2,000 American service members have been killed in Iraq since March 2003.

    Soldiers typically spend a year in Iraq or Afghanistan, and then a year at home before deploying again. In contrast, Marines spend six months overseas and six months at home.

    The Army fell far behind its goal of 80,000 recruits in fiscal 2005, but made up much of the lost ground during the summer, when high school graduates typically decided their next step. By Sept. 30, recruiters had brought in 73,000 future soldiers, a number the Army said was sufficient to sustain the force the next year. The Army last missed its mark in 1999.

    Col. Hilferty said he "can't guarantee" the Army will meet its end goal of 80,000 by next Sept. 30, noting the winter and spring are traditionally difficult recruiting seasons. The Army has 492,728 active-duty soldiers in the 1.4 million-member armed forces.

    The Marine Corps, Navy and Air Force all met their November enlistment quotas.

    







-----------------------------------------------------------
This article was mailed from The Washington Times (http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20051212-110459-3810r.htm)
For more great articles, visit us at http://www.washingtontimes.com

Copyright (c) 2005 News World Communications, Inc. All rights reserved.

From swiggard at comcast.net  Wed Dec 14 03:50:30 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Wed Dec 14 04:04:02 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Marshals To Patrol Land, Sea Transport - Washington Post
Message-ID: <43A00706.60901@comcast.net>

Marshals To Patrol Land, Sea Transport
TSA Test Includes Surveillance Teams On Metro System

By Sara Kehaulani Goo
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 14, 2005; A01

Teams of undercover air marshals and uniformed law enforcement officers 
will fan out to bus and train stations, ferries, and mass transit 
facilities across the country this week in a new test program to conduct 
surveillance and "counter potential criminal terrorist activity in all 
modes of transportation," according to internal federal documents.

According to internal Transportation Security Administration documents, 
the program calls for newly created "Visible Intermodal Protection and 
Response" teams -- called "Viper" teams -- to take positions in public 
areas along Amtrak's Northeast Corridor and Los Angeles rail lines; 
ferries in Washington state; and mass transit systems in Atlanta, 
Philadelphia and Baltimore. Viper teams will also patrol the Washington 
Metro system.

A Viper team will consist of two air marshals, one TSA 
bomb-sniffing-canine team, one or two transportation security 
inspectors, one local law enforcement officer, and one other TSA 
employee. Some members of the team will be obvious to the traveling 
public and wear jackets bearing the TSA name on the back. Others will be 
plainclothes air marshals scanning the crowds for suspicious people. It 
is unclear how many Viper teams will be on patrol through the New Year 
holiday, but air marshal officials confirm that they will be at seven 
locations across the country.

"TSA is going to extend its outreach into other modes of 
transportation," said David Adams, spokesman for the Federal Air Marshal 
Service. "We think this is a very good approach to test our tools and 
quickly deploy resources in the event of a situation or a threat. It 
shows we could be at any of these places."

Air marshals will remain on flights this holiday season, while at 
several airports -- including Dulles International -- TSA is training 
dozens of screeners in behavior recognition techniques to identify 
suspicious passengers. Such training had, for the most part, been 
limited to air marshals. In addition, travelers will be able to take 
some sharp items previously prohibited, such as small scissors and 
tools, in carry-on luggage.

TSA officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity said the agency is 
expanding training for a limited group of screeners at other airports in 
preparation for the holiday travel season. Those airports serve Los 
Angeles, Miami, Dallas-Fort Worth, Cincinnati, New York, Houston, 
Detroit and Chicago. TSA spokeswoman Yolanda Clark said the techniques 
include taking notice of high levels of stress, anxiety or deception. 
"This is a part of a larger effort to add more complex layers of 
security that cannot be manipulated by those seeking to do us harm," 
Clark said.

Federal officials said there is no new intelligence indicating that 
terrorists are interested in targeting transportation modes. Rather, the 
Transportation Security Administration is trying to expand the role of 
air marshals, who have been eager to conduct surveillance activities 
beyond the aircraft, and provide a beefed-up law enforcement presence at 
bus, train and public transit stations over the busy holiday period.

Air marshals "are trained to covertly detect potential criminal 
terrorist pre-attack surveillance and other suspicious activity," states 
a TSA memo written by Patrick F. Sullivan, deputy assistant director of 
TSA's Federal Air Marshal Service flight operations office. Air marshals 
"assigned to support the VIPR team will also be looking for individuals 
attempting to avoid or depart areas upon visual observation of the VIPR 
teams."

The concept of employing more surveillance techniques to identify 
unusual behavior -- typically, signs of nervousness, such as sweating 
and avoiding eye contact -- has been around for some time. In London, 
police used the tactic after the terrorist bombings on the Underground 
to track and then shoot a young man wearing a backpack who was running 
from police. The man was later determined to be unconnected to the 
suspected bombers.

Some security officials question whether air marshals should be 
conducting surveillance or any operations outside of an aircraft cabin. 
The marshals spend hours training in such tactics as shooting a gun in 
the close confines of an aircraft cabin. Officials say that marshals 
have been trained to notice and report suspicious activity and that they 
do so regularly, even though it has not resulted in netting a suspected 
terrorist. Air marshal training was called into question last week, 
after two marshals shot and killed an American Airlines passenger in 
Miami who allegedly claimed to have a bomb in his backpack.

"In one word, this is absurd," to put air marshals in bus and train 
stations, said Doug Laird, a security consultant and former head of 
security for Northwest Airlines. "This is clearly a responsibility of 
the local jurisdictions. They don't have enough air marshals to carry 
out the mission they are supposed to do. To spread them even thinner 
dilutes the reason they are there in the first place."

Adams, of the Air Marshal Service, however, said marshals are the law 
enforcement arm of the TSA, which is charged with overseeing all modes 
of transportation -- not just aviation. "This is part of our 
responsibility to assist in the non-aviation domain," he said. "The 
whole purpose is that people will not know when we're going to be there 
or if we are going to be there. It's a preventative approach."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/13/AR2005121301709.html
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Wed Dec 14 03:55:03 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Wed Dec 14 04:08:43 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Preserved Mural Unearthed in Guatemala - Washington Post
Message-ID: <43A00817.5080204@comcast.net>

Preserved Mural Unearthed in Guatemala
Discovery Verifies Mayan Civilization 2,000 Years Ago

By Guy Gugliotta
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 14, 2005; A03

Archaeologists have uncovered an elegantly painted 30-foot-long mural in 
a ceremonial chamber beneath a Guatemalan jungle pyramid, providing new 
evidence that Mayan civilization was in full flower more than 2,000 
years ago.

Archaeologist William Saturno of the University of New Hampshire and 
Harvard's Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology said yesterday 
that the San Bartolo site, in Guatemala's Peten wilderness, is "the find 
of a lifetime," depicting the Mayan creation myth and the crowning of a 
king in vivid color on a plaster wall as though "parts of it . . . were 
painted yesterday."

The painting is the oldest intact mural ever found in Meso-America, 
dating to about 150 B.C. in the Mayan "pre-classic" period. But the 
subject matter has the same breadth of mythology and cultural complexity 
as that displayed at "classical" Mayan sites nearly 500 years later.

"This verifies what we had long suspected -- that Mayan civilization had 
crystallized by the time" the San Bartolo site arose, said University of 
Pennsylvania archaeologist Robert J. Sharer, author of "The Ancient 
Maya." "The institution of divine kingship is in place -- the imagery is 
consistent with later times. It's a terrific find."

Saturno discovered San Bartolo in 2001 when he took refuge from the 
tropical heat by ducking into a looters' trench cut into the back of a 
jungle-covered pyramid in northern Guatemala, near the Mexican border. 
He found himself inside a chamber choked with landfill. But the north 
wall revealed a four-foot-long swath of beautifully preserved mural 
depicting the resurrection of the Corn God, a scene from Mayan creation 
myth.

"As spectacular as this was," Saturno said during a telephone news 
conference organized by the National Geographic Society, "we knew that 
the west wall was more than twice its length and was the centerpiece of 
the ancient room."

And so it proved. The 30 feet of west wall mural, the excavation of 
which began in 2004, shows the son of the Corn God establishing land, 
water and air, and paradise in the east where the sun rises. The next 
section shows the Corn God's coronation, followed by death and 
resurrection. The last section shows the coronation of a Mayan king, 
claiming his crown in the company of the gods.

While the north wall was painted in black, red, yellow and pink, the 
west wall added several shades of blue, white, and dark and light gray. 
"The murals were painted at the same time, but there's more than one 
artistic hand," Saturno said. National Geographic magazine is profiling 
San Bartolo in next month's issue.

Three doors into the chamber were on the now-destroyed east wall, making 
the west wall the first and most arresting sight for new arrivals. "Our 
best guess is that this was a preparation room, where the king would 
rehearse the mythology for ceremonies" outdoors, Saturno said.

The murals are accompanied by archaic Mayan writing as sophisticated as 
later classic glyphs that have been deciphered, but "the pre-classic is 
a different system," said archaeologist Richard D. Hansen of Idaho State 
University. "We can't make sense of it until we have [more samples], but 
we're getting into it."

The murals, three feet tall and painted on layers of plaster smoothed 
over foundation stone, survived for centuries in the coolness beneath 
the pyramid, with the chamber filled with earth containing thousands of 
mural fragments from the east and south walls.

About a mile from the pyramid, a team led by Guatemalan archaeologist 
Monica Pellicer Alecio in 2004 began excavating a vaulted tomb 
containing a man's remains and a large jade plaque, the symbol of Mayan 
royalty.

Saturno said the story told by the murals and the presence of a nearby 
royal burial site demonstrate a fully developed Mayan political 
hierarchy in a relatively small place at a time when the area was 
probably dominated by the large city of El Mirador about 60 miles away.

"But it's all there in San Bartolo too," said Hansen, an El Mirador 
specialist. "The pre-classic was a complex and sophisticated society, 
and this is the greatest compilation of murals ever found in 
Meso-America. It's a wonderful opportunity for scholars."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/13/AR2005121301879.html
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Wed Dec 14 03:56:29 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Wed Dec 14 04:09:55 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Breaking The Assassins - David Ignatius - Washington
	Post Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43A0086D.8020400@comcast.net>

Breaking The Assassins

By David Ignatius
Wednesday, December 14, 2005; A29

This is the time of the assassins in the Arab world. On Monday they 
killed a brave Lebanese journalist who dared to tell the truth about 
Syria. This week in Iraq they will try to kill people who want to vote. 
They kill wives to intimidate their husbands. They kill children to 
frighten their parents into silence. Their power is the ability to 
create raw fear.

The shame for America isn't that we have tried to topple the rule of the 
assassins but that we have so far been unsuccessful. We thought we were 
cracking the old web of terror when America invaded Iraq in 2003, but 
it's still there, in the shadows of the shadows. George W. Bush gets a 
lot of things wrong, but he knows that he's fighting the assassins. On 
days like these, I'm glad that he is such a stubborn man.

What is this struggle about? Listen to some Arab voices. Yesterday the 
front page of the Beirut daily An Nahar carried an open letter from the 
Syrian-born Lebanese poet known as "Adonis," perhaps the most famous 
writer in the Arab world. It was written to the paper's celebrated 
editor, Ghassan Tueni, whose outspoken son Gebran had been murdered the 
previous day by a car bomb. "We are witnessing the destruction of the 
soul and the spirit," wrote the poet, whose real name is Ali Ahmed Said. 
The people who killed Gebran want to create "a temple of fear."

The headline atop the newspaper's front page said this: "Gebran didn't 
die and an-Nahar will continue." For a paper that had already lost its 
fearless columnist Samir Kassir to a car bomb in June, it was a defiant 
statement to the assassins: Kill us all. We aren't going to stop 
publishing the truth.

I spoke yesterday with Hisham Melhem, the paper's Washington bureau 
chief. His voice was cracking with emotion as he spoke of his 
colleagues: "I shudder when I think of the courage of Gebran and Samir. 
They knew they were dead men walking. But they were never intimidated."

Amid the Bush administration's mistakes and lies about Iraq over the 
past three years, it's easy to lose sight of what is at stake in this 
battle. But this week brings it back to square one: It's about breaking 
the power of the assassins.

The Baath Party in Iraq ruled by its sheer brutality. I gathered reports 
from Iraqi dissidents and human rights workers in the early 1990s, when 
I was researching my novel about Iraq, "The Bank of Fear." These stories 
are sickening to recount, even now: The children of Shiite rebels in 
southern Iraq, dropped from helicopters to terrify the parents; 
dissidents who had nails driven into their heads; and prisoners beaten 
with metal cables until they collapsed or died. At Saddam Hussein's 
trial last week, a woman was speaking about how she had been beaten with 
those cables. Watching his arrogant scorn for the testimony of his 
victims, I remembered what the war is about.

The Baath Party in Syria has governed much the same way, though it saved 
its worst brutality for neighboring Lebanon. The Syrians maintained 
their mandate by demonstrating that they were prepared to kill anyone 
who got in their way: a president, a prime minister, a religious leader, 
a journalist. The price of speaking out was death. That was the message: 
This is the land of death. Enter into this theater of violence and we 
will swallow you up.

I think of my friend and teacher, Ghassan Tueni, who is grieving for his 
son today. When he received an honorary doctorate at the American 
University of Beirut last June, Tueni recalled the time he spent in 
prison in the late 1940s for defying the censors and repressors of the 
day. He read a copy of Socrates that had been smuggled into his cell and 
decided he would pursue a kind of Socratic journalism that would engage 
in a dialogue with readers and incite them to discover the truth.

"I have to say, with much sorrow, that much of what the Arab world 
suffers from is largely due to the fact that neither our diplomacy nor 
our press has dared, or even been allowed, to tell the people the truth 
about our state of being and where we stand in the world," Tueni said at 
the end of that speech. But that wasn't true. He did dare.

People like the Tuenis who refuse to be intimidated should inspire the 
rest of us. So should the millions of Iraqis who will vote tomorrow. 
They are trying to break the culture of intimidation and death. 
Americans should feel proud to be on their side.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/13/AR2005121301512.html
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Wed Dec 14 03:59:12 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Wed Dec 14 04:12:43 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] The Endless Food Fight - Robert J. Samuelson -
	Washington Post Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43A00910.2040100@comcast.net>

The Endless Food Fight

By Robert J. Samuelson
Wednesday, December 14, 2005; A29

"No country gets rich by keeping its people in agriculture."

-- David Orden, agricultural economist

Few economic laws are so clear. Cheap and efficiently produced food 
relieves poverty. As farming becomes more productive, people eat better; 
workers move into better-paying industrial and service jobs. In 1820 
about 70 percent of the U.S. labor force was in farming; in 2003 that 
was 1.7 percent. Comparable figures for France, Britain and Japan were 
3.6 percent, 1.2 percent and 4.6 percent. Farms use better seeds and 
more fertilizer; they consolidate and mechanize.

Considering the benefits, you'd think that liberalizing world trade in 
farm products would be a snap. In rich countries, farm lobbies have 
shriveled in importance. As for poor countries, they'd want to shift 
from subsistence farming toward specialization -- and abundance. Well, 
you'd be spectacularly wrong. Since World War II, there have been eight 
successful rounds of global trade negotiations. Farm trade is so 
controversial that it was ignored until the last round, concluded in 
1994. Now farm issues are paralyzing the Doha Round (so named because it 
started in Doha, Qatar, in 2001). Trade ministers meeting this week in 
Hong Kong probably won't bridge the differences.

The blame for the impasse lies heavily with the European Union. The Bush 
administration has proposed sharp cuts in U.S. farm payments and 
tariffs. Although its plan doesn't go far enough -- subsidies should be 
eliminated -- the European Union hasn't matched it. Nor have some big 
Asian countries with high tariffs (China, Japan, Korea). Many developing 
countries and food exporters (Brazil, Argentina) are unhappy. Economist 
David Orden and colleagues at the International Food Policy Research 
Institute compared the U.S. and E.U. proposals. The U.S. approach would 
expand global food trade by twice as much. Abolishing all subsidies 
would increase trade even more.

Subsidies come in two forms -- tariffs and direct payments. With 
tariffs, shoppers pay prices above world levels. The United States has a 
few stratospheric tariffs, notably on sugar. Direct U.S. payments to 
farmers, including export subsidies, average about $20 billion annually. 
In Europe, tariffs and payments are much higher. The Organization for 
Economic Cooperation and Development estimates all subsidy costs for its 
30 rich member countries. In 2004 the subsidies totaled $297 billion. In 
Japan and Korea, they represented 60 percent of farm revenue. For the 
European Union and the United States, the figures were 34 percent and 20 
percent.

Poorer countries rely mostly on tariffs. In a study, the Australian 
Bureau of Agriculture and Resource Economics cited these examples: 
China, 65 percent on wheat and rice; India, 50 percent on wheat and 30 
percent on soybeans; the Philippines, 50 percent on rice; and Indonesia, 
23.7 percent on rice.

With time, the justifications for subsidies have weakened. One is that 
farm incomes should be increased, because they're lower than city 
incomes and the flow of labor from farm to factory should slow. But in 
richer countries, the flow has already occurred, and farm incomes now 
often exceed urban incomes. In the United States, the Agriculture 
Department puts average farm household income in 2005 at $83,660. 
Subsidies also go to the biggest farms, because they're the biggest 
producers.

Another argument for subsidies is the need for food self-sufficiency. 
But as countries grow richer, self-sufficiency erodes. Many countries 
can't produce enough feed grains to meet their citizens' rising demand 
for meat. Elsewhere, including the United States, affluent shoppers want 
more specialized products that only imports can provide.

Given these realities, farm subsidies have outlived their usefulness. 
Even in poorer countries, their abolition would reduce food prices and 
raise the purchasing power of urban workers, stimulating demand for 
industrial goods and absorbing workers leaving rural areas. Because some 
poor countries have huge agricultural workforces (40 percent of the 
total in China), a case can be made for phasing out tariffs over 10 to 
20 years. But the transition for rich countries should be shorter.

In these countries, farm subsidies survive on symbolism -- nostalgia for 
the rural past -- and farmers' sense of entitlement. One French official 
recently defended subsidies as safeguarding the country's "gastronomic 
sovereignty." Unsurprisingly, France receives the fattest share of the 
European Union's subsidies, about 20 percent. Without subsidies, some 
French farms would fail; but many would survive and expand. Consumers 
could still satisfy their distinctive tastes. In Japan, Korea and some 
other Asian countries, the same process would occur.

As for the United States, it's a low-cost producer. Abolishing worldwide 
subsidies would raise exports and reduce government spending. Some 
heavily protected crops (sugar, cotton) would decline, but "much of this 
land is going to stay in [other] crops," says agricultural economist 
Daniel Sumner of the University of California at Davis. Many poorer 
countries are also low-cost producers. Greater food exports and more 
efficient farmers won't solve their development problems, but they would 
help.

Except politically, this food fight makes no sense. There are more 
potential economic winners than losers. But so far the losers have 
prevailed, imperiling agreement on food and a broader trade accord. 
Globalization's most effective opponents are not intellectual objectors 
but powerful political interests.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/13/AR2005121301477.html?nav=hcmodule
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Wed Dec 14 04:00:46 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Wed Dec 14 04:14:11 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] What Are the Russians Buying? - Anne Applebaum -
 Washington Post Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43A0096E.4090902@comcast.net>

What Are the Russians Buying?

By Anne Applebaum
Wednesday, December 14, 2005; A29

Even here in Washington -- a city populated by lobbyists who once held 
political office and government officials who once worked as lobbyists 
-- it's hard to top the story of Gerhard Schroeder. Last week the former 
German chancellor announced that he'd accepted a job offer from Gazprom, 
the state-controlled Russian energy mega-company. As one of his last 
acts in office, Schroeder signed an agreement to build a diplomatically 
and environmentally controversial Baltic Sea gas pipeline from Russia to 
Germany. Now he's working for the company that will build it. It's as if 
Jimmy Carter had negotiated the return of the Panama Canal to Panama -- 
and then signed a lucrative contract to manage the shipping lanes.

But there's more here than just the former German chancellor's quest for 
personal enrichment -- or funds to pay alimony to his three ex-wives. 
The story also reflects the growing international power of Russian 
money. Much like the Saudis, who spent the 1970s buying up London real 
estate, the Russian tycoons spent their first decade of billionaire-hood 
sunning themselves in southern France and crowding the slopes at Gstaad. 
And just as the Saudis eventually learned to make more fruitful use of 
their money -- putting prominent Americans on lucrative boards, donating 
money to their favorite causes, even befriending their wives -- the 
Russians, too, have now realized that petrodollars go a long way.

What they've been seeking so far is respectability of the sort that will 
help Americans overlook their murky origins and will win Russian 
companies coveted listings on Western stock exchanges. Mikhail 
Khodorkovsky, the oil tycoon in prison in part because he got too good 
at this sort of thing, gave big chunks of money to the Library of 
Congress. In return, the librarian of Congress hosted a party for his 
foundation. A similar desire for respectability compelled Vladimir 
Potanin, another Russian magnate, to become a patron of the arts. In 
return, the Guggenheim Museum in New York put him on its board.

This year the Woodrow Wilson Center -- a federal institution that raises 
some funds privately and that encompasses the Kennan Institute for 
advanced Russian studies -- even gave a "Corporate Citizenship" award to 
Vagit Alekperov, chairman of Lukoil, another energy mega-company. At the 
award dinner, James Langdon of the D.C. law firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer 
& Feld lauded Alekperov as "an innovator and leader," which suited all 
concerned. Alekperov, a man who with amazing speed acquired 10 percent 
ownership of a company whose reserves may match those of Exxon Mobil, 
got his credibility. The Wilson Center raised some $400,000, mostly from 
U.S. oil companies, at that dinner. Fred Bush, chief fundraiser for the 
center, says of the new Russian billionaires that he's "happy to have 
their money" and wishes they'd give more.

Others point out that it's better for Russian moguls to support Russian 
scholars than to fritter their money away buying lift tickets. The 
suggestion of influence does cause some discomfort, particularly since 
many Russian companies aren't exactly independent of the Russian state. 
Last week Paul Saunders, executive director of the Nixon Center, 
furiously denied a Russian newspaper report of Kremlin plans to set up a 
think tank, funded by the Russian government and Russian oligarchs, in 
conjunction with the center, which is affiliated with the Richard Nixon 
Library and Birthplace. Saunders admits that the Nixon Center accepts 
"small" amounts of money from Russia, but he issued a statement calling 
the Russian journalist who wrote the story a "specialist in black PR." 
Blair Ruble, director of the Kennan Institute, also worries that some 
might think his scholars are influenced by Russian money, and he admits 
to having questions about donations from Lukoil and other Russian 
companies. He says he doesn't allow donors to have any influence over 
research. Besides, when someone such as Schroeder goes to work for 
Gazprom, Ruble says, the argument against accepting Russian money 
"becomes harder and harder to make" to fundraisers and boards of directors.

Generalized paranoia -- and in particular the assumption that anyone 
expressing an opinion about anything is being paid to do so -- is 
probably the least attractive attribute of Russian political culture, 
and I'm not going to indulge in it here. But Schroeder's new job should 
raise awareness that there may be some mixed motives out there: If 
nothing else, Russian companies, like their Saudi and indeed American 
counterparts, have now made it known that they'll reward their friends.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/13/AR2005121301511.html?nav=hcmodule
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Wed Dec 14 04:03:42 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Wed Dec 14 04:17:11 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Epithet stung,
 even for Pryor - Derrick Z. Jackson - Boston Globe Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43A00A1E.3080103@comcast.net>


  Epithet stung, even for Pryor

By Derrick Z. Jackson  |  December 14, 2005  |  The Boston Globe

RICHARD PRYOR'S DEATH puts into painful relief hip-hop's exploitation of 
the N-word. In 1993, Snoop Dogg said he used the word because ''it's 
me." In 1996, Def Jam founder Russell Simmons said, ''When we say 
'nigger' now, it's very positive. Now all white kids who buy into 
hip-hop culture call each other 'nigger' because they have no history 
with the word other than something positive. . . . When black kids call 
each other 'a real nigger' or 'my nigger,' it means you walk a certain 
way . . . have your own culture that you invent so you don't have to buy 
into the US culture that you're not really a part of. It means we're 
special. We have our own language."

In a documentary last year on the N-word, actor and rapper Ice Cube 
claimed the word was a defiant ''badge of honor." Last month, in an 
interview on NBC's ''Today" show, rapper 50 Cent said of his massive use 
of the N-word: ''I'm not using it as a racial slur. . . . It's just slang."

Talk about reinventing the N-wheel. All these things were precisely what 
the comedian Pryor claimed at the beginning of the 1970s when he made a 
conscious decision to splatter his routine with the word. In his 
autobiography, ''Pryor Convictions," he said, ''Nigger. And so this one 
night I decided to make it my own. Nigger. I decided to take the sting 
out of it. Nigger. As if saying it over and over again would numb me and 
everybody else to its wretchedness. Nigger. Said it over and over like a 
preacher singing hallelujah."

Pryor claimed, ''Saying it changed me, yes it did. It gave me strength, 
let me rise above . . ."

Pryor rose to commercial stardom. Like many African-Americans, I bought 
his albums in my teens and early 20s, and no one was more brilliant on a 
dazzling variety of political and social topics. At a more immature 
time, he seemed to me a rugged complement to my Bill Cosby family-life 
albums.

As the 1970s wound down, it was spectacularly evident that embracing the 
N-word did not give Pryor the strength to rise above demons. His dismal 
childhood among whorehouses and barroom violence in Peoria, Ill., 
mushroomed into Hollywood drug binges and threats to wives at gunpoint. 
My black friends, particularly women, grew weary of his persona and his 
equally offensive use of ''bitch." I stopped buying his albums.

Amazingly, Pryor matured on this issue, making me sing hallelujah. In 
1979, he flew to Kenya. It was a trip recommended to him by his 
psychiatrist after his wife Jennifer hauled him out of a house full of 
hookers and drugs. After touring Kenya's national museum, Pryor sat in a 
hotel lobby full of what he described as ''gorgeous black people, like 
everyplace else we'd been. The only people you saw were black. At the 
hotel, on television, in stores, on the street, in the newspapers, at 
restaurants, running the government, on advertisements. Everywhere."

That caused Pryor to say: ''Jennifer. You know what? There are no 
niggers here. . . . There are no niggers here. The people here, they 
still have their self-respect, their pride."

In ''Pryor Convictions," Pryor said that he left Africa ''regretting 
ever having uttered the word 'nigger' on a stage or off it. It was a 
wretched word. Its connotations weren't funny, even when people laughed. 
To this day I wish I'd never said the word. I felt its lameness. It was 
misunderstood by people. They didn't get what I was talking about. 
Neither did I. . . . So I vowed never to say it again."

It took Pryor about 10 years to come to his conclusions. It has been 16 
years since the group ''N.W.A.," short for ''Ns With Attitude," zoomed 
to the top of the charts. Leader Ice Cube said, ''Words like bitch and 
nigger may be shocking for somebody who is white, but that's not why we 
use them. It's everyday language of people around my neighborhood." Ice 
Cube said that when he was 19, the age I most intently listened to Pryor.

Today Ice Cube is 36. Nothing about the N-word or B-word has helped 
black people to rise above achievement gaps in schools or helped black 
males to be respectful to women and responsible to babies they father 
out of wedlock. Russell Simmons said the use of the N-word makes black 
people ''special." Pryor decided 25 years ago that it was stupid.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/12/14/epithet_stung_even_for_pryor/
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Wed Dec 14 04:06:05 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Wed Dec 14 04:19:29 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Defying terror to vote for future - Jeff Jacoby - Boston
	Globe Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43A00AAD.1030201@comcast.net>


  Defying terror to vote for future

By Jeff Jacoby  |  December 14, 2005  |  The Boston Globe

''ONE ANECDOTE from Mosul," said General Peter Pace, the chairman of the 
Joint Chiefs of Staff, at the National Defense University earlier this 
month. ''There was a police recruiting station. Forty young men lined up 
to sign up to become Iraqi policemen. A vehicle-borne IED explodes -- 
kills or badly injures 12 of them. The next day, the 28 remaining return 
to the same spot to sign up to be policemen.

''And that kind of courage," the general told his audience, ''is being 
shown across Iraq by literally thousands and thousands of Iraqis who 
want to serve their country."

But there is more than courage drawing men back to the recruiting 
station, just as there is more than courage that is once again bringing 
millions of Iraqis to the polls this week, in defiance of Al Qaeda and 
its threat to kill ''infidels" who vote.

There is memory, too.

 From a story reported last year in the Daily Star of Beirut:

''They called all the prisoners out to the courtyard for what they 
called a 'celebration.' " The speaker is Ibrahim al-Idrissi, head of the 
Association for Free Prisoners, an organization that documents the 
deaths of Iraqi political prisoners under the former regime. He is 
recalling a day in 1982 at a prison in Baghdad.

''We all knew what they meant by 'celebration.' All the prisoners were 
chained to a pipe that ran the length of the courtyard wall. One 
prisoner, Amer al-Tikriti, was called out. They said if he didn't tell 
them everything they wanted to know, they would show him torture like he 
had never seen. He merely told them he would show them patience like 
they had never seen.

''This is when they brought out his wife, who was five months pregnant. 
One of the guards said that if he refused to talk he would get 12 guards 
to rape his wife until she lost the baby. Amer said nothing. So they 
did. We were forced to watch. Whenever one of us cast down his eyes, 
they would beat us."

''Amer's wife didn't lose the baby. So the guard took a knife, cut her 
belly open and took the baby out with his hands. The woman and child 
died minutes later. Then the guard used the same knife to cut Amer's 
throat."

Iraqis are not about to forget where they have been or to yield easily 
to those who would drag them back there. Threaten to kill them if they 
vote, and 8 million turn out on Election Day. Blow up a dozen men 
applying to join the police force, and the survivors are back in line 
the next morning.

Yes, there is violent death in Iraq today, as there was in the old Iraq. 
The difference is that then Iraqis were subjects, defenseless against 
one of the most brutal dictatorships on the planet. Now they are 
citizens of a nation that is transforming itself into the freest and 
most progressive democracy the Arab world has ever known. Then, they 
lived with daily terror and misery, and faced a future that promised 
only more of the same. Now, Hussein and his lieutenants are on trial, 
and the future Iraqis face is one they know will be of their own making.

At a time when American Democrats are adamantly proclaiming defeat 
(''The idea that we're going to win the war in Iraq is an idea which is 
just plain wrong" -- Howard Dean) and ''realists" deride the quest for 
Arab freedom (''You're not going to democratize Iraq" -- Brent 
Scowcroft), the optimism of the Iraqis is marvelous to behold. In a new 
poll, seven out of 10 Iraqis say their lives are going well; 69 percent 
expect conditions in the country to improve in the year ahead; 
three-quarters express confidence in this week's parliamentary elections.

Less than three years ago, Iraq was a place where dissent was crushed, 
freedom of speech unknown, and civil liberties nonexistent. Today it 
swirls and bubbles with democratic excitement. Thousands of Iraqis are 
running for office in this week's election. The sights and sounds of 
self-government -- political posters, passionate debate, radio and TV 
commentary, candidates pressing the flesh -- are everywhere. It is an 
extraordinary moment in Iraqi, and Arab, history.

''The tyrant will soon be gone," President Bush promised the Iraqi 
people in March 2003. ''The day of your liberation is near." Some cynics 
still sneer that it was really a war for oil, or for Halliburton, but 
Iraqis cannot afford such delusions. They know now what liberty means 
and will not willingly give it up.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/12/14/defying_terror_to_vote_for_future/
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From IHHS at aol.com  Tue Dec 13 20:24:41 2005
From: IHHS at aol.com (IHHS@aol.com)
Date: Wed Dec 14 04:20:44 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] homeopathy and medicine
Message-ID: <E1EmVSG-00014o-FG@smtpauth02.mail.atl.earthlink.net>

check this out
 
_http://www.uspharmacist.com/oldformat.asp?url=newlook/files/Alte/homeopathy.c
fm&pub_id=8&article_id=484_ 
(http://www.uspharmacist.com/oldformat.asp?url=newlook/files/Alte/homeopathy.cfm&pub_id=8&article_id=484) 

especially see first sentence
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From ean at sbcglobal.net  Tue Dec 13 17:17:48 2005
From: ean at sbcglobal.net (ean@sbcglobal.net)
Date: Wed Dec 14 04:21:44 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Global warming, GE foods,
	national parks:  Hope and despair 
Message-ID: <E1EmVSu-0001Gj-4a@smtpauth02.mail.atl.earthlink.net>

By Andrew Buncombe in Montreal, and Geoffrey Lean
 Published: 11 December 2005 The Independent

 http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article332384.ece

 The fight against catastrophic global warming scored
 its greatest success to date yesterday, when
 negotiators from more than 180 nations unexpectedly
 agreed to develop far-reaching measures to combat
 climate change.

 In the process, the delegates to the climate summit in
 Montreal dealt a humiliating blow to President George
 Bush's five-year attempt to destroy the Kyoto
 Protocol. The United States, which tried to sabotage
 the meeting at the last minute by walking out of the
 negotiations, was forced to join the agreement after
 failing to persuade a single nation to join it.

 Many delegates - including Margaret Beckett, the UK's
 Secretary of State for the Environment - were openly
 in tears when agreement was finally reached yesterday
 morning after two successive all-night sessions and as
 many dramas and cliff-hangers as a second-rate soap
 opera.

 Mrs Beckett told The Independent on Sunday that it
 represented an even greater breakthrough than the
 original agreement of the Kyoto Protocol almost
 exactly eight years ago. Environmentalists hailed the
 agreement - which exceeded the most optimistic
 expectations - as "historic".

 The agreement marks the culmination of a remarkable
 year for the world's attempts to bring global warming
 under control before it is too late. Not much more
 than a year ago, the Kyoto Protocol had yet to come
 into force, many leading commentators were writing its
 obituary, and the US administration was blocking any
 attempts even to talk about future negotiations.

 Then Russia - the key hold-out - ratified the
 protocol, enabling it to come into force in February,
 and Tony Blair made climate change one of the top
 priorities of Britain's presidencies of the EU and the
 G8 group of industrialised nations this year. At the
 G8 Gleneagles summit this summer President Bush had to
 agree to further talks.

 Yesterday's agreement - far from burying the Kyoto
 Protocol as the US wanted - has confirmed it and
 extended it. The 39 nations governed by it - all the
 industrialised countries apart from the US and
 Australia - have agreed in principle to make deeper
 cuts in the pollution emissions causing climate change
 when their present clean-up commitments run out in
 2012.

 They have decided to agree the new cuts by 2008, far
 faster than expected.

 Meanwhile the US has, against its will, had to agree
 to talks with both rich and developing countries to
 new measures that all nations can take on combating
 the threat. The resolution is vague and the talks are
 only "open and non-binding", but it is far more than
 the US wanted or most people expected.

 The atmosphere at the Montreal meeting was far more
 determined to reach agreement than either the US or
 its bitterest critics had expected, following a year
 of constant, alarming evidence that climate change is
 happening far faster than scientists had predicted.
 These included a record hurricane season, record
 melting of sea ice and glaciers in the Arctic, and
 disturbing signs that the Gulf Stream - which makes
 Britain inhabitable - may be beginning to fail.

 So when the US walked out, it failed to find any
 support, despite intensive lobbying of delegation
 after delegation, as the rest of the world resolved to
 go ahead without it.

 At the same time, the Bush administration has come
 under enormous pressure at home with three-quarters of
 Americans now demanding action on climate change and
 nearly 200 cities and many states taking their own
 far-reaching measures to cut pollution. Bill Clinton
 also fatally undermined the US position by calling it
 "dead wrong".

 Last night, Tony Juniper, a director of Friends of the
 Earth, called the deal "excellent". Phil Clapp, head
 of the US National Environmental Trust, said it was
 "absolutely extraordinary".

 The fight against catastrophic global warming scored
 its greatest success to date yesterday, when
 negotiators from more than 180 nations unexpectedly
 agreed to develop far-reaching measures to combat
 climate change.

 In the process, the delegates to the climate summit in
 Montreal dealt a humiliating blow to President George
 Bush's five-year attempt to destroy the Kyoto
 Protocol. The United States, which tried to sabotage
 the meeting at the last minute by walking out of the
 negotiations, was forced to join the agreement after
 failing to persuade a single nation to join it.

 Many delegates - including Margaret Beckett, the UK's
 Secretary of State for the Environment - were openly
 in tears when agreement was finally reached yesterday
 morning after two successive all-night sessions and as
 many dramas and cliff-hangers as a second-rate soap
 opera.

 Mrs Beckett told The Independent on Sunday that it
 represented an even greater breakthrough than the
 original agreement of the Kyoto Protocol almost
 exactly eight years ago. Environmentalists hailed the
 agreement - which exceeded the most optimistic
 expectations - as "historic".

 The agreement marks the culmination of a remarkable
 year for the world's attempts to bring global warming
 under control before it is too late. Not much more
 than a year ago, the Kyoto Protocol had yet to come
 into force, many leading commentators were writing its
 obituary, and the US administration was blocking any
 attempts even to talk about future negotiations.

 Then Russia - the key hold-out - ratified the
 protocol, enabling it to come into force in February,
 and Tony Blair made climate change one of the top
 priorities of Britain's presidencies of the EU and the
 G8 group of industrialised nations this year. At the
 G8 Gleneagles summit this summer President Bush had to
 agree to further talks.

 Yesterday's agreement - far from burying the Kyoto
 Protocol as the US wanted - has confirmed it and
 extended it. The 39 nations governed by it - all the
 industrialised countries apart from the US and
 Australia - have agreed in principle to make deeper
 cuts in the pollution emissions causing climate change
 when their present clean-up commitments run out in
 2012.

 They have decided to agree the new cuts by 2008, far
 faster than expected.

 Meanwhile the US has, against its will, had to agree
 to talks with both rich and developing countries to
 new measures that all nations can take on combating
 the threat. The resolution is vague and the talks are
 only "open and non-binding", but it is far more than
 the US wanted or most people expected.

 The atmosphere at the Montreal meeting was far more
 determined to reach agreement than either the US or
 its bitterest critics had expected, following a year
 of constant, alarming evidence that climate change is
 happening far faster than scientists had predicted.
 These included a record hurricane season, record
 melting of sea ice and glaciers in the Arctic, and
 disturbing signs that the Gulf Stream - which makes
 Britain inhabitable - may be beginning to fail.

 So when the US walked out, it failed to find any
 support, despite intensive lobbying of delegation
 after delegation, as the rest of the world resolved to
 go ahead without it.

 At the same time, the Bush administration has come
 under enormous pressure at home with three-quarters of
 Americans now demanding action on climate change and
 nearly 200 cities and many states taking their own
 far-reaching measures to cut pollution. Bill Clinton
 also fatally undermined the US position by calling it
 "dead wrong".

 Last night, Tony Juniper, a director of Friends of the
 Earth, called the deal "excellent". Phil Clapp, head
 of the US National Environmental Trust, said it was
 "absolutely extraordinary".

To subscribe: http://lists.portside.org/mailman/listinfo/portside

***

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20051209/sc_afp/franceenvironment

AFP 9 December 2005

Activists' destruction of GM crops was justified: French court

Orleans, France - In a judgement expected to send a chill through
companies growing genetically modified (GM) crops in Europe and
embolden their opponents, a French court Friday acquitted 49 activists who
destroyed GM plants after ruling their actions were justified.

The court in the central city of Orleans dismissed the criminal charges of
organised vandalism against the 49, who had uprooted GM maize in the
region planted by the US biotechnology group Monsanto in two incidents,
one last year and the other in 2005.

"The defendants have shown proof that they committed an infraction of
voluntary vandalism in a group to respond to a situation of necessity,"
the court said.

That situation of necessity "resulted from the unbridled distribution of
modified genes that constitutes a clear and present danger for the
well-being of others, in the sense that it could be the source of
contamination and unwanted pollution," it said.

The court, however, upheld the civil complaint against the 49, ordering
them to pay a total of 6,000 euros (7,000 dollars) to Monsanto in damages
and interest -- although that sum was a small fraction of the 398,000
euros the US company had been seeking.

One of the activists, Jean-Emile Sanchez, called the verdict "a huge
victory for the anti-GM side" and said the judgement would form an
important legal precedent.

The state prosecutor in the case, Alex Perrin, immediately said both his
office and Monsanto would appeal the decision.

He had pressed for prison terms of up to three months for each of the
defendants, who included two Green Party politicians, one of whom, Yves
Contassot, is a Paris deputy mayor in charge of environmental issues.

***

Where is Ansel Adams When We Need Him?

by Derrick Z. Jackson
Boston Globe
Published on Saturday, November 5, 2005

Ansel Adams came to the White House in 1975 to deliver
a print of a photograph from Yosemite National Park
desired by President Ford and Betty Ford. Adams, still
smarting from President Nixon's neglect of public
lands, asked Ford to redefine the meaning of our parks,
maintain their funding, and put a ''new emphasis on
preservation and environmental responsibilities."

In 1983, Adams met with President Reagan, and not to
deliver a photograph. He was a vocal critic of Reagan's
rollbacks on environmental protection and preservation
of wild areas. He said Reagan's land policies were ones
of ''rape, ruin, and run!" According to Adams, had the
nation been under the vision in the 1930s of Reagan's
infamous Interior Secretary James Watt, Kings Canyon
National Park would today ''look like part of the
outskirts of Las Vegas."

After Adams told Playboy magazine in 1983, ''I hate
Reagan," an embarrassed White House had the beloved
photographer sit with Reagan for nearly an hour. Adams
left unimpressed, borrowing from Oscar Wilde to say,
''They know the price of everything and the value of
nothing."

One can only guess what sparks would fly if Adams, who
died in 1984, could witness President Bush's
resurrection of Reagan's rape, ruin, and run.

This week the Senate passed a budget bill that would
allow for drilling for oil in the Arctic National
Wildlife Refuge. The House Budget Committee, at the
urging of Resources Committee Chairman Richard Pombo of
California, voted to include in its budget bill a
proposal to lift moratoriums on offshore oil drilling
in the lower 48 states.

In September, Pombo got the House to weaken the
Endangered Species Act under the ruse that it oppressed
landowners. Pombo wants to relax rules on public land
for mining and oil interests. He even floated an idea
to sell off 15 national parks.

Public outrage made him drop that idea, but he and the
Interior Department are floating other ideas that would
turn national parks into NASCAR tracks and football
stadiums, ideas that include everything from selling
advertising space on park buses and trams to selling
naming rights to rooms, information centers, and park
museums. There is talk of corporate sponsoring of
trailheads.

That talk was in my head when my wife Michelle Holmes
and I visited Zion National Park in Utah a month ago.
The trip began three days after I saw the exquisite
Ansel Adams exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts. The
closest airport to Zion is Adams's feared Las Vegas.
There is still plenty of desert between the casinos on
the strip and the canyon two and a half hours away, but
as someone who visits an uncle periodically in
America's fastest growing city, it is still stunning to
see how fast the miles of earth become the outskirts
and how fast the landscape becomes obliterated by
billboards.

In Zion our most perfect moment, our ''Ansel moment,"
one of unthinkable beauty, came on a day in which we
waded upstream in the Zion Narrows. The narrows is
where the grand panoramic views of red and white spires
at the beginning of the park close in like a vise at
the end of the line for the public tram. We waded
upstream in the narrows, until we were specks at the
bottom of a chasm of walls 1,000 feet high and only 20
feet apart.

Orange light snaked down upon us. The contrast between
daylight and dimness made the canyon a sandstone
pumpkin. At one point, I took a picture of Michelle
with the glowing walls behind her. For us, it was a
moment of serenity and humble awe at a spot only our
chilled legs could get us to. In Pombo's world, the
wall behind Michelle would blaze, ''McDonald's Super-
Size Narrows."

Ansel Adams said in his autobiography that ''Starry-
eyed reaction to the splendors of nature is an
invaluable experience for everyone, provided it is
tempered in time with a realization that this reaction
hopefully exists for the many rather than the few." As
beautiful as our Ansel moment was, it is also haunting
because too many politicians see dollars instead of
stars.

Last month the National Park Service announced a
$270,000 Save America's Treasures grant to help
preserve Adams's works. This is while Congress assaults
public lands and Bush ignores the call for
environmental responsibility that Adams had issued to
Ford. The outskirts of Las Vegas creep toward the day
where all we may have left of our natural treasures is
a photograph.

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1105-20.htm


-- 
You are currently on Mha Atma's Earth Action Network email list, 
option D (up to 3 emails/day).  To be removed, or to switch options 
(option A - 1x/week, option B - 3/wk, option C - up to 1x/day, option D - 
up to 3x/day) please reply and let us know!  If someone forwarded you 
this email and you want to be on our list, send an email to 
ean@sbcglobal.net and tell us which option you'd like.


"A war of aggression is the supreme international crime." -- Robert Jackson,
 former U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice and Nuremberg prosecutor

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From michael at intrafi.com  Wed Dec 14 04:17:49 2005
From: michael at intrafi.com (michael@intrafi.com)
Date: Wed Dec 14 04:28:59 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] FT.com / China / Economy & Trade - China to revise size
	of gross domestic product
Message-ID: <17963586.1134562669134.JavaMail.tomcat@localhost>



*Please note, the sender's email address has not been verified.



You have received the following link from michael@intrafi.com

 
********************
 
If you are having trouble with any of the links in this message, or if the URL's are not appearing as links, please follow the instructions at the bottom of this email.
 
Title: FT.com / China / Economy & Trade - China to revise size of gross domestic product
 
  
Copy and paste the following into your Web browser to access the sent link:
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Copy and paste the following into your Web browser to SAVE THIS link:
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From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Wed Dec 14 08:08:28 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (mblaxill@yahoo.com)
Date: Wed Dec 14 08:19:23 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Headlines for November 29, 2005
Message-ID: <20051214160828.8425.qmail@trinity.democracynow.org>

  ( mblaxill@yahoo.com )
sent you this story from democracynow.org

Mike Blaxill


+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
|  Headlines for November 29, 2005
|  http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/14/154203
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+


- World Reacts to Execution of Stanley Tookie Williams  
- European Investigation Finds Evidence of CIA Abductions 
- Report: New Interrogation Techniques May Conflict With Torture Ban 
- Campaign Period Ends in Iraq as Voting Opens Thursday 
- Search of Iraq Prisons Yields 120 Abused Prisoners 
- Pentagon Running $300 million Foreign Psy-Ops Operation 
- Pentagon Monitoring Anti-War Events Across the Country 
- Jailed Environmental Activist Accused of Additional Crimes 
This story continues at: 
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/14/154203

From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Wed Dec 14 08:13:16 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (mblaxill@yahoo.com)
Date: Wed Dec 14 08:24:00 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: U.S. Ranks Sixth Among Countries Jailing
	Journalists, Report Says
Message-ID: <20051214161316.9CBA011FE0D@lax-gw07.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: mblaxill@yahoo.com.

more heart warming news 


BUSINESS / MEDIA & ADVERTISING | December 14, 2005
U.S. Ranks Sixth Among Countries Jailing Journalists, Report Says
By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE
The U.S. has tied with Myanmar, the former Burma, among countries that are holding the most journalists behind bars.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/14/business/media/14journalists.html?emc=eta1



----------------- Advertisement --------------------------

The Academy loved these movies enough to name each
one Best Picture.  What did the original New York
Times movie reviews have to say about these Oscar
winning films?  
Go to the Best Pictures review archive:

http://ads.nyt.com/th.ad/nytnyt-textEmailThisdefault-Center1A/academyawards_text/?_RM_REDIR_=http://www.nytimes.com/ref/movies/oscars/bestpictures.html




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From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Wed Dec 14 08:17:04 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (mblaxill@yahoo.com)
Date: Wed Dec 14 08:27:53 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Post-Soviet Voting,
	and Dogging the Watchdogs
Message-ID: <20051214161704.8D1DF13BAEE@lax-gw04.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: mblaxill@yahoo.com.

sound familiar?


INTERNATIONAL / EUROPE | December 14, 2005
Letter From Moscow: Post-Soviet Voting, and Dogging the Watchdogs
By C. J. CHIVERS
Russia is leading many former Soviet states in an effort to undermine honest discussion about electoral misconduct. 
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/14/international/europe/14letter.html?emc=eta1



----------------- Advertisement --------------------------

The Academy loved these movies enough to name each
one Best Picture.  What did the original New York
Times movie reviews have to say about these Oscar
winning films?  
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From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Wed Dec 14 08:56:55 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (Mike Blaxill)
Date: Wed Dec 14 09:07:46 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Link to photo of Mayan Mural
Message-ID: <20051214165655.54418.qmail@web53001.mail.yahoo.com>

Here's a link to photo of earliest known Mayan
Mural - It's gorgeous!! - pls take a look

click on link to view
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/12/1213_051213_mural_photo.html
From harperalexander at mail.com  Wed Dec 14 09:45:07 2005
From: harperalexander at mail.com (Alexander Harper)
Date: Wed Dec 14 09:55:57 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Vintage Fisk
Message-ID: <20051214174507.8FE5A83C0F@ws1-1.us4.outblaze.com>


Arcane but interesting as ever and topical.
Al B

Robert Fisk: In Lebanon, the men do the dying, and the women do the mourning 
By Robert Fisk in Beirut 
Published: 14 December 2005 

They will bury Jibran Tueni today. 

"You animals, you insects," the woman screamed in the Greek Orthodox church yesterday as his old father Ghassan leaned forward to shake our hands. "Jibran is still alive. He lives now."

Alas, the editor of An Nahar was assassinated on Monday - his few, atomised remains to be buried today - and his father received mourners in the Ashrafieh district of Beirut, bent over, his frog-dead cold hand gripping bravely each mourner's clutch. What was one to say? To his young wife? A journalist's life is not a happy one? No, indeed.

Of course, lining up in the church's clammy exterior, we talked about the Mehlis report, the "final" - they are all final, aren't they, each "final" UN report on the death of former premier Rafiq Hariri on 14 February this year? - that placed an equally, devastatingly cold hand on Syria for the killing of Tueni's mentor, the Sunni Muslim philanthropist who had so angered Syria that those who control power in Damascus had, if you believe the report, decided to liquidate him.

So where did we start, yesterday, as the chill wintry sun lit up the palm trees on the seafront corniche in Beirut? With the previous report's Syrian witness to the Hariri car bombing who has now retracted - on Syrian television, of course - his evidence to Mr Mehlis, a witness testament which was followed by the arrest of members of his family by Syrian security officials? Or the witness (unnamed, of course) who provided details of "an organised operation aiming at killing Mr Hariri, including the recruitment of special agents by the Lebanese and Syrian intelligence services"?

Then there was the paragraph in the Mehlis report that talked of the detonating device that originated in an "electronic part originated from a laptop personal computer".

Even more intriguing was the engine block of the Japanese truck which contained the explosives which killed Mr Hariri and 20 others on 14 February this year, part of a vehicle stolen from Japan on 12 October 2004. This truck was exported, in parts or whole, to the United Arab Emirates.

How odd. How very odd.

And who was it but Elie Hobeika - war criminal, Phalangist mercenary, Israeli spook that he was - who claimed before his own car-bomb murder (an almost equally efficient killing as Tueni's) that the suitcase that contained the bomb which killed President-elect Bashir Gemayel was made in Japan and shipped to Lebanon from the UAE (aka Dubai) by - let's all hold our breaths - the "Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine General Command". No mention of this Damascus-nurtured institution in the Mehlis report. Or was Mr Mehlis, who presented his learnings to the UN secretary general Kofi Annan in New York, unaware of them?

Mehlis' boys demanded from the Lebanese authorities a complete list of the wiretapped conversations of Hariri between October 2004 to the date of his death but received only "an incomplete portion of telephone intercepts ... of Mr Hariri and his household". These came to just 14 pages - provided, presumably, by Syria's men in Lebanese intelligence. But with Teutonic thoroughness, Mehlis later obtained 26,000 more pages of conversations after December 2004. A call from the mother of a witness and others "provide significant insight into the scope of involvement of key individuals in the assassination as well as the awareness of the Lebanese authorities of the movements and conversations of prominent Lebanese figures." Ouch.

This stuff makes anyone's skin creep, not least the records of a phone call between General Rustum Ghazali, the head of Syrian military intelligence in Lebanon, and Hariri on 3 August last year, about the so-called "Damascus protocol" which was agreed between Hariri and President Assad in Syria, an understanding which allegedly outlined what Hariri could and could not do as Lebanese prime minister.

Here, for those who want to know what it feels like to be seriously bullied, is an extract from this conversation - Ghazali: "Your excellency [sic],I have been reading in Mustaqbal newspaper that 'officials protect the corruption'. This talk is like a violation of the truth ... Didn't we agree to stop the subject?"

Hariri: "...statement was all over the newspapers and in fact I was first..."

Ghazali: "I would like to ask a question. Your Excellency, are you still committed to the agreement?"

Hariri: "Of course."

Ah yes. Of course. Our favourite Lebanese phrase.

The Mehlis team have prowled through 97 million records between 7 and 21 February 2005 and concluded that "fraud, corruption and money laundering could also have been motives for individuals to participate in the operation that ended with the assassination." In this, the UN investigators were clearly interested in the collapse of the Beirut Al-Medina bank in mid-2003 in which Syrian officials had accounts.

And so the Mehlis report goes on. Why was Hariri under surveillance after January 2005, why was his motorcade delayed at a T-junction on 14 February, only minutes before his death?

So we wait for yet another UN report, more arrests, more details of Syria's undying love for Lebanon. And, of course, more assassinations, more funerals, more screaming women in a land where, as it has most famously been written, the men do the dying and the women do the mourning. 



-- 
___________________________________________________
Play 100s of games for FREE! http://games.mail.com/


From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Wed Dec 14 10:15:40 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (Ian)
Date: Wed Dec 14 10:26:31 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Test
Message-ID: <005a01c600da$6507fa50$99ca6c42@iancn2ccrvzt0j>

Test
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From barbarasiomos38 at msn.com  Wed Dec 14 11:19:56 2005
From: barbarasiomos38 at msn.com (Barbara Siomos)
Date: Wed Dec 14 11:30:53 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Link to photo of Mayan Mural
Message-ID: <BAY5-DAV237D527CC05E476DD6A75EAB380@phx.gbl>

Mike... Thank you so much for sending this, I am such a Mayan freak and this takes my breath away.

peace,
barbara

-----Original Message-----
From: Mike Blaxill
Sent: Wed, 14 Dec 2005 08:56:55 -0800
To: mb-civic@islandlists.com
Subject: [Mb-civic] Link to photo of Mayan Mural

Here's a link to photo of earliest known Mayan
Mural - It's gorgeous!! - pls take a look

click on link to view
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/12/1213_051213_mural_photo.html
_______________________________________________
Mb-civic mailing list
Mb-civic@islandlists.com
http://www.islandlists.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mb-civic


From barbarasiomos38 at msn.com  Wed Dec 14 11:26:46 2005
From: barbarasiomos38 at msn.com (Barbara Siomos)
Date: Wed Dec 14 11:37:31 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] McCarthy's Echo
Message-ID: <BAY5-DAV13EF6294317121B80111AAAB380@phx.gbl>

Dear EmailNation Subscriber,

Eugene McCarthy did not merely oppose the Vietnam War. He was a patriotic critic of the imperialist impulse. As John Nichols writes in The Online Beat, "McCarthy's 1968 presidential campaign is often remembered as a simplistic initiative, an attempt to turn the anti-draft and anti-war enthusiasms of protesting students into a political force. In fact, it was something far deeper, and far more significant." And its significance has ever more relevance today with the debacle in Iraq worsening daily. http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat?bid=1&pid=42185

McCarthy was also a man of contradictions: A conventional cold war liberal and fierce anti-Communist, in the Vietnam era, he was transformed into the standard-bearer of the liberal antiwar movement, a true hero. Read Jon Wiener's Nation online exclusive for more. 
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20051226/wiener

Don't miss Nichols' related testament to McCarthy's lyrical politics:
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat?bid=1&pid=42080

And, if you're in the Chicago area TONIGHT,  December 13, don't miss Nichols speaking live with Robert McChesney in a discussion of their new book, Tragedy and Farce, forthcoming from The New Press.

John Nichols and Robert McChesney
Tuesday, December 13, 7:30pm. Free Admission, No RSVP
In These Times, 2040 N. Milwaukee, Chicago

Read Nichols' and McChesney's recent Nation editorial on the Bush White Houses' war on the press. http://www.thenation.com/doc/20051205/nichoils

And don't miss other new Nation online exclusives.

Nicholas von Hoffman explores the implications of the Vatican closing down Limbo.
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20051226/vonhoffman

Dave Enders profiles the Christian Peacemaker Teams in Baghdad, who say their work will go on regardless of what happens to their four colleagues still held hostage. 
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20051226/enders

Peter Rothberg offers holiday gift ideas.
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/actnow?bid=4&pid=42086

Finally, please visit http://www.thenation.com/ to post comments to Nation blogs, to view news-wire links updated twice each day, to see when Nation writers are appearing on TV, for info on nationwide activist campaigns, Nation History offerings, exclusive online reports, and special weekly selections from The Nation magazine--this week we're featuring selection from the magazine's new special issue on torture by Anthony Lewis, Naomi Klein, Richard Kim, Lisa Hajjar, among others!

Best Regards,
Peter Rothberg, The Nation

P.S. If you like what you read at TheNation.com, please consider subscribing to The Nation at a sharply discounted rate. It's the only way to read ALL of what's in the magazine week after week--both in print and online. http://www.thenation.com/ensubscribe



From olhippie at tampabay.rr.com  Wed Dec 14 13:32:29 2005
From: olhippie at tampabay.rr.com (Robin McNamara)
Date: Wed Dec 14 13:44:07 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Lists
Message-ID: <000901c600f5$e3104680$97bc2041@CowBox>

Are the "lists" still up & running, I have not recieved anything for about a week from either list, thanks.

Love forever
Robin



http://lpintop.tripod.com/robinmcnamara
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From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Wed Dec 14 13:41:12 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (Mike Blaxill)
Date: Wed Dec 14 13:52:01 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Ray McGovern
Message-ID: <20051214214112.39249.qmail@web53013.mail.yahoo.com>

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/121405I.shtml

On Torture: A Defining Moment
    By Ray McGovern
    t r u t h o u t | Perspective

    Wednesday 14 December 2005

    Senator John McCain and his Senate colleagues
have provided Congress a chance to redeem itself
in a small but significant way for its craven
abdication of responsibility three years ago,
when it gave the president what Senator Robert
Byrd warned would be a "blank check" for war on
Iraq.

    With some remarkable help from then-White
House Counsel Alberto Gonzales and hired hands at
the Justice Department, Vice President Dick
Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld
stretched that blank check to include
authorization for torturing detainees by CIA and
US military personnel. McCain, himself a victim
of torture in Vietnam, is trying to bring the US
into compliance with international norms, while
the Bush administration is trying desperately to
leave the door open for CIA and contract
interrogators to act beyond those norms without
threat of prosecution.

    McCain has tacked onto the defense
authorization and defense appropriation bills an
amendment that would require Defense Department
personnel to observe the strictures in the Army
Field Manual for Intelligence Interrogation. As
for CIA and other non-defense department
personnel, the amendment would prohibit "cruel,
inhuman, or degrading" treatment of detainees
"regardless of nationality or physical location."
Cheney has been waging an open campaign to defeat
or alter the amendment. He lost the first round
when, despite Herculean efforts on his part, 89
senators joined McCain in voting for it.

    This presents a direct challenge to Cheney,
and to the president who, one assumes, is being
kept informed. The House versions of the defense
bills do not include the McCain language, so
final agreement on the torture provision is now
in the hands of conferees from the House and
Senate working to resolve differences between the
bills. On Monday, President George W. Bush said
he was "confident" that agreement could be
reached with McCain, but Democrat Senator Carl
Levin said the House so far has refused to accept
McCain's language and that this was
"unacceptable" to the Senate.

    No effort has been made to disguise what is
behind the opposition to McCain. Even Republican
Senator Lindsey Graham, a lawyer who has been a
moderate on this issue, has conceded that the
"problem" is to find a way to protect
interrogators who go too far. To this non-lawyer
at least, it does not seem possible to square
this circle. I am still trying to accustom myself
to the fact that, alongside the we-do-not-torture
rhetoric, our country has for the first time in
its history openly embraced the use of torture.

    Who Will Blink, Cheney or McCain?

    Supporters of the Cheney school of thought
have been taking to the airwaves using the bogus
"ticking-bomb doomsday scenario" rationale to,
well, rationalize torture. And this seems to be
having some impact. According to an AP-Ipsos poll
conducted in late November, 61 percent of
Americans surveyed believe torture is justified
at least on rare occasions; only 36 percent said
it can never be justified. A January 2005 poll
conducted by Poltronics involving over two
thousand telephone interviews found that 53
percent of Americans thought some torture is
acceptable, with 37 percent opposed. That poll
also found that 82 percent of FOX News Channel
viewers said that torture is acceptable in "a
wide range" of situations.

    And so, incredible though it may seem,
torture survivor McCain runs the risk of
appearing soft on torture with the Republican
base, whose support he will need if he hopes to
win the Republican nomination in 2008.
Accordingly, despite the strong support he enjoys
among Senate colleagues and despite his
uncompromising stance until now, there seems a
good chance that McCain will acquiesce in
compromise wording - words that would enable the
administration to assure CIA and contract
interrogators that they will enjoy legal
protection if they keep "the gloves off," as
erstwhile CIA counterterrorism chief Cofer Black
described the CIA's approach post-9/11.

    From the administration's point of view,
"enhanced interrogation techniques" have
certainly come in handy in promoting the war in
Iraq and the "war on terror." We now know, for
example, that the bogus information included in
President Bush's key speech of October 7, 2002,
just three days before the Congress voted on the
war, about Iraq training al-Qaeda operatives in
explosives and chemical weapons was extracted
from the captive Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi by the
Egyptian interrogators to whom we "rendered" him.
Al-Libi has since recanted, claiming his
statements were coerced.

    And when then-Attorney General John Ashcroft
needed to advertise a success in the "war on
terrorism," Jos? Padilla was produced on the
basis of the testimony of none other than 9/11
mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, whose
interrogation included waterboarding. Padilla's
"dirty bomb" charge was dropped after he spent
over three and a half years in prison.

    It's Torture Just Watching

    My contemporaries and I can scarcely believe
what we are watching. While I admire Senator
McCain for taking a stand, it strikes me as odd,
for example, that he cites damage to the US image
abroad as the primary reason why torture should
be banned. Our tarnished image is a serious
problem, but it is, in my view, among the least
compelling of a long list of reasons to throw
torture out of our toolbox. Others that come to
mind, in ascending order of importance, are:

Torture puts our own troops, as well as those of
other countries, in jeopardy of "reciprocal"
treatment.

Torture brutalizes not only the victim but also
the brutalizer. (Talk, as I have, to those who
took part in, or merely witnessed, torture in
Iraq or Afghanistan.)

Information acquired by torture is notoriously
unreliable. Experienced interrogators know that
torture is as likely to yield misinformation as
accurate information, since torture victims will
say anything to stop the pain. In the past,
torture fell into disuse primarily because it did
not work.

Torture is morally wrong. It inhabits the same
category as slavery, genocide, rape, incest -
always, intrinsically wrong. Civilized societies
have long opposed torture since it is widely
recognized as an intolerable affront to the
inherent human right to physical integrity and
personal dignity. That is why there are so many
laws against torture. It is not wrong because it
is illegal; it is outlawed because it is wrong.
    The Supreme Crime

    The use of torture before and after the
invasion of Iraq points to an even larger crime -
the attack on and occupation of Iraq for reasons
other than those given. The war is, pure and
simple, a war of aggression. The post-WWII
Nuremberg Tribunal, largely a creature of the
United States, declared:

    "To initiate a war of aggression ... is the
supreme international crime differing from other
war crimes in that it contains within itself the
accumulated evil of the whole."

    UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has called
the war illegal, as have the International
Commission of Jurists and the preponderance of
legal experts around the world. As for the
"accumulated evil of the whole," torture comes
immediately to mind. There is no getting around
it. Torture is a war crime; a crime against
humanity. And, assuming the polls have it right,
part of that accumulation is the fact that a
majority of our fellow citizens have been
frightened into believing that it is permissible
to dehumanize others to the point of torture.

    Our country's leaders, including those who
represent us in Congress - indeed, all of us -
must open our eyes and step out of what Nazi war
criminal Albert Speer called "moral
contamination." We are only too willing to let
our institutions do our sinning for us.

    At the Nuremberg Trial, Speer, number three
in the wartime Nazi hierarchy, was the only
defendant to accept full responsibility not only
for his own actions but also for those of the
regime. Speer said he had become "inescapably
contaminated morally":

    "I did not see because I did not want to see
... there is no way I can avoid responsibility
... It is surprisingly easy to blind your moral
eyes. I was like a man following a trail of
bloodstained footprints through the snow without
realizing someone had been injured."

    Letter to John McCain

    Last week, 33 of us retired intelligence
officers sent a letter to Senator McCain
expressing strong support for his amendment to
reinforce the ban on cruel, inhuman, and
degrading treatment of detainees by US personnel
around the world. McCain's office has distributed
the letter widely on the Hill, and a press
release was issued, but so far mainstream media
seem to have missed it. The letter says, in part:

    "Those who press for 'flexibility' to abuse
prisoners have been willing to forsake both
effectiveness and our values as a nation on the
misguided belief that abusive treatment will
produce vital intelligence. But interrogation in
the real world rarely resembles what we see on
television and in the movies ... Thankfully, the
choice between our values and success against the
terrorist enemy is a false one. We must not be
seduced by the fiction that adherence to our
ideals is what stands between our great nation
and the security it deserves."

    Much depends on whether Senator McCain will
stand on principle and resist watering down his
amendment. Such a display of integrity would
certainly set him apart these days in Washington.

    --------

    Ray McGovern works for Tell the Word, the
publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the
Saviour. A veteran of 27 years in CIA's analysis
directorate, he is now a member of the Steering
Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for
Sanity (VIPS).
From activist at democrats.com  Wed Dec 14 12:39:43 2005
From: activist at democrats.com (ImpeachPAC)
Date: Wed Dec 14 15:03:48 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] ImpeachPAC is Under Attack - Help Us Fight Back
Message-ID: <20051214153943.983544@democrats.com>

HTML Message - ImpeachPAC is Under Attack - Help Us Fight Back
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From marylouiseparis at hotmail.com  Wed Dec 14 15:04:07 2005
From: marylouiseparis at hotmail.com (Mary Louise smn)
Date: Wed Dec 14 15:15:37 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] RE: FW: buy harold a drink when you see him he got it
 right NOBEL ACCEPTANCE SPEECH 05
In-Reply-To: <BAY102-F3933C1C977E0553DA1BC79F9380@phx.gbl>
Message-ID: <BAY107-F34E329AC93D1F8F0DA3441B8380@phx.gbl>




>From: "marylouise sillman" <marylouise181@hotmail.com>
>To: marylouiseparis@hotmail.com
>Subject: FW: buy harold a drink when you see him he got it right NOBEL 
>ACCEPTANCE SPEECH 05
>Date: Wed, 14 Dec 2005 22:56:37 +0000
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>From: JIMTIBE@aol.com
>To: reelwild2@hotmail.com, GHIRSCHFELD@MSN.COM, LORETTA.H.ADAMS@TNS-MD.COM, 
>JIMTIBE@aol.com, LHADAMS1@PACBELL.NET, KCONNELLY@HOTMAIL.COM, 
>Emay229@aol.com, LEICHALA@EARTHLINK.NET, xmj51@sh163.net, 
>HERMAN2@MAIL.SDSU.EDU, G.CARDING@CIMEX.NL, Don.Smillie@getronics.com, 
>Themorgangirl@aol.com, helenshort@earthlink.net, DLUFT@UCSD.edu, 
>klement.recording@t-online.de, OFFICE@KMM.NL, TONY@SDUL.ORG, 
>FAQUINO@SDCCD.NET, NWICHMANN@SDCCD.NET, DAVIDWILSON@UCSD.EDU, 
>HHOFFMAN@UCSD.EDU, JWWATSON@UCSD.EDU, PALAB@WANADOO.FR, 
>MHAINES@DAVENPORTLYONS.COM, STSDCOX@UCSD.EDU, LUNAIS.DOL@NOOS.FR, 
>LAWMCT@PACBELL.NET, EVENTPEOPLE4U@AOL..COM, PARDO2005@LAWNET.UCLA.EDU, 
>RLARAMIE@SDCCD.NET, MCHANDLER@UCSD.EDU, HBSA1@HOTMAIL.CCOM, 
>HBSA1@HOTMAIL.COM, Crookslaw2@aol.com, EGAIL@SAN.RR.COM, 
>lhadams1@pacbell.net, graham@INSTANTIS.COM, order@bookcentral.com, 
>DAWN@VITAL411.COM,
>IKORNEIT@SDCCD.NET, ikorneit@sdccd.cc.ca.us, LKLEIN@SCRIPPSCLINIC.COM, 
>ANGUILLAANDY2001@HOTMAIL.COM, DONS@PARIS.COM, CHRISTINEHOUBEN@HOTMAIL, 
>SLENFANT@CHELLO.FR, BARRYJ@LIBERTYSURF.FR, TAJCOIFFEUR@WANADOO.FR, 
>DAVID-COSTA@HOTMAIL.COM, INFO@KOCHINVEST.DE, MARYLOUISE181@HOTMAIL.COM, 
>JOANZSHORE@YAHOO.COM, BEAKOMAND@HOTMAIL., hata.hlavata@t-online.de, 
>WWhINKEL@NOOS.FR, 63SKIDMO@YAHOO.COM, BEAKOMAND@HOTMAIL.COM, 
>DHOROWITZ@FREE.FR, DEMSABROAD@NOOS.FR, DIABOLIQUE001@YAHOO.COM, 
>J.ASSOUD@EUROLONDON.COM, christinehouben@hotmail.com, mdbrumbach@yahoo.com, 
>latest@daily.misleader.org, PGAMBLE@UCSDEDU.EDU, PGAMBLE@UCSD.EDU, 
>KELLY-CHRISMAN@HOTMAIL.COM, wade3@earthlink.net, christina.tf@wanadoo.fr, 
>demsabroad@noos.fr, JMABON@sbglobal.net, mgland@san.rr.com, Tom2one@aol.com
>CC: BIRCH50@aol.com, sean.dougherty@OECD.ORG, DESGALLAGER@PRUSD.COM
>Subject: buy harold a drink when you see him
>he got it right NOBEL ACCEPTANCE SPEECH 05
>Date: Wed, 14 Dec 2005 14:08:06 EST
>
>
>
>Playwright Pinter uses prize ceremony as anti-war pulpit
>Nobel winner pulls no punches in his speech against U.S.
>- Sarah Lyall, New York Times
>Thursday, December 8, 2005
>
>
>
>
>London -- The playwright Harold Pinter turned his Nobel Prize acceptance 
>speech Wednesday into a furious howl of outrage against American foreign 
>policy, saying that the United States had not only lied to justify waging 
>war against Iraq but had also "supported and in many cases engendered every 
>right-wing military dictatorship" in the last 50 years.
>
>"The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, 
>remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them," Pinter 
>said. "You have to hand it to America. It has exercised a quite clinical 
>manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal 
>good. It's a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis."
>
>Sitting in a wheelchair, his lap covered by a blanket, his voice hoarse but 
>unwavering, Pinter, 75, delivered his speech via a video recording that was 
>played Wednesday at the Swedish Academy in Stockholm. He was diagnosed with 
>cancer of the esophagus several years ago and had been ordered by his 
>doctors not to travel to Stockholm for the speech, his publisher said.
>
>The playwright, known in recent years as much for his fiery 
>anti-Americanism as for his spare prose style and haunting, elliptical 
>plays like "The Caretaker" and "The Homecoming," was awarded the $1.3 
>million Nobel literature prize in October.
>
>In its citation, the Swedish Academy made little mention of his political 
>views, saying only that he was known as a "fighter for human rights" whose 
>stands were often "seen as controversial." It mostly focused on his work, 
>saying that Pinter "uncovers the precipice under everyday prattle and 
>forces entry into oppression's closed rooms."
>
>When he won the award, Pinter said he did not know if the academy, whose 
>deliberations and reasoning are kept secret, had taken his politics into 
>account. He clearly welcomed the platform the award gave him to bring his 
>views, long expressed in Britain, to a larger audience.
>
>Dressed in black, bristling with controlled fury, Pinter began by 
>explaining the almost unconscious process he uses to write his plays. They 
>start with an image, a word, a phrase, he said; the characters soon become 
>"people with will and an individual sensibility of their own, made out of 
>component parts you are unable to change, manipulate or distort."
>
>"So language in art remains a highly ambiguous transaction," he continued, 
>"a quicksand, a trampoline, a frozen pool which might give way under you, 
>the author, at any time."
>
>But while drama represents "the search for truth," Pinter said, politics 
>works against truth, surrounding citizens with "a vast tapestry of lies" 
>spun by politicians eager to cling to power.
>
>Pinter attacked American foreign policy since World War II, saying that 
>while the crimes of the Soviet Union had been well documented, those of the 
>United States had not. "I put to you that the United States is without 
>doubt the greatest show on the road," he said. "Brutal, indifferent, 
>scornful and ruthless it may be, but it is also very clever. As a salesman 
>it is out on its own, and its most salable commodity is self-love."
>
>He returned to the theme of language as an obscurer of reality, saying that 
>American leaders used it to anesthetize the public.
>
>"It's a scintillating stratagem," Pinter said. "Language is actually 
>employed to keep thought at bay. The words 'the American people' provide a 
>truly voluptuous cushion of reassurance. You don't need to think. Just lie 
>back on the cushion. The cushion may be suffocating your intelligence and 
>your critical faculties, but it's very comfortable."
>
>Accusing the United States of torturing terrorist suspects in Guantanamo 
>Bay and Abu Ghraib, Pinter called the invasion of Iraq -- for which he said 
>Britain was also responsible -- "a bandit act, an act of blatant state 
>terrorism, demonstrating absolute contempt for the concept of international 
>law." He called for Prime Minister Tony Blair to be tried before an 
>international criminal court.
>
>Pinter said it was the duty of the writer to hold self-image up to 
>scrutiny, and the duty of citizens "to define the real truth of our lives 
>and our societies."
>
>"If such a determination is not embodied in our political vision, we have 
>no hope of restoring what is so nearly lost to us -- the dignity of man," 
>he said.
>
>Page A - 10
>URL: 
>http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/12/08/MNG1SG4GN11.DTL
>
>©2005 San Francisco Chronicle
>
>

_________________________________________________________________
Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today it's FREE! 
http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/

From nwonline at toronto.cbc.ca  Wed Dec 14 18:04:11 2005
From: nwonline at toronto.cbc.ca (CBC News Online)
Date: Wed Dec 14 18:15:26 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] CBC News - CANADIAN DOLLAR FLIRTS WITH 87 CENTS US
Message-ID: <20051215020411.8DB9969AFB@nmweb09.nm.cbc.ca>

This email has been sent to you by harry.sifton@sympatico.ca
The following is a news item posted on CBC NEWS ONLINE
at http://www.cbc.ca/news
____________________________________________________
CANADIAN DOLLAR FLIRTS WITH 87 CENTS US
WebPosted Wed Dec 14 10:07:16 2005

---The dollar spent early Wednesday in territory it hasn't seen since
early 1992.

After spending part of the day above 87 cents US, the loonie later lost
its gains and closed at 86.82 cents US, unchanged from Tuesday's close.

The Canadian has not closed above 87 cents US since Jan. 13, 1992.

The U.S. greenback was under early pressure as the U.S trade deficit in
October rose to an all-time high of $68.9 billion US.

The rise in the trade deficit was unexpected as economists had been
forecasting a slight decrease in the gap between what the United States
sells outside of the country and what it imports.

Meanwhile, Canada's trade surplus topped expectations as it came in at
$7.17 billion in October, matching a revised September figure.

FROM DEC. 14, 2005: Trade surplus holds steady in October

Copyright (C) 2005 CBC. All rights reserved.
From nwonline at toronto.cbc.ca  Wed Dec 14 18:05:54 2005
From: nwonline at toronto.cbc.ca (CBC News Online)
Date: Wed Dec 14 18:17:12 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] CBC News - BUSH TAKES BLAME FOR USING FAULTY
	INTELLIGENCE TO GO TO WAR
Message-ID: <20051215020554.8D4D161DA2@nmweb05.nm.cbc.ca>

This email has been sent to you by harry.sifton@sympatico.ca
The following is a news item posted on CBC NEWS ONLINE
at http://www.cbc.ca/news
____________________________________________________
BUSH TAKES BLAME FOR USING FAULTY INTELLIGENCE TO GO TO WAR
WebPosted Wed Dec 14 12:01:06 2005

---U.S. President George W. Bush said Wednesday that he accepts blame for
sending troops into Iraq based on faulty intelligence, but he defended
his decision to remove Saddam Hussein from power.



                             INDEPTH: Iraq's
                         parliamentary election

Bush was speaking at Washington's Woodrow Wilson Center on the eve of a
vote in Iraq that will give the country its first permanent,
democratically elected government.

Bush said he accepted responsibility for sending the military into Iraq
based on intelligence that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction.

"It is true that much of the intelligence turned out to be wrong. As
president, I am responsible for the decision to go into Iraq," said Bush.
"And I'm also responsible for fixing what went wrong by reforming our
intelligence capabilities. And we're doing just that."

The former Iraqi dictator did intend to restart his weapons program with
money from the scandal-plagued UN Oil for Food program, said Bush.

"My decision to remove Saddam was the right decision. The world is better
off because he is no longer in power."



 FROM DEC. 14, 2005: Iraq seals borders, bans traffic in lead-up to
 voting


It was the president's fourth speech on Iraq in two weeks, aimed at
boosting domestic and international support for the U.S.-led campaign in
Iraq. A recent U.S. poll suggested 50 per cent of Americans supported
being in Iraq.

Bush told the audience Thursday's parliamentary vote in Iraq is a
"watershed moment in the story of freedom" that will benefit the world.

The president said he had no plans to set a timetable to pull the
roughly 150,000 American troops from Iraq, saying it would send the
message that he is abandoning the mission soldiers and Iraqis are
risking their lives for.

In a speech on Monday, Bush said 30,000 Iraqis and 2,140 U.S. troops have
been killed since the U.S. invaded in March 2003.

"Terrorists can prevail if we lose our nerve and leave before the job is
done. That is not going to happen on my watch," said Bush.

Copyright (C) 2005 CBC. All rights reserved.
From harry.sifton at sympatico.ca  Wed Dec 14 18:30:26 2005
From: harry.sifton at sympatico.ca (Harold Sifton)
Date: Wed Dec 14 18:41:14 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] US amonst top 10 jailing journalists
Message-ID: <000701c6011f$84a33420$6427e440@Harold>

This is a surprise, I did not know that, that many writers were jailed in the US

http://in.rediff.com/news/2005/dec/14us.htm

H
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From nwonline at toronto.cbc.ca  Wed Dec 14 18:46:46 2005
From: nwonline at toronto.cbc.ca (CBC News Online)
Date: Wed Dec 14 18:59:10 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] CBC News - DON'T SHARE WATER WITH U.S.,
	FORMER ALBERTA PREMIER WARNS
Message-ID: <20051215024646.4B1BD61DA2@nmweb05.nm.cbc.ca>

This email has been sent to you by harry.sifton@sympatico.ca
The following is a news item posted on CBC NEWS ONLINE
at http://www.cbc.ca/news
____________________________________________________
DON'T SHARE WATER WITH U.S., FORMER ALBERTA PREMIER WARNS
WebPosted Wed Dec 14 19:04:39 2005

---Former Alberta premier Peter Lougheed warns that the United States
will soon want more of Canada's water &#8211; and politicians should be
preparing to fend them off.

Lougheed called for an all-party declaration in the House of Commons
that would affirm Canada's refusal to allow bulk exports of its fresh
water supply.

"We should not export our fresh water; we need it and we should conserve
it," Lougheed said in a speech to the Calgary branch of the Canadian Club
on Wednesday.

"We should communicate to the United States very quickly how firm we are
about it."

Lougheed, Alberta's premier from 1971 to 1985, said he can see water
becoming more valuable than oil.

He said studies have found that almost half the U.S. states are going to
be short of water in less than 10 years, predicting Washington would come
looking for Canadian water in three to five years.

"It's not included in the free trade agreement now, and so we should take
a very firm position," he said.

"And if we take the firm position and communicate that, then the
Americans are less likely to come forward and argue that the water
transfer is part of the free trade agreement."

Lougheed said he supported a deal signed a day earlier by political
leaders from Ontario, Quebec and eight U.S. states, which is aimed at
banning large-scale water diversion projects from the Great Lakes.



 FROM DEC. 13, 2005: Deal limits mass diversions of Great Lakes water



The agreement, signed at the Great Lakes Governors Leadership Summit in
Milwaukee on Tuesday, was primarily aimed at blocking parched southern
states from siphoning off huge amounts of Great Lakes water.

Copyright (C) 2005 CBC. All rights reserved.
From hecate at diamonddragon.com  Wed Dec 14 20:05:15 2005
From: hecate at diamonddragon.com (hecate@diamonddragon.com)
Date: Wed Dec 14 20:16:35 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Robert Fisk on The Murders of Gibran Tueni,
	Rafik Hariri and the Changing Tide in Lebanon
Message-ID: <20051215040515.27301.qmail@trinity.democracynow.org>

Hecate  ( hecate@diamonddragon.com )
sent you this story from democracynow.org




+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
|  Robert Fisk on The Murders of Gibran Tueni, Rafik Hariri and the Changing Tide in Lebanon
|  http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/14/154209
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+


In Lebanon, tens of thousands of people have turned out for the funeral of prominent anti-Syrian publisher and lawmaker Gibran Tueni. Tueni was killed, along with three others, in a massive car bomb in Beirut on Monday. The blast came just hours before a UN inquiry team said it had fresh evidence to reinforce earlier findings of Syrian involvement in the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. We go to Beirut to speak with veteran Middle East Correspondent Robert Fisk. [includes rush transcript]
This story continues at: 
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/14/154209

From swiggard at comcast.net  Thu Dec 15 03:59:01 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Thu Dec 15 04:12:39 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] House Supports Ban on Torture
Message-ID: <43A15A85.6020202@comcast.net>

House Supports Ban on Torture
Measure Would Limit Interrogation Tactics

By Josh White and Charles Babington
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, December 15, 2005; A01

The House gave strong support yesterday to a measure that would ban 
torture and limit interrogation tactics in U.S. detention facilities, 
agreeing with senators that Congress needs to set uniform guidelines for 
the treatment of prisoners in the war on terrorism.

On a 308 to 122 vote, members of the House supported specific language 
proposed by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) that would prohibit "cruel, 
inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment" of anyone in the custody 
of the U.S. government. Though lopsided, the vote was largely symbolic 
and does not put the language into law.

The vote specifically instructed House negotiators to include McCain's 
language, word for word, in the fiscal 2006 defense appropriations bill, 
a decision that is not binding but carries significant political weight.

The House also supported a McCain provision that would require officials 
in any Defense Department detention facility to follow the interrogation 
standards in the Army's field manual on interrogations. That manual is 
currently being revised.

The vote sends a clear signal to the Bush administration that both 
chambers of Congress support the anti-torture legislation and want the 
government to adopt guidelines that aim to prevent damage to the U.S. 
image abroad. The White House has been aggressively pushing to create 
exceptions for CIA operatives and to water down McCain's language to 
keep it from limiting interrogators' options. But it appears that the 
administration and House Republican leaders lost some leverage yesterday.

With the Senate's 90 to 9 vote in support of McCain's language earlier 
this year, both houses have presented veto-proof tallies to a White 
House that has vowed to strike down any bill that would limit the 
president's authority to wage the war on terrorism.

"We cannot torture and still retain the moral high ground," said Rep. 
John P. Murtha (D-Pa.), who called for the vote yesterday. "No torture 
and no exceptions."

In all, 200 Democrats, 107 Republicans and one independent voted for 
Murtha's motion to instruct House negotiators. Voting against it were 
121 Republicans and one Democrat, Rep. Jim Marshall (Ga.). All eight 
House members from Maryland voted for the motion, as did eight of 
Virginia's 11 members. The three who voted against it were Republican 
Reps. Eric I. Cantor, Thelma D. Drake and Virgil H. Goode Jr.

Rep. Walter B. Jones Jr. (N.C.) was among the many conservative 
Republicans who voted for Murtha's motion. He said in an interview that 
experts have told lawmakers that harsh interrogation methods often 
produce misleading or false information because the detainee "will tell 
you what he thinks you want to hear" to end the pain.

Jones said he believes that extreme interrogation tactics resulted in 
some of the bad intelligence that led the administration to believe Iraq 
had weapons of mass destruction before the invasion.

McCain's language is also stalling the defense authorization bill, a 
policy-setting measure, as the White House continues to negotiate for 
exceptions and legal protection for interrogators who might unwittingly 
cross the proposed new lines.

"Unfortunately, we're in a situation now, post-Abu Ghraib, where 
restoring our image abroad is just as important as winning victories on 
the battlefield," said a congressional aide who is close to the 
discussions. "Our reputation has suffered so much that Republicans are 
willing to take steps that tie our hands in certain situations."

McCain and national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley met yesterday 
morning on Capitol Hill as part of the negotiations on McCain's 
anti-torture legislation.

Congressional aides and U.S. officials said yesterday that McCain has 
flatly refused Bush administration requests to modify the language he 
has proposed or to water down the impact of the torture ban.

Despite McCain's unwavering stance, the White House continues to push 
for some exceptions for officials working in the U.S. intelligence 
services -- specifically the CIA. Sources familiar with the negotiations 
said yesterday that McCain and Hadley's one-on-one meetings over the 
past month have centered on the White House's request for some level of 
legal protection from liability for CIA operatives should they be found 
in violation of the standards.

Such an exception would allow interrogators to use a defense that a 
"reasonable person" would not have thought their actions were illegal, 
similar to what is available under military laws on following orders.

Defense Department officials have been debating the impact McCain's 
language would have on intelligence operations, and officials largely 
agree that the provisions are consistent with existing policy. They 
would put into law Army doctrine, eliminating a commander's flexibility 
to change the rules -- something members of Congress have been seeking 
after numerous reported instances of abuse.

McCain's language grew out of the Abu Ghraib prison abuse and the 
confusion that became apparent about the government's policies on the 
treatment of detainees. McCain -- who was tortured as a Vietnam prisoner 
of war -- has been seeking to provide congressional clarity to the armed 
forces and to other officials who interrogate prisoners.

A McCain spokeswoman said yesterday that negotiations are continuing and 
that he is opposed to any language that would undermine the intent of 
his provisions.

The impasse on the authorization bill is caused in part by Republican 
leaders being stuck having to make a difficult choice: Either go against 
the president and limit the use of some interrogation tactics or risk 
not having a National Defense Authorization Act for the first time in 45 
years and in the middle of a war.

"I'm deeply disappointed that the Republican leadership has dragged 
their feet for weeks, unwilling to consider Senator McCain's language, 
which gained wide bipartisan support in the Senate," said Rep. Ellen 
Tauscher (D-Calif.), a member of the House Armed Services Committee.

"When America's servicemen and women are deployed in war zones, exposed 
to danger and possible capture, it is irresponsible to not make sure 
fundamental standards exist for the treatment of detainees," Tauscher said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/14/AR2005121402045.html?referrer=email
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Thu Dec 15 04:00:15 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Thu Dec 15 04:13:47 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Columnist Says Bush Knows Who Leaked Name - Washington
	Post
Message-ID: <43A15ACF.7080600@comcast.net>

Columnist Says Bush Knows Who Leaked Name

By Carol D. Leonnig
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 15, 2005; A07

Syndicated columnist Robert D. Novak, who has repeatedly declined to 
discuss his role in disclosing the identity of CIA operative Valerie 
Plame, said in a speech this week that he is certain President Bush 
knows who his mystery administration source is.

Novak said Tuesday that the public and press should be asking the 
president about the official rather than pressing journalists who 
received the information.

Novak also suggested that the administration official who gave him the 
information is the same person who mentioned Plame and her CIA role to 
Washington Post Assistant Managing Editor Bob Woodward in the summer of 
2003.

"I'm confident the president knows who the source is," Novak told a 
luncheon audience at the John Locke Foundation in Raleigh, N.C., on 
Tuesday, according to an account published yesterday in the Raleigh News 
& Observer. "I'd be amazed if he doesn't."

"So I say, don't bug me. Don't bug Bob Woodward. Bug the president as to 
whether he should reveal who the source is," Novak said.

Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) sent a letter to Bush yesterday urging 
him to name the source and make public any disciplinary action taken, 
"in keeping with your stated desire to root out leaks."

Novak revealed Plame's name and CIA role in a column on July 14, 2003, 
just eight days after Plame's husband, former ambassador Joseph C. 
Wilson IV, accused the administration of "twisting" intelligence to 
justify the war in Iraq. Wilson said that a CIA-sponsored mission he led 
had concluded a year earlier that allegations about Iraq taking steps to 
build a nuclear weapons program were probably untrue.

Woodward disclosed last month that he, too, learned about Plame's CIA 
role in a confidential conversation with a senior administration source. 
Many involved in the case believe that Woodward and Novak had the same 
source. Though neither journalist has identified the source publicly, 
both have said the official was casually providing a tidbit of 
information and did not seem to be trying to generate a story to 
discredit Wilson's mission.

Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald has been investigating for two 
years whether senior Bush administration officials broke any laws in 
leaking Plame's identity to the media. On Oct. 28, I. Lewis "Scooter" 
Libby, who was Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, was indicted on 
charges of perjury, making false statements and obstructing the 
investigation.

Woodward declined to comment yesterday. Novak's attorney, James 
Hamilton, declined to comment on why Novak is now discussing the case.

Novak said in his speech that an investigation into his role in the 
Plame affair "snowballed out of proportion" as a result of a "campaign 
by the left." But he also blamed "extremely bad management of the issue 
by the White House," saying, "Once you give an issue to a special 
prosecutor, you lose control of it."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/14/AR2005121402121.html?nav=hcmodule
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Thu Dec 15 04:02:06 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Thu Dec 15 04:15:40 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] No Secret Rules on Torture - Victor Hansen - Washington
	Post Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43A15B3E.4080309@comcast.net>

No Secret Rules on Torture

By Victor Hansen
Thursday, December 15, 2005; A33

It's reported that the Army is forwarding a classified addendum to the 
new Army Field Manual on interrogation operations. According to these 
reports, the 10-page addendum provides dozens of examples of what 
procedures may and may not be used by interrogators, and it informs 
commanders on the circumstances for their employment.

This move amounts to an attempt by the Army to use the back door to 
establish secret interrogation techniques at the same time the new Field 
Manual on interrogation operations is coming out (later this month). It 
sends exactly the wrong message to the world and, more important, 
fosters the same kind of confusion and contradictory policies that have 
contributed to the abuse of detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan and 
Guantanamo Bay.

Every official investigation that looked into the causes for detainee 
abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison noted that there was confusion at all 
levels and, most importantly, among the interrogators as to what were 
appropriate and legal methods of interrogation. This confusion was 
caused by the fact that many interrogators were inexperienced, that many 
came from different operational areas, and that numerous different and 
unauthorized versions of proper interrogation techniques were in 
circulation among the troops. Most significantly, the current Army Field 
Manual provides little guidance on what are appropriate and legal 
interrogation techniques under U.S. and international law.

The Army's move to draft a more specific Field Manual is an attempt to 
rectify these problems and provide clear guidance that commanders and 
soldiers at all levels can understand and readily implement. It has the 
added benefit of sending a message to our allies and enemies that in an 
open society, we value the rule of law and will not train soldiers to 
violate human rights. An unequivocal message is essential to begin to 
repair the enormous damage caused by the incidents of detainee abuse 
broadcast throughout the world.

An addendum to the Field Manual that details secret techniques and sets 
out secret rules for their employment undermines this entire effort. A 
secret list such as this contradicts our efforts to demonstrate that we 
are an open society governed by the rule of law and that the U.S. 
military respects human rights.

This secret document also creates the very confusion that commanders and 
soldiers faced at Abu Ghraib. The message to soldiers and commanders 
will be that there is one set of rules on interrogation techniques for 
public consumption and then there are the "real rules." This secret set 
of rules puts added pressure on commanders at all levels to use the most 
aggressive interrogation techniques possible.

At the time the abuse occurred at Abu Ghraib, there were official and 
unofficial secret documents circulating among soldiers at the prison 
giving varied and often contradictory guidance on interrogation 
techniques. In that difficult operational environment it was impossible 
for solders to sort through the confusion and contradictions.

If the reported secret addendum becomes part of the Army Field Manual, 
we can expect the same confusion in future operations. This is a time 
and an opportunity for the Army to set a clear, open policy on proper 
interrogation operations and to train commanders and soldiers at all 
levels to one standard on how to legally and humanely conduct 
interrogations. This is not a time to send a mixed message to our allies 
and enemies and sow seeds of confusion in the ranks.

In the extremely difficult and dangerous operational environment that 
exists in the global war on terrorism, the Army needs to be clear on 
this issue, and commanders and soldiers need to know that there is one 
set of legal rules governing their actions. If the Army establishes two 
sets of rules and keeps one secret, it will be setting up commanders and 
soldiers for failure.

The writer, an associate professor at New England School of Law, 
recently retired from the Army after 20 years as a lawyer in the Judge 
Advocate General's Corps. He will take questions at 1 p.m. today 
athttp://www.washingtonpost.com.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/14/AR2005121402193.html
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Thu Dec 15 04:03:23 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Thu Dec 15 04:16:58 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Star-Spangled Pandering - Richard Cohen - Washington
	Post Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43A15B8B.5040102@comcast.net>

Star-Spangled Pandering

By Richard Cohen
Thursday, December 15, 2005; A33

Last month Justice Antonin Scalia was politely quizzed by Norman 
Pearlstine, the outgoing Time Inc. editor in chief. The event, held in 
Time Warner's New York headquarters, was supposedly off the record, but 
so much of it has already been reported that it will not hurt to add 
Scalia's views on flag burning. He explained why it was constitutionally 
protected speech. It's a pity Hillary Clinton was not there to hear him.

The argument that this famously conservative member of the Supreme Court 
advanced -- actually, reiterated -- was that while he may or may not 
approve of flag burning, it was clear to him that it was a form of 
speech, a way of making a political statement, and that the First 
Amendment protected it. I could not agree more.

Clinton, apparently, could not agree less. Along with Sen. Robert 
Bennett, a Utah Republican, she has introduced a bill that would make 
flag burning illegal. It is probably important to note that this is not 
a proposed constitutional amendment, and it is written in a cutesy way 
that does not explicitly outlaw all flag burnings -- just those intended 
to "intimidate any person or group of persons." That's a distinction 
without a difference to your average police officer. Not many cops 
belong to the ACLU.

The ubiquitous Larry Sabato, the University of Virginia quotemeister -- 
need a quote/do not tarry/call U-Va. and ask for Larry -- opines that 
Clinton is readying herself for a presidential run by adjusting her 
tint, toning down the blue and heightening the red. He fancies that 
Virginia Gov. Mark Warner's incipient presidential campaign is already 
pushing Clinton to the center. A New York Times editorial reached a 
similar conclusion. It suggested that she was "pandering" to the 70 
percent of Americans who think outlawing flag burning is a dandy idea.

Well, maybe so and maybe not. It's clear that Clinton is going to have 
to modify her image if she's really serious about running for president. 
(She is, by the way.) At the moment, key interest groups rate her pretty 
much as they do the Senate's most recognizable liberal, Ted Kennedy. 
What's more, she is the semi-official banshee of right-wing fantasies, 
the insidious wife of the sumptuously immoral Bill Clinton and the 
pillow-talkie architect of that Bolshie health care plan of some years 
back. Already, at least nine venomous books have been done on her. I 
would not be surprised if even now someone at Fox News is working on a 
book about "How Hillary Stole Christmas."

But the real Hillary Clinton may be someone unmentioned in those books. 
"She is one of the most conservative friends I have," one of her pals 
told me. Bear in mind I was talking to a Democrat, so we are not talking 
Phyllis Schlafly here, but still, Hillary Clinton is hardly anyone's 
stereotype of a liberal. For one thing, she is religious and not merely 
in a church-on-Sunday sort of way. She relied on her faith in the 
darkest days of her husband's impeachment and the revelations of his 
sexual shenanigans. This is a lady who prays.

She has also articulated a moderate, somewhat ruminative position on 
abortion. It is rueful, insistent on "choice" but regretful about 
abortion in general. The same holds for the war in Iraq. Clinton voted 
to authorize it, and she has yet to call for a pullout of U.S. troops. 
If she is uncertain, hesitant -- not sure if a withdrawal would do a lot 
more harm than good -- then I welcome her to the club of Iraq agnostics.

In this and other examples, political observers discern political 
posturing. Maybe they are right. Whatever the case, though, the flag 
bill along with other examples of Clinton's willingness to court 
political reactionaries raises disturbing questions about who, exactly, 
she is. Consistency is not always to be admired in a politician, but 
when a supposed liberal is one of only two senators to sponsor a bill to 
restrict freedom of speech, then we are talking about something basic. 
If this is a pander, it is in the worst possible taste.

The First Amendment is where you simply do not go. It is sacred. It 
protects our most cherished rights -- religion, speech, press and 
assembly -- and while I sometimes turn viscerally angry when I see the 
flag despoiled, my emotions are akin to what I feel when neo-Nazis 
march. Repugnant or not, popular or not, it is all political speech. Her 
sponsorship of the flag measure calls for reconsideration all around -- 
either by Hillary Clinton and her support of the flag bill or by 
liberals and their support of her.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/14/AR2005121401887.html?nav=hcmodule
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Thu Dec 15 04:04:46 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Thu Dec 15 04:18:18 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] After the Elections - Zalmay Khalilzad - Washington Post
	Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43A15BDE.8050907@comcast.net>

After the Elections

By Zalmay Khalilzad
Thursday, December 15, 2005; A33

Today is a historic day for Iraq. Iraqis of all sects and ethnic groups 
will participate in elections. Most significantly, the Sunni Arab 
community will participate in large numbers. More than 1,000 Sunni 
clerics have called on their followers to vote. A number of Sunni Arab 
political groups that boycotted the January elections are fielding 
candidates. Sunni Arab leaders have called on insurgents to cease their 
attacks, and some insurgent groups have said they will comply.

Today's elections will create a National Assembly that is far more 
representative than the current one. This in turn can help accelerate 
progress toward success in Iraq. Success will depend on improvements in 
establishing a broad-based and effective government; building stronger 
Iraqi security forces, and gaining the confidence of all Iraqi 
communities in their security institutions; winning over insurgents to 
the political process; increasing the capacity of the national and local 
government; instituting economic reforms and promoting private-sector 
development; and gaining more support from neighboring states for 
stabilizing Iraq.

Broad-based government. Before today, the priority was to engage the 
Sunni Arab community -- including the rejectionists -- and get it to buy 
into the political process. Now the focus shifts to forming a moderate, 
cross-ethnic, cross-sectarian coalition that can govern the country 
effectively. Many Iraqi political leaders have expressed a wish to form 
or participate in such a coalition. It will be important that the head 
of security ministries be trusted by all communities and not come from 
elements of the population that have militias. Equally important is that 
key ministers be selected not just for political considerations but also 
for competence. And the next government must put more emphasis on human 
rights.

We will work with the new ministers and implement a program of support 
to increase the capacity of key ministries. The new constitution 
delegates much authority to the provinces. To assist in this transition 
and improve the capacity of local governments, we are building up our 
presence in the provinces to work with local institutions. The goal 
here, as with the security sector, is to promote self-reliance.

To bring Iraqis together and consolidate their participation in the 
political process, the next National Assembly will have the opportunity 
to amend the constitution, with the goal of broadening support for the 
document and turning it into a national compact. The assembly also must 
review how de-Baathification has been carried out so far and outline a 
way forward that balances the requirements of justice with those of 
reconciliation.

These steps will create the needed conditions to achieve our goal of 
inducing Iraqi rejectionists and insurgents to abandon violence -- and 
thus isolate Saddamists and terrorists. Together with the next 
government, we will continue to expand our engagement with the Sunnis' 
leaders.

Confidence in security institutions. A key challenge facing Iraq is the 
need for greater confidence in the security institutions. Besides 
training Iraqi forces, the next government must continue to increase the 
credibility of those forces within Iraqi communities. This will require 
balanced representation of all communities in the security forces, an 
end to the kind of abuses that have recently been discovered in 
facilities operated by the Interior Ministry, and competent and widely 
trusted ministers heading security institutions.

Continued pressure on the terrorists who promote a civil war will also 
be required. Together with the Iraqis, we will conduct focused 
operations that will clear areas of terrorists; deploy capable Iraqi 
forces to hold them against enemy re-infiltration; and build up the 
local capacity for governance, reconstruction and economic development. 
We will need to provide logistics, intelligence and quick-reaction 
forces in support. In the coming year Iraqis will assume much more of 
the burden of action on the front lines and do so more effectively.

Economic opportunity. The United States will work with the new Iraqi 
government to better stimulate private-sector economic development in 
areas such as agriculture and to reduce subsidies -- with the ultimate 
goal of eliminating them while also creating a safety net for the least 
fortunate. As economic opportunity grows, the ranks of the unemployed -- 
some of whom engage in terrorism just to earn money to feed their 
families -- will start to contract. We will engage provincial and local 
authorities, who have the best sense of community needs, in designing 
and implementing development programs to further isolate extremists and 
promote job creation and improvement of essential services. We will 
encourage the new government to better engage regional states and others 
in Iraqi reconstruction and debt-forgiveness programs.

Enhanced diplomacy. Together with the new government, we will need to 
intensify diplomatic efforts to mobilize support for Iraq in the region 
and around the world. As part of the outreach campaign to Sunni Arabs in 
Iraq, the United States is taking advantage of advice and contacts from 
friends in Arab states and Turkey. The United States is also encouraging 
its friends to increase their contacts and economic ties with Iraq. This 
will have to intensify.

In addition, the United States and the new Iraqi government will need to 
put continued and, if necessary, increased pressure on Syria to prevent 
Saddamists and terrorists from operating on its territory.

Our strategy in Iraq is putting us on a path toward success, though many 
challenges lie ahead and much hard work remains to be done by Americans 
and Iraqis alike. But the benefits of success are worth the effort. 
Success in Iraq will advance American interests and values. It is a 
linchpin in the needed transformation of the broader Middle East, which 
is the defining challenge of our time.

The writer is the U.S. ambassador to Iraq.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/14/AR2005121402192.html
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Thu Dec 15 04:07:01 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Thu Dec 15 04:20:32 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] A credibility chasm - Thomas Oliphant - Boston Globe
	Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43A15C65.7040002@comcast.net>


  A credibility chasm

By Thomas Oliphant  |  December 15, 2005  |  The Boston Globe

WASHINGTON
FOUR SPEECHES.

Four points.

Wow.

The latest cycle of orations from President Bush has produced a bump in 
his job approval ratings for handling the war in Iraq -- from about 35 
percent to about 39 percent -- a bump so tiny that it may not have 
occurred at all, given the margins of statistical error in opinion polls.

This happened for reasons that go well beyond the fact that the four 
speeches revealed no significant new fact or argument; they were also, 
in thrust and content, dishonest.

As the political history of modern American wars has demonstrated 
repeatedly, the public responds to its understanding of the facts on the 
ground not the words on the air.

To pick just one telling example, consider the elections this week for a 
new parliament in Iraq. Bush loved to trumpet the fact that elections 
were about to be held and then will trumpet the fact that they were 
indeed held and people voted. But his unwillingness to discuss the 
elections in depth undercuts the message he is attempting to convey.

In this case, what was missing from Bush's final oration yesterday was 
even a minimally broad tour of these elections. He could have at least 
tried to explain that because these are parliamentary elections 
involving multiple slates of candidates, it is possible, indeed likely, 
that we will not understand what happened because Iraq is so bitterly 
divided.

He could have urged calm and caution as Iraqis of multiple political 
persuasions try to sort through the tea leaves in search of some kind of 
majority that has a chance of actually governing the country. He could 
have emphasized the need for caution even more by explaining that this 
mystifying process could take weeks if not months and may at times 
become violent.

Instead, his orations at an end, he will pack up and hide for most of 
the next three weeks at Camp David and in Texas while others try to make 
sense of what is likely to be one of the messiest elections ever.

The reason for the mess, by the way, involves the last so-called 
''milestone" that was promoted and then trumpeted by Bush -- the 
elections 11 months ago for an interim government and the October 
referendum on the constitution that this government produced.

The baloney from our government and president celebrated democracy and 
consensus across the regions and sects. The reality was division, 
actually enshrined in the constitution under which Iraqis will vote this 
week. Rather than heal the society, the constitution cemented its 
divisions in place. One of the dirty little secrets that his advisers 
leak to the press all the time, a secret Bush seems incapable of 
acknowledging, is that there is nothing to prevent virtual independence 
in the Kurdish North and virtual theocracy in the South --a recipe for 
chaos in and around Baghdad. The other dirty little secret is that the 
first task of whatever government is formed will be to figure out a way 
to change this wretched constitution so there remains at least a dim 
possibility of allowing freedom to exist under its amended provisions.

The president has also continued to be dishonest about what is about to 
happen in Iraq in terms of the American armed forces. The truth is that 
after a brief interval, the more than 20,000 extra troops brought in for 
the run-up to the elections will be withdrawn.

Shortly after the first of the year, the force level will be reduced 
still further because people returning to this country as part of 
regular, already scheduled rotations in the combat zone will not be 
replaced. That will have the effect of cutting the force level still 
more -- probably to about 120,000.

In other words, though Bush would insist that everything depends on how 
the war is going, the United States has plans to remove about one-third 
of its forces over the next three or four months. Just for the record, 
that is not any different from what the supposedly antiwar Democratic 
congressman, Jack Murtha of Pennsylvania, has said should happen over 
basically the same period.

To the extent there is a dispute, it is over how many more servicemen 
come out of Iraq from the spring on. Murtha is straightforward about all 
this -- the entire force should, it should be redeployed nearby, and it 
should be out sometime next year.

The president, however, claims we will stay until we ''win", but I 
suspect the withdrawal will continue next year no matter what he says.

And that's why his poll numbers hardly budge. We can hear him, but most 
of us have learned not to believe him.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/12/15/a_credibility_chasm/
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Thu Dec 15 04:09:13 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Thu Dec 15 04:22:51 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Welcome back, King Kong - Max Page - Boston Globe Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43A15CE9.2080204@comcast.net>


  Welcome back, King Kong

By Max Page  |  December 15, 2005  |   The Boston Globe

IF YOU ARE WORRIED about New York's future, take heart: The city is 
being destroyed at a theater near you. The best thing for New York might 
be the sight of King Kong tramping through the streets of Manhattan on 
his way to a fateful appointment at the top of the Empire State 
Building. For if there is one thing that symbolizes New York's 
preeminence, it is that so many still want to imagine the city's end.

For nearly two centuries, American culture has been obsessed with 
fantasizing about the destruction of New York. At each stage of New 
York's development over the past two centuries, the city has been 
demolished, blown up, swallowed by the sea, or toppled by monsters in 
every imaginable form of art and culture -- Hollywood movies, science 
fiction novels, photography, painting, graphic arts, television 
advertisements, postcards, cartoons, and computer software.

Projections of the city's end have reflected the dominant social issues 
in New York's past two centuries. Novels of the late 19th century, such 
as Ignatius Donnelly's ''Caesar's Column," were obsessed with the battle 
between the classes. Writers in the years leading up to World War I 
worried about America's military preparedness and pictured what would 
happen were the war to come to New York's unready shores. In the atomic 
era, writers and artists imagined what would happen if these new weapons 
were used on New York. Science fiction illustrator Chesley Bonestell, 
for example, brought his talents to the alarming portrayal of what would 
happen in ''Hiroshima, USA," were an atomic bomb dropped on lower Manhattan.

It seems that every generation has had its own reasons for destroying 
New York.

After 9/11, we heard solemn declarations that our culture would no 
longer produce works that imagined New York's destruction. It seemed in 
bad taste to creatively imagine New York's end when the memories of real 
destruction on 9/11 were so vivid.

How long ago that seems. After a brief pause (when the World Trade 
Center was digitally removed from movies, or when filmmakers went to 
other cities to film their disaster films), the projections of New 
York's end are back in style.

The latest ''Spiderman" and ''Batman" films, the TV movie ''10.5," a new 
mural for the Brooklyn Museum of Art depicting the submerged city 3,000 
in the future, last year's ''Day After Tomorrow" -- all mark the 
persistence of New York destruction fantasies.

Rather than bemoan the degradation of our insensitive culture, we should 
celebrate these fantasies.

New York has been destroyed for so long -- since the early 19th century 
when it came to be America's first city -- that it is somehow reassuring 
to see the tradition continue. When New York is no longer destroyed, on 
film, in flight simulator software, video games and paintings -- that 
will be a sign that the city no longer dominates America's, and the 
world's, imagination. And if New York is no longer the setting of our 
worst fears, then it may also no longer be the home of our greatest hopes.

And that would be the beginning of the city's end.

Max Page is an associate professor architecture and history at 
University of Massachusetts in Amherst.  

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/12/15/welcome_back_king_kong/
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From harry.sifton at sympatico.ca  Wed Dec 14 17:59:15 2005
From: harry.sifton at sympatico.ca (Harold Sifton)
Date: Thu Dec 15 08:59:59 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Fw: CANCER NEWS
Message-ID: <E1Emw2e-0000vZ-Dy@smtpauth04.mail.atl.earthlink.net>


What is safe these days?



Harry

       

 

    

        F.Y I.

 

 

 

       Subject: Fw: CANCER NEWS FROM JOHN HOPKINS 

          RE: Cancer News from John Hopkins this was received from a nursing 

         supervisor at Greenville Memorial Hospital. It was 

         sent to their staff.

         Cancer News from Johns Hopkins:

         1. No plastic containers in micro. 

         2. No water bottles in freezer. 

         3. No plastic wrap in microwave.

         Johns Hopkins has recently sent this out in its newsletters. This  information is being circulated at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Dioxin chemicals cause cancer, especially 

         breast cancer.

         Dioxins are highly poisonous to the cells of our bodies. Don't freeze your plastic bottles with water in them as this releases dioxins from the  plastic.

         Recently, Dr. Edward Fujimoto, Wellness Program Manager at Castle Hospital, was on a TV program to explain this health hazard. He talked about dioxins and how bad they are for us. He said that we should not be heating our food in the microwave using plastic  containers. This applies to foods that contain fat. He said that the combination of fat, high heat, and plastics releases dioxin into thefood an  ultimately into the cells of the body.

         Instead, he recommends using glass, Corning Ware or ceramic containers  for heating food. You get the same results, only without the dioxin.So such things as TV dinners, instant ramen and soups, etc., should be  removed from the container and heated in something else. Paper isn't  bad but you don't know what is in the paper. It's just safer to use tempered glass, Corning Ware, etc.

         He reminded us that a while ago some of the fast food restaurants moved away from the foam containers to paper. The dioxin problem is one of the reasons. 

        Also, he pointed out that Saran wrap is just as dangerous when placed over foods to be cooked in the microwave. As the food is nuked, the high heat causes poisonous dioxins to actually melt out of the plastic wrap and drip into the food.

         Cover food with a paper towel instead.

         This is an article I believe you should forward to your family and 

         friends -- anyone who is important in your life 

            
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From Robert_Scheer at lb.bcentral.com  Wed Dec 14 05:36:15 2005
From: Robert_Scheer at lb.bcentral.com (RobertScheer.com)
Date: Thu Dec 15 09:21:46 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Today's Robert Scheer column
Message-ID: <E1Emwd6-0000kn-Oh@smtpauth06.mail.atl.earthlink.net>

sent at your request from www.robertscheer.com


Human Rights, Rendered Meaningless 

December 14, 2005 -- The more we learn of the Bush administration's pervasive outsourcing of torture, the more sensible it seems as a policy. Evidently, our intelligence people, tainted as they are by the squeamish morality of Western civilization, are just not fully up to the task of getting prisoners to tell us what the administration wants us to hear. 

Sure, they tried water boarding and extreme stress positions in Guantanamo, but would U.S. interrogators be willing to pull out fingernails or use electric shock, as was inflicted upon at least a dozen of the 625 Baghdad inmates released Sunday from yet another secret inhuman jail run by our Iraqi surrogates? Not guaranteed, and anyway, some conscious-stricken soldier likely would release photos, as one did at Abu Ghraib, and let the world in on our use of such special methods. 

Better to use the services of those less democratic nations where torture is the norm, including some, such as Uzbekistan, that still have usable camps left over from Soviet-era torturers. That must be behind the logic of "extraordinary rendition," as it officially is called, in which it is acknowledged U.S. policy to turn over prisoners our government has captured to other nations deemed more effective in interrogation. 

Nor can the deficiency of our own personnel be simply a lack of language skills, religious familiarity or cultural affinity between interrogator and subject, as apologists for the administration's policy have suggested. Over the last decades, many billions of dollars have been spent in supplying our intelligence agents with precisely that sort of expertise. 

What clearly is missing is the will to go all the way in "breaking down" prisoners. There are just too many decent people scattered throughout our military and intelligence forces who would object publicly to such barbarism. They, and the American public when informed, would insist on limits, even when the president doesn't. 

That must be why the CIA failed in its interrogation of an alleged high-ranking al Qaeda official back in January 2002 to prove the connection between Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. Hey, no biggie, they just turned the captive, a Libyan named Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, over to Egypt's inquisitors who miraculously transformed him into a virtual spokesman for the Bush administration's case for invading Iraq. 

Virtual, because he was shipped back to disappear in the Guantanamo Gulag, but his false witness was trumpeted by then-Secretary of State Colin Powell, Vice President Dick Cheney and the president, who stated on the eve of the congressional vote that authorized the Iraq invasion: "We've learned that Iraq has trained al Qaeda members in bomb-making and poisons and gases.'' What Bush did not say was that eight months earlier, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the top coordinating agency in such matters, concluded that al-Libi's testimony was totally bogus. 

So, one must not jump to the conclusion correctly claimed by most experts on the subject that torture doesn't work just because it yields mostly false results from prisoners who want the torture to stop. In the case of al-Libi, torture worked splendidly to produce exactly the critical false evidence that the president needed to make his case for war. 

The beauty of the rendition program is that the administration can still claim to be against torture because the host nation torturers gave us assurance that they abhor the practice. That is a devilishly clever posture, because there isn't a country in the world that admits to practicing torture. But it is one that offered no protection to Canadian citizen Maher Arar, who as CBS reported, was repeatedly tortured after being "rendered" to Syria, before being released without ever being charged with a crime. That should not come as a surprise to the State Department, whose annual Human Rights Report lists Syria high on its torture-nation roster. But yet the president insists, and the facts be damned, that "we do not render to countries that torture." 

If so, why continue to block the "Torture Outsourcing Prevention Act" written by Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., which would forbid such "renditions" to nations known to practice torture? Because, as Markey put it, "In order to meet its obligations under the Convention Against Torture, this administration has been engaging in a piece of legalistic fiction. It asks the torturing country for 'diplomatic assurances' that the transferred detainee will not be tortured on the theory that a torturing country will keep its word." 

The legal loophole for torture is too good a tool to give up, not as a means of catching the bad guys, but rather as needed cover in possible litigation against the self-proclaimed good guys gone wild. 

Copyright 2005 Robert Scheer

E-mail Robert Scheer at rscheer@truthdig.com. 



_______________________________________________________________________
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From IHHS at aol.com  Tue Dec 13 20:24:41 2005
From: IHHS at aol.com (IHHS@aol.com)
Date: Thu Dec 15 09:24:44 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] homeopathy and medicine
Message-ID: <E1Emwfv-0007ke-M9@smtpauth04.mail.atl.earthlink.net>

check this out
 
_http://www.uspharmacist.com/oldformat.asp?url=newlook/files/Alte/homeopathy.c
fm&pub_id=8&article_id=484_ 
(http://www.uspharmacist.com/oldformat.asp?url=newlook/files/Alte/homeopathy.cfm&pub_id=8&article_id=484) 

especially see first sentence
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From grgolsorkhi at earthlink.net  Wed Dec 14 06:28:55 2005
From: grgolsorkhi at earthlink.net (Golsorkhi)
Date: Thu Dec 15 09:26:16 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] FW: Regime-Change the Answer in Iran
In-Reply-To: <B724964F-0962-4A45-8263-276BF7B64715@thesamiis.com>
Message-ID: <E1Emwh0-0000Xk-Qr@smtpauth04.mail.atl.earthlink.net>


------ Forwarded Message
From: Samii Shahla <shahla@thesamiis.com>
Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2005 13:27:54 -0500
Subject: Regime-Change the Answer in Iran


Arutz Sheva - IsraelNationalNews

US Intelligence Expert: Regime-Change the Answer in Iran
Tuesday, December 13, 2005

Former U.S. Justice Department prosecutor and intelligence expert John
Loftus says that Israel is unable to thwart Iran's nuclear projects through
military action ? but that there is an alternative.

"Israel only has a few option and striking back is not one of 'em," Loftus
told Israel National Radio's Tovia Singer. "The F-16-IL version that Israel
possesses only has a combat radius of about 2,200 kilometers and you would
need about 3,000 to hit the hard targets in Iran. Iran saw what [Israel] did
to the Osarik reactor in Iraq and have spread their nuclear development
stuff all over the country and a lot of the stuff is in the northeast corner
of the country ? completely out of Israel's flight range. So, unless Iraq
votes to allow Israel overflight rights to attack Iran ? which isn't going
to happen - then Israel simply doesn't have the fuel to fly around Saudi
Arabia to come up the Straits of Hormuz and attack Iran. There is simply not
a military option available to Israel."

Loftus stressed, however, that there are other options that are likely to
succeed and are already being put into effect. "The Bush administration is
hoping that, ironically with [French Prime Minister Jacques] Chirac's help,
UN pressure will cause a regime-change in Syria. That the [UN's] Mehlis
investigation [examining the Syrian government's connection to the
assassination of former Lebanese PM Rafik Hariri] is going to come down hard
and heavy. The US military is chomping at the bit to go across the border
and take out the terror bases in Syria that Assad claims are not there. Once
Syria is gone, Iran is isolated, with US troops on both their borders, in
Afghanistan and in Iraq."

The intelligence expert, who has contacts in the Pentagon, says that the
strategy is not for the US to actually invade Iran, but to affect a
regime-change. "One of the intelligence agencies, which shall remain
nameless, asked me to hold a conference of dissident groups in Iran. We are
holding that conference and getting ready for regime-change."

Singer asked Loftus why US fighter jets do not bomb Iranian nuclear targets
on their own from aircraft carriers in the region.

"That's a real good question that has been carefully studied," Loftus
answered. "There are over 360 separate targets inside Iran that have been
identified. Most of them are non-vulnerable ? many underneath residential
neighborhoods and Islamic shrines. These are not places we can bomb. The
Iranians were paying attention when Iraq's reactor was bombed and have
learned the lessons."

"So what is to be done to bring about a regime-change?" singer asked.

"The aircraft carriers are there to defend the picket-line of ships that
will place a blockade on the Straits of Hormuz," Loftus said. "Ninety
percent of Iran's economy is based on oil exports ? so a blockade of as
little as three weeks can cause their economy to collapse, the people to
rise up and the mullahs to be overthrown. The problem with this is that Iran
knows that this is the most likely scenario and they have been preparing for
three years to thwart it. They [Iran] have developed vessels whose job is to
sink as many oil tankers as possible to block the Straits of Hormuz [to
other countries that use that route]. Once two, three or four vessels are
sunk, you have cut off 40% of the world's oil supply. So the US doesn't mind
? we have a six-month stockpile of oil - but the EU is much more fragile and
susceptible to oil shocks. So we might have to dump a large share of the US
stockpile on the world market until the regime falls."

Asked whether he really thinks the government will topple so easily, Loftus
responded, "It is hard to do polling in Iran ? you have to do it by
telephone and you therefore only end up talking to the urban population. But
we found that 83% of the Iranian urban population hates the mullahs and
don't want to grow up under a dictatorship. Most of the country is young and
wants music videos and TV and not the mullahs."
---

URL:?http://www.israelnn.com/news.php3?id=94732


------ End of Forwarded Message

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From michael at intrafi.com  Thu Dec 15 09:19:45 2005
From: michael at intrafi.com (michael@intrafi.com)
Date: Thu Dec 15 09:30:47 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] FT.com / World / US - Bush puts Rice in charge of
	reconstruction
Message-ID: <11677298.1134667185005.JavaMail.tomcat@localhost>



*Please note, the sender's email address has not been verified.



You have received the following link from michael@intrafi.com

 
********************
 
If you are having trouble with any of the links in this message, or if the URL's are not appearing as links, please follow the instructions at the bottom of this email.
 
Title: FT.com / World / US - Bush puts Rice in charge of reconstruction
 
  
Copy and paste the following into your Web browser to access the sent link:
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Copy and paste the following into your Web browser to SAVE THIS link:
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Email pages from any Web site you visit - add the EMAIL THIS button to your browser, copy and paste the following into your Web browser:
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Instructions:
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1. With your mouse, highlight the Web Address above. Be sure to highlight the entire Web address, even if it spans more than one line in your email. 
2. Select Copy from the Edit menu at the top of your screen. 
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5. Click Go or press Enter or Return on your keyboard. 
 
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From grgolsorkhi at earthlink.net  Wed Dec 14 10:39:11 2005
From: grgolsorkhi at earthlink.net (Golsorkhi)
Date: Thu Dec 15 09:32:20 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] FW: 1981 assassination of Egyptian president Anwar Sadat
In-Reply-To: <000701c600d8$0c652910$6501a8c0@DF2ZTG61>
Message-ID: <E1Emwmz-0005X6-9d@elasmtp-kukur.atl.sa.earthlink.net>

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From drmhaatma at yahoo.com  Wed Dec 14 13:57:47 2005
From: drmhaatma at yahoo.com (Mha Atma Khalsa)
Date: Thu Dec 15 09:47:04 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Sneering at Redemption: Why Arnold Killed Tookie
Message-ID: <E1Emx1O-00057h-7u@smtpauth04.mail.atl.earthlink.net>


Sneering at Redemption: Why Arnold Killed Tookie
By Dave Zirin
   
  In the end, we can only assume the decision wasn't so
"agonizing" after all. Last night Stan Tookie Williams
was legally lynched by the state of California, at the
behest of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger who denied
Williams' appeal for clemency. The Governor deemed that
a man who had been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize
five times and brokered gang truces from Newark to
South Central was not worthy to walk and breathe among
us. Stan's case for clemency was so compelling it was
articulated by people from Desmond Tutu to Snoop Dogg,
and yet, watching Schwarzenegger in action has been to
observe the nexus of cold-hearted political calculation
and cowardice.
   
  Williams' Attorney John Harris challenged the governor
to meet with Tookie, saying to the San Francisco
Chronicle, "It's impossible to me to believe that if
you had met Stanley Williams and spent time with him,
that you would not believe in his personal
redemption." But that would require a courage the
Governor has never demonstrated. Unlike the movie tough
guy always ready to look his victims in the eye -- a
quip at the ready -- before shooting, stabbing, or
beheading them, Arnold made his decision at safe
remove, hanging out this weekend at his son's soccer
game, his face a waxy mask of carefree detachment,
while Tookie's supporters organized, marched, chanted
and prayed themselves hoarse.
   
  When it finally came time for Arnold to announce his
personal judgment that Stan Williams should die,
tragedy became farce. The Governor's office released an
ugly scandalous diatribe that qualifies as nothing less
than hate-speech.
   
  As he - or his script doctor - wrote, "The dedication
of Williams' book Life in Prison casts significant
doubt on his personal redemption. This book was
published in 1998 several years after Williams'
redemptive experience. Specifically the book is
dedicated to Nelson Mandela, Angela Davis, Malcolm X,
Assata Shakur, Geronimo Ji Jaga Pratt, Ramona Africa,
John Africa, Leonard Peltier, George Jackson, Mumia Abu
Jamal, and the countless other men, women, and youths,
who have to endure the hellish oppression of living
behind bars. The mix of individuals on this list is
curious. Most have violent pasts and some have been
convicted of committing heinous murders including the
killing of law enforcement. But the inclusion of George
Jackson on this list defies reason and is a significant
indicator that Williams is not reformed and that he
still sees violence and lawlessness as a legitimate
means to address societal problems."
   
  For Tookie, all of these folks, from Mandela, to
Malcolm, to Assata, are one and the same: people of
color who strove for liberation in the darkest of
circumstances. For Schwarzenegger, the whole lot is the
same as well: people who are his political enemies
because they refused to be broken. Notice the singling
out of George Jackson, author of Soledad Brother, a
book for which there is no evidence Schwarzenegger has
so much as skimmed. Jackson was someone who despite
being framed for his political activism never stopped
organizing. That is the person Schwarzenegger wants to
kill by executing Tookie.
   
  Later, Arnold passes judgment on Williams' very
redemption, writing, "Is Williams' redemption complete
and sincere, or is it just a hollow promise? . . .
Without an apology and atonement for these senseless
and brutal killings there can be no redemption." In
other words, because Williams has consistently defended
his own innocence, he should die. But as Tookie once
said, "Many people expect me to apologize for crimes I
didn't commit--just to save my life. Of course I want
to live, but not by having to lie."
   
  While not surprising Arnold did not have the courage to
face Tookie and spew this nonsense to his face, it
certainly would have been incredible theatre. In fact,
it would have been something of a reunion. In the late
1970s, Arnold and Tookie, about fifty life times ago,
admired each other's biceps on Muscle Beach in Venice,
California. "Your arms are like thighs!" Arnold
grinned. Amazing the difference thirty years makes. In
that time, Arnold rode his muscles and Teutonic good
looks from Hollywood stardom to the Governor's mansion.
Yes, he had a spotty past including many allegations of
sexual assault and drug abuse. But he passed that off
as youthful indiscretion, claimed that he had changed,
and a pliant media were happy to believe that Arnold
was worthy of forgiveness and redemption.
   
  Tookie, like Arnold, also fashioned an unlikely
political career. But his began not with Hollywood
riches but as the target of the tough-on-crime laws of
the Clinton-Bush years which saw the nation's prison
population balloon from more than one to two million.
He was convicted of murder in a manner that would make
Strom Thurmond proud, called a "Bengal tiger" by a
prosecutor who engineered an all-white jury to make
sure the "Crip founder" found San Quentin. While
Arnold cozied up to the Bush and Kennedy clans, Tookie
read dictionaries in solitary, wrote letters to gang
kids in LA, and became that most dangerous of political
beings: a Black leader in racist America.
   
  In one of his final interviews he said, "So, as long as
I have breath, I will continue to do what I can to
proliferate a positive message throughout this country
and abroad to youths everywhere, of all colors or
gender and geographical area, and I will continue to do
what I can to help. I want to be a part of the, you
know, the solution."
   
  Now another tragedy, along with the murders of Albert
Owens, Yen-I Yang, Tsai-Shai Chen Yang, and Yu-Chin
Yang Lin, has taken place because Stan Tookie has been
put to death. But the tragedy is not theirs to bear
alone.
  Tonight children are being born to mothers without
health insurance, in neighborhoods politicians don"t
enter without SWAT teams, news cameras, and latex
gloves. The political class has already branded these
kids as human waste. But many of them could have found
another path, because Stanley Tookie Williams would
have been there to intervene in their lives and show
another way.
  Now it's up to those of us who stood with Tookie to
keep on pushing. This is Schwarzenegger's "mission
accomplished" moment for his right wing, pro-death
base. But his "mission" will fail. He is part of a
21st century set of rulers who have repeatedly shown,
whether in Baghdad or New Orleans, that they are unfit
to rule. Their brutality will be met with resistance in
the tradition of Nelson Mandela, Angela Davis, Malcolm
X, Leonard Peltier, George Jackson... and Stanley
Tookie Williams.
   
   
  [Dave Zirin is the author of "'What's My Name Fool?':
Sports and Resistance in the United States" (Haymarket
Books). He is a regular writer for the Nation and a
columnist for Slam Magazine. You can reach him by
emailing dave@edgeofsports.com and you can get his
column every week by sending a blank email to
edgeofsports-subscribe@zirin.com]


			
---------------------------------
Yahoo! Shopping
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From ean at sbcglobal.net  Wed Dec 14 21:30:55 2005
From: ean at sbcglobal.net (ean@sbcglobal.net)
Date: Thu Dec 15 09:48:54 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Bubble Boy
Message-ID: <E1Emx3J-0006zr-SQ@smtpauth04.mail.atl.earthlink.net>

http://select.nytimes.com/2005/12/14/opinion/14dowd.html?th&emc=th

W. Won't Read This
By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: December 14, 2005
WASHINGTON

Never ask a guy who's in a bubble if he's in a bubble. He can't answer.
'Cause he's in a bubble.

But the NBC anchor Brian Williams gamely gave it a shot, showing the
president the Newsweek cover picturing him trapped in a bubble.

"This says you're in a bubble," Brian told W. "You have a very small
circle of advisers now. Is that true? Do you feel in a bubble?"

"No, I don't feel in a bubble," Bubble Boy replied, unable to see the
bubble because he's in it. "I feel like I'm getting really good advice
from very capable people and that people from all walks of life have
informed me and informed those who advise me." He added, "I'm very aware
of what's going on."

He swiftly contradicted himself by admitting that "this is the first time
I'm seeing this magazine" - his version of his dad's Newsweek "Wimp
Factor" cover - and that he doesn't read newsmagazines.

The anchor and the anchorite spent a few anodyne moments probing the
depths of what it's like to be president. "I just talked to the
president-elect
of Honduras," W. said. "A lot of my job is foreign policy, and I spend an
enormous amount of time with leaders from other countries."

Brian struggled to learn whether W. read anything except one-page memos.
Talking about his mom, Bubble Boy returned to the idea of the bubble: "If
I'm in a bubble, well, if there is such thing as a bubble, she's the one
who can penetrate it."

"I'll tell the guys at Newsweek," the anchor said impishly.

"Is that who put the bubble story?" W. asked. First he didn't know about
it, and now he's forgotten it already? That's the alluring,
memory-cleansing beauty of the bubble.

The idea that W. is getting good advice from very capable people is silly
- administration officials have blown it on everything from the occupation
and natural disasters to torture. In the bubble, they can torture while
saying they don't. They can pretend that Iraqi forces are stronger than
they are. They can try to frighten people with talk of Al Qaeda's dream of
a new Islamic caliphate - their latest attempt to scare Americans into
supporting the war they ginned up.

"Whether or not it needed to happen," the president told the anchor, "I'm
still convinced it needed to happen." The Bubble Boy can even contradict
himself and not notice.

W.'s contention that he's informed by people from all walks of life is a
joke, as is his wacky assertion that he can "reach out" to the public more
than Abraham Lincoln because he has Air Force One. Lincoln actually went
to the front in his war, with Mini? balls whizzing by. No phony turkey for
him.

The president may fly over all walks of life in Air Force One or drive by
them and hide behind dark-tinted windows. In his bubble, he floats through
a comforting world of doting women, respectful military audiences, loyal
Republican donors and screened partisan groups - with protesters,
Democrats, journalists, critics and coffins of dead soldiers kept at bay.

(He has probably even been shielded from the outrage of John and Stacey
Holley, both Army veterans, who were shocked to learn that their only
child, Matthew, killed in Iraq, would be arriving in San Diego as freight
on a commercial airliner.)

Jack Murtha, a hawkish Democrat close to the Pentagon who supported both
wars against Iraq waged by the Bushes, has been braying against the Bush
isolation. He told Newsweek that a letter he wrote to the president making
suggestions about how to fight the Iraq war was ignored for seven months,
then brushed off by a deputy under secretary of defense. Even after he
went public, he still did not get a call from the White House.

"If they talked to people," he said, "they wouldn't get these outbursts."

Mr. Murtha told Rolling Stone that the administration's deafness had
doomed Iraq: "Everything we did was mishandled. Plans that the military
and the State Department had in place - they ignored 'em. The military
tells me that when they were planning the invasion, the administration
wouldn't let one of the primary three-star generals in the room."

The president's bubble requires constant care. It's not easy to keep out
huge tragedies like Katrina, or flawed policies like Iraq. As Newsweek
noted, a foreign diplomat "was startled when Secretary of State Rice
warned him not to lay bad news on the president. 'Don't upset him,' she
said."

Heaven forbid. Don't burst his bubble.

***


-- 
You are currently on Mha Atma's Earth Action Network email list, 
option D (up to 3 emails/day).  To be removed, or to switch options 
(option A - 1x/week, option B - 3/wk, option C - up to 1x/day, option D - 
up to 3x/day) please reply and let us know!  If someone forwarded you 
this email and you want to be on our list, send an email to 
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"A war of aggression is the supreme international crime." -- Robert Jackson,
 former U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice and Nuremberg prosecutor

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From michael at intrafi.com  Thu Dec 15 09:39:08 2005
From: michael at intrafi.com (michael@intrafi.com)
Date: Thu Dec 15 09:50:31 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] FT.com / World / US - Bush puts Rice in charge of
	reconstruction
Message-ID: <25081288.1134668348558.JavaMail.tomcat@localhost>



*Please note, the sender's email address has not been verified.



You have received the following link from michael@intrafi.com

 
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From michael at intrafi.com  Thu Dec 15 09:40:04 2005
From: michael at intrafi.com (michael@intrafi.com)
Date: Thu Dec 15 09:50:53 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] FT.com / World / US - US trade deficit threatens growth
Message-ID: <16009552.1134668404456.JavaMail.tomcat@localhost>



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From michael at michaelbutler.com  Thu Dec 15 06:48:20 2005
From: michael at michaelbutler.com (Michael Butler)
Date: Thu Dec 15 10:01:00 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] FW: [Mb-hair] Fw: CANCER NEWS
In-Reply-To: <20051215090328.0ueus4y8andkcww4@208.179.130.20>
Message-ID: <BFC6EC64.26D94%michael@michaelbutler.com>


------ Forwarded Message
From: Sean Courtney <dauber@banana-and-louie.org>
Date: Thu, 15 Dec 2005 09:03:28 -0800
To: Harold Sifton <harry.sifton@sympatico.ca>, mb-hair@islandlists.com

Quoting Harold Sifton <harry.sifton@sympatico.ca>:

> What is safe these days?

What is safe these days is checking snopes.com first -- geez, that site
is very famous and has been around for years; you think everybody'd
know to do that now...

http://www.snopes.com/toxins/plastic.htm


-- 
dauber@banana-and-louie.org
AIM: ddaauubbeerr
blog: http://scattered-frog.blogspot.com


------ End of Forwarded Message

From barbarasiomos38 at msn.com  Thu Dec 15 10:21:13 2005
From: barbarasiomos38 at msn.com (Barbara Siomos)
Date: Thu Dec 15 10:36:20 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] A Project of the Heart~Elder Edna Gordon 84 yr old from
 Cattaraugus Rez upstate
 NY has written some Powerful Poetry "I've Got Things To Tell The World"
Message-ID: <BAY5-DAV14D55D3237D7169520409BAB3B0@phx.gbl>

Please help Harvey Arden get this project together by pre-ordering copies of the book. He is taking all of her journals and consolidating to transfer her writings for the book.

Thank you.

peace,
barbara

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Subject: ~A Project of the Heart: The Edna Book Project~
Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2005 21:23:14 -0500
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Url: http://www.islandlists.com/pipermail/mb-civic/attachments/20051215/b993f4b3/attachment.eml
From grgolsorkhi at earthlink.net  Thu Dec 15 11:12:45 2005
From: grgolsorkhi at earthlink.net (Golsorkhi)
Date: Thu Dec 15 11:28:18 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] FW: Evil Alliance
In-Reply-To: <687BD8BD-AAF2-4B34-B1D9-EB3FDDEDE3A2@thesamiis.com>
Message-ID: <E1EmybQ-000441-Rn@smtpauth04.mail.atl.earthlink.net>


------ Forwarded Message
From: Samii Shahla <shahla@thesamiis.com>
Date: Thu, 15 Dec 2005 13:36:36 -0500
Subject: Evil Alliance


Hamas vows revenge if Iran attacked

>From correspondents in Tehran
15-12-2005
From: Agence France-Presse

THE radical Palestinian group Hamas will step up attacks against Israel if
the Jewish state takes military action against Iran, its political chief has
said in Tehran.

Khaled Meshaal also praised Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for his
"courage" in having dismissed the Holocaust as a myth and calling for Israel
to be moved out of the Middle East to Europe or North America.
"Just as Islamic Iran defends the rights of the Palestinians, we defend the
rights of Islamic Iran. We are part of a united front against the enemies of
Islam," Mr Meshaal told reporters.

"Each member of this front defends itself with its own means in its region.
We carry the battle in Palestine. If Israel launches an attack against Iran,
we will expand the battlefield," he told a news conference.

"We are part of a united front, and if one member of this front is attacked
it is our duty to support them."

Israel and the United States accuse Iran of using an atomic energy drive as
a cover for weapons development, a charge the Islamic republic denies.

Mr Ahmadinejad has increased alarm in the West after calling for Israel to
be "wiped off the map". On Wednesday he drew fresh condemnation after
denying the massacre of Jews during World War II took place.

"We congratulate Iran for its position in the Islamic world and in
particular the statements of the supreme leader (Ayatollah Ali Khamenei) and
President Ahmadinejad," said Mr Meshaal, who is based in Damascus and has
been in Iran since Tuesday.

"What Iranian officials say may not please some people, but these are just
courageous declarations," he asserted.

"The Muslim people will defend Iran because it voices what they have in
their hearts, in particular the Palestinian people."

On Iran's nuclear programme, he said: "Even if Iran's programme is military,
what is the problem? Why do other countries like Israel have the right to
have a nuclear weapon?"

Copyright 2005 News Limited
---

URL:?http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,17581562-23109,00.html
? 



------ End of Forwarded Message

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From hecate at diamonddragon.com  Thu Dec 15 12:26:53 2005
From: hecate at diamonddragon.com (Hecate)
Date: Thu Dec 15 12:37:47 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] BBC E-mail: White House 'agrees torture ban'
Message-ID: <20051215_202653_016238.hecate@diamonddragon.com>

Hecate saw this story on BBC News Online and thought you
should see it.



** White House 'agrees torture ban' **
The White House agrees to back a Congressional bill formally banning torture of terror suspects, reports say.
< http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/2/hi/americas/4533342.stm >


** BBC Daily E-mail **
Choose the news and sport headlines you want - when you want them, all
in one daily e-mail
< http://www.bbc.co.uk/dailyemail/ >


** Disclaimer **
The BBC is not responsible for the content of this e-mail, and anything written in this e-mail does not necessarily reflect the BBC's views or opinions. Please note that neither the e-mail address nor name of the sender have?been verified.

If you do not wish to receive such e-mails in the future or want to know more about the BBC's Email a Friend service, please read our frequently asked questions. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/help/4162471.stm

From grgolsorkhi at earthlink.net  Wed Dec 14 07:54:28 2005
From: grgolsorkhi at earthlink.net (Golsorkhi)
Date: Thu Dec 15 13:21:50 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] FW: What they're really afraid of is American success
In-Reply-To: <BAY102-F3532F93BC0B82CCE18CA23C7380@phx.gbl>
Message-ID: <E1EmwjD-0002f3-LO@smtpauth04.mail.atl.earthlink.net>


------ Forwarded Message
From: "Shon Saleh" <shonsa@hotmail.com>
Date: Wed, 14 Dec 2005 01:42:32 +0000
To: mohlad@aol.com, HLadjevard@aol.com, grgolsorkhi@earthlink.net,
jcohanim@zodax.com
Subject: FW: What they're really afraid of is American success


>
>
>
>
>The Panic Over Iraq
>What they're really afraid of is American success.
>
>BY NORMAN PODHORETZ
>Monday, December 12, 2005 12:01 a.m. EST
>Like, I am sure, many other believers in what this country has been trying
>to do in the Middle East and particularly in Iraq, I have found my thoughts
>returning in the past year to something that Tom Paine, writing at an
>especially dark moment of the American Revolution, said about such times.
>They are, he memorably wrote, "the times that try men's souls," the times
>in
>which "the summer soldier and the sunshine patriot" become so disheartened
>that they "shrink from the service of [their] country."
>But Paine did not limit his anguished derision to former supporters of the
>American War of Independence whose courage was failing because things had
>not been going as well on the battlefield as they had expected or hoped. In
>a less famous passage, he also let loose on another group:
>'Tis surprising to see how rapidly a panic will sometimes run through a
>country. . . . Yet panics, in some cases, have their uses . . . Their
>peculiar advantage is, that they are the touchstones of sincerity and
>hypocrisy, and bring things and men to light, which might otherwise have
>lain for ever undiscovered.
>Thus, he explained, "Many a disguised Tory has lately shown his head,"
>emboldened by the circumstances of the moment to reveal an opposition to
>the
>break with Britain that it had previously seemed prudent to conceal.
>The similarities to our situation today are uncanny. We, too, are in the
>midst of a rapidly spreading panic. We, too, have our sunshine patriots and
>summer soldiers, in the form of people who initially supported the invasion
>of Iraq--and the Bush Doctrine from which it followed--but who are now
>abandoning what they have decided is a sinking ship. And we, too, are
>seeing
>formerly disguised opponents of the war coming more and more out into the
>open, and in ever greater numbers.
>Yet in spite of these similarities, there is also a very curious difference
>between the American panic of 1776-77 and the American panic of 2005-06. To
>put it in the simplest and starkest terms: In that early stage of the
>Revolutionary War, there was sound reason to fear that the British would
>succeed in routing Washington's forces. In Iraq today, however, and in the
>Middle East as a whole, a successful outcome is staring us in the face.
>Clearly, then, the panic over Iraq--which expresses itself in increasingly
>frenzied calls for the withdrawal of our forces--cannot have been caused by
>the prospect of defeat. On the contrary, my twofold guess is that the real
>fear behind it is not that we are losing but that we are winning, and that
>what has catalyzed this fear into a genuine panic is the realization that
>the chances of pulling off the proverbial feat of snatching an American
>defeat from the jaws of victory are rapidly running out.
>
>Of course, to anyone who relies entirely or largely on the mainstream media
>for information, it will come as a great surprise to hear that we are
>winning in Iraq. Winning? Militarily? How can we be winning militarily
>when,
>day after day, the only thing of any importance going on in that country is
>suicide bombings and car bombings? When neither our own troops nor the
>Iraqi
>forces we have been training are able to stop the "insurgents" from scoring
>higher and higher body counts? When every serious military move we make
>against the strongholds of these dedicated and ruthless adversaries is met
>with "fierce resistance"? When, for every one of them we manage to kill,
>two
>more seem to pop up?
>Winning? Politically? How can we be winning politically when the very
>purpose for which we allegedly invaded Iraq has been unmasked as a chimera?
>When every step we force the Iraqis to take toward democratization is
>accompanied by angry sectarian strife between Shiites and Sunnis and
>between
>Arabs and Kurds? When our clumsy efforts to bring the Sunnis into the
>political process have hardly made a dent in their support for the
>insurgency? When the end result is less likely to be the stable democratic
>regime we supposedly went there to establish than a civil war followed by
>the breakup of Iraq into three separate countries?
>There has been one great exception to this relentless drumbeat of bad news.
>It occurred in January 2005, in the coverage of the first election in
>liberated Iraq. To the astonishment of practically everyone in the world,
>more than eight million Iraqis came out to vote on election day even though
>the Islamofascist terrorists had threatened to slaughter them if they did.
>This very astonishment was a measure of how false an impression had been
>created of the state of affairs in Iraq. No one fed by the mainstream media
>could have had the slightest inkling that these eight million people were
>actually there, so invisible had they been to reporters who spent all their
>time interviewing the discontented Iraqi man-in-the-street and to cameras
>seemingly incapable of focusing on anything but carnage and rubble.
>But the mainstream media soon recovered from the shock. By October, on the
>morning after a second ballot in which the new Iraqi constitution was
>ratified by fully 79% of the electorate, the Washington Post ran its
>announcement of these inspiring results on page 13. As for the paper's
>front
>page, the columnist Jeff Jacoby would note that it
>was dominated by a photograph, stretched across four columns, of three
>daughters at the funeral of their father, . . . who had died from injuries
>suffered during a Sept. 26 bombing in Baghdad. Two accompanying stories,
>both above the fold, were headlined "Military Has Lost 2,000 in Iraq" and
>"Bigger, Stronger, Homemade Bombs Now to Blame for Half of U.S. Deaths." A
>nearby graphic--"The Toll"--divided the 2,000 deaths by type of military
>service.
>In sum, in the words of the Australian blogger Arthur Chrenkoff:
>Death, violence, terrorism, precarious political situation, problems with
>reconstruction, and public frustration (both in Iraq and America) dominate,
>if not overwhelm, the mainstream media coverage and commentary on Iraq.
>About a year ago, concerned that he might have been exaggerating when he
>made this assertion on the basis of his "gut feeling," Mr. Chrenkoff
>decided
>to check it out more scientifically. So he did "a little tally" of the
>stories published or broadcast all over the world on a single average day
>(which happened to be Jan. 21, 2005). Here are some of the numbers that,
>with the help of the Google News Index, he was able to report from that one
>day:
>*    2,642 stories about Condoleezza Rice's confirmation hearings, in the
>context of grilling she has received over the administration's Iraq policy.
>*    1,992 stories about suicide bombings and other terrorist attacks.
>*    887 stories about prisoner abuse by British soldiers.
>*    216 stories about hostages currently being held in Iraq.
>*    761 stories reporting on activities and public statements of
>insurgents.
>*    357 stories about the antiwar movement and the dropping public
>support for involvement in Iraq.
>*    182 stories about American servicemen killed and wounded in
>operations.
>*    217 stories about concerns for fairness and validity of Iraqi
>election (low security, low turnout, etc.).
>*    107 stories about civilian deaths in Iraq.
>*    123 stories noting Vice President Cheney's admission that he had
>underestimated the task of reconstruction.
>*    118 stories about complicated and strained relations between the
>U.S. and Europe.
>*    121 stories discussing the possibility of an American pullout.
>*    27 stories about sabotage of Iraqi oil infrastructure.
>As against all this, the good news made a pathetic showing:
>*    16 stories about security successes in the fight against insurgents.
>*    7 stories about positive developments relating to elections.
>*    73 stories about the return to Iraq of stolen antiquities.
>Obviously, then, the reporters and their editors in the mainstream media
>have been working overtime to show how badly things have been going for us
>in Iraq.
>Meanwhile, the op-ed pundits, the academic theorists and the armchair
>generals have chimed in with analyses blaming it all on the incompetence of
>the president and his appointees. By now, the proposition that the
>aftermath
>of the invasion has been marked by one disastrous blunder after another is
>accepted without question or qualification by just about everyone: open
>opponents of the Bush Doctrine eager to prove that they were right to
>denounce the invasion; Democrats whose main objective is to discredit the
>Bush administration; and erstwhile supporters who have lost heart and are
>looking for a way to justify their desertion.
>But the charge of incompetence has also been hurled by strong supporters of
>the Bush Doctrine in general and of the invasion of Iraq in particular,
>whose purpose is to prod the people running the operation into doing a
>better job. The most authoritative such supporter, Eliot A. Cohen of Johns
>Hopkins, has expressed a
>desire--barely controlled--to slap the highly educated fool who, having no
>soldier friends or family, once explained to me that mistakes happen in all
>wars, and that the casualties are not really all that high, and that I
>really shouldn't get exercised about them.
>Now, this person may well have deserved a slap for being presumptuous
>toward
>a distinguished military historian, or for insensitivity in downplaying
>casualties when speaking to the father of an infantry officer on his way to
>Iraq. But at the risk of exposing myself as another highly educated fool, I
>must confess that I too think we need to be reminded that mistakes happen
>in
>all wars, and that the casualties in this one are very low by any
>historical
>standard.
>
>Before measuring Iraq in these two respects, I want to look more closely at
>some of the actions taken by the Bush administration that are universally
>accepted as mistakes, and to begin by pointing out that the main one is
>based on an outright falsification of the facts. This is the accusation
>that
>no thought was given to what would happen once we got to Baghdad and no
>plans were therefore made for dealing with the aftermath of the combat
>phase. Yet the plain truth is that much thought was given to, and many
>plans
>were made for dealing with, horrors that everyone expected to happen and
>then, mercifully, did not. Among these: house-to-house fighting to take
>Baghdad, the flight of a million or more refugees, the setting of the oil
>fields afire, and the outbreak of a major civil war.
>As for the insurgency, even if its dimensions had accurately been foreseen,
>it would still have been impossible to eliminate it in short order. To cite
>Mr. Cohen himself:
>If the insurgencies in Northern Ireland, Israel/Palestine, Sri Lanka, and
>Kashmir continue, what reason do we have to expect this one to end so soon?
>A related group of alleged "mistakes" turn out on closer inspection to be
>judgment calls, concerning which it is possible for reasonable men to
>differ. The most widely circulated of these--especially among supporters of
>the war on the right--is that there were too few American "boots on the
>ground" to mount an effective campaign against the insurgency. Perhaps. And
>yet the key factor in fighting a terrorist insurgency is not the number of
>troops deployed against it but rather the amount and quality of the
>intelligence that can be obtained from infiltrating its ranks and from
>questioning prisoners (a task made all the more difficult for us by the
>campaign here at home to define torture down to the point where it would
>become illegal to subject even a captured terrorist to generally accepted
>methods of interrogation).
>Finally, there are "mistakes" that were actually choices between two
>evils--choices that had to be made when it was by no means obvious which
>was
>the lesser of the two. The best example here is the policy of
>"de-Baathification." This led to a disbanding of the Iraqi army, whose
>embittered Sunni members were then putatively left with nothing to do but
>volunteer their services to the insurgency. Yet allowing Saddam Hussein's
>thugs to continue controlling the army would have embittered the Shiites
>and
>the Kurds instead, both of whom had suffered greatly at the hands of the
>Sunni minority. Is it self-evident that this would have been better for us
>or for Iraq?
>However, even if I were to concede for the sake of argument that every one
>of these accusations was justified, I would still contend that they
>amounted
>to chump change when stacked up against the mistakes that were made in
>World
>War II--a war conducted by acknowledged giants like Roosevelt and
>Churchill.
>Tim Cavanaugh, in a posting on the website of Reason magazine, has offered
>a
>partial list of such blunders and the lives that were lost because of them:
>"American Marines were slaughtered at Tarawa because the pre-invasion
>bombardment of the island was woefully deficient. Hundreds of American
>paratroopers were killed by American anti-aircraft fire during landings in
>Italy--for that matter the entire campaign up the Italian boot was an
>obvious waste of time, resources, and lives that prevented the western
>Allies from getting seriously into the war until the middle of 1944. . . .
>In late 1944, Allied commanders failed to anticipate that the Germans would
>attack through Belgium despite their having done so in 1914 and 1940." In
>brief, Cavanaugh concludes, "On any given week, World War II offered more
>[foul-ups] and catastrophes than anything that has been seen in postwar
>Iraq."
>And I would also still say, as I have said before, that the number of
>American casualties in Iraq is minimal as compared with the losses suffered
>in past wars: in World War II, 405,399; in Korea, 36,574; in Vietnam,
>58,209. Similarly, the mistakes--again assuming they were mistakes rather
>than debatable judgment calls--committed in the first year after the fall
>of
>Saddam were relatively inconsequential when measured against those made in
>the aftermath of the Allied victories over Germany and Japan.
>
>Several Iraqi bloggers, and many letters written by American soldiers in
>the
>field that have found their way onto the Internet, paint a very different
>picture. Like Arthur Chrenkoff, these close-range observers do not overlook
>the persistence of major problems, and they do not deny that we still have
>a
>long way to go before Iraq becomes secure, stable and democratic. But they
>document with great detail the amazing progress that has been made, even
>under the gun of Islamofascist terrorism, in building--from scratch--the
>political morale of a country ravaged by "posttotalitarian stress
>disorder,"
>in setting up the institutional foundations of a federal republic, in
>getting the economy moving, and in reconstructing the physical
>infrastructure.
>The columnist Max Boot, who has himself been free with charges of
>incompetence, and who takes the position that we should have put more
>troops
>into Iraq, can (like Eliot Cohen) see clearly through his own reservations
>to provide a good summary of the situation as it now stands:
>For starters, one can point to two successful elections . . ., on Jan. 30
>and Oct. 15, in which the majority of Iraqis braved insurgent threats to
>vote. The constitutional referendum in October was particularly significant
>because it marked the first wholesale engagement of Sunnis in the political
>process. . . . This is big news. The most disaffected group in Iraq is
>starting to realize that it must achieve its objectives through ballots,
>not
>bullets.
>Moving on to the economy, Mr. Boot (relying on a Brookings Institution
>report) tells us that "for all the insurgents' attempts to sabotage the
>Iraqi economy," per capita income has doubled since 2003 and is now 30%
>higher than it was before the war; that the Iraqi economy is projected to
>grow at a whopping 16.8% in 2006; and that there are five times as many
>cars
>on the streets than in Saddam Hussein's day, five as many more telephone
>subscribers, and 32 times as many Internet users.
>Finally, Mr. Boot points out that whereas not a single independent media
>outlet existed in Iraq before 2003, there are now 44 commercial TV
>stations,
>72 radio stations, and more than 100 newspapers.
>To all of this we can add the 3,404 public schools, 304 water and sewage
>projects, 257 fire and police stations, and 149 public-health facilities
>that had been built as of September 2005, with another 921 such projects
>currently under construction.
>As for the military front, a November 2005 report by the Committee on the
>Present Danger cites an example of what is being accomplished by American
>troops:
>In the recent Operation Steel Curtain on the Syrian border, our troops
>detained more than 1,000 suspected insurgents. One hundred weapons caches
>were found and cleared. Since January, 116 of Zarqawi's lieutenants have
>been killed or captured.
>The CPD report also notes the steady strengthening of the Iraqi armed
>forces, and the increasing degree of responsibility they are assuming in
>the
>fight against the insurgency:
>[Since July] Iraq's armed forces . . . have added 22 new battalions, and
>5,500 police-service personnel have been trained and equipped (as have some
>2,000 special-police commanders). Coalition senior officers report that 80
>Iraqi battalions now are able to fight alongside our troops and 36 are
>"generally able to conduct independent operations." More than 20 of the
>coalition's forward-operating bases have been turned over to the Iraqi
>army.
>The CPD supports the campaign in Iraq. Anthony H. Cordesman of the Center
>for Strategic and International Studies is (to put it mildly) unfriendly to
>the Bush Doctrine and all its works. But Mr. Cordesman concurs with the CPD
>assessment. Citing slightly different statistics, he notes
>continued increase in the number of Iraqi units able to take the lead in
>combat operations against the insurgency . . . progress of Iraqi units in
>assuming responsibility for the battle space . . . [and] continued increase
>in the number of units and individuals trained, equipped, and formed into
>operational status.
>What this means in concrete terms is laid out by Newsweek's Fareed Zakaria,
>also no great admirer of how the Bush administration has conducted the Iraq
>campaign:
>For two years, when reporters would ask how it was possible that the
>mightiest military in history could not secure a five-kilometer stretch of
>road, the military responded with long, jargon-filled lectures. . . . Then
>one day this summer the military was ordered to secure the road. . . .
>Presto. Using Iraqi forces, the road was secured. Similar strategies have
>made cities like Najaf, Mosul, Tal Afar and even Falluja much safer today
>than they were a year ago.
>
>Why is there so little public awareness of these things? One young
>reporter,
>who proudly proclaims his membership in the mainstream media, has been only
>too happy to provide an explanation:
>As long as American soldiers are getting killed nearly every day, we're not
>going to be giving much coverage to the opening of multimillion dollar
>sewage projects. American lives are worth more than Iraqi shit.
>Observe, in this clever and brutal formulation, the professed concern with
>American casualties. From it, one might imagine that the statement is
>worlds
>away from the hostility to American military power--and to America in
>general--that pervaded the radical left in the 1960s and that in a milder
>liberal mutation came to be known as the "post-Vietnam syndrome." And it is
>certainly true that the antiwar movement spawned by Vietnam rarely had a
>tear to shed for the American lives that were being lost there. But the
>newfound tenderness toward our troops in Iraq does not in the least reflect
>a change in attitude toward the use of force by the United States. To the
>contrary, the relentless harping on American casualties by the mainstream
>media is part of an increasingly desperate effort to portray Iraq as
>another
>Vietnam: a foolish and futile (if not immoral and illegal) resort to
>military power in pursuit of a worthless (if not unworthy) goal.
>Mark Twain once famously said that reports of his death were greatly
>exaggerated. So it was, in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, with the
>post-Vietnam syndrome. During those early weeks, a number of commentators
>were quick to proclaim the birth of an entirely new era in American
>history.
>What Dec. 7, 1941 had done to the isolationism of old, they announced,
>Sept.
>11, 2001 had done to the Vietnam syndrome. Politically speaking, it was
>dead, and the fallout from the Vietnam War--namely, the hostility to
>America
>and especially to American military power--would follow it into the grave.
>As is evident from the coverage of Iraq in the mainstream media, such
>pronouncements were more than a little premature: the Vietnam syndrome is
>still alive and well. But equally apparent is that the reporters and
>editors
>to whom it is a veritable religion understand very clearly that success in
>Iraq could deal the Vietnam syndrome a mortal blow. Little wonder, then,
>that they have so resolutely tried to ignore any and all signs of
>progress--or, when that becomes impossible, to dismiss them as so much
>"shit."
>This, however, is at least a kind of tribute to our progress, if a perverse
>one. The same cannot be said of the opponents of the Bush Doctrine in the
>universities and think tanks, who are unwilling even to acknowledge that
>more and better things are happening in Iraq and the broader Middle East
>than are dreamed of in their philosophy.
>Take Zbigniew Brzezinski, who left the academy to serve as Jimmy Carter's
>national security adviser and is now a professor again. In a recently
>published piece entitled "American Debacle," Mr. Brzezinski began by
>accusing George W. Bush of "suicidal statecraft," went on to pronounce the
>intervention in Iraq (along with everything else this president has done) a
>total disaster, and ended by urging that we withdraw from that country
>"perhaps even as early as next year." Unlike the late Sen. George Aiken of
>Vermont, who once proposed that we declare victory in Vietnam and then get
>out, Mr. Brzezinski wants to declare defeat in Iraq and then get out. This,
>he mysteriously assures us, will help restore "the legitimacy of America's
>global role."
>Now I have to admit that I find it a little rich that George W. Bush should
>be accused of "suicidal statecraft" by, of all people, the man who in the
>late 1970s helped shape a foreign policy that emboldened the Iranians to
>seize and hold American hostages while his boss in the Oval Office stood
>impotently by for almost six months before finally authorizing a rescue
>operation so inept that it only compounded our national humiliation.
>And where was Mr. Brzezinski--famed at the time for his anticommunism--when
>the President he served congratulated us on having overcome our "inordinate
>fear of communism"? Where was Mr. Brzezinski--known far and wide for his
>hard-line determination to resist Soviet expansionism--when Cyrus Vance,
>the
>then secretary of state, declared that the Soviet Union and the United
>States had "similar dreams and aspirations," and when Mr. Carter himself
>complacently informed us that containment was no longer necessary? And how
>was it that, despite daily meetings with Mr. Brzezinski, Mr. Carter
>remained
>so blind to the nature of the Soviet regime that the invasion of
>Afghanistan, as he himself would admit, taught him more in a week about the
>nature of that regime than he had managed to learn in an entire lifetime?
>Had the cat gotten Mr. Brzezinski's tongue in the three years leading up to
>that invasion--the same tongue he now wags with such confidence at George
>W.
>Bush?
>
>But even if Mr. Brzezinski's record over the past 30 years did not
>disqualify him from dispensing advice on how to conduct American foreign
>policy, this diatribe against Mr. Bush would by itself be enough. For here
>he looks over the Middle East, and what does he see? He sees the United
>States being "stamped as the imperialistic successor to Britain and as a
>partner of Israel in the military repression of the Arabs." This may not be
>fair, he covers himself by adding; but not a single word does he say to
>indicate that the British created the very despotisms the United States is
>now trying to replace with democratic regimes, or that George W. Bush is
>the
>first American president to have come out openly for a Palestinian state.
>Again Mr. Brzezinski looks over the Middle East, and what does he see? He
>sees the treatment of prisoners in Abu Ghraib, and by extension Guantanamo,
>causing the loss of America's "moral standing" as a "country that has stood
>tall" against "political repression, torture, and other violations of human
>rights." And that is all he sees--quite as though we never liberated
>Afghanistan from the theocratic tyranny of the Taliban, or Iraq from the
>fascist despotism of Saddam Hussein. But how, after all, when it comes to
>standing tall against "political repression, torture, and other violations
>of human rights," can such achievements compare with a sanctimonious
>lecture
>by Jimmy Carter followed by the embrace of one Third World dictator after
>another?
>Then for a third time Mr. Brzezinski looks over the Middle East, and what
>does he see? He sees more and more sympathy for terrorism, and more and
>more
>hatred of America, being generated throughout the region by our actions in
>Iraq; and in this context, too, that is all he sees. About the momentous
>encouragement that our actions have given to the forces of reform that
>never
>dared act or even speak up before, he is completely silent--though it is a
>phenomenon that even so inveterate a hater of America as the Lebanese
>dissident Walid Jumblatt has found himself compelled to recognize. Thus,
>only a few months after declaring that "the killing of U.S. soldiers in
>Iraq
>is legitimate and obligatory," Mr. Jumblatt suddenly woke up to what those
>U.S. soldiers had actually been doing for the world in which he lived:
>It's strange for me to say it, but this process of change has started
>because of the American invasion of Iraq. I was cynical about Iraq. But
>when
>I saw the Iraqi people voting [in January 2005], eight million of them, it
>was the start of a new Arab world.
>The columnist Michael Barone has listed some of the developments that bear
>out Jumblatt's judgment:
>[The] progress toward democracy in Iraq is leading Middle Easterners to
>concentrate on the question of how to build decent governments and decent
>societies. We can see the results--the Cedar Revolution in Lebanon, the
>first seriously contested elections in Egypt, Libya's giving up WMD's, the
>Jordanian protests against Abu Musab Zarqawi's recent suicide attacks, and
>even a bit of reform in Saudi Arabia.
>Even in Syria, reports the Washington Post's David Ignatius:
>People talk politics . . . with a passion I haven't heard since the 1980s
>in
>Eastern Europe. They're writing manifestos, dreaming of new political
>parties, trying to rehabilitate old ones from the 1950s.
>And not only in Syria. As the democratic activist Saad Eddin Ibrahim, who,
>like Mr. Jumblatt, originally opposed the invasion of Iraq, told Mr.
>Ignatius's colleague Jim Hoagland:
>Those [in the Middle East] who believe in democracy and civil society are
>finally actors . . . [because the invasion of Iraq] has unfrozen the Middle
>East, just as Napoleon's 1798 expedition did. Elections in Iraq force the
>theocrats and autocrats to put democracy on the agenda, even if only to
>fight against us. Look, neither Napoleon nor President Bush could
>impregnate
>the region with political change. But they were able to be midwives.
>Nor are such changes confined to the political sphere alone. According to a
>report in The Economist, a revulsion against terrorism has begun to spread
>among Muslim clerics, including some who, like the secular Mr. Jumblatt,
>were only recently applauding its use against Americans:
>Moderate Muslim clerics have grown increasingly concerned at the abuse of
>religion to justify killing. In Saudi Arabia, numerous preachers once famed
>for their fighting words now advise tolerance and restraint. Even so rigid
>a
>defender of suicide attacks against Israel . . . as Yusuf Qaradawi, the
>star
>preacher of the popular al-Jazeera satellite channel, denounces bombings
>elsewhere and calls on the perpetrators to repent.
>Zbigniew Brzezinski may be wrongheaded, but he is neither blind nor stupid.
>Why, then, his willful silence in the face of all these signs of progress?
>I
>can only interpret it as the product of a rising panic. No less than the
>denizens of the mainstream media, he is desperately struggling to salvage a
>worldview that, like theirs, should have been but was not killed off by
>9/11
>and that, like theirs, may well suffer a truly mortal blow if the Bush
>Doctrine passes through the great test of fire it is undergoing in Iraq.
>
>Mr. Brzezinski's worldview is a syncretistic mix of foreign-policy realism
>(with its emphasis on stability and the sanctity of national borders) and
>liberal internationalism (with its unshakable faith in compromise,
>consensus
>and international institutions). In this he differs somewhat from another
>former national security adviser, Brent Scowcroft, a Republican who
>occupied
>the office under George W. Bush's father and whose own commitment to the
>realist perspective is pure and unadulterated.
>In spite of this difference, the two men are at one in regarding the war in
>Iraq as a disastrous distraction from the really important business to
>which
>we should be attending in the Middle East--namely, the conflict between
>Israel and the Palestinians. In an article published some months before the
>invasion and entitled "Don't Attack Saddam," Mr. Scowcroft wrote:
>Possibly the most dire consequence [of attacking Saddam] would be the
>effect
>in the region. The shared view in the region is that Iraq is principally an
>obsession of the U.S. The obsession of the region, however, is the
>Israeli-Palestinian conflict. If we were seen to be turning our backs on
>that bitter conflict, there would be an explosion of outrage against us.
>Evidently he still holds to this view. So does Mr. Brzezinski, who attacks
>"the Bush team" for having transformed "a manageable, though serious,
>challenge of largely regional origin into an international debacle," and
>who
>urges us to get out of Iraq, the sooner the better, so that we can shift
>our
>focus back to where it really belongs--"the Israeli-Palestinian peace
>process."
>Well, whether the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians is truly
>"the
>obsession of the region" or, rather, a screen for other things, it
>certainly
>is the obsession of Messrs. Brzezinski and Scowcroft, as it is of almost
>everyone else who looks at the Middle East from the so-called realist
>perspective and to whom stability is the great desideratum. Even from that
>perspective, however, the nonstop preoccupation with Israel would seem to
>be
>warranted only if the conflict with the Palestinians were the main cause of
>instability throughout the region.
>This is indeed what Messrs. Brzezinski, Scowcroft, and most other members
>of
>the realist school believe. (But not Henry Kissinger, the leading realist
>of
>them all. Even though he is skeptical about the possibility of
>democratizing
>the Middle East, Mr. Kissinger favored the invasion of Iraq and thinks that
>victory there is essential. Nor does he believe that the war between the
>Palestinians and Israel is the most important problem in the world, or even
>in the Middle East.)
>Yet the realities to which the realists are so deferential in the abstract
>make utter nonsense of this idea. Since the birth of Israel in 1948, there
>have been something like two dozen wars in the Middle East (variously
>involving Egypt, Yemen, Lebanon, Syria, Iran and Iraq) that have had
>nothing
>whatever to do with the Jewish state, or with the Palestinians. In one of
>these alone--the Iran-Iraq war of 1980-88--more lives were lost than in all
>the wars involving Israel put together.
>The obsessive animus against Israel goes hand in hand with the overall
>strategy for dealing with the Middle East that prevailed before 9/11, and
>to
>which Messrs. Brzezinski and Scowcroft are still married, heart and soul
>and
>mind. The best and most succinct description of that strategy was given by
>President Bush himself in explaining why 9/11 had driven him to reject it
>in
>favor of a radically different approach:
>For decades free nations tolerated oppression in the Middle East for the
>sake of stability. In practice, this approach brought little stability and
>much oppression, so I have changed this policy.
>And again:
>In the past, . . . longstanding ties often led us to overlook the faults of
>local elites. Yet this bargain did not bring stability or make us safe. It
>merely bought time, while problems festered and ideologies of violence took
>hold.
>We learn from Jeffrey Goldberg of The New Yorker that, when Condoleezza
>Rice
>quoted these words to Scowcroft (her former mentor), he responded that the
>policy Bush was rejecting had actually brought us "50 years of peace."
>(What, asked James Taranto of The Wall Street Journal, "do you call
>someone"
>who can describe the many wars that have been fought in the Middle East in
>the past five decades as "50 years of peace"? Mr. Taranto's sardonic
>answer:
>"A 'realist.' ")
>In addition to remaining convinced that the old way of doing things was
>right, Mr. Scowcroft is utterly disdainful of the new approach being
>followed by George W. Bush, which (as I like to describe it) is to make the
>Middle East safe for America by making it safe for democracy. "I believe,"
>he told Jeffrey Goldberg, "that you cannot with one sweep of the hand or
>the
>mind cast off thousands of years of history." But the despotisms in the
>Middle East are not thousands of years old, and they were not created by
>Allah or the Prophet Muhammad. All of them were established after World War
>I--that is, less than a century ago--by the British and the French.
>This being the case, there is nothing "utopian" about the idea that such
>regimes--planted with shallow roots by two Western powers--could be
>uprooted
>with the help of a third Western power, and that a better political system
>could be put in their place. And, in fact, this is exactly what has been
>happening before our very eyes in Iraq. In the span of three short years,
>Iraq, liberated by the United States from the totalitarian tyranny of
>Saddam
>Hussein, has taken one giant step after another toward democratization. Yet
>Mr. Scowcroft can still assure us that "you're not going to democratize
>Iraq," and certainly not "in any reasonable time frame."
>As with Mr. Brzezinski, so again it seems that nothing else but panic can
>explain so astonishing a degree of denial.
>
>Like the mainstream media and the theorists in the academy and the think
>tanks, the Democratic Party--fearing that it might be frozen out of power
>for a very long time to come--is also in a panic over the signs that George
>W. Bush's new approach to the greater Middle East is on the verge of
>passing
>the test of Iraq. Hence the veritable hysteria with which the Democrats
>have
>recently tried to delegitimize the war: first by claiming (three years
>after
>the fact!) that it had begun with a lie, and then by declaring that it was
>ending in a defeat. Leaning heavily on the turn in public opinion largely
>brought about by reports in the mainstream media and the lucubrations of
>the
>theorists, the Democrats--with the notably honorable exception of Sen.
>Joseph Lieberman--now joined in by clamoring openly for a withdrawal of
>American forces from Iraq.
>A goodly number of these Democrats (party chairman Howard Dean and Rep.
>Cynthia McKinney, to name only two) are the "Tories" of today, in the sense
>of having from the very beginning stood openly and unambiguously against
>the
>revolution in foreign policy represented by the Bush Doctrine and now being
>put to the test in Iraq. But a much larger number of Democrats fit more
>smoothly into Tom Paine's category of "disguised" Tories. These are the
>congressmen and senators who in their heart of hearts were against the
>resolution authorizing the president to use force against Saddam Hussein,
>but who--given the state of public opinion at the time--feared being
>punished at the polls unless they voted for it. Now, however, with public
>opinion moving in the other direction, they have been emboldened to "show
>their heads."
>Finally, we have a certain number of Democrats who correspond to "the
>summer
>soldiers and the sunshine patriots" of the American Revolution. One of them
>is Rep. John Murtha, who backed the invasion of Iraq because (to give him
>the benefit of the doubt) he really thought it was the right thing to do,
>but who has now bought entirely into the view that all is lost and that the
>only sensible course is to turn tail:
>The war in Iraq is . . . a flawed policy wrapped in illusion. . . . Our
>military is suffering. The future of our country is at risk. We cannot
>continue on the present course. It is evident that continued military
>action
>is not in the best interests of the United States of America, the Iraqi
>people, or the Persian Gulf region. . . . Our troops have become the
>primary
>target of the insurgency. They are united against U.S. forces and we have
>become a catalyst for violence. U.S. troops are the common enemy of the
>Sunnis, Saddamists, and foreign jihadists. . . . Our military has done
>everything that has been asked of them, the U.S. cannot accomplish anything
>further in Iraq militarily. It is time to bring them home.
>It seems never to have occurred to Mr. Murtha that talk of this kind could
>only confuse and demoralize the troops for whose welfare, and for whose
>sufferings, he expresses such concern. By all accounts, those troops are
>very proud of what they are accomplishing in Iraq. How then could they not
>be confounded when a respected congressman--a former Marine, no
>less--declares that they have been fighting for nothing, nothing
>whatsoever,
>and when for saying so he gets a standing ovation from his fellow
>Democrats?
>How could they not be demoralized to be told that there is no point in
>going
>on because their very presence in Iraq is making things worse for everyone
>concerned?
>And how, by the same token, could talk of this kind fail to give new heart
>to the Islamofascist terrorists--just when they are on the run? How could
>they not be delighted to see the elected representatives of the American
>people carrying on a heated debate in which the only questions at issue are
>how quickly to bug out of Iraq, and whether to fix a timetable and a
>deadline? How could they not feel vindicated when, after being surprised by
>the fierce reaction of the Americans to 9/11, they now behold fresh
>evidence
>for believing that Osama bin Laden was right after all when he called us a
>paper tiger?
>On the other hand, if (as the president intended all along, as he
>reiterated
>in his great speech of Nov. 30 at Annapolis, and as is prescribed in the
>recently declassified "National Strategy for Victory in Iraq") American
>forces are drawn down only at the rate and to the extent that they can be
>replaced with similar numbers of Iraqi soldiers and policemen fully capable
>of taking over, the joy now being felt by the Islamofascists will
>commensurately be replaced by dread. For no one knows better than they
>that,
>once up to snuff and on their own, the new Iraqi forces will be less
>inhibited than the Americans by moral considerations and accordingly much
>more ruthless in the way they fight.
>
>Tom Paine grew so disgusted with "the mean principles that are held by the
>Tories," with the hypocrisy of the disguised Tories, and with the shrinking
>from hardship of the summer soldiers and the sunshine patriots of 1776-77
>that he finally gave up trying to persuade them:
>I have been tender in raising the cry against these men, and used
>numberless
>arguments to show them their danger, but it will not do to sacrifice a
>world
>to either their folly or their baseness.
>And so, "quitting this class of men . . . who see not the full extent of
>the
>evil that threatens them," Paine turned "to those who have nobly stood, and
>are yet determined to stand the matter out," and rested his hopes on them.
>These hopes, we know and thank God for it, were not disappointed. And
>neither will be the hopes of those today who likewise see "the full extent
>of the evil that threatens" us; who understand the necessity of the war
>that
>our country has been waging against it; who recognize the moral, political,
>and intellectual boldness of how George W. Bush has chosen to fight this
>war; and who take pride in the nobility of what the United States, at whose
>birth Tom Paine assisted, is now, more than 200 years later, battling to
>achieve in Iraq and, in the fullness of time, in the entire region of which
>Iraq is so crucial a part.
>Mr. Podhoretz is editor-at-large of Commentary
><http://www.commentarymagazine.com/>  and author of 10 books, most recently
>"The Norman Podhoretz Reader," edited by Thomas L. Jeffers (Free Press,
>2004). This article will appear in Commentary's January issue.
>
>and Privacy Policy <http://www.opinionjournal.com/about/privacy.html> .
>
>
>
>December 12, 2005
>10:44am EST
>
>
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From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Thu Dec 15 13:29:47 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (mblaxill@yahoo.com)
Date: Thu Dec 15 13:40:39 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Headlines for December 15, 2005
Message-ID: <20051215212947.18764.qmail@trinity.democracynow.org>

Mike Blaxill  ( mblaxill@yahoo.com )
sent you this story from democracynow.org




+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
|  Headlines for December 15, 2005
|  http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/15/155211
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+


- Parliamentary Elections Open in Iraq 
- Bush Acknowledges Intel Mistakes But Defends Iraq War 
- Ahmadinejad: Nazi Holocaust a “Myth”, Israel Should Be Removed 
- Israeli Strikes Kill Four Palestinians in Gaza 
-  Over 77,000 Katrina Home Loan Applications Rejected 
- Patriot Act Moves to Senate as House Approves Renewal 
- Bloomberg Pushing For Heavy Fines Ahead of Possible Transit Strike 
- US Government Denies Entry Permit to Cuban Baseball Team 
- Congressmembers Press for Release of Rev. Jean-Juste 
This story continues at: 
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/15/155211

From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Thu Dec 15 13:33:53 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (mblaxill@yahoo.com)
Date: Thu Dec 15 13:44:55 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Scientist Faked Stem Cell Study,
	Associate Says
Message-ID: <20051215213353.234BB83C9B@lax-gw03.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: mblaxill@yahoo.com.

SCIENCE | December 15, 2005
Scientist Faked Stem Cell Study, Associate Says
By CHOE SANG-HUN International Herald Tribune
Hwang Woo Suk faked a landmark research paper, one of his South Korean co-authors said today in television and newspaper interviews.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/15/science/15cnd-clone.html?emc=eta1



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From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Thu Dec 15 13:39:25 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (mblaxill@yahoo.com)
Date: Thu Dec 15 13:50:19 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Congress May Block Plan for a Wind Farm in
	Nantucket Sound
Message-ID: <20051215213925.0CF6F11F775@lax-gw07.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: mblaxill@yahoo.com.

WASHINGTON | December 15, 2005
Congress May Block Plan for a Wind Farm in Nantucket Sound
By CORNELIA DEAN
Part of a Coast Guard budget bill would prohibit new offshore wind facilities within 1.5 nautical miles of a shipping lane or a ferry route.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/15/politics/15wind.html?emc=eta1



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one Best Picture.  What did the original New York
Times movie reviews have to say about these Oscar
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From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Thu Dec 15 13:42:10 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (mblaxill@yahoo.com)
Date: Thu Dec 15 13:52:58 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Berlusconi Changes Rules to His Benefit
Message-ID: <20051215214210.491F69FC24@lax-gw05.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: mblaxill@yahoo.com.

the new normal - get, used to it 


INTERNATIONAL / EUROPE | December 15, 2005
Berlusconi Changes Rules to His Benefit
By IAN FISHER
Italy's prime minister realized the dream of politicians in electoral trouble: he rewrote the rules.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/15/international/europe/15italy.html?emc=eta1



----------------- Advertisement --------------------------

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one Best Picture.  What did the original New York
Times movie reviews have to say about these Oscar
winning films?  
Go to the Best Pictures review archive:

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From hecate at diamonddragon.com  Thu Dec 15 13:45:36 2005
From: hecate at diamonddragon.com (Hecate)
Date: Thu Dec 15 13:56:25 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] BBC E-mail: Black facing racketeering charge
Message-ID: <20051215_214536_034863.hecate@diamonddragon.com>

Hecate saw this story on BBC News Online and thought you
should see it.



** Black facing racketeering charge **
US prosecutors indict media tycoon Conrad Black on four further charges, including racketeering.
< http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/2/hi/business/4533418.stm >


** BBC Daily E-mail **
Choose the news and sport headlines you want - when you want them, all
in one daily e-mail
< http://www.bbc.co.uk/dailyemail/ >


** Disclaimer **
The BBC is not responsible for the content of this e-mail, and anything written in this e-mail does not necessarily reflect the BBC's views or opinions. Please note that neither the e-mail address nor name of the sender have?been verified.

If you do not wish to receive such e-mails in the future or want to know more about the BBC's Email a Friend service, please read our frequently asked questions. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/help/4162471.stm

From nwonline at toronto.cbc.ca  Thu Dec 15 16:18:34 2005
From: nwonline at toronto.cbc.ca (CBC News Online)
Date: Thu Dec 15 16:29:51 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] CBC News - MAKER OF MARLBORO LIGHTS DODGES $10.1 BILLION
	PAYMENT TO SMOKERS
Message-ID: <20051216001834.82C4269AFD@nmweb08.nm.cbc.ca>

This email has been sent to you by harry.sifton@sympatico.ca
The following is a news item posted on CBC NEWS ONLINE
at http://www.cbc.ca/news
____________________________________________________
MAKER OF MARLBORO LIGHTS DODGES $10.1 BILLION PAYMENT TO SMOKERS
WebPosted Thu Dec 15 16:59:03 2005

---The Illinois Supreme Court says Philip Morris doesn't have to pay
$10.1 billion US in damages to smokers who said they were defrauded
into thinking they were safer smoking "light" cigarettes such as
Marlboro Lights.

In a 4-2 ruling on Thursday, court said the tobacco company didn't
violate the Illinois Consumer Protection Act because that law
specifically shields companies from fraud claims based on statements that
are authorized by state or federal regulators.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission had given cigarette makers permission
to use the terms "light" and "low tar and nicotine," the court said.

The decision reversed a lower-court ruling that Philip Morris
intentionally deceived consumers about the hazards of smoking its
Marlboro and Cambridge Lights. It was not immediately clear whether the
decision would be appealed.

The case had encouraged lawyers to file similar class actions in other
states on behalf of light-cigarette smokers, especially those who
developed cancer and other diseases.

Decision boosts tobacco share prices

While far from ending tobacco companies' legal problems, the victory
seemed to be good for their share prices.

Philip Morris parent Altria Group Inc. ( NYSE:MO ) , which also owns
Kraft Foods, saw its stock gain $2.89 US on Thursday to $76.62. Reynolds
American Inc. ( NYSE:RAI ) was up 55 cents to $97.40.

In launching its appeal of the case, the Altria subsidiary had said:
"Philip Morris USA looks forward to the opportunity to convince the
Illinois Supreme Court that this case should never have been certified as
a class action, and that the judgment is inconsistent with the facts
presented at trial and with Illinois law."

Copyright (C) 2005 CBC. All rights reserved.
From nwonline at toronto.cbc.ca  Thu Dec 15 16:23:50 2005
From: nwonline at toronto.cbc.ca (CBC News Online)
Date: Thu Dec 15 16:34:44 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] CBC News - ACCURACY OF WIKIPEDIA MATCHES BRITANNICA,
	REVIEW SHOWS
Message-ID: <20051216002350.E7F5669AFD@nmweb08.nm.cbc.ca>

This email has been sent to you by harry.sifton@sympatico.ca
The following is a news item posted on CBC NEWS ONLINE
at http://www.cbc.ca/news
____________________________________________________
ACCURACY OF WIKIPEDIA MATCHES BRITANNICA, REVIEW SHOWS
WebPosted Thu Dec 15 12:24:08 2005

---Science articles in Wikipedia, the free online resource, are about as
accurate as those in Encyclopedia Britannica, Nature magazine says.

The British publication had independent reviewers assess the accuracy of
42 pairs of articles from both encyclopedias.

Novices, experts and professionals all voluntarily submit or edit
articles for Wikipedia. Britannica, meanwhile, charges for content and
pays staff to research and write articles in the established resource.


Reviewers assessed a range of scientific articles from both resources,
from Dolly the Sheep to Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and Archimedes'
principle on buoyancy.

"Only eight serious errors, such as misinterpretations of important
concepts, were detected in the pairs of articles reviewed, four from each
encyclopedia," the journal said.

"But reviewers also found many factual errors, omissions or misleading
statements: 162 and 123 in Wikipedia and Britannica, respectively."

Since Wikipedia was founded in 2001, it has collected close to two
million articles, including more than 850,000 in English.

Wikipedia has been criticized for posting a phoney entry purporting to be
a biography of John Siegenthaler, a retired journalist who was an aide in
the 1960s to attorney general Robert Kennedy.

"For a brief time, he was thought to have been directly involved in the
Kennedy assassinations of both John, and his brother, Bobby. Nothing was
ever proven," the joke entry said.

Wikipedia's publishers have introduced registration to try to discourage
abuse. Its open-source policy remains in place.

Nature's reviewer said Wikipedia articles were often poorly structured
and confusing, giving undue prominence to controversial theories.

Wikipedia posted a notice calling for contributors to correct errors and
said it was working to make its review process easier for those less
familiar with computers and the internet.

A spokesperson for Encyclopedia Britannica said they would review the
magazine's findings and correct errors.

A Nature editorial calls on its readers to help improve Wikipedia entries
by checking for errors or key omissions and fixing them, to make the site
a "comprehensive, accurate and up-to-date reference work that can be
accessed free from Manhattan to Mongolia."

Copyright (C) 2005 CBC. All rights reserved.
From drmhaatma at yahoo.com  Thu Dec 15 20:36:55 2005
From: drmhaatma at yahoo.com (Mha Atma Khalsa)
Date: Thu Dec 15 21:43:55 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Patriot Act Action
Message-ID: <E1En8D4-0000RW-Eb@smtpauth06.mail.atl.earthlink.net>

 Action Item 
  Six Senators (3 Democrats and 3 Republicans) are willing to filibuster  in the Senate when they start considering the Patriot Act extension on  Wednesday. Please support them by letting your Senators know that you  strongly oppose the Patriot Act extension. To send your message click  here: http://action.downsizedc.org/wyc.php?cid=31
  But don't stop there. We're at the last hour, and the need is urgent.  Please call - especially if you've already sent a message. The phone  numbers for your Senators are located on the campaign page, once you're  logged in. 
  
  Keep the call simple. Say you want to leave a message for the Senator.  Leave your name, city, and a simple statement. You can say, "I want the  Senator to vote against cloture, support the filibuster and oppose any  Patriot Act reauthorization bill." 
  
  

__________________________________________________
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http://mail.yahoo.com 
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From ean at sbcglobal.net  Thu Dec 15 20:30:26 2005
From: ean at sbcglobal.net (ean@sbcglobal.net)
Date: Thu Dec 15 21:46:19 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NBC news:  Is the Pentagon Spying on Americans?
Message-ID: <E1En8FT-0001UC-Fb@smtpauth06.mail.atl.earthlink.net>

Published on Tuesday, December 13, 2005 by NBC News
Is the Pentagon Spying on Americans?
Secret Database Obtained by NBC News Tracks ?Suspicious? 
Domestic Groups
by Lisa Myers, Douglas Pasternak, Rich Gardella and the NBC 
Investigative Unit
 http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/1213-10.htm

WASHINGTON - A year ago, at a Quaker Meeting House in Lake 
Worth, Fla., a small group of activists met to plan a protest of military 
recruiting at local high schools. What they didn't know was that their 
meeting had come to the attention of the U.S. military.

A secret 400-page Defense Department document obtained by NBC 
News lists the Lake Worth meeting as a ?threat? and one of more than 
1,500 ?suspicious incidents? across the country over a recent 10-month 
period.

?This peaceful, educationally oriented group being a threat is 
incredible,? says Evy Grachow, a member of the Florida group called 
The Truth Project.

?This is incredible,? adds group member Rich Hersh. ?It's an example 
of paranoia by our government,? he says. ?We're not doing anything 
illegal.?

The Defense Department document is the first inside look at how the 
U.S. military has stepped up intelligence collection inside this country 
since 9/11, which now includes the monitoring of peaceful anti-war and 
counter-military recruitment groups.

?I think Americans should be concerned that the military, in fact, has 
reached too far,? says NBC News military analyst Bill Arkin.

The Department of Defense declined repeated requests by NBC News 
for an interview. A spokesman said that all domestic intelligence 
information is ?properly collected? and involves ?protection of Defense 
Department installations, interests and personnel.? The military has 
always had a legitimate ?force protection? mission inside the U.S. to 
protect its personnel and facilities from potential violence. But the 
Pentagon now collects domestic intelligence that goes beyond 
legitimate concerns about terrorism or protecting U.S. military 
installations, say critics.

Four dozen anti-war meetings
The DOD database obtained by NBC News includes nearly four dozen 
anti-war meetings or protests (.PDF link), including some that have 
taken place far from any military installation, post or recruitment center. 
One ?incident? included in the database is a large anti-war protest at 
Hollywood and Vine in Los Angeles last March that included effigies of 
President Bush and anti-war protest banners. Another incident 
mentions a planned protest against military recruiters last December in 
Boston and a planned protest last April at McDonald?s National Salute 
to America?s Heroes ? a military air and sea show in Fort Lauderdale, 
Fla.

The Fort Lauderdale protest was deemed not to be a credible threat 
and a column in the database concludes: ?US group exercising 
constitutional rights.? Two-hundred and forty-three other incidents in 
the database were discounted because they had no connection to the 
Department of Defense ? yet they all remained in the database.

The DOD has strict guidelines (.PDF link), adopted in December 1982, 
that limit the extent to which they can collect and retain information on 
U.S. citizens.

Still, the DOD database includes at least 20 references to U.S. citizens 
or U.S. persons. Other documents obtained by NBC News show that 
the Defense Department is clearly increasing its domestic monitoring 
activities. One DOD briefing document stamped ?secret? concludes: 
?[W]e have noted increased communication and encouragement 
between protest groups using the [I]nternet,? but no ?significant 
connection? between incidents, such as ?reoccurring instigators at 
protests? or ?vehicle descriptions.?

The increased monitoring disturbs some military observers.

?It means that they?re actually collecting information about who?s at 
those protests, the descriptions of vehicles at those protests,? says 
Arkin. ?On the domestic level, this is unprecedented,? he says. ?I think 
it's the beginning of enormous problems and enormous mischief for 
the military.?

Some former senior DOD intelligence officials share his concern. 
George Lotz, a 30-year career DOD official and former U.S. Air Force 
colonel, held the post of Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for 
Intelligence Oversight from 1998 until his retirement last May. Lotz, 
who recently began a consulting business to help train and educate 
intelligence agencies and improve oversight of their collection process, 
believes some of the information the DOD has been collecting is not 
justified.

Make sure they are not just going crazy
?Somebody needs to be monitoring to make sure they are just not 
going crazy and reporting things on U.S. citizens without any kind of 
reasoning or rationale,? says Lotz. ?I demonstrated with Martin Luther 
King in 1963 in Washington,? he says, ?and I certainly didn?t want 
anybody putting my name on any kind of list. I wasn?t any threat to the 
government,? he adds.

The military?s penchant for collecting domestic intelligence is disturbing 
? but familiar ? to Christopher Pyle, a former Army intelligence 
officer.

?Some people never learn,? he says. During the Vietnam War, Pyle 
blew the whistle on the Defense Department for monitoring and 
infiltrating anti-war and civil rights protests when he published an 
article in the Washington Monthly in January 1970.

The public was outraged and a lengthy congressional investigation 
followed that revealed that the military had conducted investigations on 
at least 100,000 American citizens. Pyle got more than 100 military 
agents to testify that they had been ordered to spy on U.S. citizens ? 
many of them anti-war protestors and civil rights advocates. In the 
wake of the investigations, Pyle helped Congress write a law placing 
new limits on military spying inside the U.S.

But Pyle, now a professor at Mt. Holyoke College in Massachusetts, 
says some of the information in the database suggests the military 
may be dangerously close to repeating its past mistakes.

?The documents tell me that military intelligence is back conducting 
investigations and maintaining records on civilian political activity. The 
military made promises that it would not do this again,? he says.

Too much data?
Some Pentagon observers worry that in the effort to thwart the next 
9/11, the U.S. military is now collecting too much data, both 
undermining its own analysis efforts by forcing analysts to wade 
through a mountain of rubble in order to obtain potentially key nuggets 
of intelligence and entangling U.S. citizens in the U.S. military?s 
expanding and quiet collection of domestic threat data.

Two years ago, the Defense Department directed a little known 
agency, Counterintelligence Field Activity, or CIFA, to establish and 
?maintain a domestic law enforcement database that includes 
information related to potential terrorist threats directed against the 
Department of Defense.? Then-Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul 
Wolfowitz also established a new reporting mechanism known as a 
TALON or Threat and Local Observation Notice report. TALONs now 
provide ?non-validated domestic threat information? from military units 
throughout the United States that are collected and retained in a CIFA 
database. The reports include details on potential surveillance of 
military bases, stolen vehicles, bomb threats and planned anti-war 
protests. In the program?s first year, the agency received more than 
5,000 TALON reports. The database obtained by NBC News is 
generated by Counterintelligence Field Activity.

CIFA is becoming the superpower of data mining within the U.S. 
national security community. Its ?operational and analytical records? 
include ?reports of investigation, collection reports, statements of 
individuals, affidavits, correspondence, and other documentation 
pertaining to investigative or analytical efforts? by the DOD and other 
U.S. government agencies to identify terrorist and other threats. Since 
March 2004, CIFA has awarded at least $33 million in contracts to 
corporate giants Lockheed Martin, Unisys Corporation, Computer 
Sciences Corporation and Northrop Grumman to develop databases 
that comb through classified and unclassified government data, 
commercial information and Internet chatter to help sniff out terrorists, 
saboteurs and spies.

One of the CIFA-funded database projects being developed by 
Northrop Grumman and dubbed ?Person Search,? is designed ?to 
provide comprehensive information about people of interest.? It will 
include the ability to search government as well as commercial 
databases. Another project, ?The Insider Threat Initiative,? intends to 
?develop systems able to detect, mitigate and investigate insider 
threats,? as well as the ability to ?identify and document normal and 
abnormal activities and ?behaviors,?? according to the Computer 
Sciences Corp. contract. A separate CIFA contract with a small 
Virginia-based defense contractor seeks to develop methods ?to track 
and monitor activities of suspect individuals.?

?The military has the right to protect its installations, and to protect its 
recruiting services,? says Pyle. ?It does not have the right to maintain 
extensive files on lawful protests of their recruiting activities, or of their 
base activities,? he argues.

Lotz agrees.

?The harm in my view is that these people ought to be allowed to 
demonstrate, to hold a banner, to peacefully assemble whether they 
agree or disagree with the government?s policies,? the former DOD 
intelligence official says.

'Slippery slope'
Bert Tussing, director of Homeland Defense and Security Issues at the 
U.S. Army War College and a former Marine, says ?there is very little 
that could justify the collection of domestic intelligence by the Unites 
States military. If we start going down this slippery slope it would be too 
easy to go back to a place we never want to see again,? he says.

Some of the targets of the U.S. military?s recent collection efforts say 
they have already gone too far.

?It's absolute paranoia ? at the highest levels of our government,? 
says Hersh of The Truth Project.

?I mean, we're based here at the Quaker Meeting House,? says Truth 
Project member Marie Zwicker, ?and several of us are Quakers.?

The Defense Department refused to comment on how it obtained 
information on the Lake Worth meeting or why it considers a dozen or 
so anti-war activists a ?threat.?

? MSNBC 2005

###
-- 
You are currently on Mha Atma's Earth Action Network email list, 
option D (up to 3 emails/day).  To be removed, or to switch options 
(option A - 1x/week, option B - 3/wk, option C - up to 1x/day, option D - 
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"A war of aggression is the supreme international crime." -- Robert Jackson,
 former U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice and Nuremberg prosecutor

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From benjamin at youthlink.org  Thu Dec 15 19:21:09 2005
From: benjamin at youthlink.org (Benjamin Quinto)
Date: Thu Dec 15 21:46:48 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Center for Disease Control Advisory
Message-ID: <E1En8G1-0001kc-SZ@smtpauth06.mail.atl.earthlink.net>

please be careful with all these new diseases popping up...

  _____  

The Center for Disease Control has issued a warning about a new virulent
strain of Sexually Transmitted Disease. This disease is contracted through
dangerous and high risk behavior. The disease is called Gonorrhea Lectim
(pronounced "gonna re-elect him"). Many victims contracted it in 2004, after
having been screwed for the past 4 years, in spite of having taken measures
to protect themselves from this especially troublesome problem.

Cognitive sequelae of individuals infected with Gonorrhea Lectim include,
but are not limited to: Anti-social personality disorder traits; delusions
of grandeur with a distinct messianic flavor; chronic mangling of the
English language; extreme cognitive dissonance; inability to incorporate new
information; pronounced xenophobia; inability to accept responsibility for
actions; exceptional cowardice masked by acts of misplaced bravado
uncontrolled facial smirking; ignorance of geography and history; tendencies
toward creati ng evangelical theocracies; and a strong propensity for
categorical, all-or-nothing behavior.

The disease is sweeping Washington. Naturalists and epidemiologists are
amazed and baffled that this malignant disease originated only a few years
ago from some bush in Texas.

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From swiggard at comcast.net  Fri Dec 16 06:35:39 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Fri Dec 16 06:50:13 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Iraqi Vote Draws Big Turnout Of Sunnis - Washington Post
Message-ID: <43A2D0BB.9040003@comcast.net>

Iraqi Vote Draws Big Turnout Of Sunnis
Anti-U.S. Sentiment Is Motivator for Many

By Ellen Knickmeyer and Jonathan Finer
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, December 16, 2005; A01

BAGHDAD, Dec. 15 -- More than two years after the fall of Saddam 
Hussein, Sunni Arabs belatedly turned out in force to build a new Iraq, 
walking to polls by the hundreds of thousands Thursday for national 
elections that generated robust participation across the country's 
sectarian and ethnic divides.

The Sunni outpouring was a long-hoped-for victory for the Bush 
administration, concluding a U.S.-planned timeline aimed at establishing 
a government that will hold together after U.S. troops withdraw. An 
overwhelming number of Sunnis made clear, however, that they were drawn 
to the polls by their dislike of the U.S. occupation and Iraq's 
U.S.-supported, Shiite-led transitional government.

Though complete results from Iraq's 18 provinces might not be available 
for about two weeks, partial tallies from across Iraq suggested that 
Thursday's turnout was stronger than in most elections in Western 
nations. Election officials in cities of the Kurdish-populated north 
reported 70 percent participation. Voting among Shiite Muslims, the most 
enthusiastic participants in Iraqi democracy since Hussein's overthrow 
brought their majority to power, appeared as strong as in this year's 
two previous nationwide votes.

"It looks like a first step toward politics breaking out in the region," 
U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad declared, calling what appeared to be a 
comparatively free and fair vote a "qualitative" improvement for 
elections in the Islamic world.

The political achievement was not bloodless. Bombings and mortar attacks 
on polling centers killed eight Iraqi civilians and security personnel 
nationwide, including three children blown apart by mortar rounds near a 
voting station in the northern city of Tall Afar.

But at least one Iraqi insurgent group made good on a promised election 
day moratorium on attacks, even putting masked gunmen on the streets to 
guard voters against the foreign fighters of al Qaeda in Iraq and let 
the marginalized Sunni minority try to address grievances through 
ballots rather than bullets.

"This is our future. This is our destiny," Ammar Ahmed, a self-described 
supporter of the insurgency, said in Fallujah, a western Sunni city 
devastated by war. Tens of thousands there streamed to the polls. "If we 
don't want to live like this, we can't leave it to others," Ahmed said.

The elections will determine Iraq's first full-term National Assembly 
since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. The government to be formed by the 
four-year parliament will face nothing less than the remaking of Iraq: 
whether it should be a secular or strongly Islamic state; whether it 
will be unified or split into three or more sectarian and ethnic 
sub-regions; and whether it will have war or peace. Political violence 
since the current government took office in April has killed tens of 
thousands of Iraqis and hundreds of U.S. troops.

Khalilzad and Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), sporting souvenir 
purple-tipped fingers after dipping them in ink at a polling place in 
the Shiite city of Hilla, cautioned that the real test for any hopes of 
a U.S. troop withdrawal was whether the elections bring a representative 
government that can forge a constitution that unifies Iraq's factions. 
Biden said the United States would not find out the answer for another 
six months, at least, adding: "The question is whether we trade 
dictatorship for chaos."

The group expected to win the most votes was the United Iraqi Alliance, 
a coalition made up largely of the Shiite religious parties that hold a 
slim majority in the outgoing transitional parliament and lead the 
current coalition government. The alliance hopes to win enough of the 
next assembly's 275 seats to have a strong mandate for taking Iraq on a 
more religious path.

In the Shiite holy city of Najaf, nominally nonsectarian police used the 
loudspeakers in their cars to rally support for the Shiite religious 
parties. Far to the north, in Tall Afar, a policeman at one polling 
place displayed pictures of top Shiite politicians and religious figures 
on his uniform until the police chief, Fawaz Mahmood Issa, ordered him 
to remove them. "Do you work for a sect or for Iraq?" Issa asked.

The coalition led by Ayad Allawi, the former interim prime minister and 
secular Shiite who hopes to block the religious alliance's continuation 
in power, appeared to be doing well in Baghdad and perhaps stronger than 
expected in the Shiite-populated south. In the largely Sunni Arab west, 
however, support for Allawi was siphoned off by a host of small Sunni 
groups.

But the story was the Sunni vote. In Ramadi, a provincial capital 
reduced to cratered buildings and empty streets by two years of warfare 
between insurgents and U.S. forces, fighting on the day of Iraq's Oct. 
15 constitutional referendum kept turnout below 2 percent. More than 80 
percent turned out Thursday in Ramadi and other insurgent strongholds in 
far western Iraq's Upper Euphrates valley, estimated a Ramadi election 
official, Yaseen Nouri. The exceptions were towns along the Syrian 
border, he said, where U.S. military operations against insurgents had 
made refugees of local people.

Long lines formed outside voting centers in Ramadi on Thursday despite 
an insurgent bombing at 7 a.m., when polls opened nationwide. Masked 
guerrillas of the anti-U.S. Iraqi Islamic Army movement, wearing 
tracksuits and toting AK-47 assault rifles, went out among houses to 
encourage people to vote. Witnesses said the guerrillas told them: Do 
not be afraid, we will protect you.

In Tall Afar, where U.S. and Iraqi forces waged a major offensive 
against insurgents in September, men and women streamed toward heavily 
guarded polling sites, with wide lines stretching for blocks. The 
turnout of more than 76,000 was about four times the number who cast 
ballots in the October referendum, according to government tallies.

All 15 polling sites in and around Tall Afar remained open throughout 
the day, despite a series of seven mortar attacks targeting crowds of 
voters in largely Shiite neighborhoods.

One strike by 60mm mortar shells killed three children and wounded two 
north of a polling place in Tall Afar's Moalameen neighborhood. Voting 
continued at the site even as Iraqi police rushed the children to a 
nearby U.S. military base. Shops shut down and bystanders left the 
streets, but a thinned stream of voters continued to flow.

"They're trying to discourage the vote. It's not working, but it's a 
tragedy that the little kids got killed," said Lt. Col. Christopher 
Hickey, commander of 2nd Squadron, 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, based 
in Tall Afar. More than 1,000 U.S. troops -- including the cavalry 
squadron and several hundred paratroops -- backed up Iraqi police and 
soldiers securing the election sites. Tanks and Bradley Fighting 
Vehicles patrolled main roads, with civilian vehicle traffic banned in 
an effort to prevent car bombs.

"All my neighborhood is voting," said Mohammed Noon Abrahim, 53, a 
Sunni. "God willing, after the elections things will be good."

In Fallujah, children played soccer in the streets and crowds gathered 
in and around polling places, enjoying the three-day traffic ban and the 
release brought by voting.

"Right now, the city is experiencing a democratic celebration," said 
Dari Abdul Hadi Zubaie, the mayor, who compared it to a wedding.

Many of those who cast ballots in the city of about 250,000, west of 
Baghdad in Anbar province, said they considered voting an act of 
resistance against the continued presence of U.S. Marines in Fallujah. 
On Thursday, polling sites were protected by Iraqi police, while Marines 
withdrew to a perimeter no closer than 100 yards away.

"The main thing I want is the Americans to get out. Maybe they can stay 
on their bases for a little while and out of the city, but before long 
they should leave Iraq," said Hakim Rashid, 30, who with his younger 
brother Ahmad voted for the Tawafaq slate, a Sunni religious coalition 
led by the Iraqi Islamic Party.

Within hours of the polls opening, however, several sites ran out of 
ballots and ballot boxes. As election workers scrambled to arrange for 
more to be delivered, many potential voters were turned away. At midday 
in Ramadi, mosque loudspeakers called people back to the polls after 
election workers replenished stacks of ballots.

In Fallujah and Baghdad, several people complained that their names were 
not on the list of registered voters and asserted that the various 
problems were part of a deliberate attempt by the Shiite-led government 
to suppress the Sunni vote.

"I am 100 percent sure this was intentional, because despite what they 
say, they don't want us to participate," said Omar Hussein, 65, a 
retired teacher who, along with 10 family members, walked to five 
different polling stations and could not find their names. They had 
voted without incident in the country's Oct. 15 constitutional 
referendum, he said.

In Basra, a Shiite city at Iraq's southern tip, conversations with 
voters and an exit poll conducted by local newspapers suggested the 
Shiite alliance would score a decisive victory in the south.

The newspaper poll, based on interviews with voters leaving the polls in 
four southern provinces, showed the Shiite alliance leading Allawi's 
party 2 to 1. That would be a stronger showing for Allawi than he had 
expected in the south and would potentially strengthen his hand in 
trying to form a coalition with enough seats in the parliament to form a 
government.

Basra officials acknowledged the election there was being held under the 
dominating influence of Shiite factional militias, which permeate the 
ranks of the local police. An independent, secular candidate, Majid 
Sari, said he worried that the police would intimidate observers posted 
at polls to ensure the balloting was fair.

"We are quite afraid of election fraud and forgery," he said after a 
morning tour of polling stations. "The places are full of Iraqi police, 
and the observers are afraid of them."

Many voters in Basra said they were voting for the Shiite alliance on 
the advice of leading clerics, called the marjaiya . "I vote for them 
because the marjaiya said so," said Yusef Ibrahim Abbas, 51, an oil 
engineer dressed in gray traditional robes, as he cast his vote Thursday 
morning.

Secular candidates were hoping that such public declarations were for 
show and that voters would express dissatisfaction with religious 
candidates when they marked their secret ballots.

Even among voters who disagreed on their choices, there was near 
unanimity on the desired goal: security. After more than two years of 
bombings and assassinations throughout Iraq, the word was on the tip of 
nearly every voter's tongue.

"I'm afraid to walk on the streets. It's not stable here," said Sana 
Abdul-Wahab, 29, a Sunni housewife. "In these historic days, what we 
need is stability and security."

Many of the voters shared Abdul-Wahab's sense of history and celebration.

Zaydan Khalif, 33, wrapped himself in the Iraqi flag as he headed to the 
polls. "It's the national feeling," he explained.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/15/AR2005121500228.html?referrer=email
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Fri Dec 16 06:42:03 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Fri Dec 16 06:55:47 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Democrats Criticize Bush For Saying DeLay's Innocent -
 Washington Post
Message-ID: <43A2D23B.4050004@comcast.net>

Democrats Criticize Bush For Saying DeLay's Innocent

By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, December 16, 2005; A04

Democratic leaders sternly criticized President Bush yesterday for 
saying former House majority leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) is innocent of 
felonious campaign finance abuses, suggesting his comments virtually 
amounted to jury tampering before DeLay stands trial.

"The president of the United States said a jury does not need to 
assemble, that Tom DeLay is innocent," said Senate Minority Leader Harry 
M. Reid (D-Nev.). "To have someone of his stature, the president of the 
United States, prejudge a case is something I've never seen before."

During an interview Wednesday on the Fox News Channel, Bush was asked 
whether he believes DeLay is innocent of the charges of money laundering 
and conspiracy that led to his indictment in Texas and resignation from 
the House Republican leadership in September. "Yes, I do," the president 
replied.

That response pushed the White House on the defensive yesterday. 
Administration officials have repeatedly deflected questions about other 
legal probes -- especially Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald's 
inquiry into the leaking of CIA operative Valerie Plame's name -- by 
saying they could not comment on ongoing investigations. White House 
spokesman Scott McClellan called the apparent inconsistency a 
"presidential prerogative."

"The president was asked a question and he responded to that question in 
the interview yesterday, and made very clear what his views were," 
McClellan said. "We don't typically tend to get into discussing legal 
matters of that nature, but in this instance, the president chose to 
respond to it. Our policy regarding the Fitzgerald investigation and 
ongoing legal proceeding is well-known and it remains unchanged."

"Call it a presidential prerogative," he added.

Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) fired back that Bush's comments on the 
DeLay investigation should free him to reveal who leaked Plame's name. 
Conservative columnist Robert D. Novak, who published Plame's identity 
in July 2003, suggested this week that Bush knows who in the White House 
leaked it.

Democrats yesterday charged that Republican leaders on both ends of 
Pennsylvania Avenue are going to extraordinary lengths to protect DeLay. 
Once the House adjourns for the year, it will not reconvene until the 
end of January, the latest reassembly since 1933, said House Minority 
Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). Pelosi contends that the timing is 
designed to protect DeLay from a challenge to his hope of reclaiming his 
leadership post.

Jessica Boulanger, a spokeswoman for acting Majority Leader Roy Blunt 
(R-Mo.), said the proposed Jan. 31 return date is only a few days later 
than those of recent congresses. It is "absolutely false" to say the 
date was picked with DeLay in mind, she said.

Boulanger said House members are in session unusually late this year, 
and need time at home. She also said the Senate will devote most of its 
time to a Supreme Court nomination in January, and thus the House would 
have little interaction with the other chamber.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/15/AR2005121501714.html?nav=hcmodule
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Fri Dec 16 06:45:09 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Fri Dec 16 06:59:00 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] MUST READ: The New Worn-Out Ideas - E. J. Dionne -
 washinton Post Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43A2D2F5.6080400@comcast.net>

The New Worn-Out Ideas

By E. J. Dionne Jr.
Friday, December 16, 2005; A35

Who is running out of ideas now?

It has been a cliche of American politics for more than two decades that 
those poor, tired liberals were bereft of big thoughts and wallowing in 
a swamp of old commitments, old ideas and old promises. Their allies in 
the Democratic Party were thought to be similarly geriatric.

In 1989 a headline in the Outlook section of The Post confidently 
rendered this diagnosis on the liberals: "Tired and Defensive, They're 
Out of Ideas." In 1997 Charles Bray, who was then president of the 
Johnson Foundation, argued that liberal anemia had created the opening 
for a conservative jolt. "[T]he entry of new ways of thinking into the 
American intellectual bloodstream after two generations of liberals' 
monopolizing the public-policy debate has been good for the country," 
Bray declared.

Let's accept -- for the sake of argument, but also because the critique 
contained some truth -- that at some point during the 1970s, liberalism 
became tiresome, arrogant, unreflective and hidebound. Let's further 
stipulate that this image gave conservatives their opening to seem 
fresh, creative, exciting and all those other virtues that marketers 
love to claim for their products.

It can be asserted beyond a reasonable doubt that each of the 
disapproving words about liberalism in the previous paragraph now 
applies to conservatism. The most compelling evidence for this is the 
contorted, contentious and incoherent struggle by Republicans in 
Congress to produce a budget.

The Republican leaders may or may not pass their cut-from-the-poor, 
give-to-the-rich budget. It takes a degree of political incompetence 
usually associated with Democrats for the side that wants to preserve 
the true spirit of Christmas to invite so many coal-in-the-stocking 
metaphors at this time of year.

But there is something more important about this failure. It marks the 
dead end of a worn, haggard argument that conservatives have been 
peddling for 30 years, ever since that energetic guru of supply-side 
economics, Jude Wanniski, published his first articles on the subject 
and his exciting 1978 manifesto, "The Way the World Works."

Supply-siders asserted that cutting taxes on the wealthy -- and 
especially on savings and investment -- would help everyone, including 
the poor, by promoting economic growth. Tax cuts would produce so much 
growth that they would pay for themselves. Since government programs 
were flawed, private investment was always more productive than 
government spending. And deficits, if they did come, need not worry us 
very much.

For many of us, this whole argument was always a highfalutin 
rationalization for giving the rich what they wanted, and often even 
more. Bill Clinton's economic policies should have definitively 
destroyed supply-side claims: Clinton raised taxes on the wealthy and 
cut the deficit, and an exceptional period of economic growth followed.

But it took until this moment in 2005 for Republicans themselves to 
realize (even if many won't acknowledge it yet) that the 
help-the-wealthy, damn-the-deficits approach doesn't hold together, 
either as policy or politics. They are learning that the public doesn't 
buy the idea that cutting taxes on dividends and capital gains should 
take priority over providing health coverage and child care for 
struggling Americans. The tax cuts, it turns out, don't pay for 
themselves. The poor have not fared well since the big supply-side tax 
cuts of 2001 and 2003.

And given how much Republicans want to spend on defense, farm subsidies, 
homeland security, roads, bridges, subsidies for energy companies, a 
flawed drug program for seniors and lots of other stuff, there's no way 
they can cut enough from programs for the poor to offset the costs of 
their tax giveaways.

As a result, the Republican Party is fracturing before our eyes. 
Moderate Republicans know these cuts in programs for the poor are 
unsustainable. Very conservative Republicans want to cut spending far 
more than the rest of the party (or its voters) will allow. Republican 
leaders tilt this way and that, juggling this tax cut with that spending 
cut. In the process, they alienate just about everybody. The old faith 
is dying.

It took liberals a long time -- too long -- to adjust to the popular 
sense all those years ago that they were just trying to sell the same 
old nostrums. I'd like to hope that today's graying of conservatism will 
invite liberals to a new era of innovation. What's clear is that if 
Republicans and conservatives keep trying to sell their long-playing 
supply-side records in the age of the iPod, they'll confine their 
audience to antiquarians and ideological hobbyists. It's the way the 
world works.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/15/AR2005121501439.html
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Fri Dec 16 06:48:01 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Fri Dec 16 07:01:54 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Stepping Back From Torture - David Ignatius - Washington
	Post Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43A2D3A1.6010405@comcast.net>

Stepping Back From Torture

By David Ignatius
Friday, December 16, 2005; A35

It's not about who our enemies are, it's about who we are. That has been 
Sen. John McCain's refrain as he campaigned for a ban on cruel 
interrogation techniques, and his success in convincing the Senate, the 
House and now President Bush may mark a small turning point for the 
country. The United States is beginning to find its way out of the moral 
thicket into which it stumbled after Sept. 11, 2001.

The strongest argument for the compromise McCain and Bush reached 
yesterday is, to my mind, a national security one. Bush realized that 
harsh negative perceptions of America abroad were harming the country. 
The torture issue had become the most noxious symbol of what the world 
saw as America's arrogant lawlessness. But to Bush, it was also a symbol 
of his vow to do whatever it took to make the United States safe. So the 
two most stubborn men in America, McCain and Bush, struggled to find 
language they could both live with.

I credit Bush for realizing that he had to give ground. He needed to do 
something on the torture issue to protect the country's standing in the 
world -- even something that he rightly believed carried risks for the 
United States. The man who famously never wants to change course or 
admit mistakes finally did both. In formally renouncing the 
anything-goes mentality that followed Sept. 11, he has begun restoring 
America's badly tarnished image.

And what of McCain, the man who felt the outrage of torture on his 
lacerated skin and broken bones in a Vietnamese prison? I think he 
sealed his place in American history this week, whatever happens to him 
down the road. He simply would not give up on this issue. He took it to 
the president personally in a phone call in early November, all but 
pleading with the White House to change course. Bush responded by 
instructing his national security adviser, Stephen Hadley, to begin 
confidential negotiations, something that wasn't easy for the garrulous 
McCain.

Some advocates of the torture ban have argued that we're not really 
giving anything up, because torture never works. If that were true, this 
wouldn't be a genuine moral choice. But in fact, America will lose some 
leverage in interrogations. There's no escaping the reality that people 
may die in future terrorist attacks because we have opted for a moral 
choice.

To understand what difference a ban on torture will make, I spoke this 
week with British sources about the interrogation techniques used 
against the Irish Republican Army in the early 1970s. The British were 
facing a hideous IRA bombing campaign, and to stop the bombers, the 
British army and police in Northern Ireland tried to squeeze information 
from their IRA prisoners.

The British recognized what every cop knows -- that interrogation is 
much easier if the prisoner is disoriented. So the British put hoods on 
their IRA prisoners, just as U.S. interrogators have done in Iraq. The 
British approved other, harsher methods: depriving IRA prisoners of 
sleep, making them lean against a wall for long periods, using "white 
noise" that would confuse them.

The clincher for British interrogators was mock execution. The preferred 
method in the mid-1970s was to take hooded IRA prisoners up in 
helicopters over the lakes near Belfast and threaten to throw them out 
if they didn't talk. Sometimes, they actually were thrown out. The 
prisoners didn't know that the helicopter was only a few yards above the 
water. I'm told that technique nearly always worked. (So, too, with the 
"waterboarding" that U.S. interrogators used to break al Qaeda leader 
Khalid Sheik Mohammed.) The British eventually had to give up their 
extreme techniques because of public outcry, and I'm told they got less 
information. But they eventually prevailed against the IRA.

What of the extreme case that should haunt us all, when an al Qaeda 
prisoner may know the location of a ticking nuclear bomb? Here, too, the 
right answer is the rule of law. Under the new rules, an aggressive 
interrogator who discovers information that prevents a nuclear attack 
may still be charged with a crime. But I doubt any judge or jury would 
ever convict him. That's the essence of a lawful society -- that hard 
decisions are left to courts, not to individuals. McCain got it exactly 
right when Newsweek asked him about this ultimate test. "You do what you 
have to do. But you take responsibility for it."

It's a long walk back from Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, but President 
Bush took a first step yesterday, prodded by the man who has been his 
greatest political rival. Their partnership, in itself, is encouraging.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/15/AR2005121501438.html
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Fri Dec 16 06:52:18 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Fri Dec 16 07:06:07 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Beyond 'Democratic Peace' - Susan E. Rice - Washington
	Post Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43A2D4A2.2020609@comcast.net>

Beyond 'Democratic Peace'

By Susan E. Rice
Friday, December 16, 2005; A35

As the joyous display of purple fingers in Iraq again attests, the 
national struggle for democracy is a moral good and, if it succeeds, a 
human triumph. But it is not by itself a victory for American national 
security. We need a policy based on the recognition that democracy in 
the Middle East and beyond is definitely desirable, maybe necessary but 
hardly sufficient to secure our future.

In an article on this page Dec. 11 ["The Promise of Democratic Peace"], 
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice argued that the "goal of our 
statecraft is to help create a world of democratic, well-governed states 
that can meet the needs of their citizens and conduct themselves 
responsibly in the international system."

She explains that transnational threats -- terrorism, weapons 
proliferation, crime and disease -- cross borders quickly and can 
inflict great harm on the United States. "Weak and failing states serve 
as global pathways that facilitate the spread" of these threats, she wrote.

Rice is dead right on all counts. Unfortunately, her solution to the 
challenge of weak states and transnational threats is at best inadequate.

Promoting freedom has become the cornerstone of the Bush 
administration's national security policy. Democracy and freedom are 
universal human aspirations as well as wise policy objectives that we 
should actively pursue. Democratic states are less likely to go to war 
with one another and more likely to govern responsibly.

Yet, the American people would be ill-advised to accept as axiomatic the 
premise that democracy alone will secure our future or eliminate terrorism.

The jury remains out over whether democracy in the Arab world would 
yield governments more supportive of U.S. interests, produce populaces 
less sympathetic to jihadists or prevent al Qaeda from pursuing its 
goals through terrorism. At stake is more than presidential rhetoric. 
Democracy promotion has become the sole and defining element of 
President Bush's long-term counterterrorism approach. That is why the 
administration has an obligation to go beyond assertion and demonstrate 
convincingly that its one-dimensional strategy will yield the desired 
result. If it cannot, the administration risks putting all of our 
security eggs in the wrong basket.

The Bush formula is flawed on another score: As Rice outlined it, its 
premise is that democracy will enable weak states to become capable of 
providing for their citizens, controlling their territory and 
effectively combating transnational threats. But fragile democracies 
that are impoverished remain prone to coups and civil conflict. They 
also lack resources and institutional capacity to act as responsible states.

 From Mali to Tanzania, from Bangladesh to Indonesia, poverty hobbles 
many nascent democracies, which cannot prevent terrorists from operating 
on their territory or contain outbreaks of disease. To strengthen weak 
states, we must do more than promote democracy. We must join with others 
to build state capacity, in substantial part by helping to alleviate 
poverty.

The administration's focus is also too limited geographically. The 
secretary said, referring to the Middle East: "In one region of the 
world . . . the problems emerging from the character of regimes are more 
urgent than in any other."

Perhaps, but unless we focus on building state capacity in other 
regions, we will fall far short in thwarting transnational threats, 
which can emanate from anywhere.

Finally, if freedom is key to our national security, why is the 
administration ambivalent about implementing this policy outside Iraq? 
The president's fiscal 2006 budget requested $30 million less for his 
Middle East Partnership Initiative than did the previous year's. That 
same budget also reduced democracy funds for the former Soviet Union.

When Rice visited Cairo this summer, she laid out tough benchmarks 
against which we would measure Egypt's electoral process. But last week, 
after Egypt's violent electoral sham, a State Department spokesman 
termed the overall process "positive" before expressing mild concern 
about its flaws.

These mixed signals must puzzle, if not deflate, democracy activists 
across the world.

The writer, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, was assistant 
secretary of state from 1997 to 2001. She will take questions at 1 p.m. 
today onhttp://www.washingtonpost.com.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/15/AR2005121501426.html?nav=hcmodule
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Fri Dec 16 07:08:14 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Fri Dec 16 07:22:03 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Feeling charitable - Ellen Goodman - Boston Globe Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43A2D85E.8050705@comcast.net>


  Feeling charitable

By Ellen Goodman  |  December 16, 2005  |  The Boston Globe

THE KITCHEN TABLE was set with the usual utensils for our annual family 
conference: A mug of coffee, a pot of tea, a stack of fund-raising 
requests, a checkbook, and a pen.

Our domestic scene was by no means unique. Americans donate around $250 
billion a year. We give half of it between Thanksgiving and Christmas, 
driven by seasonal good will and (blush) an IRS deadline. This week 
alone, thousands of families will put billions of dollars into sealed 
envelopes all destined to do good.

Though we are not, to put it mildly, Melinda and Bill Gates, my husband 
and I perform this ritual with some generosity and good feeling. But 
this year, as we shuffled through the requests, something clicked.

It occurred to me that we spend more time devising a financial strategy 
for our good retirement than for our good deeds. We spend more time 
researching a much-coveted espresso machine than we do many of the 
charities on the table. A family as feisty and independent as my own has 
been strikingly reactive when it comes to charity.

We are not alone in this either. The average American family gives 3.2 
percent of its income to charity. But the number one reason that people 
give to a charity is that they were asked, says Daniel Borochoff of the 
American Institute of Philanthropy, who adds, ''People are too passive."

Maybe it's the series of disasters from tsunamis to hurricanes to 
earthquakes. Maybe it's the war in Iraq that costs $2,000 a second. 
Maybe it's another round of proposed budget cuts for the neediest. But 
this year it seems vital to make active and conscious decisions about 
what we give. Which doesn't make it easy.

Not far from my kitchen table is a dictionary that defines philanthropy 
as ''the effort or inclination to increase the well-being of humankind, 
as by charitable aid or donations." There are over a million nonprofit 
groups in this country, each one making its case for humankind. Picking 
charities, admits Borochoff, is ''a little like playing God." Albeit, 
God on a budget.

My own search for help in helping others sent me to a half-dozen 
philanthropy experts. For openers, they think donors should behave like 
savvy consumers. That doesn't just mean deleting the plea from some 
e-mail scam artist or being wary of slick alarmists. It means asking 
questions and using watchdog tools such as charitywatch.org or 
charitynavigator.org.

Their practical suggestions sounded like teachers: Do your homework. 
Their financial choices sounded like stock pickers: Give more money to 
fewer groups. As personal donors, they avoid the ''CNN effect," 
preferring unheralded groups from Indonesia to their own neighborhoods. 
But that still leaves the hardest question: How do you assess which 
groups best ''increase the well-being of humankind" anyway?

Think globally? Act locally? Do you ante up for meals to feed people or 
for advocacy groups trying to solve hunger? Do you support people who 
jump up and down or who work within the system? If you think about 
cancer, do you give money to the care or the cure? If you believe 
government should be responsible for poverty programs, should your 
dollars go to make up for cuts or to turn the cutters out of office?

Kathleen McCarthy at the Center for the Study of Philanthropy says, ''My 
first piece of advice is, trust your gut." She believes the value of 
wrestling through the options is the ethical conversation. ''This is a 
chance to sit down and ask yourself what you really care about. How do 
you think society should look? What's important for your country and 
your neighborhood? This is a good time of year to take stock."

There are adults who haven't had these conversations since midnight 
freshman seminars in ''How To Make A Difference" and children who've 
never had them. We rarely hear such talk in politics today. But the one 
voluntary economic decision we make in everyday life offers a chance to 
put our voice and values, our money and our morals, in the same place.

As for round two at my own kitchen table? I bring back a smaller, 
better-vetted list: Local groups where I see the need and the result. 
Social change advocates and agencies. Programs that are foreign but near 
to my heart -- and gut -- from Afghan schools for girls to family planning.

I am well aware that mine is just a drop in the bucket of need. There 
are 20 other buckets just as fine. But if we carefully pick and choose 
the moral target for the dollars we donate, who knows where we might 
focus next? Maybe even on our tax dollars.


http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/12/16/feeling_charitable/
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Fri Dec 16 07:10:41 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Fri Dec 16 07:25:24 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] SHOULD READ: Doctors and torture - Alan A. Stone -
 Boston Globe Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43A2D8F1.2090306@comcast.net>


  Doctors and torture

By Alan A. Stone  |  December 16, 2005  |  The Boston Globe

THERE IS GOOD REASON to believe that psychologists and psychiatrists 
have been involved in the cruel interrogations that have taken place in 
Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere in the war against terrorism. Both the 
American Psychological Association and the American Psychiatric 
Association have therefore made clear that it is unethical for members 
of their profession -- whether in the military or not -- to participate 
in torture. But that ethical injunction has little force unless there is 
a clear definition of what constitutes torture.

Are prolonged isolation, sexual humiliation, sleep deprivation, forced 
nudity, growling guard dogs, sensory deprivation, and strobe lights 
psychological torture? And what about using coercive methods based on 
psychiatric evaluations that reveal the fears, concerns, and anxieties 
of the detainee? Or having a Behavioral Science Consultation Team hidden 
behind a one-way mirror guiding interrogators on how best to exploit the 
vulnerabilities of a detainee?

According to the Physicians for Human Rights, all of these measures, 
which they describe as ''systematic psychological torture," have been 
used at Guantanamo Bay with the participation of psychologists, 
psychiatrists and other physicians. But until Secretary of State 
Condoleezza Rice's statement in Kiev last week, the American 
government's position was that none of these measures could be defined 
as torture or was forbidden by American law.

The now notorious Justice Department Bybee memorandum prepared in 2002 
for Counsel to the President Alberto Gonzales had declared that acts of 
interrogators ''may be cruel, inhumane, or degrading" but still not 
torture. The department set the bar for torture so high that almost any 
cruel measure would be permissible under US law. The memorandum's 
definition of the level of severe pain that had to be met for torture 
sounded particularly strange to physicians -- pain ''equivalent in 
intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as 
organ failure, impairment of bodily function or even death." Even more 
extreme was the definition of psychological torture requiring that the 
torturer ''intended to cause prolonged mental harm." Under this 
interpretation the interrogators could escape liability by saying that 
none of them specifically intended to cause the prolonged mental harms 
that detainees have apparently suffered (22 of them have attempted suicide).

In January, Gonzales, by then nominee for attorney general, explained 
why the lines had been drawn this way. He stated that torture was 
forbidden but that interrogation involving cruel, inhumane, or degrading 
treatment was not forbidden if it took place outside the United States 
and American citizens were not the victims -- tailor-made for Guantanamo 
Bay and the CIA. This was the Justice Department's interpretation of the 
international treaty ratified in 1994, called the Convention Against 
Torture and Other Cruel Inhumane and Degrading Treatment or Punishment.

Defenders of the Bush administration have said that their critics have 
confused torture with cruel and inhumane treatment. But if there was 
confusion, it was because most Americans had no idea that their 
government had adopted such an appalling legal interpretation of torture 
and permitted everything else that took place at Guantanamo Bay.

Senator John McCain has proposed legislation that would remedy these 
abuses, and this week the Army approved a manual that protects prisoners 
from some of the practices that took place in Guantanamo and elsewhere, 
but the details remain classified. Still troubling is the report that 
the Army guidelines are based on the Geneva Conventions, which the Bush 
administration says do not apply to suspected terrorists or to the 
Guantanamo detainees.

Given the long tradition of ''Do No Harm," it is difficult to imagine 
any healthcare professional saying it would be ethical for physicians to 
participate in cruel, inhumane, degrading, and punitive interrogations 
even if the attorney general decrees that it is not a crime.

Rice seems to have joined those of us who are appalled by the 
administration's manipulation of the law. In Kiev last week, she broke 
ranks and said that the ban on ''cruel, inhumane, and degrading 
treatment applies . . . both in the US and around the world." One can 
only hope that Rice is articulating a new Bush administration position 
and that the American Psychiatric Association and the American 
Psychological Association will both issue new guidelines emphasizing 
that it is unethical to participate in any interrogation involving torture.

There are those who will still want to use torture in ticking bomb 
scenarios. Such concerns do not justify the shameful practices at 
Guantanamo Bay. What American law and American psychiatrists and 
psychologists need to do now is to reassert our basic norms of decent 
and ethical conduct, which seem to have collapsed in our response to 9/11.

Dr. Alan A. Stone is a professor of law and psychiatry at Harvard 
University.  


http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/12/16/doctors_and_torture/
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From hecate at diamonddragon.com  Fri Dec 16 10:04:43 2005
From: hecate at diamonddragon.com (Hecate)
Date: Fri Dec 16 10:15:58 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] BBC E-mail: Bush spying claim causes US storm
Message-ID: <20051216_180443_032985.hecate@diamonddragon.com>

Hecate saw this story on BBC News Online and thought you
should see it.



** Bush spying claim causes US storm **
Senators react angrily to a report that George Bush authorised spying on Americans without court orders.
< http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/2/hi/americas/4536310.stm >


** BBC Daily E-mail **
Choose the news and sport headlines you want - when you want them, all
in one daily e-mail
< http://www.bbc.co.uk/dailyemail/ >


** Disclaimer **
The BBC is not responsible for the content of this e-mail, and anything written in this e-mail does not necessarily reflect the BBC's views or opinions. Please note that neither the e-mail address nor name of the sender have?been verified.

If you do not wish to receive such e-mails in the future or want to know more about the BBC's Email a Friend service, please read our frequently asked questions. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/help/4162471.stm

From hecate at diamonddragon.com  Fri Dec 16 10:09:37 2005
From: hecate at diamonddragon.com (Hecate)
Date: Fri Dec 16 10:20:35 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] BBC E-mail: Radiation alert at Chechen plant
Message-ID: <20051216_180937_065468.hecate@diamonddragon.com>

Hecate saw this story on BBC News Online and thought you
should see it.



** Radiation alert at Chechen plant **
Prosecutors investigate the discovery of "catastrophic" levels of radioactivity at a factory in Chechnya.
< http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/2/hi/europe/4535452.stm >


** BBC Daily E-mail **
Choose the news and sport headlines you want - when you want them, all
in one daily e-mail
< http://www.bbc.co.uk/dailyemail/ >


** Disclaimer **
The BBC is not responsible for the content of this e-mail, and anything written in this e-mail does not necessarily reflect the BBC's views or opinions. Please note that neither the e-mail address nor name of the sender have?been verified.

If you do not wish to receive such e-mails in the future or want to know more about the BBC's Email a Friend service, please read our frequently asked questions. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/help/4162471.stm

From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Fri Dec 16 10:21:23 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Fri Dec 16 10:32:28 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] =?iso-8859-1?q?NYTimes=2Ecom=3A_Hugo_Ch=E1vez=27s_Ace?=
	=?iso-8859-1?q?_=282_Letters=29?=
Message-ID: <20051216182123.3FAC424AF00@lax-gw02.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: ialterman@nyc.rr.com.

What we're saying...and "Bravo" to the writer of the second letter...I wish I could have written it! Peace.


OPINION | December 16, 2005
Hugo Chávez's Ace (2 Letters)

To the Editor:.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/16/opinion/l16chavez.html?emc=eta1




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From hecate at diamonddragon.com  Fri Dec 16 10:49:29 2005
From: hecate at diamonddragon.com (Hecate)
Date: Fri Dec 16 11:00:36 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] BBC E-mail: Senate blocks Patriot Act clauses
Message-ID: <20051216_184929_010431.hecate@diamonddragon.com>

Hecate saw this story on BBC News Online and thought you
should see it.



** Senate blocks Patriot Act clauses **
The US Senate defies the White House to block the renewal of several sections of the top US anti-terror law.
< http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/2/hi/americas/4536418.stm >


** BBC Daily E-mail **
Choose the news and sport headlines you want - when you want them, all
in one daily e-mail
< http://www.bbc.co.uk/dailyemail/ >


** Disclaimer **
The BBC is not responsible for the content of this e-mail, and anything written in this e-mail does not necessarily reflect the BBC's views or opinions. Please note that neither the e-mail address nor name of the sender have?been verified.

If you do not wish to receive such e-mails in the future or want to know more about the BBC's Email a Friend service, please read our frequently asked questions. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/help/4162471.stm

From grgolsorkhi at earthlink.net  Fri Dec 16 08:47:09 2005
From: grgolsorkhi at earthlink.net (Golsorkhi)
Date: Fri Dec 16 11:39:21 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] FW: A Daily Briefing on Iran: Q&A With Bernard Lewis
In-Reply-To: <001b01c601bf$488ab8f0$6501a8c0@DF2ZTG61>
Message-ID: <E1EnLFg-0006YO-Sh@smtpauth08.mail.atl.earthlink.net>


------ Forwarded Message
From: "Farhad Sepahbody" <sepa@sedona.net>
Date: Thu, 15 Dec 2005 14:34:09 -0700
To: "Golsorkhi" <grgolsorkhi@earthlink.net>
Subject: A Daily Briefing on Iran: Q&A With Bernard Lewis

 
http://regimechangeiran.blogspot.com/2005/12/qa-with-bernard-lewis.html

------ End of Forwarded Message

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From michael at intrafi.com  Fri Dec 16 11:47:41 2005
From: michael at intrafi.com (michael@intrafi.com)
Date: Fri Dec 16 11:59:14 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] FT.com / Comment & analysis / Analysis - How an election
	in Bolivia could hurt big business
Message-ID: <939309.1134762461766.JavaMail.tomcat@localhost>



*Please note, the sender's email address has not been verified.



You have received the following link from michael@intrafi.com

 
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From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Fri Dec 16 12:02:03 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (mblaxill@yahoo.com)
Date: Fri Dec 16 12:12:58 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Bush Lets U.S. Spy on Callers Without Courts
Message-ID: <20051216200203.6EEF783E07@lax-gw03.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: mblaxill@yahoo.com.

WASHINGTON | December 16, 2005
Bush Lets U.S. Spy on Callers Without Courts
By JAMES RISEN and ERIC LICHTBLAU
Under a presidential order signed in 2002, the National Security Agency has spied on hundreds of people inside the U.S.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/16/politics/16program.html?emc=eta1



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From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Fri Dec 16 12:03:04 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (mblaxill@yahoo.com)
Date: Fri Dec 16 12:13:56 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Literacy Falls for Graduates From College,
	Testing Finds
Message-ID: <20051216200304.EF19911F874@lax-gw07.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: mblaxill@yahoo.com.

EDUCATION | December 16, 2005
Literacy Falls for Graduates From College, Testing Finds
By SAM DILLON
The average American college graduate's literacy in English declined significantly over the past decade, the test showed.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/16/education/16literacy.html?emc=eta1



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From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Fri Dec 16 11:59:16 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (mblaxill@yahoo.com)
Date: Fri Dec 16 12:16:28 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Headlines for December 16, 2005
Message-ID: <20051216195916.12691.qmail@trinity.democracynow.org>

mike Blaxill  ( mblaxill@yahoo.com )
sent you this story from democracynow.org




+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
|  Headlines for December 16, 2005
|  http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/16/1457226
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+


- High Turnout For Parliamentary Elections in Iraq 
- Bush Administration Drops Opposition to Senate Torture Ban 
- WTO Talks At Standstill in Hong Kong 
- Barghouti Leads Major Split in Ruling Palestinian Party Fatah 
- Lebanese, Palestinians File Suit Against Ex-Israeli Officials in US 
- Turkish Novelist On Trial For Discussing Armenian Genocide 
- Transport Workers Announce Selective Strike As Talks Halt 
This story continues at: 
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/16/1457226

From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Fri Dec 16 12:05:59 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (mblaxill@yahoo.com)
Date: Fri Dec 16 12:16:55 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Archaeologists Unearth a War Zone 5,
	500 Years Old
Message-ID: <20051216200559.0B6169FBB3@lax-gw05.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: mblaxill@yahoo.com.

INTERNATIONAL / MIDDLE EAST | December 16, 2005
Archaeologists Unearth a War Zone 5,500 Years Old
By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD
In the ruins of an ancient city in Syria, archaeologists have uncovered what they say is evidence of a fierce battle.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/16/international/middleeast/16battle.html?emc=eta1



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From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Fri Dec 16 12:10:40 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (mblaxill@yahoo.com)
Date: Fri Dec 16 12:21:33 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: An Ill Wind Off Cape Cod
Message-ID: <20051216201040.3753A83DB1@lax-gw03.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: mblaxill@yahoo.com.

OPINION | December 16, 2005
Op-Ed Contributor: An Ill Wind Off Cape Cod
By ROBERT F. KENNEDY Jr.
Nantucket Sound is not the place for a wind farm.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/16/opinion/16kennedy.html?emc=eta1




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From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Fri Dec 16 12:08:20 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (mblaxill@yahoo.com)
Date: Fri Dec 16 12:22:42 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: House Votes for 698 Miles of Fences on
	Mexico Border
Message-ID: <20051216200820.D783F3AEA63@lax-gw06.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: mblaxill@yahoo.com.

WASHINGTON | December 16, 2005
House Votes for 698 Miles of Fences on Mexico Border
By RACHEL L. SWARNS
The measure would require the construction of the fences along stretches of land in California, Texas and Arizona.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/16/politics/16border.html?emc=eta1



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Times movie reviews have to say about these Oscar
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Sat Dec 17 05:04:22 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Sat Dec 17 05:18:27 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] House Votes to Toughen Laws on Immigration- Washington
	Post
Message-ID: <43A40CD6.3020409@comcast.net>

House Votes to Toughen Laws on Immigration
One Setback for Bush: No Guest-Worker Plan

By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, December 17, 2005; A01

The House last night passed tough immigration legislation to build vast 
border fences, force employers to verify the legality of their workers 
and tighten security on the nation's frontier, but it rebuffed President 
Bush's entreaties to include avenues for foreign workers to gain legal 
employment.

The bill passed 239 to 182, with 36 Democrats joining 203 Republicans to 
vote yes. Seventeen Republicans, 164 Democrats and one independent 
opposed the measure.

The bill was designed to demonstrate to voters a new resolve on border 
security before the House adjourns for the year. But it also revealed 
deep divisions in the Republican Party between lawmakers who agree with 
Bush that a strict clampdown alone cannot work without a guest-worker 
program for noncitizens, and others resolutely opposed to any plan that 
would keep undocumented workers flowing into the country.

Bush had made the immigration issue a top item on his domestic agenda, 
hoping a carrot-and-stick approach to dealing with a growing number of 
illegal immigrants and undocumented workers would satisfy conservatives 
while advancing his efforts to reach out to Latino voters. But in the 
face of unyielding conservative opposition in the House, leaders 
abandoned the president's guest-worker plan, which would have allowed 
foreign workers into the country under temporary work visas.

The House bill was adamantly opposed by an unusual coalition of business 
lobbies; ethnic groups, such as the National Council of La Raza; 
religious organizations; and labor unions that contend the measure is 
too harsh on illegal immigrants and imposes unworkable requirements on 
employers. Supporters -- including the House Republican leadership -- 
are convinced their measure has the ardent support of constituents fed 
up with illegal aliens flooding through the border. The Senate will 
probably consider a very different version next year that includes a 
guest-worker provision.

"For the first time, I can go out on the stump and say our party has 
done right on the issue of immigration," said Rep. Tom Tancredo 
(R-Colo.), a firebrand on illegal immigration who drove the debate. "And 
I feel good about it."

Opponents from both parties said the House had approved a punitive 
measure that could criminalize not only undocumented workers but also 
their families and employers, while doing nothing to bring some 11 
million illegal aliens out of the shadows and into lawful society.

"We owe a little more honesty to our constituents," said Rep. Jeff Flake 
(R-Ariz.), whose efforts to pass nonbinding language endorsing a 
guest-worker program were rebuffed by GOP leaders. The bill "means those 
who are here illegally will stay in the shadows," he said. "That's 
unacceptable. That's not enforcement. That's a charade."

The future of the immigration bill is unclear. In the Senate, bipartisan 
support is growing for legislation co-authored by Sens. John McCain 
(R-Ariz.) and Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) that would combine border 
enforcement measures with a guest-worker program. But a large number of 
House conservatives say they will never accept such a measure.

"I really worry that anything we do over here will be a vehicle for a 
guest-worker program," said Rep. J.D. Hayworth (R-Ariz.).

Tancredo agreed: "Now the fight begins."

Under the House bill, employers would have to confirm the authenticity 
of employees' Social Security numbers against a national database of 
legitimate numbers or face stiff new fines of as much as $25,000 per 
violation. The measure would end the "catch and release" policy for 
immigrants other than Mexicans who are caught entering the country 
illegally and then released with a court date. All illegal immigrants 
apprehended at the border would have to be detained, and deportation 
processes would be streamlined.

Criminal penalties for smuggling immigrants would be stiffened, with new 
mandatory minimum sentences. Immigrant gang members would be rendered 
inadmissible under any circumstance. Mandatory minimum sentences would 
be established for immigrants who reenter illegally after deportation, 
and local sheriffs in the 29 counties along the Mexican border would be 
reimbursed for detaining illegal immigrants and turning them over to 
federal custody.

Under an amendment approved Thursday night, the nation would spend more 
than $2.2 billion to build five double-layer border fences in California 
and Arizona, totaling 698 miles at $3.2 million a mile. Another 
amendment approved last night would empower local law enforcement 
nationwide to enforce federal immigration law and be reimbursed for 
their efforts.

For House leaders, the bill presented a delicate balancing act to 
satisfy members clamoring for a real crackdown while not alienating 
Latino voters whom Bush and his handpicked Republican Party chairman, 
Ken Mehlman, have courted. GOP leaders refused to give Rep. Jim Kolbe 
(R-Ariz.) a vote on his proposed guest-worker program, after lawmakers 
strongly opposed to illegal immigration threatened to scuttle the entire 
bill if the Kolbe amendment was brought to the floor.

But leaders also rejected proposed amendments to eliminate automatic 
citizenship for babies born to illegal aliens on U.S. soil and to build 
a fence along the entire southern border.

All of Maryland's representatives except Wayne T. Gilchrest (R) opposed 
the bill. The Virginia delegation voted for it, except Democrats James 
P. Moran Jr. and Robert C. "Bobby" Scott, who voted against, and 
Republican Jo Ann S. Davis, who did not vote.

The passage of the bill was a bright spot for congressional leaders in 
an otherwise difficult year-end crunch that has been marked by defeat 
and disarray. House and Senate leaders are forcing lawmakers to stay on 
Capitol Hill through the weekend as they struggle to complete funding 
measures.

Last night, budget negotiators achieved a breakthrough when Sen. Ted 
Stevens (R-Alaska) agreed to drop from the budget-cutting measure a 
provision to open Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil 
drilling. Instead, Stevens will take his chances that he can pass the 
provision in the defense spending bill.

Stevens's decision may clear the way for a deal today to shave federal 
spending by a little more than $40 billion over five years.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/16/AR2005121601814.html?nav=hcmodule
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Sat Dec 17 05:08:07 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Sat Dec 17 05:22:11 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Renewal of Patriot Act Is Blocked in Senate - Washington
	Post
Message-ID: <43A40DB7.7030508@comcast.net>

Renewal of Patriot Act Is Blocked in Senate

By Charles Babington
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, December 17, 2005; A01

Efforts to renew the USA Patriot Act collapsed in the Senate yesterday, 
when four Republicans joined most Democrats in blocking action on a 
volatile issue that pits anti-terrorism efforts against civil liberties 
protections.

The rejection triggered a frantic round of closed-door meetings between 
White House and congressional officials who hope to avert a major 
setback for President Bush. Some vowed to let the law's key provisions 
expire as scheduled on Dec. 31, saying Democrats will pay a political 
price. Others pressed for a three-month extension, hoping to reach a 
House-Senate compromise early next year.

Bush issued a stern warning late in the day that the "delaying tactics" 
in the Senate could benefit the nation's enemies. "The terrorists want 
to attack America again and kill the innocent and inflict even greater 
damage than they did on September 11th -- and the Congress has a 
responsibility not to take away this vital tool that law enforcement and 
intelligence officials have used to protect the American people," he 
said in a statement.

"We can come together to give the government the tools it needs to fight 
terrorism and protect the rights and freedoms of innocent citizens," 
said Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.), a leader in the effort to block the 
vote. By day's end, deep uncertainty surrounded the statute that the 
White House has called "an essential part of the United States' effort 
to prosecute the war on terror."

For months, many Democrats and a handful of GOP lawmakers had vigorously 
argued that the renewal would do too little to protect civil liberties. 
Their hand was strengthened before yesterday's Senate vote by a New York 
Times report that Bush had signed a secret order in 2002 authorizing the 
National Security Agency to eavesdrop on U.S. citizens and foreign 
nationals in this country.

Bush's allies wanted a four-year renewal of the Patriot Act's chief 
provisions, including various modifications drafted during weeks of 
House-Senate negotiations. The House approved the compromise bill on 
Wednesday. But four Senate Republicans -- Chuck Hagel (Neb.), Lisa 
Murkowski (Alaska), John E. Sununu (N.H.) and Larry E. Craig (Idaho) -- 
joined yesterday's Democratic-led filibuster, leaving proponents well 
short of the 60 votes needed to end debate and force a yes-or-no vote on 
the legislation in the 100-member chamber.

Fifty-three senators, including two Democrats, initially voted to end 
the filibuster, seven shy of the required number. Majority Leader Bill 
Frist (R-Tenn.) switched his vote from yes to no at the last minute, a 
parliamentary move allowing him to seek another roll call later. The 
official tally was 52 to 47 in favor of ending debate.

"The Patriot Act expires on December 31, but the terrorist threat does 
not," Frist said. He added that he may seek another vote in the coming 
days. But one key Republican held out little hope of the outcome changing.

"I'm not going to make any allusions to changing any minds by additional 
debate," said Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), who 
led the floor fight for the bill. "And the president has laid down a 
pretty tough marker. He said he's not going to sign an extension."

The Patriot Act, approved after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World 
Trade Center and the Pentagon, has made it easier for the FBI to conduct 
secret searches, monitor telephone calls and e-mails, and obtain bank 
records and other personal documents in connection with terrorism 
investigations. Critics said the proposed renewal would do too little to 
let targeted people challenge national security letters and special 
subpoenas that give the FBI substantial latitude in deciding what 
records -- including those from libraries -- should be surrendered.

In yesterday's debate, several senators said the New York Times article 
showed that congressional and judicial curbs are needed on executive 
branch powers. "Mr. President, it is time to have checks and balances in 
this country," thundered Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (Vt.), the Judiciary 
Committee's ranking Democrat. "We are a democracy!"

Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said he had been unsure Thursday night 
how he would vote but decided to back the filibuster after reading the 
Times article. Democratic Whip Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) said seven 
other Democrats had not been entirely sure how they would vote until 
they saw the news account.

Specter said the article's impact on the debate was deeply problematic, 
"if not devastating."

Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) had implored his colleagues to approve the 
four-year renewal. If terrorists attack the United States next year, he 
said in a floor speech, "we will have to answer to that if we don't vote 
to renew the Patriot Act."

Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman made the threat more 
explicit. "By obstructing permanent renewal of the Patriot Act," he said 
in a statement, "Democrats are again putting politics before national 
security" and may suffer in the 2006 elections.

But a number of senators in both parties said the GOP will have trouble 
exploiting the vote politically because of the four Republican votes in 
favor of continuing the debate -- including that of Hagel, a potential 
presidential candidate in 2008. In Wednesday's House vote, 18 
Republicans voted against the law's renewal, while 44 Democrats voted 
for it.

Democrats voting to end the filibuster yesterday were Sens. Tim Johnson 
(S.D.) and Ben Nelson (Neb.). Maryland's senators voted to sustain the 
filibuster, while Virginia's senators voted to end it.

The Patriot Act provisions scheduled to expire in two weeks include 
those permitting "roving wiretaps" of suspects, FBI access to business 
and library records of suspects, and the pursuit of "lone wolf" suspects 
with no known ties to foreign powers or agents.

Sununu predicted that the White House and the GOP leadership will not 
let the provisions expire, perhaps by embracing a three-month extension 
of the law. "This is too important to be political," he said.

The keenest disagreements center on provisions that allow FBI agents to 
obtain records on terrorism suspects, who have sharply limited options 
for challenging such searches. Specter said the law allows adequate 
"judicial review" of proposed searches. But Sununu and others said the 
law makes it virtually impossible for targeted people to prevail in such 
reviews, even if they have no terrorism ties.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/16/AR2005121600221.html
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Sat Dec 17 05:11:47 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Sat Dec 17 05:25:36 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] MUST READ: 'Intelligent Design' Deja Vu - Douglas
 Baynton - Washington Post Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43A40E93.40304@comcast.net>

'Intelligent Design' Deja Vu

By Douglas Baynton
Saturday, December 17, 2005; A23

School boards across the country are facing pressure to teach 
"intelligent design" in science classes, but what would such courses 
look like? Thankfully, we need not tax our imaginations. All we have to 
do is look inside some 19th-century textbooks.

The one science course routinely taught in elementary schools back then 
was geography. Textbooks such as James Monteith's "Physical and 
Intermediate Geography" (1866), Arnold Guyot's "Physical Geography" 
(1873) and John Brocklesby's "Elements of Physical Geography" (1868) 
were compendiums of knowledge intended to teach children a little of 
everything about Earth and its inhabitants.

These textbooks seem also to have been intended to provide solace for 
the existentially anxious. All of them offered in one form or another 
the reassurance that "Geography teaches us about the earth which was 
made to be our home." Earth by itself "could not be the abode of man," 
advised one. "Therefore, two indispensable agents are provided -- the 
sun and atmosphere." The entire vast history of the planet was summed up 
as the "gradual formation by which it was made ready for the reception 
of mankind." The lay of the land had been thoughtfully arranged for our 
benefit: "As the torrid regions of the earth require the greatest amount 
of rain, there are the loftiest mountains, which act as huge condensers 
of the clouds." Because the breezes that blew down mountainsides cooled 
the inhabitants below, the highest were located in the hottest parts of 
the world "for the same reason that you put a piece of ice into a 
pitcher of water in summer, rather than in winter."

Evidence of design was found in aesthetics as well. Behold "how greatly 
the scenery of mountains ministers to our love of the beautiful and 
sublime," one book counseled, "and how much would be lost in this 
respect if the surface of the earth were a monotonous, unbroken plain." 
Wherever we look we see "a beautiful world, which was made for the 
enjoyment and benefit of the whole human family."

What is wrong with such comforting thoughts? For one, if you've 
concluded that the world is designed for humans, there is no compelling 
reason to stop there. Why not a world made not just for your species but 
also for your race, your nation, your moment in history? For example, 
the designer's partiality toward the temperate zones was demonstrated by 
the fact that they were blessed with the useful animals, while "the 
fiercest Carnivora, as the lion, tiger, and jaguar . . . have their 
homes within the torrid climes of the globe." Too bad for the people of 
the torrid climes.

Another book explained that all the plants and animals that lived and 
died for eons did so precisely because humans, during their industrial 
era, would need the coal. The author observed that "the wisdom of this 
Plan is further recognized in the fact that the coal is found, mainly, 
in those parts of the earth that are best fitted for human habitation -- 
in the United States, Great Britain, Western Europe, British America, 
and China."

Of course, these observations contain germs of truth. The presence of 
useful animals affects social development. Mountains modify climate. 
Design arguments, however, reverse such practical explanations, 
replacing natural causality with supernatural predestination. In doing 
so, useful answers that open up further questions are replaced by 
answers that are emotionally satisfying but intellectual and practical 
dead ends. After all, once you know that mountains exist because they 
were meant to exist, what is left to do but to sit in your armchair and 
meditate on the wisdom of their design?

Two textbooks laid out the very terms of the current controversy. 
Brocklesby's "Elements of Physical Geography" told readers in 1868 that 
"the physical phenomena of the world reveal in their harmonious action a 
unity of plan and purpose, and display in an infinite variety of ways 
the 'Power, Wisdom and Goodness of the Almighty Designer.' " By 1901, 
the Rand-McNally Grammar School Geography instead maintained that the 
study of geography ought to reveal "a connected chain of causes and 
results, every link of which presents a problem to stimulate 
investigation and awaken rational thought."

There is our choice. The details have changed, but the fundamental 
habits of thought at issue have not. Do we want children to learn what 
is currently known and, more important, what remains to be discovered, 
about the physics of planetary motion? Or rather should they learn that 
"As the earth is round, only half of it can be lighted at once. In order 
that both sides may be lighted, the Creator has caused the earth to rotate"?

The writer is an associate professor of history at the University of 
Iowa. He will answer questions about this column on Monday at 2 p.m. on 
washingtonpost.com.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/16/AR2005121601559.html
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Sat Dec 17 05:13:40 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Sat Dec 17 05:27:32 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] What the Troops Really Need - Janine Davidson and Tammy
 S. Schultz - Washington Post Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43A40F04.3060700@comcast.net>

What the Troops Really Need

By Janine Davidson and Tammy S. Schultz
Saturday, December 17, 2005; A23

"Clear, Hold and Build" is the new official security approach for 
victory in Iraq. President Bush presented this strategy in a recent 
series of speeches, and the phrase is featured prominently in the White 
House's "National Strategy for Victory in Iraq." The wisdom of this 
policy suggests that the U.S. leadership may finally "get it."

History demonstrates that successful counterinsurgency requires an 
integrated civil-military effort focused on strengthening local 
institutions, not just chasing down bad guys. Unfortunately, the United 
States lacks the nonmilitary institutional capacity to carry out this 
strategy -- and if current political trends continue, it will not have 
the capacity to "build" anytime soon.

In the new strategy, "clearing" an area of insurgents through aggressive 
military operations is only useful if that same area is then "held" by 
security forces that can prevent insurgents from resuming violence 
against the civilian population. But U.S. forces cannot hold these areas 
forever. The population's future depends on the "building" of durable 
local institutions, including mechanisms for security, governance and 
economic development. This building requires the assistance of 
nonmilitary experts -- the type that the United States has failed to 
develop and deploy in sufficient numbers to adequately assist the troops 
in the field.

What is the cost of such neglect? Just ask the military commanders on 
the ground in Iraq. Trained and educated for traditional warfare, 
commanders find themselves spending as much time kick-starting 
microeconomies, building sewage systems and running town hall meetings 
as they do providing security. They do this not simply out of altruism 
but because these experienced leaders recognize that their ticket home 
depends on the capacity of Iraqis to govern as well as fight, and 
because there is no one else to get the job done. Most say they rely on 
what they learned in their political science classes -- if they were 
lucky enough to have taken any -- and ask, "Where is the State Department?"

The State Department is only one of a number of nonmilitary government 
agencies that are critical for success. We need Treasury and Commerce 
Department officials to help build the regulatory mechanisms of legal 
economic life. We need Justice Department experts to assist with the 
rule of law and the training of police. And we need State Department 
diplomats to tend to the governance and the coordination of these 
disparate efforts.

If you think that the $500 billion military is stretched thin, take a 
look at the anemic, $10 billion State Department. Most military officers 
crying for assistance in the field do not realize how small their 
diplomatic sister agency is. There are more musicians playing for the 
military services' bands than there are Foreign Service officers at 
State. This severe lack of capacity leaves the military with the bulk of 
the building, in addition to the clearing and the holding.

Although the Bush administration demonstrated that it recognizes this 
institutional shortfall when it supported the creation of the State 
Department Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and 
Stabilization, the new office does not have authorization to work on 
problems in Iraq. Even worse, by recently cutting the administration's 
$100 million request for the office's crisis response fund, Congress 
ensures that any future counterinsurgency operation will be equally 
stymied. This is unfortunate given that, according to the State 
Department, an effective civilian response that allows one military 
division to come home six months sooner would yield a savings of $7.2 
billion, not to mention the potential savings in lives.

As Iraq clearly demonstrates, viable institutions do not spontaneously 
emerge in the aftermath of war. The uncertainty and instability that 
prevail in war-torn environments present unique challenges to the 
leadership of these societies. Nations assisting them must have 
expertise and competence in diplomacy, the rule of law, economic 
development, conflict resolution and democratization -- areas in which 
civilian diplomats and professionals in nonmilitary government agencies 
have a significant advantage over military officers trained and educated 
for warfare. Funding the new State Department office is a small but 
significant step in the right direction -- and the military knows it. 
The Pentagon has even offered some of its own money to support the 
office (a move, incidentally, that is also not likely to win 
congressional approval).

If we really want to support the troops, we need to get serious about 
supporting the State Department.

Janine Davidson is an adjunct professor at George Mason's School of 
Public Policy and a former Air Force officer. Tammy S. Schultz is a PhD 
candidate in the Department of Government at Georgetown University.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/16/AR2005121601550.html?nav=hcmodule
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Sat Dec 17 05:19:33 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Sat Dec 17 05:33:54 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] IMPORTANT: On Hill,
 Anger and Calls for Hearings Greet News of Stateside
 Surveillance - Washington Post
Message-ID: <43A41065.8020504@comcast.net>

On Hill, Anger and Calls for Hearings Greet News of Stateside Surveillance

By Dan Eggen and Charles Lane
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, December 17, 2005; A01

Congressional leaders of both parties called for hearings and issued 
condemnations yesterday in the wake of reports that President Bush 
signed a secret order in 2002 allowing the National Security Agency to 
spy on hundreds of U.S. citizens and other residents without 
court-approved warrants.

Bush declined to discuss the domestic eavesdropping program in a 
television interview, but he joined his aides in saying that the 
government acted lawfully and did not intrude on citizens' rights.

"Decisions made are made understanding we have an obligation to protect 
the civil liberties of the American people," Bush said on "The NewsHour 
With Jim Lehrer."

Disclosure of the NSA plan had an immediate effect on Capitol Hill, 
where Democratic senators and a handful of Republicans derailed a bill 
that would renew expiring portions of the USA Patriot Act anti-terrorism 
law. Opponents repeatedly cited the previously unknown NSA program as an 
example of the kinds of government abuses that concerned them, while the 
GOP chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee said he would hold 
oversight hearings on the issue.

"There is no doubt that this is inappropriate," said Sen. Arlen Specter 
(R-Pa.), who favored the Patriot Act renewal but said the NSA issue 
provided valuable ammunition for its opponents.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), a member of the intelligence and 
judiciary committees, called the program "the most significant thing I 
have heard in my 12 years" in the Senate and suggested that the 
president may have broken the law by authorizing surveillance without 
proper warrants.

"How can I go out, how can any member of this body go out, and say that 
under the Patriot Act we protect the rights of American citizens if, in 
fact, the president is not going to be bound by the law?" she asked.

Officials across the government yesterday declined to publicly 
acknowledge the presidential order. But they defended, in general terms, 
the administration's aggressive strategies in attempting to combat 
terrorism since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and said that all programs 
have been lawful and protective of individual rights.

"Let me just say that winning the war on terror requires winning the war 
of information," Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales told reporters. ". 
. . And so we will be aggressive in obtaining that information, but we 
will always do so in a manner that's consistent with our legal obligations."

Government officials credited the new program with helping to uncover 
and disrupt terrorist plots, including plans by Iyman Faris, an Ohio 
truck driver who pleaded guilty in 2003 to planning to blow up the 
Brooklyn Bridge. Faris's attorney, David B. Smith, said he and his 
client were never informed about the NSA surveillance and had presumed 
that the monitoring of his cell phone had been authorized by a 
court-issued warrant.

The existence of the NSA domestic surveillance program was reported late 
Thursday by the New York Times and confirmed by U.S. intelligence and 
counterterrorism officials.

The Washington Post, citing an informed U.S. official, reported that the 
NSA's warrantless monitoring of U.S. subjects began before Bush's order 
was issued in early 2002 and included electronic and physical 
surveillance carried out by other military intelligence agencies 
assigned to the task.

Since the intelligence reforms of the 1970s, the NSA has adhered to 
tight restrictions on its activities in the United States and has 
devoted its efforts almost exclusively to obtaining intelligence 
overseas. Domestic spying, much of which is handled by the FBI, is 
governed by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and overseen by a 
special and highly secretive court that meets at Justice Department 
headquarters in Washington.

The order issued by Bush in 2002, however, allowed the NSA to monitor 
without a warrant international telephone calls, e-mails and other 
communications between people in the United States and those overseas. 
The Associated Press reported last night that Bush reauthorized the 
order 36 times.

A government official familiar with the NSA order said the president 
urged that the change be explained to only a very limited group of 
people on a "need-to-know" basis. That meant that, for nearly four 
years, only two people in the judicial branch of the U.S. government 
knew about the warrantless searches: U.S. District Judge Royce C. 
Lamberth, who presided over the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court 
at the time of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and rotated off the court 
in May 2002, and U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, who 
succeeded him.

The official said that then-Attorney General John D. Ashcroft and top 
officials in the Justice Department's Office of Intelligence Policy and 
Review first briefed a few key officials on the plans to change the 
25-year prohibition on most domestic surveillance. In a series of 
meetings, officials also answered Lamberth's questions about what some 
informally called "the president's program," and they asserted that no 
information gained through warrantless surveillance would be used to 
gain the court's authorization for secret wiretaps and warrants.

Under the president's plan, only the presiding judge of the secret court 
was allowed to hear cases in which warrantless surveillance may have 
played a role, the government official said.

Lamberth and Kollar-Kotelly declined to comment yesterday. According to 
the government source, both raised questions about whether the program 
was constitutional but neither suggested they had a basis for asserting 
that Bush did not have the authority he claimed. They focused, instead, 
on the integrity of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

Lamberth had previously expressed grave doubts about the White House's 
post-Sept. 11 interest in mixing the investigative powers of 
intelligence agents with those of criminal detectives and prosecutors. A 
showdown over the issue resulted in the only decision ever issued by the 
secret court's appellate panel, which ruled against Lamberth and said 
the president had broad powers to authorize eavesdropping to fight 
terrorism.

After Kollar-Kotelly became presiding FISA judge in 2002, she became 
concerned in the course of one case that warrantless eavesdropping in 
the NSA collection program could be used to develop information to be 
presented in the FISA court, the government source said. There appeared 
to be no evidence that it had happened, only an indication that it could.

As a result of her complaint to the Justice Department, an intelligence 
source said, the department agreed to have high-ranking officials 
certify -- under threat of perjury -- that information presented to the 
FISA court was totally independent of any information gleaned in 
warrantless surveillance. The New York Times reported that the NSA 
program was stalled while this debate took place.

The NSA program highlights an ongoing and often tense legal debate over 
the boundaries of presidential power. John Yoo, the former Justice 
Department lawyer whose legal opinion helped support the creation of the 
NSA surveillance program, was also instrumental in the preparation of 
other memos that argued that Bush had nearly unfettered authority in 
areas related to the war on terrorism.

Former CIA general counsel Jeffrey H. Smith said he was "not shocked" by 
the program or the legal arguments underpinning it, because "the theory 
or the belief that the president had this constitutional power has been 
around for a long time."

But Smith also said: "These programs always have a way of being abused, 
of expanding beyond the purpose for which they were created. If the 
president believed it, he could have gotten authority to do it in the 
Patriot Act. By avoiding that course, in so doing, he may ultimately 
wind up eroding the very power he seeks to assert."

Some prominent Republicans defended the surveillance, arguing it was 
necessary to combat terrorism. "I don't agree with the libertarians," 
said Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.). "I want my security first. I'll deal 
with all the details after that."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/16/AR2005121601825.html?nav=hcmodule
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Sat Dec 17 05:22:35 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Sat Dec 17 05:36:21 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Iraqi civilian deaths mount -- and count - Derrick Z.
 Jackson - Boston Globe Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43A4111B.9030201@comcast.net>


  Iraqi civilian deaths mount -- and count

By Derrick Z. Jackson  |  December 17, 2005  |  The Boston Globe

PRESIDENT BUSH actually acknowledged that Iraqi civilians died in his 
war. ''I would say 30,000, more or less, have died as a result of the 
initial incursion and the ongoing violence against Iraqis," Bush said to 
a questioner this week in Philadelphia.

Up until now in Afghanistan and Iraq, Bush denied as much annihilation 
as possible. General Tommy Franks said, ''We don't do body counts" and 
Navy Captain Frank Thorp said, ''We cannot look at combat as a 
scorecard." Even as news organizations cobbled together credible numbers 
of Iraqi civilians killed by US forces, the head of statistics of the 
Iraqi health ministry said she was told to stop counting civilian 
casualties under pressure from the health minister and Bush's Coalition 
Provisional Authority. The authority and the health minister denied the 
suppression, but the same ministry had issued preliminary numbers months 
earlier.

In April 2004, Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt was asked about the images 
on Iraqi television of civilians being killed in Fallujah by American 
forces. His answer was, ''Change the channel. Change the channel to a 
legitimate, authoritative, honest news station." In light of recent 
revelations, one has to wonder if he meant for Iraqis to change to one 
of those Iraqi media outlets paid off by Pentagon contractors to print 
sugar-frosted stories of the invasion.

In the United States, there was no channel to change. Iraqi civilians 
became invisible the moment Americans were wrongfully convinced by 
administration rhetoric to connect Saddam Hussein and the nonexistent 
weapons of mass destruction to the fears spawned by Sept. 11, 2001. They 
remained so inconsequential that just last March, a full two years after 
the invasion, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld boasted to Pentagon 
employees, ''Through an unprecedented combination of speed, precision 
and flexibility, US forces, with coalition support, seized Baghdad, 
having marched farther and faster than any armed force in military 
history. And they did it while avoiding large numbers of civilian 
casualties."

That shows you exactly how small an everyday Iraqi has been all along in 
Rumsfeld's mind. As early as June 2003, the Associated Press estimated 
3,240 civilians were killed in the invasion nationwide, 1,900 in 
Baghdad. By October of 2003, the Cambridge-based Project on Defense 
Alternatives estimated up to 4,300 in the first month alone. By 
November, Medact, the British affiliate of the International Physicians 
for the Prevention of Nuclear War, estimated up to 9,600 civilians.

If 3,000, 4,000 or nearly 10,000 dead civilians does not impress 
Rumsfeld as ''large," then nothing will.

That gets us to the 30,000 figure. The moment Bush uttered it, the White 
House and Pentagon backed away from it. Spokesmen said their boss was 
just citing public estimates. Iraq Body Count, a volunteer research 
group that compiles conservative estimates based on media reports, 
estimates that between 27,383 and 30,892 civilians have died. Since the 
media cannot be everywhere, many people say it is possible that many 
thousands more may have died. The most controversial estimate of 100,000 
was published by researchers in the medical journal Lancet.

Perhaps Bush feels safe to talk about civilian deaths because the United 
States is no longer responsible for the majority of them. In the first 
six weeks of the invasion, according to calculations by Iraq Body Count, 
US-led forces were responsible for 94 percent of the 7,299 civilian 
deaths. Today, as the invasion/occupation remains riddled with suicide 
bombings, flickers of a civil war and general lawlessness, the 
percentage of civilians killed by the US forces has receded to 32 percent.

Perhaps Bush felt that the passing of time erased the fact that the US 
killings -- under his false pretenses of weapons of mass destruction -- 
remain the most intense of the war. US forces killed an average of 315 
Iraqi civilians a day, nine times more than the worst month of 
anti-occupation and criminal violence during the next 23 months, 
according to Iraq Body Count.

Whatever Bush felt, he still shows no emotion for the men, women, and 
children who will never enjoy his liberation. He stated the 30,000 
figure and went on to the next question. He claims to take 
responsibility for going to war on bad intelligence, then turns around 
and says in Philadelphia, ''Knowing what I know today, I'd make the 
decision again."

That illustrates just how far Iraq has removed Bush from his own 
humanity. Without evidence of weapons, he would still order a war that 
kills thousands of innocent people. Bush now admits knowing the 
scorecard. But it still remains only a game.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/12/17/iraqi_civilian_deaths_mount____and_count/
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Sat Dec 17 05:27:21 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Sat Dec 17 05:41:09 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] ('MA-CENTRIC' BUT GOOD): Planning for a pandemic - Frank
 Singleton and Geoffrey Wilkinson - Boston Globe Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43A41239.8000106@comcast.net>


  Planning for a pandemic

By Frank Singleton and Geoffrey Wilkinson  |  December 17, 2005  |  The 
Boston Globe

THE NEWS STORIES strike fear: A pandemic flu could kill millions 
worldwide and infect more than 1.5 million Massachusetts residents. 
Behind the headlines there is ample reason to be concerned: Scientists 
agree that we are overdue for a global influenza pandemic, and 
Massachusetts isn't ready. Fortunately, there are steps the Commonwealth 
can take to prepare for a pandemic flu and prevent unnecessary death and 
social disruption. These steps won't eliminate the threat, but they will 
help ensure that we can better protect our citizens.

Planning for pandemic flu must be coordinated with planning for other 
potential public health hazards, including natural disasters, 
bioterrorism, and infectious diseases. Four areas require immediate 
attention:

Leadership. No one is clearly in charge of pandemic flu planning at the 
state Department of Public Health. As a result of the Romney 
administration's ''streamlining," senior DPH officials have been 
assigned multiple, full-time jobs. We have no statewide, executive-level 
committee to coordinate emergency planning.

Planning. The state's Pandemic Flu Plan is more of a concept document 
than an action plan. It lacks operational detail about a wide range of 
issues, including vaccine management, antiviral drugs, quarantines, 
closing schools and businesses, and meeting the needs of vulnerable 
populations. Local health departments are almost invisible in the plan, 
despite the primary responsibility they bear in responding to health 
emergencies. We lack systems for aligning the activities of state and 
municipal government, hospitals, health providers, public safety, 
utilities, transportation, and other authorities.

Communication. Competing interests and bureaucratic bottlenecks are 
hampering communications within DPH. There is no specific plan for how 
DPH should communicate with other departments in state government. There 
is no emergency system in place for communicating with the general 
public, despite the lessons of 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina.

Resources. Our public health system's ability to prepare for and respond 
to pandemic flu and other emergencies has been damaged by years of 
budget cuts at the state and local levels. DPH is operating with 25 
percent fewer dollars now than five years ago. The state public health 
laboratory is suffering from a $3 million shortfall for basic 
operations. It does not have the capacity to sustain the dramatic surge 
in testing that will be required when a flu pandemic strikes. Federal 
funds for emergency preparedness are being cut after just three years, 
imperiling the state's new system of regional coordinators.

While the governor explores a run for president, his administration 
paints a rosy picture of pandemic flu planning. The public should not be 
fooled, and neither should the Legislature. As policy makers focus on a 
badly needed overhaul of the state's health care access system, they 
must also find time to hold the administration accountable and provide 
necessary resources to shore up our damaged public health system.

Massachusetts was home to the nation's first public health service, 
founded in 1799. Its leader, Paul Revere, understood that ''an ounce of 
prevention is worth a pound of cure." It is time for our present day 
leaders to put common sense to work in crafting the state's public 
health budget and in planning for pandemic flu and other inevitable 
health emergencies. The Massachusetts Public Health Association 
recommends that the state:

Put someone in charge of pandemic influenza planning on a full-time 
basis, without responsibility for another job, reporting directly to the 
Commissioner of Public Health.

Adequately fund DPH programs involved in disaster preparedness and 
response, including the state laboratory, immunizations, health 
surveillance and reporting, epidemiology, environmental health services, 
school health, community health centers, hospitals, and community-based 
outreach, education, and prevention.

Prioritize effective communications, including creation of an executive 
level coordinating committee and dramatically improved public 
communications planning.

Permanently restore and fund DPH's system of regional offices to assist 
local boards of health and health departments with planning, technical 
assistance, and resource coordination.

These solutions are within our grasp. With the stakes so high, now is 
the time to overcome fear with action.

Frank Singleton is director of the Lowell Health Department and 
secretary of the board of the Massachusetts Public Health Association. 
Geoffrey Wilkinson is executive director of the association.  

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/12/17/planning_for_a_pandemic/
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From ean at sbcglobal.net  Fri Dec 16 21:05:22 2005
From: ean at sbcglobal.net (ean@sbcglobal.net)
Date: Sat Dec 17 08:02:55 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Comments on the Iraqi election
Message-ID: <E1EneLZ-0000zZ-Vk@smtpauth08.mail.atl.earthlink.net>


From: Michael Schwartz
Director, Undergraduate College of Global Studies
Professor of Sociology
University at Stony Brook
Stony Brook NY 11794
To: IRAQVIEWS-L@LISTS.SUNYSB.EDU
Sent: Friday, December 16, 2005 6:46 AM
Subject: Comments on the Iraqi election


I think there is a lot of significance and a lot of smoke in the elections
and, if I had the time to sort through everything, I would have a lot to
say.  But I am swamped at the moment and still can't see the structure
inside the smoke. But ignorance never worked to keep my shut up, so here
are a few  things that I think are clear about the elections already, even
before the returns come in and the serious reporting is digested.

1.       Look for the U.S. discovery of torture jails to end, right now.
The two big scandals in the last two weeks, in which the U.S. "raided"
jails in which Ministry of Interior special forces were conducting
torture, were publicity stunts.  The U.S. created the special forces
groups that were conducting the torture and running the jails, and every
informed report says they knew about them all along, probably supervised
the torture, and were the active force in creating and implementing the
terrorist policies more generally.  The reasons for the raids
were..electoral.  Even as he runs the Iraqi government, American
Ambassador Khalilzad, and his American aides, are trying to restore Allawi
to figurative power because they dislike both the independence and the
pro-Iranian slant of the current leadership.  These exposes were an
attempt to impact Shia voting-to drive it toward Allawi and his allies. 
Now that the election is over, they will return to business (detention and
torture) as usual.

2.       Don't expect a decline in the fighting, on either side.  Even a
casual look at the Sunni voting reveals three things.  First, that
virtually all Sunnis (and the overwhelming majority of Shia as well) see
these elections as a possible way to get the U.S. out of the country.  All
the major parties (except the Kurds) ran on such a platform, and public
opinion (except the Kurds) runs at 80% in favor of the U.S. getting out as
quickly as possible.  By electing representatives with this viewpoint,
Sunnis hope that they can accelerate the departure.

Second, the guerrilla part of the resistance-which attacks the Occupation
military and those who fight with it (and not Iraqi civilians)-has
continued to attack Occupation military right through the campaign and
even mounted 50 attacks (just below average ) on election day.  They see
the election as one way to put pressure and the attacks as another.  Not
at all incompatible with each other.

Third, in the meantime, the U.S. continues to mount major search and
destroy campaigns through centers of resistance, thus convincing Sunnis
that the battle is still necessary and creating more and more people who
have bitter experiences that justify guerrilla action.

3.       Be on the look-out for the new Parliament to call for a
timetable. This is the lowest common denominator among the various Sunni
and Shia factions.  Certainly the Sunni representatives will forward such
a proposal, and they will be supported by the representatives of the
Sadrists.  So the big issue will be whether SCIRI and Da'wa (the dominant
groups in the current government) will sell this demand out, as they did
last time (They ran on immediate withdrawal in January and then
immediately announced it was impractical).  There are many reasons to
suggest that they will sell out again; but just as many that they will
not, this time (the most compelling being that the Sadrists are getting
stronger and stronger, and that SCIRI and Da'wa have lost a lot of
credibility on the street because of their failures to deliver even a
smidgen of improvement since January).  Whatever happens, this will be the
most important thing this toothless government will do.

4.       Don't expect the new government to accomplish anything beyond
taking positions.  It has no power-the power rests with the U.S. and with
the resistance, and with the local leaders in the Shia areas.  The
government has no army (the Iraqi police and military are trained,
commanded and supervised by the U.S.); it has no administration (all local
administration, such as there is, in locally controlled by local leaders,
militias, and/or the resistance, even in Shia areas); and it has no
resources (the oil revenues are so small and so mortgaged that they borrow
from the U.S. to run their meager administration).  All this government
can do is make pronouncements.  That is why a call for U.S. withdrawal
would be its most important act, because such a call would carry force
from the threat of a mass protest if the U.S. refused. Enough.



***

Baghdad Burning http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/


... I'll meet you 'round the bend my friend, where hearts can heal and
souls can mend... Thursday, December 15, 2005

Elections...

Elections have been all we hear about for the last ten days at least.

The posters are everywhere in Baghdad. There are dozens of parties running
for elections, but there are about four or five 'lists' which stand out
from the rest:

- National Iraqi (731): Ayad Allawi's list, which now includes some other
prominent puppets including Adnan Al-Pachachi, Ghazi Al-Yawir, Safiya
Al-Suhail, etc. Ayad Allawi is a secular Shia, CIA-affiliated,
ex-Ba'athist. - Unified Iraqi Coalition List (555): Hakim, Ja'affari and
various other pro-Iran fundamentalists, in addition to Sadrists. -
Kurdistani Gathering (730): Barazani, Talbani and a few other parties. -
Iraqi Front for National Dialogue (667): Mainly Sunni, secular list -
includes the Iraqi Christian Democratic Party and is headed by Salih
Al-Mutlag. - Iraqi Alliance Front (618): Mainly Sunni Islamic parties.


We've been flooded with election propaganda this last week. Every Iraqi
channel you turn to is showing one candidate or another. Allawi, Hakim and
a handful of others dominate the rest though. No one is bothering much
with the other lists because quite frankly, no one hears of them that
often. Allawi's face is everywhere, as is Hakim's turbaned head. It's
disconcerting to scan a seemingly innocent wall and have a row of
identical Hakims smiling tightly down on you.

The last press conference I watched of Hakim was a few days ago. He was
warning his followers of electoral fraud, which is slightly ironic
considering his group has been accused of all sorts of fraud this last
year. The audience was what caught my interest. The women were sitting on
one side of the audience and the men were sitting on the other side, the
sexes separated by a narrow aisle. The women all wore black abbayas and
headscarves. It could have been a scene out of Teheran.

Some of Allawi's campaign posters show himself and Safiya Al-Suhail. I can
only guess Safiya being used in his campaign posters is meant as a gesture
to Iraqi women who have felt more oppressed this year than ever. The
problem is that if there's one woman Iraqi females can't relate to- it's
Safiya Suhail. She's the daughter of some tribal leader who was
assassinated abroad in the eighties or seventies- I'm not sure. She was
raised in Lebanon and when she's on TV she comes across as arrogant, huffy
and awkward with her Iraqi accent tainted with the Lebanese dialect.

It's a poster war. One day, you see the posters of Allawi, featuring
Safiya Suhail, the next day, Allawi's big face is covered with pictures of
Hakim and Sistani. Allawi's supporters have been complaining that Hakim's
supporters were sabotaging campaign posters. Even SMS messages are all
about voting lately. (Several rather vulgar jokes about list 555- I can't
go into it on the blog, but Iraqis know what I'm talking about).

Secular nationalists are leaning towards Salih Al-Mutlag (of list 667) who
is seen as less of a puppet than the rest. After all, he is the only
heading one of the more popular electoral lists who wasn't blessed by the
American army and Bremer when Iraq was invaded in 2003. He supports 
armed
resistance (but not terrorism) and he has a group of prominent
anti-occupation nationalists backing him. There's talk that after
elections, his list will support Allawi to strengthen the secular
movement.

The incident of the day yesterday was news of a tanker or truck that had
been caught in the town of Wassit full of fake voting ballots from Iran.
There is also news that voting centers haven't been properly equipped in
several Sunni provinces. There was a skirmish between Iraqi National Guard
and the electoral committee to preside over elections in Salah Al-Din.

More people are going to elect this time around- not because Iraqis
suddenly believe in American-imposed democracy under occupation, but
because the situation this last year has been intolerable. Hakim and
Ja'affari and their minions have managed to botch things up so badly,
Allawi is actually looking acceptable in the eyes of many. I still can't
stand him.

Allawi is still an American puppet. His campaign posters, and the horrors
of the last year, haven't changed that. People haven't forgotten his
culpability in the whole Fallujah debacle. For some Iraqis, however, he's
preferable to Hakim and Ja'affari after a year of detentions, abductions,
assassinations and secret torture prisons.

There's a saying in Iraq which people are using right and left lately, and
that I've used before in the blog, "Ili ishuf il mout, yirdha bil
iskhuna." He who sees death, is content with a fever. Allawi et al. seem
to be the fever these days.

***



-- 
You are currently on Mha Atma's Earth Action Network email list, 
option D (up to 3 emails/day).  To be removed, or to switch options 
(option A - 1x/week, option B - 3/wk, option C - up to 1x/day, option D - 
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"A war of aggression is the supreme international crime." -- Robert Jackson,
 former U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice and Nuremberg prosecutor

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From arianna at huffingtonpost.com  Fri Dec 16 14:50:24 2005
From: arianna at huffingtonpost.com (Arianna Huffington)
Date: Sat Dec 17 08:12:40 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] The Huffington Post Weekly Digest -- 12.16.05
Message-ID: <E1EneV2-0007zC-Uk@smtpauth08.mail.atl.earthlink.net>

The Huffington Post's Weekly Digest
December 16, 2005

Arianna Huffington
'60s Flashback: Is the Government Spying on Us Again?

Dec. 15 -- Reading the new reports about the Pentagon conducting surveillance of peaceful anti-war groups and protests, I feel like I'm having a bad '60s flashback.

But I'm not seeing psychedelic lights and thinking I can fly. I'm remembering how the Defense Department aggressively infiltrated anti-war and civil rights groups during that era, spying and collecting files on over 100,000 Americans -- and how J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI used every dirty trick in the "black bag operation" handbook to sabotage the anti-war and civil rights movements.

Now it looks like those ugly days of government paranoia and officially sanctioned lawbreaking might be making a comeback. A secret DoD database obtained by NBC News indicates that Pentagon intelligence and local law enforcement agencies are using the guise of the war on terror to keep an eye on the constitutionally protected activities of anti-war activists. And, despite strict restrictions on the military maintaining records on domestic civilian political activity, evidence suggests the Pentagon is doing just that. According to NBC, the DoD database includes "at least 20 references to U.S. citizens," while other documents indicate that "vehicle descriptions" are also being noted and analyzed.

And it's not just the Pentagon. Documents recently obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show that the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force has also been recording the names and license plate numbers of peaceful anti-war protesters.

With apologies to Buffalo Springfield: There's something happening here... and what it is is painfully clear.

The Bush administration has a long and ignominious history of rhetorical intimidation, routinely equating dissent with a lack of patriotism and a lack of support for our troops. Now it appears it's moving on to actual intimidation.

The need in a post-9/11 world for greater domestic intelligence gathering, processing, and sharing is obviously paramount. Indeed, don't we all wish someone in authority had been paying attention to the Phoenix memo before the 2001 attacks? And the national security agencies responsible for the Pentagon database were originally tasked with creating "a domestic law enforcement database that includes information related to potential terrorist threats." This intel-gathering system is a tangle of acronyms -- including CIFA (Counterintelligence Field Activity), TALON (Threat and Local Observation Notice), and NORTHCOM (U.S. Northern Command) -- but they are all geared toward helping the government keep ahead of terrorists.

There is even a U.S. Army-operated 800 number for reporting suspicious activity, 1-800-CALL-SPY. I kid you not, dial it and you will hear: "You have reached the U.S. Army Call-Spy Hotline. You may remain anonymous. Please leave a detailed message of the incident you with to report. Your call is important. If you wish to be contacted, please leave your name and telephone number..."

But, as is emblematic of this administration, these agencies now appear to be overreaching, moving away from identifying "possible terrorist pre-attack activities" and heading into the murky waters of spying on U.S. citizens doing nothing more than voicing their objections to U.S. policy.

President Bush and many of his closest associates have always positioned themselves as a counterpoint to the '60s counterculture. (Indeed, Bush was so detached from it that he once claimed he had no memory of anti-war activity at Yale during his time there -- even though the campus was a hotbed of student protest) And now his administration has adopted the worst domestic intelligence practices of the '60s establishment.

That's why Congress needs to flex its oversight muscle -- and make sure that the tragic mistakes of the past are not repeated.

It wasn't that long ago that Hoover's notorious COINTELPRO program was illegally infiltrating Students for a Democratic Society and setting out to destroy "Negro radicals" like Dr. Martin Luther King. Our government lied, cheated, harassed, intimidated, burglarized, vandalized, framed, and spread false rumors -- to say nothing of keeping voluminous files on everyone from John Lennon to Allen Ginsberg -- all in an effort to quash legitimate dissent against the war and the racist practices of the South.

We can't let it happen again. Let's start the chant: Hell no, we won't go... back!


OTHER HUFF POST BLOGGERS: Nora Ephron, Katrina vanden Heuvel, Lawrence O'Donnell, Tina Brown, Patt Morrison, Larry Beinhart, Jesse Kornbluth, All Bloggers


More Blog Posts from Arianna Huffington

Plamegate and the Press: When Will Somebody Get Fired?
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/plamegate-and-the-press-_b_12228.html>

Bush's Speech: Loose, Confident, and Utterly Deluded
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/bushs-speech-loose-con_b_12155.html>


Top Blog Posts on HuffingtonPost.com

Norman Lear: Letter to God
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/norman-lear/letter-to-god_b_12353.html>

Jerry and Joe Long: Ancient Manuscript Casts Doubt On Christianity
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/the-sturdy-beggars/ancient-manuscript-casts-_b_12257.html

Marty Kaplan: Journalism's Slo-Mo Suicide
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marty-kaplan/journalisms-slomo-suici_b_12197.html>

Stephen Gaghan: On Syriana and Corruption
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stephen-gaghan/on-syriana-and-corruption_b_11870.html>


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From michael at intrafi.com  Sat Dec 17 08:24:46 2005
From: michael at intrafi.com (michael@intrafi.com)
Date: Sat Dec 17 08:35:44 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Bush Lets U.S. Spy on Callers Without Courts
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WASHINGTON | December 16, 2005
Bush Lets U.S. Spy on Callers Without Courts
By JAMES RISEN and ERIC LICHTBLAU
Under a presidential order signed in 2002, the National Security Agency has spied on hundreds of people inside the U.S.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/16/politics/16program.html?emc=eta1



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From drmhaatma at yahoo.com  Thu Dec 15 15:52:52 2005
From: drmhaatma at yahoo.com (Mha Atma Khalsa)
Date: Sat Dec 17 08:45:57 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] just the facts:  US Economy and US National Security
Message-ID: <E1Enf12-0000hh-1o@smtpauth07.mail.atl.earthlink.net>

 This is a long list but you will find it worthwhile to read it all...and to save for future use........
  
  US Economy Facts
  
  1)  US corporate layoffs were up 22% in November and 964,232 jobs  were cut this year, which was up 3.6% from the year-to-date total a  year ago.
  2)  Corporate CEOs who sent jobs overseas last year received an average pay increase of 46%.
  3)  Citigroup's CEO was paid $111,000. a day in 2004
  4)  Delta Airlines gave its outgoing CEO a $16 million retirement package while announcing the layoff of 7,000 workers. 
  5)  Pay for corporate CEOs increased 15% last year while pay for workers increased 4%.
  6)  Delphi Corporation paid its CEO $5,959,138. and plans to lay off 6,000 workers.
  7)  The number of US billionaires rose last year from 262 to 313  while 1.3 million more Americans fell below the poverty line.
  8)  Bank of America paid its CEO $20 million last year and announced it will cut 4,500 jobs.
  9) Ousted CEO of Fannie Mae, Franklin Raines, negotiated a life-long pension of $1.3 million per year.
  10) Tiffany & Co. reported a 12% increase in holiday sales as the  Agriculture Dept. reported a 26% increase of American families going  hungry.
  11)  Combat pay for our soldiers in Iraq is $7.50 a day.
  12)  The Senate rejected attempts to raise the minimum wage from  $5.15 an hour for the first time in 8 years, while a study showed that  if the minimum wage had increased at the same rate as corporate CEO pay  since 1990, it would now be $22.50 an hour.
  13)  Viacom paid its top 3 execs. $160 million in 2004. Real wages in 2004 fell at the fastest rate in 14 years.
  14)  Hewlett-Packard welcomed a new chief information officer with  a pay package worth at least $15.3 million, including a $2.2 million  signing bonus & a $1 million "relocation" allowance. The CEO who  was fired from H-P received a $21.4 million severance package. H-P  announced it will layoff 14,500 workers to "save costs." 
  15) Kimberly-Clark tripled its CEO's bonus to $2.4 million, and announced it will lay off 6,000 workers.
  16)  United Health, Gillette, 3M, Home Depot, Pfizer, Lilly,  Electronic Data System, and Hormel gave CEOs pay increases that ranged  from 12% to 86%, while wage increases for average workers lagged behind  the 2.7% inflation rate of 2004.
  17)   The wealth of the 400 richest Americans increased 13%  last year while the average earning for workers increased 2.7%.
  18)  The average American CEO earned 431 times the pay of the  average worker last year, up from 301 times the pay of the average  worker in 2004.
  19)  Under Bush's tax cuts, the 400 taxpayers with the highest  incomes now pay income, Medicare and Social Security taxes at the same  rate as people making $50,000 to $75,000. Those earning more than $10  million a year now pay a lesser share of their income in these taxes  than those making $100,000 to $200,000. 
  20)  Senate Republicans voted down an amendment to authorize an  investigation into charges of war profiteering by Halliburton and other  companies. 
   
  
  -----------
  
  
  National Security Facts (see references at the end)

  

      
        Weekly National Security Index 
  
  December 12, 2005 
  
  Iraq     
        
  Approximate number of U.S. troops currently in Iraq:    161,000
  
  Percent of coalition forces contributed by the U.S.    88
  
  Weeks since the Pentagon developed a plan to draw down U.S. forces in  Iraq to roughly 40,000 by mid-2005:      112
  
  Approximate amount appropriated by Congress for Iraq operations so far:      $218 billion
  
  Approximate amount spent by the U.S. in World War I:    
  $205 billion
  
  Approximate amount spent in Iraq by the U.S. last week:      
  $1.5 billion
  
  Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) found:    0
  
  Number of U.S. service members killed in Iraq:    2,144
  
  Number killed since the President announced the end of major combat:    2,005
  
  Number reported wounded by the Defense Department:    15,955
  
  Approximate number of medical evacuations of U.S. military personnel  performed since the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom:     55,000
  
  Number of National Guard soldiers killed in Iraq through December 3, 2005:    324
  
  Number of National Guard soldiers killed in the entire Vietnam War:    97
  
  Number of Iraqi military and police killed since training began (June 2003):    3,748
  
  Estimated number of insurgents in Iraq (November 2003):    5,000
  
  Estimated number of insurgents in Iraq (October 2005):    20,000
  
  Estimated number of 88 Iraqi military battalions that are capable of operating independently:    1
  
  Total amount of taxpayers'  money spent by Halliburton that the  Defense Contract Audit Agency has deemed either excessive or  insufficiently documented:    $1.47 billion
  
  Total number of nations contributing troops to Iraq as part of  President Bush's "coalition of the willing" at some point during the  war:      37
  
  Number of these nations that either have withdrawn or plan to withdraw  their troops from the coalition:      14
  
  Average size of troop contributions by nations with troops currently  deployed to Iraq, excluding the United States, United Kingdom, South  Korea, and Italy:    186
  
  Amount of the $13.6 billion pledged by the international community for  Iraq's reconstruction that has been dispersed:    $2.9  billion
  
  Rank of September 2005 among months with the highest number of multiple-fatality bombings:    1
  
  Rank of November 2005:    2
  
  Civilian casualties in Iraq since January 2004, as estimated by the Department of Defense:    25,902
  
        
  War on Terrorism     
        
  Days since September 11, 2001 that Osama bin Laden has remained uncaptured:    1,551
  
  Days after bombing Pearl Harbor that Japan surrendered to U.S. forces:    1,365
  
  Number of global terrorist attacks reported by the State Department in 2004:    651
  
  Number of attacks reported by the State Department in 2003:    175
  
  Total number of "worldwide incidents" registered by the National  Counterterrorism Center's Worldwide Incident Tracking System so far in  2005:     2,269
  
  Number of victims wounded or killed by these incidents:     6,962
  
  Estimated number of al Qaeda members around the world:    50,000
  
  Rank of Iraq among all nations as a training ground for terrorists:    1
  
  Chances of a WMD attack in the next ten years, according to leading arms experts:    70 percent
  
  Number of discovered cases of potential illicit smuggling of nuclear or  radiological material out of the former Soviet Union last  year:    200
  
  Percent of former Soviet nuclear material stockpiles secured under  Nunn-Lugar counterproliferation programs:    26
  
  Number of terrorist suspects the Bush Administration claims have been convicted since September 11, 2001:    200
  
  Number who have actually been convicted:    39
  
  Total hours of wiretap recordings related to counterterrorism that the FBI has failed to review:      8,000
  
  Average time the FBI requires to hire contract linguists to review the tapes:    16 months
  
        
  U.S. Military Personnel     
  ?         
  Readiness/Strain     
  
  Total National Guard and Reserve personnel currently deployed:    144,688
  
  Percentage of the Army's Third Infantry Division currently serving a second tour in Iraq:    50
  
  Number of Marine battalions that are currently serving or preparing to  serve their third combat tour in Iraq:      5
  
  Of the 333 Army National Guard infantry, military police, armor, and  Special Forces units, the number currently combat-ready without  reinforcements:    6
  
  Percent of Army Reserve currently ineligible for deployment because of  recent deployments, lack of training, medical reasons,  etc.:    84
  
  Value of total Reserve Component equipment shortage, beginning Fiscal Year 2005:    $15.21 billion
  
  Army National Guard equipment shortage, as a percentage of the total:    76.7
  
  Percentage of non-deployed Army National Guard Units that reported  having the minimum amount of equipment they would need to deploy in  October 2002:    87
  
  Percentage of non-deployed Army National Guard Units that reported  having the minimum amount of equipment they would need to deploy in May  2005:    59
  
  Cost to reconstitute equipment lost by the Marine Corps in  Iraq:    $12.8  billion?         
  
  Recruiting and Retention     
  
  Number of recruits by which the Army missed its Fiscal Year 2005 recruiting goal:    6,627
  
  Number of the six Reserve Components that fell short of their Fiscal Year 2005 recruiting goals:    4
  
  Total number of recruits by which the six Reserve Components fell short  of their cumulative Fiscal Year 2005 recruiting goal:     18,864
  
  Year in which the Army last experienced a recruiting shortfall as large  as the Fiscal Year 2005 shortfall:    1979
  
  Number of months the Marine Corps missed its recruiting goals between January and April 2005:    4
  
  Number of months the Marine Corps missed its recruiting goals in ten years before January 2005:    0
  
  Prior to 2004, years since the Army National Guard last missed its annual recruiting goal:    11
  
  Number of the last 13 months for which the Army National Guard has missed its recruiting goals:    12
  
  Rate of loss of Army captains and lieutenants, the Army's junior officers, in 2004:      8.5
  
  Average rate of loss of Army captains and lieutenants, 1996-2004:    7.3
  
  Resignation requests submitted by Army Reserve Officers in 2001:      15
  
  Resignation requests submitted by Army Reserve Officers, September 2003-September 2004:    370
  
  Percent of Army enlisted special operations personnel leaving the force in 2004:    13
  
  Percent of Army enlisted special operations personnel leaving in 2003:    6
  
  Shortage of Captains, who serve as unit-level leaders, in the Army Reserve:    52 percent
  
  Change in national enrollment for the Army Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) since 2002:    -14 percent
  
  Morale      
  
  Percent of troops in Iraq reporting that their unit's morale is "low" or "very low":     54
  
  Increase in the divorce rate among Army officers since the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom:    317 percent
  
  Approximate number of veterans returning from Iraq or Afghanistan  diagnosed with some sort of mental disorder:     24,000
  
        
  North Korea     
        
  Estimated minimum number of nuclear weapons likely produced by North Korea during the Bush Administration:    4-6
  
  Estimated number produced by North Korea from 1953 to 2000:      1-2
  
  Potential number of nuclear weapons North Korea could possess by next  year if Six-Party Talks continue to produce no lasting disarmament  agreement:    11
        
  Darfur     
        
  Estimated number of conflict-related deaths per day in Darfur, Sudan:    500
  
  Estimated number since President Bush took office:    400,000
  
  Days since Secretary of State Powell first called the situation "genocide":    459
  
  Number of days after the Senate passed the Darfur Accountability Act as  an amendment to H.R. 1268 that the Administration wrote a letter  pressuring House Republicans (successfully) to remove it from the final  bill:     1
  
  Number of Darfuris that were expected to require food assistance during  the August-October "hunger season":     3.5 million
  
  Conflict-affected persons in Darfur and Eastern Chad:    3.4 million
  
  Number of Darfuris displaced by the conflict (internally displaced persons and refugees):    2 million
  
  Total population of the Darfur region:    6 million
  
        
  Homeland Security     
        
  Of 14 recommendations by the 9/11 Commission related to homeland  security and emergency preparedness/response, number for which 9/11  Commissioners have judged progress on implementation to be "minimal" or  "unsatisfactory":     11
  
  Factor by which passengers on mass transit systems exceed passengers on airlines:    16
  
  Funding per passenger the Bush Administration has spent to secure mass  transit systems since September 11, 2001:    $0.01
  
  Cost of security upgrades needed to protect rail and transit systems as  estimated by U.S. transit authorities:    $6 billion
  
  Amount of funding designated specifically for rail and transit security in President Bush's budget:    $0
  
  Total amount of funding added to the Fiscal Year 2006 Homeland Security  Appropriations bill for rail security in the wake of the July 7 London  Bombings:    $0
  
  Number of provisions in federal law requiring chemical facilities to  establish safeguards against a terrorist attack:           0
  
  Number of chemical facilities at which a terrorist strike could  threaten the lives of over 1 million people:    123
  
  Percent of cargo arriving at U.S. ports inspected for WMD:      <1
  
  Percent of "high-risk" cargo inspected:    17.5
  
  Estimated economic impact of a terrorist attack to a U.S. port:    $1 trillion
  
  Percent of Transportation Security Administration Fiscal Year 2005  budget allocated for port security grants:    2.8
  
  Deadline for meeting port security standards set by the Maritime Transportation Security Act:      2004
  
  Year in which MTSA port security standards will be met if port security funding levels remain constant:    2050
  
  Ratio of federal air security screeners to federal surface  transportation (rail and public transit) security  screeners:    450:1
  
  Homeland security grant dollars per capita awarded to the U.S. Virgin Islands in Fiscal Year 2004:    $104.35
  
  Homeland security grant dollars per capita awarded to California in Fiscal Year 2004:    $4.97
  
  Chance that a non-Mexican illegal immigrant apprehended while trying to  cross into the United States along the southwestern border will be  released because of lack of resources:     80
        
  
  Veterans     
        
  Approximate number of Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom veterans  discharged from service, through June 2005:    393,000
  
  Number of these veterans seeking health care from VA hospitals, through October 2005:    119,247
  
  Approximate number of these veterans diagnosed with Post-Traumatic  Stress Disorder (PTSD) or other mental ailments:     24,000
  
  According to the Army Surgeon General, percent of troops returning from  the Iraq war that have developed stress-related mental health  problems:    30
  
  Total funding requested specifically to meet the needs of Iraqi Freedom  and Enduring Freedom veterans in the President's 2006  budget:      $0
  
  Total Compensation and Pension Claims Backlog:    527,964
  
  Number of these claims pending for more than 6 months:    123,364
  
  Percent change in pending claims from the end of Fiscal Year 2003 to March 2005:    +33
  
  Gap between veterans' needs and President Bush's 2006 budget proposal:    $3.5 billion
  
  Percent increase needed each year just to maintain existing programs in  the face of medical inflation and other rising costs:     13-14
  
  Percent increase in veterans health care funding requested in President Bush?s 2006 Budget Proposal:    0.4
  
  Fiscal Year 2005 budget shortfall announced by the VA:    
  $1.27 billion
  
  Number of weeks prior to the VA's budget shortfall announcement that VA  Secretary Nicholson told Congress, "I can assure you that VA does not  need emergency supplemental funds in FY 2005":        11
  
  Total funding shortfall for Fiscal Years 2005 and 2006 now identified by the Bush Administration:    $3 billion
  
  Percentage rise in the number of veterans collecting unemployment insurance since August 2002:      96
  
  Approximate number of veterans who experience homelessness during a given year:    500,000
        
  
  Democracy and Development     
        
  Number of Botswanan AIDS patients the Bush Administration claims are  receiving treatment because of U.S. assistance:    32,839
  
  Number of Botswanan AIDS patients the Botswanan government says are  receiving treatment because of U.S. assistance:    0
  
  Total amount appropriated to the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA) so far:    $2.48 billion
  
  Total aid distributed by the MCA so far:    $0
  
  Average amount per year to be distributed through the five compact agreements signed so far:    $37.7 million
  
  Annual amount President Bush promised for the MCA:    $5 billion
  
  Average amount requested in President Bush's annual budgets since he proposed the MCA:    $2.3 billion
  
  Number of the world's ten poorest nations with whom the United States has signed an MCA compact:    0
  
  Number of the world's 40 poorest nations with whom the United States has signed an MCA compact:    1
  
  Rank of U.S. among 21 developed nations in foreign assistance spending  measured as a percentage of Gross National Product:         20
  
  Number of children dying each day from preventable diseases:    27,000
  
  Percentage of the world's population living on less than $2 per day:    50
  
  Cut in funding for foreign development assistance proposed in President Bush's budget:    $345 million
        
  
  Statistics of the Week     
        
  Afghanistan     
  
  Percent of the world's opium supplied by Afghanistan    87
  
  Afghanistan's drug economy, as a percentage of its legal GDP     52
  
  Estimated gross profit for Afghan opium traffickers last year:    
  $2.14 billion
  
  Percentage increase in cultivation in the Nimroz province over last year:    1370
  
  Percentage increase in cultivation in the Kandahar province:    162
  
  Percentage decrease in overall opium cultivation in Afghanistan from 2004 to 2005:    21
  
  Portion of the world's cannabis supply produced in Afghanistan    1/3 
   
   
  SOURCES
  Iraq
  1.  Los Angeles Times, 10/28/05 
  2.  The Brookings Institution Iraq Index reports that there were  approximately 22,000 non-U.S., non-Iraqi troops in Iraq as of September  2005.  (http://www.brookings.edu/fp/saban/iraq/index.pdf)
  3.  As of December 12, 2005.  Washington Post, 10/19/03
  4.  House Budget Committee Minority Staff   (http://www.house.gov/budget_democrats/analyses/06iraq_war_cost_update.pdf)  
  5. Christian Science Monitor, 8/29/05
  6.  Congressional Research Service RL 33110 reports an average  monthly spending rate of $5.9 billion in Iraq.  (http://www.congress.gov/erp/rl/pdf/RL33110.pdf)  
  7.  Iraqi Survey Group
  8.  DoD Casualty Report (http://www.dod.gov/news/casualty.pdf) December 12, 2005
  9.  DoD Casualty Report (http://www.dod.gov/news/casualty.pdf) December 12, 2005
  10.  DoD Casualty Report (http://www.dod.gov/news/casualty.pdf) December 12, 2005
  11.  DoD News Release, 5/11/05 (http://www.defenselink.mil/news/May2005/20050511_1025.html) 
  12. Brookings Institution Iraq Index (http://www.brookings.edu/fp/saban/iraq/index.pdf)
  13.  New York Daily News, 7/5/05
  14.  As of December 8, 2005.  Brookings Institution Iraq Index (http://www.brookings.edu/fp/saban/iraq/index.pdf) 
  15. Brookings Institution Iraq Index (http://www.brookings.edu/fp/saban/iraq/index.pdf) 
  16. Knight Ridder News Service, 11/5/05
  17.  Washington Post, 9/30/05
  18.   Boston Globe, 6/28/05
  19.  GlobalSecurity.Org (http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/iraq_orbat_coalition.htm) 
  20. GlobalSecurity.Org (http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/iraq_orbat_coalition.htm) 
  21. CRS RL32105 (http://www.congress.gov/erp/rl/pdf/RL32105.pdf) 
  22. ?Iraqi Economic Reconstruction and Development,? CSIS, 9/14/05 (http://www.csis.org/burke/050914_reconstruction.pdf)
  23.  Brookings Institution Iraq Index (http://www.brookings.edu/fp/saban/iraq/index.pdf) 
  24. Brookings Institution Iraq Index (http://www.brookings.edu/fp/saban/iraq/index.pdf)
  25.  New York Times, 10/30/05
   
  Terrorism
  1.  As of December 12, 2005
  2.  Japan signed the Instrument of Surrender on September 2, 1945
  3.  State Department press briefing, 4/27/05
  4.  State Department press briefing, 4/27/05
  5.  National Counterterrorism Center, Worldwide Incident Tracking System, accessed 12/6/05. 
  6.  National Counterterrorism Center, Worldwide Incident Tracking System, accessed 12/6/05.
  7.  National Counterterrorism Center (http://tkb.org/Group.jsp?groupID=6) 
  8. Washington Post, 1/14/05
  9.  CNN.com, 6/22/05
  10.  House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Emergency Preparedness, Science, and Technology hearing, 6/21/05
  11.  Securing the Bomb 2005, May 2005 (http://www.nti.org/e_research/report_cnwmupdate2005execsum.pdf) 
  12. Washington Post, 6/12/05
  13.  Washington Post, 6/12/05
  14.  Washington Post, 7/28/05
  15.  Washington Post, 7/28/05
   
  U.S. Military Personnel
                  Readiness/Strain
  1.  As of December 7, 2005.  DoD Press Resources (http://www.dod.gov/news/).  
  2. Brookings Institution Iraq Index (http://www.brookings.edu/fp/saban/iraq/index.pdf)
  3.  USA Today, 7/29/05
  4.  Detroit Free Press, 6/13/05
  5.  GAO-05-660 (http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d05660.pdf)
  6.  National Guard and Reserve Equipment Report for Fiscal Year  2006  (http://www.defenselink.mil/ra/documents/annualreports/fy2006NGREREquipment.PDF)  
  7. National Guard and Reserve Equipment Report for Fiscal Year 2006  (http://www.defenselink.mil/ra/documents/annualreports/fy2006NGREREquipment.PDF)
  8.  GAO-06-170T (http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d06170t.pdf) 
  9. GAO-06-170T (http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d06170t.pdf)
  10.  Marine Corps Times, 11/14/05
                  Recruiting and Retention
  1.  Defense Department Press Release (http://www.dod.gov/releases/2005/nr20051011-4881.html) 
  2. Defense Department Press Release (http://www.dod.gov/releases/2005/nr20051011-4881.html) 
  3. Defense Department Press Release (http://www.dod.gov/releases/2005/nr20051011-4881.html)
  4.  New York Times, 9/30/05
  5.  San Diego Union-Tribune, 5/27/05 (http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20050527/news_1n27recruit.html) 
  6. San Diego Union-Tribune, 5/27/05 (http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20050527/news_1n27recruit.html)
  7.  Washington Times, 9/23/04 (http://washingtontimes.com/national/20040923-114738-3289r.htm) 
  8. Reuters, 7/11/05; Department of Defense press release, 8/10/05 (05  http://www.dod.gov/releases/2005/nr20050810-4393.html); Department of  Defense press releases, 9/12/05, 10/11/05, 11/10/05, 12/12/05
  9.  Baltimore Sun, 7/28/05
  10.  Baltimore Sun, 7/28/05
  11.  Seattle Times, 12/9/04 (http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002113845_officershortage09m.html) 
  12. Seattle Times, 12/9/04 (http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002113845_officershortage09m.html) 
  13. Winston-Salem Journal, 7/30/05
  14.  Winston-Salem Journal, 7/30/05
  15.  GAO-05-660 (http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d05660.pdf)
  16.  Norfolk Virginian-Pilot, 10/31/05
                  Morale
  1.  Washington Post, 7/21/05
  2.  Houston Chronicle, 6/30/05
  3.  Testimony of VA Deputy Undersecretary Michael Kussman, House Armed Services Committee hearing, 7/26/05
   
  North Korea
  1.  Congressional Research Service IB91141
  2.  Congressional Research Service IB91141
  3.  Special Report, Center for Nonproliferation Studies, 4/28/05 (http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/pdf/050428.pdf) 
   
  Darfur
  1. Coalition for International Justice, 4/21/05   (http://www.cij.org/pdf/Press_Release_CIJ_Mortality_Study_April_21_2005.pdf)  
  2. Coalition for International Justice, 4/21/05   (http://www.cij.org/pdf/Press_Release_CIJ_Mortality_Study_April_21_2005.pdf)
  3.  Through December 12, 2005.  Powell, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Hearing, 9/9/04.  
  4.  American Prospect, 4/29/05 (http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=9622)
  5.  U.N. World Food Program press release, 6/17/05
  6.  USAID fact sheet, 9/30/05 (http://www.usaid.gov/locations/sub-saharan_africa/sudan/pdf/082605_fs48.pdf)
  7.  USAID fact sheet, 9/30/05 (http://www.usaid.gov/locations/sub-saharan_africa/sudan/pdf/082605_fs48.pdf)
  8.  U.S. State Department (http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/36028.htm) 
   
  Homeland Security
  1.  9/11 Public Discourse Project, 9/14/05
  1.  USA Today, 7/7/05
  2.  USA Today, 7/7/05
  3.  USA Today, 7/7/05
  4.  Senate Conference Report 109-83
  5.  H.R. 2360
  6.  Senator John Corzine, Senate Homeland Security and Government  Affairs Committee, 4/27/05  (http://hsgac.senate.gov/_files/CorzineHSGACtestimony.pdf) 
  7. Washington Post, 12/31/04
  8.  Associated Press, 5/25/05
  9.  Associated Press, 5/25/05
  10.  Protecting the American Homeland: A Preliminary Analysis, Brookings Institution, May 2002
  11. ?What Does Homeland Security Spending Buy?? American Enterprise  Institute (AEI), April 2005  (http://www.aei.org/docLib/20050408_wp107.pdf)
  12.  New Strategies to Protect America: Safer Ports for a More  Secure Economy, Center for American Progress, 6/15/05 (  http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=815195) 
  13. New Strategies to Protect America: Safer Ports for a More Secure  Economy, Center for American Progress, 6/15/05  (http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=815195)
  14.  New Strategies to Protect America: Putting Rail Security on the Right Track, Center for American Progress, 4/21/05 (
  http://www.americanprogress.org/atf/cf/{E9245FE4-9A2B-43C7-A521-5D6FF2E06E03}/Rail%20Security%20Printer%20Final.pdf) 
  15. ?What Does Homeland Security Spending Buy?? AEI, April 2005 (http://www.aei.org/docLib/20050408_wp107.pdf) 
  16. ?What Does Homeland Security Spending Buy?? AEI, April 2005 (http://www.aei.org/docLib/20050408_wp107.pdf)
  17.  Secretary Michael Chertoff, testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee, 10/18/05
   
  Veterans
  1. Testimony of Michael Kussman before the House Armed Services  Subcommittee on Personnel, 7/26/05  (http://www.house.gov/hasc/schedules/Kussman72605.pdf) 
  2. Salon.com, 12/10/05
  3.  Testimony of Michael Kussman before the House Armed Services  Subcommittee on Personnel, 7/26/05  (http://www.house.gov/hasc/schedules/Kussman72605.pdf)
  4.  USA Today, 7/29/05
  5.  President?s Fiscal Year 2006 Budget Request (http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2006/veterans.html) 
  6. VA Monday Morning Report (http://www.vba.va.gov/bln/201/reports/mmrindex.htm).  Week of November 28, 2005.
  7.  VA Monday Morning Report (http://www.vba.va.gov/bln/201/reports/mmrindex.htm).  Week of November 28, 2005.
  8.  GAO-05-749T   
  9.   Veterans Independent Budget
  10.  House Veterans Affairs Committee hearing,  1/29/03                
  11.  Veterans of Foreign Wars press release, 2/18/05 (http://www.vfw.org/index.cfm?fa=news.newsDtl&did=2373) 
  12. CQ Today, 7/13/05
  13.  Washington Post, 6/24/05
  14.  CQ Today, 7/13/05
  15.  Reuters, 8/30/05 (http://www.ngwrc.org/index.cfm?Page=Article&ID=2045) 
  16.  National Coalition of Homeless Veterans, testimony to House  Veterans? Affairs Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity  (http://www.nchv.org/content.cfm?id=43) 
   
  Democracy and Development
  1.  Washington Post, 7/1/05
  2.  Washington Post, 7/1/05
  3.  Congressional Research Service, RL 32427
  4.  Millennium Challenge Corporation. (http://www.mca.gov)
  5.  The Millennium Challenge Corporation has signed a four-year,  $110 million compact with Madagascar; a five-year, $215 million compact  with Honduras;  a five-year, $110 million compact with Cape Verde;  a five-year, $175 million compact with Nicaragua; and a five-year,  $295.3 million compact with Georgia.  Millennium Challenge  Corporation. (http://www.mca.gov)
  6.  Congressional Research Service, RL 32427
  7.  Debt-AIDS-Trade-Africa (DATA) fact sheet (http://www.data.org/archives/PresReq06onepager.pdf) 
  8. Congressional Research Service, RL 32427
  9.  Congressional Research Service, RL 32427
  10.  Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/59/51/34700392.pdf) 
  11. Foreign Policy, February 2005 (http://www.cgdev.org/docs/FP_Radelet_2_05.pdf) 
  12. Foreign Policy, February 2005 (http://www.cgdev.org/docs/FP_Radelet_2_05.pdf)
  13.  Senate Conference Report 109-96
   
  Statistics of the Week
  1. UN Office on Drugs and Crime 2005 Afghanistan Opium Survey (http://www.unodc.org/pdf/afg/afg_survey_2005.pdf) 
  2. UN Office on Drugs and Crime 2005 Afghanistan Opium Survey (http://www.unodc.org/pdf/afg/afg_survey_2005.pdf)
  3.  UN Office on Drugs and Crime 2005 Afghanistan Opium Survey (http://www.unodc.org/pdf/afg/afg_survey_2005.pdf)
  4.  UN Office on Drugs and Crime Afghanistan Opium Survey (http://www.unodc.org/pdf/afg/afg_survey_2005.pdf)
  5.  UN Office on Drugs and Crime 2005 Afghanistan Opium Survey (http://www.unodc.org/pdf/afg/afg_survey_2005.pdf)
  6.  UN Office on Drugs and Crime 2005 Afghanistan Opium Survey (http://www.unodc.org/pdf/afg/afg_survey_2005.pdf)
  7.  UN Office on Drugs and Crime 2005 Afghanistan Opium Survey (http://www.unodc.org/pdf/afg/afg_survey_2005.pdf)
  
  
        
      
 
      
  
  
  

			
---------------------------------
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From barbarasiomos38 at msn.com  Sat Dec 17 10:17:30 2005
From: barbarasiomos38 at msn.com (barbara)
Date: Sat Dec 17 10:18:02 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] 'Hypocrisy Trumps Clemency' from The Nation
Message-ID: <200512171817.jBHIHUbC030828@thor.thenation.com>

If you like this article, please consider subscribing to The Nation at special
discounted rates. You can order online https://ssl.thenation.com or call our
toll-free number at 1-800-333-8536.

An article from The Nation  on Tookie.

   Hypocrisy Trumps Clemency 
   by Bruce Shapiro


There is undeniable hypocrisy in California Governor Arnold
Schwarzenegger, who built his fame by feeding adolescent fantasies of
killing, denying clemency to a former Crips leader who counseled
teenagers against gang violence.

The lethal injection California officials administered to Stanley
"Tookie" Williams on December 13 has sparked a notably reinvigorated
debate over the death penalty, driven as well by the execution of
Vietnam combat veteran Kenneth Boyd in North Carolina on December 2,
the 1,000th state killing since the Supreme Court reinstated capital
punishment in 1976.

Like Karla Faye Tucker of Texas, whose plea for clemency in 1998 was
famously mocked by then-Governor George W. Bush, Tookie Williams forced
public debate over the notion of personal redemption. In denying
clemency Schwarzenegger insisted that Williams's many years of antigang
mediation and writing could not signify redemption in the absence of
admission of guilt--and Tookie Williams always insisted he was innocent
of the four killings for which he was convicted.

One inevitably wonders if Schwarzenegger would really have ruled the
other way if Williams had uttered a last-minute confession. The recent
history of death row cases reveals that guilt--even with confession--is
a profoundly error-prone finding, and thus a poor guide to mercy.
Clemency, in any event, is not in law contingent upon either innocence
or admission of guilt; in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries,
governors routinely set aside death sentences at a far higher rate than
they do today.

In the past decade, exoneration of more than 120 innocent death row
inmates has generated a widening unease with capital punishment. The
executions of Williams and Boyd--a celebrated African-American and
reformed gang leader in California and a little-known, white Vietnam
veteran in North Carolina who insisted, with substantial reason, that
combat trauma contributed to his violent record--together move the
debate to a new question: whether the finality of execution is ever a
just measure of the twists and turns of an offender's life, or whether
it is time to abandon a penalty that has outlived any purpose except
blood vengeance.



This article can be found on the web at:

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20051226/shapiro



Visit The Nation
http://www.thenation.com/

Subscribe to The Nation:
https://ssl.thenation.com/
From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Sat Dec 17 10:27:51 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (Mike Blaxill)
Date: Sat Dec 17 10:39:02 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Ray McGovern - Bush Gesture to McCain: Less than Meets
	the Eye
Message-ID: <20051217182751.87353.qmail@web53002.mail.yahoo.com>


http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/121605A.shtml

Bush Gesture to McCain: Less than Meets the Eye 
    By Ray McGovern 
    t r u t h o u t | Perspective

    Friday 16 December 2005

    In deciding not to follow through on his
threat to veto Sen. John McCain?s amendment
against torture, Bush actually surrendered very
little. Torture is still in the eyes of the
beholders in the defense and intelligence
communities.

    The unseemly spectacle of Vice President Dick
Cheney and President George W. Bush openly
opposing the McCain amendment banning torture for
a torturous five months has done irreparable harm
to America?s standing abroad. The damage will not
be attenuated by the president?s reluctant
acquiescence to the McCain amendment yesterday.
The most that can be said is that the harm would
have been still greater if McCain caved in to
Cheney?s incredibly obtuse opposition, or if Bush
had to veto must-pass defense legislation in
order to defeat the amendment.

    The Bush-McCain compromise changes very
little. The interrogation practices banned are
limited to those not authorized by the United
States Army Field Manual on Intelligence
Interrogation, which can be - is being - revised.
The New York Times reported on Wednesday that the
Army has approved a 10-page secret addendum to
the Army field manual, a move that one Pentagon
official described as ?a stick in McCain?s eye.?
McCain?s chief of staff minced no words in
describing the move as ?politically obtuse? and
undertaken without ?one molecule of political due
diligence.?

    The new manual, to be issued this month,
spells out authorized interrogation techniques,
but these remain classified. Having faced down
Cheney, it will be interesting to see if McCain?s
courage extends to facing down Defense Secretary
Rumsfeld?s transparent attempt to vitiate the
amendment. Or will McCain and his congressional
colleagues settle for a Potemkin-village-type
victory, and leave the field for the clever
lawyers around Cheney and Rumsfeld. The pleasant
noises that McCain was making yesterday and
premature comments of eager-to-please Jane
Harmon, vice-chair of the House Intelligence
Committee, suggest that, in the end, most
legislators will settle for Potemkin.

    The Crooks and the Crux

    One Army officer involved bemoaned the fact
that confusion persists because of lack of
clarity on what constitutes torture. ??Cruel,
inhuman, and degrading treatment? is at the crux
of the problem,? he said, ?but we?ve never
defined that.?

    The section of the McCain amendment applying
to CIA and other civilian interrogators also
hinges on what qualifies as cruel, inhuman and
degrading treatment, but the amendment?s attempt
to define it by referring to provisions in the US
Constitution and the UN convention against
torture leaves ample room for ambiguity and wide
interpretation.

    Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said
yesterday that the dispute between the White
House and McCain was over ?what constitutes
cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment? and
used the rhetorical device of reductio ad
absurdam, pointing out, ?In some countries ...
those words mean you can?t even insult someone
when you question them.? Appearing on CNN,
Gonzales added:

    ?Congress has defined what torture is, and it
is intentional infliction of severe - I emphasize
the word severe - intentional infliction of
severe physical or mental pain or suffering.?

    Gonzales would not say whether this
definition would include waterboarding. Those
watching CNN will not have much reason to believe
that anything has changed.

    National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley said
yesterday that his negotiations with McCain
centered on providing legal protection for
interrogators. McCain had said earlier that
granting such protection would undermine his
amendment, but under the compromise with the
White House, CIA officers and other civilians
accused of abuse in interrogation would be able
to argue that they believed they were obeying a
legal order and would have the right to
government counsel. In practice, this will make
it very difficult to hold anyone accountable in
US courts. A prosecutor would have to prove that
a higher-up?s orders were so unreasonable that
they fit the category of Nazi atrocities.

    No effort has been made to disguise what lies
behind the administration?s position. Even
Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, a lawyer who has
been considered a moderate on the issue of
torture, has conceded that the ?problem? is to
find a way to protect interrogators who go too
far. Perhaps it is my lack of legal training, but
I do not think one can square this circle. There
remains too much of a disconnect, for example,
between the ?we-do-not-torture? rhetoric and, for
example, Gonzales?s refusal to rule out
waterboarding.

    Other Fallout

Dick Cheney, dubbed ?Vice President for Torture?
by the New York Times has been dealt a resolute
rebuff. His open advocacy of torture, coming on
the heels of the indictment of his chief of
staff, has put a huge chink in his armor. Today?s
revelations that he played a key role in the
latest scandal, the use of the National Security
Agency for warrant-less eavesdropping on US
citizens, could be strike three. Despite the
president?s protestations that the two have never
been closer, Bush may soon be forced to put a
considerable distance between himself and his
?minence grise. 

The imperial presidency has been struck a blow -
not fatal yet, but nonetheless damaging. Congress
has summoned the courage to face Cheney and the
president down, at least overtly, and that chips
away at the image of invulnerability carefully
cultivated by the administration. Congress people
and Senators seem newly aware that their oath is
to the Constitution, not the White House, and
this can spell big trouble in the months ahead. 

The press is beginning to act like a responsible
fourth estate. True, the New York Times sat on
the NSA story for a whole year, but it was
published before the final vote on the so-called
Patriot Act - perhaps even in time to have some
impact. 

After two years of intimidation by what happened
to Ambassador Joseph Wilson and his wife Valerie,
patriots within the national security
establishment are showing a new willingness to
reveal abuses to the press. ?According to current
and former intelligence officials? has become
familiar attribution in major stories that blow
the whistle on abuses and deceit. 

The George W. Bush White House is no longer the
well-honed machine it once was. Clearly, Karl
Rove and Dick Cheney are preoccupied with their
legal problems, and the gaping hole left by their
lack of timely advice has left the president to
his own devices. His failure to do the smart
thing last summer and meet with Cindy Sheehan,
his identification with Cheney?s doomed stance on
torture, his recent off-the-cuff appraisal of
Iraqi casualties, his gratuitous remark that
Donald Rumsfeld is doing ?a heck of a job? (like
the late Michael Brown of FEMA?) - all attest to
a lack of adult supervision these days at the
White House. And as Libby goes to trial, and if
Karl Rove is indicted, things are likely to get
still more dicey.
    Ray McGovern works for Tell the Word, the
publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the
Saviour in Washington, DC. He was a CIA analyst
for 27 years and is co-founder of Veteran
Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).

From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Sat Dec 17 10:36:45 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (mblaxill@yahoo.com)
Date: Sat Dec 17 10:47:43 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: In Speech,
	Bush Says He Ordered Domestic Spying
Message-ID: <20051217183645.ED44611F9AB@lax-gw07.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: mblaxill@yahoo.com.

WASHINGTON | December 18, 2005
In Speech, Bush Says He Ordered Domestic Spying
By DAVID E. SANGER
President Bush acknowledged that he had ordered the National Security Agency to conduct an electronic eavesdropping program without first obtaining warrants.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/18/politics/18bush.html?emc=eta1



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one Best Picture.  What did the original New York
Times movie reviews have to say about these Oscar
winning films?  
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From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Sat Dec 17 10:40:54 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (mblaxill@yahoo.com)
Date: Sat Dec 17 10:52:00 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: In Exurbs, Life in the Car
Message-ID: <20051217184054.95BD7249D38@lax-gw08.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: mblaxill@yahoo.com.

days for stories like this are numbered


NATIONAL | December 18, 2005
Far and Away: In Exurbs, Life in the Car
By RICK LYMAN
In exurbs like Frisco, Tex., almost every major road is being expanded to deal with rapid growth.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/18/national/18FRISCO.html?emc=eta1



----------------- Advertisement --------------------------

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one Best Picture.  What did the original New York
Times movie reviews have to say about these Oscar
winning films?  
Go to the Best Pictures review archive:

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This e-mail was sent to you by a friend through NYTimes.com's E-mail This Article service.  For general information about NYTimes.com, write to help@nytimes.com.

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Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
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From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Sat Dec 17 10:45:57 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (mblaxill@yahoo.com)
Date: Sat Dec 17 10:56:57 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] 
	NYTimes.com: Remote and Poked, Anthropology's Dream Tribe
Message-ID: <20051217184557.99A03249CD2@lax-gw08.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: mblaxill@yahoo.com.

INTERNATIONAL / AFRICA | December 18, 2005
Remote and Poked, Anthropology's Dream Tribe
By MARC LACEY
Members of Kenya's Ariaal tribe, of interest to scientists for decades because of their isolation, are now being analyzed for straddling modern life.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/18/international/africa/18tribe.html?emc=eta1



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one Best Picture.  What did the original New York
Times movie reviews have to say about these Oscar
winning films?  
Go to the Best Pictures review archive:

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----------------------------------------------------------

ABOUT THIS E-MAIL
This e-mail was sent to you by a friend through NYTimes.com's E-mail This Article service.  For general information about NYTimes.com, write to help@nytimes.com.

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From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Sat Dec 17 10:49:19 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (mblaxill@yahoo.com)
Date: Sat Dec 17 11:00:15 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Taking Liberties With the Nation's Security
Message-ID: <20051217184919.C6B9524AF03@lax-gw02.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: mblaxill@yahoo.com.

hit send with one hand and hold nose with the other


OPINION | December 17, 2005
Op-Ed Contributor: Taking Liberties With the Nation's Security
By RUDOLPH W. GIULIANI
Americans must use every legal and constitutional tool in their arsenal to fight terrorism and protect their lives and liberties.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/17/opinion/17giuliani.html?emc=eta1




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This e-mail was sent to you by a friend through NYTimes.com's E-mail This Article service.  For general information about NYTimes.com, write to help@nytimes.com.

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From ean at sbcglobal.net  Sat Dec 17 15:22:47 2005
From: ean at sbcglobal.net (ean@sbcglobal.net)
Date: Sat Dec 17 15:52:56 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Bush Gesture to McCain: Less than Meets the Eye 
Message-ID: <E1EnlgX-00055j-JA@smtpauth09.mail.atl.earthlink.net>

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/121605A.shtml

Bush Gesture to McCain: Less than Meets the Eye 
    By Ray McGovern 
    t r u t h o u t | Perspective

    Friday 16 December 2005

    In deciding not to follow through on his
threat to veto Sen. John McCain?s amendment
against torture, Bush actually surrendered very
little. Torture is still in the eyes of the
beholders in the defense and intelligence
communities.

    The unseemly spectacle of Vice President Dick
Cheney and President George W. Bush openly
opposing the McCain amendment banning torture for
a torturous five months has done irreparable harm
to America?s standing abroad. The damage will not
be attenuated by the president?s reluctant
acquiescence to the McCain amendment yesterday.
The most that can be said is that the harm would
have been still greater if McCain caved in to
Cheney?s incredibly obtuse opposition, or if Bush
had to veto must-pass defense legislation in
order to defeat the amendment.

    The Bush-McCain compromise changes very
little. The interrogation practices banned are
limited to those not authorized by the United
States Army Field Manual on Intelligence
Interrogation, which can be - is being - revised.
The New York Times reported on Wednesday that the
Army has approved a 10-page secret addendum to
the Army field manual, a move that one Pentagon
official described as ?a stick in McCain?s eye.?
McCain?s chief of staff minced no words in
describing the move as ?politically obtuse? and
undertaken without ?one molecule of political due
diligence.?

    The new manual, to be issued this month,
spells out authorized interrogation techniques,
but these remain classified. Having faced down
Cheney, it will be interesting to see if McCain?s
courage extends to facing down Defense Secretary
Rumsfeld?s transparent attempt to vitiate the
amendment. Or will McCain and his congressional
colleagues settle for a Potemkin-village-type
victory, and leave the field for the clever
lawyers around Cheney and Rumsfeld. The pleasant
noises that McCain was making yesterday and
premature comments of eager-to-please Jane
Harmon, vice-chair of the House Intelligence
Committee, suggest that, in the end, most
legislators will settle for Potemkin.

    The Crooks and the Crux

    One Army officer involved bemoaned the fact
that confusion persists because of lack of
clarity on what constitutes torture. ??Cruel,
inhuman, and degrading treatment? is at the crux
of the problem,? he said, ?but we?ve never
defined that.?

    The section of the McCain amendment applying
to CIA and other civilian interrogators also
hinges on what qualifies as cruel, inhuman and
degrading treatment, but the amendment?s attempt
to define it by referring to provisions in the US
Constitution and the UN convention against
torture leaves ample room for ambiguity and wide
interpretation.

    Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said
yesterday that the dispute between the White
House and McCain was over ?what constitutes
cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment? and
used the rhetorical device of reductio ad
absurdam, pointing out, ?In some countries ...
those words mean you can?t even insult someone
when you question them.? Appearing on CNN,
Gonzales added:

    ?Congress has defined what torture is, and it
is intentional infliction of severe - I emphasize
the word severe - intentional infliction of
severe physical or mental pain or suffering.?

    Gonzales would not say whether this
definition would include waterboarding. Those
watching CNN will not have much reason to believe
that anything has changed.

    National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley said
yesterday that his negotiations with McCain
centered on providing legal protection for
interrogators. McCain had said earlier that
granting such protection would undermine his
amendment, but under the compromise with the
White House, CIA officers and other civilians
accused of abuse in interrogation would be able
to argue that they believed they were obeying a
legal order and would have the right to
government counsel. In practice, this will make
it very difficult to hold anyone accountable in
US courts. A prosecutor would have to prove that
a higher-up?s orders were so unreasonable that
they fit the category of Nazi atrocities.

    No effort has been made to disguise what lies
behind the administration?s position. Even
Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, a lawyer who has
been considered a moderate on the issue of
torture, has conceded that the ?problem? is to
find a way to protect interrogators who go too
far. Perhaps it is my lack of legal training, but
I do not think one can square this circle. There
remains too much of a disconnect, for example,
between the ?we-do-not-torture? rhetoric and, for
example, Gonzales?s refusal to rule out
waterboarding.

    Other Fallout

Dick Cheney, dubbed ?Vice President for Torture?
by the New York Times has been dealt a resolute
rebuff. His open advocacy of torture, coming on
the heels of the indictment of his chief of
staff, has put a huge chink in his armor. Today?s
revelations that he played a key role in the
latest scandal, the use of the National Security
Agency for warrant-less eavesdropping on US
citizens, could be strike three. Despite the
president?s protestations that the two have never
been closer, Bush may soon be forced to put a
considerable distance between himself and his
?minence grise. 

The imperial presidency has been struck a blow -
not fatal yet, but nonetheless damaging. Congress
has summoned the courage to face Cheney and the
president down, at least overtly, and that chips
away at the image of invulnerability carefully
cultivated by the administration. Congress people
and Senators seem newly aware that their oath is
to the Constitution, not the White House, and
this can spell big trouble in the months ahead. 

The press is beginning to act like a responsible
fourth estate. True, the New York Times sat on
the NSA story for a whole year, but it was
published before the final vote on the so-called
Patriot Act - perhaps even in time to have some
impact. 

After two years of intimidation by what happened
to Ambassador Joseph Wilson and his wife Valerie,
patriots within the national security
establishment are showing a new willingness to
reveal abuses to the press. ?According to current
and former intelligence officials? has become
familiar attribution in major stories that blow
the whistle on abuses and deceit. 

The George W. Bush White House is no longer the
well-honed machine it once was. Clearly, Karl
Rove and Dick Cheney are preoccupied with their
legal problems, and the gaping hole left by their
lack of timely advice has left the president to
his own devices. His failure to do the smart
thing last summer and meet with Cindy Sheehan,
his identification with Cheney?s doomed stance on
torture, his recent off-the-cuff appraisal of
Iraqi casualties, his gratuitous remark that
Donald Rumsfeld is doing ?a heck of a job? (like
the late Michael Brown of FEMA?) - all attest to
a lack of adult supervision these days at the
White House. And as Libby goes to trial, and if
Karl Rove is indicted, things are likely to get
still more dicey.

    Ray McGovern works for Tell the Word, the
publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the
Saviour in Washington, DC. He was a CIA analyst
for 27 years and is co-founder of Veteran
Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).


-- 
You are currently on Mha Atma's Earth Action Network email list, 
option D (up to 3 emails/day).  To be removed, or to switch options 
(option A - 1x/week, option B - 3/wk, option C - up to 1x/day, option D - 
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"A war of aggression is the supreme international crime." -- Robert Jackson,
 former U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice and Nuremberg prosecutor

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From drmhaatma at yahoo.com  Sat Dec 17 15:26:09 2005
From: drmhaatma at yahoo.com (Mha Atma Khalsa)
Date: Sat Dec 17 15:53:58 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Christian Peacemaker Team's Kidnapping: Who Did It?
Message-ID: <E1Enlha-0005du-FN@smtpauth09.mail.atl.earthlink.net>

 This very interesting piece was written by  the former director of the Christian Peacemaker Team, which currently  has 4 of its members kidnapped under threat of death in Iraq.  In  asking who did it, he talks about the dark underbelly of war--state  terror....
  
  http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1215-24.htm
  
  Published on Thursday, December 15, 2005 by CommonDreams.org
  Christian Peacemaker Team's Kidnapping: Who Did It?
  by Gene Stoltzfus
   
  
  Virtually all the commentary on the abduction of Christian Peacemaker  Teams workers in Iraq has focused on some notion that the abductors,  Swords of Righteousness Brigade, represent a another fringe Muslim  movement which is consumed with the romance of terror and wrecking the  project of rebuilding Iraq. Inquiries from thoughtful people of good  will have come to me requesting insight on the sources and reasons of  hostage taking in Iraq. If and when we discover who did it, we will  have to face the shadowy world culture that gives rise to terrorism.
  
  This may be the time to pause for a moment and examine what we  understand world wide as the culture of terror. In my travels I have  noticed people do not immediately distinguish between state supported  terror and terror that may grow out of groups remotely affiliated with  state power or clearly independent. The use of terror in the support of  military objectives has been associated with war for 5000 years. Roman  legions, Genghis Khan and their predecessors including Alexander the  Great resorted to wanton destruction of property, rape, and pillaging  of civilian populations in their campaigns to conquer and subdue the  enemy. Both Christian and Muslim backed official and unofficial  movements refined these practices to purify their narrow understanding  of the faith and to claim or protect holy sites.
  
  In the wake of enlightenment thinking, particularly in Prussia with  Frederick the Great there were efforts to develop properly uniformed  and disciplined armies who would not mix so crudely with civilians.  International gatherings began to tentatively formulate rules of  warfare to protect civilians and prisoners, and to place limits on  armies of occupation. In a broad historical sense this movement to  bring the destructiveness of war under a web of containment remind us  of similar efforts to define just war promoted by St. Augustine in the  fourth century. After three centuries of attempting to practice  pacifism the church became the religion of the empire and in this new  context the church could not immediately dispense with the Biblical  notion that Christians should not kill, that in fact God's love should  be visible as believers walked in the light, and that enemy loving must  be practiced as a fundamental tenet of the faith.
  
  In the so called Christian west there are modern efforts to bring  boundaries to war by enlightenment internationalists and the inheritors  of just war thinking. Various covenants and protocols are in place that  prescribe treatment of detainees and guidelines on the treatment of  civilians for armies of occupation. In the wake of this growing body of  international law and the recovery of enemy loving teachings among  Christians, governments have resorted to two track war making.
  
  The public face of war making are the uniformed soldiers with their  attendant weapons of modern warfare including all kinds of high tech  equipment often justified as being inherently less destructive. The  other track, the shadow side, contains war making at much more vicious  level that can be regarded as the application of terror on enemy  populations including civilians. Many of us choose to see the visible  expressions of the security state, the uniformed soldier, but are  mystified by or choose not to believe that "civilized" nations  Christian, Muslim or Jewish, practice assassination, torture,  destruction of whole cities with dimly lit underworld programs.
  
  Despite the fact that thoughtful military historians report that these  expressions of terror rarely achieve the desired ends of national  security, planners and politicians continue to use these means. When  national leaders speak of total war they mean the application of  uniformed military strength as well as the use of assassination squads,  programs of terror, lethal means of interrogation, and the real and  symbolic destruction of cities like Fallujah. Total war includes the  use of both above ground diplomatic or military means of influencing  the political process as well as underground threats, assassinations  and support of violent change when it is deemed necessary to achieve  national security end. Anything goes.
  
  This two track policy is nowhere more obvious than in unfolding of the  American experience of nationhood, the first political experiment of  the enlightenment, a design which at its core still fascinates people  around the world and gives hope that tyranny can be overthrown, despite  the fact that the United States achieved nationhood at the expense of a  total war against a native population and the absence of participation  of slaves and women in the body politic.
  
  In WW II the carpet bombing of German cities and the atomic bombing in  Japan gave new meaning to total war,. With the use of shadowy  operatives, in countries around the world from Iran to Guatemala  movements have been thwarted, annihilated, overturned.
  
  When movements, armed and unarmed are considered anathema to national  security interests they may be attacked with weapons and paramilitary  bodies from the shadows. In the US and elsewhere this covert style was  adapted for domestic purposes and applied to Dr. Martin Luther King and  others through disinformation campaigns. The wrecking of movements by  shadowy covert war with its attendant disrespect for civilians and any  rules of war is one of the single most significant contributors to the  culture of terrorism in which we now try to work.
  
  The point of observing this cursory history of modern total war is  this. American people understand their government has legitimate  national security concerns and they believe that these concerns are  generally acted upon with restrained use of warfare in the spirit of  their "enlightened" constitution. While the people of the world know  about the US constitution they have also been the recipients, for the  past 100 years and longer of the shadow side of total war.
  
  In the US when I speak about grass roots peacemaking in other parts of  the world people ask me, "Why do they hate us?" more than any other  question. I set about the task of explaining and I can see some eyes  look down or glaze over, perhaps in the hope that assassinations, My  Lai, Abu Ghraib and wanton destruction are the exceptions, rather than  the consistent pattern rising from state sponsored programs. Many of  the people of the world, particularly the Muslim world who have  experienced the shadowy war directly do not see Americans quite as  separated from the culture of terror as Americans perceive themselves.
  
  Total war has meant the use of atomic weapons only once but it has  meant the repeated use of a full basket of tricks from the shadow.  Political leaders who make policy in neat little packages of 2 years, 4  years or 6 years, believe that the basket of tricks from the shadow  side will achieve results quickly within their election time-frame. It  will take generations and massive grass roots work to reverse this  course.
  
  Why do people hate Americans? Jealousy because of American economic  life or technological energy? No! In my experience it has more to do  with the fact that people think Americans can't be trusted, because of  direct or indirect experience with the shadow side American government  war making. Little wonder that one of the most visible and accessible  symbols of American presence, the Embassy becomes less and less secure  every year.
  
  American people and their supporters around the world don't want to  hear about the shadow side of the American story. It is too painful and  wrenching. For some it puts the entire democratic experiment at risk.
  
  Some embrace a fictionalized modern version of a God of war and implant  that version on the Bible as well as on the United State thereby  elevating the American experiment to cosmic proportions. For others the  integration of the shadow carries with it too many new obligations. For  others the acknowledgment of this underside signals new hope. New  energy always comes to the human heart when the cosmos starts to make  sense again because of the acknowledgment of shadowy ghosts that can  hold power over us.
  
  In 2003 I watched from within Iraq and then from the safety of our  country as the bombings of the United Nations, the International  Committee of the Red Cross, CARE International and the Jordanian  embassies rocketed throughout Bagdad resulting in the wholesale  evacuation of non government organizations, as well as the diplomatic  community many of whom had expressed deep reservation about the  American occupation of Iraq. I viewed with horror the pleas of hostages  and personally listened to families who had members disappear due to  house raids and official US government operations. I do not believe  that the entire culture of terror in Iraq can be attributed to state  sponsored terrorism arising from any single state. But, I do believe  that the fact of terror in Iraq is in part due to the world wide  culture of the shadow side of total war practiced for the last 60 years.
  
  As a civilian worker in Viet Nam and later as a participant observer in  Central America and other international situations I know that my  country has long had within its control, strategies and organized  forces schooled in the basic tactics of modern terror, assassination  and arms length killing. The situation in Iraq invites questions of  when these tactics are being applied there. I do not know who planned  and carried out the four bombings to which I referred but I do know  that I reserve judgement for some distant time when courageous  journalists and able scholars will thread with care the tapestry of now  hidden information pertaining to this era. I do not know who the group,  Swords for Righteousness Brigade, is. I do know that I will reserve  judgement until a future time when more is known of this specific  group. Finally, I know from thousands of conversations in so many  countries that people with experience with America's shadowy wars will  also be waiting f
 or that
 day of reckoning. The truth may present  another opportunity for the American people to acknowledge the weight  of our nation's burdens now hidden in the shadows, and thus make real  change.
  
  Terrorist movements have grown out of Christian and Muslim as well as  other religious contexts through the centuries. Guerilla movements of  liberation have at times also resorted to terror of civilian  populations. But the use of terror anywhere always bites back with  defeat, if not immediately, in future generations. Those who practice  and design terror develop callouses and hearts of stone that can only  be repaired with complete confession and a change in direction.
  
  In Iraq I watched as the American government searched for methods that  would hide detainee matters from the light of responsible inquiry. From  the record we know of American efforts to skirt and reinterpret  international covenants that guide war making. The record is clear that  the designers of this war believe that since America now has power it  should use it, a doctrine that pays little attention to the history of  the effects of the dirty underside of war making, nor holds real  promise for security in the future. I note with great concern the  emergence of a culture of terror that has taken over so much of Iraq,  resulting in anguish for Iraqi citizens and internationals who try to  help. There is cause for rigorous inquiry into matters related to  United States sponsored terror in Iraq, whether it is carried out by US  forces or other operatives under the direct command of the United  States President or emboldened by training initiatives of the United  States.
  
  I believe that as citizens, and participants in the experiment of  democracy, a project like the rebuilding of Iraq that purports to  create a framework for less violent, more just, nationhood we owe it to  one another to vigorously explore these matters. I would caution all of  us to proceed in a way that does not unduly increase the level of  paranoia that is inherent in such an inquiry. Rather let us proceed in  the spirit of truth, recognizing that truth based on real facts will  contribute to the freedom and wholeness of all of us, and maybe begin a  process of reconciliation.
  
  I write as many citizens of the United State are beginning the  Christmas celebration, of the arrival of the Prince of Peace as a baby.  I will join with millions of Americans in that celebration but I know,  according to Scripture, that in a matter of weeks following Christ's  birth the order went out to exterminate male children because one of  those children was thought to be a Prince with a program of peace, that  was suspected of lacking a reliable allegiance to the Roman empire or  its local ruling puppet. Variations of state sponsored terrorism have  been repeated through the centuries in many permutations until the  present. I know that there are expressions of terrorism that are not  under the control of any single state. The democratic experiment in  Iraq which must show some success before the next election cycle will  be paper thin if it relies on the underside of American war strategies.  At best it will be a state built in the image of Saddam but with a few  m
 ore
 democratic decorations. At worst it will crumble as a nation. I  have placed the question about who abducted the CPT members in the  larger context of terrorism as the shadow culture of the state. So,  rather than asking who carried out the abduction, I invite us to  broaden the question to what we will do about the culture of terrorism.
  
  Until last year when he retired, Gene Stoltzfus was the director of  Christian Peacemaker Teams and in that capacity frequently was in Iraq  with the team. For ideas and reflections on CPTers being held in  Baghdad and other peace initiatives check his blog at  http://www.gstoltzfus.blogspot.com. Email Gene at genestoltz@yahoo.com.
  
  ###
  
  

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From grgolsorkhi at earthlink.net  Sat Dec 17 09:58:48 2005
From: grgolsorkhi at earthlink.net (Golsorkhi)
Date: Sat Dec 17 16:04:16 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] FW: Specific threats 
In-Reply-To: <CCA7275C-37AD-468B-BA0F-4EE870C8C739@thesamiis.com>
Message-ID: <E1EnlrX-0006aG-V0@smtpauth02.mail.atl.earthlink.net>


------ Forwarded Message
From: Samii Shahla <shahla@thesamiis.com>
Date: Fri, 16 Dec 2005 01:40:49 -0500
Subject: Specific threats


Specific threats 

What should worry Israel is that political events in Tehran are now being
managed by one of the biggest and most belligerent enemies of Israel in
Iran's political history, whose influence has started to expand in Gaza and
the West Bank


December 15, 2005
iranian.com

Meir Javedanfar

Tel Aviv, ISRAEL -- Ahmadinejad's ability to shock the international
community with his controversial statements has left many, including those
in Iran flabbergasted.

Dr Ahmadinejad is an ideologue. He in not however, as many like to believe,
an uncontrollable extremist who says what feels good, without thinking about
the consequences. Since his first ?Israel must be eliminated? speech,
Ahmadinejad has had a target audience in mind.

The recent assault against Israel in which he called the Holocaust a ?myth?
also had a specific target, albeit a different one from his first verbal
assault.

Many would be correct to think that his intended target is in the Middle
East - although Israel was not the primary area of intended influence.

This time Ahmadinejad was applying his tried and tested electioneering for
the other important countries of the region, who are about to start voting,
namely Iraq and the Palestinian Authority (PA).

The Iranian government takes both aforementioned areas as important spheres
of influence. Having influence in Iraq and the PA can provide Iran with a
strong bargaining position with the West in future negotiations over Iran's
nuclear program, and also regarding issues of regional security.

Therefore the outcome of the elections in both countries are very important
to Tehran's regional aspirations, and also its sense of threat which has
heightened after the arrival of US forces in Iraq, and Israel's gradual
acceptance in the region.

Although Iran has a relatively strong position in Iraq, especially in the
Shiite and Kurdish quarters of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, there is
one important area of Iraqi politics in which Iran is struggling, and that
is the Sunni front.

The Iraqi Sunnis are a very tough crowd for Iran to please. They are and
have been the arch enemy of Iran before, during and after the Iraqi invasion
of Iran in 1980. Their hostility towards Iran has both religious and
nationalistic roots. The Iraqi Sunnis have historically considered
themselves as nationalistic Arabs with little time or patience for Iran, as
it consists mainly of non Arabs (Persians) who are Shiites.

Nevertheless the Iranian government (as well as Washington) realise the
importance of the Sunnis and their co-operation in the future Iraqi
government. Therefore in a bid to attract their co-operation and
participation in the new Iraq, Ahmadinejad played the only card which both
parties share, and that is the anti - Israeli card. This is due to the
reason that Iraqi Sunnis still continue to harbour strong anti - Israeli
feelings.

Through Ahmadinejad's open and provocative stance against Israel, Tehran
hopes for cooperation between Iran and Iraq's Sunnis. It is hoped by Tehran
that such co-operation in the future will provide Iran with some sort of
leverage over the Sunnis, in addition to its close relations with the
Shiites and the Kurds. Such an eventuality would complete Tehran's circle of
influence in Iraqi politics .

Ahmadinejad stated that ? today, the only messenger of true Islam and
complete Islam is the Iranian nation ?. The use of the word Islam in
Ahmadinejad's speech is part of Iran's efforts to be seen as the leader of
the Islamic world which is a dimension of Iran's efforts to gain influence
and support from Iraqi Sunnis.

Iraq is becoming the soft underbelly of George Bush and Tony Blair's
political popularity. As far as Ahmadinejad is concerned, the sooner Iran
completes its sphere of influence in Iraq, the higher the price it can
extract from the West over its nuclear program.

The same also goes for events in the Palestinian Authority (PA). Tehran is
well aware of the West and Israel's sensitivity to events there, and thus
the more influence Iran wields over events there, the stronger Iran's
negotiations hand will be with the West and Israel. Iran also views militant
groups in the PA as its second strike capability in response to a possible
Israeli attack on its nuclear sites.

Therefore it is no accident that Ahmadinejad made such an overt anti-Israel
gesture on Wednesday 14 th of December 2005, the day when the head of
Hamas's political bureau was visiting Ayatollah Khamenei in Tehran.

The current lull in fighting between Israel and Hamas is not to Iran's
advantage. Hamas' suicide operations, which wear down Israel's willingness
to fight, are important psychological and military weapons, which benefit
Iran.

Iran wants Israel to remain bogged down in conflict with the Palestinians,
based on the logic that the more Israel is involved in attacks and counter
attacks against the Palestinians, the less it has a stomach and willingness
to enter a new conflict with Iran by attacking its nuclear sites.

Therefore taking recent Hamas's recent talk of not renewing its ceasefire
into consideration, Ahmadinejad through his hostile speech provided a major
boost in confidence for Hamas's anti Israeli stance.

Iran hopes that such boost in confidence will translate into more popularity
for Hamas at the ballot box, and also re-start of Hamas attacks against
Israel which Tehran hopes will initiate a new cycle of violence.

Judging by the comments made by head of Hamas's political wing at a press
conference in Tehran, in which he said ? We view ourselves as being in the
same trench as the Islamic Republic of Iran ? Hamas will reciprocate
Ahmadinejad's gesture by strengthening its co-operation with Tehran.

What should worry Israel is that political events in Tehran are now being
managed by one of the biggest and most belligerent enemies of Israel in
Iran's political history, whose influence has started to expand in Gaza and
the West Bank.

Meanwhile Western countries should be concerned that Ahmadinejad is planning
to increase the sphere of his anti-Western influence beyond the southern
neighbourhoods of Tehran and Basra into the Sunni triangle. If this happens
the Iraqi quagmire could get a lot worse.

If it doesn't happen, it won't be due to lack of trying from Tehran.

URL:?http://www.iranian.com/Javedanfar/2005/December/President/index.html
---
About
Meir Javedanfar is a Middle East Analyst and the Director or the Middle East
Economic and Political Analysis Company, meepas.com. He has been quoted and
interviewed by the BBC, Radio Holland International, Haaretz Newspaper and
the Boston Globe as well as a number of other newspapers and Radio stations.
For rights to quote this article please contact analysis@meepas.com.


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From michael at intrafi.com  Sat Dec 17 15:56:49 2005
From: michael at intrafi.com (michael@intrafi.com)
Date: Sat Dec 17 16:08:28 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] An article for you from an Economist.com reader.
Message-ID: <200512172330.SAA07943@stage-web-app.economist.com>


- AN ARTICLE FOR YOU, FROM ECONOMIST.COM -

Dear civic,

Michael Butler (michael@intrafi.com) wants you to see this article on Economist.com.



(Note: the sender's e-mail address above has not been verified.)

Subscribe to The Economist print edition, get great savings and FREE full access to Economist.com.  Click here to subscribe:  http://www.economist.com/subscriptions/email.cfm 

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A HERETICAL PROPOSAL
Dec 8th 2005  

The Democrats (and abortion rights) might be better off if ROE V WADE
were overturned

AS A general rule, Republicans are much happier with American
exceptionalism than Democrats. Conservatives celebrate the right of
every God-fearing American to carry a semi-automatic in his
Kyoto-busting SUV while liberals protest that Europe is greener and
safer. But when it comes to abortion, it is the Democrats who are the
American exceptionalists.

Most rich countries other than the United States have solved the
abortion problem by consulting the electorate--either through the
legislature or through referendums. This led to vigorous debates and,
broadly, the triumph of abortion rights. Because abortion was legalised
democratically, pro-lifers accepted the fact that they had lost and
abortion became a settled right. By contrast, in America, abortion is a
fundamental right of privacy protected by a 1973 Supreme Court
judgment--ROE V WADE.


Few objective outsiders--if it is possible to be such a thing on
abortion--would argue that relying on judges rather than popular will
has helped American politics: no other comparable country has such
destructive culture wars. ROE left a large chunk of the country feeling
disenfranchised by the court; it also established a cycle of attack and
counter-attack that has debased everything that it has touched,
especially the judiciary.

 A prime example is the ROE-obsessed confirmation process for Supreme
Court nominees. Samuel Alito, Mr Bush's new candidate, claims that the
fact that he once advised the Reagan administration on how to overturn
ROE will have no bearing on his behaviour on the court. No less
disingenuously, liberal senators pretend they are trying to gauge Mr
Alito's legal philosophy when they are trying to catch him out on ROE.

All this is bad for America; but, in political terms, ROE has been
particularly disastrous for the Democrats. The Republicans have
generally had the better of the abortion wars (something most liberals
admit as long as nobody from NARAL Pro-Choice America is in the room).
ROE has proved a lightning-rod for conservatives; and many moderates
dislike the Democrats'ROE-driven defence of partial-birth abortions. So
consider a heretical proposition: why on earth don't Democrats disown
ROE? 

Merely to mention this in public can be dangerous. Yet there are two
obvious reasons for the party to do it. First, abortion rights command
broad popular support in the United States, just as they do in Europe.
Gallup polling since the mid-1970s has consistently shown that about
80% of Americans want abortion to be legal--either in all circumstances
(21-31%) or in some circumstances (51-61%). Without ROE, abortion might
be slightly restricted, but certainly not banned, as conservatives
want. 

Second, ROE is a pretty flimsy decision. The idea that the constitution
protects "the right to privacy" was already something of a stretch when
Justice William Douglas discovered it in the GRISWOLD V CONNECTICUT
case in 1965. Ruling that the state government could not stop married
couples from purchasing contraception, Douglas wrote that the right to
privacy exists because the "specific guarantees in the Bill of Rights
have penumbras, formed by emanations from those guarantees that help
give them life and substance." It was these penumbras and emanations
that were stretched still further in 1973 when the court ruled on ROE. 

 Some Democrats say that they regard "a woman's right to choose" as
analogous to a black person's right to vote--a basic human right that
cannot be gainsaid by the electorate. This is far from convincing. The
constitution is as clear about the right to vote--thanks to the equal
protection clause--as it is murky on the right to abortion. And
abortion isn't a clear-cut moral issue in the way that the franchise
is. Bill Clinton never felt any need to argue that black voting should
be "safe, legal and rare". 

A better argument in defence of ROE is that some states might well
outlaw abortion. The Centre for Reproductive Rights claimed in 2004
that 21 conservative states were highly likely to do so and nine
somewhat likely. But this presumes that public opinion has been frozen
in aspic since 1973. Laura Vanderkam of USA TODAY points out that many
of these "anti-ROE" states may well vote in favour of abortion rights:
seven have Democratic governors, one (Rhode Island) is firmly in the
Democratic column, and many others (Colorado, Ohio) cannot be relied
upon to ban it. Moreover, the states that are most likely to vote to
ban abortion--such as Mississippi and North Dakota--already have very
few abortion clinics in any case: women who want abortions in those
states already have to travel huge distances. Crossing state lines
would not make that much difference.

STUBBORN AS A MULE
The main reason, alas, why Democrats will stick by ROE is simply
because it is a totem in the culture wars. Why should pro-choice forces
surrender any ground? That argument makes sense if you want to defend
"choice" right into the ninth month, as some zealots do. But for most
Democrats who merely want to keep abortion legal under most
circumstances, that right would be more secure if it carried democratic
legitimacy. 

Embracing the democratic process would send a powerful signal that the
Party of the People has rediscovered its faith in the people. Relying
on judges to advance the liberal agenda allowed conservatives to seize
the mantle of populism. ROE has given Republicans a free ride: they can
claim to oppose abortion in the comfortable knowledge that it will
never be banned. But imagine if ROE were overturned. How many
Republicans would vote for a ban on abortion that only one in five
Americans support? The conservative coalition would be split asunder.

History is full of great generals who won their wars by staging
strategic retreats. Field-Marshal Kutusov allowed Napoleon to occupy
Moscow, tempting him to over-extend himself. The Democrats might
emulate that aged Russian's wiliness--and stage a strategic retreat to
the high ground of popular opinion.
 

See this article with graphics and related items at http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=E1_VNSRJQV

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From geomilman at milman.com  Sat Dec 17 19:20:47 2005
From: geomilman at milman.com (George R. Milman)
Date: Sat Dec 17 19:34:01 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Op-Eds for Sale  --   By Eamon Javers,
	BusinessWeek Online
Message-ID: <004001c60382$0a5ebad0$8c00a8c0@george>


A columnist from a libertarian think tank admits accepting payments to
promote an indicted lobbyist's clients. Will more examples follow?


http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/dec2005/nf20051216_1037_db016.ht
m

 

 

 

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From swiggard at comcast.net  Sun Dec 18 03:44:16 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Sun Dec 18 03:58:18 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Pushing the Limits Of Wartime Powers - Washington Post 
Message-ID: <43A54B90.7030503@comcast.net>

Pushing the Limits Of Wartime Powers

By Barton Gellman and Dafna Linzer
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, December 18, 2005; A01

In his four-year campaign against al Qaeda, President Bush has turned 
the U.S. national security apparatus inward to secretly collect 
information on American citizens on a scale unmatched since the 
intelligence reforms of the 1970s.

The president's emphatic defense yesterday of warrantless eavesdropping 
on U.S. citizens and residents marked the third time in as many months 
that the White House has been obliged to defend a departure from 
previous restraints on domestic surveillance. In each case, the Bush 
administration concealed the program's dimensions or existence from the 
public and from most members of Congress.

Since October, news accounts have disclosed a burgeoning Pentagon 
campaign for "detecting, identifying and engaging" internal enemies that 
included a database with information on peace protesters. A debate has 
roiled over the FBI's use of national security letters to obtain secret 
access to the personal records of tens of thousands of Americans. And 
now come revelations of the National Security Agency's interception of 
telephone calls and e-mails from the United States -- without notice to 
the federal court that has held jurisdiction over domestic spying since 
1978.

Defiant in the face of criticism, the Bush administration has portrayed 
each surveillance initiative as a defense of American freedom. Bush said 
yesterday that his NSA eavesdropping directives were "critical to saving 
American lives" and "consistent with U.S. law and the Constitution." 
After years of portraying an offensive waged largely overseas, Bush 
justified the internal surveillance with new emphasis on "the home 
front" and the need to hunt down "terrorists here at home."

Bush's constitutional argument, in the eyes of some legal scholars and 
previous White House advisers, relies on extraordinary claims of 
presidential war-making power. Bush said yesterday that the lawfulness 
of his directives was affirmed by the attorney general and White House 
counsel, a list that omitted the legislative and judicial branches of 
government. On occasion the Bush administration has explicitly rejected 
the authority of courts and Congress to impose boundaries on the power 
of the commander in chief, describing the president's war-making powers 
in legal briefs as "plenary" -- a term defined as "full," "complete," 
and "absolute."

A high-ranking intelligence official with firsthand knowledge said in an 
interview yesterday that Vice President Cheney, then-Director of Central 
Intelligence George J. Tenet and Michael V. Hayden, then a lieutenant 
general and director of the National Security Agency, briefed four key 
members of Congress about the NSA's new domestic surveillance on Oct. 
25, 2001, and Nov. 14, 2001, shortly after Bush signed a highly 
classified directive that eliminated some restrictions on eavesdropping 
against U.S. citizens and permanent residents.

In describing the briefings, administration officials made clear that 
Cheney was announcing a decision, not asking permission from Congress. 
How much the legislators learned is in dispute.

Former senator Bob Graham (D-Fla.), who chaired the Senate intelligence 
committee and is the only participant thus far to describe the meetings 
extensively and on the record, said in interviews Friday night and 
yesterday that he remembers "no discussion about expanding [NSA 
eavesdropping] to include conversations of U.S. citizens or 
conversations that originated or ended in the United States" -- and no 
mention of the president's intent to bypass the Foreign Intelligence 
Surveillance Court.

"I came out of the room with the full sense that we were dealing with a 
change in technology but not policy," Graham said, with new 
opportunities to intercept overseas calls that passed through U.S. 
switches. He believed eavesdropping would continue to be limited to 
"calls that initiated outside the United States, had a destination 
outside the United States but that transferred through a U.S.-based 
communications system."

Graham said the latest disclosures suggest that the president decided to 
go "beyond foreign communications to using this as a pretext for 
listening to U.S. citizens' communications. There was no discussion of 
anything like that in the meeting with Cheney."

The high-ranking intelligence official, who spoke with White House 
permission but said he was not authorized to be identified by name, said 
Graham is "misremembering the briefings," which in fact were "very, very 
comprehensive." The official declined to describe any of the substance 
of the meetings, but said they were intended "to make sure the Hill 
knows this program in its entirety, in order to never, ever be faced 
with the circumstance that someone says, 'I was briefed on this but I 
had no idea that -- ' and you can fill in the rest."

By Graham's account, the official said, "it appears that we held a 
briefing to say that nothing is different . . . . Why would we have a 
meeting in the vice president's office to talk about a change and then 
tell the members of Congress there is no change?"

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.), who was also present as 
then ranking Democrat of the House intelligence panel, said in a 
statement yesterday evening that the briefing described "President 
Bush's decision to provide authority to the National Security Agency to 
conduct unspecified activities." She said she "expressed my strong 
concerns" but did not elaborate.

The NSA disclosures follow exposure of two other domestic surveillance 
initiatives that drew shocked reactions from Congress and some members 
of the public in recent months.

Beginning in October, The Washington Post published articles describing 
a three-year-old Pentagon agency, the size and budget of which are 
classified, with wide new authority to undertake domestic investigations 
and operations against potential threats from U.S. residents and 
organizations against military personnel and facilities. The 
Counterintelligence Field Activity, or CIFA, began as a small 
policy-coordination office but has grown to encompass nine directorates 
and a staff exceeding 1,000. The agency's Talon database, collecting 
unconfirmed reports of suspicious activity from military bases and 
organizations around the country, has included "threat reports" of 
peaceful civilian protests and demonstrations.

CIFA has also been empowered with what the military calls "tasking 
authority" -- the ability to give operational orders -- over Army, Navy 
and Air Force units whose combined roster of investigators, about 4,000, 
is nearly as large as the number of FBI special agents assigned to 
counterterrorist squads. Pentagon officials said this month they had 
ordered a review of the program after disclosures, in The Post, NBC News 
and the washingtonpost.com Web log of William M. Arkin, that CIFA 
compiled information about U.S. citizens engaging in constitutionally 
protected political activity such as protests against military recruiting.

In November, The Post disclosed an exponentially growing practice of 
domestic surveillance under the USA Patriot Act, using FBI demands for 
information known as "national security letters." Created in the 1970s 
for espionage and terrorism investigations, the letters enabled secret 
FBI review of the private telephone and financial records of suspected 
foreign agents. The Bush administration's guidelines after the Patriot 
Act transformed those letters by permitting clandestine scrutiny of U.S. 
residents and visitors who are not alleged to be terrorists or spies.

The Post reported that the FBI has issued tens of thousands of national 
security letters, extending the bureau's reach as never before into the 
telephone calls, correspondence and financial lives of ordinary 
Americans. Most of the U.S. residents and citizens whose records were 
screened, the FBI acknowledged, were not suspected of wrongdoing.

The burgeoning use of national security letters coincided with an 
unannounced decision to deposit all the information they yield into 
government data banks -- and to share those private records widely, in 
the federal government and beyond. In late 2003, the Bush administration 
reversed a long-standing policy requiring agents to destroy their files 
on innocent American citizens, companies and residents when 
investigations closed.

Yesterday's acknowledgment of warrantless NSA eavesdropping brought the 
most forthright statement from the president that his war on terrorism 
is targeting not only "enemies across the world" but "terrorists here at 
home." In the "first war of the 21st century," he said, "one of the most 
critical battlefronts is the home front."

Bush sidestepped some of the implications by citing examples only of 
foreigners who infiltrated the United States -- Saudi citizens Nawaf 
Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdhar, two of the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers. But 
the most fundamental changes undertaken in the Bush administration's 
surveillance policy are the ones that have broadened the powers of the 
NSA, FBI and Pentagon to spy on "U.S. persons" -- American citizens, 
permanent residents and corporations -- on American soil.

Roger Cressey, who was principal deputy to the White House 
counterterrorism chief when terrorists destroyed the World Trade Center 
and a wing of the Pentagon, said "the amount of domestic surveillance is 
an admission of fundamental gaps in our understanding of what is 
happening in our country."

Those anxieties about unknown threats have ebbed and flowed since World 
War I, according to a bipartisan government commission chaired by Sen. 
Daniel Patrick Moynihan. President Woodrow Wilson warned against "the 
poison of disloyalty" and another loyalty campaign created black lists 
of accused Communists in the 1950s. In the 1960s and 1970s, the Army and 
the NSA collected files and eavesdropped on thousands of anti-Vietnam 
War and civil rights activists.

Congress asserted itself in the 1970s, imposing oversight requirements 
and passing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Kate 
Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies, said FISA 
"expressly made it a crime for government officials 'acting under color 
of law' to engage in electronic eavesdropping 'other than pursuant to 
statute.' " FISA described itself, along with the criminal wiretap 
statute, as "the exclusive means by which electronic surveillance . . . 
may be conducted."

No president before Bush mounted a frontal challenge to Congress's 
authority to limit espionage against Americans. In a Sept. 25, 2002, 
brief signed by then-Attorney General John D. Ashcroft, the Justice 
Department asserted "the Constitution vests in the President inherent 
authority to conduct warrantless intelligence surveillance (electronic 
or otherwise) of foreign powers or their agents, and Congress cannot by 
statute extinguish that constitutional authority."

The brief made no distinction between suspected agents who are U.S. 
citizens and those who are not. Other Bush administration legal 
arguments have said the "war on terror" is global and indefinite in 
scope, effectively removing traditional limits of wartime authority to 
the times and places of imminent or actual battle.

"There is a lot of discussion out there that we shouldn't be dividing 
Americans and foreigners, but terrorists and non-terrorists," said 
Gordon Oehler, a former chief of the CIA's Counterterrorist Center who 
served on last year's special commission assessing U.S. intelligence.

By law, according to University of Chicago scholar Geoffrey Stone, the 
differences are fundamental: Americans have constitutional protections 
that are enforceable in court whether their conversations are domestic 
or international.

Bush's assertion that eavesdropping takes place only on U.S. calls to 
overseas phones, Stone said, "is no different, as far as the law is 
concerned, from saying we only do it on Tuesdays."

Michael J. Woods, who was chief of the FBI's national security law unit 
when Bush signed the NSA directive, described the ongoing program as 
"very dangerous." In the immediate aftermath of a devastating attack, he 
said, the decision was a justifiable emergency response. In 2006, "we 
ought to be past the time of emergency responses. We ought to have more 
considered views now. . . . We have time to debate a legal regime and 
what's appropriate."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/17/AR2005121701233.html?referrer=email
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Sun Dec 18 03:48:08 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Sun Dec 18 04:02:11 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Bush's Fumbles Spur New Talk of Oversight on Hill -
	Washington Post
Message-ID: <43A54C78.5010803@comcast.net>

Bush's Fumbles Spur New Talk of Oversight on Hill

By Dana Milbank
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, December 18, 2005; A07

After a series of embarrassing disclosures, Congress is reconsidering 
its relatively lenient oversight of the Bush administration.

Lawmakers have been caught by surprise by several recent reports, 
including the existence of secret U.S. prisons abroad, the CIA's 
detention overseas of innocent foreign nationals, and, last week, the 
discovery that the military has been engaged in domestic spying. After 
five years in which the GOP-controlled House and Senate undertook few 
investigations into the administration's activities, the legislative 
branch has begun to complain about being in the dark.

On Friday, after learning that the National Security Agency was 
eavesdropping on conversations in the United States, Senate Judiciary 
Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) said that the activity was 
"wrong and it can't be condoned at all," and that his committee "can 
undertake oversight on it."

That same day, the House approved a resolution that would direct the 
administration to provide House and Senate intelligence committees with 
classified reports on the secret U.S. prisons overseas.

Democrats have long complained about a dearth of congressional 
investigations into Bush administration activities, but their criticism 
has been gaining validation from others after the botched response to 
Hurricane Katrina, problems in Iraq and ethical lapses.

Lawrence B. Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin 
L. Powell, said this fall that "the people's representatives over on the 
Hill in that other branch of government have truly abandoned their 
oversight responsibilities [on national security] and have let things 
atrophy to the point that if we don't do something about it, it's going 
to get even more dangerous than it already is."

In an interview last week, Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.), chairman of 
the House Government Reform Committee, said "it's a fair comment" that 
the GOP-controlled Congress has done insufficient oversight and "ought 
to be" doing more.

"Republican Congresses tend to overinvestigate Democratic 
administrations and underinvestigate their own," said Davis, who added 
that he has tried to pick up some of the slack with his committee. "I 
get concerned we lose our separation of powers when one party controls 
both branches."

Democrats on the committee said the panel issued 1,052 subpoenas to 
probe alleged misconduct by the Clinton administration and the 
Democratic Party between 1997 and 2002, at a cost of more than $35 
million. By contrast, the committee under Davis has issued three 
subpoenas to the Bush administration, two to the Energy Department over 
nuclear waste disposal at Yucca Mountain, and one last week to the 
Defense Department over Katrina documents.

Some experts on Congress say that the legislative branch has shed much 
of its oversight authority because of a combination of aggressive 
actions by the Bush administration, acquiescence by congressional 
leaders, and political demands that keep lawmakers out of Washington 
more than before.

"I do not think you can argue today that Congress is a coequal branch of 
government; it is not," said Lee H. Hamilton, president of the Woodrow 
Wilson International Center for Scholars. Hamilton, a former Democratic 
congressman and vice chairman of the Sept. 11 commission, told reporters 
this month: "It has basically lost the war-making power. The real 
debates on budget occur not in Congress but in the Office of Management 
and Budget. . . . When you come into session Tuesday afternoon and leave 
Thursday afternoon, you simply do not have time for oversight or 
deliberation."

Last week, Democrats in the House denounced their GOP counterparts for 
failing to pursue investigations. Rep. Jane Harman (Calif.), the ranking 
Democrat on the House intelligence committee, criticized Chairman Peter 
Hoekstra (R-Mich.) for his handling of an inquiry into former committee 
member Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-Calif.), who resigned after 
acknowledging he took bribes. Hoekstra's decision to proceed with 
existing committee staff without the House counsel or inspector general 
"threatens to compromise our ability to conduct a thorough, expeditious 
and bipartisan investigation," she said.

Democrats demanded that Davis, who heads the select committee 
investigating the Katrina response, issue subpoenas to get e-mails and 
communications of White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. and 
three other White House officials. "Congress will never understand why 
the federal response failed unless we obtain access to the e-mails and 
communications of Andrew Card and other senior White House officials," 
committee Democrats wrote Davis.

Last month, House Democrats tried to pass a measure criticizing the GOP 
for a "refusal to conduct oversight" of the Iraq war. In the Senate, 
Democrats forced the chamber into a closed session to embarrass 
Republicans for foot-dragging on an inquiry into the alleged 
manipulation of Iraq intelligence.

"The House has absolutely zero oversight. They just don't engage in 
that," House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) said in an interview 
last week.

Specifically, Democrats list 14 areas where the GOP majority has "failed 
to investigate" the administration, including the role of senior 
officials in the abuse of detainees; leaking the identity of CIA 
operative Valerie Plame; the role of Vice President Cheney's office in 
awarding contracts to Cheney's former employer, Halliburton; the White 
House's withholding from Congress the cost of a Medicare prescription 
drug plan; the administration's relationship with Iraqi politician Ahmed 
Chalabi; and the influence of corporate interests on energy policy, 
environmental regulation and tobacco policy.

Meanwhile, the House ethics committee has not opened a new case or 
launched an investigation in the past 12 months, despite outside 
investigations involving, among others, Cunningham and former lobbyist 
Jack Abramoff.

In most cases, Republicans have said that Democrats are motivated by 
partisanship rather than fact-finding. After Democrats forced the closed 
Senate session last month over the slow pace of the inquiry into alleged 
manipulation of Iraq intelligence, Majority Leader Bill Frist (Tenn.) 
railed: "They have no conviction. They have no principles. They have no 
ideas. This is a pure stunt."

Among the most visible oversight battles is Davis's Katrina inquiry, 
which most Democrats have boycotted as a "sham." Davis said he would 
"bet my reputation" that the committee will disprove doubts.

At times, Davis has been irritated by administration intransigence. At a 
hearing last month, he condemned the "lack of production of documents 
from various executive branch offices" and warned: "We're not going to 
be stonewalled here."

Democrats, who have tried to get Davis to subpoena the White House for 
Katrina documents, are not impressed. "Republicans have made a mockery 
of oversight," said Rep. Henry A. Waxman (Calif.), the committee's 
ranking Democrat. "There was nothing too small to be investigated in the 
Clinton administration and there's nothing so big that it can't be 
ignored in the Bush administration."

Davis said his reluctance to issue a subpoena is practical. The select 
committee faces a Feb. 15 deadline, and a subpoena -- even if approved, 
as required, by the entire House -- would be tied up in court by the 
administration until the committee's writ had expired. Issuing a 
subpoena would do nothing "except embarrass" the White House -- which 
Davis has not ruled out doing. "As of right now, I'm not satisfied" with 
White House cooperation, he said.

Davis said his Government Reform Committee has investigated the 
administration's handling of bioterrorism defenses and preparing for 
avian influenza and held four hearings on Halliburton's contracts -- 
after the House Armed Services Committee refused to do so. Similarly, 
Davis called hearings on the administration's policy on mad cow disease 
after Agriculture Committee Chairman Robert W. Goodlatte (R-Va.) declined.

"They said it would embarrass the administration," Davis said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/17/AR2005121700992.html?nav=hcmodule
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Sun Dec 18 03:51:33 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Sun Dec 18 04:05:30 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Torture's Long Shadow - Vladimir Bukovsky - Washington
 Post Sunday Outlook
Message-ID: <43A54D45.9070509@comcast.net>

Torture's Long Shadow

By Vladimir Bukovsky
Sunday, December 18, 2005; B01

CAMBRIDGE, England

One nasty morning Comrade Stalin discovered that his favorite pipe was 
missing. Naturally, he called in his henchman, Lavrenti Beria, and 
instructed him to find the pipe. A few hours later, Stalin found it in 
his desk and called off the search. "But, Comrade Stalin," stammered 
Beria, "five suspects have already confessed to stealing it."

This joke, whispered among those who trusted each other when I was a kid 
in Moscow in the 1950s, is perhaps the best contribution I can make to 
the current argument in Washington about legislation banning torture and 
inhumane treatment of suspected terrorists captured abroad. Now that 
President Bush has made a public show of endorsing Sen. John McCain's 
amendment, it would seem that the debate is ending. But that the debate 
occurred at all, and that prominent figures are willing to entertain the 
idea, is perplexing and alarming to me. I have seen what happens to a 
society that becomes enamored of such methods in its quest for greater 
security; it takes more than words and political compromise to beat back 
the impulse.

This is a new debate for Americans, but there is no need for you to 
reinvent the wheel. Most nations can provide you with volumes on the 
subject. Indeed, with the exception of the Black Death, torture is the 
oldest scourge on our planet (hence there are so many conventions 
against it). Every Russian czar after Peter the Great solemnly abolished 
torture upon being enthroned, and every time his successor had to 
abolish it all over again. These czars were hardly bleeding-heart 
liberals, but long experience in the use of these "interrogation" 
practices in Russia had taught them that once condoned, torture will 
destroy their security apparatus. They understood that torture is the 
professional disease of any investigative machinery.

Apart from sheer frustration and other adrenaline-related emotions, 
investigators and detectives in hot pursuit have enormous temptation to 
use force to break the will of their prey because they believe that, 
metaphorically speaking, they have a "ticking bomb" case on their hands. 
But, much as a good hunter trains his hounds to bring the game to him 
rather than eating it, a good ruler has to restrain his henchmen from 
devouring the prey lest he be left empty-handed. Investigation is a 
subtle process, requiring patience and fine analytical ability, as well 
as a skill in cultivating one's sources. When torture is condoned, these 
rare talented people leave the service, having been outstripped by less 
gifted colleagues with their quick-fix methods, and the service itself 
degenerates into a playground for sadists. Thus, in its heyday, Joseph 
Stalin's notorious NKVD (the Soviet secret police) became nothing more 
than an army of butchers terrorizing the whole country but incapable of 
solving the simplest of crimes. And once the NKVD went into high gear, 
not even Stalin could stop it at will. He finally succeeded only by 
turning the fury of the NKVD against itself; he ordered his chief NKVD 
henchman, Nikolai Yezhov (Beria's predecessor), to be arrested together 
with his closest aides.

So, why would democratically elected leaders of the United States ever 
want to legalize what a succession of Russian monarchs strove to 
abolish? Why run the risk of unleashing a fury that even Stalin had 
problems controlling? Why would anyone try to "improve 
intelligence-gathering capability" by destroying what was left of it? 
Frustration? Ineptitude? Ignorance? Or, has their friendship with a 
certain former KGB lieutenant colonel, V. Putin, rubbed off on the 
American leaders? I have no answer to these questions, but I do know 
that if Vice President Cheney 
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/06/AR2005110601281_pf.html> 
is right and that some "cruel, inhumane or degrading" (CID) treatment of 
captives is a necessary tool for winning the war on terrorism, then the 
war is lost already.

Even talking about the possibility of using CID treatment sends wrong 
signals and encourages base instincts in those who should be 
consistently delivered from temptation by their superiors. As someone 
who has been on the receiving end of the "treatment" under discussion, 
let me tell you that trying to make a distinction between torture and 
CID techniques is ridiculous. Long gone are the days when a torturer 
needed the nasty-looking tools displayed in the Tower of London. A 
simple prison bed is deadly if you remove the mattress and force a 
prisoner to sleep on the iron frame night after night after night. Or 
how about the "Chekist's handshake" so widely practiced under Stalin -- 
a firm squeeze of the victim's palm with a simple pencil inserted 
between his fingers? Very convenient, very simple. And how would you 
define leaving 2,000 inmates of a labor camp without dental service for 
months on end? Is it CID not to treat an excruciatingly painful 
toothache, or is it torture?

Now it appears that sleep deprivation is "only" CID and used on 
Guantanamo Bay captives. Well, congratulations, comrades! It was exactly 
this method that the NKVD used to produce those spectacular confessions 
in Stalin's "show trials" of the 1930s. The henchmen called it 
"conveyer," when a prisoner was interrogated nonstop for a week or 10 
days without a wink of sleep. At the end, the victim would sign any 
confession without even understanding what he had signed.

I know from my own experience that interrogation is an intensely 
personal confrontation, a duel of wills. It is not about revealing some 
secrets or making confessions, it is about self-respect and human 
dignity. If I break, I will not be able to look into a mirror. But if I 
don't, my interrogator will suffer equally. Just try to control your 
emotions in the heat of that battle. This is precisely why torture 
occurs even when it is explicitly forbidden. Now, who is going to 
guarantee that even the most exact definition of CID is observed under 
such circumstances?

But if we cannot guarantee this, then how can you force your officers 
and your young people in the CIA to commit acts that will scar them 
forever? For scarred they will be, take my word for it.

In 1971, while in Lefortovo prison in Moscow (the central KGB 
interrogation jail), I went on a hunger strike demanding a defense 
lawyer of my choice (the KGB wanted its trusted lawyer to be assigned 
instead). The moment was most inconvenient for my captors because my 
case was due in court, and they had no time to spare. So, to break me 
down, they started force-feeding me in a very unusual manner -- through 
my nostrils. About a dozen guards led me from my cell to the medical 
unit. There they straitjacketed me, tied me to a bed, and sat on my legs 
so that I would not jerk. The others held my shoulders and my head while 
a doctor was pushing the feeding tube into my nostril.

The feeding pipe was thick, thicker than my nostril, and would not go 
in. Blood came gushing out of my nose and tears down my cheeks, but they 
kept pushing until the cartilages cracked. I guess I would have screamed 
if I could, but I could not with the pipe in my throat. I could breathe 
neither in nor out at first; I wheezed like a drowning man -- my lungs 
felt ready to burst. The doctor also seemed ready to burst into tears, 
but she kept shoving the pipe farther and farther down. Only when it 
reached my stomach could I resume breathing, carefully. Then she poured 
some slop through a funnel into the pipe that would choke me if it came 
back up. They held me down for another half-hour so that the liquid was 
absorbed by my stomach and could not be vomited back, and then began to 
pull the pipe out bit by bit. . . . Grrrr. There had just been time for 
everything to start healing during the night when they came back in the 
morning and did it all over again, for 10 days, when the guards could 
stand it no longer. As it happened, it was a Sunday and no bosses were 
around. They surrounded the doctor: "Hey, listen, let him drink it 
straight from the bowl, let him sip it. It'll be quicker for you, too, 
you silly old fool." The doctor was in tears: "Do you think I want to go 
to jail because of you lot? No, I can't do that. . . . " And so they 
stood over my body, cursing each other, with bloody bubbles coming out 
of my nose. On the 12th day, the authorities surrendered; they had run 
out of time. I had gotten my lawyer, but neither the doctor nor those 
guards could ever look me in the eye again.

Today, when the White House lawyers seem preoccupied with contriving a 
way to stem the flow of possible lawsuits from former detainees, I 
strongly recommend that they think about another flood of suits, from 
the men and women in your armed services or the CIA agents who have been 
or will be engaged in CID practices. Our rich experience in Russia has 
shown that many will become alcoholics or drug addicts, violent 
criminals or, at the very least, despotic and abusive fathers and mothers.

If America's leaders want to hunt terrorists while transforming 
dictatorships into democracies, they must recognize that torture, which 
includes CID, has historically been an instrument of oppression -- not 
an instrument of investigation or of intelligence gathering. No country 
needs to invent how to "legalize" torture; the problem is rather how to 
stop it from happening. If it isn't stopped, torture will destroy your 
nation's important strategy to develop democracy in the Middle East. And 
if you cynically outsource torture to contractors and foreign agents, 
how can you possibly be surprised if an 18-year-old in the Middle East 
casts a jaundiced eye toward your reform efforts there?

Finally, think what effect your attitude has on the rest of the world, 
particularly in the countries where torture is still common, such as 
Russia, and where its citizens are still trying to combat it. Mr. Putin 
will be the first to say: "You see, even your vaunted American democracy 
cannot defend itself without resorting to torture. . . . "

Off we go, back to the caves.

Vladimir Bukovsky, who spent nearly 12 years in Soviet prisons, labor 
camps and psychiatric hospitals for nonviolent human rights activities, 
is the author of several books, including "To Build a Castle" and 
"Judgment in Moscow." Now 63, he has lived primarily in Cambridge, 
England, since 1976.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/17/AR2005121700018.html
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Sun Dec 18 03:54:46 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Sun Dec 18 04:09:08 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Math and Science Test for Bush - David S. Broder -
 Washington Post Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43A54E06.4080308@comcast.net>

Math and Science Test for Bush

By David S. Broder
Sunday, December 18, 2005; B07

Call it an early Christmas gift. A number of legislators of both parties 
have put the wrappings on a proposal for next year that could be the 
best present under President Bush's tree: an initiative that would 
please business, labor, parents, teachers and students -- and be good 
for the country.

Inside the package is a creation framed by the best scientific minds to 
keep the United States in the forefront of innovation and technology. It 
is aimed at ensuring this country's competitive position in the new 
global economy and thereby improving the prospects for more American 
families to be able to enjoy comfortable, middle-class lives.

The elements have been embraced by key legislators across the political 
spectrum. But none of them has a personal stamp on the proposal that 
would prevent the president from making it his own -- if he decided to 
highlight it, as some of them have suggested, in next month's State of 
the Union address

and then underscored his commitment by putting the needed funds into his 
budget.

The major parts of the plan have emerged in a series of reports from 
business, academic and government groups -- most recently in that of a 
blue-ribbon panel of the National Academy of Sciences headed by Norman 
Augustine, the retired chief executive of Lockheed Martin Corp.

They all recite similar warning signs that America's current economic 
health conceals significant long-term threats to our prosperity. There 
has been a steady erosion in investment in the kind of brainpower that 
keeps a nation competitive -- and a consequent decline in American 
inventiveness.

The percentage of America's gross national product invested by the 
federal government in research in the physical sciences has declined by 
half since 1970. Asia and Europe are graduating thousands more 
engineering and science majors than the United States every year -- and 
the gap is growing. Almost half of U.S. patents go to foreign-owned 
companies and foreign-born inventors. Our high school students test 
poorly in math and science compared with those of our major trading 
partners.

Looking at these statistics and listening to educators and business 
executives who offer personal testimony about the difficulty of 
attracting students to math and engineering or recruiting workers with 
those skills, legislators are beginning to respond. Three House 
Republicans -- Reps. Frank Wolf of Virginia, Vern Ehlers of Michigan and 
Sherwood Boehlert of New York -- sponsored an "innovation summit" this 
month that brought university presidents and corporate chief executives 
to the Commerce Department to promote action on this challenge.

The House Democratic Caucus has launched its own task force on 
innovation, and last week, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi held a meeting 
of its members with Silicon Valley executives.

Things are moving even faster in the Senate. Republican Lamar Alexander 
of Tennessee and Democrat Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico, along with 
Republican Pete Domenici of New Mexico and Democrat Barbara Mikulski of 
Maryland, are preparing legislation that embodies the recommendations of 
the Augustine task force. Connecticut Democrat Joe Lieberman and Nevada 
Republican John Ensign have teamed up on a related bill.

They call for a coordinated and sustained attack on the problem, one 
that Alexander and Bingaman say would cost the country about $9 billion 
a year. That is no small sum, but it is about one-tenth of what the Iraq 
war has been costing us annually.

The first step, Alexander says, is to boost federal investment in basic 
research 10 percent a year over the next seven years. Next, tackle the 
talent supply problem: Recruit 10,000 future science and math teachers 
each year and award them four-year college scholarships, with big 
bonuses to those who teach in underserved schools; give additional 
training to 250,000 current math and science teachers; provide large 
grants to 200 promising young researchers; create an advanced research 
projects agency in the Energy Department; provide 25,000 competitive 
scholarships a year to undergraduates in physical sciences, engineering 
and math; fund 5,000 new graduate fellowships a year in those fields; 
make it easier for foreign students in those fields to obtain visas for 
study here and ease their way if they want to remain here to work; 
expand immigration opportunities for people with those needed skills; 
provide tax incentives for U.S.-based innovations; and expand access to 
broadband communications.

This is a large order, but much more practical than Bush's earlier 
promise of a manned mission to Mars. Alexander quotes his mentor, the 
late Bryce Harlow, an Eisenhower aide, who taught him that "everything 
that comes to the White House is important, but only a few things are 
presidential." This, says Alexander, is presidential. And it's there for 
Bush's taking.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/17/AR2005121700947.html
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Sun Dec 18 03:56:44 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Sun Dec 18 04:10:40 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] How to Exit Iraq - Henry A. Kissinger (yes,
 HIM) - Washington Post Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43A54E7C.8070701@comcast.net>

How to Exit Iraq
At First, Iraqi Soldiers Should Augment U.S. Forces, Not Replace Them

By Henry A. Kissinger
Sunday, December 18, 2005; B07

The administration and its critics seem to agree that the beginning of 
an American withdrawal from Iraq will mark a turning point. What divides 
them is the speed and extent of the drawdown and whether it should be 
driven by a timetable or by a strategy that seeks to shape events.

Though often put into technical terms, the issue is not the mechanics of 
withdrawal. Rather, the debate should be over consequences: whether, in 
the end, withdrawal will be perceived as a forced retreat or as an 
aspect of a prudent and carefully planned strategy designed to enhance 
international security. Whatever one's view of the decision to undertake 
the Iraq war, the method by which it was entered, or the strategy by 
which it was conducted -- and I supported the original decision -- one 
must be clear about the consequences of failure. If, when we go, we 
leave nothing behind but a failed state and chaos, the consequences will 
be disastrous for the region and for America's position in the world.

For the phenomenon of radical Islam is more than the sum of individual 
terrorist acts extending from Bali through Jakarta to New Delhi, 
Tunisia, Riyadh, Istanbul, Casablanca, Madrid and London. It is an 
ideological outpouring by which Islam's radical wing seeks to sweep away 
secularism, pluralistic values and Western institutions wherever Muslims 
live. Its dynamism is fueled by the conviction that the designated 
victims are on the decline and lack the will to resist.

Any event that seems to confirm these convictions compounds the 
revolutionary dynamism. If a fundamentalist regime is installed in 
Baghdad or in any of the other major cities, such as Mosul or Basra, if 
terrorists secure substantial territory for training and sanctuaries, or 
if chaos and civil war mark the end of the American intervention, 
Islamic militants will gain momentum wherever there are significant 
Islamic populations or nonfundamentalist Islamic governments. No country 
within reach of jihad would be spared the consequences of the resulting 
upheavals sparked by the many individual centers of fanaticism that make 
up the jihad.

Defeat would shrivel U.S. credibility around the world. Our leadership 
and the respect accorded to our views on other regional issues from 
Palestine to Iran would be weakened; the confidence of other major 
countries -- China, Russia, Europe, Japan -- in America's potential 
contribution would be diminished. The respite from military efforts 
would be brief before even greater crises descended on us.

A disastrous outcome is defined by the global consequences, not domestic 
rhetoric. President Bush has put forward a plausible strategy. It 
acknowledges that policy has been leavened by experience. But the 
crescendo of demands for a timetable suppresses the quality of patience 
that history teaches is the prerequisite for overcoming guerrilla 
warfare. Even an appropriate strategy can be vitiated if it is executed 
in too precipitate a manner.

The views of critics and administration spokesmen converge on the 
proposition that as Iraqi units are trained, they should replace U.S. 
forces -- hence the controversy over which Iraqi units are in what state 
of readiness. But strategy based on substituting Iraqi for U.S. troops 
may result in perpetuating an unsatisfactory stalemate. Even assuming 
that the training proceeds as scheduled and produces units the 
equivalent of the U.S. forces being replaced -- a highly dubious 
proposition -- I would question the premise that American reductions 
should be in a linear relationship to Iraqi training. A design for 
simply maintaining the present security situation runs the risk of 
confirming the adage that guerrillas win if they do not lose.

The better view is that the first fully trained Iraqi units should be 
seen as increments to coalition forces and not replacements, making 
possible the deployment of forces toward the frontiers to curtail 
infiltration, as well as accelerated offensive operations aimed at the 
guerrilla infrastructure. Such a strategy would help remedy the shortage 
of ground forces, which has slowed anti-guerrilla operations throughout 
the occupation. While seemingly more time-consuming, it would present 
better opportunities for stabilizing the country and would thus provide 
a more reliable exit route.

The combat performance of new units cannot be measured by training 
criteria alone. The ultimate metrics -- to use Pentagon terminology -- 
are to what extent they are motivated toward agreed political goals. 
What they fight for will determine how well they fight.

Aresponsible exit strategy must emerge from the systematic integration 
of political and security elements -- above all, the consolidation of 
the national government. Real progress will have been made when the 
Iraqi armed forces view themselves -- and are seen by the population -- 
as defenders of the nation's interest, not sectarian or regional 
interests. They will have become a national force when they are able to 
carry the fight into Sunni areas and grow willing to disarm militias in 
the Shiite regions from which the majority of them are recruited.

To delegate to military commanders the judgments as to the timing of 
withdrawals therefore places too great a burden on them. Their views 
regarding security need to be blended with judgments regarding the 
political and collateral consequences that a major initiative inevitably 
produces. Such a balance presupposes that all sides in our domestic 
debate adopt a restraint imposed on us by awareness of the grave 
consequences of failure.

The psychological impact, most immediately on the Iraqi political 
structure, will be crucial. Will the initial reductions -- set to begin 
sometime after last week's elections -- be viewed as the first step of 
an inexorable process to rapid and complete withdrawal? Or will they be 
seen as a stage of an agreed process dependent on tangible and definable 
political and security progress? If the former, the political factions 
in Iraq will maneuver to protect their immediate assets in preparation 
for the expected test of strength between the various groups. The 
incentive to consider American preferences for a secular and inclusive 
government in a unified Iraq will shrink. It will be difficult to 
broaden the base of a government at the very moment it thinks it is 
losing its key military support. In these circumstances, even a limited 
withdrawal not formally geared to a fixed timetable and designed to 
placate American public opinion could acquire an irreversible character.

If the experience of Vietnam is any guide, the numbers of returning 
troops could, in such an atmosphere, turn into the principal domestic 
test of successful U.S. policy. Pressures to continue or accelerate the 
withdrawals could be magnified so that the relationship to the political 
criteria of progress would be lost. A process driven by technical or 
domestic criteria might evoke a competition between Iraqi factions to 
achieve nationalist credit for accelerating the U.S. withdrawal, perhaps 
by turning on us either politically or with some of their militia.

The United States intervened in Iraq to protect the region's security 
and its own. But it cannot conclude that process without anchoring it in 
some international consensus. Geopolitical realities will not disappear 
from a region that has lived with them and suffered from them for 
millennia and that has drawn U.S. military forces into their vortex in 
Lebanon in the 1950s and 1980s, in Afghanistan in 2001 and in the 
Persian Gulf in 1991 and 2003 -- and has caused two U.S. military alerts 
(over the Syrian invasion of Jordan in 1970 and the Arab-Israeli war in 
1973). The passions, convictions and rivalries of the factions in Iraq 
will continue. A regional system will emerge in that country in one form 
or another through our interaction, either with these forces or through 
our default. In that sense, Americans must accept the reality that their 
country can never make a total political withdrawal, though the size and 
location of the military presence will vary. It will always have to meld 
political and security objectives if the predominance of radical states 
is to be avoided.

The countries that are relevant to Iraq's security and stability or that 
consider their security and stability affected by the emerging 
arrangements must be given a sense of participation in the next stage of 
Iraq policy. The developing political institutions in Iraq need to be 
built into an international and regional system -- not out of obeisance 
to a theoretical multilateralism but because otherwise America will have 
to function alone as the permanent policeman, a role that any projected 
Iraqi government is likely to reject in the long run and that the very 
debate discussed in this article inhibits.

The time has come not only to define the strategic future in Iraq but 
also to broaden the base of political consultation in the region at 
large. A political contact group including key European allies, India 
(because of its Muslim population), Pakistan, Turkey and some neighbors 
of Iraq should be convoked after the Iraqi election. Political 
discussions between the U.S. ambassador in Baghdad and Iranian 
authorities regarding Iraq have already been approved.

These cannot be the sole contacts with Baghdad's neighbors. The 
functions of the contact group would be to advise on the political 
evolution of Iraq, to broaden the basis of legitimacy of the government 
and to reflect a broad international interest in the stability and 
progress of the region. As time goes on, the group could become a forum 
to deal with other issues affecting Middle East stability, including 
some of the causes of Islamic radicalism. A political framework is not a 
substitute for a successful military outcome, but military success 
cannot be long sustained without it.

The writer, a former secretary of state, is chairman of Kissinger 
Associates.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/17/AR2005121700946.html
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Sun Dec 18 04:00:51 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Sun Dec 18 04:15:02 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Afghanistan and opium - Vanda Felbab-Brown - Boston
	Globe Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43A54F73.5060109@comcast.net>


  Afghanistan and opium

By Vanda Felbab-Brown  |  December 18, 2005  |  The Boston Globe

A RECENT UN report on drugs in Afghanistan points to the success of 
eradication in decreasing the area under poppy cultivation by 21 percent 
during the past year. Yet this positive development is fragile and 
likely unsustainable. Instead of doctrinally clinging to eradication, 
the international community should explore other means of decreasing 
Afghanistan's illicit economy, such as converting the still vast opium 
cultivation into legal production for medical opiates.

The idea of transforming the cultivation for the production of codeine 
and morphine is promoted by the Senlis Council, a European drug policy 
think tank. Pointing to the successful implementation of such a scheme 
in Turkey, where it eliminated the large illegal cultivation of opium, 
the Senlis advocates ask: Why not Afghanistan?

Licensing production of legitimate drugs would not only shrink the size 
of Afghanistan's illegal economy, it would also provide a sustainable 
livelihood for the poor peasants, and generate income for the Afghan state.

Eradication of opium production has been the method of choice for 
fighting the illegal drug trade thus far, but it is socially explosive 
since the poor farmers do not have an alternative source of livelihood. 
Even in the best case of eradication working, this would mean the 
elimination of 40 percent of Afghanistan's gross domestic product.

Licensing is not a perfect solution either. It would be difficult to 
keep licensed farmers from selling their opium to drug dealers for 
higher prices. The International Narcotics Control Board that regulates 
exports of medical opiates, and the narcotics treaties that permit the 
legal cultivation of opium poppy for domestic medical opiates, require 
government monopoly of the system in order to keep the opium from 
falling into the wrong hands. Given the poor security conditions in 
Afghanistan, the Afghan government would have a hard time enforcing the 
regulations on farmers.

But these challenges should not keep a pilot program from being 
attempted. For instance, private contractors could be hired not to spray 
illicit crops, but to monitor and patrol the areas of legal production. 
Compliance could also be reinforced by working with traditional Afghan 
tribal structures. Realistically, some diversion into the illegal market 
must be expected. However, diversion smaller than the current 100 
percent ''diversion" into the illegal market is a step in the right 
direction.

Another challenge is what to do with farmers who are not issued a 
license. Eradicating opium crops of unlicensed farmers would help deter 
licensed farmers from diverting their opium into illegal traffic, but it 
would also generate tensions among groups and tribes that benefit more 
than others from the licensing scheme. To maintain stability and still 
reduce illicit cultivation, it would be better to focus on apprehending 
traffickers and busting the labs, while working toward enhancing state 
law enforcement capacity and enlarging licensed areas.

How much of the illicit economy could ultimately be absorbed for 
medicinal uses would also depend on the demand for medical opiates. One 
of the reasons why the licensing scheme has been successful in Turkey is 
that the United States guarantees a market for Turkish (as well as 
Indian) medical opiates. Under the so-called ''80-20" rule -- up for 
review in January -- the United States agrees to buy at least 80 percent 
of medical opiates from Turkey and India. Together with Australia, 
Turkey and India are the world's largest suppliers of legal opiates. 
Turkey and India would, of course, object to the ''80-20 rule" being 
altered to accommodate Afghanistan. In addition, if they lost their 
market share, the odds for more of their crops ending up on the illegal 
market increase.

The INCB contends that there should be a balance between demand and 
supply and that currently there is no space for Afghanistan's medical 
opiates. The Senlis Council contends that there is a need in developing 
countries, where millions suffer from HIV/AIDS and cancers without any 
pain-relief medications.

Yet under the highly regulated market of medical opiates, bureaucratic 
barriers to distributing these drugs keep any such arrangement from 
happening quickly. Between need and demand, there is regulation.

However, a creative design of the US foreign aid bill could combine 
money ear-marked for counternarcotics efforts and for efforts to fight 
AIDS to purchase Afghanistan's legal opium for distribution among AIDS 
patients in the developing world.

Granted there are potential problems, but a licensing system in 
Afghanistan should be explored. It would provide hope for alleviating 
poverty in Afghanistan and suffering of others, as well as promise 
lucrative rewards for pharmaceutical firms.

Vanda Felbab-Brown is a fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and 
International Affairs at Harvard University's Kennedy School. 

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/12/18/afghanistan_and_opium/
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Sun Dec 18 04:06:36 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Sun Dec 18 04:20:32 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Obsessive anti-Semitism - Jeff Jacoby - Boston Globe
	Op-Edmb
Message-ID: <43A550CC.5050006@comcast.net>


  Obsessive anti-Semitism

By Jeff Jacoby  |  December 18, 2005  |  The Boston Globe

ONCE AGAIN, the president of Iran repeated his foul lie.

On Wednesday, in a speech broadcast live on Iranian state television, 
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told a crowd of thousands that the Nazi destruction 
of European Jewry never happened. ''They have created a myth with the 
name of 'Holocaust' and consider it to be above God, religion, and the 
prophets," he said. It was the second time in a week that Ahmadinejad 
had dismissed the most infamous genocide of the 20th century as a fairy 
tale. ''Some European countries insist on saying that Hitler killed 
millions of innocent Jews in furnaces," he snorted in Mecca on Dec. 8, 
when he addressed an international summit of nearly 50 Muslim heads of 
state. ''We don't accept this claim."

Even if there were a Holocaust, Ahmadinejad demanded, why should Muslims 
be stuck living next to a Jewish state?

''If European countries claim that they have killed Jews in World War 
II," he demanded, ''why don't they provide the Zionist regime with a 
piece of Europe? Germany and Austria can provide . . . two or three 
provinces for this regime to establish itself, and the issue will be 
resolved. You offer part of Europe, and we will support it." Or, he 
said, the Jews could be dispatched to the United States, Canada, ''or 
Alaska."

But whether Europe and North America take his advice or not, 
Ahmadinejad's bottom line doesn't change. As he put it in October, 
Israel must be ''wiped off the map." And, vowed the president of the 
world's foremost state sponsor of terrorism, ''a new wave in Palestine 
will soon wipe off this disgraceful blot from the face of the Islamic 
world."

Thus Ahmadinejad promises a second Holocaust even as he denies the first 
one, and because his manner is so bellicose and crude, his words make 
news. But there is nothing new about them. Iran's theocratic thugs have 
been threatening the Jewish state with genocide ever since Ayatollah 
Khomeini seized power in Tehran 26 years ago.

When it comes to Jews and Israel, Iran's fanatic rulers speak with one 
voice. ''We have repeatedly said that this cancerous tumor of a state 
should be removed from the region," Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the current 
supreme leader, remarked in December 2000. Former Iranian president Ali 
Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, whom Western journalists strangely describe as 
a ''moderate," explained in 2001 how a nuclear weapon would settle 
Israel's hash once and for all: ''The use of a nuclear bomb against 
Israel will leave nothing on the ground, whereas it would only damage 
the world of Islam." The same Rafsanjani once took to the airwaves to 
explain that ''Hitler had only killed 20,000 Jews and not 6 million." 
Holocaust denial and calls for a new Holocaust are two sides of the same 
coin.

That coin -- virulent anti-Semitism -- circulates throughout the Muslim 
Middle East, not just in Iran. Ahmadinejad's ugly outpourings were 
condemned in the West, but they provoked almost no protest in Arab and 
Muslim countries, where Jews are routinely portrayed as evil subhumans 
fit only for extermination. In much of the Islamic world, Jew-hatred 
saturates the airwaves, spills from the mosques, fills the classrooms, 
permeates the press. Jews are represented as pigs and monkeys, as liars 
and connivers, as vile, hook-nosed scum who deliberately infect children 
with AIDS and poison Palestinian water. In their quest for power and 
world domination, they are said to be ruthless and devious. They were 
behind the 9/11 attacks, for example, and tipped off 4,000 Jews to stay 
home from the World Trade Center. And, of course, they concocted the 
''hoax" of the Holocaust, as part of an elaborate plot to establish a 
beachhead in the Middle East and extort money from the world.

Outsiders are rarely aware of how intense the Muslim world's Jew-hatred 
is. ''What has surprised me is the virulence of this new anti-Semitism 
throughout all the Muslim countries," the distinguished journalist and 
editor Harold Evans wrote in 2002. ''It is frenzied, vociferous, 
paranoid, vicious, and prolific, and is only incidentally connected to 
the Palestinian conflict." Obsessive anti-Semitism almost always 
characterizes the most dangerous threats to America and the West. 
Nazism, Communism, Islamofascism -- all have been intensely 
anti-Semitic. Which is why Ahmadinejad's strident rhetoric should be 
setting off urgent alarms. Dictators who talk about wiping nations from 
the face of the earth generally mean what they say. We should know by 
now that it isn't only Jews who are endangered by the mullahs and their 
threats. All of us are. And time is wasting.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/12/18/obsessive_anti_semitism/
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From olhippie at tampabay.rr.com  Sun Dec 18 07:32:26 2005
From: olhippie at tampabay.rr.com (Robin McNamara)
Date: Sun Dec 18 07:43:28 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Iran
Message-ID: <000601c603e8$40210680$97bc2041@CowBox>

As far as I know I am still able to send to the lists but still cannot receive anything so I am following the archives everyday until the problem is solved. I thought the article below was quite interesting. Now we have "hardlines" developing on all sides.

http://reuters.myway.com/article/20051217/2005-12-17T195450Z_01_KNE771618_RTRIDST_0_NEWS-NUCLEAR-IRAN-USA-DC.html


Peace
Robin


http://lpintop.tripod.com/robinmcnamara
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From michael at michaelbutler.com  Sun Dec 18 08:16:54 2005
From: michael at michaelbutler.com (Michael Butler)
Date: Sun Dec 18 08:27:56 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] President Above the Law
Message-ID: <BFCACB76.26EE2%michael@michaelbutler.com>

Also see below:    
A President with Unlimited Power    ?

    Go to Original

    '78 Law Sought to Close Spy Loophole
    By David G. Savage
    The Los Angeles Times

    Saturday 17 December 2005

    Civil libertarians say the latest revelations add to their frustration
with the Bush administration. "If we are a nation of laws, then the
president must be bound by the rule of law," said Lisa Graves, senior
counsel at the ACLU in Washington. "This is clearly in violation of FISA and
a violation of the Constitution. The president, no matter who he is, does
not have the power to decide which laws he will follow."

    Washington - In 1978, Congress thought it had closed a loophole in the
law when it passed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The loophole
concerned secret spying authorized by the president on grounds of national
security.

    On Friday, many in Washington were surprised to learn that despite the
1978 law, President Bush and his advisors had claimed the power to authorize
secret spying within the United States.

    The New York Times reported that Bush had authorized the National
Security Agency to listen in on the phone calls of thousands of people in
this country without getting permission from a court. Bush's lawyers
maintained that the president had the inherent authority as commander in
chief to protect national security through secret spying. The account was
confirmed by the Los Angeles Times.

    "This sounds like an extraordinarily broad exemption to FISA," said
Washington lawyer Kenneth C. Bass III, who worked on the 1978 law as an aide
to President Carter. "This is well beyond the pale of what was anticipated
back then."

    Other lawyers who helped write the law thought it prohibited what Bush
apparently authorized.

    "FISA was the sole authority for wiretapping" on national security
grounds, said Jerry Berman, who worked on the 1978 law as a counsel to the
American Civil Liberties Union. "The statute would be a futile exercise if
the president retained the authority to conduct these wiretaps on his own."

    As a general matter, the Constitution forbids the government from spying
on Americans - including by listening in on their phone calls - without a
court's permission. The 4th Amendment says police or federal agents must
show a magistrate some evidence of wrongdoing before they can obtain a
warrant that authorizes them to listen in on phone calls.

    However, through most of the 20th century, presidents maintained they
had the power to protect the nation's security by, for example, spying on
foreign agents who were operating in the United States. No one questioned
that US intelligence agencies could tap the phones of Soviet agents.

    In the mid-1970s, Congress learned the White House had abused this
power: Presidents, both Democratic and Republican, had authorized the FBI to
tap the phones of hundreds of political activists and celebrities, including
Martin Luther King Jr. and Vietnam War protesters.

    Those revelations led to the 1978 law. One provision says it is a crime
for anyone to "intentionally engage in electronic surveillance" except as
authorized by law or a court order. However, "the president, through the
attorney general, may authorize electronic surveillance ... to acquire
foreign intelligence information" if officials obtain a warrant from a
special court that operates inside the Justice Department.

    The judges of what is known as the FISA court may issue warrants for
wiretaps when the government has evidence that a person is working for a
"foreign power" or is involved in terrorism. This is not a high standard,
legal experts say. The judges issue warrants virtually whenever the
government applies for one, the Justice Department has said in the past.

    However, the law requires evidence that the wiretap target has links to
a foreign government or a terrorist group. It would not permit, for example,
the wiretaps of hundreds of Muslim men in the United States simply because
they telephoned the Middle East.

    Top intelligence officials have in the past assured Congress that they
follow the law and do not engage in secret spying. "There is a rigorous
regime of checks and balances which we - the CIA, the NSA and the FBI -
scrupulously adhere to whenever conversations of US persons are involved. We
do not collect [information] against US persons unless they are agents of a
foreign power," then-CIA Director George J. Tenet told a House committee
five years ago.

    After Sept. 11, Bush said he would use all the powers of the presidency
to prevent another terrorist attack in the United States. His advisors
feared then that secret Al Qaeda cells existed within the country and that
further attacks were planned.

    Administration officials refused Friday to discuss the National Security
Agency spying program or even to confirm its existence.

    Some former officials say it is important to put the program into the
context of the time.

    "I wasn't aware of this when I was at the White House, but there was a
tremendous sense of urgency to take whatever steps were necessary to detect
and disrupt any cells that were out there," said Bradford A. Berenson, a
White House lawyer during Bush's first term. "The president was not going to
let it be said that he had not used all the powers at his disposal to
protect the American people."

    This would not be the first time Bush has claimed that his power as
commander in chief can override the law.

    The Constitution forbids the government from arresting and holding
people in the United States without "due process of law." Nonetheless, Bush
has claimed the power as commander in chief to designate people as "enemy
combatants" and imprison them indefinitely without filing charges.

    In 2002, US citizen Jose Padilla was arrested at Chicago's O'Hare
International Airport and held in military brigs for nearly three years.
Civil libertarians said that was unconstitutional. His case had been heading
toward the Supreme Court; the administration recently brought criminal
charges against him, thereby thwarting a clear ruling on the issue.

    In the past, Congress has ratified treaties pledging that the United
States and its agents will not use torture or inhumane treatment against
captives. Once ratified, treaties become part of American law, according to
the Constitution.

    But before this week, the White House maintained that the laws and
treaties did not bind the president in handling terrorist leaders. White
House lawyers wrote memos that appeared to justify the use of extreme
measures - which critics called torture - in interrogating suspected
terrorists.

    Civil libertarians say the latest revelations add to their frustration
with the Bush administration. "If we are a nation of laws, then the
president must be bound by the rule of law," said Lisa Graves, senior
counsel at the ACLU in Washington. "This is clearly in violation of FISA and
a violation of the Constitution. The president, no matter who he is, does
not have the power to decide which laws he will follow.

 

    Go to Original

    Behind Power, One Principle as Bush Pushes Prerogatives
    By Scott Shane
    The New York Times

    Saturday 17 December 2005

    Washington - A single, fiercely debated legal principle lies behind
nearly every major initiative in the Bush administration's war on terror,
scholars say: the sweeping assertion of the powers of the presidency.

    From the government's detention of Americans as "enemy combatants" to
the just-disclosed eavesdropping in the United States without court
warrants, the administration has relied on an unusually expansive
interpretation of the president's authority. That stance has given the
administration leeway for decisive action, but it has come under severe
criticism from some scholars and the courts.

    With the strong support of Vice President Dick Cheney, legal theorists
in the White House and Justice Department have argued that previous
presidents unjustifiably gave up some of the legitimate power of their
office. The attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, made it especially critical that the
full power of the executive be restored and exercised, they said.

    The administration's legal experts, including David S. Addington, the
vice president's former counsel and now his chief of staff, and John C. Yoo,
deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel of the
Justice Department from 2001 to 2003, have pointed to several sources of
presidential authority.

    The bedrock source is Article 2 of the Constitution, which describes the
"executive power" of the president, including his authority as commander in
chief of the armed forces. Several landmark court decisions have elaborated
the extent of the powers.

    Another key recent document cited by the administration is the joint
resolution passed by Congress on Sept. 14, 2001, authorizing the president
to "use all necessary and appropriate force" against those responsible for
Sept. 11 in order to prevent further attacks.

    Mr. Yoo, who is believed to have helped write a legal justification for
the National Security Agency's secret domestic eavesdropping, first laid out
the basis for the war on terror in a Sept. 25, 2001, memorandum that said no
statute passed by Congress "can place any limits on the president's
determinations as to any terrorist threat, the amount of military force to
be used in response, or the method, timing and nature of the response."

    That became the underlying justification for numerous actions apart from
the eavesdropping program, disclosed by The New York Times on Thursday
night. Those include the order to try accused terrorists before military
tribunals; the detention of so-called enemy combatants at Guant?namo Bay,
Cuba, and in secret overseas jails operated by the Central Intelligence
Agency; the holding of two Americans, Jose Padilla and Yaser Esam Hamdi, as
enemy combatants; and the use of severe interrogation techniques, including
some banned by international agreements, on Al Qaeda figures.

    Mr. Yoo, now a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley,
declined to comment for this article. But Bradford A. Berenson, who served
as associate counsel to President Bush from 2001 to 2003, explained the
logic behind the assertion of executive power.

    "After 9/11 the president felt it was incumbent on him to use every
ounce of authority available to him to protect the American people," Mr.
Berenson said.

    He said he was not familiar with the NSA program, in which the
intelligence agency, without warrants, has monitored international telephone
calls and international e-mail messages of people inside the United States.
He said that he could not comment on whether the program was justified, but
that he believed intelligence gathering on an enemy was clearly part of the
president's constitutional war powers.

    "Any program like this would have been very carefully analyzed by
administration lawyers," Mr. Berenson said. "It's easy, now that four years
have passed without another attack, to forget the sense of urgency that
pervaded the country when the ruins of the World Trade Center were still
smoking."

    But some legal experts outside the administration, including some who
served previously in the intelligence agencies, said the administration had
pushed the presidential-powers argument beyond what was legally justified or
prudent. They say the NSA domestic eavesdropping illustrates the flaws in
Mr. Bush's assertion of his powers.

    "Obviously we have to do things differently because of the terrorist
threat," said Elizabeth Rindskopf Parker, former general counsel of both NSA
and the Central Intelligence Agency, who served under both Republican and
Democratic administrations. "But to do it without the participation of the
Congress and the courts is unwise in the extreme."

    Even if the administration believes the president has the authority to
direct warrantless eavesdropping, she said, ordering it without seeking
Congressional approval was politically wrongheaded. "We're just relearning
the lessons of Vietnam and Watergate," said Ms. Parker, now dean of the
University of the Pacific McGeorge School of Law.

    Jeffrey H. Smith, who served as CIA general counsel in 1995 and 1996,
said he was dismayed by the NSA program, which he said was the latest
instance of legal overreach by the administration.

    "Clearly the president felt after 9/11 that he needed more powers than
his predecessors had exercised," Mr. Smith said. "He chose to assert as much
power as he thought he needed. Now the question is whether that was wise and
consistent with our values."

    William C. Banks, a widely respected authority on national security law
at Syracuse University, said the NSA revelation came as a shock, even given
the administration's past assertions of presidential powers.

    "I was frankly astonished by the story," he said. "My head is spinning."

    Professor Banks said the president's power as commander in chief "is
really limited to situations involving military force - anything needed to
repel an attack. I don't think the commander in chief power allows" the
warrantless eavesdropping, he said.

    Mr. Berenson, the former White House associate counsel, said that in
rare cases, the presidents' advisers may decide that an existing law
violates the Constitution "by invading the president's executive powers as
commander in chief."

    The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 typically requires
warrants for the kind of eavesdropping carried out under the special NSA
program. Whether administration lawyers argued that that statute
unconstitutionally infringed the president's powers is not known.

    But Mr. Smith, formerly of the CIA, noted that when President Carter
signed the act into law in 1978, he seemed to rule out any domestic
eavesdropping without court approval.

    "The bill requires, for the first time, a prior judicial warrant for all
electronic surveillance for foreign intelligence or counterintelligence
purposes in the United States" if an American's communications might be
intercepted, President Carter said when he signed the act.

    By asserting excessive powers, Mr. Smith said, President Bush may
provoke a reaction from Congress and the courts that ultimately thwarts
executive power.

    "The president may wind up eroding the very powers he was seeking to
exert," Mr. Smith said.

 


From nwonline at toronto.cbc.ca  Sun Dec 18 11:35:55 2005
From: nwonline at toronto.cbc.ca (CBC News Online)
Date: Sun Dec 18 11:47:31 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] CBC News - ISRAEL'S SHARON SUFFERS MINOR STROKE: REPORT
Message-ID: <20051218193555.AE2B71B6A3@nmweb06.nm.cbc.ca>

This email has been sent to you by harry.sifton@sympatico.ca
The following is a news item posted on CBC NEWS ONLINE
at http://www.cbc.ca/news
____________________________________________________
ISRAEL'S SHARON SUFFERS MINOR STROKE: REPORT
WebPosted Sun Dec 18 13:27:30 2005

---Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was taken to a hospital in
Jerusalem Sunday after feeling ill while working in his office,
officials said.

An official with Hadassah-Ein Kerem Hospital said Sharon, 77, was awake
and undergoing medical tests. A television report said the prime minister
suffered a minor stroke.

INDEPTH: Sharon Milestones

Sharon recently precipitated a crisis in Israel by leaving the
conservative Likud Party and starting a new party closer to the middle of
the political spectrum.

>From Nov. 23, 2005: Israel sets elections for March 28

His vision of making peace with the Palestinians will be tested in an
election set for March.

Sharon, a former war hero and long-time politician, became prime
minister in 2000.

His departure from Likud followed his decision to pull Israeli settlers
and soldiers from Gaza, which angered many conservative politicians and
the settlers.

Copyright (C) 2005 CBC. All rights reserved.
From hecate at diamonddragon.com  Sun Dec 18 11:57:01 2005
From: hecate at diamonddragon.com (Hecate)
Date: Sun Dec 18 12:08:00 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] BBC E-mail: Bhutan king announces abdication
Message-ID: <20051218_195701_081840.hecate@diamonddragon.com>

Hecate saw this story on BBC News Online and thought you
should see it.



** Bhutan king announces abdication **
Bhutan's King Wangchuk says he will step down when the tiny Himalayan state holds elections in 2008.
< http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/2/hi/south_asia/4539308.stm >


** BBC Daily E-mail **
Choose the news and sport headlines you want - when you want them, all
in one daily e-mail
< http://www.bbc.co.uk/dailyemail/ >


** Disclaimer **
The BBC is not responsible for the content of this e-mail, and anything written in this e-mail does not necessarily reflect the BBC's views or opinions. Please note that neither the e-mail address nor name of the sender have?been verified.

If you do not wish to receive such e-mails in the future or want to know more about the BBC's Email a Friend service, please read our frequently asked questions. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/help/4162471.stm

From barbarasiomos38 at msn.com  Sun Dec 18 11:58:49 2005
From: barbarasiomos38 at msn.com (Barbara Siomos)
Date: Sun Dec 18 12:09:48 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Time names Gateses, Bono 'Persons of the year
Message-ID: <BAY5-DAV196863C923ABFAE7214CE0AB3C0@phx.gbl>

Time names Gateses, Bono 'Persons of 2005'
The richest man in the world, Bill Gates, and his wife, Melinda, were named Time magazine's "Persons of the Year" along with Irish rocker Bono for being "Good Samaritans."
http://g.msn.com/0MN2ET7/2?http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10516674/from/ET/&&CM=EmailThis&CE=1



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From grgolsorkhi at earthlink.net  Sun Dec 18 10:21:39 2005
From: grgolsorkhi at earthlink.net (Golsorkhi)
Date: Sun Dec 18 13:49:35 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] FW: Ahmadinejad's bodyguards killed in ambush
In-Reply-To: <000701c6033d$fa944ff0$6501a8c0@DF2ZTG61>
Message-ID: <E1Eo6Ei-0005DA-4Q@elasmtp-kukur.atl.sa.earthlink.net>


------ Forwarded Message
From: "Farhad Sepahbody" <sepa@sedona.net>
Date: Sat, 17 Dec 2005 12:13:31 -0700
To: "Golsorkhi" <grgolsorkhi@earthlink.net>
Subject: Fw: Ahmadinejad's bodyguards killed in ambush


----- Original Message -----
From: "peyk@daneshjoo.org" <admin-list@daneshjoo.org>
To: "SMCCDI Mailing List" <list@daneshjoo.org>
Sent: Saturday, December 17, 2005 10:39 AM
Subject: Ahmadinejad's bodyguards killed in ambush


> Ahmadinejad's bodyguards killed in ambush
>
> SMCCDI (Information Service)
> December 17, 2005
>
> The driver and one of Ahmadinejad's bodyguards were killed,
> on Thursday evening, in southeast Iran near the City of
> Zabol after an attack against the Presidential motorcade.
> Another bodyguard has been seriously injured during the
> shoot out.
>
> Ahmadinejad who had started a tour of the
> Sistan-Baloochestan province, since Wednesday, was not in
> the car at the time of the attack. He returned to Tehran,
> on Friday, after making a speech on the need to increase
> the security in Iran and especially in the province.
>
> Official press is declaring that the ambush was set by
> "Armed Bandits" which is the usual label used to qualify
> armed opponents to the Islamic regime. The Islamist
> "Jomhoori e Eslami" daily, close to the Supreme Leader, is
> stating:" "In the armed clash, the driver of the vehicle, a
> local member of the security service, and  a president's
> bodyguard were killed, while another bodyguard was
> injured".
>
> Rumors are stating that worried circles inside the Islamic
> regime's itself might have been involved in somehow
> communicating the necessary information for the
> identification of the vehicle to the assailants.
>
> http://daneshjoo.org/publishers/currentnews/article_2775.shtml
>
> ----------------------------------
>
> Comments / Nazariat:
> Tel: +1 (972) 504-6864
> Fax: +1 (972) 491-9866
> E.mail: smccdi@hotmail.com
>
> www.daneshjoo.org
>
> The "Student Movement Coordination Committee for Democracy
> in Iran" (SMCCDI) / "Komite e Hamahangui e Jonbesh e
> Daneshjoo i Baraye Democracy dar Iran"
>
> #############################################################
> This message is sent to you because you are subscribed to
>  the mailing list <list@daneshjoo.org>.
> To unsubscribe, E-mail to: <list-off@daneshjoo.org> , with UNSUBSCRIBE as
> the subject.
> Send administrative queries to  <list-request@daneshjoo.org>
>
>
> 



------ End of Forwarded Message

From grgolsorkhi at earthlink.net  Sun Dec 18 11:53:18 2005
From: grgolsorkhi at earthlink.net (Golsorkhi)
Date: Sun Dec 18 13:55:25 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] FW: Emailing: regimechangeiran.com
In-Reply-To: <000701c60405$9535b3b0$6401a8c0@DF2ZTG61>
Message-ID: <E1Eo6KD-0000tc-PG@elasmtp-kukur.atl.sa.earthlink.net>

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From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Sun Dec 18 14:20:46 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (mblaxill@yahoo.com)
Date: Sun Dec 18 14:31:48 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Eavesdropping Effort Began Soon After Sept.
	11 Attacks
Message-ID: <20051218222046.5666783CFF@lax-gw03.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: mblaxill@yahoo.com.

WASHINGTON | December 18, 2005
Eavesdropping Effort Began Soon After Sept. 11 Attacks
By ERIC LICHTBLAU and JAMES RISEN
The operation included eavesdropping on communications between Americans and others in the United States and people in Afghanistan.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/18/politics/18spy.html?emc=eta1



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From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Sun Dec 18 14:24:52 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (mblaxill@yahoo.com)
Date: Sun Dec 18 14:35:52 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: This Call May Be Monitored ...
Message-ID: <20051218222452.7F1C99FCFA@lax-gw05.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: mblaxill@yahoo.com.

OPINION | December 18, 2005
Editorial: This Call May Be Monitored ...

Illegal government spying on Americans is a violation of individual liberties, whether conditions are troubled or not.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/18/opinion/18sun1.html?emc=eta1




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This e-mail was sent to you by a friend through NYTimes.com's E-mail This Article service.  For general information about NYTimes.com, write to help@nytimes.com.

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From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Sun Dec 18 14:27:22 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (mblaxill@yahoo.com)
Date: Sun Dec 18 14:38:26 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Health Care for All, Just a (Big) Step Away
Message-ID: <20051218222722.A7A6D2371A5@lax-gw01.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: mblaxill@yahoo.com.

BUSINESS / YOUR MONEY | December 18, 2005
Economic View: Health Care for All, Just a (Big) Step Away
By EDUARDO PORTER
By reallocating money already devoted to health insurance, the government could go a long way toward giving insurance to the 45 million Americans who lack it.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/18/business/yourmoney/18view.html?emc=eta1



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one Best Picture.  What did the original New York
Times movie reviews have to say about these Oscar
winning films?  
Go to the Best Pictures review archive:

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From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Sun Dec 18 14:34:24 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (mblaxill@yahoo.com)
Date: Sun Dec 18 14:45:26 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Presidential Vote Could Alter Bolivia,
	and Strain Ties With U.S.
Message-ID: <20051218223424.7E82913B754@lax-gw04.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: mblaxill@yahoo.com.

These articles kill me!! OK here's a quote "..Jorge Quiroga, a former president who recommends open trade to help Bolivia extricate itself from poverty" - subtext.. "will maintain the status quo, give US control over natural gas reserves and make sure Bolivia stays a 3rd world nation" - ahhh imperialism


INTERNATIONAL / AMERICAS | December 18, 2005
Presidential Vote Could Alter Bolivia, and Strain Ties With U.S.
By JUAN FORERO
Bolivians go to the polls on Sunday with the possibility of transforming this isolated Andean country.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/18/international/americas/18bolivia.html?emc=eta1



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From nwonline at toronto.cbc.ca  Sun Dec 18 16:29:40 2005
From: nwonline at toronto.cbc.ca (CBC News Online)
Date: Sun Dec 18 16:42:51 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] CBC News - BUSH SAYS EVEN IRAQI MILITANTS BELIEVE U.S.
	WINNING
Message-ID: <20051219002940.E9F1E69AFB@nmweb09.nm.cbc.ca>

This email has been sent to you by harry.sifton@sympatico.ca
The following is a news item posted on CBC NEWS ONLINE
at http://www.cbc.ca/news
____________________________________________________
BUSH SAYS EVEN IRAQI MILITANTS BELIEVE U.S. WINNING
WebPosted Sun Dec 18 13:06:38 2005

---The "terrorists" who are fighting the U.S. in Iraq know they're
losing, President George W. Bush says in the text of a speech to be
delivered Sunday night.

"We know from their own communications that they feel a tightening noose,
and fear the rise of a democratic Iraq," he said.

Bush has asked the U.S. TV networks to broadcast his speech, the fifth
since the beginning of December aimed at boosting support for the war.

He is fighting against a drop in his approval rating, with the war and
mounting American casualties an important factor.

"I know many Americans have questions about the cost and direction of
this war," Bush said. "Some look at the challenges in Iraq, and
conclude that the war is lost, and not worth another dime or another
day. I don't believe that," and neither do the soliders and commanders
in the field, he said.

He warned about the consequences of pulling out of Iraq, as some critics
of the U.S. policy are advocating.

That would "signal to the world that America cannot be trusted to keep
its word," and "hand Iraq over to enemies who have pledged to attack us."

While Bush used the presence of al-Qaeda in Iraq as one justification for
the 2003 attack which overthrew dictator Saddam Hussein, critics have
argued that it was the U.S. presence there that attracted militants to
the country.

Iraqi vote key indicator

Bush also cited the recent election in Iraq as proof that the U.S. policy
to establish democracy and get the Iraqis to the position where they can
fight their own battles was working.

"This election will not mean the end of violence," he said, but it
"means that America has an ally of growing strength in the fight
against terror."

Bush was just one of three top U.S. politicians to argue the
administration's position on Sunday, on a weekend that saw 19 Iraqis die
in attacks in the Mideast country.



Cheney makes surprise visit to Iraq

Vice-President Dick Cheney made a surprise visit to Iraq on Sunday, where
he was briefed by military commanders, met Iraqi politicians and flew
over Baghdad in a group of eight armed helicopters.

"I think what started here in Iraq will have an enormous impact
through the region," he said. "We're, as Americans, very proud to be
part of that."

FROM DEC. 16, 2005: 70% turnout reported in Iraqi election

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made the same point on a Sunday
news show.

The Bush administration has come under political pressure to establish a
timetable to withdraw U.S. soldiers from Iraq. But the president has
repeatedly said that the campaign is going well and pulling out before
the Iraqis are ready to take over their own defence would be a mistake.

FROM DEC. 7, 2005: Bush touts progress in Iraq

Bush gave a series of four speeches in Iraq before the vote, arguing the
U.S. intervention was a success.

The public campaign followed a drop in his approval rating among
Americans to about 40 per cent.

His approval rating was about 90 per cent after the Sept. 11, 2001
attacks. He won 50.7 per cent of the votes in the November 2004
presidential election against Democrat John Kerry.

Copyright (C) 2005 CBC. All rights reserved.
From michael at intrafi.com  Sun Dec 18 16:43:55 2005
From: michael at intrafi.com (michael@intrafi.com)
Date: Sun Dec 18 16:54:59 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: A Challenge for Bill O'Reilly
Message-ID: <20051219004355.9331B11F8BC@lax-gw07.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: michael@intrafi.com.

OPINION | December 18, 2005
Op-Ed Columnist: A Challenge for Bill O'Reilly
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
When you've seen what real war does, you don't lightly use the word to describe disagreements about Christmas greetings. 
http://select.nytimes.com/2005/12/18/opinion/18kristof.html?emc=eta1




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From michael at intrafi.com  Sun Dec 18 16:43:54 2005
From: michael at intrafi.com (michael@intrafi.com)
Date: Sun Dec 18 16:55:15 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: A Ruling Against DeLay
Message-ID: <20051219004354.EC91611F7D6@lax-gw07.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: michael@intrafi.com.

WASHINGTON | December 18, 2005
A Ruling Against DeLay
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
A judge said that he would not immediately consider separating two criminal charges against Representative Tom DeLay to allow an early trial.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/18/politics/18delay.html?emc=eta1



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one Best Picture.  What did the original New York
Times movie reviews have to say about these Oscar
winning films?  
Go to the Best Pictures review archive:

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From michael at intrafi.com  Sun Dec 18 16:50:55 2005
From: michael at intrafi.com (michael@intrafi.com)
Date: Sun Dec 18 17:01:55 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Two Gay Cowboys Hit a Home Run
Message-ID: <20051219005055.CA0D211F8E3@lax-gw07.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: michael@intrafi.com.

OPINION | December 18, 2005
Op-Ed Columnist: Two Gay Cowboys Hit a Home Run
By FRANK RICH
"Brokeback Mountain" arrived at a time when America's attitude toward homosexuality has shifted. 
http://select.nytimes.com/2005/12/18/opinion/18rich.html?emc=eta1




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Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
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From michael at intrafi.com  Sun Dec 18 16:51:50 2005
From: michael at intrafi.com (michael@intrafi.com)
Date: Sun Dec 18 17:02:49 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: This Call May Be Monitored ...
Message-ID: <20051219005150.C0ABB13B750@lax-gw04.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: michael@intrafi.com.

OPINION | December 18, 2005
Editorial: This Call May Be Monitored ...

Illegal government spying on Americans is a violation of individual liberties, whether conditions are troubled or not.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/18/opinion/18sun1.html?emc=eta1




----------------------------------------------------------

ABOUT THIS E-MAIL
This e-mail was sent to you by a friend through NYTimes.com's E-mail This Article service.  For general information about NYTimes.com, write to help@nytimes.com.

NYTimes.com 500 Seventh Avenue New York, NY 10018

Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
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From michael at intrafi.com  Sun Dec 18 16:53:38 2005
From: michael at intrafi.com (michael@intrafi.com)
Date: Sun Dec 18 17:04:41 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: The Business of Voting
Message-ID: <20051219005338.27631236F3D@lax-gw01.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: michael@intrafi.com.

OPINION | December 18, 2005
Editorial: The Business of Voting

As Diebold, the controversial electronic voting machine manufacturer, enters a new era, it should work to make itself worthy of the important role it now plays in American democracy.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/18/opinion/18sun2.html?emc=eta1




----------------------------------------------------------

ABOUT THIS E-MAIL
This e-mail was sent to you by a friend through NYTimes.com's E-mail This Article service.  For general information about NYTimes.com, write to help@nytimes.com.

NYTimes.com 500 Seventh Avenue New York, NY 10018

Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
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From michael at intrafi.com  Sun Dec 18 16:56:24 2005
From: michael at intrafi.com (michael@intrafi.com)
Date: Sun Dec 18 17:07:23 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Blogging the Vote in Iraq
Message-ID: <20051219005624.3F70911F85A@lax-gw07.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: michael@intrafi.com.

OPINION | December 18, 2005
Op-Ed Contributors: Blogging the Vote in Iraq

The Op-Ed page asked several young Iraqi bloggers to write about their experiences during the parliamentary voting on Thursday.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/18/opinion/18intro.html?emc=eta1




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ABOUT THIS E-MAIL
This e-mail was sent to you by a friend through NYTimes.com's E-mail This Article service.  For general information about NYTimes.com, write to help@nytimes.com.

NYTimes.com 500 Seventh Avenue New York, NY 10018

Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
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From michael at intrafi.com  Sun Dec 18 17:58:00 2005
From: michael at intrafi.com (michael@intrafi.com)
Date: Sun Dec 18 18:08:59 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Bigger brother
Message-ID: <22992474.1134957480343.JavaMail.turbine@s76>

This story was sent to you by: michael butler

--------------------
Bigger brother 
--------------------


December 18 2005

PRESIDENT BUSH WAS CAVALIER on Friday night when he told Jim Lehrer on PBS that a report about the National Security Agency eavesdropping on U.S. citizens was "not the main story of the day." He is entitled to his own news judgment, but it reveals a lot about his willingness to disregard constitutional safeguards and civil liberties while pursuing the war on terrorism. To the rest of us, the revelation in the New York Times that the National Security Agency has been eavesdropping on people within the United States without judicial warrants was stunning. In one of the more egregious cases of governmental overreach in the aftermath of 9/11, Bush secretly authorized the monitoring, without any judicial oversight, of international phone calls and e-mail messages from the United States. 

The complete article can be viewed at:
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-security18dec18,0,5190326.story?coll=la-news-comment-editorials 

Visit latimes.com at http://www.latimes.com
From michael at intrafi.com  Sun Dec 18 18:00:34 2005
From: michael at intrafi.com (michael@intrafi.com)
Date: Sun Dec 18 18:11:35 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] The wall that unites us
Message-ID: <18586181.1134957634649.JavaMail.turbine@s76>

This story was sent to you by: michael butler

--------------------
The wall that unites us 
--------------------

By Stephen Julius Stein
Stephen Julius Stein is a rabbi at Wilshire Boulevard Temple and vice president of the Wilshire Center Interfaith Council.

December 18 2005

AS 2005 DRAWS to a close and Americans ponder "the good and the bad" and what resolutions to make in the new year, I wonder: Did any of us insult our parents? If so, according to the Torah, death by stoning is the decree. Women, did you wear pants last year? If so, according to the Torah, death by stoning is your decree too. 

The complete article can be viewed at:
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/suncommentary/la-op-rabbi18dec18,1,6802323.story?coll=la-headlines-suncomment 

Visit latimes.com at http://www.latimes.com
From michael at intrafi.com  Sun Dec 18 18:01:12 2005
From: michael at intrafi.com (michael@intrafi.com)
Date: Sun Dec 18 18:12:10 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Jesus skeptics on the run
Message-ID: <22201561.1134957672726.JavaMail.turbine@s76>

This story was sent to you by: michael butler

--------------------
Jesus skeptics on the run 
--------------------

Anne Rice's latest novel relies on a biblical scholarship more trusting of the New Testament.

By Charlotte Allen
Charlotte Allen is author of "The Human Christ: The Search for the Historical Jesus." She co-edits the InkWell blog for the Independent Women's Forum.

December 18 2005

ANNE RICE'S "Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt," her novel about the boy Jesus whose family has not gotten around to telling him that he is the messiah, is a national bestseller. That's not surprising. Rice is a seasoned storyteller whose 26 previous novels on subjects ranging from vampires to sadomasochistic erotica have sold more than 75 million copies. With "Christ the Lord," she transferred her flair for the supernatural to a new market of Christian believers who share the faith she has re-embraced. 

The complete article can be viewed at:
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/suncommentary/la-op-rice18dec18,1,5056998.story?coll=la-headlines-suncomment 

Visit latimes.com at http://www.latimes.com
From harry.sifton at sympatico.ca  Sun Dec 18 19:35:15 2005
From: harry.sifton at sympatico.ca (Harold Sifton)
Date: Sun Dec 18 19:46:22 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] 70 yr olds turned away at border because of tool box
Message-ID: <000801c6044d$3d172e00$2127e440@Harold>

A Canadian 70 year old couple who have wintered in Florida for 20 years have been turned away because they had a tool box in their car.

US Border guards claim they were going to work in Florida ..........  ?????????

http://www.startribune.com/stories/465/5787725.html

This is so pathetic, and so embarrassing to read. America's border guards have their heads up their "blank" !

And the fact they vigorously defend their action is even more embarrassing to hear!

This is a new low point in good neighbour relations.

Later, H
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From harry.sifton at sympatico.ca  Sun Dec 18 19:53:20 2005
From: harry.sifton at sympatico.ca (Harold Sifton)
Date: Sun Dec 18 20:04:47 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Media bias is real...... UCLA report
Message-ID: <000801c6044f$c3e28e50$2127e440@Harold>

UCLA report says media is bias.........

http://www.newsroom.ucla.edu/page.asp?RelNum=6664

Later H

PS, I'm withholding any comments, I need to learn more.......
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Mon Dec 19 03:49:58 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Mon Dec 19 04:04:10 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Bush Brings More Realistic View of War to Forefront -
 Washington Post
Message-ID: <43A69E66.7050308@comcast.net>

Bush Brings More Realistic View of War to Forefront

By Peter Baker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, December 19, 2005; A01

The last time President Bush delivered a prime-time address from the 
Oval Office was the night he launched the invasion of Iraq in March 
2003, back when he expected a decisive victory and gratitude from a 
liberated people. Thirty-three months and more than 2,100 U.S. 
fatalities later, Bush last night was still predicting victory -- but 
sounding a more subdued note.

As he stared again into the cameras from behind the 125-year-old 
presidential desk named Resolute, Bush this time found himself arguing 
with those who "conclude that the war is lost." The president who 
enjoyed strong public support as he fired the first missiles at Baghdad 
was by last night chastened by the subsequent travails on the 
battlefield abroad and the political freefall at home.

"This work has been especially difficult in Iraq -- more difficult than 
we expected," Bush acknowledged. "Reconstruction efforts and the 
training of Iraqi security forces started more slowly than we hoped. We 
continue to see violence and suffering, caused by an enemy that is 
determined and brutal, unconstrained by conscience or the rules of war."

For a president traditionally resistant to acknowledging miscues, such a 
concession amounts to a stark political change of course. As more of the 
country abandons him on Iraq, Bush has embarked on a campaign to bring 
the war back into the fold with a more realistic assessment of mistakes 
and of challenges ahead. Last night's national address from the Oval 
Office ended a two-week series of speeches by imploring the American 
people to stand behind him, to swallow their skepticism and take hope 
from last week's Iraqi election, to believe that a greater good will 
come from the sacrifice.

Bush addressed opponents of the war in a far more direct and, at 
moments, almost conciliatory manner, acknowledging that "this war is 
controversial" and saying he has heard those who disagree with him. "We 
will continue to listen to honest criticism, and make every change that 
will help us complete the mission," he said.

Yet as he signaled deference to their sincerity, he made clear he saw 
their approach as disastrous to the nation and he further drew a 
distinction "between honest critics who recognize what is wrong and 
defeatists who refuse to see that anything is right." And for all of the 
concessions, Bush signaled he has not changed his core beliefs, however 
disputed they may be, about the value of the war and its link to the 
larger campaign against radical Islamic terrorists.

The fresh approach, as it has played out over the past few weeks, has 
yielded Bush benefits in some quarters in Washington and may have helped 
fuel a modest uptick in his sagging poll ratings. "He's taken a step 
back, he's looked at his hole card," Rep. Dan Boren (D-Okla.) said in an 
interview after meeting with the president last week. "He's grown as a 
leader."

Still, it may be too late to win back many who have lost faith. "When 
you tell a soldier to go take that hill, you come up with your mission 
and you tell them what you need to do to accomplish that mission, and 
you need to tell them clearly when that mission is ended," Army Maj. 
Tammy Duckworth, who was disabled in Iraq and plans to run for Congress 
as a Democrat, said on ABC's "This Week" yesterday. "Those decisions 
should have been made before we even sent troops over there. And they 
weren't."

The domestic political climate has changed so dramatically since Bush 
first sent troops to Iraq -- approval ratings that once topped 70 
percent now hover around 40 percent -- that his whole approach to 
terrorism has come under fire. Perhaps emboldened by the falling support 
for the Iraq war, congressional critics are questioning secret overseas 
CIA prisons, moving to bar cruel and inhuman treatment of detainees, 
blocking for the moment reauthorization of the USA Patriot Act and 
threatening to investigate his order authorizing domestic surveillance 
of Americans without court warrants.

Just hours before last night's presidential speech, a key Senate 
Republican challenged Bush's surveillance program. "We can't become an 
outcome-based democracy," Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.) said on CBS's 
"Face the Nation." "Even in a time of war, you have to follow the 
process because that's what a democracy is all about."

If Bush and his team are giving critics some due on Iraq, they remain 
undaunted on the domestic spying program. Animating the zeal in the 
White House to push the boundaries as far as they will stretch -- and 
perhaps further, at least in the view of critics -- is the sense that 
the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, could happen all over again.

"What I'm concerned about . . . is that as we get farther and farther 
from 9/11 . . . we seem to have people less and less committed to doing 
everything that's necessary to defend the country," Vice President 
Cheney told ABC's "Nightline" during a trip to Iraq yesterday. "Somehow 
I think a lot of people have lost their sense of urgency out there. 
That's hard for me to do or for the president to do."

For that matter, Cheney seemed less eager than Bush to make concessions 
to Iraq critics. "I disagree with the notion that hopes have been 
dashed. I don't think that's true," he said. Asked about his prewar 
predictions that Iraqis would welcome U.S. forces, Cheney said: "I don't 
think I got it wrong. . . . I think the vast majority of them think of 
us as liberators."

The politics of Bush's two-front political battle are apparent at the 
White House. While the president's advisers worry deeply about public 
discontent over the war, they are still betting the American people are 
willing to give him virtual carte blanche to do what he thinks is 
necessary to prevent another Sept. 11, even if it means sacrificing some 
civil liberties. Bush struck a note of defiance when acknowledging the 
surveillance order on Saturday, and aides indicated they were eager to 
engage in a political fight with Democrats over it.

In contrast, on Iraq, the White House seems more intent these days on 
avoiding political conflict and managing expectations. In a recent 
interview, national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley said it was no 
surprise that it would take a long time to build a new Iraq after 
decades of tyranny. With the Sunni Arab minority only lately joining the 
political process, he added, "you couldn't have any real expectation 
that the violence would tamp down. It will take some months before you 
could expect to see some drop."

There seemed no drop as of yesterday. More than 30 people were killed in 
a series of suicide bombings and other attacks. For Bush, the images of 
such events sear deeper into the American consciousness than any Oval 
Office speech.

"This proves that the war is difficult," he said, "it does not mean that 
we are losing."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/18/AR2005121801308.html
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Mon Dec 19 03:53:08 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Mon Dec 19 04:07:14 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Curing Medicine's 'Orphans' - Sebastian Mallaby -
 Washington Post Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43A69F24.9070909@comcast.net>

Curing Medicine's 'Orphans'
When Rich Countries Ignore Far-Away Diseases

By Sebastian Mallaby
Monday, December 19, 2005; A23

Six years ago a mosquito-borne disease called West Nile virus arrived in 
the United States. It caused inflammation of the brain and spinal cord, 
killing perhaps one in every 100 people who developed symptoms; this 
year there have been 85 American fatalities. Not surprisingly, the 
nation's medical high command has sprung into action. The Centers for 
Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health 
have been handed millions to spend on West Nile virus, up from pretty 
much nothing before the disease reached the United States.

Now consider Japanese encephalitis, a cousin of West Nile virus that is 
also borne by mosquitoes and also causes inflammation. Japanese 
encephalitis kills one in three of its victims rather than one in every 
hundred; it leaves many survivors with brain damage. But because this 
vicious variant hasn't reached the United States yet, you probably 
haven't heard of it. Congress isn't spending much on Japanese 
encephalitis, and never mind the fact that it kills many more people 
than the West Nile sort.

Japanese encephalitis is not alone, of course. There are many "orphan" 
diseases -- "orphans" in the sense that people in rich countries aren't 
concerned with them. Raise your hand if you've heard of schistosomiasis, 
which causes organ failure and infects 200 million people in the poor 
world. Or what about rotavirus, which causes diarrhea and kills almost 
500,000 kids annually. Or visceral leishmaniasis, which causes 
enlargement of the spleen and liver and kills a similar number each 
year. There are many such orphans, but Japanese encephalitis could be 
said to stand for all of them.

Japanese encephalitis has spread westward and southward across Asia, so 
it now strikes from Japan to India to Australia. About 50,000 cases are 
reported annually, according to the World Health Organization, but this 
is a meaninglessly low figure; the essence of orphan diseases is that 
there's not much money to do anything about them, so there's little 
incentive to report cases. Every so often an epidemic occurs and 
suffocating children engulf a local hospital. There aren't enough health 
workers to pump air into their small bodies, let alone file data to 
international scorekeepers.

Many orphan diseases are beyond the reach of medicine, because there's 
no incentive to invent fixes for people who have no purchasing power. 
But for years Japanese encephalitis appeared even more desperate. An 
expensive vaccine made from mouse brains protected rich people, 
destroying the one hope of galvanizing pharmaceutical research.

This dismal situation prevailed late into the 1990s, and if it hadn't 
been for two heroic scientists it might have carried on. The first hero 
was Scott Halstead, a doctor working for the Rockefeller Foundation who 
discovered that, in addition to the expensive mouse-brain vaccine, there 
was in fact another option. In the 1980s China had developed a much 
cheaper vaccine and had since used it to immunize 200 million people. 
But the world had not bothered to get this lifesaving technology out of 
China to others in need.

Halstead waged a lonely fight against this scandal, but bureaucratic 
complacency kept blocking his advance. The WHO doubted that useful 
medical innovation could come out of China, and it refused to bless the 
vaccine's broader deployment. Halstead published articles in the Lancet 
and other Western scientific journals, showing that the Chinese vaccine 
was both safe and effective; in 1999 he flew 200,000 doses to Nepal just 
before an outbreak, and demonstrated conclusively that children could be 
protected by a single shot. In the face of this exciting finding, the 
WHO shrugged lazily and stuck its fingers in its ears.

The following year an American doctor named Julie Jacobson visited India 
during an outbreak of Japanese encephalitis. Jacobson was working for 
PATH, a Seattle-based group that battles the health challenges of poor 
countries, but she had barely heard of the disease that she saw filling 
the local hospital, and she resolved to find out more. She learned of 
the unused vaccine from Halstead, and became creatively outraged. In 
2003 she got a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to 
identify all obstacles to the elimination of Japanese encephalitis and 
beat all of them down.

Two years on, the Chinese vaccine is emerging from its bondage. Jacobson 
has negotiated a reasonable price from China's supplier and lobbied the 
WHO to certify Chinese manufacturing facilities; meanwhile, she has 
persuaded India and Sri Lanka to stop waiting for the WHO to bless the 
Chinese production facilities and to go ahead on their own. Because a 
vaccine is available, the virus is being tracked more carefully. Once 
almost totally neglected, the orphan is finally getting a real home.

This revolution is replicable. SARS and avian flu have reminded the rich 
world that distant viruses can harm them. Thanks to the energy of the 
young Gates Foundation, there's a systematic effort to beat down 
scientific and bureaucratic obstacles until the top killer diseases are 
tackled -- though, as the recent frustrations on rotavirus demonstrate, 
the obstacles are serious. More than 1 million children could be saved 
each year by deploying vaccinations that already exist, and a similar 
number could be saved by vaccines that are being developed. "This is the 
most exciting time I can remember," Jacobson says.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/18/AR2005121800883.html
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Mon Dec 19 03:55:21 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Mon Dec 19 04:09:21 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Our Civil Disagreement - William Raspberry - Washington
	Post Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43A69FA9.8030502@comcast.net>

Our Civil Disagreement

By William Raspberry
Monday, December 19, 2005; A23

I'll breeze right past the fact that the heaviest mail day of my career 
as a newspaper columnist came when I announced the end of that career. 
What I want to think about instead is something that is enormously 
flattering and still a little mysterious.

The dominant theme of the letter writers was that they appreciate my 
attempt at balance and fairness and, most of all, thoughtfulness. Listen 
to one letter I've just opened from a "white, more-or-less conservative 
Republican":

"You may well imagine that we will at some times differ. But it is 
because of your clear and cogent explanations of your viewpoints that I 
am able to understand why some people hold opinions and values different 
from my own, and how their experiences have produced what seems to them 
reasonable beliefs.

"Because you do this, and do not simply rant at me . . . I can 
appreciate and understand and respect those ideas, even when I do not 
agree with them. And it does happen, rather often actually, that you 
convince me that I don't know what I am talking about and that yours is 
the correct understanding."

Well, wow! Scores of readers have told me -- not always as eloquently as 
this -- that they like reading my work because I come across as someone 
they can talk to, even in disagreement, and that they appreciate my 
rejection of the forced conclusion or (usually) the cheap shot at those 
who disagree.

And I find myself actually liking the person they describe, while also 
remembering that I once enjoyed delivering the hard zinger. What 
happened? Did I grow up? Did age mellow me out? Have I lost a certain 
zest for combat?

It may have started when I found myself liking less and less the sharp 
exchanges between political combatants. Remember when James J. 
Kilpatrick and Shana Alexander used to go at it on "60 Minutes"? I loved 
it for a time, then found it less and less helpful. So decades before 
the open warfare that now passes as political debate on cable TV, I was 
already tiring of commentators who were content to preach only to their 
choirs.

But something else was happening at the same time. I was becoming more 
and more convinced that the sharp debates and exaggerated differences 
were exacerbating the political division I find so dangerous in America, 
and I was also starting to imagine -- conceit? -- that talking about 
issues might actually make a positive difference, might move us an inch 
or two nearer common ground.

Perhaps it was then that I found myself trying to write in such a way 
that people who didn't agree with me might at least hear me. Then I 
found that they were talking back to me in similarly civil tones. And it 
felt good.

It reminded me of something a wise divinity professor once said. If you 
are having an argument with some "enemy," he advised, try to reword his 
position in a way that would make it at least palatable to you . Then 
invite him to do the same thing with your position. You won't appreciate 
the dispute-melting magic in that until you try it a few times.

The trouble, of course, is that such an approach is unlikely to produce 
winners and losers, and we've come to think that producing winners and 
losers is the essence not just of politics but also of life.

It isn't. Making this country work for everybody is, and it would be a 
good thing if all of us -- journalists emphatically included -- 
remembered that.

What has made this a little easier for me is a discovery I've mentioned 
before: that in virtually every public controversy, most thoughtful 
people secretly believe both sides. I know I do. But the fact that I am 
unalterably both pro-life and pro-choice keeps me from savaging 
thoughtful advocates of either view. (I still retain my license to 
savage anyone who insists on putting horror masks on people whose 
opinions they don't like.)

Can it be that trying to see the other guy's side simply takes too much 
of our time and energy? Sometimes I suspect that the desire to savage 
rather than convince an opponent stems from the nagging suspicion that 
just maybe we are on the wrong side of the logic. I mean, if you are 
convinced that your position is the correct one, why wouldn't you want 
to examine it and explain it in a way that might win a convert or two? 
Isn't that what this column-writing business is supposed to be about?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/18/AR2005121800884.html
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Mon Dec 19 03:57:06 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Mon Dec 19 04:11:07 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] In the Mideast,
 Democratic Momentum - Jackson Diehl - Washington Post Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43A6A012.3050107@comcast.net>

In the Mideast, Democratic Momentum

By Jackson Diehl
Monday, December 19, 2005; A23

Though Iraq has now held the freest election in Arab history, 
conventional wisdom in Washington and the Middle East still dismisses 
the Bush administration's hope that its military intervention will 
catalyze democratic change around the region. A recent survey by 
Brookings Institution scholar Shibley Telhami found that 58 percent of 
Arabs outside Iraq said the war had produced less rather than more 
democracy. In the United States, a Pew poll released last month showed 
that only 34 percent of Americans believed Middle East democratization 
would happen.

That's one of the perverse effects of the war: Amid all the noise of 
suicide bombings, talk of a quagmire for U.S. troops and a sectarian 
conflict that could lead to Iraq's disintegration, most people haven't 
noticed that in the rest of the Arab Middle East, the political momentum 
of the past year has been . . . distinctly democratic.

"There's enough going in the right direction . . . that I am one of 
those who believes that the intervention in Iraq will be good for 
democracy in the region in the middle term," is the way Mark Malloch 
Brown, the witty chief of staff to U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, 
puts it. "I'm just not sure it will be good for democracy in Iraq."

The most obvious element of the liberalizing drift has been the 
elections of 2005: in the Palestinian Authority, in Lebanon, in Egypt, 
even in Saudi Arabia. Flawed as many of the polls were, they produced 
some stunning results, from the formation of a government in Lebanon 
committed to independence from Syria, to the quintupling of seats held 
by the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt's parliament, to the electoral 
victory of two women in the Saudi city of Jiddah. Last week the 
Palestinian Islamic movement Hamas presented its list of 62 candidates 
for scheduled legislative elections next month, including 10 women. The 
corrupt old guard of the ruling Fatah party meanwhile has been 
challenged by several new lists of secular reformers; elections may 
bring, at last, rejuvenation of the corrupt power structure created by 
Yasser Arafat.

Another revealing index is the number of the Arab world's authoritarian 
rulers who have felt obliged to spell out plans for a democratic 
transition. In the past two months Egypt's Hosni Mubarak and Jordan's 
King Abdullah have unveiled platforms to introduce a free press, an 
independent judiciary and liberalized election laws during the next 
several years. By some accounts, Saudi Arabia's then-Crown Prince 
Abdullah privately promised Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in June 
that democracy would reach his country in a decade. Whether or not they 
meant it, the autocrats' promises raised expectations in their 
countries, and gave their growing domestic reform movements a standard 
to hold them to.

For the first time, too, the Arab world is getting a peek at what 
political accountability looks like. Four senior Lebanese generals are 
in prison for their role in the car-bomb assassination last February of 
former prime minister Rafiq Hariri, and Syrian President Bashar Assad is 
under growing pressure from a U.N. investigation; never before have the 
region's thugs been collared for their political killing. In Morocco, an 
official truth commission has spent the past 12 months listening, in 
public, to the accounts of citizens who were tortured or persecuted by 
the government; reparations are being paid to thousands.

Most intriguing of all has been the shift by Islamic movements during 
2005 from terrorism to democratic participation. Despite some lapses, 
both Hamas and Lebanon's Hezbollah have mostly refrained from violence 
this year while focusing on elections. While neither has disarmed, both 
are under pressure from public opinion in their own countries to do so. 
Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, which swore off violence decades ago, has 
embraced the agenda of parliamentary democracy and free press put 
forward by the secular opposition coalition that appeared in Cairo this 
year. The most commonly cited obstacle to Arab democratization -- 
Islamic fundamentalism -- looks far less formidable than it did a year ago.

All of this is not to say that freedom, as President Bush would put it, 
"is on the march" in the Middle East. For every two steps forward, there 
is at least one step back. In Egypt, for instance, the gains of the 
opposition have happened in spite of massive government-orchestrated 
violence and fraud. It's still not clear whether Islamic movements like 
Hamas intend to stick to democracy or merely use it as another 
instrument of war against Israel and secularism. With the world focused 
on Iraq's troubles, naysayers who insist that there has been no positive 
change, or even that the situation has grown worse, mostly aren't 
contradicted. Yet any honest examination of the Arab world shows that 
the transformation Bush called for on the eve of the war in 2003 got 
closer in 2005.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/18/AR2005121800664.html?nav=hcmodule
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Mon Dec 19 04:00:30 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Mon Dec 19 04:14:38 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Feminism revisited - Cathy Young - Boston Globe Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43A6A0DE.6090104@comcast.net>


  Feminism revisited

By Cathy Young  |  December 19, 2005  |  The Boston Globe

FIRST, THERE WERE the ''mommy wars" -- the much-ballyhooed antagonism 
between working mothers and stay-at-home mothers. Then, there was the 
''opt-out revolution" -- the much-ballyhooed phenomenon of high-powered 
career women scaling down or giving up careers to raise children. All 
this is causing intense debate among feminists, who increasingly 
recognize that gender inequality today has more to do with sex roles in 
the family than sex discrimination in the workplace. As former Brandeis 
visiting professor Linda Hirshman puts it in a controversial article in 
this month's American Prospect magazine: ''The real glass ceiling is at 
home."

For years, most feminists have stressed respect for women's choices. Now 
comes Hirshman, saying that ''choice feminism" was a mistake. Feminism, 
she argues, needs to become more judgmental and tell traditional women 
that their choices are bad for society (women won't achieve full parity 
with men when so many voluntarily leave the track that leads to power), 
and bad for them because the lives they're leading allow too few 
opportunities for ''full human flourishing." With views like that, no 
wonder Hirshman made conservative pundit Bernard Goldberg's list of 
''100 people who are screwing up America." Actually, I doubt that she's 
having much effect on America; but her prescription for feminism is 
screwed up all right.

Hirshman does make some valid points. First, the opt-out trend is real, 
despite a recent attempt to debunk it by Heather Boushey of the 
Washington, D.C.-based Center for Economic Policy Research. Boushey 
notes that the small decline in mothers' labor force participation has 
been paralleled among women without children, and is due largely to the 
recession; but her analysis lumps together full-time and part-time jobs. 
A woman lawyer who leaves a partnership-track job to work part time as 
counsel to a community organization still counts as employed.

Second, ''choice feminism" does gloss over some real conflicts in the 
''mommy wars." Companies will be warier of investing in female employees 
when there is a high risk of women quitting. Former career women who put 
their energy into motherhood may set impossible standards of maternal 
perfection (you're a bad mom if you don't spend two days hand-making a 
Halloween costume), and may justify their choice by implicitly 
denigrating working mothers.

But Hirshman's solution is no solution at all.

For one, the feminist movement is not a totalitarian regime. It has no 
power to mobilize women to follow the party line in their personal 
lives, as Hirshman wants. (Her script includes choosing a husband whose 
career is least likely to eclipse yours, and having no more than one 
child until the government coughs up day care.) And, if feminists start 
disparaging women's ''incorrect" choices, women will likely tell them to 
buzz off. Hirshman's tone is insufferably patronizing: women, she 
laments, think they're making free choices and never realize that their 
lives are shaped by traditional sex roles and by feminism's failure to 
revolutionize the family. Are there really many Ivy League-educated 
women who aren't aware of challenges and alternatives to traditional roles?

Besides, many intelligent people may not share Hirshman's notion that 
life as a high-priced lawyer or Fortune 500 executive is the best 
pathway to ''human flourishing." Yes, life with no significant 
activities outside one's intimate circle is incomplete. But Hirshman's 
disapproval extends even to part-time workers. And what about women 
(and, increasingly, men) who don't work for pay but are active in 
community work? Don't many of them meet Hirshman's standards for good 
living: making use of one's mind, having autonomy in one's life, doing 
good in the world?

In her simplistic analysis, Hirshman ignores the social impact of 
working women who don't follow a rigid model of success -- those who 
leave corporate jobs to start businesses or who work in social service 
jobs. She also ignores the flexibility of the modern marketplace. In 
1998, Brenda Barnes stepped down as CEO of a PepsiCo division to spend 
more time with her family; six years later, she went back to work and 
now heads the Sara Lee corporation.

Should feminism strive for more flexible roles and more sharing of 
family responsibilities? Of course. But the way to do it is to expand 
options for both men and women, not to narrow women's options. And, by 
the way, to deride parenting as a demeaning task unworthy of an 
intelligent adult is not a good way to encourage men to become more 
involved fathers.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/12/19/feminism_revisited/
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Mon Dec 19 04:02:26 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Mon Dec 19 04:16:35 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Stop badmouthing the Medicare drug plan - Dr. Marvin S.
 Wool - Boston Globe Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43A6A152.3070301@comcast.net>

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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Mon Dec 19 08:01:19 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Mon Dec 19 08:12:37 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Rice Defends Domestic Eavesdropping
Message-ID: <20051219160119.7C6589FD34@lax-gw05.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: ialterman@nyc.rr.com.

Since I'm not getting Civic mail at this time, I'm not sure if this was posted... Peace.


WASHINGTON | December 19, 2005
Rice Defends Domestic Eavesdropping
By JAMES RISEN and ERIC LICHTBLAU
Condoleezza Rice said the program was carefully controlled and necessary to close gaps in the nation's counterterrorism efforts.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/19/politics/19spy.html?emc=eta1



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From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Mon Dec 19 08:48:25 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (mblaxill@yahoo.com)
Date: Mon Dec 19 08:59:31 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Headlines for December 19, 2005
Message-ID: <20051219164825.14736.qmail@trinity.democracynow.org>

Mike Blaxill  ( mblaxill@yahoo.com )
sent you this story from democracynow.org




+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
|  Headlines for December 19, 2005
|  http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/19/1515204
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+


- Bush Oks Secret Wiretapping of Americans Without Warrants
- Sen. Leahy: No More Secret Orders, Secret Courts, Secret Torture
- Senate Blocks Renewal of USA Patriot Act 
- Evo Morales Wins Stunning Election in Bolivia 
- Military Knew Lincoln Group Planted Stories in Iraqi Press
- 900 Arrested at WTO Meeting in Hong Kong
- Senate Permits Use of Evidence Obtained Through Abuse 
- Report: U.S. Ran Secret "Dark Prison" in Kabul 
- Lobbyist Abramoff Paid Off Conservative Columnists For Coverage
This story continues at: 
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/19/1515204

From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Mon Dec 19 08:49:46 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (mblaxill@yahoo.com)
Date: Mon Dec 19 09:00:52 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Rice Defends Domestic Eavesdropping
Message-ID: <20051219164946.ECA8111F8D3@lax-gw07.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: mblaxill@yahoo.com.

WASHINGTON | December 19, 2005
Rice Defends Domestic Eavesdropping
By JAMES RISEN and ERIC LICHTBLAU
Condoleezza Rice said the program was carefully controlled and necessary to close gaps in the nation's counterterrorism efforts.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/19/politics/19spy.html?emc=eta1



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one Best Picture.  What did the original New York
Times movie reviews have to say about these Oscar
winning films?  
Go to the Best Pictures review archive:

http://ads.nyt.com/th.ad/nytnyt-textEmailThisdefault-Center1A/academyawards_text/?_RM_REDIR_=http://www.nytimes.com/ref/movies/oscars/bestpictures.html




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This e-mail was sent to you by a friend through NYTimes.com's E-mail This Article service.  For general information about NYTimes.com, write to help@nytimes.com.

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From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Mon Dec 19 08:52:00 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (mblaxill@yahoo.com)
Date: Mon Dec 19 09:03:02 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Through His Webcam,
	a Boy Joins a Sordid Online World
Message-ID: <20051219165200.9731111FA6F@lax-gw07.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: mblaxill@yahoo.com.

brave new world...


NATIONAL | December 19, 2005
Through His Webcam, a Boy Joins a Sordid Online World
By KURT EICHENWALD
A 13-year-old was drawn into performing sex acts for an online audience in a tale of the dark collateral effects of technology.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/19/national/19kids.ready.html?emc=eta1



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one Best Picture.  What did the original New York
Times movie reviews have to say about these Oscar
winning films?  
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ABOUT THIS E-MAIL
This e-mail was sent to you by a friend through NYTimes.com's E-mail This Article service.  For general information about NYTimes.com, write to help@nytimes.com.

NYTimes.com 500 Seventh Avenue New York, NY 10018

Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
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From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Mon Dec 19 09:00:31 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (mblaxill@yahoo.com)
Date: Mon Dec 19 09:11:36 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Coca Advocate Wins Election for President
	in Bolivia
Message-ID: <20051219170031.C396E11FA43@lax-gw07.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: mblaxill@yahoo.com.

Quote "The election, which was marked by personal attacks, pitted two fundamentally different visions for how to extricate Bolivia from poverty. While Mr. Quiroga pledged to advance international trade, Mr. Morales promised to squeeze foreign oil companies and ignore the International Monetary Fund's advice." - they must think we're stupid...truth is THE IMF DOESN'T WANT THEM "EXTRICATED FROM POVERTY" BECAUSE THE WORLD ECOSYSTEM CAN ONLY SUPPORT LIMITED FIRST WORLD ECONOMIES I.E. THE U.S., EUROPE, JAPAN, SOUTH KOREA ETC - ok, rant over 


INTERNATIONAL / AMERICAS | December 19, 2005
Coca Advocate Wins Election for President in Bolivia
By JUAN FORERO
Evo Morales, who has pledged to reverse a campaign financed by the U.S. to wipe out coca growing, scored a decisive victory.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/19/international/americas/19bolivia.html?emc=eta1



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one Best Picture.  What did the original New York
Times movie reviews have to say about these Oscar
winning films?  
Go to the Best Pictures review archive:

http://ads.nyt.com/th.ad/nytnyt-textEmailThisdefault-Center1A/academyawards_text/?_RM_REDIR_=http://www.nytimes.com/ref/movies/oscars/bestpictures.html




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This e-mail was sent to you by a friend through NYTimes.com's E-mail This Article service.  For general information about NYTimes.com, write to help@nytimes.com.

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From harperalexander at mail.com  Mon Dec 19 10:00:13 2005
From: harperalexander at mail.com (Alexander Harper)
Date: Mon Dec 19 10:11:33 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] How to Exit Iraq - Henry A. Kissinger (yes,
	HIM) - Washington Post Op-Ed
Message-ID: <20051219180013.E99A61F50B3@ws1-2.us4.outblaze.com>

Well, personally I disagree with practically everything he has to say.
Like the Bourbons 'He has learned nothing and he has forgotten nothing'
(pace Talleyrand). Just as his much feared 'domino effect' - of the whole
of SE Asia turning communist unless the US 'saw it through' in Vietnam
and Cambodia - did not materialize when the US was ignominiously
expelled, as was inevitable, from Vietnam, while leaving Cambodia to the
tender mercies of Pol Pot, so I believe that that raft of muslim
countries he refers to will not turn or would certainly not remain
fundamentalist for long in the absence of the U.S. benevolently trying to
kick them into towing the party line. On the other hand if the US's real
(implicit but obviously unexpressed) intention is to go around the word
creating enemies in order to keep the fear quotient at home up to a
certain minimum level then they are probably doing exactly the right
thing. I suppose I would agree that any  retreat from Iraq by the US
should be carried out in an orderly manner but again, even if it were not
- well, look at Vietnam. Within one generation it embraced capitalism (
at least a captialism it is comfortable with), as is China to the north
and is now on  good terms with the US. These wars are not about
ideologies or religions but about nationalism and patriotism (not exactly
the same things). Nobody likes to have foreigners on their home turf
telling them what to do and although the Arabs may be more used to it
than most, having had the Ottomans for some 500 years, they don't like it
either. Only a tiny % of Muslims are extremist, let them sort out their
own sh*t.

Al B

  ----- Original Message -----
  From: "William Swiggard"
  To: "mb-civic"
  Subject: [Mb-civic] How to Exit Iraq - Henry A. Kissinger (yes, HIM)
  - Washington Post Op-Ed
  Date: Sun, 18 Dec 2005 06:56:44 -0500

  How to Exit Iraq
  At First, Iraqi Soldiers Should Augment U.S. Forces, Not Replace Them

  By Henry A. Kissinger
  Sunday, December 18, 2005; B07

  The administration and its critics seem to agree that the beginning
  of an American withdrawal from Iraq will mark a turning point. What
  divides them is the speed and extent of the drawdown and whether it
  should be driven by a timetable or by a strategy that seeks to shape
  events.

  Though often put into technical terms, the issue is not the mechanics
  of withdrawal. Rather, the debate should be over consequences:
  whether, in the end, withdrawal will be perceived as a forced retreat
  or as an aspect of a prudent and carefully planned strategy designed
  to enhance international security. Whatever one's view of the
  decision to undertake the Iraq war, the method by which it was
  entered, or the strategy by which it was conducted -- and I supported
  the original decision -- one must be clear about the consequences of
  failure. If, when we go, we leave nothing behind but a failed state
  and chaos, the consequences will be disastrous for the region and for
  America's position in the world.

  For the phenomenon of radical Islam is more than the sum of
  individual terrorist acts extending from Bali through Jakarta to New
  Delhi, Tunisia, Riyadh, Istanbul, Casablanca, Madrid and London. It
  is an ideological outpouring by which Islam's radical wing seeks to
  sweep away secularism, pluralistic values and Western institutions
  wherever Muslims live. Its dynamism is fueled by the conviction that
  the designated victims are on the decline and lack the will to
  resist.

  Any event that seems to confirm these convictions compounds the
  revolutionary dynamism. If a fundamentalist regime is installed in
  Baghdad or in any of the other major cities, such as Mosul or Basra,
  if terrorists secure substantial territory for training and
  sanctuaries, or if chaos and civil war mark the end of the American
  intervention, Islamic militants will gain momentum wherever there are
  significant Islamic populations or nonfundamentalist Islamic
  governments. No country within reach of jihad would be spared the
  consequences of the resulting upheavals sparked by the many
  individual centers of fanaticism that make up the jihad.

  Defeat would shrivel U.S. credibility around the world. Our
  leadership and the respect accorded to our views on other regional
  issues from Palestine to Iran would be weakened; the confidence of
  other major countries -- China, Russia, Europe, Japan -- in America's
  potential contribution would be diminished. The respite from military
  efforts would be brief before even greater crises descended on us.

  A disastrous outcome is defined by the global consequences, not
  domestic rhetoric. President Bush has put forward a plausible
  strategy. It acknowledges that policy has been leavened by
  experience. But the crescendo of demands for a timetable suppresses
  the quality of patience that history teaches is the prerequisite for
  overcoming guerrilla warfare. Even an appropriate strategy can be
  vitiated if it is executed in too precipitate a manner.

  The views of critics and administration spokesmen converge on the
  proposition that as Iraqi units are trained, they should replace U.S.
  forces -- hence the controversy over which Iraqi units are in what
  state of readiness. But strategy based on substituting Iraqi for U.S.
  troops may result in perpetuating an unsatisfactory stalemate. Even
  assuming that the training proceeds as scheduled and produces units
  the equivalent of the U.S. forces being replaced -- a highly dubious
  proposition -- I would question the premise that American reductions
  should be in a linear relationship to Iraqi training. A design for
  simply maintaining the present security situation runs the risk of
  confirming the adage that guerrillas win if they do not lose.

  The better view is that the first fully trained Iraqi units should be
  seen as increments to coalition forces and not replacements, making
  possible the deployment of forces toward the frontiers to curtail
  infiltration, as well as accelerated offensive operations aimed at
  the guerrilla infrastructure. Such a strategy would help remedy the
  shortage of ground forces, which has slowed anti-guerrilla operations
  throughout the occupation. While seemingly more time-consuming, it
  would present better opportunities for stabilizing the country and
  would thus provide a more reliable exit route.

  The combat performance of new units cannot be measured by training
  criteria alone. The ultimate metrics -- to use Pentagon terminology
  -- are to what extent they are motivated toward agreed political
  goals. What they fight for will determine how well they fight.

  Aresponsible exit strategy must emerge from the systematic
  integration of political and security elements -- above all, the
  consolidation of the national government. Real progress will have
  been made when the Iraqi armed forces view themselves -- and are seen
  by the population -- as defenders of the nation's interest, not
  sectarian or regional interests. They will have become a national
  force when they are able to carry the fight into Sunni areas and grow
  willing to disarm militias in the Shiite regions from which the
  majority of them are recruited.

  To delegate to military commanders the judgments as to the timing of
  withdrawals therefore places too great a burden on them. Their views
  regarding security need to be blended with judgments regarding the
  political and collateral consequences that a major initiative
  inevitably produces. Such a balance presupposes that all sides in our
  domestic debate adopt a restraint imposed on us by awareness of the
  grave consequences of failure.

  The psychological impact, most immediately on the Iraqi political
  structure, will be crucial. Will the initial reductions -- set to
  begin sometime after last week's elections -- be viewed as the first
  step of an inexorable process to rapid and complete withdrawal? Or
  will they be seen as a stage of an agreed process dependent on
  tangible and definable political and security progress? If the
  former, the political factions in Iraq will maneuver to protect their
  immediate assets in preparation for the expected test of strength
  between the various groups. The incentive to consider American
  preferences for a secular and inclusive government in a unified Iraq
  will shrink. It will be difficult to broaden the base of a government
  at the very moment it thinks it is losing its key military support.
  In these circumstances, even a limited withdrawal not formally geared
  to a fixed timetable and designed to placate American public opinion
  could acquire an irreversible character.

  If the experience of Vietnam is any guide, the numbers of returning
  troops could, in such an atmosphere, turn into the principal domestic
  test of successful U.S. policy. Pressures to continue or accelerate
  the withdrawals could be magnified so that the relationship to the
  political criteria of progress would be lost. A process driven by
  technical or domestic criteria might evoke a competition between
  Iraqi factions to achieve nationalist credit for accelerating the
  U.S. withdrawal, perhaps by turning on us either politically or with
  some of their militia.

  The United States intervened in Iraq to protect the region's security
  and its own. But it cannot conclude that process without anchoring it
  in some international consensus. Geopolitical realities will not
  disappear from a region that has lived with them and suffered from
  them for millennia and that has drawn U.S. military forces into their
  vortex in Lebanon in the 1950s and 1980s, in Afghanistan in 2001 and
  in the Persian Gulf in 1991 and 2003 -- and has caused two U.S.
  military alerts (over the Syrian invasion of Jordan in 1970 and the
  Arab-Israeli war in 1973). The passions, convictions and rivalries of
  the factions in Iraq will continue. A regional system will emerge in
  that country in one form or another through our interaction, either
  with these forces or through our default. In that sense, Americans
  must accept the reality that their country can never make a total
  political withdrawal, though the size and location of the military
  presence will vary. It will always have to meld political and
  security objectives if the predominance of radical states is to be
  avoided.

  The countries that are relevant to Iraq's security and stability or
  that consider their security and stability affected by the emerging
  arrangements must be given a sense of participation in the next stage
  of Iraq policy. The developing political institutions in Iraq need to
  be built into an international and regional system -- not out of
  obeisance to a theoretical multilateralism but because otherwise
  America will have to function alone as the permanent policeman, a
  role that any projected Iraqi government is likely to reject in the
  long run and that the very debate discussed in this article inhibits.

  The time has come not only to define the strategic future in Iraq but
  also to broaden the base of political consultation in the region at
  large. A political contact group including key European allies, India
  (because of its Muslim population), Pakistan, Turkey and some
  neighbors of Iraq should be convoked after the Iraqi election.
  Political discussions between the U.S. ambassador in Baghdad and
  Iranian authorities regarding Iraq have already been approved.

  These cannot be the sole contacts with Baghdad's neighbors. The
  functions of the contact group would be to advise on the political
  evolution of Iraq, to broaden the basis of legitimacy of the
  government and to reflect a broad international interest in the
  stability and progress of the region. As time goes on, the group
  could become a forum to deal with other issues affecting Middle East
  stability, including some of the causes of Islamic radicalism. A
  political framework is not a substitute for a successful military
  outcome, but military success cannot be long sustained without it.

  The writer, a former secretary of state, is chairman of Kissinger
  Associates.

  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/17/AR2005121700946.html
  _______________________________________________ Mb-civic mailing list
  Mb-civic@islandlists.com
  http://www.islandlists.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mb-civic

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From michael at intrafi.com  Mon Dec 19 10:30:27 2005
From: michael at intrafi.com (michael@intrafi.com)
Date: Mon Dec 19 10:41:37 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] FT.com / International economy / WTO meeting - WTO deal
	fails to heal rifts 
Message-ID: <1239293.1135017027404.JavaMail.tomcat@localhost>



*Please note, the sender's email address has not been verified.



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Title: FT.com / International economy / WTO meeting - WTO deal fails to heal rifts 
 
  
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From michael at intrafi.com  Mon Dec 19 10:31:31 2005
From: michael at intrafi.com (michael@intrafi.com)
Date: Mon Dec 19 10:42:36 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] FT.com / By industry / Financial services - Carlyle
	closes deal with China Pacific Life Insurance
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From michael at intrafi.com  Mon Dec 19 10:32:53 2005
From: michael at intrafi.com (michael@intrafi.com)
Date: Mon Dec 19 10:44:02 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] FT.com / Comment & analysis / Comment - US housing binge
	will have inflation hangover 
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From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Mon Dec 19 10:46:43 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (Mike Blaxill)
Date: Mon Dec 19 10:57:46 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] MUST READ: History of Bolivia
Message-ID: <20051219184643.17240.qmail@web53002.mail.yahoo.com>

..Bolivia's history has been one of domination
and exploitation by foreign powers. The
population consists primarily of Amerindians who
have been fighting for real democracy since
colonial times. To understand the significance of
a Native American being freely elected as
president it helps to know a little history...

Read the whole thing here (click)
http://dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/12/19/6222/5410


From hecate at diamonddragon.com  Mon Dec 19 10:50:34 2005
From: hecate at diamonddragon.com (Hecate)
Date: Mon Dec 19 11:01:38 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] BBC E-mail: Leftist claims victory in Bolivia
Message-ID: <20051219_185034_083907.hecate@diamonddragon.com>

Hecate saw this story on BBC News Online and thought you
should see it.



** Leftist claims victory in Bolivia **
Leftist candidate Evo Morales claims victory in Bolivia's presidential poll after his main rival admits defeat.
< http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/1/hi/world/americas/4539454.stm >


** BBC Daily E-mail **
Choose the news and sport headlines you want - when you want them, all
in one daily e-mail
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From hecate at diamonddragon.com  Mon Dec 19 11:06:16 2005
From: hecate at diamonddragon.com (Hecate)
Date: Mon Dec 19 11:17:20 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] BBC E-mail: Chinese growth to top 9% in 2005
Message-ID: <20051219_190616_012293.hecate@diamonddragon.com>

Hecate saw this story on BBC News Online and thought you
should see it.



** Chinese growth to top 9% in 2005 **
China's economy will grow by more than 9% in 2005, Commerce Minister Bo Xilai says.
< http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/2/hi/business/4541220.stm >


** BBC Daily E-mail **
Choose the news and sport headlines you want - when you want them, all
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From hecate at diamonddragon.com  Mon Dec 19 11:13:42 2005
From: hecate at diamonddragon.com (Hecate)
Date: Mon Dec 19 11:24:47 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] BBC E-mail: Torture in Afghan 'secret prison'
Message-ID: <20051219_191342_048224.hecate@diamonddragon.com>

Hecate saw this story on BBC News Online and thought you
should see it.



** Torture in Afghan 'secret prison' **
Human Rights Watch says the US operated a secret prison in Afghanistan where detainees were tortured.
< http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/2/hi/south_asia/4541056.stm >


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From olhippie at tampabay.rr.com  Mon Dec 19 11:21:25 2005
From: olhippie at tampabay.rr.com (Robin McNamara)
Date: Mon Dec 19 11:32:34 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] "Iran Ban's Western Music"
Message-ID: <000601c604d1$67c138b0$97bc2041@CowBox>


No more western music or movies in Iran


Peace
Robin

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2005/12/19/D8EJG5V80.html









http://lpintop.tripod.com/robinmcnamara
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From harry.sifton at sympatico.ca  Mon Dec 19 12:10:23 2005
From: harry.sifton at sympatico.ca (Harold Sifton)
Date: Mon Dec 19 12:21:35 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Cheney roars back on ABC's Nightline
Message-ID: <000801c604d8$418aa490$6227e440@Harold>

ABC Nightline, Terry Moran's interview with Cheney

http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/print?id=1419206

If Cheney were the President, there would probably be a WWIII by now.............

Later H

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From hecate at diamonddragon.com  Mon Dec 19 12:56:12 2005
From: hecate at diamonddragon.com (Hecate)
Date: Mon Dec 19 13:07:15 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] BBC E-mail: Less than a cent to save a life
Message-ID: <20051219_205612_042997.hecate@diamonddragon.com>

Hecate saw this story on BBC News Online and thought you
should see it.



** Less than a cent to save a life **
Tens of thousands of Indian village women club together to pay for heart surgery for a poor farm worker, reports the BBC's Omer Farooq.
< http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/2/hi/south_asia/4541860.stm >


** BBC Daily E-mail **
Choose the news and sport headlines you want - when you want them, all
in one daily e-mail
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From michael at intrafi.com  Mon Dec 19 13:32:00 2005
From: michael at intrafi.com (michael@intrafi.com)
Date: Mon Dec 19 13:43:05 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] War on Drugs a Big Success by Michael S. Rozeff
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From michael at intrafi.com  Mon Dec 19 13:33:00 2005
From: michael at intrafi.com (michael@intrafi.com)
Date: Mon Dec 19 13:52:11 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] The Total Corruption of the Regime by Jack D. Douglas
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From IHHS at aol.com  Mon Dec 19 08:25:49 2005
From: IHHS at aol.com (IHHS@aol.com)
Date: Mon Dec 19 17:01:35 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] just fyi, calm yourself the gvmt has your back
Message-ID: <E1EoVi2-0006OI-DZ@smtpauth08.mail.atl.earthlink.net>

 If You're Alive, You're a Suspect

Today's comment is by Mark Nestmann, a member of the Sovereign Society  
Council of Experts and author of The Lifeboat Strategy, a book on privacy rights  
and tax planning.  
Dear A-Letter Reader:  
You might not know it, but when you establish a relationship with a US bank  
or broker, thereafter you're being watched--continuously.

US law  requires financial institutions and many other businesses to spy on 
their  customers, and report any "suspicious transactions" of US$5,000 or more 
to the  Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), the US Treasury 
Department's  "Financial Intelligence Unit."  
The definition of "financial institution" was at first restricted to banks  
and credit unions, but has now been extended to money transmitters and  
securities brokers. And the obligation to report suspicious transactions also  
applies to securities brokers, mutual fund companies, pawnshops, travel agents,  
jewel and precious metal dealers, car, boat and airplane dealers, insurance  
companies, real estate agents and title companies.  
Businesses that fail to report transactions they should have regarded as  
"suspicious" face fines, and, in the case of banks, loss of their banking  
charters. Their owners or employees can also be jailed. And it's against the law  
for the bank or business to inform the customer that they are under suspicion or 
 that a report has been filed -- forever.  
As a result of all these legal threats to banks and businesses, FinCEN  
receives tens of thousand of suspicious activity reports, or "SARs." The total  
number of SARs filed nationwide has more than tripled since 2001, surpassing  
685,000 in 2004.  
What happens if a bank thinks you've done something "suspicious?" You might  
lose access to the assets in your account unless you can convince your bank -- 
 and the US Treasury -- that you're not a crook. I know of one situation in 
which  a bank depositor mistakenly deposited a large personal check in his 
business  account.  He immediately transferred the proceeds to his personal 
account.  A few hours later, he tried to withdraw money from this account at an ATM. 
He  couldn't -- the account was frozen. It took several days of frantic phone 
calls  to get access to his funds. It seems the deposit and transfer of his 
own legal  funds was "suspicious" enough to freeze his cash. 
If a filed SAR claims that you broke a law -- knowingly or unknowingly -- the 
 results could be even worse. For instance, federal law requires that cash  
transactions over US$10,000 with a "financial institution," or with many types  
of businesses, be reported to FinCEN. Every day, FinCEN receives about 13,000 
of  these reports.  
Some uninformed people make the mistake of "structuring" large cash  
transactions by breaking them into smaller amounts to avoid the reporting  
requirements. That's a very bad idea. Structuring is a criminal offense,  punishable by 
fines, imprisonment and confiscation of "all funds" involved. That  might not 
just be the $11,000 you split into two $5,500 transactions to avoid  the 
reporting requirement, but also the entire $100,000 account in which you  deposited 
it! There's no requirement that you know that structuring is illegal  in order 
to be convicted of this offense. In fact, the US Congress removed a  
requirement that structuring be "willful" in order to be convicted of this  offense.  
Aside from "structuring" a cash transaction, what's suspicious? Turns out,  
just about everything! The SAR rules provide that any transaction must be  
reported as suspicious: "if the bank knows, suspects, or has reason to  
suspect...The transaction ...is not the sort of transaction in which the  particular 
customer would normally be expected to engage..." That's a pretty big  range. 
Aside from obvious triggers, such as attempting to wire transfer funds to  Osama 
bin Laden, the definition is remarkably broad. When the FBI tried to  design a 
profile of how a bank might be used by terrorists it only came up with  one 
main characteristic: large deposits with withdrawals of cash in a series of  
small amounts. That's not particularly helpful, since this profile matches the  
account activity of around 25% of US bank customers.

So it's no  exaggeration to say, if you're alive, you're a suspect.  
Since businesses don't know in advance which customers, if any, are engaged  
in illegal activity, all customers are subjected to pervasive, systematic and  
continuous surveillance. Software companies now promote programs used by 
almost  all banks that scan millions of transaction records for triggers that 
might  indicate a problem. Promoters hold seminars teaching businesses how to 
analyze  customers' behavior to determine whether or not it's suspicious. Other 
companies  create profiles of suspicious customers that financial institutions 
and  businesses covered by these rules might wish to avoid. One firm, 
World-Check,  offers a list of more than 300,000 people who, in their opinion, may 
present a  "heightened risk" to financial institutions.  
What can you do to protect yourself?  
First and foremost, banks -- and the expensive software they use to track  
suspicious transactions -- tend to pay the most attention to transactions that  
don't fit the general profile of a customer or his or her past pattern of use 
of  the account. For example: Say that you have an average balance in your 
bank  account of US$2,500. One day, you sell your car for US$7,500 in currency 
and  deposit the proceeds in your bank account. Is the transaction suspicious? 
Yes,  because it exceeds $5,000 and it's "not the sort in which the particular  
customer would be expected to engage." Still, the bank isn't obligated to 
report  the transaction as suspicious if you can provide a reasonable explanation 
as to  what occurred. When you deposit the cash, inform the teller -- or 
preferably, a  bank officer -- that the transaction is a one-time event, and be 
prepared to  show proof where the money came from.  
Yes, this strategy implies consent to a hugely unjustified violation of  
privacy by the government. But it could avoid your account being frozen, or your  
arrest for trying to protect your financial privacy.  
Mark Nestmann 
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From IHHS at aol.com  Mon Dec 19 08:28:45 2005
From: IHHS at aol.com (IHHS@aol.com)
Date: Mon Dec 19 17:05:23 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] history lesson
Message-ID: <E1EoVlK-0000ZQ-KO@smtpauth08.mail.atl.earthlink.net>

THE DRUG PUSHER


a  good example of how money  controls
"I  don't want a nation of thinkers. I want a nation of workers." John D.  
Rockefeller

John  D Rockefeller quote " Competition is a Sin"


THE TRUTH  ABOUT THE ROCKEFELLER DRUG  EMPIRE
The  Drug Story: By Hans Ruesch, Switzerland


In the  30's, Morris A. Bealle, a former city editor of the old Washington 
Times and  Herald, was running a county seat newspaper, in which the local power 
company  bought a large advertisment every week. This account took quite a 
lot of worry  off Bealle' s shoulders when the bills came due. 

But according to Bealle' s own  story, one day the paper took up the cudgels 
for some of its readers that were  being given poor service from the power 
company, and Morris Bealle received the  dressing down of his life from the 
advertising agency which handled the power  company' s account. They told him that 
any more such "stepping out of line"  would result in the immediate 
cancellation not only of the advertising contract,  but also of the gas company and the 
telephone company.

That' s when Bealle' s  eyes were opened to the meaning of a "free press", 
and he decided to get out of  the newspaper business. He could afford to do that 
because he belonged to the  landed gentry of Maryland, but not all newspaper 
editors are that lucky. 

Bealle used his professional  experience to do some deep digging into the 
freedom-of-the-press situation and  came up with two shattering exposes - "The 
Drug Story", and "The House of  Rockefeller." The fact that in spite of his 
familiarity with the editorial world  and many important personal contacts he 
couldn't get his revelations into print  until he founded his own company, The 
Columbia Publishing House, Washington  D.C., in 1949, was just a prime example of 
the silent but adamant censorship in  force in "the Land of the Free and the 
Home of the Brave". Although The Drug  Story is one of the most important 
books on health and politics ever to appear  in the USA, it has never been 
admitted to a major bookstore nor reviewed by any  establishment paper, and was sold 
exclusively by mail. Nevertheless, when we  first got to read it, in the 
1970s, it was already in its 33rd printing, under a  different label - Biworld 
Publishers, Orem, Utah. 

Examples
As  Bealle pointed out, a business which makes 6% on its invested capital is  
considered a sound money maker. Sterling Drug, Inc., the main cog and largest 
 holding company in the Rockefeller Drug Empire and its 68 subsidiaries, 
showed  operating profits in 1961 of $23,463,719 after taxes, on net assets of  
$43,108,106 - a 54% profit. Squibb, another Rockefeller-controlled company, in  
1945 made not 6% but 576% on the actual value of its  property.

That was during the  luscious war years when the Army Surgeon General's 
Office and the Navy Bureau of  Medicine and Surgery were not only acting as 
promoters for the Drug Trust, but  were actually forcing drug trust poisons into the 
blood streams of American  soldiers, sailors and marines, to the tune of over 
200 million 'shots'. Is it  any wonder, asked Bealle, that the Rockefellers, 
and their stooges in the Food  and Drug Administration, the U.S.
Public Health Service, the  Federal Trade Commission, the Better Business 
Bureau, the Army Medical Corps,  the Navy Bureau of Medicine, and thousands of 
health officers all over the  country, should combine to put out of business all 
forms of therapy that  discourage the use of drugs.  

"The last annual report of the  Rockefeller Foundation", reported Bealle, 
"itemizes the gifts it has made to  colleges and public agencies in the past 44 
years, and they total somewhat over  half a billion dollars. These colleges, of 
course, teach their students all the  drug lore the Rockefeller 
pharmaceutical houses want taught. Otherwise there  would be no more gifts, just as there 
are no gifts to any of the 30 odd colleges  in the United States that don' t 
use therapies based on drugs.  

"Harvard, with its  well-publicized medical school, has received $8,764,433 
of Rockefeller's Drug  Trust money, Yale got $7 ,927,800, Johns Hopkins 
$10,418,531, Washington  University in St. Louis $2,842,132, New York's Columbia 
University $5,424,371,  Cornell University $1,709,072, ete., etc." 

And while "giving away" those  huge sums to drug-propagandizing colleges, the 
Rockefeller interests were  growing to a world-wide web that no one could 
entirely explore. Already well  over 30 years ago it was large enough for Bealle 
to demonstrate that the  Rockefeller interests had created, built up and 
developed the most far reaching  industrial empire ever conceived in the mind of 
man. Standard Oil was of course  the foundation upon which all of the other 
Rockefeller industries have been  built. The story of Old John D., as ruthless an 
industrial pirate as ever came  down the pike, is well known, but is being 
today conveniently ignored. The  keystone of this mammoth industrial empire was 
the Chase National Bank, now  renamed the Chase Manhattan Bank. 

Not the least of its holdings  are in the drug business. The Rockefellers own 
the largest drug manufacturing  cormbine in the world, and use all of their 
other interests to bring pressure to  increase the sale of drugs. The fact that 
most of the 12,000 separate drug items  on the market are harmful is of no 
concem to the Drug Trust...  

The Rockefeller Foundation
The Rockefeller  Foundation was first set up in 1904 and called the General 
Education Fund. An  organization called the Rockefeller Foundation, ostensibly 
to supplement the  General Education Fund, was formed in 1910 and through long 
finagling and lots  of Rockefeller money got the New York legislature to 
issue a charter on May 14,  1913.

It is therefore not  surprising that the House of Rockefeller has had its own 
"nominees" planted in  all Federal agencies that have to do with health. So 
the stage was set for the  "education" of the American public, with a view to 
turning it into a population  of drug and medico dependents, with the early 
help of the parents and the  schools, then with direct advertising and, last but 
not least, the influence the  advertising revenues had on the media-makers. 

A compilation of the magazine  Advertising Age showed that as far back as 
1948 the larger companies in America  spent for advertising the sum total of 
$1,104,224,374, when the dollar was still  worth a dollar and not half a zloty. Of 
this staggering sum the interlocking  Rockefeller-Morgan interests (gone over 
entirely to Rockefeller after Morgan' s  death) controlled about 80 percent, 
and utilized it to manipulate public  information on health and drug matters - 
then and even more recklessly now. 

Censorship
"Even  the most independent newspapers are dependent on their press 
associations for  their national news," Bealle pointed out, "and there is no reason for 
a news  editor to suspect that a story coming over the wires of the 
Associated Press,  the United Press or the International News Service is censored when 
it concerns  health matters. Yet this is what happens constantly."

In fact in the '50s  the Drug Trust had one of its directors on the 
directorate of the Associated  Press. He was no less than Arthur Hays Sulzberger, 
publisher of the New York  Times and as such one of the most powerful Associated 
Press directors.

It was thus easy for  the Rockefeller Trust to persuade the Associated Press 
Science Editor to adopt a  policy which would not permit any medical news to 
clear that is not approved by  the Drug Trust "expert", and this censor is not 
going to approve any item that  can in any way hurt the sale of drugs. 

This accounts to this day for  the many fake stories of serums and medical 
cures and just-around-the-corner  breakthrough victories over cancer, AIDS, 
diabetes, multiple sclerosis, which go  out brazenly over the wires to all daily 
newspapers in America and abroad. 

Emanuel M. Josephson, M.D.,  whom the Drug Trust has been unable to 
intimidate despite many attempts, pointed  out that the National Association of Science 
Writers was "persuaded" to adopt as  part of its code of ethics the following 
chestnut: "Science editors are  incapable of judging the facts of phenomena 
involved in medical and scientific  discovery. Therefore, they only report 
'discoveries' approved by medical  authorities, or those presented before a body 
of scientific peers." 

This explains why Bantam Books,  America's biggest publisher, made a colossal 
mistake in its initial enthusiasm  and optimism sending review copies of 
SLAUGHTER OF THE INNOCENT to the 3,500  "science writers" on its list, instead of 
addressing them to the literary book  reviewers who are not subject to medical 
censorship. One single censor decreed  NO and SLAUGHTER OF THE INNOCENT sank 
in silence. 

Thus newspapers continue to be  fed with propaganda about drugs and their 
alleged value, although according to  the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) 1.5 
million people landed in hospitals in  1978 because of medication side effects 
in the U.S. alone, and despite recurrent  statements by intelligent and 
courageous medical men that most pharmaceutical  items on sale are useless at best, 
but more often harmful or deadly in the long  run.

The truth about cures  without drugs is suppressed, unless it suits the 
purpose of the censor to garble  it. Whether these cures are effected by 
Chiropractors, Naturopaths, Naprapaths,  Osteopaths, Faith Healers, Spiritualists, 
Herbalists, Christian Scientists, or  MDs who use the brains they have, you never 
read about it in the big newspapers.

To teach the  Rockefeller drug ideology, it is necessary to teach that Nature 
didn't know what  she was doing when she made the human body. But statistics 
issued by the  Children's Bureau of the Federal Security Agency show that 
since the all-out  drive of the Drug Trust for drugging, vaccinating and 
serumizing the human  system, the health of the American nation has sharply declined, 
especially among  children. Children are now given "shots" for this and "shots" 
for that, when the  only safeguard known to science is a pure bloodstream, 
which can be obtained  only with clean air and wholesome food. Meaning by 
natural and inexpensive  means. Just what the Drug Trust most objects to. 

When the FDA, whose officials  have to be acceptable to Rockefeller Center 
before they are appointed, has to  put an independent operator out of business, 
it goes all out to execute those  orders. But the orders do not come directly 
from Standard Oil or a drug house  director. As Morris Bealle pointed out, the 
American Medical Association (AMA)  is the front for the Drug Trust, and 
furnishes the quack doctors to testify that  even when they know nothing of the 
product involved, it is their considered  opinion that it has no therapeutic 
value. 

Persecution
Wrote  Bealle:

"Financed by the  taxpayers, these Drug Trust persecutions leave no stone 
unturned to destroy the  victim. If he is a small operator, the resulting 
attorney's fees and court costs  put him out of business. In one case, a Dr. Adolphus 
Hohensee of Scranton, Pa.,  who had stated that vitamins (he used natural 
ones) were vital to good health,  was taken to court for 'misbranding' his 
product. The American Medical  Association furnished ten medicos who reversed all 
known medical theories by  testifying that 'vitamins are not necessary to the 
human body'. Confronted with  goverment buIletins to the contrary, the medicos 
wiggled out of that one by  declaring that these standard publications were 
outdated!"

In addition to the  FDA, Bealle listed the following agencies having to do 
with "health" - i.e.,  with the health of the Drug Trust to the detriment of the 
citizens - as being  dependent on Rockefeller: U.S. Public Health Service, 
U.S. Veterans  Administration, Federal Trade Commission, Surgeon General of the 
Air Force, Army  Surgeon General' s Office, Navy Bureau of Medicine & Surgery, 
National  Health Research Institute, National Research Council, National 
Academy of  Sciences.

The National Academy  of Sciences in Washington is considered the all-wise 
body which investigates  everything under the sun, especially in the field of 
health, and gives to a  palpitating public the last word in that science. To the 
important post at the  head of this agency, the Drug Trust had one of their 
own appointed. He was none  other than Alfred N. Richards, one of the directors 
and largest stockholders of  Merck & Company, which was making huge profits 
from its drug traffic. 

When Bealle revealed this fact,  Richards resigned forthwith, and the 
Rockefellers appointed in his place the  President of their own Rockefeller 
Institution, Detlev W. Bronk.  

America's Medico-Drug Cartel
The medico-drug cartel  was summed up by J.W Hodge, M.D., of Niagara Falls, 
N.Y., in these words:

"The medical monopoly or  medical trust, euphemistically called the American 
Medical Association, is not  merely the meanest monopoly ever organized, but 
the most arrogant, dangerous and  despotic organisation which ever managed a 
free people in this or any other age.  Any and all methods of healing the sick 
by means of safe, simple and natural  remedies are sure to be assailed and 
denounced by the arrogant leaders of the  AMA doctors' trust as fakes, frauds and 
humbugs.

Every practioner of the  healing art who does not ally himself with the 
medical trust is denounced as a  'dangerous quack' and impostor by the predatory 
trust doctors. Every sanitarian  who attempts to restore the sick to a state of 
health by natural means without  resort to the knife or poisonous drugs, 
disease imparting serums, deadly toxins  or vaccines, is at once pounced upon by 
these medical tyrants and fanatics,  bitterly denounced, vilified and persecuted 
to the fullest extent." 

The Lincoln Chiropractic  College in Indianapolis requires 4,496 hours, the 
Palmer Institute Chiropractic  in Davenport a minimum of 4,000 60-minute 
classroom hours, the University of  Natural Healing Arts in Denver five years of 
1,000 hours each to qualify for a  degree. The National College of Naprapathy in 
Chicago requires 4,326 classroom  hours for graduation. Yet the medico-drug 
cartel spreads the propaganda that the  practitioners of these three "heretic" 
sciences are poorly trained or not  trained at all - the real reason being that 
they cure their patients without the  use of drugs. In 1958, one of those 
"ill-trained" doctors, Nicholas P. Grimaldi,  who had just graduated from the 
Lincoln Chiropractic College, took the basic  science examination of the 
Connecticut State Board along with 63 medics and  osteopaths. He made the highest mark 
(91.6) ever made by a doctor taking the  Connecticut State Board examination.

Colonization
Rockefeller'  s various "educational" activities had proved so profitable in 
the U S. that in  1927 the International Educational Board was launched, as 
Junior' s own,  personal charity, and endowed with $21,000,000 for a starter, to 
be lavished on  foreign universities and politicos, with all the usual 
strings attached. This  Board undertook to export the "new" Rockefeller image as a 
benefactor of  mankind, as well as his business practises. Nobody informed the 
beneficiaries  that every penny the Rockefellers seemed to be throwing out the 
window would  come back, bearing substantial interest, through the front 
door.  

Rockefeller had always had a  particular interest in China, where Standard 
Oil was almost the sole supplier of  kerosene and oil "for the lamps of China". 
So he put up money to establish the  China Medical Board and to build the 
Peking Union Medical College, playing the  role of the Great White Father who has 
come to dispense knowledge on his lowly  children. The Rockefeller Foundation 
invested up to $45,000,000 into  "westernizing" (read corrupting) Chinese 
medicine.

Medical colleges were  instructed that if they wished to benefit from the 
Rockefeller largesse they had  better convince 500 million Chinese to throw into 
the ashcan the safe and useful  but inexpensive herbal remedies of their 
barefoot doctors, which had withstood  the test of centuries, in favor of the 
expensive carcinogenic and teratogenic  "miracle" drugs Made in USA, which had to 
be replaced constantly with new ones,  when the fatal side-effects could no 
longer be concealed; and if they couldn't  "demonstrate" through large- scale 
animal experiments the effectiveness of their  ancient acupuncture, this could 
not be recognized as having any "scientific  value". Its millenarian 
effectiveness proven on human beings was of no concern  to the Westem wizards.

But when  the Communists came to power in China and it was no longer possible 
to trade,  the Rockefellers suddenly lost interest in the health of the 
Chinese people and  shifted their attention increasingly to Japan, India and Latin 
America.

The Image
"No candid study of his  career can lead to other conclusion than that he is 
victim of perhaps the  ugliest of all passions, that for money, money as an 
end. It is not a pleasant  picture.... this money-maniac secretly, patiently, 
eternally plotting how he may  add to his wealth.... He has turned commerce to 
war, and honey-combed it with  cruel and corrupt practices.... And he calls his 
great organization a  benefaction, and points to his church-going and 
charities as proof of his  righteousness. This is supreme wrong-doing cloaked by 
religion. There is but one  name for it - hypocrisy."

This  was the description Ida Tarbell made of John D. Rockefeller in her 
"History of  the Standard Oil Company", serialized in 1905 in the widely 
circulated McClure's  Magazine. And that was several years before the "Ludlow 
Massacre", so JDR was as  yet far from having reached the apex of his disrepute. But 
after World War II it  would have been hard to read, in America or abroad, a 
single criticism of JDR,  nor of Junior, who had followed in his father' s 
footsteps, nor of Junior' s  four sons who all endevoured to emulate their 
illustrious forbears. Today's  various encyclopedias extant in public libraries of the 
Western world have  nothing but praise for the Family. How was this achieved?

Ironically, the two  apparently most NEGATIVE events in the career of JDR 
brought about a huge  POSITIVE change in his favor, to a degree that he himself 
could not foresee. To  wit: 

In the year when according  to the current Encyclopaedia Britannica (long 
become a Rockefeller property and  transferred from Oxford to Chicago), 
Rockefeller had "retired from active  business", namely in 1911, he had been convicted 
by a U.S. court of illegal  practices and ordered to dissolve the Standard Oil 
Trust, which comprised 40  corporations. This imposed dissolution was to 
provide his Empire with added  might, to a degree that was unprecedente in the 
history of modern business.  Until then, the Trust had existed for all to see - 
an exposed target. After  that, it went underground, and thereby its power was 
cloaked in security, and  could keep expanding unseen and therefore unopposed.

The second apparently  negative experience was a certain 1914 event that 
persuaded JDR, until then  utterly contemptuous of public opinion, to gloss over 
his own image. 

"The Ludlow Massacre"
The United Mine  Workers had asked for higher wages and better living 
conditions for the miners  of the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company, one of the many 
Rockefeller-owned  companies.

The miners - mostly  immigrants from Europe' s poorest countries - lived in 
shacks provided by the  company at exorbitant rent. Their low wages ($1,68 a 
day) were paid in script  redeemable only at company stores charging high 
prices. The churches they  attended were the pastorates of company-hired ministers; 
their children were  taught in company-controlled schools; the company 
libraries excluded books that  the Bible-thumping Rockefellers deemed "subversive", 
such as "Darwin' s Origin  of the Species." The company maintained a force of 
detectives, mine guards, and  spies whose job it was to keep the camp 
quarantined from the danger of  unionization.

When the miners  struck, JDR, Jr., then officially in command of the company, 
and his father' s  hatchet man, the Baptist Reverend Frederick T. Gates, who 
was a director of the  Rockefeller Foundation, refused even to negotiate. They 
evicted the strikers  from the company-owned shacks, hired a thousand 
strike-breakers from the  Baldwin-Felts detective agency, and persuaded Governor 
Ammons to call out the  National Guard to help break the strike. 

Open warfare resulted.  Guardsmen, miners, their women and children, who 
since their eviction were  camping in tents, were ruthlessly killed, until the 
frightened Governor wired  President Wilson for Federal Troops, who eventually 
crushed the strike, The New  York Times, which then already could never be 
accused of being unfriendly to the  Rockefeller interests, reported on April 21, 
1914. 

"A 14-hour battle between  striking coal miners and members of the Colorado 
National Guard in the Ludlow  district today culminated in the killing of Louis 
Tikas, leader of the Greek  strikers, and the destruction of the Ludlow tent 
colony by fire."  

And the following day:

"Forty-five dead (32 of  them women and children), a score missing and more 
than a score wounded is the  known result ofthe 14- hour battle which raged 
between state troops and coal  miners in the Ludlow district, on the property of 
the Colorado Fuel and Iron  Company, the Rockefeller holding. The Ludlow is a 
mass of charred debris, and  buried beneath it is a story of horror 
unparalleded in the history of industrial  warfare. In the holes that had been dug for 
their protection against rifle fire,  the women and children died like trapped 
rats as the flames swept over them. One  pit uncovered this afternoon 
disclosed the bodies of ten children and two  women."

Thorough Facelift
The worldwide revulsion  that followed was such that JDR decided to hire the 
most talented press agent in  the country, Ivy Lee, who got the tough 
assignment of whitewashing the tycoon' s  bloodied image. 

When Lee  learned that the newly organized Rockefeller Foundation had $100 
million lying  around for promotional purposes without knowing what to do with 
it, he came with  a plan to donate large sums - none less than a million - to 
well-known colleges,  hospitals, churches and benevolent organizations. The 
plan was accepted. So were  the millions. And they made headlines all over the 
world, for in the days of the  gold standard and the five cent cigar there was a 
maxim in every newspaper  office that a million dollars was always news. 

That was the beginning of the  cleverly worded medical reports on new 
"miracle" drugs and  "just-around-the-corner breakthroughs" planted in the leading 
news offices and  press associations that continue to this day, and the flighty 
public soon  forgot, or forgave, the massacre of foreign immigrants for the 
dazzling display  of generosity and philantropy financed by the ballooning 
Rockefeller fortune and  going out, with thunderous press fanfare, to various 
"worthy" institutions.

The Purchase of  Public Opinion
In the following  years, not only newsmen, but whole newspapers were bought, 
financed or founded  with Rockefeller money. So Time Magazine, which Henry 
Luce started in 1923, had  been taken over by J.P. Morgan when the magazine got 
into financial  difficulties. When Morgan died and his financial empire 
crumbled, the House of  Rockefeller wasted no time in taking over this lush editorial 
plum also,  together with its sisters Fortune and Life, and built for them an 
expensive  14-story home of their own in Rockefeller Center - the Time & Life 
Building.

Rockefeller was also  co-owner of Time's "rival" magazine, Newsweek, which 
had been established in the  early days of the New Deal with money put up by 
Rockefeller, Vincent Astor, the  Harrimann family and other members and allies of 
the House.  

The Intellectuals - A  Bargain
For all his innate  cynicism, JDR must have been himself surprised to 
discover how easily the  so-called intellectuals could be bought. Indeed, they turned 
out to be among his  best investments.

By founding  and lavishly endowing his Education Boards at home and abroad, 
Rockefeller won  control not only of the governments and politicos but also of 
the intellectual  and scientific community, starting with the Medical Power - 
the organization  that forms those priests of the New Religion that are the 
modern medicine men.  No Pulitzer or Nobel or any similar prize endowed with 
money and prestige has  ever been awarded to a declared foe of the Rockefeller 
system.  

Henry Luce, officially founder  and editor of Time Magazine, but constantly 
dependent on House advertising, also  distinguished himself in his adulation of 
his sponsors. JDR's son had been  responsible for the Ludlow massacre, and an 
obedient partner in his father' s  most unsavory actions. Nonetheless, in 
1956 Henry Luce put Junior on the cover  of Time, and the feature story, soberly 
titled "The Good Man", included  hyperboles like this:

"It is  because John D. Rockefeller Junior's is a life of constructive social 
giving  that he ranks as an authentic American hero, just as certainly as any 
general  who ever won a victory for an American army or any statesman who 
triumphed in  behalf of U.S.  diplomacy."

Clearly, Time's  editorial board wasn't given the choice to change its tune 
even after the  passing of Junior and Henry Luce, since it remained just as 
dependent on House  of Rockefeller advertising. Thus, when in 1979 one of 
Junior's sons, Nelson A.  Rockefeller died - who had been one of the loudest hawks in 
the Vietnam and  other American wars, and was personally responsible for the 
massacre of  prisoners and hostages at Atticia prison - Time said of him in it 
obituary,  without laughing:
"He was driven by  a mission to serve, improve and uplift his country."

Perhaps it was all  this that Prof. Peter Singer had in mind when telling the 
judges in Italy that  the Rockefeller Foundation was a humanitarian 
enterprise bent on doing good  works. One of their best works seems to be sponsoring 
Prof. Peter Singer, the  world's greatest animal friend and protector who claims 
that vivisection is  indispensable for medical progress and for more than 20 
years refuses to mention  that legions of medical doctors are of the opposite 
view.  

Millions of Dollars Free  Publicity
Another interesting  revelation in the article of Time was that many years 
ago already Singer "was  pleasantly surprised when Britannica approached him to 
distill in about 30,000  words the discipline that is, at its heart, the 
systematic study of what we  ought to do." So now we touch the subject of 
sponsorisation and patronage. They  don't always mean immediate cash but, more 
important, long-term profits. 

Many decades ago the  Encyclopedia Britannica moved from Oxford to Chicago 
because Rockefeller had  bought it to add much needed luster to the University 
of Chicago and its medical  school, the first one he had founded. Peter Singer, 
"the world's greatest animal  defender" who keeps a door permanently open to 
vivisection and the lucrative  medical swindle, gets millions of dollars free 
publicity thanks to the worldwide  engagement of the Rockefeller Foundation 
and the mediamakers who are in no  position to oppose it. 

>From the  article in Time we also learned that Singer's mother had been a 
medical doctor  in the old country, which could mean that little Peter started 
assimilating all  the Rockefeller superstition on vivisection with his mother's 
milk. 

Taken from the CIVIS  Foundation Report number 15, Fall-Winter 1993
CIVIS: POB 152, Via  Motta 51-CH 6900, Massagno/Lugano, Switzerland  


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From harry.sifton at sympatico.ca  Mon Dec 19 16:55:54 2005
From: harry.sifton at sympatico.ca (Harold Sifton)
Date: Mon Dec 19 17:07:05 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Public Integrity Names Rawls Managing Director
Message-ID: <000a01c60500$241ae8c0$0e27e440@Harold>


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Center for Public Integrity" <publicintegrity@publicintegrity.org>
To: <undisclosed-recipients:>
Sent: Monday, December 19, 2005 4:04 PM
Subject: News Release - Public Integrity Names Rawls Managing Director


> Pulitzer Winner Rawls Named Managing Director of the Center for Public
> Integrity
>
> Washington, D.C., December 19, 2005 -  Pulitzer-Prize winning
> investigative journalist Wendell Rawls Jr. has been named Managing
> Director of The Center for Public Integrity, the Center's Executive
> Director Roberta Baskin announced today.
>
> Rawls, a veteran reporter and editor, joined the Center in August, 2005,
> as director of the Center's International Consortium of Investigative
> Journalists. As Managing Director, Rawls will be responsible for all
> editorial and publishing operations at the Center.
>
> Baskin said she was honored to have Rawls take on an expanded role at
> the Center.
>
> "Sonny Rawls is an investigative reporting legend. His leadership will
> push our watchdog work to an even higher plateau," Baskin said.
>
> In addition to the Pulitzer Prize he won as a reporter, Rawls was a
> Pulitzer finalist and four-time Pulitzer nominee. In the two years he
> was an editor at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the newspaper won two
> Pulitzer Prizes and had five finalists. He also has won a number of
> other awards including the National Headliner Award for Outstanding
> Public Service, the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Journalism Award Grand
> Prize and the Heywood Broun Journalism Award.
>
> Rawls said he plans to bring additional seasoned journalists into the
> Center, install new and more thorough data-handling processes and
> encourage more on-the-ground investigative reporting, both in the United
> States and abroad.
>
> "I believe deeply in the mission of the Center to do the kind of
> in-depth journalism other organizations cannot or will not do," he said.
> "We are committed to helping our fellow citizens of the world become
> better informed and better equipped to hold their governments and other
> institutions accountable."
>
> Rawls' career spans more than 35 years in journalism and media,
> beginning in 1967 at The Nashville Tennessean. He was the first national
> correspondent at The Philadelphia Inquirer; was a Washington
> correspondent and then Southern Bureau chief of The New York Times, and
> served as assistant managing editor for news at The Atlanta
> Journal-Constitution. He is the author of one book, Cold Storage, has
> written for magazines, motion pictures and episodic television (Law &
> Order) and produced several television movies.
>
> Before joining the Center, he was a professor in the School of
> Journalism at Middle Tennessee State University, where he occupied the
> Seigenthaler Chair of Excellence in First Amendment Studies.
>
> The Center for Public Integrity conducts investigative research and
> reporting on public policy issues in the United States and around the
> world. Through objective and thorough analyses, the Center hopes to
> serve as an honest broker of information and to inspire a
> better-informed citizenry that can demand a higher level of
> accountability from its government and elected leaders. Since 1990, the
> Center, an independent, non-profit organization, has released more than
> 275 investigative reports and 14 books. In just the past eight years the
> Center has been honored more than 30 times by, among others, PEN USA,
> Investigative Reporters and Editors, the Society of Professional
> Journalists and The George Polk Award.
>
> For more information please contact Katie King at the Center for Public
> Integrity kking@publicintegrity.org, 202/481-1234.
>
> Katie King
> Director, Communications and Digital Publishing
> The Center for Public Integrity
> 910 17th Street, NW ? 7th Floor
> Washington, DC 20006
> 202 481-1234
>
> *********************************************************************************************
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From nwonline at toronto.cbc.ca  Mon Dec 19 16:57:39 2005
From: nwonline at toronto.cbc.ca (CBC News Online)
Date: Mon Dec 19 17:09:31 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] CBC News - BUSH DEFENDS BROAD POWERS TO FIGHT 'TERROR'
Message-ID: <20051220005739.EB0FB1B69E@nmweb06.nm.cbc.ca>

This email has been sent to you by harry.sifton@sympatico.ca
The following is a news item posted on CBC NEWS ONLINE
at http://www.cbc.ca/news
____________________________________________________
BUSH DEFENDS BROAD POWERS TO FIGHT 'TERROR'
WebPosted Mon Dec 19 11:34:42 2005

---U.S. President George W. Bush said Monday that he has the authority to
bypass the courts in order to spy on the phone calls and e-mails of
suspected al-Qaeda operatives living in the U.S.

Delivering his annual year-end speech, the day after a public address
defending the invasion of Iraq, Bush insisted he was given "the
responsibility and authority in Article 2 of the Constitution" to protect
the country.

Last week, a secret domestic surveillance program conducted by the
National Security Agency was revealed, causing an uproar and triggering
questions about limiting Bush's broad scope to govern.

Bush said the program was a "vital tool" and said the spying was only on
known operatives of al-Qaeda and its affiliates and only on
communications going in and out of the U.S., not within the country.

FROM DEC. 16, 2005: Bush stands ground in bugging furor

He railed against the person, or people, who leaked the information. "It
was a shameful act &#8230; it tells our enemy exactly what we are doing
and they adjust."

"I re-authorized this program 30 times since 9/11 and I intend to do so
as long as the nation faces the continuing threat of an enemy that wants
to kill American citizens."

Bush said the program is reviewed every 45 days and members of Congress
have been kept abreast of it since Sept. 11, 2001.

He called on Congress to renew the Patriot Act before it expires at the
end of the year. "In a war on terror we cannot afford to be without this
law for a single moment."

Senate Democrats have blocked final passage of the legislation that would
renew the act. Bush wondered why they would agree it was necessary after
the attacks of Sept. 11, but not now.

Bush emphasized continually throughout his speech, and in a question
period with reporters afterwards, that both the surveillance program and
Patriot Act allow the government to react quickly to an enemy that isn't
"normal" and is able to change its operations rapidly.

He said the act "tore down the bureaucratic wall between legal and law
enforcement authorities."

FROM DEC. 18, 2005: 'Do not give into despair' over Iraq war, Bush says

In relation to the war on terror, Bush said bringing democracy to Iraq
was like creating a beacon of democracy in the Middle East "from Tehran
to Damascus."

The president explained that the reason for staying in Iraq, and making
sure that it thrives, is to establish a close ally in that region in "the
war against terror."

He also gave his administration a pat on the back for creating 4.3
million jobs since May 2003, cutting taxes, keeping inflation low and
having a robust economy that is "the envy of the world."

He gave a nod to Americans in uniform in distant lands and to the
families of dead soldiers.

In conclusion, Bush said his wishes for the following year are that
"democracy takes root around the world and people find jobs."

Copyright (C) 2005 CBC. All rights reserved.
From nwonline at toronto.cbc.ca  Mon Dec 19 17:06:58 2005
From: nwonline at toronto.cbc.ca (CBC News Online)
Date: Mon Dec 19 17:18:25 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] CBC News - CONGRESS CLOSE TO KILLING CONTROVERSIAL BYRD
	AMENDMENT ON SOFTWOOD LUMBER
Message-ID: <20051220010658.E733469AFD@nmweb08.nm.cbc.ca>

This email has been sent to you by harry.sifton@sympatico.ca
The following is a news item posted on CBC NEWS ONLINE
at http://www.cbc.ca/news
____________________________________________________
CONGRESS CLOSE TO KILLING CONTROVERSIAL BYRD AMENDMENT ON SOFTWOOD LUMBER
WebPosted Mon Dec 19 18:03:47 2005

---U.S. legislators were on the verge Monday of dumping a contentious law
that allows American companies to profit from penalties on imports like
Canadian softwood lumber.

The U.S. House of Representatives, with strong backing from the White
House, voted 212-206 to repeal the so-called Byrd amendment as part of a
sweeping budget-cutting bill.

The Senate must still agree to drop the law, named for Senator Robert
Byrd of West Virginia, with a vote expected Tuesday as legislators
scramble to finish business before the Christmas break.

While Byrd and others have put up a strong fight, Canadian officials were
hoping the importance of the $40-billion US savings package would
ultimately stymie efforts to keep the amendment. The budget bill is
protected from filibuster under congressional rules and represents a deal
reached by top legislators from both levels of Congress.

If it's repealed, the Byrd amendment would remain in force until Oct. 1,
2007, allowing the U.S. Treasury to continue funnelling money from
Canadian import duties directly to the American competitors.

The World Trade Organization has declared the five-year-old law illegal
and several countries, including Canada, have imposed retaliatory duties.
Despite the chances for success, Canada wasn't celebrating too early.

"There certainly are fans of the Byrd amendment in the Senate," said
International Trade Minister Jim Peterson, en route to Canada from trade
talks in Hong Kong.

American critics have attacked the law as a prime example of corporate
welfare and government waste.

A year-long study from the U.S. Accountability Office released in
September provided ammunition for opponents of the Byrd amendment in
Congress, saying nearly half of the $1 billion in Byrd payments so far
has gone to only five companies and two-thirds went to just three
industries.

Canada has imposed a 15-per-cent surtax on several products from the
U.S. in retaliation for Byrd payments worth about $14 million Cdn and
has been considering a host of other products as the bitter softwood
dispute rages on.

FROM DEC. 7, 2005: U.S. chops softwood lumber duties

Meanwhile, the fight over whether to drill for oil in the Arctic National
Wildlife Refuge heated up again on Capitol Hill when the U.S. House of
Representatives voted to open the area for drilling.

The move came after Alaskan Senator Ted Stevens and other supporters
succeeded in getting the contentious plan moved into a critical defence
omnibus bill that provides money for Iraq troops, avian flu preparations
and hurricane relief.

FROM NOV. 10, 2005: U.S. House drops Alaska oil drilling plan

The bill must still pass the Senate, where the measure is expected to be
filibustered. Canada and environmentalists on both sides of the border
are opposed to opening up the refuge, saying it will disrupt a migrating
caribou herd that's a staple for aboriginal communities.

Copyright (C) 2005 CBC. All rights reserved.
From Hawaiipolo at cs.com  Mon Dec 19 17:34:11 2005
From: Hawaiipolo at cs.com (Hawaiipolo@cs.com)
Date: Mon Dec 19 19:55:35 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] is the smell of impeachment in the air?quick..before the
	FBI gets us...
Message-ID: <E1EoYQN-0002om-CL@smtpauth08.mail.atl.earthlink.net>


 Radical Militant Librarians and Other Dire Threats
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Perspective

 Monday 19 December 2005

 
> When the shepherd is a wolf, the flock becomes only so much meat.
> 
> - Gurney Halleck
 
There was an internal FBI email sent in October 2003 that speaks volumes 
about why our legal system has been arranged the way it has. An unnamed agent was 
railing via email against the Department of Justice's Office of Intelligence 
Policy and Review. Specifically, the agent was frustrated by OIPR's failure to 
deliver authorization to use Section 215 of the Patriot Act for a search. 
"While radical militant librarians kick us around, true terrorists benefit from 
OIPR's failure to let us use the tools given to us," wrote the agent. 
Radical militant librarians? 
Radical militant librarians? 
This, right here, is why the legal system is arranged the way it is. This is 
why officers must obtain warrants from a judge before they can conduct a 
search. Even in this time of watered-down civil liberties, warrants serve a vital 
purpose. At a minimum, the warrant firewall keeps walleyed FBI agents with wild 
hairs about radical militant librarians from bulldozing through the Fourth 
Amendment. 
The President of the United States of America, it seems, does not agree with 
the sentiment. 
It has been widely reported that Bush personally authorized the 
super-secretive National Security Agency to conduct surveillance against American citizens. 
"The previously undisclosed decision to permit some eavesdropping inside the 
country without court approval," wrote the New York Times upon breaking the 
story, "was a major shift in American intelligence-gathering practices, 
particularly for the National Security Agency, whose mission is to spy on 
communications abroad. As a result, some officials familiar with the continuing operation 
have questioned whether the surveillance has stretched, if not crossed, 
constitutional limits on legal searches." 
As if this were not outrageous enough, Bush, during his weekly radio address, 
bluntly admitted to violating the laws governing surveillance of American 
citizens and the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution not once, but some thirty 
times. "I have reauthorized this program more than 30 times since the September 
11 attacks," said Bush, "and I intend to do so for as long as our nation 
faces a continuing threat from al Qaeda and related groups." 
These revelations hit Congress like a dung bomb, and caused what would likely 
have been an easy rubber-stamping of the renewal of the Patriot Act to go 
flying off the tracks and into the puckerbrush. "Disclosure of the NSA plan had 
an immediate effect on Capitol Hill," reported the Washington Post on Saturday, 
"where Democratic senators and a handful of Republicans derailed a bill that 
would renew expiring portions of the USA Patriot Act anti-terrorism law. 
Opponents repeatedly cited the previously unknown NSA program as an example of the 
kinds of government abuses that concerned them, while the GOP chairman of the 
Senate Judiciary Committee said he would hold oversight hearings on the 
issue." 
The most disturbing aspect of this situation is, simply, how totally 
unnecessary it was. The provisions of the Patriot Act, along with several other laws, 
allow the administration to get warrants for the surveillance of anyone, 
anywhere in the country, with little trouble. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance 
Act (FISA) set up a special court for the dispensation of warrants with no 
need for evidence or probable cause. This court has almost never denied the 
issuance of such warrants when asked, and said warrants are usually delivered in a 
matter of hours. 
"Why would the President deliberately circumvent a court that was already 
wholly inclined to grant him domestic surveillance warrants?" asked columnist 
David Sirota in a recent essay. "The answer is obvious, though as yet largely 
unstated in the mainstream media: because the President was likely ordering 
surveillance operations that were so outrageous, so unrelated to the War on Terror, 
and, to put it in Constitutional terms, so 'unreasonable' that even a FISA 
court would not have granted them. This is no conspiracy theory - all the signs 
point right to this conclusion. In fact, it would be a conspiracy theory to 
say otherwise, because it would be ignoring the cold, hard facts that we already 
know." 
Retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski, widely known for her 
revelations about the inner workings of the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans 
and its manipulation of Iraq war evidence, spent two years working at the 
National Security Agency. On Sunday, I asked her what the ramifications are of a 
President throwing aside the firewalls that have blocked governmental 
surveillance of citizens for the last twenty five years. 
"It means we are in deep trouble," said Kwiatkowski, "deeper than most 
Americans really are willing to think about. The safeguards of mid-1970s were put in 
place by a mobilized Democratic congress in response to President Richard 
Nixon's perceived and actual contempt for rule of law, and the other branches of 
government. At that time, the idea of a sacred constitution balancing 
executive power with the legislative power worked to give the Congress both backbone 
and direction." 
"Today," continued Kwiatkowski, "we have a President and administration that 
has out-Nixoned Nixon in every negative way, with none of the Nixon 
administration's redeeming attention to detail in domestic and foreign policy. It may 
indeed mean that the constitution has flat-lined and civil liberties will be 
only for those who can buy and own a legislator or a political party. We will all 
need to learn how to spell 'corporate state,' which for Mussolini was his 
favorable definition of fascism." 
I asked Lt. Colonel Kwiatkowski what it all means in the end. "I believe this 
use of national technical means (NSA communications interceptions) against 
American citizens is illegal," replied Kwiatkowski, "and I hope the courts will 
reverse the President. This illegality and misuse of executive power matches 
that of both the White House Iraq Group and the Office of Special Plans, where 
the truth and the law were both manipulated in a myriad of ways in order to 
satisfy an executive desire for domination and destruction of a Ba'athist Iraq. 
In all of these cases, American citizens were objectified as means to an end, 
rather than [treated as] individuals with Creator-granted unalienable rights, 
safe from excessive government interference and control." 
"It all points to growing DC anti-constitutionalism," continued Kwiatkowski, 
"and what Dr. Robert Higgs calls the growth of the warfare state. A warfare 
state is wholly incompatible with a constitutional Republic. In my opinion, we 
need to fight, resist, refuse to subsidize Washington in every way, and we must 
immediately begin impeachment proceedings against this particular president, 
not only because he has clearly earned impeachment, but in order to revive a 
national awareness of the intent of the Founding Fathers to circumscribe 
centralized state power, and their vision of a free and peaceful Republic." 
Hard words - impeachment, warfare state, fascism - for a hard day in our 
history. King Solomon, whose words bellow from the Book of Proverbs, spoke a 
warning which George W. Bush may come to know ere long. "He that troubleth his own 
house," said the King, "shall inherit the wind." 
William Rivers Pitt is a New York Times and internationally bestselling 
author of two books: War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You to Know and The 
Greatest Sedition Is Silence. 

------- 
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From ean at sbcglobal.net  Mon Dec 19 20:34:31 2005
From: ean at sbcglobal.net (ean@sbcglobal.net)
Date: Mon Dec 19 20:59:02 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Expressions of outrage
Message-ID: <E1EoZP6-0002US-8i@smtpauth08.mail.atl.earthlink.net>

Here, courtesy of Ed Pearl and prefaced by his comments, are a collection of 
newspaper editorials from around the nation expressing criticism and/or 
outrage at latest revelations of the  Bush Administration's abdication of the 
Constitution (while none of these state it directly, violating the law that Bush 
violated by authorizing secret wiretaps of Americans' phone conversations 
constitutes a felony, which is clearly an impeachable offense....)--mha atma

--------

Here are several editorials from around the country about ...,
well, it's all here.  I wish there were some clear path to
getting out of this mess other than urging others to do
something.  But as that seems to be the path, we should
do it informed and with determination to preserve our liberties.
Especially as we'll probably learn of other invasions and
horrors from whistleblowers, whenever.  We're living in dangerous
times, with 3 years before the next election and the sad reality
that people get used to increasing oppression, inch by inch.
Let's not.
Ed


Message: 15
Date: Sun, 18 Dec 2005 10:51:13 -0500 (EST)
From: nytr@olm.blythe-systems.com
Subject: [NYTr] Domestic liberties require protection
To: nytr@olm.blythe-systems.com (NYTr List)
Message-ID: <200512181551.jBIFpD007590@olm.blythe-systems.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1

The Denver Post - Dec 17, 2005
http://www.denverpost.com/editorials/ci_3316843

Editorial

Domestic liberties require protection

The Senate rejects renewal of the Patriot Act and reports circulate that
the president authorized NSA domestic surveillance without court approval.

At a time when Congress is balking at government encroachment on
individual liberties, it was startling to learn that the top-secret
National Security Agency has been conducting domestic surveillance without
court approval. The agency's charter is to monitor international
communication circuits, but it apparently got the go-ahead in an executive
order signed sub rosa by President Bush.

The revelation came on the day the U.S. Senate wisely rejected
reauthorization of the USA Patriot Act, which gave law enforcement broad
new powers in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Key provisions of
the law will expire Dec. 31 without action from Congress. We again urge
the president and his loyalists to adopt revisions of the law passed
unanimously by the Senate this summer. The so-called Safe Act contains
safeguards meant to ensure protection of civil liberties.

Opposition to a mindless reauthorization of the entire Patriot Act comes
from both sides of the ideological spectrum and from members of both
political parties. And no wonder. Friday's revelation about NSA spying
demonstrates that the administration has lost its sense of balance between
essential anti-terrorism tools and encroachment on liberties. What's the
clich? here? If we give up our liberties in the name of anti-terrorism,
the terrorists have already won.

The NSA spying underscores the need for proper checks and balances. Kate
Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies at George
Washington University,

called the NSA spying - first reported by The New York Times - "as
shocking a revelation as we have ever seen from the Bush administration."
She said, "It is, I believe, the first time a president has authorized
government agencies to violate a specific criminal prohibition and
eavesdrop on Americans."

Indeed, The Times said some NSA officials were so concerned about the
legality of the program that they refused to participate. Administration
officials would not confirm the report, but when asked about it, the
president told PBS's Jim Lehrer that whatever steps he takes are to
protect the American people, and that "decisions made are made
understanding we have an obligation to protect the civil liberties of the
American people."

Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee,
called the spying "inappropriate" and said his panel would conduct
hearings. A congressional review is absolutely critical. If there are
reasons to grant the NSA new powers, it should be debated and decided by
Congress, not authorized in secret.

Copyright 2005 The Denver Post



------------------------------

Message: 16
Date: Sun, 18 Dec 2005 10:52:13 -0500 (EST)
From: nytr@olm.blythe-systems.com
Subject: [NYTr] Big Brother Bush: Another Step Toward Police State
To: nytr@olm.blythe-systems.com (NYTr List)
Message-ID: <200512181552.jBIFqDa07670@olm.blythe-systems.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette - Dec 18, 2005
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05352/623818.stm

Editorial

Big Brother Bush

The president took a step toward a police state

The Bush administration is continuing its assault on Americans' privacy
and freedom in the name of the war on terrorism.

First, in 2002, according to extensive reporting in The New York Times on
Friday, it secretly authorized the National Security Agency to intercept
and keep records of Americans' international phone and e-mail messages
without benefit of a previously required court order. Second, it has
permitted the Department of Defense to get away with not destroying after
three months, as required, records of American Iraq war protesters in the
Pentagon's Threat and Local Observation Notice, or TALON, database.

Both practices mean that a government agency is maintaining information on
Americans, reminiscent of the Johnson and Nixon administrations' approach
to Vietnam War protesters. The existence of those records should be seen
against a background of the Bush administration's response to criticism of
the Iraq war by retired Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson. His wife's career at
the CIA was ended in revenge for an article he wrote unmasking a dodgy
piece of intelligence that President Bush had used in a State of the Union
message to seek to support his decision to go to war.

It appears that the phone and e-mail messages of thousands of Americans
and foreigners resident in America have been or are being monitored and
recorded by the NSA. Such action is not supposed to be taken without an
application to and an order approved by the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Court. Mr. Bush issued an executive order in 2002, months
after the Sept. 11, 2001, attack, removing -- secretly -- that legal
safeguard of Americans' privacy and civil rights.

The Pentagon's action as part of TALON will be put forward as an
oversight, but the idea of the Department of Defense maintaining files on
American war protesters, perhaps with easy cross-reference to the NSA's
records based on the results of their monitoring of phone calls and
e-mails of potentially those same protesters, makes possible a very
serious violation of Americans' civil rights.

Without a serious leap of imagination, particularly with the list of those
under surveillance not available to anyone outside the NSA and the
Pentagon, it is also possible to project that political critics of the
Bush administration could end up among those being tracked. The Nixon
administration, a previous Republican administration beleaguered by war
critics, maintained "enemies lists."

The White House needs to tell the Pentagon promptly to destroy the records
of protesters as required, within three months. It also needs promptly to
tell the NSA to return to following the rules, to get the approval of the
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court before monitoring Americans'
communications. The idea that all of this is being done to us in the name
of national security doesn't wash; that is the language of a police state.
Those are the unacceptable actions of a police state.



------------------------------

Message: 17
Date: Sun, 18 Dec 2005 10:53:01 -0500 (EST)
From: nytr@olm.blythe-systems.com
Subject: [NYTr] Unconstitutional Surveillance puts rights at risk
To: nytr@olm.blythe-systems.com (NYTr List)
Message-ID: <200512181553.jBIFr1207750@olm.blythe-systems.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1

Kansas City Star - Dec. 18, 2005
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/opinion/13432212.htm

Editorial

National Security Agency Surveillance puts rights at risk

The Bush administration's secret use of the National Security Agency to
spy on people within the United States without court-approved warrants
raises immediate legal and constitutional concerns.

The Fourth Amendment of the Constitution forbids "unreasonable searches"
and sets out specific requirements for warrants, including "probable
cause."

Congress needs to step in quickly to find out exactly what has happened.
Lawmakers must make it clear to President Bush that, as the Supreme Court
noted last year, the struggle with foreign enemies does not simply give
him a blank check to do whatever he wants.

The judicial system that the Bush administration keeps trying to bypass
may also need to weigh in again at this point. The courts have a
responsibility to protect the public's Fourth Amendment rights.

On Friday, The New York Times reported that the National Security Agency,
a particularly secretive piece of the U.S. intelligence system that has
focused in the past on gathering information abroad, has been
eavesdropping without warrants on hundreds and perhaps thousands of people
in the United States.

Officials say most of the surveillance targets were never charged with
crimes.

Even though Bush approved this project in 2002, some intelligence
officials feared that they were breaking laws and might be subject to
criminal prosecution. Concerns about the program were also reportedly
raised by the judge who oversees the Federal Intelligence Surveillance
Court.

That court is where the administration should have been seeking the
appropriate warrants for the domestic surveillance it wanted. The
president can hardly argue that the intelligence court would have turned a
deaf ear; it grants the vast majority of the requests that it receives.

Another mystery is why the White House turned to the National Security
Agency for this project rather than the FBI, which handles most domestic
intelligence work.

There appears to have been a general air of sloppiness. The Times
reported: "Several senior government officials say that when the special
operation began, there were few controls on it and little formal oversight
outside the NSA."

In one Keystone Kops episode, the FBI, which had a warrant, and the
National Security Agency, which didn't, were both monitoring the same
individual.

The outcry over news of the secret domestic surveillance program had an
immediate impact on Capitol Hill, where a flawed effort to reauthorize
parts of the Patriot Act ran into Senate trouble on Friday.

Typically, the administration is offering the public only broad assurances
that it has behaved properly and that there's no reason to worry about the
warrantless eavesdropping. But Congress and the American public are
entitled to a more complete explanation of this ill-advised project.

? 2005 Kansas City Star



------------------------------

Message: 18
Date: Sun, 18 Dec 2005 10:53:45 -0500 (EST)
From: nytr@olm.blythe-systems.com
Subject: [NYTr] Bigger brother (LA Times Editorial)
To: nytr@olm.blythe-systems.com (NYTr List)
Message-ID: <200512181553.jBIFrjN07829@olm.blythe-systems.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1

Los Angeles Times - Dec 18, 2005
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-security18dec18,0,519
0326.story?track=tottext

Editorial

Bigger brother

PRESIDENT BUSH WAS CAVALIER on Friday night when he told Jim 
Lehrer on PBS
that a report about the National Security Agency eavesdropping on U.S.
citizens was "not the main story of the day." He is entitled to his own
news judgment, but it reveals a lot about his willingness to disregard
constitutional safeguards and civil liberties while pursuing the war on
terrorism. To the rest of us, the revelation in the New York Times that
the National Security Agency has been eavesdropping on people within the
United States without judicial warrants was stunning. In one of the more
egregious cases of governmental overreach in the aftermath of 9/11, Bush
secretly authorized the monitoring, without any judicial oversight, of
international phone calls and e-mail messages from the United States.

The news came on the same day that Congress voted not to extend
controversial aspects of the soon-to-expire Patriot Act, and on the heels
of disturbing reports that the Pentagon's shadowy Counterintelligence
Field Activity office has been keeping tabs on domestic antiwar groups,
including monitoring Quaker meetings, under the guise of protecting
military installations. The program is reminiscent of official efforts to
spy on antiwar groups in the 1960s.

The scandalous abuse of Americans' civil liberties in that period led in
the 1970s to a new set of laws aimed at curtailing domestic espionage by
intelligence agencies. To balance national security needs with our
constitutional liberties, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act
created secret "FISA" courts in which the Federal Bureau of Investigation
and other federal agencies can covertly obtain warrants to eavesdrop on
suspected spies (now terrorists too) in the United States. These courts
are generally efficient and deferential to the government. Yet the Bush
administration still opted to cut them out of the process in some cases;
warrants are still sought to intercept all communications that took place
entirely within the United States.

Some critics say the FISA courts are too slow to issue decisions in an
environment in which every minute counts, and that Cold War laws are
ill-suited for a war on amorphous terrorist cells. If that's the case, the
administration and Congress should have worked together to alter the
courts' procedures or to amend the law. Instead, the White House
unilaterally opted to exempt much of its antiterrorism efforts from any
kind of judicial oversight - just as it tried doing with its policies
regarding detainees.

The Supreme Court has already reined in the executive branch on that
score, and the NSA's eavesdropping, arguably a violation of both the law
and the Constitution, may lead to even greater legal woes for the
president. Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), chairman of the Senate Judiciary
Committee, called reports of the NSA practices clearly unacceptable and
said he would hold hearings early next year. There will be plenty to ask
about.

One early defense of the program is a claim by the administration that it
had to be implemented quietly - the president authorized it in a
classified order - because otherwise terrorists would be alerted to its
existence and work to evade it. But those same suspected terrorists would
have already known that they might be wiretapped with the aid of a secret
warrant. What is the difference?

Last week may come to be seen as a tipping point in the public's attitude,
one that will cause the administration to reverse its encroachment on
rights in the name of security. The report of the NSA's unsupervised
eavesdropping program helped defeat an extension of certain controversial
provisions of the Patriot Act in the Senate on Friday.

Now even sympathetic lawmakers can be expected to view the Patriot Act
more skeptically. The revelations about the NSA raise two fundamental
questions about the administration's rationale for increased powers: If
it's already spying on its own citizens, then why does it need the Patriot
Act? Alternatively, if it's already spying on its own citizens, how can it
be trusted with the Patriot Act? This administration has yet to fully
acknowledge that with greater powers must come greater accountability.

As for the Defense Department's counterterrorism database, the Pentagon
was forced on Thursday to acknowledge that it hadn't followed its own
guidelines requiring the deletion of information on American citizens who
clearly don't pose a security risk. Imagine that: a domestic military
intelligence program that failed to abide by its own safeguards.

Given this administration's history, none of these developments is
especially surprising. But the latest revelations may serve as a timely
reminder of why the American constitutional system requires the judiciary
- the third branch of government - to review the actions of the executive
branch when necessary to protect the people's liberty.

Copyright 2005 Los Angeles Times



------------------------------

Message: 19
Date: Sun, 18 Dec 2005 10:55:27 -0500 (EST)
From: nytr@olm.blythe-systems.com
Subject: [NYTr] Bush's Warrantless Surveillance of US Citizens
To: nytr@olm.blythe-systems.com (NYTr List)
Message-ID: <200512181555.jBIFtSG07954@olm.blythe-systems.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1

St. Petersburg Times - December 18, 2005
http://www.sptimes.com/2005/12/18/news_pf/Opinion/Warrantless_surveilla.
sh
tml

President Bush authorized the National Security Agency to spy on people in
the United States without first gaining court approval.

Editorial

Warrantless Surveillance

President Bush apparently believes that fighting terrorism justifies any
action he chooses, no matter how extralegal. But the United States is a
nation of laws, and the president is constrained by them, too. That is why
Bush's unilateral authorization granting the National Security Agency the
power to wiretap American citizens and others in the United States without
a warrant is so dangerously ill-conceived and contrary to this nation's
guiding principles.

Just as the Senate was considering the reauthorization of the USA Patriot
Act and debating the safeguards needed to protect Americans from excessive
government snooping, it was revealed that the NSA has been spying on
potentially thousands of people in this country, without first going to a
court for approval.

This is part of an imperial presidency that has emerged under Bush since
the 9/11 terrorist attacks. On the authority of the executive branch
alone, the administration has imprisoned people for years without charge,
captured suspects and put them in secret overseas prisons, and engaged in
interrogation techniques that violate domestic law and international
treaties. Now the New York Times report on more spying reveals that the
dictates of the Fourth Amendment, requiring a showing of probable cause
before someone's privacy can be invaded, have been set aside upon the
president's sole say-so.

The NSA has authority to intercept phone calls, Internet communications
and other signal intelligence off American shores without first having to
obtain a warrant. But the agency has always recognized that no domestic
spying could take place without court approval. For these purposes, a
special foreign intelligence court is always available and agents usually
can obtain wiretaps within hours.

The court accommodates the need for secrecy while providing the
constitutionally required judicial oversight. It was established after it
came to light in the 1970s that the country's intelligence services were
surveilling Vietnam War protesters and those engaged in the civil rights
movement. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court rarely turns down a
wiretap request, but it is there to ensure that the intelligence services
respect individual rights in the course of their work.

Members of Congress are rightly expressing shock and concern that the NSA
has been engaging in warrantless eavesdropping on international phone
calls initiated inside the United States. Senate Judiciary Committee
Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., is promising to hold hearings early next
year to investigate the administration's surveillance program. This is a
positive step. Until recently, Congress has relinquished much of its
oversight duties - whether due to party loyalty or fear of challenging a
wartime president - and left it to the courts to define limits on
presidential power.

But with Congress finally debating issues such as the use of torture, the
maintenance of secret CIA prisons and the holding of ghost detainees,
there seems to be new resolve to challenge the Bush administration's
willingness to ignore constitutional protections it deems inconvenient.
Those efforts are supremely welcome and can't come soon enough.

? Copyright 2003 St. Petersburg Times.


-- 
You are currently on Mha Atma's Earth Action Network email list, 
option D (up to 3 emails/day).  To be removed, or to switch options 
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 former U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice and Nuremberg prosecutor

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From drmhaatma at yahoo.com  Mon Dec 19 20:37:42 2005
From: drmhaatma at yahoo.com (Mha Atma Khalsa)
Date: Mon Dec 19 21:02:46 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Newsweek and the Silence of the Lambs
Message-ID: <E1EoZT1-0004c5-6P@smtpauth08.mail.atl.earthlink.net>

 Newsweek and the Silence of the Lambs
  
  "Capitol Hill Blue" Didn't Exaggerate
  
  by David McReynolds
  
  NY, Dec 14, 2005--Newsweek's current issue, December 19th, now on the
  stands, has a cover showing George Bush in a bubble with the heading:
  "Bush's World - The Isolated President: Can He Change?" For months Doug
  Thompson's blog - Capitol Hill Blue - has been circulating on the
  internet, with many of us more curious about Thompson than about Bush.
  Thompson's charges were outrageous - reports of a President who wandered
  the White House yelling at his aides, accusing those around him of
  betraying him - surely Thompson was on a private rant of his own.
  (Thompson is not a left winger - if anything, he is a libertarian, so his
  reports carry more sting than something written by a liberal).
  
  Now, with this long article by Evan Thomas and Richard Wolffe, running for
  ten pages (with a terrific follow-up column on the "Imperial Presidency"
  by Fareed Zakaria), it is clear that Capitol Hill Blue was reporting the
  reality.  What is most interesting about the article is not what is in it,
  but what is not in it. Where other articles discussing past Presidents -
  Clinton, Kennedy, Johnson, Reagan - would have been able to quote "named
  sources", what we have here is almost entirely anonymous. Take this
  example: "A White House aide, who like virtually all White House officials
  (in this story and in general) refused to be identified for fear of
  antagonize the President... " or "White House officials, as well as one of
  his closest friends (also speaking anonymously so as not to complicate
  relations with the President ).... "
  
  The problem extends beyond the White House itself, to the military:
  "According to senior Pentagon officials who did not want to be identified
  discussing private meetings", to the Republicans in Congress, "One House
  Republican, who asked not to be identified for fear of offending the White
  House... " and even to those entirely outside the US, "A foreign diplomat
  who declined to be identified was startled when Secretary of State Rice
  warned him not to lay bad news on the president. 'Don't upset him' she
  said".
  
  Don't upset him? Over two thousands Americans dead in Iraq, tens of
  thousands of Iraqis dead, and Bush must not be upset?  The situation is so
  serious that Senator Joseph Lieberman, an enthusiastic supporter of Bush's
  war, now is urging a bipartisan "war council" that could advise the
  President. (There is a rumor Lieberman may be brought in to replace
  Rumsfeld).
  
  The Newsweek article confirms the feeling many of us have had, as we
  watched Bush blunder into a criminal adventure in Iraq and stumble so
  badly over the New Orleans tragedy, that the nation is like a train
  rushing along toward a bridge that isn't there. The war is getting worse
  instead of better, the deficit is rising, the tax cuts benefit the very
  wealthy, the administration is absolutely riddled with corruption - as bad
  as anything I've seen in my life - and Bush doesn't listen, doesn't read,
  wants long vacations and wants to be in bed by ten! (And now, as those my
  age realize, we are stuck with a medical insurance plan that Bush can't
  even understand).
  
  What makes matters worse is that there seems to be no way to put a brake
  on this train. The Democrats are divided and for the most part clueless -
  outside of John Murtha, who saw the truth and spoke it.  Hillary Clinton
  is still building her political platform on support of the military (and,
  lately, on a bill to ban flag burning).  Bush, the man who became
  President by one vote of the Supreme Court, despite losing both the
  popular vote and (as the media pretty unanimously agreed after a careful
  look at the Florida ballots) the electoral college, is now frightened,
  fearful, appearing only at events that can be carefully controlled, with
  audiences that are friendly.
  
  We have three more years of this Administration - and frankly not much to
  hope for from the Democrats. If there is any hope it will come "from
  below", from millions of citizens who are fed up with an administration
  that has had only the interests of the corporate state at heart.  When
  there is strong pressure we can see, as with Nancy Pelosi, change is
  possible.  It was clear from watching John Murtha that the military is
  very uneasy, there are tensions between the military and Rumsfeld.  What
  we need and don't have is a Martin Luther King Jr.  But what we do have is
  Cindy Sheehan, a mother who lost her son, the Rosa Parks of the peace
  movement, camping outside of the Bush ranch all this past summer,
  galvanizing tens of thousands of Americans - many of them military
  families.
  
  What I believe we need to do is tie together some of the issues - the
  terrible losses of American and Iraqi lives, the failure of the country to
  put its money where it is needed (New Orleans and our infrastructure), the
  loss of our civil liberties, the shock of finding torture now an official
  project - to point out, by dialogue, not by shouting, that we have an
  administration of the wealthy which is indifferent to the burdens carried
  by working families, many of them African American, Asian, Hispanic. In
  short, where there is no leadership, that burden falls on us, home by
  home, town by town, vigil by vigil, letters to the editors, delegations
  meeting with members of Congress.
  
  Newsweek, troubled by what it found in the White House, searched for
  answers in places not so obscure or foolish - the Freudian tensions
  between Bush the younger and his father, Bush the failure all his life who
  is now suddenly frightened and insecure as reality presses in.  The
  Newsweek article is important - this is a newsmagazine, not a journal of
  opinion. And the news it brings us is that our Administration is out of
  touch and out of control. For our friends elsewhere in the world, now is
  not the time to "make peace" with the Administration, but to speak truth
  to power. For those of us living here, now is not the time to despair but
  to realize that when even a leading newsmagazine runs a feature article
  pointing out that the emperor is naked, the time for change has come.
  
                                    - 30 -
  
  David McReynolds was Socialist Party candidate for President
  in 1980 and 2000.
  
  ***
  
  The cartoons, just click 'em on.
  
  http://images.ucomics.com/comics/tmdho/2005/tmdho051214.gif
  
  http://images.ucomics.com/comics/stn/2005/stn051216.gif
  
  
  ***
  
  http://www.plenglish.com
  
  Bush Least Popular of Last Ten US Presidents
  
  Washington, Dec 17 (Prensa Latina) George W. Bush has achieved the
  dubious honor of scoring as the least popular of the last ten US
  presidents, a National Qualitative Center survey reported Friday.
  
  Only nine percent of the 662 surveyed people selected President Bush
  as their favorite in an opinion poll, in which JFK was favored by 27
  percent and Bill Clinton by 25 percent.
  
  Bush was considered the most warlike by 43 percent, the worst for
  economic progress (42 percent), and the less efficient (33percent).
  
  The National Qualitative Center usually carries out marketing studies and
  developed this survey as part of research for a book on popular
  preferences, explained Ken Berwitz, one of the authors.
  
  hr/ccs/isn/jll
  
  
  

__________________________________________________
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From michael at intrafi.com  Mon Dec 19 19:51:00 2005
From: michael at intrafi.com (michael@intrafi.com)
Date: Mon Dec 19 21:08:47 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] The McCain (et al.) Mutiny
Message-ID: <200512200351.jBK3p0x01211@linux19272.dn.net>



The McCain (et al.) Mutiny

A President who prizes loyalty suddenly finds the knives are out.

by Jack Hitt

January/February 2006 Issue

     
     ATTEMPTS TO GIVE George Bush’s administration a nickname had been circling around this one: “The Tinkerbell Presidency.” Like Ronald Reagan’s “Teflon,” recognizing his gift for sidling past criticism, or Bill Clinton’s “Comeback Kid,” honoring his talent for turning around any scandal, the epithet captures Bush’s quality of surrounding himself with an amen chorus that claps every doomed policy back to life. But the name won’t catch on. The Bush drama has moved into the final act, and Tink’s dust isn’t working.
     This time the fairy will die.
     Historians may want to mark the last attempt at arousing audience participation, and here it is: Just after the fall of Harriet Miers, the soprano section at the National Review Online sent out this hallelujah: “You know what the relief is this morning? A return to the feeling that this president gets the big things right. There was a detour, but I’m confident we’re going to have good news shortly....”
     Really? Bush may yet snag an occasional friendly headline (“Nominee Confirmed”), but his presidency is effectively over. A man who built his entire administration upon demanding unctuous loyalty from his allies now finds himself wounded by their shabby betrayal. You’d have to go back to one of Spain’s humpbacked Hapsburgs to find court perfidy of the variety that is currently depleting the president’s power.
     Bush’s allies in Congress began to turn away right after the election of 2004. John McCain repeatedly mocks Condi Rice or any other official who dares to come before him with honey-tongued news from Iraq. Chuck Hagel says of Iraq: “It’s beyond pitiful, it’s beyond embarrassing, it’s now in the zone of dangerous.” A senator as conservative as Jim DeMint of South Carolina has broken with Bush on the budget, and it was Republicans who knifed Bush’s grand Social Security reform.
     Worse, roughing up the president has practically become the new Republican way to announce a presidential campaign for 2008. Only a few months ago, Bill Frist was happy to violate his Hippocratic oath by giving the media a bogus diagnosis of Terry Schiavo to help Bush (and himself) court the pro-life fringe. Now Frist has come out in favor of stem-cell research and let it be known he told the White House to pull the plug on Harriet Miers. This is not merely about fleeing a sinking ship. Bush long ago showed that nothing should stand in the way of getting into power; so Frist, along with co-betrayers George Allen and Sam Brownback, are practicing what they have learned at the feet of the master. Now, it’s Bush and his legacy that are in the way.
     Outside the corridors of Congress are other kinds of betrayal, insidious ones that can’t be easily restrained by threats or mau-mauing. Take television. Hurricane Katrina revealed a Homeland Security operation that looked like the Keystone Cops, and television producers saw, for the first time, mass outrage at the Bush cronies. Here’s the bad news for Bush: There’s only one thing the broadcast media will pursue more obediently than the approval of an intimidating government: audience share. Now that his approval numbers are in a tailspin, TV bookers are dusting off that long neglected Rolodex of administration critics.
Jack Hitt, a contributing writer for Mother Jones and Harper’s, is a regular voice on the radio show “This American Life.”
To get immediate access to the complete version of this story, you must be a Mother Jones subscriber.
To get instant access subscribe here:
http://www.motherjones.com/subscribe

     
@2006 The Foundation for National Progress

Read the article online:

     http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2006/01/the_mccain_mutiny.html
     
Check out the latest from Mother Jones at:

     http://www.motherjones.com
     
From michael at michaelbutler.com  Mon Dec 19 20:59:11 2005
From: michael at michaelbutler.com (Michael Butler)
Date: Mon Dec 19 21:10:19 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Sen. Reid Calls US Congress 'Most Corrupt in History
Message-ID: <BFCCCF9F.27007%michael@michaelbutler.com>

    Go to Original

    Sen. Reid Calls US Congress 'Most Corrupt in History'
    By Thomas Ferraro
    Reuters

    Sunday 18 December 2005

    Washington - U.S. Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid called the
Republican-led Congress "the most corrupt in history" on Sunday, and
distanced himself from lobbyist Jack Abramoff, at the center of an
escalating probe.

    The Justice Department is investigating whether Jack Abramoff directed
illegal payoffs to lawmakers, including Rep. Tom DeLay of Texas, who was
forced to step down as House Republican leader in September after indicted
in his home state of Texas on unrelated charges.

    "Don't lump me in with Jack Abramoff. This is a Republican scandal,"
Reid told Fox News Sunday, saying he never received any money from Abramoff.

    Reid, like many members of Congress, Democrats and Republicans, has
received campaign contributions from Abramoff clients. Some lawmakers have
returned those donations, but Reid gave no indication he would do so.

    The Securities and Exchange Commission has been examining stock sales by
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a Tennessee Republican, and last month
Randy "Duke" Cunningham, a California Republican, resigned from the House
after pleading guilty of taking more than $2.4 million in bribes involving
defense contracts.

    Democrats have accused Republicans of "a culture of corruption," and
plan to make it an issue in next year's congressional elections.

    "America can do better than what we've done," said Reid. "The most
corrupt Congress in the history of the country. We have such significant
problems with what's going on in this country."

    Most of the federal investigative focus is now on Abramoff, whose
lobbying activities, particularly on behalf of Indian tribal clients, are
also being examined by Congress.

    Appearing on Fox TV, Reid said, "Abramoff gave me no money. His firm
gave me no money. He may have worked (at) a firm where people have given me
money."

    A Reid aide later explained that the senator received money from a
political action committee affiliated with a firm where Abramoff had worked,
but Abramoff did not contribute to it.

    "I feel totally at ease that I haven't done anything that is even close
to being wrong," Reid said.

 

From barbarasiomos38#msn.com at thor.thenation.com  Mon Dec 19 17:50:46 2005
From: barbarasiomos38#msn.com at thor.thenation.com (barbara)
Date: Tue Dec 20 04:06:16 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] 'Left to Die' from The Nation
Message-ID: <200512200150.jBK1okeM004745@thor.thenation.com>

If you like this article, please consider subscribing to The Nation at special
discounted rates. You can order online https://ssl.thenation.com or call our
toll-free number at 1-800-333-8536.

This article from The Nation tells how the prisoners in New Orleans were not only left to fend for themselves but would have drowned (some did) if they had not figured out a way to get out while their cells were filling up with water.... Granted they were/are serving time but some had only been picked up for traffic violations and other small matters and should not even have been held at all. The city had cleaned the streets of loiterers, vagrants and such and that was their crime, so left to dr

   Left to Die 
   by Billy Sothern


If, as Dostoyevsky claimed, the degree of civilization of a society can
be measured by the treatment of its prisoners, we are in even deeper
trouble in New Orleans than many realize. In this city, under the radar
of most media, the biggest prison crisis since Attica is unfolding. And
no one seems to care, because despite Hurricane Katrina's having
"exposed" American poverty and racism, mass incarceration of
poor black Americans remains an accepted, if overlooked, fact of
modern life. After all, the thinking goes, they did the crime, now they
have to do the time. However, like everything else in New Orleans, it's
not so simple.

The New Orleans jail complex sits behind the old gothic Orleans Parish
Criminal Court and backs up to Interstate 10 in a run-down area of the
city. On the days following Katrina, the entire complex sat beneath feet
of water. At that time the jails housed more than 8,000 prisoners, the
majority of whom were pretrial detainees, people with the fundamental
presumption of innocence but without the funds for bail or a lawyer to
get them out before trial. There was a larger than usual population of
pretrial inmates when the storm came because before it arrived the
police had conducted sweeps to clear the streets, picking up people for
petty crimes like loitering or trespassing, and because other parish
jails had evacuated their prisoners to New Orleans. 

Despite the universal awareness of the risk of flooding in the city, the
low-lying jail failed to execute any real evacuation plan. Instead, even
faster than New Orleans police abandoned the citizens of New Orleans,
many of the sheriff's deputies who guard the city's prisoners abandoned
their charges and left men and women wondering whether they were going
to die as water rose in their locked cells. As prisoner Dan Bright told
Human Rights Watch, "They left us to die there."

Prisoners helped one another escape the flood by prying open cell doors,
breaking through windows and finding higher ground in the jail. While
officials deny that any bodies were found, many prisoners who were there
insist that they saw floating bodies. Those who made it out were rounded
up by the few remaining guards and gathered on a nearby Interstate
overpass. People remained there for almost two days--without
water, under the sun--appearing as a blur of orange jumpsuits from the
CNN cameras in helicopters flying above. They were left to urinate and
defecate on themselves, hampered by restraints so tight that a month
later attorneys who visited them could still see dark purple bands
around their wrists. Eventually buses arrived and the detainees were
transferred randomly to prisons around the state, but without the papers
that might easily distinguish a person who had been arrested for
illegally reading tarot cards or "angling without a license" from
someone charged with a serious, violent crime.

As bad as this was, it was only the beginning of the indignities the
evacuated prisoners were to face. They found themselves in an impromptu
patchwork of overcrowded state prisons, parish jails and facilities
opened just to accommodate evacuated prisoners. The unluckiest among
them, mostly from Jefferson Parish, found themselves at Jena
Correctional, a former juvenile prison owned by the Wackenhut
Corrections Corporation that was closed after the Juvenile Justice
Project of Louisiana, Human Rights Watch and the Justice Department
exposed widespread beatings of incarcerated children there in the late
1990s. That spirit was kept alive in the new incarnation of the prison:
Evacuated prisoners were routinely and viciously beaten by their
jailers, guards from other facilities who were without a chain of
command and for whom there was zero possibility of accountability.
Rachel Jones of the Louisiana Capital Assistance Center, a pro bono
attorney who was working there at the time, told me that after being a
public defender in Brooklyn and a capital trial attorney in Louisiana,
"I have never seen anything like it."

Jones said the inmates were bruised all over their bodies. They passed
her little notes saying "help" when the guards weren't looking and
reported that guards were calling them "nigger" and "boy." When she
returned days later to follow up, they had been brutalized even more;
some reported having received beatings from guards as retaliation.
After visiting with many inmates at various prisons and jails, it became
clear to her that these incidents were widespread, and she made it her
top priority to get guys who didn't belong there out of jail.

Jones and a handful of other lawyers, including Phyllis Mann, a veteran
Louisiana criminal defense attorney, began poring over the available
records on the evacuated inmates and found thousands who had been
unconstitutionally and illegally imprisoned. Many should have been
released weeks or months earlier, as their sentences had long since
expired. Some had been picked up on charges in the days before the storm
for municipal offenses like unpaid traffic tickets and had never been
before a judge, as required by the Constitution. Others were simply
sitting in jail, awaiting trial for minor crimes for which the maximum
sentence was far less than the amount of time they had already served.
While some of these people have been released in the past month, many
remain incarcerated and separated from their families when they are most
needed. For example, as recently as mid-November, David Moffett, a
43-year-old man from New Orleans, was still incarcerated in a Bossier
Parish jail on a ten-day sentence begun August 22 for public
drunkenness.

Who was there to make sure that these citizens, victims of one of the
country's worst natural disasters, were not further deprived of
their Eighth Amendment right to dignified treatment as
prisoners, their right to due process under law and their right to the
presumption of innocence? There was no public defender's office
zealously fighting for their rights because New Orleans has no real
public defender's office. Nor was there a crusading prisoners' rights
organization on the ground to provide meaningful oversight of the
state's treatment of its vulnerable wards. Beyond the handful of
volunteer lawyers, no one was there for these people, and though
the volunteers have been diligent, their work has not been
sufficient to address the needs of everyone. 

It is hard to believe that a state with one of the highest per capita
incarceration rates in the United States--which itself is a world leader
in incarceration--does not have a single organization or agency
dedicated to the rights of prisoners, but it's true. Sadly, by orders of
magnitude, there were more rescue people in Louisiana to protect the
"animal rights" of dogs than there were lawyers or activists to protect
the human rights of thousands of our citizens. 

While New Orleans does not have a full-time public defender, the city is
obligated by the Sixth Amendment of the Constitution, like every other
town in the United States, to provide free attorneys to poor people who
are otherwise unable to defend themselves against charges leveled by the
state. That service in New Orleans is provided through the Orleans
Parish Indigent Defender Board, which contracts with a group of
part-time attorneys who, when they are not taking paid cases or writing
wills and estates for their regular clients, are assigned to represent
the thousands of poor people annually charged with crimes in New
Orleans. Like so many things in the city, these part-time contracts have
become patronage positions appointed more on the basis of fealty to
political players than concern for the rights of the accused. In the
weeks and months after the storm, these public defenders were nowhere to
be found, although they were counsel of record for nearly all the
evacuated prisoners. When asked about the prison crisis and his concerns
about the rights of his clients, Tilden Greenbaum, head of the Indigent
Defender Board, told the New York Times his clients were being patient.
"Sooner or later, we're going to have to start making noise about it,"
he said. "But given the magnitude of what everybody's been through, now
is not the time to push."

Meg Garvey, another pro bono lawyer who has been working with evacuated
inmates, isn't feeling patient at all. She started pushing months ago to
try to help these clients. "So many of these guys were in here for minor
stuff, and when the storm came their communication with their families
was completely cut off," she said. "They couldn't be part of keeping
their families safe or together. Now the world is changing
dramatically while they are in prison. Babies are born. Their grandma
dies. Their family resettles in Texas. And they are in for nothing. They
are desperate to return to their families."

Given all the minor things with which people ordinarily run out of
patience, like rush-hour traffic and long lines at the bank, it is hard
to imagine much patience from people who have been
unconstitutionally detained for months after a
nightmarish experience of rising water in a locked cell.
Certainly, it is inappropriate for their lawyers to be counseling
patience while they are wrongfully imprisoned. However, according to
Garvey, the prisoners are incredibly patient, and they're grateful for
the assistance from the handful of lawyers who offered help without
any expectation of compensation and disregarding the turmoil that their
own lives had been thrown into by the storm. For the rest of us, that
there are a few pro bono lawyers providing a constitutionally
mandated service the government is neglecting and has neglected for
decades should sting, not give comfort.

New Orleans needs a politically independent public defender's
office--one that not only provides the minimum representation guaranteed
by the Constitution but that deals holistically with clients, their
families and their communities. Such an agency could begin to address
the collateral consequences that mass incarceration has on the families
and communities where a large percentage of adult men are behind bars.
Further, we need public institutions dedicated to the principle that the
rights of prisoners are not mere abstractions but guarantees, and that
there are actual remedies when those rights are violated. This is
imperative in a state where incarceration has become the
one-size-fits-all response to social ills caused by failed
schools, a decimated economy and meager and crumbling public
housing. 

Here as elsewhere, such institutions do not need heaps of money. They
require instead a change of attitude--whereby people deprived of their
personal liberty are still valued and protected by society. In the
legal defense context, this means dedicated, full-time public defenders
insulated from political pressure, like the Public Defender Service in
Washington, DC, or the Bronx Defenders in New York City--offices of true
believers who make the adversarial process a challenge to
the state's immense power to incarcerate and even kill its citizens.

The storm created opportunities for structural reform in areas where the
government has long failed its citizens. With the city's dysfunctional
indigent defense almost nonexistent, this may be the only chance in a
generation to re-create a major urban public defense system in a manner
that addresses the impact of criminalization and mass incarceration on
poor families while providing constitutionally mandated services. 

New Orleans is a struggling city in one of the poorest parts of the
country. We have been flattened by a storm. There are of course many
other pressing needs as we rebuild the city and the region. But if we
are ever going to be a civilized city, or country, we are going to have
to begin to work as hard for the weakest and most maligned among us as
we do for the strongest and most sympathetic. If we don't, any of us
could one day face the consequences.



This article can be found on the web at:

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060102/sothern



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http://www.thenation.com/

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From swiggard at comcast.net  Tue Dec 20 03:58:56 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Tue Dec 20 04:13:07 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] N.Y. City Transit Union Goes on Strike - Washington Post
Message-ID: <43A7F200.3040701@comcast.net>

N.Y. City Transit Union Goes on Strike

By Michelle Garcia and Fred Barbash
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, December 20, 2005; 6:18 AM

NEW YORK, Dec. 20 -- A Transport Workers Union strike shut down the New 
York City transportation system Tuesday morning, leaving some seven 
million daily travelers on the buses and subways to fend for themselves 
in the day's commute.

The strike, after weeks of often bitter negotiations, was the first in a 
quartery century in New York. It's timing just before Christmas and in 
the cold--it was ten degrees Tuesday morning in New York--was expected 
to compound the dislocation from the strike.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority immediate went to court 
seeking heavy fines against the union and its members for violation of a 
previously-issued injunction against the strike, which is illegal.

The city activated a strike contingency plan which converted all roads 
into Manhattan to HOV status permitting vehicles carrying a minimum of 
four people. Police manned checkpoints to enforce the restriction. 
Commercial traffic was prohibited. School openings were delayed two hours.

The union, meanwhile, set up picket lines at transit facilities and 
stations across New York.

The New York transit system is the largest in the nation, with 34,000 
unionized employees across all the boroughs of the city.

The Transport Workers Union and the Metropolitan Transportation 
Authority had worked for weeks, sometimes around the clock, to try and 
reach a new contract, hoping to avoid the city's first transit strike in 
more than 25 years.

The transit workers are asking for 8 percent wage increases in each of 
the next three years. The MTA has offered 3 percent per year and has 
demanded that workers pick up a greater portion of their health care costs.

MTA officials want to raise the minimum retirement age from 55 to 62. 
The union has responded by seeking to lower the minimum to 50.

Negotiations broke down after midnight. A series of news conferences 
followed as the union and officials exchanged angry charges.

"This is a cowardly attempt to bring the city to its knees," Mayor 
Michael Bloomberg said at a 3:30 a.m. news conference. "We cannot let 
them cause the havoc they seek . . . Rush hour will begin in a few 
hours. I will join New Yorkers going to work by walking across the 
Brooklyn Bridge to lower Manhattan.

"Let's show our determination by walking and biking to work," said 
Bloomberg. "Let's show that our city works even when subway and buses 
don't."

"This is a fight over whether hard work will be rewarded with a decent 
retirement, over the erosion or eventual elimination of health benefit 
coverage for working people," said Roger Toussaint, president of Local 
100 of the union. "And it is a fight over dignity and respect on the 
job. . . . Transit workers are tired of being underappreciated and 
disrespected."

The last transit strike was in 1980, and it paralyzed the city for eight 
days. That strike occurred almost by mistake, as labor and management 
leaders tried and failed to choreograph a settlement.

Bloomberg has said the walkout could cost the city as much as $400 
million a day, and would be particularly harsh at the height of the 
holiday shopping and tourist season. He said a strike would freeze 
traffic into "gridlock that will tie the record for all gridlocks."

"They have broken the trust of the people of New York," said New York 
Gov. George E. Pataki said. "They have not only endangered our city and 
state's economy, but they are also recklessly endangering the health and 
safety of each and every New Yorker."

MTA spokesman Tom Kelly said the agency "put a fair offer" on the table 
before talks broke down. "Unfortunately, that offer has been rejected."

But Toussaint said the union wanted a better offer from the MTA, 
especially when the agency has a $1 billion surplus this year.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/20/AR2005122000153.html
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Tue Dec 20 04:00:24 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Tue Dec 20 04:14:35 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] FBI Papers Show Terror Inquiries Into PETA;
 Other Groups Tracked - Washington Post
Message-ID: <43A7F258.4030001@comcast.net>

FBI Papers Show Terror Inquiries Into PETA; Other Groups Tracked

By Spencer S. Hsu
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, December 20, 2005; A11

FBI counterterrorism investigators are monitoring domestic U.S. advocacy 
groups engaged in antiwar, environmental, civil rights and other causes, 
the American Civil Liberties Union charged yesterday as it released new 
FBI records that it said detail the extent of the activity.

The documents, disclosed as part of a lawsuit that challenges FBI 
treatment of groups that planned demonstrations at last year's political 
conventions, show the bureau has opened a preliminary terrorism 
investigation into People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, the 
well-known animal rights group based in Norfolk.

The papers offer no proof of PETA's involvement in illegal activity. But 
more than 100 pages of heavily censored FBI files show the agency used 
secret informants and tracked the group's events for years, including an 
animal rights conference in Washington in July 2000, a community meeting 
at an Indiana college in spring 2003 and a planned August 2004 protest 
of a celebrity fur endorser.

The documents show the FBI cultivated sources such as a "well insulated" 
PETA insider, who attended the 2000 meeting to gain credibility "within 
the animal rights/Ruckus movements." The FBI also kept information on 
Greenpeace and the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, the 
papers show.

The disclosure comes amid recent revelations about the extent of 
domestic spying by the government after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist 
attacks. Those disclosures include the expansion within the United 
States of military intelligence and databases covering, among others, 
peace activists; increased use of "national security letters" by the FBI 
to examine personal records of tens of thousands of citizens; and, most 
recently, warrantless eavesdropping of overseas telephone calls and 
e-mails by U.S. citizens suspected of ties to terrorists.

ACLU leaders contend that the memos show that FBI and government Joint 
Terrorism Task Forces across the country have expanded the definition of 
domestic terrorism to people who engage in mainstream political 
activity, including nonviolent protest and civil disobedience.

"The FBI should use its resources to investigate credible threats to 
national security instead of spending time tracking innocent Americans 
who criticize government policy, or monitoring groups that have not 
broken the law," ACLU Associate Legal Director Ann Beeson said. 
Previously released papers showed that the FBI kept files that mentioned 
the organizations, she said, "But we didn't know that they actually 
launched counterterrorism investigations into these groups."

FBI officials said that the agency is not using the threat of terrorism 
to suppress domestic dissent and that is has no alternative but to 
investigate if a group or its members have ties to others that are 
guilty or suspected of violence or illegal conduct.

"As a matter of policy, the FBI does not target individuals or 
organizations for investigation because of any political belief. 
Somewhere, there has to be a crime attached," FBI spokesman John Miller 
said. "At the same time, the fact that you have ties to an organization 
or political beliefs does not make you immune from ending up in FBI 
files when you go and commit a crime."

The status of the PETA inquiry is unclear. Justice Department spokesman 
Brian Roehrkasse said: "The Justice Department does not comment on or 
confirm the existence of criminal investigations. All matters referred 
to the department by the intelligence agencies for purposes of further 
investigation are taken seriously and thoroughly reviewed."

PETA general counsel Jeff Kerr called the FBI's conduct an abuse of 
power that punishes activists for speaking out.

"These documents show a disturbing erosion of freedom of association and 
freedom of speech that we've taken for granted and that set us apart 
from oppressive countries like the former Iraq," Kerr said, adding that 
the documents show no illegal activity by PETA. "You shouldn't have to 
wonder when you go to a speech at a college campus, or when you go to a 
meeting, whether you're being surveilled by the FBI. It goes back to the 
dark days of Nixon and the enemies list."

John Lewis, the FBI's deputy assistant director for counterterrorism, 
told a Senate panel in May that environmental and animal rights 
militants posed the biggest terrorist threats in the United States, 
citing more than 150 pending investigations.

The ACLU said it received 2,357 pages of files on PETA, Greenpeace, the 
American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee and the ACLU itself. One 
file referring to the committee included a contact list for students and 
peace activists who attended a 2002 conference at Stanford University 
aimed at ending sanctions then in place in Iraq.

The FBI has said that when it interviewed members of groups planning 
demonstrations at last year's conventions, it did not yield information 
into criminal activity. But the agency said the interviews were prompted 
by specific threats. The latest data lay out a similar, broader pattern 
regarding 150 groups whose FBI files the ACLU has asked to see.

For example, a June 19, 2002, e-mail cites a source offering information 
on Greenpeace regarding "activists who show a clear predisposition to 
violate the law." Other documents contain suspicions that PETA funds, 
supports or otherwise acts as a front for "eco-terrorist" groups that 
use arson, bombs or vandalism, such as the Animal Liberation Front or 
Earth Liberation Front.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/19/AR2005121901777.html
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Tue Dec 20 04:02:01 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Tue Dec 20 04:16:13 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] MUST READ: Imperial Assumptions - Eugene Robinson -
 Washington Post Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43A7F2B9.1070908@comcast.net>

Imperial Assumptions

By Eugene Robinson
Tuesday, December 20, 2005; A31

It seems that the Imperial Presidency has been restored. The nation's 
highest office was cut down to constitutional size three decades ago, 
when Richard Nixon helicoptered out of town, but listening to George W. 
Bush in his latest come-out-swinging media blitz has been like an 
audience with an impatient monarch whose ungrateful subjects won't just 
shut up and do as he says.

On Saturday, he was wrathful. How dare someone reveal that for years his 
administration has been eavesdropping on the phone calls and e-mails of 
American citizens? How dare the New York Times publish its story about 
the illegal surveillance? Investigations would be convened, he warned, 
and the leakers could be outed.

On Sunday, in his address from the Oval Office, he was expansive. Yes, 
he acknowledged, some misguided Americans may have disagreed with his 
decision to invade Iraq. He will be generous enough to forgive that 
impertinence, as long as everyone now gets with the program. The only 
options are "victory" and "defeat," he warned -- without really defining 
either -- so everyone should just stop asking when the troops will come 
home. "I have never been more certain that America's actions in Iraq are 
essential to the security of our citizens," he said. And, obviously, his 
certainty trumps all of our doubts.

At his news conference yesterday, he took advantage of the sovereign's 
divine right to rewrite history. Clearly outraged at the Senate's 
recalcitrance on the USA Patriot Act, the president issued a challenge: 
"These senators need to explain why they thought the Patriot Act was a 
vital tool after the September the 11th attacks but now think it's no 
longer necessary." The president conveniently forgot to mention that 
Congress originally set a "sunset" date for the act to expire precisely 
because members were so deeply concerned about the extent to which it 
compromised our liberties.

He also sought to explain why he believes he has the right to order the 
National Security Agency to conduct electronic surveillance of Americans 
without first getting a warrant. He cited Article II of the 
Constitution, which of course doesn't mention telephones or the 
Internet. When it's convenient, the president recognizes that "strict 
constructionism" has its limits.

None of this is really unexpected from a president whose apparent goal 
from the beginning has been to reinflate the presidency and unshackle it 
from those inconvenient restraints that Congress or the courts might 
seek to impose.

Think about the powers this White House has asserted: to detain 
terrorist suspects indefinitely, without charges or due process. To 
kidnap suspects and hold them in secret CIA-run prisons, with no 
acknowledgment that the suspect is even in U.S. custody. To inflict on 
these prisoners inhumane and degrading treatment that amounts to torture.

And now the president claims the unilateral right to tap your phone and 
mine whenever he wants. Never mind that there is a legally established 
procedure to obtain warrants for such domestic surveillance; never mind 
that this lawful process is conducted quickly and in total secrecy. The 
imperial president does not bow to lowly courts. He just does what he 
believes he needs to do.

In his brief prepared remarks at his news conference yesterday, the 
president mentioned the Sept. 11 attacks eight times. None of us who 
lived through that awful, world-changing day will ever be able to forget 
it. I remember how surreal it was to see the great plume of smoke rising 
from the Pentagon; I remember how vulnerable I felt, how angry, how full 
of patriotic resolve. I understand how any president would immediately 
decide that his prime task, above all others, was making sure that 
nothing like Sept. 11 ever happened again. I get the sense that the 
president wakes up every day with the sour fear of another attack in the 
pit of his stomach.

But every American felt the same way after Sept. 11 as the president and 
his Cabinet did. It's just that many of us have concluded that defeating 
Islamic fundamentalism cannot be accomplished by abandoning basic 
American values.

The president invokes Sept. 11 to foreclose debate about Iraq, about 
torture, about secret prisons and, now, about electronic surveillance of 
American citizens. The law permitting domestic spying doesn't allow him 
to move quickly enough, the president said. So why, in these four years, 
hasn't he asked Congress to change the law?

I checked, and the Constitution that the president loves to cite -- but 
only when it's convenient -- says clearly that he works for all of us. 
Not the other way around.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/19/AR2005121901554.html
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Tue Dec 20 04:03:46 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Tue Dec 20 04:17:54 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Why Didn't He Ask Congress? - George F. Will -
	Washington Post Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43A7F322.2090904@comcast.net>

Why Didn't He Ask Congress?

By George F. Will
Tuesday, December 20, 2005; A31

The president's authorization of domestic surveillance by the National 
Security Agency contravened a statute's clear language. Assuming that 
urgent facts convinced him that he should proceed anyway and on his own, 
what argument convinced him that he lawfully could?

Presumably the argument is that the president's implied powers as 
commander in chief, particularly with the nation under attack and some 
of the enemy within the gates, are not limited by statutes. A classified 
legal brief probably makes an argument akin to one Attorney General John 
Ashcroft made in 2002: "The Constitution vests in the president inherent 
authority to conduct warrantless intelligence surveillance (electronic 
or otherwise) of foreign powers or their agents, and Congress cannot by 
statute extinguish that constitutional authority."

Perhaps the brief argues, as its author, John Yoo -- now a professor of 
law at Berkeley but then a deputy assistant attorney general -- argued 
14 days after Sept. 11, 2001, in a memorandum on "the president's 
constitutional authority to conduct military operations against 
terrorists and nations supporting them," that the president's 
constitutional power to take "military actions" is "plenary." The Oxford 
English Dictionary defines "plenary" as "complete, entire, perfect, not 
deficient in any element or respect."

The brief should be declassified and debated, beginning with this 
question: Who decides which tactics -- e.g., domestic surveillance -- 
should be considered part of taking "military actions''?

Without more information than can be publicly available concerning 
threats from enemies operating in America, the executive branch deserves 
considerable discretion in combating terrorist conspiracies using new 
technologies such as cell phones and the Internet. In September 2001, 
the president surely had sound reasons for desiring the surveillance 
capabilities at issue.

But did he have sound reasons for seizing them while giving only minimal 
information to, and having no formal complicity with, Congress? Perhaps. 
But Congress, if asked, almost certainly would have made such 
modifications of law as the president's plans required. Courts, too, 
would have been compliant. After all, on Sept. 14, 2001, Congress had 
unanimously declared that "the president has authority under the 
Constitution to take action to deter and prevent acts of international 
terrorism," and it had authorized "all necessary and appropriate force" 
against those involved in Sept. 11 or threatening future attacks.

For more than 500 years -- since the rise of nation-states and 
parliaments -- a preoccupation of Western political thought has been the 
problem of defining and confining executive power. The problem is 
expressed in the title of a brilliant book, "Taming the Prince: The 
Ambivalence of Modern Executive Power," by Harvey Mansfield, Harvard's 
conservative.

Particularly in time of war or the threat of it, government needs 
concentrated decisiveness -- a capacity for swift and nimble action that 
legislatures normally cannot manage. But the inescapable corollary of 
this need is the danger of arbitrary power.

Modern American conservatism grew in reaction against the New Deal's 
creation of the regulatory state, and the enlargement of the executive 
branch power that such a state entails. The intellectual vigor of 
conservatism was quickened by reaction against the Great Society and the 
aggrandizement of the modern presidency by Lyndon Johnson, whose 
aspiration was to complete the project begun by Franklin Roosevelt.

Because of what Alexander Hamilton praised as "energy in the executive," 
which often drives the growth of government, for years many 
conservatives were advocates of congressional supremacy. There were, 
they said, reasons why the Founders, having waged a revolutionary war 
against overbearing executive power, gave the legislative branch pride 
of place in Article I of the Constitution.

One reason was that Congress's cumbersomeness, which is a function of 
its fractiousness, is a virtue because it makes the government slow and 
difficult to move. But conservatives' wholesome wariness of presidential 
power has been a casualty of conservative presidents winning seven of 
the past 10 elections.

On the assumption that Congress or a court would have been cooperative 
in September 2001, and that the cooperation could have kept necessary 
actions clearly lawful without conferring any benefit on the nation's 
enemies, the president's decision to authorize the NSA's surveillance 
without the complicity of a court or Congress was a mistake. Perhaps one 
caused by this administration's almost metabolic urge to keep Congress 
unnecessarily distant and hence disgruntled.

Charles de Gaulle, a profound conservative, said of another such, Otto 
von Bismarck -- de Gaulle was thinking of Bismarck not pressing his 
advantage in 1870 in the Franco-Prussian War -- that genius sometimes 
consists of knowing when to stop. In peace and in war, but especially in 
the latter, presidents have pressed their institutional advantages to 
expand their powers to act without Congress. This president might look 
for occasions to stop pressing.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/19/AR2005121900975.html?nav=hcmodule
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Tue Dec 20 04:05:26 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Tue Dec 20 04:19:46 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Enough. Let's Try 'Accountability.' - Richard Cohen -
 Washington Post Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43A7F386.3050304@comcast.net>

Enough. Let's Try 'Accountability.'

By Richard Cohen
Tuesday, December 20, 2005; A31

You may not know it, but we are living in the Responsibility Era. So 
said George Bush back in 2000 when he accepted the Republican 
presidential nomination. He vowed that he would be the Responsibility 
President and, it seems, repeat the word over and over until it lost all 
meaning. That one speech, forgettable but retrievable, contained the 
following line: "And to lead this nation to a responsibility era, a 
president himself must be responsible." Churchill, rest easy.

In his Sunday night speech to the nation, Bush once again ran up this 
tattered rhetorical banner: "I am responsible for the decision to go 
into Iraq." It was the exact same phrase Bush had used earlier in the 
week in his speech at the Woodrow Wilson Center. That one prompted Jay 
Leno to an outburst of wisdom: "Yeah, well, I don't think he has to 
worry about other people trying to take credit for that one."

Had the word "responsible," in all its permutations and declensions, 
made an occasional appearance in the president's rhetoric, it would not 
be worth a comment. But it is a theme, a beat, a tick, a flat-footed 
verbal tautology and a way, really, of deflecting apt criticism. Listen 
to your president:

"I take responsibility," he said Sept. 13 about the botched Hurricane 
Katrina relief effort. "I take personal responsibility for everything I 
say, of course," he said back in 2003. "I also take responsibility for 
making decisions on war and peace."

"I take responsibility for putting our troops into action," he said a 
bit earlier in 2003. "I take responsibility for making that decision."

This recitation of the obvious is a bit of clumsy rhetorical strutting, 
but also a way of ducking the ultimate in responsibility: 
accountability. This is something Bush will not accept or countenance. 
He will not be trammeled or constrained or answer to any person. He 
will, as we recently learned, not give a fig for the law as passed by 
Congress when it comes to restrictions on domestic spying. He asserts, 
but does not show, that asking for a warrant from the special 
intelligence court would endanger the country and -- his idea of a jolly 
good debating point -- he shows irritation when pressed. He's the 
president, damn it. Look it up.

It was the same with the intelligence failure that was Bush's prime 
justification for the war. The president asserts repeatedly that he's 
responsible for that -- but so is Congress. It saw the same 
intelligence. But it is the president who runs the spy agencies, not 
Congress, and it is he who ought to be accountable for their dismal 
performance. Does this occur to him? Does he ask if he was being told 
what he wanted to hear? Does he wonder about his aides? Are they a 
claque of yes-men and (hello, Condi) women? It's ridiculous to say 
Congress is equally responsible for being duped by bad intelligence. The 
intelligence, after all, was the president's. He should be accountable.

This theme of responsibility without accountability applies in spades to 
Bush's personnel policies -- or lack of them. If the president were 
truly responsible, then he would fire the bunglers. By failing to do so, 
the president shows that he has not closely examined what went wrong. He 
works with the same team of happy incompetents who failed him once (bad 
intelligence), then again (going to war), then again (the administration 
of it) and then again (postwar reconstruction). A responsible leader 
would get some people around him with the guts to challenge him. This is 
a White House of the meek.

Finally, the "responsibility president" would understand that his crew 
has lost all credibility. He cannot expect a nation, and in particular 
its military, to accept the assurances of people who will be mocked by 
history or to have faith in leaders whose failures are sadly obvious in 
the only ledger that really matters: the body count in Iraq. For 
instance, just the other day in Iraq, Vice President Cheney said the 
country had "turned the corner." Who believes him? He may be right, but 
by now if Cheney told me that Christmas will fall on Dec. 25, I'd doubt 
him. The man has been wrong, wrong, wrong -- and still he is the 
president's primary adviser. He should be relegated to state funerals 
and demagogic speeches to slow learners in the Republican Party.

If Bush wants us to believe that he truly accepts responsibility for 
what has happened in Iraq, then he has to act responsibly himself: End 
the Responsibility Era. Start the Accountability one.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/19/AR2005121901552.html
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Tue Dec 20 04:08:13 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Tue Dec 20 04:23:37 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] EXCELLENT AND RECOMMENDED: Fear distorting the rule of
 law - H.D.S. Greenway - Boston Globe Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43A7F42D.9080005@comcast.net>


  Fear distorting the rule of law

By H.D.S. Greenway  |  December 20, 2005  |   The Boston Globe

IN MARCH OF 1933, Franklin Roosevelt, facing the crisis of the Great 
Depression, said in his inaugural address that ''the only thing we have 
to fear is fear itself -- nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror 
which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance."

The fear people felt then was not nameless, unreasoning, nor 
unjustified, as Roosevelt well knew. In fact, his address went on to say 
that ''the withered leaves of industrial enterprise lie on every side; 
farmers find no markets for their produce; the savings of many years in 
thousands of families are gone . . . Only a foolish optimist can deny 
the dark realities of the moment."

What Roosevelt meant was that fear can distort judgment and cloud the 
mind's ability to perceive right turns from wrong turns in the road to 
safety.

Roosevelt was not to avoid wrong turns. His incarceration of 
Japanese-American citizens after Pearl Harbor is looked back on now as a 
national shame.

Roosevelt remembered the very real and dangerous disloyalty of some 
German-Americans during World War I when he made his decision on 
Japanese-Americans. He should have remembered, also, the unreasoning and 
unjustified ''patriotic lunacy" of that time, as historian David Traxel 
calls it in his new book ''Crusader Nation." ''Sauerkraut became liberty 
cabbage . . . frankfurters were hot dogs, hamburgers liberty stakes."

I have no doubt that one day the Bush administration's curtailment of 
civil liberties, especially the torture of prisoners, will be looked 
back on as a national shame. I never would have thought I would live to 
see the day when the president of the United States would threaten to 
veto a bill in Congress to ban torture, or when the vice president would 
spend his days lobbying Congress in favor of torture. That little shop 
of horrors, the vice president's office, seems to be the place where 
fear regularly gains ascendancy over good judgment.

The Bush administration's predilection to torture was clearly a result 
of mind-clouding fear caused by the greatest terrorist attack in history 
on Sept. 11th, 2001. The same can be said of the excesses of the Patriot 
Act, and, too, the decision to use the National Security Agency to spy 
on American citizens without benefit of warrant as required by the 
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

The Bush administration has shamelessly used fear to get its way. Both 
the president and vice president have tried to picture a withdrawal from 
Iraq as resulting in an Al Qaeda takeover of Iraq, and an Al Qaeda-led 
Caliphate stretching across the Muslim world. In reality al Qaeda hasn't 
the remotest chance of taking over Iraq, not with 80 percent of the 
population either Kurdish or Shi'ite, and a timely end to American 
occupation might sooner lead to an Iraqi-Sunni disenchantment with 
foreign terrorists.

But in this month of December we may have reached a tipping point. Last 
week the American Congress finally stood up. President Bush, after 
expending so much effort trying to find ways to circumvent Senator John 
McCain's heroic efforts to ban torture, finally surrendered in the Oval 
Office last week.

''We've sent a message to the world that the United States is not like 
the terrorists, " said McCain -- a message that had been badly diluted 
by Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and the administration's efforts to justify 
the mistreatment of prisoners.

Congress followed suit by refusing to reenact the Patriot Act as now 
constituted, and, although the domestic spying case will be argued as to 
its legality, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter promises 
congressional hearings. Eavesdropping on citizens may be necessary in 
these terrorist times, but, given how easy it is to obtain a warrant 
under the current law -- even retroactively -- the wonder is why the 
Bush administration chose not to comply.

In any event, Congress has put the president on notice that he no longer 
has a blank check to erode civil liberties at his will.

Americans could take some comfort, too, in Bush's new willingness to 
admit to at least some mistakes in the handling of his war in Iraq. 
Franklin Roosevelt, in that first inaugural address, said: ''In every 
dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has 
met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which 
is essential to victory. " Bush may have the vigor, but the frankness 
has been sorely lacking.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/12/20/fear_distorting_the_rule_of_law/
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Tue Dec 20 04:10:26 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Tue Dec 20 04:25:22 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] WHAT WE HAVE BEEN SAYING: An insidious culture of
 surveillance - Thomas Oliphant - Boston Globe Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43A7F4B2.9060205@comcast.net>


  An insidious culture of surveillance

By Thomas Oliphant  |  December 20, 2005  |  The Boston Globe

WASHINGTON

IT ALWAYS STARTS SMALL, almost logically.

In a basically free society, abuses of civil and human rights often 
initially make sense, which appears to have been the case when President 
Bush took his baby steps toward a system of warrant-free, electronic 
surveillance of persons inside the United States -- some citizens, some not.

Over time, however, the inch that government first takes becomes a mile, 
and that also appears to have been the case, as senators and congressmen 
from both parties, who were too trusting initially, are beginning to 
understand. The one enduring lesson that conservatives used to teach 
effectively is that government that is not checked, balanced, and 
watched like a hawk can gradually become oppressive.

And now, it's happened again.

The latest abuse of civil rights and the Constitution began with the 
first round of captures of Al Qaeda operatives in Afghanistan and 
Pakistan in the weeks and months following the 9/11 attacks.

Some of these terrorists were caught in possession of their cellular 
telephones and laptop computers. Naturally, it occurred to the US agents 
involved to see where these cellphones and hard drives led -- a 
perfectly understandable notion.

And then, as night follows day, it all got out of hand, morphing into a 
system of snooping that can only be justified by authoritarian theories 
of executive supremacy, complete with legal justifications for a 
super-secret program that are themselves super-secret.

The clue that even the government recognizes it is doing wrong lies in 
the almost laughable inability of top officials to discuss all this 
without resort to the tortured euphemism that authoritarians always rely on.

President Bush's truculent response on Saturday to the surveillance 
program's belated unmasking by The New York Times -- which held up its 
story for a year for reasons that remain largely undisclosed -- included 
the claim that it was designed ''to intercept the international 
communications of people with known links to Al Qaeda and related 
terrorist organizations."

As always, the problem arises from the government's claim that it alone 
decides what a ''link" and ''related" mean; if thousands of people have 
had their ''communications" monitored, it follows that those links are 
decidedly tenuous, if not nonexistent.

On Sunday, the designated TV spokeswoman, Condoleezza Rice, invented 
''seams", ostensibly exploited by terrorists, between foreign 
intelligence and domestic law enforcement capabilities out of whole 
cloth. In fact, the government has bugged thousands of people, and it 
remains to be seen just how careful the targeting actually was.

One powerful piece of evidence that it got out of hand is the fact that 
surveillance has been government-wide in the last few years. American 
groups involved in nothing more than traditional protest and activism 
have been infiltrated and followed, by the FBI red-flagged by military 
intelligence agencies. There is a culture of surveillance now, not a few 
carefully limited operations against severe and immediate threats.

To those who are continually surprised that government behaves in this 
manner, it helps to remember that we have been down this road before. It 
is not as if international terrorism is the only modern threat the US 
has had to confront. There used to be a country called the Soviet Union, 
armed with thousands of nuclear weapons and motivated by a particularly 
devious kind of expansionism. During Vietnam, the war was so 
controversial that at any given moment, a large chunk of the country was 
involved in trying to stop it -- legally. In both cases, these 
supposedly dire threats to national security gave birth to a large 
bureaucracy of oppression whose exposure during Watergate led to what we 
all thought were lasting reforms.

Even before Watergate exploded, there were two important Supreme Court 
decisions that appeared to define the limits of government power and (in 
the late 1970s) one important statute that appeared to close an obvious 
loophole.

In 1967, much closer to the dawn of the electronic age, the principle 
was established that evidence from wiretaps should be discarded from 
legal proceedings unless it was produced under the authority of a 
court-issued warrant based on a finding of probable cause that a crime 
had been committed.

Obviously, that didn't cover purely intelligence-related fruits from 
electronic snooping, so five years later a unanimous court ruled that 
the wiretapping of alleged domestic subversives without a warrant was 
unconstitutional.

That left an obvious loophole with regard to the agents of other 
countries, and Congress presumably filled it in 1978 by enacting the 
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. This statute established a secret 
court here that had to approve government applications for surveillance, 
a court that quickly established procedures for very rapid approvals in 
emergency situations.

You would think that had established an understandable, fair and 
efficient mechanism, but here we go again with another government for 
whom any procedure, any check or balance, is too cumbersome. You wonder 
why Bush claims he needs the so-called Patriot Act at all.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/12/20/an_insidious_culture_of_surveillance/
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From harry.sifton at sympatico.ca  Tue Dec 20 07:10:19 2005
From: harry.sifton at sympatico.ca (harry.sifton@sympatico.ca)
Date: Tue Dec 20 07:25:45 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] An article from ctv.ca
Message-ID: <7196936.1135091421326.JavaMail.www@chicodeb1.theglobeandmail.com>

Harry (harry.sifton@sympatico.ca) thought you would be interested in this article.

Message From Harry: 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It is your water

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Visit http://www.ctv.ca for the latest on news, entertainment, weather, and more!

Get news and programs delivered to your in-box. Sign up for our newsletters!
http://www.ctv.ca/newsletter


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From harry.sifton at sympatico.ca  Tue Dec 20 07:27:03 2005
From: harry.sifton at sympatico.ca (Harold Sifton)
Date: Tue Dec 20 07:38:30 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] It is your water
Message-ID: <000801c60579$d95a8e10$6c27e440@Harold>

Study revels toxins and chemicals in drinking waters throughout the States

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20051220/water_chemicals_051220/20051220?hub=SciTech

Harry

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From michael at intrafi.com  Tue Dec 20 08:03:30 2005
From: michael at intrafi.com (michael@intrafi.com)
Date: Tue Dec 20 08:14:56 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] FT.com / World / US - Bush defends right to wire-tap
 018suspects019
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From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Tue Dec 20 08:04:11 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (mblaxill@yahoo.com)
Date: Tue Dec 20 08:15:49 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: F.B.I. Watched Activist Groups,
	New Files Show
Message-ID: <20051220160411.375AB11FB54@lax-gw07.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: mblaxill@yahoo.com.

WASHINGTON | December 20, 2005
F.B.I. Watched Activist Groups, New Files Show
By ERIC LICHTBLAU
Agents conducted surveillance involving groups active in such causes as the environment and poverty relief.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/20/politics/20fbi.html?emc=eta1



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From michael at intrafi.com  Tue Dec 20 08:05:14 2005
From: michael at intrafi.com (michael@intrafi.com)
Date: Tue Dec 20 08:16:29 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] FT.com / By industry / Financial services - Carlyle to
	spend $1.3bn on Asian assets
Message-ID: <18022753.1135094714282.JavaMail.tomcat@localhost>



*Please note, the sender's email address has not been verified.



You have received the following link from michael@intrafi.com

 
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From michael at intrafi.com  Tue Dec 20 08:06:49 2005
From: michael at intrafi.com (michael@intrafi.com)
Date: Tue Dec 20 08:18:06 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] FT.com / Comment & analysis / Comment - Africa019s war
 on poverty begins at home
Message-ID: <2133873.1135094809576.JavaMail.tomcat@localhost>



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From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Tue Dec 20 08:09:22 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (mblaxill@yahoo.com)
Date: Tue Dec 20 08:20:51 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Bolivia's Newly Elected Leader Maps His
	Socialist Agenda
Message-ID: <20051220160922.B35923AE702@lax-gw06.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: mblaxill@yahoo.com.

INTERNATIONAL / AMERICAS | December 20, 2005
Bolivia's Newly Elected Leader Maps His Socialist Agenda
By JUAN FORERO
Evo Morales repeated his pledge to increase state control over the energy industry and reverse a U.S.-backed crusade against coca.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/20/international/americas/20bolivia.html?emc=eta1



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From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Tue Dec 20 08:11:32 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (mblaxill@yahoo.com)
Date: Tue Dec 20 08:22:40 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Study Shows the Superrich Are Not the Most
	Generous
Message-ID: <20051220161132.EC227249CAA@lax-gw08.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: mblaxill@yahoo.com.

whooda thunk?


NATIONAL | December 19, 2005
Study Shows the Superrich Are Not the Most Generous
By DAVID CAY JOHNSTON
Middle class Americans are two to six times more generous in the share of their investments that they give to charity than Americans who make more than $10 million.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/19/national/19give.html?emc=eta1



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one Best Picture.  What did the original New York
Times movie reviews have to say about these Oscar
winning films?  
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From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Tue Dec 20 08:11:54 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (mblaxill@yahoo.com)
Date: Tue Dec 20 08:23:07 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: North Carolina City Confronts Its Past in
	Report on White Vigilantes
Message-ID: <20051220161154.027FD2373AE@lax-gw01.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: mblaxill@yahoo.com.

NATIONAL | December 19, 2005
North Carolina City Confronts Its Past in Report on White Vigilantes
By JOHN DeSANTIS
The report also analyzes the lingering effects on black families in Wilmington of the 1898 overthrow of the government by white supremacists.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/19/national/19wilmington.html?emc=eta1



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From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Tue Dec 20 08:14:40 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (mblaxill@yahoo.com)
Date: Tue Dec 20 08:25:50 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Headlines for December 20, 2005
Message-ID: <20051220161440.20746.qmail@trinity.democracynow.org>

Mike Blaxill  ( mblaxill@yahoo.com )
sent you this story from democracynow.org




+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
|  Headlines for December 20, 2005
|  http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/20/1434238
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+


- 33,000 NYC Transit Workers Stage Strike
- FBI Spied on Greenpeace, PETA, Catholic Worker
- Documents Show FBI Agents Tracked PETA For Years
- Reports Expose Growing Domestic Surveillance
- Bush Defends NSA Domestic Spying
- On Dec. 6 Bush Asked New York Times to Not Run Story
- AG Alberto Gonzalez: Congress Implicitly Authorized Wiretaps
This story continues at: 
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/20/1434238

From harry.sifton at sympatico.ca  Tue Dec 20 10:50:29 2005
From: harry.sifton at sympatico.ca (Harold Sifton)
Date: Tue Dec 20 11:01:52 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Bush approval rating goes up ??
Message-ID: <000801c60596$42262ff0$113fe440@Harold>

Bush's approval rating jumps up from 39% (Nov 2) to 47% (Today)  ??

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/print?id=1421748

Later H
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From barbarasiomos38 at msn.com  Tue Dec 20 11:04:07 2005
From: barbarasiomos38 at msn.com (Barbara Siomos)
Date: Tue Dec 20 11:15:14 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Free
Message-ID: <BAY5-DAV119DA66F03DCDAE3E6941FAB3E0@phx.gbl>

Dear Friends,

I have just read and signed the online petition:

   "FREE THE PANCHEN LAMA!!!"

hosted on the web by PetitionOnline.com, the free online petition
service, at:

   http://www.PetitionOnline.com/ftpl/

I personally agree with what this petition says, and I think you might agree, too.  If
you can spare a moment, please take a
look, and consider signing yourself.

Best wishes,

Barbara Siomos


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From nwonline at toronto.cbc.ca  Tue Dec 20 11:19:42 2005
From: nwonline at toronto.cbc.ca (CBC News Online)
Date: Tue Dec 20 11:31:37 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] CBC News - 'INTELLIGENT DESIGN' CANNOT BE TAUGHT IN
	SCHOOL: U.S. COURT
Message-ID: <20051220191942.C804E69AFD@nmweb08.nm.cbc.ca>

This email has been sent to you by harry.sifton@sympatico.ca
The following is a news item posted on CBC NEWS ONLINE
at http://www.cbc.ca/news
____________________________________________________
'INTELLIGENT DESIGN' CANNOT BE TAUGHT IN SCHOOL: U.S. COURT
WebPosted Tue Dec 20 12:31:06 2005

---A U.S. district judge ruled Tuesday that "intelligent design" cannot
be taught in a Grade 9 biology class in Pennsylvania, saying it amounted
to teaching a secular version of creationism.

The fight by the religious right to include intelligent design theory in
the biology curriculum has been the biggest courtroom clash on evolution
since the 1925 Scopes monkey trial.

Judge John Jones wrote in a 139-page ruling that the school board policy
violated the U.S. Constitution, and should be struck down "to preserve
the separation of church and state."

 FROM SEPT. 27, 2005: Lawyers argue over use of intelligent design
 concept in schools


The fight began in October 2004, when a school board in Harrisburg, Pa.,
adopted a policy that required teachers to expose students to
alternatives to Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection.

The policy required that students be told Darwin's theory is "not a
fact," and has inexplicable "gaps." Students were to be referred to the
intelligent-design textbook Of Pandas and People , for more information.

Intelligent design proponents argue that natural selection cannot fully
explain the existence of complex life forms and say there is an unseen
force is behind the development of humanity.

In August, U.S. President George W. Bush inflamed the debate by
suggesting intelligent design be taught alongside evolution to show there
were competing theories.

Many members of the scientific community hold that intelligent design is
invalid as a theory because it cannot be tested and offers no hypotheses.
Many respected scientists have gone so far as to call it pseudoscience or
junk science.

Copyright (C) 2005 CBC. All rights reserved.
From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Tue Dec 20 14:02:22 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Tue Dec 20 14:14:24 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: F.B.I. Watched Activist Groups,
	New Files Show
Message-ID: <20051220220222.A1AEC24B178@lax-gw02.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: ialterman@nyc.rr.com.

[Still not receiving Civic stuff, so not sure if this went around.] It's J. Edgar Hoover and Richard Nixon all over again... Peace.


WASHINGTON | December 20, 2005
F.B.I. Watched Activist Groups, New Files Show
By ERIC LICHTBLAU
Agents conducted surveillance involving groups active in such causes as the environment and poverty relief.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/20/politics/20fbi.html?emc=eta1



----------------- Advertisement --------------------------

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one Best Picture.  What did the original New York
Times movie reviews have to say about these Oscar
winning films?  
Go to the Best Pictures review archive:

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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Tue Dec 20 14:06:35 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Tue Dec 20 14:21:14 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Drug Survey of Students Finds Picture Very
	Mixed
Message-ID: <20051220220635.C8A9A237703@lax-gw01.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: ialterman@nyc.rr.com.

Wonder if they're simply trying to tune out the horrible world they live in... Peace.


NATIONAL | December 20, 2005
Drug Survey of Students Finds Picture Very Mixed
By KATE ZERNIKE
Alcohol use and cigarette smoking among teenagers are at historic lows, but the abuse of sedatives by high school students is at its highest in 26 years, according to a study.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/20/national/20teen.html?emc=eta1



----------------- Advertisement --------------------------

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one Best Picture.  What did the original New York
Times movie reviews have to say about these Oscar
winning films?  
Go to the Best Pictures review archive:

http://ads.nyt.com/th.ad/nytnyt-textEmailThisdefault-Center1A/academyawards_text/?_RM_REDIR_=http://www.nytimes.com/ref/movies/oscars/bestpictures.html




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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Tue Dec 20 14:07:52 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Tue Dec 20 14:22:02 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: The Furor Over Spying and Presidential
	Power (9 Letters)
Message-ID: <20051220220752.D246613BC37@lax-gw04.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: ialterman@nyc.rr.com.

What we're saying...


OPINION | December 20, 2005
The Furor Over Spying and Presidential Power (9 Letters)

To the Editor:.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/20/opinion/l20spy.html?emc=eta1




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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Tue Dec 20 14:08:11 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Tue Dec 20 14:22:33 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Bush's Speech on Iraq: Did He Make the
	Sale? (4 Letters)
Message-ID: <20051220220811.80549841DC@lax-gw03.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: ialterman@nyc.rr.com.

What we're saying (2)...


OPINION | December 20, 2005
Bush's Speech on Iraq: Did He Make the Sale? (4 Letters)

To the Editor:.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/20/opinion/l20iraq.html?emc=eta1




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From michael at intrafi.com  Tue Dec 20 17:00:34 2005
From: michael at intrafi.com (michael@intrafi.com)
Date: Tue Dec 20 17:11:43 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Alternet: Making Sense of the Abramoff Scandal
Message-ID: <20051221010034.7028BB8094@alternet.org>


This story has been forwarded to you from
http://www.alternet.org by michael@intrafi.com



-------------------------------------
Making Sense of the Abramoff Scandal
http://www.alternet.org/story/29827

It's a sordid tale of Washington corruption and crony capitalism at its worst. Here's a primer to help you understand this growing scandal.
-------------------------------------

From michael at intrafi.com  Tue Dec 20 17:01:55 2005
From: michael at intrafi.com (michael@intrafi.com)
Date: Tue Dec 20 17:13:10 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Alternet: Life and Death In the Arctic
Message-ID: <20051221010155.EA355B8094@alternet.org>


This story has been forwarded to you from
http://www.alternet.org by michael@intrafi.com



-------------------------------------
Life and Death In the Arctic
http://www.alternet.org/story/29838

A GOP-led proposal to allow oil drilling in the Arctic Refuge threatens not only one of our most beautiful wilderness areas but a way of life thousands of years old. 
-------------------------------------

From grgolsorkhi at earthlink.net  Tue Dec 20 11:13:48 2005
From: grgolsorkhi at earthlink.net (Golsorkhi)
Date: Tue Dec 20 17:31:42 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] FW: Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Ahmadinejad
	on Israel: global danger or political infighting?
In-Reply-To: <000a01c60585$27153b90$6401a8c0@DF2ZTG61>
Message-ID: <E1Eoseg-0003OD-VP@smtpauth06.mail.atl.earthlink.net>


------ Forwarded Message
From: "Farhad Sepahbody" <sepa@sedona.net>
Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2005 09:48:02 -0700
To: "Golsorkhi" <grgolsorkhi@earthlink.net>
Subject: Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Ahmadinejad on Israel:
global danger or political infighting?

 
http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story/0,12858,1671083,00.html?gusrc=rss

------ End of Forwarded Message

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From harry.sifton at sympatico.ca  Tue Dec 20 18:47:47 2005
From: harry.sifton at sympatico.ca (Harold Sifton)
Date: Tue Dec 20 18:59:01 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Terry Moran puts it to Cheney !
Message-ID: <000a01c605d8$eff5b550$113fe440@Harold>

ABC's Terry Moran has the stuff, and he put it to Cheney and Cheney dodged behind his quasi legalise and arrogance as he always does.

http://newsbusters.org/node/3293

Especially challenging Cheney as to why the Red Cross can not visit the prisoners held in American interment /secret camps around the world.

Cheney is trying to make the war right and goes to the mats to do so, but at the end of the day, it is just a clean up / spin job of a wrong/bad event!

It is all about the oil dude, do not loose the site on the mark with the Bush/Cheney Administrative spins.........

More Iraqi's and Americans have died in 3 years than in the 20 odd years of Sadam's rule. Yes, democracy is somewhat there today, but that will be short lived. 2000 yrs of history/culture will determine Iraq's future not America's Oil barons.......

Later H

PS Remember, it was Rumsfeld under Reagan that created Sadam to fight against Iran to preserve American business interests in the middle east!!



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From drmhaatma at yahoo.com  Tue Dec 20 18:48:18 2005
From: drmhaatma at yahoo.com (Mha Atma Khalsa)
Date: Tue Dec 20 19:34:32 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Boxer questions if Bush committed impeachable offense
Message-ID: <E1EouZX-0007AX-DE@smtpauth06.mail.atl.earthlink.net>

 From Barbara Boxer:
  
  Yesterday, I issued the following release about President Bush's recent  admission that he has personally authorized domestic surveillance  without a court order.  I sent the referenced letter to four  presidential scholars, asking for their input:
  Cass Sunstein, University of Chicago Law School 
  Bruce Ackerman, Yale University 
  Susan Low Bloch, Georgetown University Law Center 
  Michael Gerhardt, College of William and Mary School of Law
  
  I hope you'll take a moment to read my statement below, and then forward this email to everyone you know.
  In Friendship,
  
  Barbara Boxer
  
  Boxer Asks Presidential Scholars About Former White House Counsel's Statement that Bush Admitted to an 'Impeachable Offense' 
  December 19, 2005 
  Washington, D.C. -- U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) today asked four  presidential scholars for their opinion on former White House Counsel  John Dean's statement that President Bush admitted to an "impeachable  offense" when he said he authorized the National Security Agency to spy  on Americans without getting a warrant from a judge. 
  Boxer said, "I take very seriously Mr. Dean's comments, as I view him  to be an expert on Presidential abuse of power. I am expecting a full  airing of this matter by the Senate in the very near future." 
  Boxer's letter is as follows: 
  On December 16, along with the rest of America, I learned that  President Bush authorized the National Security Agency to spy on  Americans without getting a warrant from a judge. President Bush  underscored his support for this action in his press conference today. 
  On Sunday, December 18, former White House Counsel John Dean and I  participated in a public discussion that covered many issues, including  this surveillance. Mr. Dean, who was President Nixon's counsel at the  time of Watergate, said that President Bush is "the first President to  admit to an impeachable offense." Today, Mr. Dean confirmed his  statement. 
  This startling assertion by Mr. Dean is especially poignant because he  experienced first hand the executive abuse of power and a presidential  scandal arising from the surveillance of American citizens. 
  Given your constitutional expertise, particularly in the area of  presidential impeachment, I am writing to ask for your comments and  thoughts on Mr. Dean's statement. 
  Unchecked surveillance of American citizens is troubling to both me and  many of my constituents. I would appreciate your thoughts on this  matter as soon as possible. 
  Sincerely, 
  Barbara Boxer 
  United States Senator
  
  

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
http://mail.yahoo.com 
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From ean at sbcglobal.net  Tue Dec 20 18:57:04 2005
From: ean at sbcglobal.net (ean@sbcglobal.net)
Date: Tue Dec 20 19:36:25 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Bolivia's election deserves a history lesson
Message-ID: <E1EoubE-0008If-Kd@smtpauth06.mail.atl.earthlink.net>

"to demand that Bolivia commit to its international obligations
after Bush launched an aggressive war against Iraq in
contravention of all international law, sounds like a mafia don
insisting that his lesser rivals denounce crime."

Bolivia's election deserves a history lesson

By Saul Landau
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/121505D.shtml

The prospect of socialist peasant leader Evo Morales as Bolivia's next
president disturbed Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Western
Hemisphere Affairs Charles Shapiro. "It would not be welcome news in
Washington to see the increasingly belligerent Cuban-Venezuelan combo
become a trio," he emailed on October 21, 2005 to the Miami Herald's
Andres Oppenheimer (Dec 4, 2005).

Shapiro combined buzz words with clich?s. "The nature and scope of our
cooperation with the next Bolivian government will depend on our shared
interests: strengthening democracy, fostering economic development and
combating illegal narcotics, along with that government's commitment to
its international obligations."

These trite but coded phrases tell the next Bolivian government: do
Washington's bidding, or get your butt kicked. Shapiro may think that
phrases like "shared interests" and "democracy" turn him into a literary
magician: "Presto, the coin (history) has vanished."

Such routine pronouncements on U.S.-Latin America policy presume that a
policy exists, something beyond Washington demanding Latin American
obedience to its dictates, so that U.S. companies can continue their
looting. Throughout the last century, the United States provided different
labels for its domination. By the early 20^th Century, the Monroe Doctrine
took the form of "Gunboat Diplomacy." The Navy would routinely intervene
to protect U.S. investments and ensure "stable" - read obedient -
governments.

A little later, Theodore Roosevelt invented "Dollar Diplomacy,"
Gunboat's twin sister. "Diplomacy" became a euphemism for encouraging
corporate investment in Latin America and then defining those loans or
investments in bananas and minerals to define U.S. interests in the
region.

To make sure dollars flowed to corporate accounts, the Navy intervened
when local political turmoil (independence and revolutionary movements)
arose. U.S. forces collected customs revenues and sent them to U.S. banks.
So, when students read a State Department document that states that U.S.
forces occupied Panama from 1903 to 1914 "to guard American interests,"
they will understand the context.

In 1904, U.S. forces protected "American interests...during
revolutionary fighting" in the Dominican Republic as they did in Cuba
1906-9, Honduras in 1907, 1910, 1911 and 1912, Nicaragua in 1910 and 
Cuba
again in 1912.

In 1913, Woodrow Wilson relabeled intervention as "The Good Neighbor
Policy." Between 1913 and 1920, while strongly advocating
non-intervention as an inviolable principle of international law,
Wilson ordered U.S. troops to occupy Haiti and Nicaragua and intervene in
Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Honduras and Mexico. In the 1930s, Franklin
Roosevelt laid out the red carpet for called Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio
Somoza because he was "our son of a bitch."

Good neighborliness gave way to Cold War anti-Communism, which
Eisenhower used as a pretext to have the CIA dislodge freely elected
President Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala (1954) -- at the insistence of
the United Fruit Company, whose non-productive lands Arbenz had
disobediently nationalized.

The 1959 Cuban Revolution pushed U.S. officials to offer a policy that
recognized the development gap between the United States and its southern
neighbors. In 1961, John Kennedy announced an "Alliance for Progress" to
develop Latin American infrastructure, build democracy and thus win the
hearts and minds from the lure of Castroism. Ironically, at a 1959 OAS
meeting in Argentina, Castro himself had suggested that if the U.S. cared
about Latin America it would invest in its infrastructure. Secretary of
State Christian Herter thought he could turn this notion against Castro,
but Eisenhower lacked the energy to follow up.

Kennedy possessed lots of verbal panache, however. But the U.S.
military remained unconvinced and countered his own progressive
proposal with its opposite: a counter insurgency program. The Latin
American police and military got far more money than went into the
Alliance.

By the mid 1970s, U.S. backed repressive forces had obliterated the
Alliance. Dictators and death squads ruled in Argentina, Brazil,
Bolivia (on and off), Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay, Peru (on and off),
Ecuador (on and off), Colombia (on and off) and in most of Central
America.

Did Shapiro forget these events? Did he believe his benign-sounding
phrases, and think they would fool Latin Americans familiar with their
history? Indeed, Latin Americans know well that revolutions or
disobedience bring about invasion or the CIA's covert action squad.

By the late 1970s and into the 1980s, to make more effective anti
Soviet propaganda, U.S. officials added democracy and human rights to
belligerent Cold War rhetoric. Although the United States had recently
helped oust democratically elected governments in Brazil (1964) and Chile
(1973), they pretended that a new era had arrived. Reagan spent hundreds
of millions on El Salvador's murderous military while simultaneously
supporting continuous elections, which Washington equated with democracy -
as if voting could neutralize the death squads.

Washington's words don't match deeds. Shapiro's "fostering economic
development," must remind Bolivians about the 1999 Bechtel purchase of the
Cochabamba water supply. Shockingly, Bechtel raised the price of water
until Bolivians forced their government to re-claim its own water and
lower the price.

Shapiro also insists on continuing the drug war. Does he expect drugs to
surrender? The drug war has meant the ecological destruction of entire
regions, and the militarizing of large areas of Colombia - and the U.S.
insistence that neighboring countries follow the same destructive path.

Finally, to demand that Bolivia commit to its international
obligations after Bush launched an aggressive war against Iraq in
contravention of all international law, sounds like a mafia don
insisting that his lesser rivals denounce crime.

Shapiro's platitudes illustrate Washington's bind - or blind.
Washington doesn't get it, or doesn't care. In November, Bush
humiliated himself at the Hemispheric, Mar del Plata, Argentina,
meeting by insisting on the failed free trade formula that destroyed
the Argentine economy. Instead of analyzing its failure, the White
House pointed accusatory fingers at Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who
denounced free trade and called for a cooperative development plan.

Stuck with its own free election language (Chavez has won three free
and fair elections since 1998), State Department officials leaked to
the crony press rumors that Chavez would fix Venezuela's December
congressional elections, that Chavez had censored the local press and
refused to respect human rights. After The Miami Herald, New York Times
and other major media published these accusations as news stories -
relying heavily on anti-Chavez "independent analysts" as their sources -
official Washington confirmed them, in a louder voice. (Justin Delacour,
Counterpunch, June 1, 2005)

In fact, Chavez's opponents own much of Venezuela's mass media.
Because the United States screamed about Chavez' unfairness, OAS and
Carter Center monitors inspected the December elections and declared
them free and fair.

On human rights, Chavez has expanded education and medical care for
Venezuela's poor, reforms that have won near universal praise. To
label Chavez as a dictator both defies facts and flies in the face of his
popular appeal.

Yet, Thomas A. Shannon, Assistant Secretary of State for Western
Hemisphere Affairs, still defines Chavez as "a threat to regional
stability," because he makes coherent anti-free trade arguments,
offers a socialist vision and his close association with Fidel Castro.
They see Chavez as one more disobedient figure, even daring to buy weapons
from Spain - defying the Monroe Doctrine? - and encouraging socialist
movements, like the one headed by Bolivia's Evo Morales.

In the old days, gunboats and marines, or the CIA, would intervene.
The rest of the puppet presidents would say nothing. Today, however,
Chavez enjoys support, not only from Venezuela's majority, but from
the presidents of Argentina and Brazil.

Washington backs Chavez's rich and unruly opponents, using the
National Endowment for Democracy (NED) to finance anti-Chavez NGOs
like Sumate, whose leaders worked with Washington to back the futile
military coup in 2002 and to boycott the December elections, which
made them look like silly, sore losers. The OAS monitors called the
election clean. This further lowers Bush's already diving reputation.

Chavez makes fun of U.S. leaders, while delivering reduced cost
heating oil to the U.S. poor, which Bush has not done. As Bush rewinds his
own tape on Iraq, and repeats tired free trade phrases to Latin Americans,
Chavez gains ground. Pro-U.S. Presidents, like Peru's Alejandro Toledo,
show declining poll numbers.

The former U.S. backed president of Bolivia, Gonzalo Sanchez de
Losada, had to flee from office because of his disastrous free-trade
policies. Evo Morales, on the other hand, enjoys high popularity
ratings.

Morales called Bush's Free Trade Area of the Americas "an agreement to
legalize the colonization of the Americas." He also condemned Washington's
drug war as a pretext to grab Bolivia's vast gas reserves. A Morales
victory will fill the growing ranks of left-of-center Latin American
leaders who see their priorities as addressing social needs: education,
health care, and land reform.

In the face of dire Latin American poverty, worsened by U.S. policies,
Shapiro and Shannon simply repeat imperial banalities. It's as if history
grips their minds in an idiotic vise and condemns the United States to
continue playing an outworn imperial role on a new world stage.

[Landau is a fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies.]



-- 
You are currently on Mha Atma's Earth Action Network email list, 
option D (up to 3 emails/day).  To be removed, or to switch options 
(option A - 1x/week, option B - 3/wk, option C - up to 1x/day, option D - 
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"A war of aggression is the supreme international crime." -- Robert Jackson,
 former U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice and Nuremberg prosecutor

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From swiggard at comcast.net  Wed Dec 21 03:59:02 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Wed Dec 21 04:13:44 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Spy Court Judge Quits In Protest - Washington Post 
Message-ID: <43A94386.6040702@comcast.net>

Spy Court Judge Quits In Protest
Jurist Concerned Bush Order Tainted Work of Secret Panel

By Carol D. Leonnig and Dafna Linzer
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, December 21, 2005; A01

A federal judge has resigned from the court that oversees government 
surveillance in intelligence cases in protest of President Bush's secret 
authorization of a domestic spying program, according to two sources.

U.S. District Judge James Robertson, one of 11 members of the secret 
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, sent a letter to Chief Justice 
John G. Roberts Jr. late Monday notifying him of his resignation without 
providing an explanation.

Two associates familiar with his decision said yesterday that Robertson 
privately expressed deep concern that the warrantless surveillance 
program authorized by the president in 2001 was legally questionable and 
may have tainted the FISA court's work.

Robertson, who was appointed to the federal bench in Washington by 
President Bill Clinton in 1994 and was later selected by then-Chief 
Justice William H. Rehnquist to serve on the FISA court, declined to 
comment when reached at his office late yesterday.

Word of Robertson's resignation came as two Senate Republicans joined 
the call for congressional investigations into the National Security 
Agency's warrantless interception of telephone calls and e-mails to 
overseas locations by U.S. citizens suspected of links to terrorist 
groups. They questioned the legality of the operation and the extent to 
which the White House kept Congress informed.

Sens. Chuck Hagel (Neb.) and Olympia J. Snowe (Maine) echoed concerns 
raised by Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), chairman of the Senate Judiciary 
Committee, who has promised hearings in the new year.

Hagel and Snowe joined Democrats Dianne Feinstein (Calif.), Carl M. 
Levin (Mich.) and Ron Wyden (Ore.) in calling for a joint investigation 
by the Senate judiciary and intelligence panels into the classified program.

The hearings would occur at the start of a midterm election year during 
which the prosecution of the Iraq war could figure prominently in House 
and Senate races.

Not all Republicans agreed with the need for hearings and backed White 
House assertions that the program is a vital tool in the war against al 
Qaeda.

"I am personally comfortable with everything I know about it," Acting 
House Majority Leader Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) said in a phone interview.

At the White House, spokesman Scott McClellan was asked to explain why 
Bush last year said, "Any time you hear the United States government 
talking about wiretap, it requires -- a wiretap requires a court order. 
Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down 
terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so." 
McClellan said the quote referred only to the USA Patriot Act.

Revelation of the program last week by the New York Times also spurred 
considerable debate among federal judges, including some who serve on 
the secret FISA court. For more than a quarter-century, that court had 
been seen as the only body that could legally authorize secret 
surveillance of espionage and terrorism suspects, and only when the 
Justice Department could show probable cause that its targets were 
foreign governments or their agents.

Robertson indicated privately to colleagues in recent conversations that 
he was concerned that information gained from warrantless NSA 
surveillance could have then been used to obtain FISA warrants. FISA 
court Presiding Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, who had been briefed on 
the spying program by the administration, raised the same concern in 
2004 and insisted that the Justice Department certify in writing that it 
was not occurring.

"They just don't know if the product of wiretaps were used for FISA 
warrants -- to kind of cleanse the information," said one source, who 
spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the classified nature of 
the FISA warrants. "What I've heard some of the judges say is they feel 
they've participated in a Potemkin court."

Robertson is considered a liberal judge who has often ruled against the 
Bush administration's assertions of broad powers in the terrorism fight, 
most notably in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld . Robertson held in that case that 
the Pentagon's military commissions for prosecuting terrorism suspects 
at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, were illegal and stacked against the detainees.

Some FISA judges said they were saddened by the news of Robertson's 
resignation and want to hear more about the president's program.

"I guess that's a decision he's made and I respect him," said Judge 
George P. Kazen, another FISA judge. "But it's just too quick for me to 
say I've got it all figured out."

Bush said Monday that the White House briefed Congress more than a dozen 
times. But those briefings were conducted with only a handful of 
lawmakers who were sworn to secrecy and prevented from discussing the 
matter with anyone or from seeking outside legal opinions.

Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.) revealed Monday that he had 
written to Vice President Cheney the day he was first briefed on the 
program in July 2003, raising serious concerns about the surveillance 
effort. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said she also 
expressed concerns in a letter to Cheney, which she did not make public.

The chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Pat Roberts 
(R-Kan.), issued a public rebuke of Rockefeller for making his letter 
public.

In response to a question about the letter, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) 
suggested that Rockefeller should have done more if he was seriously 
concerned. "If I thought someone was breaking the law, I don't care if 
it was classified or unclassified, I would stand up and say 'the law's 
being broken here.' "

But Rockefeller said the secrecy surrounding the briefings left him with 
no other choice. "I made my concerns known to the vice president and to 
others who were briefed," Rockefeller said. "The White House never 
addressed my concerns."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/20/AR2005122000685.html?referrer=email
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Wed Dec 21 04:00:52 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Wed Dec 21 04:15:21 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Clash Is Latest Chapter in Bush Effort to Widen
 Executive Power - Washington Post 
Message-ID: <43A943F4.5050201@comcast.net>

Clash Is Latest Chapter in Bush Effort to Widen Executive Power

By Peter Baker and Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, December 21, 2005; A01

The clash over the secret domestic spying program is one slice of a 
broader struggle over the power of the presidency that has animated the 
Bush administration. George W. Bush and Dick Cheney came to office 
convinced that the authority of the presidency had eroded and have spent 
the past five years trying to reclaim it.

 From shielding energy policy deliberations to setting up military 
tribunals without court involvement, Bush, with Cheney's encouragement, 
has taken what scholars call a more expansive view of his role than any 
commander in chief in decades. With few exceptions, Congress and the 
courts have largely stayed out of the way, deferential to the argument 
that a president needs free rein, especially in wartime.

But the disclosure of Bush's eavesdropping program has revived the 
issue, and Congress appears to be growing restive about surrendering so 
much of its authority. Democrats and even key Republicans maintain Bush 
went too far -- and may have even violated the law -- by authorizing the 
National Security Agency to eavesdrop on U.S. citizens' overseas 
telephone calls in search of terrorist plots without obtaining warrants 
from a secret intelligence court.

The vice president entered the fray yesterday, rejecting the criticism 
and expounding on the philosophy that has driven so many of the 
administration's actions. "I believe in a strong, robust executive 
authority, and I think that the world we live in demands it -- and to 
some extent that we have an obligation as the administration to pass on 
the offices we hold to our successors in as good of shape as we found 
them," Cheney said. In wartime, he said, the president "needs to have 
his constitutional powers unimpaired."

Speaking with reporters traveling with him aboard Air Force Two to Oman, 
Cheney said the period after the Watergate scandal and Vietnam War 
proved to be "the nadir of the modern presidency in terms of authority 
and legitimacy" and harmed the chief executive's ability to lead in a 
complicated, dangerous era. "But I do think that to some extent now 
we've been able to restore the legitimate authority of the presidency."

For Cheney, the post-Watergate era was the formative experience shaping 
his understanding of executive power. As a young White House chief of 
staff for President Gerald R. Ford, he saw the Oval Office at its 
weakest point as Congress and the courts asserted themselves. But 
scholars such as Andrew Rudalevige, author of "The New Imperial 
Presidency," say the presidency had recovered long before Cheney 
returned to the White House in 2001. The War Powers Act, the legislative 
veto, the independent counsel statute and other legacies of the 1970s 
had all been discarded in one form or another.

"He's living in a time warp," said Bruce Fein, a constitutional lawyer 
and Reagan administration official. "The great irony is Bush inherited 
the strongest presidency of anyone since Franklin Roosevelt, and Cheney 
acts as if he's still under the constraints of 1973 or 1974."

Sen. John E. Sununu (R-N.H.) said: "The vice president may be the only 
person I know of that believes the executive has somehow lost power over 
the last 30 years."

The tug over executive power traces back to the early years of the 
republic, and presidents have traditionally moved to expand their reach 
during times of war. John Adams, fearing a hostile France, presided over 
the imprisonment of Republican critics under the Alien and Sedition 
Acts. Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus during the Civil War. 
Woodrow Wilson jailed Socialist Eugene V. Debs, who had run against him 
for president, for protesting the entry into World War I. Franklin D. 
Roosevelt sent Japanese Americans to internment camps during World War 
II. And Ronald Reagan circumvented a Cold War congressional ban on 
providing aid to contra rebels in Nicaragua.

The Bush administration rejects comparisons to such events and says its 
assertions of authority in response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist 
attacks have been carefully tailored to meet the needs of a 21st-century 
war against a nebulous foe. At his news conference Monday, Bush bristled 
at the notion that he sought "unchecked power" and said he had consulted 
with Congress extensively.

Yet Bush supporters believe that other branches should take a subsidiary 
role to the president in safeguarding national security. "The 
Constitution's intent when we're under attack from outside is to place 
maximum power in the president," said William P. Barr, who was attorney 
general under President George H.W. Bush, "and the other branches, and 
especially the courts, don't act as a check on the president's authority 
against the enemy."

Even before the NSA surveillance program, the Bush administration has 
asserted its war-making authority in detaining indefinitely U.S. 
citizens as enemy combatants, denying prisoners access to lawyers or 
courts, rejecting in some cases the applicability of the Geneva 
Conventions, expanding its interrogation techniques to include harsher 
treatment and establishing secret terrorist prisons in foreign countries.

"The problem is, where do you stop rebalancing the power and go too far 
in the other direction?" asked David A. Keene, chairman of the American 
Conservative Union. "I think in some instances [Bush] has gone too far."

Taken alone, the expansion of executive wartime power may seem an 
obvious outflow of confronting the new threat of global terrorism. But 
when coupled with the huge expansion of the federal government in 
general under Bush -- the budget has grown by 33 percent and his 
administration has broadened the federal role in education and the scope 
of Medicare -- a growing number of conservatives are expressing concern 
about the size and reach of government on his watch.

Many conservatives in Congress came to office in the 1980s and 1990s 
with visions of shrinking government and protecting individual freedoms. 
The Sept. 11 attacks, however, prompted Republicans to shift their 
priorities and emphasize fighting terrorism. With both houses of 
Congress in Republican hands, lawmakers generally have been willing to 
yield to Bush's views on the balance of power.

"Defending the country is preeminently an executive function," said Rep. 
Tom Cole (R-Okla.). "He is the commander in chief, and you have to move 
with speed and dispatch."

At the same time, some believe, Congress has abrogated its duty to 
provide a check on the White House. Rarely has the Republican Congress 
used its subpoena power to investigate Bush policies or programs or to 
force administration officials to explain them. Even when lawmakers are 
inclined to challenge the White House, they are restricted by secrecy 
rules in cases such as the NSA program, which was known to only a 
handful of key members briefed by the administration.

"When you have unified party government, the oversight tends to be very 
timid," said James A. Thurber, director of the Center for Congressional 
and Presidential Studies at American University. "It's not just the 
president pushing for more power. . . . The Congress has not done its 
job of careful evaluation of giving the president more power post-9/11."

Thurber and others think that may be changing. Led by Sen. John McCain 
(R-Ariz.), Congress just forced Bush to accept a ban on cruel, inhuman 
and degrading treatment of prisoners, and a handful of Republican 
senators have joined Democrats to block the renewal of the USA Patriot 
Act until more civil liberties protections are built into the law. 
"Congress needs to do some introspection about whether oversight is 
serious or basically political," Cole said

Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.) is one of several Republicans lobbying 
Bush to use the debate over NSA to work with Congress on striking the 
right balance of power on security issues. "The question is: Should the 
administration and Congress sit down and talk about where presidential 
authority begins and ends and congressional blessing begins and ends?" 
he said. "I think yes."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/20/AR2005122001858.html?nav=hcmodule
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Wed Dec 21 04:02:23 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Wed Dec 21 04:16:53 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Hollow Rhetoric on 'Rule of Law' - Anne Applebaum -
 Washington Post Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43A9444F.9080401@comcast.net>

Hollow Rhetoric on 'Rule of Law'

By Anne Applebaum
Wednesday, December 21, 2005; A31

Like democracy or freedom, "the rule of law" has become one of those 
things U.S. diplomats advocate so repetitively you'd think they could do 
it in their sleep. When the secretary of state speaks to the American 
Bar Association, she explicitly links "the advance of freedom and the 
success of democracy" to the rule of law. When a bad legal decision is 
made in a place such as Kuwait or Kyrgyzstan, the State Department 
issues a statement that starts: "U.S. Deeply Concerned About Rule of Law 
in . . ." Indeed, President Bush himself has spoken about how 
"successful societies protect freedom with the consistent and impartial 
rule of law."

Yet unlike democracy, which can be parliamentary or presidential or even 
constitutionally monarchical, the rule of law is not an ideal that is 
open to various interpretations. The rule of law pretty much means the 
same, rather prosaic thing in any context. It means that once 
legislation has been passed by legitimate, democratic institutions, 
everyone has to obey it, regardless of political party, ethnic group or 
ability to pay bribes. The rule of law is an ongoing process, not a goal.

But in its way, the rule of law is more fundamental to our national 
success than democracy or freedom, since without it, neither could 
exist. You can't have democracy if the president, once elected, can 
change the rules. You can't have freedom if some people are allowed to 
break the law while others are not. Nevertheless, the idea that everyone 
has to follow the same rules isn't especially awe-inspiring or 
transcendent: We sing about the land of the free and the home of the 
brave, after all, not the land of the politically impartial judiciary.

In times of perceived emergency, the rule of law's failure to inspire 
higher feelings becomes a problem. If you are fighting a life-or-death 
war on terrorism, it no doubt seems redundant to get a court order 
before tapping a potential hijacker's telephone. If you believe you are 
about to uncover a ticking bomb, it probably feels inconvenient to ask 
for a warrant to bug the potential bomber's house, just as it surely 
feels ridiculous to stop and ask yourself whether you have the legal 
right to torture the person who might know where the bomb is. But if you 
don't ask, and you don't stop, and you don't do the petty things the law 
requires, then over time -- as the war on terrorism grinds on, as the 
trail goes cold, as mistakes are made, as the wrong house is put under 
surveillance and the wrong person arrested -- well, I'm not going to 
repeat what everyone else has said already.

What also worries me now is that the rule-of-law bores, the people who 
keep banging on about how all these rules and regulations about torture 
or tapping matter, may soon come to be seen as the enemies of national 
security. Let me be absolutely clear: I am delighted to hear that 
someone has managed to identify so many potential terrorists and 
extremely pleased that someone thinks something could be learned from 
tapping their telephones. But we do in fact have a special foreign 
intelligence court, set up under a special law, that has secret, 
expedited procedures, carefully designed to allow the FBI to do that 
tapping legally. What's so bad about using it? Instead of holding 
informal discussions with a few members of Congress, the president could 
have asked Congress to create more streamlined procedures if he needed 
them. Why didn't he?

More to the point, I'd argue that the rule-of-law bores, be they 
Republican libertarians or liberal progressives, actually have a better 
understanding of what it's going to take to win the war on terrorism in 
the long run than do those who think tapping and torture without court 
permission are warranted by extreme circumstances. Like the Cold War, 
the war on terrorism is not merely a military conflict but a battle of 
ideas. And just as the Cold War was won when Eastern Europeans abandoned 
communism and joined the West, the war on terrorism will be over when 
moderate Muslims have transformed the Arab world -- abandoning the 
radicals to their tents and their caves -- and joined the global mainstream.

Before they get there, they'll probably be subjected to a lot of State 
Department speeches about why it's important to abandon such practices 
as arbitrary arrest, torture and secret electronic surveillance. They'll 
probably be told over and over again why it's important for political 
leaders to subject themselves to the same laws as their citizens. 
They'll probably hear lectures about due process, and other rights 
available to people in civilized societies. But as things are going now 
-- why on earth should they listen?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/20/AR2005122001373.html
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Wed Dec 21 04:07:22 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Wed Dec 21 04:21:56 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Our Domestic Intelligence Crisis - Richard A. Posner -
 Washington Post Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43A9457A.7050308@comcast.net>

Our Domestic Intelligence Crisis

By Richard A. Posner
Wednesday, December 21, 2005; A31

We've learned that the Defense Department is deeply involved in domestic 
intelligence (intelligence concerning threats to national security that 
unfold on U.S. soil). The department's National Security Agency has been 
conducting, outside the framework of the Foreign Intelligence 
Surveillance Act, electronic surveillance of U.S. citizens within the 
United States. Other Pentagon agencies, notably the one known as 
Counterintelligence Field Activity (CIFA), have, as described in Walter 
Pincus's recent articles in The Post, been conducting domestic 
intelligence on a large scale. Although the CIFA's formal mission is to 
prevent attacks on military installations in the United States, the 
scale of its activities suggests a broader concern with domestic 
security. Other Pentagon agencies have gotten into the domestic 
intelligence act, such as the Information Dominance Center, which 
developed the Able Danger data-mining program.

These programs are criticized as grave threats to civil liberties. They 
are not. Their significance is in flagging the existence of gaps in our 
defenses against terrorism. The Defense Department is rushing to fill 
those gaps, though there may be better ways.

The collection, mainly through electronic means, of vast amounts of 
personal data is said to invade privacy. But machine collection and 
processing of data cannot, as such, invade privacy. Because of their 
volume, the data are first sifted by computers, which search for names, 
addresses, phone numbers, etc., that may have intelligence value. This 
initial sifting, far from invading privacy (a computer is not a sentient 
being), keeps most private data from being read by any intelligence officer.

The data that make the cut are those that contain clues to possible 
threats to national security. The only valid ground for forbidding human 
inspection of such data is fear that they might be used to blackmail or 
otherwise intimidate the administration's political enemies. That danger 
is more remote than at any previous period of U.S. history. Because of 
increased political partisanship, advances in communications technology 
and more numerous and competitive media, American government has become 
a sieve. No secrets concerning matters that would interest the public 
can be kept for long. And the public would be far more interested to 
learn that public officials were using private information about 
American citizens for base political ends than to learn that we have 
been rough with terrorist suspects -- a matter that was quickly exposed 
despite efforts at concealment.

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act makes it difficult to conduct 
surveillance of U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents unless they 
are suspected of being involved in terrorist or other hostile 
activities. That is too restrictive. Innocent people, such as unwitting 
neighbors of terrorists, may, without knowing it, have valuable 
counterterrorist information. Collecting such information is of a piece 
with data-mining projects such as Able Danger.

The goal of national security intelligence is to prevent a terrorist 
attack, not just punish the attacker after it occurs, and the 
information that enables the detection of an impending attack may be 
scattered around the world in tiny bits. A much wider, finer-meshed net 
must be cast than when investigating a specific crime. Many of the 
relevant bits may be in the e-mails, phone conversations or banking 
records of U.S. citizens, some innocent, some not so innocent. The 
government is entitled to those data, but just for the limited purpose 
of protecting national security.

The Pentagon's rush to fill gaps in domestic intelligence reflects the 
disarray in this vital yet neglected area of national security. The 
principal domestic intelligence agency is the FBI, but it is primarily a 
criminal investigation agency that has been struggling, so far with 
limited success, to transform itself. It is having trouble keeping its 
eye on the ball; an FBI official is quoted as having told the Senate 
that environmental and animal rights militants pose the biggest 
terrorist threats in the United States. If only that were so.

Most other nations, such as Britain, Canada, France, Germany and Israel, 
many with longer histories of fighting terrorism than the United States, 
have a domestic intelligence agency that is separate from its national 
police force, its counterpart to the FBI. We do not. We also have no 
official with sole and comprehensive responsibility for domestic 
intelligence. It is no surprise that gaps in domestic intelligence are 
being filled by ad hoc initiatives.

We must do better. The terrorist menace, far from receding, grows every 
day. This is not only because al Qaeda likes to space its attacks, often 
by many years, but also because weapons of mass destruction are becoming 
ever more accessible to terrorist groups and individuals.

The writer is a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit 
and a senior lecturer in law at the University of Chicago. He will take 
questions at 2 p.m. today athttp://www.washingtonpost.com.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/20/AR2005122001053.html
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Wed Dec 21 04:10:20 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Wed Dec 21 04:24:52 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] The cure for what ails healthcare - Alan M. Harvey -
 Boston Globe Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43A9462C.60201@comcast.net>


  The cure for what ails healthcare

By Alan M. Harvey  |  December 21, 2005  |  The Boston Globe

CONSUMERS AND business owners will tell you that the biggest problem in 
healthcare today is rising costs. More than a decade of efforts to cut 
costs hasn't helped, spawning frustration for public and private policy 
makers alike.

Today, health insurers and the business community are embarking on 
several new experiments to ease the burden of rising costs. The 
fundamental thread in this movement is the concept of quality 
measurement and transparency.

There are several quality measurement and transparency projects 
underway, in both the public and private sectors. They use available 
data to compare physicians and hospitals against their peers on various 
aspects of care, in terms of quality and cost. An early effort in this 
experiment is the state Group Insurance Commission, which buys health 
insurance for the state's employees. Soon it will publish information 
about each provider's cost ''efficiency," and state employees will pay 
lower copayments to providers who score better on this scale. Other 
projects are proposed from the federal and state governments, and from 
local health plans.

Physicians support quality measurement and transparency. We want 
accurate and meaningful information provided publicly for our patients. 
We want this information for our own use, as well, to continue to 
improve our performance and provide higher-quality care based on this 
feedback.

But much of the data being reported is often outdated or wrong. 
Physicians need the opportunity to correct their data when that happens, 
and they must be able to see it and correct it in a timely way before 
public release. The fundamental prerequisite must be accuracy, and 
physicians have doubts that insurers are ready to meet that condition 
reliably. Is it really a good idea to have people make important 
healthcare decisions based on unreliable data?

Current measurement programs are primarily process-related. But not 
every process has a direct bearing on outcome. More often, process 
measures suggest quality, but don't confirm it. The ideal would be to 
measure outcomes -- whether someone's health actually improves after 
their interactions with the healthcare system.

But healthcare record keeping today is decentralized and inconsistent. 
We can't currently measure outcomes throughout the state reliably enough 
to educate patients and fairly reward providers. So health insurers 
resort to proxies for quality, which in most cases is a list of actions 
that they would like a hospital or a physician to take.

Physicians have always embraced new techniques that are evidenced based, 
published in the peer-reviewed medical literature, safe, improve care, 
and save time and money. That is how medicine has continuously improved.

We've seen some quality measurement programs that are helpful, mostly by 
feeding back to physicians how their process-based measures compare to 
national and local bench marks. This encourages continuous quality 
improvement.

However, last month, when we surveyed 400 physicians statewide about pay 
for performance, physicians responded with great skepticism and 
uncertainty about accuracy and utility of current measurement programs, 
for the reasons I've noted.

One could assert that we have to start the movement to quality 
measurement somewhere, and that now is as good a time as any. Perhaps, 
but that doesn't mean you should start anywhere. We have to walk before 
we can run. The current state of the art doesn't allow us to make 
sweeping judgments about the quality of a physician's care.

Perfection is not a prerequisite to implementation. If it were, nothing 
in life would ever be launched. We want quality measurement and feedback 
to physicians. We think they can improve healthcare. But they have to be 
done right. The crush of rising healthcare costs requires decisive 
action, but we -- all of us, physicians, providers, insurers, employers, 
policy makers -- must be careful that the cure isn't worse than the disease.

Dr. Alan M. Harvey is president of the Massachusetts Medical Society.  

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/12/21/the_cure_for_what_ails_healthcare/
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Wed Dec 21 04:13:45 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Wed Dec 21 04:28:24 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] 
 Selling an ideal of lipstick and lace - Lyn Mikel Brown, Sharon
 Lamb - Boston Globe Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43A946F9.3050204@comcast.net>


  Selling an ideal of lipstick and lace

By Lyn Mikel Brown and Sharon Lamb  |  December 21, 2005  |   The Boston 
Globe

DOLLS RARELY make it onto dangerous toy lists for the holiday season, 
unless a 3-year-old bites a head off one and swallows it. But don't be 
deceived by a pretty face. If massive toy stores are the front lines in 
America's gender wars, dolls should be on the list of land mines. Go to 
the war front, and staunchly march down aisles of pink and glitter. It 
ain't pretty. Well, actually, it is pretty, very very pretty. And, 
increasingly, sexy.

When did pretty and sexy get so confused? Take the Bratz dolls in their 
new dominatrix leather outfits. Those ''stylin' " ''kickin' " girlz gave 
Barbie a run for her money. With a whole lot of ''attitude" (but not 
about anything important, like the war or the erosion of Title IX), 
these dolls are all about ''a passion for fashion." Find them poised in 
bikinis around a hot tub with the Bratz Boyz and fancy drinks, teaching 
6-year-olds how to party hardy! Barbie, once a leader in the sexy pretty 
doll scene, had to play catch up. All those old-school professional and 
multicultural Barbies must be away at some women's conference for human 
rights.

So, boys get robotic, transformable, rule-the-world, awesome action 
figures. Dolls for girls suggest the kind of action they can look 
forward to as teenagers: hot-tubbing, clubbing, modeling. We await 
pole-dance Barbie and the revival of her old friend Margarita Midge.

With the recent outcry against the sexualization of girls and the 
pornification of just about everything, there's a growing call to let 
children be children. Too often, though, that means let little girls be 
stereotypical little girls, involved with baby dolls, princess Barbies, 
or ''Baby Bratz." This can't be the only alternative to sexy pretty 
because once we're selling stereotypes, it's a short leap from pastel 
pink to hot pink, innocence to sexy ing?nue, princess to diva queen. If 
the choices are ''hot cute shopping teen" dolls or pink, sweet, 
innocent, baby dolls, it's the age-old problem: good girl or bad; 
madonna or whore.

One icon in the doll world shows promise: Dora the Explorer. Little 
girls love this Latina cartoon character, with a real girl's body, her 
own compass and backpack. She seems to give the right message to that 
5-year-old looking for a little action. The world is your oyster, you go 
girl, explore, use cool equipment, understand that accessorizing means 
filling your backpack, not your hair, with stuff.

But Dora at the super toy store isn't the girl on television. In a 
classic bait-and-switch, gone is the map, the no-nonsense bob, the 
primary colors, the sensible shoes. Instead Dora's in a bathing suit, 
Dora's selling kitchen sets, and Princess Dora has long flowing hair and 
a pink castle. Dora's gone the way of Shrek's Fiona the ogre, replaced 
in licensed fast-food toys and products by Fiona the princess, the whole 
remarkable message about true beauty dismissed with a wave of a lacy 
handkerchief.

Dolls teach girls skills, but all too often they're the skills that 
build two stereotypes: innocent little girls or cute, hot, shopping 
teens. These are narrow choices that prettify and pacify girlhood, then 
sexualize and glamorize teen life. And, in case we don't get the 
connection, it's all called girly.

Of course the whole pretty-to-sexy package teaches little girls how big 
girls spend money -- on fashion, drinking, and creating their ''own 
style." Doll marketers give girls variations on a familiar theme to 
create the illusion of choices. ''Which girl are you?" They package the 
feeling of individuality and personal choice to sell what every other 
girl buys. It's a brilliant way to satisfy girls' conflicting desires to 
be special and to fit in. Bratz, Barbie, and, yes, even the wholesome 
but pricey American Girls tell them how to create their style and rule 
their world with the right accessories. Bought up by Mattell, American 
Girl has started promoting Bed and Bath Works lotions and soaps to 
little girls, selling them a body self-consciousness that goes beyond 
fashion. Will the Bratz girls start wearing Victoria's Secret lacy 
undies? Big money has been spent capturing the ''tween" market. Are 
little girls next?

''But that's what little girls want!" we hear the marketers cry. 
''Didn't girls prefer Mulan Geisha to her soldier's uniform? Don't they 
like Princess Fiona more than Ogre Fiona?" Don't pre-teens want to look 
like their teenage big sisters?

Right. Create multimillion-dollar ad campaigns to sell people things 
they already want? Doesn't work that way, marketers. If you want our 
confidence, first show some in our little girls. Perhaps you can think 
up a campaign that creates excitement in exploring the Amazon rather 
than dressing up in its exotic animal prints.

Lyn Mikel Brown, a professor at Colby College in Maine, and Sharon Lamb, 
a professor at Saint Michael's College in Vermont, are the authors of 
''Packaging Girlhood: Rescuing our Daughters from Marketers' Schemes."  

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/12/21/selling_an_ideal_of_lipstick_and_lace/
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Wed Dec 21 04:15:50 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Wed Dec 21 04:30:10 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] The Christmas He Dreamed for All of Us - Harold Meyerson
 - Washington Post Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43A94776.8090500@comcast.net>

The Christmas He Dreamed for All of Us

By Harold Meyerson
Wednesday, December 21, 2005; A31

The white Christmases that Irving Berlin dreamed of weren't the earliest 
ones he used to know. He spent his first five Christmases in czarist 
Russia, and his only recollection of that time, at least the only one 
he'd acknowledge as an adult, was that of watching his neighbors burn 
his family's house to the ground in a good old-fashioned, Jew-hating pogrom.

So it's no surprise that when Berlin got around to writing his great 
Christmas song in 1941, nearly half a century after his family had fled 
the shtetl of Mohilev for New York's Lower East Side, it was flatly 
devoid of Christian imagery. It is, for all that, a religious song. It's 
just that Berlin's religion was America.

"White Christmas" is an achingly nostalgic ballad, evoking a rural 
America where treetops glisten and sleigh bells ring. This was Currier 
and Ives country, an idealized winter landscape created for an urban 
nation that was busily shipping its young men overseas to fight Hitler 
and Japan. Amid the unprecedented disruptions of the war, "White 
Christmas," with its implicit assertion that we can somehow get back to 
this innocent Eden, found a ready audience. Over the subsequent six 
decades, in a world that's only grown more unstable, Berlin's ode has 
never lost its power: Roughly 2,000 versions have been recorded since 
Bing Crosby's initial take.

The success of "White Christmas" paved the way for a whole new genre of 
Christmas songs. Two years after Berlin's ballad first appeared in 
Paramount's "Holiday Inn," MGM filmed "Meet Me in St. Louis," which had 
as its musical centerpiece the bittersweet "Have Yourself a Merry Little 
Christmas" -- a song about loved ones trying to stay together "if the 
fates allow." (A film ahead of its time, "Meet Me in St. Louis" is about 
a family resisting corporate relocation.) Two years later came "The 
Christmas Song" ("Chestnuts roasting on an open fire"), and a year after 
that, "Let It Snow." By then the American Christmas song was about 
staying warm in winter, about staying connected to loved ones and 
traditions. It also practiced separation of church and song.

This was all rather new. Tin Pan Alley hadn't turned out many notable 
Christmas songs before "White Christmas." It hasn't turned out many 
since. But for a few years in the middle of the 20th century, it 
produced a series of songs that remain Christmas standards today.

Many of those Christmas songwriters, of course, were Jewish and the 
children of immigrants; their deepest drive was to demonstrate beyond 
all doubt that they were assimilated, cosmopolitan, American. Berlin's 
father had been a cantor, but Berlin himself, unlike the hero of "The 
Jazz Singer," wasn't torn between the Jewish piety of liturgical music 
and the American secularism of ragtime. When he left home at 14 to sing 
in the saloons of the Bowery, he never looked back. And the religious 
identity of the composer-lyricist of "White Christmas" and "Easter 
Parade" was as fuzzy as it was perfunctory. A Jew married to an Irish 
Catholic, Berlin raised his three daughters as nominal Protestants. Who 
better to write a non-Christian Christmas song? (Berlin's may have been 
an extreme case, but in the middle of the 20th century, Jewish 
assimilationism was so pervasive that it gave rise to the following 
crack: What's the difference between Reform Jews and Unitarians? 
Unitarians don't have Christmas trees.)

"White Christmas" was one of a dozen numbers that Berlin wrote for 
"Holiday Inn," each song commemorating a specific holiday. One hesitates 
to impute anything so vulgar as a message to a Crosby-Fred Astaire 
musical, but the message of this musical is that we are all Americans 
and these are our holidays. Easter belongs to all of us, even if it is 
about little more than strolling down Fifth Avenue. Christmas belongs to 
all of us. The religious content of those holidays was fine for 
Christian believers, but the composer of "God Bless America" preferred 
to celebrate a common national identity, complete with common holidays 
that had nonsectarian meanings.

Berlin kept Christmas in the public square and, more than anyone before 
or since, sent it out over the public airwaves. But it was an American, 
not a Christian, Christmas. And by the crass index of number of 
recordings sold, and the not-so-crass index of number of spirits 
touched, Berlin's nonsectarian holiday has been the predominant version 
of Christmas in this country for the past 60 years.

Now the Fox News demagogues want to impose a more sectarian Christmas on 
us, supplanting the distinctly American holiday we have celebrated lo 
these threescore years with a holiday that divides us along religious 
lines. Bill O'Reilly can blaspheme all he wants, but like millions of my 
countrymen, I take attacks on Irving Berlin's America personally. If 
O'Reilly doesn't like it here, why doesn't he go back to where he came from?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/20/AR2005122001011.html?nav=hcmodule
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From nwonline at toronto.cbc.ca  Wed Dec 21 05:42:22 2005
From: nwonline at toronto.cbc.ca (CBC News Online)
Date: Wed Dec 21 05:54:07 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] CBC News - U.S. SOFTWOOD PRODUCERS TO APPEAL LATEST
	RULING
Message-ID: <20051221134222.757A869AFD@nmweb08.nm.cbc.ca>

This email has been sent to you by harry.sifton@sympatico.ca
The following is a news item posted on CBC NEWS ONLINE
at http://www.cbc.ca/news
____________________________________________________
U.S. SOFTWOOD PRODUCERS TO APPEAL LATEST RULING
WebPosted Tue Dec 20 14:13:00 2005

---The long-running dispute between Canadian and American softwood lumber
producers took another twist Tuesday morning when U.S. producers said
they were heading back to court to appeal Canada's latest trade victory.

The decision by the U.S. Lumber Coalition dashed Canada's hopes for an
early settlement of a fight that has gone on for years, costing Canada
thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in economic damage.

But the appeal is not a sure thing. A panel under the North American Free
Trade Agreement has until Feb. 20 to decide whether to hear it.

U.S. lumber producers are objecting to a decision by the U.S. Commerce
Department earlier this month to drop penalties on Canadian softwood
lumber. At the time, the department said it would cut countervailing
duties in half to comply with a ruling by the World Trade Organization
the day before.

The WTO said U.S. was not following international rules when it
calculated whether Canadian lumber products are being unfairly subsidized
and dumped into the American market.

That ruling opened the door for Canada to retaliate against
American goods.

Given the WTO's decision, the U.S. Commerce Department decided to cut its
countervailing duties to 10.81 per cent, about half the 20 per cent that
is currently being charged.

The current duties amount to about $100 million Cdn a month, a sum that
goes directly to U.S. industry. The United States has collected some $5
billion Cdn in penalties from Canadian companies since 2002.

FROM DEC. 6, 2005: U.S. Commerce Department sets final rates on softwood
lumber penalties

Meanwhile, Congress was close to dumping the so-called Byrd amendment, a
controversial law that allows American companies to profit from duties on
softwood lumber.

The U.S. House of Representatives, with strong backing from the White
House, voted 212-206 Monday to repeal the amendment as part of a sweeping
budget-cutting bill.

FROM DEC. 19, 2005: Congress close to killing controversial Byrd
amendment on softwood lumber

The Senate must still agree to drop the law, named for Senator Robert
Byrd of West Virginia, with a vote expected Tuesday.

Copyright (C) 2005 CBC. All rights reserved.
From nemo1043 at yahoo.com  Wed Dec 21 07:58:21 2005
From: nemo1043 at yahoo.com (Allison Burnett)
Date: Wed Dec 21 08:11:50 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] <no subject>
Message-ID: <E1Ep6OI-00074O-Kt@smtpauth08.mail.atl.earthlink.net>

The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral
philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for
selfishness.
--John Kenneth Galbraith

Case in point:

Senate passes spending cuts after Cheney breaks tie

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate on Wednesday narrowly passed a bill
to trim nearly $40 billion from federal spending over five years, including
cuts to social welfare programs such as health care for the elderly and poor.
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From michael at intrafi.com  Wed Dec 21 08:13:35 2005
From: michael at intrafi.com (michael@intrafi.com)
Date: Wed Dec 21 08:24:46 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] FT.com / Comment & analysis / Comment - Diplomacy will
 not end Iran019s nuclear programme
Message-ID: <13839933.1135181615023.JavaMail.tomcat@localhost>



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From Robert_Scheer at lb.bcentral.com  Wed Dec 21 09:05:51 2005
From: Robert_Scheer at lb.bcentral.com (RobertScheer.com)
Date: Wed Dec 21 10:09:45 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Today's Robert Scheer column
Message-ID: <E1Ep8EN-0007PF-1U@smtpauth08.mail.atl.earthlink.net>

Sent at your request from www.robertscheer.com

* * *

New today on Robert Scheer's Truthdig: 

JESUS: THE MAN, THE MYTH
A Dig led by The Rev. Madison Shockley
http://www.truthdig.com/dig/item/200512_jesus/

* * *

Today's Robert Scheer column:

IRAN'S VICTORY REVEALED IN IRAQ ELECTION

December 21, 2005 -- For the Bush White House, the good news from Iraq just never stops. But the joy that President Bush has expressed over the country's latest election, though more restrained than his infamous "Mission Accomplished" speech, will similarly come back to haunt him. 

Soon after Bush spoke of the Iraqi election as "a landmark day in the history of liberty," early returns representing 90 percent of the ballots cast in the Iraq election established that the clear winners were Shiite and Sunni religious parties not the least bit interested in Western-style democracy or individual freedom -- including such extremists as Muqtada al-Sadr, whose fanatical followers have fought pitched battles with U.S. troops. 

The silver lining, of course, is that the election did see broad participation, if not particularly clean execution. And because all of the leading parties say they want the United States to leave on a clear and public time line, this should provide adequate cover for a staged but complete withdrawal from a sovereign country that we had no right to invade in the first place. 

What we will leave behind, after hundreds of billions of dollars and tens of thousands of lost lives, will be a long ways from the neoconservative fantasy of creating a compliant democracy in the heart of the Middle East. It is absurd for Bush to assert that the election "means that America has an ally of growing strength in the fight against terror," ignoring how he has "lost" Iraq to the influence and model of "Axis of Evil" Iran. 

Tehran's rogue regime, which has bedeviled every U.S. president since Jimmy Carter, now looms larger than ever over the region and most definitely over its oil. "Iran wins big in Iraq's election," reads an Asia Times headline, speaking a truth that American policy makers and much of the media is bent on ignoring: "The Shiite religious coalition, the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA), not only held together, but also can be expected to dominate the new 275-member National Assembly for the next four years," the paper predicts based on the returns to date. "Former premier Ayad Allawi's prospects of leading the new government seem virtually nil. And Ahmed Chalabi's Iraqi National Accord suffered a shattering defeat." 

Allawi and Chalabi are the Iraqi exiles and U.S. intelligence "assets" who played such a huge role in getting the United States into this war. Chalabi, in particular, will go down in history as one of the great con artists of all time, managing to feed phony intelligence to the White House, the New York Times and countless other power players who found his lies convenient for one reason or another. Now, despite -- or, more likely, because of -- their long stints on the U.S. payroll, both of these wannabe George Washingtons have been overwhelmingly rejected by their countrymen. 

Chalabi, long the darling of the Pentagon, seems headed to obtaining less than 1 percent of the vote nationwide and will fail to win his own seat. Allawi's slate, favored more by the CIA, will end up in the low teens. 

As much as one should despise the role played by those two men in getting us into this mess, their abject failure is not a good thing for they carried the banner of a more modern and secular Iraq, which is essential to peace and human rights progress. But the Iraqi people will have to come to that truth on their own and not as a result of foreign intervention that only fuels the most irrational political and religious forces. 

Unfortunately, it is hardly an advertisement for our democratic way of life that the American people were so easily deceived as to the reasons for this war. Or that our president resists the condemnation of torture, renders captured prisoners to be interrogated in the savage prisons of Uzbekistan and Syria, and claims an unrestrained right to spy on U.S. citizens. 

Nor does it help that this president is so publicly bent on intruding government-imposed religious values into American civil life, while urging secular tolerance upon the Islamic world. Or that he remains so blind to the reality of life in that world that he still does not grasp that Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden were on opposite sides of the enormous struggle over the primacy of religion in the Arab world. 

Iraq, for all of its massive deficiencies, was not a center of religious fanaticism before the U.S. invasion, and the Islamic fanatics that are the president's sworn enemy in the so-called "war on terror" did not have a foothold in the country. Now, primitive religious fundamentalism forms the dominant political culture in Iraq and the best outcome for U.S. policy is the hope that Shiite and Sunni fanatics can check each other long enough for the United States to beat a credible retreat and call it a victory, albeit a pyrrhic one. 


E-mail Robert Scheer at rscheer@truthdig.com 

Copyright 2005 Robert Scheer   
 





















  
 


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From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Wed Dec 21 11:31:46 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (mblaxill@yahoo.com)
Date: Wed Dec 21 11:43:28 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Headlines for December 21, 2005
Message-ID: <20051221193146.23098.qmail@trinity.democracynow.org>

Mike Blaxill  ( mblaxill@yahoo.com )
sent you this story from democracynow.org




+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
|  Headlines for December 21, 2005
|  http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/21/1447222
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+


- New York Transit Strike Enters Second Day 
- Report: Deal-Breaking MTA Demand Would Have Saved Only $20M 
- Surveillance Court Judge Resigns in Protest of Bush Spy Program 
- Bush in 2004: “Wiretap Requires A Court Order” 
- Report: Espionage Monitored Purely Domestic Communications  
- Cheney: Spy Program Enacted To Strength Presidential Authority 
- Indonesian Pilot Convicted of Killing Munir Thalib 
- Stanley Tookie Williams Laid To Rest in Los Angeles 
This story continues at: 
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/21/1447222

From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Wed Dec 21 11:34:08 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (mblaxill@yahoo.com)
Date: Wed Dec 21 11:45:26 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Judge Bars 'Intelligent Design' From Pa.
	Classes
Message-ID: <20051221193408.2844E11F8B1@lax-gw07.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: mblaxill@yahoo.com.

EDUCATION | December 20, 2005
Judge Bars 'Intelligent Design' From Pa. Classes
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN
A federal judge ruled that "intelligent design" cannot be mentioned in biology classes in a Pennsylvania public school district.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/20/education/20cnd-evolution.html?emc=eta1



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From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Wed Dec 21 11:33:49 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (mblaxill@yahoo.com)
Date: Wed Dec 21 11:46:02 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: U.S. Keeps a Wary Eye on the Next Bolivian
	President
Message-ID: <20051221193349.1244A83E47@lax-gw03.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: mblaxill@yahoo.com.

Greetings from the imperial homeland!


INTERNATIONAL / AMERICAS | December 21, 2005
U.S. Keeps a Wary Eye on the Next Bolivian President
By JOEL BRINKLEY
A State Department official called Evo Morales "potentially our worst nightmare."
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/21/international/americas/21latin.html?emc=eta1



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From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Wed Dec 21 11:37:11 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (mblaxill@yahoo.com)
Date: Wed Dec 21 11:48:27 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Lobbyist Is Said to Discuss Plea and
	Testimony
Message-ID: <20051221193711.D2E3E9FD1B@lax-gw05.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: mblaxill@yahoo.com.

WASHINGTON | December 21, 2005
Lobbyist Is Said to Discuss Plea and Testimony
By ANNE E. KORNBLUT
The deal would grant Jack Abramoff a shorter sentence in exchange for his testimony against former political associates.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/21/politics/21abramoff.html?emc=eta1



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Times movie reviews have to say about these Oscar
winning films?  
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From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Wed Dec 21 11:38:41 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (mblaxill@yahoo.com)
Date: Wed Dec 21 11:49:51 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Spying Program Snared U.S. Calls
Message-ID: <20051221193841.ED9B613B801@lax-gw04.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: mblaxill@yahoo.com.

WASHINGTON | December 21, 2005
Spying Program Snared U.S. Calls
By JAMES RISEN and ERIC LICHTBLAU
A program approved by President Bush to conduct eavesdropping has captured what are purely domestic communications.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/21/politics/21nsa.html?emc=eta1



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Times movie reviews have to say about these Oscar
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From harry.sifton at sympatico.ca  Wed Dec 21 12:48:22 2005
From: harry.sifton at sympatico.ca (Harold Sifton)
Date: Wed Dec 21 12:59:57 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Dick Cheney War Profiteer
Message-ID: <000801c6066f$e4cdd8f0$763fe440@Harold>

Investigative Article By Tom Turnipseed

Dick Cheney War Profiteer

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1117-22.htm

Later H
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From nwonline at toronto.cbc.ca  Wed Dec 21 13:08:13 2005
From: nwonline at toronto.cbc.ca (CBC News Online)
Date: Wed Dec 21 13:20:12 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] CBC News - U.S. SENATOR APOLOGIZES FOR CLAIMING 9/11
	ATTACKERS CAME FROM CANADA
Message-ID: <20051221210813.6BA461B695@nmweb07.nm.cbc.ca>

This email has been sent to you by harry.sifton@sympatico.ca
The following is a news item posted on CBC NEWS ONLINE
at http://www.cbc.ca/news
____________________________________________________
U.S. SENATOR APOLOGIZES FOR CLAIMING 9/11 ATTACKERS CAME FROM CANADA
WebPosted Wed Dec 21 13:22:06 2005

---A Montana senator says he "misspoke" when he erroneously claimed that
the people who carried out the Sept. 11 attacks entered the United States
from Canada.

Sen. Conrad Burns sent a letter on Tuesday to Canada's ambassador to
the United States, apologizing for his comments at a news conference a
day earlier.

"I misspoke on this matter," Burns, a Republican, writes in the letter to
Ambassador Frank McKenna.

"And I ignored my notes indicating my sincere belief that securing
the border is vitally important to not only the United States but
Canada as well."

But he insisted his mistake shouldn't deflect focus from his main
concern, saying security problems "clearly exist on the border."

Burns cites the case of Gazi Ibrahim Abu Mezer, who had planned to bomb a
New York subway and was arrested in 1997 on his third illegal entry into
the United States from Canada.

He also noted that Ahmed Ressam, who plotted to bomb the Los Angeles
International Airport during the Millennium celebrations, was arrested at
the B.C.-Washington border on his way south in 1999.

"These incidents are disturbing and should not be ignored," Burns wrote.

"We still have much work ahead of us. &#8230; The threat of terrorists
crossing from the United States to Canada is just as real and those who
wish to do harm should not be able to cross a porous border to carry out
an attack in either country."

McKenna demanded a retraction from Burns on Monday, after he told
reporters at a news conference on border security: "We've got to
remember that the people who first hit us in 9/11 entered this country
through Canada."

McKenna said he felt he had to speak up because the remarks were
"patently false" and could seriously mislead Americans over the events
that preceded the 2001 attacks.

Even though investigators have determined that not one of the attackers
entered the United States from Canada or Mexico, the mistaken belief has
persisted among some Americans.

McKenna has tried aggressively to challenge the myth, which raises
hackles in Ottawa.

In the spring, another prominent Republican &#8211; former House speaker
Newt Gingrich &#8211; apologized to Canada after telling a television
network that "far more of the 9/11 terrorists came across from Canada
than from Mexico."

The U.S. House of Representatives passed a border security bill on Dec.
16, which includes an initiative to study building a security wall along
the Canada-U.S. border.

Canadian officials said the issue had never been raised by U.S. officials
during regular joint meetings on border security.

They said Canada had no interest in a wall.

Copyright (C) 2005 CBC. All rights reserved.
From harperalexander at mail.com  Wed Dec 21 14:05:00 2005
From: harperalexander at mail.com (Alexander Harper)
Date: Wed Dec 21 14:16:35 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Bush approval rating goes up ??
Message-ID: <20051221220500.75FB3164278@ws1-4.us4.outblaze.com>

In Hell, presumably, although one would have thought that 47% was rather
on the low side for him down there.  Why, the boy has hardly put a foot
wrong.

Al B

  ----- Original Message -----
  From: "Harold Sifton"
  To: "MB Civic"
  Subject: [Mb-civic] Bush approval rating goes up ??
  Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2005 13:50:29 -0500

Bush's approval rating jumps up from 39% (Nov 2) to 47% (Today)  ??
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/print?id=1421748 Later H_______________________________________________
Mb-civic mailing list Mb-civic@islandlists.com
http://www.islandlists.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mb-civic

-- 
___________________________________________________
Play 100s of games for FREE! http://games.mail.com/

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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Wed Dec 21 14:16:37 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Wed Dec 21 14:27:47 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: They Walked,
	We Walked: Tales From the Strike (10 Letters)
Message-ID: <20051221221637.51D8511FB0E@lax-gw07.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: ialterman@nyc.rr.com.

What we're saying... As an aside, it is Times policy that the number of letters reflect, by percentage, the number of "pro" and "con" letters they receive. In this regard, only one letter out of ten is "con." My favorite is the letter from the guy in Dallas. Right on! Peace.


OPINION | December 21, 2005
They Walked, We Walked: Tales From the Strike (10 Letters)

To the Editor:.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/21/opinion/l21transit.html?emc=eta1




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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Wed Dec 21 14:49:54 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (Ian)
Date: Wed Dec 21 15:01:09 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Fw: Letter
Message-ID: <002801c60680$dd656c70$99ca6c42@iancn2ccrvzt0j>

FYI.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: Ian 
To: letters@nytimes.com 
Sent: Wednesday, December 21, 2005 5:44 PM
Subject: Letter


I am one of those "moderate" evangelical ministers who does not subscribe to the rhetoric of the "Religious Right" (Op-Ed, Dec. 21).  However, while I agree with most of Mr. Feiler's points, he unwittingly falls into the same trap that the Religious Right does.

It is the conservative Christian community that is attempting to "lift the veil" re the separation of church and state.  Yet, like the Religious Right - who are "Old Testament Christians" who believe that "laws" and behavior are more important than faith and a relationship with God - he cites only Old Testament (i.e., Judaic) Scripture; i.e., although Christians believe in the entire Bible, it is the New Testament, and Jesus' ministry, which are the foundation of Christianity.

In this regard, Mr. Feiler could have strengthened his case enormously by pointing out that Jesus Himself spoke the most important words on the separation of church and state: "Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's."

It does not get any more direct than that, from the very person the Religious Right claims as their spiritual leader.

Rev. Ian Alterman
New York City
(646.489.3444)
317 West 83rd Street
New York, NY  10024

Note: The writer is pastor of Spirit Fellowship Ministries.
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From grgolsorkhi at earthlink.net  Wed Dec 21 10:55:15 2005
From: grgolsorkhi at earthlink.net (Golsorkhi)
Date: Wed Dec 21 15:07:12 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] FW: Iraq's Constitution
In-Reply-To: <003501c605b5$deed4930$6401a8c0@DF2ZTG61>
Message-ID: <E1EpCsF-0003lY-5p@smtpauth08.mail.atl.earthlink.net>

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From Hawaiipolo at cs.com  Wed Dec 21 14:45:14 2005
From: Hawaiipolo at cs.com (Hawaiipolo@cs.com)
Date: Wed Dec 21 15:13:47 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] does impeachment stand a chance?
Message-ID: <E1EpCxP-0000Ji-4m@smtpauth08.mail.atl.earthlink.net>















    
    

> 
> 
> Print This Story E-mail This Story
> 
> 
> What do you think? The t r u t h o u t Town Meeting is in progress. Join the 
> debate!
> 
>  The Breaking Strain
> By William Rivers Pitt
> t r u t h o u t | Perspective
> 
>  Wednesday 21 December 2005
> 
>  
> >> The framers of the Constitution devised an elaborate system of checks and 
>> balances to ensure our liberty by making sure that no person, institution 
>> or branch of government became so powerful that a tyranny could be 
>> established in the United States of America. Impeachment is one of the checks the 
>> framers gave the Congress to prevent the executive or judicial branches from 
>> becoming corrupt or tyrannical. 
>> 
>> - Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), Opening Statement, Impeachment of 
>> William Jefferson Clinton, 10 December 1998
>  
> A long time ago - before the Iraq invasion, before the elections in '02 and 
> '04, before all the unprecedented governmental violations of trust we have 
> discovered and endured - I wrote something for a book. 
> "This is America," I wrote. "At bottom, America is a dream, an idea. You can 
> take away all our roads, our crops, our people, our cities, our armies - you 
> can take all of that away, and the idea will still be there as pure and 
> great as anything conceived by the human mind. I do very much believe that the 
> idea that is America stands as the last, best hope for this world. When used 
> properly, it can work wonders. That idea, that dream, is in mortal peril. You 
> can still have all our roads, our crops, our people, our cities, our armies - 
> you can have all of that. But if you murder the idea that is America, you 
> have murdered America itself in a way that ten thousand 9/11s could never do. No 
> terrorist can destroy the ideals we hold dear. Only we can do that." 
> The breaking strain has been reached, and those ideals we hold so dear are 
> indeed in mortal peril. The President of the United States of America has 
> declared himself fully and completely above the law. The Constitution does not 
> matter to him, nor do the Amendments. Laws passed to safeguard the American 
> people from intrusive governmental invasion have been cast aside and ignored, 
> simply because George W. Bush finds it meet to do so. 
> Intolerable. Impeachable. 
> As has been widely reported, Mr. Bush authorized the National Security 
> Agency to spy on American citizens. He activated this program in 2002, and has 
> since reauthorized the program thirty times. No one knows for sure exactly who 
> in this country has unwittingly endured investigation by the powerful and 
> secretive NSA. Cindy Sheehan? Patrick Fitzgerald? Joseph Wilson? Non-violent 
> protest organizations? You? Me? No one knows, but the unanswered questions shake 
> the existence of our democracy to its bones. 
> It is not enough that Mr. Bush blew through the Fourth Amendment, which 
> defends the citizenry from unreasonable searches and seizures. It isn't enough 
> that Mr. Bush blew through the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, 
> which requires a warrant from a special FISA court be obtained before such 
> surveillance is undertaken. For the record, this special FISA court has granted 
> more than 19,000 such warrants, and has denied exactly four. 
> The worst part of this whole mess is the simple fact that Mr. Bush does not 
> see anything wrong in this. This administration has steadfastly adhered to 
> the idea that the Executive branch is supreme, beyond the bounds of the justice 
> system and further empowered because we are "at war." 
> Of course, Mr. Bush was careful to speak otherwise. For example, during a 
> speech in Buffalo back in April of 2004, Bush said, "Now, by the way, any time 
> you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires - a 
> wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're 
> talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court 
> order before we do so. It's important for our fellow citizens to understand, 
> when you think Patriot Act, constitutional guarantees are in place when it comes 
> to doing what is necessary to protect our homeland, because we value the 
> Constitution." 
> We're talking about getting a court order, he said. We value the 
> Constitution, he said. 
> Lies. 
> Mr. Bush, in fact, brought the editors of the New York Times into the Oval 
> Office to browbeat them into not running their story on these illegal NSA 
> activities. "Bush was desperate to keep the Times from running this important 
> story - which the paper had already inexplicably held for a year - because he 
> knew that it would reveal him as a law-breaker," wrote columnist Jonathan Alter 
> for Newsweek on Monday. "He insists he had 'legal authority derived from the 
> Constitution and congressional resolution authorizing force.' But the 
> Constitution explicitly requires the president to obey the law. And the post 9/11 
> congressional resolution authorizing 'all necessary force' in fighting 
> terrorism was made in clear reference to military intervention. It did not scrap the 
> Constitution and allow the president to do whatever he pleased in any area 
> in the name of fighting terrorism." 
> Intolerable. Impeachable. 
> Even Attorney General Gonzales agrees with these sentiments. During his 
> January 2005 confirmation hearings before Congress, Sen. Russ Feingold queried 
> Gonzales on whether Mr. Bush has, "at least in theory, the authority to 
> authorize violations of the criminal law under duly enacted statutes simply because 
> he's commander in chief?" Gonzales replied, "Senator, this president is not - 
> I - it is not the policy or the agenda of this president to authorize 
> actions that would be in contravention of our criminal statutes." 
> Mr. Gonzales, it appears, did not get the memo. 
> Rep. John Conyers and the Democratic staff of the House Judiciary Committee 
> have compiled a massively detailed, impeccably-researched report on the 
> activities of this administration titled "The Constitution in Crisis: The Downing 
> Street Minutes and Deception, Manipulation, Torture, Retribution, and 
> Coverups in the Iraq War." The report runs some 273 pages. A portion of the 
> Executive Summary reads as follows: 
> >> In brief, we have found that there is substantial evidence the President, 
>> the Vice President and other high ranking members of the Bush 
>> Administration misled Congress and the American people regarding the decision to go to 
>> war with Iraq; misstated and manipulated intelligence information regarding 
>> the justification for such war; countenanced torture and cruel, inhuman and 
>> degrading treatment and other legal violations in Iraq; and permitted 
>> inappropriate retaliation against critics of their Administration. 
>> There is a prima facie case that these actions by the President, 
>> Vice-President and other members of the Bush Administration violated a number of 
>> federal laws, including (1) Committing a Fraud against the United States; (2) 
>> Making False Statements to Congress; (3) The War Powers Resolution; (4) Misuse 
>> of Government Funds; (5) federal laws and international treaties prohibiting 
>> torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment; (6) federal laws 
>> concerning retaliating against witnesses and other individuals; and (7) federal 
>> laws and regulations concerning leaking and other misuse of intelligence. 
>> While these charges clearly rise to the level of impeachable misconduct, 
>> because the Bush Administration and the Republican-controlled Congress have 
>> blocked the ability of Members to obtain information directly from the 
>> Administration concerning these matters, more investigatory authority is needed 
>> before recommendations can be made regarding specific Articles of Impeachment. 
>> As a result, we recommend that Congress establish a select committee with 
>> subpoena authority to investigate the misconduct of the Bush Administration 
>> with regard to the Iraq war detailed in this Report and report to the 
>> Committee on the Judiciary on possible impeachable offenses.
>  
> This report was completed before the revelations of Bush-authorized domestic 
> spying, and its release has added to the maelstrom. Upon issuance of the 
> report, Rep. Conyers put forth three resolutions for consideration by the House 
> of Representatives: 
> >> H.RES.635 : Creating a select committee to investigate the 
>> Administration's intent to go to war before congressional authorization, manipulation of 
>> pre-war intelligence, encouraging and countenancing torture, retaliating 
>> against critics, and to make recommendations regarding grounds for possible 
>> impeachment. 
>> H.RES.636 : Censuring President George W. Bush for failing to respond to 
>> requests for information concerning allegations that he and others in his 
>> Administration misled Congress and the American people regarding the decision to 
>> go to war in Iraq, misstated and manipulated intelligence information 
>> regarding the justification for the war, countenanced torture and cruel, inhuman, 
>> and degrading treatment of persons in Iraq, and permitted inappropriate 
>> retaliation against critics of his Administration, for failing to adequately 
>> account for specific misstatements he made regarding the war, and for failing 
>> to comply with Executive Order 12958. 
>> H.RES.637 : Censuring Vice President Richard B. Cheney for failing to 
>> respond to requests for information concerning allegations that he and others in 
>> the Administration misled Congress and the American people regarding the 
>> decision to go to war in Iraq, misstated and manipulated intelligence 
>> information regarding the justification for the war, countenanced torture and cruel, 
>> inhuman, and degrading treatment of persons in Iraq, and permitted 
>> inappropriate retaliation against critics of the Administration and for failing to 
>> adequately account for specific misstatements he made regarding the war.
>  
> Columnist John Nichols offered an astute analysis of the meaning behind the 
> Conyers report, the proffered resolutions, and their issuance on the heels of 
> the NSA revelations. "The Conyers resolutions add a significant new twist to 
> the debate about how to hold the administration to account," wrote Nichols. 
> "Members of Congress have become increasingly aggressive in the criticism of 
> the White House, with U.S. Senator Robert Byrd, D-West Virginia, saying 
> Monday, 'Americans have been stunned at the recent news of the abuses of power by 
> an overzealous President. It has become apparent that this Administration has 
> engaged in a consistent and unrelenting pattern of abuse against our 
> Country's law-abiding citizens, and against our Constitution.'" 
> "Even Republicans," continued Nichols, "including Senate Judiciary Committee 
> chair Arlen Specter, R-Pennsylvania, are talking for the first time about 
> mounting potentially serious investigations into abuses of power by the 
> president. But Conyers is seeking to do much more than schedule a committee hearing, 
> or even launch a formal inquiry. He is proposing that the Congress use all 
> of the powers that are available to it to hold the president and vice 
> president to account - up to and including the power to impeach the holders of the 
> nation's most powerful positions and to remove them from office." 
> Many political pragmatists will tell you that impeachment is a pipe dream. 
> If the God of the Righteous roared down from Heaven and denounced George W. 
> Bush from the top of the Capitol dome, Republicans in Congress would denounce 
> Him as a traitor, paint Him as standing against the troops, and accuse Him of 
> aiding in the War on Christmas. In other words, the odds that enough 
> Republican members of the House would turn against this administration and support 
> impeachment are about as good as the odds of my cat winning next year's 
> Kentucky Derby. 
> Even if the odds are defied and impeachment hearings are successfully 
> undertaken, one must go many steps down the ladder to find an official worthy of 
> the office. Impeach Bush and you get Cheney. Impeach Cheney and you get Dennis 
> Hastert. Impeach Hastert and you get Ted Stevens, the 82-year-old Senator 
> from Alaska who recently threatened to resign from the Senate if funding for his 
> "Bridge to Nowhere" was stripped and delivered to aid in the aftermath of 
> Hurricane Katrina. 
> Pragmatism is good, but hardly the point in this matter. We have gone far 
> beyond consideration of the odds, of the smartest and safest course. This is 
> not about Clintonian lies about sex, nor is it even about Nixonian spying on 
> political appointees. In the simplest terms, we now have a self-appointed 
> dictator occupying the highest office of the land. Of course, the catch-all excuse 
> for these reprehensible actions is that Bush is protecting our freedoms 
> against the terrorists. But if our freedoms are destroyed, what is left to 
> protect? If the rule of law no longer has meaning, why bother? If that which makes 
> this nation good and great is burned out from within, there is nothing left 
> to defend. 
> Calls for the impeachment of George W. Bush must be heeded, and the House 
> must act. This must happen not because it is pragmatic, not because it stands a 
> chance of succeeding. This must happen because the issues at hand demand it. 
> If we as a nation do not impeach a sitting President for such a vast array 
> of blatantly illegal activities, activities directed at the American people 
> themselves, then as a nation of laws we have lost our way. We have no meaning. 
> We are finished, and the ideals for which so many have served and fought and 
> died are ashes. 
> Intolerable. Impeachable. 
> William Rivers Pitt is a New York Times and internationally bestselling 
> author of two books: War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You to Know and The 
> Greatest Sedition Is Silence. 
> 
> ------- 
> Jump to today's TO Features:                                                 
>                                                                              
>     Print This Story E-mail This Story
> 
    
    
        
    
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From michael at intrafi.com  Wed Dec 21 15:04:46 2005
From: michael at intrafi.com (michael@intrafi.com)
Date: Wed Dec 21 15:16:17 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] An article for you from an Economist.com reader.
Message-ID: <200512212238.RAA16084@stage-web-app.economist.com>


- AN ARTICLE FOR YOU, FROM ECONOMIST.COM -

Dear civic,

Michael Butler (michael@intrafi.com) wants you to see this article on Economist.com.



(Note: the sender's e-mail address above has not been verified.)

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MIRACULOUS RECOVERY OR LAST GASP?
Dec 21st 2005  

After soaring for years, housing markets throughout the rich world have
been looking wobbly for some time. But surprisingly strong data on
mortgages and house-building released this week in America and Britain
seem to signal at least a temporary reprieve. How long can this go on?
And what will happen to the economy when it finally stops?

IN RECENT years, housing has been a peach of an investment in many rich
countries. THE ECONOMIST's latest house-price index shows that since
1997 prices have soared by more than 85% in America, 100% in France,
112% in Australia, 150% in Spain, 166% in Britain and a whopping 208%
in Ireland. And hot urban markets, such as London and New York, have
far outstripped their national averages. 

But recently anxious homeowners--and anxious central bankers--have
begun to wonder if the market isn't running out of steam. A decline
that started in Sydney has spread to other Australian cities, as a
result of which house prices rose by a measly 1% nationwide in the year
to the third quarter of 2005. Britain's market has also begun to look
sickly: the Nationwide building society's price index has risen by only
2.4% in the year to November. Could Australia and Britain be the
canaries in the coal mine? Is America next?

Well, not yet. On Tuesday December 20th, new data released by America's
Commerce Department showed that after a decline of 6.6% in October
compared with the month before, housing starts increased by 5.3% in
November, a much stronger showing than expected. The number of new
housing permits, which had been expected to fall, also increased, by
2.5%. John Snow, the treasury secretary, touted this as proof of the
American economy's strength.

Even the British canary seems to be waking from its coma. This week,
the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors reported that house prices
had risen in the three months to November, the first time this has
happened in 15 months. Mortgage activity is also on the mend, according
to the British Bankers' Association, which announced on Tuesday that
November had brought the biggest increase in mortgage lending since
July 2004. 

But this may be less miraculous recovery than last gasp. A recent
report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
(OECD) indicates that house prices in Britain remain overvalued by more
than 30% compared with rents. Britain's economy, which has grown
steadily for over a decade, has been flirting with recession in recent
months. In response, the central bank cut interest rates, which may
have sparked a temporary recovery in the housing market. But without
faster growth, consumers cannot pay ever-higher prices for their homes.

Though the relationship between house prices and rents is less
outlandish in America, consumers there are seriously overstretched.
According to the Federal Reserve, the ratio of debt-service payments to
disposable income was 13.75% in the third quarter, an historical high.
Since 2000, the level of outstanding mortgage debt has almost doubled.
While lower interest rates have helped consumers to meet these
obligations without much additional pain, those rates are now creeping
back up.

Not only is the Fed not done tightening, but the flood of cheap capital
flowing into America from abroad could reverse itself at any time. This
is bound to hurt consumers, especially since soaring house prices have
forced many of them into adjustable-rate loans to keep their payments
low. Indeed, a lot of desperate homebuyers have turned to interest-only
loans, or even negative amortisation loans (where the payments don't
even cover the accrued interest). As interest rates rise, many of these
marginal buyers will be forced out of their homes, and the supply of
new buyers will fall, which may result in a sharp decline in house
prices. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which regulates
America's banks, indicated on Tuesday that it was considering stiffer
guidance for banks that grant these sorts of loans.

If the housing market does turn sour, it would be bad news for the
American economy, as it has been for the economy in Britain, where the
recent slowdown has been partially attributed to a weak housing market.
In both countries, consumers have become dangerously dependent on
strong house prices to keep them feeling wealthy enough to spend.
Housing markets may be the canaries that signal the fate of the broader
economy. And, as any miner will tell you, canaries don't live all that
long.
 

See this article with graphics and related items at http://www.economist.com/agenda/displaystory.cfm?story_id=5329368&tranMode=none

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From geomilman at milman.com  Wed Dec 21 17:53:30 2005
From: geomilman at milman.com (George R. Milman)
Date: Wed Dec 21 18:05:33 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] The complete opinion in the Dover case...
Message-ID: <005201c6069a$84a405f0$8c00a8c0@george>

Settle in before a cozy fire, put your feet up and take the time to read
this if you want to warm the cockles of your heart (whatever those are).

 

http://www.pamd.uscourts.gov/opinions/jones/04v2688d.pdf

 

(Okay, I checked and.

[Q] From Craig Bodhi: "I'm curious about the idiom warm the cockles of your
heart."

[A] It's one of the more lovely idioms in the language, isn't it? Something
that warms the cockles of one's heart induces a glow of pleasure, sympathy,
affection, or some such similar emotion. What gets warmed is the innermost
part of one's being. It's not that surprising that it should be associated
with the heart, that being the presumed seat of the emotions for most
people. But what are the cockles?

We're not sure. We do know that the expression turns up first in the middle
of the seventeenth century, and that the earliest form of the idiom was
rejoice the cockles of one's heart.

Cockles are a type of bivalve mollusc, once a staple part of the diet for
many British people (you may recall that Sweet Molly Malone once wheeled her
wheelbarrow through Dublin's fair city, crying "cockles and mussels, alive,
alive oh!"). They are frequently heart-shaped (their formal zoological genus
was at one time Cardium, of the heart), with ribbed shells.

It may be that the shape and spiral ribbing of the ventricles of the heart
reminded surgeons of the two valves of the cockle. But I can't find an
example of the word cockle being applied to the heart outside this
expression, which makes me suspicious of this explanation. It may be that
the shape of the cockleshell, suggesting the heart as it so obviously does,
gave rise to cockles of the heart as an expansion.

After this piece appeared in the Newsletter, James Woodfield pointed out
that there is another possible explanation. In medieval Latin, the
ventricles of the heart were at times called cochleae cordis, where the
second word is an inflected form of cor, heart. Those unversed in Latin
could have misinterpreted cochleae as cockles, or it might have started out
as a university in-joke. Oddly, cochlea in Latin is the word for a snail
(from the shape of the ventricles-it's also the name given to the spiral
cavity of the inner ear), so if this story is right we should really be
speaking of warming the snails of one's heart.

World Wide Words is copyright C Michael Quinion, 1996-2005.
All rights reserved. Contact <http://www.worldwidewords.org/feedback.htm>
the author for reproduction requests.
Comments and feedback <http://www.worldwidewords.org/feedback.htm>  are
always welcome.
Page created 3 August 2002.)

 

 

 

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From michael at michaelbutler.com  Wed Dec 21 18:20:44 2005
From: michael at michaelbutler.com (Michael Butler)
Date: Wed Dec 21 18:31:56 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Cheney Defends Domestic Spying
Message-ID: <BFCF4D7C.2711D%michael@michaelbutler.com>

    Go to Original

    Cheney Defends Domestic Spying
    By Maura Reynolds
    The Los Angeles Times

    Wednesday 21 December 2005

    He says Bush's decision to sidestep the courts and allow surveillance
was an organized effort to regain presidential powers lost in the 1970s.

    Washington - President Bush's decision to bypass court review and
authorize domestic wiretapping by executive order was part of a concerted
effort to rebuild presidential powers weakened in the 1970s as a result of
the Watergate scandal and the Vietnam War, Vice President Dick Cheney said
Tuesday.

    Returning from a trip to the Middle East, Cheney said that threats
facing the country required that the president's authority under the
Constitution be "unimpaired."

    "Watergate and a lot of the things around Watergate and Vietnam, both
during the 1970s, served, I think, to erode the authority I think the
president needs to be effective, especially in the national security area,"
Cheney told reporters traveling with him on Air Force Two. "Especially in
the day and age we live in ? the president of the United States needs to
have his constitutional powers unimpaired, if you will, in terms of the
conduct of national security policy."

    Cheney's remarks were recorded by reporters traveling with him and
disseminated by the White House under an official pool arrangement.

    Cheney dismissed the idea that Americans were concerned about a
potential abuse of power by the administration, saying that any backlash
would probably punish the president's critics, not Bush.

    "The president and I believe very deeply that there is a hell of a
threat," Cheney said, calculating that "the vast majority" of Americans
supported the administration's surveillance policies.

    "And so if there's a backlash pending, I think the backlash is going to
be against those who are suggesting somehow we shouldn't take these steps in
order to defend the country."

    On Capitol Hill, however, calls for a congressional investigation
escalated, with a group of Democrats and Republicans on the Senate
Intelligence Committee asking to join hearings scheduled by the Senate
Judiciary Committee.

    Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) said she had written to several
constitutional scholars to ask whether Bush had committed an impeachable
offense by ordering the National Security Agency in 2002 to engage in
surveillance within the United States without a court order.

    Lawmakers continued to trade claims and accusations over whether they
were informed about the spy program by the administration, whether they
properly registered civil liberties objections, and whether their objections
mattered.

    Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), the top Democrat on the Senate
Intelligence Committee, said Monday that he wrote Cheney after one briefing
in 2003 and expressed concern about the surveillance.

    But Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), chairman of the Senate Intelligence
Committee, said Tuesday that Rockefeller had misrepresented his own views
about the program.

    "For the nearly three years [Rockefeller] has served as vice chairman, I
have heard no objection from him about this valuable program," Roberts said
in a statement. "Now, when it appears to be politically advantageous, Sen.
Rockefeller has chosen to release his 2 1/2 -year-old letter. Forgive me if
I find this to be inconsistent and a bit disingenuous."

    Rockefeller responded sharply. "From the first day I learned of this
program, I made my concerns known to the vice president and to others who
were briefed," he said. "The White House never addressed my concerns.

    "The real question is whether the administration lived up to its
statutory requirement to fully inform Congress and allow for adequate
oversight and debate. The simple answer is no."

    Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), one of the congressional leaders
who was briefed about the program, asked the National Security Agency on
Tuesday to declassify a letter she wrote several years ago expressing
concern.

    White House spokesman Scott McClellan insisted that lawmakers had been
informed of the program but declined to answer questions about whether
members of Congress could act in any way on the information.

    "We believe it's important to brief members of Congress, the relevant
leaders," McClellan said, adding that Congress was "an independent branch of
government. Yes, they have oversight roles to play." When asked how
lawmakers could have acted on the oversight, McClellan responded: "You
should ask members of Congress that question."

    Some congressional Republicans defended Bush but others said they had
doubts. Sen. Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine) and Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) joined
three Democrats in a call for an investigation.

    "At no time, to our knowledge, did any administration representative ask
the Congress to consider amending existing law to permit electronic
surveillance of suspected terrorists without a warrant," the five senators
wrote.

    New rounds of criticism followed reports Tuesday of comments Bush made
last year in which he seemed to assure his audience that the government
conducted wiretaps only with court approval.

    "Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking
about wiretaps, it requires ? a wiretap requires a court order," the
president said in a speech in Buffalo, N.Y. on April 20, 2004, in which he
discussed enactment of the Patriot Act.

    "Nothing has changed, by the way," Bush continued in the speech. "When
we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a
court order before we do so. It's important for our fellow citizens to
understand, when you think Patriot Act, constitutional guarantees are in
place when it comes to doing what is necessary to protect our homeland,
because we value the Constitution."

    Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, said it was
"time for the president to tell the truth."

    "Why is it that President Bush went in front of the American people and
said that a wiretap 'requires a court order' after having approved a wiretap
program without a court order two years earlier?"

    --------

    Times staff writer James Gerstenzang in Washington contributed to this
report.

 


From michael at michaelbutler.com  Wed Dec 21 18:22:32 2005
From: michael at michaelbutler.com (Michael Butler)
Date: Wed Dec 21 18:33:45 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] The Breaking Strain     By William Rivers Pitt
Message-ID: <BFCF4DE8.2711E%michael@michaelbutler.com>

    The Breaking Strain
    By William Rivers Pitt
    t r u t h o u t | Perspective

    Wednesday 21 December 2005

    The framers of the Constitution devised an elaborate system of checks
and balances to ensure our liberty by making sure that no person,
institution or branch of government became so powerful that a tyranny could
be established in the United States of America. Impeachment is one of the
checks the framers gave the Congress to prevent the executive or judicial
branches from becoming corrupt or tyrannical.

    - Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), Opening Statement, Impeachment of
William Jefferson Clinton, 10 December 1998

    A long time ago - before the Iraq invasion, before the elections in '02
and '04, before all the unprecedented governmental violations of trust we
have discovered and endured - I wrote something for a book.

    "This is America," I wrote. "At bottom, America is a dream, an idea. You
can take away all our roads, our crops, our people, our cities, our armies -
you can take all of that away, and the idea will still be there as pure and
great as anything conceived by the human mind. I do very much believe that
the idea that is America stands as the last, best hope for this world. When
used properly, it can work wonders. That idea, that dream, is in mortal
peril. You can still have all our roads, our crops, our people, our cities,
our armies - you can have all of that. But if you murder the idea that is
America, you have murdered America itself in a way that ten thousand 9/11s
could never do. No terrorist can destroy the ideals we hold dear. Only we
can do that."

    The breaking strain has been reached, and those ideals we hold so dear
are indeed in mortal peril. The President of the United States of America
has declared himself fully and completely above the law. The Constitution
does not matter to him, nor do the Amendments. Laws passed to safeguard the
American people from intrusive governmental invasion have been cast aside
and ignored, simply because George W. Bush finds it meet to do so.

    Intolerable. Impeachable.

    As has been widely reported, Mr. Bush authorized the National Security
Agency to spy on American citizens. He activated this program in 2002, and
has since reauthorized the program thirty times. No one knows for sure
exactly who in this country has unwittingly endured investigation by the
powerful and secretive NSA. Cindy Sheehan? Patrick Fitzgerald? Joseph
Wilson? Non-violent protest organizations? You? Me? No one knows, but the
unanswered questions shake the existence of our democracy to its bones.

    It is not enough that Mr. Bush blew through the Fourth Amendment, which
defends the citizenry from unreasonable searches and seizures. It isn't
enough that Mr. Bush blew through the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance
Act, which requires a warrant from a special FISA court be obtained before
such surveillance is undertaken. For the record, this special FISA court has
granted more than 19,000 such warrants, and has denied exactly four.

    The worst part of this whole mess is the simple fact that Mr. Bush does
not see anything wrong in this. This administration has steadfastly adhered
to the idea that the Executive branch is supreme, beyond the bounds of the
justice system and further empowered because we are "at war."

    Of course, Mr. Bush was careful to speak otherwise. For example, during
a speech in Buffalo back in April of 2004, Bush said, "Now, by the way, any
time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it
requires - a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the
way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about
getting a court order before we do so. It's important for our fellow
citizens to understand, when you think Patriot Act, constitutional
guarantees are in place when it comes to doing what is necessary to protect
our homeland, because we value the Constitution."

    We're talking about getting a court order, he said. We value the
Constitution, he said.

    Lies.

    Mr. Bush, in fact, brought the editors of the New York Times into the
Oval Office to browbeat them into not running their story on these illegal
NSA activities. "Bush was desperate to keep the Times from running this
important story - which the paper had already inexplicably held for a year -
because he knew that it would reveal him as a law-breaker," wrote columnist
Jonathan Alter for Newsweek on Monday. "He insists he had 'legal authority
derived from the Constitution and congressional resolution authorizing
force.' But the Constitution explicitly requires the president to obey the
law. And the post 9/11 congressional resolution authorizing 'all necessary
force' in fighting terrorism was made in clear reference to military
intervention. It did not scrap the Constitution and allow the president to
do whatever he pleased in any area in the name of fighting terrorism."

    Intolerable. Impeachable.

    Even Attorney General Gonzales agrees with these sentiments. During his
January 2005 confirmation hearings before Congress, Sen. Russ Feingold
queried Gonzales on whether Mr. Bush has, "at least in theory, the authority
to authorize violations of the criminal law under duly enacted statutes
simply because he's commander in chief?" Gonzales replied, "Senator, this
president is not - I - it is not the policy or the agenda of this president
to authorize actions that would be in contravention of our criminal
statutes."

    Mr. Gonzales, it appears, did not get the memo.

    Rep. John Conyers and the Democratic staff of the House Judiciary
Committee have compiled a massively detailed, impeccably-researched report
on the activities of this administration titled "The Constitution in Crisis:
The Downing Street Minutes and Deception, Manipulation, Torture,
Retribution, and Coverups in the Iraq War." The report runs some 273 pages.
A portion of the Executive Summary reads as follows:

    In brief, we have found that there is substantial evidence the
President, the Vice President and other high ranking members of the Bush
Administration misled Congress and the American people regarding the
decision to go to war with Iraq; misstated and manipulated intelligence
information regarding the justification for such war; countenanced torture
and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment and other legal violations in
Iraq; and permitted inappropriate retaliation against critics of their
Administration.

    There is a prima facie case that these actions by the President,
Vice-President and other members of the Bush Administration violated a
number of federal laws, including (1) Committing a Fraud against the United
States; (2) Making False Statements to Congress; (3) The War Powers
Resolution; (4) Misuse of Government Funds; (5) federal laws and
international treaties prohibiting torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading
treatment; (6) federal laws concerning retaliating against witnesses and
other individuals; and (7) federal laws and regulations concerning leaking
and other misuse of intelligence.

    While these charges clearly rise to the level of impeachable misconduct,
because the Bush Administration and the Republican-controlled Congress have
blocked the ability of Members to obtain information directly from the
Administration concerning these matters, more investigatory authority is
needed before recommendations can be made regarding specific Articles of
Impeachment. As a result, we recommend that Congress establish a select
committee with subpoena authority to investigate the misconduct of the Bush
Administration with regard to the Iraq war detailed in this Report and
report to the Committee on the Judiciary on possible impeachable offenses.

    This report was completed before the revelations of Bush-authorized
domestic spying, and its release has added to the maelstrom. Upon issuance
of the report, Rep. Conyers put forth three resolutions for consideration by
the House of Representatives:

    H.RES.635 : Creating a select committee to investigate the
Administration's intent to go to war before congressional authorization,
manipulation of pre-war intelligence, encouraging and countenancing torture,
retaliating against critics, and to make recommendations regarding grounds
for possible impeachment.

    H.RES.636 : Censuring President George W. Bush for failing to respond to
requests for information concerning allegations that he and others in his
Administration misled Congress and the American people regarding the
decision to go to war in Iraq, misstated and manipulated intelligence
information regarding the justification for the war, countenanced torture
and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment of persons in Iraq, and
permitted inappropriate retaliation against critics of his Administration,
for failing to adequately account for specific misstatements he made
regarding the war, and for failing to comply with Executive Order 12958.

    H.RES.637 : Censuring Vice President Richard B. Cheney for failing to
respond to requests for information concerning allegations that he and
others in the Administration misled Congress and the American people
regarding the decision to go to war in Iraq, misstated and manipulated
intelligence information regarding the justification for the war,
countenanced torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment of persons
in Iraq, and permitted inappropriate retaliation against critics of the
Administration and for failing to adequately account for specific
misstatements he made regarding the war.

    Columnist John Nichols offered an astute analysis of the meaning behind
the Conyers report, the proffered resolutions, and their issuance on the
heels of the NSA revelations. "The Conyers resolutions add a significant new
twist to the debate about how to hold the administration to account," wrote
Nichols. "Members of Congress have become increasingly aggressive in the
criticism of the White House, with U.S. Senator Robert Byrd, D-West
Virginia, saying Monday, 'Americans have been stunned at the recent news of
the abuses of power by an overzealous President. It has become apparent that
this Administration has engaged in a consistent and unrelenting pattern of
abuse against our Country's law-abiding citizens, and against our
Constitution.'"

    "Even Republicans," continued Nichols, "including Senate Judiciary
Committee chair Arlen Specter, R-Pennsylvania, are talking for the first
time about mounting potentially serious investigations into abuses of power
by the president. But Conyers is seeking to do much more than schedule a
committee hearing, or even launch a formal inquiry. He is proposing that the
Congress use all of the powers that are available to it to hold the
president and vice president to account - up to and including the power to
impeach the holders of the nation's most powerful positions and to remove
them from office."

    Many political pragmatists will tell you that impeachment is a pipe
dream. If the God of the Righteous roared down from Heaven and denounced
George W. Bush from the top of the Capitol dome, Republicans in Congress
would denounce Him as a traitor, paint Him as standing against the troops,
and accuse Him of aiding in the War on Christmas. In other words, the odds
that enough Republican members of the House would turn against this
administration and support impeachment are about as good as the odds of my
cat winning next year's Kentucky Derby.

    Even if the odds are defied and impeachment hearings are successfully
undertaken, one must go many steps down the ladder to find an official
worthy of the office. Impeach Bush and you get Cheney. Impeach Cheney and
you get Dennis Hastert. Impeach Hastert and you get Ted Stevens, the
82-year-old Senator from Alaska who recently threatened to resign from the
Senate if funding for his "Bridge to Nowhere" was stripped and delivered to
aid in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

    Pragmatism is good, but hardly the point in this matter. We have gone
far beyond consideration of the odds, of the smartest and safest course.
This is not about Clintonian lies about sex, nor is it even about Nixonian
spying on political appointees. In the simplest terms, we now have a
self-appointed dictator occupying the highest office of the land. Of course,
the catch-all excuse for these reprehensible actions is that Bush is
protecting our freedoms against the terrorists. But if our freedoms are
destroyed, what is left to protect? If the rule of law no longer has
meaning, why bother? If that which makes this nation good and great is
burned out from within, there is nothing left to defend.

    Calls for the impeachment of George W. Bush must be heeded, and the
House must act. This must happen not because it is pragmatic, not because it
stands a chance of succeeding. This must happen because the issues at hand
demand it. If we as a nation do not impeach a sitting President for such a
vast array of blatantly illegal activities, activities directed at the
American people themselves, then as a nation of laws we have lost our way.
We have no meaning. We are finished, and the ideals for which so many have
served and fought and died are ashes.

    Intolerable. Impeachable.

 

From jameshburns at webtv.net  Wed Dec 21 19:39:29 2005
From: jameshburns at webtv.net (Jim Burns)
Date: Wed Dec 21 19:50:39 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Tough Times, For The Modern Buccaneer
In-Reply-To: mb-civic-request@islandlists.com's message of Wed, 21 Dec 2005
	18:34:00 -0800
Message-ID: <5380-43AA1FF1-413@storefull-3278.bay.webtv.net>


Or, what's a would-be gentleman spy, to do?

JB


"U.S. Broadens Ban on Caviar to Include Black Sea Basin" 

By CORNELIA DEAN, New York Times

The Fish and Wildlife Service, which banned the importing of beluga
caviar from the Caspian Sea in September, extended the ban to the Black
Sea basin yesterday, in effect banning all imports of the most highly
prized variety of caviar. 

Beluga caviar already in the United States may still be sold, but only
for the next 18 months, the agency said. 

"We still have enough beluga to last until the end of the year,
depending on the demand, of course," said Michel Emery, director of
sales in New York for Petrossian, the caviar importer. 
"Once we run out, that's it." 

Conservation organizations working to preserve dwindling beluga stocks
praised the ban, saying it will make it impossible to import beluga from
the Caspian by saying it comes from the Black Sea. Those are the only
areas that produce beluga caviar. 

The ban does not cover osetra or sevruga 
caviar, or caviar from farmed sturgeon, which conservation organizations
have been pushing as an alternative. Beluga sturgeon have been driven to
the edge of extinction by demand for caviar, particularly in the United
States, where by some estimates 60 percent of beluga caviar is eaten. 

In announcing the ban, Gale A. Norton, the secretary of the interior,
said it would take effect immediately and remain in place until
caviar-producing countries made "significant progress" in regional
efforts to protect the fish. 

"This is the best we could have hoped for," said Ellen Pikitch, a
fisheries expert at the University of Miami with a longstanding interest
in protecting sturgeon stocks. 

The ban covers caviar, meat and other products from beluga sturgeon
imported from the region, re-exported from an intermediary country or
carried by travelers, who until now had been allowed to bring up to 250
grams of beluga caviar (about half a pound) into the United States
without a permit. 

It remains to be seen what effect it will have on the illegal trade in
beluga, which Robert Gabel of the Fish and Wildlife Service estimated is
10 or 12 times as large as the legal trade. "During Soviet times there
was very strict state control of the fishery," Mr. Gabel said yesterday. 

"Currently the people that seem to be in control are really organized
crime and the bad players." He said he hoped the ban would reduce the
beluga trade and encourage countries in the region to do more to protect
the fish. "We only have this leverage, our market leverage, to achieve
something in those countries," he said. 

The Fish and Wildlife Service announced the Caspian ban after countries
there did not meet a deadline for providing information on efforts to
protect the fish. Some Black Sea countries did provide information then,
but the service said yesterday that it had been reviewed and found
wanting. If countries in the region produce a good plan for the sturgeon
fishery, Mr. Gabel said, "we could consider it and we could reopen
imports." 

When the Caspian ban was announced, Armen Petrossian, president of the
caviar concern, suggested that it might have the perverse effect of
encouraging the beluga trade, by raising the cachet - and the price - of
the delicacy. 

But Dr. Pikitch, who also heads the Pew Institute for Ocean Science,
said she thought the sweeping ban announced yesterday would help protect
the fish. "DNA probes are 100 percent accurate," she said. If agents
suspected someone of illegally importing beluga, "they would be able to
prosecute." 

At one time, she said, Americans consumed 80 percent of the annual
production of beluga caviar. Today, she estimated, 60 percent of beluga
is eaten here. Pew finances a program, "Caviar Emptor," to alert
consumers to threats to sturgeon and urge buyers to choose caviar from
farm-raised fish. 

Caviar from white sturgeon, farm-raised in California, "is wonderful,"
Mr. Emery said. "We do sell quite a bit of it. We feel it's very close
to an osetra." 

He added that at Petrossian, "we have been steering our clientele away
from beluga for some time." 

Mr. Petrossian said in September that only about 5 percent of caviar
eaten worldwide was beluga, and he contested the idea that Americans
were the world's greatest gluttons for the delicacy. Comparable amounts
are sold into Europe and Asia, he said. 

SeaWeb, a marine conservation group, is starting a European campaign to
encourage consumption of caviar farm-raised in France. It is directed
toward French-speaking areas, which, said Shannon Crownover, manager of
European programs for SeaWeb, consume about half the caviar eaten in
Europe. 

October 29, 2005

Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company 

From swiggard at comcast.net  Thu Dec 22 04:59:03 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Thu Dec 22 05:13:32 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Judges on Surveillance Court To Be Briefed on Spy
 Program - Washington Post
Message-ID: <43AAA317.2070803@comcast.net>

Judges on Surveillance Court To Be Briefed on Spy Program

By Carol D. Leonnig and Dafna Linzer
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, December 22, 2005; A01

The presiding judge of a secret court that oversees government 
surveillance in espionage and terrorism cases is arranging a classified 
briefing for her fellow judges to address their concerns about the 
legality of President Bush's domestic spying program, according to 
several intelligence and government sources.

Several members of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court said in 
interviews that they want to know why the administration believed 
secretly listening in on telephone calls and reading e-mails of U.S. 
citizens without court authorization was legal. Some of the judges said 
they are particularly concerned that information gleaned from the 
president's eavesdropping program may have been improperly used to gain 
authorized wiretaps from their court.

"The questions are obvious," said U.S. District Judge Dee Benson of 
Utah. "What have you been doing, and how might it affect the reliability 
and credibility of the information we're getting in our court?"

Such comments underscored the continuing questions among judges about 
the program, which most of them learned about when it was disclosed last 
week by the New York Times. On Monday, one of 10 FISA judges, federal 
Judge James Robertson, submitted his resignation -- in protest of the 
president's action, according to two sources familiar with his decision. 
He will maintain his position on the U.S. District Court here.

Other judges contacted yesterday said they do not plan to resign but are 
seeking more information about the president's initiative. Presiding 
Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, who also sits on the U.S. District Court 
for the District of Columbia, told fellow FISA court members by e-mail 
Monday that she is arranging for them to convene in Washington, 
preferably early next month, for a secret briefing on the program, 
several judges confirmed yesterday.

Two intelligence sources familiar with the plan said Kollar-Kotelly 
expects top-ranking officials from the National Security Agency and the 
Justice Department to outline the classified program to the members.

The judges could, depending on their level of satisfaction with the 
answers, demand that the Justice Department produce proof that previous 
wiretaps were not tainted, according to government officials 
knowledgeable about the FISA court. Warrants obtained through secret 
surveillance could be thrown into question. One judge, speaking on the 
condition of anonymity, also said members could suggest disbanding the 
court in light of the president's suggestion that he has the power to 
bypass the court.

The highly classified FISA court was set up in the 1970s to authorize 
secret surveillance of espionage and terrorism suspects within the 
United States. Under the law setting up the court, the Justice 
Department must show probable cause that its targets are foreign 
governments or their agents. The FISA law does include emergency 
provisions that allow warrantless eavesdropping for up to 72 hours if 
the attorney general certifies there is no other way to get the information.

Still, Bush and his advisers have said they need to operate outside the 
FISA system in order to move quickly against suspected terrorists. In 
explaining the program, Bush has made the distinction between detecting 
threats and plots and monitoring likely, known targets, as FISA would allow.

Bush administration officials believe it is not possible, in a 
large-scale eavesdropping effort, to provide the kind of evidence the 
court requires to approve a warrant. Sources knowledgeable about the 
program said there is no way to secure a FISA warrant when the goal is 
to listen in on a vast array of communications in the hopes of finding 
something that sounds suspicious. Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales 
said the White House had tried but failed to find a way.

One government official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said 
the administration complained bitterly that the FISA process demanded 
too much: to name a target and give a reason to spy on it.

"For FISA, they had to put down a written justification for the 
wiretap," said the official. "They couldn't dream one up."

The NSA program, and the technology on which it is based, makes it 
impossible to meet that criterion because the program is designed to 
intercept selected conversations in real time from among an enormous 
number relayed at any moment through satellites.

"There is a difference between detecting, so we can prevent, and 
monitoring. And it's important to note the distinction between the two," 
Bush said Monday. But he added: "If there is a need based upon evidence, 
we will take that evidence to a court in order to be able to monitor 
calls within the United States."

The American Civil Liberties Union formally requested yesterday that 
Gonzales appoint an outside special counsel to investigate and prosecute 
any criminal acts and violations of laws as a result of the spying effort.

Also yesterday, John D. Negroponte, Bush's director of national 
intelligence, sent an e-mail to the entire intelligence community 
defending the program. The politically tinged memo referred to the 
disclosure as "egregious" and called the program a vital, 
constitutionally valid tool in the war against al Qaeda.

Benson said it is too soon for him to judge whether the surveillance 
program was legal until he hears directly from the government.

"I need to know more about it to decide whether it was so distasteful," 
Benson said. "But I wonder: If you've got us here, why didn't you go 
through us? They've said it's faster [to bypass FISA], but they have 
emergency authority under FISA, so I don't know."

As it launched the dramatic change in domestic surveillance policy, the 
administration chose to secretly brief only the presiding FISA court 
judges about it. Officials first advised U.S. District Judge Royce C. 
Lamberth, the head of FISA in the fall of 2001, and then Kollar-Kotelly, 
who replaced him in that position in May 2002. U.S. District Judge 
George Kazen of the Southern District of Texas said in an interview 
yesterday that his information about the program has been largely 
limited to press accounts over the past several days.

"Why didn't it go through FISA," Kazen asked. "I think those are valid 
questions. The president at first said he didn't want to talk about it. 
Now he says, 'You're darn right I did it, and it's completely legal.' I 
gather he's got lawyers telling him this is legal. I want to hear those 
arguments." Judge Michael J. Davis of Minnesota said he, too, wants to 
be sure the secret program did not produce unreliable or legally suspect 
information that was then used to obtain FISA warrants.

"I share the other judges' concerns," he said.

But Judge Malcolm Howard of eastern North Carolina said he tends to 
think the terrorist threat to the United States is so grave that the 
president should use every tool available and every ounce of executive 
power to combat it.

"I am not overly concerned" about the surveillance program, he said, but 
"I would welcome hearing more specifics."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/21/AR2005122102326.html?nav=hcmodule
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Thu Dec 22 05:01:56 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Thu Dec 22 05:16:29 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Department's Mission Was Undermined From Start -
	Washington Post
Message-ID: <43AAA3C4.5070604@comcast.net>

Department's Mission Was Undermined From Start

By Susan B. Glasser and Michael Grunwald
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, December 22, 2005; A01

The Department of Homeland Security was only a month old, and already it 
had an image problem.

It was April 2003, and Susan Neely, a close aide to DHS Secretary Tom 
Ridge, decided the gargantuan new conglomeration of 22 federal agencies 
had to stand for something more than multicolored threat levels. It 
needed an identity -- not the "flavor of the day in terms of brand 
chic," as Neely put it, but something meant to last.

So she called in the branders.

Neely hired Landor Associates, the same company that invented the FedEx 
name and the BP sunflower, and together they began to rebrand a behemoth 
Landor described in a confidential briefing as a "disparate organization 
with a lack of focus." They developed a new DHS typeface (Joanna, with 
modifications) and color scheme (cool gray, red and hints of 
"punched-up" blue). They debated new uniforms for its armies of agents 
and focus-group-tested a new seal designed to convey "strength" and 
"gravitas." The department even got its own lapel pin, which was given 
to all 180,000 of its employees -- with Ridge's signature -- to 
celebrate its "brand launch" that June.

"It's got to have its own story," Neely explained.

Nearly three years after it was created in the largest government 
reorganization since the Department of Defense, DHS does have a story, 
but so far it is one of haphazard design, bureaucratic warfare and 
unfulfilled promises. The department's first significant test -- its 
response to Hurricane Katrina in August -- exposed a troubled 
organization where preparedness was more slogan than mission.

Born out of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, DHS was initially expected to 
synthesize intelligence, secure borders, protect infrastructure and 
prepare for the next catastrophe. For most of those missions, the 
bipartisan Sept. 11 commission recently gave the Bush administration D's 
or F's. To some extent, the department was set up to fail. It was 
assigned the awesome responsibility of defending the homeland without 
the investigative, intelligence and military powers of the FBI, CIA and 
the Pentagon; it was also repeatedly undermined by the White House that 
initially opposed its creation. But the department has also struggled to 
execute even seemingly basic tasks, such as prioritizing America's most 
critical infrastructure.

When Coast Guard Adm. James M. Loy signed on as Ridge's top deputy in 
the fall of 2003, "I found turmoil," he recalled, and "lack of strategic 
direction." When Loy left earlier this year, he believed DHS was sorely 
in need of "a midcourse correction." And Michael Chertoff, Ridge's 
successor, said in an interview that when he arrived in February, he was 
disturbed by the department's "insufficient focus on outcome and 
mission." Chertoff was so disturbed that he has already proposed a broad 
restructuring of DHS.

"We're not where we need to be," he said.

President Bush hailed DHS as his administration's answer to the "urgent 
and overriding" mission of securing the homeland. But the department 
designed in secrecy and haste in the White House basement and 
complicated further on Capitol Hill was hobbled from the start by what 
the branders called a "Rube Goldberg drawing" of an organization chart.

Interviews with dozens of participants in DHS's formation and operation 
-- including Ridge and Chertoff, White House aides, Cabinet secretaries, 
members of Congress, and current and former DHS officials -- suggest the 
sheer magnitude of the bureaucratic challenge overwhelmed the 
department's leaders. They worked almost full time on the merger, too 
busy to do much more than manage their inboxes, referee internal turf 
wars and wage losing battles with departments that commanded more clout 
at the White House.

Most corporate mergers fail, and even the successful ones often take 
years to produce dividends. DHS can point to some results, including 
hardened cockpit doors on commercial airliners, background checks for 
truckers and radiation detectors at ports. DHS has consolidated eight 
payroll providers into one system, and 22 human resources offices into 
seven. And there has not been another terrorist attack.

But some of the department's strongest supporters are disgusted by what 
it has achieved with its $40 billion annual budget. Rep. William M. 
"Mac" Thornberry (R-Tex.), who proposed a new department even before 
Sept. 11, said he was warned by several top CEOs that the mega-merger 
would require quick and decisive leadership. DHS, he said, never got it.

"The implementation has been a huge disappointment," Thornberry said.

Ultimately, Ridge and his team came to see their searing experience as a 
classic Washington morality play of entrenched bureaucracy resisting change.

"The notion that everyone was going to join hands and sing 'Kumbaya,' I 
don't think anybody in our leadership expected that to happen," Ridge 
said. "And it didn't."

'Zero Interest' in New Department

The White House had plenty of warning about potential failings of a new 
department -- it had been doing the warning. "Creating a Cabinet post 
doesn't solve the problem," Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer said in March 2002.

Before Sept. 11, a host of blue-ribbon terrorism commissions had 
recommended new bureaucratic alignments, culminating with the May 2001 
finding by a panel chaired by former senators Gary Hart (D-Colo.) and 
Warren B. Rudman (R-N.H.) that the nation had a "fragmented and 
inadequate" homeland defense apparatus. In response, Vice President 
Cheney ordered a "national preparedness review," focused on the 
catastrophic possibility of an attack employing weapons of mass 
destruction. "They knew the government was not well configured to deal 
with this," former White House aide Frank J. Cilluffo recalled.

But Cheney opposed the concept of a new department as a big-government 
mistake, several aides recalled. And Steve Abbott, the retired admiral 
he picked to head the review, did not start work until a few days before 
Sept. 11.

After the attacks, Bush named Ridge, Pennsylvania's popular Republican 
governor, to head a new Office of Homeland Security in the White House. 
With the office just beginning, "there was zero interest in the White 
House in setting up a new department," a senior Ridge aide said. When 
Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.) argued the case at a White House 
meeting that October, Bush was dismissive, saying Ridge could do the job 
out of the West Wing.

But Ridge found it difficult to get things done. In late December, he 
took a modest proposal to a Cabinet-level "principals" meeting -- a new 
"border-centric" agency that would bring together immigration officers, 
customs agents and other border-related personnel then scattered around 
the government. No Cabinet secretaries supported him.

"The only person at the time that thought it was a good idea was yours 
truly," Ridge recalled.

The lesson his staff took away was the need for secrecy: When 
bureaucracies were informed of potential threats to their empires, they 
tended to resist. "Everybody realized the agencies were not going to 
look at mission first, they were going to look at turf first," recalled 
Bruce M. Lawlor, a National Guard major general working for Ridge.

But soon the White House began to contemplate reversing its position. On 
Capitol Hill, lawmakers in both parties were upset by Bush's refusal to 
let Ridge testify as a presidential aide, and Lieberman's bill to create 
a new department was gaining momentum. While many Republicans were leery 
about a vast new bureaucracy, they did not want to cede the homeland 
security issue to the Democrats.

"That was driving decisions," one senior Ridge aide said.

In February 2002, Michael A. Wermuth, a homeland security expert at the 
Rand Corp., handed Ridge a two-page list of government entities that 
could be folded into a new department. It was the fourth of four options 
he offered, and Wermuth warned Ridge it was a horrible idea. He spoke 
"of train wrecks coming, a clash of cultures." It would take at least 
five years, probably 10, for the department to function smoothly. And 
without the proper resources, Wermuth said, "you're going to strangle 
yourself in bureaucracy for years."

Ridge seemed undeterred. "Option 4 is really where I'd like to get to," 
he said.

"We didn't scare him enough," Wermuth thought.

Everything Was on the Table

In the White House bunker where Cheney had waited out the Sept. 11 
attacks, a select group of policy aides had been secretly commissioned 
to plot the administration's about-face.

They were called together in April by White House Chief of Staff Andrew 
H. Card Jr. -- five mid-level staffers known as the "Gang of Five," or 
as they liked to call themselves, the "G-5." Two worked for Ridge -- 
Lawlor and Richard A. Falkenrath, a security expert from Harvard -- and 
Card sent his deputy Joel D. Kaplan, associate counsel Brad Berenson and 
deputy budget director Mark W. Everson.

Several times a week, the G-5 met with a group of principals, including 
Card, Ridge, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, budget director 
Mitchell E. Daniels Jr. and Cheney Chief of Staff I. Lewis "Scooter" 
Libby. On poster boards, they listed all the agencies that might make 
sense in the department. "The overriding guidance," Lawlor recalled, 
"was that everything was on the table for consideration."

Why not include the Federal Aviation Administration? Or the Drug 
Enforcement Administration? Falkenrath and Lawlor wanted to move the 
FBI, which was responsible for investigating threats to the homeland. 
But it became clear that politics would also shape the department. Card 
and other principals swiftly vetoed the transfer of the FBI as a 
non-starter. Rice scoffed that it would make the department look like 
the German Interior Ministry.

But everyone agreed to move the border agencies that Ridge had tried to 
merge earlier. The Federal Emergency Management Agency was definitely in 
as well. Card raised the idea of taking the National Guard from the 
Pentagon, but as Falkenrath recalled, "we just couldn't figure out how 
to make it work."

Some of the decisions were almost random. Falkenrath thought it would be 
nice to give the new department a research lab that could bring 
cutting-edge research to homeland security problems. He called up a 
friend and asked which of the three Department of Energy labs would 
work. "He goes, 'Livermore.' And I'm like, 'All right. See you later.' 
Click," Falkenrath told historians from the Naval Postgraduate School. 
He did not realize that he had just decided to give the new department a 
thermonuclear weapon simulator, among other highly sensitive assets of 
the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

In June, after just six weeks of meetings, the department was ready for 
unveiling. The secret had been kept so well that even secretaries with 
major turf on the line had no idea what was coming until Card put out 
calls to the Cabinet the day before the president's announcement.

"They were just totally bamboozled," Falkenrath said.

When the president convened the Cabinet to reveal his plan, Ridge 
recalled with a wry smile, "everybody said, 'Good idea, Mr. President.' 
" But few of them really thought so.

Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson launched a 
behind-the-scenes campaign to keep a handful of offices that were 
supposed to go to DHS, including the National Disaster Medical System 
and the national drug stockpile. "Make sure this doesn't happen!" he 
instructed Jerome M. Hauer, one of his assistant secretaries.

The plan had been put together with such speed and secrecy that after 
its release angry officials had to explain to the White House how their 
agencies really worked. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham was able to 
beat back the total transfer of Livermore after it became clear the Gang 
of Five had little idea what the lab did. A similar battle unfolded over 
the Department of Energy's radiological detection teams, which were 
supposed to be folded in with FEMA. The White House had not realized 
that the teams consisted of employees with regular jobs who mobilized 
only during emergencies.

The one Cabinet official who willingly surrendered turf was Treasury 
Secretary Paul H. O'Neill, who angered some of his aides by giving up 
three prized agencies. But O'Neill was skeptical as well. "It was never 
clear there was a vision of what homeland security ought to mean," he 
recalled. And many colleagues were similarly dubious. "We all expected 
an ineffectual behemoth," said a close aide to a Cabinet member, "and 
that's what we got."

GOP Lawmakers Turn Around

On Capitol Hill, Bush's allies were left tongue-tied by his abrupt 
shift. In late May the White House had pushed Republicans on the Senate 
Governmental Affairs Committee to oppose Lieberman's bill. Now, Sen. 
Fred D. Thompson (R-Tenn.) told Lieberman: "I've been having a great 
time explaining my enthusiastic support for a proposition I voted 
against two weeks ago."

Falkenrath was barraged by Hill staffers with questions he could not 
answer: If the Immigration and Naturalization Service was moving to the 
new department, why were immigration judges staying at the Justice 
Department? Falkenrath did not know there were immigration judges. 
"Every one of these staffers had some little angle on something that we 
hadn't thought of," he said. "I was like, 'We better go figure out what 
we've missed here.' "

Inside the White House, some aides were appalled by the specter of "a 
group of people who really didn't know a whole lot about the boxes they 
were moving around," as one put it. White House cybersecurity czar 
Richard A. Clarke, the counterterrorism chief sidelined by Bush after 
urging more decisive action against al Qaeda before Sept. 11, blasted 
Ridge's office with a memo about the new department's design flaws, 
warning that the failure to include a policy office would leave the 
secretary helpless to control its independent fiefdoms.

"Creating a significant policy shop is like Bureaucracy 101," said 
Clarke deputy Roger Cressey. "We never heard anything back."

In fact, the G-5 had considered a policy shop. But the idea had been 
shot down, Ridge said, in an effort to streamline the department's upper 
management ranks. The White House knew Hill Republicans were skittish 
about a big-government scheme, and Daniels, the administration's budget 
hawk, told conservatives he did not want the department to spend more 
than its 22 agencies were already spending.

"The tendency to throw money thoughtlessly on problems was on full 
display" after Sept. 11, Daniels recalled. "It was easy to see that 
could happen again."

Ridge, who had won a Bronze Star as an infantry staff sergeant in 
Vietnam, knew he might be stepping into another quagmire at DHS. "Part 
of him was excited," said then-EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman. 
"Part of him thought it was a no-win situation."

Clearly, he could not count on unlimited financial support. And working 
in the White House, he was already learning he could not count on 
absolute political support, either.

One stark example was the White House's blockade of a Ridge-supported 
plan to secure large chemical plants. After Sept. 11, Whitman had worked 
with Ridge on a modest effort to require high-risk plants -- especially 
the 123 factories where a toxic release could endanger at least 1 
million people -- to enhance security. But industry groups warned Bush 
political adviser Karl Rove that giving new regulatory power to the 
Environmental Protection Agency would be a disaster.

"We have a similar set of concerns," Rove wrote to the president of BP 
Amoco Chemical Co.

In an interagency meeting shortly before DHS's birth, White House budget 
official Philip J. Perry, who also happens to be Cheney's son-in-law, 
declared the Ridge-Whitman plan dead.

"Tom and I would just throw our hands up in frustration over that 
issue," Whitman recalled.

And not just that issue. Whitman said that Ridge was often stymied 
inside the White House: "He got gazumped a couple of times."

In his new job, the gazumping would continue.

The Push and the Pushback

On Jan. 24, 2003, Ridge was sworn in as the first secretary of homeland 
security; Bush hailed him as a "superb leader who has my confidence." 
Four days later, Ridge learned from the president's State of the Union 
address that a new intelligence center for tracking terrorists -- which 
he had expected to be the hub of DHS's dot-connecting efforts -- would 
not be controlled by DHS.

Ridge and his aides thought the center was one of the key reasons the 
department had been created, to prevent the coordination failures that 
helped produce Sept. 11. Not only had the White House undercut Ridge, it 
also let him find out about his defeat on television.

"We watched it and thought: 'What the hell are we doing here?' " 
recalled John Rollins, who became chief of staff for the new DHS 
intelligence section. "The White House did not support us," said one of 
Ridge's top advisers. "That occurred repeatedly. It was if the White 
House created us and then set out to marginalize us."

The first battle over DHS came when the White House tried to exile it 
from Washington. Initially, Daniels proposed to let cities around the 
country bid to host the new department as a cost-saving measure. Then 
the White House tried to park DHS outside the Beltway in Chantilly.

Just before the department's official March 1 start date, the Chantilly 
deal fell through and DHS ended up in a decrepit Navy complex on 
Nebraska Avenue in Upper Northwest, several miles from the rest of 
federal Washington. Top DHS officials had to share desks in a 
"gulag-like" hangar at Building 3; the White House initially told them 
it was temporary quarters until a new "campus" was commissioned. But the 
talk of a new home for the department quickly stopped.

Rollins recalled the opening days as "absolute chaos." In his 
intelligence office, there was no undersecretary, no assistant secretary 
and just 10 aides out of the 300 the office was supposed to hire. Many 
of the new DHS offices had been picked apart by the departments from 
which they came; Rollins had moved with the FBI's National 
Infrastructure Protection Center, one of three of the center's 150 
staffers to make the switch.

At headquarters, Ridge had only a few dozen staffers to oversee a 
department that was suddenly responsible for everything from livestock 
inspections to floodplain mapping to the national registry for missing 
pets. He was also besieged by congressional inquiries, not to mention 
day-to-day security responsibilities; his first "orange alert" occurred 
17 days into the department's existence. "Everyone," Daniels recalled, 
"empathized with Tom's near-impossible assignment."

Ridge radiated good cheer, and just about everyone liked him. But many 
senior DHS officials thought Ridge was outmatched. "He had no managerial 
ability," said one. "He was such a nice guy, and totally unwilling to 
knock heads and tick people off." Lawlor, Ridge's chief of staff, was 
more of a head-knocker, but he lasted only seven months. Former Navy 
secretary Gordon R. England, Ridge's deputy, was gone by the fall.

"It was one of the world's worst leadership teams," said a former White 
House official involved in the start-up.

Some of Ridge's problems were structural. The White House and Congress 
had left his powers unclear, and many key tasks had to be shared with 
other departments under contradictory laws and presidential directives. 
In some ways, Ridge's aides came to believe, they had even less power 
than when they were mere presidential staffers.

"You had a platform at the White House. Whenever you called a meeting at 
the White House, the other agencies came," Susan Neely said. "Now we're 
over at the department and the agencies didn't come; they came up with 
all sorts of excuses."

Ridge said he constantly faced "aggravating, annoying pushback," and he 
did not enjoy pushing back against the pushback. He let Tommy Thompson, 
the HHS secretary, have his stockpile back; he let FEMA keep its name. 
He could not even persuade agency heads to work out of a single DHS 
command post for a counterterrorism exercise. "Why the hell shouldn't 
you be in a single operations center?" Ridge asked.

The strongest pushback came from the Justice Department, where the 
mention of DHS inspired jokes about duct tape and chartreuse threat 
levels. Justice officials believed DHS had "too much focus on marketing 
and not enough on substantive delivery," in the words of one aide to 
then-Attorney General John D. Ashcroft. "They were consumed with their 
public perception," said Mark Corallo, an Ashcroft spokesman.

Indeed, one of the new department's biggest intramural furors was a 
branding fight with the FBI. It began when the director of a new DHS 
agency known as Immigration and Customs Enforcement -- or ICE -- decided 
to keep the catchy acronym but change the name to Investigation and 
Criminal Enforcement. The FBI, it turned out, had some proprietary 
feelings about the word "investigation."

"Over my dead body," Mueller, the FBI director, told one aide.

Loy had sensed trouble. "When I saw that one go by, I didn't have the 
time. . . . I said, 'Oh . . . surely, for God's sake, we're not going to 
waste time on that,' " Loy remembered. "But it just festered." In fact, 
Mueller brought the matter to the White House. "It got to the top, 
sadly," Loy said.

At the FBI's insistence, the White House had already forced ICE to give 
up its Operation Greenquest program investigating terrorism financing -- 
and forced Ridge to sign a memo pledging to keep his department away 
from similar investigations. But Ridge thought this spat was just silly; 
nobody was going to mistake ICE for the FBI.

Nevertheless, the White House told Ridge to back off.

"Folks at higher levels than yours truly said, 'We side with the FBI,' " 
Ridge recalled. "We thought it was as clear as the nose on your face. 
Bob [Mueller] disagreed. Bob prevailed."

Still Undone: Infrastructure Plan

In the early days, recalled former DHS inspector general Clark Kent 
Ervin, Ridge's senior staff meetings were dominated by "weekly, even 
daily talk about structure, 'branding' the department, coming up with a 
mission statement and bringing a sense of esprit de corps." But, Ervin 
recalled, "there wasn't a lot of focus on substance and specifics -- 
exactly what do we do and how? What are key vulnerabilities?"

Early on, Ridge and his aides realized they had no way to focus on 
long-term planning because they had lost the battle for a policy shop, a 
decision Ridge aide Robert B. Stephan called "the kiss of death." In the 
summer of 2003, Ridge asked Stephan to troubleshoot the flawed first 
draft of the department's National Response Plan for catastrophes. 
Stephan did not have a staff. "I'm like this magician up on stage, 
spinning plates, and I'm so far from the first plate that I'm not sure 
it's spinning anymore," he recalled.

Eventually, Ridge named Stephan, a retired Air Force colonel, to head a 
modest "integration staff" that would focus on big-picture thinking. But 
Stephan spent much of his time troubleshooting problems such as the 
department's plan to protect America's "critical infrastructure." The 
first DHS draft arrived a year late, and was little more than a list, 
with no analysis of what was most vulnerable or vital.

"The most common term used to describe DHS was 'frustration,' " said 
Harris N. Miller, who headed industry's Partnership for Critical 
Infrastructure Security. "Most of the world didn't see it until Katrina. 
We saw it all the time."

The infrastructure plan is still not done, which prompted the Sept. 11 
commission to argue in a report card earlier this month, "It is time we 
stopped talking about priorities, and actually set some."

For all practical purposes, the department's real policy shop was in the 
White House, where the Homeland Security Council oversaw almost every 
detail of its work. The Washington Post reviewed one memo to DHS with a 
lengthy checklist of items the White House wanted regular updates about, 
including uniforms for border guards, the curriculum for teaching border 
inspections, the selection of a single firearm for DHS training 
academies and "batch processing" for new hires.

"White House staff micromanaged the department in the worst of all 
ways," Lawlor said. Loy called the White House's involvement "very much 
a heavy process."

After a December 2003 presidential directive outlined a new program of 
preparedness planning for DHS, the White House took the lead in deciding 
what scenarios the department was supposed to prepare for. A group led 
by White House aide David Howe produced a list of 15 likely 
catastrophes, including a nuclear dirty bomb and a Category 5 hurricane. 
It was an obvious job for DHS, but the White House did not trust the 
department to execute it.

Ridge's lack of influence inside the administration became painfully 
clear after an off-message moment on Memorial Day 2004. Ashcroft had 
taken to the airwaves warning of a dire terrorist threat, while Ridge 
had been publicly reassuring. The president took Ashcroft's side, 
according to sources in DHS and the Justice Department, and ordered 
Ridge to back down.

"There was an attitude in [the White House] that the department couldn't 
do anything right, that the department was not competent, and that 
carried through on almost everything you tried to do," one of Ridge's 
senior advisers complained.

Ridge's Plan Hits a Dead End

>From his first day at DHS, Ridge pushed to create what he called 
"mini-me's," eight regional directors who would manage the department's 
assets in their areas during a crisis. It was Ridge's one major effort 
to put his own organizational stamp on DHS, and it was meant to ensure 
better preparedness for a disaster, the thinking being that "you can't 
plan a response in Los Angeles out of Washington, D.C.," Lawlor said. 
With hurricanes in mind, Ridge wanted one region to have headquarters in 
New Orleans.

Like so many DHS initiatives, Ridge's regions plan went nowhere.

Lawlor wrote the first draft, giving the mini-me's full control over the 
department's various fiefdoms within their regions. "That went over like 
a lead balloon," Ridge recalled. The opposition was led by some of 
Ridge's own deputies, such as FEMA's Michael D. Brown, who appealed to 
the White House.

Ridge worked hard to come up with a more acceptable regional structure, 
and he repeatedly announced at staff meetings that it was about to be 
unveiled. But the White House kept declining to approve the idea, and 
the impasse became increasingly embarrassing for Ridge. "On numerous 
occasions the secretary and deputy were saying: 'There's nothing more 
important than getting this regional structure set. We're going to roll 
it out next week,' " Ervin recalled.

By the time Lawlor left DHS in the fall of 2003, he had already 
concluded the plan was dead. "The White House killed it," he said. It 
was "too difficult of a political nut to crack" for the White House, 
Brown believed, since it would require DHS agencies to close their 
existing regional offices.

But Ridge, usually conflict-averse, continued to pursue his regions war. 
He sent Loy to the White House for another pitch, and even persuaded 
budget director Joshua B. Bolten to arrange a special appeal overseen by 
Cheney. Ridge decided to leave the department after Bush's reelection, 
but he left a memo for his successor pushing his regions plan, among 
other changes.

Ridge and Loy knew the department had lingering problems, and they left 
behind an array of reorganization ideas, from an intelligence 
directorate to a chief medical officer to a policy shop. Ridge's 
successor, Chertoff -- a former prosecutor who was Bush's second choice 
after former New York City police commissioner Bernard B. Kerik withdrew 
-- launched a sweeping "second-stage review" of DHS in February, and 
soon adopted almost all of their proposals.

Except the regions plan.

Chertoff said he concluded that Ridge's pet project would be a 
"disaster," further dividing a fragmented DHS into regional silos. But 
Chertoff agreed with Ridge that DHS needed to be much readier for the 
next catastrophe.

"I wasn't happy about where we were on preparedness," he said.

The next catastrophe was on the way. And DHS wasn't ready.

Staff writer Spencer S. Hsu and researcher Julie Tate contributed to 
this report.

COMING TOMORROW

FEMA's war with DHS

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/21/AR2005122102327.html?nav=hcmodule
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Thu Dec 22 05:04:29 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Thu Dec 22 05:18:53 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] MUST READ: Trust Him With Our Rights? No. - Richard
 Cohen - Washington Post Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43AAA45D.7030802@comcast.net>

Trust Him With Our Rights? No.

By Richard Cohen
Thursday, December 22, 2005; A29

George Bush's problem is that Washington is not a courtroom. If it were, 
he or his lawyer (Dick Cheney?) could rise and object to the mention of 
his "previous convictions." That way, every offense against custom, law, 
international agreements and common sense could be treated in isolation. 
Too bad for Bush, he has a rap sheet.

It is his record of nonstop belligerence toward anything that would 
limit his powers that works against him as he tries to make a case for 
what in shorthand is called domestic spying. Any other president would 
have earned the solicitous attention and understanding of the country, 
including his critics. After Sept. 11, 2001, we were all willing to make 
some accommodations. If the president wanted to tap some phones, let him 
tap. Better that than another terrorist attack.

The trouble with Bush is that it is hard to separate the reasonable from 
the unreasonable. It seems reasonable to me to listen in on phone calls 
from overseas to people here -- Americans or not -- if there is any link 
at all to suspected terrorists. If, say, a cell phone is found with 
certain numbers on it, I would monitor them all. That might not meet a 
strict legal standard, but it does seem to be common sense. With all due 
regard to law, the highest law of all is "better safe than sorry."

But a reasonable stretching of the law in this respect becomes mighty 
suspect and somewhat scary when everything else is brought to mind. 
After all, the very same people who assure us that they are merely being 
prudent -- trust us -- are the same guys who held out until the last 
minute to retain torture as an option in questioning terrorist suspects 
and others. They are the same people -- Cheney in particular -- who are 
so tone-deaf to appearances, not to mention the opinions of the 
military, that they would publicly fight a restriction on torture. They 
do have a point -- not a persuasive one, mind you, but a point 
nonetheless -- but they see it as more important than anything else, 
even America's post-Abu Ghraib image.

Right after Sept. 11 the Bush administration announced that it had no 
use for the Geneva Conventions. It would apply them as it saw fit -- and 
it did not see fit when it came to terrorists. These terrorists, after 
all, made war by no rules. Why should we abide by any? The answer, as 
many military officers said, is that we still could hold our enemies to 
a standard of conduct toward prisoners. If we did not adhere to it 
ourselves, there was no chance they would. The Bush administration 
brushed aside these objections. It established a vast Siberia that could 
be anywhere and where a suspect could be held forever on charges that 
were never brought.

So an administration that makes something of a reasonable case when it 
comes to tapping the international phone calls of American citizens has 
its standing and veracity considerably weakened by what went before. The 
White House cannot explain why it did not ask Congress for this 
authority because, it is now clear, it does not want to ask Congress for 
anything. It will not explain why it could not seek warrants from a 
judge because, really, it does not want to seek warrants from a judge. 
This is the Louis XIV school of government: In matters of national 
security, Bush must say to himself, he is the state.

Such a president cannot be trusted. In Bush's case, the extra inch that 
would be given another president in wartime has to be measured out in 
increments of tenths. He is so suffused with his own sense of 
righteousness that he cannot imagine his laws being abused -- not by 
him, certainly, and not by his chummy group of nicknamed nincompoops, 
either. He listens to Cheney, who still smarts from post-Watergate 
reforms that made the Gerald Ford presidency less imperial than Richard 
Nixon's -- and on purpose. Cheney was Ford's chief of staff.

In courtroom trials, it does not matter what went before. The fact that 
the defendant had robbed does not necessarily mean that he has robbed 
again. But life is about rap sheets -- reputations and permanent records 
and personnel files. Read George Bush's and then ask yourself if it was 
exigency or ideology that prompted him to tap the international calls of 
American citizens without showing a court why. In his case, the record 
speaks for itself.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/21/AR2005122102057.html
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Thu Dec 22 05:06:31 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Thu Dec 22 05:20:54 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Boosting Democracy,
 On Purpose or Not - Jim Hoagland - Washington Post Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43AAA4D7.8010905@comcast.net>

Boosting Democracy, On Purpose or Not

By Jim Hoagland
Thursday, December 22, 2005; A29

Democracy in Iraq owes much to the determined efforts of President Bush 
in 2005. So do democracy and constitutional order in the United States, 
if in a different way.

Iraq's three successful elections galvanized Bush into showing 
leadership and, at long last, some modest accountability for his 
administration's missteps there. His year-ending speeches on Iraq -- 
capped by Sunday's effective televised address to the nation -- suggest 
that contrition is good for the soul and perhaps for the polls.

Except for Iraq's two parliamentary elections and its constitutional 
referendum, all of which he helped keep on track, this has been a lost 
year for Bush. The president flailed, stumbled or simply disappeared 
when the going got tough at home.

His vaunted Social Security overhaul went poof when pricked by the 
thumbtacks of reality. Reform of the tax code was smothered in its crib 
by a ham-handed House "leadership" -- with no reaction from Bush. 
Hurricane Katrina reduced the president's domestic agenda to waterlogged 
wreckage.

The five recent Iraq speeches were intended to start a long-awaited 
pivot by Bush toward a new domestic agenda that could be unveiled in 
January's State of the Union address. First he had to stop the erosion 
of support on Iraq.

But the reasonable guy that Bush and his speechwriters brought forth on 
Sunday night vanished when the president strode into a White House news 
conference on Monday. He went back into combat mode to dampen the outcry 
over the powers of the presidency and domestic intelligence surveillance.

Not even conservatives will rush to endorse the expansive powers that 
Bush claims to find in the Constitution to enable the National Security 
Agency to evade existing law and systematically conduct wiretaps against 
terrorism suspects on U.S. soil without warrants.

Even weaker is the administration's claim that Congress approved such 
wiretaps in its September 2001 resolution authorizing the use of force 
against terrorist organizations. Bush's interpretation is a dangerous 
inflation of congressional intent. It smacks of the way Lyndon Johnson 
used the Gulf of Tonkin resolution to bully Congress into supporting him 
on Vietnam. That is no path to follow.

Bush's initial response was unpersuasive on why he failed to ask 
Congress to fix defects in the warrant system mandated in the Foreign 
Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978. For four years, Bush simply set 
aside the provisions of this law, which grew out of the abuses of the 
Vietnam-Watergate era.

Most Americans are discovering the details if not the existence of this 
law for the first time in the controversy sparked by a story in the New 
York Times and Bush's combative response Monday. Inadvertently, Bush is 
educating his fellow citizens on civil liberties protections that many 
were unaware they had.

Count that as a contribution to American democracy. Better that Bush had 
done it deliberately, as part of a national discussion on the security 
needs of a struggle against global terrorism, as has been repeatedly 
urged in this corner. Americans, and Congress, clearly agree with Bush's 
goal of deterring attacks. He owes them a say on the methods to be used.

Similarly, Bush is unintentionally driving together a centrist group of 
responsible Republican and Democratic critics in Congress to pressure 
him -- to check and balance him, if you will -- on war policy, civil 
liberties, torture and other contentious issues.

Facing a veto-proof vote in Congress, Bush was forced to reach out to 
John McCain on banning torture. The president has begun to echo 
indirectly in his speeches and in his Iraq policy the thoughts of John 
Warner and Joe Biden. He has had to take into account, however 
reluctantly, Richard Lugar's concerns about the arrogance of power and 
its consequences abroad. None of this has harmed Bush or national security.

The president now must find common ground with Arlen Specter, Jane 
Harman and others to prevent the domestic surveillance controversy from 
undermining his attempt to pivot to a new agenda for the remainder of 
his presidency.

The kind of secrecy and obsessive concern about the powers of the 
presidency for their own sake that this administration showed even 
before Sept. 11, 2001, are inconsistent with the workings of American 
democracy, as well as with the fragmentation of power that marks the 
nation-state system today.

Bush has acted for five years as if he was not strong enough to 
compromise with or reach out to critics. But the generally positive 
response to Sunday's speech suggests that when Bush shows he is 
listening to them, others can hear him much better.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/21/AR2005122101566.html?nav=hcmodule
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Thu Dec 22 05:08:25 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Thu Dec 22 05:22:50 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] A Flat-Out Winner for Tax Reform - Daniel J. Mitchell -
 Washington Post Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43AAA549.5030803@comcast.net>

A Flat-Out Winner for Tax Reform

By Daniel J. Mitchell
Thursday, December 22, 2005; A29

The report issued last month by President Bush's Advisory Panel on 
Federal Tax Reform landed in no-man's land. The right was disappointed 
that its proposals were so timid, and the left was critical because the 
report highlighted the damaging impact of high tax rates on work, saving 
and investment.

Perhaps the panel could have won more hearts and minds if it had 
examined the real-world experience with tax reform. The flat-tax 
revolution in Eastern Europe is particularly compelling. Nine nations 
from the old Soviet bloc have adopted the flat tax -- which taxes income 
at one rate -- and others are poised to. In an ironic twist, these 
countries are rejecting the class-warfare politics of yesteryear and 
building tax systems specifically designed to attract investment, fuel 
economic growth and treat all citizens fairly.

Russia, for instance, enjoys the benefits of the 13 percent flat tax it 
adopted in 2001. The tax quickly yielded positive results. Revenue 
poured into government coffers as tax evasion and avoidance became much 
less profitable. Inflation-adjusted personal income tax revenue has more 
than doubled since the flat tax was implemented.

But Russia was simply learning from its neighbors. Estonia was the 
first, adopting a 26 percent flat rate in 1994. Latvia and Lithuania 
followed in the mid-1990s, with 25 percent and 33 percent rates, 
respectively. Serbia was next; in 2003 it went with a 14 percent rate. 
Last year, it was Slovakia (19 percent) and Ukraine (13 percent). This 
year it's been Romania (16 percent) and Georgia, which boasts the lowest 
rate -- 12 percent.

Estonia has been cutting its rate: It's at 24 percent and will drop to 
20 percent before the end of the decade. Lithuania also has decided to 
make its flat tax more competitive; the rate will go from 33 to 24 percent.

The flat tax is not a silver bullet. But combined with other market 
reforms, it provides a significant economic boost. All three Baltic 
nations are enjoying strong growth, averaging over 5 percent per year. 
No wonder the "Baltic Tigers" became role models for the region. This 
growth is generating plenty of tax revenue, in part because tax evasion 
has been dramatically reduced. And the rich are paying the lion's share: 
In Estonia, for instance, the top 10 percent are paying 41 percent of 
the tax.

Slovakia's system is not yet two years old, but it's already successful. 
According to the director of Slovakia's Hayek Institute, income-tax 
revenue is 0.5 percent of gross domestic product larger than predicted 
by "static" estimates (those that fail to account for inevitable changes 
in behavior when tax laws are changed). New investment is flooding 
Slovakia. So many car companies are building factories that the country 
is being called the "Detroit of Europe."

Others have noticed the economic success these nations are enjoying. The 
newly elected coalition in Poland may implement a flat tax, and the 
opposition party in the Czech Republic has promised a 15 percent 
flat-tax regime if it wins the next election. Lawmakers in Croatia, 
Bulgaria and Hungary are discussing tax reform.

Western European politicians have cast a wary eye on this tax 
revolution. Bureaucrats in the European Union and the Paris-based 
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development object to 
"harmful" tax competition, and politicians from France and Sweden 
complain about "fiscal dumping." But such criticism is hard to take 
seriously coming from leaders who preside over economies saddled with 
high unemployment and anemic growth.

Indeed, some Western European lawmakers, including those in Spain, 
Greece, Denmark, Holland, Germany and Britain, have begun discussing the 
possibility of implementing a flat tax.

That these discussions are even taking place is a testimony to the 
liberalizing force of tax competition. And if the rumors are true about 
China's implementing a flat tax sometime next year, the tax-reform 
steamroller may become a juggernaut.

To be sure, Eastern European nations don't have perfect tax systems. 
Many are still plagued by oppressively high payroll taxes. But tax 
reform in Eastern Europe is a clear success, and the United States can 
learn from what other nations have accomplished.

Our economy, under a flat tax, probably wouldn't grow quite as fast as 
Estonia's, and it's unlikely that we'd get the same revenue windfall as 
Russia. But the evidence from Eastern Europe strongly suggests that a 
flat tax would strengthen our economy, improve tax compliance and reduce 
political corruption. We also could expect it to boost capital 
formation; it has been a magnet for new investment in Eastern Europe.

In recent years President Bush has praised Russia's flat tax. He even 
said during a visit to Slovakia that it was his dream to have a flat tax 
in the United States. Let's hope that dream becomes a reality. America 
and the West may have won the Cold War, but if we continue to be 
burdened by the internal revenue code, the former communist nations may 
get the last laugh.

The writer is a senior fellow in political economy at the Heritage 
Foundation.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/21/AR2005122101572.html?nav=hcmodule
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Thu Dec 22 05:12:41 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Thu Dec 22 05:27:05 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] EXCELLENT AND RECOMMENDED: The disaster is in the
 response - Thomas Oliphant - Boston Globe Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43AAA649.8090208@comcast.net>


  The disaster is in the response

By Thomas Oliphant  |  December 22, 2005  |  The Boston Globe

WASHINGTON
IN ATTEMPTING to understand the shameful puniness of the response by 
President Bush and Congress to the post-Katrina Gulf Coast, I ran across 
an interesting number the other day.

That number is $29 billion.

This is presumably the sum just voted for the task of shifting from 
cleanup to actual reconstruction -- of both properties and lives.

I say presumably because the number turns out to be a fraud. In fact, it 
represents the allocation of large sums of money that Congress has 
already appropriated. More precisely, much less than half of it -- about 
$11.5 billion -- is what they call ''new" grant money. The rest is 
simply the result of the reshuffling of already appropriated sums.

Perhaps you recall the atmosphere in September in the immediate 
aftermath of the horror that Katrina wreaked. Within three weeks, 
Congress had passed, and Bush had signed into law, roughly $62 billion 
in appropriations to pay for the massive cleanup .

Nearly four months later, depending on which agency's figures you 
prefer, no more than a third of that money has been spent. The list of 
cleanup tasks not completed is prodigious -- from piles of debris to 
polluted neighborhoods to tent cities and trailer park communities to 
the tens of thousands of families still huddled in motels.

Always inventive, what the government really did was repackage all this 
''assistance" for the purpose of creating the illusion in the current 
budget mess that something meaningful is happening when nothing could be 
further from the truth.

But it gets better. In addition to not allocating the money initially 
appropriated, Bush and Congress have managed to claim during this week's 
budget fraud that the famous $29 billion will not add a penny to the 
already hemorrhaging federal budget. This meaningless claim is based on 
two phony points.

The first is the shell game I just referred to -- the fact that nearly 
$20 billion of that sum has already been appropriated and not spent for 
the benefit of the Gulf Coast.

The second involves the assertion that about $40 billion has been cut 
from other parts of the federal budget. The point holds only if you 
assume that there will be no Congress next year; if in fact Congress 
returns for more mischief, everyone knows that in an election year there 
will be a package including roughly $100 billion in tax cuts for 
hard-pressed wealthy people.

It is then that the point being made this month will evaporate. Instead 
of cutting the budget to make room for aid to the Gulf Coast, the budget 
will have been cut (in every instance at the expense of working 
families, many of whom live in Louisiana and Mississippi) in order to 
make room for tax cuts.

Students of the Bush-Congress axis will find something familiar in all 
this. This is basically how the government has proceeded with its plans 
for the reconstruction of Iraq's broken economy. At first, all but a 
pittance was to have been funded by the gush of new oil production. When 
that didn't happen, $20 billion was ''allocated," hardly any of which 
was spent for two years; and what was spent was largely wasted or 
''reallocated" to military budgets. Today, reconstruction limps along at 
a tiny fraction of the pace originally anticipated.

The Gulf Coast should be so lucky. When President Bush was using prime 
time in New Orleans' Jackson Square in September to try to promise his 
way out of his abysmal handling of the disaster, by now there was 
supposed to be a plan not only to house and take care of evacuees but to 
reconstruct their battered region.

Well, there is no plan. Even the basic precondition of private and 
public investment and resettlement in the New Orleans area -- rebuilding 
the levee system so that it can withstand another major hurricane -- is 
only tentatively met. The recent ''allocation" of a couple of billion 
dollars for the levees may (or may not) protect the metropolitan area 
from another Katrina in about two years. The basic question of whether a 
system should be built to survive an even larger storm is being left for 
further study.

The horrendous damage caused by the hurricane should have produced a 
reallocation of national priorities sufficient to pay for a sensible 
reconstruction plan. Instead there is no plan, just more federal 
government blue smoke and mirrors leaving millions of people to beg each 
year for budgetary table scraps.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/12/22/the_disaster_is_in_the_response/
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Thu Dec 22 05:14:41 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Thu Dec 22 05:29:42 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] MUST READ: On wiretapping,
 Bush isn't listening to the Constitution
 - Edward M. Kennedy - Boston Globe Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43AAA6C1.4090104@comcast.net>


  On wiretapping, Bush isn't listening to the Constitution

By Edward M. Kennedy  |  December 22, 2005  |  The Boston Globe

THE PRESIDENT is not above the law; he is not King George. Yet, with 
sorrow, we are now learning that in this great land we have an 
administration that has refused to follow well-crafted, longstanding 
procedures that require the president to get a court order before spying 
on people within the United States. With outrage, we learn that this 
administration believes that it does not have to follow the law of the land.

Not just above the law, this administration seems to be saying that it 
IS the law. It contends that it can decide on its own what the law is, 
how to interpret it, and whether or not it has to follow it. I believe 
that such an arrogant and expansive view of executive power would have 
sent chills down the spines of our Founding Fathers -- as it does for 
every American hearing these startling revelations today.

The president, the vice president, the secretary of state, and the 
attorney general tell us that the president can order domestic spying 
inside this country -- without judicial oversight -- under his power as 
commander in chief. Really? Where do they find that in the Constitution? 
Time and time again, this president has used his express, but limited, 
constitutional power to command the military to justify controversial 
activities -- after the fact.

The president is the commander in chief of the military. That doesn't 
give him the power to spy on civilians at home without any judicial 
oversight whatsoever, without ever revealing those activities to even 
well-established courts that review these matters in secrecy. Otherwise, 
every phone and computer in America should now come with a warning 
label: Warning: the privacy of your communications can no longer be 
guaranteed, by order of President Bush.

The president has the constitutional obligation to protect and defend 
the American people. That is obvious -- but he also took an oath of 
office, to ''preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United 
States." With his arrogant usurpation of power and refusal to follow 
well-established wiretapping laws, I believe that this president is not 
living up to that oath. By shunning the oversight of the courts and 
ignoring the express language of the laws passed by Congress, this 
president is, in my judgment, defiantly and stubbornly ignoring the 
Constitution and laws passed by Congress.

Our founders did not fight a Revolutionary War to give such expanded, 
unchecked powers to the executive. Quite the contrary. Their concern was 
precisely the abuse of executive power.

The president has admitted, without any remorse, that he has repeatedly 
authorized his own advisers at the National Security Agency to eavesdrop 
on individuals inside the United States, without the prior court 
approval required under well-established laws. This president is focused 
on scapegoating The New York Times for breaking the story that brought 
this questionable spying program into the light of day. Once again, he's 
telling us -- ''trust us, we are doing whatever we can to protect you." 
Well, that's just not enough. We want real answers about this program. 
Why were the courts cut out of the process, when judicial oversight is 
required by law? Yesterday the vice president cut short his trip to the 
Middle East to break the tie in a vote on an irresponsible budget 
proposal that will hurt America's families, yet he couldn't find the 
time to level with the American people and tell them exactly where the 
president has the authority to spy on them.

This is not a new debate. Years ago, with bipartisan support, I 
spearheaded the passage of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act 
(FISA), which specifically requires the attorney general to obtain prior 
authorization from a judge, in a secret expedited proceeding, before 
engaging in domestic spying or wiretapping. Now, the president says that 
that law is ''insufficient" and ''outdated" to meet the current threats 
in the war on terror because it was passed nearly 30 years ago. The 
Constitution took effect in 1789 -- and it is still good law today.

I hope the president doesn't continue to hide behind such transparent 
and irrelevant justifications. Congress has amended the 1978 FISA law 
over time, most recently with the passage of the PATRIOT Act -- and 
there is no reason to think we wouldn't do so again -- if we knew what 
the administration is doing. If the president needs more powers to 
lawfully protect the American people from terrorism, then he should come 
to Congress to seek modification of current laws. The president has 
failed to provide a sufficient legal basis for his actions; instead he 
and his Cabinet spent the week refusing to negotiate with Congress and 
opposing bipartisan efforts to extend the PATRIOT Act for three more months.

Just this past week there were public reports that a college student in 
Massachusetts had two government agents show up at his house because he 
had gone to the library and asked for the official Chinese version of 
Mao Tse-tung's Communist Manifesto. Following his professor's 
instructions to use original source material, this young man discovered 
that he, too, was on the government's watch list.

Think of the chilling effect on free speech and academic freedom when a 
government agent shows up at your home -- after you request a book from 
the library.

Incredibly, we are now in an era where reading a controversial book may 
be evidence of a link to terrorists.

Something is amiss here. Something doesn't make sense. We need a 
thorough and independent investigation of these activities.

The Congress and the American people deserve answers now.

Edward M. Kennedy is the senior US senator from Massachusetts.  

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/12/22/on_wiretapping_bush_isnt_listening_to_the_constitution/
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From newsletter at villagevoice.com  Wed Dec 21 21:52:31 2005
From: newsletter at villagevoice.com (Village Voice Newsletter)
Date: Thu Dec 22 05:35:11 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Today's 'Voice': Transit Strike!
Message-ID: <20051222055231.50078.qmail@www3.villagevoice.com>

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From barbarasiomos38 at msn.com  Thu Dec 22 07:08:16 2005
From: barbarasiomos38 at msn.com (barbara)
Date: Thu Dec 22 07:08:06 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Article from The Nation
Message-ID: <200512221508.jBMF8Goa014139@thor.thenation.com>

If you like this article, please consider subscribing to The Nation at special discounted rates. You can order online https://ssl.thenation.com or call our toll-free number at 1-800-333-8536.

 

So true, so true...

barbara

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/edcut?pid=43492
=====================================
12/18/2005 @ 5:42pm

Spying and Lying
by Katrina vanden Heuvel


   "This shocking revelation ought to send a chill down the spine of
   every American."

   Senator Russell Feingold, December 17, 2005

   As reported by the New York Times on Friday, "Months after the
   September 11 attacks, President Bush secretly authorized the National
   Security Agency (NSA) to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the
   United States to search for evidence of terrorist activity without
   the court-approved warrants ordinarily required for domestic spying."

   A senior intelligence officer says Bush personally and repeatedly
   gave the NSA permission for these taps--more than three dozen times
   since October 2001. Each time, the White House counsel and the
   Attorney General--whose job it is to guard and defend our civil
   liberties and freedoms--certified the lawfulness of the program. (It
   is useful here to note "The Yoo Factor": The domestic spying program
   was justified by a "classified legal opinion" written by former
   Justice Department official John Yoo, the same official who wrote a
   memo arguing that interrogation techniques only constitute torture if
   they are "equivalent in intensity to...organ failure, impairment of
   bodily function or even death.")

   Illegally spying on Americans is chilling--even for this
   Administration. Moreover, as Kate Martin, director of the Center for
   National Security Studies, told the Times, "the secret order may
   amount to the president authorizing criminal activity." Some
   officials at the NSA agree. According to the Times, "Some agency
   officials wanted nothing to do with the program, apparently fearful
   of participating in an illegal operation." Others were "worried that
   the program might come under scrutiny by Congressional or criminal
   investigators if Senator John Kerry, the Democratic nominee, was
   elected President."

   It's always a fight to find out what the government doesn't want us
   to know, and this Administration and its footsoldiers have used every
   means available to undermine journalists' ability to exercise their
   First Amendment function of holding power accountable. But
   compounding the Administration's double-dealing, the media has been
   largely complicit in the face of White House mendacity. David Sirota
   puts it more bluntly in a recent entry from his blog: "We are
   watching the media being used as a tool of state power in overriding
   the very laws that are supposed to confine state power and protect
   American citizens."

   Consider this: the New York Times says it "delayed publication" of
   the NSA spying story for a year. The paper says it acceded to White
   House arguments that publishing the article "could jeopardize
   continuing investigations and alert would-be-terrorists that they
   might be under scrutiny."

   Despite Administration demands though, it was reported in yesterday's
   Washington Post that the decision by Times editor Bill Keller to
   withhold the article caused friction within the Times' Washington
   bureau, according to people close to the paper. Some reporters and
   editors in New York and in the paper's DC bureau had apparently
   pushed for earlier publication. In an explanatory statement, Keller
   issued the excuse that, "Officials also assured senior editors of the
   Times that a variety of legal checks had been imposed that satisfied
   everyone involved that the program raised no legal questions." This
   from a paper, which as First Amendment lawyer Martin Garbus pointed
   out in a letter to editor "rejected similar arguments when it
   courageously pub;ished the Pentagon Papers over the government's
   false objections that it would endanger our foreign policy as well as
   the lives of individuals." The Times, Garbus went on to argue, "owes
   its readers more. The Bush Administration's record for truthfulness
   is not such that one should rely on its often meaningless and vague
   assertions."

   Readers and citizens deserve to know why the New York Times
   capitulated to the White House's request? It is true that Friday's
   revelations of this previously unknown, illegal domestic spying
   program helped stop the Patriot Act reauthorization. But what if the
   Times had published its story before the election? And what other
   stories have been held up due to Adminsitration cajoling, pressure,
   threats and intimidation?

   The question of how this Administration threatens the workings of a
   free press, a cornerstone of democracy, remains a central one. Every
   week brings new evidence of White House attempts to delegitimize the
   press's role as a watchdog of government abuse, an effective counter
   to virtually unchecked executive power.

   Last month, for example, the Washington Post published Dana Priest's
   extraordinary report about the CIA's network of prisons in Eastern
   Europe for suspected terrorists. Priest's reporting helped push
   passage of a ban on the metastasizing use of torture. But, as with
   the New York Times, the Post acknowledged that it had acceded to
   government requests to withhold the names of the countries in which
   the black site prisons exist.

   How many other cases are there of news outlets choosing to honor
   government requests for secrecy over the journalistic duty of
   informing the public about government abuse and wrongdoing?

   Never has the need for an independent press been greater. Never has
   the need to know what is being done in our name been greater. As Bill
   Moyers said in an important speech delivered on the 20th anniversary
   of the National Security Archive, a dedicated band of truth-tellers,
   "...There has been nothing in our time like the Bush Administration's
   obsession with secrecy." Moyers added. "It's an old story: the
   greater the secrecy, the deeper the corruption."

   Federation of American Scientists secrecy specialist Steven Aftergood
   bluntly says, "an even more aggressive form of government information
   control has gone unenumerated and often unrecognized in the Bush era,
   as government agencies have restricted access to unclassified
   information in libraries, archives, websites and official databases."
   This practice, Aftergood adds, "also accords neatly with the Bush
   Administration's preference for unchecked executive authority."

   "Information is the oxygen of democracy," Aftergood rightly insists.
   This Administration is trying to cut off the supply. Journalists and
   media organizations must find a way to restore their role as
   effective watchdogs, as checks on an executive run amok.

From harveyarden at starpower.net  Thu Dec 22 07:41:15 2005
From: harveyarden at starpower.net (Harvey Arden)
Date: Thu Dec 22 09:01:21 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] ~*~WHITE BUFFALO TEACHINGS~*~'48 Truly Transcendent
	pages'
Message-ID: <E1EpTdT-0002sT-3h@elasmtp-kukur.atl.sa.earthlink.net>

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From michael at intrafi.com  Thu Dec 22 08:56:18 2005
From: michael at intrafi.com (michael@intrafi.com)
Date: Thu Dec 22 09:07:36 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] FT.com / Comment & analysis / Comment - Deal with Israel
 can rehabilitate Syria019s pariah regime
Message-ID: <32126236.1135270578464.JavaMail.tomcat@localhost>



*Please note, the sender's email address has not been verified.



You have received the following link from michael@intrafi.com

 
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From IHHS at aol.com  Wed Dec 21 20:31:34 2005
From: IHHS at aol.com (IHHS@aol.com)
Date: Thu Dec 22 09:17:06 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] patriot act 
Message-ID: <E1EpTss-000353-Hy@smtpauth04.mail.atl.earthlink.net>

_http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/december2005/201205intendedtofail.htm_ 
(http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/december2005/201205intendedtofail.htm) 


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From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Thu Dec 22 09:47:30 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (mblaxill@yahoo.com)
Date: Thu Dec 22 09:58:52 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: European Union Threatens Microsoft With
	Penalties
Message-ID: <20051222174730.40498237579@lax-gw01.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: mblaxill@yahoo.com.

BUSINESS | December 22, 2005
European Union Threatens Microsoft With Penalties
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The E.U. took new legal steps against Microsoft to ensure better compliance with its 2004 antitrust ruling, threatening fines of up to $2.37 million a day.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/business/AP-EU-Microsoft.html?emc=eta1



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From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Thu Dec 22 09:51:18 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (mblaxill@yahoo.com)
Date: Thu Dec 22 10:02:38 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: News of Surveillance Is Awkward for Agency
Message-ID: <20051222175118.235209FDFE@lax-gw05.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: mblaxill@yahoo.com.

yeah no shit


WASHINGTON | December 22, 2005
News of Surveillance Is Awkward for Agency
By SCOTT SHANE
The disclosure of the National Security Agency's secret domestic eavesdropping may revive fears that the agency is a sort of high-tech Big Brother.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/22/politics/22nsa.html?emc=eta1



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From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Thu Dec 22 09:56:23 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (mblaxill@yahoo.com)
Date: Thu Dec 22 10:07:49 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Chill Grows as Japan Calls China a Military
	Threat
Message-ID: <20051222175623.3C4B52376DB@lax-gw01.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: mblaxill@yahoo.com.

INTERNATIONAL / ASIA PACIFIC | December 22, 2005
Chill Grows as Japan Calls China a Military Threat
By NORIMITSU ONISHI
The Japanese foreign minister bluntly described China's military build-up as a threat today, immediately drawing an angry response from Beijing.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/22/international/asia/22cnd-japan.html?emc=eta1



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one Best Picture.  What did the original New York
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From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Thu Dec 22 09:59:35 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (mblaxill@yahoo.com)
Date: Thu Dec 22 10:10:52 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Headlines for December 22, 2005
Message-ID: <20051222175935.21134.qmail@trinity.democracynow.org>

Mike Blaxill  ( mblaxill@yahoo.com )
sent you this story from democracynow.org



+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
|  Headlines for December 22, 2005
|  http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/22/1521239
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+


- Judge Threatens to Jail Transit Strike Leaders
- Republicans Lose ANWR Oil Drill Vote in Senate 
- Patriot Act Given 6-Month Extension 
- Cheney Casts Deciding Vote on $40B Cut To Social Programs 
- Appeals Court Rejects White House on Padilla Transfer 
- Report: NYPD Planted Undercover Agents At Protests, Rallies, Vigil 
- New Orleans Police Officers Fired Over Videotaped Beating 
- Evo Morales Wins Bolivian Presidential Elections 
This story continues at: 
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/22/1521239

From ean at sbcglobal.net  Thu Dec 22 09:46:13 2005
From: ean at sbcglobal.net (ean@sbcglobal.net)
Date: Thu Dec 22 10:22:07 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] White Christmas
Message-ID: <E1EpUtu-00082G-Gc@smtpauth04.mail.atl.earthlink.net>

The Christmas He Dreamed for All of Us

By Harold Meyerson
Wednesday, December 21, 2005; A31

The white Christmases that Irving Berlin dreamed of weren't the earliest 
ones he used to know. He spent his first five Christmases in czarist 
Russia, and his only recollection of that time, at least the only one 
he'd acknowledge as an adult, was that of watching his neighbors burn 
his family's house to the ground in a good old-fashioned, Jew-hating pogr
om.

So it's no surprise that when Berlin got around to writing his great 
Christmas song in 1941, nearly half a century after his family had fled 
the shtetl of Mohilev for New York's Lower East Side, it was flatly 
devoid of Christian imagery. It is, for all that, a religious song. It's 
just that Berlin's religion was America.

"White Christmas" is an achingly nostalgic ballad, evoking a rural 
America where treetops glisten and sleigh bells ring. This was Currier 
and Ives country, an idealized winter landscape created for an urban 
nation that was busily shipping its young men overseas to fight Hitler 
and Japan. Amid the unprecedented disruptions of the war, "White 
Christmas," with its implicit assertion that we can somehow get back to 
this innocent Eden, found a ready audience. Over the subsequent six 
decades, in a world that's only grown more unstable, Berlin's ode has 
never lost its power: Roughly 2,000 versions have been recorded since 
Bing Crosby's initial take.

The success of "White Christmas" paved the way for a whole new genre of 
Christmas songs. Two years after Berlin's ballad first appeared in 
Paramount's "Holiday Inn," MGM filmed "Meet Me in St. Louis," which had 
as its musical centerpiece the bittersweet "Have Yourself a Merry Little 
Christmas" -- a song about loved ones trying to stay together "if the 
fates allow." (A film ahead of its time, "Meet Me in St. Louis" is about 
a family resisting corporate relocation.) Two years later came "The 
Christmas Song" ("Chestnuts roasting on an open fire"), and a year after 
that, "Let It Snow." By then the American Christmas song was about 
staying warm in winter, about staying connected to loved ones and 
traditions. It also practiced separation of church and song.

This was all rather new. Tin Pan Alley hadn't turned out many notable 
Christmas songs before "White Christmas." It hasn't turned out many 
since. But for a few years in the middle of the 20th century, it 
produced a series of songs that remain Christmas standards today.

Many of those Christmas songwriters, of course, were Jewish and the 
children of immigrants; their deepest drive was to demonstrate beyond 
all doubt that they were assimilated, cosmopolitan, American. Berlin's 
father had been a cantor, but Berlin himself, unlike the hero of "The 
Jazz Singer," wasn't torn between the Jewish piety of liturgical music 
and the American secularism of ragtime. When he left home at 14 to sing 
in the saloons of the Bowery, he never looked back. And the religious 
identity of the composer-lyricist of "White Christmas" and "Easter 
Parade" was as fuzzy as it was perfunctory. A Jew married to an Irish 
Catholic, Berlin raised his three daughters as nominal Protestants. Who 
better to write a non-Christian Christmas song? (Berlin's may have been 
an extreme case, but in the middle of the 20th century, Jewish 
assimilationism was so pervasive that it gave rise to the following 
crack: What's the difference between Reform Jews and Unitarians? 
Unitarians don't have Christmas trees.)

"White Christmas" was one of a dozen numbers that Berlin wrote for 
"Holiday Inn," each song commemorating a specific holiday. One hesitates 
to impute anything so vulgar as a message to a Crosby-Fred Astaire 
musical, but the message of this musical is that we are all Americans 
and these are our holidays. Easter belongs to all of us, even if it is 
about little more than strolling down Fifth Avenue. Christmas belongs to 
all of us. The religious content of those holidays was fine for 
Christian believers, but the composer of "God Bless America" preferred 
to celebrate a common national identity, complete with common holidays 
that had nonsectarian meanings.

Berlin kept Christmas in the public square and, more than anyone before or since, sent 
it out over the public airwaves. But it was an American, not a Christian, Christmas. And 
by the crass index of number of recordings sold, and the not-so-crass index of number 
of spirits touched, Berlin's nonsectarian holiday has been the predominant version of 
Christmas in this country for the past 60 years.

Now the Fox News demagogues want to impose a more sectarian Christmas on us, 
supplanting the distinctly American holiday we have celebrated lo these threescore 
years with a holiday that divides us along religious lines. Bill O'Reilly can blaspheme all 
he wants, but like millions of my countrymen, I take attacks on Irving Berlin's America 
personally. If O'Reilly doesn't like it here, why doesn't he go back to where he came 
from?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/20/AR2005122
001011.html?nav=hcmodule
-- 
You are currently on Mha Atma's Earth Action Network email list, option D (up to 
3 emails/day).  To be removed, or to switch options (option A - 1x/week, option B -
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"A war of aggression is the supreme international crime." -- Robert Jackson,
 former U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice and Nuremberg prosecutor

From harperalexander at mail.com  Thu Dec 22 10:23:08 2005
From: harperalexander at mail.com (Alexander Harper)
Date: Thu Dec 22 10:35:05 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Fight moralists with morality - John Gapper
Message-ID: <20051222182308.7B32B164278@ws1-4.us4.outblaze.com>




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Main page content:
John Gapper: We must fight moralists with morality
By John Gapper 
Published: December 21 2005 20:42 | Last updated: December 21 2005 20:42

Seasons come and seasons go, but the mean-spiritedness of some American Christian conservatives endures. Here is a bunch of people who are never happier than when denigrating or boycotting imagined enemies.

You think Christmas is the season to be jolly? How naive. It is the time to attack stores such as Target and Wal-Mart that wish their customers Happy Holidays, the US phrase for Christmas, Hanukkah and the African festival Kwanzaa, instead of Happy Christmas. Bill O?Reilly, the Fox television commentator, has led the crusade on behalf of Santa Claus.

On the point that people should feel free to say Happy Christmas and to sing carols, I am with Mr O?Reilly. But his tactics ? to hector companies that do not comply ? are unpleasant. Retailers are not the only ones: many US companies are targets of Christian zealots trying to ensure that nobody tolerates what they abhor.

The average company gets very uncomfortable when accused of offending customers and its first instinct is to conciliate. Ford appeared to comply with the Christian right last month when it stopped advertising its Jaguar and Land Rover brands in magazines for gay people.

That did no good since it promptly faced an outcry from the other side: gay and lesbian groups. Ford says the whole affair was a misunderstanding but it eventually did the right thing by reinstating its advertisements and telling the American Family Association, a noisy Christian lobby group, where to get off.

The lesson is that companies have to fight fire with fire: they must take a moral stand when confronted by moralisers. It is no use complying with activists because it seems to be in their financial interests. Not only may someone demand the opposite, but it is an indefensible stance.

In Ford?s case, one group of customers had no right to tell it to cut off business with another. The next step would have been to insist that it did not sell cars to gays or adulterers. Ford?s eventual position ? that it would not discriminate in this way ? was ethically correct.

Compare this with the case of US cable television companies. Christian groups are unhappy at the lack of say that cable subscribers have over the service they get. Those that opt for more than the basic service are often beamed hundreds of channels even if they only want a few (the average family tunes into only 17).

Christian groups say this means they cannot screen out channels with sex and violence on them, a complaint backed by Kevin Martin, head of the Federal Communications Commission. Mr Martin wants cable companies such as Comcast to give subscribers more choice, either allowing them to choose ? la carte or giving them ?family-friendly? channel tiers.

Grudgingly, the cable companies are introducing family tiers but grumble that this upsets their financial model. Small networks attract advertising because they get into many homes (even if they are hardly watched). 
If cable subscribers could pick and choose, such networks might either have to demand higher subscription fees to compensate for the drop in advertising, or close down.

This may be true but it misses the point: the Christians are on the side of liberty. If some parents want to protect their children from unsavoury programmes, why should they be frustrated? Whatever the truth of the cable companies? figures, they are trying to rebut an ethical argument with a financial one. It is no wonder that they are on the retreat.

All of this is relevant to the struggle looming for GlaxoSmithKline and Merck. The two drugs companies are working on vaccines against strains of the human papilloma virus (HPV) that cause 70 per cent of cases of cervical cancer. Merck hopes to have its Gardasil vaccine, which has shown 100 per cent effectiveness, approved for use in 2006.

A vaccine that could prevent most of the 300,000 annual deaths from cervical cancer sounds like a good thing but there is a difficulty. HPV spreads through sexual contact and the companies say the vaccine should be given at about the age of 10. It is more potent then and will protect girls before they have sex.

Some Christian activists say this is tantamount to encouraging teenage promiscuity. They ignore the fact that American babies are vaccinated against Hepatitis B, which is most common among drug addicts and gay men. Parents who want their daughters to risk cancer if they do not stay celibate also need to examine their consciences. But the argument has to be addressed if the new vaccines are to succeed.

On the face of it, opponents of the HPV vaccine are arguing in favour of liberty. Unlike other medicines, governments not only subsidise vaccines but mandate their use. US states insist on children having some vaccinations before they enter school and the federal government pays for nearly half of the injections.

But in practice those who object to vaccinations can avoid them: 48 states allow exemptions on religious grounds. The activists are not trying to protect their daughters from being vaccinated so much as prevent others from getting the benefit. Their stance is closer to that of Ford?s opponents than cable television?s critics.

Drugs companies see profit in HPV vaccines but they have a moral case as well. The notion that they should hold back life-saving medicines from those who want them is wrong, no matter how fiercely zealots proclaim it, and GSK and Merck must say so. Happy Christmas.
 


-- 
___________________________________________________
Play 100s of games for FREE! http://games.mail.com/


From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Thu Dec 22 11:26:20 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Thu Dec 22 11:37:43 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Police Infiltrate Protests, Videotapes Show
Message-ID: <20051222192620.302E824A1E7@lax-gw08.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: ialterman@nyc.rr.com.

Not just national (illegal wiretaps, etc.), but local too. Peace.


NEW YORK REGION | December 22, 2005
Police Infiltrate Protests, Videotapes Show
By JIM DWYER
Videotapes show that police officers have conducted covert surveillance of people at seven public gatherings since August 2004.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/22/nyregion/22police.html?emc=eta1



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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Thu Dec 22 11:28:36 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Thu Dec 22 11:39:53 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: A President, Not a King (7 Letters)
Message-ID: <20051222192836.A0DBF237538@lax-gw01.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: ialterman@nyc.rr.com.

What we're saying...


OPINION | December 22, 2005
A President, Not a King (7 Letters)

To the Editor:.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/22/opinion/l22spy.html?emc=eta1




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This e-mail was sent to you by a friend through NYTimes.com's E-mail This Article service.  For general information about NYTimes.com, write to help@nytimes.com.

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Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
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From hotprojects at nyc.rr.com  Thu Dec 22 16:10:43 2005
From: hotprojects at nyc.rr.com (richard haase)
Date: Thu Dec 22 16:22:02 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] merry christmas group all the very best
Message-ID: <000801c60755$52930820$f1476c42@hotprojects>


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From nwonline at toronto.cbc.ca  Thu Dec 22 16:30:09 2005
From: nwonline at toronto.cbc.ca (CBC News Online)
Date: Thu Dec 22 16:42:05 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] CBC News - SUNNI,
	SHIA GROUPS REJECT IRAQI ELECTION RESULTS 
Message-ID: <20051223003010.1A1DC1B69A@nmweb06.nm.cbc.ca>

This email has been sent to you by harry.sifton@sympatico.ca
The following is a news item posted on CBC NEWS ONLINE
at http://www.cbc.ca/news
____________________________________________________
SUNNI, SHIA GROUPS REJECT IRAQI ELECTION RESULTS 
WebPosted Thu Dec 22 18:06:57 2005

---Sunni Arab and secular Shia groups are joining forces to reject
preliminary results from Iraq's parliamentary elections.

The groups threaten to boycott the new legislature if their complaints
that the polls were tainted aren't properly reviewed.

"We fully reject the falsified preliminary elections and cancel the
preliminary results that were declared by the electoral commission that
have not been officially declared yet," said Dr. Ali al-Timimi, leader of
al-Hulla al-Fayha.

Salih al-Mutliq, leader of Iraqi National Dialogue, said: "We didn't meet
here to go against any specific group. We have met to stand against the
process of falsification and distortion of the democratic process."

The 35 political groups are also demanding the disbanding of the
Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq.

Negotiations continue behind the scenes on the makeup of the new
government.

The final results are expected to be announced at the beginning of
January.

Meanwhile, on a surprise visit to Iraq, U.S. Defence Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld said the country will continue to need world support even after
the new government is announced.

"This country needs the support of the United Nations, it needs the
support of the international community, it needs the support of the
coalition countries," said Rumsfeld.

Copyright (C) 2005 CBC. All rights reserved.
From michael at intrafi.com  Thu Dec 22 17:01:14 2005
From: michael at intrafi.com (Michael)
Date: Thu Dec 22 17:01:13 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Article from Tom Dispatch
Message-ID: <200512230101.jBN11ERV013731@thor.thenation.com>

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From harry.sifton at sympatico.ca  Thu Dec 22 17:26:28 2005
From: harry.sifton at sympatico.ca (Harold Sifton)
Date: Thu Dec 22 17:37:49 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Bush says it has been a "Good Year for the American
	people"
Message-ID: <000801c6075f$e95fb910$0427e440@Harold>

What reality is he in?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20051222/pl_afp/usbushiraqterrorism_051222201244

Saying that it has been a good year for the American people?? The economy is a mess, Katrina devastated peoples lives,  jobs are flowing to China, GM,Ford, etc.... are a mess........crime in America is up, bankruptcies are up.......the list goes on.
Soldiers are dying in Iraq for a wrong war with no solution/exit strategy...........the only people making monies are the Oil Companies.

It is a good year for Bu$h, a bad year for America and the World.

This statement of Bush's confounds me!
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From michael at michaelbutler.com  Thu Dec 22 17:11:29 2005
From: michael at michaelbutler.com (Michael Butler)
Date: Thu Dec 22 18:20:23 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] The Seasons Message
Message-ID: <BFD08EC1.271A9%michael@michaelbutler.com>


Michael Butler's Blog

http://www.michaelbutler.com/mbblog.html

http://www.michaelbutler.com


From geomilman at milman.com  Thu Dec 22 22:58:26 2005
From: geomilman at milman.com (George R. Milman)
Date: Thu Dec 22 23:09:56 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] 'Impeachment' Talk, Pro and Con,
	Appears in Media at Last - Editor and Publisher Staff
Message-ID: <000001c6078e$462b2160$8c00a8c0@george>

NEW YORK Suddenly this week, scattered outposts in the media have started
mentioning the "I" word, or at least the "IO" phrase: impeach or impeachable
offense.

 

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content
_id=1001736558

 

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From geomilman at milman.com  Thu Dec 22 23:00:34 2005
From: geomilman at milman.com (George R. Milman)
Date: Thu Dec 22 23:11:53 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Santorum now critical of Dover case
Message-ID: <000501c6078e$9278d260$8c00a8c0@george>


He denies he is contradicting earlier statements of support for the cause.


 

 

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/local/states/pennsylvania/13461220.h
tm

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From geomilman at milman.com  Thu Dec 22 23:06:11 2005
From: geomilman at milman.com (George R. Milman)
Date: Thu Dec 22 23:17:37 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Terror case challenges White House strategy - By Warren
	Richey | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor 
Message-ID: <000a01c6078f$5b844270$8c00a8c0@george>

An appeals court refused the government's request to have Jose Padilla
transferred to Florida for a criminal trial.

 

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1223/p02s01-uspo.html

 

That Judge Luttig (one of Bush's frontrunner candidates for a U.S. Supreme
Court slot (both times)), made the comments he did is one of the great,
wonderful ironies of the year; in a class with the best of them.

 

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From harry.sifton at sympatico.ca  Fri Dec 23 01:23:06 2005
From: harry.sifton at sympatico.ca (Harry)
Date: Fri Dec 23 01:34:39 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] BBC E-mail: Bush bubble burst by troubled 2005
Message-ID: <20051223_092306_030508.harry.sifton@sympatico.ca>

Harry saw this story on BBC News Online and thought you
should see it.



** Bush bubble burst by troubled 2005 **
In political terms 2005 must go down as George Bush's most difficult year in office, writes the BBC's Matt Frei.
< http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/1/hi/world/americas/4550302.stm >


** BBC Daily E-mail **
Choose the news and sport headlines you want - when you want them, all
in one daily e-mail
< http://www.bbc.co.uk/dailyemail/ >


** Disclaimer **
The BBC is not responsible for the content of this e-mail, and anything written in this e-mail does not necessarily reflect the BBC's views or opinions. Please note that neither the e-mail address nor name of the sender have?been verified.

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From harry.sifton at sympatico.ca  Fri Dec 23 05:58:07 2005
From: harry.sifton at sympatico.ca (harry.sifton@sympatico.ca)
Date: Fri Dec 23 06:09:34 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Guardian Unlimited: Double rebuke for Bush as judges
	attack terror moves
Message-ID: <20051223135807.121178B1E1@mussel.gul3.gnl>

HS spotted this on the Guardian Unlimited site and thought you should see it.

To see this story with its related links on the Guardian Unlimited site, go to http://www.guardian.co.uk

Double rebuke for Bush as judges attack terror moves
Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington
Friday December 23 2005
The Guardian


President George Bush faced a rare challenge from the judiciary yesterday when two courts questioned the legality of his expansion of presidential powers in the war on terror.

In a startling rebuke, a federal appeals court refused to allow the transfer of a terror suspect, Jose Padilla, from military to civilian custody and strongly suggested that the Bush administration was trying to manipulate the judicial system.

Meanwhile, the Washington Post reported that judges of the secret court established under the foreign intelligence surveillance act (Fisa) had demanded a briefing from Bush administration officials on why they believed it was legal to bypass their authority and eavesdrop on the telephone conversations and email of American citizens without a warrant.

The Fisa court had been in charge of issuing such warrants until 2002 when President Bush signed orders enabling the National Security Agency to monitor domestic communications without court oversight. The judges reportedly now fear that the information thus obtained by the NSA was then being used improperly to obtain wiretap approvals from Fisa courts.

Such challenges to the legal philosophy of an administration are exceedingly rare, and arrive at a time of intense debate on the White House contention that the war on terror justified an expansion of presidential power.

The administration suffered an additional rebuff when the senate bowed to civil liberty concerns, agreeing to renew its trademark anti-terror legislation, the Patriot Act, for a mere six months.

However, the rebuke from the fourth circuit court of appeal in Richmond, Virginia, was especially surprising because the judges have a reputation as conservatives, and have previously ruled in favour of the administration's efforts to hold Padilla indefinitely without trial.

"It was difficult for me to think of another situation where a court has said this to the government," said Carl Tobias of the University of Richmond law school, who has written about the government's conduct of terrorism cases.

In its ruling, the court warned the Bush administration it risked giving "an appearance that the purpose of these actions may be to avoid consideration of our decision by the supreme court".

The judges also warned of the dangers of leaving the impression that Padilla had been held for years by mistake, saying that could inflict "substantial cost to the government's credibility before the courts".

Copyright Guardian Newspapers Limited
From swiggard at comcast.net  Fri Dec 23 06:39:01 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Fri Dec 23 06:53:35 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Patriot Act Extension Is Reduced To a Month - Washington
	Post 
Message-ID: <43AC0C05.8010609@comcast.net>

Patriot Act Extension Is Reduced To a Month
House Action Overcomes Senate's Longer Reprieve

By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, December 23, 2005; A01

The House balked yesterday at a Senate plan to extend the USA Patriot 
Act by six months to give Congress and President Bush more time to work 
out their differences, instead forcing the Senate and the administration 
to accept a one-month extension.

At the same time, the House approved a $460 billion defense bill that 
was shorn of a provision promoted by Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) that 
would have opened Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil 
drilling. But it put off until next year final agreement on a major 
budget measure that would trim federal spending by nearly $40 billion 
over five years.

Congress finished a year in which it rebuffed Bush on many of his top 
priorities and showed a new willingness to assert its prerogatives after 
four years during which the president largely dictated the terms and 
sought to expand executive power at the expense of the legislative branch.

It was also a year marked by bitter infighting in a Republican caucus 
that had been known for exceptional discipline. Bush and GOP leaders 
were buffeted by unforeseen events, most of all Hurricane Katrina, that 
continued to consume lawmakers even as they tried to depart for the year.

One of the most contentious disputes was over whether to reauthorize the 
USA Patriot Act, and it appeared as if the Senate had finessed an 
impasse with the White House by agreeing Wednesday night to extend the 
existing domestic surveillance law -- set to expire on Dec. 31 -- by six 
months. But House Judiciary Committee Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner 
Jr. (R-Wis.) refused to go along with the agreement yesterday. He 
demanded that the House pass an extension only through Feb. 3, forcing a 
few senators to return to the Capitol last night to give the Senate's 
consent.

"The fact is that a six-month extension, in my opinion, would have 
simply allowed the Senate to duck the issue until the last week in 
June," said Sensenbrenner, who had largely prevailed in negotiations 
with the Senate on a new version of the anti-terrorism law, only to see 
the compromise blocked by a Senate filibuster. "Now they came pretty 
close to wrecking everybody's Christmas. I didn't want to put the entire 
Congress in the position of them wrecking everybody's Independence Day."

The Patriot Act was passed after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks 
to strengthen the government's hand in combating terrorism. The 
administration sought to toughen some of the provisions and prevent 16 
from expiring. Critics charged that the proposed renewal was too slanted 
in the government's favor regarding national security letters and 
special subpoenas that give the FBI significant leeway in obtaining 
records, among other concerns.

The House action was a setback for Bush, who had repeatedly said he 
would not accept a "short-term extension." Wednesday night's Senate 
action, which increased the proposed extension from three months to six, 
was seen in part as a way for Bush and his allies to save face while 
accepting the collapse of a four-year renewal of the law; they had 
supported its renewal and the House had passed it on Dec. 14.

Yesterday's House vote not only erased the face-saving measure, but it 
also forced Bush to accept the shortest extension that lawmakers had 
seriously considered.

Democratic lawmakers quickly hailed the House vote as a victory. Senate 
Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.) said: "Democrats are happy with a 
one-month extension of the Patriot Act. We always said that we would 
accept a short-term extension to give negotiators time to get the final 
bill right."

Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (Vt.) said: "The amount of time is less important 
than the good-faith effort that will be needed in improving the Patriot 
Act to strike the right balance in respecting Americans' liberty and 
privacy, while protecting their security."

Eric Ueland, chief of staff to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist 
(R-Tenn.), explained why Frist wanted a longer-term extension of the 
existing law. "For these investigations," he said, "a six-month 
extension allows the intelligence community and the Department of 
Justice to manage investigations without having to manage against the 
countdown clock."

Despite the confused and discordant conclusion to this year's session of 
Congress, acting House Majority Leader Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) struck a 
positive note, rattling off the House's accomplishments.

The House passed and sent to Bush yesterday a $460 billion defense 
spending bill that includes $50 billion for the wars in Iraq and 
Afghanistan, $29 billion in new hurricane aid, $3.8 billion for bird flu 
preparedness and a 1 percent, government-wide spending cut, which 
excludes veterans programs.

Congress also completed work this week on a defense policy bill that 
asserts congressional will in matters of war almost for the first time 
since the Sept. 11 attacks. The measure would ban cruel and degrading 
interrogation methods and would limit the legal rights of detainees in 
military facilities.

Other achievements cited by Blunt include revising the nation's 
bankruptcy laws; approving the largest highway and public works bill in 
history; passing an energy bill that had been sought by Bush for four 
years; approving the Central American Free Trade Agreement; winning 
House passage of a budget measure that would slow spending on 
entitlement programs such as Medicaid; and approving new, get-tough 
legislation on illegal immigration.

"When you look at what we set out for ourselves at the first of the 
year, even with Katrina and everything that had to be added after 
August, it's hard not to say the House finished the year hitting all of 
our objectives," Blunt said.

But congressional experts and former Republican lawmakers say that, 
despite those accomplishments, the year will be remembered more for the 
indictment of former House majority leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) in 
September and the ensuing leadership discord, the growing stain of 
embattled Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff, and the chaotic conclusion 
that kept Congress in active legislative session longer than in any year 
since 1987.

In the final weeks of the legislative session, Republican leaders had to 
deal with conservatives rebelling over hurricane aid spending, GOP 
moderates balking at oil drilling and cuts to anti-poverty programs, and 
civil libertarians from both parties objecting to key provisions of the 
Patriot Act compromise.

"If you look at the whole, they didn't have a bad year," said former 
representative Vin Weber (R-Minn.), who remains influential with 
congressional Republicans. "But, unfortunately, what matters politically 
is not the whole, but the end. And the end didn't end very well."

Some Republican political strategists were sanguine yesterday about the 
coming year, when midterm elections will loom large but fortunes may 
improve, especially in Iraq. Former representative Bill Paxon (R-N.Y.), 
an influential political tactician, said the president's approval 
ratings are rising and voter perceptions of the economy are steadily 
improving.

Others are not so positive. Former DeLay aide Michael Scanlon has 
already agreed to cooperate with federal prosecutors looking into 
Abramoff's relationships with members of Congress. Now Abramoff himself 
is nearing a plea agreement that could turn him against at least a dozen 
lawmakers and congressional aides. Weber said House leaders should view 
the investigation with "paramount seriousness."

"It's the cumulative effect of all of this, whether it is scandal, or 
failure to get an agenda enacted or questions in the paper every day 
about unauthorized wiretaps and the failure of Congress to get 
involved," fretted another former Republican congressman, Mickey Edwards 
(Okla.). "It's all adding up to a pretty serious situation."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/22/AR2005122202016.html?referrer=email
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Fri Dec 23 06:41:24 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Fri Dec 23 06:56:06 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Newly Emboldened Congress Has Dogged Bush This Year -
 Washington Post
Message-ID: <43AC0C94.1050105@comcast.net>

Newly Emboldened Congress Has Dogged Bush This Year

By Jim VandeHei and Charles Babington
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, December 23, 2005; A05

After four years in which Congress repeatedly lay down while President 
Bush dictated his priorities, 2005 will go down as the year legislators 
stood up.

This week's uprising against a four-year extension of the USA Patriot 
Act was the latest example of a new willingness by lawmakers in both 
parties to challenge Bush and his notions of expansive executive power.

Since this spring, Congress has forced Bush to scrap plans for a broad 
restructuring of Social Security, accept tighter restrictions on the 
treatment of detainees and rewrite his immigration plan. Lawmakers have 
rebuffed Bush's call to make permanent his first-term tax cuts and 
helped force the president to speak more candidly about setbacks in Iraq.

"What you have seen is a Congress, which has been AWOL through 
intimidation or lack of unity, get off the sidelines and jump in with 
both feet," especially on the national security front, said Sen. Lindsey 
O. Graham (R-S.C.).

What is most striking is that the pushback is coming not just from 
Democrats and moderate Republicans, who often disagree with Bush, but 
also from mainstream conservatives.

The year's events, say some legislators and scholars, reflect more than 
just a change in the president's legislative scorecard. They suggest 
Bush may have reached the outer limits of a long-term project to reshape 
the powers of the presidency. This effort was underway even before the 
military intervention in Iraq and the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks 
contributed to a traditional wartime flow of authority to the executive 
branch.

Since the Sept. 11 attacks, Bush has been especially aggressive in the 
area of domestic surveillance. This month's revelations about the 
administration's use of the highly secret National Security Agency to 
monitor some domestic communications without judicial review has whetted 
a new -- and critics say overdue -- appetite for congressional 
oversight. Hearings are planned next month into whether Bush acted lawfully.

Power among three branches of government always ebbs and flows, and it 
is possible Bush will regain dominance.

But several factors are working against him as he heads into the final 
three years of his presidency without obvious momentum. Many of the 
priorities he laid out at the start of the year, such as revamping 
Social Security, went nowhere. Bush has yet to highlight a new agenda, 
though White House aides say he will do that in the new year.

Bush's task, however, is complicated by the fraying of reins that he and 
GOP congressional leaders jointly used to keep control of Washington's 
agenda. A leadership crisis in the House -- prompted by the indictment 
of former majority leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) on charges of campaign 
finance violations -- has made it harder to enforce loyalty from 
rank-and-file Republicans. In the unwieldy Senate, meanwhile, party 
discipline remains difficult even though Republicans hold 55 of the 100 
seats -- as was proved this week when the leadership had to yield on an 
Alaska oil-drilling proposal and the Patriot Act extension.

As important, Bush cannot run again, and the closer lawmakers get to the 
next congressional elections, the more inclined they are to oppose him 
if it helps them at home. Rep. J.D. Hayworth (R-Ariz.), for instance, 
told constituents he would not want the president campaigning for him 
because he feels Bush's immigration policy is too soft on border 
enforcement.

"This is partly a function of approval ratings," said Sen. John Thune 
(R-S.D.). "People pay attention [to polls] and start saying, 'Lets take 
a more independent tack.' It is frankly self-interest, self-preservation."

Bush also faces a Democratic Party more united in its opposition than 
perhaps at any point this decade. Emboldened by their defeat of Bush 
Social Security's plan, Democrats have shown unusual solidarity in 
thwarting his agenda elsewhere. They have also instituted a leadership 
system to discourage dissent by threatening members with the loss of 
committee seats if they work too closely with the GOP. Roll Call 
newspaper recently reported that House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi 
(D-Calif.) threatened to remove Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-N.Y.) from the 
Energy and Commerce Committee for siding with Republicans on a key trade 
bill. Towns did not return five phone calls requesting comment.

Nowhere has this changing attitude -- and the influence of Congress -- 
been more apparent than in the debate over Iraq and terrorism-fighting 
tactics in recent months. Led by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Congress 
forced the president to accept specified limits on torture that Vice 
President Cheney and Bush opposed for months. That victory came only 
weeks after Congress put pressure on Bush to more clearly articulate his 
Iraq strategy, which led to a new White House campaign in recent weeks 
to restate the case for the war to the public.

Now, some in Congress are trying to take back some of the authority they 
granted the Bush White House last term. When four Senate Republicans 
joined nearly all the Democrats in filibustering a four-year renewal of 
the domestic surveillance law called the Patriot Act -- which Bush 
ardently sought -- his Senate allies were forced to accept a temporary 
six-month extension. Yesterday, the House dealt a tougher blow to the 
president, agreeing only to a one-month extension. Bush had repeatedly 
said he would not accept "a short-term extension," but the 
GOP-controlled House left him no choice.

As for the non-security matters, which got much less attention this 
year, Congress is also showing more vigor in driving the agenda. In the 
immigration debate, Republican congressional anxieties forced Bush to 
talk more about border security.

"I think the congressional agenda has been more realistic and frankly 
more limited than Bush's," said Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.). "The Bush 
presidency has a lot of big ideas, which is generally a good thing, but 
there just is not a lot of legislative follow-through."

Cole echoed what is one of the biggest GOP gripes about the Bush White 
House: that it lacks seasoned political and policy aides with the 
experience to work with congressional leaders. But several lawmakers 
said that after that message was delivered privately to Bush, they have 
seen the White House pay more attention to congressional concerns.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/22/AR2005122201829.html?nav=hcmodule
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Fri Dec 23 06:43:53 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Fri Dec 23 06:58:25 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] A Design That's Anti-Faith - Eugene Robinson -
	Washington Post Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43AC0D29.6080705@comcast.net>

A Design That's Anti-Faith

By Eugene Robinson
Friday, December 23, 2005; A21

Can you imagine a more faithless pursuit than trying to prove the 
existence of God?

Yet that is what the whole "intelligent design" movement is really 
about, and it seems to me that people of faith should rejoice at the 
federal court decision Tuesday forbidding the schools of Dover, Pa., to 
read a statement touting intelligent design in science classes. The 
eloquent ruling by U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III is a 
Christmastime blessing.

"Our conclusion today is that it is unconstitutional to teach ID 
[intelligent design] as an alternative to evolution in a public school 
science classroom," Jones wrote in a painstaking, 139-page opinion that 
probably will set the parameters for future battles over intelligent 
design around the country. No<> appeal is expected, because the pro-ID 
school board members who tried to inject religion into the classroom 
have already been ousted by voters.<>

ID is the belief that life forms are too complex to have evolved on 
their own through natural selection and therefore must have had an 
intelligence -- so powerful that you would have to call it divine -- 
guiding their development.

The state of Pennsylvania requires its schools to teach evolution, the 
theory developed by Charles Darwin that most scholars accept as one of 
the greatest achievements in the history of science. The Dover school 
board thought it knew better and required that students be made to 
listen to a statement proclaiming that evolution "is not a fact" but 
just a theory, that it contains gaps "for which there is no evidence," 
and that ID "is an explanation of the origin of life that differs from 
Darwin's view."

Well, it's true that anything is possible -- before Albert Einstein, who 
would have believed that time passes infinitesimally more slowly for a 
passenger on a train than for a farmer standing beside the tracks. But 
equating evolution with ID is like comparing a mighty fortress to a line 
in the sand. Someday a new theory of the life sciences may supplant 
Darwin's, just as Einstein's revolutionary theories supplanted those of 
Isaac Newton. As Jones carefully and forcefully explains in his ruling, 
however, ID isn't even science at this point. It's belief.

Jones notes that during a discussion of the ID disclaimer, one of the 
Dover school board members made the argument that "2,000 years ago, 
someone died on a cross. Can't someone take a stand for him?" That 
helped Jones reach the reasonable conclusion that the board was 
motivated by religious belief -- specifically, Christian belief -- and 
that the policy was an unconstitutional mixing of church and state.

Mainstream theologians have long since come to terms with evolution, 
which seems to be as unconditionally true as any scientific theory could 
ever be. As Jones points out, the fact that there are gaps in the fossil 
record does not logically lead to the conclusion that ID must be the 
answer; there is a mountain of evidence that supports evolution and 
essentially none that supports ID.

Jones traces the way that intelligent design grew directly out of an 
explicitly religious "creation science" movement and finds that "ID 
fails to meet the essential ground rules that limit science to testable, 
natural explanations." He adds, "Science cannot be defined differently 
for Dover students than it is defined in the scientific community."

The judge notes that nothing in Darwin forecloses religious belief. 
Intelligent design, on the contrary, seems to me to be anti-faith.

<>One of the best definitions of Christian faith is attributed to St. 
Paul, who called it "the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of 
things not seen." At every Mass, Roman Catholics around the world 
"proclaim the mystery of faith." There is no need to have faith in 
something that can be touched, measured, quantified, predicted; no need 
for faith in something that can be seen if only we build a big enough 
telescope or a sensitive enough electron microscope.

What would be the posture of a believer toward a God who could be seen? 
It might be adoration, I suppose, or obeisance, but it wouldn't be faith 
as believers since St. Paul have understood it. Faith requires mystery. 
Faith requires a leap.

Someday, perhaps, legitimate evidence of intelligent design will be 
found and published in peer-reviewed scientific journals -- papers that 
don't just cast doubt on Darwin but offer some tangible evidence of a 
designer. I doubt it, though. Science and faith are two separate paths 
to knowledge, and neither is meant to depend on the other.

It seems to me that it's wrong to use faith as a means to a scientific 
end. Doesn't faith have to be the end in itself?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/22/AR2005122201103.html
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Fri Dec 23 06:47:57 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Fri Dec 23 07:02:30 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] EXCELLENT AND RECOMMENDED: Power We Didn't Grant - Tom
 Daschle - Washington Post Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43AC0E1D.9080904@comcast.net>

Power We Didn't Grant

By Tom Daschle
Friday, December 23, 2005; A21

In the face of mounting questions about news stories saying that 
President Bush approved a program to wiretap American citizens without 
getting warrants, the White House argues that Congress granted it 
authority for such surveillance in the 2001 legislation authorizing the 
use of force against al Qaeda. On Tuesday, Vice President Cheney said 
the president "was granted authority by the Congress to use all means 
necessary to take on the terrorists, and that's what we've done."

As Senate majority leader at the time, I helped negotiate that law with 
the White House counsel's office over two harried days. I can state 
categorically that the subject of warrantless wiretaps of American 
citizens never came up. I did not and never would have supported giving 
authority to the president for such wiretaps. I am also confident that 
the 98 senators who voted in favor of authorization of force against al 
Qaeda did not believe that they were also voting for warrantless 
domestic surveillance.

On the evening of Sept. 12, 2001, the White House proposed that Congress 
authorize the use of military force to "deter and pre-empt any future 
acts of terrorism or aggression against the United States." Believing 
the scope of this language was too broad and ill defined, Congress chose 
instead, on Sept. 14, to authorize "all necessary and appropriate force 
against those nations, organizations or persons [the president] 
determines planned, authorized, committed or aided" the attacks of Sept. 
11. With this language, Congress denied the president the more expansive 
authority he sought and insisted that his authority be used specifically 
against Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda.

Just before the Senate acted on this compromise resolution, the White 
House sought one last change. Literally minutes before the Senate cast 
its vote, the administration sought to add the words "in the United 
States and" after "appropriate force" in the agreed-upon text. This 
last-minute change would have given the president broad authority to 
exercise expansive powers not just overseas -- where we all understood 
he wanted authority to act -- but right here in the United States, 
potentially against American citizens. I could see no justification for 
Congress to accede to this extraordinary request for additional 
authority. I refused.

<>The shock and rage we all felt in the hours after the attack were 
still fresh. America was reeling from the first attack on our soil since 
Pearl Harbor. We suspected thousands had been killed, and many who 
worked in the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were not yet accounted 
for. Even so, a strong bipartisan majority could not agree to the 
administration's request for an unprecedented grant of authority.

The Bush administration now argues those powers were inherently 
contained in the resolution adopted by Congress -- but at the time, the 
administration clearly felt they weren't or it wouldn't have tried to 
insert the additional language.

All Americans agree that keeping our nation safe from terrorists demands 
aggressive and innovative tactics. This unity was reflected in the 
near-unanimous support for the original resolution and the Patriot Act 
in those harrowing days after Sept. 11. But there are right and wrong 
ways to defeat terrorists, and that is a distinction this administration 
has never seemed to accept. Instead of employing tactics that preserve 
Americans' freedoms and inspire the faith and confidence of the American 
people, the White House seems to have chosen methods that can only breed 
fear and suspicion.

If the stories in the media over the past week are accurate, the 
president has exercised authority that I do not believe is granted to 
him in the Constitution, and that I know is not granted to him in the 
law that I helped negotiate with his counsel and that Congress approved 
in the days after Sept. 11. For that reason, the president should 
explain the specific legal justification for his authorization of these 
actions, Congress should fully investigate these actions and the 
president's justification for them, and the administration should 
cooperate fully with that investigation.

In the meantime, if the president believes the current legal 
architecture of our country is insufficient for the fight against 
terrorism, he should propose changes to our laws in the light of day.

<>That is how a great democracy operates. And that is how this great 
democracy will defeat terrorism.

The writer, a former Democratic senator from South Dakota, was Senate 
majority leader in 2001-02. He is now distinguished senior fellow at the 
Center for American Progress.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/22/AR2005122201101.html?nav=hcmodule
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Fri Dec 23 06:52:13 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Fri Dec 23 07:06:45 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Pundit Payola - Michael Kinsley - Washington Post Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43AC0F1D.6020305@comcast.net>

Pundit Payola
Money Talks. It Writes, Too.

By Michael Kinsley
Friday, December 23, 2005; A21

If I were just a tad more pretentious, I would call this an article -- 
wait, make that an essay -- about the commodification of opinion. It 
came out last week that a couple of conservative pundits have been on 
the take from lobbyist extraordinaire Jack Abramoff. He would pay them 
up to $2,000 for columns and op-ed pieces that advanced the interests of 
his clients. This is on top of the $3.95 or so these writers collected 
from the newspapers themselves.

How embarrassing: opinions for sale, like cheeseburgers. Can I supersize 
that tax break I'm advocating for you, sir? You can buy a pundit for 
even less than it costs to buy a politician.

In retrospect, there were clues. For Washington policy nerds, a 
passionate interest in developments among the Choctaw Indians does not 
arise naturally. And it is remarkable how the wisdom of so many 
conservative shibboleths can be demonstrated by looking at the 
government of the Northern Mariana Islands.

But let's be a bit careful here. Many of us sell our opinions for a 
living. That living is under unparalleled threat from the Internet, 
where opinions of all sorts and degrees of ferocity are available for 
free. At such a moment, should we cavalierly reject this new revenue source?

And even though casting stones is very close to a pundit's job 
definition, are we necessarily without sin? Sure, we like to think that 
what we're selling is the expression of our opinions and that our 
opinions themselves are not for sale. But the two miscreants exposed so 
far can make the same claim. Doug Bandow and Peter Ferrara are both 
principled conservatives. Bandow is one of those amiably grumpy, furry 
libertarians who dream of privatizing the stoplights. Ferrara has spent 
his whole adult life pursuing one such fanatical notion -- privatizing 
Social Security. As far as we know, neither has published a single word 
that he actually disagrees with.

But there's a difference between paying people for the right to publish 
their work and paying people because someone else has published their 
work. What Abramoff was buying for clients was partly access to media 
real estate (op-ed pages) that he couldn't commandeer himself and partly 
the endorsement of conservative pundits who didn't necessarily disagree 
with the positions they took but probably would not have bothered except 
for the cash.

Still, Pundit Payola is only a tiny step beyond what has become common 
practice in Washington. Bandow and Ferrara were both associated with 
Washington "think tanks." The deals at these think tanks vary. Sometimes 
they pay you. More often you might get an office, all the coffee and 
staples you need, the right to call yourself a "fellow" and maybe a 
young researcher. The think tank gets mentioned in your ID whenever you 
publish an opinion piece somewhere -- and that had better be often, or 
you're out on the street.

In recent months we have learned that the Bush administration sees 
nothing wrong with paying for pro-American articles to be planted in 
Iraqi newspapers. Some have criticized this practice as an unhelpful 
lesson in how to run a democracy. But the administration has done the 
same thing, more or less, here at home, giving a fat grant to multimedia 
conservative Armstrong Williams for pushing administration policy on his 
TV show, in his newspaper column and so on. And now it seems that a 
figure somewhat more influential than the president among the nation's 
legislators -- Abramoff -- has been doing the same thing.

Liberals, meanwhile, don't seem to trust the power of their own ideas to 
win without cheating any more than conservatives do. In Los Angeles, 
liberals have organized an infantile protest over changes in the L.A. 
Times's op-ed page, urging subscribers to renew for just three months 
and await further instructions about whether the paper has used that 
time satisfactorily to expunge itself of deviationism.

As it happens, I was bounced a few months ago from the job of running 
the L.A. Times opinion pages. So I am enjoying the fuss from afar. But 
it's still ridiculous. The premise is that op-ed columns and other 
opinion pieces are not exercises in persuasion but simple counters: If 
you have more of them, you win. There is no room for the notion that 
reading something you disagree with might change your mind, or simply be 
more enjoyable than repeated ratifying of what you already believe.

So opinions are merely counters, and those counters are for sale. That's 
what I mean by the commodification of opinion. Or that is what I would 
mean if I were ever to use such a pretentious term.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/22/AR2005122201771.html
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Fri Dec 23 07:02:27 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Fri Dec 23 07:17:01 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Bush's false choices - Ellen Goodman - Boston Globe Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43AC1183.1020103@comcast.net>


  Bush's false choices

By Ellen Goodman  |  December 23, 2005  |  The Boston Globe

SO IT COMES DOWN to September 11, 2001. Again. The president has drawn a 
great dividing line through the country, separating his supporters from 
his critics. Again.

This time, those who see a presidency run amok are not just labeled 
''defeatists." They are considered amnesiacs.

This time, those who oppose torture are diagnosed with short-term memory 
loss. Those who are outraged at domestic snooping are people who have 
forgotten to be afraid.

The president's ''humble" speech from the Oval Office contained the 
inevitable line: ''September the 11th, 2001, required us to take every 
emerging threat to our country seriously." His decidedly unhumble 
wrestling with the media on the subject of domestic spying had no less 
than 10 references to ''this new threat [that] required us to think and 
act differently."

Meanwhile, what was Vice President Cheney's response when asked if he 
was concerned that 100 people had died in US custody? What actually 
worried him was that ''as we get farther and farther away from 9/11 . . 
. there seems to be less concern about doing what's necessary in order 
to defend the country."

It's as if the administration were waving a sampler embroidered with 
that old saying: If you are keeping your head while all about you are 
losing theirs, perhaps you don't know the seriousness of the situation.

We have been handed yet another in an endless series of false choices. 
Those who don't blindly trust the president are dismissed as amnesia 
victims. Americans who don't connect the dots from 9/11 to Iraq or 
spying or torture are cast as actors living in a foolish, fearless, 
fantasy world. Indeed, 9/11 was the day the president became the 
commander in chief. The words he often repeats were spoken to him by a 
rescue worker at the World Trade Center: ''Whatever it takes."

If there are Americans who have actually forgotten the attacks in all 
their searing horror, I don't know any. I remember the weeks when I 
would wake up and reach for the remote to see if we'd caught Osama. When 
did that expectation fade? I remember the just pursuit of Al Qaeda into 
its safety zone, Afghanistan. And the satisfaction in overthrowing the 
Taliban.

But gradually, 9/11 became the all-purpose excuse for . . . whatever it 
takes. The war in Iraq was conflated with the war on terror, and 
preemptive strikes were launched against weapons of mass destruction 
that didn't exist. In ''The Assassin's Gate," George Packer, a liberal 
hawk, tries to assess why the United States really did invade Iraq. ''It 
still isn't possible to be sure -- and this remains the most remarkable 
thing about the Iraq War," he writes. ''Iraq is the Rashomon of wars" 
and all he can conclude is that it ''has something to do with September 11."

As recently as last February, 47 percent of Americans still believed 
that Saddam had something to do with 9/11. Does the White House accuse 
its supporters of false memory?

And what of the president himself? In his news conference, he angrily 
attacked those who leaked the spy story. He asked reporters to guess 
what happened the last time there was a similar security leak. Then he 
stumbled over the answer, ''Saddam . . . Osama bin Laden changed his 
behavior." Memory loss?

Those who criticize the commander in chief wonder if he is the one who's 
forgotten 9/11. Has he forgotten when the country was united? Has he 
forgotten when the world was on our side? Has he forgotten that we were 
the good guys?

As for fear? My generation grew up under the threat of a mushroom cloud. 
There is an old theatrical adage that when there's a gun on stage in the 
first act, it will go off by the third act. We have no false sense of 
security in this dangerous world. Nor do we embrace the equally false 
belief that curtailing liberty automatically makes us safer. We have 
seen how the promise of protection becomes a protection racket.

''Whatever it takes" does not mean ''whatever the president says it 
takes." It does not mean becoming our own worst enemies. It does not 
mean approving torture or domestic spying. And it most certainly does 
not mean watching silently as a commander in chief takes on the uniform 
of a generalissimo.

Who owns September 11? The White House has built its own memorial and 
raised a stiff price of admission. It only allows in those who agree 
with the president. But the memory and meaning of 9/11 do not belong to 
any partisan. It's common ground waiting to be recaptured. Whatever it 
takes.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/12/23/bushs_false_choices/
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Fri Dec 23 07:16:10 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Fri Dec 23 07:30:49 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Behind Iran's hard-line on Israel - The Boston Globe
Message-ID: <43AC14BA.9030908@comcast.net>


  Behind Iran's hard-line on Israel

By Karim Sadjadpour and Ray Takeyh  |  December 23, 2005

IRAN'S BELLIGERENT foreign policy toward Israel is among the more 
puzzling issues in international relations. At a time when most Arab 
governments, including the elected Palestinian leadership, have come to 
accept Israel's existence as an unalterable fact, non-Arab Iran 
continues to call for eradication of the Jewish state. Over the course 
of the last several weeks President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran attacked 
Israel as a ''tumor" that should be ''wiped off the map of the world" 
and asserted that the holocaust was a ''myth." Despite widespread 
international criticism, the Iranian president has been unrepentant, 
saying, ''Western reactions are invalid. . . . My words are the Iranian 
nation's words." In actuality, however, the Middle-Eastern country where 
Ahmadinejad's declarations resonate least is Iran.

There are contending explanations why he chose such a sensitive time in 
Iran's nuclear negotiations to engage in such inflammatory rhetoric. 
Since his surprise election in June, there has been a subtle attempt by 
the elders of the revolution to curb Ahmadinejad's powers, with Supreme 
Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei even giving his rival, former president 
Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, an expanded role in setting the national 
course. What's more, contrary to the recommendations of the president's 
more hard-line followers, Iran has decided to resume its long-suspended 
nuclear negotiations with the Europeans. By provoking a crisis, 
Ahmadinejad may be seeking to not only scuttle such negotiations, but to 
reassert his control over the state machinery and regain the political 
influence he has steadily lost over the past few months.

In the past, Iranian factions have often provoked international crises 
to advance domestic political agendas. The hostage crisis of 1979 was 
not just a strike against America, but an attempt by Ayatollah Khomeini 
to radicalize the population and firmly implant the foundations of 
Islamic rule. Beyond such domestic political considerations, Ahmadinejad 
and the hard-liners have long bemoaned the loss of revolutionary fervor 
and Iran's seeming abandonment of the pan-Islamic dimension of 
Khomeini's vision. A persistent slogan of Ahmadinejad's campaign was the 
need to return to the ''roots of the revolution," and rejuvenate its 
grandiose ambitions. By pressing a dogmatic position on Israel, 
Ahmadinejad may perceive an opportunity to rekindle the 
long-extinguished revolutionary fires and reclaim Iran's leadership of 
radical Islam.

Whatever the calculations of Iran's new president, throughout nearly 
three decades of calls for the ''liberation of Jerusalem," Iran's 
revolutionary regime has never come to terms with an essential reality: 
There exists no inherent reason why the Israeli-Palestinian struggle 
should be an overriding concern to the average Iranian. Iran has no 
territorial disputes with Israel, no Palestinian refugee problem, a long 
history of contentious relations with the Arab world, and an even longer 
history of tolerance vis-?-vis the Jewish people. To this day, the 
Jewish community in Iran is the largest in the Middle East outside of 
Israel.

Beset by practical concerns such as double-digit inflation and 
unemployment, Iran's youthful population is well aware of the fact that 
the ideological hubris of their parents' generation -- often a 
half-baked hodgepodge of anti-imperialism, anti-Zionism, Islamism, and 
Marxism -- has borne the country little fruit apart from a soiled 
international reputation and political and economic isolation. During 
the 2003 summer student protests, one popular slogan, delivered in 
lilting Persian, was ''forget about Palestine, think about us!"

Much of Iran's political elite has also come to terms with the fact that 
the regime's rhetoric toward Israel is self-defeating. As 
revolutionary-cum-reformist leader Ali Reza Alavi-Tabar told us a few 
months back, ''We need to reinvent ourselves. We shouldn't be chanting 
'death to Israel'; we should be saying 'long live Palestine.' We needn't 
be more Palestinian than the Palestinians themselves." The popular 
reformist party, the Islamic Participation Front, quickly criticized his 
comments, saying, ''When the country is facing an international crisis, 
such expressions impose a heavy burden on the country's political, 
security, and economic interests." In a surprising convergence of views, 
even the conservative lawmaker, Heshmatollah Falahatzadeh, similarly 
claimed, ''Our officials should realize that there are many facts in the 
world that we should not pass judgment on in a way that the world finds 
fault with."

Increasingly isolated abroad and beleaguered at home, Ahmadinejad would 
be wise to remember that his electoral mandate was not to fight Israel, 
but rather to alleviate an economic situation that, for many Iranians, 
teeters between subsistence and poverty. In making blusterous statements 
that only increase Iran's isolation, however, Ahmadinejad's impact will 
likely tip that balance toward greater poverty. In their relentless 
calls for justice and democracy in the holy land, Iran's leaders 
incorrectly assume that the Iranian population wants more for the 
Palestinians than they want for themselves.

Karim Sadjadpour is an analyst with the International Crisis Group.Ray 
Takeyh is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.  

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/12/23/behind_irans_hard_line_on_israel/
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From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Fri Dec 23 07:22:51 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (mblaxill@yahoo.com)
Date: Fri Dec 23 07:34:09 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Mr. Cheney's Imperial Presidency
Message-ID: <20051223152251.B7F5F9FB9C@lax-gw05.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: mblaxill@yahoo.com.

cheers to the NYT


OPINION | December 23, 2005
Editorial: Mr. Cheney's Imperial Presidency

Vice President Cheney has spearheaded an extraordinary expansion of the powers of the presidency.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/23/opinion/23fri1.html?emc=eta1




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From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Fri Dec 23 07:27:19 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (mblaxill@yahoo.com)
Date: Fri Dec 23 07:38:40 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Jury Rules Wal-Mart Must Pay $172 Million
	Over Meal Breaks
Message-ID: <20051223152719.7028D13B760@lax-gw04.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: mblaxill@yahoo.com.

BUSINESS | December 23, 2005
Jury Rules Wal-Mart Must Pay $172 Million Over Meal Breaks
By LISA ALCALAY KLUG
The world's largest retailer was fined for failing to provide meal breaks to nearly 116,000 hourly workers.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/23/business/23nwalmart.html?emc=eta1



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From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Fri Dec 23 07:32:25 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (mblaxill@yahoo.com)
Date: Fri Dec 23 07:43:42 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Another School Barrier for African Girls:
	No Toilet
Message-ID: <20051223153225.69A0B24AED4@lax-gw02.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: mblaxill@yahoo.com.

INTERNATIONAL / AFRICA | December 23, 2005
Another School Barrier for African Girls: No Toilet
By SHARON LaFRANIERE
A lack of girls-only latrines in sub-Saharan Africa causes one in 10 girls to skip school during puberty.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/23/international/africa/23ethiopia.html?emc=eta1



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From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Fri Dec 23 07:36:31 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (mblaxill@yahoo.com)
Date: Fri Dec 23 07:47:47 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Surveillance, New York Style
Message-ID: <20051223153631.63F7A13B734@lax-gw04.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: mblaxill@yahoo.com.

cheers again...and keep up the good work...please...


OPINION | December 23, 2005
Editorial: Surveillance, New York Style

It's a sad day when a police force generally known for its professionalism is caught using underhanded tactics to spy on and even distort political protests and mass rallies.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/23/opinion/23fri3.html?emc=eta1




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From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Fri Dec 23 07:38:06 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (mblaxill@yahoo.com)
Date: Fri Dec 23 07:49:24 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Headlines for December 23, 2005
Message-ID: <20051223153806.12116.qmail@trinity.democracynow.org>

Mike Blaxill  ( mblaxill@yahoo.com )
sent you this story from democracynow.org



+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
|  Headlines for December 23, 2005
|  http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/23/1450211
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+


- Public Transit Resumes As NYC Strike Ends On Third Day 
- Jailed Environmental Activist Bill Rodgers Dead of Apparent Suicide 
- Suspect's Lawyer Says Fellow Detainee Has Turned Informant 
- Daschle: Bush Administration Was Denied Spy Authority 
- Justice Dept. Admits Spy Program Does Not Comply With FISA 
- House Rejects Senate-White House Compromise On Patriot Act 
- Report: Indicted Lobbyist To Testify Against Associates in Plea Deal 
- Federal Judge Calls Gitmo Detentions "Unlawful" 
- California Jury Awards $172M to Wal-Mart Employees 
This story continues at: 
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/23/1450211

From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Fri Dec 23 09:01:23 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Fri Dec 23 09:12:54 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Egyptian Leader of Muslim Group Calls
	Holocaust a Zionist 'Myth'
Message-ID: <20051223170123.D06A39FD16@lax-gw05.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: ialterman@nyc.rr.com.

And the contagion spreads...


INTERNATIONAL / AFRICA | December 23, 2005
Egyptian Leader of Muslim Group Calls Holocaust a Zionist 'Myth'
By MICHAEL SLACKMAN
Two weeks after the Muslim Brotherhood won 88 seats in Parliament, its leader echoed comments made earlier by Iran's president.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/23/international/africa/23egypt.html?emc=eta1



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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Fri Dec 23 09:03:13 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Fri Dec 23 09:14:29 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Jury Rules Wal-Mart Must Pay $172 Million
	Over Meal Breaks
Message-ID: <20051223170313.7CDC824AEE6@lax-gw02.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: ialterman@nyc.rr.com.

Hopefully, just the beginning of Wal-Mart's comeuppance...


BUSINESS | December 23, 2005
Jury Rules Wal-Mart Must Pay $172 Million Over Meal Breaks
By LISA ALCALAY KLUG
The world's largest retailer was fined for failing to provide meal breaks to nearly 116,000 hourly workers.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/23/business/23nwalmart.html?emc=eta1



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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Fri Dec 23 09:04:08 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Fri Dec 23 09:15:25 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Bush Administration Proposes Vote by Puerto
	Ricans on Status
Message-ID: <20051223170408.6BDAF3AE5AF@lax-gw06.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: ialterman@nyc.rr.com.

I wonder what's on their mind here...


WASHINGTON | December 23, 2005
Bush Administration Proposes Vote by Puerto Ricans on Status
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The Bush administration asked Congress to set another vote for the island's citizens to decide on their future.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/23/politics/23puerto.html?emc=eta1



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Times movie reviews have to say about these Oscar
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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Fri Dec 23 09:11:43 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Fri Dec 23 09:23:06 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Surveillance, New York Style
Message-ID: <20051223171143.654A813B7F1@lax-gw04.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: ialterman@nyc.rr.com.

[Still not receiving Civic mail; not sure if this was sent]


OPINION | December 23, 2005
Editorial: Surveillance, New York Style

It's a sad day when a police force generally known for its professionalism is caught using underhanded tactics to spy on and even distort political protests and mass rallies.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/23/opinion/23fri3.html?emc=eta1




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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Fri Dec 23 09:12:30 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Fri Dec 23 09:23:48 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: The President and the Rule of Law (7
	Letters)
Message-ID: <20051223171230.23C8824AE93@lax-gw02.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: ialterman@nyc.rr.com.

What we're saying...


OPINION | December 23, 2005
The President and the Rule of Law (7 Letters)

To the Editor:.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/23/opinion/l23brooks.html?emc=eta1




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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Fri Dec 23 09:13:52 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Fri Dec 23 09:25:14 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Intelligent Design: Church or State? (5
	Letters)
Message-ID: <20051223171352.378172370C2@lax-gw01.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: ialterman@nyc.rr.com.

What we're saying (2)... Needless to say, I would personally draw your attention to the second and fourth letters in particular...


OPINION | December 23, 2005
Intelligent Design: Church or State? (5 Letters)

To the Editor:.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/23/opinion/l23design.html?emc=eta1




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From michael at intrafi.com  Fri Dec 23 11:24:13 2005
From: michael at intrafi.com (michael@intrafi.com)
Date: Fri Dec 23 11:35:44 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] FT.com / World - A year019s political disappointments
 for Republicans
Message-ID: <22020659.1135365853027.JavaMail.tomcat@localhost>



*Please note, the sender's email address has not been verified.



You have received the following link from michael@intrafi.com

 
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From ean at sbcglobal.net  Thu Dec 22 21:45:21 2005
From: ean at sbcglobal.net (ean@sbcglobal.net)
Date: Fri Dec 23 11:40:24 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] The disaster is in the response
Message-ID: <E1Epsb4-0002k1-8G@smtpauth02.mail.atl.earthlink.net>


  The disaster is in the response

By Thomas Oliphant  |  December 22, 2005  |  The Boston Globe

WASHINGTON
IN ATTEMPTING to understand the shameful puniness of the response by
President Bush and Congress to the post-Katrina Gulf Coast, I ran across
an interesting number the other day.

That number is $29 billion.

This is presumably the sum just voted for the task of shifting from 
cleanup to actual reconstruction -- of both properties and lives.

I say presumably because the number turns out to be a fraud. In fact, it
represents the allocation of large sums of money that Congress has already
appropriated. More precisely, much less than half of it -- about $11.5
billion -- is what they call ''new" grant money. The rest is simply the
result of the reshuffling of already appropriated sums.

Perhaps you recall the atmosphere in September in the immediate 
aftermath of the horror that Katrina wreaked. Within three weeks, 
Congress had passed, and Bush had signed into law, roughly $62 billion in
appropriations to pay for the massive cleanup .

Nearly four months later, depending on which agency's figures you 
prefer, no more than a third of that money has been spent. The list of
cleanup tasks not completed is prodigious -- from piles of debris to
polluted neighborhoods to tent cities and trailer park communities to the
tens of thousands of families still huddled in motels.

Always inventive, what the government really did was repackage all this
''assistance" for the purpose of creating the illusion in the current
budget mess that something meaningful is happening when nothing could be
further from the truth.

But it gets better. In addition to not allocating the money initially
appropriated, Bush and Congress have managed to claim during this week's
budget fraud that the famous $29 billion will not add a penny to the
already hemorrhaging federal budget. This meaningless claim is based on
two phony points.

The first is the shell game I just referred to -- the fact that nearly $20
billion of that sum has already been appropriated and not spent for the
benefit of the Gulf Coast.

The second involves the assertion that about $40 billion has been cut from
other parts of the federal budget. The point holds only if you assume that
there will be no Congress next year; if in fact Congress returns for more
mischief, everyone knows that in an election year there will be a package
including roughly $100 billion in tax cuts for hard-pressed wealthy
people.

It is then that the point being made this month will evaporate. Instead of
cutting the budget to make room for aid to the Gulf Coast, the budget will
have been cut (in every instance at the expense of working families, many
of whom live in Louisiana and Mississippi) in order to make room for tax
cuts.

Students of the Bush-Congress axis will find something familiar in all
this. This is basically how the government has proceeded with its plans
for the reconstruction of Iraq's broken economy. At first, all but a
pittance was to have been funded by the gush of new oil production. When
that didn't happen, $20 billion was ''allocated," hardly any of which was
spent for two years; and what was spent was largely wasted or
''reallocated" to military budgets. Today, reconstruction limps along at a
tiny fraction of the pace originally anticipated.

The Gulf Coast should be so lucky. When President Bush was using prime
time in New Orleans' Jackson Square in September to try to promise his way
out of his abysmal handling of the disaster, by now there was supposed to
be a plan not only to house and take care of evacuees but to reconstruct
their battered region.

Well, there is no plan. Even the basic precondition of private and 
public investment and resettlement in the New Orleans area -- rebuilding
the levee system so that it can withstand another major hurricane -- is
only tentatively met. The recent ''allocation" of a couple of billion
dollars for the levees may (or may not) protect the metropolitan area from
another Katrina in about two years. The basic question of whether a system
should be built to survive an even larger storm is being left for further
study.

The horrendous damage caused by the hurricane should have produced a
reallocation of national priorities sufficient to pay for a sensible
reconstruction plan. Instead there is no plan, just more federal
government blue smoke and mirrors leaving millions of people to beg each
year for budgetary table scraps.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/12/2
2/the_disaster_is_in_the_response/ 


-- 
You are currently on Mha Atma's Earth Action Network email list, 
option D (up to 3 emails/day).  To be removed, or to switch options 
(option A - 1x/week, option B - 3/wk, option C - up to 1x/day, option D - 
up to 3x/day) please reply and let us know!  If someone forwarded you 
this email and you want to be on our list, send an email to 
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"A war of aggression is the supreme international crime." -- Robert Jackson,
 former U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice and Nuremberg prosecutor

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From ean at sbcglobal.net  Thu Dec 22 21:51:12 2005
From: ean at sbcglobal.net (ean@sbcglobal.net)
Date: Fri Dec 23 11:40:55 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] More environews to heat you up
Message-ID: <E1EpsbW-0002zX-GV@smtpauth02.mail.atl.earthlink.net>

IS IT HOT IN HERE, OR IS IT JUST ME?
2005 to be one of the hottest years recorded

This year will go down as one of the hottest on record. NASA's Goddard
Institute says 2005 will beat 1998, the current record-holder, while the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the U.K.
Meteorological Office -- using the same land and ocean data as NASA, but
crunching it in slightly different ways -- say 1998 will still be the
champ by fractions of a degree. The three agencies stress that although
they reached minutely different conclusions, it's definitely getting
warmer on planet Earth, and human activity is part of what's rapidly
unbalancing the climate. The World Meteorological Organization, meanwhile,
is waiting for the year to end before it makes the call. But all four
groups agree that 2005 was the steamiest year on record for the Northern
Hemisphere. "It's certainly something the administration is taking
seriously," says NOAA climate chief Jay Lawrimore. We wonder what data 
set
he used to reach that conclusion. 

straight to the source: The Washington Post, Juliet Eilperin, 16 Dec 2005
<http://grist.org/cgi-bin/forward.pl?forward_id=6194>

straight to the source: The Guardian, John Vidal, 16 Dec 2005
<http://grist.org/cgi-bin/forward.pl?forward_id=6195>



OFF SEASON
Climate change is messing with the seasons in a Rocky Mountain forest

Since 1968, researchers have gathered air samples from near the summit of
Colorado's Niwot Ridge in the Rocky Mountains, and tracked carbon dioxide
levels in the conifer forest below. They've amassed the world's
third-longest record of atmospheric carbon dioxide, and that record
provides a troubling glimpse of how forests respond to a warming world.
The biological start of spring in the Niwot forest was about 10.5 days
earlier in 2002 than it was in 1980, and cool fall temperatures are coming
later. "It's shocking," said researcher Pieter Tans. "It was more than I
expected." That bodes ill for the Northern Hemisphere's mountain forests:
An earlier spring usually means a hotter, drier summer, with
water-stressed trees that are easier prey for insects, disease, and forest
fires. Trees hurting for water also photosynthesize more slowly, pulling
less carbon dioxide from the air than a healthy forest would. 

straight to the source: Rocky Mountain News, Jim Erickson, 13 Dec 2005
<http://grist.org/cgi-bin/forward.pl?forward_id=6178>

HAUL OUT THE FOLLY
White House makes last-ditch effort to open Arctic Refuge to drilling

The Bush administration is mounting a last-ditch effort to persuade
Congress to approve drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge before
lawmakers break for the holidays. Interior Secretary Gale Norton and Labor
Secretary Elaine Chao are out furiously shopping talking points: It would
supply New Hampshire's oil needs for 315 years! It would create thousands
of jobs! Did we say "thousands"? We meant a million! The moderate House
Republicans who blocked the drilling provision from being included in a
big budget bill are fielding White House offers to fund pet projects, as
are 30 or so House Democrats who've supported drilling in the past. But
House Dems appear united in opposition to the budget bill, in large part
because it would make deep cuts to social programs, and the green-minded
House Republicans say they're not budging either. At the moment, drilling
supporters seem to be at an impasse. Hold your breath ...

straight to the source: San Francisco Chronicle, Zachary Coile, 13 Dec
2005 <http://grist.org/cgi-bin/forward.pl?forward_id=6179>

straight to the source: KTUU Channel 2 News, Seth Linden, 12 Dec 2005
<http://grist.org/cgi-bin/forward.pl?forward_id=6180>

straight to the source: Anchorage Daily News, Associated Press, Andrew
Taylor, 11 Dec 2005 <http://grist.org/cgi-bin/forward.pl?forward_id=6181>



THE TALK OF THE DROWN
Polar bears drowning as Alaska sea ice disappears

OK, we're trying to keep a positive outlook here, but ... drowning polar
bears? Seriously? And just when therapy was starting to work. In September
2004 (the year the polar ice cap receded a record 160 miles from Alaska's
north coast), federal researchers doing routine aerial surveys counted 10
bears swimming in the open ocean as far as 60 miles off Alaska's shore --
where they'd spotted perhaps one bear every two years in the past. They
later found four dead bears floating in the vicinity, a few days after a
big storm. Though the researchers themselves were unwilling to speculate
about causes, plenty of others were quick to pin the fate of the Arctic
bruins on the obvious culprit: global warming. Says marine biologist
Richard Steiner, "For anyone who has wondered how global warming and
reduced sea ice will affect polar bears, the answer is simple -- they
die." Greenpeace this week began running TV ads featuring adorable
animated polar bears that slip off melting ice and drown.

straight to the source: The Wall Street Journal, Jim Carlton, 14 Dec 2005
<http://grist.org/cgi-bin/forward.pl?forward_id=6189>

straight to the ad: Global Warming: It's the Real Thing
<http://grist.org/cgi-bin/forward.pl?forward_id=6190>


NOT SHAFTED YET
Controversial mining-law revisions dropped from budget bill

You might think we could take it for granted that millions of acres of
national parks, forests, and other federal lands won't be sold off to
developers, but these days, it's worthy of celebration: Late yesterday,
struggling to pass a big budget bill before the holiday break, Republicans
in Congress withdrew a provision to revamp federal mining law that
conservationists feared could push prime public land into private hands.
GOP leaders bowed to bipartisan opposition from key Western senators, who
threatened to torpedo the entire budget package. The House was under
pressure as well -- a coalition of about 55 million hunters and anglers
sent letters opposing the provisions to key representatives on Tuesday.
Public-lands and outdoor-sports advocates are expressing relief that the
measure is off the table -- at least for now. Says Death Valley National
Park Superintendent J.T. Reynolds, "It's a welcome stay of execution."

straight to the source: Los Angeles Times, Janet Wilson and Bettina
Boxall, 14 Dec 2005 <http://grist.org/cgi-bin/forward.pl?forward_id=6187>

get the backstory in Grist: Mining-law revamp could put millions of public
acres up for sale
<http://grist.org/news/muck/2005/11/17/land-sale/?source=daily>


-- 
You are currently on Mha Atma's Earth Action Network email list, 
option D (up to 3 emails/day).  To be removed, or to switch options 
(option A - 1x/week, option B - 3/wk, option C - up to 1x/day, option D - 
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"A war of aggression is the supreme international crime." -- Robert Jackson,
 former U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice and Nuremberg prosecutor

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From rrreuteb at mac.com  Thu Dec 22 19:59:44 2005
From: rrreuteb at mac.com (Reute Butler)
Date: Fri Dec 23 11:50:34 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Fwd: Hard Facts Make the Best Foundations
References: <b8cc1159f589e00d95fbc89b638d79af@earthlink.net>
Message-ID: <E1Epskr-0000bZ-Lo@smtpauth02.mail.atl.earthlink.net>

Good news.
Love and Light, Reute
>> Hard Facts Make the Best Foundations
>>
>> The Tenor of the Times, January 2005
>>
>>
>> The Great Reining In ~ In 2006 the seemingly open-ended series of  
>> confusing and disruptive events to which the world has been  
>> subject will continue to dominate world news. But as 2006  
>> progresses, news of a noticeably new, significantly different and  
>> better world will begin to attract our attention.
>>
>> Energy from the Galactic Center, emerging into our collective  
>> consciousness through Pluto, will inspire and motivate people to  
>> remake the world in a positive, constructive way.
>>
>> The conjunction of Pluto and the Galactic Center will have special  
>> significance for the United States. The last conjunction occurred  
>> several decades before the birth of the United States. It might be  
>> argued that the United States is an embodiment of the energy  
>> released during that last conjunction in the middle of the 18th  
>> century. The upcoming conjunction will undoubtedly mark a major  
>> threshold in the historical maturation of the US.
>>
>> The ?tipping point? of 2006, the point at which people in general  
>> can see that change is inevitable and permanent, will come in  
>> August. However, it will become clear long before August that  
>> something is in the offing.
>>
>> It will occur when Saturn completes its first opposition to  
>> Neptune, effectively putting an end to Neptune?s deceptive  
>> influence over world affairs.
>>
>> Saturn?s sobering leverage over world events, already noticeable,  
>> will take hold in August. Saturn will pass the mid-point of Leo,  
>> in mid-August. At the end of August, the Saturn will oppose  
>> Neptune for the first time, solidifying its dominant influence on  
>> the world?s vibe.
>>
>>
>> ?Faith?-Based Facts vs. Fact-Based Facts ~ An ardent profession of  
>> faith will no longer sound to the world?s ear like a guarantee of  
>> truth. Even George W. Bush, a veteran practitioner fervent, faith- 
>> based rhetoric is already showing a newfound, respect for the facts.
>>
>> With the tide of Neptunian illusion ebbing, much of the damage  
>> caused by deceptive political rhetoric will become more painfully  
>> apparent than it already is. People will be in the mood to ask  
>> penetrating and embarrassing questions and wait patiently for the  
>> answers.
>>
>> Saturn?s ascendancy over Neptune will probably also weaken the  
>> hold that ideological and religious zealots, including demagogues,  
>> tyrants and terrorists, have over the mind?s of their adherents.
>>
>>
>> The Pendulum Swings Back ~ In recent years, the quality of civic  
>> and commercial life has deteriorated markedly.
>>
>> Telemarketing, loud cell phone conversations, 20 minutes of  
>> annoying advertising before a movie, intrusive public address  
>> systems to trumpet special sale items at Walmart, aggressive sales  
>> pitches while on you?re on hold ? such irritating, exploitative  
>> and offensive practices have become the norm. In 2006, the  
>> reaction against such things will intensify.
>>
>> Perhaps more serious, business practices that put the customers  
>> and employees at serious risk have flourished. Risky mortgages,  
>> shaky pension plans, dwindling health insurance coverage,  
>> neglected safety, poor and unreliable service ? In the coming  
>> decade, with Saturn in the ascendancy, we can expect to see a  
>> broad-based movement against these and other wildly irresponsible  
>> business and employment practices.
>>
>> George W. Bush in the Shadows ~ T-squares dominate composite  
>> charts for Bush?s birthdate and New Years Day 2006 and other  
>> important dates in January, just as they dominated the composite  
>> chart for Bush and the 2005 Inauguration.
>>
>> The way the world actually works, these T-squares mean that Bush  
>> will have another very, very difficult year with strong resistance  
>> or outright opposition to his policies.
>> Political Progress in Iraq ~ Virtually all of the charts for Iraq,  
>> even those charts with a Grand Trine, are marred by indications of  
>> widespread deception, manipulation, intense power struggles,  
>> factional violence and general skullduggery.
>>
>> It is unclear from the charts what exactly might bring an end to  
>> the current state of affairs. I believe that some as yet  
>> unforeseen event or some as yet unknown person, country, group or  
>> agency must eventually emerge and intervene to bring this conflict  
>> to an end.
>>
>> Something?a law mandating US withdrawal, a UN resolution, the  
>> massive intervention of another country or all of the above-- 
>> something must establish a new starting point in Iraq, a new point  
>> of departure because, from the astrological perspective, the  
>> elements currently at play offer no solutions.
>>
>> American Involvement in Iraq ~ Pluto will leave the US first house  
>> early in 2010. Additionally, the US Solar Arc Uranus will be past  
>> its conjunction with US natal Pluto. Hence, the US inclination to  
>> impose its will on other nations through the machineries of war  
>> will persist at some level until the end of this decade.
>>
>> As Pluto completes its transit of the US 1st House, the passion  
>> will simply go out of the Iraq war effort. But I don?t think we  
>> can expect a decisive rejection of the war until Pluto leaves the  
>> US 1st House entirely at the end of the decade.
>>
>>
>> Rosie Scenario, Start Packing ~ Add it all up.
>>
>> 1)          Bush?s already serious political difficulties,
>> 2)          Growing impatience with Iraq,
>> 3)          Lingering resentment about how Bush got us into Iraq,
>> 4)          Grave doubts about the conduct of the war,
>> 5)          Growing political unease over the use of torture by US  
>> interrogators,
>> 6)          Growing legal difficulties for the Bush administration  
>> and prominent Republican leaders,
>> 7)          The looming confrontation with Congress over Bush- 
>> approved domestic spying by the NSA,
>> 8)          Growing unease over the infringement of civil rights  
>> in the name of the war on terror,
>> 9)           A fight over renewal of the so-called Patriot Act,  
>> prominent,
>> 10)     Congresspeople from both parties promising new  
>> investigative hearings in 2006,
>> 11)     The seemingly all-encompassing corruption scandal  
>> surrounding the work of ?disgraced Congressional lobbyist? Jack  
>> Abramoff,
>> 12)     The historic failure of the government before, during and  
>> after hurricane Katrina a possible battle over a key Supreme Court  
>> nomination,
>> 13)     A mid-term Congressional election in November 2006,
>>
>> ? In the context of all of the above and so much more, the US  
>> seems headed directly for a major political crisis pitting the  
>> neoconservative faction of the Republican party against just about  
>> everyone else.
>>
>> Given all of the above, an effort to impeach Bush does not seem  
>> out of the question to me.
>>
>> The Law?s Delay ~ With Saturn newly retrograde, the legal gears  
>> will be grinding very slowly and ?painstakingly.? This is a  
>> painful prospect for Congressman Tom Delay of Texas who is looking  
>> for a quick and favorable resolution of the case against him. In  
>> fact, Court decisions that might have led to an early trial and a  
>> quick return to his position of power in Congress are going  
>> against him.
>>
>> Saturn, as noted, is slowly but surely gaining ground on Neptune.  
>> But it is also in broad trine to Pluto. The trine to Pluto  
>> intensifies and underwrites, or leverages, all of the trends and  
>> processes set in motion by Saturn?s coming dominance of Neptune.  
>> This will enable and strongly incline Americans (and many others  
>> in the world) to finally get at the truth of important issues and  
>> perhaps find justice.
>>
>> Saturn retrograde, trine Pluto and opposite Neptune will do  
>> nothing to hasten progress or final resolution to any of the  
>> difficult legal or Congressional processes already under way or  
>> soon to get under way. Quite the contrary.
>>
>> Jupiter in the Economic Trenches ~ One of the most interesting and  
>> expressive charts for January 2006 is the Jupiter persona chart  
>> for New Years Day. It includes a Grand Square that entrains the  
>> energy of all of the planets except Pluto and Uranus. Uranus forms  
>> a trine to the main stellium, or group, of planets. Pluto forms a  
>> trine with Saturn.
>>
>> So, in Jupiter?s own Persona Chart, its individual astrological  
>> portrait for New Years Day 2006, Jupiter?s energies are highly  
>> impaired. But the flow of Saturnian and Uranian energies is  
>> enhanced and facilitated.
>>
>> People will have tighter budgets. However, those who find new,  
>> ingenious ways of doing things (Uranus) that are, at the same  
>> time, true to old, tried and true values (Saturn), will prosper.  
>> Ingenious new products that are also dependable, durable and  
>> affordable will still find an enthusiastic market. While the old  
>> economy gets itself straightened out, new markets for new things  
>> will take off on their own.
>>
>>
>> Chiron?s Toll A Cautionary Note ~ The difficult relation between  
>> Chiron and Saturn has been reestablished. This ensures that  
>> disasters that take place now are likely to take a heavy toll.  
>> This worrisome relationship will persist until September 2007 when  
>> Saturn enters Virgo leaving Chiron in Aquarius and breaking up the  
>> Saturn/Chiron opposition.
>>
>> At midnight on New Years Day, 2006, the various Saturn/Chiron  
>> lines bracket Washington, DC, and come very close to New York  
>> City. On the other side of the world, Saturn/Chiron lines run  
>> through Indonesia and the Philippines, grazing the southwest coast  
>> of China, bracketing North and South Korea, and parts of southern  
>> Japan.
>>
>> .
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>

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From michael at intrafi.com  Fri Dec 23 12:01:53 2005
From: michael at intrafi.com (michael@intrafi.com)
Date: Fri Dec 23 12:13:09 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Alternet: All the President's Confessions
Message-ID: <20051223200153.6407DB80A5@alternet.org>


This story has been forwarded to you from
http://www.alternet.org by michael@intrafi.com



-------------------------------------
All the President's Confessions
http://www.alternet.org/story/29995

Bush's advocacy of lawlessness lies at the heart of the right-wing agenda to remake America.
-------------------------------------

From michael at intrafi.com  Fri Dec 23 12:02:44 2005
From: michael at intrafi.com (michael@intrafi.com)
Date: Fri Dec 23 12:14:09 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Alternet: Intelligence Abuse Deja Vu
Message-ID: <20051223200244.AF4F4B80A5@alternet.org>


This story has been forwarded to you from
http://www.alternet.org by michael@intrafi.com



-------------------------------------
Intelligence Abuse Deja Vu
http://www.alternet.org/story/29990

Here we are again, 30 years later, and once again willing to sacrifice constitutional liberties for security expediency.
-------------------------------------

From harperalexander at mail.com  Fri Dec 23 12:02:59 2005
From: harperalexander at mail.com (Alexander Harper)
Date: Fri Dec 23 12:14:25 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Bush says it has been a
	"Good Year for the American people"
Message-ID: <20051223200259.A5AFF164278@ws1-4.us4.outblaze.com>

Well, what used to be good for GM used to be good for America. Now its
what's good for Halliburton so on that basis the Americans have had a
fabulous year. It just depends how you look at things. You obviously have
your perspectives mixed up.

Al B

  ----- Original Message -----
  From: "Harold Sifton"
  To: "MB Civic"
  Subject: [Mb-civic] Bush says it has been a "Good Year for the
  American people"
  Date: Thu, 22 Dec 2005 20:26:28 -0500

What reality is he in?
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20051222/pl_afp/usbushiraqterrorism_051222201244
Saying that it has been a good year for the American people?? The economy
is a mess, Katrina devastated peoples lives,  jobs are flowing to China,
GM,Ford, etc.... are a mess........crime in America is up, bankruptcies
are up.......the list goes on.Soldiers are dying in Iraq for a wrong war
with no solution/exit strategy...........the only people making monies
are the Oil Companies. It is a good year for Bu$h, a bad year for America
and the World. This statement of Bush's confounds me!_______________________________________________
Mb-civic mailing list Mb-civic@islandlists.com
http://www.islandlists.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mb-civic

-- 
___________________________________________________
Play 100s of games for FREE! http://games.mail.com/

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From michael at michaelbutler.com  Fri Dec 23 09:51:53 2005
From: michael at michaelbutler.com (Michael Butler)
Date: Fri Dec 23 12:20:08 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] I Stand Corrected
Message-ID: <BFD17939.27219%michael@michaelbutler.com>

In my last Blog I said that the Sun was as a baseball to Earth as a
peppercorn. I originally recalled NPR saying that the Sun was as a bowling
ball. As I was writing my blog I thought there cannot be such a difference.
However Jef Bek reminded me my initial memory was correct.
No senior moment for me!

Such hubris! We are so small in the universe.

From michael at michaelbutler.com  Fri Dec 23 12:16:08 2005
From: michael at michaelbutler.com (Michael Butler)
Date: Fri Dec 23 12:27:28 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Language of the Heart     By Cindy Sheehan
Message-ID: <BFD19B08.27250%michael@michaelbutler.com>



    Language of the Heart
    By Cindy Sheehan
    t r u t h o u t | Perspective

    Friday 23 December 2005

    I have been in Europe for 2 weeks now. I have been toasted by the Mayor
of London, Ken Livingston, and greeted by Foreign Ministers, a Vice
President and members of the various Parliaments. Those stories are for
another article.

    My highest honor both here in the States and in Europe now is meeting
with the families of children murdered in George Bush's War of Terror
against the world.

    No matter if we all speak differently accented English, Spanish, or the
heavy Glaswegian accent of my Scottish sister in sorrow, Rose Gentle - whose
gentle-giant son, Gordon, was killed by Blair and Bush in Iraq in July of
2004 - our hearts all speak the same idiom of pain, and we sing the same
lament of futile loss.

    In Scotland, as we were meeting with Ministers of Parliament and urging
them to stand up to the government in London and withdraw Scottish troops
from Iraq, I met a woman named Sue Smith, whose son Philip was killed in
Iraq this past July. Her voice vibrated and fluctuated with incalculable
loss as she spoke of the betrayal that she felt at burying her son too early
and for the lies of her Prime Minister: a co-war criminal with George Bush.
The wound in her heart was fresh and openly bleeding. In her wounded eyes I
saw my heart as it was about a year ago.

    At the International Peace Conference in London, I met Shaun Brierly's
dad, Peter. Shaun was in the British Army, and he was killed in Iraq in
March of 2003 in the very early days of the war. Peter lugged my heavy
satchel around London with quiet good humor. In his heavy Yorkshire accent,
he tried to describe to me what losing his son has done to him and his
family. We drank a pint in a pub to our boys and to our hurt but especially
to our hearts' resolve to end this war and expose the villains who mislead
our countries so shamelessly. Through our blinked-back tears we promised
each other we would stay strong.

    Also at the Peace Conference were Reg Keys and John Miller. Reg's son
Tom was KIA along with John's son, Simon. We attended a few events together,
and I teased them about the suits they were wearing, and they teased me
about my "gym" clothes. Reg stood against Tony Blair for Prime Minister of
the UK last year and made a respectable showing. John and Reg are hanging in
together with their pain. It is so hard for Dads. It is easier for us Moms
to express our heart pain as the Dads try to head their heartache off at the
pass. I also met Ann Laurence, who described her beautiful English
countryside home to me and showed me pictures of her handsome son, Marc. She
had a quiet voice and eyes filled with heaviness and tears ready to overflow
at any moment.

    In Spain, I met two women whose sons were callously murdered by the
policies of our two governments: governments and leaders who hand in jaded
hand took our countries to an impossible and immoral invasion and occupation
of an innocent and mostly defenseless country.

    Maribel Permuy is the mother of slain Spanish cameraman Jose Couso. Jose
was murdered in the Palestine Hotel on April 8, 2003, along with other
journalists. With new evidence coming out that George Bush wanted to kill al
Jazeera journalists, and with the targeting of Giuliana Sgrena and her
rescuers, I find it so hard to believe that Jose's murder was an accident.
In fact, a Spanish magistrate has indicted the three US troops who fired a
missile at the hotel. The one who should be indicted, though, is George
Bush. Maribel speaks not one word of English and I speak very little
Spanish, but our hearts are connected in sorrow and also hope. I am called
"Madre Coraje" (Mother Courage) in Spain and Latin American countries.
However, Maribel is Madre Mas Coraje. She has steely and uncompromising
resolve to see justice done for her son Jose. Her unconditional and undying
love for Jose and her other children gives her the strength to fight against
her government and mine. We laughed and cried so much together, I wonder how
we could have communicated any better if we spoke the same language?

    I also met Pilar Mahon in Madrid. Her son, Daniel, was killed in the
terrorist bombings of March 11, 2004. The day I met her would have been
Daniel's 22nd birthday. Her nose and eyes were red from a day of mourning
her son. She could barely speak, but when she did, her voice rose in anger
against George Bush and Spain's former President Aznar, who took our
countries to an unnecessary war based on the pipe dreams of the heartless
neocons who are even now holding tenuously onto their power base. The same
falsehoods of "fighting them over there, so we don't have to fight them over
here" killed both Casey and Daniel. I get filled with outrage when I meet
people like Pilar who should be celebrating their son's birthday and
Christmas but who spend days weeping at their child's final resting place.
In spite of her constant longing for Daniel, Pilar is leading the fight in
Spain for the rights of the families affected by the March 11th terrorist
attack.

    There are so many people in this world who will be celebrating
sorrow-filled holidays this year. Christmas is so hard for us, not only
because our children are dead, but because we remember the Christmases past
that were filled with joy and happiness. It is so painful to remember the
Christmas mornings when the kids would get up before the sun came up and beg
Mom and Dad to get up so they could open what Santa had brought them. It is
too painful to get out the decorations and hang the one sock that will
remain empty for eternity. So most of us skip the traditional Christmas and
do whatever we can to support each other through the devastation that our
lives have become. Devastation that is so needless and avoidable. Our hearts
go out to all families who are experiencing the pain of loss instead of the
joy of togetherness this year.

    George Bush and the other purveyors of pain can take a day off from
spying on Americans without due process to celebrate the holidays with their
families. Dick "the Grinch" Cheney made a "surprise" visit to Iraq the other
day. His black heart feels no pain for the tragic loss of life that his
greed has caused. How dare he show his face in a country that has been
destroyed by his insatiable quest for black gold and his obscene lust for
profits for his company Halliburton and the other war profiteers?

    The pain that these people have caused the world is inestimable. The
people of the world want an accounting for the pain and they want the people
who seem to be getting off scot-free to be brought to some kind of justice
for the damage they have wrought on humanity.

    This Christmas, as you fill your children's or grandchildren's
stockings, wrap and unwrap presents, cook your holiday meals, light your
Menorah or dance around your Festivus pole, or however you celebrate your
holidays, please remember the families who will be trying to enjoy the
holiday season with a part of them missing. But most of all, please remember
the people (American and Iraqi) in harm's way in Iraq for the old lies and
the new lies that seem to surface with the same frequency as a Republican
corruption scandal.

    In conclusion, this is an excerpt of an email I received from a mother
in Iraq whose son Zaydoun Mamoun Fadhil Al-Samarai, a Shi'a insurgent, was
involved in the same battle in which Casey was killed. Zaydoun was later
killed.

    We, my friend, in the march of pain could work together, each from where
she is, toward putting an end to the blood shed and toward peace and love to
prevail, instead of war.

    We could, my lady, work together toward peace and toward putting an end
to the blood shed and give all mothers a hope for happiness because we
experience pain when we lost our sons. Because, he who did not experience
pain cannot understand happiness.

    I will be very happy when the war ends so we can celebrate in my town,
Samara, which witnessed the birth of my oldest son, Zaydoun, who I thought
would mourn me when I die, but, unfortunately, I mourned him one month
before his wedding.

    I am conveying his fianc?e's greeting, who is still mourning him.

    At the end, please accept my deepest sympathies, from a mother who lost
her son to another mother who lost her son.

    I hope to be able to meet with you on the march for peace and love.

    George Bush, et al, have taught too many people in this world the
language of pain by their lies and their doctrines of pre-emptive killing
for profit.

    We need to learn a new language of peace and love that we can speak,
even shout, to our leaders who only understand the language of greed and
murder.

    Peace, shalom, paz, salaam.

 

    Go to Original

    European Tour: Cindy Sheehan Is Surrounded by People Who Want to Know,
    How'd That Guy Get Re-elected?
    By Samuel Loewenberg
    The American Prospect

    Thursday 22 December 2005

    Madrid - Cindy Sheehan blazed through Madrid this week like a rock star
or a political candidate, shuttling from peace rally to a day-long press
event to a private dinner with her supporters. Watchful handlers hurried her
from venue to venue, drawing her away from autograph seekers, though she
seemed always to have time to give her supporters a hug.

    It was a mission to rally the faithful, amidst signs that Europe has
backed off from confronting America over foreign policy and is turning
inward to deal with domestic problems.

    The Madrid stop was the third and final leg of Sheehan's European tour,
which had taken her through England and then Ireland, where she met the
foreign minister, before arriving in Spain. The whirlwind tour had clearly
left her exhausted, but like a veteran candidate, AmericaR17;s most famous
anti-war protester always kept up a smile. "I always wanted to come to
Europe,R21; Sheehan told The American Prospect. "So I finally came but I
didn't get to see anything."

    The mother from California gained international fame for keeping up a
vigil in front of President George W. Bush's Crawford, Texas, ranch after
the death of her soldier son in Iraq. For many Americans, it drove home the
horrible pain of war. It was something that until then many had seemed
oblivious to, unlike the millions of Europeans who protested in cities
across the continent in the months leading up to the U.S. invasion.

    Sheehan said she was surprised to find herself a cultural ambassador,
asked repeatedly by Europeans reporters to explain why Americans were not
more outraged about the war. "In almost every interview, people asked why
George Bush was reelected," she said.

    Her last rally in Spain, a protest in front of the heavily guarded
American embassy in Madrid, was particularly poignant because it was in
honor of Jos? Couso, a Spanish television cameraman who was killed by an
American tank while filming the invasion from a hotel in Baghdad. At the
rally on December 20, she met with Couso's mother, Maribel Permuy.

    Sheehan does not speak Spanish, but she said it did not matter. "We
don't need to speak the same language, we have the same pain," she said.

    Permuy said that she had attempted to find answers from the U.S.
government for the death of her son, but had received nothing other than an
unsigned form letter from the Pentagon.

    A spokesperson from the U.S. embassy declined comment on both the Couso
death and the Sheehan rally.

    Couso has become a cause celebre in Spain, where placards bearing an
image of his face under the word "murdered" can be found hanging in cafes
and pasted onto students' notebooks.

    Still, yesterday's protest was sparsely attended. The 50-person crowd
was nearly matched in number by the security guards and police in front of
the embassy. The protesters were mostly Spanish but included a sprinkling of
Americans, who joined in the chants of "We want peace now" and "Bush is a
terrorist." The streams of passing cars and crowds didn't pay them much
attention, more concerned with the coming holidays and the shopping that
needed to get done.

    For the Spanish, as for many Americans, the war is something that has
grown increasingly distant. It's quite a change from the fierce anti-war
sentiment that drew millions here to street protests early last year. In the
wake of the March 11, 2004, terrorist bombings in Madrid, which were widely
interpreted as retaliation for Spain's participation in the war, the
conservative government that had been an ally of the Bush administration was
toppled from power. One of the new Socialist government's first acts was to
withdraw Spanish troops from Iraq.

    The war in Iraq has ceased to be a Spanish problem," said Fernando
Vallespin, who heads the Center for Sociological Investigation, a publicly
funded polling organization in Madrid.

    At the time, the Socialists' abrupt troop withdrawal caused a serious
breach with the Bush administration; now, it seems, the Socialists are
trying to put aside their old disputes and repair their relationship with
the world's only superpower. A sign of this was during the recent hullabaloo
over the alleged CIA flights of suspected terrorists through Europe, many of
which stopped in Spain. Despite an uproar in the Spanish press, the
Socialist-led government kept a low profile and refrained from picking a
fight with the Americans.

    For the two mothers, though, the war in Iraq goes far deeper than
politics, and it is not something they are willing to set aside.

    We came together to fight for peace and for justice,R21; said Sheehan.

    We are mothers who have lost children because of the lies of
politicians," said Permuy. "We have to fight together to tear down their
impunity."

    --------

    Samuel Loewenberg is a reporter based in Madrid, Spain. He has written
for The New York Times and The Economist, among other publications.

 


From michael at michaelbutler.com  Fri Dec 23 12:26:25 2005
From: michael at michaelbutler.com (Michael Butler)
Date: Fri Dec 23 12:37:44 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] The Twelve Days of Christmas: A War Song
Message-ID: <BFD19D71.27256%michael@michaelbutler.com>

Sharmagne sent this

http://www.fearofthesphere.com/

From BARBARASIOMOS38 at MSN.COM  Fri Dec 23 16:33:06 2005
From: BARBARASIOMOS38 at MSN.COM (BARBARASIOMOS38@MSN.COM)
Date: Fri Dec 23 16:44:28 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] A Hallmark e-card from Barbara
Message-ID: <200512240033.jBO0Wut3858622@mail068.hallmark.com>


Hello!

Barbara has sent you a Hallmark e-card!  To see it, just click the link below, or copy and paste it into your browser's address line:

http://www.hallmark.com/ECardWeb/ECV.jsp?a=1495181635679M82009170Y

Or . you can follow these steps:

1.	Go to our homepage at http://www.hallmark.com
2.	Choose "Free E-Cards" under the "Our Products" section.
3.	Click the link that says "Pick up an e-card."
4.	Enter your e-mail address and this number: EG1495181635679.  Click "Display Greeting," and enjoy your e-card.

With best wishes, 
Your friends at Hallmark 

Your privacy is our priority. Click the "Privacy and Security" link at the bottom of any page on Hallmark.com to see our privacy policy.
From activist at democrats.com  Fri Dec 23 16:28:44 2005
From: activist at democrats.com (Democrats.com)
Date: Fri Dec 23 17:48:37 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Impeachment Breakthrough
Message-ID: <20051223192844.128942@democrats.com>

IMPEACHMENT BREAKTHROUGH

Since we told you Tuesday night about Congressman Conyers' new bills to hold Bush and Cheney accountable for their war lies, 26,000 people have visited the action alert page, and 17,000 have Emailed their Congress Members. You can add to those numbers here:
http://capwiz.com/pdamerica/issues/alert/?alertid=8329176

Already there are seven cosponsors of a bill to create an investigation and make recommendations on impeachment, four cosponsors on a bill to censure Bush, and five cosponsors on a bill to censure Cheney.
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/5768

This work, combined with our polling on impeachment, and the news that Bush authorized illegal spying on Americans, has pushed impeachment into the media.

For many months the media wouldn't cover and Congress wouldn't talk about the public's demand for impeachment of Bush and Cheney because the pollsters wouldn't poll on it, and the pollsters wouldn't poll on it because it wasn't in the media and wasn't in Congress. Remember Gallup's excuse for not polling?
http://www.democrats.com/gallup-drop-dead

The week before Christmas, things changed. Look at the spike in instances of the I word in recent media punditry.
http://www.impeachpac.org/?q=impeachment-news

And Congress Members and Senators are talking about impeachment. Rep. John Lewis says he favors it. Rep. John Conyers has introduced a bill to create an investigation into grounds for it, and seven other Congress Members have immediately signed on. Senator Barbara Boxer announced that she is asking legal scholars for advice on it. Senator Kerry said there are grounds for impeachment; then he flip-flopped -- but it wouldn't be Kerry without that.

No longer can pollsters honestly claim that they are refusing to ask the public about impeachment because it's not a topic in the news or the halls of Congress. But that doesn't mean they won't keep doing so dishonestly, unless we let them know how many of us are watching, unless we use the internet and the radio the way we did to force the Downing Street Minutes into the news. 

ASK THE POLLSTERS TO POLL ON IMPEACHMENT:
http://www.democrats.com/bush-impeachment-polls

ASK THE MEDIA TO COVER THE ISSUE:
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/1084

Here's info on the few polls that have been done:
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/polling 

Here's an analysis of the pollsters' inconsistency:
http://mediamatters.org/items/200512200006


_________ 

NATIONAL DAY OF TOWN HALL FORUMS ON ENDING THE WAR

Organize public meetings or smaller gatherings on Saturday, January 7, on the topic of ending the war!
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/event

There are 60 events already planned around the country. Many Congress Members have been invited to attend by their constituents. Some have already commited to doing so, including: Bobby Scott, Diane Watson, Jim McDermott, Eleanor Holmes Norton, Adam Smith, and Dave Reichert. 

One focus of some of these events will be Congressman John Conyers' new resolutions to censure Bush and Cheney and to create a select committee to investigate and make recommendations on impeachment. Rep. Conyers, and many other Congress Members, are likely to participate. 

Also already confirmed to take part are several congressional and senatorial candidates, various local elected officials, and leaders of the peace movement, including Gold Star Families for Peace founder Cindy Sheehan.

We are joining with Backbone Campaign, Progressive Democrats of America, After Downing Street, Democracy Cell Project, Cities for Peace, MilitaryFreeZone.Org, Operation Ceasefire, United for Peace and Justice, U.S. Tour of Duty, Hip Hop Caucus, Democracy Rising, World Can't Wait, Gold Star Families for Peace, PeaceMajority Report, Global Exchange, Bring Them Home Campaign, UP (United Progressives) for Democracy, 20 20 Vision, Impeach Bush Coalition, and Peace Action, in asking you to sign up and attend one of these events, or ? if there is not one scheduled near you ? help organize one and post it on the website for others to attend.

The war is costing us dearly in lives, in security, and in resources. We need this national day to make our demand heard and bring the war to an end. (Events can also be held on days other than the 7th, to fit the schedules of those involved.)

SIGN UP FOR AN EXISTING EVENT OR CREATE A NEW ONE HERE:
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/event


_________

FORWARD THIS EMAIL 

#####

If you received this from a friend, you can subscribe at:
http://afterdowningstreet.org

To unsubscribe from AfterDowningStreet Updates, click here:
http://archive.democrats.com/unsub.cfm?email=mb-civic@islandlists.com&fieldname=L16

To unsubscribe from all Democrats.com mailings, click here:
http://archive.democrats.com/unsub.cfm?email=mb-civic@islandlists.com&fieldname=L1
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From barbarasiomos38 at msn.com  Fri Dec 23 21:27:07 2005
From: barbarasiomos38 at msn.com (Barbara Siomos)
Date: Fri Dec 23 21:38:44 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] EU Arrest Warrant Issued for 22 CIA Operatives
Message-ID: <BAY5-DAV13F1BB1F618B7EB3C3CDA1AB320@phx.gbl>

    Reuters 

    Friday 23 December 2005 

Suspects wanted for allegedly kidnapping Egyptian cleric in Italy in 2003

    Milan - A Milan court has issued a European arrest warrant for 22 CIA agents suspected of kidnapping an Egyptian cleric from Italyâ€™s financial capital in 2003, Prosecutor Armando Spataro said on Friday. 

    Milan magistrates suspect a CIA team grabbed Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr off a Milan street and flew him for interrogation to Egypt, where he said he was tortured. 

    Prosecutors asked the Italian Justice Ministry last month to seek the extradition of the suspects from the United States, but Justice Minister Roberto Castelli has not yet decided whether to act on the request. 

    A European Union warrant is automatically valid across the 25-nation bloc and does not require approval of any government. 

    The warrant was agreed by the European Union in the wake of the Sept 11 attacks on the United States in 2001 and was hailed as a key part of the blocâ€™s fight against terrorism. Spataro told Reuters he had also asked Interpol to try to detain the suspects anywhere in the world. 

    Earlier this week, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said he did not believe CIA agents had kidnapped Nasr, but added that governments were not going to defeat terrorism by playing by the rules. 

    Justice officials believe Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, is still in custody in Egypt. Italian investigators have accused him of ties to al-Qaida and recruiting combatants for Iraq, and a Milan judge has issued a warrant for his arrest. 

    There has been a series of investigations into whether US intelligence officials used Europe as a hub to illegally transfer militant suspects to third countries for interrogation. 

    The US embassy in Rome was not immediately available for comment. 


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From geomilman at milman.com  Fri Dec 23 21:43:40 2005
From: geomilman at milman.com (George R. Milman)
Date: Fri Dec 23 21:55:20 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Spy Agency Mined Vast Data Trove,
	Officials Report - By ERIC LICHTBLAU and JAMES RISEN,
	N.Y. Times (Published: December 24, 2005)
Message-ID: <006b01c6084c$fed90510$8c00a8c0@george>

WASHINGTON, Dec. 23 - The National Security Agency has traced and analyzed
large volumes of telephone and Internet communications flowing into and out
of the United States as part of the eavesdropping program that President
Bush approved after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to hunt for evidence of
terrorist activity, according to current and former government officials.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/24/politics/24spy.html?ei=5094
<http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/24/politics/24spy.html?ei=5094&en=efaa31928a
a6c87b&hp=&ex=1135400400&partner=homepage&pagewanted=all>
&en=efaa31928aa6c87b&hp=&ex=1135400400&partner=homepage&pagewanted=all

 

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From marylouiseparis at hotmail.com  Sat Dec 24 03:45:29 2005
From: marylouiseparis at hotmail.com (Mary Louise smn)
Date: Sat Dec 24 03:57:05 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Fight moralists with morality - John Gapper
In-Reply-To: <20051222182308.7B32B164278@ws1-4.us4.outblaze.com>
Message-ID: <BAY107-F148183F3779436EBD75B74B8320@phx.gbl>


         Ghandi       "  As soon as we lose the moral basis, we cease to be 
religious.  There is no such thing as religion over-riding morality.  Man, 
for instance, cannot be untruthful, cruel or inconstant and claim to have 
God on his side."              We live in the Age of Kali        Marylouise


>From: "Alexander Harper" <harperalexander@mail.com>
>Reply-To: mb-civic@islandlists.com
>To: MB-Civic@islandlists.com
>Subject: [Mb-civic] Fight moralists with morality - John Gapper
>Date: Thu, 22 Dec 2005 15:23:08 -0300
>
>
>
>
>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Main page content:
>John Gapper: We must fight moralists with morality
>By John Gapper
>Published: December 21 2005 20:42 | Last updated: December 21 2005 20:42
>
>Seasons come and seasons go, but the mean-spiritedness of some American 
>Christian conservatives endures. Here is a bunch of people who are never 
>happier than when denigrating or boycotting imagined enemies.
>
>You think Christmas is the season to be jolly? How naive. It is the time to 
>attack stores such as Target and Wal-Mart that wish their customers Happy 
>Holidays, the US phrase for Christmas, Hanukkah and the African festival 
>Kwanzaa, instead of Happy Christmas. Bill O’Reilly, the Fox television 
>commentator, has led the crusade on behalf of Santa Claus.
>
>On the point that people should feel free to say Happy Christmas and to 
>sing carols, I am with Mr O’Reilly. But his tactics – to hector companies 
>that do not comply – are unpleasant. Retailers are not the only ones: many 
>US companies are targets of Christian zealots trying to ensure that nobody 
>tolerates what they abhor.
>
>The average company gets very uncomfortable when accused of offending 
>customers and its first instinct is to conciliate. Ford appeared to comply 
>with the Christian right last month when it stopped advertising its Jaguar 
>and Land Rover brands in magazines for gay people.
>
>That did no good since it promptly faced an outcry from the other side: gay 
>and lesbian groups. Ford says the whole affair was a misunderstanding but 
>it eventually did the right thing by reinstating its advertisements and 
>telling the American Family Association, a noisy Christian lobby group, 
>where to get off.
>
>The lesson is that companies have to fight fire with fire: they must take a 
>moral stand when confronted by moralisers. It is no use complying with 
>activists because it seems to be in their financial interests. Not only may 
>someone demand the opposite, but it is an indefensible stance.
>
>In Ford’s case, one group of customers had no right to tell it to cut off 
>business with another. The next step would have been to insist that it did 
>not sell cars to gays or adulterers. Ford’s eventual position – that it 
>would not discriminate in this way – was ethically correct.
>
>Compare this with the case of US cable television companies. Christian 
>groups are unhappy at the lack of say that cable subscribers have over the 
>service they get. Those that opt for more than the basic service are often 
>beamed hundreds of channels even if they only want a few (the average 
>family tunes into only 17).
>
>Christian groups say this means they cannot screen out channels with sex 
>and violence on them, a complaint backed by Kevin Martin, head of the 
>Federal Communications Commission. Mr Martin wants cable companies such as 
>Comcast to give subscribers more choice, either allowing them to choose à 
>la carte or giving them “family-friendly” channel tiers.
>
>Grudgingly, the cable companies are introducing family tiers but grumble 
>that this upsets their financial model. Small networks attract advertising 
>because they get into many homes (even if they are hardly watched).
>If cable subscribers could pick and choose, such networks might either have 
>to demand higher subscription fees to compensate for the drop in 
>advertising, or close down.
>
>This may be true but it misses the point: the Christians are on the side of 
>liberty. If some parents want to protect their children from unsavoury 
>programmes, why should they be frustrated? Whatever the truth of the cable 
>companies’ figures, they are trying to rebut an ethical argument with a 
>financial one. It is no wonder that they are on the retreat.
>
>All of this is relevant to the struggle looming for GlaxoSmithKline and 
>Merck. The two drugs companies are working on vaccines against strains of 
>the human papilloma virus (HPV) that cause 70 per cent of cases of cervical 
>cancer. Merck hopes to have its Gardasil vaccine, which has shown 100 per 
>cent effectiveness, approved for use in 2006.
>
>A vaccine that could prevent most of the 300,000 annual deaths from 
>cervical cancer sounds like a good thing but there is a difficulty. HPV 
>spreads through sexual contact and the companies say the vaccine should be 
>given at about the age of 10. It is more potent then and will protect girls 
>before they have sex.
>
>Some Christian activists say this is tantamount to encouraging teenage 
>promiscuity. They ignore the fact that American babies are vaccinated 
>against Hepatitis B, which is most common among drug addicts and gay men. 
>Parents who want their daughters to risk cancer if they do not stay 
>celibate also need to examine their consciences. But the argument has to be 
>addressed if the new vaccines are to succeed.
>
>On the face of it, opponents of the HPV vaccine are arguing in favour of 
>liberty. Unlike other medicines, governments not only subsidise vaccines 
>but mandate their use. US states insist on children having some 
>vaccinations before they enter school and the federal government pays for 
>nearly half of the injections.
>
>But in practice those who object to vaccinations can avoid them: 48 states 
>allow exemptions on religious grounds. The activists are not trying to 
>protect their daughters from being vaccinated so much as prevent others 
>from getting the benefit. Their stance is closer to that of Ford’s 
>opponents than cable television’s critics.
>
>Drugs companies see profit in HPV vaccines but they have a moral case as 
>well. The notion that they should hold back life-saving medicines from 
>those who want them is wrong, no matter how fiercely zealots proclaim it, 
>and GSK and Merck must say so. Happy Christmas.
>
>
>
>--
>___________________________________________________
>Play 100s of games for FREE! http://games.mail.com/
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>Mb-civic mailing list
>Mb-civic@islandlists.com
>http://www.islandlists.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mb-civic

_________________________________________________________________
FREE pop-up blocking with the new MSN Toolbar - get it now! 
http://toolbar.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200415ave/direct/01/

From swiggard at comcast.net  Sat Dec 24 05:38:03 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Sat Dec 24 05:52:59 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] U.S. Monitored Muslim Sites Across Nation for Radiation
 - Washington Post 
Message-ID: <43AD4F3B.2090803@comcast.net>

U.S. Monitored Muslim Sites Across Nation for Radiation

By Spencer S. Hsu and Michael Alison Chandler
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, December 24, 2005; A06

Clandestine FBI and Energy Department teams have monitored private 
property in the United States for signs of radiation without warrants, 
U.S. officials said yesterday.

Officials said the monitoring, which intensified after the Sept. 11, 
2001, attacks, did not require warrants or court orders because it took 
place from publicly accessible areas or from parking lots or driveways 
leading to private facilities, which the FBI believes do not carry 
privacy protections.

According to a report yesterday by U.S. News & World Report, government 
teams were sent to more than 100 Muslim sites in the Washington area, 
including mosques, homes, businesses and warehouses, plus similar sites 
in Chicago, Detroit, Las Vegas, New York and Seattle.

The magazine, citing unnamed sources who knew about the secret program, 
said investigators sometimes went onto property under surveillance 
without a warrant, and some participants were threatened with firing 
after questioning the legality of the activity.

At its peak, three vehicles monitored 120 sites a day in and around 
Washington, nearly all of them Muslim targets identified by the FBI, the 
report said. The magazine said checks were made daily for about 10 
months starting in 2002 and resumed during high threat periods.

Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said the FBI does not 
target any group based on ethnicity, political or religious belief. 
"When intelligence information suggests that there may be a threat to 
public safety, particularly involving weapons of mass destruction, FBI 
investigators will go wherever the intelligence information takes them, 
acting within the framework of the law," he said.

Department spokesman John Nowacki said the government "is concerned with 
the growing body of reporting that al Qaeda has an intention to obtain 
and use chemical or radiological materials in an attack against 
Americans, and with this in mind, the FBI, as part of an interagency 
team, conducts passive operation in publicly accessible areas to 
determine the presence of nuclear materials in the area, in a manner 
that protects U.S. constitutional rights."

The Supreme Court ruled 5 to 4 in 2001 that warrants are required for 
police to use devices that search through walls for criminal activity, 
striking down the use of a heat sensor that led to marijuana charges 
against an Oregon man.

"The message they are sending through these kinds of actions is that 
being Muslim is sufficient evidence to warrant scrutiny," said Ibrahim 
Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

Imam Johari Abdul-Malik, director of outreach for Al Hijrah Islamic 
Center in Falls Church, called the surveillance another example of 
unwarranted activity -- "both unwarranted from the standpoint of spying 
on Muslims who are only trying to observe their rituals and unwarranted 
in terms of not having proper judicial review."

"I don't understand what good this sort of surveillance is doing," said 
Mukit Hossain, trustee of the All Dulles Area Muslims Society in 
Sterling. "What we are doing is harassing the immigrants and citizens 
and we haven't found one that is a terrorist."

He said this kind of surveillance fuels "anti-Muslim feelings in America 
and a public relations problem for America in Muslim countries."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/23/AR2005122301524.html?nav=hcmodule
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Sat Dec 24 05:40:50 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Sat Dec 24 05:55:32 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Alito Urged Wiretap Immunity - Washington Post
Message-ID: <43AD4FE2.9000701@comcast.net>

Alito Urged Wiretap Immunity
Memo Offers Look at Nominee on Privacy

By Jo Becker and Christopher Lee
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, December 24, 2005; A01

Supreme Court nominee Samuel A. Alito Jr. once argued that the nation's 
top law enforcement official deserves blanket protection from lawsuits 
when acting in the name of national security, even when those actions 
involve the illegal wiretapping of American citizens, documents released 
yesterday show.

As a lawyer in the Reagan Justice Department, Alito said the attorney 
general must be free to take steps to protect the country from threats 
such as terrorism and espionage without fear of personal liability. But 
in a 1984 memo involving a case that dated to the Nixon administration, 
Alito also cautioned his superiors that the time may not be right to 
make that argument and urged a more incremental approach.

"I do not question that the Attorney General should have this immunity," 
Alito wrote. "But for tactical reasons, I would not raise the issue here."

To date, much of the debate involving Alito's nomination has centered on 
his views on abortion. The latest of Alito's memos to be disclosed 
opened a window on his thinking in the area of national security vs. 
privacy rights, an issue that is currently under considerable scrutiny.

The release of the memo comes as President Bush is under attack for 
launching a secret National Security Agency program to bypass the courts 
and eavesdrop on the overseas telephone calls and e-mail of U.S. 
citizens with suspected ties to terrorists. Senate Judiciary Committee 
Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) has said he will press Alito for his 
views on that subject when the panel opens confirmation hearings Jan. 9.

Democrats were quick to link the issues yesterday, saying Alito's memo 
raises questions about his commitment to protecting civil liberties by 
checking executive power. The type of absolute immunity that Alito 
discussed would have shielded attorneys general even when their actions 
violated constitutional rights.

"At a time when the nation is faced with revelations that the 
Administration has been wiretapping American citizens, we find that we 
have a nominee who believes that officials who order warrantless 
wiretaps of Americans should be immune from legal accountability," said 
Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.).

But Alito supporters noted that the memo does not defend the practice of 
warrantless eavesdropping, instead dealing only with the question of 
whether government officials who often must act quickly can be sued for 
damages when they err. Nor did the memo deal with the question of 
whether a warrant was necessary to investigate foreign threats.

"Despite Democrats' attempts to link this memo to reports of NSA 
activities, the two have nothing to do with each other," said White 
House spokesman Steve Schmidt.

The memo was among more than 700 pages released by the National Archives 
yesterday in response to a public records request from The Washington Post.

They portray a strategic legal thinker attuned to the sensitivities and 
ideological balance of the Supreme Court. Coupled with previously 
released memos, they paint a picture of a man who often preferred more 
indirect approaches over headlong charges in advancing the Reagan 
administration's legal agenda.

In memos released last month, for instance, Alito made it clear to 
Reagan administration officials that he personally believed there was no 
constitutional right to abortion. But he recommended against launching a 
"frontal assault" on Roe v. Wade , instead outlining a strategy to chip 
away at the landmark 1973 abortion rights case.

The 1984 wiretapping memo involved a lawsuit filed against Nixon 
administration attorney general John N. Mitchell, who in 1970 had 
ordered wiretaps of antiwar activists. The FBI suspected the activists 
of plotting to blow up Washington utility tunnels and kidnap Henry A. 
Kissinger, then President Richard M. Nixon's national security adviser. 
The case had been in the courts for years, and it fell to Alito to 
prepare a memo on whether the government should ask the Supreme Court to 
review an adverse lower court decision.

Part of the job of the solicitor general's office, where Alito was an 
assistant, is to defend the interests of the executive branch, and the 
argument that the president and his top aides were entitled to absolute 
immunity was not a new one.

The Carter administration had taken that position in wiretapping cases 
stemming from the Watergate scandal, but the issue had not been clearly 
resolved by the Supreme Court.

In the 1984 memo to his boss -- Solicitor General Rex Lee -- Alito wrote 
that "absolute immunity arguments are difficult to advance successfully" 
and so "there is a need to choose our cases in this area with particular 
care."

The Mitchell case had several problems, Alito said. Justice William H. 
Rehnquist would have to recuse himself because he served in the Nixon 
administration, "a handicap we can ill afford in this difficult area." 
Moreover, Alito said, "our chances of persuading the Court to accept an 
absolute immunity argument would probably be improved in a case 
involving a less controversial official and a less controversial era."

The government, he said, should stick to a less sweeping defense of 
Mitchell -- that the law was not clear at the time he authorized the 
wiretaps and that therefore he could not be sued because he did not act 
in willful disregard of the law.

As it turns out, Alito was right.

The Reagan administration pressed ahead with its argument of absolute 
immunity, with Alito co-writing the brief. The administration argued 
that in the abstract it is easy to assert that "public officials who 
have deliberately flouted clearly established rights should be liable." 
But, the brief said, that could lead "risk-adverse officials" 
contemplating "ruinous personal liability" to falter when action was 
needed to protect the country.

The Supreme Court quashed the lawsuit against Mitchell, but it rejected 
a blanket shield for illegal conduct.

"The label of 'national security' may cover a multitude of sins," 
then-Justice Byron R. White wrote for the majority in 1985. "The danger 
that high federal officials will disregard constitutional rights in 
their zeal to protect the national security is sufficiently real to 
counsel against affording such officials an absolute immunity.''

The following year, Alito was asked to help bolster executive power on a 
different front. In a 1986, after being promoted to the Office of Legal 
Counsel, he sketched out ways for the president to weigh in on the 
meaning of a law the way Congress does when it builds a legislative 
history through hearings, committee reports and debate before it passes 
a bill.

The administration was concerned that judges were not strictly sticking 
to the language of statutes, instead relying on what various lawmakers 
had said their intent was.

While the plan probably "will not be warmly welcomed" on Capitol Hill, 
Alito said "it may help to curb" abuses.

The documents also show that Alito has experience preparing others for 
Supreme Court confirmation hearings, helping to troubleshoot Rehnquist's 
nomination to be chief justice in the summer of 1986.

In a memo dated July 28, one day before the start of the Senate 
Judiciary Committee hearing on Rehnquist, Alito provided defenses to 
three potential lines of questioning if Rehnquist were asked about 
$27,000 he had received for a book about his experiences on the high court.

Alito need not have worried. Rehnquist was confirmed without the money 
becoming an issue.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/23/AR2005122301566.html
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Sat Dec 24 05:44:19 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Sat Dec 24 05:59:03 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Power Play - Suzanne E. Spaulding - Washington Post
	Sunday Outlook
Message-ID: <43AD50B3.1070605@comcast.net>

Power Play
Did Bush Roll Past the Legal Stop Signs?

By Suzanne E. Spaulding
Sunday, December 25, 2005; B01

At his news conference last week, President Bush objected when a 
reporter characterized his use of executive power to eavesdrop on 
Americans without any court order as "unchecked." The president's 
sensitivity is understandable. As he went on to explain, the charge of 
unchecked power implies that he is asserting a kind of dictatorial 
authority -- precisely what Americans fought, and continue to fight, 
against in Iraq. But what are the sources of checks and balances of a 
president's authority? They are the Congress, the courts and, 
ultimately, the American people. Based on the facts as reported so far, 
none of these appear to have operated as an effective check on this 
extraordinary exercise of presidential power.

Ironically, if it is ultimately determined that this domestic 
surveillance program reflects the exercise of unchecked power in 
contravention of law, it will wind up weakening the presidency. Once 
again, we will confront the challenge of restoring Americans' faith in 
the rule of law and our system of checks and balances. The 
administration says Congress was briefed "at least a dozen times" in the 
four years since the wiretap program started. Even assuming that these 
classified briefings accurately conveyed all relevant facts, it appears 
that they were limited to only eight of the 535 senators and 
representatives, under a process that effectively eliminates the 
possibility of any careful oversight.

As a former legal counsel for both Republican and Democratic leaders of 
the House and Senate intelligence committees, I'm well aware of the 
limitations of these "gang of eight" sessions. They are provided only to 
the leadership of the House and Senate and of the intelligence 
committees, with no staff present. The eight are prohibited from saying 
anything about the briefing to anyone, including other intelligence 
panel members. The leaders for whom I worked never discussed the content 
of these briefings with me.

It is virtually impossible for individual members of Congress, 
particularly members of the minority party, to take any effective action 
if they have concerns about what they have heard in one of these 
briefings. It is not realistic to expect them, working alone, to sort 
through complex legal issues, conduct the kind of factual investigation 
required for true oversight and develop an appropriate legislative response.

These gang of eight briefings, while sometimes necessary, should be 
extremely rare. Under the National Security Act, they are supposed to be 
limited to situations involving covert actions, and even then only under 
"extraordinary circumstances." Yet they have occurred with increasing 
frequency in the last few years.

Before I worked on the intelligence committees, I was a lawyer at the 
CIA. We understood that congressional oversight was key to maintaining 
the trust of the American public, which is vital for a secret agency 
operating in a democracy. True oversight helps clarify the authority 
under which intelligence professionals operate. And when risky 
operations are revealed, it is important to have members of Congress 
reassure the public that they have been overseeing the operation. The 
briefings reportedly provided on the National Security Agency (NSA) 
surveillance program reflect, instead, a "check the box" mentality -- 
allowing administration officials to claim that they had informed 
Congress without having really achieved the objectives of oversight.

And it is clear that the courts did not have any role in reviewing this 
assertion of executive authority. Instead of going to a judge on the 
secret court that was specifically established to authorize foreign 
intelligence surveillance inside the United States, we are told that an 
NSA shift supervisor was able to sign off on the warrantless 
surveillance of Americans. That's neither a check nor a balance. The 
primary duty of the NSA shift supervisor, who essentially works for the 
president, is to collect intelligence. The task of the judge is to 
ensure that the legal standards set out in the 1978 Foreign Intelligence 
Surveillance Act 
<http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/casecode/uscodes/50/chapters/36/subchapters/i/toc.html> 
(FISA) have been met. Which one has stronger independence to say no, if 
no needs to be said?

The objectives of the surveillance program, as described in news 
reports, seem laudable. The government should be running to ground the 
contacts listed in a suspected terrorist's cell phone, for example. What 
is troubling is that this domestic spying is being done in apparent 
contravention of FISA, for reasons that still are not clear.

FISA anticipates situations in which speed is essential. It allows the 
government to start eavesdropping without a court order and to keep it 
going for a maximum of three days. And while the FISA application 
process is often burdensome in routine cases, it can also move with 
remarkable speed when necessary, with applications written and approved 
in just a few hours.

Perhaps the administration did not believe that these wiretaps would 
meet the FISA standard, which requires the government to have probable 
cause to believe that the target of the surveillance is an agent of a 
foreign power, which includes terrorists and spies. Yet, since 2001, 
FISA judges have reportedly reviewed more than 5,645 applications and 
rejected only four. The current judges were all hand-picked by the late 
Chief Justice William Rehnquist, who presumably felt that they had the 
right temperament and expertise to understand the national security 
imperatives as well as the need to protect civil liberties.

Nevertheless, if administration officials believed they faced a scenario 
in which the FISA standard could not be met, they could have sought to 
amend the statute, as they have done several times since the law's 
enactment in 1978. Several such amendments 
<http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/2005/April/05_opa_163.htm> , for example, 
were contained in the 2001 Patriot Act.

The administration reportedly did not think it could get an amendment 
without exposing details of the program. But this is not the first time 
the intelligence community has needed a change in the law to allow it to 
undertake sensitive intelligence activities that could not be disclosed. 
In the past, Congress and the administration have worked together to 
find a way to accomplish what was needed. It was never previously 
considered an option to simply decide that finding a legislative 
solution was too hard and that the executive branch could just ignore 
the law rather than fix it.

Moreover, the administration has yet to make the case for keeping this 
significant policy change secret for four years. It's hard to imagine 
that the terrorists do not already assume that we try to listen to their 
cell phone conversations (after all, it is well known that FISA allows 
such wiretaps) or that we have technology to help us search through 
reams of signals. (Check out the Wikipedia definition of Echelon on the 
Internet.) So what do the terrorists learn from a general public 
discussion about the legal authority being relied upon to target their 
conversations? Presumably very little. What does the American public 
lose by not having the public discussion? We lose the opportunity to 
hold our elected leaders accountable for what they do on our behalf.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales claims that the NSA program did not 
violate the law because FISA only requires a warrant "unless otherwise 
authorized by statute or by Congress" and that the congressional 
resolution authorizing the use of force after the attacks of Sept. 11, 
2001, somehow authorized this circumvention of FISA's rules. FISA does 
provide for criminal penalties if surveillance is conducted under color 
of law "except as authorized by statute." This is a reference to either 
FISA or the criminal wiretap statute. The Use of Force resolution is not 
a statute. FISA specifically provides for warrantless surveillance for 
up to 15 days after a declaration of war. Why would Congress include 
that provision if a mere Use of Force resolution could render FISA 
inapplicable?

The law clearly states that the criminal wiretap statute and FISA are 
"the exclusive means by which electronic surveillance . . . and the 
interception of domestic wire, oral, and electronic communications may 
be conducted." If these authorities are exclusive, there is no other 
legal authority that can authorize warrantless surveillance.

Courts generally will not view such a clear statutory statement as 
having been overruled by a later congressional action unless there is an 
equally clear indication that Congress intended to do that.

The administration's ultimate argument is that "the president has the 
inherent authority under the Constitution, as Commander-in-Chief, to 
engage in this kind of activity." This is the same argument outlined in 
the infamous torture memo, which concluded that the president can 
effectively ignore any statute that appears to infringe on this broad 
authority. That memo was withdrawn after it became public and was 
roundly criticized. The legal reasoning behind the arguments, however, 
has never been repudiated and appears to have resurfaced here.

We cannot know for certain how the Supreme Court would rule on the 
legitimacy of the spying program. However, the court rejected President 
Harry Truman's similar claim of broad presidential power in seizing 
control of the nation's steel mills to avert a strike during the Korean 
War. The court, in a 6-to-3 ruling 
<http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=343&invol=579> 
, stated that the president's inherent authority is at its weakest in 
areas where Congress has already legislated. It ruled that to find 
inherent presidential authority when Congress has explicitly withheld 
that authority -- as it has in FISA -- "is not merely to disregard in a 
particular instance the clear will of Congress. It is to disrespect the 
whole legislative process and the constitutional division of authority 
between president and Congress."

The administration may be counting on fear of another terrorist attack 
in asserting this unprecedented authority. But if President Bush can 
simply ignore laws that he thinks are unconstitutional, without getting 
a ruling from the court or having genuine consultations with Congress, 
then why bother to work so hard at getting the Patriot Act provisions 
right, or the McCain torture amendment, or any other laws related to 
terrorism? And where does it stop? Justice Sandra Day O'Connor rejected 
<http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=000&invol=03-6696> 
the administration's claim of unchecked power in the 2004 Hamdi case, in 
which the government argued that the courts could not review the 
legality of enemy combatant detentions. She wrote, "We have long since 
made clear that a state of war is not a blank check for the president 
when it comes to the rights of the Nation's citizens. . . . Whatever 
power the United States Constitution envisions for the Executive in its 
exchanges with . . . enemy organizations in times of conflict, it most 
assuredly envisions a role for all three branches when individual 
liberties are at stake."

Now that the existence of this program has been revealed, the FISA 
judges are finally being briefed and the Senate Judiciary Committee has 
signaled its intention to hold hearings. Perhaps these co-equal branches 
will get some more specific answers to important questions like: What 
legal reasoning was used to justify the program in 2001? What standard 
is used in this program? Why couldn't FISA be used? If FISA was 
inadequate in some way, why not seek to amend it? What is the value of 
the intelligence obtained? Are there other secret programs that the 
heads of the intelligence committees have not been briefed about?

The rule of law and our system of checks and balances are not a source 
of weakness or a luxury of peace. As Justice O'Connor reminded us in 
Hamdi , "It is during our most challenging and uncertain moments . . . 
that we must preserve our commitment at home to the principles for which 
we fight abroad."

Suzanne Spaulding is a Washington lawyer. She was general counsel for 
the Senate and House Intelligence committees, assistant general counsel 
at the CIA and executive director of the National Terrorism Commission 
(1999-2000).

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/23/AR2005122302050.html
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Sat Dec 24 05:49:37 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Sat Dec 24 06:04:17 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Churchill's Momentous Visit - George F. Will -
	Washington Post Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43AD51F1.8000607@comcast.net>

Churchill's Momentous Visit

By George F. Will
Sunday, December 25, 2005; B07

Imagine how tiresome it would be to have, at Christmas, a houseguest of 
whom your spouse disapproves and whom you have met only twice before, 
the first time 23 years ago (annoyingly, your guest does not remember 
the meeting), the second time four months ago, for a few hours, out of 
town, on business. Imagine that the houseguest invites himself to your 
home, stays almost three weeks and one morning early on during his stay 
he summons your butler (you don't have one? pity) and issues the 
following ukase:

"Now, Fields, we had a lovely dinner last night, but I have a few orders 
for you. We want to leave here as friends, right? So I need you to 
listen. One, I don't like talking outside my quarters; two, I hate 
whistling in the corridors; and three, I must have a tumbler of sherry 
in my room before breakfast, a couple of glasses of scotch and soda 
before lunch, and French champagne and 90-year-old brandy before I go to 
sleep at night."

Furthermore, this Guest from Hell declares that for breakfast he 
requires hot "eggs, bacon or ham and toast" and "two kinds of cold meats 
with English mustard and two kinds of fruit plus a tumbler of sherry." 
You would be forgiven for asking your guest if he had been born in a palace.

He who so firmly addressed President Franklin Roosevelt's butler, Alonzo 
Fields, 64 Christmases ago was, in fact, born in Blenheim Palace, 
England's gift to the first Duke of Marlborough. And if no whistling and 
lots of sherry and whisky would help the duke's 
great-great-great-great-great-great-grandson, Winston Churchill, 
function, stop whistling and pour liberally. There is a war to win.

The story of this December 1941 visit is told by two Canadians, David 
Bercuson and Holger Herwig, in an entertaining book with an idiotic 
subtitle, "One Christmas in Washington: The Secret Meeting Between 
Roosevelt and Churchill That Changed the World." Secret meeting? It was 
about as secret as a circus, featuring a press conference with FDR and a 
speech to a joint session of Congress in which Churchill said: "I cannot 
help reflecting that if my father had been American and my mother 
British, instead of the other way round, I might have got here on my 
own." But the meeting did change the world by constructing the machinery 
of cooperation that led to the defeat of the Axis.

How ancient it now seems, 1941. The city of Washington had 15,000 
outdoor privies. German U-boats sank 432 ships in the Atlantic. In 
August FDR could deceive everyone, including the Secret Service, for a 
really secret meeting with Churchill -- their only previous meeting had 
been at a London dinner in 1918 -- at Placentia Bay, Newfoundland. In 
the days after Pearl Harbor, some of the antiaircraft guns on the White 
House roof were wooden fakes -- real ones were scarce. On his voyage, 
sometimes through 40-foot waves, to his Christmas visit with FDR, 
Churchill watched American movies, including "Santa Fe Trail," starring 
Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland and Ronald Reagan.

FDR greeted Churchill in Washington in a black limousine the Treasury 
Department had confiscated from a tax evader named Al Capone. Churchill 
met here with Adm. Ernest King, commander in chief of the U.S. fleet, 
who had served in the Spanish-American War, and with Gen. Henry "Hap" 
Arnold, the head of the Army Air Forces, who in 1911 received flight 
training in Dayton, Ohio, from the Wright brothers.

What could have been the most important event of Churchill's almost 
three weeks in America was not known until his doctor published his 
memoirs in 1966: Churchill suffered a heart attack while straining to 
open a stuck window in his White House bedroom. Had it been fatal, that 
could have changed the world.

Eleanor Roosevelt disapproved of Churchill the imperialist, but on 
Christmas Day 1941 she, he and the president attended Washington's 
Foundry Methodist Church, the second iteration of a church founded by 
Henry Foxall, who vowed in 1812 that he would build a church as a 
thanksgiving offering if the British did not destroy his cannon foundry 
when they took Washington and burned the White House.

Christmas Day was the birthday of Gen. Sir John Dill, chief of the 
Imperial General Staff, so a cake was found and adorned with a set of 
American and British flags which, Dill discovered when he removed them, 
were made in Japan. This occasioned laughter, at a time when that, like 
much else, was scarce.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/23/AR2005122301470.html
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Sat Dec 24 05:52:29 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Sat Dec 24 06:07:09 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] A Pilot's View Of Iraq -- And Hope - Jim Hoagland -
 Washington Post Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43AD529D.70800@comcast.net>

A Pilot's View Of Iraq -- And Hope

By Jim Hoagland
Sunday, December 25, 2005; B07

Christmas past, present and future will visit Maj. Scott Cooper at 
Iraq's Al Asad air base this year. The Marine aviator's love-hate 
relationship with the militarized piece of desert that is his temporary 
home reflects broader feelings about Iraq, a land he has come to have 
misgivings about even as he fights to help protect it.

Only a few Christmas seasons ago, Cooper patrolled the skies over Iraq 
enforcing a no-fly zone. Back then he had to watch out for the MiG-25 
Foxbat interceptors sent up from Al Asad to challenge Cooper's EA-6B 
Prowler. Now Cooper is based at that facility, 120 miles west of 
Baghdad, and he will fly ground support missions for U.S. and Iraqi 
forces throughout this holiday weekend.

This is his fifth extended Middle East deployment in the past eight 
years. In e-mails, phone calls and too-infrequent personal meetings over 
that time, Cooper has helped me keep track of what the conflict in Iraq 
-- and the conflict at home over Iraq -- looks like to one Marine who 
thinks a lot about the role of the U.S. military in world affairs and in 
American society. He worries a lot about public support, which he calls 
"the soft underbelly of any military action." He continues in an e-mail:

"We began this endeavor in Iraq out of a general consensus" born on 
Sept. 11, 2001, about the need "to eliminate individuals, groups and 
regimes who commit or support terrorism -- and to deter those who might 
be planning to do so. It was deemed important, by both the executive 
branch and the Congress, to demonstrate American military power, and 
will, for a region that held American will in particularly low esteem."

To pick that consensus apart now with backward-looking, overly partisan 
debates endangers a vital mission that needs adjustments but that can 
still be accomplished. He expresses that idea in these words:

"The insurgents are not winning the overall struggle here," even if the 
United States has been unable to prevail militarily in the Sunni 
heartland, where Cooper is based. "They have not been able to extend the 
rebellion beyond the Sunni population. More than three-quarters of the 
Iraqi population are not engaged in the insurgency. In fact, they 
actively oppose it.

"And al Qaeda is losing the larger war on terrorism. Its immediate goal 
was to topple Muslim regimes in the Middle East who were friendly to the 
United States. No Muslim regime has fallen. A number of Arab countries 
and Pakistan have extended their cooperation to eliminate al Qaeda," he 
continues.

"We must define success by the changed behavior that is occurring in the 
region and by the fact that Iraq is no longer a threat to the region or 
the world. As a member of a weary military, I can attest that there are 
considerable sacrifices involved in all these endeavors. But if we are 
realistic about our goals, we can accomplish them."

In Christmas present, Cooper wonders if the American public "is growing 
impatient and losing sight of the fact that any engagement uncovers 
other problems, and sometimes creates even more problems. We need to do 
better at adjusting to them as they emerge. But we can in the long run 
reduce our military presence, to remain here not as Iraq's keeper but as 
an ally who is asked to stay on, as we have been in Europe and in the 
Pacific."

That is the challenge of Christmas future at Al Asad. The triumph of 
Operation Desert Storm in 1991 "is not an example we can use as our only 
model, in which we fight a short, overwhelming war and then come home to 
a victory parade," Cooper maintains. "Consolidating the changes wrought 
by war must include tending to its unforeseen consequences, and that 
necessitates presence, for a long time."

The aviator is hardly oblivious to Iraq's sectarian divisions, its 
culture of violence and long degradation under Saddam Hussein: "Iraq 
continues to be a collectivity of separate families and clans. A seeming 
lack of concern for the future by many Iraqis is the most troublesome 
quality we encounter. There is a puzzling indifference to what we are 
doing and even to what their new political leaders are doing."

Modest and practical, Scott Cooper would be the first to say that his 
views are personal, limited and subject to evolution. But this Marine's 
experiences over and at Al Asad have given him an unusual opportunity to 
understand that change in Iraq is both difficult -- and possible.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/23/AR2005122301466.html
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Sat Dec 24 05:58:00 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Sat Dec 24 06:12:43 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] MUST READ: What Bush could learn from Lincoln - Robert
 Kuttner - Boston Globe Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43AD53E8.5010800@comcast.net>


  What Bush could learn from Lincoln

By Robert Kuttner  |  December 24, 2005  |  The Boston Globe

MY CHRISTMAS present to George W. Bush is a copy of Doris Kearns 
Goodwin's splendid study of Lincoln and his Cabinet, ''Team of Rivals." 
President Bush believes in redemption, and so do I. Here are just a few 
things Bush might profitably learn from our first Republican president.

Lincoln assumed the presidency at a time when the nation was horribly 
divided, not into culturally warring ''blue" states and ''red" ones, but 
into a real civil war between blues and grays -- the states that stayed 
in the Union and those that seceded. Even among the unionists, Lincoln's 
own Republican Party and Cabinet were bitterly rent between those who 
wanted to accelerate emancipation and punish the South and those who 
gave top priority to keeping the Republic whole.

Lincoln's priority, always, was to preserve the Union and to reduce the 
sectional and ideological bitterness. As Goodwin brilliantly shows, he 
did so by the force of his personality and the generosity of his spirit. 
Lincoln had an unerring sense of when public opinion was ready for 
partial, then full abolition of slavery, and he would not move until he 
felt he had the people behind him. He governed by listening and persuading.

By contrast, Bush's entire presidency is about eking out narrow 
victories, not about building national consensus. Even when he prevails, 
Bush wins by manipulation and stealth. His legacy is deepened division 
and bitterness.

Bush is said to live in a bubble. His tiny inner circle protects him 
from realities that might upset him or challenge his dimly informed 
certitudes. Lincoln, by contrast, had the confidence to reach out to 
critics and seek out widely divergent viewpoints.

Goodwin's unusual title, ''Team of Rivals," refers to the fact that 
Lincoln deliberately included in his Cabinet the prominent leaders of 
different factions of his party who had opposed him for the 1860 
nomination. Some, like his treasury secretary, Salmon Chase, a fierce 
abolitionist, wanted Lincoln to proceed much more aggressively. Others 
feared that Lincoln was moving too fast and alienating border states 
like Maryland and Kentucky that permitted slavery but had voted not to 
leave the Union.

Goodwin, improbably finding something wholly new to illuminate this most 
heavily researched of historic figures, relies partly on the diaries of 
his contemporaries to reveal Lincoln's sheer genius at winning the trust 
and affection of rivals.

Can you imagine Bush including in his inner Cabinet such Republicans as 
John McCain, who opposes Bush on torture of prisoners, or Chuck Hagel, 
who challenges the Iraq war, or Lincoln Chafee, who resists stacking the 
courts with ultra-right-wingers? Not to mention Democrats, a group 
Lincoln also included among his top appointees.

Bush, despite today's ubiquity of media, doesn't read newspapers, much 
less the Internet, and he settles for carefully filtered briefings. 
Lincoln was a voracious reader; he haunted the War Department's 
telegraph office to get firsthand reports from the battlefield.

Lincoln gained incomparably in wisdom over four years. Does anyone think 
George W. Bush is wiser now than in 2001?

Despite civil insurrection, Lincoln resisted broad intrusions on 
democratic rights. Bush runs roughshod over liberties.

Bush's visits to Iraq are choreographed media events. Lincoln often went 
to the front on horseback or by ship, almost alone, shunning news 
coverage, to confer at length with his generals, thank the troops, and 
educate himself.

Bush relies on secondhand inspirations of a speechwriting staff. He 
blathers when he wanders off script. Lincoln wrote his own words, 
including the timeless eloquence of the Second Inaugural or the 
Gettysburg Address. More often, his eloquence was extemporaneous.

Lincoln was magnanimous almost to a fault. His personal generosity and 
numerous acts of kindness helped him win over critics and, too briefly, 
to ''bind up the nation's wounds." Salmon Chase, who never gave up his 
dream that he should have been elected in 1860, allowed his allies to 
seek to push Lincoln aside and nominate Chase in 1864. Urged to break 
irrevocably with the faithless Chase, Lincoln instead appointed him 
chief justice of the Supreme Court.

Critics of the more moderate William Seward, Lincoln's secretary of 
state, claimed that Seward functioned as acting president. Goodwin makes 
clear that this was fantasy. Dick Cheney, however, really does operate 
as de facto president.

When Lincoln was assassinated, three days after Robert E. Lee 
surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant, the nation lost the one man who might 
have spared America the awful years of inconclusive struggle between 
radical Reconstructionists and segregationists who wanted to restore 
slavery in everything but name. Much of today's red state versus blue 
state bitterness has its roots in the struggle for black liberty versus 
the wounded humiliation of the white South, something Lincoln wanted to 
avoid at all cost.

The crippled presidency of his successor, Andrew Johnson, who ended up a 
pitiful captive of radical reconstructionists in Congress, was one of 
the bleakest chapters in our history. But this Union of the people did 
not perish from the earth. Reading Goodwin's magnificent book, one has 
to believe that our nation, in a new birth of freedom, will survive even 
George W. Bush.


http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/12/24/what_bush_couldlearn_from_lincoln/
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Sat Dec 24 06:03:22 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Sat Dec 24 06:18:06 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Flagging the college bowl games - Derrick Z. Jackson -
 Boston Globe Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43AD552A.8040006@comcast.net>


  Flagging the college bowl games

By Derrick Z. Jackson  |  December 24, 2005  |  The Boston Globe

OF THE 28 COLLEGE FOOTBALL bowl games, only one should be played on the 
basis of graduation rates. That is the game between Boston College and 
Boise State.

They are two of only 14 teams that have overall graduation rates of 50 
percent or higher, a black graduation rate of 50 percent or higher and 
racial graduation gaps of less than 15 percentage points.

Of the 56 bowl teams in my 10th-annual Graduation Gap Bowl, I would 
disqualify 37 of them for having overall graduation rates under 50 
percent and/or black graduation rates under 50 percent and/or racial 
gaps of 15 percent or more.

Overall graduation figures take into account the new and more optimistic 
NCAA Graduation Success Rates. The Graduation Success Rates credit 
schools for transfers who graduate and do not penalize them for athletes 
who leave early, but in good academic standing. The Graduation Success 
Rates cover scholarship athletes in the upcoming 2005 NCAA graduation 
reports who enter school in the academic years 1995-96, 1996-97, 
1997-98, and 1998-99 and have six years to graduate.

The NCAA has not yet released racial data for the Graduation Success 
Rates. The black graduation rates and racial gaps below come from the 
2004 report and represent a one-year lag. Those figures show major 
racial graduation gaps as half of the 56 teams had black graduation 
rates 20 or more percentage points behind white players.

Here are the calls by the head referee of the Graduation Gap Bowl.


      Touchdown


Teams with at least a 50 percent overall graduation success rate, at 
least a 50 percent black graduation rate, and racial gaps of less than 
15 percentage points.

Navy (98 percent graduation success rate)
Notre Dame (96)
Northwestern (92)
Boston College (89)
Texas Christian (86)
Penn State (84)
Southern Mississippi (76)
Virginia Tech (72)
Miami (67)
South Carolina (66)
Boise State (66)
Tulsa (62)
Southern California (55)
Rutgers (53)


      First Down


Teams with overall and black graduation rates of at least 50 percent, 
but racial gaps of 15 percentage points or more.

Virginia (White rate 93, black rate 63)
Oregon (W 79, B 52)
Texas Tech (W 73, B 50)
Toledo (W 77, B 56)
South Florida (B 71, W 50)


      Bowl Disqualification


Teams with overall and/or black graduation rates under 50 percent and/or 
racial gaps of 15 percentage points or more:

Colorado State (Black rate 32, racial gap 31)
Nevada (BR 40)
Texas El-Paso (BR 38)
Alabama (Overall 39, gap 18)
Brigham Young (Overall 40, BR 22)
California (Overall 47, gap 17)
Houston (Overall 45)
Kansas (Overall 46, gap 30)
Minnesota (Overall 41, gap 33)
Fresno State (Overall 47)
Louisville (Overall 47, gap 26)
Georgia (Overall 45, gap 33)
Texas (Overall 40)
Central Florida (BR 26, gap 27)
Akron (BR 28, gap 38)
Memphis (BR 29, gap 30)
Arkansas State (BR 29, gap 25)
Colorado (BR 29, gap 31)
Clemson (BR 35, gap 42)
Arizona State (BR 34, gap 25)
Nebraska (BR 48, gap 22)
Michigan (BR 47, gap 23)
Utah (BR 31)
Georgia Tech (BR 43, gap 20)
Oklahoma (BR 35)
UCLA (BR 47, gap 19)
Louisiana State (BR 35, gap 26)
Missouri (BR 39)
Iowa State (BR 36, gap 27)
North Carolina State (BR 36, gap 18)
Iowa (BR 38, gap 26)
Florida (BR 36, gap 20)
West Virginia (BR 33, gap 23)
Wisconsin (BR 45, gap 20)
Auburn (BR 40, gap 34)
Ohio State (BR 43, gap 20)
Florida State (BR 43, gap 28) 

? Copyright <http://www.boston.com/help/bostoncom_info/copyright>
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/12/24/flagging_the_college_bowl_games/
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From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Sat Dec 24 09:13:15 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (mblaxill@yahoo.com)
Date: Sat Dec 24 09:24:38 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Transit Strike Reflects Nationwide Pension
	Woes
Message-ID: <20051224171315.D188F9FCF7@lax-gw05.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: mblaxill@yahoo.com.

NEW YORK REGION / NEW YORK/REGION SPECIAL | December 24, 2005
Transit Strike Reflects Nationwide Pension Woes
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
Many budgetary experts predict a wave of painful fights over efforts to scale back government retirement programs.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/24/nyregion/nyregionspecial3/24pensions.html?emc=eta1



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From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Sat Dec 24 09:17:04 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (mblaxill@yahoo.com)
Date: Sat Dec 24 09:28:24 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Insider Editing at Wikipedia
Message-ID: <20051224171704.47F739FC64@lax-gw05.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: mblaxill@yahoo.com.

TECHNOLOGY | December 24, 2005
What's Online: Insider Editing at Wikipedia
By DAN MITCHELL
Supporters of Wikipedia, the user-edited online encyclopedia, are pitted against traditionalists who call the site inaccurate and irresponsible. 
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/24/technology/24online.ready.html?emc=eta1



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From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Sat Dec 24 09:18:21 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (mblaxill@yahoo.com)
Date: Sat Dec 24 09:29:45 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Japan's Population Fell This Year,
	Sooner Than Expected
Message-ID: <20051224171821.C8B652371E0@lax-gw01.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: mblaxill@yahoo.com.

INTERNATIONAL / ASIA PACIFIC | December 24, 2005
Japan's Population Fell This Year, Sooner Than Expected
By NORIMITSU ONISHI
Japan's population declined for the first time since the country began keeping demographic records in 1899, according to preliminary figures.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/24/international/asia/24population.html?emc=eta1



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From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Sat Dec 24 09:22:45 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (mblaxill@yahoo.com)
Date: Sat Dec 24 09:34:05 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: A Different Latin America
Message-ID: <20051224172245.EB8DE11F98B@lax-gw07.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: mblaxill@yahoo.com.

OK - baby steps...still totally dances around the reality of US foreign policy of PR and exploitation - friendly imperialism :-)


OPINION | December 24, 2005
Editorial: A Different Latin America

When denunciations of Yanqui imperialism in Latin America start coming from the presidential palaces as well as the streets, Washington needs to change its ways.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/24/opinion/24sat2.html?emc=eta1




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From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Sat Dec 24 09:24:36 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (Mike Blaxill)
Date: Sat Dec 24 09:35:57 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Ray McGovern - Will Republican Senators Save the
	Republic? 
Message-ID: <20051224172436.50744.qmail@web53014.mail.yahoo.com>


http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/122105R.shtml

Will Republican Senators Save the Republic? 
    By Ray McGovern 
    t r u t h o u t | Perspective

    Wednesday 21 December 2005

    I'll say this for Vice President Dick Cheney:
he puts it right out there, whether it is trying
to ensure legal protection for those torturing
prisoners, or insisting - as he did on Tuesday -
that in wartime the president "needs to have his
powers unimpaired." And Cheney and Bush would
have us believe it is they who define the
constitutional powers of the president.

    Supporters of this view are dredging up
quotes from former officials like George H.W.
Bush's attorney general William Barr who,
according to the Washington Post, contends:

    "The Constitution's intent when we're under
attack from outside is to place maximum power in
the president, and the other branches - and
especially the courts - don't act as a check on
the president's authority against the enemy."

    So there it is. The George W. Bush
administration contends that the president's
power as commander in chief during wartime means
that he is above the law. Small wonder that he
bristled at a question from the press about
"unchecked power." Whether authorizing torture or
wiretaps, he reserves the right to act
irrespective of domestic or international law.

    The question is whether Congress and the
courts will continue to roll over and play dead,
or whether men and women of principle honor their
oath to "defend the Constitution of the United
States from all enemies, foreign and domestic."
Some hope can be seen in a recent remark by
Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel, who told reporters:

I took an oath of office to the Constitution. I
didn't take an oath of office to my party or to
my president.
    Will enough Republican senators honor that
oath? Our system of checks and balances hangs in
the balance, so to speak. The president has
thrown down the gauntlet by declaring he will
continue to authorize eavesdropping that, by law,
requires a court order. Will senators pick up the
gauntlet, or will they run away home to
grandmother's house for Christmas?

    Is it fair to pin sole responsibility on
Republican senators? No, it's not fair. But that
is the way it is. One looks in vain to the other
side of the aisle for the courage that the times
require. But what about Democrat senators - the
gutsy Russ Feingold and the eloquent Robert Byrd?
However courageous, they are not well positioned
to affect the outcome of this constitutional
crisis.

    Rather, the Democrats have slender reeds to
lean on - take Sen. Jay Rockefeller, for example.
Briefed on the illegal eavesdropping program,
Rockefeller let himself be intimidated by Cheney
into tacit acquiescence. Sure, he wrote a letter
to Cheney (and kept a CYA copy, which he has now
given the press). But why did he limit his
horizon to Cheney? Did it not occur to the
ranking minority member of the Senate
Intelligence Committee to go to Cheney's
supervisor?

    On Tuesday, Senate intelligence committee
chair Pat Roberts ridiculed Rockefeller for
"feigning helplessness." Roberts is certainly in
position to know, since Rockefeller has made
helplessness a career, and thus made Roberts'
task easy. Sen. Rockefeller's obeisance to the
chair is matched only by US Marine Roberts'
"Semper Fi" to the party and the president. This
is important, since the White House has already
succeeded in ensuring that Roberts and
Rockefeller will play leadership roles in any
Senate investigation of the eavesdropping.

    Initially, it appeared that since
constitutional and legal considerations dominate
the issue, the hearings would be orchestrated and
led by Senate judiciary committee chair Arlen
Specter, who expressed deep concern at the
revelations concerning eavesdropping. That was a
hopeful sign, even though the ranking Democrat on
Judiciary, Patrick Leahy, is another weak sister.
The original Patriot Act was rushed through while
Leahy slept, and a year ago he expressed optimism
- without a tinge of remorse - that arch-defender
of unbridled presidential power, Roberto
Gonzales, would be readily confirmed as Attorney
General.

    From Republic to Empire

    Let's hope history does not repeat itself.
The constitution of ancient Rome was put in place
in 510 BC, when the republicans overthrew the
last of the Roman kings, Tarquin the Proud. As
was the case 2300 years later in the newborn USA,
the introduction of constitutional order meant
the rule of law and not of kings, providing
liberty under law for every Roman citizen. That
experiment lasted almost five centuries, until
the Roman senators fell down on the job.

    Although Cicero warned, with pointed
eloquence, of the dangers to the Republic, in the
end his warnings proved no match for strongmen
like Julius Caesar and Gnaeus Pompey. They
wrapped themselves in republican virtue when it
suited them, but they lacked any serious belief
in the fundamental principles that had formed
republican Rome. They and their followers
believed in themselves, and in their own vision
of what Rome should be, and in little else.
Plutarch tells us that the increasingly glaring
unequal distribution of wealth served to make the
situation exceedingly volatile. Sound familiar?

    And so the Republic died, and Cicero died
with it, his severed head and hands nailed to the
"rostra," the platform in the forum from which he
had warned the Roman people. The vision of the
strongmen led first to civil war and then to
empire.

    Republican senators, don't let it happen
here.

    Ray McGovern works for Tell the Word, the
publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the
Saviour in Washington, DC. He was an analyst at
the CIA for 27 years, and is on the Steering
Group of VIPS.
From geomilman at milman.com  Sat Dec 24 11:39:12 2005
From: geomilman at milman.com (George R. Milman)
Date: Sat Dec 24 11:50:42 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] FW: [Politech] Critique of Judge Richard Posner's
	defense of domesticspying [priv]
Message-ID: <000601c608c1$b79d7da0$8c00a8c0@george>


-----Original Message-----
From: politech-bounces@politechbot.com
[mailto:politech-bounces@politechbot.com] On Behalf Of Declan McCullagh
Sent: Saturday, December 24, 2005 11:05 AM
To: politech@politechbot.com
Subject: [Politech] Critique of Judge Richard Posner's defense of
domesticspying [priv]


-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Fw: Posner on the Panopticon
Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2005 23:58:03 -0800
From: Fred Heutte <phred@sunlightdata.com>
To: <declan@well.com>

fyi -- not for publication until the Post rejects this :)

Posner's piece is a masterpiece of propaganda.  It's at

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/20/AR2005122001
053.html

Fred

------ mail forwarded, original message follows ------

To: letters@washpost.com
From: phred@sunlightdata.com <Fred Heutte>
Subject: Posner on the Panopticon
Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2005 20:35:45 -0800

One has to gasp at the slippery logic in Judge Richard Posner's
view ("Our Domestic Intelligence Crisis," Dec. 21) that the
government's "machine collection and processing of data cannot,
as such, invade privacy."

For those who have followed his writing, Posner is, unremarkably,
a supporter of the Panopticon, Jeremy Bentham's thought experiment
for a prison in which all actions are tracked invisibly by a
central authority.

Bentham justified his concept on the grounds of cost-effectiveness
-- prisoners would self-regulate their activity to the norms of the
unobserved authority.  But in a free society, it is we the people
who determine what is legal, and not an unaccountable central
authority.

The Founders of our nation knew that liberty must support the
necessary means for securing self-protection, while the tendency
of security is to find self-fulfillment through the suppression of
liberty.

In an uncertain world, it is impossible to predetermine the
perfect mix.  Instead, our system of checks and balances was
specifically designed to allow that process to unfold as
circumstances change.

The likelihood, given the pervasiveness of electronic communication,
is that most of us will be caught in the drift nets of unimpeded
federal surveillance.  It may be that, as Posner suggests, no
federal agent will ever view our captured thoughts.  But experience
shows that unimpeded access leads to abuses of authority and
suppression of our great freedoms of speech and opposition to
arbitrary government power.

Following Posner's view, security always stands paramount,
and therefore liberty always loses.  But as Benjamin Franklin
wrote, "Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must
begin by subduing the freeness of speech."

Fred Heutte
Portland, Oregon




_______________________________________________
Politech mailing list
Archived at http://www.politechbot.com/
Moderated by Declan McCullagh (http://www.mccullagh.org/)



From michael at michaelbutler.com  Sat Dec 24 11:51:30 2005
From: michael at michaelbutler.com (Michael Butler)
Date: Sat Dec 24 12:02:49 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] A wise man in Washington
Message-ID: <BFD2E6C2.272CA%michael@michaelbutler.com>




Economist.com      
    

    

Lexington

A wise man in Washington
Dec 14th 2005
>From The Economist print edition



Joe Lieberman may not be right for the Pentagon, but he deserves praise for
putting principle above politics

IF THINGS had gone differently in Florida in 2000, Joe Lieberman might well
be Al Gore's heir apparent, with ?Joe-mentum? to win the 2008 Democratic
nomination. As things turned out he is not in his party's throne-room, but
in the dog-house.

The past couple of weeks have been particularly bruising for the junior
senator for Connecticut. ?I completely disagree with Mr Lieberman,? Nancy
Pelosi, the party's leader in the House, says acidly. Jim Dean, Howard's
brother and a Connecticut resident, is masterminding a signature-gathering
campaign against him. The mullahs of MoveOn.org are accusing him of nothing
less than betraying his party?and exploring ways of challenging him in next
year's Democratic primary.

The cause of the latest round of thrashings is Mr Lieberman's renewed
defence of the war in Iraq. On returning from his fourth visit to that
country, he wrote a piece in the Wall Street Journal that took issue with
the Democratic line that America is up a wadi without a paddle. In fact, he
detected a plan that is beginning to work. A week later Mr Lieberman threw
more petrol on the blaze by warning his colleagues not to play politics with
Iraq. He quoted Arthur Vandenberg, a Michigan Republican who defied his
party to support Harry Truman's policy of containment, to the effect that
?politics must stop at the water's edge?. And he reminded his fellow
Democrats that George Bush will be commander-in-chief for three more
critical years: ?In matters of war, we undermine presidential credibility at
our nation's peril.?

It is easy to see why so many Democrats should regard this as a betrayal. Mr
Lieberman has sabotaged his party's (admittedly feeble) attempts to present
a united front on Iraq, lent an aura of bipartisan support to Mr Bush's war
and reinforced the Republican charge that questioning the war verges on the
unpatriotic. Mr Bush and Dick Cheney both rushed to praise him. Donald
Rumsfeld invited him to breakfast in the Pentagon. Now, to cap it all,
rumours are flying that Mr Bush is preparing to dump Mr Rumsfeld in favour
of Mr Lieberman in the new year.

Is Mr Lieberman really a serious candidate for the defence secretary's job?
There is no doubt that Mr Rumsfeld is ripe for the boot: he is guilty of
serial incompetence and he seems increasingly detached from his job. But
bringing in Mr Lieberman would carry risks for both the president and the
senator.

Mr Lieberman would certainly bring a new zest to making the case for the war
at home?and, as a Democrat, he would reach voters who are suspicious of Mr
Rumsfeld. But for Mr Bush, putting a novice in the Pentagon in the middle of
a difficult war would be risky. And for Mr Lieberman accepting a job in the
administration would mark the end of his career as a Democrat. There would
be the immediate awkwardness created by the fact that his successor would be
nominated by Connecticut's Republican governor. And even if a compromise
could be reached on that, joining the hated Bush administration would kill
Mr Lieberman's ability to shape the party that has always been his home.

Besides, you don't have to read the Pentagon tea leaves to explain Mr
Lieberman's support for the war. It might sound like heresy in a town
defined by the pursuit of personal gain and partisan advantage. But Mr
Lieberman is speaking out because he thinks that it is the right thing to
do. He may be wrong on Iraq, but he is not being treacherous or
inconsistent.

He was a supporter of the idea that democracy is the only cure for the
Middle East's proclivity for spawning terrorism back when Governor Bush was
singing the praises of a humble foreign policy. He did as much as anybody in
Congress to ensure the passage of the first Gulf war resolution in January
1991. He was a co-sponsor with John McCain of the Iraq Liberation Act in
1998. Shortly after September 11th 2001 he was one of ten lawmakers who
signed a letter urging Mr Bush to target Iraq. His unflinching support for
the Iraq war doomed his 2004 presidential campaign (he didn't manage to win
a single delegate).

Mr Lieberman's hawkish position on Iraq is of a piece with his robustly
centrist politics. He is an Orthodox Jew who champions the role of religion
in the public square. He was one of the first Democrats to chastise Bill
Clinton for his dalliance with Monica Lewinsky; he has also been a scourge
of those who market violent films and video games to minors. He has been a
consistent champion of both free trade and business (?You can't be pro-jobs
and anti-business,? he argues). He was also one of the leading Democratic
champions of welfare reform.

Clinton with a conscience

The hardliners in the Democratic Party no doubt regard this as an even
bigger betrayal?a Republican-lite policy that will lead the Democrats to
disaster. But Mr Lieberman has been a persistent critic of Republican
positions on gun control and the environment, and he wants to raise taxes on
the rich while lowering them on the middle class. His policies offer a much
better recipe for Democratic success than the party's left. Like Mr Clinton
in the 1990s, he understands that, as long as there are roughly twice as
many conservatives as liberals, the Democrats will never win by appealing to
their base, and they will certainly lose if they reinforce the public's
suspicion that they are a bunch of cut-and-run, soft-on-defence doves.

Mr Lieberman is arguably the last surviving example of a peculiar Washington
species: the Wise Man who is willing to put party allegiance aside when it
comes to big issues such as foreign policy. Figures like Vandenburg and
Henry Stimson, who Mr Lieberman also mentioned in his speech, were
commonplace during the second world war and the cold war. Pat Moynihan, Sam
Nunn and Henry ?Scoop? Jackson all preserved the wise man tradition in the
Democratic Party. But today Mr Lieberman is almost alone in realising that
there is more at stake in Iraq than just partisan advantage in the 2006 and
2008 elections.


Copyright ? 2005 The Economist Newspaper and The Economist Group. All rights
reserved.



From peppyc at frontiernet.net  Sat Dec 24 11:57:44 2005
From: peppyc at frontiernet.net (peppy castro)
Date: Sat Dec 24 15:56:22 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Collective Prayer for Willy
Message-ID: <E1EqGDK-0002AH-KM@smtpauth01.mail.atl.earthlink.net>

Hi,
  One and All and Happy Holidays. I am looking for a collective Prayer from all of you. I know it works. This past week we got some tuff news. Willy's Battle with Cancer took another turn. It's not great news and she continues to show me what an incredible person I married. She'll be having more surgery as soon as it can be scheduled, however with the holidays we'll be on a waiting pattern. It's back with a vengeance. Spots on the Lungs have doubled in size. A new bugger on her Liver and a new huge 12cm. mass that has totally destroyed the bone it's sitting on in the pelvic region. So now the existing tumor on her Sciatic nerve is now the least thing we're concerned with. Willy is Doing Great! Which means as great as anyone can be considering what's going on. Pain is pain and oxccotton is showing it's value to us. The surgery will be to remove the mass and see what can be done about the bone. They can do great things with building bone back or implanting. Once the pain is gone we'll get back on track. Please no pity an stereo types. Just give her the love and positive prayers I know you all have in your hearts as you are all good friends. Jesse and I are fine and keeping mom busy with Love.  Love to all and count your blessings. Peppy
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From ean at sbcglobal.net  Sat Dec 24 15:09:24 2005
From: ean at sbcglobal.net (ean@sbcglobal.net)
Date: Sat Dec 24 16:12:10 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] SCROOGE!  and online impeachment vote
Message-ID: <E1EqJJe-0000sP-3w@smtpauth01.mail.atl.earthlink.net>


http://select.nytimes.com/2005/12/23/opinion/23krugman.html?th&emc=th 
The Tax-Cut Zombies 
By PAUL KRUGMAN NY Times Op-Ed: December 23, 2005


If you want someone to play Scrooge just before Christmas, Dick Cheney is
your man. On Wednesday Mr. Cheney, acting as president of the Senate, cast
the tie-breaking vote in favor of legislation that increases the fees
charged to Medicaid recipients, lets states cut Medicaid benefits, reduces
enforcement funds for child support, and more.

For all its cruelty, however, the legislation will make only a tiny dent
in the budget deficit: the cuts total about $8 billion a year, or
one-third of 1 percent of total federal spending. So ended 2005, the year
that killed any remaining rationale for continuing tax cuts. But the
hunger for tax cuts refuses to die.

Since the 1970's, conservatives have used two theories to justify cutting
taxes. One theory, supply-side economics, has always been hokum for the
yokels. Conservative insiders adopted the supply-siders as mascots because
they were useful to the cause, but never took them seriously.

The insiders' theory - what we might call the true tax-cut theory - was
memorably described by David Stockman, Ronald Reagan's budget director, 
as
"starving the beast." Proponents of this theory argue that conservatives
should seek tax cuts not because they won't create budget deficits, but
because they will. Starve-the-beasters believe that budget deficits will
lead to spending cuts that will eventually achieve their true aim:
shrinking the government's role back to what it was under Calvin Coolidge.

True to form, the insiders aren't buying the supply-siders' claim that a
partial recovery in federal tax receipts from their plunge between 2000
and 2003 shows that all's well on the fiscal front. (Revenue remains
lower, and the federal budget deeper in deficit, than anyone expected a
few years ago.) Instead, conservative heavyweights are using the budget
deficit to call for cuts in key government programs.

For example, in 2001 Alan Greenspan urged Congress to cut taxes to avoid
running an excessively large budget surplus. Now he issues dire warnings
about "fiscal instability." But rather than urging Congress to reverse the
tax cuts he helped sell, he talks of the need to cut future Social
Security and Medicare benefits.

Yet at this point starve-the-beast theory looks as silly as supply-side
economics. Although a disciplined conservative movement has controlled
Congress and the White House for five years - and presided over record
deficits - public opposition has prevented any significant cuts in the big
social-insurance programs that dominate domestic spending.

In fact, two years ago the Bush administration actually pushed through a
major expansion in Medicare. True, the prescription drug bill clearly
wasn't written by liberals. To a significant extent it's a giveaway to
drug companies rather than a benefit for retirees. But all that corporate
welfare makes the program more expensive, not less.

Conservative intellectuals had high hopes that this year President Bush
would make up for this betrayal of their doctrine by dealing a death blow
to Social Security as we know it. Indeed, he tried. His proposed "reform"
would, over time, have essentially phased out the program. And he seemed
to have everything going for him: momentum from an election victory,
control of Congress and a highly sympathetic punditocracy. Yet the drive
for privatization quickly degenerated from a juggernaut into a farce.

Medicaid, whose recipients are less likely to vote than the average person
getting Social Security or Medicare, is the softest target among major
federal social-insurance programs. But even members of Congress, it seems,
have consciences. (Well, some of them.) It took intense arm-twisting from
the Republican leadership, and that tie-breaking vote by Mr. Cheney, to
ram through even modest cuts in aid to the neediest.

In other words, the starve-the-beast theory - like missile defense - has
been tested under the most favorable possible circumstances, and failed.
So there is no longer any coherent justification for further tax cuts.

Yet the cuts go on. In fact, even as Congressional leaders struggled to
pass a tiny package of mean-spirited spending cuts, they pushed forward
with a much larger package of tax cuts. The benefits of those cuts, as
always, will go disproportionately to the wealthy.

Here's how I see it: Republicans have turned into tax-cut zombies. They
can't remember why they originally wanted to cut taxes, they can't explain
how they plan to make up for the lost revenue, and they don't care.
Instead, they just keep shambling forward, always hungry for more.

--------
      MSNBC is running a poll in which over 140,000 have already
voted, with recent results below.
  You can participate at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10562904/

Live Vote	
	Do you believe President Bush's actions justify impeachment?   * 
146734 responses	

	Yes, between the secret spying, the deceptions leading to war and 
more, there is plenty to justify putting him on trial.
85%

	No, like any president, he has made a few missteps, but nothing 
approaching "high crimes and misdemeanors."
5%

	No, the man has done absolutely nothing wrong. Impeachment would 
just be a political lynching.
8%

	I don't know.
2%

	Not a scientifically valid survey. Click to learn more.

-- 
You are currently on Mha Atma's Earth Action Network email list, 
option D (up to 3 emails/day).  To be removed, or to switch options 
(option A - 1x/week, option B - 3/wk, option C - up to 1x/day, option D - 
up to 3x/day) please reply and let us know!  If someone forwarded you 
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"A war of aggression is the supreme international crime." -- Robert Jackson,
 former U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice and Nuremberg prosecutor

-------------- next part --------------
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From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Sat Dec 24 18:03:16 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (Mike Blaxill)
Date: Sat Dec 24 18:25:04 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] xmas present - Barron's editorial calls for Impeachment
Message-ID: <20051225020316.6797.qmail@web53006.mail.yahoo.com>

This is a conservative business publication -
have a happy merry....

http://www.mydd.com/story/2005/12/24/10958/374


Barron's Calls for Impeachment Hearings on
Wiretapping
by Matt Stoller 

Barron's calls for impeachment (via Barry
Ritholtz at The Big Picture)

"AS THE YEAR WAS DRAWING TO A CLOSE, we picked up
our New York Times and learned that the Bush
administration has been fighting terrorism by
intercepting communications in America without
warrants. It was worrisome on its face, but in
justifying their actions, officials have made a
bad situation much worse: Administration lawyers
and the president himself have tortured the
Constitution and extracted a suspension of the
separation of powers . . .
Certainly, there was an emergency need after the
Sept. 11 attacks to sweep up as much information
as possible about the chances of another
terrorist attack. But a 72-hour emergency or a
15-day emergency doesn't last four years . . .

Willful disregard of a law is potentially an
impeachable offense. It is at least as
impeachable as having a sexual escapade under the
Oval Office desk and lying about it later. The
members of the House Judiciary Committee who
staged the impeachment of President Clinton ought
to be as outraged at this situation. They ought
to investigate it, consider it carefully and
report either a bill that would change the
wiretap laws to suit the president or a bill of
impeachment.

It is important to be clear that an impeachment
case, if it comes to that, would not be about
wiretapping, or about a possible Constitutional
right not to be wiretapped. It would be about the
power of Congress to set wiretapping rules by
law, and it is about the obligation of the
president to follow the rules in the Acts that he
and his predecessors signed into law.

Some ancillary responsibility, however, must be
attached to those members of the House and Senate
who were informed, inadequately, about the
wiretapping and did nothing to regulate it. Sen.
John D. Rockefeller IV, Democrat of West
Virginia, told Vice President Dick Cheney in 2003
that he was "unable to fully evaluate, much less
endorse these activities." But the senator was so
respectful of the administration's injunction of
secrecy that he wrote it out in longhand rather
than give it to someone to type. Only last week,
after the cat was out of the bag, did he do what
he should have done in 2003 -- make his
misgivings public and demand more information.

Published reports quote sources saying that 14
members of Congress were notified of the
wiretapping. If some had misgivings, apparently
they were scared of being called names, as the
president did last week when he said: "It was a
shameful act for someone to disclose this very
important program in a time of war. The fact that
we're discussing this program is helping the
enemy."

Wrong. If we don't discuss the program and the
lack of authority for it, we are meeting the
enemy -- in the mirror.

From ean at sbcglobal.net  Sat Dec 24 16:25:51 2005
From: ean at sbcglobal.net (ean@sbcglobal.net)
Date: Sat Dec 24 20:23:43 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Senator Boxer on the war in Iraq
Message-ID: <E1EqNEP-00013L-RC@smtpauth09.mail.atl.earthlink.net>

Senator Boxer on the war in Iraq

I thought you would be interested in my recent floor speech on
the war in Iraq.

===================================================

December 20, 2005

In 1968, Martin Luther King told us: ?If we do not act, we
shall surely be dragged down the long, dark, and shameful
corridors of time reserved for those who possess ... strength
without sight.?

Dr. King was talking about ending the Vietnam War. But 40 years
later, his warning is increasingly relevant to the Iraq war.

Strength without sight has now led us into a war based on
mistaken intelligence, and down a thorny path of pain for too
long.

And none of us can afford to be silent, because as Martin
Luther King also said: ?Our lives begin to end the day we
become silent about things that matter.?

So we must have the courage to speak out about things that
matter.

It matters that 2,158 servicemen and women have given their
lives in Iraq, leaving their families grieving.

It matters that 16,155 have been wounded, many with scars that
will last a lifetime.

It matters that the majority of the American people are
demanding a new strategy so that we don?t have a war without
end.

We saw seventy-nine Senators recently back an amendment saying
that the Iraqis should take the lead in providing their own
security next year.   That matters too.

We heard Congressman Jack Murtha?s brave statement against the
war, calling it a ?flawed policy wrapped in illusion.?  He is a
decorated Marine, a war hero who bled on the battlefield, the
military?s best friend.

And he now advocates redeploying U.S. forces at the earliest
possible date, while maintaining a quick-reaction U.S. force in
the region to be called upon if necessary.

So how did the Administration and its supporters respond to his
thoughtful proposal?  Congressman Murtha, with his two Purple
Hearts and Bronze Star, was insulted by the White House Press
Secretary and branded a coward by the newest Republican in the
House.  People who never bled on the battlefield tried to
demean a war hero.

And that is what we see again and again. Instead of thoughtful
dialogue about the life and death issues in Iraq, the
Administration lashes out at those who dare to disagree with
them.

Recently, the Republican National Committee issued a video news
release attacking Democrats, including me.  I?m used to being
attacked, and I normally just ignore them. But this one was so
incendiary that I have to respond.

The ad said Democrats were waving a white flag of surrender. 
And their evidence?  My statement that we should start reducing
our troop strength in Iraq after the Iraqi election.

Well, guess who else said that last weekend?  The U.S.
Ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalizad, appointed by President
Bush.  His words were, ?we can begin to draw down our forces in
the aftermath of the elections.? Are they going to run an ad
against him now?

Democrats aren?t waving any white flags. We are doing the jobs
we were elected to do. We have a right -- and a responsibility
-- to tell the truth, whether the topic is Iraq or any other
policy. We have a right -- and a responsibility -- to wave a
warning flag about a war that is making our nation less secure.

And so, regardless of how many times they attack me, I will
continue to speak out, just as I am doing today.  I have four
points.

First:  We must restore our credibility.

If we want the American people to be optimistic and if we want
the nations of the world to consider us a leader to be trusted,
our motives must be clear, our justifications must be sound,
and our policies must reflect our ideals.

During the Cuban missile crisis, Secretary of State Dean
Acheson offered to show Charles de Gaulle satellite images of
Soviet missiles in Cuba as proof of their existence.  President
de Gaulle responded by saying, ?the word of the President of
the United States is good enough for me.?

Today, the word of this President and his administration has
been called into question. Frankly, it is hard to believe those
words any longer on Iraq.

Remember all of the false expectations that the Bush
Administration peddled?

Remember when Secretary Rumsfeld said that the war ?could last
six days, six weeks.  I doubt six months??
Or that we knew
exactly where to find the Weapons of Mass Destruction?

Remember when Vice President Cheney predicted, ?
my belief is
we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators??

Remember when White House Budget Director, Mitch Daniels said
that Iraq will be ?an affordable endeavor? and reported that it
?will not require sustained aid??

Remember when the case for Weapons of Mass Destruction was
called a slam dunk?

Remember Vice President Cheney?s now-famous assessment that the
insurgency was in its ?last throes??

Remember when the President told us about the yellow cake from
Niger?

Remember when we were told ?mission accomplished? and that
Iraqi oil would pay for the war?

Remember when Secretary Rice said she didn?t want the smoking
gun to be a mushroom cloud?

Remember Secretary Colin Powell?s forceful presentation before
the United Nations Security Council
that he now calls a blot on
his record?

That is 0 for 10.

Yet, even in light of all this history, the Bush Administration
refuses to do more than a perfunctory mea culpa.

In his last speech, the President took responsibility for going
to war on false intelligence.  The President is only two years
behind the American people, who figured this one out long ago,
but I?ll take it.  But he keeps repeating the false statement
that Congress saw the same intelligence that he did even though
a congressional report recently found that the Administration
had access to more than they shared with us.

And he still doesn?t answer the central question: Was the
intelligence cherry picked or manipulated to make the case for
war?

Democrats are insisting that we complete the Senate
investigation into this matter. And it?s not about politics. 
It?s because if the intelligence was cherry picked or
manipulated, the American people deserve to know and the
Congress will need to act.

And it?s because the next time we need to convince the world of
an imminent threat, it will be far more difficult unless we
clear the air and restore our credibility.

You know, America is more than an economic and military power. 
Our ideals have made us a shining light for those around the
world seeking freedom, democracy and human rights.

Now that moral standing is at risk.

We all saw the horrific photos of Abu Ghraib, which were at
odds with everything this country stands for. We all know that
torture does not produce accurate intelligence or make us
safer.  Instead, as Senator McCain says, ?It?s killing us.?

But, amazingly, banning torture was extremely controversial for
this Administration. Dick Cheney even worked non-stop to exempt
the CIA from the torture ban passed by the Congress.

Fortunately we won this one, but we still don?t know everything
about the secret prisons or secret spying on Americans, all of
which chips away at our reputation as a great beacon of freedom
and gives an eerie sense of a secret government.  And now we
face the issue of our government spying on Americans without a
warrant.  This is serious and must be investigated to restore
our credibility.

Second and third, we must reverse the strain on our military
and get our budget priorities straight.

This Administration says dissent hurts our military.  But what
really hurts our military is sending men and women to war
without a plan and without the necessary armor and equipment.
What really hurts our military is stretching it to the breaking
point and deploying our soldiers for third and fourth tours of
duty. What really hurts our military is a lack of candor.

Our men and women in the military serve bravely and skillfully
in Iraq.  They have sacrificed so much since the war began.  We
need to honor their sacrifices not just with words, but also
with actions.  That means treating their caskets and families
with the respect they deserve. And that means opening our eyes
to their injuries, and getting them the help they need.

Medical studies reveal that 17 percent of soldiers returning
from Iraq are suffering from mental health problems including
depression, anxiety and PTSD.  The VA says that 17,000 Iraq and
Afghanistan vets have been diagnosed with mental disorders
through February.

Despite this huge problem, the American Legion says that mental
health programs are being under funded by $500 million a year. 
I offered an amendment to provide these critical resources by
canceling future tax cuts for millionaires.  Sounds reasonable,
right? Well, it failed.  The President says he loves our
military, but he loves tax cuts for millionaires as much or
more.

Let?s be clear: To finance a war that has already cost $251
billion, this Administration did not ask the wealthiest in our
own country to sacrifice.

Under the Bush tax cuts, millionaires got $242 billion dollars
back over the past five years.  In the first two years of the
Iraq war, the average millionaire received $112,000 in tax cuts.

And the President did not secure enough real financial
commitments from other countries.  Instead, our needs our being
sacrificed and our children and senior citizens are paying the
price.

Talk about waving a white flag of surrender?  The Republican
Congress and this administration are waving a white flag over
our children, cutting their after school programs by 1.3
billion from what this President and Congress authorized.  No
Child Left Behind was funded at 13.1 billion less than what
their own legislation asked for.

They are waving a white flag of surrender over our seniors,
causing them anxiety and threatening their social security and
Medicare by using those trust funds to finance the war and the
tax cuts.

They are waving a white flag over fiscal responsibility by
creating a debt which is more than $8 trillion.  Of the total
debt held by the public, 45% is in foreign hands.  That means
that approximately $92 billion is leaving this country every
year to pay off the interest to foreign entities.

And, they are waving a white flag over our homeland security,
instead of making it a top priority.  The Administration says
all the right things in public, and then shortchanges homeland
security at every turn.

It?s been four years since 9/11. Why are we still dangerously
unprepared for another terrorist attack?

Why haven?t we provided the additional $555 million needed this
year to better secure our ports?

And, why in the world, haven?t we provided the $14.3 billion
still needed to make sure that our firefighters, police
officers, and health care providers can communicate with each
other in a time of crisis, whether it is a terrorist attack, a
hurricane, or an earthquake?

On December 5, the 9/11 Commission released a report card on
the status of the recommendations it made a year and a half
ago.  It was full of Ds and Fs, and showed us that we are
falling short, far short.  This is unacceptable.

So we must help our military and get our priorities right.

Fourth and finally, it is time to change course in Iraq.

The President continues to present a false choice between
leaving immediately and staying indefinitely.

He continues to just say ?stay the course,? despite evidence
that the war is making us less, not more, safe from terrorism.

And he continues to begin almost every speech about Iraq with a
reference to 9/11 even though the 9/11 Commission and his own
Administration?s documents have been clear: There was no link
between Iraq and 9/11 and no collaboration between Saddam
Hussein and al Qaeda.

In fact, the war in Iraq was a diversion from the war against
al Qaeda.

Like the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s, the war
in Iraq is helping al Qaeda recruit, radicalize, and train a
new generation of terrorists.

According to National Memorial Institute for the Prevention of
Terrorism, worldwide terror attacks increased by more than
1,200 in the last year alone.

Even the President?s own Director of Central Intelligence,
Porter Goss, says: ?Those jihadists who survive will leave Iraq
experienced in and focused on acts of urban terrorism.?

I agree with the President about the importance of spreading
democracy across the globe.  But as Robert Pape of the
University of Chicago has written, ?
spreading democracy at the
barrel of a gun in the Persian Gulf is not likely to lead to a
lasting solution against suicide terrorism.?

Last week?s election in Iraq was an important step forward.  I
view each election as a landmark and I hope and pray that this
one will result in a government that is able to unite the
Sunni, Shiite, and Kurdish people.

Early next year, Iraqis will have a choice to amend the
Constitution to protect the interests of the Sunni minority and
this will be another defining moment.

I also view each election in Iraq as a chance to turn Iraq over
to its own people, who must ultimately chart their own destiny.
Reducing our presence would be a sign of success, not failure.

The fact is, as long as our presence is perceived as
open-ended, there is little incentive for the Iraqis to make
the necessary political compromises.

Indeed, if we want the Iraqis to move toward a political
solution we must lessen their dependence on a U.S. military
solution which almost everyone agrees is not the answer.

Too many Iraqis believe that the United States has no intention
of leaving Iraq.  And with good reason.  The Bush
Administration continues to answer all reasonable requests for
timeframes or benchmarks with the same ?as long as it takes?
mantra.

This, despite the fact that General Casey made it clear to me
earlier this year that our long term presence would be
counter-productive.  And this despite the fact that two-thirds
of Iraqis oppose the presence of U.S. troops in their country.

We must dispel the common and dangerous perception that we are
occupiers and instead articulate a clear mission for this Iraq
war, with an exit strategy based on real political, military,
economic benchmarks.

How?

We need to accelerate efforts to train Iraqi troops and reduce
our military footprint.

Second, the President must immediately declare that the United
States has no desire to maintain permanent U.S. military bases
in Iraq.

Third, the President must work more with Iraq?s neighbors and
reduce our visibility in rebuilding Iraq?s institutions.  In
fact, we should have been doing this from the beginning.

Last week, the Egyptian Ambassador lamented the fact that so
few troops had been trained in his country, saying: ?We have
the capacity to train about 3,000 Iraqi troops in Egypt each
month.? How in the world can we fail to take advantage of
offers like this?

***

It doesn?t matter if you were for the war, against the war, or
undecided. None of us can remain silent or on the sidelines now.

As a Senator, I feel obligated to tell the people of my state
how I feel.  It?s time for a new policy.  It?s time for a new
strategy that makes us more safe and secure.  It?s time to put
to rest the notion that to speak out for a new strategy in Iraq
is unpatriotic.

It?s time to realize that turning Iraq over to the Iraqis is
what they expect and what we should do.

It?s time for a real strategy to stop the spread of terrorism
and prevent the proliferation of WMDs -- not preemptive wars
that isolate America from the rest of the world.

It?s time to remember that a strong America begins at home, and
that we cannot have real security if we abandon our children
and families, our fiscal responsibility or if we cannot prepare
for a terrorist strike or an emergency like Katrina.

It?s time for America to once again be a shining example for
the rest of the world.

We can do it.

Again, let?s be honest about the past and restore our
credibility.  Let the Administration support Congressional
inquiries and not fight them -- on the past use of
intelligence; on the secret prisons in Europe; on the secret
surveillance of Americans.

Two, let?s truly honor our military by articulating a real plan
for success in Iraq and taking care of our soldiers.

Three, let?s get our priorities straight and get back on a
solid fiscal footing.

Fourth, let?s get Iraq right by working in a bipartisan way --
not running ugly 30-second commercials while our soldiers die
and get wounded.

We can do it.  We can do better and with the wisdom of the
American people, we will.


-- 
You are currently on Mha Atma's Earth Action Network email list, 
option D (up to 3 emails/day).  To be removed, or to switch options 
(option A - 1x/week, option B - 3/wk, option C - up to 1x/day, option D - 
up to 3x/day) please reply and let us know!  If someone forwarded you 
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"A war of aggression is the supreme international crime." -- Robert Jackson,
 former U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice and Nuremberg prosecutor

-------------- next part --------------
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From michael at intrafi.com  Sat Dec 24 20:16:06 2005
From: michael at intrafi.com (michael@intrafi.com)
Date: Sat Dec 24 20:27:58 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Alternet: 'They' Destroyed New Orleans
Message-ID: <20051225041606.07930B807D@alternet.org>


This story has been forwarded to you from
http://www.alternet.org by michael@intrafi.com



-------------------------------------
'They' Destroyed New Orleans
http://www.alternet.org/story/30044

When it comes to explaining why the levees broke, many otherwise reasonable New Orleanians are quick to believe in conspiracy theories.
-------------------------------------

From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Sat Dec 24 20:31:48 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Sat Dec 24 20:43:27 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Congress Never Authorized Spying Effort,
	Daschle Says
Message-ID: <20051225043148.949D011F824@lax-gw07.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: ialterman@nyc.rr.com.

[Still not receiving Civic e-mail; not sure if this made it out]


WASHINGTON | December 24, 2005
Congress Never Authorized Spying Effort, Daschle Says
By RICHARD W. STEVENSON
The Senate majority leader at the time of the Sept. 11 attacks has disputed a central element of the administration's case for its eavesdropping program.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/24/politics/24daschle.html?emc=eta1



----------------- Advertisement --------------------------

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one Best Picture.  What did the original New York
Times movie reviews have to say about these Oscar
winning films?  
Go to the Best Pictures review archive:

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Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Sat Dec 24 20:32:31 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Sat Dec 24 20:44:09 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Ex-Powell Aide Moves From Insider to
	Apostate
Message-ID: <20051225043231.C7FC5237228@lax-gw01.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: ialterman@nyc.rr.com.

WASHINGTON | December 24, 2005
The Saturday Profile: Ex-Powell Aide Moves From Insider to Apostate
By STEVEN R. WEISMAN
Lawrence Wilkerson, who served as chief of staff for Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, is speaking out critically against President Bush.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/24/politics/24wilkerson.html?emc=eta1



----------------- Advertisement --------------------------

The Academy loved these movies enough to name each
one Best Picture.  What did the original New York
Times movie reviews have to say about these Oscar
winning films?  
Go to the Best Pictures review archive:

http://ads.nyt.com/th.ad/nytnyt-textEmailThisdefault-Center1A/academyawards_text/?_RM_REDIR_=http://www.nytimes.com/ref/movies/oscars/bestpictures.html




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----------------------------------------------------------

ABOUT THIS E-MAIL
This e-mail was sent to you by a friend through NYTimes.com's E-mail This Article service.  For general information about NYTimes.com, write to help@nytimes.com.

NYTimes.com 500 Seventh Avenue New York, NY 10018

Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
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From harry.sifton at sympatico.ca  Sat Dec 24 20:41:54 2005
From: harry.sifton at sympatico.ca (Harold Sifton)
Date: Sat Dec 24 20:53:41 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Scott Ritter
Message-ID: <000801c6090d$8b228d00$4427e440@Harold>

American arms inspector in Iraq for WMD's Scott Ritter speaks/writes ..........

http://www.recorder.ca/cp/Entertainment/051224/e122413A.html

Should be an interesting read

Later, H
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Sun Dec 25 06:27:20 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Sun Dec 25 06:42:16 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Post-9/11 Rush Mixed Politics With Security - Washington
	Post 
Message-ID: <43AEAC48.7030906@comcast.net>

Post-9/11 Rush Mixed Politics With Security
Congressman Benefits From Homeland Security Spending

By Robert O'Harrow Jr. and Scott Higham
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, December 25, 2005; A01

As a small start-up company in Massachusetts sought to become a major 
player in the business of homeland security, it hired a lobbyist and 
attended a fundraiser for one of the most powerful members of Congress.

The company was Reveal Imaging Technologies Inc. The congressman was 
Rep. Harold "Hal" Rogers (R-Ky.). The fundraiser, held Oct. 22, 2003, 
brought in $14,000 from Reveal and was the beginning of a mutually 
beneficial association.

Reveal had just received a government grant to develop smaller, cheaper 
explosives-detection machines to scan baggage at the nation's airports. 
Rogers, who chairs the House Appropriations homeland security 
subcommittee, said he wanted the machines to improve security while 
saving taxpayers money.

In the end, Reveal received a federal contract from the Transportation 
Security Administration worth up to $463 million. Rogers achieved his 
goal of launching the next generation of machines. In the process, he 
received $122,111 in donations to his leadership political action 
committee from Reveal executives and associates -- and a pledge from the 
company to move $15 million worth of work to Rogers's poor Appalachian 
congressional district.

Reveal's dealings with Rogers illuminate the intersection of politics, 
money and homeland security in the rush to make the nation safer since 
the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The relationship fits into a long 
tradition of companies seeking sympathetic ears on Capitol Hill and of 
lawmakers securing money for their causes and their constituents back home.

What is different today is that the money at stake is the billions of 
dollars that the White House and Congress have set aside for homeland 
security at a time of persistent fear about another terrorist attack.

A Washington Post review of scores of documents, along with interviews 
with company executives, government officials and procurement 
specialists, shows that while Reveal was developing a machine that would 
receive accolades, it also was donating to Rogers's PAC and hiring two 
lobbying firms to help smooth the way with the government. Rogers 
pressed homeland security officials to deploy the Reveal machines and 
take other measures that he said would make the country safer while his 
PAC received donations from homeland security contractors, some of which 
he encouraged to create jobs in his district.

In an eight-page letter to The Post, Reveal executives said there was no 
"connection between voluntary political contributions" to Rogers's PAC 
and the awarding of the contract. The president of the company said 
Reveal secured the contract strictly on the merits of its technology 
after a "rigorous and objective" certification process.

"Members of Reveal's management team, and others, make these voluntary 
contributions to Representative Rogers, and many other elected 
officials, because they share our concern about improving our Nation's 
Homeland Security technology, and for no other reason," Reveal president 
and chief executive Michael P. Ellenbogen said in the letter.

"It is the scientists at the TSA -- not Congress -- who decide what 
systems meet the government's rigorous requirements," he said.

TSA officials said Rogers played no role in the contracting process.

"The decision to award the contract to Reveal was based on the source 
selection team's conclusion that it offered the best value to the 
government," TSA spokeswoman Yolanda Clark said.

Rogers said he is working in the interests of the nation and his 
district. He dismissed any suggestion that campaign money could sway his 
policymaking.

"It's demeaning," the 13-term congressman said in a recent interview. 
"Anybody that knows me and knows my record knows that I will go after 
whoever it is standing in the way of doing the right thing. I'm going to 
do what I think is best for the country, regardless."

A Magnet for Money

After 25 years in Washington, Rogers, 67, is an old-school politician 
who looks out for his constituents and remains intently focused on 
reaching the pinnacle of power on Capitol Hill.

In 2001, Rogers became chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee 
on transportation, a post that would give him an important role in 
directing aviation-security projects after the terrorist attacks. Two 
years later, he climbed even higher, becoming the first chairman of the 
Appropriations homeland security subcommittee.

That put Rogers at the center of the largest restructuring of the 
federal government in a half-century. His subcommittee holds the purse 
strings for billions of dollars in homeland security spending, giving 
him tremendous influence over the 22 agencies that make up the 
Department of Homeland Security. He can deny them appropriations if they 
refuse to follow his direction. He can hold public hearings and order 
investigations to examine how the department spends its money.

"He had our attention," former homeland security secretary Tom Ridge 
said in a recent interview.

Like other powerful members of Congress, Rogers has become a magnet for 
political contributions.

Three years ago, Rogers made it clear that he wanted to become chairman 
of the entire House Appropriations Committee, one of the most powerful 
jobs in Congress. Rogers formed Help America's Leaders Political Action 
Committee, better known as HALPAC. The PAC contributed to the campaigns 
of Republicans in tight races -- whose support Rogers hoped to draw upon 
in his quest to become Appropriations chairman. As of October, HALPAC 
had collected more than $1.8 million and had cash on hand of $545,236.

Contributors include a number of homeland security contractors. Some 
firms also moved parts of their operations into Rogers's district. They 
include Datatrac Information Services Inc., Science Applications 
International Corp., NucSafe and Reveal, the explosives-detection company.

With Rogers cheering them on, Datatrac and its corporate partners in 
2003 received a 10-year contract renewal worth up to $200 million for 
border-crossing cards used by Mexicans, even though government 
investigators had concluded that the cards were not being used properly 
and were vulnerable to fraud. Many of the cards are manufactured at a 
government facility run by Datatrac in Rogers's district.

A Datatrac official declined to discuss the company's ties to Rogers. 
Campaign finance records show that a Datatrac executive gave $1,000 to 
HALPAC and $1,000 to Rogers's reelection fund in 2004.

SAIC, whose political action committee contributed $15,000 to HALPAC, 
opened an office in a Somerset, Ky., industrial park last year and said 
it would bring 100 new jobs to Rogers's hometown. SAIC spokesman Jared 
Adams said in a recent interview that the company moved there because it 
is inexpensive and close to Rogers.

"Being close to leadership helps us understand trends in government," 
Adams said.

Richard Seymour, who runs NucSafe, a radiation-detection company in Oak 
Ridge, Tenn., said the company moved its manufacturing operations to 
Corbin, Ky., two years ago after meeting with Rogers, his staff and 
representatives of a local economic development group started with help 
from the congressman. Seymour said members of Rogers's staff put his 
company in touch with TSA officials, although "nothing ever came of it." 
He said his company received a $1.8 million grant from a Homeland 
Security Department agency this year.

Seymour declined to say whether Rogers "earmarked" or specifically set 
aside homeland security money for NucSafe, saying his company was a 
privately held corporation and is under no obligation to disclose the 
sources of its funding.

"It's no secret we've gotten support from congressman Rogers," Seymour said.

Four NucSafe executives, including Seymour, have donated $9,200 to 
HALPAC and Rogers. Seymour said the donations were suggested by local 
Republican representatives, not by Rogers or his staff.

"It's the usual thing. You are made aware that they have these 
fundraisers, and they generally ask companies who have received any kind 
of assistance for any help they see fit," Seymour said. "Chairman Rogers 
has been one of the most ethical political figures I have ever dealt 
with. If you bring business to his district, that's all he ever cared 
about."

'A Clear Vision'

Rogers, other lawmakers and TSA officials were searching for a solution 
to a vexing homeland security problem when Reveal came on the scene.

Two months after Sept. 11, 2001, Congress mandated that every checked 
bag at airports be screened for explosives, setting tight deadlines and 
authorizing research funding. The TSA eventually hired Boeing Co. to 
deploy an explosives-detection system that relied on technology similar 
to that used in a medical CAT scan.

Under a contract that ballooned to more than $1.2 billion, Boeing 
deployed minivan-size machines that were widely criticized as too 
expensive to install and too large for airport lobbies.

On Feb. 13, 2002, Rogers asked government investigators "to determine if 
there is a possibility of using smaller, less expensive machines," 
according to the congressman's office. In October 2002, Rogers proposed 
giving $100 million toward the TSA's research and development program 
for explosives-detection machines; $75 million was later appropriated.

That October, a group of engineers, physicists and entrepreneurs 
registered Reveal as a corporation in Delaware. In June 2003, the 
company established its headquarters in Bedford, Mass., and hired a 
high-powered Washington lobbyist, Van Scoyoc Associates Inc.

Three months later, Reveal secured $2.4 million under a TSA grant 
program to study how to develop smaller explosives-detection machines, 
the company said. Reveal was one of four companies to share in $9.4 
million in grants. Also receiving grants were Lockheed Martin Corp., 
Analogic Corp. and InVision Technologies Inc., one of the firms that 
made the larger machines installed under the Boeing contract.

On Oct. 22, 2003, Reveal executives met Rogers at a fundraiser in 
Washington, "hosted by Van Scoyoc Associates," according to Rogers's 
office. Eight days later, HALPAC reported that five Reveal executives, 
five directors and one lobbyist donated $14,000, campaign finance 
records show.

Rogers's staff said in a statement that the fundraiser marked the first 
time the congressman met representatives of Reveal. Rogers said he did 
not recollect the event, and his staff declined to provide details. 
Company officials also declined to discuss the fundraiser or any of the 
circumstances surrounding their donations to Rogers.

"I've had a lot of fundraisers," said Rogers, who added that he played 
"no role whatsoever" in helping Reveal secure its TSA grant. "Campaign 
contributions mean nothing on my watch."

Reveal's president said his company made the contributions because 
Rogers supports the use of emerging technologies for aviation security.

"We contribute to those who we believe have a clear vision," Ellenbogen 
said in an interview. "We are supporting those who believe there is a 
place for new technology." Other Reveal executives and board members did 
not return phone calls seeking comment on their donations.

Of the other companies participating in the TSA grant program, Analogic 
contributed $1,000 in 2004, Lockheed Martin's employees' PAC contributed 
$5,000 in 2004, and GE InVision Inc., formerly known as InVision 
Technologies, contributed $19,000 between 2002 and September 2005, 
campaign finance records show.

In January 2004, three months after the Reveal donations to HALPAC, 
Rogers and David M. Stone, who was the TSA's chief at the time, attended 
an aviation industry meeting in Hawaii. Stone recalled that Rogers 
raised the issue of the Reveal technology and asked about the agency's 
progress in evaluating the company's machine.

Throughout 2004, Rogers and his staff continued questioning homeland 
security officials about Reveal's progress. Ridge recalled that Rogers 
was a "big supporter" of Reveal's technology.

"He always thought our work at the TSA was too labor-intensive and that 
the number of workers could be reduced if we developed this technology," 
Ridge said.

Before it could be sold to the TSA, Reveal's device needed to be 
certified by the agency on a series of technical standards. Van Scoyoc, 
one of Reveal's lobbyists, worked with the company to obtain the 
certification, according to Steven O. Palmer, a member of the firm.

"We've been helping them through the certification process at the TSA," 
Palmer said in recent interview.

On July 14, 2004, Rep. John L. Mica (R-Fla.), the chairman of the House 
Transportation Committee's aviation subcommittee, "expressed concern 
over when Reveal's CT-80 would be certified and available to the TSA," 
Reveal noted in its letter to The Post.

In September 2004, campaign finance records show that Van Scoyoc joined 
with Reveal officers and others associated with the company in donating 
an additional $17,250 to HALPAC.

Nine days after the contributions were reported, a House-Senate 
conference committee chaired by Rogers on the homeland security 
appropriations bill submitted a report that mandated that Congress spend 
$30 million on next-generation explosives-detection devices "that are 
currently being tested, certified, and piloted."

Rogers would later announce that a large portion of that money -- $15 
million to assemble 100 Reveal machines -- was going to a company called 
Mid-South Electronics Inc. in Annville, Ky., not far from Somerset. 
Rogers told local reporters the money would help the company overcome "a 
potentially devastating blow" from a catastrophic fire several months 
earlier.

Solving a Problem

Toward the end of 2004, Rogers and a staff member met with the TSA's 
Stone and one of his technology advisers. Rogers brought up Reveal, 
Stone later told The Post. The congressman said the company offered the 
potential of increasing security while decreasing costs, and he wanted 
to know how the certification process was going, Rogers and Stone 
recalled. The TSA chief told Rogers that Reveal's technology was still 
being studied.

"I remember talking to Stone about the certification process," Rogers 
said in a recent interview. "It went on and on and on."

On Dec. 21, 2004, the TSA certified Reveal's CT-80 machine, the company 
said. Reveal officials touted their machine as significantly smaller and 
cheaper, costing $340,000, about one-third of the price of the larger 
machines, and saving the government significant labor costs.

Reveal officials also said their golf-cart-sized machines would fit more 
easily into existing airport spaces, easing passenger flow and 
minimizing the need for costly construction projects at the ticket 
counters. But technical documents showed one significant drawback: The 
machines operated at a quarter of the speed of the larger machines 
already used at airports.

The Reveal machine "is slower but it solves particular problems," 
Ellenbogen, the company's president, said in an interview. "It's a PC as 
opposed to a mainframe."

Reveal officials said the machine was designed for use at medium-size 
and small airports. Government authorities also envisioned using the 
smaller machines to supplement the bigger machines at larger airports 
and to replace some older technologies, Stone said.

In February, Stone briefed a Senate panel about the certification 
process. He was enthusiastic about the machines, saying the TSA intended 
to buy and test eight of the devices at three airports as part of a 
pilot program -- and would then decide how to proceed. At the hearing, 
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) asked, "When can we expect to see some of 
that" technology?

But Rogers was growing frustrated. His irritation became public this 
year in March, when Stone, a retired admiral, appeared before his 
subcommittee.

Rogers demanded to know why the agency was taking so long to deploy the 
Reveal machines. He said they could save taxpayers millions of dollars 
on labor costs for screeners while making the country safer.

"Admiral, in just a few months, it will have been four years since 9/11 
-- the same time, roughly, that we went from Pearl Harbor to absolute 
victory in World War II," Rogers said, according to a transcript of the 
hearing.

"And here we are about the same time from 9/11 as we were from Pearl 
Harbor, and in most of the airports in our country, they are still 
checking for explosives, trying to mimic a dog, swiping the luggage with 
a smeller thing to test in a machine," he said. "How can you defend 
that? Would you admit that that's an absolute, utter failure?"

Rogers continued: "When are you going to get those machines in those 
airports?"

Stone later said he was unaffected by Rogers's criticism.

"I didn't feel pressure from the chairman because I believe we needed to 
accelerate new technologies into the field," Stone said.

'Everything Is Legal'

Twelve days after the March hearing, a report appeared that raised 
questions about the TSA's efforts to deploy explosives-detection 
machines. The report, which had been requested by Rogers and was issued 
by the Government Accountability Office, highlighted the potential cost 
savings but also said it was "unclear" how the TSA would make effective 
use of the new technology without putting a strategic plan in place.

On March 18, three days later, HALPAC reported that Reveal executives, 
board members, a lobbyist and lawyers associated with the firm donated 
another $25,250.

Four months later, on July 27, the TSA announced that it was seeking 
proposals for a "Stand Alone Reduced Size" explosives-detection machine. 
At the time, Reveal was the only company that manufactured a 
reduced-size machine that had been certified by the TSA.

On Aug. 18, HALPAC reported that 11 Reveal executives, board members and 
lobbyists each contributed for $3,000. That $33,000 was their largest 
donation to date.

In its letter to The Post, Reveal said any "allegation" of a connection 
between the donations and the contract "would constitute a willful 
disregard of the truth" and was not supported by the record.

Reveal said in its letter that company executives "have voluntarily 
contributed to Representative Rogers's Political Action Committee and 
many other elected officials in connection with fundraising events 
hosted by members of Reveal's management."

Campaign finance records show that the majority of contributions by 
company executives, board members and one spouse went to HALPAC. The 
records show that of their $114,950 in contributions, more than 
three-quarters -- $87,500 -- went to HALPAC, making the company by far 
the biggest donor to the PAC. The records also show that those same 
donors gave a total of $27,450 to 11 other candidates and PACs. Reveal 
executives did not respond to a question about their pattern of giving.

Rogers said he was surprised to learn that Reveal and its associates 
were the largest contributors to HALPAC. He said he was not informed 
about specific fundraisers until sometimes as late as the night before.

"It is true that the first small machine certified by TSA was made by a 
supporter of mine in my race for Chairman of the Appropriations 
Committee last year," Rogers said in a statement. "That does not detract 
from the fact that the company won its contract fair and square in open 
competition. TSA made its decision based on science and engineering."

Rogers said the money played no part in his support for the Reveal 
technology.

"Everything is legal and above-board," Rogers said in an interview. "The 
fact that these people were coming to my fundraisers, I was pleased 
about it, but it did not influence me."

In its letter, Reveal cited two other lawmakers who had voiced support 
for its machines, Mica and McCain. Campaign finance records show that 
neither lawmaker received donations from Reveal executives or board members.

On Oct. 20, Reveal announced in a news release that it had won the TSA 
contract for the next-generation machines. The company said its CT-80 
machine "revolutionizes" baggage screening.

The current chief of the TSA, Edmund S. "Kip" Hawley, who was in charge 
of the agency during the contracting process, declined repeated requests 
for an interview.

TSA spokeswoman Clark said the agency received other bids for the 
contract from GE InVision and L-3 Communications Holdings Inc. She said 
technical officials at the agency acknowledged that Reveal was the only 
company whose machine met the size specifications contained in the 
request for bids on the contract.

"TSA identified a specific need for a reduced size [explosives-detection 
system] and set a maximum size specification to meet that need," Clark 
said. "The Reveal CT-80 was the only certified [explosives-detection 
system] that met the size specification."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/24/AR2005122400372.html
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Sun Dec 25 06:29:15 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Sun Dec 25 06:44:06 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Liberal Groups Gear Up to Oppose Confirmation of Alito -
 Washington Post
Message-ID: <43AEACBB.5080606@comcast.net>

Liberal Groups Gear Up to Oppose Confirmation of Alito
Campaign Includes Forums on His Record

By Michael A. Fletcher and Thomas B. Edsall
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, December 25, 2005; A08

Liberal advocacy groups are stepping up their campaign against Supreme 
Court nominee Samuel A. Alito Jr., hoping an all-out effort before 
Senate hearings begin next month can slow what so far has been strong 
momentum favoring his confirmation.

A coalition of organizations opposing Alito has in recent weeks 
established a campaign-style operation to coordinate activities, 
including issues forums to explain his judicial record and ad buys in 
key states. The effort is aimed at bringing the simmering opposition to 
Alito to a boil, in time for Senate Judiciary Committee hearings that 
start Jan. 9.

Some liberal organizations waited only minutes to announce their 
opposition to Alito after President Bush nominated him in October. Since 
then, dozens of other organizations -- including environmental, civil 
rights, gay rights and disability advocacy groups -- have come out 
against the nomination.

Some have produced detailed reports sounding the alarm about Alito's 
judicial opinions. These include opinions espousing a narrow view of the 
federal power to regulate state activities and making it harder for 
workers to bring federal discrimination complaints against employers.

Critics are also distressed about his writings while he was a Justice 
Department official in the 1980s, in which he asserted his opposition to 
"racial quotas" and said that the Constitution does not protect a right 
to abortion.

The liberal protests have yet to coalesce into widespread opposition to 
Alito among the public and in the only place that ultimately matters: 
the U.S. Senate. Although several Democratic and moderate Republican 
senators have voiced reservations, most have adopted a wait-and-see 
attitude toward Alito's nomination. Many conservatives, meanwhile, have 
come out in favor of his confirmation.

Although Alito's positions have animated left-leaning advocacy groups, 
"they have created no firestorm among the general public," said David J. 
Garrow, a Supreme Court historian. "Liberal groups have cried wolf so 
many times that when we get documents like these about Alito, crying 
wolf seems to have no resonance for people in the middle."

A recent Washington Post-ABC News poll concluded that Americans favoring 
Alito's nomination became a majority -- at 54 percent -- last month. But 
it also found that 28 percent of the public oppose him, while one in 
five respondents said they knew too little about him to have an opinion.

Organizations on both sides are working to fill that void. While 
numerous conservative groups are working to define Alito as a seasoned 
and respected jurist who faithfully interprets the Constitution, liberal 
advocates are portraying him as an extremist who would overturn the 
constitutional right to abortion, weaken gun-control laws, reverse civil 
rights gains, and support strong executive powers, including the right 
to intrude on the privacy of U.S. citizens.

The fact that these arguments have gained only modest traction so far is 
attributed by some analysts to the unique political dynamics of Supreme 
Court nominations.

"There is really nobody to communicate with right now on this issue, 
because Americans are not plugged into it." said Evan Tracey of TNS 
Media Intelligence, a research firm that tracks political advocacy ads. 
"I think Americans feel one or two steps removed from the Supreme Court, 
particularly when the confirmation process hasn't started. But as you 
get closer to the hearing and the vote, the volume on this thing is 
going to ramp way up."

Democratic fundraiser Frank O'Brien of O'Brien, McConnell & Pearson Inc. 
said fundraising to fight the Alito nomination and support other liberal 
causes had been shoved to the back burner recently because of the more 
urgent concern on the left with issues such as oil, the USA Patriot Act 
and the Bush administration's domestic spying.

O'Brien said, however, that the recent addition of national security and 
wiretapping issues to the catalogue of liberal concerns about Alito 
"pushes the stakes so much higher -- it's the kind of issue that gets to 
these progressive donors in a special way." He described the potential 
for anti-Alito fundraising in the coming weeks as "huge," with privacy 
issues tapping into "a very powerful fear that will drive a lot of 
progressive energy."

"It takes it to a whole new level," he said.

Liberal activists say they are methodically building their campaign and 
are satisfied with knowing that many senators remain uncommitted. 
"Momentum is building in opposition," said Nan Aron, president of the 
Alliance for Justice, which opposes Alito.

One operative working with the operation run by IndependentCourt.org, a 
coalition of liberal groups, likened the campaign to a football game, in 
which yardage is gained in increments. "This is an inches game," she 
said. "We're gaining ground on this inch by inch."

Although some commentators had predicted that the public battle over the 
Supreme Court would take on the dimensions of a presidential campaign 
with its ad intensity, that has yet to occur with the Alito nomination.

Groups on both sides have spent just under $650,000, according to a new 
report by the nonpartisan Justice at Stake Campaign. Most of that money 
-- 54 percent -- has been spent by conservative groups, although liberal 
groups have been closing the gap lately with ad buys in Rhode Island and 
Maine, the report said.

Bert Brandenburg, executive director of the Justice at Stake Campaign, 
said that though advocacy groups are hugely influential, they are most 
powerful when they can build on perceptions that are already widely held 
among the public. "The groups look for opportunities to sway the debate, 
but they can't do it on their own," he said. "It will take the right 
environment for them to have an impact."

Brandenburg said the hearings could provide such an opportunity to rally 
supporters and pressure senators. "The real public campaign hasn't begun 
yet because few people are focused on this right now," he said. "It is 
clear that big guns have not been fired."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/24/AR2005122400702.html
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Sun Dec 25 06:32:42 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Sun Dec 25 06:47:29 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] The Whole Story on Military Recruiting? - Deborah Howell
 - Washington Post Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43AEAD8A.4010204@comcast.net>

The Whole Story on Military Recruiting?

By Deborah Howell
Sunday, December 25, 2005; B06

Numbers aren't just facts. They can be interpreted in many ways, even if 
they come from the same or similar sources.

Ann Scott Tyson, a respected military reporter just back from Iraq, 
wrote in a front-page story Nov. 4 that "newly released Pentagon 
demographic data show that the military is leaning heavily for recruits 
on economically depressed rural areas where youths' need for jobs may 
outweigh the risks of going to war."

The story said that more than 44 percent of military recruits come from 
rural areas, most from the South and West. "Many . . . are financially 
strapped, with nearly half coming from lower-middle-class to poor 
households, according to new Pentagon data based on Zip codes and census 
estimates of mean household income."

The story, which was largely based on Pentagon data, included some 
analysis done by the National Priorities Project (NPP), a 
liberal-leaning think tank that questions the war in Iraq. The NPP also 
used Pentagon, census and Zip code data. A different analysis, released 
by the conservative Heritage Foundation a few days later, was reported 
by other media outlets.

In looking at the story, I talked to Curt Gilroy, who, as director of 
accession policy for the secretary of defense, has oversight of all 
active-duty recruiting; Tim Kane, a Heritage researcher; Betty Maxfield, 
demographer of the Army; Bruce Orvis, director of the Manpower and 
Training Program at the Rand Corp.'s Arroyo Center, and Robert 
Brandewei, director of the Defense Manpower Data Center in Monterey, Calif.

All said the story and NPP analysis lacked context because they did not 
report trends over the past several years and did not look at 
"nationally representative data" or the entire recruit population. A 
statement from Gilroy and Maxfield said that "incomes and socioeconomic 
status of recruits' families closely mirror the U.S. population. These 
findings are contrary to those" in Tyson's article.

Kane agreed that a higher proportion of recruits come from rural areas 
and the South, which is historically true. "But the key word is 
proportion. The data in the Post article are accurate, but the 
inferences are not," he said. "The percentage of recruits coming from 
poorer areas has declined every year since 2001 and the percentage 
coming from richer areas has increased."

The Pentagon statement said the Post article used "anecdotal evidence 
and . . . data compiled by the NPP that were incomplete. The Department 
of Defense does not know whether the data are right or wrong, but the 
data are clearly not representative or even appropriate for part of its 
analysis."

In particular, the Pentagon said the NPP considered "the Army's top 20 
counties for recruiting." Though those counties produced an 
above-average number of recruits, the counties "account for a minuscule 
number and proportion of total recruits . . . 275 out of 180,000 
recruits (less than 0.2 percent). One would be hard-pressed to conclude 
much about income levels from such a small sample size."

Rand Corp.'s Orvis said, "You just can't look at the top 20 or the 
bottom 20. You have to look at the entire distribution." Data for 
1999-2004, he said, show that the income of recruits' families is close 
to the national average for homes of youths 17 to 21, and family income 
among recruits has increased every year since 1999. He also said that 
half or more of recruits come from urban or suburban areas and that 
there has been little change in where recruits come from since 1999.

Post National Editor Michael Abramowitz said, "Ann set out to tell the 
story of what kind of young people are joining today's military. 
Obviously the armed services draw from a range of demographic, income 
and ethnic groups. The Pentagon's own numbers indicate that that the 
military is drawing disproportionally from rural and southern 
communities, and from families with slightly lower incomes than the 
population in general.

"The numbers also show a close correlation between the unemployment rate 
and recruiting. These are the phenomena that Ann accurately described in 
her story. While we did note some trends, such as the growth in 
wealthier recruits, we probably could have done a better job 
highlighting some of the nuances in recruiting patterns and providing 
more context. But the overall thrust of the story still seems accurate 
and sound to us."

Brandewei took the NPP analysis off the group's Web site and tried to 
match it with the same data from his agency. He said he could duplicate 
only two counties, and in the other 18, his numbers and the NPP's 
diverged by as much as 20 percent.

Anita Dancs, research director for the NPP, said that the survey was the 
first the organization has done on military recruiting and that it 
included Army Reserve figures but not Marine Corps data. "The armed 
services gave us reasonably raw data and it varied from branch to 
branch. I can't comment on what the Army provided; it may be different 
from what we were working with."

She said that while the NPP did not have access to family income data, 
"we did base our analysis on Zip code data of all of the recruits. We 
didn't do a comparison over time. We just wanted to put the latest data 
on our Web site (at http://www.nationalpriorities.org/ ) so that people 
could retrieve the number of recruits by Zip code, county or state and 
decide for themselves whether the proportion is right. We continue to 
believe that the lower- and middle-class is overrepresented" in recruiting.

My bottom line on polls and surveys, no matter what kind: Look for the 
widest context. Ask as many experts as possible what the numbers mean. 
Numbers can be right but not tell the full story, and that's the case 
with the article on recruiting.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/24/AR2005122400722.html
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Sun Dec 25 06:41:17 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Sun Dec 25 06:56:05 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] FUN AND INTERESTING: Yuletide Lore - Washington Post
	Editoral
Message-ID: <43AEAF8D.9090503@comcast.net>

Yuletide Lore

Sunday, December 25, 2005; B03

Yes, we know it's the most wonderful time of the year. But what other 
Christmas facts do you have at your fingertips? Test your holiday IQ 
with this little quiz:

1 What do the 12 days of Christmas actually represent?

<>2 When was Christmas declared a federal holiday in the United States?
    a) 1835 b) 1856 c) 1870 d) 1888<>

3 Which was the first state to declare Christmas a legal holiday?
    a) Alabama b) Arkansas c) Massachusetts d) New York

4 True or false: The abbreviation Xmas is irreligious.

5 True or false: The day after Christmas is known as Boxing Day because 
it's the day to get rid of all the boxes left over from Christmas presents.

6 Which of these songs is the best-selling Christmas single ever recorded?
     a) "Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer" b) "Silent Night" c) "White 
Christmas" d) "The Christmas Song"

7 Which president had the first White House Christmas tree?
    a) Millard Fillmore b) Franklin Pierce c) Abraham Lincoln d) Grover 
Cleveland

8 The first night of Hanukkah coincides with Christmas Day this year. 
When was the last time this happened?
    a) 1959 b) 1972 c) 1986 d) 1999

9 Santa Claus is ubiquitous in the United States, but he's not a 
universal Christmas gift-bringer. Name the figures that bring presents 
to children in these three countries: Spain, Italy and France.

10 Name Santa's eight reindeer.

------------------------------ Don't peek 
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------







Answers to Christmas Quiz:

1 The length of time it took the wise men to reach Jesus after his birth;
2 c, 1870;
3 a. Alabama made it a legal holiday in 1836;
4 False. This was originally an ecclesiastical abbreviation, derived 
from the Greek letter "chi," the first letter in the word Christ, used 
in tables and charts in the early days of printing;
5 False. The name comes from church alms-boxes, the money from which was 
distributed to the poor after Christmas;
6 c. Bing Crosby's 1942 recording of "White Christmas" is still the 
best-selling Christmas single of all time;
7 b. Franklin Pierce, in 1856;
8 a,1959. The next time, in case you're curious, will be 2024;
9 Spain: The Three Kings. Italy: La Befana, a kindly witch. France: Pere 
Noel (or Father Christmas);
10 Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner (or Donder) and 
Blitzen!


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/23/AR2005122301957.html?nav=hcmodule
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Sun Dec 25 06:47:50 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Sun Dec 25 07:02:47 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] EXCELLENT HISTORY PIECE: Ruckus Around the Christmas
 Tree -- as Usual
Message-ID: <43AEB116.5000205@comcast.net>

Ruckus Around the Christmas Tree -- as Usual

By Penne L. Restad
Sunday, December 25, 2005; B01

At last, Christmas morning. May we now declare a truce in the Christmas 
culture war? All those poor salespeople who struggled to remember 
whether company policy was to greet shoppers with "Happy Holidays" or 
"Merry Christmas" are free to relax and settle down around their 
Christmas tree or holiday tree or whatever other seasonal symbol they 
prefer and celebrate in their own private way. For celebrate Christmas 
is something that almost all of us, apparently, do. A recent poll says 
96 percent of Americans observe the holiday in some way or another.

In my house, the children, old enough to have wised up to Santa, waited 
patiently for us to build a fire and make coffee before they retrieved 
their old sequined red-felt stockings. Next came the gifts. I come from 
a tradition of morning openers. Some families insist on Christmas Eve, 
but that's not our way. At some point, we'll prepare dinner, but not for 
a while.

And so it goes, as it has gone in my family -- and in most of America -- 
for generations. Christmas has been our nation's most important holiday 
for well over a hundred years. But culturally, it's always been more 
than a religious day, however much the people who have pushed so hard 
this year to put "Christ back in Christmas" wish it weren't so. 
Moreover, just like this year, it has always been fraught with tensions.

 From a rowdy public festival that upset Puritan sensibilities, it 
gradually came to center on home and family. But even then it generated 
complaints. People worried whether stockings full of toys and treats 
would spoil their children. They fretted over finding the appropriate 
gifts . And certainly over this: "Christmas has become too commercial." 
(What I want someone to tell me is: How much is just enough commercial?)

These past few seasons have been different. Yes, Christmas comes earlier 
and earlier every year (at least one person is obligated to say this 
each October). But as our nation becomes more diverse, we seem to be 
getting more and more confused about the holiday. I found this season 
particularly difficult. Whenever a salesclerk rang up my purchases and 
said "Merry Christmas!" I sized her up. What did she mean by that? Who 
told her to say that? If I don't say "Merry Christmas" back, will she 
think I'm an atheist? I became equally suspicious of the salesperson who 
exclaimed, "Happy Holidays!" Did I have to say the same back to him?

"Happy Holidays" as a greeting had actually served me well for a long 
time, especially with strangers. I didn't care if they were observant 
Christians or Wiccans or Jews or Buddhists. I just wanted to share a 
good feeling. But now there are those who want to establish Christmas 
firmly as a Christian holiday. Others protest that this is tyranny. A 
vast middling sector feels something like Rudolph caught in the headlights.

The battle of Season's Greetings got me down. So much controversy. 
Perhaps I am just overly sensitive, maybe a bit crabby. But it all makes 
me wonder what next season will bring, and the ones in the years 
following. For all of us, this year's Christmas culture war raised key 
questions about the holiday. What is Christmas? Who owns it? Do we need 
it? What will happen to Christmas as we know it?

As someone who has studied the history of the holiday in this country, I 
know this isn't the first war over Christmas. Its very origin almost 
guaranteed controversy. The Church created Christmas in 4th century Rome 
to compete with a December Saturnalia that had become increasingly 
focused on the veneration of Mithras, the sun god. Faced with what 
appeared to be the emergence of a competing monotheism, the Christian 
fathers countered with a Feast of the Nativity to be celebrated, 
strategically, on Dec. 25, in the very midst of the Roman revels. That 
Christmas survived for centuries after was due to the fact that it made 
ample room for the profane.

The Pilgrims and Puritans who settled New England 13 centuries later 
attempted to deal with Christmas by banning it. The Bible, they pointed 
out, makes no reference to an invented birthday for Jesus, let alone 
advocates revelry. When Plymouth Colony's Gov. William Bradford awoke 
one Christmas day to find that many of the non-Pilgrim colonists were in 
the streets, rowdily playing ball and generally having a very good time, 
he was angry, and scolded them for disrupting the settlement. If you 
have to keep Christmas, he warned, do it inside and out of our sight.

But generally, there were few quarrels about keeping Christmas in the 
colonies. Beyond New England, most other settlements varied in their 
tolerance and observance. Traditional religious and folk customs 
dictated the Christmases most settlers kept. America had become host to 
such a variety of Protestant denominations that their local practices 
produced not one American interpretation of Christmas, but many. 
Pennsylvania's Quakers, for example, had long testified against the 
keeping of Christmas. Episcopalians brought fresh greenery into their 
churches. Where Germans lived, Belsnickel, a sort of furry, stricter 
version of Santa Claus, demanded that children properly recite Bible 
verses. In the late 1700s, Philip Vickers Fithian, a New Jersey tutor at 
Nomini Hall in Virginia, experienced the schoolboys' ritual of locking 
the school master out of the school, a prelude to a holiday of "Balls, 
the Fox-hunts, the fine entertainments, and the good fellowship." The 
Christmas sermon, he noted, lasted but 15 minutes.

In the 1820s things began to change. Rapid growth, a thriving middle 
class and flourishing commerce heralded the emergence of the nation's 
market economy and a new, more standardized Christmas. It took shape in 
the cities, where residents put a new premium on civility, order and 
sentiment. The demands of business compressed the holiday from a season 
into a single day, and the raucous holiday street antics that had 
increasingly disrupted property owners ceased. Respectable citizens 
moved Christmas into their homes. They began to decorate Christmas 
trees, expect a visit from Santa and exchange gifts. For them, the 
question was not about religion, but about a well-regulated urban life 
and a proper place for family within it.

Moving Christmas off the streets solved some cultural tensions -- only 
to raise new ones. These tended to concern the amount of money and work 
involved in the festival. Merchants learned to capitalize on the 
sentiment of the season, and the subsequent intensification of shopping 
and gift-giving prompted more than one complaint that the holiday had 
grown wearisome. "One-half the populace seems possessed of a wild desire 
to purchase the things the other half has for sale," wrote an 
editorialist in one late 19th-century newspaper. But as time passed, the 
pairing of Christmas and commerce became even more tightly interwoven . 
And so it continues to be. Each year the amount of money spent on the 
holiday rises -- a new Gallup poll reports that this year the average 
shopper planned to spend more than $700 on gifts -- something the 
solvency of countless businesses depends upon. One might argue that the 
commercial aspect of Christmas has become the real basis of the 
culture's December unanimity.

In fact, it is the very promise of a unified culture that has created 
the latest tensions over December's celebration. Beginning with the idea 
that many of us participate in the seasonal buying spree, a vocal 
argument runs (although it is more unspoken than forthrightly asserted) 
that we are participating in Christmas as Christians. Therefore, "Merry 
Christmas" is the appropriate greeting. But this may not be the case. 
According to a 2001 study, 77 percent of Americans identify themselves 
as Christian. While this is a significant majority, it indicates that -- 
if the 96 percent Christmas-observers figure holds true -- some 19 
percent of us who just opened gifts aren't necessarily Christians.

As we contemplate the meaning of Christmas this year, should some 
portion of the society be excluded from participating in our nation's 
foremost holiday? I hope not. I think the festival is more expansive and 
generous than that. Yes, we all come together in the public marketplace, 
but privately each of us highlights different aspects of the holiday. 
Maybe Christmas means doing something for someone less fortunate, or 
honoring Jesus's birth, or singing with a community of believers in 
church, or taking joy in children's delight -- or even savoring a 
Chinese meal and taking in a movie. The point is that we all find 
"merry" in our own particular way. It is not a matter of a consensus of 
speech, and certainly not of belief.

No, I see our celebration of Christmas as uniquely American -- it 
invites free expression. For Christmas to survive (and I'm sure business 
will adapt to meet whatever it determines the consumer wants so that it 
can ensure this), our private Christmases must continue to hold meaning 
for us.

So, I'm still confused. The historian in me knows that Christmas is 
always changing, but I have no idea how we might celebrate the holiday, 
say, 50 or 100 years from now -- except that it won't be the same. I 
just know that last evening, finally, it all quieted down. I went home, 
closed the door (gently), and have been enjoying my private Christmas 
ever since. I hope that all of you, in your own ways, are too.

Author's e-mail mailto::%20plr@austin.rr.com 
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/23/mailto::%20plr@austin.rr.com>

Penne Restad is the author of "Christmas in America: A History" (Oxford 
University Press). She teaches history at the University of Texas at Austin.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/23/AR2005122302041.html?nav=hcmodule
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Sun Dec 25 07:05:57 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Sun Dec 25 07:20:54 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] "MA-CENTRIC" BUT GREAT: Why Do They Hate Us? - Charles
 P. Pierce - Boston Globe Sunday Magazine
Message-ID: <43AEB555.9020904@comcast.net>


  Why Do They Hate Us?


    No state makes the rest of the country squirm like ours. Is that
    because we're a bunch of Kennedy-votin', stem-cell-lovin',
    clergy-bashin', gay-marryin' human clones?

By Charles P. Pierce  |  December 18, 2005  |  The Boston Globe

All right, let Us -- the elect of Massachusetts -- tell You -- everyone 
else -- what you should do.

And that's how it starts, isn't it?

We think these Colonies should be independent, and that You should all 
get rid of your slaves.

Why do They hate Us?

They hate Us because we just . . . won't . . . shut . . . up.

It's been a remarkable couple of years for Us and for Them, hasn't it? 
The United States declined publicly to promote our junior senator to the 
senior executive level. Of course, before rejecting his application, the 
country watched as the junior senator's party held its quadrennial 
fandango right here in and around the FleetCenter. Even though we did 
the nation an immeasurable favor by collecting all the pundits in one 
place where we could keep an eye on them, the rest of the country was 
treated to one of our curious provincial spectacles in which Boston 
lands a large and important event and then complains about every minor 
inconvenience. Meanwhile, all the people who came noticed that, because 
of laws and traditions dating back to the stocks and the dunking stool, 
all the parties wrapped up just after the sun went down, leaving the 
streets awash with dissatisfied drunks wearing plastic donkeys on their 
heads.

And, of course, gay people started having weddings here, which was said 
to have such a deleterious effect on marriages in places like Ohio and 
Kansas that they were moved to defend themselves against such nuptials 
at the polls. Science marched on, and it scared people elsewhere, and an 
image formed Out There of Us as a city full of gay-marryin', 
stem-cell-lovin', Kennedy-votin' human clones, which, truth be told, 
didn't do the junior senator much good, either, largely because it 
wasn't completely off the mark.

Even in sports, wherein Massachusetts has had a spectacular run of late, 
the country got an earful not only of how our heretofore woeful football 
team has won three Super Bowls through an application of saintly 
ownership and family values, but also of how the long-awaited World 
Series victory of our baseball team was, even more than a triumph over 
the St. Louis Cardinals, a resounding defeat for the kind of jinxes, 
curses, and hoodoos that afflict only the best people -- namely, Us.

"I always felt that the Red Sox fan considered himself a far more 
interesting and cerebral fan because he'd link himself to a team that 
suffered," muses Mike Francesa, a prominent sports-talk radio host in 
New York who nonetheless confesses a sweet tooth for Boston's teams. "It 
was as though 'I'm a better fan because I root for a team that doles out 
nothing but suffering. I'm more intelligent.'"

And, of course, we turned up our noses this fall at those arriviste 
White Sox, who'd actually gone longer without a World Series winner than 
we had. But, we reasoned, that was just a result of bad baseball. Primal 
forces of nature couldn't be bothered with, you know, Chicago.

And that notion of cosmic suffering is so deep in the Calvinist soul of 
the city that it informs far more than the history of the baseball 
teams. The original settlers here had to scratch a society out of stony 
farmland. Then, later immigrant families came, and they had to scratch a 
society out of the original settlers. In a survey of scholars ranking 
this country's all-time best and worst mayors, conducted by historian 
Melvin Holli, Boston had both a best, Josiah Quincy, and a worst, the 
inevitable J.M. Curley. If you did the poll among Boston's Irish 
population, Quincy and Curley might well find their positions reversed.

In short, we always have been a city in which a half million people are 
likely to hold 3 million opinions -- and that's just on one issue. No 
matter where you live elsewhere in the country, sooner or later, 
somebody in Boston is going to do something or say something that makes 
your blood boil. Hello, Larry Summers. Are we liberal in our attitudes 
toward free speech? Yes and, of course, no. Boston is the city where the 
Watch and Ward Society banned books and chased "indecent" entertainers 
out of town for decades. And for all the huffing and blowing on the 
political right these days about liberals who want to "ban Christmas," 
it should be recalled that Massachusetts is one of the few places in the 
country that actually did it, back in 1659, and for conservative 
religious reasons. The Puritan fathers thought the celebration too 
redolent of the Church of England from which they'd fled.

Almost a third of African-Americans in Boston polled by Harvard in 2004 
said they were denied a job in the past decade because of 
discrimination. At the same time, white Southerners still harbor 
resentments toward Boston that go back past the city's involvement in 
the civil rights movement of the 1960s all the way back to the 
abolitionists who helped kick-start the Civil War. And while the city's 
undeniable role in cutting-edge biotechnology has led to developments 
that have caused some anxiety elsewhere, at the same time, Harvard's 
president stands up in front of a conference on women and minorities in 
the sciences and "opens the debate" about whether some innate 
inferiority in women might possibly account for their 
underrepresentation in the math and science fields. Thus did Boston 
become the symbol not only of Frankensteinian genetic dabbling and of 
academic elitism, but also of hidebound academic sexism, and all at the 
same time. It's a not inconsiderable achievement.

Why do They hate Us?

Because We won't . . . shut . . . up.

It is a historical fact that, every decade or so, we generously offer up 
one of Us to be president of the United States. It is also historical 
fact that, with the exception of Jack Kennedy -- who was less from 
Boston than he was from Vegas, but never mind -- the country notably has 
declined the offer. First, there was Senator Edward Kennedy, whom 
Democrats around the country rejected in 1980 in favor of the hapless 
Jimmy Carter. Eight years later, Michael Dukakis got the nomination, 
only to have the country decide that he was less competent and 
(astonishingly) less charismatic than George H.W. Bush. Undaunted, Paul 
Tsongas tried for the nomination four years after Dukakis got it and, 
after a brief run of success, found himself the place horse behind Bill 
Clinton. And that, of course, brings us to the junior senator's 
unfortunate autumn of 2004. At the very least, the country seems to have 
decided that Massachusetts Democrats are the New Coke of national 
politics. You can spend all you want marketing them, but nobody's buying.

And then there is the great global theory of Boston that emerged last 
July, courtesy of Senator Rick Santorum, Republican of Pennsylvania. It 
seems that, back when the scandal of clergy sexual abuse was breaking, 
Santorum, a famously conservative Catholic, told a website: "When the 
culture is sick, every element in it becomes infected. While it is no 
excuse for this scandal, it is no surprise that Boston, a seat of 
academic, political, and cultural liberalism in America, lies at the 
center of the storm." Asked later by the Globe's Susan Milligan to 
explain his comments, Santorum refused to climb down.

"I was just saying that there's an attitude that is very open to sexual 
freedom that is more pre-dominant [in Boston]," Santorum told Milligan.

Boston, it seems, not only was to blame for wrecking the Catholic Church 
by exposing the crimes of its clergy, it also was to blame for wrecking 
the Catholic Church by creating an environment that led to those crimes 
in the first place. Which would certainly come as a surprise not only to 
the founding Puritans but also to the waves of Irish Catholics who came 
along later. In fact, it was one of the immigrant heirs, Attorney 
General Thomas Reilly, who summoned up some of Santorum's other erratic 
rhetorical forays in an op-ed that Reilly dispatched to a Pennsylvania 
newspaper.

"It's hard not to notice an elected official who publicly equates 
homosexuality with 'man on child' or 'man on dog' sex," Reilly wrote. 
"In today's media environment, the easy way to get attention is to be as 
outrageous as possible. That may be what Senator Santorum had in mind 
when he put Massachusetts and the victims of sexual abuse in his 
rhetorical cross hairs."

No telling how it played in Altoona or Scranton.

But, rest assured, at least some people wanted Us to, well, shut up.

"In Boston they ask, how much does he know? In New York, how much is he 
worth? In Philadelphia, who were his parents?" -Mark Twain

What is it about this place?

Well, truth be told, we were insufferable from the start.

In 1630, John Winthrop sailed toward a countryside filled with rocks, 
distinctly non-arable farmland, and hostile indigenous tribes, and he 
saw for himself the biblical city on a hill. "When hee shall make us a 
prayse and glory, that men shall say of succeeding plantacions, the lord 
make it like that of New England," Winthrop said.

And, with that, we were off, having arrived quite full of ourselves, and 
spending the succeeding three centuries and change topping off the tank 
of our considerable self-esteem.

(In fact, Sun Belt Republicans who sneer at Massachusetts liberals ought 
to remember that it was from Winthrop that Ronald Reagan's staff copped 
old Dutch's tear-dimmed paean to the "shining city on the hill." And 
you're welcome, too.)

Much of the city's pride in itself, however, came from a university 
founded on the other side of the Charles. Harvard always has provided 
Boston with a healthy portion of the city's intellectual ego, daunting 
even as formidable an intellect as Benjamin Franklin. Writing in The 
Virginia Quarterly Review, Lewis Simpson points out that, in one of his 
famous letters as "Silence Dogood," Franklin described a dream in which 
learning is set free from the restrictions of social and cultural class, 
a satire aimed at Harvard, which had declined to admit Franklin. Of 
course, in 1749, Franklin went on to establish what would become the 
University of Pennsylvania, which today regularly beats the living 
legacy out of Harvard in both football and basketball, so there we are.

Still, there never has been in Boston a conspicuous reticence about 
telling the rest of the country what to do. This came to some sort of a 
peak in the mid-19th century, when Boston became the center of the 
abolitionist movement. The apotheosis came on May 22, 1856, when, fed up 
at having his home state used in the same paragraph with the word 
"harlot," a South Carolina congressman named Preston Brooks walked into 
the chambers of the United States Senate and beat Massachusetts Senator 
Charles Sumner over his head with a cane.

"I don't want to get into the business of perception versus reality," 
says Horace Seldon, a Boston College faculty member who has been working 
on a retrospective on abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison for the Boston 
Public Library and the Museum of Afro-American History. "But," he says, 
"Boston really was seen as kind of the hotbed of abolition," especially 
in the South.

A LITTLE MORE THAN a year ago, Bobby Harrell was sitting with a 
boisterous claque of his fellow Gamecocks in a dead-plumb line straight 
away from the podium in Madison Square Garden, where the Republican 
National Convention was being brought to a respectable boil by Mitt 
Romney. The delegation from South Carolina -- where Harrell is the 
speaker of the House of Representatives -- lent an attentive ear and 
then mustered up some more-than-respectable applause for the handsome, 
Michigan-born, Mormon governor of Massachusetts.

"At the same time," Romney told the hall, "because every child deserves 
a mother and a father, we step forward by recognizing that marriage is 
between a man and a woman."

"The test for a guy from New England in South Carolina is always the 
cultural issues," Harrell said later. "I think we know the kinds of 
things he's been through up there."

So, after so many Massachusetts Democrats taking a run at the White 
House, why not a Massachusetts Republican? At the very least, they're, 
well, a novelty.

Nobody has been so securely caught in the brambles of local reputation 
over the past year as Romney has. He has hopscotched the country, often 
through its Southern latitudes, talking to the Republican base wherever 
it gathers. He told a South Carolina audience that, as a Republican in 
Massachusetts, he often feels like "a cattle rancher at a vegetarian 
convention." He has made Big Dig wisecracks in New Hampshire, and he's 
jabbed at John Kerry's suntan. More seriously, he's told audiences in 
Salt Lake City that the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court's decision 
legalizing gay marriage engaged the possibility of "the collapse of the 
family here at home" and, in Missouri, he denounced the cloning of human 
beings for research purposes as "simply wrong," which, while not 
altogether an extreme position, did put Romney's bona fides at stake 
with Massachusetts's lucrative biotechnology industry.

He's already banked favorable pieces in both the National Review and The 
Atlantic Monthly, the latter a magazine that recently abandoned Boston 
for Washington in much the same way that Romney seems to be doing. In 
short, he is running for president in 2008 as hard as anyone is right 
now. Of course, local Democrats have flown into high dudgeon about the 
incumbent governor pulling a Preston Brooks and taking a cane -- however 
figuratively and/or jovially -- to the state's noggin. Treasurer Tim 
Cahill was agog, and Reilly, perhaps warming up for his bout against 
Santorum, and certainly warming up for a 2006 gubernatorial campaign, 
publicly fumed.

"I probably got the best perspective of how the state's perceived, 
because I was in the consulting industry and the investment industry," 
Romney explains in a recent interview. "I don't hear as much as the 
governor, because people tend to be more polite. The negatives we have 
is that we had a team that couldn't win the World Series, so we fixed 
that, and lousy weather, and the cost of living, which is all about housing.

"People do recognize that we have been the place where gay marriage was 
established, and the place from where the expansion of cloning has 
emanated, and that, in some respects, has led to a backlash against us 
in other states. The president, in a speech or two, has mentioned 
Massachusetts in that regard."

And, of course, Romney has, as well. On November 10, as part of 
officially not running for president, Romney gave a speech in Washington 
to the Federalist Society, an influential group of very conservative 
lawyers, where he shared the stage with, among others, Karl Rove, the 
prosecutor-beset White House political boss. In the speech, to 
considerable applause, Romney again condemned the Supreme Judicial Court 
for overreaching in its decision to legalize same-sex marriage in 2004. 
However, what stuck in the public mind was the introduction of Romney 
delivered by Federalist Society board member Gerald Walpin, a lawyer 
from New York.

(A New Yorker? That figures.)

"Today, when most of the country thinks of who controls Massachusetts," 
Walpin said, "I think the modern-day KKK comes to mind -- the 
Kennedy-Kerry Klan."

And, well, wow.

Romney, who, reports said, chuckled at the remark by Walpin, whom he 
thanked for a "generous introduction," spent the next few days backing 
and filling and deploring. For his part, Walpin was unrepentant.

"Certain people in Massachusetts," Walpin told WBZ radio, "have no sense 
of humor."

Us?

You have to be joking.

"I guess God made Boston on a wet Sunday." -- Raymond Chandler

Pat Moscaritolo is having none of it. People love us, he tells you. 
L-o-v-e us, despite what the court said about marriage, and what Mitt 
said about the court, and what Rick Santorum said about the state, and 
what Tom Reilly said about Santorum, and what Larry Summers said about 
women scientists, and despite whatever it is that our scientists are 
cooking up in the labs over there around Kendall Square, and all the 
rest of it. And he's even saying it in the face of the fact that, in an 
annual reader survey by Conde Nast Traveller, Boston has dropped from 
eighth to 10th among the nation's most desirable tourist destinations, a 
slippage that came to the attention of the Greater Boston Convention & 
Visitors Bureau, of which Moscaritolo is the president.

"People from out of town are surprised by how friendly Bostonians are," 
he says. "I can't necessarily prove this statistically but through items 
that come back to us about how friendly Bostonians are, because people 
had heard so much about how New Englanders are so standoffish. They find 
that revolutionary."

Which is a word, of course, at the very heart of why people continue to 
come here, no matter whether or not they think we're a collection of 
snobbish, liberal elitists who spread baby stem cells on croissants with 
our "life partners," who then go off and egg the residence of the 
president of Harvard. History is a permanent industry. It cannot be 
outsourced the presence of London Bridge in Arizona notwithstanding. 
Nobody is going to discover one day that the Boston Tea Party took place 
in Charlotte or that the Adams boys were a couple of Masons from Omaha. 
Bunker Hill is going to stay right where it is, thanks, and the bell in 
the Old North Church isn't likely ever to be wafting its chimes over the 
Bellagio and down the Strip any time soon.

"Awhile back, we bought some data," Moscaritolo says, "and we talked 
about things where Boston owns the brand. The first was history and the 
other was they all thought of Boston as a city with lots of parks, with 
lots of green and open spaces.

"Boston wasn't on everybody's must-do list the cities that appeared on 
the must-do lists, for glitter and glamour, were New York City and Los 
Angeles and Las Vegas. Then we started asking, 'Where's the real 
America?' That's when Boston started popping up. We own the brand on 
history and culture."

And, of course, it is exactly Moscaritolo's enthusiasm that sends those 
people living in The Other 49 straight up the wall. Boston is the Real 
America, you say? Who's getting married there again?

Boston owns the brand on history, you say?

Well, let's see how that helps all those candidates you keep running 
past us every seven or eight years.

And, of course, in reply, we get our own backs up all over again, and we 
give them the one irrefutable answer that's always been immediately at hand.

You think we're bad?

Hey, at least we're not New York.

Works every time, too.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/magazine/articles/2005/12/18/why_do_they_hate_us/
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Sun Dec 25 07:09:43 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Sun Dec 25 07:24:31 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Order in the court,
 Iraqi style - Michael P. Scharf - Boston Globe Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43AEB637.5080406@comcast.net>


  Order in the court, Iraqi style

By Michael P. Scharf  |  December 25, 2005  |  The Boston Globe

THE TREND in press and broadcast commentary about the Iraqi High 
Tribunal has been to describe the proceedings as a judicial train wreck, 
presided over by a weak judge who has lost control of the courtroom. But 
this characterization is based on several glaring misconceptions about 
the tribunal. As an expert in war crimes trials who trained the Saddam 
Hussein trial judges and heads up the tribunal's Academic Consortium, I 
want to take this opportunity to clear the record before the myths 
become set in stone.

Americans viewing the gavel-to-gavel broadcasts of the Hussein trial 
must recognize that this is an Iraqi tribunal, though it employs the 
definitions of crimes and the due-process rights developed by the 
international criminal tribunals. In the Iraqi legal tradition, lawyers 
employ a far more boisterous courtroom demeanor than we are used to, 
often shouting at opposing counsel, the witnesses, and the judges. In 
addition, under the Iraqi Civil Law Inquisitorial system, the defendants 
as well as their lawyers are permitted to address the court and the 
witnesses. Therefore, presiding Judge Rizgar Mohammed Amin is not losing 
control of his courtroom when he permits this conduct; rather he is 
conducting the trial in accordance with the system under which he has 
worked as a judge for 30 years.

Far from a train wreck, in just five trial days, the prosecutor has 
completed an opening statement and the judges have taken testimony from 
nine witnesses, a very efficient pace even by American judicial 
standards. With 40 witnesses still to go, the prosecution has already 
proven the scale of the atrocities, the direct involvement of several of 
Hussein's co-defendants, and the command hierarchy, all the elements 
necessary for a conviction in this case.

It was a terrible tragedy that two of the defense attorneys (who had 
refused the government's offer of security) were killed just after the 
trial began. But Amin succeeded in crafting a compromise under which the 
defense counsel have been assigned personal body guards of their 
choosing, and their families have been moved out of the country for 
their protection, which should ensure their safety for the remainder of 
the trial.

As to who is winning the battle of wills between Hussein and Amin, the 
public needs to know that Hussein's disruptive and disrespectful conduct 
is a common defense tactic, not just in international trials or Iraqi 
trials, but also in high-profile domestic trials even in the United 
States. Perhaps the most notable example was the infamous Chicago Seven 
Trial, in which Abbie Hoffman, Bobby Seale, and other leaders of the 
antiwar movement employed every gimmick imaginable to disrupt their 
trial for conspiring to cause riots during the 1968 Democratic National 
Convention in Chicago. It is no coincidence that Hussein's American 
lawyer, Ramsey Clark, had been an adviser to the defense team in the 
Chicago Seven trial.

It is also noteworthy that Hussein's most outrageous outbursts followed 
the emotionally compelling testimony of the first female witness to 
recount Hussein's atrocities. Hussein knew that her tearful presentation 
could be extremely damaging to his standing among Iraqi Sunnis unless he 
could find a way to quickly distract media and public attention from it. 
So he told the judge to ''go to hell," and announced that he was 
boycotting the reminder of the trial.

Consistent with international standards of due process, Amin could have 
Hussein hauled into the courtroom and placed in a glass booth, as Adolf 
Eichmann was at his trial in Israel, to prevent him from interrupting 
the trial with outbursts. But that would only add to the appearance of 
injustice, which Amin is trying to avoid. So when Hussein chooses to 
''boycott" the trial, Amin has arranged for Hussein to follow the 
proceedings by video link from the detention center, an approach 
consistent with international standards that the Rwanda tribunal and 
special court for Sierra Leone have employed. Not surprisingly, 
Hussein's boycott was shortlived, as he realized he could score more 
points from within the courtroom.

Amin may be portrayed in the Western media as an ineffectual judge, but 
in Iraq he is getting high marks for the conduct of the trial, 
especially for his judicial temperament.

Michael Scharf is professor of law and director of the International Law 
Center at Case Western Reserve University School of Law.  

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/12/25/order_in_the_court_iraqi_style/
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From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Sun Dec 25 07:36:33 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (mblaxill@yahoo.com)
Date: Sun Dec 25 07:48:02 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: U.S., Citing Abuse in Iraqi Prisons,
	Holds Detainees
Message-ID: <20051225153633.29FA3249D81@lax-gw08.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: mblaxill@yahoo.com.

this is rich...


INTERNATIONAL / MIDDLE EAST | December 25, 2005
U.S., Citing Abuse in Iraqi Prisons, Holds Detainees
By ERIC SCHMITT and THOM SHANKER
The military will not turn over detainees to Iraq until officials are satisfied that Iraqis are meeting U.S. standards.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/25/international/middleeast/25detain.html?emc=eta1



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From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Sun Dec 25 07:39:32 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (mblaxill@yahoo.com)
Date: Sun Dec 25 07:50:58 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: California Demands Repairs to Software for
	Voting Machines
Message-ID: <20051225153932.31BFE13B747@lax-gw04.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: mblaxill@yahoo.com.

NATIONAL | December 25, 2005
California Demands Repairs to Software for Voting Machines
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Software problems with vote counts and verification surfaced in the state's special election in November.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/25/national/25vote.html?emc=eta1



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one Best Picture.  What did the original New York
Times movie reviews have to say about these Oscar
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From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Sun Dec 25 07:46:17 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (mblaxill@yahoo.com)
Date: Sun Dec 25 07:57:40 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Whose Economy Is It, Anyway?
Message-ID: <20051225154617.CB16611F895@lax-gw07.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: mblaxill@yahoo.com.

OPINION | December 25, 2005
Editorial: Whose Economy Is It, Anyway?

As polls registered public discontent with the economy earlier this month, back-to-back government reports showed strong economic growth and respectable job creation.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/25/opinion/25sun2.html?emc=eta1




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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Sun Dec 25 16:30:39 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Sun Dec 25 16:42:07 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: The Agency That Could Be Big Brother
Message-ID: <20051226003039.5602624AE99@lax-gw02.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: ialterman@nyc.rr.com.

[Still not receiving Civic mail; not sure if this was sent]


WEEK IN REVIEW | December 25, 2005
Private Lives: The Agency That Could Be Big Brother
By JAMES BAMFORD
The National Security Agency was created in absolute secrecy in 1952. Today, it is the largest intelligence agency.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/25/weekinreview/25bamford.html?emc=eta1



----------------- Advertisement --------------------------

The Academy loved these movies enough to name each
one Best Picture.  What did the original New York
Times movie reviews have to say about these Oscar
winning films?  
Go to the Best Pictures review archive:

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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Sun Dec 25 16:31:06 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Sun Dec 25 16:42:30 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Trust and the Voting Machine (5 Letters)
Message-ID: <20051226003106.A106624AF78@lax-gw02.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: ialterman@nyc.rr.com.

What we're saying...


OPINION | December 25, 2005
Trust and the Voting Machine (5 Letters)

To the Editor:.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/25/opinion/l25vote.html?emc=eta1




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From swiggard at comcast.net  Sun Dec 25 18:03:58 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Sun Dec 25 18:18:53 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] MUST READ: 'Never Before!' Our Amnesiac Torture Debate -
 Naomi Klein - The Nation Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43AF4F8E.4060402@comcast.net>

This article can be found on the web at
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20051226/klein

------------------------------------------------------------------------

by Naomi Klein


    'Never Before!' Our Amnesiac Torture Debate

[from the December 26, 2005 issue]

It was the "Mission Accomplished" of George W. Bush's second term, and 
an announcement of that magnitude called for a suitably dramatic 
location. But what was the right backdrop for the infamous "We do not 
torture" declaration? With characteristic audacity, the Bush team 
settled on downtown Panama City.

It was certainly bold. An hour and a half's drive from where Bush stood, 
the US military ran the notorious School of the Americas from 1946 to 
1984, a sinister educational institution that, if it had a motto, might 
have been "We do torture." It is here in Panama and, later, at the 
school's new location in Fort Benning, Georgia, where the roots of the 
current torture scandals can be found. According to declassified 
training manuals, SOA students--military and police officers from across 
the hemisphere--were instructed in many of the same "coercive 
interrogation" techniques that have since migrated to Guant?namo and Abu 
Ghraib: early morning capture to maximize shock, immediate hooding and 
blindfolding, forced nudity, sensory deprivation, sensory overload, 
sleep and food "manipulation," humiliation, extreme temperatures, 
isolation, stress positions--and worse. In 1996 President Clinton's 
Intelligence Oversight Board admitted that US-produced training 
materials condoned "execution of guerrillas, extortion, physical abuse, 
coercion and false imprisonment."

Some of the Panama school's graduates returned to their countries to 
commit the continent's greatest war crimes of the past half-century: the 
murders of Archbishop Oscar Romero and six Jesuit priests in El 
Salvador, the systematic theft of babies from Argentina's "disappeared" 
prisoners, the massacre of 900 civilians in El Mozote in El Salvador and 
military coups too numerous to list here. Suffice it to say that 
choosing Panama to declare "We do not torture" is a little like dropping 
by a slaughterhouse to pronounce the United States a nation of vegetarians.

And yet when covering the Bush announcement, not a single mainstream 
news outlet mentioned the sordid history of its location. How could 
they? To do so would require something totally absent from the current 
debate: an admission that the embrace of torture by US officials long 
predates the Bush Administration and has in fact been integral to US 
foreign policy since the Vietnam War.

It's a history that has been exhaustively documented in an avalanche of 
books, declassified documents, CIA training manuals, court records and 
truth commissions. In his upcoming book A Question of Torture, Alfred 
McCoy synthesizes this unwieldy cache of evidence, producing an 
indispensable and riveting account of how monstrous CIA-funded 
experiments on psychiatric patients and prisoners in the 1950s turned 
into a template for what he calls "no-touch torture," based on sensory 
deprivation and self-inflicted pain. McCoy traces how these methods were 
field-tested by CIA agents in Vietnam as part of the Phoenix program and 
then imported to Latin America and Asia under the guise of police 
training programs.

It's not only apologists for torture who ignore this history when they 
blame abuses on "a few bad apples"--so too do many of torture's most 
prominent opponents. Apparently forgetting everything they once knew 
about US cold war misadventures, a startling number have begun to 
subscribe to an antihistorical narrative in which the idea of torturing 
prisoners first occurred to US officials on September 11, 2001, at which 
point the interrogation methods used in Guant?namo apparently emerged, 
fully formed, from the sadistic recesses of Dick Cheney's and Donald 
Rumsfeld's brains. Up until that moment, we are told, America fought its 
enemies while keeping its humanity intact.

The principal propagator of this narrative (what Garry Wills termed 
"original sinlessness") is Senator John McCain. Writing recently in 
Newsweek on the need for a ban on torture, McCain says that when he was 
a prisoner of war in Hanoi, he held fast to the knowledge "that we were 
different from our enemies...that we, if the roles were reversed, would 
not disgrace ourselves by committing or approving such mistreatment of 
them." It is a stunning historical distortion. By the time McCain was 
taken captive, the CIA had already launched the Phoenix program and, as 
McCoy writes, "its agents were operating forty interrogation centers in 
South Vietnam that killed more than twenty thousand suspects and 
tortured thousands more," a claim he backs up with pages of quotes from 
press reports as well as Congressional and Senate probes.

Does it somehow lessen the horrors of today to admit that this is not 
the first time the US government has used torture to wipe out its 
political opponents--that it has operated secret prisons before, that it 
has actively supported regimes that tried to erase the left by dropping 
students out of airplanes? That, at home, photographs of lynchings were 
traded and sold as trophies and warnings? Many seem to think so. On 
November 8 Democratic Congressman Jim McDermott made the astonishing 
claim to the House of Representatives that "America has never had a 
question about its moral integrity, until now." Molly Ivins, expressing 
her shock that the United States is running a prison gulag, wrote that 
"it's just this one administration...and even at that, it seems to be 
mostly Vice President Dick Cheney." And in the November issue of 
Harper's, William Pfaff argues that what truly sets the Bush 
Administration apart from its predecessors is "its installation of 
torture as integral to American military and clandestine operations." 
Pfaff acknowledges that long before Abu Ghraib, there were those who 
claimed that the School of the Americas was a "torture school," but he 
says that he was "inclined to doubt that it was really so." Perhaps it's 
time for Pfaff to have a look at the SOA textbooks coaching illegal 
torture techniques, all readily available in both Spanish and English, 
as well as the hair-raising list of SOA grads.

Other cultures deal with a legacy of torture by declaring "Never again!" 
Why do so many Americans insist on dealing with the current torture 
crisis by crying "Never Before"? I suspect it has to do with a sincere 
desire to convey the seriousness of this Administration's crimes. And 
the Bush Administration's open embrace of torture is indeed 
unprecedented--but let's be clear about what is unprecedented about it: 
not the torture but the openness. Past administrations tactfully kept 
their "black ops" secret; the crimes were sanctioned but they were 
practiced in the shadows, officially denied and condemned. The Bush 
Administration has broken this deal: Post-9/11, it demanded the right to 
torture without shame, legitimized by new definitions and new laws.

Despite all the talk of outsourced torture, the Bush Administration's 
real innovation has been its in-sourcing, with prisoners being abused by 
US citizens in US-run prisons and transported to third countries in US 
planes. It is this departure from clandestine etiquette, more than the 
actual crimes, that has so much of the military and intelligence 
community up in arms: By daring to torture unapologetically and out in 
the open, Bush has robbed everyone of plausible deniability.

For those nervously wondering if it is time to start using alarmist 
words like totalitarianism, this shift is of huge significance. When 
torture is covertly practiced but officially and legally repudiated, 
there is still the hope that if atrocities are exposed, justice could 
prevail. When torture is pseudo-legal and when those responsible merely 
deny that it is torture, what dies is what Hannah Arendt called "the 
juridical person in man"; soon enough, victims no longer bother to 
search for justice, so sure are they of the futility (and danger) of 
that quest. This impunity is a mass version of what happens inside the 
torture chamber, when prisoners are told they can scream all they want 
because no one can hear them and no one is going to save them.

In Latin America the revelations of US torture in Iraq have not been met 
with shock and disbelief but with powerful d?j? vu and reawakened fears. 
Hector Mondragon, a Colombian activist who was tortured in the 1970s by 
an officer trained at the School of the Americas, wrote: "It was hard to 
see the photos of the torture in Iraq because I too was tortured. I saw 
myself naked with my feet fastened together and my hands tied behind my 
back. I saw my own head covered with a cloth bag. I remembered my 
feelings--the humiliation, pain." Dianna Ortiz, an American nun who was 
brutally tortured in a Guatemalan jail, said, "I could not even stand to 
look at those photographs...so many of the things in the photographs had 
also been done to me. I was tortured with a frightening dog and also 
rats. And they were always filming."

Ortiz has testified that the men who raped her and burned her with 
cigarettes more than 100 times deferred to a man who spoke Spanish with 
an American accent whom they called "Boss." It is one of many stories 
told by prisoners in Latin America of mysterious English-speaking men 
walking in and out of their torture cells, proposing questions, offering 
tips. Several of these cases are documented in Jennifer Harbury's 
powerful new book, Truth, Torture, and the American Way.

Some of the countries that were mauled by US-sponsored torture regimes 
have tried to repair their social fabric through truth commissions and 
war crimes trials. In most cases, justice has been elusive, but past 
abuses have been entered into the official record and entire societies 
have asked themselves questions not only about individual responsibility 
but collective complicity. The United States, though an active 
participant in these "dirty wars," has gone through no parallel process 
of national soul-searching.

The result is that the memory of US complicity in far-away crimes 
remains fragile, living on in old newspaper articles, out-of-print books 
and tenacious grassroots initiatives like the annual protests outside 
the School of the Americas (which has been renamed but remains largely 
unchanged). The terrible irony of the anti-historicism of the current 
torture debate is that in the name of eradicating future abuses, these 
past crimes are being erased from the record. Every time Americans 
repeat the fairy tale about their pre-Cheney innocence, these already 
hazy memories fade even further. The hard evidence still exists, of 
course, carefully archived in the tens of thousands of declassified 
documents available from the National Security Archive. But inside US 
collective memory, the disappeared are being disappeared all over again.

This casual amnesia does a profound disservice not only to the victims 
of these crimes but also to the cause of trying to remove torture from 
the US policy arsenal once and for all. Already there are signs that the 
Administration will deal with the current torture uproar by returning to 
the cold war model of plausible deniability. The McCain amendment 
protects every "individual in the custody or under the physical control 
of the United States Government"; it says nothing about torture training 
or buying information from the exploding industry of for-profit 
interrogators. And in Iraq the dirty work is already being handed over 
to Iraqi death squads, trained by US commanders like Jim Steele, who 
prepared for the job by setting up similarly lawless units in El 
Salvador. The US role in training and supervising Iraq's Interior 
Ministry was forgotten, moreover, when 173 prisoners were recently 
discovered in a Ministry dungeon, some tortured so badly that their skin 
was falling off. "Look, it's a sovereign country. The Iraqi government 
exists," Rumsfeld said. He sounded just like the CIA's William Colby, 
who when asked in a 1971 Congressional probe about the thousands killed 
under Phoenix--a program he helped launch--replied that it was now 
"entirely a South Vietnamese program."

And that's the problem with pretending that the Bush Administration 
invented torture. "If you don't understand the history and the depths of 
the institutional and public complicity," says McCoy, "then you can't 
begin to undertake meaningful reforms." Lawmakers will respond to 
pressure by eliminating one small piece of the torture 
apparatus--closing a prison, shutting down a program, even demanding the 
resignation of a really bad apple like Rumsfeld. But, McCoy says, "they 
will preserve the prerogative to torture."

The Center for American Progress has just launched an advertising 
campaign called "Torture is not US." The hard truth is that for at least 
five decades it has been. But it doesn't have to be.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20051226/klein
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From ean at sbcglobal.net  Sun Dec 25 13:14:54 2005
From: ean at sbcglobal.net (ean@sbcglobal.net)
Date: Sun Dec 25 19:34:43 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] more scrooge; refugees at xmas;
	a little down in Bethlehem
Message-ID: <E1Eqix0-0005KN-Da@smtpauth04.mail.atl.earthlink.net>

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/25/opinion/25sun3.html?th&emc=th

A Chilling Departure From the Capitol
NY Timed Editorial: December 25, 2005

One of the shabbiest shell games of the year was played out in the closing
hours of Congress in its now-you-see-it, now-you-don't offering of some
badly needed winter heating aid to the nation's working poor. The
climactic moment occurred when Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska, huckstering
his most treasured goal, tried to sell oil drilling in his state's
pristine wildlife preserve by promising it would help finance a long list
of shoppers' bonuses for his colleagues: extra money for flu vaccine,
hurricane reconstruction, first-responder radios and - if you vote yes
right away - $2 billion in extra heating aid for the poor this cold
winter.

Mr. Stevens's cunning warning was that all those extras would die on the
vine unless Alaska drilling was approved. His cynical flimflammery was
deservedly rebuffed as enough opponents stood firm against the oil
drilling. And soon enough the word went round that things like flu vaccine
and hurricane aid were not endangered after all.

Not so the extra fuel aid for low-income families. There was a heating
supplement tied to the Alaska proposal, as Mr. Stevens promised. But there
was also a separate $2 billion appropriated for the same purpose elsewhere
in the legislation - unconnected to the Alaska floor machinations - that
somehow was struck from the final bill as lawmakers rushed to recess.
Malice? Who can say? Obviously the poor can't afford a campaign donation
PAC to catch Congress's attention for an answer.

The government's home heating supplement now stands at a half or less of
what the poor will need if predictions of a harsh winter pan out and fuel
bills increase 25 percent. Various studies have established that, in a
pinch, the poor scrimp on food purchases in order to meet heating bills.
Yet Congress's stinginess is being compounded by the administration's
recent decision to reject a request from New York and several other states
to increase food stamp outlays to the poor as fuel bills mount.

Lawmakers insist that the $2 billion supplement technically had to be cut
- but may be restored yet again next month. Believe that and we have an
oil derrick to sell you in Alaska.

***

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/122405Z.shtml

Christmas in New Orleans
    By Fatima Shaik
    In These Times
    Thursday 22 December 2005

    Picture Santa's sled with a rolling kitchenette attached and you have
some idea about the size of a FEMA trailer. I came across a yard of them
when I got lost on the highway near Baton Rouge, where most of my family
evacuated out of New Orleans.

    The trailers are not the double-wides I imagined - but some are
festooned with lights and an artificial Christmas tree outside the door as
in a Bobbie Ann Mason short story. A FEMA trailer is more like a camper
that you'd attach with a hitch to your four-wheeler when you want to get
out of the city for the weekend. Tiny, but nonetheless a gift.

    As the rest of the country, children and adults alike, envision
Christmas with piles of presents from their favorite electronic and
clothing stores, the people of the Katrina diaspora are waking up daily
with thoughts of clean underwear, one comfortable chair and not being home
for the holidays. But they are trying to make it.

    In the town of Baker, the trailers sit row after incalculable row on a
dusty field isolated from the sleepy community. Baker is a town where Main
Street sits along the railroad tracks and leads from the interstate past
the chemical plant and the playground to the church and two roads named
Magnolia. An estimated 1,700 people live on the Baker plain. It is a good
mile from any shopping or familiar community life. The FEMA park is named
Renaissance Village, for the RVs as much as the hopes of their occupants.

    Other evacuees stay in temporary apartments and pile into houses
    around
Baton Rouge. One of my cousins hosted 70 people in her home in the days
after the hurricane.

    Now, life means close quarters, small irritations and long hugs with
    too
many memories of home. Evacuees send e-mails to each other with Christmas
poetry wistful for beignets, king cakes and burgers at Port of Call.
People who lived for their front porches and pecan trees are getting used
to seeing a clear, cold night sky.

    Like children making their wish lists to Santa, the evacuees are
    hoping
hard and wondering if they will ever regain shelter, sanity and a decent
future.

    The Christmas commerce that exists in the welcoming malls of the North
is a harsh contrast to the stores and hotels of New Orleans, that were
boarded up for protection and to keep out Katrina's homeless. People joke
about spending food stamps on Christmas candy or presents or seafood for
gumbo, and the reasons not to hoard instant noodles and canned goods. The
suddenly indigent now recognize the delicate balance between entitlement
and nutrition.

    The jokes these days are edgy. Once voting for governor was a choice
between the Klansman and the Crook. (Vote for the Crook, my folks advised
everyone.) Now, the joke is "Where's Waldo?," with bank officers and city
and government officials hard to find.

    Best friends and neighbors whose family connections extend for
generations now meet fleetingly before traveling to jobs in one city or
another. Relatives lose precious phone numbers and castigate themselves
for doing everything wrong. Those who escaped Katrina have not escaped
worry and longing.

    Going home for the holidays are mostly the elderly and infirm. Their
homecomings take place in downtown New Orleans at one of the three St.
Louis cemeteries, which hold some of the city's most permanent residents.

    Still, the survivors talk openly to strangers in crowded meeting
    halls.
People with dedication and sympathetic hearts are working and planning. As
in New Orleans' early days, crooks and futurists are finding commonalities
in notions of a new frontier. Individuals are washing their houses by cup
and spoon. They are teaching their children that kindness is sharing a
bottle of water and self-sufficiency is keeping some.

    When the nation emerges from its pile of gifts on Christmas morning
    and
picks up the newspaper or moves to the television, will Americans still
attend to the people of New Orleans? Or will Katrina's poor folk move back
toward the invisibility where they existed for so many years? The people
of south Louisiana may accept their lot or maybe disappointments will
fester. Let us hope that they bear no bitterness if America moves on.

    In poor Louisiana, the community of Katrina survivors is looking for
miracles. At this time of the year, they are finding a parallel to their
tragedy and hardship from long ago: There was no room at the inn for the
first Christmas and few places to rest their heads now for the people of
New Orleans.


    Fatima Shaik is the author of four books set in Louisiana and a former
reporter for the New Orleans Times-Picayune. She currently teaches at
Saint Peter's College and is completing a non-fiction book about the
Societe d'Economie, a black benevolent association that worked in her
neighborhood for more than 100 years.

***

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/2005122
4/BE
TH LEHEM24/Front/Idx

Globe and Mail    Saturday, December 24, 2005 Page A1

Wall casts shadow over Bethlehem
By Mark MacKinnon

Bethlehem, West Bank -- These should be the most festive of times in what
is, for many, among the holiest of places. Instead, the mood in Bethlehem
in the lead-up to Christmas has had a pall cast over it by the latest
growth in what residents here loathingly refer to as "the wall."

"Look around. It's just a few days before Christmas and there's not 10
people in Bethlehem," sighed Naser Alawy, a souvenir vendor, waving his
hand around a deserted Manger Square.

After four consecutive holiday seasons blighted by the bloody intifada,
residents here had been hoping for an influx of tourists this Christmas
season to boost the city out of its prolonged economic slump.

Tourism across the quasi-border in Israel has increased dramatically this
year as the violence ebbs, and Bethlehem was beginning to see the benefits
of that in recent months.

More and more pilgrims were making the 15-minute drive south from
Jerusalem to the city where, according to the Bible, Jesus Christ was
born.

But on Nov. 15, Israel sealed one of the last remaining gaps in the
eight-metre-high concrete wall it is building along Bethlehem's northern
border.

Pilgrims trying to reach the holy city were directed to cross through a
new system of passport checks, iron turnstiles and metal detectors.

Individual travellers are now often forbidden from taking their vehicles
inside Bethlehem, and are forced instead to cross on foot through a
massive bunker that resembles a bomb shelter in shape, before hailing a
taxi on the other side.

Tour groups on buses only have to show their passports to enter, but upon
returning to Israel must cross on foot through the bunker and pass the
airport-style security. There's no apparent wheelchair accessibility.

"If Mary and Joseph were here today, they would go through the checkpoint
just like everybody else," Sister Erica, a nun, complained to a reporter
last week after making the crossing.

Based on anecdotal evidence, tourism in Bethlehem, already at a low ebb,
has taken a fresh hit since the new checkpoint began operating. Many shop
owners in the city said last week that business was so bad that they
wouldn't bother opening until right before Christmas Day. Hotel owners
complained that tourists who had made reservations to stay overnight in
the city were returning to Jerusalem ahead of schedule, worried they would
have trouble crossing back into Israel if they stay too long.

"It's a tragedy. People shouldn't be building walls here, they should be
building bridges," said Xavier de Dumast, a 45-year-old French pilgrim who
recently visited the Church of the Nativity. "I was here five years ago,
and it was alive, people were everywhere. Now it's completely dead. It's a
prison."

The checkpoint is actually situated well inside the Bethlehem governorate,
slicing about 750 acres of agricultural land away from the city.
Everything on the other side, including thick olive groves that numerous
Bethlehemites depended on for their livelihoods, is now considered by
Israel to be part of an expanded Jerusalem.

A section of the security barrier juts deep into Bethlehem so that
Rachel's Tomb, a site holy to Judaism as the resting place of Jacob's
wife, is on the Israeli side of the wall, making it easily accessible to
tourists and effectively annexing it to Israel. Under the 1994 Oslo
Accords, Rachel's Tomb and the entire Bethlehem governorate were supposed
to be under full Palestinian control.

The Bethlehem security terminal is the first to open of 16 such crossings
that Israel plans to build in the highly controversial, 680-kilometre-long
West Bank barrier. The others are supposed to be ready by early 2006.

Israel says the new security measures are necessary because, although
Bethlehem has a reputation as one of the quieter parts of the West Bank,
suicide bombers from other parts had taken advantage of the old,
relatively loose crossing at Bethlehem to reach Israeli cities.

Highlighting that the city is not as calm as it often seems, masked gunmen
last week took over Bethlehem city hall, which sits right on Manger
Square, in a dispute over unpaid salaries.

"The reason why we have the security fence and the crossing there is
strictly for security alone. A much lower level of attacks has come from
Bethlehem since the fence was built there," said Israeli police spokesman
Mickey Rosenthal.

However, under pressure from Christian groups and tour operators -- and
aware that they risked a public-relations disaster -- the Israeli military
announced on Dec. 19 that it was temporarily easing the crossing by
requiring only randomly selected tourists to go through the new terminal.

The lighter regime would apply only until the end of the Christmas season,
an army spokesman said, when the stricter rules would be re-applied.

The Vatican was among those who complained. In his traditional
pre-Christmas press conference, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem Michel
Sabbah, the head of the Roman Catholic Church in the Holy Land, said the
wall around Bethlehem had turned the city into a "big prison."

A Palestinian Authority official keeping tabs on the number of foreign
tourists in town said less than 100 people passed through the church's
three-foot-high front entrance on the day Mr. de Dumast was there, well
below the normal daily range of 200 to 800 tourists.

Jack Elias, owner of the Star Hotel in Bethlehem, blames the new security
measures for the loss of a group of 70 Czech tourists that left his hotel
just four days into a seven-day reservation. He said his guests told him
they felt uncomfortable feeling so sealed off from Jerusalem and the
airport in Tel Aviv.

"In the future, tourists will only visit for the day. They will not stay
overnight in Bethlehem," Mr. Elias predicted.

On the main shopping street connecting Manger Square to the Milk Grotto
chapel, only two of 25 souvenir stores on one stretch were open on the
same afternoon. Nearly every family in Bethlehem is in some way reliant on
the tourist trade for income, so the economic blow has been a heavy one
for the city's 30,000 residents.

Despite the gloom, Manger Square was nonetheless decked out with glowing
stars and images of Santa Claus. The mayor said he is planning a
celebration in spite of it all.

"This is for the citizens of Bethlehem, so that they enjoy Christmas like
anywhere else, and to tell the tourists to come to Bethlehem and enjoy the
holy city," said Mayor Victor Batarseh.

But for all his attempts at good cheer, he confessed the situation was
becoming increasingly desperate. "We need tourists, we need pilgrims to
come to Bethlehem," he said plaintively. "We need them to break this wall,
not with violence, but with their mass crossing
-- 
You are currently on Mha Atma's Earth Action Network email list, 
option D (up to 3 emails/day).  To be removed, or to switch options 
(option A - 1x/week, option B - 3/wk, option C - up to 1x/day, option D - 
up to 3x/day) please reply and let us know!  If someone forwarded you 
this email and you want to be on our list, send an email to 
ean@sbcglobal.net and tell us which option you'd like.


"A war of aggression is the supreme international crime." -- Robert Jackson,
 former U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice and Nuremberg prosecutor

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From drmhaatma at yahoo.com  Sun Dec 25 13:36:44 2005
From: drmhaatma at yahoo.com (Mha Atma Khalsa)
Date: Sun Dec 25 22:07:54 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Iraq: Game Over
Message-ID: <E1EqlLM-0006jf-4m@smtpauth02.mail.atl.earthlink.net>

 This is a rather dark article to send on  Christmas!  But, sigh, this is reality, and it is always better to  acknowledge and deal with reality than to live in and operate from  denial (which unfortunately is where our current leaders reside...)  --mha atma
  
  http://www.tompaine.com/articles/20051222/iraq_game_over.php
  
  Iraq: Game Over
  Robert Dreyfuss
  December 22, 2005
  
              
  
  Robert Dreyfuss is the author of  Devil's Game: How the United  States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam  (Henry  Holt/Metropolitan Books, 2005). Dreyfuss is a freelance writer based in  Alexandria, Va., who specializes in politics and national security  issues. He is a contributing editor at The Nation, a contributing  writer at Mother Jones, a senior correspondent for The American  Prospect, and a frequent contributor to Rolling Stone.He can be reached  at his website: www.robertdreyfuss.com.
  
  The last hope for peace in Iraq was stomped to death this week. The  victory of the Shiite religious coalition in the December 15 election  hands power for the next four years to a fanatical band of  fundamentalist Shiite parties backed by Iran, above all to the Supreme  Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI). Quietly backed by  His Malevolence, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, sustained by a 20,000-strong  paramilitary force called the Badr Brigade, and with both overt and  covert support from Iran's intelligence service and its Revolutionary  Guard corps, SCIRI will create a theocratic bastion state in its  southern Iraqi fiefdom and use its power in Baghdad to rule what's left  of the Iraqi state by force.
  
  The consequences of SCIRI's victory are manifold. But there is no  silver lining, no chance for peace talks among Iraq's factions, no  chance for international mediation. There is no centrist force that can  bridge the factional or sectarian divides. Next stop: civil war.
  
  There isn't any point in looking for silver linings in the catastrophic  Iraqi vote. The likely next prime minister, Adel Abdel Mahdi, is a  smooth-talking SCIRI thug. His boss, Abdel Aziz Hakim of SCIRI, is the  former commander of the Badr Brigade and a militant cleric who has  issued bloodthirsty calls for a no-holds-barred military solution to  the insurgency. The scores of secret torture prisons by the SCIRI-led  Iraqi ministry of the interior will proliferate, and SCIRI-led death  squads will start going down their lists of targets. The divisive,  sectarian constitution that was rammed down Iraq's throat in October by  the Shiite religious bloc will be preserved intact under the new,  "permanent government" of Iraq led by SCIRI.
  
  The Kurds, ensconced in northern Iraq, will retreat further into their  enclave, content to proceed step-by-step toward what they hope will be  a breakaway rump state. Earlier this year, after the January 31  transitional elections, the Kurds made their deal with the Shiite  devil, winning in exchange two vital (for them) points: that Iraq will  have a virtually nonexistent central government will power reserved for  the provincial regions, and that revenues from future Iraqi oil fields  will go to those regions, not to the state. All the Kurds want now is  to take over Kirkuk, which they will do with force, violence, and  ethnic cleansing aimed at Arab residents of the Kirkuk area.
  
  The Sunnis are already charging vote fraud, threatening to boycott or  withdraw from the new assembly, and openly predicting that Iraq will  now slide into civil war. There is virtually no combination of  political alliances now that can guarantee Sunnis a fair share of power  in the new Iraq. Every Sunni leader, from the most militant Baath Party  activist to the most conservative Sunni clergyman, knows that a regime  led by Hakim's SCIRI bloc will mean war. As a result, proponents of  cooperating with the new government will become fence-sitters, and  fence-sitters will join the resistance. The insurgency will continue,  and possibly strengthen.
  
  The more perceptive among U.S. intelligence officials and Iraq experts  know how to read the situation, and they mostly believe it is hopeless.  "I hate to say, 'Game over,'" says Wayne White, who led the State  Department's intelligence effort on Iraq until last spring. "But we've  lost it." There is no mechanism for the Sunnis now to restore a modicum  of balance in Iraq, and the Shiite religious parties have no incentive  to make significant concessions either to the Sunnis or to the  resistance, White says.
  
  Most worrying is the fact that centrist elements in Iraq?ranging from  the CIA's favorite candidate, Iyad Allawi, to the Pentagon's chosen  vehicle, Ahmed Chalabi?got blown away. Therefore, as I had hoped  earlier (and wrote, in this space, two weeks ago, in a piece called  "Iraq's Last Small Hope," and again, last week, in "Iraq's Tipping  Point"), any chance that someone like Allawi could emerge as a power  broker who could bridge the divide between religious Shiites and the  Sunni-led resistance is gone. The planned-for Arab League peace  conference, scheduled for late February or early March, likely won't  happen. Violence will intensify.
  
  For Bush, the results present an almost excruciatingly difficult  problem. The White House will begin to look ridiculous as it touts  Iraq's scandal-plagued, fraud-ridden election as the birth of  democracy, especially as a brutal Shiite theocracy begins to take  shape. The continuing resistance will make it impossible for the  president to cite progress in the war. When President Bush starts to  order a drawdown of U.S. forces in Iraq, as he must, he will not have  the convenience of a peaceful, stable Iraq to point to. And the rise of  Iran's power in Iraq presents another Rubik's Cube conundrum for the  president. Some eager neocons, of course, will start to argue that the  United States has no choice but to take the failed war in Iraq into  Iran, to batter those who torment the U.S. occupation in Iraq. For  others in the Bush administration, who at least live on planet earth,  the problem of Iranian power in Iraq vastly complicates their ability  to put a positive spin 
 on the
 Bush administration's Iraq project.
  
  The election disaster means that it is all the more important now for  the United States to open direct, public talks with the Iraqi  resistance, even if it means defying the Shiite religious-led regime.  It is the United States whose 160,000 troops prop up the Shiites in  power. Washington can no longer afford to give SCIRI and its junior  partner, Al Dawa, veto power over its ability to negotiate a ceasefire  with the opposition in order to pull out U.S. forces.
  
  But it also means that every day that the U.S. forces remain in Iraq,  the United States creates another day for the Shiite religious forces  to strengthen their hand, to build their militia, and to make plans for  cleansing Sunnis from majority Shiite areas. (It is, of course, with  the help of the U.S. army that the Shiite militias are being  incorporated into the new Iraqi army, unit by unit.) By getting out of  Iraq as soon as possible, Jack Murtha-style, the United States can at  the very least ensure that the Shiites do not grow all-powerful, and it  might prevent a further radicalization of the Sunni-led resistance.  When there are no good options, then prudence suggests that it's time  to choose the least bad one.
  
  
  

		
---------------------------------
Yahoo! Photos
 Ring in the New Year with Photo Calendars. Add photos, events, holidays, whatever.
		
---------------------------------
 Yahoo! DSL Something to write home about. Just $16.99/mo. or less
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From geomilman at milman.com  Mon Dec 26 00:29:27 2005
From: geomilman at milman.com (George R. Milman)
Date: Mon Dec 26 00:41:00 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Sheldon Drobny's Christmas Blog
Message-ID: <001401c609f6$7c2f3070$8c00a8c0@george>

The context in which Christianity, and thus Christmas, was formed was the
Roman Empire. The Romans honored Saturn, the ancient god of agriculture,
each year beginning on December 17. In a festival called Saturnalia, they
glorified past days when the god Saturn ruled. This festival lasted for
seven days and included the winter solstice which by the Julian calendar
fell on December 25.

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sheldon-drobny/origins-of-christmas_b_12862.ht
ml

 

 

 

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From barbarasiomos38 at msn.com  Mon Dec 26 01:45:13 2005
From: barbarasiomos38 at msn.com (Barbara Siomos)
Date: Mon Dec 26 01:56:43 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] "Peace on Earth"
Message-ID: <BAY114-DAV6D55FB9C606B71B20B836AB340@phx.gbl>

Subject: John Dear | "Peace on Earth" Means "No More War" 

t r u t h o u t | 12.25

Two great articles from Truthout..

Shocking to think of Jesus and His Family as Homeless Refugees, yet that is what they were.

peace,
barbara

John Dear | "Peace on Earth" Means "No More War"
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/122505A.shtml

John Dear reminds us that the story goes that when the nonviolent Jesus was born into abject poverty to homeless refugees on the outskirts of a brutal empire, angels appeared in the sky to impoverished shepherds singing, "Glory to God in the highest and peace on earth!" That child grew up to become, in Gandhi's words, "the greatest nonviolent resister in the history of the world," and was subsequently executed by the empire for his insistence on justice. This weekend, as tens of millions of Christians across the country celebrate the birth of the Prince of Peace, the US wages war in Iraq, Afghanistan, Colombia and elsewhere; crushes the hungry, homeless, elderly, imprisoned and refugee; and maintains the world's ultimate terrorist threat - its nuclear arsenal.


James Bamford | NSA, the Agency That Could Be Big Brother
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/122505Y.shtml

Deep in a remote, fog-layered hollow near Sugar Grove, W.Va., hidden by fortress-like mountains, sits the country's largest eavesdropping bug. Located in a "radio quiet" zone, the station's large parabolic dishes secretly and silently sweep in millions of private telephone calls and e-mail messages an hour.


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From swiggard at comcast.net  Mon Dec 26 05:12:53 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Mon Dec 26 05:37:40 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Scholar Stands by Post-9/11 Writings On Torture,
 Domestic Eavesdropping - Washington Post 
Message-ID: <43AFEC55.7010209@comcast.net>

Scholar Stands by Post-9/11 Writings On Torture, Domestic Eavesdropping
Former Justice Official Says He Was Interpreting Law, Not Making Policy

By Peter Slevin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, December 26, 2005; A03

John Yoo knows the epithets of the libertarians, the liberals and the 
lefties. Widely considered the intellectual architect of the most 
dramatic assertion of White House power since the Nixon era, he has seen 
constitutional scholars skewer his reasoning and students call for his 
ouster from the University of California at Berkeley.

Civil liberties advocates were appalled by a memo he helped draft on 
torture. The State Department's chief legal adviser at the time called 
his analysis of the Geneva Conventions "seriously flawed." Supreme Court 
Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote, in a critique of administration views 
espoused by Yoo, "a state of war is not a blank check for the President 
when it comes to the rights of the Nation's citizens."

Yoo has alienated so many influential opponents that he is considered 
unconfirmable for a judgeship or high office, not unlike a certain 
conservative jurist rejected by the Senate for the Supreme Court.

"Someone said to me that I was the Robert Bork of my generation," he 
reported the other day.

Yet Yoo, 38, an engaging and outspoken lifelong conservative who clerked 
for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, can be found at seminars and 
radio microphones, standing up for Bush administration legal arguments 
that will be studied for decades.

"The worst thing you could do, now that people are critical of your 
views, is to run and hide. I agree with the work I did. I have an 
obligation to explain it," Yoo said from his Berkeley office. "I'm one 
of the few people who is willing to defend decisions I made in government."

Those decisions, made when he was a mid-level Justice Department 
adviser, have been the most fiercely contested legal positions of the 
Bush presidency. Framing the battle against terrorism as a wartime 
emergency, Yoo redefined torture, reinterpreted the Constitution and 
classified as archaic the long-established humanitarian rules of the 
battlefield.

Yoo wrote a memo that said the White House was not bound by a federal 
law prohibiting warrantless eavesdropping on communications that 
originated or ended in the United States. When news of the program 
broke, members of both parties called for hearings.

Yoo believes he was correct, even if critics say the U.S. response to 
the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks "threatens the very idea of America," as one 
editorial said. "It would be inappropriate for a lawyer to say, 'The law 
means A, but I'm going to say B because to interpret it as A would 
violate American values,'" Yoo said. "A lawyer's job is if the law says 
A, the law says A."

How Yoo, who has never met President Bush or Vice President Cheney, came 
to be a principal interpreter of laws and the Constitution for the Bush 
team is a story rooted in his conservative convictions and a network of 
like-minded thinkers who helped him thrive.

"He has succeeded and won people over and advanced his ideas," said 
Manus Cooney, who hired Yoo on to the Judiciary Committee staff of Sen. 
Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) in 1995. "As far as conservative academics, I 
don't think there's anyone in the law whose contacts run deeper in the 
three branches, or higher."

Yoo traces his convictions in no small part to his parents, and Ronald 
Reagan. His father and mother are psychiatrists who grew up in Korea 
during the Japanese occupation and the Korean War. They emigrated in 
1967, when Yoo was 3 months old. They sought three things, he said: 
education, economic opportunity and democracy. They settled in 
Philadelphia because they admired Eugene Ormandy, then conductor of the 
Philadelphia Orchestra.

Coming of age in an anti-communist household, Yoo said, he associated 
strong opposition to communist rule with the Republican Party and was 
himself "attracted to Reagan's message." What he liked most in 
conservatism was "the grounding in reason and reasonableness."

Yoo attended Episcopal Academy, a private religious school where he 
studied history, Latin and Greek. Then came Harvard, where he discovered 
that many people he encountered "were very different-minded, who thought 
that conservatives were actually sort of stupid or backward." He studied 
diplomatic history and worked for the school newspaper, where in 1988 he 
wrote a presidential endorsement of George H.W. Bush rejected by the 
editorial board's liberal majority.

"It got even worse at law school," Yoo said, recalling the first meeting 
he attended at the Federalist Society, a national organization of 
conservatives and libertarians, which attracted all of nine people. 
Critical of some fellow students who, he said, considered abortion and 
affirmative action to be the era's most important questions, he settled 
on matters of war and peace.

With the help of his Federalist Society contacts, he landed a clerkship 
with U.S. Appeals Judge Laurence H. Silberman, known for his experience 
in national security issues. Soon after being hired at Berkeley, which 
Yoo described as the best school to offer him a tenure-track job, he 
left for the Supreme Court, where he clerked for Thomas and played 
squash with Justice Antonin Scalia.

Yoo reached the Judiciary Committee staff after Hatch began a search for 
bright, conservative up-and-comers. Cooney, the staff director, said Yoo 
maneuvered well: "His smarts are undeniable, but unlike others of 
similar or equal wattage, he has an appreciation for the political 
nature of D.C."

Returning to Berkeley, Yoo -- who had interned for the Wall Street 
Journal -- turned to his legal writings and op-eds. He earned tenure in 
1999.

Along the way, he became a regular at the conservative American 
Enterprise Institute in Washington, where he often found himself in sync 
with international law skeptic John R. Bolton, an ally of Cheney's and 
now ambassador to the United Nations. Yoo also testified to the GOP-led 
Florida legislature during the 2000 presidential recount.

Despite his rsum and connections, Yoo required a particular convergence 
for his views to become as influential as they did. He needed a 
well-placed position, a national crisis and a receptive audience. He 
quickly got all three.

Known for his belief in a strong presidency, he joined the Justice 
Department's Office of Legal Counsel, which advises the attorney general 
and the White House, in July 2001. Two months later came the terrorist 
attacks and the rush to respond. Soon, Yoo found his audience in the 
highest echelons of the White House, where the president and vice 
president already tended to see the courts, Congress and international 
conventions as constraints on the conduct of foreign affairs and 
national security.

"He was the right person in the right place at the right time," said 
Georgetown University's David Cole, a constitutional scholar and 
administration critic. "Here was someone who had made his career 
developing arguments for unchecked power, who could cut-and-paste from 
his law review articles into memos that essentially told the president, 
'You can do what you want.' "

In a series of opinions, Yoo argued that the Constitution grants the 
president virtually unhindered discretion in wartime. He said the fight 
against terrorism, with no fixed battlefield or uniformed enemy, was a 
new kind of war.

Two weeks after Sept. 11, Yoo said in a memo for the White House that 
the Constitution conferred "plenary," or absolute, authority to use 
force abroad, "especially in response to grave national emergencies 
created by sudden, unforeseen attacks on the people and territory of the 
United States."

In reasoning Bush cited last week in defending his decision to authorize 
warrantless wiretapping of U.S. citizens, Yoo's Sept. 25, 2001, memo 
said Congress granted the president great latitude on Sept. 14, 2001, 
when it supported the use of force in response to the attacks. The 
resolution specified the Sept. 11 plotters and their supporters.

"Nonetheless," the memo concluded, "the President's broad constitutional 
power to use military force to defend the Nation, recognized by the 
Joint Resolution itself, would allow the President to take whatever 
actions he deems appropriate to pre-empt or respond to terrorist threats 
from new quarters."

The majority view among constitutional scholars holds that the Framers 
purposely imposed checks on the executive branch, even in wartime, not 
least in reaction to the rule of Britain's King George III. On such 
issues, Yoo's critics contend, he went too far. "It's largely a 
misreading of original intent," Cole said. "The Framers, above all, were 
concerned about a strong executive."

An Aug. 1, 2002, memo on interrogation, written largely by Yoo, drew the 
most intense criticism. Saying the administration was not bound by 
federal anti-torture laws, it declared that, to be considered torture, 
techniques must produce lasting psychological damage or suffering 
"equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical 
injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even 
death."

Word of the memo sparked an outcry, causing the White House to back away.

"The idea that . . . Congress has no authority to impose limits on 
torture has little support in constitutional texts or history, or legal 
precedent," said University of Chicago law professor Cass Sunstein. Yet 
Sunstein, like many of Yoo's critics, called him "a very interesting and 
provocative scholar" who "doesn't deserve the demonization to which he 
has been subject."

Yoo thinks his critics should understand that he offered legal advice, 
while others made policy.

"I think people don't understand how difficult was the work we did, how 
difficult the questions, how recent the 9/11 attacks were," he said. 
"There was no book at the time you could open and say, 'under American 
law, this is what torture means.' "

"The lawyer's job is to say, 'This is what the law says and this is what 
you can't do,' " Yoo said. He advised the White House that the Geneva 
Conventions do not apply to al Qaeda or the terrorism fight, "but the 
president could say as a matter of policy we're going to apply them anyway."

Elisa Massimino, Washington director of Human Rights First, is among 
those who say Yoo deserves considerable blame. "The issues which have 
most disturbed Americans about the conduct of the executive branch in 
fighting terrorism can ultimately be traced to legal theories that he 
espoused in memos pushing the administration in that direction," she said.

Yoo draws inspiration from Thomas and Hatch, saying, "I've seen how 
they've persevered and still stand up for what they believe in and get 
their point across." It is a style affirmed by Bork, who wrote a glowing 
blurb for Yoo's new book, "The Powers of War and Peace."

"He's just being vilified. It's the usual conduct of business in this 
town right now," Bork said. "You argue your position. What else can you 
do? There's no tactic that can deflect criticism."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/25/AR2005122500570.html?referrer=email
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Mon Dec 26 05:17:13 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Mon Dec 26 05:38:15 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Champion Of Freedom? - Fred Hiatt - Washington Post Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43AFED59.2000407@comcast.net>

Champion Of Freedom?
Bush and the Year In Democracy

By Fred Hiatt
Monday, December 26, 2005; A39

In 2005, President Bush set before the nation the goal of "ending 
tyranny in our world." In 2006, he is scheduled to attend the first 
meeting of Group of Eight leaders in Russia, which spent this year 
positioning itself as a leader of the world's pro-tyranny camp.

At best, Bush's attendance in St. Petersburg in July will demonstrate 
the complexities of claiming freedom-promotion as the central goal of 
foreign policy. At worst, it will be seen as proof that Bush's 
commitment to liberty is highly situational.

Freedom House, a nonprofit organization that tracks trends in liberty 
more closely than anyone else, insists that 2005 actually was a pretty 
good year. There are 89 free countries, 58 partly free and 45 not free, 
by its tally. Trends were positive in 27 countries, negative in only 
nine: "The global picture thus suggests that the past year was one of 
the most successful for freedom since Freedom House began measuring 
world freedom in 1972," the organization maintained.

Maybe so. There were obvious bright spots: elections in Liberia and 
Iraq, the inauguration of a democratically chosen president in Ukraine, 
stirrings of political change in Egypt and the Palestinian Authority.

But even those bright spots had shadows. The gainers in Arab elections 
were Islamist parties that may or may not be committed to the democratic 
process. The elected government in Ukraine faced internal and external 
pressures. Liberia's president will need help from wealthier countries 
that she may not receive.

And there seemed to be plenty of dark spots without silver linings. Bush 
undermined his own credibility as a champion of freedom with his refusal 
to abjure torture, his purchasing of positive news in Iraq and his 
secret detention policies.

High oil prices meanwhile lubricated the foreign policies of autocrats 
from Venezuela to Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia to Azerbaijan. In Africa, 
Uganda's ruler, once seen as a hope of the continent, threw his likely 
electoral opponent in jail; just this past weekend, Egypt's craven 
leader did the same. Nigeria's elected president was reported to be 
flirting with tearing up his constitution to grab a third term.

In South America, another elected president, Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, 
consolidated one-party rule and moved to export his brand of populist 
autocracy to neighboring nations.

The Nelson Mandela of Asia, Burma's Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu 
Kyi, finished the year as she began it, under house arrest and cut off 
from the world by her country's military dictators. North Koreans 
remained imprisoned inside a totalitarian nightmare, and their immediate 
neighbors (South Korea, China, Russia) didn't seem to care much. The 
contradictions between China's economic growth and its lack of rule of 
law grew more acute -- but China's new-generation leaders, who many had 
hoped would promote political reform and freedom of expression, 
squelched them instead.

Russia, a major oil exporter, found its energy revenue sufficient to 
prop up friendly dictators and even to buy a German ex-chancellor. 
President Vladimir Putin at year's end was poised to stifle the last 
outpost of uncontrolled civil society, with a law regulating 
nongovernmental organizations. The president and his ruling clique of 
former KGB agents already had brought television, provincial government, 
business and parliament under their control.

And Putin was not only a non-democrat at home; he was an active 
anti-democrat in the world. He threatened to raise gas prices for 
Ukraine's democrats and lower them for Belarus's dictator. He embraced 
Uzbekistan's strongman for bloodily suppressing a Tiananmen-like 
demonstration. He orchestrated phony elections in war-ravaged Chechnya. 
He saw democracy as a threat, at home and abroad.

So how does he come to be hosting the Group of Eight -- what used to be 
known as the club of leading industrialized democracies? Bill Clinton, 
who pressed to expand what was then the G-7 to include Boris Yeltsin's 
Russia, said he offered membership so that Yeltsin "would agree to NATO 
expansion and the NATO-Russian partnership." And when finance ministers 
objected that Russia's shrunken economy didn't rate inclusion, Clinton 
argued that "being in it would symbolize Russia's importance to the 
future and strengthen Yeltsin at home."

Whatever the merits of those arguments at the time, the tactics didn't 
work. The prospect of membership in Western "clubs" isn't inducing much 
cooperation, and democracy was not given a chance to gel. Russia remains 
"important to the future," of course, but its economy is smaller than 
those of non-G-8 democracies India and Brazil, and certainly smaller 
than China's.

St. Petersburg is lovely in July, and a U.S. president has to maintain a 
relationship with Russia's leader, come what may. Still, maybe Bush 
ought to think about spending his summer holiday with a host who shares 
his freedom agenda. There ought to be plenty of options in the Group of 89.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/25/AR2005122500652.html?nav=hcmodule
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Mon Dec 26 05:15:21 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Mon Dec 26 05:38:38 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Bush Presses Editors on Security - Howard Kurtz -
 Washington Post Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43AFECE9.9060702@comcast.net>

Bush Presses Editors on Security

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, December 26, 2005; C01

President Bush has been summoning newspaper editors lately in an effort 
to prevent publication of stories he considers damaging to national 
security.

The efforts have failed, but the rare White House sessions with the 
executive editors of The Washington Post and New York Times are an 
indication of how seriously the president takes the recent reporting 
that has raised questions about the administration's anti-terror tactics.

Leonard Downie Jr., The Post's executive editor, would not confirm the 
meeting with Bush before publishing reporter Dana Priest's Nov. 2 
article disclosing the existence of secret CIA prisons in Eastern Europe 
used to interrogate terror suspects. Bill Keller, executive editor of 
the Times, would not confirm that he, publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. 
and Washington bureau chief Philip Taubman had an Oval Office sit-down 
with the president on Dec. 5, 11 days before reporters James Risen and 
Eric Lichtblau revealed that Bush had authorized eavesdropping on 
Americans and others within the United States without court orders.

But the meetings were confirmed by sources who have been briefed on them 
but are not authorized to comment because both sides had agreed to keep 
the sessions off the record. The White House had no comment.

"When senior administration officials raised national security questions 
about details in Dana's story during her reporting, at their request we 
met with them on more than one occasion," Downie says. "The meetings 
were off the record for the purpose of discussing national security 
issues in her story." At least one of the meetings involved John 
Negroponte, the director of national intelligence, and CIA Director 
Porter Goss, the sources said.

"This was a matter of concern for intelligence officials, and they 
sought to address their concerns," an intelligence official said. Some 
liberals criticized The Post for withholding the location of the prisons 
at the administration's request.

After Bush's meeting with the Times executives, first reported by 
Newsweek's Jonathan Alter, the president assailed the paper's piece on 
domestic spying, calling the leak of classified information "shameful." 
Some liberals, meanwhile, attacked the paper for holding the story for 
more than a year after earlier meetings with administration officials.

"The decision to hold the story last year was mine," Keller says. "The 
decision to run the story last week was mine. I'm comfortable with both 
decisions. Beyond that, there's just no way to have a full discussion of 
the internal procedural twists that media writers find so fascinating 
without talking about what we knew, when, and how -- and that I can't do."

Some Times staffers say the story was revived in part because of 
concerns that Risen is publishing a book on the CIA next month that will 
include the disclosures. But Keller told the Los Angeles Times: "The 
publication was not timed to the Iraqi election, the Patriot Act debate, 
Jim's forthcoming book or any other event."

Bought Off?

The admission by two columnists that they accepted payments from 
indicted Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff may be the tip of a large and 
rather dirty iceberg.

Copley News Service last week dropped Doug Bandow -- who also resigned 
as a Cato Institute scholar -- after he acknowledged taking as much as 
$2,000 a pop from Abramoff for up to two dozen columns favorable to the 
lobbyist's clients. "I am fully responsible and I won't play victim," 
Bandow said in a statement after Business Week broke the story. 
"Obviously, I regret stupidly calling to question my record of activism 
and writing that extends over 20 years. . . . For that I deeply apologize."

Peter Ferrara of the Institute for Policy Innovation has acknowledged 
taking payments years ago from a half-dozen lobbyists, including 
Abramoff. Two of his papers, the Washington Times and Manchester (N.H.) 
Union Leader, have now dropped him. But Ferrara is unapologetic, saying: 
"There is nothing unethical about taking money from someone and writing 
an article."

Readers might disagree on grounds that they have no way of knowing about 
such undisclosed payments, which seem to be an increasingly common 
tactic for companies trying to influence public debate through 
ostensibly neutral third parties. When he was a Washington lawyer 
several years ago, says law professor Glenn Reynolds, a 
telecommunications carrier offered him a fat paycheck -- up to $20,000, 
he believes -- to write an opinion piece favorable to its position. He 
declined.

In the case of Bandow's columns, says Reynolds, who now writes the 
InstaPundit blog, "one argument is, it's probably something he thought 
anyway, but it doesn't pass the smell test to me. I wouldn't necessarily 
call it criminal, but it seems wrong. People want to craft a rule, but 
what you really need is a sense of shame."

Jonathan Adler, an associate law professor and National Review 
contributor, wrote that when he worked at a think tank, "I was offered 
cash payments to write op-eds on particular topics by PR firms, 
lobbyists or corporations several times. They offered $1,000 or more for 
an op-ed," offers that Adler rejected. Blogger Rand Simberg writes that 
"I've also declined offers of money to write specific pieces, even 
though I agreed with the sentiment."

Two years ago, former Michigan senator Don Riegle wrote an op-ed 
attacking Visa and MasterCard without disclosing that his PR firm was 
representing Wal-Mart -- which was suing the two credit card companies.

Porn, Privacy and Participation

Kurt Eichenwald says he knew he would take heat for his decision to urge 
a teenager involved in child pornography to give up the business and 
cooperate with federal investigators.

"We are sitting there facing a horrible reality," the New York Times 
reporter says. "Every day I'm sitting there working on the story, there 
are children being molested and exploited, and we have a source who 
knows who and where they are."

The lengthy Times report last week on Justin Berry, now 19, whose 
cooperation with the Justice Department has led to several arrests, was 
remarkable, not least because it was Eichenwald who persuaded the young 
man to give up drugs and stop performing sexual acts for paying 
customers in front of a webcam -- and even referred him to a lawyer. The 
reporter clearly crossed the line from observer to participant.

"I knew our profession would look at this and say this was a troubling 
result," Eichenwald says. "But every result was troubling. I'm 
interviewing a kid and he suddenly starts naming children and telling me 
where they are and what's happening to them. He knew which kid was under 
the control of which pedophile."

Slate media critic Jack Shafer is among those who have raised questions, 
writing: "Would a Times reporter extend similar assistance to an 
18-year-old female prostitute? An 18-year-old fence? A seller of illegal 
guns? No way. . . . Will online pornographers and other allied criminals 
now regard reporters as agents of the state?"

At a July meeting with top editors and company lawyers, Eichenwald says, 
Executive Editor Bill Keller said that " 'we've got to do the right 
thing.' . . . It would have been easier to come up with all sorts of 
explanations of why we should walk away."

Eichenwald says he had to persuade Berry, an abused child who was lured 
into performing for the webcam when he was 13, to get out of the porn 
business and give up drugs for him to be useful as a source for the 
paper. The reporter says he personally provided information to the FBI 
about a 15-year-old boy being lured to a Las Vegas hotel by Berry's 
38-year-old business partner, who was arrested before the planned 
rendezvous.

"I knew we'd be criticized for getting a source to become a federal 
witness," Eichenwald says. But he says he's had nightmares and, as a 
father, feels "an enormous amount of guilt" about other children in the 
porn ring that he did not try to help.

If all this sounds like a movie, Eichenwald got calls from Hollywood 
within hours.

Plunging Reputations

"The image consultant said, 'You've got to stop wearing those 
turtlenecks. I think you've got to start showing some cleavage.' I told 
her I didn't think America was ready for that." -- ABC's Judy Muller, 
quoted by Amy Tenowich in a Los Angeles Daily News column on female 
journalists baring more skin.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/25/AR2005122500665.html
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Mon Dec 26 05:23:00 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Mon Dec 26 05:41:03 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Better Rebuilding In Aceh - Sheri Fink - Washington Post
	Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43AFEEB4.6040408@comcast.net>

Better Rebuilding In Aceh

By Sheri Fink
Monday, December 26, 2005; A39

When the Indian Ocean tsunami slammed into Aceh one year ago today, it 
fouled the coast of the Indonesian province, strewing its land with 
detritus and mud. Recently, I returned there to find it green with grass 
and bursting with yellow and purple wildflowers. Near the miraculously 
surviving palm trees, men are mixing concrete and forming bricks and 
lumber into new villages.

The greatest transformation, though, is that Aceh is at peace. On Aug. 
15, the Indonesian government and leaders of the rebel Free Aceh 
Movement signed an agreement ending nearly three decades of conflict. 
The peace is visible, with far fewer troops patrolling Aceh's streets.

The opportunity to assist families in former conflict areas would seem, 
on the surface, immense. Abundant funding and extensive aid delivery 
systems now exist in the province. International donors, nongovernmental 
organizations and the Indonesian government have pledged more than $7.5 
billion to assist Aceh and Nias Island.

But leaders of aid agencies say they are unsure whether they may use 
tsunami recovery donations to implement programs in areas that are 
primarily affected by the conflict. Even the U.S. Agency for 
International Development is constrained by a restrictive interpretation 
of how the $656 million Congress designated for tsunami-hit countries in 
the 2005 budget supplemental can be spent.

Improved security has given aid workers a chance to venture away from 
the tsunami-ravaged coasts into hillside villages previously isolated by 
the conflict. There they are finding children with swollen bellies and 
stick-like arms. Rates of acute malnutrition appear to be higher than in 
coastal Aceh, where the rate already exceeds the emergency level. Many 
children are sick with malaria. Measures of development in some of these 
areas lag far behind those of the tsunami-hit regions. Seeing the 
effects of the war makes it clear that Aceh suffered not one but two 
great disasters.

Unfortunately, geography rather than need has governed the targeting of 
most tsunami assistance. Disparities in the provision of aid to coastal 
vs. inland areas is heightening tensions among residents of some of 
Aceh's conflict-affected districts. The World Bank and others have 
emphasized the threat this poses to peace and redevelopment.

The humanitarian principle of impartiality demands that aid be allotted 
without any standard other than need. It is immoral, with billions of 
dollars on the table, to be serving food to children along the coasts 
while allowing children in the mountains above to die of malnutrition. 
Likewise, what justification can there be for rebuilding only 
tsunami-wrecked health centers but not the war-damaged health centers 
serving sicker children a few miles inland?

Extending tsunami aid to people and places that are primarily affected 
by the conflict might sound like "mission creep," but those overseeing 
the tsunami recovery effort acknowledge that it is a necessity. 
Supporting these regions, along with laudable ongoing efforts to 
reintegrate decommissioned soldiers, is a way of helping cement Aceh's 
peace. This benefits tsunami survivors, because they, along with the 
entire population of the province, suffered from firefights, 
kidnappings, torture, extortion and isolation during Aceh's decades of 
conflict.

Moreover, the "building back better" vision of the tsunami recovery 
effort can be accomplished only if a functioning infrastructure exists 
throughout the province, not just along the coastline. Failing to repair 
the war's destroyed bridges and burned houses, schools and health 
centers would reduce the payoff from the world's enormous investment in 
Aceh.

A realistic case can be made for defining all of Aceh province as 
"earthquake and tsunami-affected." While conflict-torn mountainous areas 
were not directly hit by the tsunami, they felt a secondary impact: 
Displaced survivors sought refuge there. The earthquake that spawned the 
tsunami also destroyed water wells and damaged buildings in these inland 
areas.

Some agencies have gingerly taken steps to extend tsunami aid to upland 
conflict zones, but these have often been small-scale, sub rosa efforts. 
It is time for this to change and for the activities to become an 
integral part of rebuilding plans. Similar calls for equity have been 
made in tsunami- and conflict-affected parts of Sri Lanka and in 
earthquake- and conflict-affected Kashmir.

The lesson for the future is that the United States and other 
international donors, along with aid agencies, must make sure their 
generosity benefits the widest possible population in need in societies 
affected by disaster. Thoughtful, community-driven approaches to 
assistance have the greatest hope of paying dividends.

The writer is a visiting scientist at the Harvard School of Public 
Health and author of "War Hospital: A True Story of Surgery and 
Survival." She worked as a consultant for international aid agencies in 
Aceh.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/25/AR2005122500654.html
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Mon Dec 26 05:21:20 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Mon Dec 26 05:41:38 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] My Son and I,
 Game to Learn - Sebastian Mallaby - Washington Post Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43AFEE50.8090006@comcast.net>

My Son and I, Game to Learn

By Sebastian Mallaby
Monday, December 26, 2005; A39

This year my knowing 11-year-old was told to write to Santa Claus, 
partly to keep the fun going for his younger siblings and partly because 
it forced him to write. He seized the opportunity to ask, naturally, for 
a computer game: more stuff to distract him from writing and books. But, 
hey, I'm not too worried. Hillary Clinton may accuse computer games of 
"making the difficult job of being a parent even harder," but I bought 
"Age of Empires III" with a clear parental conscience. The new 
conventional wisdom says that virtual games are healthy, enriching even. 
I'm thinking of trying them.

The new wisdom begins by questioning the idea that computer games cause 
violence. Lab tests have found that people do become aggressive right 
after a bout of zapping virtual enemies, but tests conducted outside 
labs have found no such result. For example, Dmitri Williams of the 
University of Illinois has tracked the behavior of a group that played a 
gory monster-slaying fantasy game regularly for one month and compared 
it with a game-free control group. The fantasy killers were no more 
likely to lose their tempers in real life.

Meanwhile, computer games have some advantages. They train players to 
master complex rules, to weigh odds and solve problems and make quick 
decisions. Indeed, players learn how to learn: The mysteries of a new 
and unknown game must be unlocked by trial and error. Marc Prensky, the 
author of the book "Don't Bother Me, Mom -- I'm Learning," tells the 
story of Stephen Gillette, an entrepreneur who picked up his leadership 
and organizational skills by playing online games. "I remember my mom 
and dad yelling at me," he quotes Gillette as saying. "They didn't know 
I had a 200-person [online] guild to manage."

Some games feature academic content. Spinach-pushing parents can buy 
games that teach algebra or engineering, and "America's Army," a game 
with some 6 million players, includes an opportunity to learn how to be 
a medic. Even the rampantly entertaining "Age of Empires III" conveys a 
sense of history. You begin at the dawn of the 16th century, and work 
your way into the mid-19th; you can choose among eight European 
civilizations; and you'd better build up the technological base of your 
home city if you want your empire to flourish.

I'm waiting to see whether this game will wean my son off "RuneScape," a 
multiplayer online fantasy. "RuneScape's" attraction is partly that his 
friends play it; it's a virtual after-school hangout. But the game's 
main attraction lies in its business challenge. My son has been buying 
logs, making longbows and selling them at a profit; he says the margins 
in the bow business fluctuate around 10 percent. Lately he's moved into 
buying magic herbs in bulk and retailing them individually. This is a 
dicier business, but the risk is balanced by reward. Herb-trading 
margins can be 100 percent or fatter.

Edward Castronova of Indiana University has just come out with 
"Synthetic Worlds," a book on the economics of these online universes. 
He explains that currencies in games such as "RuneScape" are subject to 
inflation: In a shamelessly populist bid to keep players happy, game 
masters tend to be monetary doves. Players can earn money by hacking 
down trees or killing monsters. Because there's no limit to the number 
of monsters and trees available, the money supply grows steadily.

When I first heard of this insight, I went home triumphantly to tell my 
son. He listened politely and told me that I'd only scratched the 
surface. Sure, the supply of money grows steadily, but the supply of 
swords and magic herbs grows, too, so prices move in both directions. 
For example, waves of aspiring bowmakers periodically flood into the 
industry, driving log prices upward. This pushes established bowmakers 
to quit, so log prices collapse. Although he didn't use the phrase, my 
son was describing a classic boom-bust cycle.

This account of two-way price moves fits with the remarkably detailed 
data one can find on trends in computer-game currencies, which trade 
against the dollar on well-developed markets. Of the 14 online games 
tracked by GameUSD.com, 10 have currencies that have fallen against the 
dollar over the past month, confirming the insight that games tend to 
monetary populism and inflation. But three of the games have steady 
exchange rates, and one game, "Eve," has a currency that's gained 15 
percent against the greenback since November -- support for the view 
that deflation can occur in virtual economies.

I'm sure that not all games are good for you, just as not all movies or 
newspaper articles improve your intellect or morals. Williams, the 
professor at the University of Illinois, has studied the impact of 
computer games on social patterns, and he finds results both good and 
troubling. But games that teach 11-year-olds about inflation or history 
can't be all evil, and they may be an improvement on Clue or Monopoly 
for all I know. Besides, kids clearly enjoy them. That surely ought to 
count for something.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/25/AR2005122500655.html
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Mon Dec 26 05:28:13 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Mon Dec 26 05:44:01 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] MUST READ: Staying the course - James Carroll - Boston
	Globe Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43AFEFED.7020009@comcast.net>


  Staying the course

By James Carroll  |  December 26, 2005  |  The Boston Globe

AMERICAN INTELLIGENCE was proving itself inadequate to the challenge. 
The president appointed a special commission to make recommendations. 
The year was 1954. The commission chairman was James Doolittle, the 
retired bomber general who had led the first air raid against Tokyo.

''It is now clear," he stated in his report to President Eisenhower, 
''that we are facing an implacable enemy whose avowed objective is world 
domination by whatever means and whatever cost. There are no rules in 
such a game. Hitherto acceptable norms of human conduct do not apply. If 
the United States is to survive, longstanding concepts of 'fair play' 
must be reconsidered. We must develop effective espionage and 
counter-espionage services, and must learn to subvert, sabotage, and 
destroy our enemies by more clever, more sophisticated, and more 
effective methods than those used against us. It may be necessary that 
the American people be made acquainted with, understand, and support 
this fundamentally repugnant philosophy."

Sound familiar? Again and again, in the year now ending, the American 
people have been told by their leaders that strategies based on a new 
''repugnant philosophy" are required if the nation is to survive the 
challenge facing it. Forbidden incendiary weapons must be used in urban 
settings. Prisoners of war must be deprived of Geneva protections. 
Aggressive interrogations of enemies must approach torture. Commitments 
to provide US combat forces with adequate protective gear must be 
forsworn. Extrajudicial kidnapping of bad people must be justified. 
Allies must be pressured into joining secret networks of detention camps.

Human rights standards must be jettisoned. Traditional obligations to 
the United Nations must be ignored. Treaties that limit action can be 
cast aside. Distinctions between foreign and domestic espionage must be 
left behind, with US citizens subject to unmonitored surveillance by 
military agencies. Public libraries must be regarded as government 
peepholes. The lawyer-client privilege must no longer be regarded as 
sacrosanct. The press must be recruited into the project of information 
management. Dissent must be labeled as treason.

A great American erosion has occurred this year, and only now are the 
contours of what is lost becoming apparent. Much more is at stake than 
the abandonment of ''longstanding concepts of 'fair-play' " of which 
Doolittle wrote. To ''subvert, sabotage, and destroy" what threatens us, 
we have begun to subvert, sabotage, and destroy what protects us: the 
mutuality of solemn compacts abroad, fundamental safeguards of the 
Constitution at home. Because the justifying ''state of emergency" is an 
open-ended war, the trashing of ''hitherto acceptable norms of human 
conduct" will be permanent. Get used to it.

Doolittle proposed a break with American traditions and laws for the 
sake of far more aggressive responses to Soviet communism. The year he 
did so saw the initiation of unprecedented American covert actions in 
Iran and Vietnam, with unhappy consequences that reverberate to this 
day. But Doolittle's remained a minority report in the annals of US 
government responses. Eisenhower was neither as freaked out by what 
threatened as his commission chairman, nor as indifferent to basic 
decency as a standard of national identity. To Doolittle's credit, he 
and those who saw things his way understood themselves as occupying the 
country's shadows. They knew enough to be ashamed of what they thought 
was necessary.

Where is the shame in Washington today? How does Donald Rumsfeld not 
blush in the presence of the soldiers he so routinely betrays? How does 
Dick Cheney maintain that straight face, treating core values as a joke? 
The recasting of the nation's moral meaning -- a blatant embrace of 
ends-justify-the-means -- is happening in plain daylight. No shadows here.

Every time the Bush administration is caught in one of its repugnant 
purposes (Thank God, again this year, for Seymour Hersh), the White 
House declares its intention to stay the course. Torture? Wiretapping? 
Kidnapping? Deceit? The president's eyes widen: Trust me, he says with a 
twisted smile. Then he leans closer to display a snarling defiance. The 
combination reduces his critics to sputters.

Perhaps Bush's savviest achievement has been to make the public think 
that Rumsfeld and Cheney are the dark geniuses behind the 
administration's malevolence. If Bush is taken as too shallow to have a 
fascist ideology; as too weak to stick with hard policies that undermine 
democracy; as a religious nutcase whose apocalyptic fantasies don't 
matter; as a man, in sum, the average citizen can regard as slightly 
less than average -- then what he is pulling off will not be called by 
its proper name until it is too late. 2005? Oh yes, that was the year of 
the coup.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/12/26/staying_the_course/
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Mon Dec 26 05:30:11 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Mon Dec 26 05:45:43 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Poisoned politics - Cathy Young - Boston Globe Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43AFF063.4050801@comcast.net>


  Poisoned politics

By Cathy Young  |  December 26, 2005  |  The Boston Globe

EVEN AS the war in Iraq goes on and the war with a global terror network 
shows no signs of abating, our domestic political scene seems to have 
become a war zone as well.

It's happening on political websites, where ''debate" often consists of 
trading invective and where opponents are ridiculed with slurs like 
''libs" and ''repugs." It's happening in mainstream politics, too. 
Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean slams Republicans as 
''brain-dead" people many of whom ''have never made an honest living in 
their lives." Republican master strategist and senior Bush adviser Karl 
Rove slams liberals as wimps whose reaction to Sept. 11 was to ''offer 
therapy and understanding for our attackers."

Everyone seems to agree that there is far too much nastiness in American 
political discourse today. And everyone seems eager to blame the other 
side for it.

For instance, conservative columnist and author Michelle Malkin has a 
new book called ''Unhinged: Exposing Liberals Gone Wild." The book 
chronicles a lot of nasty and/or nutty talk on the left: Dean's 
anti-Republican gibes, Bush assassination humor, ''Bush = Hitler" 
rhetoric, the rants of radical academics excusing terrorism as 
retaliation for our imperialist sins, and racist and sexist slurs 
directed at Malkin herself as a female Asian conservative. Malkin also 
records cases of nastiness turning to action, from vandalism against 
Republican posters and campaign signs to one truly unhinged Democrat 
trying to run a car with a Bush bumper sticker off the road.

While one may quibble with Malkin's interpretation of some incidents, 
most of what she describes is accurate and disturbing. But what about 
unhinged conservatives?

If Malkin wants to preach to the choir and focus only on nastiness from 
the left, that's her prerogative. But she claims that such behavior has 
no serious counterpart on the right. Unlike liberals, Malkin writes, 
''conservatives zealously police their own ranks to exclude extremists 
and conspiracy theories."

I guess radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh doesn't count as a ''bad boy" 
for Malkin, who calls him a ''conservative radio giant." This is the 
same Limbaugh who, a few years ago, referred to then-Senate minority 
leader Tom Daschle as ''Hanoi Tom" and literally compared him to the 
devil. This is also the same Limbaugh who has hawked paranoid conspiracy 
theories about Bill and Hillary Clinton, including murder allegations.

Likewise, right-wing pundit Ann Coulter, known for such witticisms as, 
''My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York 
Times building," appears in ''Unhinged" only as a victim of rude lefties.

Dave Neiwert, a Seattle-based author and award-winning freelance 
journalist, has posted a rebuttal to Malkin on his website at 
dneiwert.blogspot.com. Neiwert documents a lot of nastiness on the 
right, including physical as well as verbal assaults. For every 
left-wing ''Kill Bush" T-shirt, he notes, there's a right-wing ''Liberal 
hunting permit" bumper sticker. Neiwert makes a lot of excellent points, 
but unfortunately he can't resist the temptation of arguing that 
right-wing nastiness is worse than the left-wing kind.

For instance, Neiwert argues that a number of leading conservative 
figures have employed rhetoric about rounding up the opposition. (Here's 
Limbaugh again: ''Wouldn't it be great if anybody who speaks out against 
this country, to kick them out of the country? . . . We'd get rid of 
Michael Moore, we'd get rid of half the Democratic Party. . .") Such 
talk, Neiwert claims, has no real counterpart on the left. But was it 
much better when Garrison Keillor, who has an audience of nearly 4 
million on National Public Radio, suggested taking the vote away from 
born-again Christians shortly after the 2004 election? Yes, it's all in 
jest, but this is joking of a very poisonous kind.

Arguing who started it and who's worse is pointless. Both sides tend to 
see the speck in the other's eye, and not the log in its own. Hate is 
far too common a mode of relating to the opposition on both the left and 
the right. Too many liberals see conservatives as not just people with 
different ideas about what's right for America, but as people who want 
to destroy America in pursuit of nefarious goals. And vice versa.

Imagine political leaders from both sides of the aisle teaming up to 
issue a forceful statement condemning extreme, hate-filled rhetoric in 
both conservative and liberal ranks. Unlikely, I know, but one can 
always dream. This is, after all, the season of peace on earth and 
goodwill toward men.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/12/26/poisoned_politics/
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From michael at michaelbutler.com  Sun Dec 25 21:16:02 2005
From: michael at michaelbutler.com (Michael Butler)
Date: Mon Dec 26 06:27:45 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] MUST READ
Message-ID: <BFD4BC92.27333%michael@michaelbutler.com>

William Swiggard sent this to Civic.
I was so stunned when I read it I felt I had to send it on.
Michael


by Naomi Klein


    'Never Before!' Our Amnesiac Torture Debate

[from the December 26, 2005 issue]

It was the "Mission Accomplished" of George W. Bush's second term, and
an announcement of that magnitude called for a suitably dramatic
location. But what was the right backdrop for the infamous "We do not
torture" declaration? With characteristic audacity, the Bush team
settled on downtown Panama City.

It was certainly bold. An hour and a half's drive from where Bush stood,
the US military ran the notorious School of the Americas from 1946 to
1984, a sinister educational institution that, if it had a motto, might
have been "We do torture." It is here in Panama and, later, at the
school's new location in Fort Benning, Georgia, where the roots of the
current torture scandals can be found. According to declassified
training manuals, SOA students--military and police officers from across
the hemisphere--were instructed in many of the same "coercive
interrogation" techniques that have since migrated to Guant?namo and Abu
Ghraib: early morning capture to maximize shock, immediate hooding and
blindfolding, forced nudity, sensory deprivation, sensory overload,
sleep and food "manipulation," humiliation, extreme temperatures,
isolation, stress positions--and worse. In 1996 President Clinton's
Intelligence Oversight Board admitted that US-produced training
materials condoned "execution of guerrillas, extortion, physical abuse,
coercion and false imprisonment."

Some of the Panama school's graduates returned to their countries to
commit the continent's greatest war crimes of the past half-century: the
murders of Archbishop Oscar Romero and six Jesuit priests in El
Salvador, the systematic theft of babies from Argentina's "disappeared"
prisoners, the massacre of 900 civilians in El Mozote in El Salvador and
military coups too numerous to list here. Suffice it to say that
choosing Panama to declare "We do not torture" is a little like dropping
by a slaughterhouse to pronounce the United States a nation of vegetarians.

And yet when covering the Bush announcement, not a single mainstream
news outlet mentioned the sordid history of its location. How could
they? To do so would require something totally absent from the current
debate: an admission that the embrace of torture by US officials long
predates the Bush Administration and has in fact been integral to US
foreign policy since the Vietnam War.

It's a history that has been exhaustively documented in an avalanche of
books, declassified documents, CIA training manuals, court records and
truth commissions. In his upcoming book A Question of Torture, Alfred
McCoy synthesizes this unwieldy cache of evidence, producing an
indispensable and riveting account of how monstrous CIA-funded
experiments on psychiatric patients and prisoners in the 1950s turned
into a template for what he calls "no-touch torture," based on sensory
deprivation and self-inflicted pain. McCoy traces how these methods were
field-tested by CIA agents in Vietnam as part of the Phoenix program and
then imported to Latin America and Asia under the guise of police
training programs.

It's not only apologists for torture who ignore this history when they
blame abuses on "a few bad apples"--so too do many of torture's most
prominent opponents. Apparently forgetting everything they once knew
about US cold war misadventures, a startling number have begun to
subscribe to an antihistorical narrative in which the idea of torturing
prisoners first occurred to US officials on September 11, 2001, at which
point the interrogation methods used in Guant?namo apparently emerged,
fully formed, from the sadistic recesses of Dick Cheney's and Donald
Rumsfeld's brains. Up until that moment, we are told, America fought its
enemies while keeping its humanity intact.

The principal propagator of this narrative (what Garry Wills termed
"original sinlessness") is Senator John McCain. Writing recently in
Newsweek on the need for a ban on torture, McCain says that when he was
a prisoner of war in Hanoi, he held fast to the knowledge "that we were
different from our enemies...that we, if the roles were reversed, would
not disgrace ourselves by committing or approving such mistreatment of
them." It is a stunning historical distortion. By the time McCain was
taken captive, the CIA had already launched the Phoenix program and, as
McCoy writes, "its agents were operating forty interrogation centers in
South Vietnam that killed more than twenty thousand suspects and
tortured thousands more," a claim he backs up with pages of quotes from
press reports as well as Congressional and Senate probes.

Does it somehow lessen the horrors of today to admit that this is not
the first time the US government has used torture to wipe out its
political opponents--that it has operated secret prisons before, that it
has actively supported regimes that tried to erase the left by dropping
students out of airplanes? That, at home, photographs of lynchings were
traded and sold as trophies and warnings? Many seem to think so. On
November 8 Democratic Congressman Jim McDermott made the astonishing
claim to the House of Representatives that "America has never had a
question about its moral integrity, until now." Molly Ivins, expressing
her shock that the United States is running a prison gulag, wrote that
"it's just this one administration...and even at that, it seems to be
mostly Vice President Dick Cheney." And in the November issue of
Harper's, William Pfaff argues that what truly sets the Bush
Administration apart from its predecessors is "its installation of
torture as integral to American military and clandestine operations."
Pfaff acknowledges that long before Abu Ghraib, there were those who
claimed that the School of the Americas was a "torture school," but he
says that he was "inclined to doubt that it was really so." Perhaps it's
time for Pfaff to have a look at the SOA textbooks coaching illegal
torture techniques, all readily available in both Spanish and English,
as well as the hair-raising list of SOA grads.

Other cultures deal with a legacy of torture by declaring "Never again!"
Why do so many Americans insist on dealing with the current torture
crisis by crying "Never Before"? I suspect it has to do with a sincere
desire to convey the seriousness of this Administration's crimes. And
the Bush Administration's open embrace of torture is indeed
unprecedented--but let's be clear about what is unprecedented about it:
not the torture but the openness. Past administrations tactfully kept
their "black ops" secret; the crimes were sanctioned but they were
practiced in the shadows, officially denied and condemned. The Bush
Administration has broken this deal: Post-9/11, it demanded the right to
torture without shame, legitimized by new definitions and new laws.

Despite all the talk of outsourced torture, the Bush Administration's
real innovation has been its in-sourcing, with prisoners being abused by
US citizens in US-run prisons and transported to third countries in US
planes. It is this departure from clandestine etiquette, more than the
actual crimes, that has so much of the military and intelligence
community up in arms: By daring to torture unapologetically and out in
the open, Bush has robbed everyone of plausible deniability.

For those nervously wondering if it is time to start using alarmist
words like totalitarianism, this shift is of huge significance. When
torture is covertly practiced but officially and legally repudiated,
there is still the hope that if atrocities are exposed, justice could
prevail. When torture is pseudo-legal and when those responsible merely
deny that it is torture, what dies is what Hannah Arendt called "the
juridical person in man"; soon enough, victims no longer bother to
search for justice, so sure are they of the futility (and danger) of
that quest. This impunity is a mass version of what happens inside the
torture chamber, when prisoners are told they can scream all they want
because no one can hear them and no one is going to save them.

In Latin America the revelations of US torture in Iraq have not been met
with shock and disbelief but with powerful d?j? vu and reawakened fears.
Hector Mondragon, a Colombian activist who was tortured in the 1970s by
an officer trained at the School of the Americas, wrote: "It was hard to
see the photos of the torture in Iraq because I too was tortured. I saw
myself naked with my feet fastened together and my hands tied behind my
back. I saw my own head covered with a cloth bag. I remembered my
feelings--the humiliation, pain." Dianna Ortiz, an American nun who was
brutally tortured in a Guatemalan jail, said, "I could not even stand to
look at those photographs...so many of the things in the photographs had
also been done to me. I was tortured with a frightening dog and also
rats. And they were always filming."

Ortiz has testified that the men who raped her and burned her with
cigarettes more than 100 times deferred to a man who spoke Spanish with
an American accent whom they called "Boss." It is one of many stories
told by prisoners in Latin America of mysterious English-speaking men
walking in and out of their torture cells, proposing questions, offering
tips. Several of these cases are documented in Jennifer Harbury's
powerful new book, Truth, Torture, and the American Way.

Some of the countries that were mauled by US-sponsored torture regimes
have tried to repair their social fabric through truth commissions and
war crimes trials. In most cases, justice has been elusive, but past
abuses have been entered into the official record and entire societies
have asked themselves questions not only about individual responsibility
but collective complicity. The United States, though an active
participant in these "dirty wars," has gone through no parallel process
of national soul-searching.

The result is that the memory of US complicity in far-away crimes
remains fragile, living on in old newspaper articles, out-of-print books
and tenacious grassroots initiatives like the annual protests outside
the School of the Americas (which has been renamed but remains largely
unchanged). The terrible irony of the anti-historicism of the current
torture debate is that in the name of eradicating future abuses, these
past crimes are being erased from the record. Every time Americans
repeat the fairy tale about their pre-Cheney innocence, these already
hazy memories fade even further. The hard evidence still exists, of
course, carefully archived in the tens of thousands of declassified
documents available from the National Security Archive. But inside US
collective memory, the disappeared are being disappeared all over again.

This casual amnesia does a profound disservice not only to the victims
of these crimes but also to the cause of trying to remove torture from
the US policy arsenal once and for all. Already there are signs that the
Administration will deal with the current torture uproar by returning to
the cold war model of plausible deniability. The McCain amendment
protects every "individual in the custody or under the physical control
of the United States Government"; it says nothing about torture training
or buying information from the exploding industry of for-profit
interrogators. And in Iraq the dirty work is already being handed over
to Iraqi death squads, trained by US commanders like Jim Steele, who
prepared for the job by setting up similarly lawless units in El
Salvador. The US role in training and supervising Iraq's Interior
Ministry was forgotten, moreover, when 173 prisoners were recently
discovered in a Ministry dungeon, some tortured so badly that their skin
was falling off. "Look, it's a sovereign country. The Iraqi government
exists," Rumsfeld said. He sounded just like the CIA's William Colby,
who when asked in a 1971 Congressional probe about the thousands killed
under Phoenix--a program he helped launch--replied that it was now
"entirely a South Vietnamese program."

And that's the problem with pretending that the Bush Administration
invented torture. "If you don't understand the history and the depths of
the institutional and public complicity," says McCoy, "then you can't
begin to undertake meaningful reforms." Lawmakers will respond to
pressure by eliminating one small piece of the torture
apparatus--closing a prison, shutting down a program, even demanding the
resignation of a really bad apple like Rumsfeld. But, McCoy says, "they
will preserve the prerogative to torture."

The Center for American Progress has just launched an advertising
campaign called "Torture is not US." The hard truth is that for at least
five decades it has been. But it doesn't have to be.



From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Mon Dec 26 09:05:01 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Mon Dec 26 09:16:31 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Loads of Wash (Tons of It) and a Community
	Haven
Message-ID: <20051226170501.84FF024AEF8@lax-gw02.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: ialterman@nyc.rr.com.

Amidst all the depressing news in the world, a heartwarming item... Peace.


NATIONAL | December 26, 2005
Loads of Wash (Tons of It) and a Community Haven
By JODI WILGOREN
Destroyed by a four alarm fire in 2004, the World's Largest Laundromat reopens this week. 
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/26/national/26laundry.html?emc=eta1



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From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Mon Dec 26 09:28:08 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (mblaxill@yahoo.com)
Date: Mon Dec 26 09:39:40 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Seeing Terrorism as Drama With Sequels and
	Prequels
Message-ID: <20051226172808.3394683CDC@lax-gw03.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: mblaxill@yahoo.com.

ARTS | December 26, 2005
Connections: Seeing Terrorism as Drama With Sequels and Prequels
By EDWARD ROTHSTEIN
Steven Spielberg's new film, "Munich," suggests that militant attempts to destroy terrorism lead not to peace but to cycles of violence.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/26/arts/26conn.html?emc=eta1



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From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Mon Dec 26 09:29:19 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (mblaxill@yahoo.com)
Date: Mon Dec 26 09:40:46 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Indians Find They Can Go Home Again
Message-ID: <20051226172919.C1B893AE5FD@lax-gw06.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: mblaxill@yahoo.com.

BUSINESS / WORLD BUSINESS | December 26, 2005
Indians Find They Can Go Home Again
By SARITHA RAI
Many Indians who were educated in and worked in the U.S. and Europe are being lured back to India by its surging economy and buoyant technology industry.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/26/business/worldbusiness/26recruit.html?emc=eta1



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From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Mon Dec 26 09:31:31 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (mblaxill@yahoo.com)
Date: Mon Dec 26 09:42:58 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Trying to Have It Both Ways
Message-ID: <20051226173131.B97D211F9C4@lax-gw07.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: mblaxill@yahoo.com.

OPINION | December 26, 2005
Editorial: Trying to Have It Both Ways

It might seem counterintuitive that many credit card companies would inundate the recently bankrupt with solicitations for new cards.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/26/opinion/26mon2.html?emc=eta1




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From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Mon Dec 26 09:33:01 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (mblaxill@yahoo.com)
Date: Mon Dec 26 09:44:30 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Brazil Opens Former Dictatorship's Files,
	a Bit
Message-ID: <20051226173301.81C7911F9E6@lax-gw07.mroute.net>

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INTERNATIONAL / AMERICAS | December 25, 2005
Brazil Opens Former Dictatorship's Files, a Bit
By LARRY ROHTER
The Brazilian government has begun releasing intelligence files on government opponents, including victims of torture and those who disappeared.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/25/international/americas/25brazil.html?emc=eta1



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From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Mon Dec 26 09:35:36 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (mblaxill@yahoo.com)
Date: Mon Dec 26 09:47:03 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Powell Speaks Out on Domestic Spy Program
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This page was sent to you by: mblaxill@yahoo.com.

WASHINGTON | December 26, 2005
Powell Speaks Out on Domestic Spy Program
By STEVEN R. WEISMAN
Former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said that he saw "nothing wrong" with President Bush's decision not to obtain warrants.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/26/politics/26powell.html?emc=eta1



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From marylouiseparis at hotmail.com  Mon Dec 26 11:55:19 2005
From: marylouiseparis at hotmail.com (Mary Louise smn)
Date: Mon Dec 26 12:06:50 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] MUST READ   Torture 
In-Reply-To: <BFD4BC92.27333%michael@michaelbutler.com>
Message-ID: <BAY107-F14F7F7F9AA02F374F01F06B8340@phx.gbl>


           Gandhi    The Roots of Violence       Wealth without work    
Pleasure without conscience     Knowledge without character     Commerce 
without morality     Science without humanity     Worship without sacrifice  
    Politics  without  principal               Marylouise         Age of 
Kali


>From: Michael Butler <michael@michaelbutler.com>
>Reply-To: mb-civic@islandlists.com
>To: SPECIAL from Michael Butler <michael@michaelbutler.com>
>Subject: [Mb-civic] MUST READ
>Date: Sun, 25 Dec 2005 21:16:02 -0800
>
>William Swiggard sent this to Civic.
>I was so stunned when I read it I felt I had to send it on.
>Michael
>
>
>by Naomi Klein
>
>
>     'Never Before!' Our Amnesiac Torture Debate
>
>[from the December 26, 2005 issue]
>
>It was the "Mission Accomplished" of George W. Bush's second term, and
>an announcement of that magnitude called for a suitably dramatic
>location. But what was the right backdrop for the infamous "We do not
>torture" declaration? With characteristic audacity, the Bush team
>settled on downtown Panama City.
>
>It was certainly bold. An hour and a half's drive from where Bush stood,
>the US military ran the notorious School of the Americas from 1946 to
>1984, a sinister educational institution that, if it had a motto, might
>have been "We do torture." It is here in Panama and, later, at the
>school's new location in Fort Benning, Georgia, where the roots of the
>current torture scandals can be found. According to declassified
>training manuals, SOA students--military and police officers from across
>the hemisphere--were instructed in many of the same "coercive
>interrogation" techniques that have since migrated to Guantánamo and Abu
>Ghraib: early morning capture to maximize shock, immediate hooding and
>blindfolding, forced nudity, sensory deprivation, sensory overload,
>sleep and food "manipulation," humiliation, extreme temperatures,
>isolation, stress positions--and worse. In 1996 President Clinton's
>Intelligence Oversight Board admitted that US-produced training
>materials condoned "execution of guerrillas, extortion, physical abuse,
>coercion and false imprisonment."
>
>Some of the Panama school's graduates returned to their countries to
>commit the continent's greatest war crimes of the past half-century: the
>murders of Archbishop Oscar Romero and six Jesuit priests in El
>Salvador, the systematic theft of babies from Argentina's "disappeared"
>prisoners, the massacre of 900 civilians in El Mozote in El Salvador and
>military coups too numerous to list here. Suffice it to say that
>choosing Panama to declare "We do not torture" is a little like dropping
>by a slaughterhouse to pronounce the United States a nation of vegetarians.
>
>And yet when covering the Bush announcement, not a single mainstream
>news outlet mentioned the sordid history of its location. How could
>they? To do so would require something totally absent from the current
>debate: an admission that the embrace of torture by US officials long
>predates the Bush Administration and has in fact been integral to US
>foreign policy since the Vietnam War.
>
>It's a history that has been exhaustively documented in an avalanche of
>books, declassified documents, CIA training manuals, court records and
>truth commissions. In his upcoming book A Question of Torture, Alfred
>McCoy synthesizes this unwieldy cache of evidence, producing an
>indispensable and riveting account of how monstrous CIA-funded
>experiments on psychiatric patients and prisoners in the 1950s turned
>into a template for what he calls "no-touch torture," based on sensory
>deprivation and self-inflicted pain. McCoy traces how these methods were
>field-tested by CIA agents in Vietnam as part of the Phoenix program and
>then imported to Latin America and Asia under the guise of police
>training programs.
>
>It's not only apologists for torture who ignore this history when they
>blame abuses on "a few bad apples"--so too do many of torture's most
>prominent opponents. Apparently forgetting everything they once knew
>about US cold war misadventures, a startling number have begun to
>subscribe to an antihistorical narrative in which the idea of torturing
>prisoners first occurred to US officials on September 11, 2001, at which
>point the interrogation methods used in Guantánamo apparently emerged,
>fully formed, from the sadistic recesses of Dick Cheney's and Donald
>Rumsfeld's brains. Up until that moment, we are told, America fought its
>enemies while keeping its humanity intact.
>
>The principal propagator of this narrative (what Garry Wills termed
>"original sinlessness") is Senator John McCain. Writing recently in
>Newsweek on the need for a ban on torture, McCain says that when he was
>a prisoner of war in Hanoi, he held fast to the knowledge "that we were
>different from our enemies...that we, if the roles were reversed, would
>not disgrace ourselves by committing or approving such mistreatment of
>them." It is a stunning historical distortion. By the time McCain was
>taken captive, the CIA had already launched the Phoenix program and, as
>McCoy writes, "its agents were operating forty interrogation centers in
>South Vietnam that killed more than twenty thousand suspects and
>tortured thousands more," a claim he backs up with pages of quotes from
>press reports as well as Congressional and Senate probes.
>
>Does it somehow lessen the horrors of today to admit that this is not
>the first time the US government has used torture to wipe out its
>political opponents--that it has operated secret prisons before, that it
>has actively supported regimes that tried to erase the left by dropping
>students out of airplanes? That, at home, photographs of lynchings were
>traded and sold as trophies and warnings? Many seem to think so. On
>November 8 Democratic Congressman Jim McDermott made the astonishing
>claim to the House of Representatives that "America has never had a
>question about its moral integrity, until now." Molly Ivins, expressing
>her shock that the United States is running a prison gulag, wrote that
>"it's just this one administration...and even at that, it seems to be
>mostly Vice President Dick Cheney." And in the November issue of
>Harper's, William Pfaff argues that what truly sets the Bush
>Administration apart from its predecessors is "its installation of
>torture as integral to American military and clandestine operations."
>Pfaff acknowledges that long before Abu Ghraib, there were those who
>claimed that the School of the Americas was a "torture school," but he
>says that he was "inclined to doubt that it was really so." Perhaps it's
>time for Pfaff to have a look at the SOA textbooks coaching illegal
>torture techniques, all readily available in both Spanish and English,
>as well as the hair-raising list of SOA grads.
>
>Other cultures deal with a legacy of torture by declaring "Never again!"
>Why do so many Americans insist on dealing with the current torture
>crisis by crying "Never Before"? I suspect it has to do with a sincere
>desire to convey the seriousness of this Administration's crimes. And
>the Bush Administration's open embrace of torture is indeed
>unprecedented--but let's be clear about what is unprecedented about it:
>not the torture but the openness. Past administrations tactfully kept
>their "black ops" secret; the crimes were sanctioned but they were
>practiced in the shadows, officially denied and condemned. The Bush
>Administration has broken this deal: Post-9/11, it demanded the right to
>torture without shame, legitimized by new definitions and new laws.
>
>Despite all the talk of outsourced torture, the Bush Administration's
>real innovation has been its in-sourcing, with prisoners being abused by
>US citizens in US-run prisons and transported to third countries in US
>planes. It is this departure from clandestine etiquette, more than the
>actual crimes, that has so much of the military and intelligence
>community up in arms: By daring to torture unapologetically and out in
>the open, Bush has robbed everyone of plausible deniability.
>
>For those nervously wondering if it is time to start using alarmist
>words like totalitarianism, this shift is of huge significance. When
>torture is covertly practiced but officially and legally repudiated,
>there is still the hope that if atrocities are exposed, justice could
>prevail. When torture is pseudo-legal and when those responsible merely
>deny that it is torture, what dies is what Hannah Arendt called "the
>juridical person in man"; soon enough, victims no longer bother to
>search for justice, so sure are they of the futility (and danger) of
>that quest. This impunity is a mass version of what happens inside the
>torture chamber, when prisoners are told they can scream all they want
>because no one can hear them and no one is going to save them.
>
>In Latin America the revelations of US torture in Iraq have not been met
>with shock and disbelief but with powerful déjà vu and reawakened fears.
>Hector Mondragon, a Colombian activist who was tortured in the 1970s by
>an officer trained at the School of the Americas, wrote: "It was hard to
>see the photos of the torture in Iraq because I too was tortured. I saw
>myself naked with my feet fastened together and my hands tied behind my
>back. I saw my own head covered with a cloth bag. I remembered my
>feelings--the humiliation, pain." Dianna Ortiz, an American nun who was
>brutally tortured in a Guatemalan jail, said, "I could not even stand to
>look at those photographs...so many of the things in the photographs had
>also been done to me. I was tortured with a frightening dog and also
>rats. And they were always filming."
>
>Ortiz has testified that the men who raped her and burned her with
>cigarettes more than 100 times deferred to a man who spoke Spanish with
>an American accent whom they called "Boss." It is one of many stories
>told by prisoners in Latin America of mysterious English-speaking men
>walking in and out of their torture cells, proposing questions, offering
>tips. Several of these cases are documented in Jennifer Harbury's
>powerful new book, Truth, Torture, and the American Way.
>
>Some of the countries that were mauled by US-sponsored torture regimes
>have tried to repair their social fabric through truth commissions and
>war crimes trials. In most cases, justice has been elusive, but past
>abuses have been entered into the official record and entire societies
>have asked themselves questions not only about individual responsibility
>but collective complicity. The United States, though an active
>participant in these "dirty wars," has gone through no parallel process
>of national soul-searching.
>
>The result is that the memory of US complicity in far-away crimes
>remains fragile, living on in old newspaper articles, out-of-print books
>and tenacious grassroots initiatives like the annual protests outside
>the School of the Americas (which has been renamed but remains largely
>unchanged). The terrible irony of the anti-historicism of the current
>torture debate is that in the name of eradicating future abuses, these
>past crimes are being erased from the record. Every time Americans
>repeat the fairy tale about their pre-Cheney innocence, these already
>hazy memories fade even further. The hard evidence still exists, of
>course, carefully archived in the tens of thousands of declassified
>documents available from the National Security Archive. But inside US
>collective memory, the disappeared are being disappeared all over again.
>
>This casual amnesia does a profound disservice not only to the victims
>of these crimes but also to the cause of trying to remove torture from
>the US policy arsenal once and for all. Already there are signs that the
>Administration will deal with the current torture uproar by returning to
>the cold war model of plausible deniability. The McCain amendment
>protects every "individual in the custody or under the physical control
>of the United States Government"; it says nothing about torture training
>or buying information from the exploding industry of for-profit
>interrogators. And in Iraq the dirty work is already being handed over
>to Iraqi death squads, trained by US commanders like Jim Steele, who
>prepared for the job by setting up similarly lawless units in El
>Salvador. The US role in training and supervising Iraq's Interior
>Ministry was forgotten, moreover, when 173 prisoners were recently
>discovered in a Ministry dungeon, some tortured so badly that their skin
>was falling off. "Look, it's a sovereign country. The Iraqi government
>exists," Rumsfeld said. He sounded just like the CIA's William Colby,
>who when asked in a 1971 Congressional probe about the thousands killed
>under Phoenix--a program he helped launch--replied that it was now
>"entirely a South Vietnamese program."
>
>And that's the problem with pretending that the Bush Administration
>invented torture. "If you don't understand the history and the depths of
>the institutional and public complicity," says McCoy, "then you can't
>begin to undertake meaningful reforms." Lawmakers will respond to
>pressure by eliminating one small piece of the torture
>apparatus--closing a prison, shutting down a program, even demanding the
>resignation of a really bad apple like Rumsfeld. But, McCoy says, "they
>will preserve the prerogative to torture."
>
>The Center for American Progress has just launched an advertising
>campaign called "Torture is not US." The hard truth is that for at least
>five decades it has been. But it doesn't have to be.
>
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>Mb-civic mailing list
>Mb-civic@islandlists.com
>http://www.islandlists.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mb-civic

_________________________________________________________________
Don't just search. Find. Check out the new MSN Search! 
http://search.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200636ave/direct/01/

From nwonline at toronto.cbc.ca  Mon Dec 26 16:07:01 2005
From: nwonline at toronto.cbc.ca (CBC News Online)
Date: Mon Dec 26 16:19:04 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] CBC News - MICROSOFT SELLS CONTROL OF MSNBC TO PARTNER
	NBC
Message-ID: <20051227000701.8CC571B695@nmweb07.nm.cbc.ca>

This email has been sent to you by harry.sifton@sympatico.ca
The following is a news item posted on CBC NEWS ONLINE
at http://www.cbc.ca/news
____________________________________________________
MICROSOFT SELLS CONTROL OF MSNBC TO PARTNER NBC
WebPosted Fri Dec 23 14:07:07 2005

---Microsoft Corp. said Friday it has sold a large chunk of all-news
channel MSNBC to its partner NBC Universal.

Under the deal, NBC boosts its stake in the channel from 50 per cent to
82 per cent with an option to buy out Microsoft's remaining 18 per cent
stake within two years. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

MSNBC has long lagged behind rivals Fox News Channel and CNN in the
television ratings race. Rumours of unwinding the MSNBC partnership have
been swirling for months.

"Acquiring a controlling interest in MSNBC will allow us to fully
integrate the channel into our news operations and our overall cable
platform," NBC News President Steve Capus said in a statement. "MSNBC is
a critical component of NBC News' success and has made some key
viewership gains in recent months."

MSNBC was launched with much fanfare in December 1995. Microsoft paid
$220 million US for a 50 percent interest in the channel.

NBC and Microsoft will continue to share ownership of the
msnbc.com website.

General Electric Co. owns 80 per cent of NBC.

Copyright (C) 2005 CBC. All rights reserved.
From ean at sbcglobal.net  Mon Dec 26 15:57:48 2005
From: ean at sbcglobal.net (ean@sbcglobal.net)
Date: Mon Dec 26 18:32:16 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] "Peace on Earth" Means "No More War"
Message-ID: <E1Er4SD-0004dg-Ea@elasmtp-kukur.atl.sa.earthlink.net>


Published on Saturday, December 24, 2005 by CommonDreams.org
?Peace on Earth? Means ?No More War?
by John Dear

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1224-21.htm

The story goes that when the nonviolent Jesus was born into abject 
poverty to homeless refugees on the outskirts of a brutal empire, 
angels appeared in the sky to impoverished shepherds singing, ?Glory 
to God in the highest and peace on earth!? That child grew up to 
become, in Gandhi?s words, ?the greatest nonviolent resister in the 
history of the world,? and was subsequently executed by the empire for 
his insistence on justice.

This weekend, as tens of millions of Christians across the country 
celebrate the birth of the Prince of Peace, the U.S. wages war in Iraq, 
Afghanistan, Colombia and elsewhere; crushes the hungry, homeless, 
elderly, imprisoned and refugee; and maintains the world?s ultimate 
terrorist threat--its nuclear arsenal.

Like Herod, Pilate and their soldiers, we have rejected the angels? call 
for ?peace on earth.? When Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and their 
warmaking supporters celebrate Christmas, they mock Christ and his 
steadfast nonviolence, and carry on the massacre of the innocents.

If the angels are correct, then Christmas requires us to welcome God?s 
gift of peace on earth. In such a time, that means we have to work for 
an end to war. Christmas calls us to become like Christ--people of 
active, creative, steadfast nonviolence who give our lives in resistance 
to empire and war.

In pursuit of this Christmas gift, a group of us met this week with Bill 
Richardson, the Governor of New Mexico, and asked him to dismantle 
our nuclear weapons and disarm Los Alamos, the birthplace of the 
bomb. In this day and age, it is surprising that any elected official 
would meet and listen to anti-war activists. Yet Richardson asked to 
begin a public dialogue with us about nuclear disarmament. We take 
this as a sign of hope, even as we continue our protests at Los 
Alamos.

When Gandhi was asked one Christmas day for his thoughts about 
Christmas, he spoke about the connection between the wood of the 
crib--Christ?s poverty--and the wood of the cross--Christ?s nonviolent 
resistance to evil. He said Christmas summons us to the same lifelong 
nonviolence. It has social, economic, and political implications. I think, 
like Gandhi, that we have to make those connections and pursue those 
implications. Here are a few of them.

First, Christmas celebrates the birth of a life of perfect nonviolence and 
calls us to become people of active nonviolence. Christmas invites us 
to practice the vulnerable, disarming simplicity of children, to live the 
disarmed life in solidarity with the children of the world, and to spend 
our lives in resistance to empire. It summons us to study, teach, 
practice and experiment with creative nonviolence that we too might 
live the life of nonviolence which Jesus exemplified so that one day 
peace might reign one earth.

Second, Christmas demonstrates that God sides with the poor, 
becomes one with the poor, and walks among the poor. God does not 
side with the rulers, the rich or the powerful, but with the homeless, the 
hungry and the refugees. Christmas puts poverty front and center and 
demands that we work to abolish poverty itself so that every human 
being has food, clothing, housing, healthcare, education, employment 
and a lifetime of peace.

Third, since Christmas illustrates how God sides with the poor in order 
to liberate the oppressed from poverty and injustice, it calls us to reject 
greed, give away our money and possessions to those in need, and 
also live in solidarity with the disenfranchised.

Fourth, Christmas pushes us to stand on the margins of society, where 
we will find God. Christmas announces that every human being is a 
beloved son and daughter of the God of love. Every human life is 
beautiful in the eyes of God, since God has become one of us. From 
now on, we reject exclusivity, racism, sexism, and discrimination of any 
kind, and embrace everyone as equal. We stand on the margins with 
the excluded, the marginalized, the outsiders and outcasts. From 
there, we envision a new reconciled humanity.

Fifth, as Gandhi pointed out, there is a straight line from the crib to the 
cross. Christ practiced steadfast nonviolent resistance to imperial 
injustice and was brutally executed. That bloody outcome is crucial to 
the story, and calls us to work for the abolition of the death penalty so 
that Christ will never be crucified again and the killing stops once and 
for all.

Sixth, since the birth of Christ means that every human life is beloved 
by God, that all human beings are God?s children, we have to treat 
every human being on the planet as our very own sister and brother 
which means we must oppose war and work for the abolition of war 
itself. In particular, we denounce Bush?s war on Iraq, demand that the 
troops return home, and call for reparations and nonviolent solutions to 
the horrors we have brought upon the people of the Middle East.

Seventh, if the angels celebrate the coming of ?peace on earth,? that 
means they are environmentalists. We too have to protect the earth, 
oppose its destruction, defend God?s creatures and the universe, and 
help make the earth a place of peace for every life form.

Eighth, Christmas means working for the abolition of nuclear weapons. 
These weapons are idolatrous and blasphemous. Their very existence 
insults the God of peace and mocks the nonviolent Jesus. We can?t 
celebrate Christmas and at the same time work at Los Alamos, 
Livermore Labs, the Nevada Test Site, or the Pentagon, or be silent 
while this work goes on We must reject this love or death and 
destruction, and pursue life, the God of life, and a new world without 
nuclear weapons.

Ninth, Christmas calls us individually to prepare for the gift of peace on 
earth. It invites us to welcome peace in our hearts and our personal 
lives, and learn to be at peace with ourselves, with God, with our 
families, friends, neighbors, and local communities, and with the whole 
world.

Finally, Christmas invites us to be human in an inhuman time. The 
scandal of the story is that God wants to become human and show us 
how to be human. We, on the other hand, want to play God, to be 
powerful, in charge, in control, to dominate the world. Perhaps the best 
way to celebrate Christmas and welcome the beautiful gift of peace on 
earth is simply to be human, despite the callous inhumanity around us, 
and to trust that our modest, vulnerable humanity--our nonviolence, 
compassion and love--like the humanity of the child in the crib, will one 
day bear good fruit and sow the seeds of peace on earth.

John Dear is a Jesuit priest, peace activist, and the author/editor of 20 
books on peace and nonviolence, including most recently ?The 
Questions of Jesus? and ?Living Peace,? both published by Doubleday. 
He is the coordinator of Pax Christi New Mexico. For information, see: 
www.fatherjohndear.org and www.paxchristinewmexico.org

###

-- 
You are currently on Mha Atma's Earth Action Network email list, 
option D (up to 3 emails/day).  To be removed, or to switch options 
(option A - 1x/week, option B - 3/wk, option C - up to 1x/day, option D - 
up to 3x/day) please reply and let us know!  If someone forwarded you 
this email and you want to be on our list, send an email to 
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"A war of aggression is the supreme international crime." -- Robert Jackson,
 former U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice and Nuremberg prosecutor

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From ean at sbcglobal.net  Mon Dec 26 16:36:42 2005
From: ean at sbcglobal.net (ean@sbcglobal.net)
Date: Mon Dec 26 18:33:41 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Staying the course
Message-ID: <E1Er4Ta-0005Dy-1s@elasmtp-kukur.atl.sa.earthlink.net>


  Staying the course

By James Carroll  |  December 26, 2005  |  The Boston Globe

AMERICAN INTELLIGENCE was proving itself inadequate to the 
challenge. The
president appointed a special commission to make recommendations. The 
year
was 1954. The commission chairman was James Doolittle, the retired bomber
general who had led the first air raid against Tokyo.

''It is now clear," he stated in his report to President Eisenhower,
''that we are facing an implacable enemy whose avowed objective is world
domination by whatever means and whatever cost. There are no rules in such
a game. Hitherto acceptable norms of human conduct do not apply. If the
United States is to survive, longstanding concepts of 'fair play' must be
reconsidered. We must develop effective espionage and counter-espionage
services, and must learn to subvert, sabotage, and destroy our enemies by
more clever, more sophisticated, and more effective methods than those
used against us. It may be necessary that the American people be made
acquainted with, understand, and support this fundamentally repugnant
philosophy."

Sound familiar? Again and again, in the year now ending, the American
people have been told by their leaders that strategies based on a new
''repugnant philosophy" are required if the nation is to survive the
challenge facing it. Forbidden incendiary weapons must be used in urban
settings. Prisoners of war must be deprived of Geneva protections.
Aggressive interrogations of enemies must approach torture. Commitments to
provide US combat forces with adequate protective gear must be forsworn.
Extrajudicial kidnapping of bad people must be justified. Allies must be
pressured into joining secret networks of detention camps.

Human rights standards must be jettisoned. Traditional obligations to the
United Nations must be ignored. Treaties that limit action can be cast
aside. Distinctions between foreign and domestic espionage must be left
behind, with US citizens subject to unmonitored surveillance by military
agencies. Public libraries must be regarded as government peepholes. The
lawyer-client privilege must no longer be regarded as sacrosanct. The
press must be recruited into the project of information management.
Dissent must be labeled as treason.

A great American erosion has occurred this year, and only now are the
contours of what is lost becoming apparent. Much more is at stake than the
abandonment of ''longstanding concepts of 'fair-play' " of which Doolittle
wrote. To ''subvert, sabotage, and destroy" what threatens us, we have
begun to subvert, sabotage, and destroy what protects us: the mutuality of
solemn compacts abroad, fundamental safeguards of the Constitution at
home. Because the justifying ''state of emergency" is an open-ended war,
the trashing of ''hitherto acceptable norms of human conduct" will be
permanent. Get used to it.

Doolittle proposed a break with American traditions and laws for the sake
of far more aggressive responses to Soviet communism. The year he did so
saw the initiation of unprecedented American covert actions in Iran and
Vietnam, with unhappy consequences that reverberate to this day. But
Doolittle's remained a minority report in the annals of US government
responses. Eisenhower was neither as freaked out by what threatened as his
commission chairman, nor as indifferent to basic decency as a standard of
national identity. To Doolittle's credit, he and those who saw things his
way understood themselves as occupying the country's shadows. They knew
enough to be ashamed of what they thought was necessary.

Where is the shame in Washington today? How does Donald Rumsfeld not 
blush
in the presence of the soldiers he so routinely betrays? How does Dick
Cheney maintain that straight face, treating core values as a joke? The
recasting of the nation's moral meaning -- a blatant embrace of
ends-justify-the-means -- is happening in plain daylight. No shadows here.

Every time the Bush administration is caught in one of its repugnant
purposes (Thank God, again this year, for Seymour Hersh), the White House
declares its intention to stay the course. Torture? Wiretapping?
Kidnapping? Deceit? The president's eyes widen: Trust me, he says with a
twisted smile. Then he leans closer to display a snarling defiance. The
combination reduces his critics to sputters.

Perhaps Bush's savviest achievement has been to make the public think that
Rumsfeld and Cheney are the dark geniuses behind the administration's
malevolence. If Bush is taken as too shallow to have a fascist ideology;
as too weak to stick with hard policies that undermine democracy; as a
religious nutcase whose apocalyptic fantasies don't matter; as a man, in
sum, the average citizen can regard as slightly less than average -- then
what he is pulling off will not be called by its proper name until it is
too late. 2005? Oh yes, that was the year of the coup.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/12/2
6/staying_the_course/
-- 
You are currently on Mha Atma's Earth Action Network email list, 
option D (up to 3 emails/day).  To be removed, or to switch options 
(option A - 1x/week, option B - 3/wk, option C - up to 1x/day, option D - 
up to 3x/day) please reply and let us know!  If someone forwarded you 
this email and you want to be on our list, send an email to 
ean@sbcglobal.net and tell us which option you'd like.


"A war of aggression is the supreme international crime." -- Robert Jackson,
 former U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice and Nuremberg prosecutor

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From michael at michaelbutler.com  Mon Dec 26 18:24:11 2005
From: michael at michaelbutler.com (Michael Butler)
Date: Mon Dec 26 18:35:39 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] FW: thanks
In-Reply-To: <001c01c60a29$32a32f50$01fea8c0@peppy7223daf35>
Message-ID: <BFD5E5CB.27395%michael@michaelbutler.com>


------ Forwarded Message
From: "peppy castro" <peppyc@frontiernet.net>
Date: Mon, 26 Dec 2005 09:32:26 -0500

Subject: Fw: thanks


      Dear Friends,

     My heartfelt appreciation goes out to all of you who have taken the
time and trouble to send me "forwards" over the past 12 months. Thank you
for making me feel safe, secure, blessed, and wealthy.

      Extra thanks to whoever sent me the one about rat crap in the glue on
envelopes cause I now have to go get a wet towel every time I need to seal
an envelope. 

      Also, I scrub the top of every can I open for the same reason. Because
of your concern I no longer drink Coca Cola because it can remove toilet
stains. 

      I no longer drink Pepsi or Dr Pepper since the people who make these
products are atheists who refuse to put "Under God" on their cans.

      I no longer use Saran wrap in the microwave because it causes cancer.

      I no longer check the coin return on pay phones because I could be
pricked with a needle infected with AIDS.

      I no longer use cancer-causing deodorants even though I smell like a
water buffalo on a hot day.

      I no longer go to shopping malls because someone might drug me with a
perfume sample and rob me.

      I no longer receive packages from nor send packages by UPS or FedEx
since they are actually Al Qaeda in disguise

      I no longer answer the phone because someone will ask me to dial a
number for which I will get a phone bill with calls to Jamaica, Uganda,
Singapore, and Uzbekistan.

      I no longer eat KFC because their "chickens" are actually horrible
mutant freaks with no eyes or feathers.

      I no longer have any sneakers -- but that will change once I receive
my free replacement pair from Nike.

      I no longer have to buy expensive cookies from Neiman Marcus since I
now have their recipe.

      I no longer worry about my soul because at last count I have 363,214
angels looking out for me.

      Thanks to you, I have learned that God only answers my prayers if I
forward an e-mail to seven of my friends and make a wish within five
minutes. 

      I no longer have any savings because I gave it to a sick girl who is
about to die in the hospital (for the 1,387,258th time).

      I no longer have any money at all - but that will change once I
receive the $15,000 that Microsoft and AOL are sending me for participating
in their special email program.

      Yes, I want to thank you so much for looking out for me that I will
now return the favor!

      If you don't send this e-mail to at least 144,000 people in the next 7
minutes, a large pigeon with a wicked case of diarrhea will land on your
head at 5:00 PM (CDT) this afternoon. I know this will occur because it
actually happened to a friend of my next door neighbor's ex-mother-in-law's
second husband's cousin's beautician.
     
             
     


------ End of Forwarded Message

From harperalexander at mail.com  Tue Dec 27 07:20:04 2005
From: harperalexander at mail.com (Alexander Harper)
Date: Tue Dec 27 07:31:35 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Patriotism in the UK becoming intellectually fashionable?
Message-ID: <20051227152004.DAE9F1F50B1@ws1-2.us4.outblaze.com>


 
Patriotism is back in intellectual fashion
By David Green
(Filed: 27/12/2005)

Can an intelligent person be patriotic? Or is national loyalty a base emotion, fit only for the tabloid-reading masses? In the 1940s, George Orwell remarked that Colonel Blimps and highbrow intellectuals both accepted as a law of nature that patriotism and intelligence were divorced.



England was, he thought, the only great country whose intellectuals were ashamed of their own nationality and felt it their "duty to snigger at every English institution".

The recent re-publication of Our Island Story (1905), Henrietta Marshall's patriotic and beautifully written children's history, which encouraged legitimate pride in British achievements, has sparked some reactions that Orwell would have recognised.

Writing in the Times Literary Supplement, A. N. Wilson even went so far as to claim that from "Charlemagne to Frederick the Great, the story of Europe is very largely a German story". 

The necessity to look up the dates of these two monarchs may distract a little from the audacity of this claim. Charlemagne assumed the Frankish throne in 768 and Frederick the Great died in 1786, a period during which, in Britain, the long struggle for liberty and democracy was taking place, culminating in the founding of parliamentary democracy and the entrenching of the idea that the power of the state was limited by law.

Meanwhile, in Germany, the foundations for totalitarianism - the absolute power of the unchecked ruler - were being laid. Wilson's Anglophobia has found recent support from no less a figure than the Archbishop of Canterbury: Dr Rowan Williams apologised at an international conference for the sin of making "cultural captives" of people subject to missionary work by the Anglican Church during the days of Empire.

Yet this hostility seems increasingly like an anachronistic outburst. Patriotism as Orwell defined it - "devotion to a particular place and a particular way of life, which one believes to be the best in the world but has no wish to force on other people" - is making a comeback among members of the intelligentsia.

In the week before his enthronement as Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu urged the English to stop being embarrassed by their own culture. He owed his own success to Anglican missionaries in Uganda, he said.

The English way of life was democratic, based on reason, and allowed "genuine dissent without resort to violence". And while in office he intended to remind everyone that English culture was rooted in Christianity.

Prospect magazine has put the idea of national loyalty to core beliefs back on the map of intellectual respectability. Consciousness of the threat from Islamist extremists has given added impetus, but the debate stimulated by its editor, David Goodhart, had begun earlier.

Among academics, Oxford's David Miller had been quietly restoring respectability to legitimate national pride through his book Nationality, and Professor Robert Rowthorn of Cambridge had warned, also in Prospect, of the dangers of multiculturalism to the sense of solidarity on which any free people must rely.

The Anglophobia that Orwell noticed within the intelligentsia of the 1930s and 1940s is still a powerful presence.

During the Second World War, various highbrows did not actually want Germany and Japan to win, he said, but they were pleased when Singapore fell because they "could not help getting a certain kick out of seeing their own country humiliated".

Occasional reverses suffered in modern Iraq provoke the same ambiguous, gloating reaction from today's Anglophobe intellectuals.

But the success of Our Island Story - boosted by a hearty recommendation from this newspaper's education editor, John Clare - suggests that the tide has turned.

Not only has the book sold more than 20,000 copies in a couple of months, but it has earned unexpected praise from bien pensant quarters.

The Guardian reviewer remarked that Antonia Fraser, an undisputed progressive heroine, had expressed her "lifelong gratitude" to the book. And so did the reviewer - on the grounds that, in the Peasants' Revolt, Henrietta Marshall had been on the side of the peasants, who had been ruthlessly exploited by a cruel ruling class and betrayed by the king.

Time Out, always a handy guide to the mental assumptions of the fashion-conscious Left, also came out in favour, finding "its tight focus on the virtues of courage, wisdom and patriotism" both valuable and relevant. And the Sunday Mirror declared it approved reading for the Labour-voting working class: it was "one of the great children's history books of all time".

The Economist, meanwhile, called it an "impeccably postmodern" contribution to the new political fashion of musing about the meaning of being British.

Perhaps the most interesting and encouraging feature of this debate is that it is taking place above the tribal loyalties of party politics. Orwell would have approved. "Patriotism has nothing to do with Conservatism," he wrote.

"It is actually the opposite of Conservatism, since it is a devotion to something that is always changing and yet is felt to be mystically the same. It is the bridge between the future and the past." 

The author is director of Civitas, the Institute for the Study of Civil Society.
 
 


-- 
___________________________________________________
Play 100s of games for FREE! http://games.mail.com/


From swiggard at comcast.net  Tue Dec 27 08:12:48 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Tue Dec 27 08:28:00 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] HATE THE WAR,
 LOVE THE SOLDIER: A Political Debate On Stress Disorder
 - Washington Post
Message-ID: <43B16800.5000308@comcast.net>

A Political Debate On Stress Disorder
As Claims Rise, VA Takes Stock

By Shankar Vedantam
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, December 27, 2005; A01

The spiraling cost of post-traumatic stress disorder among war veterans 
has triggered a politically charged debate and ignited fears that the 
government is trying to limit expensive benefits for emotionally scarred 
troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.

In the past five years, the number of veterans receiving compensation 
for the disorder commonly called PTSD has grown nearly seven times as 
fast as the number receiving benefits for disabilities in general, 
according to a report this year by the inspector general of the 
Department of Veterans Affairs. A total of 215,871 veterans received 
PTSD benefit payments last year at a cost of $4.3 billion, up from $1.7 
billion in 1999 -- a jump of more than 150 percent.

Experts say the sharp increase does not begin to factor in the potential 
impact of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, because the increase is 
largely the result of Vietnam War vets seeking treatment decades after 
their combat experiences. Facing a budget crunch, experts within and 
outside the Veterans Affairs Department are raising concerns about 
fraudulent claims, wondering whether the structure of government 
benefits discourages healing, and even questioning the utility and 
objectivity of the diagnosis itself.

"On the one hand, it is good that people are reaching out for help," 
said Jeff Schrade, communications director for the Senate Veterans 
Affairs Committee. "At the same time, as more people reach out for help, 
it squeezes the budget further."

Among the issues being discussed, he said, was whether veterans who show 
signs of recovery should continue to receive disability compensation: 
"Whether anyone has the political courage to cut them off -- I don't 
know that Congress has that will, but we'll see."

Much of the debate is taking place out of public sight, including an 
internal VA meeting in Philadelphia this month. The department has also 
been in negotiations with the Institute of Medicine over a review of the 
"utility and objectiveness" of PTSD diagnostic criteria and the validity 
of screening techniques, a process that could have profound implications 
for returning soldiers.

The growing national debate over the Iraq war has changed the nature of 
the discussion over PTSD, some participants said. "It has become a 
pro-war-versus-antiwar issue," said one VA official who spoke on the 
condition of anonymity because politics is not supposed to enter the 
debate. "If we show that PTSD is prevalent and severe, that becomes one 
more little reason we should stop waging war. If, on the other hand, 
PTSD rates are low . . . that is convenient for the Bush administration."

As to whether budget issues and politics are playing a role in the 
agency's review of PTSD diagnosis and treatment, VA spokesman Scott 
Hogenson said: "The debate is over how to provide the best medical 
services possible for veterans."

People with PTSD have paralyzing memories of traumatic episodes they 
experienced or witnessed, a range of emotional problems, and significant 
impairments in day-to-day functioning. Underlying the political and 
budget issues, many experts acknowledged, is a broader scientific debate 
over how best to diagnose trauma-related pathology, what the goal of 
treatment should be -- even what constitutes trauma.

Harvard psychologist Richard J. McNally argues that the diagnosis 
equates sexual abuse, car accidents and concentration camps, when they 
are entirely different experiences: A PTSD diagnosis has become "a way 
of moral claims-making," he said. "To underscore the reprehensibility of 
the perpetrator, we say someone has been through a traumatic event."

Chris Frueh, director of the VA clinic in Charleston, S.C., said the 
department's disability system encourages some veterans to exaggerate 
symptoms and prolong problems in order to maintain eligibility for benefits.

"We have young men and women coming back from Iraq who are having PTSD 
and getting the message that this is a disorder they can't be treated 
for, and they will have to be on disability for the rest of their 
lives," said Frueh, a professor of public psychiatry at the Medical 
University of South Carolina. "My concern about the policies is that 
they create perverse incentives to stay ill. It is very tough to get 
better when you are trying to demonstrate how ill you are."

Most veterans whom Frueh treats for PTSD are seeking disability 
compensation, he said. Veterans Affairs uses a sliding scale; veterans 
who are granted 100 percent disability status receive payments starting 
at around $2,300 a month. The VA inspector general's report found that 
benefit payments varied widely in states and said that was because VA 
centers in some states are more likely to grant veterans 100 percent 
disability.

Psychiatrist Sally Satel, who is affiliated with the conservative 
American Enterprise Institute, said an underground network advises 
veterans where to go for the best chance of being declared disabled. The 
institute organized a recent meeting to discuss PTSD among veterans.

Once veterans are declared disabled, they retain that status 
indefinitely, Frueh and Satel said. The system creates an adversarial 
relationship between doctors and patients, in which veterans sometimes 
take legal action if doctors decline to diagnose PTSD, Frueh said. The 
clinician added that some patients who really need help never get it 
because they are unwilling to undergo the lengthy process of qualifying 
for disability benefits, which often requires them to repeatedly revisit 
the painful episodes they experienced.

The concern by Frueh and Satel about overdiagnosis and fraud -- what 
researchers call "false positives" -- has drawn the ire of veterans 
groups and many other mental health experts.

A far bigger problem is the many veterans who seek help but do not get 
it or who never seek help, a number of experts said. Studies have shown 
that large numbers of veterans with PTSD never seek treatment, possibly 
because of the stigma surrounding mental illness.

"There are periodic false positives, but there are also a lot of false 
negatives out there," said Terence M. Keane, one of the nation's 
best-known PTSD researchers, who cited a 1988 study on the numbers of 
veterans who do not get treatment. "Less than one-fourth of people with 
combat-related PTSD have used VA-related services."

Larry Scott, who runs the clearinghouse http://www.vawatchdog.org/ , 
said conservative groups are trying to cut VA disability programs by 
unfairly comparing them to welfare.

Compensating people for disabilities is a cost of war, he said: 
"Veterans benefits are like workmen's comp. You went to war. You were 
injured. Either your body or your mind was injured, and that prevents 
you from doing certain duties and you are compensated for that."

Scott said Veterans Affairs' objectives were made clear in the 
department's request to the Institute of Medicine for a $1.3 million 
study to review how PTSD is diagnosed and treated. Among other things, 
the department asked the institute -- a branch of the National Academies 
chartered by Congress to advise the government on science policy -- to 
review the American Psychiatric Association's criteria for diagnosing 
PTSD. Effectively, Scott said, Veterans Affairs was trying to get one 
scientific organization to second-guess another.

PTSD experts summoned to Philadelphia for the two-day internal "expert 
panel" meeting were asked to discuss "evidence regarding validity, 
reliability, and feasibility" of the department's PTSD assessment and 
treatment practices, according to an e-mail invitation obtained by The 
Washington Post. The goal, the e-mail added, is "to improve clinical 
exams used to help determine benefit payments for veterans with Post 
Traumatic Stress Disorder."

"What they are trying to do is figure out a way not to diagnose vets 
with PTSD," said Steve Robinson, executive director of the National Gulf 
War Resource Center, a veterans advocacy group. "It's like telling a 
patient with cancer, 'if we tell you, you don't have cancer, then you 
won't suffer from cancer.' "

Hogenson, the VA spokesman, said the department is not seeking to 
overturn the established psychiatric criteria for diagnosing PTSD.

"We are reviewing the utility and the objectivity of the criteria . . . 
and are commenting on the screening instruments used by VA," he said. 
"We want to make sure what we do for screening comports with the latest 
information out there."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/26/AR2005122600792.html?referrer=email
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Tue Dec 27 08:18:47 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Tue Dec 27 08:33:52 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Chalabi Lacks Votes Needed to Win Spot in Iraqi Assembly
 - Washington Post
Message-ID: <43B16967.1030608@comcast.net>

Chalabi Lacks Votes Needed to Win Spot in Iraqi Assembly

By Ellen Knickmeyer and Naseer Nouri
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, December 27, 2005; A18

BAGHDAD, Dec. 26 -- Unexpectedly low support from overseas voters has 
left Ahmed Chalabi -- the returned Iraqi exile once backed by the United 
States to lead Iraq -- facing a shutout from power in this month's vote 
for the country's first full-term parliament since the 2003 invasion.

Rebounding violence, which included bombings, assassination attempts and 
other attacks, claimed at least 19 lives in Iraq on Monday, including 
that of an American soldier. Eight members of a single Iraqi SWAT team 
were wiped out in what Iraqi authorities described as an hour-long 
shootout with better-armed insurgents.

With 95 percent of a preliminary tally from the Dec. 15 vote now 
completed, Chalabi remained almost 8,000 votes short of the 40,000 
minimum needed for him or his bloc to win a single seat in the 275-seat 
National Assembly, according to election officials. Without a seat in 
the assembly, Chalabi would presumably be unable to obtain a post in the 
resulting government.

However, Chalabi was among the politicians jockeying Monday ahead of 
meetings that have been scheduled in the Kurdish north this week to 
bring Shiite Muslims, Sunni Arabs, Kurds and others into post-election 
talks on forming the next government.

A spokesman for Chalabi's party, which has filed complaints of election 
irregularities, said he was waiting for the results of the 
investigation. "What I can say is Dr. Chalabi will have an important 
role, whether in the government or outside,'' said the spokesman, Haider 
Mousawi.

Chalabi is regarded as both a master deal-maker and remarkable political 
survivor. The longtime exile and his associates played an influential 
role in the Bush administration's decision to invade Iraq and overthrow 
Saddam Hussein; U.S. authorities tapped Chalabi to lead a small Iraqi 
force in the U.S.-led invasion. But his reputation suffered from past 
financial scandals, and critics have charged he was always more popular 
with Americans than with Iraqis.

Chalabi's supporters here had hoped he would do well among exile voters 
who were allowed to cast ballots overseas. But results announced Monday 
showed he received just 0.89 percent of the "special vote,'' from Iraqi 
citizens in foreign countries, hospitals, the army and prisons. Kurdish 
politicians received the largest share of the special vote, with the 
backing of millions of Iraqi Kurdish exiles and members of the security 
forces, while the current governing coalition of Shiite religious 
parties has so far won the most votes overall.

Chalabi's bloc has done poorly across the country, according to the 
preliminary tally, which left it statistically unlikely that the bloc 
could win a seat outright. Final results are expected by early next month.

Chalabi pulled out of the governing Shiite alliance ahead of the 
elections, opting instead to form a small party of his own, after the 
alliance refused to guarantee him the top job of prime minister, his 
aides said at the time.

Representatives of the top finishers readied for midweek meetings to be 
convened under the auspices of President Jalal Talabani. With no party 
receiving an outright majority of seats in the new National Assembly, 
winning control of the next government will require forming a coalition 
that can command such a majority.

The deal-making has led to meetings among rivals at opposite extremes of 
Iraqi politics to feel out any possible alliance. On Saturday, the 
effort brought Saleh Mutlak -- a Sunni politician previously derided by 
Shiites as a front for insurgents -- together with Abdul Aziz Hakim, the 
leader of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, a 
Shiite religious party whose militia Sunnis accuse of running anti-Sunni 
death squads. Both sides confirmed the meeting Monday.

"We have agreed that we should form a government of national unity 
without suggesting any names," Mutlak said. "And they've agreed on the 
principle and were very positive about it." He said there were "no 
results for these talks yet, but all expectations show that we are on 
the right track to solve the problem."

Tariq Hashimi, secretary general of the Iraqi Islamic Party, a Sunni 
group, said his organization also was "negotiating with all factions, 
including representatives of the Shiite alliance."

Iraq's election commission said Monday it still had found no evidence of 
any fraud serious enough to change the outcome of the elections.

Violence Monday targeted government security forces and officials. About 
25 insurgents attacked a checkpoint run by an Iraqi SWAT team outside 
Baqubah, about 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, said Kanan Hameed, a SWAT 
team member whom authorities say survived only because he was elsewhere 
during the attack.

"The attack lasted for one hour. We were waiting for any support from 
the Iraqi police or the American forces, but no one came," Hameed said.

"The men fought until they ran out of ammunition,'' said Awf Rahomi, 
deputy governor of Diyala province.

Baqubah, the capital of Diyala, has been the scene of Sunni protests 
against the election results. A roadside bombing Monday, apparently 
targeting the governor, wounded him and killed one of his guards, 
spokesman Ali Khaiyam said. A separate attack killed a female member of 
the provincial council, police in Baqubah said.

Armed men near Latifiyah, about 20 miles south of Baghdad, stormed the 
house of a Shiite family Monday and killed four men of the family in 
front of the women and children, a police spokesman said. Other killings 
Monday included the assassination of the local deputy chief of the 
Supreme Council party in Najaf.

In Baghdad, an American soldier on patrol was killed by a 
rocket-propelled grenade. Also, at least three bombs hit the 
predominantly Shiite Karrada district, killing at least one person.

"The resistance is doing the right thing," Uthman Abdullah, a taxi 
driver, said after the Karrada bombings. "They should never let the 
Shiites enjoy taking control of the country. The holy warriors should 
show them one black day after another. This is the only language that 
these people will understand."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/26/AR2005122600299.html?nav=hcmodule
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Tue Dec 27 08:21:56 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Tue Dec 27 08:37:00 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] EXCELLENT & RECOMMENDED: Power That Bush Can't Just Take
 - Eugene Robinson - Washington Post Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43B16A24.1030505@comcast.net>

Power That Bush Can't Just Take

By Eugene Robinson
Tuesday, December 27, 2005; A25

Since the holiday season is a time of generosity and goodwill toward all 
-- even those who torture the Constitution and hoodwink the nation into 
ill-advised wars -- let's do a little thought experiment.

Let's assume that George W. Bush's claim of virtually unfettered 
presidential power is not just an exercise in reclaiming executive perks 
that Dick Cheney believes were wrongly surrendered after Watergate. 
Let's assume that Bush genuinely believes he needs the right to blanket 
the nation with electronic surveillance, detain indefinitely anyone he 
considers a terrorist suspect, make those detainees disappear into 
secret, CIA-run prisons, and subject them to "waterboarding" and other 
degradations. Let's assume for the moment that the president's only 
desperate motivation is to prevent another day like Sept. 11, 2001.

Let's go even further and assume he decided to invade Iraq for the same 
reason. Even in a thought experiment, we can't forgive the way he snowed 
the country into believing there was some connection between Iraq and 
the Sept. 11 attacks; nor can we forget the way he hyped the flawed 
intelligence about weapons of mass destruction -- we're being generous 
here, not stupid. But let's assume that however calculated and cynical 
the machinations, and however wrongheaded the decision to go to war, the 
underlying motive was purely to avoid another catastrophic terrorist attack.

All right: Given these overly kind assumptions, can this 
administration's usurpation of power somehow be justified?

Every time I work it through, the answer I come up with is no. The 
president has no right to ignore the rule of law as if it were a mere 
nuisance.

The problem is that if the president really were determined to do 
anything it takes to prevent another terrorist strike, why not suspend 
habeas corpus, as Lincoln did during the Civil War? That way you could 
arrest everyone who could possibly be a terrorist, or who once lived 
next door to a suspected terrorist's uncle, and you could hold those 
people as long as you wanted. Why stop at surveillance of international 
telephone calls and e-mails? Why not listen in on, say, all interstate 
calls as well? Or just go for it and scarf up all the domestic 
communications the National Security Agency's copious computers can hold?

Why stop at waterboarding? Why not go all the way and pull out some 
fingernails, if that would give Americans another tiny increment of 
security? Wouldn't electric shocks make us safer still? Just order the 
White House lawyers to draw up yet another thumb-on-the-scale legal 
opinion explaining how torture isn't really torture, and have at it.

If potential terrorists may be walking among us, why not have police 
officers stand on street corners all day and subject anyone who looks 
"suspicious" to questioning and a search? That's what Fidel Castro does 
in Cuba, and believe me, Cuba is an extremely safe country.

In Vietnam we destroyed villages in order to save them. In this war on 
terrorism, why not go ahead and destroy our freedoms in order to save them?

The reason we don't do these absurd things, of course, is that we see a 
line between the acceptable and the unacceptable. That bright line is 
the law, drawn by Congress and regularly surveyed by the judiciary. It 
can be shifted, but the president has no right to shift it on his own 
authority. His constitutional war powers give him wide latitude, but 
those powers are not unlimited.

If you go along with my experiment and assume that the president has the 
best of motives, then the problem is that he wants to protect the 
American people but doesn't trust us.

There can be no freedom without some measure of risk. We guarantee 
freedom of the press, which means that newspapers sometimes print things 
the government doesn't want printed. We guarantee that defendants cannot 
be forced to incriminate themselves, which means that sometimes bad guys 
go free. We accept these risks as the price of liberty.

The president would probably respond that in an era of loose-knit 
terrorist groups and suitcase nukes, the risks are exponentially greater 
than those his predecessors faced. Even if you agree, the answer is not 
to act unilaterally but to go to Congress and the courts and ask them to 
redraw that line between state power and individual freedom.

These are not tactical decisions about where a tank division should 
cross the Rhone. They are fundamental questions that go to the nature of 
this union, and the president is required to trust the American people 
to decide them.

End of experiment. Please return your rose-colored safety glasses to the 
front of the class.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/26/AR2005122600516.html
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Tue Dec 27 08:24:12 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Tue Dec 27 08:39:16 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] When the Cutting Is Corrupted - E. J. Dionne -
	Washington Post Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43B16AAC.3050902@comcast.net>

When the Cutting Is Corrupted

By E. J. Dionne Jr.
Tuesday, December 27, 2005; A25

With indicted superlobbyist Jack Abramoff reportedly ready to cooperate 
with prosecutors and his partner, Michael Scanlon, already singing, 2006 
is expected to be the year of congressional scandals.

Lord knows, a housecleaning in the Capitol is definitely in order. But 
the Abramoff scandal is just part of the corruption of our political 
system. There is another level of special-interest influence that cannot 
be handled by prosecutors: Only the voters can render a judgment on a 
politics of favoritism that has created a new Gilded Age. It's clear 
that the national government has placed itself squarely on the side of 
the wealthy, the privileged and the connected.

Rarely does a single action by Congress serve as so powerful an example 
of how the system is working. The recent budget bill, which squeaked 
through the House and Senate just before Christmas, is a road map of 
insider dealing. It shows that when choices have to be made, the 
interests of the poor and the middle class fall before the wishes of 
interest groups with powerful lobbies and awesome piles of campaign 
money to distribute.

Republican majorities in the Senate and House insisted that they wanted 
to cut the federal budget. But the Senate and House offered competing 
plans for achieving savings. When it came time to meld the two 
proposals, almost every choice congressional leaders made favored the 
interest groups.

Consider federal health programs. The House bill proposed substantial 
cuts for Medicaid beneficiaries, but the Senate bill -- partly because 
of pressure from moderate Republicans -- did not include those cuts. 
Instead, the Senate proposed to save taxpayer money by eliminating a $10 
billion fund to encourage regional preferred-provider organizations, 
known as PPOs, to participate in the Medicare program. It also sought 
more rebates to the federal government from drug manufacturers 
participating in Medicaid.

Note the difference: Instead of imposing cuts on the poor, the Senate 
sought savings from corporate interests. Surprise, surprise: The final 
bill dropped the $10 billion cut to the PPOs and most of the rebate 
demands on drug manufacturers. Instead, the agreement hammered Medicaid 
recipients with $16 billion in gross cuts over the next decade. (The net 
cuts are lower because of new Medicaid spending, partly to help cover 
the scattered victims of Hurricane Katrina.)

The Medicaid cuts include increased co-payments and premiums on 
low-income Americans, and the budget assumes savings because fewer poor 
people will visit the doctor. As Kevin Freking of the Associated Press 
reported: "The Congressional Budget Office has concluded that such 
increases would lead many poor people to forgo health care or not to 
enroll in Medicaid at all -- contributing to some of the $4.8 billion in 
Medicaid savings envisioned over the next five years."

Ah, say their defenders, but these cuts will be good for poor people. 
According to the New York Times, Rep. Joe L. Barton (R-Tex.), an 
architect of the Medicaid proposals, said the higher co-payments were 
needed to "encourage personal responsibility" among low-income people. 
Spoken like a congressman who never has to worry about his 
taxpayer-provided health coverage.

And that is just one instance among many of corporate interests being 
shielded from cuts, while child support enforcement and foster care 
programs were sliced. Shortly before the bill went to the House floor, 
Republican leaders, at the insistence of a group of GOP lawmakers from 
Ohio, dropped a $1.9 billion cut that would have changed Medicare 
payments to oxygen equipment manufacturers. The main beneficiary of this 
change was Invacare Corp. of Elyria, Ohio.

Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.) opposed the original, milder Senate budget 
bill but turned around and voted for the final, harsher bill. According 
to Congress Daily, Coleman backed the final budget "after negotiators 
took out cuts affecting his state's sugar beet growers." Coleman told 
the paper: "Karl Rove called me and asked what I wanted. A few hours 
later it was out of the bill."

The good news is that this budget is not law yet. Sen. Kent Conrad 
(D-N.D.) used a clever procedural maneuver to force it back to the House 
for one more vote next year.

When this 774-page behemoth hit the House floor shortly after 1 a.m. on 
Dec. 19, many members were not fully aware of what was in it. Now that 
they know, maybe some of the moderate Republicans who caved to their 
leadership and voted for it will save their party's honor by killing 
this special-interest mess. If I may borrow from Mr. Barton, doing so 
would definitely "encourage personal responsibility" among Republican 
leaders.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/26/AR2005122600532.html
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Tue Dec 27 08:27:57 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Tue Dec 27 08:43:12 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] EXCELLENT & RECOMMENDED: Why We're Going Back to the
 Moon - Paul D. Spudis - Washington Post Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43B16B8D.9090006@comcast.net>

Why We're Going Back to the Moon

By Paul D. Spudis
Tuesday, December 27, 2005; A25

The recent release of the details of NASA's proposed plans for human 
return to the moon in response to President Bush's "Vision for Space 
Exploration" last year has drawn much comment -- some positive, some 
negative and some simply perplexed.

Although the reasons for undertaking the program were clearly 
articulated in the president's speech, it is important to reexamine why 
the moon is its cornerstone and what we hope to achieve by returning there.

The moon is important for three reasons: science, inspiration and 
resources. All three are directly served by the new lunar return 
architecture. This program has the potential to make significant 
contributions to our national economy and welfare.

The moon is a scientific laboratory of extraordinary facility, richness 
and benefit. The history of our corner of the solar system for the past 
4 billion years is preserved and readable in the ancient dust of the 
lunar surface. This record is lost on the dynamic and ever-changing 
surface of Earth. Other planets do not record the same events affecting 
Earth and the moon, including impacts, space particles and the detailed 
history of our sun. The recovery of this record will let us better 
understand the impact hazard in the Earth-moon system as well as unravel 
the processes and evolution of our sun, the major driver of climate and 
life on Earth.

The moon is a stable platform to observe the universe. Its far side is 
the only known place in the solar system permanently shielded from 
Earth's radio noise. That allows observation of the sky at radio 
wavelengths never before seen. Every time we open a new spectral window 
on the universe, we find unexpected and astounding phenomena; there is 
no reason to expect anything different from the opening of new windows 
on the universe from the surface of the moon.

The moon is close in space (only three days away) yet a separate world 
filled with mysteries, landscapes and treasures. By embracing the 
inspiring and difficult task of living and working there, we can learn 
how to explore a planetary surface and how the combined efforts of both 
humans and machines can enable new levels of productive exploration.

In 21st-century America, our existence depends on an educated, 
technically literate workforce, motivated and schooled in complex 
scientific disciplines. Tackling the challenges of creating a 
functioning society off-planet will require not only the best technical 
knowledge we can muster but also the best imaginations. One cannot 
develop a creative imagination, the renewable resource of a vibrant 
society, without confronting and surmounting unknowns and challenges on 
new frontiers.

Although of fairly ordinary composition, the moon contains the resources 
of material and energy that we need to survive and operate in space. 
With its resources and proximity to Earth, the moon is a natural 
logistics and supply base, an offshore island of useful commodities for 
use there, in space and ultimately back on Earth.

Water is an extremely valuable commodity in space -- in its liquid form, 
it supports human life, and it can be broken down into its two 
components, hydrogen and oxygen. These elements make the highest-energy 
chemical rocket propellant known. Water exists in the dark and cold 
regions near the poles of the moon. Scientists estimate that each pole 
contains more than 10 billion tons of water, enough to launch a fully 
fueled space shuttle once a day, every day, for over 39 years. The 
ability to make fuel on the moon will allow routine access to Earth-moon 
space, the zone in which all of our space assets reside.

The moon's slow rotation, unclouded skies and abundant local materials 
make it possible to build installations specifically designed to harvest 
solar energy there. Solar power, collected on the moon and beamed to 
Earth and throughout the space between the two, can provide a clean and 
reliable energy source not only for space-based applications but 
ultimately for users on Earth as well. Lunar solar power solves the 
apparent "showstopper" of other space-based solar power systems -- the 
high cost of getting the solar arrays into space. Instead of launching 
arrays from the deep gravity well of Earth, we would use the local soil 
and make hundreds of tons of solar panels on the moon.

Living on the moon will expand the sphere of human and robotic activity 
in space beyond low-Earth orbit. To become a multiplanet species, we 
must master the skills of extracting local resources, build our 
capability to journey and explore in hostile regions, and create new 
reservoirs of human culture and experience. That long journey begins on 
the moon -- the staging ground, supply station and classroom for our 
voyage into the universe.

The writer is a lunar scientist and staff member at the Johns Hopkins 
University Applied Physics Laboratory. Last year he served as a member 
of President Bush's Commission on the Implementation of U.S. Space 
Exploration Policy.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/26/AR2005122600648.html
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Tue Dec 27 08:31:11 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Tue Dec 27 08:46:15 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] MUST READ: How will the Iraq war end? - H.D.S. Greenway
 - Boston Globe Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43B16C4F.60208@comcast.net>


  How will the Iraq war end?

By H.D.S. Greenway  |  December 27, 2005  |  The Boston Globe

ON ONE level, of course, there is no comparison between America's lost 
war in Vietnam and the current enterprise in Iraq. After all, Vietnam is 
in Southeast Asia and Iraq is the Middle East. That conflict was fought 
in rain forests, this one in desert towns. One was fought by draftees, 
this one by a volunteer army. The list goes on.

Yet, although the Bush administration takes pains to deny it, the 
comparison keeps creeping into the national conversation, and the most 
obvious link is the word ''quagmire." For the dwindling band of 
reporters who covered the war in Vietnam, a trip to Baghdad cannot help 
but bring forth ghosts.

America fought in Vietnam to contain communism. In this war the reasons 
for fighting keep shifting, but the central idea seems to have been to 
create a friendly democracy in the heart of the oil-producing Middle 
East that could transform the region by example.

Forty years ago the ''best and the brightest," as David Halberstam 
called them, got us into Vietnam to prevent other neighboring countries 
from falling like dominoes, or so the theory went. The best and the 
brightest this time around believed in a domino theory in reverse -- the 
transformative power of democracy. Lots of talk about an ''Arab Spring" 
by prowar professors is beginning to sound a little hollow, however.

Both Vietnam and Iraq were wars of choice. Neither Saddam Hussein nor Ho 
Chi Minh threatened the United States directly, but in both cases our 
leaders in Washington took the road to intervention to further perceived 
American interests. In Vietnam, however, there really was a communist 
threat, while in Iraq, Islamic extremism was not a problem before we got 
there, nor did Saddam Hussein possess the means to harm us.

In Vietnam then and in Iraq now, the administration finds itself engaged 
in a war it is unable to win and reluctant to lose. The American people 
are walking away from this war, as they did in Vietnam, and the Bush 
administration knows that staying the course is not a long-term option. 
The recently announced troop drawdown is a reflection of this domestic 
pressure, not conditions in Iraq.

But Bush today, as did Lyndon Johnson before him, vows to fight on until 
victory, and some of the same ridiculous rhetoric prevails -- such as 
that we are fighting them there so we won't have to fight them at home. 
In Iraq, war is actually helping Al Qaeda to recruit terrorists to one 
day attack us at home.

Both Vietnam and Iraq saw monumental miscalculations on the part of our 
war leaders. Hubris played a big role in both. It seemed inconceivable 
to both Johnson's and George W. Bush's defense departments that these 
weak opponents could stand up to America's modern arms. In both cases it 
was thought that the Americans could prevail quickly and go home.

As Richard Nixon's defense secretary, Melvin Laird, recently wrote: 
''Both the Vietnam War and the Iraq war were launched based on 
intelligence failures and possibly outright deception." To deception, 
add willful self-deception as well. For in both wars there was a 
tendency to ignore those who could tell our government about what 
Vietnam and Iraq were about. Johnson's defense secretary, Robert 
McNamara, would confess years later that he didn't know anything about 
Vietnamese culture and history, but as far as I know he hasn't confessed 
that he went out of his way to ignore people who could have informed him 
as to the difficulties ahead.

Likewise, Donald Rumsfeld went out of his way to ignore the advice of 
those who knew something about Iraq. In both cases any information that 
would get in the way of doctrine was unsought and unheard.

America's former viceroy, Paul Bremmer, and his young ideologues ran 
Iraq in blissful ignorance. I am told that making sure that there was no 
room for abortion in Iraq's Constitution was a goal -- likewise a flat 
tax for Iraq. John Negroponte's team would later call Bremmer's people 
''the illusionists."

Consider the author of ''The Assassins' Gate," George Packer's account 
of briefings in Baghdad: Daily press conferences ''about the coalition's 
intentions toward the rebels that were usually at odds with the facts, 
on occasion flatly untrue, and often in direct contradiction to 
statements made a day or a week earlier. . ." Packer might have been 
describing the ''5 o'clock follies" briefings in Saigon.

Likewise, in Saigon of old, there were bright young people working long 
and hard hours to have the Vietnamese do things in the American way 
totally removed from the reality of the country around them.

That being said, however, compared to Iraq there were quite a few 
Vietnamese speakers among the Americans who got themselves out and about 
in the countryside in Vietnam. In comparison, Americans in Iraq live in 
near total isolation with few Arab speakers and very little contact with 
Iraqis outside their fortified compounds. The civilian theorists and 
intellectuals that came to power with George W. Bush, and promoted this 
war, had almost to a man no military experience. They had ''other 
priorities" than to fight for their country, as Vice President Cheney so 
famously put it.

Although President Bush is finally admitting to some problems in Iraq, 
Washington's dreary drip of propaganda has the same Vietnam-era ring. 
The famous ''light at the end of the tunnel" of the Vietnam War is 
reflected in all the overly optimistic statements from the Bush White 
House about the Iraq insurgency's bitter-enders and last gasps.

Today the training of an Iraqi Army is being pushed at a frantic pace so 
that we can withdraw, much in the same way President Nixon's 
''Vietnamization" was supposed to prop up Vietnam so that we could bring 
our armies home.

It is not that there is no progress being made in Iraq. There is. But 
the question is, as it was in Vietnam: What does this progress mean for 
our ultimate goals? In Vietnam it became all to clear that no matter how 
many wells we dug or schools we built, there would be Vietnamese who 
might drink from the wells and accept the schools, but remain adamantly 
opposed to Americans in their country.

The same strikes me as true in Iraq. It is perfectly logical for an 
Iraqi to have opposed Saddam yesterday and oppose us today. As 
nationalism became our adversary in Vietnam, more so than communism, so 
is nationalism in Iraq growing against us.

US troops, with their reliance on fire power, caused great destruction 
and loss of civilian life in both wars. The Nixon administration also 
agonized about how atrocities committed by Americans in Vietnam would 
hurt the war effort, and how the information could be contained. The 
Bush administration's handling of the Abu Ghraib horrors are hauntingly 
similar.

Melvin Laird wrote that, in Vietnam, ''elections were choreographed by 
the United States to empower corrupt, selfish men who were no more than 
dictators in the garb of statesmen." It may be too early to make that 
same judgment in Iraq, but it is clear that too many Iraqi politicians 
are cast in the same mold as were our Saigon politicians.

And that old chimera the ''body count," which the Americans first 
avoided in Iraq, is creeping back into usage -- as if the number of 
insurgents we killed today had any bearing on whether we are actually 
winning the war.

Likewise the search-and-destroy missions that General William 
Westmoreland employed in Vietnam seem to be in vogue today in Iraq. But 
then as now, the insurgents melt away before our armies and come back 
again when we have passed on. And somehow they always seem to know when 
we are coming.

It was interesting for someone like me who spent years in Vietnam to 
meet even US generals in Iraq who are too young to have fought in 
Southeast Asia. But then as now, it is clear that this protracted war is 
putting tremendous strain on the US Army. It was something that General 
Creighton Abrams worried about aloud to me in Saigon, and it worries our 
military commanders today. It took years for the US Army to recover from 
Vietnam, and it will take years for it to recover from the strains put 
upon it in Iraq. But the most haunting parallel to me is that it will be 
possible to win every battle in Iraq and yet lose the war.

US involvement in Iraq will not end with American helicopters flying 
from the roof of the embassy. But it may end badly with Iraq split among 
ethnic and sectarian warlords, empowering those who wish America ill -- 
destabilizing the Middle East rather than transforming it.

Or Iraq could emerge united with some kind of representational 
government. But ultimately, all that will be up to the Iraqis, not the 
Americans, who do not, and cannot, control events. Once again, as in 
Vietnam, we are learning the limits of American power.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/12/27/how_will_the_iraq_war_end/
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Tue Dec 27 08:34:39 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Tue Dec 27 08:49:44 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] ANOTHER GREAT ONE: Twisting Vonnegut's views on
 terrorism - Mark Vonnegut - Boston Globe Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43B16D1F.30105@comcast.net>


  Twisting Vonnegut's views on terrorism

By Mark Vonnegut  |  December 27, 2005  |  The Boston Globe

FOR THE past month or so it's been said and repeated that my father 
supports terrorism. The desire to have it be true is almost palpable. If 
novelist Kurt Vonnegut supports terrorism, then maybe all critics of the 
war are on some level proterrorist.

It's my fervent hope that if I'm alive at 83, I'll have enough left in 
my tank to make people this angry.

My father cares not a fig about the Middle East. He's never been there, 
doesn't think about their art or writing, may or may not be able to pick 
out some of their capitals and important rivers on a map. His true 
heroes are Abraham Lincoln and Mark Twain.

He doesn't listen to me. When he was going to go on national television 
he told me he was going to call for the impeachment of President Bush. I 
told him he'd do better talking about growing up in Indiana in the 
Depression, how people took care of each other, how much he has loved 
and celebrated freedom. Kurt Vonnegut calling for the impeachment of 
Bush is not news.

Like most people, my father can be wrong. I'll bet you can take most 
83-year-olds out to lunch and they'll say one or two stupid things. It 
wouldn't be that surprising if he had said something outrageous and 
unforgivable, but the plain fact of it is that he didn't.

At no point did he say that blowing yourself up in a crowd of people was 
a good thing to do. What most outraged his interviewer was Kurt's 
disinclination to dismiss the terrorists as mentally ill. He said that 
suicide bombers believed that they were dying for a just cause and that 
he imagined they were probably brave people. It was all speculation. 
Neither he nor his interviewer had any knowledge about suicide bombers 
or radical Islam. Nowhere in the interview did he say anything in 
support of terrorism, though I'm quite sure he enjoyed horrifying his 
interviewer by skating around it. Kurt, every so often, will play with 
people a little.

What Kurt can do better than most people is reframe things and turn them 
around in a way that creates a new perspective. Even if you disagree 
with that perspective, the plausibility and novelty of his vision are 
enough to make you think. We need to think a little more, not less.

Kurt loves to be gloomy and tragic. It's a loss to him that his life has 
mostly gone so well. He envies Twain and Lincoln their literary talents, 
but also their dead children. If my sisters and I were a little more 
devoted, we would have drawn straws. More than once or twice I've been 
fed to the teeth with my father's negativity and provocative posturing, 
but that doesn't make him un-American or proterrorist.

If these commentators can so badly misunderstand and underestimate an 
utterly unguarded English-speaking 83-year-old man with an extensive 
public record of exactly what he thinks, maybe we should worry about how 
well they understand an enemy they can't figure out what to call.

The outcome in Iraq will not depend on what we believe and how hard we 
believe it.

I'm not an expert on the Middle East or terrorism or the use of military 
force or politics. It's all I can do to know a little bit about how to 
help people raise their kids and what to do when they get sick. When a 
war happens, I just hope it gets over with quickly so that how we take 
care of children becomes more important again.

I didn't like the '60s because it was too important what people who had 
nothing to do with the war thought about it. From the beginning I have 
hoped our leaders were right but feared that they might be wrong. I 
hoped we would be welcomed as liberators.

I take care of military families. Their sacrifices are very real. The 
harm done them by this war is very real. Our government won't even give 
them decent medical insurance. I hope I can be forgiven for hoping we 
can give them decent strategic thinking and a better understanding of 
the enemy we're asking them to fight.

I hope I'm wrong, but if the people actually in charge of this war can't 
listen and think better than the people beating up my dad, it's not good 
news for military families and no amount of flag waving will make it so.

Mark Vonnegut is a pediatrician in Milton, MA.  

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/12/27/twisting_vonneguts_views_on_terrorism/
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From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Tue Dec 27 08:48:55 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (mblaxill@yahoo.com)
Date: Tue Dec 27 09:00:35 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Slowly, Cancer Genes Tender Their Secrets
Message-ID: <20051227164855.B39E913B826@lax-gw04.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: mblaxill@yahoo.com.

HEALTH | December 27, 2005
Preventing Cancer: Slowly, Cancer Genes Tender Their Secrets
By GINA KOLATA
Scientists are now finding that untangling the genetics of cancer is not impossible and are basing new treatments on their findings. 
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/27/health/27canc.html?emc=eta1



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From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Tue Dec 27 08:52:12 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (mblaxill@yahoo.com)
Date: Tue Dec 27 09:03:44 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Ghana's Uneasy Embrace of Slavery's Diaspora
Message-ID: <20051227165212.2F92283DDD@lax-gw03.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: mblaxill@yahoo.com.

INTERNATIONAL / AFRICA | December 27, 2005
Ghana's Uneasy Embrace of Slavery's Diaspora
By LYDIA POLGREEN
Ghana hopes descendants of enslaved Africans will think of Africa as their homeland - to visit, invest, send their children to be educated and even retire.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/27/international/africa/27ghana.html?emc=eta1



----------------- Advertisement --------------------------

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one Best Picture.  What did the original New York
Times movie reviews have to say about these Oscar
winning films?  
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From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Tue Dec 27 08:55:44 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (mblaxill@yahoo.com)
Date: Tue Dec 27 09:07:16 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: A Veteran's Iraq Message Upsets Army
	Recruiters
Message-ID: <20051227165544.A2FFE3AE71B@lax-gw06.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: mblaxill@yahoo.com.

NATIONAL | December 27, 2005
A Veteran's Iraq Message Upsets Army Recruiters
By MONICA DAVEY
In a way, many of the nation's arguments about war are playing out in Duluth, Minn., around a simple sign.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/27/national/27duluth.html?emc=eta1



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one Best Picture.  What did the original New York
Times movie reviews have to say about these Oscar
winning films?  
Go to the Best Pictures review archive:

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ABOUT THIS E-MAIL
This e-mail was sent to you by a friend through NYTimes.com's E-mail This Article service.  For general information about NYTimes.com, write to help@nytimes.com.

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From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Tue Dec 27 08:58:10 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (mblaxill@yahoo.com)
Date: Tue Dec 27 09:09:43 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Scientists Try to Resolve Nuclear Problem
	With an Old Technology Made New Again
Message-ID: <20051227165810.8461613B7F5@lax-gw04.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: mblaxill@yahoo.com.

SCIENCE | December 27, 2005
Scientists Try to Resolve Nuclear Problem With an Old Technology Made New Again
By MATTHEW L. WALD
The Energy Department is exploring an ambitious, if uncertain, plan to reprocess waste from power plants. 
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/27/science/27nuke.html?emc=eta1



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one Best Picture.  What did the original New York
Times movie reviews have to say about these Oscar
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Go to the Best Pictures review archive:

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ABOUT THIS E-MAIL
This e-mail was sent to you by a friend through NYTimes.com's E-mail This Article service.  For general information about NYTimes.com, write to help@nytimes.com.

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From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Tue Dec 27 08:59:21 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (mblaxill@yahoo.com)
Date: Tue Dec 27 09:10:58 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Headlines for December 27, 2005
Message-ID: <20051227165921.25952.qmail@trinity.democracynow.org>

mike Blaxill  ( mblaxill@yahoo.com )
sent you this story from democracynow.org




+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
|  Headlines for December 27, 2005
|  http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/27/1443255
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+


- Memorials Mark South Asian Tsunami of 2004
- Oxfam: 300,000 New Houses Still Need to Be Built in Region
- Report: Fed Agents Monitored Muslim Site in D.C. Area
- Telcoms Reportedly Aided NSA in Domestic Surveillance
- Bush Pressured WPost and NYTimes to Not Run Articles
- Editors of Barrons Suggests Bush Committed Impeachable Offenses
- U.S. Airstrikes In Iraq Up Fivefold This Year
- Families Seek Release of Christian Peacemaker Team Activists
This story continues at: 
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/27/1443255

From hecate at diamonddragon.com  Tue Dec 27 10:30:00 2005
From: hecate at diamonddragon.com (Hecate)
Date: Tue Dec 27 10:41:40 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] BBC E-mail: Outspoken Putin aide set to quit
Message-ID: <20051227_183000_099666.hecate@diamonddragon.com>

Hecate saw this story on BBC News Online and thought you
should see it.



** Outspoken Putin aide set to quit **
President Putin's economic adviser offers his resignation, saying Russia is no longer politically free.
< http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/2/hi/europe/4562718.stm >


** BBC Daily E-mail **
Choose the news and sport headlines you want - when you want them, all
in one daily e-mail
< http://www.bbc.co.uk/dailyemail/ >


** Disclaimer **
The BBC is not responsible for the content of this e-mail, and anything written in this e-mail does not necessarily reflect the BBC's views or opinions. Please note that neither the e-mail address nor name of the sender have?been verified.

If you do not wish to receive such e-mails in the future or want to know more about the BBC's Email a Friend service, please read our frequently asked questions. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/help/4162471.stm

From barbarasiomos38 at msn.com  Tue Dec 27 13:06:15 2005
From: barbarasiomos38 at msn.com (Barbara Siomos)
Date: Tue Dec 27 13:18:47 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] The I-Word is Gaining Ground and other news from The
	Nation
Message-ID: <BAY114-DAV564F56D395F8FE7AB1946AB370@phx.gbl>

From: The Nation Magazine 
Subject: The I-Word is Gaining Ground 
Date: Tue, 27 Dec 2005 10:41:56 -0800 
 
Dear EmailNation Subscriber, 

In the last months, several organizations have formed to urge George W. Bush's impeachment. But until very recently, their views were virtually absent in the so-called "liberal" media, and could only be found on the Internet and in street protests. But the times they are a' changin'. The I-word has moved from the marginal to the mainstream and even the conservative business magazine Barron's has excoriated the president for committing a potentially impeachable offense. For more, read Katrina vanden Heuvel's Editor's Cut. http://www.thenation.com/blogs/edcut?bid=7&pid=45006

And don't miss vanden Heuvel and many others in a special one-day democracy conference in late January sponsored by the New Democracy Project.

Saving Our Democracy: Saturday, January 21, NYC
The Great Hall, Cooper Union, Manhattan, 9:00 AM  5:30 PM

Join The Nation's Katrina vanden Heuvel, William Greider, John Nichols and David Cole as well as Mark Green, Sean Wilentz, Dan Cantor, Bertha Lewis, David Brock and many others in a conference about the ways our democratic processes have deteriorated over the last thirty years, how the Bush Administration has greatly accelerated the process, and what we can do about it.  

Tickets for the full-day: $15 per person

Click below for info and tickets or call 877-725-8849.
http://www.newdemocracyproject.org/sod_schedule.cfm

Co-sponsored by The Nation, Demos and the People for the American Way Foundation. 

And check out new Nation online holiday exclusives.

David Corn says Bush becomes very liberal when it comes to claiming existing laws grant him king-like powers, such as snooping on Americans without a warrant. 
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/capitalgames?bid=3&pid=44922

John Nichols remembers the Christmas Truce.
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat?bid=1&pid=44799

Joshua Freeman argues that NYC transit workers are fighting against the lie that abstract, neutral economic necessity, not the ideas and interests of the rich and powerful, are driving the demolition of what remains of social solidarity. http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060109/freeman

Finally, please visit http://www.thenation.com/ to post comments to Nation blogs, to view news-wire links updated twice each day, to see when Nation writers are appearing on TV, for info on nationwide activist campaigns, Nation History offerings, exclusive online reports, and special weekly selections from The Nation magazine! 

Best Regards, 
Peter Rothberg, The Nation 

P.S. If you like what you read at TheNation.com, please consider subscribing to The Nation at a sharply discounted rate. It's the only way to read ALL of what's in the magazine week after week--both in print and online. http://www.thenation.com/ensubscribe 


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From hecate at diamonddragon.com  Tue Dec 27 13:25:55 2005
From: hecate at diamonddragon.com (Hecate)
Date: Tue Dec 27 13:37:38 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] BBC E-mail: Iraqis condemn 'election fraud'
Message-ID: <20051227_212555_068551.hecate@diamonddragon.com>

Hecate saw this story on BBC News Online and thought you
should see it.



** Iraqis condemn 'election fraud' **
Thousands of Iraqis protest in Baghdad about the results of the recent parliamentary polls.
< http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/2/hi/middle_east/4562178.stm >


** BBC Daily E-mail **
Choose the news and sport headlines you want - when you want them, all
in one daily e-mail
< http://www.bbc.co.uk/dailyemail/ >


** Disclaimer **
The BBC is not responsible for the content of this e-mail, and anything written in this e-mail does not necessarily reflect the BBC's views or opinions. Please note that neither the e-mail address nor name of the sender have?been verified.

If you do not wish to receive such e-mails in the future or want to know more about the BBC's Email a Friend service, please read our frequently asked questions. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/help/4162471.stm

From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Tue Dec 27 14:24:38 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Tue Dec 27 14:38:23 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Unwarranted Complaints
Message-ID: <20051227222438.1E90A249FBA@lax-gw08.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: ialterman@nyc.rr.com.

What tripe!! Peace.


OPINION | December 27, 2005
Op-Ed Contributor: Unwarranted Complaints
By DAVID B. RIVKIN and LEE A. CASEY
The only thing outrageous about President Bush's plan to collect foreign intelligence is the outrage itself.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/27/opinion/27casey.html?emc=eta1




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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Tue Dec 27 14:23:53 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Tue Dec 27 14:38:49 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] 
	NYTimes.com: Below a Mountain of Wealth, a River of Waste
Message-ID: <20051227222353.A99C524B0A4@lax-gw02.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: ialterman@nyc.rr.com.

Re the environment... Peace.


INTERNATIONAL / ASIA PACIFIC | December 27, 2005
The Cost of Gold | The Hidden Payroll: Below a Mountain of Wealth, a River of Waste
By JANE PERLEZ and RAYMOND BONNER
Freeport, one of the world's largest mining companies, has dumped tons of waste into one of the world's last untouched landscapes while digging for gold in Indonesia.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/27/international/asia/27gold.html?emc=eta1



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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Tue Dec 27 14:25:04 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Tue Dec 27 14:40:36 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Is Your Fellow Protester a Cop? (7 Letters)
Message-ID: <20051227222504.581FE2374F2@lax-gw01.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: ialterman@nyc.rr.com.

What we're saying...


OPINION | December 27, 2005
Is Your Fellow Protester a Cop? (7 Letters)

To the Editor:.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/27/opinion/l27police.html?emc=eta1




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From michael at intrafi.com  Tue Dec 27 15:05:10 2005
From: michael at intrafi.com (michael@intrafi.com)
Date: Tue Dec 27 15:16:41 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Alternet: Bring On the Rebels
Message-ID: <20051227230510.73847B8010@alternet.org>


This story has been forwarded to you from
http://www.alternet.org by michael@intrafi.com



-------------------------------------
Bring On the Rebels
http://www.alternet.org/story/29953

Challenges from within by a few insurgent Democrats may be the only way to save the party from the ineffective big-money beast it's become.
-------------------------------------

From michael at michaelbutler.com  Tue Dec 27 16:23:07 2005
From: michael at michaelbutler.com (Michael Butler)
Date: Tue Dec 27 16:34:40 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] The Hidden State Steps Forward By Jonathan Schell The
	Nation
Message-ID: <BFD71AEB.2741E%michael@michaelbutler.com>

    Go to Original

    The Hidden State Steps Forward
    By Jonathan Schell
    The Nation

    09 January 2006 Edition

    When the New York Times revealed that George W. Bush had ordered the
National Security Agency to wiretap the foreign calls of American citizens
without seeking court permission, as is indisputably required by the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), passed by Congress in 1978, he faced a
decision. Would he deny the practice, or would he admit it? He admitted it.
But instead of expressing regret, he took full ownership of the deed,
stating that his order had been entirely justified, that he had in fact
renewed it thirty times, that he would continue to renew it and-going even
more boldly on the offensive-that those who had made his law-breaking known
had committed a "shameful act." As justification, he offered two arguments,
one derisory, the other deeply alarming. The derisory one was that Congress,
by authorizing him to use force after September 11, had authorized him to
suspend FISA, although that law is unmentioned in the resolution. Thus has
Bush informed the members of a supposedly co-equal ranch of government of
what, unbeknownst to themselves, they were thinking when they cast their
vote. The alarming argument is that as Commander in Chief he possesses
"inherent" authority to suspend laws in wartime. But if he can suspend FISA
at his whim and in secret, then what law can he not suspend? What need is
there, for example, to pass or not pass the Patriot Act if any or all of its
provisions can be secretly exceeded by the President?

    Bush's choice marks a watershed in the evolution of his Administration.
Previously when it was caught engaging in disgraceful, illegal or merely
mistaken or incompetent behavior, he would simply deny it. "We have found
the weapons of mass destruction!" "We do not torture!" However, further
developments in the torture matter revealed a shift. Even as he denied the
existence of torture, he and his officials began to defend his right to
order it. His Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales, refused at his
confirmation hearings to state that the torture called waterboarding, in
which someone is brought to the edge of drowning, was prohibited. Then when
Senator John McCain sponsored a bill prohibiting cruel, inhuman and
degrading treatment of prisoners, Bush threatened to veto the legislation to
which it was attached. It was only in the face of majority votes in both
houses against such treatment that he retreated from his claim.

    But in the wiretapping matter, he has so far exhibited no such
vacillation. Secret law-breaking has been supplanted by brazen law-breaking.
The difference is critical. If abuses of power are kept secret, there is
still the possibility that, when exposed, they will be stopped. But if they
are exposed and still permitted to continue, then every remedy has failed,
and the abuse is permanently ratified. In this case, what will be ratified
is a presidency that has risen above the law.

    The danger is not abstract or merely symbolic. Bush's abuses of
presidential power are the most extensive in American history. He has
launched an aggressive war ("war of choice," in today's euphemism) on false
grounds. He has presided over a system of torture and sought to legitimize
it by specious definitions of the word. He has asserted a wholesale right to
lock up American citizens and others indefinitely without any legal showing
or the right to see a lawyer or anyone else. He has kidnapped people in
foreign countries and sent them to other countries, where they were
tortured. In rationalizing these and other acts, his officials have laid
claim to the unlimited, uncheckable and unreviewable powers he has asserted
in the wiretapping case. He has tried to drop a thick shroud of secrecy over
these and other actions.

    There is a name for a system of government that wages aggressive war,
deceives its citizens, violates their rights, abuses power and breaks the
law, rejects judicial and legislative checks on itself, claims power without
limit, tortures prisoners and acts in secret. It is dictatorship.

    The Administration of George W. Bush is not a dictatorship, but it does
manifest the characteristics of one in embryonic form. Until recently, these
were developing and growing in the twilight world of secrecy. Even within
the executive branch itself, Bush seemed to govern outside the normally
constituted channels of the Cabinet and to rely on what Secretary of State
Colin Powell's chief of staff has called a "cabal." Former Treasury
Secretary Paul O'Neill reported the same thing. Cabinet meetings were for
show. Real decisions were made elsewhere, out of sight. Another White House
official, John DiIulio, has commented that there was "a complete lack of a
policy apparatus" in the White House. "What you've got is everything, and I
mean everything, being run by the political arm." As in many Communist
states, a highly centralized party, in this case the Republican Party, was
beginning to forge a parallel apparatus at the heart of government, a
semi-hidden state-within-a-state, by which the real decisions were ade.

    With Bush's defense of his wiretapping, the hidden state has stepped
into the open. The deeper challenge Bush has thrown down, therefore, is
whether the country wants to embrace the new form of government he is
creating by executive fiat or to continue with the old constitutional form.
He is now in effect saying, "Yes, I am above the law-I am the law, which is
nothing more than what I and my hired lawyers say it is-and if you don't
like it, I dare you to do something about it."

    Members of Congress have no choice but to accept the challenge. They did
so once before, when Richard Nixon, who said, "When the President does it,
that means it's not illegal," posed a similar threat to the Constitution.
The only possible answer is to inform Bush forthwith that if he continues in
his defiance, he will be impeached.

    If Congress accepts his usurpation of its legislative power, they will
be no Congress and might as well stop meeting. Either the President must
uphold the laws of the United States, which are Congress's laws, or he must
leave office.

 

From Hawaiipolo at cs.com  Tue Dec 27 17:21:38 2005
From: Hawaiipolo at cs.com (Hawaiipolo@cs.com)
Date: Tue Dec 27 18:01:49 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] 2 good articles..summming up the grounds and
	possibilities for impeachment
Message-ID: <E1ErQS8-0004RO-2d@smtpauth01.mail.atl.earthlink.net>


Impeachment Buzz
By Ruth Conniff
The Progressive 

Tuesday 27 December 2005 

What sense does it make that some of the same Washington media and political 
leaders who countenanced the Clinton impeachment over a semen-stained dress, 
somberly intoning about the "rule of law," consider impeaching Bush beyond the 
pale?

 No sense at all.

 The question about impeaching Bush has nothing to do with legal grounds, and 
everything to do with politics.

 But in the last few weeks, the political climate has been changing, so that 
more people are seriously considering whether Bush has committed one or more 
impeachable offenses. The revelations about Bush's spying on Americans through 
the NSA helped change things a bit.

 Representatives Johns Conyers and John Lewis and Senator Barbara Boxer are 
talking, in public, about impeachment now.

 Way at the left end of the dial, there's been chatter about impeachment for 
a long time-at least since the grounds for war in Iraq began to fall apart. 
Last May, a group called After Downing Street began working on an impeachment 
drive.

 While no member of Congress took up the call to draft articles of 
impeachment, the group's efforts launched Cindy Sheehan's crusade against Bush's war.

 Now these same activists are organizing a grassroots campaign to support 
Representative John Conyers's bills to investigate Bush's conduct, with an eye 
toward impeachment (HR365) and censure Bush and Cheney for blocking Congress's 
access to information on intelligence manipulation, torture, and other misdeeds 
(HR366 and HR367).

 On January 7, there will be town hall meetings around the country to drum up 
public awareness and support for Conyers's effort, and to publicize a report 
by the Democratic staff on the Judiciary Committee entitled "The Constitution 
in Crisis: Deception, Manipulation, Torture, Retribution, and Cover-Ups in the 
war in Iraq." You can download the whole thing from the web site 
CensureBush.org.

 As more constitutional scholars, members of Congress, pundits, and American 
citizens talk about the grounds for impeachment, and examine the record, the 
drumbeat can only get louder.

 The only barrier is a sense of despair.

 True, since the Republicans control both houses of Congress, it is unlikely 
that impeachment articles could garner the votes to pass. But some members of 
Bush's own party were turning against him as Congress adjourned for the 
holidays, on issues like McCain's anti-torture bill, the Patriot Act, tax breaks. 
and budget cuts.

 And, of course, groups like Progressive Democrats of America, who are 
pushing impeachment, hope the Dems can pick up enough seats in 2006 to take back the 
House.

 There is even a PAC, called ImpeachPAC, which has raised $40,000 to support 
any member of Congress willing to support impeachment. The group points to a 
Zogby poll that shows 53 percent of Americans support impeachment if it can be 
proved that Bush lied about Iraq.

 At the very least, this Administration's abuse of power-the violations of 
civil liberties, torture of prisoners, and an arrogant insistence that the 
executive should be above the law when it comes to spying on Americans or launching 
a war-is subject to serious and open questioning. And that's a good thing. 



Go to Original 

The I-Word Is Gaining Ground 
By Katrina Vanden Heuvel
The Nation

 Tuesday 27 December 2005 

In 1998, House Majority Whip Tom DeLay, currently under indictment on 
corruption charges, proclaimed: "This nation sits at a crossroads. One direction 
points to the higher road of the rule of law...The other road is the path of least 
resistance" in which "we pitch the law completely overboard when the mood 
fits us...[and] close our eyes to the potential lawbreaking...and tear an 
unfixable hole in our legal system." That arbiter of moral politics was incensed 
about the possibility of Bill Clinton escaping unpunished for his "crimes." 

Fast forward to December 2005. Not one official in the entire Bush 
Administration has been fired or indicted, not to mention impeached, for the shedding of 
American blood in Iraq or for the shredding of our Constitution at home. As 
Newsweek columnist Jonathan Alter put it-hours after the New York Times 
reported that Bush had authorized NSA wiretapping of US citizens without judicial 
warrants-this President has committed a real transgression that "goes beyond sex, 
corruption and political intrigue to big issues like security versus liberty 
and the reasonable bounds of presidential power." 

In the last months, several organizations, including AfterDowningStreet, 
Impeach Central and ImpeachPAC.org, have formed to urge Bush's impeachment. But 
until very recently, their views were virtually absent in the so-called 
"liberal" MSM, and could only be found on the Internet and in street protests. 

But the times they are a' changin'. The I-word has moved from the marginal to 
the mainstream-although columnists like Charles "torture-is-fine-by-me" 
Krauthammer would like us to believe that "only the most brazen and reckless and 
partisan" could support the idea. In fact, as Michelle Goldberg reports in 
Salon, "in the past few days, impeachment "has become a topic of considered 
discussion among constitutional scholars and experts (including a few Republicans), 
former intelligence officers, and even a few politicians." Even a moderately 
liberal columnist like Newsweek's Alter sounds like The Nation, observing: 
"We're seeing clearly now that Bush thought 9/11 gave him license to act like a 
dictator." 

As Editor &Publisher recently reported, the idea of impeaching Bush has 
entered the mainstream media's circulatory system-with each day producing more 
op-eds and articles on the subject. Joining the chorus on Christmas Eve, 
conservative business magazine Barron's published a lengthy editorial excoriating the 
president for committing a potentially impeachable offense. "If we don't 
discuss the program and lack of authority of it," wrote Barron's editorial page 
editor Thomas Donlan, "we are meeting the enemy-in the mirror." 

Public opinion is also growing more comfortable with the idea of impeaching 
this president. A Zogby International poll conducted this summer found that 42 
percent of Americans felt that impeaching Bush would be justified if it was 
shown that he had manipulated intelligence in going to war in Iraq. (John Zogby 
admitted that "it was much higher than I expected.") By November, the number 
of those who favored impeaching Bush stood at 53 percent-if it was in fact 
proven that Bush had lied about the basis for invading Iraq. (And these polls were 
taken before the revelations of Bush's domestic spying.) 

For those interested in some of the most compelling charges against the 
president, I offer a brief summary:

 
Former Nixon White House counsel John Dean argued in his aptly-named book 
Worse than Watergate that Bush's false statements about WMDs in Iraq-used to drum 
up support for an invasion-deceived the American people and Congress. This 
constituted "an impeachable offense," Dean told PBS' Bill Moyers in 2004. "I 
think the case is overwhelming that these people presented false information to 
the Congress and to the American people." Bush's actions were actually far 
worse than Watergate, Dean contends, because "no one died for Nixon's so-called 
Watergate abuses." Lending credence to Dean's arguments, the Downing Street Memo 
revealed that Britain's MI-6 Director Richard Dearlove had told Tony Blair 
that "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy" by the Bush 
Administration. John Bonifaz, a Boston-based attorney and constitutional law 
expert, said that Bush seemingly "concealed important intelligence which he o
ught to have communicated," and "must certainly be punished for giving false 
information to the Senate." Bush deceived "the American people as to the basis 
for taking the nation into war against Iraq," Bonifaz argued-an impeachable 
offense. 


Rep. John Conyers argued as well that the president committed impeachable 
offenses" because he and senior administration officials "countenanced torture 
and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment in Iraq" at Abu Ghraib, and 
elsewhere, including Guantanamo Bay and the now-notorious "black sites" around the 
world.


The most compelling evidence of Bush's high crimes and misdemeanors is the 
revelation that he repeatedly authorized NSA spying on US citizens without 
obtaining the required warrants from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance court. 
Constitutional experts, politicians and ex-intelligence experts agree that Bush 
"committed a federal crime by wiretapping Americans." Rep. John Lewis-"the 
first major House figure to suggest impeaching Bush," said the AP-argued that 
the president "deliberately, systematically violated the law" in authorizing the 
wiretapping. Lewis added: "He is not King, he is president." Meanwhile, 
Professor Jonathan Turley of George Washington University School of Law-a 
specialist in surveillance law-told Knight Ridder that Bush's actions "violated federal 
law" and raised "serious constitutional questions of high crimes and 
misdemeanors." It is worth remembering that an abuse of power similar to Bush's NSA 
wiretapping decision was part of the impeachment charge brought against Richard 
Nixon in 1974. [This comparison was brought home in the ACLU's powerful full 
page ad in the NYT of December 22nd.] 

There are many reasons why it is crucial that the Democrats regain control of 
Congress in '06, but consider this one: If they do, there may be articles of 
impeachment introduced and the estimable John Conyers, who has led the fight 
to defend our constitution, would become Chair of the House Judiciary 
Committee. Wouldn't that be a truly just response to the real high crimes and 
misdemeanors that this lawbreaking president has so clearly committed?

 For anyone with understanding and respect for the Constitution, it is 
obvious that Bush has violated the Fourth Amendment and federal law. This is the 
definition of "high crimes and misdemeanors". Clinton lying about sex is nothing 
compared to this. It is timely and respondsible to talk about impeachment. If 
the Republicans were loyal to the Constitution, they would be discussing 
impeachment. Bush has declared himself king in an undeclared war. We don't allow 
kings in this country. The Founding Fathers came here to avoid that. 

-------

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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Tue Dec 27 19:02:21 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (Ian)
Date: Tue Dec 27 19:13:58 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] A good read
Message-ID: <003601c60b5b$2036ce70$99ca6c42@iancn2ccrvzt0j>

Received this from a friend a couple of days ago.  Thought I would pass it 
along.  I think you will find it wonderful.  BTW, Alex Novak is a 
photographer who puts out an online newsletter.

Peace.

-----------

A HOLIDAY MESSAGE
from Alex Novak

I wanted to wish all my readers a happy and safe holidays:  Merry Christmas, 
Happy Chanukah, Joyeux Noel, Happy Kwanza, Happy Solstice, Eid al-Adha,
Muharram, Happy New Year and Bonne Annee.  If I missed one or two greetings, 
I apologize and offer you my best wishes of the season.

This time of the year is also when we tend to reflect a little more on our 
loved ones--present and not.  My own mom and brother passed away this year, 
soon after my dad died, just a year before.  My good friend Janos Novomezsky 
was killed by a drunk driver near Budapest late last year trying to help out 
an injured dog hit by another drunk driver (please drink and drive 
responsibly).  I miss them all terribly (and many other friends and 
relatives who have died), and I wish they were here to share these holidays. 
But I also think we need to focus on the love of those still in our lives, 
so I wish you a season of unselfish love, affection and caring--for those 
around you and those we with whom we all share the world.

Don't worry about that annoying relative (or relatives), the decorations, 
the holiday dinner, or all those gifts and presents.  Focus on what is 
really important and you will make it through the holidays a lot more 
stress-free. Our family now gives only one modest present (a "grab-bag" that 
is selected at random) to the adults.  Instead we encourage each other to 
give to charity what would only be spent on presents to be returned in a 
department store later.  Just an idea.  And, if it is too late this year, 
you can always discuss it now, so that you can implement it next holiday 
season.

In this time of giving, please do not forget those less fortunate than you. 
We have had a year of disasters, continued terrorism, hooliganism and war, 
with all the many victims of these events in need of our help.  Please use 
this opportunity to perhaps change your family's emphasis on consumerism to 
one of charity for others.  Whether it be for the victims of the tsunami, 
hurricane Katrina, the Pakistani earthquake, the Iraq or Palestinian 
conflicts, the various African civil wars, AIDS and other diseases, or any 
of the other horrors visited upon the world's poor, we should find a place 
in our hearts (and our wallets) this season and next year for our fellow 
brothers and sisters.

National, religious and political affiliations aside, we need to find ways 
of coming together rather than resolving our differences with conflict. 
That approach always hurts the poor, the defenseless, the elderly and the 
very young.  Ignorance and fanaticism have no place in a world where 
generosity, affection, inclusion and education govern our decisions and 
relations.  After all, isn't this how we would and should react to members 
of our own family in need? And shouldn't all those who need our help be 
included in our extended family?

We should be using our political vote and clout, pledging our personal 
support, time and money, and demanding accountability from our leaders, 
institutions and
politicians--wherever in the world we are.  We must stop squandering our 
resources on graft, greed, animosity, war and civil strife.  And we should 
demand that our governments do the same.

Just one example: what if the American government had chosen to spend $300 
billion (currently the cost to date of the Iraq War, excluding the more 
important cost of American and Iraqi lives) to resolve the Palestinian 
issue?  Could we have developed a long-term counter to all the fanaticism 
that feeds on poverty and miseducation in this area of the world?  How would 
that have changed the dynamics and the way America is viewed in the world? 
The problem, of course, was getting the Congress to approve of such aid. 
War seems to get approval all too easily and poverty abatement and education 
all too slowly.

We need to change those kinds of decisions by our public support or lack 
thereof of the issues and the politicians who support them. I don't propose 
to have all the answers to world peace, but it would seem to me that such a 
massive reallocation of resources tied to results might have brought (and 
still may bring) about a more positive world.

By the way, this also applies to the rest of the world as well, so please 
don't sit there smugly if you are somewhere else in the world.  Your 
politicians and
institutions also need to be accountable for their actions (or non-action), 
and encouraged to make the world a better place.  You too need to make a 
direct
contribution to the poor, needy and defenseless.

Instead of focusing on the past, we must all work on what we can do 
individually and collectively in the future.  I apologize for being so 
"preachy", but this time of year seems to do that to me.  I just hope we can 
all maintain that sense of brotherly love for the entire year.

I want to wish all my readers and clients the very best holidays and New 
Year ever.  Thank you for your kind patience with this writer this past 
year.

---------

Copyright ? 2005 I Photo Central, LLC.
I Photo Central and Vintage Works Ltd., Alex Novak, 258 Inverness Circle,
Chalfont, PA 18914 USA; Phone (Country code: 001) 215-822-5662;
email: info@iphotocentral.com 


From ean at sbcglobal.net  Tue Dec 27 19:18:34 2005
From: ean at sbcglobal.net (ean@sbcglobal.net)
Date: Tue Dec 27 19:54:53 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Robert Fisk Telling it like it isn't
Message-ID: <E1ErSDb-0008VE-Av@smtpauth04.mail.atl.earthlink.net>

This incisive short piece by Robert Fisk was published in today's (Tuesday) 
LA Times...encouraging from the folks who kicked out Robert Scheer...worth 
reading...

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-
fisk27dec27,0,6099761.story?coll=la-news-comment-opinions

Telling it like it isn't
By Robert Fisk, December 27th, 2005

ROBERT FISK is Middle East correspondent for the London
Independent and the author, most recently, of "The Great War for
Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East," published last month by
Knopf.

I FIRST REALIZED the enormous pressures on American journalists in the
Middle East when I went some years ago to say goodbye to a colleague from
the Boston Globe. I expressed my sorrow that he was leaving a region where
he had obviously enjoyed reporting. I could save my sorrows for someone
else, he said. One of the joys of leaving was that he would no longer have
to alter the truth to suit his paper's more vociferous readers.

"I used to call the Israeli Likud Party 'right wing,' " he said. "But
recently, my editors have been telling me not to use the phrase. A lot of
our readers objected." And so now, I asked? "We just don't call it 'right
wing' anymore."


      ADVERTISEMENT

Ouch. I knew at once that these "readers" were viewed at his newspaper as
Israel's friends, but I also knew that the Likud under Benjamin Netanyahu
was as right wing as it had ever been.

This is only the tip of the semantic iceberg that has crashed into
American journalism in the Middle East. Illegal Jewish settlements for
Jews and Jews only on Arab land are clearly "colonies," and we used to
call them that. I cannot trace the moment when we started using the word
"settlements." But I can remember the moment around two years ago when 
the
word "settlements" was replaced by "Jewish neighborhoods" - or even, in
some cases, "outposts."

Similarly, "occupied" Palestinian land was softened in many American media
reports into "disputed" Palestinian land - just after then-Secretary of
State Colin Powell, in 2001, instructed U.S. embassies in the Middle East
to refer to the West Bank as "disputed" rather than "occupied" territory.

Then there is the "wall," the massive concrete obstruction whose purpose,
according to the Israeli authorities, is to prevent Palestinian suicide
bombers from killing innocent Israelis. In this, it seems to have had some
success. But it does not follow the line of Israel's 1967 border and cuts
deeply into Arab land. And all too often these days, journalists call it a
"fence" rather than a "wall." Or a "security barrier," which is what
Israel prefers them to say. For some of its length, we are told, it is not
a wall at all - so we cannot call it a "wall," even though the vast snake
of concrete and steel that runs east of Jerusalem is higher than the old
Berlin Wall.

The semantic effect of this journalistic obfuscation is clear. If
Palestinian land is not occupied but merely part of a legal dispute that
might be resolved in law courts or discussions over tea, then a
Palestinian child who throws a stone at an Israeli soldier in this
territory is clearly acting insanely.

If a Jewish colony built illegally on Arab land is simply a nice friendly
"neighborhood," then any Palestinian who attacks it must be carrying out a
mindless terrorist act.

And surely there is no reason to protest a "fence" or a "security barrier"
- words that conjure up the fence around a garden or the gate arm at the
entrance to a private housing complex.

For Palestinians to object violently to any of these phenomena thus marks
them as a generically vicious people. By our use of language, we condemn
them.

We follow these unwritten rules elsewhere in the region. American
journalists frequently used the words of U.S. officials in the early days
of the Iraqi insurgency - referring to those who attacked American troops
as "rebels" or "terrorists" or "remnants" of the former regime. The
language of the second U.S. pro-consul in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer III, was
taken up obediently - and grotesquely - by American journalists.

American television, meanwhile, continues to present war as a bloodless
sandpit in which the horrors of conflict - the mutilated bodies of the
victims of aerial bombing, torn apart in the desert by wild dogs - are
kept off the screen. Editors in New York and London make sure that
viewers' "sensitivities" don't suffer, that we don't indulge in the
"pornography" of death (which is exactly what war is) or "dishonor" the
dead whom we have just killed.

Our prudish video coverage makes war easier to support, and journalists
long ago became complicit with governments in making conflict and death
more acceptable to viewers. Television journalism has thus become a lethal
adjunct to war.

Back in the old days, we used to believe - did we not? - that journalists
should "tell it how it is." Read the great journalism of World War II and
you'll see what I mean. The Ed Murrows and Richard Dimblebys, the Howard
K. Smiths and Alan Moorheads didn't mince their words or change their
descriptions or run mealy-mouthed from the truth because listeners or
readers didn't want to know or preferred a different version.

So let's call a colony a colony, let's call occupation what it is, let's
call a wall a wall. And maybe express the reality of war by showing that
it represents not, primarily, victory or defeat, but the total failure of
the human spirit.



-- 
You are currently on Mha Atma's Earth Action Network email list, 
option D (up to 3 emails/day).  To be removed, or to switch options 
(option A - 1x/week, option B - 3/wk, option C - up to 1x/day, option D - 
up to 3x/day) please reply and let us know!  If someone forwarded you 
this email and you want to be on our list, send an email to 
ean@sbcglobal.net and tell us which option you'd like.


"A war of aggression is the supreme international crime." -- Robert Jackson,
 former U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice and Nuremberg prosecutor

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From swiggard at comcast.net  Wed Dec 28 04:20:33 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Wed Dec 28 04:36:04 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Enron Executive Agrees to Plea Deal - Washington Post
Message-ID: <43B28311.8020302@comcast.net>

Enron Executive Agrees to Plea Deal
Prosecutors Gain Witness Against Lay and Skilling

By Carrie Johnson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 28, 2005; A01

Enron Corp.'s former chief accountant agreed to plead guilty today to 
criminal conduct that preceded the company's collapse into bankruptcy, 
according to sources familiar with the negotiations, sealing a deal that 
gives prosecutors another key witness against former chief executives 
Kenneth L. Lay and Jeffrey K. Skilling on the eve of their fraud trial.

Richard A. Causey, 45, who is facing more than two dozen criminal 
charges, is scheduled to appear in a Houston courtroom at 3 p.m. Eastern 
time today, according to court records. He reported directly to Skilling 
for years and participated with Lay on conference calls and analyst 
meetings in the weeks before Enron fell apart.

All three men had been scheduled to face trial Jan. 17, and the trio 
long had presented a united front. But eleventh hour negotiations with 
the Justice Department's Enron Task Force -- and the prospect of 
spending decades behind bars if he gambled at trial and lost -- 
ultimately proved persuasive for Causey, who had rejected previous 
government offers, the sources said. They spoke only on condition of 
anonymity because of the impending trial.

The deal comes at a delicate time for Lay and Skilling, who are charged 
with leading a conspiracy to defraud investors by hiding debt and 
inflating profits at the Houston energy trading firm before its December 
2001 collapse. They are the last and among the most eminent corporate 
executives to face trial in an era of scandal dating to the 1990s.

Defense lawyers for Lay and Skilling are almost certain to seek a delay 
in the trial because of Causey's plea deal, the 16th by a former Enron 
executive. The company cut thousands of jobs after its December 2001 
bankruptcy, which also cost shareholders more than $85 billion in losses.

For more than two years, the former executives have maintained that the 
fraud was confined to a set of rogue employees led by former chief 
financial officer Andrew S. Fastow. Fastow pleaded guilty to two 
criminal charges in exchange for a 10-year prison term. He will be one 
of prosecutors' key witnesses in the upcoming trial. But Fastow's 
admission that he skimmed more than $60 million from the company and 
lied to his superiors could be used to undermine his testimony.

Former Enron executives said Causey, a likable family man who remained 
humble despite his corporate rank and salary, will present a far more 
difficult target for Skilling and Lay's defense lawyers in cross 
examination.

With Causey's help, prosecutors may have an easier time homing in on 
optimistic public statements and stock sales by Lay and Skilling, 
concepts that may be easier for jurors to understand than Fastow's 
arcane deals with names such as Raptors and Chewco.

Causey had detailed knowledge of those and other business partnerships 
that helped the company conceal its mounting financial troubles. It was 
unclear whether he retained any documents that would shed light on 
Enron's accounting and business practices. Lay and Skilling rarely used 
e-mail messages.

U.S. District Judge Simeon T. Lake III, who is known as a taskmaster 
when it comes to scheduling issues, will be presented with a defense 
request to delay the trial as early as today. He acceded to previous 
delays because of conflicts with the schedules of Causey's 
Washington-based defense lawyers, Reid H. Weingarten and Mark J. 
Hulkower, who maintain one of the country's busiest white-collar defense 
practices. Hulkower declined comment yesterday.

More than 400 potential jurors already have completed extensive 
questionnaires about their contact with Enron and the defendants. A long 
delay might mean the jury selection process would need to start afresh.

For friends of Causey, including his next-door neighbor Steve Huey, word 
of the advanced plea negotiations is bittersweet. They say Causey is 
devoted to his three children, the youngest of whom is in eighth grade, 
and is a devout Catholic who helped raise funds for a new church in the 
Woodlands, an upscale suburb of Houston.

"I don't think Rick has ever believed he did anything wrong," said Huey, 
who shared a Christmas Eve dinner with Causey and his wife, Elizabeth. 
"I think that Rick's concern is over the family and what the eventual 
outcome will be for the family. As you get closer to trial, you start to 
weigh the options and weigh the odds and the resources the federal 
government has."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/27/AR2005122701173.html
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Wed Dec 28 04:23:03 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Wed Dec 28 04:38:19 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Balancing Act: Iowa, N.H. vs. Critics - Washington Post
Message-ID: <43B283A7.4040602@comcast.net>

Balancing Act: Iowa, N.H. vs. Critics
Democrats Weigh Plan to Stretch 2008 Calendar

By Dan Balz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 28, 2005; A04

For much of the past year, a Democratic Party commission labored to 
build a better mousetrap. The goal is to create a 2008 presidential 
nominating calendar that reduces the outsized influence of Iowa and New 
Hampshire and stretches the process into the spring to give a better 
chance to potentially strong candidates even if they do not win early 
contests.

Now that the commission has made its proposal and the Democratic 
National Committee is deciding what to do, the reviews from outsiders 
are a mixed bag. New Hampshire politicians are nearly uniform in 
deploring the proposed changes. Political scientists, meanwhile, 
disagree over whether the recommendations would diminish or add to the 
problems they were designed to solve.

Elaine C. Kamarck, a Harvard professor, a longtime Democratic activist 
and one of the first witnesses before the commission, calls the 
proposals inadequate and fears they will only add to the problem of 
stacking early events on top of one another, a phenomenon known as 
"front-loading."

The risk of a front-loaded primary calendar is that it produces a 
nominee long before many voters have begun to pay attention, or 
seriously weigh who would be the party's most effective contender in a 
general election. "Let me just say that this does not seem to solve the 
problem," Kamarck said.

But Thomas E. Mann, a Brookings Institution scholar who appeared with 
Kamarck to offer expert testimony, praised the panel for smartly 
navigating a thicket of conflicting interests, arguing that the proposed 
schedule will not contribute further to front-loading. "My view is they 
squeezed the most they possibly could out of it," he said.

The panel, which carried the unwieldy name of Commission on Presidential 
Nomination Timing and Scheduling, made two sets of recommendations, one 
dealing with the opening phase of the nominating calendar and the other 
with the later phases.

The commission came into existence as part of a bargain between former 
DNC chairman Terence R. McAuliffe and Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.). 
Levin has long agitated against what he calls the privileged position of 
Iowa and New Hampshire, which hold the first caucus and first primary 
every four years. During the 2004 presidential campaign cycle, McAuliffe 
bought peace with Levin by promising to appoint a commission after the 
election if the senator would agree not to try to blow up the calendar 
for that year.

The commission, chaired by former labor secretary Alexis M. Herman and 
Rep. David E. Price (D-N.C.), began work early in the year under 
pressure to add diversity to the early part of the nomination battle -- 
diversity being a code word for diminishing the significance of Iowa and 
New Hampshire.

Proponents of a new system argued that the two small, largely white 
states are not representative enough of the country and the Democratic 
Party to warrant the influence they have on who becomes the nominee. As 
supporters see it, states in other regions, with larger African American 
and Latino populations and economies with more manufacturing and union 
representation, deserve a louder voice in winnowing the field and 
influencing the outcome.

The commission's final recommendation was a classic compromise. Seeking 
to avoid angering Iowa and New Hampshire voters, the panel reaffirmed 
Iowa's status as the first state to hold a caucus and New Hampshire's as 
the first to hold a primary. Seeking to mollify the critics of those two 
states, the commission proposed inserting one or two caucuses between 
Iowa and New Hampshire in mid-January 2008 and then adding one or two 
primaries shortly after the Granite State's primary. No other states 
would be authorized to hold contests before Feb. 5, 2008.

The proposal disappointed the most vociferous critics of the current 
system, who were dismayed by the reaffirmation of Iowa's and New 
Hampshire's status. It also prompted complaints from New Hampshire 
politicians, who saw the insertion of more events before their primary 
as effectively diluting the state's importance. For half a century, New 
Hampshire's contest has generated more attention than any other primary 
or caucus and has become an integral part of the state's identity.

The DNC must ratify these proposed changes at a meeting in April, but 
New Hampshire still has the ability to negate what the national party 
wants to do.

Under New Hampshire law, the secretary of state is required to schedule 
that state's primary at least seven days before any other state holds a 
"similar election." Iowa's caucuses are different enough to avoid 
triggering the provision, but New Hampshire Secretary of State William 
M. Gardner said in a recent interview that many statewide caucuses are 
actually primaries in disguise and could prompt countermeasures by his 
state.

Noting that "we've walked this road before" when other states have tried 
to encroach on New Hampshire, Gardner said he is confident of the 
outcome of the debate over the 2008 calendar. "We will preserve the 
tradition that we have had," he insisted.

But any move by Gardner in late 2007, when he will have to set the date 
of the New Hampshire primary, could trigger protests and countermoves by 
Michigan's Levin and others.

The other big complaint is that there are so many contests so early in 
the year that a presidential candidate becomes unstoppable just by 
winning in Iowa and New Hampshire and riding the momentum through the 
next round of contests.

Indeed, the 2004 calendar was designed expressly to encourage an early 
winner -- on the theory that he would emerge with fewer scars and more 
money to prepare for the general election showdown. Sen. John F. Kerry 
(Mass.) swept to an early nomination victory. But backers of former 
senator John Edwards (N.C.) felt he had too little time to make his case 
that he would have been a stronger opponent to President Bush.

The commission proposals address concerns about front-loading in two 
ways. First, there could be fewer contests in the first 15 days of 
voting. In 2004, there were nine Democratic contests in that opening 
round, including Iowa and New Hampshire. In 2008, there could be as few 
as four and no more than six contests in a similar period.

Beyond this, the panel has two ideas aimed at discouraging too many 
states from scheduling their contests close to the Feb. 5 date that 
formally opens the remainder of the nominating season. One is to limit 
to five the number of contests that could be held in any week. The other 
calls for giving states bonus delegates to the national nominating 
convention the later they hold their primaries or caucuses.

William G. Mayer, who has edited or co-authored several books on the 
nominating process, believes the net effect may be to diminish the 
problem of stacking too many events early in the year. "It is somewhat 
less front-loaded . . . than the 2004 calendar," he said.

But Kamarck fears that the effect of the changes will still be a quick 
outcome in the battle for the Democratic nomination, if only because 
"there is no time for subsequent electorates to reflect on what 
happened" in the first few contests.

DNC Chairman Howard Dean and the rest of the national committee now will 
have three months to wrestle with the proposals before starting to set 
up the 2008 calendar, but if New Hampshire refuses to yield, the party 
could face another nasty internal debate and the primary-caucus schedule 
could remain in flux until just before the voting begins.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/27/AR2005122700902.html?nav=hcmodule
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Wed Dec 28 04:24:33 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Wed Dec 28 04:39:47 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Eavesdropping and Evading the Law - David Ignatius -
 Washington Post Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43B28401.3080403@comcast.net>

Eavesdropping and Evading the Law

By David Ignatius
Wednesday, December 28, 2005; A21

As we learn more about what was going on under the Bush administration's 
secret surveillance program, it's clear the National Security Agency has 
developed some powerful new tools against terrorist adversaries. That's 
all the more reason these innovative spying methods should be brought 
within the rule of law -- so that they can be used effectively and legally.

That should be a New Year's resolution for Congress and the 
administration: Amend our laws on surveillance to establish a framework 
for using these new techniques of collecting and analyzing information. 
Because the issues are so sensitive, part of that debate may have to be 
secret, but that's an inevitable part of legislative oversight of 
intelligence.

The challenge in the coming debate will be to find the right balance 
between national security and civil liberties. The loudest arguments 
will come from those who see the issue in black and white -- who want to 
tilt in one direction, toward security or liberty. But those won't be 
the wisest arguments. America is in for a long struggle against 
terrorism, and it will need sensible rules that embed necessary 
intelligence activities firmly within the law.

We know only the barest outlines of what the NSA has been doing. The 
most reliable accounts have appeared in the New York Times, the 
newspaper that broke the story. Although the headline has been 
"warrantless wiretapping," the Times accounts suggest the program 
actually was something closer to a data-mining system that collected and 
analyzed vast amounts of digitized data in an effort to find patterns 
that might identify potential terrorists.

Here's what James Risen and Eric Lichtblau said in their original Dec. 
16 story, explaining the origins of the program after Sept. 11, 2001: 
"The CIA seized the terrorists' computers, cellphones and personal phone 
directories, said the officials familiar with the program. The NSA 
surveillance was intended to exploit those numbers and addresses as 
quickly as possible, they said. In addition to eavesdropping on those 
numbers and reading e-mail messages to and from the al Qaeda figures, 
the NSA began monitoring others linked to them, creating an expanding 
chain. While most of the numbers and addresses were overseas, hundreds 
were in the United States, the officials said."

The Times reporters explained details of the program in a Dec. 24 story: 
"NSA technicians, besides actually eavesdropping on specific 
conversations, have combed through large volumes of phone and Internet 
traffic in search of patterns that might point to terrorism suspects."

The heart of the program may be this effort to find links and patterns. 
William Arkin explained in a Dec. 23 posting in his washingtonpost.com 
column, Early Warning, how the data-mining process might work: "Massive 
amounts of collected data -- actual intercepts of phone calls, e-mails, 
etc. -- together with 'transaction' data -- travel or credit card 
records or telephone or Internet service provider logs -- are mixed 
through a mind-boggling array of government and private sector software 
programs to look for potential matches."

This is the kind of innovative technology the government should be 
using, with appropriate safeguards. It employs computer algorithms to 
discern patterns that would probably be invisible to human analysts. It 
searches electronically amid the haystack of information for the one 
dangerous needle. In the phrase that was often used in the scathing 
Sept. 11 post-mortems, it seeks to "connect the dots."

The legal problems, as Arkin suggests, involve the dots -- what digital 
information can the government legitimately collect and save for later 
analysis, and under what legal safeguards? As it trolls the ocean of 
data, how can the government satisfy legal requirements for warrants 
that specify at the outset what may only be clear at the end of the 
search -- namely, specific links to terrorist groups? These and other 
questions will vex lawyers and politicians in the coming debate, but 
they aren't a reason for jettisoning these techniques.

America's best intelligence asset is technology. The truth is that 
America has never been especially good at running spies or plotting 
covert actions. Our special talent has been the application of 
technology to complex problems of surveillance. That kept American 
intelligence in business during the Cold War, and it provides our thin 
margin of safety against terrorism. It's all the more important now, 
when al Qaeda's hierarchical structure has been broken and the emerging 
threat comes from flat, invisible networks of intensely motivated 
people. How will we see these new terrorists coming?

America needs surveillance and analytical techniques that can connect 
the dots. But even more, it needs a clear legal framework for this 
effort. Otherwise it won't be sustainable. In that sense, continuing the 
current lawless approach would be the true gift to the enemy.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/27/AR2005122700718.html
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Wed Dec 28 04:26:32 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Wed Dec 28 04:41:52 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Peace on Earth? Increasingly,
 Yes. - Andrew Mack - Washington Post Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43B28478.7020904@comcast.net>

Peace on Earth? Increasingly, Yes.

By Andrew Mack
Wednesday, December 28, 2005; A21

Seen through the eyes of the media, the world appears an evermore 
dangerous place. Iraq is sliding toward civil war, the slaughter in 
Darfur appears unending, violent insurgencies are brewing in Thailand 
and a dozen other countries, and terrorism strikes again in Bali. It is 
not surprising that most people believe global violence is increasing.

However, most people, including many leading policymakers and scholars, 
are wrong. The reality is that, since the end of the Cold War, armed 
conflict and nearly all other forms of political violence have 
decreased. The world is far more peaceful than it was.

Why has this change attracted so little attention? In part because the 
global media give far more coverage to wars that start than to those 
that quietly end, but also because no international agency collects 
global or regional data on any form of political violence.

The Human Security Report, an independent study funded by five countries 
and published by Oxford University Press, draws on a wide range of 
little publicized scholarly data, plus specially commissioned research 
to present a portrait of global security that is sharply at odds with 
conventional wisdom. The report reveals that after five decades of 
inexorable increase, the number of armed conflicts started to fall 
worldwide in the early 1990s. The decline has continued.

By 2003, there were 40 percent fewer conflicts than in 1992. The 
deadliest conflicts -- those with 1,000 or more battle-deaths -- fell by 
some 80 percent. The number of genocides and other mass slaughters of 
civilians also dropped by 80 percent, while core human rights abuses 
have declined in five out of six regions of the developing world since 
the mid-1990s. International terrorism is the only type of political 
violence that has increased. Although the death toll has jumped sharply 
over the past three years, terrorists kill only a fraction of the number 
who die in wars.

What accounts for the extraordinary and counterintuitive improvement in 
global security over the past dozen years? The end of the Cold War, 
which had driven at least a third of all conflicts since World War II, 
appears to have been the single most critical factor.

In the late 1980s, Washington and Moscow stopped fueling "proxy wars" in 
the developing world, and the United Nations was liberated to play the 
global security role its founders intended. Freed from the paralyzing 
stasis of Cold War geopolitics, the Security Council initiated an 
unprecedented, though sometimes inchoate, explosion of international 
activism designed to stop ongoing wars and prevent new ones.

Other international agencies, donor governments and nongovernmental 
organizations also played a critical role, but it was the United Nations 
that took the lead, pushing a range of conflict-prevention and 
peace-building initiatives on a scale never before attempted. The number 
of U.N. peacekeeping operations and missions to prevent and stop wars 
have increased by more than 400 percent since the end of the Cold War. 
As this upsurge of international activism grew in scope and intensity 
through the 1990s, the number of crises, wars and genocides declined.

There have been some horrific and much publicized failures, of course -- 
the failures to stop genocide in Rwanda, Srebrenica and Darfur being the 
most egregious. But the quiet successes -- in Namibia, El Salvador, 
Mozambique, Eastern Slovenia, East Timor and elsewhere went largely 
unheralded, as did the fact that the United Nations' expertise in 
handling difficult missions has grown dramatically.

A major study by the Rand Corp. published this year found that U.N. 
peace-building operations had a two-thirds success rate. They were also 
surprisingly cost-effective. In fact, the United Nations spends less 
running 17 peace operations around the world for an entire year than the 
United States spends in Iraq in a single month. What the United Nations 
calls "peacemaking" -- using diplomacy to end wars -- has been even more 
successful. About half of all the peace agreements negotiated between 
1946 and 2003 have been signed since the end of the Cold War.

With the Security Council often reluctant to act -- the abject failure 
to stop the Rwandan genocide remains a key example -- and with too many 
missions having been denied adequate resources, appropriate mandates or 
properly trained personnel, these successes are all the more remarkable.

In the wake of last month's global summit at the United Nations, many 
critics wrote the United Nations off as an institution so deeply flawed 
that it was beyond salvation. The analysis and the carefully collated 
data in the Human Security Report reveal something very different: an 
organization that, despite its failures and creaking bureaucracy, has 
played a critical role in enhancing global security.

The writer directs the Human Security Center at the University of 
British Columbia. He was director of the Strategic Planning Unit in the 
executive office of U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan between 1998 and 2001.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/27/AR2005122700732.html?nav=hcmodule
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Wed Dec 28 04:28:08 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Wed Dec 28 04:43:32 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Our Entitlement Paralysis - Robert J. Samuelson -
 Washington Post Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43B284D8.20009@comcast.net>

Our Entitlement Paralysis

By Robert J. Samuelson
Wednesday, December 28, 2005; A21

As noted by recent cover stories in Newsweek and Business Week, the 
first of the roughly 77 million baby boomers turn 60 in 2006. J. Walker 
Smith of the polling firm of Yankelovich Partners told Newsweek that 
many boomers "think they're going to die before they get old" -- a 
reference to one survey in which boomers defined old age as starting 
around 80. Business Week asserted that fifty- and sixtysomethings 
consider their "middle age a new start on life" to indulge hobbies, 
begin new careers or remarry. These portraits of vigorous baby boomers 
clash with another reality: Their huge federal retirement benefits may 
seriously damage the economy and American politics.

Our continued unwillingness to address this disconnect counts as one of 
2005's big stories. We should ask ourselves: Why? After all, the need is 
well known. Consider the Congressional Budget Office's just released 
projections. By 2030, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid may cost 15 
percent of national income -- almost double their level in 2000 and 
equal to 75 percent of today's federal budget. Left alone, these 
programs would require massive tax increases, cause immense deficits or 
crowd out other important government programs. We also know of at least 
partial solutions: curb costs by slowly raising eligibility ages and 
cutting benefits for wealthier recipients.

Still, we fiddle. The paralysis is understandable. No one wants to 
offend older voters, so we dance around the issues without truly 
engaging them. President Bush's ill-fated plan for "personal" investment 
accounts in Social Security was a perfect example. The president 
complained about unaffordable entitlement spending but never said how 
his plan would cure that problem. There was a reason: It wouldn't. In 
its first decades, it would mean more spending, not less. Government 
would pay for personal accounts and traditional benefits.

Democrats correctly saw Bush's proposal as a political attempt to steal 
their signature issue -- Social Security. For younger voters, the 
"personal accounts" might make the program a Republican product. It 
might cease being liberalism's crown jewel. Naturally, Democrats and the 
AARP denounced Bush's plan. People shouldn't depend on "risky" stocks 
for Social Security, they said. By July, an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll 
found that 57 percent of the public thought personal accounts a "bad 
idea." Even many Republicans abandoned Bush.

Doubting Bush's motives is easy, because in 2003, he had engaged in a 
similar political makeover for Medicare, through his drug benefit. It 
aimed to ingratiate the president with elderly voters in 2004. But the 
potential cost is huge. By 2015, the drug benefit could increase 
Medicare costs by 30 percent, says the CBO. All of Bush's complaints 
about runaway entitlement spending reek of hypocrisy.

But ascribing today's deadlock exclusively to Bush's clumsy partisanship 
is too glib. It ignores the many years in which Democrats have 
shamelessly exploited for political advantage any threats to Social 
Security and Medicare benefits. It also overlooks the deeper and more 
intractable source of our stalemate: competing moral claims.

If we were creating Social Security and Medicare today, we'd set 
different terms. The first baby boomers hitting 60 include George W. 
Bush, Bill Clinton, Donald Trump, Diane Sawyer and Susan Sarandon. It's 
doubtful we'd provide benefits for any of these wealthy people. Indeed, 
we'd probably be less generous toward many affluent retirees, because 
we'd question why age alone (not need) should qualify people for 
government assistance. We'd also note vast changes since 1935 (Social 
Security's creation) and 1965 (Medicare's):

In 1935, about 6 percent of the population was 65 and over; now, it's 
nearly 13 percent and headed toward 20 percent in 2030.

Life expectancy at 65 was less than 13 years in 1935; now, it's 18 and 
rising.

In 1965, one of three payroll jobs was in manufacturing, mining and 
construction; now, that's one in six.

Health spending increased from 6 percent of national income in 1965 to 
15 percent in 2003.

People live longer, are healthier (77 percent of those age 65 to 74 rate 
their health as "good" or "excellent'') and have less grueling jobs. 
They can work longer and receive benefits later. We'd set higher 
eligibility ages. It's too expensive for government to support them for 
20 or 30 years. We'd concentrate aid on the neediest and the oldest, 
including people whose longevity exhausted their savings. We'd regard 
this as a moral and practical obligation of a decent society.

Well, if that's what present conditions suggest, why do we tolerate a 
system that automatically pays many people who are well off and in good 
health? The answer is that people who have been promised Social Security 
and Medicare benefits believe they have a moral claim to receive them, 
even if -- absent the promise -- their claim would be dubious. True, 
people need to plan their futures. But the moral logic also rationalizes 
self-interest and selfishness. The compromise is to unwind gradually 
those promises that no longer make sense and are ultimately unworkable.

Until we challenge this moral logic -- the crux of entitlement politics 
-- public opinion will resist change and our paralysis will continue. 
The responsibility for this failure is widespread: among liberals, who 
like massive government programs; among conservatives, who fantasize 
about "free market" alternatives to Social Security and Medicare; among 
pundits and "experts," who speak of the "entitlement crisis" in 
meaningless generalities or incomprehensible technicalities. Our 
resulting inaction compounds many future dangers of an aging society: 
higher taxes, slower economic growth, squeezed government spending for 
non-elderly programs and more conflict between younger taxpayers and 
older beneficiaries.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/27/AR2005122700725.html
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Wed Dec 28 04:30:18 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Wed Dec 28 04:45:42 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Retirement boomers - Jacquelyn James - Boston Globe Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43B2855A.7090605@comcast.net>


  Retirement boomers

By Jacquelyn James  |  December 28, 2005  |   The Boston Globe

IN 2006, THE FRONT ROW of the much-heralded baby boom generation turns 
60, ringing in as they do the transition to the ''Third Age."

According to British Sociologist Peter Laslett, the ''Third Age" is the 
era of opportunity for personal fulfillment. Traditionally, it has been 
that time in life, post active parenting and work, when we think about 
retirement.

But, with added years of vitality and health and less financial 
security, will this generation of baby boomers be eager to sit back and 
relax? In 1933 when Social Security laws were enacted, people lived an 
average of 3 years after age 65; today, retirees can expect to live to 
be 85, even longer for women. At age 65 today, quality of life is 
generally good. Fully two-thirds of the population report being in good 
health at age 79.

So what are we to do with all the time, talent, and energy of the 
largest group approaching retirement in history?

Both we and they need to plan for it. We have always known that we need 
to plan for the financial aspect of retirement, and even though 
economists are telling us that we are not doing that well enough, we are 
doing still less to think about how to spend our days during the ''Third 
Age."

Indeed each time in history when the Baby Boom generation has crossed a 
new threshold, they have ushered in a new era of one sort or another 
--impacting education, civil rights, social activism, and the arts/music 
culture.

What are they going to do now? How will they find their personal 
fulfillment? Will they reinvent themselves, start new lives as some 
self-help experts suggest? Will they heed the ''call to service" as 
suggested by Marc Freedman and transform America?

Will they continue to work in the labor market as suggested by many 
economists today who say they have not saved enough money to retire? 
Will they spend their retirement as one long extended vacation as some 
in previous generations have done? To be sure, if the past is prologue, 
what they do and what we do in response will be different.

Whatever they do, both we and they need to get ready. Research shows 
that those who plan for retirement (some have called it ''social 
portfolio" planning) have better adjustment and mental health than those 
who don't.

Those who have good health, good relationships with partners and adult 
children, and structured activity have more satisfying retirements than 
those who don't. In fact, new research shows that those who continue to 
work during the conventional retirement years are less depressed than 
those who are not working.

Our institutions need to get ready. Just as schools were built in the 
1950s, we need businesses that can accommodate the needs of older 
employees who want to continue to work.

They need to explore flexible work options regarding schedule, hours, 
location, and the type of work performed. We and they need to think 
differently if older workers are to be retained. With a predicted labor 
shortage in the next 20 years, businesses are going to need their 
manpower and expertise.

We also need better organization of public service opportunities. There 
are many worthy causes, but few stand ready to train and set in motion a 
whole new wave of recruits. We need institutions for housing a new 
generation of retirees; there is a new movement to develop communities 
around universities.

Other new retirement communities are springing up, but there are not 
enough for the boomers. The traditional move to Florida is not as 
popular as it once was. We need healthcare that can withstand the 
increased load from the aging boomers.

The baby boomers are ringing in a new era of aging. If we plan and do it 
well, we can make the ''Third Age" the crown of life.

Jacquelyn James is the director of research at the Center for Work & 
Family at Boston College. She and Paul Wink, a professor of Psychology 
at Wellesley College, are co-editors of the forthcoming ''The Crown of 
Life: The Dynamics of the Early Post Retirement Period."  

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/12/28/retirement_boomers/
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Wed Dec 28 04:32:59 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Wed Dec 28 04:48:35 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Slurs fly from the left - Jeff Jacoby - Boston Globe
	Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43B285FB.4070001@comcast.net>


  Slurs fly from the left

By Jeff Jacoby  |  December 28, 2005  |  The Boston Globe

NOTHING BRINGS OUT RACIST slurs like an ambitious black man who doesn't 
know his ''place." So when Maryland's lieutenant governor, Michael 
Steele, announced his candidacy for the US Senate recently, the bigots 
reared up. On one popular website, The News Blog, Steele's picture was 
grotesquely doctored, making him look like a minstrel-show caricature. 
''I's Simple Sambo and I's Running for the Big House," read the 
insulting headline accompanying the picture.

This wasn't some white supremacist slime from the right-wing fringe. The 
News Blog is a liberal site, and the reason for its racist attack on 
Steele, a former chairman of the Maryland Republican Party, is that he 
is a conservative. Specifically, a black conservative. As far as too 
many liberals are concerned, blacks who reject liberalism deserve to be 
smeared as Sambos and worse.

''Black Democratic leaders in Maryland say that racially tinged attacks 
against Lt. Gov. Michael Steele . . . are fair because he is a 
conservative Republican," The Washington Times reported. ''Such attacks 
. . . include pelting him with Oreo cookies during a campaign 
appearance, calling him an 'Uncle Tom,' and depicting him as a 
blackfaced minstrel."

Once upon a time, segregationists excoriated white liberals as ''nigger 
lovers." Today, racist insults in the political arena are more likely to 
come from the left -- and to target black conservatives. When Harry 
Belafonte was asked in August about the fact that black Americans hold 
prominent positions in the Bush administration, his response was to call 
them ''black tyrants" -- and then to make a sickening (and ignorant) 
comparison: ''Hitler had a lot of Jews high up in the hierarchy of the 
Third Reich."

While Belafonte's odious remarks drew virtually no media attention, 
there was plenty of coverage a few weeks later when televangelist Pat 
Robertson suggested that Venezuelan president Hugo Ch?vez be 
assassinated. And while few if any liberal or Democratic voices were 
heard to condemn Belafonte, Robertson was publicly slammed by leading 
conservatives and Republicans, such as former presidential candidate Bob 
Dole (''ludicrous, ridiculous, irresponsible"), National Review senior 
editor Richard Brookhiser (''what an offense that this man was a serious 
candidate for the presidency"), and US Senator Norm Coleman of Minnesota 
(''incredibly stupid").

It's an old story. For years I have devoted an annual column to the hate 
speech in which mainstream liberals traffic all too readily, and to the 
double standard that tolerates such poison when it comes from the left, 
while erupting in outrage when it is heard on the right.

By ''hate speech," I don't mean the sharp put-downs that are an 
inevitable part of vigorous public debate. What I have in mind are the 
disgusting calumnies and malicious demonizations that should have no 
place in political discourse. Like University of Michigan historian Juan 
Cole, a frequent TV talking head, asserting falsely that Middle East 
scholar Daniel Pipes ''has fond visions of rounding up Muslim Americans 
and putting them in concentration camps." Or US Senator Jim Jeffords of 
Vermont accusing the Bush family of planning to ''start another war . . 
. next year, probably in Iran" in order ''to get their son" -- Florida 
Governor Jeb Bush -- ''elected president" in the next election.

If this kind of toxic rhetoric came only from crackpots, it would be 
easy enough to dismiss. When it comes from pundits, celebrities, and 
politicians -- people whose views tend to get respectful attention -- it 
does real damage, and should be universally condemned.

But there was no universal condemnation this year for:

Antiwar protester Cindy Sheehan, who denounced President Bush as an 
''evil maniac" and ''F?hrer" and said his administration -- ''the 
biggest terrorist outfit in the world" -- is committing ''blatant 
genocide" in Iraq.

Syndicated cartoonist Pat Oliphant, who depicted Bush imploring a 
cosmetic surgeon to make him ''look like a leader" whom the ''herd" will 
''follow . . . blindly and without question." The surgeon transforms him 
into a Hitler lookalike.

Rabbi Eric Yoffie of the Union for Reformed Judaism, another liberal who 
blithely compares conservatives to Nazis. Just as the religious right 
today opposes same-sex marriage, Yoffie said last month, ''we cannot 
forget that when Hitler came to power in 1933, one of the first things 
that he did was ban gay organizations."

People who label those they disagree with ''Hitler" and ''Sambo" traffic 
in foul, foul stuff, as repugnant as anything ever uttered by Joe 
McCarthy or George Wallace. Of all people, it is liberals who should be 
most outraged by such illiberal slanders and smears. When will they put 
a stop to hate speech uttered in their name?

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/12/28/slurs_fly_from_the_left/
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From hecate at diamonddragon.com  Wed Dec 28 06:24:47 2005
From: hecate at diamonddragon.com (hecate@diamonddragon.com)
Date: Wed Dec 28 06:36:31 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] "It's An Excellent Relationship": NYPD on Police - CIA
	Links
Message-ID: <20051228142447.8328.qmail@trinity.democracynow.org>

Hecate  ( hecate@diamonddragon.com )
sent you this story from democracynow.org


The relationship between the New York Police Department and the C.I.A., where David Cohen comes from and now heads intelligence for the New York Police Department? 


+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
|  "It's An Excellent Relationship": NYPD on Police - CIA Links
|  http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/27/154249
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+


New York Police Department Deputy Commissioner for Public Information, Paul Browne, described the ties between the NYPD and the the CIA as "an excellent relationship" on today's edition of Democracy Now! [includes rush transcript]
This story continues at: 
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/27/154249

From hecate at diamonddragon.com  Wed Dec 28 08:04:19 2005
From: hecate at diamonddragon.com (Hecate)
Date: Wed Dec 28 08:16:00 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] BBC E-mail: Madrassas refuse to expel pupils
Message-ID: <20051228_160419_089654.hecate@diamonddragon.com>

Hecate saw this story on BBC News Online and thought you
should see it.



** Madrassas refuse to expel pupils **
Pakistan's religious schools refuse to meet the president's 31 December deadline to expel foreign students.
< http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/2/hi/south_asia/4564076.stm >


** BBC Daily E-mail **
Choose the news and sport headlines you want - when you want them, all
in one daily e-mail
< http://www.bbc.co.uk/dailyemail/ >


** Disclaimer **
The BBC is not responsible for the content of this e-mail, and anything written in this e-mail does not necessarily reflect the BBC's views or opinions. Please note that neither the e-mail address nor name of the sender have?been verified.

If you do not wish to receive such e-mails in the future or want to know more about the BBC's Email a Friend service, please read our frequently asked questions. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/help/4162471.stm

From hecate at diamonddragon.com  Wed Dec 28 09:33:42 2005
From: hecate at diamonddragon.com (Hecate)
Date: Wed Dec 28 09:45:21 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] BBC E-mail: Israel bombards Gaza no-go zone
Message-ID: <20051228_173342_043633.hecate@diamonddragon.com>

Hecate saw this story on BBC News Online and thought you
should see it.



** Israel bombards Gaza no-go zone **
Israel shells a newly declared no-go zone for Palestinians along Gaza's northern border.
< http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/2/hi/middle_east/4564876.stm >


** BBC Daily E-mail **
Choose the news and sport headlines you want - when you want them, all
in one daily e-mail
< http://www.bbc.co.uk/dailyemail/ >


** Disclaimer **
The BBC is not responsible for the content of this e-mail, and anything written in this e-mail does not necessarily reflect the BBC's views or opinions. Please note that neither the e-mail address nor name of the sender have?been verified.

If you do not wish to receive such e-mails in the future or want to know more about the BBC's Email a Friend service, please read our frequently asked questions. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/help/4162471.stm

From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Wed Dec 28 09:37:43 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (mblaxill@yahoo.com)
Date: Wed Dec 28 09:49:19 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Frustration Over Iraq Vote Unlikely to
	Trouble Clinton
Message-ID: <20051228173743.CB85A13B8F4@lax-gw04.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: mblaxill@yahoo.com.

NEW YORK REGION | December 28, 2005
Political Memo: Frustration Over Iraq Vote Unlikely to Trouble Clinton
By RAYMOND HERNANDEZ
The frustration on the left toward Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton has been building for months.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/28/nyregion/28hillary.html?emc=eta1



----------------- Advertisement --------------------------

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one Best Picture.  What did the original New York
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From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Wed Dec 28 09:39:54 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (mblaxill@yahoo.com)
Date: Wed Dec 28 09:51:47 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Quantum Trickery: Testing Einstein's
	Strangest Theory
Message-ID: <20051228173954.8DE7C9FDDE@lax-gw05.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: mblaxill@yahoo.com.

SCIENCE | December 27, 2005
Quantum Trickery: Testing Einstein's Strangest Theory
By DENNIS OVERBYE
Recent discussion is bringing renewed attention to Einstein's role as a founder and critic of quantum theory.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/27/science/27eins.html?emc=eta1



----------------- Advertisement --------------------------

The Academy loved these movies enough to name each
one Best Picture.  What did the original New York
Times movie reviews have to say about these Oscar
winning films?  
Go to the Best Pictures review archive:

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From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Wed Dec 28 09:45:10 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (mblaxill@yahoo.com)
Date: Wed Dec 28 09:56:48 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Big Labor's Big Secret
Message-ID: <20051228174510.7BF233AEB05@lax-gw06.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: mblaxill@yahoo.com.

OPINION | December 28, 2005
Op-Ed Columnist: Big Labor's Big Secret
By ROBERT FITCH 
Opposition to a national health care plan is as much a part of the American trade union tradition as the picket line.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/28/opinion/28fitch.html?emc=eta1




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From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Wed Dec 28 09:48:17 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (mblaxill@yahoo.com)
Date: Wed Dec 28 09:59:53 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Headlines for December 28, 2005
Message-ID: <20051228174817.31398.qmail@trinity.democracynow.org>

Mike Blaxill  ( mblaxill@yahoo.com )
sent you this story from democracynow.org



+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
|  Headlines for December 28, 2005
|  http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/28/1457231
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+


- Lawyers For Terror Suspects Plan Legal Challenges Over Wiretaps 
- Muslim Leaders Call For Meeting With AG Gonzales, FBI’s Mueller  
- Aceh Rebel Leaders Announce Disarmament 
- Authorities Discover New Mass Grave in Kerbala 
- Israel Strikes PFLP Camp in Lebanon 
- State, Transit Union Leaders Reach Tentative Agreement  
- Four U.S. Marines Charged With Rape in the Philippines 
- Red Cross Employees Indicted For Katrina Fraud 
- Schwarzenegger’s Name Removed From Hometown Stadium  
This story continues at: 
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/28/1457231

From michael at intrafi.com  Wed Dec 28 09:57:25 2005
From: michael at intrafi.com (michael@intrafi.com)
Date: Wed Dec 28 10:09:05 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] FT.com / World / US - US slowdown fears as long-term
	yields fall
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From michael at intrafi.com  Wed Dec 28 09:58:42 2005
From: michael at intrafi.com (michael@intrafi.com)
Date: Wed Dec 28 10:10:23 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] FT.com / World / Europe - Putin019s chief economic
 adviser quits
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From michael at intrafi.com  Wed Dec 28 09:59:36 2005
From: michael at intrafi.com (michael@intrafi.com)
Date: Wed Dec 28 10:11:13 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] FT.com / By industry / Media & internet - Music
	downloads up 50% as iTunes dominates
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From michael at intrafi.com  Wed Dec 28 10:02:06 2005
From: michael at intrafi.com (michael@intrafi.com)
Date: Wed Dec 28 10:13:44 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] FT.com / Comment & analysis / Comment - Time to prepare
	for economic storm
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From Robert_Scheer at lb.bcentral.com  Wed Dec 28 11:23:37 2005
From: Robert_Scheer at lb.bcentral.com (RobertScheer.com)
Date: Wed Dec 28 13:54:43 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Today's Robert Scheer column
Message-ID: <E1Erj4Z-0001jt-UD@smtpauth08.mail.atl.earthlink.net>

Sent at your request from www.robertscheer.com

                         *   *   *

SCHEER IS FINALLY BLOGGING! CHECK IT OUT AT TRUTHDIG:

http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/

                         *   *   * 

UNAPOLOGETIC SCAREMONGERS
Media vilified Iraqi WMD scientists as monsters but are speechless at their release and presumed innocence 

December 28, 2005 -- Why is it not bigger news that those infamous Iraqi female scientists once routinely referred to in the media as "Dr. Germ" and "Mrs. Anthrax" have been quietly released from imprisonment in Iraq without any charges being brought by their U.S. captors? Don't the newspapers and TV networks that all but pre-convicted them of crimes against humanity owe them -- and us -- the courtesy of an explanation for the sudden presumption of their innocence? 

After all, it was to stop these mad leaders of Saddam Hussein's allegedly booming weapons-of-mass-destruction programs that the United States invaded Iraq in March 2003. We were told at the time by the White House that the U.N. inspectors scouring the country were being blocked by lying officials and scientists, themselves complicit in breaking U.N. sanctions, and so we wouldn't get the truth until we could interrogate them as prisoners. 

Yet, when Rihab "Dr. Germ" Taha and Huda "Mrs. Anthrax" Ammash, both of whom were once on a Pentagon most-wanted list, were released after two-and-a-half years, their U.S. captors didn't even announce it. 

When questioned afterward as to why no war crimes charges had been brought against the pair, U.S. commander Gen. George Casey said in a joint statement with the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, that they "no longer posed a security threat to the people of Iraq and to the Coalition forces." U.S. forces "therefore, had no legal basis to hold them any longer." 

Nor was the acknowledgement that the Iraqis were still presumed innocent deemed worthy of comment by the very news outlets that had previously reduced them to cartoon-character villains, with only slim wire reports generally announcing the news. 

No editorials apologized for the publication in major American media outlets of wild and unattributed charges against them -- including the gruesome accusation that deadly weapons had been tested on Abu Ghraib prisoners under Hussein. NBC had bluntly called Taha typical of a "new breed of third world weapons designers ... willing to violate any international norms or scientific ethics," while Judith Miller in the New York Times referred to her as "Dr. Death," based on the testimony of a disgruntled former co-worker of hers then in the "protective custody" of known false-intelligence pusher Ahmed Chalabi. 

The American-educated Ammash, a high-ranking Baath Party official conveniently labeled as the five of hearts in the media-friendly deck of "most wanted" playing cards produced by the Pentagon, also was given a variety of horror movie-style nicknames, such as "Chemical Sally." She was routinely described in news reports as being the primary force behind Hussein's campaign to rebuild his bioweapons arsenal -- an effort that seems to have produced little or no results, if it ever even happened. 

The fact is, all of the top scientists in Iraq consistently told first U.N. and then U.S. inspectors before and after the invasion that Iraq, hobbled by inspections and sanctions, had no functioning WMD programs or usable WMDs in recent years. This squared with what the U.N. inspectors, as well as former U.N. inspector and U.S. Marine Scott Ritter and the most informed voices inside the U.S. intelligence community, were saying before the invasion. 

In other words, while nobody doubted that Hussein, a regional bully, longed to have WMDs such as those developed and stockpiled by the United States, the best experts and inspectors believed he didn't possess them. 

Unfortunately, the mass media, cowed by post-Sept. 11 jingoism, showed no stomach for fact-checking the White House's war propaganda, instead proving alarmingly pliant in simply passing along a distorted portrait that transformed a run-down and hamstrung autocracy into a world-threatening juggernaut. The media still struggle to make themselves accountable. 

One notable exception this past week was an online report by Newsweek reporter Melinda Liu, who had interviewed Ammash when Hussein was still in power, and now is re-examining a widespread faith in U.S. government sources. "When Saddam was still in power, most of us journalists reporting in Iraq simply assumed it was impossible to get a straight story out of his officials," Liu wrote. "Now we know Saddam's aides weren't the only ones spinning the truth. It's hard to know what to believe anymore." 

In the end, this disgracing of the model of a free media in a free society will turn out to be the greatest cost of the invasion. We regularly hector the world as to the virtues of a government held accountable by a free press and yet routinely mock that ideal with media that often act as nothing more than a conveyor belt for government propaganda. 

Copyright 2005 Robert Scheer 

FOR MORE OF ROBERT SCHEER, VISIT TRUTHDIG.COM

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From michael at michaelbutler.com  Wed Dec 28 14:23:19 2005
From: michael at michaelbutler.com (Michael Butler)
Date: Wed Dec 28 14:35:19 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Censuring Bush Requires Citizens' Help By John Nichols 
	The Madison Capital Times
Message-ID: <BFD85057.274A2%michael@michaelbutler.com>

    Go to Original

    Censuring Bush Requires Citizens' Help
    By John Nichols
    The Madison Capital Times

    Tuesday 27 December 2005

    As President Bush and his aides scramble to explain new revelations
regarding Bush's authorization of spying on the international telephone
calls and e-mails of Americans, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary
Committee has begun a process that could lead to the censure, and perhaps
the impeachment, of the president and vice president.

    US Rep. John Conyers, the Michigan Democrat who was a critical player in
the Watergate and Iran-Contra investigations into presidential wrongdoing,
has introduced a package of resolutions that would censure President Bush
and Vice President Cheney and create a select committee to investigate the
administration's possible crimes and make recommendations regarding grounds
for impeachment.

    The Conyers resolutions add a significant new twist to the debate about
how to hold the administration to account. Members of Congress have become
increasingly aggressive in the criticism of the White House, with US Sen.
Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., saying last week, "Americans have been stunned at the
recent news of the abuses of power by an overzealous president. It has
become apparent that this administration has engaged in a consistent and
unrelenting pattern of abuse against our country's law-abiding citizens and
against our Constitution."

    Even Republicans, including Senate Judiciary Committee chair Arlen
Specter, R-Pa., are talking for the first time about mounting potentially
serious investigations into abuses of power by the president.

    But Conyers is seeking to do much more than schedule a committee
hearing, or even launch a formal inquiry. He is proposing that Congress use
all its powers to hold the president and vice president to account up to and
including the power to impeach the holders of the nation's most powerful
positions and to remove them from office.

    The first of the three resolutions introduced by Conyers, House
Resolution 635, asks that Congress establish a select committee to
investigate whether members of the administration made moves to invade Iraq
before receiving congressional authorization, manipulated pre-war
intelligence, encouraged the use of torture in Iraq and elsewhere, and used
their positions to retaliate against critics of the war.

    The select committee would be asked to make recommendations regarding
grounds for possible impeachment of Bush and Cheney.

    The second resolution, H.R. 636, asks that Congress censure the
president "for failing to respond to requests for information concerning
allegations that he and others in his administration misled Congress and the
American people regarding the decision to go to war in Iraq, misstated and
manipulated intelligence information regarding the justification for the
war, countenanced torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment of
persons in Iraq, and permitted inappropriate retaliation against critics of
his administration, for failing to adequately account for specific
misstatements he made regarding the war, and for failing to comply with
Executive Order 12958." (Executive Order 12958, issued in 1995 by former
President Bill Clinton, seeks to promote openness in government by
prescribing a uniform system for classifying, safeguarding and declassifying
national security information.)

    A third resolution, H.R. 637, would censure Cheney for a similar set of
complaints.

    "The people of this country are waking up to the severity of the lies,
crimes and abuses of power committed by this president and his
administration," says Jon Bonifaz, a co-founder of the
AfterDowningStreet.org coalition, an alliance of more than 100 grass-roots
groups that have detailed Bush administration wrongdoing and encouraged a
congressional response. Bonifaz, an attorney and the author of the book
"Warrior King: The Case for Impeaching George Bush" (Nation Books), argues,
"Now is the time to return to the rule of law and to hold those who have
defied the Constitution accountable for their actions."

    Bonifaz is right. But it is unlikely that the effort to censure Bush and
Cheney, let alone impeach them, will get far without significant organizing
around the country. After all, the House is controlled by allies of the
president who have displayed no inclination to hold him to account. Indeed,
only a few Democrats, such as Conyers, have taken seriously the
constitutional issues raised by the administration's misdeeds.

    Members of Congress in both parties will need to feel a lot of heat if
these important measures are going to get much traction in this Congress.

    The grass-roots group Progressive Democrats of America, which has had a
good deal of success organizing activists who want the Democrats to take a
more aggressive stance in challenging the administration, will play a
critical role in the effort to mobilize support for the Conyers resolutions,
as part of a new Censure Bush Coalition campaign. (The campaign's Web site
can be found at www.censurebush.org.)

    PDA director Tim Carpenter says his group plans to "mobilize and
organize a broad-based coalition that will demand action from Congress to
investigate the lies of the Bush administration and their conduct related to
the war in Iraq."

    Getting this Congress to get serious about maintaining checks and
balances on the Bush administration will be a daunting task. But the recent
revelations regarding domestic spying will make it easier. There are a lot
of Americans who share the view of US Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., that Bush
and Cheney have exceeded their authority. As Feingold says of Bush, "He is
the president, not a king."

    It was the bitter experience of dealing with King George III that led
the founders of this country to write a Constitution that empowers Congress
to hold presidents and vice presidents accountable for their actions.

    It is this power that John Conyers, the senior member of the House
committee charged with maintaining the system of checks and balances
established by those founders, is now asking Congress to employ in the
service of the nation that Constitution still governs.

    John Nichols is the associate editor of The Capital Times.

 

From barbarasiomos38 at msn.com  Wed Dec 28 14:57:21 2005
From: barbarasiomos38 at msn.com (Barbara Siomos)
Date: Wed Dec 28 15:09:02 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] From: The Nation Magazine~The Most Valuable Progressives
	of 2005
Message-ID: <BAY114-DAV5E0B1570B92F5A5C835B8AB360@phx.gbl>

From: The Nation Magazine 
Subject: The Most Valuable Progressives of 2005 
Date: Wed, 28 Dec 2005 14:19:34 -0800 
 
Dear EmailNation Subscriber, 

This year that began with George W. Bush bragging about spending the "political capital" he felt he had earned with his dubious reelection is ending with the president drowning in the Nixonian depths of public disapproval. And, as John Nichols reminds us in The Online Beat, a handful of elected officials, activist groups and courageous citizens had much to do with the unraveling of the Republican program in 2005. So check out Nichols' list of Most Valuable Progressives of the year. 
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat?bid=1&pid=45342

And don't miss "Tragedy and Farce: How the American Media Sell Wars, Spin Elections, and Destroy Democracy," Nichols' new book with co-author and Nation contributor Robert McChesney. http://www.buzzflash.com/premiums/05/10/pre05143.html

We haven't shut down for the holidays so please read new and recent Nation online holiday specials today.

Katrina vanden Heuvel says that the I-word has moved from the marginal to the mainstream. http://www.thenation.com/blogs/edcut?bid=7&pid=45006

Robert Scheer asks why it's not bigger news that "Dr. Germ" and "Mrs. Anthrax" have been quietly released from imprisonment without any charges being brought by their US captors? 
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060109/scheer1228

Daphne Eviatar looks at Bolivia's new homegrown president. 
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060109/eviatar

John Nichols remembers the Christmas Truce.
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat?bid=1&pid=44799

Joshua Freeman argues against the lie that abstract, neutral economic necessity, not the ideas and interests of the rich and powerful, are driving the demolition of what remains of social solidarity. http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060109/freeman

David Corn says Bush becomes a liberal when it comes to claiming existing laws grant him king-like powers, such as snooping on Americans without a warrant. 
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/capitalgames?bid=3&pid=44922

Help EmailNation Grow 
There are currently close to 60,000 EmailNation subscribers and we're hoping to find many more people who might be interested in receiving our regular alerts. You can find info about EmailNation and a one-step process for signing up by clicking below. Please pass this message on and tell any friends, family and colleagues you think might be interested how much you enjoy the mailings. http://www.thenation.com/about/emailnation.mhtml 

Finally, please visit http://www.thenation.com/ to post comments to Nation blogs, to view news-wire links updated twice each day, to see when Nation writers are appearing on TV, for info on nationwide activist campaigns, Nation History offerings, exclusive online reports, and special weekly selections from The Nation magazine! 

Best Regards, 
Peter Rothberg, The Nation 

P.S. If you like what you read at TheNation.com, please consider subscribing to The Nation at a sharply discounted rate. It's the only way to read ALL of what's in the magazine week after week--both in print and online. http://www.thenation.com/ensubscribe 


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From michael at michaelbutler.com  Wed Dec 28 14:41:04 2005
From: michael at michaelbutler.com (Michael Butler)
Date: Wed Dec 28 17:41:14 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Thanks to Maria
Message-ID: <BFD85482.274A7%michael@michaelbutler.com>



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From barbarasiomos38 at msn.com  Wed Dec 28 22:57:51 2005
From: barbarasiomos38 at msn.com (Barbara Siomos)
Date: Wed Dec 28 23:09:34 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] A Tragic situation
Message-ID: <BAY114-DAV8C1E69EF382EBD6BEA338AB290@phx.gbl>

I do not like getting involved with asking people for money and usually do NOT, but this situation is very sad for this woman who (maybe some of you are familiar with her name) I know is a tireless supporter of Native Issues. So I am forwarding this so folks can use their own discretion and make their own decisions.

peace,
barbara
~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+
Normal vie.w To: barbarasiomos38@msn.com 
From: info@leonardpeltier.org 
Subject: FW: Danielle Shenendoah Patterson 
Date: Wed, 28 Dec 2005 19:07:04 -0800 
 
We just received a call for help from Danielle Shenendoah Patterson who you
know has been a tremendous supporter of Leonard. She and her three children
have lost their house on the Kahnawake reservation and have to leave by tomorrow.

Because of the unexpected loss, she and
her children will need some assistance
while they move back to Oneida. If you can,
please help her by sending a money order to Danielle at the following address:

Danielle Shenendoah Patterson 
Po Box 450 
Oneida, NY 13421,    or if you western
union money to Oneida, please email
Danielle  with your name and transaction
control number at: oneidairoquoise@aol.com. 

She needs to find emergency housing for
her and her three kids in of all time the
middle of winter. Your assistance is greatly
needed as she is apparently losing almost
everything. 

She greatly appreciates anything anyone 
can do so she can find housing for her and
her three children so they can stay 
together.

Thank You, 

Leonard Peltier Defense Committee 


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From swiggard at comcast.net  Thu Dec 29 04:55:06 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Thu Dec 29 05:10:52 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] The Fast Rise and Steep Fall of Jack Abramoff -
	Washington Post
Message-ID: <43B3DCAA.7080809@comcast.net>

The Fast Rise and Steep Fall of Jack Abramoff
How a Well-Connected Lobbyist Became the Center of a Far-Reaching 
Corruption Scandal

By Susan Schmidt and James V. Grimaldi
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, December 29, 2005; A01

Jack Abramoff liked to slip into dialogue from "The Godfather" as he led 
his lobbying colleagues in planning their next conquest on Capitol Hill. 
In a favorite bit, he would mimic an ice-cold Michael Corleone facing 
down a crooked politician's demand for a cut of Mafia gambling profits: 
"Senator, you can have my answer now if you like. My offer is this: 
nothing."

The playacting provided a clue to how Abramoff saw himself -- the power 
behind the scenes who directed millions of dollars in Indian gambling 
proceeds to favored lawmakers, the puppet master who pulled the strings 
of officials in key places, the businessman who was building an 
international casino empire.

Abramoff is the central figure in what could become the biggest 
congressional corruption scandal in generations. Justice Department 
prosecutors are pressing him and his lawyers to settle fraud and bribery 
allegations by the end of this week, sources knowledgeable about the 
case said. Unless he reaches a plea deal, he faces a trial Jan. 9 in 
Florida in a related fraud case.

A reconstruction of the lobbyist's rise and fall shows that he was an 
ingenious dealmaker who hatched interlocking schemes that exploited the 
machinery of government and trampled the norms of doing business in 
Washington -- sometimes for clients but more often to serve his desire 
for wealth and influence. This inside account of Abramoff's career is 
drawn from interviews with government officials and former associates in 
the lobbying shops of Preston Gates & Ellis LLP and Greenberg Traurig 
LLP; thousands of court and government records; and hundreds of e-mails 
obtained by The Washington Post, as well as those released by Senate 
investigators.

Abramoff, now 47, had mammoth ambitions. He sought to build the biggest 
lobbying portfolio in town. He opened two restaurants close to the 
Capitol. He bought a fleet of casino boats. He produced two Hollywood 
movies. He leased four arena and stadium skyboxes and dreamed of owning 
a pro sports team. He was a generous patron in his Orthodox Jewish 
community, starting a boys' religious school in Maryland.

For a time, all things seemed possible. Abramoff's brash style often 
clashed with culturally conservative Washington, but many people were 
drawn to his moxie and his money. He collected unprecedented sums -- 
tens of millions of dollars -- from casino-rich Indian tribes. Lawmakers 
and their aides packed his restaurants and skyboxes and jetted off with 
him on golf trips to Scotland and the Pacific island of Saipan.

Abramoff offered jobs and other favors to well-placed congressional 
staffers and executive branch officials. He pushed his own associates 
for government positions, from which they, too, could help him.

He was a man of contradictions. He presented himself as deeply 
religious, yet his e-mails show that he blatantly deceived Indian tribes 
and did business with people linked to the underworld. He had genuine 
inside connections but also puffed himself up with phony claims about 
his access.

Abramoff's lobbying team was made up of Republicans and a few Democrats, 
most of whom he had wined and dined when they were aides to powerful 
members of Congress. They signed on for the camaraderie, the paycheck, 
the excitement.

"Everybody lost their minds," recalled a former congressional staffer 
who lobbied with Abramoff at Preston Gates. "Jack was cutting deals all 
over town. Staffers lost their loyalty to members -- they were loyal to 
money."

A senior Preston Gates partner warned him to slow down or he would be 
"dead, disgraced or in jail." Those within Abramoff's circle also saw 
the danger signs. Their boss had become increasingly frenzied about 
money and flouted the rules. "I'm sensing shadiness. I'll stop asking," 
one associate, Todd Boulanger, e-mailed a colleague.

Abramoff declined to comment for this article. "I have advised my client 
not to speak, except in court," said Neal Sonnett, one of his attorneys. 
A friend of two decades, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.), defended 
Abramoff: "I think he's been dealt a bad hand and the worst, rawest deal 
I've ever seen in my life. Words like bribery are being used to describe 
things that happened every day in Washington and are not bribes."

Few of those interviewed would agree to be quoted on the record because 
of the ongoing investigation by a Justice Department task force. But 
some who spoke on the condition of anonymity said they look back in 
amazement at the heady days of Abramoff's rise.

"We weren't outside the box," the former Preston Gates colleague said. 
"We were outside the universe."

Hints of Trouble

A quarter of a century ago, Abramoff and anti-tax crusader Grover 
Norquist were fellow Young Turks of the Reagan revolution. They 
organized Massachusetts college campuses in the 1980 election -- 
Abramoff while he was an undergraduate at Brandeis and Norquist at 
Harvard Business School -- to help Ronald Reagan pull an upset in the state.

They moved to Washington, maneuvered to take over the College 
Republicans -- at the time a sleepy establishment organization -- and 
transformed it into a right-wing activist group. They were joined by 
Ralph Reed, an ambitious Georgian whose later Christian conversion would 
fuel his rise to national political prominence.

Soon they made headlines with such tactics as demolishing a mock Berlin 
Wall in Lafayette Park, where they also burned a Soviet leader in 
effigy. "We want to shock them," Abramoff told The Post at the time.

They forged lifelong ties. At Reagan's 72nd-birthday party at the White 
House, Reed introduced Abramoff to his future wife, Pam Alexander, who 
was working with Reed. She eventually converted to Judaism and embraced 
the Orthodox beliefs Abramoff had adopted as a teenager.

Even in those early days, there were hints of the troubles to come. "If 
anyone is not surprised at the rise and fall of Jack Abramoff, it is 
me," said Rich Bond, a former chairman of the Republican National Committee.

Abramoff and his crew busted the College Republicans' budget with a 1982 
national direct-mail fundraising campaign that ended up "a colossal 
flop," said Bond, then deputy director of the party's national 
committee. He said he banished the three from GOP headquarters, telling 
Abramoff: "You can't be trusted."

Shortly thereafter, Abramoff was running Citizens for America, a 
conservative grass-roots group founded by drugstore magnate Lewis E. 
Lehrman. Abramoff was in frequent contact with Marine Lt. Col. Oliver L. 
North, the Reagan White House's Iran-contra mastermind, about 
grass-roots efforts to lobby Congress for the Nicaraguan contras, 
according to records in the National Security Archive.

One of Abramoff's most audacious adventures involved Jonas Savimbi, the 
Angolan rebel leader who had U.S. support but was later found to have 
ordered the murders of his movement's representative to the United 
States and that man's relatives. With Savimbi, Abramoff organized a 
"convention" of anticommunist guerrillas from Laos, Nicaragua and 
Afghanistan in a remote part of Angola. Afterward, Lehrman fired 
Abramoff amid a dispute about the handling of the group's $3 million budget.

Abramoff also worked on behalf of the apartheid South African 
government, which secretly paid $1.5 million a year to the International 
Freedom Foundation, a nonprofit group that Abramoff operated out of a 
townhouse in the 1980s, according to sworn testimony to the South 
African Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

At the same time, Abramoff dabbled as a Hollywood producer, shepherding 
an anticommunist movie, "Red Scorpion," starring Dolph Lundgren, filmed 
in Namibia, which was then ruled by South Africa. Actors in the film 
said they saw South African soldiers on the set. When the film was 
released in 1989, anti-apartheid groups demonstrated at the theaters. 
The movie ran into financial difficulty during and after production, but 
Abramoff produced a sequel, "Red Scorpion 2."

Mysterious Entrance

When Republicans wrested control of the House from the Democrats in 
1994, Abramoff turned his focus back to Washington politics. With 
Norquist's help, he reinvented himself as a Republican lobbyist on 
heavily Democratic K Street. Norquist was one of the intellectual 
architects of the Republican Revolution and a muse for its leader, Newt 
Gingrich (R-Ga.), soon to be speaker of the House.

Abramoff also counted on his father, who had a wealth of connections 
from his days as president of the Diners Club credit card company. Frank 
Abramoff had once looked into operating a casino in the Commonwealth of 
the Northern Mariana Islands, U.S. territory that includes Saipan. He 
introduced his son around, and the Marianas became one of the first 
important clients of the new lobbyist.

Soon the younger Abramoff developed a key alliance with Rep. Tom DeLay, 
a conservative Republican from Texas who was working his way up in the 
House leadership. The two met at a DeLay fundraiser on Capitol Hill in 
1995, according to a former senior DeLay aide. The aide recalled that 
Edwin A. Buckham, then DeLay's chief of staff, told his boss: "We really 
need to work with Abramoff; he is going to be an important lobbyist and 
fundraiser."

DeLay, a Christian conservative, did not quite know what to make of 
Abramoff, who wore a beard and a yarmulke. They forged political ties, 
but the two men never became personally close, according to associates 
of both men.

Almost from the start, Abramoff struck some rival lobbyists as a strange 
figure who operated on the margins. He even turned up as a 
representative of the Pakistani military when Prime Minister Benazir 
Bhutto went to Washington in 1995 to seek the return of $600 million the 
Islamabad government had paid for 28 F-16 fighters. The sale had been 
blocked by the U.S. government over concerns about Pakistan's nuclear 
program.

Bhutto's Washington lobbyists were at the Pakistani Embassy savoring her 
successful meeting with President Bill Clinton when a man in a suit made 
a mysterious entrance.

"Suddenly, this portly guy steps in and sits down. He says nothing," 
recalled one of the lobbyists. The Americans asked him to introduce 
himself. He folded his arms and refused.

"Finally, he says, 'I am Jack Abramoff,' " recalled the lobbyist, a 
well-connected Democrat. They had never heard of him. Abramoff explained 
that he was "close to Newt."

The astonished lobbyists for Bhutto learned that Abramoff had traveled 
to Islamabad and had sold his services to the Pakistani military without 
the prime minister's knowledge.

In the Senate, Abramoff befriended Republicans and their staffers, along 
with some Democrats on the appropriations committees. In August 1999, he 
signed up for the National Republican Senatorial Committee's "Tartan 
Invitational," in which a half-dozen Republican senators and their aides 
spent a few days with about 50 lobbyists golfing at the exclusive St. 
Andrews Links in Scotland.

The following year, Abramoff figured out how to use his clients to fund 
his own trips to St. Andrews with lawmakers. The first guests were DeLay 
and his aides.

Team Abramoff

With Norquist's help, Abramoff secured a spot on the transition team for 
the Interior Department after George W. Bush was elected president in 
2000. He tried to place several officials in Interior, including an 
unsuccessful attempt to land a former Marianas official in the top spot 
overseeing U.S. territories.

He was able to befriend J. Steven Griles, the deputy interior secretary, 
e-mails and interviews show. By the sum mer of 2001, Abramoff was 
referring to him in an e-mail to a client as "our guy Steve Griles." 
Federal investigators are now looking into whether Griles interceded on 
behalf of Abramoff and improperly discussed a job with the lobbyist 
while in a position to affect his clients. Griles denied any wrong doing 
in recent testimony to the Senate.

Abramoff's team also cultivated Roger Stillwell, the Marianas desk 
officer at the Interior Department. In a recent interview, Stillwell 
said he accepted dinners at Abramoff's restaurant, Signatures, and 
tickets to Washington Redskins games. But he said that all those actions 
occurred while he was a contract employee at Interior, not a federal 
worker. He also said he sent Abramoff copies of e-mails he sent to his 
boss, but he noted that none of them contained confidential information 
and that "there's nothing wrong with doing that."

Abramoff wallowed in his access, real and imagined. When his crack 
administrative assistant Susan Ralston bolted for a position with White 
House political adviser Karl Rove, Abramoff told colleagues he had 
gotten her the job even though it was Ralston's old boss, Reed, who made 
it happen, her former colleagues said.

Even glowing profiles in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal 
noting Abramoff's extensive influence and impressive income were not 
enough. Abramoff quietly paid op-ed columnists thousands of dollars to 
write favorably about his clients, including one writer for Copley News 
Service who disclosed this month that he had been paid for as many as 
two dozen columns since the mid-1990s.

Abramoff drove his colleagues hard, often e-mailing them late into the 
night. Many more than doubled their Hill pay when they went to work with 
him, some earning salaries of $200,000 to $300,000.

"He hired a bunch of white, middle-class Irish Catholic guys who wanted 
to exceed their parents' expectations," said one of the young lobbyists 
who himself fit that description. "He was always pushing, demanding. He 
would say, 'We are a family, we will work 24 hours a day, we will win.' "

Team Abramoff included former staffers to DeLay, as well as to Sen. 
Conrad Burns (R-Mont.), head of the Senate Appropriations panel's 
Interior subcommittee; Rep. Robert W. Ney (R-Ohio), chairman of the 
House Administration Committee; Rep. John T. Doolittle (R-Calif.), who 
has served on the key House committee that oversees tribes; and Sen. 
Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), now minority leader.

Abramoff gathered his troops for strategy meetings that were "a great 
show," rollicking forums where ethical niceties were derided with locker 
room humor, recalled a former Preston Gates colleague. "Jack would say, 
'I gave that guy 10 grand and he voted against me!' " the former 
associate recalled.

Bill padding was openly discussed, according to Abramoff's Greenberg 
Traurig e-mails that have been released by the Senate Indian Affairs 
Committee. For example, in April 2000, Abramoff had lobbyist Shawn 
Vasell working on a monthly invoice to the Mississippi Band of Choctaw 
Indians, telling him to "be sure we hit the $150k minimum. If you need 
to add time for me, let me know."

An exasperated Vasell e-mailed back: "You only had 2 hours. We are not 
even close to this number . . . ." Abramoff's solution: "Add 60 hours 
for me," and "pump up" the hours for three or four other lobbyists.

The Choctaws were one of a half-dozen Indian tribes who gave more than 
$80 million to Abramoff between 2000 and 2003. Not only were the tribes 
paying Abramoff's lobbying firm, they were also paying Abramoff's secret 
outside partner, Michael Scanlon, who charged the Indians millions of 
dollars for public relations work and split the money with Abramoff. 
Scanlon's public relations fees did not have to be disclosed under 
lobbying rules, thus making it possible for the magnitude of their take 
from the tribes to be kept from public view. The two dubbed their scheme 
"Gimme Five," according to e-mails in which Abramoff disparaged their 
clients as "morons" and "troglodytes."

E-mails show that Abramoff put his money into an array of political and 
personal projects.

The nonprofit Capital Athletic Foundation, for example, allowed him to 
schmooze with Washington's movers and shakers at charity affairs. He put 
a congressional spouse -- Julie Doolittle, wife of the California 
lawmaker -- on his payroll to plan at least one event. The congressman's 
office has said that there was no connection between his wife's work and 
official acts.

The foundation was ostensibly created to help inner-city children 
through organized sports. There is no evidence money went to city kids, 
but the foundation did fund some of Abramoff's pet projects: a sniper 
school for Israelis in the West Bank, a golf trip to Scotland for Ohio 
congressman Ney and others, and a Jewish religious academy in Columbia 
that Abramoff founded and where he sent his children to be educated.

Another Abramoff financial vehicle was the nonprofit American 
International Center, a Rehoboth Beach, Del., "think tank" set up by 
Scanlon, who staffed it with beach friends from his summer job as a 
lifeguard. The center became a means for Abramoff and Scanlon to take 
money from foreign clients that they did not want to officially 
represent. Some of the funds came from the government of Malaysia. Banks 
and oil companies there were making deals in Sudan, where U.S. companies 
were barred on human rights grounds. Sudan was among several oil-rich 
nations in Africa, Asia and the Middle East that Abramoff eyed as venues 
for lucrative energy deals. Abramoff told associates he wanted to become 
a go-to person for U.S. companies seeking to do business with oil-patch 
nations.

But by early 2003, Abramoff's private dealmaking had spiraled out of 
control. His religious academy was draining his income, and his 
restaurants were hemorrhaging money. He told Scanlon in an e-mail that 
February that he was at "rock bottom" and needed funds immediately. By 
the next day, he was frantic. "Mike!!! I need the money TODAY! I AM 
BOUNCING CHECKS!!!"

'Enron of Lobbying'

To Abramoff's rivals in the niche world of tribal lobbying, however, he 
was still a confounding success.

Team Abramoff was stealing away tribal clients from other lobbyists and 
charging fees of $150,000 a month or more -- 10 or 20 times what the 
Indians had been paying to others. Team members did it by touting their 
ties to powerful Republicans on Capitol Hill and stoking tribal worries 
that Congress might try to tax casino proceeds. Abramoff and Scanlon 
also quietly got involved in tribal elections.

Sen. Byron L. Dorgan (N.D.), the ranking Democrat on the Indian Affairs 
Committee, remembers first hearing "vague complaints" about Abramoff in 
June 2003 from three Democratic lobbyists. The tribes had traditionally 
supported Democrats, but Abramoff was capturing them for Republicans, 
getting them to boost their contributions and give two-thirds to his party.

There was even more buzz on Capitol Hill about Scanlon, the gregarious 
former DeLay press aide who had become a multimillionaire almost 
overnight. His old friends were astonished that Scanlon, then in his 
early thirties, was traveling to the beach by helicopter and living in a 
waterfront Rehoboth mansion that he bought for nearly $5 million in 
cash. A Louisiana paper, the Town Talk of Alexandria, reported in 
September 2003 that the Coushatta tribe paid Scanlon's public relations 
firm $13.7 million, a figure that amazed tribal lobbyists as well as 
some of Abramoff's colleagues. It was around that time that one 
colleague, Kevin Ring, learned from one of Abramoff's assistants that 
his boss was secretly getting money from Scanlon, according to a source 
privy to the conversation.

"This could be the Enron of lobbying," Ring told the colleague.

Rival lobbyists, including some Republicans, were comparing notes about 
what they considered Abramoff's outrageous conduct.

One of them contacted The Post in fall 2003. In early 2004, The Post 
published a detailed account of Abramoff's tribal lobbying, showing how 
four of Greenberg Traurig's Indian clients had paid $45 million, most of 
it in fees to Scanlon's firm. Within weeks, Greenberg initiated an 
internal investigation, Abramoff was ousted and the Senate Indian 
Affairs Committee began its own inquiry, which unearthed hundreds of 
incriminating e-mails from Abramoff's Greenberg Traurig computer files.

Abramoff had another problem that few people in Washington knew about.

He and another old friend from College Republican days, Adam Kidan, had 
purchased in 2000 a fleet of Florida casino boats for $147.5 million. By 
2004, SunCruz Casinos was bankrupt, and the two men were being sued by 
lenders for $60 million in loan guarantees, accused of faking a wire 
transfer for the $23 million they had promised to put into the deal.

Even more serious, Abramoff and Kidan were targets of a Florida federal 
grand jury investigating the SunCruz wire transfer. And local 
authorities were probing the gangland-style slaying of the man who had 
sold them the cruise line, Konstantinos "Gus" Boulis.

Greenberg Traurig officials have said that they asked Abramoff to resign 
in March 2004 over unauthorized personal transactions. They have noted 
that they had no knowledge of his financial arrangement with Scanlon 
before they received inquiries from The Post.

However, two months before the firm requested Abramoff's resignation, 
Greenberg lawyers representing Abramoff in the SunCruz bankruptcy 
summoned Scanlon to the firm's Miami headquarters to ask about the 
relationship, according to two people close to Scanlon. Scanlon told 
them he had paid Abramoff $19 million out of the money he had received 
in public relations fees from tribal clients. Cesar L. Alvarez, 
president and chief executive of Greenberg Traurig, said the firm will 
not comment on any meeting with Scanlon.

By the spring of 2004, the Justice Department had launched an 
investigation of Abramoff and Scanlon that quickly developed into a 
multi-agency task force.

Pressure to Plead

Nearly two years later, Abramoff's legal troubles appear to threaten the 
careers of many of his colleagues and political allies. Sources familiar 
with the Justice Department investigation say that half a dozen 
lawmakers are under scrutiny, along with Hill aides, former business 
associates and government officials.

Two of Abramoff's former business partners -- Scanlon and Kidan -- have 
pleaded guilty and have agreed to testify about bribery and fraud in 
Florida and Washington.

Three men have been arrested in the Boulis killing. Two of the three 
were Kidan's associates; one of them is known to law enforcement as an 
associate of the Gambino crime family.

Another former Abramoff associate, David H. Safavian -- most recently 
head of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy in the Office of 
Management and Budget -- has been indicted on five felony counts of 
lying to federal investigators about his dealings with Abramoff while he 
was chief of staff at the General Services Administration.

Within the past year, Abramoff began selling off assets such as his 
restaurants and has told his lawyers he is broke. He faces the 
possibility of lengthy prison sentences and stiff financial penalties 
that could be reduced if he cooperates.

All these developments have added to the pressure on Abramoff to reach 
his own deal before the SunCruz trial begins on Jan. 9.

Alan K. Simpson (R), the former Wyoming senator who was in Washington 
during the last big congressional scandal -- the Abscam FBI sting in the 
late 1970s and early 1980s, in which six House members and one senator 
were convicted -- said the Abramoff case looks bigger. Simpson said he 
recently rode in a plane with one of Abramoff's attorneys, who told him: 
"There are going to be guys in your former line of work who are going to 
be taken down."

Dozens of lawmakers -- who were showered with trips, sports and concert 
tickets, drinks and dinners -- are returning campaign contributions from 
Abramoff and his clients and calling him a fraud and a crook.

Burns, one of half a dozen legislators under scrutiny by the federal 
Abramoff task force, returned $150,000 in campaign contributions this month.

"This Abramoff guy is a bad guy," Burns told a Montana television 
station. "I hope he goes to jail and we never see him again. I wish he'd 
never been born, to be right honest with you."

Former Republican congressman Mickey Edwards (Okla.), usually a defender 
of lobbying and Congress, said there have always been members who get 
caught "stuffing money in their pants." But he said this is different -- 
a "disgusting" and disturbingly broad scandal driven by lobbyists whose 
attitude seemed to be "government to the highest bidder."

"This is at a scale that is really shocking," said Edwards, who teaches 
public and international affairs at Princeton. "There is a certain kind 
of arrogance that in the past you might not have had. They were so 
supremely confident that there didn't seem to be any kind of moral 
compass here."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/28/AR2005122801588.html?referrer=email
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Thu Dec 29 05:00:07 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Thu Dec 29 05:15:58 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] 'And Now,
	Quotations That Said It All . . .' - Washington Post
Message-ID: <43B3DDD7.8070202@comcast.net>

'And Now, Quotations That Said It All . . .'

By Mark Leibovich
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 29, 2005; C01

What else to do this week but peruse the various year-end quote 
compilations of 2005? And, as always, what fun.

Among the menu items: Howard Dean hating Republicans, Pat Robertson 
calling for the head of the Venezuelan president, Dick Cheney swearing 
in -- not at -- reelected Sen. Pat Leahy, Dick Durbin becoming the 
latest pol to learn that Nazi comparisons never work, Kanye West saying 
George W. Bush doesn't care about black people, Bush saying we must fix 
Social Security ("or Rumsfeld may never retire") and Scooter Libby 
waxing pastoral about aspens turning in fall and how it was time for 
Miss Run Amok to return to her job (this was a few months before it was 
time for him to leave his).

Such lists fill space and turn pages in December -- like aspens turn in 
fall. The quotes run together, a blur of insurgencies in their last 
throes (Cheney) and victory notions in Iraq being "just plain wrong" (Dean).

There is no design to any of this, intelligent or otherwise.

Over time, most quotes will recede from memory. ("In a month," declared 
Trent Lott, "who will remember the name Harriet Miers?," etc., etc.) But 
some utterances will live on, concoctions of brilliance, intentional or not.

What were the best quotes of 2005? Oh, so many, according to our panel 
of experts -- a bipartisan group of Astute Washington Observers whose 
opinions we value greatly and, more importantly, who were responsive 
during a week when self-respecting AWOs are keeping their BlackBerrys 
holstered.

But this being zero-sum Washington, it's not enough to simply compile a 
"Best of" list. This town craves one winner, a front-runner quote that 
dominates all others. And that winner is . . . ohhh, not so fast.

By narrative convention, we'll start with the runners-up in a naked 
attempt to build drama and make you read to the end.

"Let me start by telling y ou this: I have never used steroids. Period ."

-- Chemically enhanced slugger Rafael Palmeiro to a congressional panel. 
The now-former Oriole tested positive for you-know-what a few months later.

But thanks for playing, Raffy. And extra credit for jabbing your finger 
in the air for emphasis.

"Matt, Matt, Matt, Matt, Matt, Matt, you don't even -- you're glib. You 
don't even know what Ritalin is. If you start talking about chemical 
imbalance, you have to evaluate and read the research papers on how they 
came up with these theories, Matt, okay? That's what I've done. . . . 
You don't know the history of psychiatry. I do."

-- Dr. Tom Cruise, in an interview with Matt Lauer on NBC's "Today" show.

Coupled with the sofa-jumping on Oprah as Scientology's leading man 
declared his love for Katie Holmes, this exchange fed an impression of a 
dude unhinged, or off his Ritalin.

Simply-Too-Good-to-Skip Dept.:

"I took a poo in th e woods hunched over like an animal. It was awesome."

-- Drew Barrymore on MTV's celeb eco tour, "Trippin.' "

End of Simply-Too-Good-to-Skip Dept.

Partisan Inflammation Dept.:

" They all behave the same. They all look the same. It's pretty much a 
white Christian party."

-- Dean, now head of the Democratic National Committee, generalizing 
about Republicans.

Given that Dean is also on record as saying he hates Republicans ("and 
everything they stand for"), one can imagine some of them hate him right 
back.

But that would be wrong.

"It would be unfair not to give the honor to Howard Dean," says 
Republican lobbyist Ed Rogers, casting his vote for quote of the year. 
"He is probably the most quoted DNC chairman ever. Quoted by 
Republicans, that is."

"Dean is the gift for Republicans that will keep on giving into 2006," 
adds Ron Bonjean, spokesman for House Speaker Dennis Hastert. He's 
liking Dick Durbin's contribution, too: The Democratic whip compared the 
treatment of some prisoners in U.S. custody to something "done by Nazis, 
Soviets in their gulags or some mad regime -- Pol Pot, or others."

" What I'm hearing, which is sort of scary, is that they all want to 
stay in Texas. Everybody is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. So many 
people in this arena, here, you know, were underprivileged, so this is 
working very well for them."

-- Barbara Bush, while visiting Katrina evacuees in the Houston Astrodome.

"Gotta be Bar," says Democratic strategist Jim Jordan. "All you need to 
know about the worldviews of 41 and 43 is that the family matriarch 
believes, and says, that hurricane-ravaged poor folks, who've lost loved 
ones and what little else they have in the world, have caught a lucky 
break to be camping out in the Astrodome."

As a general rule, the most durable quotes don't require the media to 
keep replaying them (as was done with Dean's 2004 scream) or a hostile 
opposition to keep reminding everyone of them (as Bush did to John "I 
actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it" Kerry). 
Rather, they stand on their own absurdity, famous last words that hang 
naturally from the necks of their authors. All the better if they are 
uttered with conviction, from a bully pulpit.

This year provided another classic in the famous-last-words category. It 
is the slam-dunk, read-my-lips, 
I-did-not-have-sexual-relations-with-that-woman 2005 doozie, a Cat 5 
quote for the ages:

"Brownie, you're doing a heckuva job."

-- President Bush, during his first visit to the Gulf Coast after 
Hurricane Katrina, commending then-FEMA head Michael Brown.

Really, it was never even close. The president's vote of confidence had 
all the markings: Patently false, it came during a widely viewed event, 
was uttered by a prominent speaker, played to an unflattering caricature 
(of both people) and packed supreme irony: Within days, Brownie was no 
longer doing any job, never mind a heckuva one.

It also bestowed a belittling one-word nickname that would eliminate 
"Michael Brown" from any future discussion of the president's doomed 
Master of Disaster.

Plus: Brownie's white dress shirt was buttoned too high and pressed way 
too well for a hurricane.

Plus: Brownie's last job -- you couldn't invent a better one -- was 
commissioner of the International Arabian Horse Association.

Plus: Brownie's e-mails would eventually make him look like an even 
bigger boob.

"I got it at Nordsstroms [sic]," Brownie wrote of his outfit while 
Katrina was bearing down on the Gulf Coast. Then he added: "Are you 
proud of me? Can I quit now? Can I go home?"

Yes, yes and yes, Brownie.

But we digress. Back to the presidential money quote:

"I think for both concision and cluelessness, Bush wins hands down," 
says Ted Widmer, a professor of history at Washington College in 
Chestertown, Md., and a White House speechwriter during the Clinton 
administration.

"It's very efficient," Widmer says. "It packs maximal inaccuracy into 
minimal expression."

An added bonus of "Brownie, you're doing a heckuva job" is that it will 
live forever in the lexicon of disingenuous boss-speak. Who will ever 
hear the words "you're doing a heckuva job" again without half expecting 
to be frog-marched out of the office a few days later?

On that note, have a heckuva New Year, everyone. And watch what you say.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/28/AR2005122801545.html?nav=hcmodule
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Thu Dec 29 05:04:06 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Thu Dec 29 05:19:41 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Three Lessons From Vietnam - Dale Andrade - Washington
	Post Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43B3DEC6.2000402@comcast.net>

Three Lessons From Vietnam

By Dale Andrade
Thursday, December 29, 2005; A23

It's not uncommon these days to hear talk of "lessons" learned in 
Vietnam and their application to current U.S. conflicts. Unfortunately, 
most observers have ignored the uniqueness of the Vietnam War, picking 
and choosing the lessons learned there with little regard for their 
application to the present.

This is particularly true with the current buzz over the "clear and 
hold" concept, which has gained popularity in some circles. Secretary of 
State Condoleezza Rice invoked it during Senate testimony in October, 
and columnist David Ignatius reported in his Nov. 4 op-ed that many Army 
officers are reading historian Lewis Sorley's book "A Better War," which 
argues that the United States could have prevailed in Vietnam if the 
military had used Gen. Creighton Abrams's ideas earlier in the war.

This simplistic notion may resonate in Washington, but it means little 
to troops on the ground. Marines in Fallujah or soldiers in Baghdad or 
near the Syrian border will tell you that they have been "clearing" 
areas for more than a year now, but "holding" them is a different 
matter. That takes a lot of troops, not small teams.

So much for simple lessons from Vietnam. But for better or worse, 
Vietnam is the most recent example of American counterinsurgency -- and 
our longest -- so it would be a mistake to reject it because of its 
complex and controversial nature. Stripped to essentials, there are 
three basic lessons from the war. All must be employed by any 
counterinsurgency effort, no matter what shape it takes.

First, there must be a unified structure that combines military and 
civilian pacification efforts. In Vietnam that organization was called 
CORDS, for Civil Operations and Rural Development Support. Formed in 
1967, it placed the disjointed and ineffective civilian pacification 
programs under the military. This was accomplished only at the 
insistence of President Lyndon Johnson, who took an active interest in 
seeing the pacification process function smoothly under a single 
manager: Gen. William Westmoreland. CORDS gave the pacification effort 
access to military money and personnel, allowing programs to expand 
dramatically. In 1966 there were about 1,000 advisers involved in 
pacification, and the annual budget was $582 million; by 1969 that had 
risen to 7,600 advisers and almost $1.5 billion. This rapid progress was 
possible only because of CORDS's streamlined system under Defense 
Department control.

In Afghanistan, the provincial reconstruction teams have viewed CORDS as 
a model, but there is no truly integrated system yet. In Iraq, the old 
Coalition Provisional Authority suffered from the same problems that 
caused the formation of CORDS, in particular a dual chain of command 
that failed to coordinate military and civilian efforts. Not enough has 
been done since the CPA's dissolution in 2004 to integrate 
nation-building into military planning.

The second lesson involves attacking the enemy's center of gravity. An 
insurgency thrives only if it can maintain a permanent presence among 
the population, which in Vietnam was called the Viet Cong 
infrastructure, or VCI. This covert presence used carrot and stick -- 
promises of reform and threats of violence -- to take control of large 
chunks of the countryside. U.S. planners were aware of VCI, but until 
1968 only the CIA paid it much attention. Under CORDS, however, the 
United States implemented the much-maligned Phoenix program, which 
targeted VCI and resulted in the capture or killing (mostly capture) of 
more than 80,000 VCI guerrillas. Criticisms of Phoenix abound, and there 
were many problems with the system, but the fact is that a 
counterinsurgency plan that ignores the guerrilla infrastructure is no 
plan at all.

The application of intelligence aimed at guerrillas' ability to live 
among the population is obvious. In Afghanistan, the Taliban are weak 
enough that their ability to influence the people is limited, but 
failure to watch them as they try to worm their way back into the 
villages will bring disaster later.

In Iraq, the situation is different in that the guerrillas have not made 
a concerted effort to mobilize the people. A large part of the Sunni 
population seems to support the insurgency, but the guerrillas are not 
forming local shadow governments or attempting to establish their own 
political and economic programs. Still, it makes sense to aim 
intelligence directly at the guerrillas' recruiting process to try to 
disrupt it.

Finally, it is crucial to form militias in order to raise the staff 
necessary to maintain a permanent government presence in dangerous 
areas. This is the only way "clear and hold" has any hope of working. 
Even an eventual U.S. troop strength of more than 500,000 and a similar 
number of South Vietnamese soldiers were not enough to take the 
countryside from the insurgents. But the early creation of a territorial 
militia helped return a government presence to the countryside. These 
militia members were recruited in villages and paid by the government; 
they lived in the areas where they operated, making it more difficult 
for the Viet Cong to settle among the population. Their numbers also 
reached 500,000, thanks partly to early participation by U.S. advisers. 
Although the militia's performance was sometimes lacking, overall it was 
an important part of the pacification program.

In Afghanistan and Iraq the lack of government-controlled militias is a 
serious weakness, and the United States has not pushed for their 
formation. Militias exist in both countries, but they are often loyal to 
warlords (Afghanistan) or under the command of various ethnic or 
religious groups (Iraq). Their allegiance to the government is questionable.

In the end America failed in Vietnam, and it is difficult to convince 
the public or policymakers that there is anything to learn from a losing 
effort. But the U.S. military did make important headway in 
pacification, and it would be foolish to let that experience slip away. 
Saigon's ultimate collapse was due to factors beyond the scope of 
counterinsurgency -- North Vietnam's large army and Washington's 
decision to allow it sanctuaries outside South Vietnam's borders were 
pivotal -- but the communist insurgency was badly hurt by pacification. 
In Afghanistan and Iraq none of these three lessons is being applied 
with any rigor, though there appears to be progress on the first two. 
But as one counterinsurgency expert told me, failure to employ all these 
basic tenets "doesn't mean you will lose the war, but you sure can't win."

The writer is a historian and author of "Ashes to Ashes: The Phoenix 
Program and the Vietnam War."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/28/AR2005122801144.html?nav=hcmodule
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Thu Dec 29 05:07:14 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Thu Dec 29 05:22:33 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Foreign Affairs to Remember - Jim Hoagland - Washington
	Post Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43B3DF82.3040706@comcast.net>

Foreign Affairs to Remember

By Jim Hoagland
Thursday, December 29, 2005; A23

Bushie? The president's lovely Southern belle of a wife really does call 
the nickname-loving commander in chief "Bushie" in front of foreign 
dignitaries? Who knew?

The first lady's intimate sobriquet for her man is confirmed by 
Christopher Meyer, the former British ambassador to Washington, in one 
of a dozen books on foreign affairs that struck my fancy during 2005. 
This eclectic list skews toward works that got less attention than 
merited, except for George Packer's well-reviewed "The Assassins' Gate" 
and Meyer's controversial and memorable memoir, "DC Confidential."

Trade followed the flag in imperial days. In the information era, 
intellectual commerce follows attack and invasion. The war in Iraq and 
terrorism have elbowed aside Europe and the Cold War, Japan's alleged 
mastery of world economics, and other bygone Topics A at the high table 
of strategy and public interest.

Packer's journey from idealistic advocate of humanitarian intervention 
in Iraq to sadder but wiser observer of the "criminal negligence" of 
Bush policymakers is brilliantly reductionist. It possesses the 
strengths -- and the weaknesses -- of magazine journalism dedicated to 
telling a complex story through personality profiles set side by side to 
form a narrative arc.

The book is worth its moral weight for this big thought, if nothing 
more: "Iraq provided a blank screen on which Americans were free to 
project anything they wanted, and because so few Americans had anything 
directly at stake there, many of them never saw more than the image of 
their own feelings." The soldiers and their families "carried almost the 
entire weight of the war." Amen.

Looking for context for Packer's profiles? "Ahmad's War, Ahmad's Peace" 
is Michael Goldfarb's touching account of one Kurdish family's tragic 
life before and during the invasion; Bing West gives a warrior's view of 
the misbegotten, on-again, off-again siege of Fallujah in "No True 
Glory"; and Robert Kaplan takes on the world and how it is affected by 
America's military outreach in the thought-provoking "Imperial Grunts."

Kaplan burrows in with U.S. soldiers in Iraq, Yemen, Colombia, 
Afghanistan and elsewhere as they assume the burdens of "Rome, Venice 
and Britain as the most morally enlightened states of their age" -- and 
are therefore condemned to establish themselves "in ungovernable areas 
for the sake of deterrence, surveillance and reconnaissance" as well as 
profit and pacification.

Imagine that the inept, spineless Fredo Corleone had taken over as the 
Godfather (rather than Michael) and you might have Flynt Leverett's 
picture of Bashar Assad's faltering criminal regime in "Inheriting 
Syria." It's a slog to read, and Leverett's suggestions for the 
inevitable "optimal" U.S. policy seem to bear little relationship to his 
own analysis. But it catches you up on the crisis to come. Mary Habeck's 
"Knowing the Enemy" is an accessible and useful explanation of the 
ideological underpinnings of jihadist terrorism.

"The Bomb in the Basement" by Israeli broadcast journalist Michael 
Karpin plumbs the politics of nuclear weapons strategy. Karpin is 
particularly good on France's indispensable help to Israel in starting 
its secret atomic arsenal -- see, things do change -- and the Nixon 
administration's undisclosed decision in 1970 to accept Israel's bomb in 
return for that country's pledges not to test or brandish the ultimate 
weapon.

Was Harry Truman's decision to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima just 
one more box to be checked once he was told the test at Trinity had 
succeeded? Stephen Walker makes the case in "Shockwave" that -- given 
the circumstances, and the sentiments of the day -- Truman did not see 
it as a big decision.

"Mao: The Unknown Story" by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday is this year's 
big biography for its icon-smashing portrait of a megalomaniacal liar 
who changed the world. Need a fix on the elusive Vladimir Putin? Pick up 
"Kremlin Rising" by my Post colleagues Peter Baker and Susan Glasser. Or 
watch the KGB in action in "The World Was Going Our Way" by Christopher 
Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin, who trace the lasting damage done by Soviet 
espionage to the Third World

And so to Bushie. In his kiss-and-tell account published in London two 
months ago to thunderous official harrumphing, Meyer describes Laura 
Bush interrupting her husband, who was in mid-toast to a temporarily 
absent Tony Blair, at a Crawford, Tex., dinner, to say: "Bushie, you'll 
have to sit down" and wait for the British prime minister to reappear.

There's no sneer intended by Meyer, who is kinder to Bush than he is to 
Blair and the other British politicians he hosted as ambassador and 
invariably found wanting. This high-level account of the run-up to the 
Iraq invasion is thorough, credible and deflates the notion that Bush 
and Blair decided early on to go to war, come hell or high water.

But it also acknowledges that having seized the moral high ground, 
neither leader found it necessary to think through the practical 
problems their good intentions were about to trigger. It is thus the 
year's cautionary tale.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/28/AR2005122801153.html?nav=hcmodule
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Thu Dec 29 05:09:39 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Thu Dec 29 05:24:57 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] My '05 Hits and Misses - David S. Broder - Washington
	Post Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43B3E013.3040203@comcast.net>

My '05 Hits and Misses

By David S. Broder
Thursday, December 29, 2005; A23

When I sat down to review the past year's columns for my annual 
accounting of errors and misjudgments, I realized that the politicians I 
cover had set an impossibly high standard in 2005. They had screwed up 
so often and so spectacularly that my goofs were almost certain to seem 
trivial by comparison.

How do you match the trio of Republican misjudgments summoned up by the 
names Katrina, Harriet Miers and Terri Schiavo? How do you top the 
Democrats' decision to entrust their party leadership to that itinerant 
verbal blunderbuss, Howard Dean?

Fear not, folks. The proprietor of this space is up to the challenge. On 
Sept. 4, I published a column so wildly off target that it could have 
gotten me indicted by a special prosecutor. It was written in the 
immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, as President Bush was flying 
back from vacation to organize the federal response to that catastrophe.

Without waiting for him to actually do anything, I saluted his 
performance, leading off with the assertion that "it took almost no time 
for President Bush to put his stamp on the national response to the 
tragedy that has befallen New Orleans and the Gulf Coast."

And then this howler: "Because the commander in chief is also the 
communicator in chief, when a crisis emerges the nation's eyes turn to 
him as to no other official. We cannot yet calculate the political 
fallout from Hurricane Katrina and its devastating human and economic 
consequences, but one thing seems certain: It makes the previous signs 
of political weakness for Bush, measured in record-low job approval 
ratings, instantly irrelevant and opens new opportunities for him to 
regain his standing with the public."

What it opened, of course, was an abyss of doubts about the president's 
awareness of what was happening and about the competence of his 
administration. He's still paying for that episode.

But if Bush were as vindictive toward the press as is sometimes 
reported, he could well turn to me and say: "You're doing a heck of a 
job, too, Davey."

The giant goof on Katrina was forecast, in a way, in a Jan. 13 column on 
the Department of Homeland Security that, in retrospect, looks much too 
upbeat. When Tom Ridge retired as its first secretary, I wrote that 
local officials were generous in their praise of him, adding that "Ridge 
enjoyed the advantage of having, as one of the components of his new 
department, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, whose operations in 
the wake of hurricanes, tornadoes and other natural disasters are 
regarded as models of efficiency by state and local officials."

That might have been true under the Clinton administration's James Lee 
Witt. It certainly proved untrue under this administration.

If I was far too generous to Bush and the administration on those 
occasions, I was also too swayed by the rhetoric of his second inaugural 
address, accepting at face value his professions of undying faith in the 
universal values of freedom and democracy. His later dealings with 
Russia's Vladimir Putin and other authoritarians around the globe make 
that commitment seem a lot more equivocal.

On the other hand, the Inauguration Day essay on the perils of second 
terms looks relatively prescient, as does the column exactly one month 
later, on Feb. 20, in which I detected signs of the ultimate failure of 
Bush's Social Security reform. And the weakness and internal 
inconsistency of his budgetary policy were highlighted from the start -- 
and with a frequency that once again proved futile.

As for Congress, the tone of the columns was overwhelmingly -- and 
appropriately -- negative, with few exceptions. The levels of 
partisanship and pettiness were sickening, but I was happy to applaud 
the work of the Gang of 14 senators who averted a constitutional crisis 
by finessing the threatened showdown over judicial filibusters. They did 
the country, the Senate and future generations a considerable service.

Once again, the search for good news often took me out of Washington and 
away from politics, to places where individuals and nonprofit groups 
were doing splendid things, from building affordable housing and 
rehabilitating abandoned neighborhoods to educating dropouts and 
preserving pristine wilderness.

The column I feel best about, however, is the one praising the selection 
of John Roberts as the new chief justice of the United States. That was 
no goof.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/28/AR2005122801152.html?nav=hcmodule
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Thu Dec 29 05:13:39 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Thu Dec 29 05:29:01 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] When teens push parents' panic button - Michael Thompson
 - Boston Globe Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43B3E103.6060606@comcast.net>


  When teens push parents' panic button

By Michael Thompson  |  December 29, 2005  |  The Boston Globe

SINCE THE TIME of Plato, parents of every generation have worried that 
their adolescents are running wild in dangerous and totally new ways. 
The Internet has added a new dimension to our concerns, and every story 
of extreme teen behavior in that realm -- from cruel gossip to sexual 
pranks to pornography, such as the recent story of a teen sponsoring a 
porn site for paying adults -- pushes our panic button. As always, the 
actions of a few disturbed kids trigger our fear that all teenagers are 
doing secret, risky, even dangerous, things too young, much younger than 
we did. It's so different now, worried parents tell me.

In a parenting workshop I was asked to present recently on ''The Secret 
Life of Teenagers," there was no need to dwell on lurid extremes of 
adolescent behavior.

The normal secrecy of adolescence is where most parents find themselves 
stranded, feeling cut off and helpless. However, as different as some 
things are, as a therapist who has treated teenagers for 30 years, I 
tend to think that the similarities between the generations are more 
important than the differences. We were all teenagers once. Don't we 
remember what it was like? Didn't we all have secret lives?

A few questions may help cue your memory.

How old were you when you first smoked a cigarette? (Did your parents know?)

How old were you when you first lied to your parents? (Did they discover 
the lie?)

How old were you when you first drank alcohol? (Did you tell your parents?)

If you ever used drugs, how old were you when you used an illicit drug? 
(Did you inform your parents?)

Did you ever drive illegally, before you had a license? (Did your 
parents ever find out?)

When did you first caress someone else above (and below) the waist? (Did 
you tell your mom?)

When did you first have sexual intercourse? (And when did your parents 
know about that?)

Confessions flowed in the workshop discussion: Cigarettes in fourth 
grade. Drinking and getting drunk freshman year of high school. Lying 
about a multitude of matters, large and small. Why? To feel grown up, 
assert some independence.

The show-stopper was a 42-year-old man, the father of two elementary 
school children. ''My mother thought I was really a responsible boy; she 
always trusted me," he reported. ''She would have been shocked to know 
that I was on the roof of the school, prying off the skylights with 
friends so we could drop 65 feet into the school pool . . . in the dark."

There was a collective gasp in the room. Didn't he know that was 
dangerous? ''Of course," he said. ''But we were pretty sure we were 
dropping into the deep end. Besides, I let a friend go first."

Well, there it was, every parent's deepest fear: that our children will 
do something risky and we won't be able to stop them, we won't even 
know. We're terrified that even a responsible boy could lie to his 
mother and drop from a roof-top skylight, in the dark, 65 feet into a 
school pool. And how did he feel at the time? ''Great!" he said, 
''Absolutely great, totally grown up."

Earlier this year, when we were making the PBS documentary ''Raising 
Cain," we gave cameras to teenage boys and asked them to film things in 
the lives of boys that people do not ordinarily see.

A group of boys from an affluent suburb of Boston -- all seniors, all 
smart, all college-bound -- came back with film they had made on the 
night of a heavy snowstorm. They had tied one end of a rope to the back 
of a pick-up truck and the other to a child's plastic sled occupied by a 
large boy.

While his companions drove down an unplowed road at 35 miles per hour, 
the boy in the sled was swung wildly from side to side, like a 
water-skier behind a power boat, and he came terrifyingly close to 
lethal encounters with trees and telephones poles.

As a parent, you watch the film with your heart in your throat. You want 
to scream at the screen: ''Stop, that's so dangerous!" But what you hear 
in the soundtrack is the boys whooping and shouting. One of them yells, 
''This is the best . . . idea we've ever had!"

No, no, it's not! It can't be. And then we remember our own lives.

We all had to take some risk, big or small, to feel grown up. It was a 
risk to smoke, or steal something from a store; it was a risk to let 
someone else touch your body. It was a risk to dive off the high cliff 
of a rock quarry.

Having a secret or private life was an essential part of becoming your 
own person, too. You could have the most loving, attentive, on-the-job 
parents in the world and you would still have to keep things from them. 
You may not have to drop from a skylight into a school pool, but you 
have to have something that they don't know about and didn't 
pre-approve. Remember?

Remembering is important because if you can remember the intensity of 
your feelings at that time of your life, then it becomes possible to 
understand what kids are after, and why, and it's more likely that 
you'll talk with them honestly. That's when you'll hear some of what you 
need to hear, learn what you need to learn, and be a relevant voice in 
your child's life. If you really want to know about the secret lives of 
teenagers, start by remembering your own.

Michael Thompson is a psychologist and coauthor of ''Raising Cain: 
Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys." 

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/12/29/when_teens_push_parents_panic_button/
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From newsletter at villagevoice.com  Wed Dec 28 23:19:23 2005
From: newsletter at villagevoice.com (Village Voice Newsletter)
Date: Thu Dec 29 06:19:19 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Today's 'Voice': Take 7 - Annual Film Critics' Poll
Message-ID: <20051229071923.63096.qmail@www3.villagevoice.com>

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From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Thu Dec 29 07:50:39 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (mblaxill@yahoo.com)
Date: Thu Dec 29 08:02:21 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: New York Transit Deal Shows Union's Success
	on Many Fronts
Message-ID: <20051229155039.CC09C9FDDC@lax-gw05.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: mblaxill@yahoo.com.

NEW YORK REGION / NEW YORK/REGION SPECIAL | December 29, 2005
News Analysis: New York Transit Deal Shows Union's Success on Many Fronts
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
If there is a real winner in the walkout that hobbled the city, it is the workers who went out on strike, and their leader.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/29/nyregion/nyregionspecial3/29mta.html?emc=eta1



----------------- Advertisement --------------------------

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From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Thu Dec 29 07:51:58 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (mblaxill@yahoo.com)
Date: Thu Dec 29 08:03:41 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: The Lost Strudel
Message-ID: <20051229155158.CDEF324A2A7@lax-gw08.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: mblaxill@yahoo.com.

OPINION | December 28, 2005
Op-Ed Contributor: The Lost Strudel
By NORA EPHRON
A New York memory, wrapped in pastry.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/28/opinion/28ephron.html?emc=eta1




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This e-mail was sent to you by a friend through NYTimes.com's E-mail This Article service.  For general information about NYTimes.com, write to help@nytimes.com.

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From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Thu Dec 29 07:52:33 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (mblaxill@yahoo.com)
Date: Thu Dec 29 08:04:18 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Headlines for December 29, 2005
Message-ID: <20051229155233.18625.qmail@trinity.democracynow.org>

mike Blaxill  ( mblaxill@yahoo.com )
sent you this story from democracynow.org




+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
|  Headlines for December 29, 2005
|  http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/29/151210
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+


- Ex-Enron Chief Accountant Pleads Guilty In Blow To Former CEOs 
- UN: Iraq Vote “Transparent and Credible” 
- US Air Strike Kills 10 Iraqis in Hawija
- NSA Website Capable of Tracking Web Activity of Visitors 
- Pentagon Says Un-Credited, Pro-US News Sites Legal
- South Korean Police Chief Resigns Over Farmers’ Deaths 
- Pinochet Photographed For First Mug Shot 
This story continues at: 
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/29/151210

From ean at sbcglobal.net  Wed Dec 28 21:10:45 2005
From: ean at sbcglobal.net (ean@sbcglobal.net)
Date: Thu Dec 29 09:26:01 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Racing Toward Climate Disaster
Message-ID: <E1Es1M1-0002S6-LA@smtpauth02.mail.atl.earthlink.net>

Published on Wednesday, December 28, 2005 by Inter Press Service
Racing Toward Climate Disaster
by Stephen Leahy
 http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/1228-04.htm

BROOKLIN, Canada - With 2005 the warmest year in modern times 
and new research confirming scientists' worst fears, most experts 
agree that urgent and innovative international action on climate change 
is needed.

But neither action nor urgency was in evidence earlier this month in 
Montreal, Canada when 189 nations spent two weeks attempting to 
deal with climate change. Although the United Nations sponsored-talks 
were widely seen as an international success, they accomplished little 
beyond supporting the Kyoto Protocol and an agreement for more 
talks.

"As usual, national self-interest dominated, but at least the whole 
process wasn't derailed," said Dale Marshall, a climate change policy 
analyst with David Suzuki Foundation, a Canadian environmental 
NGO, who attended the meetings.

Under the Kyoto Protocol, which took effect in February, industrialised 
nations are legally bound to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 
an average of five percent from 1990 levels each year between 2008 
and 2012.

Long-time climate watchers were gleeful about getting all nations, 
including the United States, to agree to hold more talks, Marshall told 
IPS.

"But that's a very, very small step forward towards the deep emissions 
cuts that are needed," he added.

Meanwhile, several climate research studies released in December 
show that the impacts of climate change are coming faster than 
predicted. This suggests that the worst case disaster scenarios may 
be the most likely unless there is concerted global action to reduce 
emissions.

Satellite photos taken this year revealed that there was 20 percent less 
Arctic sea ice compared to the first pictures taken in 1978, according 
to the National Snow and Ice Data Centre (NSIDC) in Boulder, 
Colorado.

The loss of ice is not too surprising given the four degrees C rise in 
average winter temperatures in the Arctic. However, the extent and 
speed with which the Arctic ice is melting is unprecedented.

And that's not just bad news for polar bears and native people of the 
North.

"The Arctic is a major driver for Earth's weather cycle. [The melting] we 
see is going to be very profound in terms of global weather change," 
said Ted Scambos, a research scientist at the NSIDC.

Those changes are impossible to predict with precision, but Scambos 
believes that the sea ice will continue to melt. The loss of sea ice 
appears to have triggered a major feedback loop because there is less 
ice and snow to reflect the sun's energy, making the region ever 
warmer.

"We think that these feedbacks are starting to take hold and that we're 
going to see an accelerated decline in sea ice," Scambos said in a 
release.

Warmer temperatures are also thawing the top three metres of 
permafrost beneath the western Siberian peatlands, creating giant 
lakes and swelling rivers. Permafrost is also melting in Alaska and 
northern Canada. A new study predicts that over half of the northern 
hemisphere's permafrost could thaw by 2050.

The melting of millions of square kilometres of permafrost will unleash 
billions of tonnes of methane, the U.S. National Center for 
Atmospheric Research (NCAR) reported in the Dec. 17 issue of 
Geophysical Research Letters.

Methane is a greenhouse gas that is 20 times more potent than carbon 
dioxide, and will dramatically accelerate global warming. A major 
permafrost meltdown will have a major impact on climate, NCAR 
scientists said.

The first direct measures of Greenland's massive ice sheets released 
in December found that they lost 162 cubic kilometres of ice a year 
between 2002 and 2005. This is higher than all previous estimates and 
is contributing to rising sea levels, scientists from the U.S. National 
Aeronautics and Space Administration reported.

Greenland alone has enough ice to raise global sea levels three 
metres.

Earlier in the year, European scientists reported that analysis of ice 
cores from Antarctica shows that today's level of carbon dioxide in the 
atmosphere is 27 percent higher than any previous peak -- looking 
back 650,000 years.

In bizarre twist, air pollution has so far cushioned the full impact of all 
that additional carbon dioxide, a team of international scientists 
reported in the Dec. 22 issue of the journal Nature.

Tiny lung-clogging particles from burning coal, diesel and other fossil 
fuels scatter sunlight in the upper atmosphere and have been 
preventing the full heat of the sun from reaching the Earth's surface. 
The full effect of these particles or aerosols had never been calculated 
before now. It turns out that the "cooling effect" offsets about 30 
percent of the warming from greenhouse gas emissions.

In other words, without a haze of polluted air circulating the Earth, 
global temperatures ought to be 30 percent warmer right now. 
However this "pollution umbrella" is weakening. Because of the major 
health affects of air pollution on children and the elderly, ever-stricter 
emission controls means cleaner air. Good for lungs, bad for global 
climate.

The only way to avoid the worst impacts of climate change is to cut 
emissions, experts agree.

"Kyoto won't be enough. Emissions will need to fall by 80 or 90 
percent, rather than 5 or 10 percent, to have an effect on the models. 
In terms of a response, Kyoto is only a start," Guy Brasseur, head of 
the Hamburg-based Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, told the 
European Parliament in late November.

"Political leadership is all that's missing to achieve emissions cuts of 
30 to 40 percent," said Marshall.

While the public is more concerned about the issue than politicians, 
most people tend to believe that if climate change is a truly serious 
problem, their governments would take action, he said.

"We need to deepen people's understanding of impacts and that they 
have to be directly involved in doing something about it," Marshall said.

The Suzuki Foundation and other environmental groups commissioned 
a detailed study of how Canada could achieve greenhouse gas 
emissions levels 25 percent below 1990 by 2020, and 80 percent 
below 1990 levels by 2050.

A number of other studies have also shown that existing technologies 
combined with the right government policies could achieve emissions 
reductions between 20 and 40 percent relatively quickly at a modest or 
little cost.

Despite those studies, the public will have to pressure politicians to 
take action, said Elliot Diringer of the Pew Centre on Climate Change, 
a U.S.-based NGO.

"The Europeans want to talk about how get to global emission 
reductions of 60 percent but the U.S. is a long way from even thinking 
about that," Diringer told IPS. "It's going to take a 'perfect storm' of 
political alignment and public pressure to turn this around."

That "perfect storm" may come over the next two years as thousands 
of climate scientists finalise a series of studies and reports that will 
become the next Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 
climate synthesis report. The IPCC's 2007 report will be the 
authoritative and complete assessment of climate change and its 
impacts.

And it's unlikely to have much in the way of good news.

"It will be much more difficult for politicians not to take concrete action 
when that comes out," said Marshall.

As agreed in Montreal, negotiators will meet next March to start talking 
about how to reduce emissions when the Kyoto agreement expires in 
2012. That agreement took five years to create, and will go into effect 
16 years after nations decided to do something about climate change.

Marshall thinks a new agreement with cuts of 20 percent or more could 
be completed relatively quickly if there's enough public pressure.

"However, there's a million ways this could still go off the rails over the 
next few years," he warned.

? 2005 IPS - Inter Press Service

###


-- 
You are currently on Mha Atma's Earth Action Network email list, 
option D (up to 3 emails/day).  To be removed, or to switch options 
(option A - 1x/week, option B - 3/wk, option C - up to 1x/day, option D - 
up to 3x/day) please reply and let us know!  If someone forwarded you 
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"A war of aggression is the supreme international crime." -- Robert Jackson,
 former U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice and Nuremberg prosecutor

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From ean at sbcglobal.net  Wed Dec 28 21:10:46 2005
From: ean at sbcglobal.net (ean@sbcglobal.net)
Date: Thu Dec 29 09:28:40 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] The Hidden State Steps Forward
Message-ID: <E1Es1Nf-0003vQ-Ll@smtpauth02.mail.atl.earthlink.net>

   The Hidden State Steps Forward
    By Jonathan Schell
    The Nation

    09 January 2006 Edition
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060109/schell

    When the New York Times revealed that George W. Bush had ordered the
National Security Agency to wiretap the foreign calls of American citizens
without seeking court permission, as is indisputably required by the
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), passed by Congress in 1978,
he faced a decision. Would he deny the practice, or would he admit it? He
admitted it. But instead of expressing regret, he took full ownership of
the deed, stating that his order had been entirely justified, that he had
in fact renewed it thirty times, that he would continue to renew it
and-going even more boldly on the offensive-that those who had made his
law-breaking known had committed a "shameful act." As justification, he
offered two arguments, one derisory, the other deeply alarming. The
derisory one was that Congress, by authorizing him to use force after
September 11, had authorized him to suspend FISA, although that law is
unmentioned in the resolution. Thus has Bush informed the members of a
supposedly co-equal ranch of government of what, unbeknownst to
themselves, they were thinking when they cast their vote. The alarming
argument is that as Commander in Chief he possesses "inherent" authority
to suspend laws in wartime. But if he can suspend FISA at his whim and in
secret, then what law can he not suspend? What need is there, for example,
to pass or not pass the Patriot Act if any or all of its provisions can be
secretly exceeded by the President?

    Bush's choice marks a watershed in the evolution of his
    Administration.
Previously when it was caught engaging in disgraceful, illegal or merely
mistaken or incompetent behavior, he would simply deny it. "We have found
the weapons of mass destruction!" "We do not torture!" However, further
developments in the torture matter revealed a shift. Even as he denied the
existence of torture, he and his officials began to defend his right to
order it. His Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales, refused at his
confirmation hearings to state that the torture called waterboarding, in
which someone is brought to the edge of drowning, was prohibited. Then
when Senator John McCain sponsored a bill prohibiting cruel, inhuman and
degrading treatment of prisoners, Bush threatened to veto the legislation
to which it was attached. It was only in the face of majority votes in
both houses against such treatment that he retreated from his claim.

    But in the wiretapping matter, he has so far exhibited no such
vacillation. Secret law-breaking has been supplanted by brazen
law-breaking. The difference is critical. If abuses of power are kept
secret, there is still the possibility that, when exposed, they will be
stopped. But if they are exposed and still permitted to continue, then
every remedy has failed, and the abuse is permanently ratified. In this
case, what will be ratified is a presidency that has risen above the law.

    The danger is not abstract or merely symbolic. Bush's abuses of
presidential power are the most extensive in American history. He has
launched an aggressive war ("war of choice," in today's euphemism) on
false grounds. He has presided over a system of torture and sought to
legitimize it by specious definitions of the word. He has asserted a
wholesale right to lock up American citizens and others indefinitely
without any legal showing or the right to see a lawyer or anyone else. He
has kidnapped people in foreign countries and sent them to other
countries, where they were tortured. In rationalizing these and other
acts, his officials have laid claim to the unlimited, uncheckable and
unreviewable powers he has asserted in the wiretapping case. He has tried
to drop a thick shroud of secrecy over these and other actions.

    There is a name for a system of government that wages aggressive war,
deceives its citizens, violates their rights, abuses power and breaks the
law, rejects judicial and legislative checks on itself, claims power
without limit, tortures prisoners and acts in secret. It is dictatorship.

    The Administration of George W. Bush is not a dictatorship, but it
    does
manifest the characteristics of one in embryonic form. Until recently,
these were developing and growing in the twilight world of secrecy. Even
within the executive branch itself, Bush seemed to govern outside the
normally constituted channels of the Cabinet and to rely on what Secretary
of State Colin Powell's chief of staff has called a "cabal." Former
Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill reported the same thing. Cabinet meetings
were for show. Real decisions were made elsewhere, out of sight. Another
White House official, John DiIulio, has commented that there was "a
complete lack of a policy apparatus" in the White House. "What you've got
is everything, and I mean everything, being run by the political arm." As
in many Communist states, a highly centralized party, in this case the
Republican Party, was beginning to forge a parallel apparatus at the heart
of government, a semi-hidden state-within-a-state, by which the real
decisions were ade.

    With Bush's defense of his wiretapping, the hidden state has stepped
into the open. The deeper challenge Bush has thrown down, therefore, is
whether the country wants to embrace the new form of government he is
creating by executive fiat or to continue with the old constitutional
form. He is now in effect saying, "Yes, I am above the law-I am the law,
which is nothing more than what I and my hired lawyers say it is-and if
you don't like it, I dare you to do something about it."

    Members of Congress have no choice but to accept the challenge. They
    did
so once before, when Richard Nixon, who said, "When the President does it,
that means it's not illegal," posed a similar threat to the Constitution.
The only possible answer is to inform Bush forthwith that if he continues
in his defiance, he will be impeached.

    If Congress accepts his usurpation of its legislative power, they will
be no Congress and might as well stop meeting. Either the President must
uphold the laws of the United States, which are Congress's laws, or he
must leave office.


-----------------------------
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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Thu Dec 29 10:05:11 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (ialterman@nyc.rr.com)
Date: Thu Dec 29 10:16:57 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Spy Agency Removes Illegal Tracking Files
Message-ID: <20051229180511.85FB9237786@lax-gw01.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: ialterman@nyc.rr.com.

[Sorry if this is a duplicate.] Illlegal torture. Propaganda in both international and national media. Illegal wiretapping of U.S. citizens. NYC police infiltrating protests and acting as agent provocateurs. And now illegal tracking of U.S. citizen web activity. One can only wonder how long it will be before anyone who simply voices disagreement with U.S. policy is arrested. Peace.


NATIONAL | December 29, 2005
Spy Agency Removes Illegal Tracking Files
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The National Security Agency's Internet site has been placing files on visitors' computers that can track their Web surfing activity.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/29/national/29cookies.html?emc=eta1



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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Thu Dec 29 11:23:03 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (Ian)
Date: Thu Dec 29 11:35:00 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Fw: Intelligent Design and Brokeback Mountain
Message-ID: <00da01c60cad$4b0fccc0$99ca6c42@iancn2ccrvzt0j>

Michael:

While it is true that the "Religious Right" and other religious 
conservatives have been using ID as a "trojan horse" for creationism - and 
although I would not be in favor of having it taught in an "equal time" 
fashion with Darwinism - it is intellectually dishonest for the scientific 
and educational communities to (i) "brainwash through repetition" the canard 
that ID is not supported by science, and (ii) that Darwinism is the be-all 
and end-all of theories regarding the diversity and complexity of life.

ID does in fact have scientific underpinnings.  There are peer-reviewed 
scientific articles by noted and well-respected scientists on the subject - 
and, no, not all of them represent Christian colleges or even self-identify 
as Christian.  And there have been entire books written on the subject, 
again by highly respected scientist.  A link to some of those papers and 
books is at:

 http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/index.php?command=view&id=2640&program=CSC%20-%20Scientific%20Research%20and%20Scholarship%20-%20Science Indeed, the number of scientists who have joined the ID movement - or atleast the "Dissent from Darwin" - has grown exponentially over the pastyear, from about a dozen to over 450 worldwide.  [N.B.  The "Dissent fromDarwin" accepts his theories, but posits that there are aspects - somemajor - of the diversity and complexity of life that cannot be explained byrandom mutation or natural selection, and that Darwinism, like Freudianism,is beginning to show critical seams.]Note that those who have signed the "Dissent from Darwin" include, amongothers, the chief research biologist at the Woods Hole OceanographicInstitute, the Emeritus Professor of Biology at Brooklyn College, the topresearch chemist at MIT, the co-chair of the paleontology department atEurope's top paleontology institute, and at least one member of the NationalAcademy of!
  Sciences.  So we are not talking here about second-ratescientists.  Nor do any of these particular scientists self-identify asChristian.True, science is not done by "majority rule."  However, it sends a prettystrong message when 450 of the top scientists in the world all feel thatDarwinism may have gotten something of a "free ride" for way too long.As an aside, one major flaw in Darwinism, according to the dissenters, isthe following.  The theory of natural selection posits that "weak" or"negative" traits are "weeded out" over time in favor of "strong" or"positive" ones.  However, this does not hold true in the case ofgenetically inherited diseases.  If natural selection were valid in allcases, such diseases would eventually be "weeded out" of a species.  Yetwhat we find is that, not only in humans but also in other animals, and evenin plants, such diseases have remained at a constant rate over time.  Andthis is only one of many holes" (and not even the biggest) that suppo!
 rtersof ID point to.As an aside, a recent European conference on ID at
tracted over 700 people,including leading scientists from Britain, the Netherlands, and the CzechRepublic - not exactly highly "religious" countries - as well as many fromthe U.S.I would also point out that both Ernst Mayr and Cornelius Hunter - two ofthe most reknown, well-respected evolutionary biologists who ever lived -both had serious problems with Darwin's conclusions.  In addition, notedpaleontologist Stephen Jay Gould, although a proponent of Darwinism, was notconvinced that natural selection could be supported, much less proven, bythe fossil record: "The evolutionary trees that adorn our textbooks havedata only at the tips (micro) and nodes of their branches; the rest isinference, however reasonable, and not the evidence of fossils."  One otherquote that bears here, from a Christian minister, but no less valid forthat: "Darwin admitted that millions of 'missing links' - transitional lifeforms - would have to be discovered in the fossil record to prove theaccuracy of!
  his theory that all species had gradually evolved by chancemutation into new species.  Unfortunately for his theory, despite hundredsof millions spent on searching for fossils worldwide for more than acentury, the scientists have failed to locate a single missing link out ofthe millions that must exist if their theory of evolution is to bevindicated."And here are two quotes from Darwin himself which lead to the conclusionthat he believed that there may be at least one substantial hole in histheory: "If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed whichcould not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slightmodifications, my theory would absolutely break down."....."To suppose thatthe eye could have been formed by natural selection seems, I freely confess,absurd in the highest degree..."A couple of additional quotes.  First, from the Chair of the physicsdepartment at the University of Manchester: "Evolution has become in a sensea scientific religion: a!
 lmost all scientists have accepted it and many areprepared to 'bend' t
heir observations to fit in with it"; and from theformer chair of the Atomic Energy Commission: "Scientists who go aboutteaching that evolution is a 'fact of life' are great con-men, and the storythey are telling may be the greatest hoax ever.  In explaining evolution, wedo not have one iota of absolute fact." Ultimately, however, the most important thing here is that Darwin himselfwas an active Christian during his entire life.  His only earned degree wasin theology.  He was a deacon of his local church, and was buried inWestminster Abbey.As well, during his five years on the Beagle, he wrote many diary entrieshaving to do with the relationship between what he saw and the God hecontinued to believe in.  He uses the word "Creator" almost a dozen times in"The Origin of Species," in all cases in a "positive" (i.e., "believing")context.  The most telling use of the term comes in the "Recapitulation andConclusion" of "Origin": "Authors of the highest eminence seem to be fully sa!
 tisfied with the viewthat each species has been independently created.  To my mind it accordsbetter of what we know of the laws impressed upon matter by the Creator thatthe production and extinction of the past and present inhabitants of theworld should have been due to secondary causes...There is grandeur in thisview of life...having been originally breathed into a few forms or intoone..." (Emphases mine)This debunks the belief - taught by omission (and sometimes via overtfalsehoods) in the educational system - that Darwin was an atheist who setout to disprove the existence of God, or even deny that God created life. Hesimply set out to show that each species was not brought forth by "specialcreation" but by "natural selection."  However, Darwin believed that naturalselection itself was a process "set in motion" by "the Creator," and thatlife itself was "originally breathed into a few forms, or into one."(Ironically, this would make Darwin himself the first proponent of a !
 form ofintelligent design.)Darwin was an active Christian from his tee
ns through his college years,then an "introspective" Christian during his five years "on the road," thena quiet non-active Christian during the fifteen years he worked on "Origins"and "Descent," and then an active Christian during his final 10-20 years.In this regard, it is no more correct for the scientific and educationalcommunities to "lie by omission" with regard to who Darwin was and what hebelieved than for religious conservatives to use ID to attempt to bring"creationism" into public schools.Here is my solution, one that would provide the truth - the whole truth -about Darwin, without requiring the "teaching" of ID.  I would simplyrequire all teachers to preface that part of their curriculum that dealswith Darwin and evolution with the following facts:-Darwin was a Christian, not an atheist or agnostic.-His only earned degree was in theology; although he was mentored by notedscientists, he never earned a scientific degree. -He did not set out to disprove the existence!
  of God, but to prove thateach species was not "specially created" by God, but was brought about bythe processes of "random mutation" and "natural selection."-He believed that random mutation and natural selection were processes "setin motion" by God.-He believed that God created life.Those are facts.  And these facts should be stated at the outset of everyclass dealing with Darwin.  Once stated, they can be forgotten or ignored.But if we are going to educate children using truth, then the entire truth -no matter how "difficult" or "confusing" - should be required, and not justthat part of the truth that the educational and scientific communitiesdecide should be taught.A simple one-paragraph statement about who Darwin actually was, what heactually set out to do, and what he believed.  Simple.  Concise.  If thatparagraph is then forgotten or ignored, so be it.  But at least it giveschildren the option of pursuing - on their own, not through a mandatedscientific course - more!
  on Darwin, Darwinism, etc. Certainly that is not asking too much.Fina
lly, I want to offer food for thought for all the rational empiricalistsout there.Quantum physics - a branch of science - posits that a particle can be in twoplaces at the same time.  And an article in the Times yesterday on quantumphysics also suggests that a particle can spin clockwise andcounter-clockwise simultaneously.And you think that belief in God - and the possibility of a degree of"intelligent design" - is strange?  Either you are being intellectuallydishonest...or hypocritical.Peace.

From michael at michaelbutler.com  Thu Dec 29 09:55:06 2005
From: michael at michaelbutler.com (Michael Butler)
Date: Thu Dec 29 11:52:18 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Intelligent Design and Brokeback Mountain
Message-ID: <BFD962FC.27507%michael@michaelbutler.com>


Michael Butler's Blog

http://www.michaelbutler.com/mbblog.html

http://www.michaelbutler.com


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From Hawaiipolo at cs.com  Wed Dec 28 17:24:05 2005
From: Hawaiipolo at cs.com (Hawaiipolo@cs.com)
Date: Thu Dec 29 12:11:02 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] very interesting idea.....How about in Hawaii? Lots of
	open unused ag land....
Message-ID: <E1Es3vk-0003OV-Hq@smtpauth04.mail.atl.earthlink.net>


British Biologist Uses Carbon Trading to Grow Forests 
By Clarence Fernandez 
Reuters 

Tuesday 27 December 2005 

Kuching, Malaysia - British biologist Ian Swingland took up the idea of 
trading commodities to fund afforestation programs after he witnessed the 
devastation caused by logging in the Malaysian rainforests of Borneo in 1998, two 
decades after his first visit there. 

Swingland lived alone for two years in the 1970s on the coral atoll of 
Aldabra in the Indian Ocean. There he studied the giant tortoises, numbering around 
154,000, the island's only other inhabitants. 

Now his company has bought about 25,000 acres of Kangaroo Island, Australia's 
third-largest island, to demonstrate that afforestation can offer a major 
investment opportunity through trading in carbon credits. 

"Conventional conservation is a disaster story," Swingland, the founder of 
Britain's Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology at the University of 
Kent, said in an interview. 

"What isn't a disaster is where you make a business of it, and everybody's 
lives are improved by it, and we give them ownership of their own future." 

Kangaroo Island, off the state of South Australia, is home to two nature 
reserves with koala populations, but about 85,000 acres of native bushland exists 
on privately held land. 

"We are going to reforest the area with pine and eucalyptus species that are 
indigenous to the island," said Eric Bettelheim, chairman of Sustainable 
Forestry Management Ltd, the company he and Swingland have set up with a third 
partner. 

Carbon trading is a key part of the European Union's strategy to cut 
emissions of heat-trapping gases under the Kyoto Protocol. 

The EU Emissions Trading Scheme, launched this year, covers 11,500 European 
manufacturing plants and power stations and lets companies that emit below 
their limits sell credits into the market where they trade as a commodity. Under 
the scheme, 230 million tons of carbon dioxide, which is blamed for global 
warming, have been traded. Industry groups forecast the value of business this 
year at $5.3 billion. 

A major initiative in trading of emission credits is the clean development 
mechanism that gives companies credits for funding environmentally friendly 
projects in developing nations. 

"A Win-Win Situation" 

Other scientists welcomed Swingland's initiative at the meeting in Sarawak, 
one of the two Malaysian states on the island of Borneo, which teems with 
luxuriant plant and animal life. 

"I think it's a win-win situation," said Mick Poole, former chief of 
Australia's CSIRO Center for Environment and Life Sciences and an expert on how 
climate change affects farming. 

"Not only do you put in trees, it has other benefits, such as improving soil 
salinity, and the watershed, and so on." 

New South Wales is the only Australian state where carbon is traded, said 
Noel Ryan, a climate change analyst with the Wilderness Society. But other states 
and national territories are in talks to establish a national emissions 
trading system. 

"There's a lot of opposition from the federal government at the moment, but 
everybody expects that there will be carbon trading everywhere in the future," 
Ryan said. 

Analysts say Australia's federal government, which is not a signatory to the 
Kyoto Protocol, believes that putting caps on emissions of gases would hurt 
industry, and curb job growth. 

Sustainable Forestry Management, which has similar projects in 13 countries 
from Brazil to Morocco and Tanzania, chose Australia for its mature financial 
and forestry sectors and experienced local partners who could meet Western 
standards of accountability and transparency, Bettelheim said. 

Trees in tropical countries store far more carbon than those in more 
temperate zones, offering Asia an edge in the carbon-storage business, said 
Bettelheim, a lawyer who worked on derivatives trading contracts in Chicago. 

Absorb Tons of Carbon 

"There's a lot of rain, a lot of sunshine, and it never freezes," he said. He 
estimated that a tropical tree could absorb up to 15 tons of carbon from the 
atmosphere each year, against just one ton for a tree in a temperate zone. 

Sir Peter Crane, director of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, agreed with 
Bettelheim. "I could believe that," he said. "It's quite likely that you have a 
lot more biomass locked up in lowland forests. I could believe certain types 
of forests in the tropics, not all forests, but certain types of forests." 

Bettelheim said his company had 24 investors, mostly individuals, who had 
poured in tens of millions of dollars. But he gave no names or sums. 

The firm hopes to start operations in Asian countries such as Malaysia or 
India once they begin to frame legal and financial rules to permit carbon 
trading, he added. 

Malaysian officials are examining carbon trading regimes across the world to 
understand how they could benefit. 

Sarawak forestry official Cheong Ek Choon said the state was studying 
different nations' schemes but had made no decision. 

"Some types of plantations qualify, some don't," he said. "At least now there 
is some monetary value being placed on trees." 

Chief Minister Mahmud Taib said it was a tough balancing act to weigh 
Sarawak's development needs against conservation aims, and only the prospect of 
concrete benefits would spur people to protect the environment. 

"As you know, this carbon sink scheme has never taken off the ground very 
much," he said. "If you don't even have incentives, how can you get people to 
look after the environment?" 

-------

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From hecate at diamonddragon.com  Thu Dec 29 12:18:49 2005
From: hecate at diamonddragon.com (hecate@diamonddragon.com)
Date: Thu Dec 29 12:34:58 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] CNN.com - Dalai Lama: Tibet not open, happy - Dec 29,
	2005
Message-ID: <3914353.1135887529522.JavaMail.tomcat@localhost>



*Please note, the sender's email address has not been verified.



You have received the following link from hecate@diamonddragon.com

 
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Title: CNN.com - Dalai Lama: Tibet not open, happy - Dec 29, 2005
CNN.com will expire this article on 01/11/2006. 
  
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From barbarasiomos38 at msn.com  Thu Dec 29 21:12:41 2005
From: barbarasiomos38 at msn.com (barbarasiomos38@msn.com)
Date: Thu Dec 29 21:24:40 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] CNN.com - Al Qaeda claims Israel attack link - Dec 29,
	2005
Message-ID: <11278241.1135919561443.JavaMail.tomcat@localhost>



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Al Qaeda is still here...

barbara



 
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From Hawaiipolo at cs.com  Thu Dec 29 18:15:45 2005
From: Hawaiipolo at cs.com (Hawaiipolo@cs.com)
Date: Thu Dec 29 21:39:01 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] here's one to really make you think about the
	ramificationa of "peak oil"...
Message-ID: <E1EsCms-000528-KS@smtpauth02.mail.atl.earthlink.net>


Reflections on My Amtrak Peak-Oil Tour 
By Jan Lundberg 
Culture Change 

Thursday 29 December 2005 

After a going away party, on September 6 I took a train from Emeryville, 
California bound for Washington, DC. That was my base for five conferences, mostly 
in the Eastern US, where I had been hired to speak on peak oil and 
petrocollapse. Here's some of what I said, and what I learned during my odyssey: 

Meeting interesting people, making new friends, and seeing wonderful places 
is a good life. Travel is second-nature to me, having visited dozens of 
countries mostly by sailboat back when environmental consciousness was not even in 
its infancy. (Today it's in its infancy, which explains how the fortunes of car 
manufacturers are allowed to be treated as a bigger news story than the 
crashing of ecosystems.) 

Encountering so many Americans and making conversation in the dining car 
while the landscape rolls by allows one to take a reading on the national mood. It 
was clear to me that there is almost no support for the Iraq War, no matter 
what walk of life I ran into. The most support I found for the soldiers was 
that the stateside loved ones had a sense of quiet pride clouded by fear for the 
soldiers' safety. A rising number of citizens seem to grasp the foolhardiness 
of killing for oil far away as we consume our way to our uncertain greenhouse 
future. 

Train travelers are a bit more aware of the absurdity of car domination, and 
generally would be more likely to be anti-Bush. But hardly anyone is embracing 
much of a lifestyle change. Few people in the US seem to understand their own 
culture. After my ten weeks of travel around the country, I reaffirm that 
this lack of understanding and inaction includes my home town of Berkeley, 
California: environmental awareness and leftism are only a bit more common here than 
in the rest of the nation. 

Such insights might be as worthwhile as the other aspects of my ten-week 
trip. On many an occasion I enhanced my own enjoyment by getting a rise out of 
people when I answered their question "where do you live?" by responding, "I live 
on Amtrak." It is tolerable to criss-cross the continent on Amtrak if one 
brings along alternatives to the corporate food and water on the train. I also 
brought along a good, fat book, Crossing the Rubicon, by Michael Ruppert. 

I had been pent up in Arcata, in redwood country, for years trying to assist 
my mother who was dispossessed of Lundberg Survey, the petroleum information 
firm. She was subsequently denied her freedom to live in her own home thanks to 
elder abuse and fraud. Now, after my presence there was unnecessary and the 
legal case was lost ("Money talks," opined the Humboldt County Court 
Investigator), I could finally live my fantasy of taking my message out on the road (or 
rails) with my guitar. 

On this tour I exhibited and distributed the award-winning film "Our 
Synthetic Sea," about the shocking amount of plastics pollution in the Pacific Ocean. 
I play up the fact that plastics - while being dangerous, non-biodegradable 
toxic petroleum - represent a great opportunity to educate people about both 
needless consumption and the bigger picture of peak oil. The 22-minute film has 
an impact that can even distract from basic issues at peak oil conferences, but 
I figure it's vital to wake people up regarding any and all petroleum issues. 
Thanks mostly to the efforts of researcher Captain Charles Moore who stars in 
the film, you will soon see the first municipality in North America pass an 
ordinance for a fee on plastic bags at supermarket checkout counters. 

In my previous focus of fighting road-construction and publishing the 
Auto-Free Times, our repeating facts such as one million animals slaughtered on US 
roads daily did not change many people's behavior - even among animal-rights 
activists. So it is with idealistic hope that the plastic plague and 
petrocollapse are able to hit home today, even though during and after our Alliance for a 
Paving Moratorium's decade of activism the disastrous and corrupt land-use and 
transportation patterns continued as if the Earth is limitless. 

After a stay in DC highlighted by meeting Congressman Roscoe "Peak Oil" 
Bartlett and his staff, my first speech was Sept. 18 in Philadelphia at the "Beyond 
Oil" conference. It turned out that I was really there to give two short 
talks on different panels, and I found myself in a mix of voices that did not all 
understand peak oil, let alone petrocollapse. One speaker, associated with the 
Nigerian movement to remember the executed activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, spoke on 
two panels and claimed that Iraqi oil is so plentiful on the market that the 
world's supply is not an issue. Uninformed viewpoints can get attention at peak 
oil conferences if the organizers are rather open to getting social-justice 
activists represented. It is easy for activists including some environmental 
leaders to imagine they fully understand oil and that oil is mainly just another 
issue threatening poor people. 

Another panelist, a green economist, bemoaned the possibility of post-peak 
oil prices going down enough so as to revive demand and thus warm the globe 
further. Hazel Henderson's famous quote, "Economics is a form of brain damage," 
applies more than ever today. Listen up economists: peak oil and geology are not 
subject to later revision based on theory of demand and supply! 

There in Philadelphia, as in all my talks and interviews, I pointed out that 
my former firm predicted the Second Oil Shock in 1979 based on our data 
revealing a 9% shortfall of gasoline for March of that year. Most significantly, the 
1970s oil crises were in a context of rising global oil extraction and a much 
smaller population of humans and cars. Our present contrasting circumstances 
prompt one to ponder what the imminent gap between supply and demand will do 
to a world economy based only on growth. And, no matter the hype or promise of 
alternative energies and materials, they are not ready and cannot be gotten 
ready on a meaningful scale in time to avoid petrocollapse. 

Even Amtrak, the most energy-efficient and least polluting mode of motorized 
transport in the US, with a huge existing system, cannot be easily expanded 
rapidly. Its tracks are already limited by freight-train priority. There is 
little possibility of renewable-energy powered engines in the near future. 

Leaving behind new friends, Quakers and other kind folks whom I tried to 
enthuse with the good tidings of post-collapse sustainable culture, I rode the 
rails to Cincinnati, the nearest stop to Yellow Springs, Ohio where the Second US 
Conference on Peak Oil and Community Solutions Conference was being held 
Sept. 23-25. Partly because of the longer time for the whole event, speeches could 
allow for full presentation of ideas. The star of the conference, who 
provided three presentations, was author Richard Heinberg. His PowerPoint 
presentation on peak oil is always first-rate, and his violin playing is excellent too - 
we performed "Have a Global Warming Day" and other ditties I wrote, with scant 
rehearsal. 

I was happy with my speech, even if I had to really reach to give the 
audience of 350 some good news: advocating activism to bring about local-based 
economies, I brought up the pepperspray torture trial having ended in the favor of 
the protesters in the redwoods (Culture Change Letter #94). One of my readers 
from New Zealand had approached me the night before and said, "We don't have an 
energy crisis, we have a culture crisis." So I trotted this out for the 
audience in giving my good news/bad news analysis of petrocollapse and what may 
ensue as a revival of community for a sustainable culture. 

My analysis was largely confirmed by the new film shown at this conference, 
called "The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil." This excellent 
documentary, filmed by Greg Greene ("The End of Suburbia"), was produced by the 
Yellow Springs conference organizers (Community Service, Inc.) and was kindly 
lent to us for the Petrocollapse Conference in New York. The film was recently 
shown at ASPO-USA (Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas) in Denver 
last month, by Megan Quinn of Yellow Springs. 

I next traveled to Colorado's western slope where the High County Citizen 
Alliance has its annual Sustainable Communities Symposium in the Gunnison Valley. 
The scenic highlight is the village of Crested Butte at 9,000 feet. Unlike 
some at the Yellow Springs peak oil conference who believe they can survive 
petrocollapse by doing small farming as a community near large population centers, 
Gunnison Valley residents really question surviving a suddenly energy-poor 
world where economics as we know it has gone out the window. Instead of a big 
population center nearby, offering the prospect of many migrating, hungry former 
consumers, Gunnison Valley has extreme cold along with more extreme cold 
every winter. Numerous people pointed out to me that the Indians never tried to 
live year round in the high country. Wherever one is when petrocollapse hits, 
every place will have its strengths and drawbacks: climate, remoteness, 
population size, citizens' awareness and knowledge, energy sources, etc. 

The highlight of visiting Colorado was hearing my co-speaker Wes Jackson of 
The Land Institute. A legendary and visionary agriculturalist who understands 
energy inputs and the need to do things very differently from today's 
conventions, he paid me the ultimate compliment after my ad-lib talk: "I could take my 
next hour speaking by just saying Amen, Amen." He proceeded to blow 
everybody's mind with his amazing lecture. 

The hospitality and charm of the locals in Gunnison Valley, as with 
Philadelphia and Yellow Springs, was endearing to me and made me consider carefully 
such places as to viability for living through petrocollapse. In the case of such 
places as Philly, the SF Bay area and New York, they are to be appreciated 
prior to their energy/resources termination - in other words, enjoy them before 
people start yelling "Sal si puedes!" (Get out if you can.) 

While there I missed Congressman Bartlett's peak oil conference in Frederick, 
Maryland, where I had to decline speaking due to other commitments. The Sept. 
26th event had Matthew Simmons, whom I hope to meet and debate future 
economic growth. His belief that collapse could be imminent with a 50% probability is 
akin to mine, but he also speaks of bridging the energy gap to accommodate 
growth. 

I rode Amtrak to New York's Penn Station and was met by my new friends and 
fellow organizers for our Petrocollapse Conference. The Peak Oil Meet-up group, 
affiliated with Post Carbon Institute, had been thinking of holding its own 
conference but kindly jumped in to make the Culture Change-sponsored Oct. 5th 
day-long event a success. (You be the judge by listening to the talks; link is 
at bottom.) The group there is putting on another peak oil conference this 
spring. As New York City, with its 25 million people in the metro area, is 
unsustainable, the few who are aware of peak oil and are getting together with 
kindred scared spirits are pursuing practical survival strategies. Some are 
acquiring skills useful in rural and wild areas, some are buying gold to weather 
economic collapse, and some hope to set sail for lower populated areas beyond the 
United Paved Precincts of America (the USA). 

The Petrocollapse Conference was a wonderful experience, a first for us all: 
a few hundred people from all sectors of society attending in a supportive, 
civil manner. It was fun to play music afterwards and see speakers such as Jim 
Kunstler chatting with Jason "Plan B" Meggs at the bar. The mainstream media 
were well aware of our conference, but our best exposure turned out to be the 
alternative press such as Free Speech Radio. One piece of coverage turned out to 
be a hatchet job stemming from a speaker who was privately criticized for not 
addressing petrocollapse. The incident brought to light that the impotence of 
the reformist/technofix approach that makes its proponents angry at those who 
point out that the emperor has no clothes; i.e., that petrociety has no 
future. And discussing die-off honestly as a reality of our biological and energy 
predicament can elicit ad-hominem attacks by any journalist overcome by 
emotional bias. 

I enjoyed the Big Apple with more friends landing from afar, soaking in the 
museums, thinking it could be our last time there together. Such a notion that 
the pearl of Western Civilization could become a hell-hole where urban remnant 
gangs roast rats over furniture fires makes a mainstream believer in 
civilization red with rage or doubled over in incredulous laughter. 

On to DC again and Virginia. I walked the halls of Congressional offices with 
John Darnell of Congressman Bartlett's office as we distributed The Oil Age 
Poster and the book The End of Fossil Energy and The Last Chance for 
Sustainability (John G. Howe, author). Roscoe Bartlett asked me if I perceived rising 
interest in peak oil by the general public, and I replied that I did. He shared 
with me that a shipping magnate had expressed to him the idea that greatly 
increased oil prices spell "disaster." 

Showdown over "The Hydrogen Highway" 

Amtrakking back to the West Coast I took a more southerly route, as I had one 
more appearance: Santa Barbara. The Institute of Reverential Ecology, The 
Community Environmental Council, and the Santa Barbara Permaculture Network 
presented a "Community Design and Energy Forum" on Nov. 19. 

Almost 37 years ago the president of Union Oil Company frantically called my 
father in Greece to ask for public relations advice on the infamous 1969 oil 
spill off Santa Barbara. Today, after the players have changed but the problems 
of oil remain and are much more advanced, some of us are struggling to turn 
the situation around armed with much more information and experience. The 
approach is going to have to involve radical conservation, as I told the Nov. 19 
forum. 

This was clearly grasped by one speaker, the recent director of the Community 
Environmental Council, Bob Ferris. He admitted that peak oil means needing to 
personally relocate so as to survive socioeconomic collapse. Essentially, the 
day-long event was a show down between well-paid technofixers touting the 
"Hydrogen Highway" and the anti-car, mostly poorly funded activists. The low-tech 
solution for post peak oil survival was probably best portrayed by the Cuba 
film which I presented during lunch. 

The Milken Institute's senior fellow Woody Clark, who works with Jeremy 
Rifkin for a "Hydrogen Economy," was a major draw, but he was delayed on Highway 
101 by an overturned oil tanker truck. This ironic demonstration of our 
wonderful transportation system should have settled any argument, as the county is 
divided over whether to allow more lane-widening or build a rail system to 
supplement Amtrak. In the opinion of my mother Mesa Lundberg, let out for an 
afternoon from the "hospice/respite facility" and in good health, her son argued his 
position "very well." A local nonprofit group, For the Future, best deflated 
the technofixers' fantasy by pointing out that their "new paradigm" of newer 
cars was really the old paradigm and would solve nothing. The Milken consultant 
Clark said he disagreed with me, presumably about the impact of peak oil and 
our future low-energy culture, but he did not specify. 

Thanks to Robert Hirsch's latest report in World Oil , I was able to inform 
the Santa Barbara audience that the Hubbert bell curve on peak oil extraction 
appears to have a sharp, unseen crest. As Culture Change has been saying all 
along, post-peak extraction will be a steeper decline than most people assume. 
Hirsch confirmed this by tracking available country-data on past peak-oil 
experience, and postulated that the world's upcoming experience could reflect 
nations' and regions' histories. 

Although I was in town to give my talk on "Energy and Community Design in a 
Catastrophic Future," and I was billed as "a former oil industry insider and 
Peak Oil theorist," my main accomplishment might have been presenting a few days 
later at the Community Environmental Council the film "Our Synthetic Sea." 
Although it is about plastic pollution in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and a 
main source, mega-urban runoff, let's look to Santa Barbara to give Berkeley, 
San Francisco and Arcata a run for their money at being the first North 
American municipality to put a fee on plastic bags distributed at supermarkets. 

One tragic note was the sight of my friend's 40' ketch ruined on the beach in 
Santa Barbara. A treacherous anchorage dashed his hopes for continuing what 
might have been a solo voyage around the world. When I was hatching the Sail 
Transport Network (STN) in the Puget Sound in 2000 he was the first yachtsman I 
approached. STN was a bit before its time, but maybe only by a factor of weeks 
now, if this winter's global petroleum demand rocks the oil market and the 
corporate economy. 

End of a Low-Petroleum-Consumption Odyssey 

Lugging too much luggage on and off many a train and subway resulted in a 
rotator cuff injury, but I was blessed to discover osteopuncture and acupuncture. 
These treatments are good for healing more than just my shoulder. But I must 
caution the would-be touring troubadour relying on donations that health care 
can eat up much of the savings obtained from buying used clothing and friends 
buying you a beer. 

Overall, the learning and the adventure via poor old Amtrak are far better 
than sitting in one's pseudo-community anywhere in The United Paved Precincts of 
America - no matter how many DVDs, CDs, selection of herbal teas, drums, and 
whatever else surrounds us in a four-walled box we may call home. That's just 
the perspective of a single man with a mission. But no matter what our 
differences and struggles are today, our real home and community await us in the near 
future, and I hope to meet you there or on the way. 



For resource links discussed in this article, please use the "Go to Original" 
link at the top of the page. Jan Lundberg formerly ran the oil information 
firm Lundberg Survey Inc. His career since 1986 has included publishing the 
Auto-Free Times magazine which is now in the form of www.culturechange.org. 

-------

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From jefbek at mindspring.com  Thu Dec 29 22:46:02 2005
From: jefbek at mindspring.com (Jef Bek)
Date: Thu Dec 29 22:57:51 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Here's what they said when they were impeaching Clinton:
Message-ID: <BFDA17AA.15C2%jefbek@mindspring.com>

Tom Delay (R-TX):
 "This nation sits at a crossroads. One direction points to the higher road
of the rule of law. Sometimes hard, sometimes unpleasant, this path relies
on truth, justice and the rigorous application of the principle that no man
is above the law. Now, the other road is the path of least resistance. This
is where we start making exceptions to our laws based on poll numbers and
spin control. This is when we pitch the law completely overboard when the
mood fits us, when we ignore the facts in order to cover up the truth. No
man is above the law, and no man is below the law. That?s the principle that
we all hold very dear in this country."

Rep. Henry Hyde (R-Ill.):
 "I suggest impeachment is like beauty: apparently in the eye of the
beholder. But I hold a different view. And it's not a vengeful one, it's not
vindictive, and it's not craven. It's just a concern for the Constitution
and a high respect for the rule of law. ... as a lawyer and a legislator for
most of my very long life, I have a particular reverence for our legal
system. It protects the innocent, it punishes the guilty, it defends the
powerless, it guards freedom, it summons the noblest instincts of the human
spirit. The rule of law protects you and it protects me from the midnight
fire on our roof or the 3 a.m. knock on our door."

James Sensenbrenner: (R-WI):
 "What is on trial here is the truth and the rule of law. Our failure to
bring President Clinton to account for his lying under oath and preventing
the courts from administering equal justice under law, will cause a cancer
to be present in our society for generations. I want those parents who ask
me the questions, to be able to tell their children that even if you are
president of the United States, if you lie when sworn "to tell the truth,
the whole truth and nothing but the truth," you will face the consequences
of that action, even when you don't accept the responsibility for them."

Chuck Hagel (R-NB):
 "There can be no shading of right and wrong. The complicated currents that
have coursed through this impeachment process are many. But after stripping
away the underbrush of legal technicalities and nuance, I find that the
President abused his sacred power by lying and obstructing justice. How can
parents instill values and morality in their children? How can educators
teach our children? How can the rule of law for every American be applied
equally if we have two standards of justice in America--one for the powerful
and the other for the rest of us?"

Bill Frist (R-TN):
 "I will have no part in the creation of a constitutional double-standard to
benefit the President. He is not above the law. If an ordinary citizen
committed these crimes, he would go to jail."

Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas):
 "When someone is elected president, they receive the greatest gift possible
from the American people, their trust. To violate that trust is to raise
questions about fitness for office. My constituents often remind me that if
anyone else in a position of authority -- for example, a business executive,
a military officer of a professional educator -- had acted as the evidence
indicates the president did, their career would be over. The rules under
which President Nixon would have been tried for impeachment had he not
resigned contain this statement: "The office of the president is such that
it calls for a higher level of conduct than the average citizen in the
United States."


From swiggard at comcast.net  Fri Dec 30 03:41:39 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Fri Dec 30 03:57:21 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Covert CIA Program Withstands New Furor - Washington
	Post 
Message-ID: <43B51CF3.3070500@comcast.net>

Covert CIA Program Withstands New Furor
Anti-Terror Effort Continues to Grow

By Dana Priest
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, December 30, 2005; A01

The effort President Bush authorized shortly after Sept. 11, 2001, to 
fight al Qaeda has grown into the largest CIA covert action program 
since the height of the Cold War, expanding in size and ambition despite 
a growing outcry at home and abroad over its clandestine tactics, 
according to former and current intelligence officials and congressional 
and administration sources.

The broad-based effort, known within the agency by the initials GST, is 
compartmentalized into dozens of highly classified individual programs, 
details of which are known mainly to those directly involved.

GST includes programs allowing the CIA to capture al Qaeda suspects with 
help from foreign intelligence services, to maintain secret prisons 
abroad, to use interrogation techniques that some lawyers say violate 
international treaties, and to maintain a fleet of aircraft to move 
detainees around the globe. Other compartments within GST give the CIA 
enhanced ability to mine international financial records and eavesdrop 
on suspects anywhere in the world.

Over the past two years, as aspects of this umbrella effort have burst 
into public view, the revelations have prompted protests and official 
investigations in countries that work with the United States, as well as 
condemnation by international human rights activists and criticism by 
members of Congress.

Still, virtually all the programs continue to operate largely as they 
were set up, according to current and former officials. These sources 
say Bush's personal commitment to maintaining the GST program and his 
belief in its legality have been key to resisting any pressure to change 
course.

"In the past, presidents set up buffers to distance themselves from 
covert action," said A. John Radsan, assistant general counsel at the 
CIA from 2002 to 2004. "But this president, who is breaking down the 
boundaries between covert action and conventional war, seems to relish 
the secret findings and the dirty details of operations."

The administration's decisions to rely on a small circle of lawyers for 
legal interpretations that justify the CIA's covert programs and not to 
consult widely with Congress on them have also helped insulate the 
efforts from the growing furor, said several sources who have been involved.

Bush has never publicly confirmed the existence of a covert program, but 
he was recently forced to defend the approach in general terms, citing 
his wartime responsibilities to protect the nation. In November, 
responding to questions about the CIA's clandestine prisons, he said the 
nation must defend against an enemy that "lurks and plots and plans and 
wants to hurt America again."

This month he went into more detail, defending the National Security 
Agency's warrantless eavesdropping within the United States. That 
program is separate from the GST program, but three lawyers involved 
said the legal rationale for the NSA program is essentially the same one 
used to support GST, which is an abbreviation of a classified code name 
for the umbrella covert action program.

The administration contends it is still acting in self-defense after the 
Sept. 11 attacks, that the battlefield is worldwide, and that everything 
it has approved is consistent with the demands made by Congress on Sept. 
14, 2001, when it passed a resolution authorizing "all necessary and 
appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons [the 
president] determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the 
terrorist attacks."

"Everything is done in the name of self-defense, so they can do anything 
because nothing is forbidden in the war powers act," said one official 
who was briefed on the CIA's original cover program and who is skeptical 
of its legal underpinnings. "It's an amazing legal justification that 
allows them to do anything," said the official, who like others spoke on 
the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issues.

The interpretation undergirds the administration's determination not to 
waver under public protests or the threat of legislative action. For 
example, after The Washington Post disclosed the existence of secret 
prisons in several Eastern European democracies, the CIA closed them 
down because of an uproar in Europe. But the detainees were moved 
elsewhere to similar CIA prisons, referred to as "black sites" in 
classified documents.

The CIA has stuck with its overall approaches, defending and in some 
cases refining them. The agency is working to establish procedures in 
the event a prisoner dies in custody. One proposal circulating among 
mid-level officers calls for rushing in a CIA pathologist to perform an 
autopsy and then quickly burning the body, according to two sources.

In June, the CIA temporarily suspended its interrogation program after a 
controversy over the disclosure of an Aug. 1, 2002, memorandum from the 
Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel that defined torture in an 
unconventional way. The White House withdrew and replaced the memo. But 
the hold on the CIA's interrogation activities was eventually removed, 
several intelligence officials said.

The authorized techniques include "waterboarding" and "water dousing," 
both meant to make prisoners think they are drowning; hard slapping; 
isolation; sleep deprivation; liquid diets; and stress positions -- 
often used, intelligence officials say, in combination to enhance the 
effect.

Behind the scenes, CIA Director Porter J. Goss -- until last year the 
Republican chairman of the House intelligence committee -- has gathered 
ammunition to defend the program.

After a CIA inspector general's report in the spring of 2004 stated that 
some authorized interrogation techniques violated international law, 
Goss asked two national security experts to study the program's 
effectiveness.

Gardner Peckham, an adviser to then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), 
concluded that the interrogation techniques had been effective, said an 
intelligence official familiar with the result. John J. Hamre, deputy 
defense secretary under President Bill Clinton, offered a more ambiguous 
conclusion. Both declined to comment.

The only apparent roadblock that could yet prompt significant change in 
the CIA's approach is a law passed this month prohibiting torture and 
cruel and inhumane treatment of prisoners in U.S. custody, including in 
CIA hands.

It is still unclear how the law, sponsored by Sen. John McCain 
(R-Ariz.), will be implemented. But two intelligence experts said the 
CIA will be required to draw up clear guidelines and to get all special 
interrogation techniques approved by a wider range of government lawyers 
who hold a more conventional interpretation of international treaty 
obligations.

"The executive branch will not pull back unless it has to," said a 
former Justice Department lawyer involved in the initial discussions on 
executive power. "Because if it pulls back unilaterally and another 
attack occurs, it will get blamed."

The Origins

The top-secret presidential finding Bush signed six days after the Sept. 
11 attacks empowered the intelligence agencies in a way not seen since 
World War II, and it ordered them to create what would become the GST 
program.

Written findings are required by the National Security Act of 1947 
before the CIA can undertake a covert action. A covert action may not 
violate the Constitution or any U.S. law. But such actions can, and 
often do, violate laws of the foreign countries in which they take 
place, said intelligence experts.

The CIA faced the day after the 2001 attacks with few al Qaeda 
informants, a tiny paramilitary division and no interrogators, much less 
a system for transporting terrorism suspects and keeping them hidden for 
interrogation.

Besides fighting the war in Afghanistan, the agency set about to put in 
place an intelligence-gathering network that relies heavily on foreign 
security services and their deeper knowledge of local terrorist groups. 
With billions of dollars appropriated each year by Congress, the CIA has 
established joint counterterrorism intelligence centers in more than two 
dozen countries, and it has enlisted at least eight countries, including 
several in Eastern Europe, to allow secret prisons on their soil.

Working behind the scenes, the CIA has gained approval from foreign 
governments to whisk terrorism suspects off the streets or out of police 
custody into a clandestine prison system that includes the CIA's black 
sites and facilities run by intelligence agencies in other countries.

The presidential finding also permitted the CIA to create paramilitary 
teams to hunt and kill designated individuals anywhere in the world, 
according to a dozen current and former intelligence officials and 
congressional and executive branch sources.

In four years, the GST has become larger than the CIA's covert action 
programs in Afghanistan and Central America in the 1980s, according to 
current and former intelligence officials. Indeed, the CIA, working with 
foreign counterparts, has been responsible for virtually all of the 
success the United States has had in capturing or killing al Qaeda 
leaders since Sept. 11, 2001.

Bush delegated much of the day-to-day decision-making and the creation 
of individual components to then-CIA Director George J. Tenet, according 
to congressional and intelligence officials who were briefed on the 
finding at the time.

"George could decide, even on killings," one of these officials said, 
referring to Tenet. "That was pushed down to him. George had the 
authority on who was going to get it."

The Lawyers

Tenet, according to half a dozen former intelligence officials, 
delegated most of the decision making on lethal action to the CIA's 
Counterterrorist Center. Killing an al Qaeda leader with a Hellfire 
missile fired from a remote-controlled drone might have been considered 
assassination in a prior era and therefore banned by law.

But after Sept. 11, four former government lawyers said, it was 
classified as an act of self-defense and therefore was not an 
assassination. "If it was an al Qaeda person, it wouldn't be an 
assassination," said one lawyer involved.

This month, Pakistani intelligence sources said, Hamza Rabia, a top 
operational planner for al Qaeda, was killed along with four others by a 
missile fired by U.S. operatives using an unmanned Predator drone, 
although there were conflicting reports on whether a missile was used. 
In May, another al Qaeda member, Haitham Yemeni, was reported killed by 
a Predator drone missile in northwest Pakistan.

Refining what constitutes an assassination was just one of many legal 
interpretations made by Bush administration lawyers. Time and again, the 
administration asked government lawyers to draw up new rules and 
reinterpret old ones to approve activities once banned or discouraged 
under the congressional reforms beginning in the 1970s, according to 
these officials and seven lawyers who once worked on these matters.

Gen. Michael V. Hayden, deputy director of national intelligence, has 
described the administration's philosophy in public and private 
meetings, including a session with human rights groups.

"We're going to live on the edge," Hayden told the groups, according to 
notes taken by Human Rights Watch and confirmed by Hayden's office. "My 
spikes will have chalk on them. . . . We're pretty aggressive within the 
law. As a professional, I'm troubled if I'm not using the full authority 
allowed by law."

Not stopping another attack not only will be a professional failure, he 
argued, but also "will move the line" again on acceptable legal limits 
to counterterrorism.

When the CIA wanted new rules for interrogating important terrorism 
suspects the White House gave the task to a small group of lawyers 
within the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel who believed in 
an aggressive interpretation of presidential power.

The White House tightened the circle of participants involved in these 
most sensitive new areas. It initially cut out the State Department's 
general counsel, most of the judge advocates general of the military 
services and the Justice Department's criminal division, which 
traditionally dealt with international terrorism.

"The Bush administration did not seek a broad debate on whether 
commander-in-chief powers can trump international conventions and 
domestic statutes in our struggle against terrorism," said Radsan, the 
former CIA lawyer, who is a professor at William Mitchell College of Law 
in St. Paul, Minn. "They could have separated the big question from 
classified details to operations and had an open debate. Instead, an 
inner circle of lawyers and advisers worked around the dissenters in the 
administration and one-upped each other with extreme arguments."

At the CIA, the White House allowed the general counsel's job, 
traditionally filled from outside the CIA by someone who functioned in a 
sort of oversight role, to be held by John Rizzo, a career CIA lawyer 
with a fondness for flashy suits and ties who worked for years in the 
Directorate of Operations, or D.O.

"John Rizzo is a classic D.O. lawyer. He understands the culture, the 
intelligence business," Radsan said. "He admires the case officers. And 
they trust him to work out tough issues in the gray with them. He is 
like a corporate lawyer who knows how to make the deal happen."

These lawyers have written legal justifications for holding suspects 
picked up outside Afghanistan without a court order, without granting 
traditional legal rights and without giving them access to the 
International Committee of the Red Cross.

CIA and Office of Legal Counsel lawyers also determined that it was 
legal for suspects to be secretly detained in one country and 
transferred to another for the purposes of interrogation and detention 
-- a process known as "rendition."

Lawyers involved in the decision making acknowledge the uncharted nature 
of their work. "I did what I thought the best reading of the law was," 
one lawyer said. "These lines are not obvious. It was a judgment."

Credit and Blame

One way the White House limited debate over its program was to virtually 
shut out Congress during the early years. Congress, for its part, raised 
only weak and sporadic protests. The administration sometimes refused to 
give the committees charged with overseeing intelligence agencies the 
details they requested. It also cut the number of members of Congress 
routinely briefed on these matters, usually to four members -- the 
chairmen and ranking Democratic members of the House and Senate 
intelligence panels.

John D. Rockefeller IV (W.Va.), ranking Democrat on the Senate Select 
Committee on Intelligence, complained in a 2003 letter to Vice President 
Cheney that his briefing on the NSA eavesdropping was unsatisfactory. 
"Given the security restrictions associated with this information, and 
my inability to consult staff or counsel on my own, I feel unable to 
fully evaluate, much less endorse, these activities," he wrote.

Rockefeller made similar complaints about the CIA's refusal to allow the 
full committee to see the backup material supporting a skeptical report 
by the CIA inspector general in 2004 on detentions and interrogations 
that questioned the legal basis for renditions.

Some former CIA officers now worry that the agency alone will be held 
responsible for actions authorized by Bush and approved by the White 
House's lawyers.

Attacking the CIA is common when covert programs are exposed and 
controversial, said Gerald Haines, a former CIA historian who is a 
scholar in residence at the University of Virginia. "It seems to me the 
agency is taking the brunt of all the recent criticism."

Duane R. "Dewey" Clarridge, who directed the CIA's covert efforts to 
support the Nicaraguan contras in the 1980s, said the nature of CIA work 
overseas is, and should be, risky and sometimes ugly. "You have a spy 
agency because the spy agency is going to break laws overseas. If you 
don't want it to do those dastardly things, don't have it. You can have 
the State Department."

But a former CIA officer said the agency "lost its way" after Sept. 11, 
rarely refusing or questioning an administration request. The unorthodox 
measures "have got to be flushed out of the system," the former officer 
said. "That's how it works in this country."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/29/AR2005122901585.html?referrer=email
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Fri Dec 30 03:45:16 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Fri Dec 30 04:00:47 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Stem Cell Advance Is Fully Refuted - Washington Post
Message-ID: <43B51DCC.60509@comcast.net>

Stem Cell Advance Is Fully Refuted
Investigator Says Korean's Colonies Do Not Exist

By Rick Weiss
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, December 30, 2005; A01

The scandal surrounding disgraced South Korean stem cell researcher 
Hwang Woo Suk deepened yesterday as an investigator told reporters in 
Seoul that none of the 11 tailor-made cell colonies Hwang claimed to 
have created earlier this year actually exist.

Korean news outlets also reported that the ongoing probe into one of the 
biggest scientific frauds in memory had broadened to embrace allegations 
that government officials -- concerned about the shame such revelations 
could bring upon their country -- may have attempted to bribe scientists 
who were considered potential whistle-blowers.

The still-evolving quagmire amounts to a massive political and 
scientific setback for South Korea, a country that had gained enormous 
prestige from the alleged scientific advances. The scandal also has 
delivered a body blow to stem cell science, a field of research born 
just seven years ago that, despite ethical concerns because of its 
reliance on human embryos, has generated great public enthusiasm. Stem 
cells, which can become any kind of tissue, show promise for the 
treatment of conditions including Parkinson's disease, diabetes and 
spinal cord injuries.

The journal Science said it will retract Hwang's landmark May 2005 paper 
on tailor-made embryonic stem cells.

And although U.S. scientists in recent days have sought to contain the 
damage by focusing on the progress that has been made in stem cell 
laboratories in this country and abroad, many also seethed upon hearing 
the latest news.

"Unfortunately, the damage Hwang did can't be undone," said Robert Lanza 
of Advanced Cell Technology in Worcester, Mass., a company that had been 
racing to make the first customized stem cells but found its venture 
capital cut off when the Korean team announced its success. "It can't be 
undone for us, and it can't be undone for the thousands of people who 
may die in the future because this research has been unnecessarily held 
up while [Hwang] played his games and traveled around the world like a 
rock star."

The latest chapter in the Korean team's stunning tailspin came yesterday 
in an update from the spokeswoman for the nine-member investigatory 
panel at Seoul National University that is looking into the allegations 
of fraud by Hwang and his team.

That panel determined last week that at least nine of the 11 customized 
stem cell colonies that Hwang had claimed to have made earlier this year 
were fakes. Much of the evidence for those nine colonies, the panel had 
said, involved doctored photographs of two other colonies.

In a conversation with reporters yesterday, panel spokeswoman Roe Jung 
Hye said the two colonies are real. But rather than being genetically 
matched to patients, as had been claimed, Roe said, they are ordinary 
stem cells, apparently derived from embryos at a Seoul fertility clinic.

That finding demolishes the last shred of credibility of what had been 
hailed as a seminal contribution to biomedical science: the alleged 
first creation of human embryonic stem cells matched to patients who 
might benefit from them.

"We learned that the two cell lines from which Hwang fabricated photos 
of the other nine cells for the Science paper do not match the DNA of 
patients who contributed . . . cells," said Roe, who is also Seoul 
National University's head of research affairs.

At issue is a research report published to great acclaim in the journal 
Science this spring, in which Hwang and his colleagues purported to show 
they had produced 11 colonies, or lines, of stem cells from human 
embryos that were clones -- or exact genetic replicas -- of 11 patients 
with a variety of diseases.

That marked a significant advance over previous reports in which stem 
cells had been derived only from conventional embryos made from the 
fertilization of an egg by a sperm.

Scientists hope to someday create tissues from stem cells that can be 
transplanted into patients with ailing organs. But unless the cells are 
genetically matched to a patient, there is a chance the cells will be 
rejected by the patient's immune system.

The latest report from Roe appeared to stop short of saying the claimed 
cell lines never existed. Hwang has said that some of his cell colonies 
were destroyed by fungal contamination. But such cells certainly do not 
exist now, Roe said, adding: "Hwang's team does not have scientific data 
to prove they did harvest patient-specific stem cells."

Hwang has also claimed that he was duped by other scientists on his team 
who, he has suggested, swapped conventional stem cells from the MizMedi 
fertility clinic in Seoul with his custom-made cells. The investigatory 
panel has determined that, all told, eight stem cell lines purportedly 
cloned from patients were actually made at MizMedi. But it has not said 
who was responsible for the deception.

The panel is looking into Hwang's August claim to have produced the 
world's fist cloned dog -- an Afghan named Snuppy. Although preliminary 
results from a human-DNA-testing firm were reported on Wednesday to 
confirm Snuppy's status as a clone, the panel has called for additional 
tests by animal DNA specialists.

Also still under a cloud is Hwang's 2004 publication in Science claiming 
the first creation of stem cells from any cloned human embryo.

"We commissioned additional tests on more samples of the stem cells 
featured on the 2004 Science article," Roe said.

A Korean news outlet also reported yesterday that two members of Hwang's 
team now working at the University of Pittsburgh -- Kim Seon Jong and 
Park Jong Hyuk -- received payments amounting to as much as $50,000 
around the time the scandal started to emerge.

Chosun Ilbo reported that at least $20,000 was passed to Kim by another 
Korean scientist visiting Kim in Pittsburgh. That scientist, identified 
as Yoon Hyun Soo of Hanyang University, has acknowledged the money 
transfer, the news agency said, but claimed it was meant not as hush 
money but to help Kim with medical expenses.

Other news sources in Korea have reported that the Korean spy agency, 
known as the National Intelligence Service, has also acknowledged 
delivering funds to Korean researchers at Pitt, but those reports could 
not be confirmed.

The sole American co-author on the now discredited 2005 Science paper is 
University of Pittsburgh researcher Gerald Schatten. Schatten was the 
first to draw attention to the problem in November when he abruptly 
broke off his 20-month collaboration with Hwang, claiming he had found 
evidence that the team's results could not be trusted.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/29/AR2005122900705.html
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Fri Dec 30 03:48:00 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Fri Dec 30 04:03:30 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] We're All Going To Die! - Eugene Robinson - Washington
	Post Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43B51E70.3010306@comcast.net>

We're All Going To Die!
And Other Stories 'Too Good to Check'

By Eugene Robinson
Friday, December 30, 2005; A27

It's easy to rattle off the big stories of 2005, which was a big-story 
kind of year: Hurricane Katrina devastates the Gulf Coast. The war in 
Iraq grinds on, with rising casualties in the desert and rising angst on 
the home front. White House aides try to keep themselves out of jail, 
while a reporter checks herself in. London has a bloody appointment with 
terror. Pope John Paul II departs a world he helped change. Terri 
Schiavo finally rests in peace. Michael Jackson walks, Kanye West talks 
and George W. Bush misplaces his trusty mojo. Maybe he should look in 
Albuquerque, where they found the Runaway Bride.

I prefer tallying the best stories of the year -- the most stunning, the 
most surprising, the stories you can hardly believe you're reading. Of 
course, the reason for disbelief is that they're not, strictly speaking, 
true. They belong to the category journalists have known since time 
immemorial as "too good to check."

The phrase is self-explanatory: A reporter hears something utterly 
incredible, spends a glorious hour or so regaling colleagues with the 
tale, and then reluctantly sits down and dials the phone. One call, 
maybe two, and the whole story falls apart. You establish, say, that the 
vice president was definitely in Washington on a particular day -- which 
means that the tipster was wrong and it couldn't have been the Veep in 
the middle of that bar fight in Cheyenne.

Sometimes, though, the facts seem so plausible and the sources so 
credible that the story initially checks out, so everybody runs with it. 
Weeks or months later, after overlooked facts are noticed and common 
sense belatedly applied, the "too good to check" diagnosis is made 
retrospectively.

Hurricane Katrina was a trove of "too good" stories. For example, take 
the reports of a shocking, deadly shooting rampage by young thugs in 
what was left of New Orleans. The mayhem was front-page news. But later, 
when the dead were recovered and autopsied, authorities found no spike 
in homicides the week after Katrina hit.

Same with the reports that miscreants were shooting at rescue 
helicopters. People who had spent days stranded on roofs or in attics 
explained later that they were firing to attract the helicopter pilots' 
attention, not scare them away.

Science, as usual, provided a bounty of "too good to check" material. 
I'm not sure any newspaper or magazine actually ran my ultimate headline 
about the avian flu scare -- "We're All Going to Die!" -- but that was 
the general tone of the coverage. It turns out, though, that the H5N1 
influenza virus stubbornly refuses to learn how to pass from human to 
human. Yes, there will be a flu pandemic someday. No, someday doesn't 
necessarily mean now.

Then there was South Korean scientist Hwang Woo Suk, who announced in 
May that he had produced custom-cloned stem cells for 11 human subjects. 
Soon, stories reported, doctors would be able to engineer specific 
medical treatments for any individual, the way Bones used to do on "Star 
Trek." But now it turns out that Hwang fabricated his data. Those lovely 
bespoke stem cells never existed.

My personal favorite "too good" story of the year didn't fool the 
newspapers, but it made a big splash on the Internet, which may just be 
the ideal medium for cultivating believable untruths. With no irony and 
just the right hint of paranoia, a Web site elaborately "revealed" why 
comedian Dave Chappelle fled to South Africa just as he was about to 
cash in on a $50 million television contract.

The site claimed that a cabal of eminences calling themselves the "Dark 
Crusaders" -- the Revs. Al Sharpton, Jesse L. Jackson and Louis 
Farrakhan; entertainers Bill Cosby, Whoopi Goldberg and Oprah Winfrey; 
and the billionaire founder of Black Entertainment Television, Robert L. 
Johnson -- decided that Chappelle's racially charged humor was demeaning 
to the African American community, so they threatened and harassed him 
out of town.

The whole thing was soon revealed to be pure, unadulterated fiction. It 
looks as if it might have been a "viral marketing" campaign to generate 
buzz for two of Chappelle's comedy sidekicks, but the only thing that's 
really clear is that the story was false.

As the new year dawns, President Bush and the Republican majority in 
Congress are telling us the nation can spend hundreds of billions of 
dollars on Iraq, tens of billions more on pork-barrel projects, 
additional tens of billions on Gulf Coast reconstruction -- and still 
keep cutting taxes with a chainsaw, to the benefit of the wealthiest 
Americans.

And we all just go with the story. Waaaaaay too good to check.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/29/AR2005122901309.html
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Fri Dec 30 03:50:00 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Fri Dec 30 04:05:36 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] I'm a Soldier,
	Not a Spy - Grant Doty - Washington Post Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43B51EE8.5010703@comcast.net>

I'm a Soldier, Not a Spy

By Grant Doty
Friday, December 30, 2005; A27

As Americans take stock of the news that the government has been 
involved in domestic warrantless eavesdropping as well as surveillance 
of "potentially threatening people or organizations inside the United 
States," many people are troubled, including me.

Although the government may be interested in my ACLU membership, my 
wife's participation in war protests or my affiliation with the liberal 
United Church of Christ, my real anxiety stems from the fact that I am a 
soldier and may now be under suspicion from my friends and neighbors.

Specifically, given the information slowly leaking out of Washington, it 
may not be farfetched for some to think that when I "stumble across 
people or information" that might be of interest to the government, I 
might report it to the Pentagon's three-year-old Counterintelligence 
Field Activity (CIFA).

While such a conclusion would be false (I hadn't heard of CIFA before 
reading about it in the news this month), in an Orwellian world, the 
protestations of someone labeled the "eyes and ears" of the state are 
reasonably suspect.

What makes me think that the people with whom I interact regularly will 
somehow believe I won't report suspect words and actions? When I walk to 
my bus stop in Bethesda each morning, I see who has a "War Is Not the 
Answer" yard sign. One of the people I regularly see on my commute wears 
a People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals button on her overcoat. My 
church, which prayed for me during my year in Iraq, has an e-mail list 
that informs me about local civic actions, including war protests. I 
attend night law school, frequently in uniform, and through the social 
network of law students know when the gay, lesbian and bisexual 
organization is planning to lead the picketing of Judge Advocate General 
Corps recruiters who come to campus.

Now that we've learned that the military may be collecting such "raw, 
unverified information" in the form of "Talon reports," my fear is that 
when friends and neighbors see me, in or out of uniform, their speech 
could be chilled. I wonder: Will I begin to see a change in behavior? 
Will my neighbors draw their shades more often? Will they think twice 
about putting a bumper sticker on their car? Will I be deleted from the 
church list? Will my law school class discussions be more reserved?

"Paranoia," some may say. The only people who need to worry are those 
with something to hide. This may be true. In fact, being with the 
president or against him in the war on terrorism may be the current 
controversy, but I can envision a time when antiabortion groups and 
churches might fear soldiers attending meetings or services if such 
groups are labeled "threats" by a subsequent administration. Are they 
sincere pro-lifers or moles? Perhaps gun owners' groups might feel that 
soldiers are joining to get access to membership lists or activities if 
such groups are deemed "dangerous." Is one a Second Amendment defender 
or domestic spy?

Yes, I took an oath to defend the United States against all enemies 
"foreign and domestic," but the implication of domestic 
intelligence-gathering by the military, even by a limited number of 
soldiers, should be sufficiently disturbing for American citizens in and 
out of uniform that we think long and hard about crossing the line, even 
a little.

The writer is a lieutenant colonel in the Army. The views expressed here 
are his own.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/29/AR2005122900791.html?nav=hcmodule
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Fri Dec 30 03:52:33 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Fri Dec 30 04:08:00 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] The Year in Bad News - David Ignatius - Washington Post
	Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43B51F81.1000408@comcast.net>

The Year in Bad News

By David Ignatius
Friday, December 30, 2005; A27

At year-end, I usually like to offer readers a lighthearted collection 
of imaginary headlines, but 2005 somehow didn't seem very funny. This 
past year was in many ways an annus horribilis for America and the 
world. Political and natural disasters seemed to proliferate, beyond the 
power of governments or leaders to manage them effectively.

The United States was a prime example of this global failure of 
governance. If we had a parliamentary system, George Bush's government 
might well have fallen in 2005. The administration struggled to cope 
with rising dissent on Iraq, on its response to Hurricane Katrina, even 
on its signature issue of the war on terrorism. Republicans in Congress, 
sensing Bush's unpopularity, began running for cover.

Bush seemed to be groping toward the center by autumn, avoiding extremes 
in his Iraq policy and his nominations for the Supreme Court and the 
Federal Reserve. But some of his choices alienated the right without 
building any base of trust among moderates. What kept Bush afloat was 
his basic affability -- that shoulder-shrugging, "Look folks, I'm 
trying," kind of ordinariness that leads people either to like him or 
loathe him.

A measure of the Democrats' disarray in 2005 was that if the Bush 
government had fallen in our hypothetical parliamentary system, it would 
almost certainly have been replaced by another GOP government, headed by 
a moderate conservative such as Sen. John McCain. The lack of a coherent 
Democratic alternative was part of what gave 2005 its grim, no-exit 
feeling. Not only is the current administration failing to solve 
problems, it's hard to imagine the other team doing much better.

In Europe, there was a similar sense of political paralysis. A grandiose 
but empty European constitution was rejected by voters in France and the 
Netherlands and eventually scrapped. The episode symbolized the failure 
of political leaders to explain coherently what sort of entity the 
European Union will be, beyond such slogans as "ever deeper, ever 
wider." As in America, Europe conveyed an image of political leaders 
failing to cope -- caught between inexorable forces of change and voters 
who want life to stay the same.

Coping with globalization was a no-brainer for leaders in Russia and 
China. They opted for authoritarian rule -- leavened with goodies from 
the international marketplace. It was hard to know what was more 
depressing: the contempt of Russian and Chinese leaders for democracy, 
or the willingness of their publics (and the rest of the world's 
leaders) to play along.

The most frightening symbol of dysfunctional government this year was 
Iraq. Despite a stirring election in January, the new Iraqi government 
-- burdened with a hated American occupation and vicious sectarian 
tension -- failed to thrive. Indeed, over the past year, Iraq seemed to 
be becoming more of a mafia state, with each party, sect and tribe 
fighting for its share of what's left of the ruined economy.

At year-end, there was hope that Iraq's feuding politicians had become 
so exhausted that -- despite another polarizing election in December -- 
they might cobble together a government of national unity, blessed by 
Shiite Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani and Sunni Muslim clerics. In 
practice, this grand coalition might emulate the warlords' council 
approach in Afghanistan. That would be progress. But for years to come, 
Iraq is likely to remain a source of instability and terror.

It was a bad year, finally, for the people who are paid to make sense of 
things -- the unhumble and increasingly unloved scribes in my business. 
Newspaper circulation was plummeting, network television lost its 
anchors, literally and figuratively, and new media seemed to be feeding 
on popular anger at the Mainstream Media and its claims of impartiality.

At the center of some of the year's biggest stories stood the media 
themselves -- trying to balance codes of professional ethics against 
demands of citizenship. The New York Times lionized Judith Miller for 
going to jail to protect her sources from a grand jury investigation, 
but when her key source turned out to be Vice President Cheney's top 
aide, the cheering stopped and Miller lost her job. Top editors of the 
Times and The Post tried to act responsibly by discussing explosive 
intelligence stories with the White House before publication, and then 
they were vilified by the left for publishing too little and by the 
right for publishing anything at all.

Maybe the lesson of 2005 was the same for the media as for the 
politicians: Hang on tight to your values, and don't be afraid to let 
that passion animate your work; be careful about making promises you 
can't or shouldn't keep; and don't try to please everyone, or you may 
end up pleasing nobody at all.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/29/AR2005122900790.html?nav=hcmodule
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Fri Dec 30 03:59:02 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Fri Dec 30 04:14:30 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] A beautiful,
	doomed dream - Drew Limsky - Boston Globe Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43B52106.5000804@comcast.net>


  A beautiful, doomed dream

By Drew Limsky  |  December 30, 2005  |  The Boston Globe

ARTHUR MILLER'S ''Death of a Salesman" tells of an ordinary family man 
trying to stay one step ahead of the bill collector. When Willy Loman 
dies at the end of the play, his long-suffering wife notes that they've 
finally paid off the house. ''We're free . . . we're free," she sobs as 
the curtain comes down. It is a devastating ending, and when I observed 
the audience after the Broadway revival several years ago, few seemed 
more moved than the 50-ish men who looked too broken to rise from their 
seats and go home, as if their secret burdens and fears had finally been 
articulated.

I'm an urban gay man. I don't go camping or ride horses. ''Will & Grace" 
is a lot closer to my milieu than the pastures and peaks of Wyoming. 
Still, ''Brokeback Mountain" is my ''Death of a Salesman." Just as the 
male breadwinners who saw ''Death of a Salesman" didn't need to be in a 
situation as precarious as Willy's to be struck dumb by his tragedy, gay 
men don't need to be closeted cowboys to feel that our most essential 
struggles have finally found expression on the screen.

My identification with Jack Twist was so complete that his heartbreaking 
optimism and bitter frustration made me almost physically ill, like I 
couldn't breathe. So strong was the way I homed in on Jake Gyllenhaal's 
avid portrayal that the first time I saw the movie I barely registered 
the anguished brilliance of Heath Ledger as Ennis del Mar, or the reason 
why he's being compared to Brando, James Dean, and Sean Penn (that took 
a second viewing).

Much has been made about Ennis and Jack's morning-after denial:

Ennis: It's one-shot thing we got going here.

Jack: Nobody's business but ours.

Ennis: You know I ain't queer.

Jack: Me neither.

In the Annie Proulx story, this exchange seems realistically 
uninflected, with each character trying to outdo the other in manliness. 
And that's how Ledger plays it. But what Gyllenhaal does is let the tone 
of his voice go higher ever so slightly -- he gives the line readings a 
quality of boyish hurt that deftly conveys his sense of being erased. 
Later on, listen carefully to the unsaid monologue in Gyllenhaal's long 
pause before he nearly whispers the line: ''The truth is, sometimes I 
miss you so bad I can barely stand it."

With Jack Twist, the movie places homosexuality within the American 
Romantic tradition, a tradition of dreaming larger than practicality 
will abide. Jack flows from a line of doomed, beautiful dreamers that 
begins with Jay Gatsby, and Jack's ambition -- a life with Ennis -- is 
as impossible as Gatsby's pursuit of Daisy. Jack's embittered widow 
isn't far off the mark when she describes Brokeback Mountain as ''some 
pretend place where the bluebirds sing and there's a whiskey spring."

Gyllenhaal is transparent and charismatic in equal measure: Every 
emotion not only ''reads," but is elevated, magnified in the tradition 
of great screen everymen like Henry Fonda. In his final monologue, after 
all his dashed dreams have come spilling out, watch his dry-eyed 
resignation as Ennis drives away. In ''The Great Gatsby," we know that 
Gatsby is through when his lover Daisy makes it clear that she won't 
dream the same dreams as he does. Like Gatsby's death, Jack's end is pro 
forma; the spiritual death precedes the physical death.

The praise for Ledger has been so across-the-board, at the expense of 
Gyllenhaal's equally sensitive performance, that I wonder whether 
(mostly straight) critics simply are more interested in the character 
who is perceived as ''straighter."

In an Oprah Winfrey-like lapse, New York Times critic Manohla Dargis 
claims that every straight woman has had an Ennis in her life, while San 
Francisco Chronicle film critic Mick LaSalle thinks:''It's possible that 
if these fellows had never met, one or both would have gone through life 
straight."

One or both? Probably not the one -- Jack -- who sidles up to Mexican 
hustlers and rodeo clowns.

One senses straight folks twisting themselves into pretzels trying to 
make a patently gay story fit their sensibilities: That's what we 
usually have to do with heterosexual love stories. Their comments are 
certainly a tribute to the universality of the story, but without 
understanding the erotic element of romance -- not just in theory, but 
in practice -- the picture is incomplete. Therefore the experience of 
''Brokeback" -- watching the genders on the screen match up to what's in 
my head -- was a revelation. Suddenly I knew what I'd been missing at 
the movies all my life.

Drew Limsky teaches English at Pace University and Hunter College. 

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/12/30/a_beautiful_doomed_dream/
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Fri Dec 30 04:01:37 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Fri Dec 30 04:17:03 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] The case for surveillance - Charles Fried - Boston Globe
	Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43B521A1.90808@comcast.net>


  The case for surveillance

By Charles Fried  |  December 30, 2005  |  The Boston Globe

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH has acknowledged that he authorized 
surveillance of electronic communications between people in the United 
States and people beyond our borders without asking for court 
authorization. The president claims that congressional authorization for 
military action against Al Qaeda, together with his inherent 
constitutional powers, make such action lawful. There is some 
plausibility to that claim but until tested in the courts it is 
impossible to give a definitive opinion about it.

I am convinced of the urgent necessity of such a surveillance program. I 
suppose but do not know -- the revelations have been understandably and 
deliberately vague -- that included in what is done is a constant 
computerized scan of all international electronic communications. (The 
picture of a G-Man in the basement of an apartment house tapping into a 
circuit board is certainly inapposite.)

Programmed into this computerized scan are likely to be automatic 
prompts that are triggered by messages containing certain keywords, go 
to certain addresses, occur in certain patterns or after specific 
events. Supposedly those messages that trigger these prompts are 
targeted for further scrutiny.

In the context of the post-9/11 threat, which includes sleeper cells and 
sleeper operatives in the United States, no other form of surveillance 
is likely to be feasible and effective. But this kind of surveillance 
may not fit into the forms for court orders because their function is to 
identify targets, not to conduct surveillance of targets already 
identified. Even retroactive authorization may be too cumbersome and in 
any event would not reach the initial broad scan that narrows the 
universe for further scrutiny.

Moreover, it is likely that at the first, broadest stages of the scan no 
human being is involved -- only computers. Finally, it is also possible 
that the disclosure of any details about the search and scan strategies 
and the algorithms used to sift through them would immediately allow 
countermeasures by our enemies to evade or defeat them.

If such impersonal surveillance on the orders of the president for 
genuine national security purposes without court or other explicit 
authorization does violate some constitutional norm, then we are faced 
with a genuine dilemma and not an occasion for finger-pointing and 
political posturing.

If the situation is as I hypothesize and leads to important information 
that saves lives and property, would any reasonable citizen want it 
stopped? But if it violates the Constitution can we accept the 
proposition that such violations must be tolerated?

We should ask ourselves what concrete harm is done by such a program. Is 
a person's privacy truly violated if his international communications 
are subject to this kind of impersonal, computerizerd screening? If it 
is not, at what stage of further focus do real, rather than abstract and 
hysterical concerns arise? And to what extent is the hew and cry about 
this program a symptom of a generalized distrust of all government, or 
of just this administration?

If of all government, then we are in a state of mind that renders us 
incapable of defending ourselves from real threats. If of this 
administration, then can we afford to disarm the only government we have 
until the result of the next election, which is likely to be as partisan 
and closely divided as the last?

The resolution of this dilemma to allow both the use of an important 
tool of national security and respect for the rule of law needs 
ingenuity, discretion, and a good faith search for sensible solutions. 
So far I have heard only alarmist and hyperbolic pronouncements 
calculated neither to illuminate nor resolve this problem.

Charles Fried teaches constitutional law at Harvard Law School. He 
served as solicitor general in the second Reagan administration and as a 
justice on the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts.  

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/12/30/the_case_for_surveillance/
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From activist at democrats.com  Thu Dec 29 18:33:51 2005
From: activist at democrats.com (Democrats.com)
Date: Fri Dec 30 05:54:17 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] New Year's Resolution: Impeach Bush and Cheney
Message-ID: <20051229213351.470643@democrats.com>

LET'S MAKE OUR NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTION TO IMPEACH BUSH AND CHENEY!

Bob Fertik writes: "My New Year's Resolution for 2006 is to do everything in my power to impeach George Bush and Dick Cheney. I will support John Conyers' bill (H.Res.635) to investigate and impeach Bush and Cheney. I will express my support for impeachment by calling and writing the media, and by educating my friends and neighbors. In the 2006 election, I will work to elect candidates who support impeachment, and work to defeat Members of Congress who do not."

Read Bob's blog here:
http://www.democrats.com/2006-resolution

If you agree, why not share your Resolution with your representatives and senators?
http://democrats.com/peoplesemailnetwork/17

IMPEACHMENT IS POSSIBLE

Even before the NSA wiretapping scandal broke, a Zogby poll found that 53% of Americans thought Bush should be impeached if he had lied about the war -- and 57% believe he lied.
http://democrats.com/bush-impeachment-polls
http://democrats.com/bush-lied-polls

Since the wiretapping scandal, even libertarians and conservatives have started suggesting impeachment. The list includes former Reagan official Bruce Fein, Norm Ornstein of the right-wing American Enterprise Institute, law professors Jonathan Turley and Geoffrey Stone, and even Barron's editor Thomas Donlan.
http://www.impeachpac.org/?q=taxonomy/term/10

CONYERS LEADS THE WAY

Congressman John Conyers has compiled Bush's impeachable offenses in a must-read report: "The Constitution in Crisis."
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/5769

Conyers has introduced two bills (H.Res.636 and H.Res.637) to censure Bush and Cheney for withholding evidence from Congress, and a third bill (H.Res.635) to create a select committee to investigate the Administration's intent to go to war before congressional authorization, manipulation of pre-war intelligence, encouraging and countenancing torture, and retaliating against critics, and to make recommendations regarding grounds for possible impeachment.
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/5768

The following articles highlight some of the findings in Conyers' report:

Bush Administration Refuses to Comply With FOIA Request on Pre-War Intelligence
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/5998

White Phosphorous: The U.S. Used It; The U.S. Says It's Illegal
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/6023

White House Leaked Classified Intelligence to Make its Case for War
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/6062

Rumsfeld Admits to "Ghosting" Detainee
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/6120

DEMOCRATS TALK IMPEACHMENT

Senator Barbara Boxer is consulting four Constitutional scholars about impeachment. Civil rights legend Rep. John Lewis announced his support for impeachment. Urge your favorite Democrats to join these brave leaders in openly discussing impeachment.

IMPEACHMENT AS CAMPAIGN ISSUE

Impeachment is becoming a campaign issue as well. With your support, www.ImpeachPAC.org has raised $46,261.70 to support pro-impeachment candidates. Our first endorsed candidate, Tony Trupiano of Michigan, is proudly campaigning on his support for impeachment. Please send Democratic Congressional candidates here:
http://impeachpac.org/candidates 

CITIZENS IMPEACHMENT COMMISSION FORMING
We are also forming a powerful Citizens Impeachment Commission of prominent Americans who are willing to lead the fight in the year ahead. Our commission already includes activists Medea Benjamin, Gene Bruskin, Tim Carpenter, David Cline, Steve Cobble, Karen Dolan, Jodie Evans, Mike Ferner, Bob Fertik, Kim Gandy, Doris "Granny D" Haddock, Tom Hayden, Doug Kreeger, Bill Mitchell, Bill Moyer, Michael Rectenwald, Cindy Sheehan, David Swanson, Jonathan Tasini, and Kevin Zeese; former government officials Elizabeth de la Vega, Larry Johnson, and Ann Wright, Historians and Legal Scholars John Bonifaz, Marcus Raskin, Lawrence R. Velvel, and Howard Zinn, and Talk Show Hosts/Editors/Bloggers/Pundits/Authors David Allen, Dave Allsopp, The Bulldog Manifesto, Tom Engelhardt, Thom Hartmann, Laura Flanders, Justin A. Frank, Doug Ireland, Rob Kall, Susie Madrak, Mark Crispin Miller, Brad Newsham, Liza Sabater, and Jeff Tiedrich. And we're just getting started! Please encourage prominent cit
 izens you know to sign up here:
http://impeachpac.org/citizens

IMPEACHMENT BLOGGING COLLECTIVE FORMING
If your blog has a news feed containing only your articles on impeachment, we'd like to post the headlines and first paragraphs and link to your site from here:
http://www.impeachpac.org/impeachment-blogging
Just send the URL for the feed to david@davidswanson.org 

ALMOST HERE: NATIONAL DAY OF TOWN HALL FORUMS ON ENDING THE WAR
Attend a public forum on Saturday, January 7, on the topic of ending the war! There are 76 events already planned around the country, many of them with Congress Members.
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/event

NATIONAL CALL-IN DAY FOR ACCOUNTABILITY
After Downing Street, Progressive Democrats of America, and allied organizations are calling upon you to hold Bush and Cheney accountable. We need you to call your member of Congress and ask him or her to cosponsor Congressman Conyers' bills. Join us on the National Call-In Day, January 9th, 2006. Let's kick off the New Year with a bang.

On Monday, January 9th, we ask that you call your member of congress in their home district. Ask to speak to your member of congress. Urge your Representative to cosponsor Rep. John Conyers' bill to create an investigation and make recommendations on impeachment, a second bill to censure Bush, and a third to censure Cheney.
Find the phone number:
http://capwiz.com/pdamerica/dbq/officials/?lvl=C

Read about the bills:
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/5768

HIGH PRAISE FROM THE NATION FOR AFTER DOWNING STREET
John Nichols, in the Nation Magazine, writes: "The media did a slightly better job of monitoring political wrongdoing in 2005 than it did during the first four years of the Bush-Cheney presidency -- when it actually would have mattered. But the real work of exposing the misdeeds of the administration is still being done by activist groups. And the most inspired of these in 2005 was After Downing Street, the coalition of groups that describes itself as "working to expose the lies that launched the war and to hold accountable its architects, including through censure and impeachment." In conjunction with Progressive Democrats of America, the able activist group that seeks to create an actual opposition party in America, After Downing Street is pushing the political envelope in exactly the direction it needs to go. Check out their website at www.afterdowningstreet.org website and keep ahead of the action in 2006."

THANK YOU TO ALL OF OUR MEMBERS
Thank you to every organization and individual member of the After Downing Street coalition for a terrific year's work. (Although we started in May, we did a year's worth of work!) Here's a growing list of who you are:
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/coalition

Please help fund the next year's crucial work:
http://elandslide.org/elandslide/edonate.cfm?campaign=ads


_________

FORWARD THIS EMAIL 

#####

If you received this from a friend, you can subscribe at:
http://afterdowningstreet.org

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http://archive.democrats.com/unsub.cfm?email=mb-civic@islandlists.com&fieldname=L16

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http://archive.democrats.com/unsub.cfm?email=mb-civic@islandlists.com&fieldname=L1
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From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Fri Dec 30 08:51:16 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (mblaxill@yahoo.com)
Date: Fri Dec 30 09:03:42 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Women's Rights Laws and African Custom Clash
Message-ID: <20051230165116.17F483AEB0D@lax-gw06.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: mblaxill@yahoo.com.

INTERNATIONAL / AFRICA | December 30, 2005
Women's Rights Laws and African Custom Clash
By SHARON LaFRANIERE
A ban on virginity testing is an example of how sub-Saharan Africa is slowly enshrining into law protections for women.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/30/international/africa/30africa.html?emc=eta1



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Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
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From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Fri Dec 30 08:53:06 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (mblaxill@yahoo.com)
Date: Fri Dec 30 09:04:50 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Bill on Illegal-Immigrant Aid Draws Fire
Message-ID: <20051230165306.3C3CC11FA24@lax-gw07.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: mblaxill@yahoo.com.

WASHINGTON | December 30, 2005
Bill on Illegal-Immigrant Aid Draws Fire
By RACHEL L. SWARNS
A provision in a recently passed House border-security bill would make it a federal crime to offer services or assistance to illegal immigrants.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/30/politics/30immig.html?emc=eta1



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Times movie reviews have to say about these Oscar
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Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
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From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Fri Dec 30 08:54:58 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (mblaxill@yahoo.com)
Date: Fri Dec 30 09:06:41 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Surfers in Turmoil With the Loss of a Major
	Supplier
Message-ID: <20051230165458.DE29124AEBE@lax-gw02.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: mblaxill@yahoo.com.

NATIONAL | December 30, 2005
Surfers in Turmoil With the Loss of a Major Supplier
By PATRICIA LEIGH BROWN
A rash of surfboard thefts followed the closing of the company responsible for producing foam cores for most of the nation's surf boards. 
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/30/national/30surf.html?emc=eta1



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Times movie reviews have to say about these Oscar
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ABOUT THIS E-MAIL
This e-mail was sent to you by a friend through NYTimes.com's E-mail This Article service.  For general information about NYTimes.com, write to help@nytimes.com.

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Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
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From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Fri Dec 30 08:55:55 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (mblaxill@yahoo.com)
Date: Fri Dec 30 09:07:41 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Headlines for December 30, 2005
Message-ID: <20051230165555.26204.qmail@trinity.democracynow.org>

mike Blaxill  ( mblaxill@yahoo.com )
sent you this story from democracynow.org




+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
|  Headlines for December 30, 2005
|  http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/30/1521216
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+


- Secret Prisons, Renditions Enacted Under Broad CIA Program 
- Transit Union Has Won Most Demands: Analysts 
- Gitmo Hunger Strike Jumps To 84 Detainees
- House Bill Would Outlaw Aiding Undocumented Immigrants
- 9th Ward Residents Win Temporary Halt to Demolitions
- Doctor: Jailed Haitian Priest Has Cancer
- Ex-British Ambassador to Uzbekistan Leaks Torture Documents
- US Company Finances, Equips Indonesian Military in Papua
This story continues at: 
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/30/1521216

From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Fri Dec 30 08:49:27 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (Mike Blaxill)
Date: Fri Dec 30 09:20:04 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Developments in voting machines...democracy in the US
Message-ID: <20051230164927.18228.qmail@web53013.mail.yahoo.com>

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brad-friedman/democracy-strikes-back-a_b_13031.html

While you were out... and while Bush's
sleight-of-hand averted your eyes towards Iraq
for a quick "democracy" fix, the real fight for
democracy -- back here in America -- has made
some important headway at years' end...Here's a
few very notable developments you may have
otherwise missed while you were busy sipping your
yuletide egg nog:

THREE WEEKS AGO...
THURSDAY: I warned Diebold stockholders and
lovers of democracy that a Securities Fraud Class
Action Suit was coming.

TWO WEEKS AGO...

MONDAY: Walden O'Dell, CEO of Diebold (he, of
'committed to delivering the electoral votes of
Ohio to George W. Bush' fame) suddenly resigned.

TUESDAY: Securities Fraud Litigation Class Action
Suit filed against the once-great, now-disgraced
Diebold, Inc. of North Canton, OH along with 8
current and former top execs (including both
O'Dell and the new CEO Swidarski). Amongst the
complaints: artificial manipulation/inflation of
stock prices, insider trading, concealment of
major flaws and security vulnerabilities in
voting machines. Can't say we didn't warn ya!

TUESDAY: Test Election in Leon County, FL is
hacked! Results completely reversed! Tally should
have been 2 to 6, flipped to 7 to 1 without a
trace! Elections Director vows Diebold will never
be used in another election in the county (where
state capital Tallahassee is) again, requests
funds for new voting equipment. Can't say we
didn't warn ya!

FRIDAY: In light of Leon County hack, and after
long drawn out law suits, Volusia County, FL
joins suit and dumps Diebold too!

LAST WEEK...

SUNDAY: Jeb Bush's expresses concern about FL
voting systems in light of Leon County hack
(that, after both the acting FL SoS and Diebold
tried to blame Leon County). Unspoken irony
abounds.

SUNDAY: NY Times editorializes about Diebold's
grave misunderstanding of democracy. They
correctly point out that "The counting of votes
is a public trust. Diebold, whose machines count
many votes, has never acted as if it understood
this." That's the good news from the editorial
which led off buy mentioning the "tumultuous week
for Diebold." Unfortunately, aside from this
editorial, and a quick hit elsewhere in the paper
by Dan Mitchell the day before mentioning all of
this as "conspiracy theories" and "black
helicopter" stuff, the NY Times failed to do any
actual reporting of its own on any of the items
mentioned above.

TUESDAY: CA Sec. of State sends Diebold packing!
Delays re-certification of previous de-certified
Diebold, "punts" machines back to Feds for
further testing in light of what the SoS called
"unresolved significant security concerns".

THURSDAY: Amidst Intense Last-Minute Drama, St.
Louis County, MO Rejects Diebold! (Plus, a
Diebold lobbyist is overheard inquiring to a St.
Louis Post-Dispatch reporter about me and my
family!)

THURSDAY: After failure to get a court order for
a special exemption from state law, Diebold sends
a letter informing North Carolina they're pulling
out of the state! They refuse to comply with a NC
state law requiring submission of software source
code! (Though they kindly offer again to help NC
rewrite its law to accommodate Diebold.)

FRIDAY: CA Sec. of State discovered to have
threatened ES&S (Diebold's evil twin) with
decertification after documented failures in
November Election: Touch-screen votes flipped,
voters can't verify that ballot is accurate,
incorrect reported counts of voter turnout -- but
the problems were hidden from citizens until a
letter discovered by AP!

What will this and the next week bring? Stay
tuned...

Miss anything of note? You can catch up here...

Caught up now? Good...But from now on, please try
to pay attention. How many times do I have to
tell you? Democracy -- American democracy! You
remember that dontcha? -- is at stake here and I
can't do all the heavy lifting for you! Please
join those of us who give a damn and make some
noise, write some letters to the editor, donate
to those organizations and blogs and websites
fighting the good fight, call your politicians,
annoy the crap out of your Boards of Elections
and do anything you can to make a difference
here.

We're still David. They're still Goliath. But --
like David -- we can win! But we're gonna need a
much bigger boat! Please pay attention! It
matters.

...And have a Happy New Year.
From henrietta.corp2 at verizon.net  Fri Dec 30 09:00:37 2005
From: henrietta.corp2 at verizon.net (Jeanine Turner)
Date: Fri Dec 30 15:06:50 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] This Modern World
Message-ID: <E1EsT9O-0007mE-8y@smtpauth09.mail.atl.earthlink.net>

Some true some not all funny

 

 

 

 
<http://workingforchange.speedera.net/www.workingforchange.com/webgraphics/w
fc/TMW12-21-05.jpg> 

 

 
<http://workingforchange.speedera.net/www.workingforchange.com/webgraphics/w
fc/TMW12-28-05.jpg> 

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From michael at michaelbutler.com  Fri Dec 30 14:58:53 2005
From: michael at michaelbutler.com (Michael Butler)
Date: Fri Dec 30 15:10:36 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] George W. Bush as the New Richard M. Nixon: Both
	Wiretapped
	Illegally, and Impeachable     By John W. Dean     FindLaw.com
Message-ID: <BFDAFBAD.275AF%michael@michaelbutler.com>

    Go to Original

    George W. Bush as the New Richard M. Nixon: Both Wiretapped Illegally,
and Impeachably
    By John W. Dean
    FindLaw.com

    Friday 30 December 2005

    Both claimed that a president may violate Congress's laws to protect
national security

    On Friday, December 16, the New York Times published a major scoop by
James Risen and Eric Lichtblau: They reported that Bush authorized the
National Security Agency (NSA) to spy on Americans without warrants,
ignoring the procedures of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

    It was a long story loaded with astonishing information of lawbreaking
at the White House. It reported that sometime in 2002, Bush issued an
executive order authorizing NSA to track and intercept international
telephone and/or email exchanges coming into, or out of, the U.S. - when one
party was believed to have direct or indirect ties with al Qaeda.

    Initially, Bush and the White House stonewalled, neither confirming nor
denying the president had ignored the law. Bush refused to discuss it in his
interview with Jim Lehrer.

    Then, on Saturday, December 17, in his radio broadcast, Bush admitted
that the New York Times was correct - and thus conceded he had committed an
impeachable offense.

    There can be no serious question that warrantless wiretapping, in
violation of the law, is impeachable. After all, Nixon was charged in
Article II of his bill of impeachment with illegal wiretapping for what he,
too, claimed were national security reasons.

    These parallel violations underscore the continuing, disturbing
parallels between this Administration and the Nixon Administration -
parallels I also discussed in a prior column.

    Indeed, here, Bush may have outdone Nixon: Nixon's illegal surveillance
was limited; Bush's, it is developing, may be extraordinarily broad in
scope. First reports indicated that NSA was only monitoring foreign calls,
originating either in the USA or abroad, and that no more than 500 calls
were being covered at any given time. But later reports have suggested that
NSA is "data mining" literally millions of calls - and has been given access
by the telecommunications companies to "switching" stations through which
foreign communications traffic flows.

    In sum, this is big-time, Big Brother electronic surveillance.

    Given the national security implications of the story, the Times said
they had been sitting on it for a year. And now that it has broken, Bush has
ordered a criminal investigation into the source of the leak. He suggests
that those who might have felt confidence they would not be spied on, now
can have no such confidence, so they may find other methods of
communicating. Other than encryption and code, it is difficult to envision
how.

    Such a criminal investigation is rather ironic - for the leak's effect
was to reveal Bush's own offense. Having been ferreted out as a criminal,
Bush now will try to ferret out the leakers who revealed him.

    Nixon's Wiretapping - and the Congressional Action That Followed

    Through the FBI, Nixon had wiretapped five members of his national
security staff, two newsmen, and a staffer at the Department of Defense.
These people were targeted because Nixon's plans for dealing with Vietnam -
we were at war at the time - were ending up on the front page of the New
York Times.

    Nixon had a plausible national security justification for the wiretaps:
To stop the leaks, which had meant that not only the public, but America's
enemies, were privy to its plans. But the use of the information from the
wiretaps went far beyond that justification: A few juicy tidbits were used
for political purposes. Accordingly, Congress believed the wiretapping,
combined with the misuse of the information it had gathered, to be an
impeachable offense.

    Following Nixon's resignation, Senator Frank Church chaired a committee
that investigated the uses and abuses of the intelligence derived from the
wiretaps. From his report on electronic surveillance, emerged the proposal
to create the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). The Act both set
limits on electronic surveillance, and created a secret court within the
Department of Justice - the FISA Court - that could, within these limits,
grant law enforcement's requests to engage in electronic surveillance.

    The legislative history of FISA makes it very clear that Congress sought
to create laws to govern the uses of warrantless wiretaps. Thus, Bush's
authorization of wiretapping without any application to the FISA Court
violated the law.

    Whether to Allow Such Wiretaps Was Congress's Call to Make

    No one questions the ends here. No one doubts another terror attack is
coming; it is only a question of when. No one questions the preeminent
importance of detecting and preventing such an attack.

    What is at issue here, instead, is Bush's means of achieving his ends:
his decision not only to bypass Congress, but to violate the law it had
already established in this area.

    Congress is Republican-controlled. Polling shows that a large majority
of Americans are willing to give up their civil liberties to prevent another
terror attack. The USA Patriot Act passed with overwhelming support. So why
didn't the President simply ask Congress for the authority he thought he
needed?

    The answer seems to be, quite simply, that Vice President Dick Cheney
has never recovered from being President Ford's chief of staff when Congress
placed checks on the presidency. And Cheney wanted to make the point that he
thought it was within a president's power to ignore Congress' laws relating
to the exercise of executive power. Bush has gone along with all such Cheney
plans.

    No president before Bush has taken as aggressive a posture - the
position that his powers as commander-in-chief, under Article II of the
Constitution, license any action he may take in the name of national
security - although Richard Nixon, my former boss, took a similar position.

    Presidential Powers Regarding National Security: A Nixonian View

    Nixon famously claimed, after resigning from office, that when the
president undertook an action in the name of national security, even if he
broke the law, it was not illegal.

    Nixon's thinking (and he was learned in the law) relied on the precedent
established by Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War. Nixon, quoting Lincoln,
said in an interview, "Actions which otherwise would be unconstitutional,
could become lawful if undertaken for the purpose of preserving the
Constitution and the Nation."

    David Frost, the interviewer, immediately countered by pointing out that
the anti-war demonstrators upon whom Nixon focused illegal surveillance,
were hardly the equivalent of the rebel South. Nixon responded, "This nation
was torn apart in an ideological way by the war in Vietnam, as much as the
Civil War tore apart the nation when Lincoln was president." It was a weak
rejoinder, but the best he had.

    Nixon took the same stance when he responded to interrogatories
proffered by the Senate Select Committee on Government Operations To Study
Intelligence Operations (best know as the "Church Committee," after its
chairman Senator Frank Church). In particular, he told the committee, "In
1969, during my Administration, warrantless wiretapping, even by the
government, was unlawful, but if undertaken because of a presidential
determination that it was in the interest of national security was lawful.
Support for the legality of such action is found, for example, in the
concurring opinion of Justice White in Katz v. United States." (Katz is the
opinion that established that a wiretap constitutes a "search and seizure"
under the Fourth Amendment, just as surely as a search of one's living room
does - and thus that the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirements apply to
wiretapping.)

    Nixon rather presciently anticipated - and provided a rationalization
for - Bush: He wrote, "there have been - and will be in the future -
circumstances in which presidents may lawfully authorize actions in the
interest of security of this country, which if undertaken by other persons,
even by the president under different circumstances, would be illegal."

    Even if we accept Nixon's logic for purposes of argument, were the
circumstances that faced Bush the kind of "circumstances" that justify
warrantless wiretapping? I believe the answer is no.

    Is Bush's Unauthorized Surveillance Action Justified? Not Persuasively

    Had Bush issued his Executive Order on September 12, 2001, as a
temporary measure - pending his seeking Congress approval - those
circumstances might have supported his call.

    Or, had a particularly serious threat of attack compelled Bush to
authorize warrantless wiretapping in a particular investigation, before he
had time to go to Congress, that too might have been justifiable.

    But several years have passed since the broad 2002 Executive Order, and
in all that time, Bush has refused to seek legal authority for his action.
Yet he can hardly miss the fact that Congress has clearly set rules for
presidents in the very situation in which he insists on defying the law.

    Bush has given one legal explanation for his actions which borders on
the laughable: He claims that implicit in Congress' authorization of his use
of force against the Taliban in Afghanistan, following the 9/11 attack, was
an exemption from FISA.

    No sane member of Congress believes that the Authorization of Military
Force provided such an authorization. No first year law student would
mistakenly make such a claim. It is not merely a stretch; it is ludicrous.

    But the core of Bush's defense is to rely on the very argument made by
Nixon: that the president is merely exercising his "commander-in-chief"
power under Article II of the Constitution. This, too, is a dubious
argument. Its author, John Yoo, is a bright, but inexperienced and highly
partisan young professor at Boalt Law School, who has been in and out of
government service.

    To see the holes and fallacies in Yoo's work - embodied in a recently
published book - one need only consult the analysis of Georgetown University
School of Law professor David Cole in the New York Review of Books. Cole has
been plowing this field of the law for many years, and digs much deeper than
Yoo.

    Since I find Professor Yoo's legal thinking bordering on fantasy, I was
delighted that Professor Cole closed his real-world analysis on a very
realistic note: "Michael Ignatieff has written that 'it is the very nature
of a democracy that it not only does, but should, fight with one hand tied
behind its back. It is also in the nature of democracy that it prevails
against its enemies precisely because it does.' Yoo persuaded the Bush
administration to untie its hand and abandon the constraints of the rule of
law. Perhaps that is why we are not prevailing."

    To which I can only add, and recommend, the troubling report by Daniel
Benjamin and Steven Simon, who are experts in terrorism and former members
of President Clinton's National Security Council. They write in their new
book The Next Attack: The Failure of the War on Terror and a Strategy for
Getting It Right, that the Bush Administration has utterly failed to close
the venerable loopholes available to terrorist to wreak havoc. The war in
Iraq is not addressing terrorism; rather, it is creating terrorists, and
diverting money from the protection of American interests.

    Bush's unauthorized surveillance, in particular, seems very likely to be
ineffective. According to experts with whom I have spoken, Bush's approach
is like hunting for the proverbial needle in the haystack. As sophisticated
as NSA's data mining equipment may be, it cannot, for example, crack codes
it does not recognize. So the terrorist communicating in code may escape
detection, even if data mining does reach him.

    In short, Bush is hoping to get lucky. Such a gamble seems a slim
pretext for acting in such blatant violation of Congress' law. In acting
here without Congressional approval, Bush has underlined that his Presidency
is unchecked - in his and his attorneys' view, utterly beyond the law. Now
that he has turned the truly awesome powers of the NSA on Americans, what
asserted powers will Bush use next? And when - if ever - will we - and
Congress - discover that he is using them?

    --------

    John W. Dean, a FindLaw columnist, is a former counsel to the president.

 

From nwonline at toronto.cbc.ca  Fri Dec 30 17:08:27 2005
From: nwonline at toronto.cbc.ca (CBC News Online)
Date: Fri Dec 30 17:20:30 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] CBC News - ENERGY STOCKS POWER TSX TO 21.9% GAIN IN 2005
Message-ID: <20051231010827.9EDD21B696@nmweb07.nm.cbc.ca>

This email has been sent to you by harry.sifton@sympatico.ca
The following is a news item posted on CBC NEWS ONLINE
at http://www.cbc.ca/news
____________________________________________________
ENERGY STOCKS POWER TSX TO 21.9% GAIN IN 2005
WebPosted Fri Dec 30 17:08:22 2005

---Surging oil and gas stocks made the Toronto Stock Exchange one of the
world's better-performing stock markets in 2005, again leaving U.S.
markets far behind.

The S&P/TSX composite index ended the year near a five-year high at
11272.26. That's up almost 22 per cent from where it closed in 2004 and
          marks the third year in a row of double-digit gains for the
          benchmark index of the TSX.

Why the strength? In 2005, just like in the two previous years, it was
energy stocks. The TSX energy index surged a whopping 60 per cent over
the year as crude oil futures settled just above $61 US a barrel. While
that was down from the post hurricane high of $70 US a barrel reached in
the fall, oil still managed to gain more than 40 per cent in 2005.

The TSX energy index rose along with commodity prices. It surged
almost 60 per cent as record oil and gas prices led to record profits
at many energy companies. And with many experts predicting that oil
prices will remain at high levels well into 2006, investors were
piling into oil stocks. EnCana, for instance, began the year at around
$34 and ended at $52.70.

Factor out the energy stocks and analysts say the TSX still would have
risen by about 10 per cent in 2005.

Metals and mining stocks also had a banner year, with that index rising
45 per cent. Record copper prices helped Teck Cominco gain 68 per cent
to $62.05.

Gold also shone again as bullion prices climbed 18 per cent to $517 US
an ounce. In early December bullion futures hit a 24-year high of $541
US an ounce.

The heavily-weighted financials group surged just over 20 per cent
despite a rising interest rate environment.

Dow has first losing year since 2002

U.S. markets had a lacklustre year. The Dow Jones industrial average
ended in negative territory, losing 63 points (0.6 per cent) to
11272.27. That made 2005 the first losing year for the Dow since 2002.
          General Motors, with its 53 per cent loss on the year, was a
          major drag on the Dow.

The Nasdaq composite index eked out a 30-point gain (1.4 per cent) to
finish at 2205.32. Apple Computer (up 122 per cent) and Google (up 118
per cent) provided much of the spark.

The Canadian dollar closed off the year at 85.98 cents US, not far off
the 13-year highs set in early December. That amounted to a gain of 3.4
per cent on the year.

Analysts are divided on where the loonie will trade in 2006. Some see the
dollar retreating to 82 or 83 cents US, while some are calling for the
loonie to hit 90 cents US.

A strong dollar and higher energy costs put a damper on exporters in 2005
and almost 100,000 manufacturing jobs disappeared. But resource-based
industries boomed. The country's unemployment rate dropped to a 31-year
low of 6.4 per cent.

GDP rose by a modest but still respectable 2.8 per cent and the annual
inflation rate was 2.0 per cent.

Copyright (C) 2005 CBC. All rights reserved.
From smorais1 at bellsouth.net  Fri Dec 30 15:16:17 2005
From: smorais1 at bellsouth.net (Philip Michael Thomas)
Date: Fri Dec 30 18:10:23 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Fwd: Chinese Proverb
Message-ID: <E1EsTIT-0005cN-Ua@smtpauth09.mail.atl.earthlink.net>

Michael,
GOOD LUCK AND HAPPY NEW YEAR

Philip Michael Thomas

Begin forwarded message:
>
>
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From Hawaiipolo at cs.com  Fri Dec 30 17:23:36 2005
From: Hawaiipolo at cs.com (Hawaiipolo@cs.com)
Date: Fri Dec 30 18:28:16 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Something to ponder for the new
	year....HAUOLIMAKAHIKIHOU!!
Message-ID: <E1EsWIE-0002Bl-JG@smtpauth02.mail.atl.earthlink.net>


 Climate Shock: We're on Thin Ice 
By Kelpie Wilson 
t r u t h o u t | Review 

Friday 30 December 2005 

Thin Ice: Unlocking the Secrets of Climate in the World's Highest Mountains 
By Mark Bowen 
Henry Holt, 2005 


> "In Sanskrit, Himalaya means 'abode of snow,' but as crops and people die 
> from lack of water while watching the highest mountains on Earth turn from 
> white to black, that name may soon seem grotesquely inappropriate."
> -- Mark Bowen, Thin Ice
 
Climate shock comes from the realization that climate change is not only 
real, but huge; it is not only huge, but it is now; and it will affect your life 
very shortly. Not your grandchildren's lives. Not your children's lives. Your 
life. Soon - if it hasn't already. 
If you have not experienced climate shock yet, you will when you read Thin 
Ice by Mark Bowen. Thin Ice is the story of the scientific team from Ohio State 
University, led by researcher Lonnie Thompson, that has spent the last two 
decades drilling ice cores in tropical mountain glaciers. Their aim is to 
retrieve information about climate history from the ice, but there has been a race 
against time as these glaciers melt, making new history. 
Thin Ice is an exciting adventure story. The logistics of transporting the 
scientists and their drilling equipment into the most inaccessible places on 
Earth bring hair-raising tales. The team members struggle with altitude sickness, 
windstorms destroy the solar panels that power their drill, crampons get 
stuck in ladders deployed over widening crevasses, and the crew tries to float ice 
core samples off the mountain with a hot-air balloon. 
The scientists are awed by their surroundings as they camp for weeks at a 
time on the top of the world, absorbing "the brown earth and the blue sky and the 
white ice..." until it seeps into their skins and they bond emotionally with 
the mountains. Bowen quotes researcher Mary Davis saying that she has a "soft 
spot" for the Dunde Ice Cap in China's Qilian Shan mountain range. Drilling 
engineer and ice physicist Bruce Koci confesses to Bowen that it is not just a 
job for him, it is about "being out there," and he would do it even if he 
didn't get paid. 
The scientific detective work is just as thrilling. Thompson's team has made 
a number of surprising additions to climate theory and shaken some deeply held 
establishment views. One surprise was the discovery that a few of the 
mountain ice cores went as far back in time as any yet recovered from the polar 
regions. Why? Because when ice gets thick enough, as it does at the poles, pressure 
and temperature build up, and the ice actually starts to melt from the 
bottom, destroying the sediment layers and air bubbles that yield all the historical 
information. But tropical mountains have only scant annual precipitation, so 
the ice layers are thin, making a longer time-horizon possible. Hence the 
book's title, Thin Ice. 
Another surprising result is some convincing evidence that the Gulf Stream 
and African currents that help to warm northern Europe are a less powerful 
influence on climate than previously thought. The climate change horror flick, "The 
Day After Tomorrow," was based on this "thermohaline convection theory" that 
says melting ice could disrupt the flow of the warming current and actually 
cause Europe and New York City to freeze (though not nearly so fast as in the 
movie). 
Thompson's work shows that tropical influences, particularly the El Ni?o and 
monsoon cycles (which are related), are the bigger drivers of climate change. 
This suggests that in the future, the Earth's climate may resemble what we see 
in El Ni?o years, but much more extreme. Depending on where you are, your 
climate shock could show up as either flood or drought or both in rapid 
succession - a permanent El Ni?o from Hell. 
My own climate shock came in 2002 when the 500,000-acre Biscuit Fire raged 
through the Kalmiopsis Wilderness in southwest Oregon. I sat in my yard and 
watched a huge mushroom cloud of smoke boil up out of the wilderness. A freak wind 
was blowing from the east, full of dry, hot, desert air that pumped up the 
fire like a bellows. The Kalmiopsis was a place that I deeply loved and it will 
never be the same again - not just in my lifetime, but forever. Climate change 
is likely to favor new growth of chaparral and brush over the kind of deep 
fir and pine forests that got their start in a cooler age. 
Gulf Coast residents got their climate shock this past hurricane season as 
warming oceans spawned the strongest storms on record. Alaska natives are 
getting their climate shock as retreating sea ice ruins their hunting, and melting 
permafrost topples their homes. Pacific Islanders are getting it too as their 
atolls flood and they flee to higher ground. And this is just the very 
beginning. 
Trying to anticipate the climates of the future is impossible without 
understanding those of the past, yet as Bowen conveys in this book, the past is 
extremely complicated and hard for someone who is not a climate researcher to fully 
understand. Given the difficulties, Bowen does a remarkable job both of 
explaining it and keeping the story interesting and fast-paced. But for a little 
help getting a better grasp on Earth's history and the timescales involved, I 
turned to a 1991 book by scientist James Lovelock called Healing Gaia. 
Lovelock believes that the best way to think about the Earth is to see it as 
an organism that goes through phases of sickness and health, or instability 
followed by equilibrium. Earth's medical history is a long story, for she is an 
older lady. Her life is now at least 3.5 billion years old. 
Conditions change on Earth, and one is that the sun has grown hotter. For 
most of the age of mammals (the age that followed the dinosaurs and their 
asteroid demise) the Earth was warm and no ice formed at the poles. But as the sun 
grew ever hotter, by about 2 million years ago, polar ice caps formed and the 
Pleistocene began - the ice ages. This sounds odd, but Lovelock explains it: the 
Earth began to pull more CO2 out of the atmosphere and store it in rocks and 
plants. Less CO2 in the atmosphere lessened the greenhouse effect and 
temperatures dropped. But because of cyclical changes in Earth's orbit over time, the 
ice ages have see-sawed back and forth between glacial and interglacial in a 
series of 100,000-year cycles. A system with this much dynamism is prone to 
getting knocked off balance, and there is little doubt that that is what is 
happening now: climate shock. 
A funny thing happened 2 million years ago on the way to the ice ages. The 
ice caps sucked moisture from the African forests, which withered and withdrew 
from the plains. An arboreal ape came down from the trees and began to make 
tools and lose its hair. When its descendants multiplied and started to burn 
fossil fuels, they became a fever-inducing planetary infection. They (we) are the 
cause of climate shock. 
Thin Ice is really the story of the "planetary physicians," as Lovelock calls 
them - the scientists like Lonnie Thompson who have devoted their careers to 
taking the planet's temperature. And now the world is getting so warm that 
anyone can hold a hand to the patient's forehead and get a sense of what is 
happening. 
Besides being a physics PhD from MIT, Thin Ice author Mark Bowen is also an 
avid recreational climber. He was able to add to his story of scientific 
discovery the eyewitness accounts from climbers all over the world of rapid 
ice-melting over the last ten years. A glacier that was a stone's throw from Sir 
Edmund Hilary's first camp on Mt. Everest has retreated three miles since Hilary's 
1953 historic ascent. 
An international commission predicts that there is a high likelihood that all 
of the Himalayan glaciers will melt by 2035. The Himalaya will turn black, 
and the Ganges and other rivers that flow from it will dry to seasonal streams. 
The 500 million people in India who depend on water from these rivers will 
have no other source. As mountain glaciers and snow packs melt everywhere, China, 
the Andes and California will face the same climate shock - no water. 
Meanwhile, the melting ice will raise the seas. Lonnie Thompson and other 
researchers are discovering that once glaciers start to melt, they can melt all 
the way to bedrock very rapidly. If all of the Earth's mountain glaciers were 
to melt, it would raise the sea level by a foot and a half and that would be 
the end of places like Bangladesh and Louisiana's bayou country. But the polar 
ice caps are showing the same tendency for rapid melting, and a mere two degree 
Fahrenheit rise in global temperature could be enough to cause a complete 
disintegration. Sea levels could start rising by 3 feet every 20 years. We will 
have to act quickly and drastically to avert this inundation. 
Reading Thin Ice and exposing yourself to climate shock could help prepare 
you for your new role in the greenhouse world. We will need more planetary 
physicians to diagnose and prescribe, and there will also be a need for planetary 
nurses, orderlies and volunteers to pitch in around the clock to keep the dear 
old lady alive. What does this mean? Probably it will mean changing everything 
about the way we live, starting by reducing our fossil fuel consumption now. 
But how on Earth can we train ourselves to change everything, all at once? 
Let's face it: We are more like monkeys than like gods, and we learn best by 
imitating whatever we think is admirable. For most of our evolutionary history 
we were a prey species - a scruffy primate just recently evolved from a 
rodent. And so, in our hominid phase we have fancied ourselves a glorious predator, 
in the same league with the lion and the eagle. In the future, if we want to 
survive, we will become symbionts - life forms that live in partnership with 
others. We may become like the rhinoceros bird that pecks parasitic ticks (and 
blood) from the rhino's back and warns it of approaching danger. 
As successful symbionts we will adapt to the warmer Earth by living modestly 
and learning all the tricks and trades for storing carbon away in forests, 
fields, soils and rocks. We'll blow sweet breezes on the lady's brow, soothe her 
hot flashes, and cool the Earth again. In return, if luck and tides are with 
us, she will continue to sustain us until our time on Earth is done. 
Kelpie Wilson is the t r u t h o u t environment editor. She is also a 
mechanical engineer and does technical writing for the solar power industry. She has 
been a leader in the campaign to protect ancient forests in the Pacific 
Northwest and was the executive director of the Siskiyou Regional Education 
Project. Her first novel, Primal Tears, has been published by North Atlantic Books. 
------- 
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Sat Dec 31 04:14:02 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Sat Dec 31 04:30:17 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] The DeLay-Abramoff Money Trail - Washington Post
Message-ID: <43B6760A.60003@comcast.net>

The DeLay-Abramoff Money Trail
Nonprofit Group Linked to Lawmaker Was Funded Mostly by Clients of Lobbyist

By R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, December 31, 2005; A01

The U.S. Family Network, a public advocacy group that operated in the 
1990s with close ties to Rep. Tom DeLay and claimed to be a nationwide 
grass-roots organization, was funded almost entirely by corporations 
linked to embattled lobbyist Jack Abramoff, according to tax records and 
former associates of the group.

During its five-year existence, the U.S. Family Network raised $2.5 
million but kept its donor list secret. The list, obtained by The 
Washington Post, shows that $1 million of its revenue came in a single 
1998 check from a now-defunct London law firm whose former partners 
would not identify the money's origins.

Two former associates of Edwin A. Buckham, the congressman's former 
chief of staff and the organizer of the U.S. Family Network, said 
Buckham told them the funds came from Russian oil and gas executives. 
Abramoff had been working closely with two such Russian energy 
executives on their Washington agenda, and the lobbyist and Buckham had 
helped organize a 1997 Moscow visit by DeLay (R-Tex.).

The former president of the U.S. Family Network said Buckham told him 
that Russians contributed $1 million to the group in 1998 specifically 
to influence DeLay's vote on legislation the International Monetary Fund 
needed to finance a bailout of the collapsing Russian economy.

A spokesman for DeLay, who is fighting in a Texas state court unrelated 
charges of illegal fundraising, denied that the contributions influenced 
the former House majority leader's political activities. The Russian 
energy executives who worked with Abramoff denied yesterday knowing 
anything about the million-dollar London transaction described in tax 
documents.

Whatever the real motive for the contribution of $1 million -- a sum not 
prohibited by law but extraordinary for a small, nonprofit group -- the 
steady stream of corporate payments detailed on the donor list makes it 
clear that Abramoff's long-standing alliance with DeLay was sealed by a 
much more extensive web of financial ties than previously known.

Records and interviews also illuminate the mixture of influence and 
illusion that surrounded the U.S. Family Network. Despite the group's 
avowed purpose, records show it did little to promote conservative ideas 
through grass-roots advocacy. The money it raised came from businesses 
with no demonstrated interest in the conservative "moral fitness" agenda 
that was the group's professed aim.

In addition to the million-dollar payment involving the London law firm, 
for example, half a million dollars was donated to the U.S. Family 
Network by the owners of textile companies in the Mariana Islands in the 
Pacific, according to the tax records. The textile owners -- with 
Abramoff's help -- solicited and received DeLay's public commitment to 
block legislation that would boost their labor costs, according to 
Abramoff associates, one of the owners and a DeLay speech in 1997.

A quarter of a million dollars was donated over two years by the 
Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, Abramoff's largest lobbying client, 
which counted DeLay as an ally in fighting legislation allowing the 
taxation of its gambling revenue.

The records, other documents and interviews call into question the very 
purpose of the U.S. Family Network, which functioned mostly by 
collecting funds from domestic and foreign businesses whose interests 
coincided with DeLay's activities while he was serving as House majority 
whip from 1995 to 2002, and as majority leader from 2002 until the end 
of September.

After the group was formed in 1996, its director told the Internal 
Revenue Service that its goal was to advocate policies favorable for 
"economic growth and prosperity, social improvement, moral fitness, and 
the general well-being of the United States." DeLay, in a 1999 
fundraising letter, called the group "a powerful nationwide organization 
dedicated to restoring our government to citizen control" by mobilizing 
grass-roots citizen support.

But the records show that the tiny U.S. Family Network, which never had 
more than one full-time staff member, spent comparatively little money 
on public advocacy or education projects. Although established as a 
nonprofit organization, it paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees 
to Buckham and his lobbying firm, Alexander Strategy Group.

There is no evidence DeLay received a direct financial benefit, but 
Buckham's firm employed DeLay's wife, Christine, and paid her a salary 
of at least $3,200 each month for three of the years the group existed. 
Richard Cullen, DeLay's attorney, has said that the pay was compensation 
for lists Christine DeLay supplied to Buckham of lawmakers' favorite 
charities, and that it was appropriate under House rules and election law.

Some of the U.S. Family Network's revenue was used to pay for radio ads 
attacking vulnerable Democratic lawmakers in 1999; other funds were used 
to finance the cash purchase of a townhouse three blocks from DeLay's 
congressional office. DeLay's associates at the time called it "the Safe 
House."

DeLay made his own fundraising telephone pitches from the townhouse's 
second-floor master suite every few weeks, according to two former 
associates. Other rooms in the townhouse were used by Alexander Strategy 
Group, Buckham's newly formed lobbying firm, and Americans for a 
Republican Majority (ARMPAC), DeLay's leadership committee.

They paid modest rent to the U.S. Family Network, which occupied a 
single small room in the back.

'Red Flags' on Tax Returns

Nine months before the June 25, 1998, payment of $1 million by the 
London law firm James & Sarch Co., as recorded in the tax forms, Buckham 
and DeLay were the dinner guests in Moscow of Marina Nevskaya and 
Alexander Koulakovsky of the oil firm Naftasib, which in promotional 
literature counted as its principal clients the Ministry of Defense and 
the Ministry of Interior.

Buckham, a graduate of the University of Tennessee, had worked for DeLay 
since 1995, after serving in other congressional offices and then as 
executive director of the Republican Study Committee, a group of 
fiscally conservative House members.

Their other dining companions were Abramoff and Washington lawyer Julius 
"Jay" Kaplan, whose lobbying firms collected $440,000 in 1997 and 1998 
from an obscure Bahamian firm that helped organize and indirectly pay 
for the DeLay trip, in conjunction with the Russians. In disclosure 
forms, the stated purpose of the lobbying was to promote the policies of 
the Russian government.

Kaplan and British lawyer David Sarch had worked together previously. 
(Sarch died a month before the $1 million was paid.) Buckham's trip with 
DeLay was his second to Moscow that year for meetings with Nevskaya and 
Koulakovsky; on the earlier one, the DeLay aide attracted media 
attention by returning through Paris aboard the Concorde, a $5,500 flight.

Former Abramoff associates and documents in the hands of federal 
prosecutors state that Nevskaya and Koulakovsky sought Abramoff's help 
at the time in securing various favors from the U.S. government, 
including congressional earmarks or federal grants for their 
modular-home construction firm near Moscow and the construction of a 
fossil-fuel plant in Israel. None appears to have been obtained by their 
firm.

Former DeLay employees say Koulakovsky and Nevskaya met with him on 
multiple occasions. The Russians also frequently used Abramoff's 
skyboxes at local sports stadiums -- as did Kaplan, according to sources 
and a 2001 e-mail Abramoff wrote to another client.

Three sources familiar with Abramoff's activities on their behalf say 
that the two Russians -- who knew the head of the Russian energy giant 
Gazprom and had invested heavily in that firm -- partly wanted just to 
be seen with a prominent American politician as a way of bolstering 
their credibility with the Russian government and their safety on 
Moscow's streets. The Russian oil and gas business at the time had a 
Wild West character, and its executives worried about extortion and 
kidnapping threats. The anxieties of Nevskaya and Koulakovsky were not 
hidden; like many other business people, they traveled in Moscow with 
guards armed with machine guns.

During the DeLays' visit on Aug. 5 to 11, 1997, the congressman met with 
Nevskaya and was escorted around Moscow by Koulakovsky, Naftasib's 
general manager. DeLay told the House clerk that the trip's sponsor was 
the National Center for Public Policy Research, but multiple sources 
told The Post that his expenses were indirectly reimbursed by the 
Russian-connected Bahamian company.

DeLay spokesman Kevin Madden said the principal reason for his Moscow 
trip was "to meet with religious leaders there." Nevskaya, in a letter 
this spring, said Naftasib's involvement in such trips was meant "to 
foster better understanding between our country and the United States" 
and denied that the firm was seeking protection through its U.S. contacts.

Nevskaya added in an e-mail yesterday that Naftasib and its officials 
were not representing the ministries of defense and interior or any 
other government agencies "in connection with meetings or other lobbying 
activities in Washington D.C. or Moscow."

A former Abramoff associate said the two executives "wanted to 
contribute to DeLay" and clearly had the resources to do it. At one 
point, Koulakovsky asked during a dinner in Moscow "what would happen if 
the DeLays woke up one morning" and found a luxury car in their front 
driveway, the former associate said. They were told the DeLays "would go 
to jail and you would go to jail."

The tax form states that the $1 million came by check on June 25, 1998, 
from "Nations Corp, James & Sarch co." The Washington Post checked with 
the listed executives of Texas and Florida firms that have names similar 
to Nations Corp, and they said they had no connection to any such payment.

James & Sarch Co. was dissolved in May 2000, but two former partners 
said they recalled hearing the names of the Russians at their office. 
Asked if the firm represented them, former partner Philip McGuirk at 
first said "it may ring a bell," but later he faxed a statement that he 
could say no more because confidentiality practices prevent him "from 
disclosing any information regarding the affairs of a client (or former 
client)."

Nevskaya said in the e-mail yesterday, however, that "neither Naftasib 
nor the principals you mentioned have ever been represented by a London 
law firm that you name as James & Sarch Co." She also said that Naftasib 
and its principals did not pay $1 million to the firm, and denied 
knowing about the transaction.

Two former Buckham associates said that he told them years ago not only 
that the $1 million donation was solicited from Russian oil and gas 
executives, but also that the initial plan was for the donation to be 
made via a delivery of cash to be picked up at a Washington area airport.

One of the former associates, a Frederick, Md., pastor named Christopher 
Geeslin who served as the U.S. Family Network's director or president 
from 1998 to 2001, said Buckham further told him in 1999 that the 
payment was meant to influence DeLay's vote in 1998 on legislation that 
helped make it possible for the IMF to bail out the faltering Russian 
economy and the wealthy investors there.

"Ed told me, 'This is the way things work in Washington,' " Geeslin 
said. "He said the Russians wanted to give the money first in cash." 
Buckham, he said, orchestrated all the group's fundraising and spending 
and rarely informed the board about the details. Buckham and his 
attorney, Laura Miller, did not reply to repeated requests for comment 
on this article.

The IMF funding legislation was a contentious issue in 1998. The Russian 
stock market fell steeply in April and May, and the government in Moscow 
announced on June 18 -- just a week before the $1 million check was sent 
by the London law firm -- that it needed $10 billion to $15 billion in 
new international loans.

House Republican leaders had expressed opposition through that spring to 
giving the IMF the money it could use for new bailouts, decrying what 
they described as previous destabilizing loans to other countries. The 
IMF and its Western funders, meanwhile, were pressing Moscow, as a 
condition of any loan, to increase taxes on major domestic oil companies 
such as Gazprom, which had earlier defaulted on billions of dollars in 
tax payments.

On Aug. 18, 1998, the Russian government devalued the ruble and 
defaulted on its treasury bills. But DeLay, appearing on "Fox News 
Sunday" on Aug. 30 of that year, criticized the IMF financing bill, 
calling the replenishment of its funds "unfortunate" because the IMF was 
wrongly insisting on a Russian tax increase. "They are trying to force 
Russia to raise taxes at a time when they ought to be cutting taxes in 
order to get a loan from the IMF. That's just outrageous," DeLay said.

In the end, the Russian legislature refused to raise taxes, the IMF 
agreed to lend the money anyway, and DeLay voted on Sept. 17, 1998, for 
a foreign aid bill containing new funds to replenish the IMF account. 
DeLay's spokesman said the lawmaker "makes decisions and sets 
legislative priorities based on good policy and what is best for his 
constituents and the country." He added: "Mr. DeLay has very firm 
beliefs, and he fights very hard for them."

Kaplan did not respond to repeated messages, and through a spokesman for 
lawyer Abbe Lowell, Abramoff declined to comment.

No legal bar exists to a $1 million donation by a foreign entity to a 
group such as the U.S. Family Network, according to Marcus Owens, a 
Washington lawyer who directed the IRS's office of tax-exempt 
organizations from 1990 to 2000 and who reviewed, at The Post's request, 
the tax returns filed by the U.S. Family Network.

But "a million dollars is a staggering amount of money to come from a 
foreign source" because such a donor would not be entitled to claim the 
tax deduction allowed for U.S. citizens, Owens said. "Giving large 
donations to an organization whose purposes are as ambiguous as these . 
. . is extraordinary. I haven't seen that before. It suggests something 
else is going on.

"There are any number of red flags on these returns."

Hailing Indian Tribe's Hiring of Lobbyists

Buckham and Tony Rudy were the first DeLay staff members to visit the 
Choctaw Reservation near Meridian, Miss., where the tribe built a 
500-room hotel and a 90,000-square-foot gambling casino. Their trip from 
March 25 to 27, 1997, cost the Choctaws $3,000, according to statements 
filed with the House clerk.

DeLay, his wife and Susan Hirschman -- Buckham's successor in 1998 as 
chief of staff -- were the next to go. Their trip from July 31 to Aug. 
2, 1998, was described on House disclosure forms as a "site review and 
reservation tour for charitable event," and the forms said it cost the 
Choctaws $6,935.

Buckham, who was then a lobbyist, arranged DeLay's trip, which included 
a visit to the tribe's golf course to assess it as a possible location 
for the lawmaker's annual charity tournament, according to a tribal 
source. Abramoff told the tribe he could not accompany DeLay because of 
a prior commitment, the source said.

One day after the DeLays departed for Washington, the U.S. Family 
Network registered an initial $150,000 payment made by the Choctaws, 
according to its tax return. The tribe made additional payments to the 
group totaling $100,000 on "various" dates the following year, the 
returns state. The Choctaws separately paid Abramoff $4.5 million for 
his lobbying work on their behalf in 1998 and 1999. Abramoff and his 
wife contributed $22,000 to DeLay's political campaigns from 1997 to 
2000, according to public records.

A former Abramoff associate who is aware of the payments, and who spoke 
on the condition of anonymity to protect his clients, said the tribe 
made contributions to entities associated with DeLay because DeLay was 
crucial to the tribe's continuing fight against legislation to allow the 
taxation of Indians' gambling revenue.

An attorney for the tribe, Bryant Rogers, said the funds were meant not 
only to "get the message out" about the adverse tax law proposals but 
also to finance a campaign by Buckham's group within "the conservative 
base" against legislation to strip tribes of their control over Indian 
adoptions. "This was a group connected to the right-wing Christian 
movement," Rogers said. "This is Ed Buckham's connection."

In March 1999, after the tribe had paid a substantial sum directly to 
the U.S. Family Network, Buckham expressed his general gratitude to 
Abramoff in an e-mail. "I really appreciate you going to bat for us. 
Remember it is the first bit of money that is always the hardest, but 
means the most," Buckham said, according to a copy. He added: "Pray for 
God's wisdom. I really believe this is supposed to be what we are doing 
to save our team."

During this period, a fundraising letter on the U.S. Family Network 
stationery was sent to residents of Alabama, announcing a petition drive 
to promote a cause of interest to Abramoff's Indian gambling clients in 
Mississippi and Louisiana, including the Choctaw casino that drew many 
customers from Alabama: the blocking of a rival casino proposed by the 
Poarch Creek Indians on their land in Alabama.

"The American family is under attack from all sides: crime, drugs, 
pornography, and one of the least talked about but equally as 
destructive -- gambling," said the group's letter, which was signed by 
then-Rep. Bob Riley (R), now the Alabama governor. "We need your help 
today . . . to prevent the Poarch Creek Indians from building casinos in 
Alabama."

Asked about the letter, Rogers said "none of us have seen" it and "the 
tribe's contributions have nothing to do with it." A spokesman for Riley 
said that he could not recall the circumstances behind the letter, but 
that he has long opposed any expansion of gambling in Alabama.

DeLay, meanwhile, saluted Choctaw chief Philip Martin in the 
Congressional Record on Jan. 3, 2001, citing "all he has done to further 
the cause of freedom." DeLay also attached to his remarks an editorial 
that hailed the tribe's gambling income and its "hiring [of] quality 
lobbyists."

Throughout this period, the U.S. Family Network was paying a monthly fee 
of at least $10,000 to Buckham and Alexander Strategy Group for general 
"consulting," according to a former Buckham associate and a copy of the 
contract. While DeLay's wife drew a monthly salary from the lobbying 
firm, she did not work at its offices in the townhouse on Capitol Hill, 
according to former Buckham associates.

Neither the House nor the Federal Election Commission bars the payment 
of corporate funds to spouses through consulting firms or political 
action committees, but the spouses must perform real work for reasonable 
wages.

"Anytime you [as a congressman] hire your child or spouse, it raises 
questions as to whether this is a throwback to the time when people used 
campaigns and government jobs to enrich their families," said Larry 
Noble, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics, a 
nonpartisan watchdog group, and a former general counsel of the FEC.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/30/AR2005123001480.html?referrer=email
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Sat Dec 31 04:16:39 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Sat Dec 31 04:32:21 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] For Revelers Behind the Wheel,
 'Only 2 Beers' Is an Unwise Line - Washington Post 
Message-ID: <43B676A7.5080508@comcast.net>

For Revelers Behind the Wheel, 'Only 2 Beers' Is an Unwise Line

By Paul Duggan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, December 31, 2005; A01

Tonight's the night, the big celebration, ringing in the new. Ten! Nine! 
Eight! . . . champagne toasts and kisses. And in the wee hours, after 
the bars empty, most revelers will make it home fine.

For others, though, the party will end with the whoop of a siren and a 
sudden burst of blue light in the rearview mirror.

Good evening, sir. Do you know why I pulled you over tonight?

Of course you know: because you were driving 30 mph on the interstate, 
trying, with intermittent success, to stay between the lines.

No, officer . . .

You're squinting up from the driver's seat, blinded by the black-metal 
Maglite shining in your eyes.

All right, sir. Have you been drinking tonight?

At this point, you might as well put the handcuffs on yourself. You're 
busted. You just don't know it yet.

You think maybe you can talk your way out of this. And here's what your 
panicked brain comes up with, five words guaranteed to do you no good:

I only had two beers.

The "two beers" line has been uttered so often that it's a joke among 
police officers. In 20 years of patrolling highways, Virginia State 
Police Trooper L.L. Parker has heard that slurred lie more times than 
she can remember.

"I don't know of any officer out here who, if you tell them you only had 
two beers, they'll tell you, "Okay, then, have a nice night,' " Parker 
said, chuckling. "But drunks, for whatever reason, they say it all the 
time."

What you don't understand is, you've already been sized up: the erratic 
driving, the odor of booze wafting from your Hyundai. You say, "two 
beers," and the report will read, "The operator admitted consuming 
alcohol." It's further justification for what comes next.

Okay, sir, would you please step out of the vehicle for me?

* * *

Bartenders call tonight "amateur night," when the stay-at-homes come out 
to howl. Like Super Bowl Sunday, like the weekends of Memorial Day and 
Labor Day, it's a time to be wary on the roads, to look out for weaving 
Toyotas and pickups.

The police will be watching. It's time for beefed-up patrols and 
sobriety checkpoints -- double duty for the station's breath tester, 
that little white box with the mouthpiece, the Intoxilyzer 5000.

It's the busy season for Sudeep Bose, a biochemist by training who 
argues that the Intoxilyzer and machines like it aren't reliably 
accurate. Bose gave up a science career for law school and, in 1998, 
founded a Northern Virginia firm that defends those accused of drunken 
driving by challenging the veracity of blood alcohol readings.

"It's 85 percent of my caseload," said Bose, meaning that 40 to 50 of 
his clients are accused of driving under the influence of alcohol.

"We expect that between Halloween and January 31st, we will take in 
almost three times more DUI cases than the rest of the year," Bose said 
Wednesday. "After Christmas -- today, for instance -- we're getting 
calls on all the cases that came in over the weekend. And I expect 
another spike in the first week of January from all the New Year's parties."

The nonprofit Washington Regional Alcohol Program reported this month 
that police in the area made 14,092 drunken driving arrests in 2004, 
about the same as in 2003. But for the first time in several years, the 
number of drinking-related traffic crashes went down (from 5,474 to 
4,840), as did injuries (3,602 to 2,878) and fatalities (122 to 110).

Bartenders in the area say patrons generally are showing more restraint 
these days, even on New Year's Eve.

"I've seen a full-on change in the last 15 years," said Rick Baldwin, 
bar manager at Rock Bottom Restaurant & Brewery in Bethesda. "Not 
drinking and driving is way out in the forefront of people's thinking. 
People do all kinds of things: buses, or they take cabs, or they have 
designated drivers. . . . Absolutely, they're more aware of the 
consequences."

Ah, the consequences.

Even a low blood alcohol content can lead to a drunken driving 
conviction if authorities prove in court that a motorist was impaired. 
And in Maryland, Virginia and the District, drivers with levels of .08 
percent or higher are legally presumed to be impaired, regardless of how 
well they are able to handle their booze.

In the District, drunken driving is punishable by up to 90 days in jail 
and a $300 fine for a first offense. Virginia's penalty is up to a year 
behind bars and a $2,500 fine. In Maryland, driving with a blood alcohol 
level of .08 percent or higher carries up to a $1,000 fine and a year in 
jail, while the penalties are lower with a lower blood alcohol content.

Lawyer fees? They are likely to run in the low to mid-four figures. Add 
to that a jacked-up insurance premium or cancellation of coverage. Then 
there's the hassle of catching buses and bumming rides for months while 
your license is suspended.

"I will say this," Bose said. "It is not a pleasant experience."

* * *

I only had two beers.

Should have kept your mouth shut, defense lawyers say.

"I guess they think two is the magic number," said Trooper Parker, 
chuckling again. "If you had three, you must have a drinking problem or 
something. . . . But if you only had two, then you must not be all that 
drunk."

Think of this traffic stop as a mini-investigation. Weaving at 30 mph 
gave the officer a legally sufficient reason to suspect you're 
intoxicated. "Probable cause," it's called. That smell in your Hyundai 
is more probable cause -- and so is your lame "two beers" line.

Would you please step over here, sir? Now I'm going to ask you to please 
. . .

Walk nine steps, heel to toe, then turn and walk back. . . . You 
stumble. Stand on one leg and count to 30. . . . You stumble again. 
Follow this pen from side to side with your eyes, but hold your head 
still. . . . You can't.

So much probable cause now.

What the officer doesn't tell you is that you're not required to take 
these sobriety tests. Legally, he can't order you to take them without 
explaining that you have the right to refuse -- a constitutional right 
against self-incrimination.

But, of course, he didn't order you to do anything.

He was merely asking. And you went along with it.

Now he's ordering:

Turn around and place your hands behind your head.

With all this probable cause, you can't legally refuse to take a breath 
test at the station. If you do, it's a separate, civil offense with its 
own sanctions. And the refusal can be used against you at a drunken 
driving trial as evidence of your "consciousness of guilt."

"Two beers," said Elizabeth Wingo, a supervisor in the D.C. attorney 
general's office. "Everyone says that. Then they come in and blow a 
point-one-four."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/30/AR2005123001580.html?nav=hcmodule
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Sat Dec 31 04:21:43 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Sat Dec 31 04:37:28 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] The FBI's 2nd-Class Citizens - Melanie W. Sisson -
 Washington Post Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43B677D7.6050409@comcast.net>

The FBI's 2nd-Class Citizens

By Melanie W. Sisson
Saturday, December 31, 2005; A19

Why is the FBI having so much trouble keeping its intelligence analysts 
-- the kind of people who are vitally important to its post-Sept. 11 
mission?

The problem was laid out at a congressional hearing a few months ago by 
the Justice Department's inspector general, Glenn A. Fine. He noted that 
the FBI is suffering a high rate of attrition among its most recently 
hired and most highly educated analysts, and he concluded that the 
bureau needs to stop assigning them duties that have nothing much to do 
with analysis and to offer better retention incentives.

Fine is right on both counts, but a lot more than that is needed. The 
pace and scope of attrition in the ranks of the FBI's analysts suggest 
root causes that are more serious in nature and more systemic in effect 
than the inspector general and the bureau realize. It wasn't the 
photocopying or the lack of promotion potential that compelled me to 
leave my job as an FBI analyst this year -- it was the frustration of 
working in a system that does not yet recognize analysis as a full 
partner in the FBI's national security mission.

In January 2003, FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III established an 
Intelligence Program to transform the bureau's closely held national 
security function into one responsive to the needs of the intelligence, 
homeland security, law enforcement and defense communities. To bring 
about this transition, the Intelligence Program recognized the need for 
an analytic body within the FBI capable of assessing, producing and 
appropriately disseminating case information, and it quickly began 
hiring analysts in unprecedented numbers. Perhaps too quickly, since it 
hadn't really been determined yet just what resources and procedures 
were needed to enable the bureau's analytical function and ensure the 
quality of its product.

As a result, analysts who joined the FBI with the goal of contributing 
to national security discovered that there was no system in place to 
promote or support the kind of work they do. Analysts found that in many 
cases they had to operate with a dearth of information and intelligence 
resources. For example, not all the people carrying the title "All 
Source Analyst" in the division for which I worked even had desktop 
access to the Internet or to intelligence community e-mail and intranet 
servers.

More inhibiting has been the absence of uniform and institutionalized 
procedures for providing analysts with intelligence collected by the FBI 
itself. There is no guidance giving field offices the information they 
need to direct case reporting to the appropriate analytic groups, and no 
policy mandating that they do so. In this vacuum, the analyst's access 
to investigative data becomes almost entirely a function of personal 
relationships cultivated with agents in the field -- a difficult task 
for those whose work it is to assess threats emerging across the nation 
and overseas.

A system in which analysts are not guaranteed access to investigative 
information, one in which they must ask to be given the intelligence 
they were hired to assess, marginalizes analysts professionally and 
demoralizes them personally. It is a circumstance that not only breeds 
frustration and dissatisfaction but, by tacitly condoning the perception 
that analysis is of secondary importance to the FBI, perpetuates the 
bureau's traditional "cop culture," in which everything is focused on 
the agent and the case -- a culture that Mueller has committed himself 
to changing.

Most important, limited access to case information prevents FBI analysts 
from doing what they are hired to do: provide decision makers with 
quality intelligence products that contain the best information 
available. Without the satisfaction of believing our work meets that 
standard, it's not hard to understand why many of us have chosen to leave.

Ultimately there will be no more meaningful measure of Mueller's success 
in transforming the culture of the FBI from that of cops to that of 
spies than the extent to which analysis becomes recognized as a full and 
integrated partner in the bureau's national security mission. This will 
require an observable increase in the director's commitment to enhancing 
the visibility and authority of analysts within the FBI, to providing 
analysts the resources they need, and to ensuring timely and effective 
transmission of information from operational to analytical personnel. 
Until these shortcomings are remedied, the quality of the FBI's work 
will suffer, and too many analysts will continue to find their jobs more 
frustrating than fulfilling.

The writer was an intelligence analyst at FBI headquarters from December 
2003 to May 2005.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/30/AR2005123000994.html
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Sat Dec 31 04:25:30 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Sat Dec 31 04:41:04 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] The States' Tobacco Addiction - George F. Will -
 Washington Post Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43B678BA.2040703@comcast.net>

The States' Tobacco Addiction

By George F. Will
Sunday, January 1, 2006; B07

Philip Morris USA recently got the Illinois Supreme Court to overturn a 
gigantic judgment against it in a suit that had originated in a place -- 
Madison County, Ill. -- that few could locate on a map. The court's 
ruling resulted in this Wall Street Journal headline: "Tobacco-Revenue 
Munis Get a Lift." This episode illuminates American governance today.

Philip Morris is America's largest maker of cigarettes, a product legal 
to use but problematic to merchandise legally. Cigarettes are 
stigmatized by common sense and all state governments. But because those 
governments are increasingly addicted to cigarette tax revenue, the 
governments must be careful not to make cigarettes so expensive they do 
not sell well.

Madison County, located along a bend in the Mississippi River near St. 
Louis, elects its judges, some of them very friendly to plaintiffs' 
lawyers who prosper from class action lawsuits. In 2003 a county court 
held that Philip Morris deceived 1.14 million current and former 
Illinois smokers into believing that cigarettes labeled "light" and "low 
tar" are safer than regular cigarettes. Without blaming Philip Morris 
for any illnesses, the purchasers of these products accused the company 
of fraud. A Madison County judge exuberantly awarded them $10.1 billion 
in compensation. The 0.1 was a nice touch, suggesting -- speaking of 
fraud -- scientific precision.

But the Federal Trade Commission has ratified the use of the light and 
low-tar labels, and Illinois law sensibly says that companies cannot be 
penalized for conduct authorized by a regulatory body. So the Illinois 
Supreme Court, in a 4 to 2 ruling, vacated the $10.1 billion judgment. 
Two of the four justices in the majority also argued that the judgment 
should be overturned because the plaintiffs had not demonstrated that 
they had been harmed by Philip Morris's actions. That principle could 
spoil the fun of the asbestos litigation racket, in which some 
plaintiffs collect even though they have no symptoms of any ailments 
associated with exposure to asbestos.

The Illinois Supreme Court's ruling stimulated the market for 
"tobacco-revenue munis." Those are municipal bonds backed by tobacco 
revenue streams resulting from a real fraud -- the Master Settlement 
Agreement. In 1998, 46 states conspired to seize $246 billion from 
companies that sell products made from a commodity -- tobacco -- the 
cultivation of which was then subsidized by the federal government. 
Tobacco subsidies totaled $528 million from 2000 through 2004; then the 
government paid $10.1 billion -- that number again -- to terminate the 
tobacco quota system.

Under the MSA, the states are scheduled to get their portions of the pot 
over many years. But deferral of gratification is un-American, so some 
states, eager to get their loot, have "securitized" their expected 
portions. Securitization involves selling bonds backed by the 
anticipated revenue.

The MSA is a deal struck between the state attorneys general and trial 
lawyers. For the latter, it was a financial windfall, netting about $13 
billion in fees that sometimes amounted to tens of thousands of dollars 
per hour of work. For the former, it was a political windfall, enabling 
their states to finance this and that with billions paid by smokers, who 
are disproportionately low-income people.

The MSA rests on the fraudulent claim that smoking costs the states huge 
sums, principally because of health care costs. Actually, smoking makes 
money for governments, for two reasons. Cigarettes are the world's most 
heavily taxed consumer product (state taxes range from 7 cents to $2.46 
per pack; the federal tax is 39 cents). And many smokers die prematurely 
from smoking-related illnesses, curtailing their receipt of entitlements 
for the elderly.

There is one problem with the states' plans to divvy up the money 
extorted from the tobacco industry: The MSA may be declared 
unconstitutional. The U.S. Constitution says (Article I, Section 10): 
"No state shall, without the consent of Congress, . . . enter into any 
agreement or compact with another state." A federal district court is 
being asked to declare that 46 states have done just that.

The states' ability to continue treating the tobacco industry as a 
"budgetary Alaska" -- the last frontier for exploitation -- depends on 
brisk sales of cigarettes far into the future. So all 50 states, which 
in 2004 reaped $12.3 billion in cigarette taxes, have an incentive to 
carefully calibrate these taxes so as to maximize revenue. They want 
high taxes, but not high enough to cause large numbers of smokers to 
quit the habit that is so lucrative to states.

The state governments seem to be calibrating cleverly: The adult smoking 
rate has not fallen much recently. So we have here a rarity -- a 
government success story. Of sorts.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/30/AR2005123001290.html
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Sat Dec 31 04:34:57 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Sat Dec 31 04:50:41 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] 2006: A Pivot for History? - Jim Hoagland - Washington
	Post Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43B67AF1.6000805@comcast.net>

2006: A Pivot for History?

By Jim Hoagland
Sunday, January 1, 2006; B07

yes is a pleasant country:

if's wintry

(my lovely)

let's open the year

-- e.e. cummings

Decisive leaders make history before history turns around to unmake 
them. New Year's 2006 finds once again -- as Adam said to Eve on leaving 
the Garden of Eden -- that we live in a time of transition.

The once-powerful politicians who dominated the global scene just two 
years ago are gone or greatly diminished. With one or two notable 
exceptions, those left standing face a year of living precariously as 
they cope with polarizing change that they helped unleash but could not 
control.

Their further diminution or likely removal gives 2006 the potential to 
be a global hinge year -- a moment like 1968, when generational change 
and explosive social tensions aligned to swing the world onto a path 
more suggestive of revolution than evolution.

The death of Eugene McCarthy helps mark 2005 as the year in which the 
far-reaching changes of 1968 may have finally run their course. So does 
the political defeat of Gerhard Schroeder and Joschka Fischer, the 1968 
rebels who mellowed to take power in Germany and defend the status quo 
for seven years. After his coalition's defeat in September, Schroeder 
sold out any remaining shred of 1968's idealism by joining a Russian oil 
company he aided as chancellor.

Generational change also lunges forward in France, where Jacques Chirac 
enters his last full year as president. His conservative forces are 
split by a war of succession between Dominique de Villepin and Nicolas 
Sarkozy, while immigrants and members of the entrenched social order 
argue bitterly over who deserves victim status after the riots in the fall.

War resisters Schroeder and Chirac are not alone in experiencing 
shrinking horizons. Important allies of George W. Bush in the Iraq 
coalition are in transition as well: Poland's Aleksander Kwasniewski 
left office as 2005 ended. Italy's Silvio Berlusconi faces a tough 
reelection battle this spring. Japan's Junichiro Koizumi ends his 
impressive, tradition-limited tenure in September.

Rebels in Tony Blair's Labor Party embarrassed him in November by 
rejecting new security laws. They hope to inflict other parliamentary 
defeats on him and make 2006 the year in which Blair fulfills a promise 
to step down before the next election. Blair has reached "the dusk of 
his premiership," Philip Stephens wrote recently, and for Blair 
unhelpfully, in the Financial Times.

So the remainder of Bush's term may get lonelier. And American custom 
makes this his last year of full power. After congressional elections in 
November, national attention and energy will turn to whether any 
Republican can stop John McCain, or any Democrat can derail Hillary Clinton.

The least visible race to succeed a departing world leader will also be 
one of the most important. Kofi Annan ends his second term as U.N. 
secretary general in December, and potential successors from Asia and 
Central Europe are lining up to lobby Security Council members.

Annan's battered standing has been lifted by the thorough and therefore 
soul-sickening investigation that he appointed Paul Volcker to conduct 
into the oil-for-food scandal -- in which Russian and French diplomats, 
among others, have admitted to having been paid by Saddam Hussein's 
regime with illicit oil vouchers.

The secretary general now has a chance to to establish a more positive 
legacy, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has passed the word that 
the administration will work with him on that. U.N. officials have found 
a warmer welcome in Washington in recent months as they consult on 
Lebanon and Syria; Iraq; the U.N.'s role in resolving the Iranian 
nuclear crisis; the threat of an avian flu pandemic; and other issues 
that the Bush administration had insisted on handling alone.

Annan and Rice are conceivably rare winners in the leadership 
sweepstakes of 2006. So, oddly, is Angela Merkel, Schroeder's successor 
in Germany. After besting Schroeder in the destructive test of nerves he 
launched when voters there deadlocked, Merkel assembled a Cabinet of 
heavyweights who must work with her or listen to her blame them for 
provoking new elections if they don't. And she saved December's European 
Union summit from humiliating stalemate.

Russia's oil revenue and China's continuing economic ascent make 
Vladimir Putin and Hu Jintao distressingly secure at home this year. But 
the biggest leadership news, for better or worse, should come out of 
Iraq, which in this hinge year will overcome or succumb to the 
centrifugal forces tearing at it. Those pressures have become too 
intense to be put off another year.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/30/AR2005123001292.html
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From swiggard at comcast.net  Sat Dec 31 04:41:54 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Sat Dec 31 04:57:31 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] MUST READ: Behind veil of Iraq war,
 winds of peace - Jonathan Powers - Boston Globe Op-Ed
Message-ID: <43B67C92.6050409@comcast.net>


  Behind veil of Iraq war, winds of peace

By Jonathan Powers  |  December 31, 2005  |  The Boston Globe

STOCKHOLM
AMERICANS SEEM to have less appetite for war than before. It took the 
best part of a decade for public opinion to swing firmly against the 
Vietnam War. This time, in Iraq, it has taken barely three years. 
Critics may like to make out that America is a warrior nation with an 
urge to dominate the world. But although from time to time martial 
figures do push themselves through to the seats of power, they seem 
unable to carry the public with them for long. It looks likely that in 
the next general election, Americans will vote for a candidate who 
stands against overseas adventurism. Those who are trying to erect a 
case for defanging a putative nuclear Iran by force will not succeed. 
Nor will those who want to up the ante with China.

Of course nothing is simple when it comes to matters of war and peace. 
Edward Luttwak, writing in Foreign Affairs a few years ago, argued that 
''An unpleasant truth often overlooked is that although war is a great 
evil, it does have a great virtue: It can resolve political conflicts 
and lead to peace." World War II is Everyman's exemplar of this. But 
World War I, the more important geopolitically of the two great wars, 
was the reverse. Without the tragic mistakes of statecraft that preceded 
it, allowing Europe to drift into massive carnage, there would have been 
no Great Depression, no rise of Hitler, no consolidation of the 
autocracy of Stalin, no Second World War, no unilateral development of 
the nuclear bomb and its use on Japan, and no Cold War.

The tragedy of war or violence is not that sometimes it does not have 
positive outcomes. It is that the same goals could have been met without 
war if the protagonists had been more farsighted and more prepared to be 
patient and creative in their diplomacy and less bellicose in their 
confrontation.

The war in Iraq has become a living example of how not to use the blunt 
instrument of armed might. At the same time, its fire and smoke are 
obscuring many positive trends all over the world. For the 10th 
successive year, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute 
has reported that the number of wars has fallen over the last 12 months. 
The New York-based Freedom House reported this month that the spread of 
democracy and the respect for human rights continues on its upward 
trajectory. This year was one of the most successful years for freedom 
since 1972.

The hype of a portion of the political class, constantly impressing upon 
us the need for combat if our precious freedoms are not to be 
undermined, too often pulls the wool over our eyes. Islamic terrorism is 
the present case in point. The renunciation of violence that was 
declared in 2003 from their jail cells by the leaders of Egypt's 
militant Islamic group, Al-Gamaa al-Islamiyya, was only barely reported 
and commentated on at the time, but it demonstrated how terrorism can be 
defeated by solid police work. And every time there is a bombing or 
racial disturbance in Europe, we get fired up by warnings about the 
danger of militant Islam. Yet, following the Madrid bombing, Elaine 
Sciolino reported in the International Herald Tribune that senior 
European counterterrorism officials were saying that ''the movement of 
young men from Europe to Iraq has not come close to the levels seen in 
the 1980s, when at least 10,000 men traveled to Afghanistan to fight 
against the Soviet occupation." In 1980, not only did that not worry us, 
but it pleased the authorities.

Pull the wool aside and what can we see? Michael Mandelbaum in the 
journal of London's International Institute for Strategic Studies notes: 
''The practice of war, once the prerogative of the strong, instead is 
increasingly the tactic of the weak." Most wars these days are conducted 
by and within the poorest of the world's nations. ''The great chess game 
of international politics is finished, or at least suspended," he 
writes. ''A pawn is just a pawn, not a sentry standing guard against an 
attack on a king."

If only we could recognize this, we could start to become more creative 
in our tactics. The Washington correspondent of the Financial Times 
reported earlier this year that exiled Iranian activists are studying 
and training in the techniques of nonviolent conflict. They are learning 
from the same group that contributed to the success of movements for 
change in Serbia, Georgia, and Ukraine. This is how it should go. Then 
the work of building a more peaceful world can continue for another year.

Jonathan Powers is a columnist based in London.  

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/12/31/behind_veil_of_iraq_war_winds_of_peace/
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Skipped content of type multipart/related
From swiggard at comcast.net  Sat Dec 31 04:49:44 2005
From: swiggard at comcast.net (William Swiggard)
Date: Sat Dec 31 05:05:22 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] ATTENTION SENIORS: Dollars to doughnuts,
 Bush's drug benefit is no bargain - The Boston Globe
Message-ID: <43B67E68.1010404@comcast.net>


  Dollars to doughnuts, Bush's drug benefit is no bargain

<>
By Robert Kuttner  |  December 31, 2005  |  The Boston Globe

THE NEW YEAR brings with it congressional midterm elections. Here is an 
issue that should be a real political gift to the opposition party -- 
the colossal Medicare drug-benefit mess.

It was clear back in 2003, when the Bush administration rammed this bill 
through the Republican Congress, that the purpose was not to devise an 
affordable prescription drug program for seniors. Rather the 
administration wanted to help two friendly industries, the 
pharmaceutical companies and the HMOs, and to get bragging rights for 
the 2004 election that President Bush had helped seniors. Few voters 
would grasp just how bad the law was, since its effective date was 
deliberately put off until 2006.

Now, as the year of reckoning arrives, the true cynicism of Bush's 
program is becoming evident to each senior citizen (or adult child of 
senior citizen) who attempts to fathom what Bush and the industry 
lobbyists wrought.

For starters, coverage is woefully inadequate. You pay a $250 deductible 
and then a 25 percent copay on the first $2,250 of drug benefits each 
year, plus roughly another $450 a year in premiums. So if your 
prescriptions cost $2,250 a year, or about $190 a month, you pay $1,200 
a year all told and the plan pays just $1,050.

That's pretty shabby. But then, the truly bizarre feature of the plan 
kicks in. Coverage simply disappears for the next $2,850 in drug 
expenses and only picks up again when you have incurred a total of 
$5,100 in prescription costs. This is the infamous ''hole in the doughnut."

A great many seniors will never get the coverage because the plan is a 
bad bargain, and they just won't sign up. Of if they do sign up, they 
will run out of the ability to pay enough out of pocket before 
qualifying for needed benefits. Even with these disgracefully skimpy 
benefits, the plan is expected to add over half a trillion dollars to 
the federal budget over the next decade.

Why would anyone have designed such an insane program?

Because the political purpose was never to deliver good benefits. One 
administration goal, running the program through the private insurance 
industry, conflicted with the imperative of a clear, cost-effective 
plan. Seniors must evaluate innumerable competing private plans, each 
with subtle differences in costs and benefits that make an impenetrable 
program even less fathomable, and raise total costs because each of 
these private plans tacks on a profit. This was a case of privatizing 
something done far more efficiently through a direct government program.

The second administration goal, fattening the drug industry, led to a 
provision explicitly prohibiting the government from negotiating bulk 
price discounts from drug companies, as the veterans hospitals do. As a 
result, according to a study by Families USA, drug prices obtained by 
the US Department of Veterans Affairs are about 48 percent less on 
average than those expected to be charged to people enrolled in the 
Medicare drug program. Among the 20 most widely prescribed drugs for 
seniors, for instance, a year's supply of Protonix (for ulcers) costs 
the VA $253, but the seniors in the Bush Medicare program, which 
prohibits such bulk discounts, pay a sticker price of $1,080. That will 
give you ulcers! A year of Zocor, the cholesterol-reducing drug, costs 
the VA $251. Seniors in Bush's drug plan get whacked for $1,323.

It was these inflated costs that necessitated some gimmick to keep down 
the overall cost to taxpayers. Hence the notorious doughnut hole.

If the Democrats have the moxie and the wit, they should propose a 
straightforward fix, take it to the country in the 2006 elections, and 
dare Republicans to oppose it:

First, get rid of the costly crazy-quilt of private programs and bring 
the ''Medicare" drug program back into public Medicare.

Second, allow Medicare to negotiate bulk discounts the way the VA does.

Third, get rid of the doughnut hole, and design a simplified benefit 
structure with modest copays and then 100 percent coverage after a set 
annual cap on out-of-pocket costs.

Finally, if the savings from the bulk price discounts are not quite 
sufficient to cover the costs of filling in the doughnut hole, take back 
a little of Bush's tax cuts to the richest 1 percent.

This debate will also remind voters of a useful meta-lesson: A party 
whose mantra is to hate government, and that sees government mainly as a 
vehicle for rewarding special-interest allies rather than serving 
ordinary citizens, can never be trusted to run government competently.

A happier New Year to all.


http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/12/31/dollars_to_doughnuts_bushs_drug_benefit_is_no_bargain/
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From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Sat Dec 31 08:53:38 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (mblaxill@yahoo.com)
Date: Sat Dec 31 09:05:32 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Criminal Inquiry Opens Into Spying Leak 
Message-ID: <20051231165338.6453E249CF5@lax-gw08.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: mblaxill@yahoo.com.

WASHINGTON | December 31, 2005
Criminal Inquiry Opens Into Spying Leak 
By SCOTT SHANE
The investigation began in recent days after a formal referral from the National Security Agency regarding the leak, federal officials said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/31/politics/31inquire.html?emc=eta1



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From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Sat Dec 31 08:55:35 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (mblaxill@yahoo.com)
Date: Sat Dec 31 09:07:28 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: His Car Smelling Like French Fries,
	Willie Nelson Sells Biodiesel
Message-ID: <20051231165535.DC0B3237114@lax-gw01.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: mblaxill@yahoo.com.

now if we can find alternatives to petro-chemical fertilizers...


BUSINESS | December 30, 2005
Beyond Gasoline: His Car Smelling Like French Fries, Willie Nelson Sells Biodiesel
By DANNY HAKIM
Willie Nelson has his own brand of alternative fuel called BioWillie that can be made from any number of crops and run in a normal diesel engine.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/30/business/30biowillie.html?emc=eta1



----------------- Advertisement --------------------------

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one Best Picture.  What did the original New York
Times movie reviews have to say about these Oscar
winning films?  
Go to the Best Pictures review archive:

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From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Sat Dec 31 08:58:44 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (mblaxill@yahoo.com)
Date: Sat Dec 31 09:10:30 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: And Baby Makes Three in One Bed
Message-ID: <20051231165844.7AAEE9FC10@lax-gw05.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: mblaxill@yahoo.com.

FASHION & STYLE / THURSDAY STYLES | December 29, 2005
And Baby Makes Three in One Bed
By AMY HARMON
A growing group of American parents are sharing a bed with their baby, a common practice in the rest of the world, which had become nearly taboo in this country.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/29/fashion/thursdaystyles/29sleep.html?emc=eta1



----------------- Advertisement --------------------------

The Academy loved these movies enough to name each
one Best Picture.  What did the original New York
Times movie reviews have to say about these Oscar
winning films?  
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From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Sat Dec 31 09:03:16 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (mblaxill@yahoo.com)
Date: Sat Dec 31 09:15:04 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Winners Are Few as Forces Clash on Tribal
	Lands Over Air, Water and Jobs
Message-ID: <20051231170316.68C2F13B7E0@lax-gw04.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: mblaxill@yahoo.com.

ahh the irony..


NATIONAL | January 1, 2006
Winners Are Few as Forces Clash on Tribal Lands Over Air, Water and Jobs
By JOHN M. BRODER
An Arizona mine has suspended operations, ending the jobs of nearly 200 people. Most of them are members of the Navajo Nation and the Hopi Tribe.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/01/national/01mine.html?emc=eta1



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one Best Picture.  What did the original New York
Times movie reviews have to say about these Oscar
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From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Sat Dec 31 09:06:33 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (mblaxill@yahoo.com)
Date: Sat Dec 31 09:18:18 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Conspiring Against the Voters
Message-ID: <20051231170633.AB92E83D16@lax-gw03.mroute.net>

This page was sent to you by: mblaxill@yahoo.com.

OPINION | December 31, 2005
Editorial: Conspiring Against the Voters

President Bush has announced four nominees for the Federal Election Commission, moving to keep the policing of campaign abuses firmly in the hands of party wheel horses.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/31/opinion/31sat3.html?emc=eta1




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From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Sat Dec 31 09:16:30 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (Mike Blaxill)
Date: Sat Dec 31 09:28:16 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] the comedy continues...Chalabi Named Iraq Oil Minister 
Message-ID: <20051231171630.6494.qmail@web53007.mail.yahoo.com>

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/123105Z.shtml

Chalabi Named Iraq Oil Minister 
    By Jonathan Finer and Naseer Nouri 
    The Washington Post

    Saturday 31 December 2005

Fuel crisis spurs mandatory leave for incumbent.
    Baghdad - As a fuel crisis deepened in Iraq,
the government replaced its oil minister with
controversial Deputy Prime Minister Ahmed
Chalabi, whose poor performance in the Dec. 15
elections was a setback in his recent attempt at
political rehabilitation.

    The oil minister, Ibrahim Bahr Uloom, was put
on a mandatory, month-long leave. He had
previously threatened to resign over the
government's recent decision to increase gasoline
prices sharply, a move that has outraged
motorists and sparked attacks on gas stations and
fuel convoys.

    Violence has escalated across Iraq since the
elections. On Friday, two US soldiers were
killed, one by a bomb south of Baghdad and
another by small-arms fire in the western city of
Fallujah. Two mortar shells hit near a bus
station in the capital, killing five people and
wounding 24, police at the scene said.

    Threats by insurgents seizing on the
unpopularity of the gasoline price increase led
to a shutdown this month of the country's most
productive oil refinery, in Baiji, north of
Baghdad. Assim Jihad, an Oil Ministry spokesman,
said the shutdown would cost $20 million a day
until the refinery reopened. Meanwhile, foul
winter weather has halted oil exports from the
southern city of Umm Qasr, Iraq's only major
seaport. Many of Iraq's largest power plants,
already struggling to meet even a fraction of the
country's energy demands, run on refined fuels.

    "If these issues are not solved soon, the
country will be facing an uncontrollable
situation," Jihad said. "Dr. Chalabi will be here
for the short term, but this will need to be
solved by the new government, by the Ministry of
Defense and by the coalition forces."

    Chalabi, whose government portfolio already
includes heading the country's energy committee
and overseeing security for oil infrastructure
such as refineries and pipelines, will
temporarily take the reins of Iraq's only major
industry. He had briefly led the Oil Ministry
earlier this year while the current government
was being assembled.

    Jihad suggested that Uloom would probably
resign rather than return, meaning Chalabi's
appointment would last until the parties that
prevailed in the recent elections formed a new
government.

    Negotiations toward that end continued Friday
in the northern city of Sulaymaniyah between
Abdul Aziz Hakim, who heads the Supreme Council
for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, a dominant
Shiite Muslim party, and Kurdish leaders. Also
Friday, an ally of the influential Shiite cleric
Moqtada Sadr, whose political followers joined
the Supreme Council's election ticket, said
Shiite parties should pursue an alliance with
Iraq's Sunni Arabs, rather than with Kurds.

    Iraq's leaders have said no major decisions
would be made while the composition of a new
governing coalition was being determined.

    "I don't think there will be any drastic
changes," said Chalabi aide Haidar Moussawi when
asked about Chalabi's intentions for his new
post. "But I will say we have seen a lot of
problems facing the industry with security and
weather, and the focus will be on trying to get
things under control and exports back to a level
Iraq can do."

    Once tabbed by some US officials as a future
leader of Iraq, Chalabi suffered a series of
blows following the US-led invasion, beginning
when intelligence he provided to the Pentagon
about Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction
proved false. He was later accused of passing US
secrets to the government of Iran. But in recent
months, several US officials have praised
Chalabi's technical expertise and ability to
facilitate agreements among feuding factions
within the government.

    "He has proven himself quite capable and
experienced in dealing with all aspects of Iraq's
energy sector and is well-qualified for this
position," a US official said on the condition
that he not be named because he was commenting on
an Iraqi government decision.

    Based on preliminary results from the
December elections, Chalabi received 8,645 votes
in Baghdad, well below the threshold a top UN
official suggested this week would be required to
win a seat.

    Moussawi said Friday that Chalabi could still
end up in the parliament, depending on how
officials interpret a technical detail of
election rules relating to how remaining seats
are allocated after each party meeting a specific
threshold is awarded its seats.

    "There is still confusion, even today at the
election commission, about this, but we are
hearing the party will have at least one seat,"
Moussawi said.

    Meanwhile, in Baghdad, mortar shells fell a
few minutes apart late Friday afternoon - one on
a cafe and the other on the roof of a car - in a
crowded section of the city center. Sadoon Ali,
48, was playing backgammon in a nearby restaurant
when he heard the explosion. "We were standing
there wondering what happened when another
explosion surprised us," he said.

    A man who police said was drunk and angry
because a friend had been wounded in the
explosion began firing shots into a crowd,
sending people scattering in all directions and
wounding one man in the left leg.

    Also in Baghdad, the government of Sudan said
it would close its embassy to meet a demand
issued by the insurgent group al Qaeda in Iraq,
which claimed to have abducted six Sudanese
citizens last week, the Associated Press
reported. Five of the men were shown in a video
released by the group in recent days. Insurgents
have carried out a wave of abductions and attacks
that they say is designed to compel diplomats to
leave Iraq.
From mblaxill at yahoo.com  Sat Dec 31 09:32:37 2005
From: mblaxill at yahoo.com (Mike Blaxill)
Date: Sat Dec 31 09:44:24 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Matt Taibbi - very funny..a little like HST
Message-ID: <20051231173237.25328.qmail@web53015.mail.yahoo.com>

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/printer_123005D.shtml

The Magical Victory Tour
    By Matt Taibbi
    Rolling Stone

    15 December Issue

While Iraq burns, the president keeps playing the
same old song.
    December 7th, 10:44 a.m., the sixty-fourth
anniversary of Pearl Harbor day. I've just woken
up with a line of drool on my face in the back
row of a ballroom at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in
Washington, D.C., where any minute now President
George W. Bush will give the second address of
his barnburning four-speech "National Strategy
for Victory in Iraq" tour.

    There are no T-shirts for this concert tour,
but if there were, the venue list on the back
would make for one of the weirder souvenirs in
rock & roll history. U.S. Naval Academy in
Annapolis, Maryland, November 30th, no advance
publicity, closed audience: check. Here at the
Omni, December 7th, again no advance warning,
handpicked audience, ten reporters max (no one
else knew about it), with even the cashiers in
the hotel's coffee shop unaware of the
president's presence: check. Dates three and
four, venues and dates unknown for security
reasons: check and check.

    This is how President Bush takes his message
to the people these days: in furtive sneak-attack
addresses to closed audiences of elite friendlies
at weird early-morning hours. If you want to
catch Bush's act in person during this tour, you
have to stalk him for days and keep both ears
open for last-minute changes of plan; I actually
missed the Annapolis speech when I made the
mistake of briefly taking my eye off him the day
before.

    Here at the Omni I showed up early,
determined not to repeat my mistake. I was not
going to miss the National Strategy for Victory
in Iraq, no sir. But for all my preparations, I
did almost screw it up again. I fell asleep an
hour before the event and only awoke in the
middle of the introductory remarks by Richard N.
Haass, the president of the Council on Foreign
Relations, the stodgy, status-quo think tank
hosting the event. I pried my eyes open just in
time to see Bush, looking spooked and shrunken,
take the stage.

    Bush in person always strikes me as the kind
of guy who would ask a woman for a hand job at
the end of a first date. He has days where he
looks like she said yes, and days where the
answer was no.

    Today was one of his no days. He frowned,
looking wronged, and grabbed the microphone. I
pulled out my notebook . . .

    A few minutes later, I felt like a hooker
who's just blinked under a blanket with a
prep-school virgin. Was that it? Is it over? It
seemed to be; Bush was off the podium and
slipping down the first line of the crowd,
pumping hands for a minute and then promptly
Snagglepussing toward the left exit. By the time
I made it five rows into the crowd, he had
vanished into a sea of Secret Servicemen, who
whisked him away, presumably to return him
posthaste to his formaldehyde tank.

    I looked down at my notes. They indicated
that Bush had opened his remarks by comparing the
Iraq War to World War II ("We liberated millions,
we aided the rise of democracy in Europe and
Asia. . . . "). From there we learned that we
were fighting an enemy without conscience, but
all was not lost, because the entrepreneurial
spirit is alive and well in Iraq. Of course there
had been setbacks, because in the past after we
took a city, we left it and the terrorists would
just take it back again. But we've stopped doing
that now and so things are better. In conclusion,
Sen. Joe Lieberman visited Iraq four times in the
past seventeen months and, goddamn it, he liked
what he saw.

    In the Obey Your Thirst/Image Is Everything
era of American politics, Bush's National Victory
campaign is a creepy innovation. It features the
president thumping a document - the "National
Strategy for Victory in Iraq" - that was largely
written not by diplomats or generals but by a
pair of academics from Duke University named
Peter Feaver and Christopher Gelpi. Essentially a
PR document, the paper is basically a living
political experiment, designed to prove that
Americans will more readily accept military
casualties if the word "victory" is repeated a
great many times in public.

    "This is not really a strategy document from
the Pentagon about fighting the insurgency,"
Gelpi told The New York Times. "The document is
clearly targeted at American public opinion."

    In other words, this was really a National
Strategy for Victory at Home. It was classic
Bush-think: Instead of bombing the insurgency off
the map, he bombs the map - in lieu of actually
fighting the war, a bold strategy, to be sure.
But would it work?

    Both the record and my notes indicate that
the audience applauded on two occasions. The
first came after the line "And now the terrorists
think they can make America run in Iraq, and that
is not going to happen so long as I'm the
commander in chief." My notes say, "Scattered but
by no means unanimous applause." The second time
came at the end of the speech, after the last
line, "May God continue to bless our country."
This time the reaction was more enthusiastic, but
at least one person - me - was clapping because
it was over.

    The Council on Foreign Relations was good
enough to pass out a list of the expected
attendees at the speech. Here are some of the
names that one could find in Bush's audience:
Frank Finelli, the Carlyle Group; Adam Fromm,
Office of Rep. Dennis Hastert; Robert W. Haines,
Exxon Mobil Corp.; Paul W. Butler, Akin Gump
Strauss Hauer and Feld LLP; Robert Bremer,
Lockheed Martin Corp.; Scott Sendek, Eli Lilly
and Co.; James H. Lambright, Export-Import Bank
of the United States.

    The point is obvious; Bush's audience was
like a guest list for a Monster's Ball of the
military-industrial establishment. And even in
this crowd full of corporate lawyers, investment
bankers, weapons makers, ex-spooks and, for
Christ's sake, lobbyists, the president of the
United States couldn't cook up more than two
tepid applause lines for his Iraq policy - and
one of those was because he was finishing up and,
one guesses, freeing the audience to go call
their brokers.

    God bless George Bush. The Middle East is in
flames, and how does he answer the call? He rolls
up to the side entrance of a four-star Washington
hotel, slips unobserved into a select gathering
of the richest fatheads in his dad's Rolodex,
spends a few tortured minutes exposing his
half-assed policies like a campus flasher and
then ducks back into his rabbit hole while he
waits for his next speech to be written by paid
liars.

    If that isn't leadership, what is?

    Not many people in the Omni audience hung
around to be interviewed when it was over. The
few who did make themselves available tried to
put a brave face on the situation.

    "Well, he did the best he could under, uh,
difficult circumstances," said council member
Jeffrey Pryce.

    Did he detect anything new in the new
strategy?

    "No," he said, shrugging. "But he's in a
tough spot."

 

    I'd been following the national tour for more
than a week. If the reception at the Omni was
stale, that was nothing compared to how it was
going over in the White House briefing room. On
the day before the Omni speech, I actually
worried that gopher-faced administration
spokescreature Scott McClellan might be
physically attacked by reporters, who appeared
ready to give official notice of having had
Enough of This Bullshit.

    In fact the room at one point seemed on the
verge of a Blazing Saddles-style chair-throwing
brawl when McClellan refused to answer the cheeky
question of why, if we weren't planning on
torturing war-on-terror detainees in foreign
prisons, we couldn't just bring them back to be
incarcerated in the United States.

    "I think the American people understand,"
McClellan said, "the importance of protecting
sources and methods, and not compromising ongoing
efforts in the war on terrorism . . ."

    When a contingent of audibly groaning
reporters pressed, McClellan shrugged and tried a
new tack: "I'm not going to talk further about
intelligence matters of this nature," he said.

    A reporter next to me threw his head back in
disgust. "Oh, fuckin' A . . ." he whispered. The
room broke out into hoots and howls; even the
usually dignified Bill Plante of CBS started
openly calling McClellan out. "The question
you're currently evading is not about an
intelligence matter," he hissed.

    I looked around. "Man," I thought. "This
place sure looks better on television." On TV,
the whole package - the deep-blue curtains, the
solemn great seal - suggests majesty, power,
drama. For years I'd dreamed of coming here, the
Graceland of politics.

    But in real life the White House briefing
room is a grimy little closet that's peeling and
cracking in every corner and looks like it hasn't
seen a bottle of Windex in ten years. The first
chair in the fifth row is broken; the fold-up
seat doesn't fold up and in fact dangles on its
hinge, so that you'd slide off if you tried to
sit on it. No science exists that could determine
the original color of these hideous carpets.
Reporters throw their coats and coffee cups
wherever; the place is a fucking sty.

    It's a raggedy-ass old stage, and the act
that plays on it isn't getting any fresher,
either. All partisan sniping aside, this latest
counteroffensive from the White House says just
about everything you need to know about George
Bush and the men who work for him.

    Up until now this president's solution to
everything has been to stare into the cameras,
lie and keep on lying until such time as the
political problem disappears. And now, unable to
comprehend that while political crises may wilt
in the face of such tactics, real crises do not,
he and his team are responding to this first
serious feet-to-the-fire Iraq emergency in the
same way they always have - with a fusillade of
silly, easily disprovable bullshit. Bush and his
mouthpieces continue to try to obfuscate and
cloud the issue of why we're in Iraq, and they do
so not only selectively but constantly,
compulsively, like mental patients who can't stop
jacking off in public. They don't know the
difference between a real problem and a political
problem, because to them, there is no difference.
What could possibly be worse than bad poll
numbers?

    On this particular day in the briefing room,
it's just more of the same disease. McClellan, a
cringing yes-man type who tries to soften the
effect of his non- answers by projecting an air
of being just as out of the loop as you are,
starts pimping lies and crap the moment he enters
the room. He's the cheapest kind of political
hack, a greedy little bum making a living by
throwing his hat on the ground and juggling
lemons for pennies.

    Putting his hat out for the Strategy for
Victory, he says nothing new - there is no real
strategy, remember, just words - and it quickly
becomes clear that the whole purpose of this
campaign is not to offer new information but to
reinforce the administration's most shameless and
irresponsible myths about the war: that we
invaded to liberate Iraq, that Saddam Hussein was
behind 9/11, and so on. McClellan does this even
in the context of responding to angry
denunciations of this very tactic.

    For instance, when a reporter asked why the
administration still insists on giving the
impression that Saddam Hussein was behind the
9/11 attacks, McClellan answered, "I don't think
that [it] does. But I think what you have to
understand about September 11th is that September
11th taught us some important lessons: one, that
we need to take the fight to the enemy and engage
them abroad . . ."

    Implying, in other words, that the enemy who
attacked us was in Iraq. Same old shit.

    After hearing McClellan talk for what seemed
like the thirtieth time about our continuing
efforts to spread democracy, I finally felt
insulted. Giving in to the same basic instinct
that leads people to buy lottery tickets, I
raised my hand. I figured I'd ask nicely, just
give him a chance to come clean. C'mon, man, we
know you're lying, why not just leave it alone? I
asked him if he couldn't just admit, once and for
all, that we didn't go to Iraq to spread
democracy, that maybe it was time to retire that
line, at least.

    "Well," he said, "we set out the reasons we
went to Iraq, and I would encourage you to go
back and look at that. We have liberated 25
million people in Iraq and 25 million people in
Afghanistan . . ."

    "But that wasn't the reason we went -"

    "Spreading freedom and democracy," he said,
ignoring me. "Well, we're not going to
re-litigate why we went into Iraq. We've made
very clear what the reasons were. And no, I don't
think you define them accurately by being so
selective in the question . . . that's important
for spreading hope and opportunity in the broader
Middle East . . ."

    "Just to be clear," I said, exasperated,
"that's a different argument than was made to the
American people before the war."

    "Our arguments are very public," he said.
"You can go look at what the arguments are.
That's not what I was talking about."

    He smiled at me. There's your strategy for
victory in Iraq: Fuck all of you - we're sticking
to our story.
From ean at sbcglobal.net  Fri Dec 30 21:33:00 2005
From: ean at sbcglobal.net (ean@sbcglobal.net)
Date: Sat Dec 31 09:57:37 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] strides toward democracy
Message-ID: <E1Eskna-0003o7-Eu@smtpauth09.mail.atl.earthlink.net>

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brad-friedman/democracy-
strikes-back-a_b_13031.html

While you were out... and while Bush's
sleight-of-hand averted your eyes towards Iraq
for a quick "democracy" fix, the real fight for
democracy -- back here in America -- has made
some important headway at years' end...Here's a
few very notable developments you may have
otherwise missed while you were busy sipping your
yuletide egg nog:

THREE WEEKS AGO...
THURSDAY: I warned Diebold stockholders and
lovers of democracy that a Securities Fraud Class
Action Suit was coming.

TWO WEEKS AGO...

MONDAY: Walden O'Dell, CEO of Diebold (he, of
'committed to delivering the electoral votes of
Ohio to George W. Bush' fame) suddenly resigned.

TUESDAY: Securities Fraud Litigation Class Action
Suit filed against the once-great, now-disgraced
Diebold, Inc. of North Canton, OH along with 8
current and former top execs (including both
O'Dell and the new CEO Swidarski). Amongst the
complaints: artificial manipulation/inflation of
stock prices, insider trading, concealment of
major flaws and security vulnerabilities in
voting machines. Can't say we didn't warn ya!

TUESDAY: Test Election in Leon County, FL is
hacked! Results completely reversed! Tally should
have been 2 to 6, flipped to 7 to 1 without a
trace! Elections Director vows Diebold will never
be used in another election in the county (where
state capital Tallahassee is) again, requests
funds for new voting equipment. Can't say we
didn't warn ya!

FRIDAY: In light of Leon County hack, and after
long drawn out law suits, Volusia County, FL
joins suit and dumps Diebold too!

LAST WEEK...

SUNDAY: Jeb Bush's expresses concern about FL
voting systems in light of Leon County hack
(that, after both the acting FL SoS and Diebold
tried to blame Leon County). Unspoken irony
abounds.

SUNDAY: NY Times editorializes about Diebold's
grave misunderstanding of democracy. They
correctly point out that "The counting of votes
is a public trust. Diebold, whose machines count
many votes, has never acted as if it understood
this." That's the good news from the editorial
which led off buy mentioning the "tumultuous week
for Diebold." Unfortunately, aside from this
editorial, and a quick hit elsewhere in the paper
by Dan Mitchell the day before mentioning all of
this as "conspiracy theories" and "black
helicopter" stuff, the NY Times failed to do any
actual reporting of its own on any of the items
mentioned above.

TUESDAY: CA Sec. of State sends Diebold packing!
Delays re-certification of previous de-certified
Diebold, "punts" machines back to Feds for
further testing in light of what the SoS called
"unresolved significant security concerns".

THURSDAY: Amidst Intense Last-Minute Drama, St.
Louis County, MO Rejects Diebold! (Plus, a
Diebold lobbyist is overheard inquiring to a St.
Louis Post-Dispatch reporter about me and my
family!)

THURSDAY: After failure to get a court order for
a special exemption from state law, Diebold sends
a letter informing North Carolina they're pulling
out of the state! They refuse to comply with a NC
state law requiring submission of software source
code! (Though they kindly offer again to help NC
rewrite its law to accommodate Diebold.)

FRIDAY: CA Sec. of State discovered to have
threatened ES&S (Diebold's evil twin) with
decertification after documented failures in
November Election: Touch-screen votes flipped,
voters can't verify that ballot is accurate,
incorrect reported counts of voter turnout -- but
the problems were hidden from citizens until a
letter discovered by AP!

What will this and the next week bring? Stay
tuned...

Miss anything of note? You can catch up here...

Caught up now? Good...But from now on, please try
to pay attention. How many times do I have to
tell you? Democracy -- American democracy! You
remember that dontcha? -- is at stake here and I
can't do all the heavy lifting for you! Please
join those of us who give a damn and make some
noise, write some letters to the editor, donate
to those organizations and blogs and websites
fighting the good fight, call your politicians,
annoy the crap out of your Boards of Elections
and do anything you can to make a difference
here.

We're still David. They're still Goliath. But --
like David -- we can win! But we're gonna need a
much bigger boat! Please pay attention! It
matters.

...And have a Happy New Year.



-- 
You are currently on Mha Atma's Earth Action Network email list, 
option D (up to 3 emails/day).  To be removed, or to switch options 
(option A - 1x/week, option B - 3/wk, option C - up to 1x/day, option D - 
up to 3x/day) please reply and let us know!  If someone forwarded you 
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"A war of aggression is the supreme international crime." -- Robert Jackson,
 former U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice and Nuremberg prosecutor

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From ean at sbcglobal.net  Fri Dec 30 21:33:01 2005
From: ean at sbcglobal.net (ean@sbcglobal.net)
Date: Sat Dec 31 10:11:58 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Heck of a Job...and....latest Pentagon propaganda program
Message-ID: <E1Esl1S-0001k1-Mg@smtpauth09.mail.atl.earthlink.net>

http://select.nytimes.com/2005/12/30/opinion/30krugman.html?th&emc=th

Heck of a Job, Bushie
By PAUL KRUGMAN
NY Times Op-Ed: December 30, 2005

A year ago, everyone expected President Bush to get his way on Social
Security. Pundits warned Democrats that they were making a big political
mistake by opposing plans to divert payroll taxes into private accounts.

A year ago, everyone thought Congress would make Mr. Bush's tax cuts
permanent, in spite of projections showing that doing so would lead to
budget deficits as far as the eye can see. But Congress hasn't acted, and
most of the cuts are still scheduled to expire by the end of 2010. A year
ago, Mr. Bush made many Americans feel safe, because they believed that he
would be decisive and effective in an emergency. But Mr. Bush was
apparently oblivious to the first major domestic emergency since 9/11.
According to Newsweek, aides to Mr. Bush finally decided, days after
Hurricane Katrina struck, that they had to show him a DVD of TV newscasts
to get him to appreciate the seriousness of the situation.

A year ago, before "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job" became a
national punch line, the rising tide of cronyism in government agencies
and the rapid replacement of competent professionals with unqualified
political appointees attracted hardly any national attention.

A year ago, hardly anyone outside Washington had heard of Jack Abramoff,
and Tom DeLay's position as House majority leader seemed unassailable.

A year ago, Dick Cheney, who repeatedly cited discredited evidence linking
Saddam to 9/11, and promised that invading Americans would be welcomed 
as
liberators - although he hadn't yet declared that the Iraq insurgency was
in its "last throes" - was widely admired for his "gravitas."

A year ago, Howard Dean - who was among the very few prominent figures to
question Colin Powell's prewar presentation to the United Nations, and who
warned, while hawks were still celebrating the fall of Baghdad, that the
occupation of Iraq would be much more difficult than the initial invasion
- was considered flaky and unsound.

A year ago, it was clear that before the Iraq war, the administration
suppressed information suggesting that Iraq was not, in fact, trying to
build nuclear weapons. Yet few people in Washington or in the news media
were willing to say that the nation was deliberately misled into war until
polls showed that most Americans already believed it.

A year ago, the Washington establishment treated Ayad Allawi as if he were
Nelson Mandela. Mr. Allawi's triumphant tour of Washington, back in
September 2004, provided a crucial boost to the Bush-Cheney campaign. So
did his claim that the insurgents were "desperate." But Mr. Allawi turned
out to be another Ahmad Chalabi, a hero of Washington conference rooms 
and
cocktail parties who had few supporters where it mattered, in Iraq.

A year ago, when everyone respectable agreed that we must "stay the
course," only a handful of war critics suggested that the U.S. presence in
Iraq might be making the violence worse, not better. It would have been
hard to imagine the top U.S. commander in Iraq saying, as Gen. George
Casey recently did, that a smaller foreign force is better "because it
doesn't feed the notion of occupation."

A year ago, Mr. Bush hadn't yet openly reneged on Scott McClellan's 2003
pledge that "if anyone in this administration was involved" in the leaking
of Valerie Plame's identity, that person "would no longer be in this
administration." Of course, some suspect that Mr. Bush has always known
who was involved.

A year ago, we didn't know that Mr. Bush was lying, or at least being
deceptive, when he said at an April 2004 event promoting the Patriot Act
that "a wiretap requires a court order. ...When we're talking about
chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before
we do so. It's important for our fellow citizens to understand, when you
think Patriot Act, constitutional guarantees are in place when it comes to
doing what is necessary to protect our homeland, because we value the
Constitution."

A year ago, most Americans thought Mr. Bush was honest.

A year ago, we didn't know for sure that almost all the politicians and
pundits who thundered, during the Lewinsky affair, that even the president
isn't above the law have changed their minds. But now we know when it
comes to presidents who break the law, it's O.K. if you're a Republican.

***

Pentagon propaganda program orders soldiers to promote 
Iraq war while home on leave 
By DOUG THOMPSON Publisher, Capitol Hill Blue Dec 29, 2005, 05:44

http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_7918.shtml

Good soldiers follow orders and hundreds of American military men and
women returned to the United States on holiday leave this month with
orders to sell the Iraq war to a skeptical public.

The program, coordinated through a Pentagon operation dubbed "Operation
Homefront," ordered military personnel to give interviews to their
hometown newspapers, television stations and other media outlets and
praise the American war effort in Iraq.

Initial reports back to the Pentagon deem the operation a success with
dozens of front page stories in daily and weekly newspapers around the
country along with upbeat reports on local television stations.

"We've learned as a military how to do this better," Captain David Diaz, a
military reservist, told his hometown paper, The Roanoke (VA) Times. "My
worry is that we have the right military strategy and political strategies
now but the patience of the American public is wearing thin."

When pressed by the paper on whether or not his commanding officers told
him to talk to the press, Diaz admitted he was "encouraged" to do so.  So
reporter Duncan Adams asked:

"Did Diaz return to the U.S. on emergency leave with an agenda -- to offer
a positive spin that could help counter growing concerns among Americans
about the U.S. exit strategy? How do we know that's not his strategy,
especially after he discloses that superior officers encouraged him to
talk about his experiences in Iraq?"

Replied Diaz:

"You don't. I can tell you that the direction we've gotten from on high is
that there is a concern about public opinion out there and they want to
set the record straight."

Diaz, an intelligence officer, knows how to avoid a direct answer. Other
military personnel, however, tell Capitol Hill Blue privately that the
pressure to "sell the war" back home is enormous.

"I've been promised an early release if I do a good job promoting the
war," says one reservist who asked not to be identified.

In interviews with a number of reservists home for the holidays, a pattern
emerges on the Pentagon's propaganda effort. Soldiers are encouraged to
contact their local news media outlets to offer interviews about the war. 
A detailed set of talking points encourages them to:

--Admit initial doubts about the war but claim conversion to a belief in
the American mission;

--Praise military leadership in Iraq and throw in a few words of support
for the Bush administration;

--Claim the mission to turn security of the country over to the Iraqis is
working;

--Reiterate that America must not abandon its mission and must stay until
the "job is finished."

--Talk about how "things are better" now in Iraq.

"My worry is that we have the right military strategy and political
strategies now but the patience of the American public is wearing thin,"
Diaz told The Roanoke Times.

"It's way better now (in Iraq). People are friendlier. They seem more
relaxed, and they say, 'Thank you, mister,'" Sgt. Christopher Desierto
told his hometown paper, The Maui News.

But soldiers who are home and don't have to return to Iraq tell a
different story.

"I've just been focused on trying to get the rest of these guys home,"
says Sgt. Major Floyd Dubose of Jackson, MS, who returned home after 11
months in Iraq with the  Mississippi Army National Guard's 155th Combat
Brigade.

And the Army is cracking down on soldiers who go on the record opposing
the war.

Specialist Leonard Clark, a National Guardsman, was demoted to private and
fined $1,640 for posting anti-war statements on an Internet blog. Clark
wrote entries describing the company's commander as a "glory seeker" and
the battalion sergeant major an "inhuman monster". His last entry before
the blog was shut down told how his fellow soldiers were becoming
increasingly opposed to the US operation in Iraq.

"The message is clear," says one reservist who is home for the holidays
but has to return and asked not to be identified. "If you want to get out
of this man's Army with an honorable (discharge) and full benefits you
better not tell the truth about what is happening in-country."

But Sgt. Johnathan Wilson, a reservist,  got his honorable discharge after
he returned home earlier this month and he's not afraid to talk on the
record.

"Iraq is a classic FUBAR," he says. "The country is out of control and we
can't stop it. Anybody who tries to sell a good news story about the war
is blowing it out his ass. We don't win and eventually we will leave the
country in a worse shape than it was when we invaded." ? Copyright 2005 by
Capitol Hill Blue


-- 
You are currently on Mha Atma's Earth Action Network email list, 
option D (up to 3 emails/day).  To be removed, or to switch options 
(option A - 1x/week, option B - 3/wk, option C - up to 1x/day, option D - 
up to 3x/day) please reply and let us know!  If someone forwarded you 
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"A war of aggression is the supreme international crime." -- Robert Jackson,
 former U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice and Nuremberg prosecutor

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From drmhaatma at yahoo.com  Fri Dec 30 21:43:25 2005
From: drmhaatma at yahoo.com (Mha Atma Khalsa)
Date: Sat Dec 31 10:12:48 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Howard Zinn:  After the War
Message-ID: <E1Esl2J-0002Ga-0f@smtpauth09.mail.atl.earthlink.net>

 After the War
  By Howard Zinn
  January 2006 Issue    http://progressive.org/mag_zinn0106
  
  The war against Iraq, the assault on its people, the occupation of its  cities, will come to an end, sooner or later. The process has already  begun. The first signs of mutiny are appearing in Congress. The first  editorials calling for withdrawal from Iraq are beginning to appear in  the press. The anti-war movement has been growing, slowly but  persistently, all over the country.
  
  Public opinion polls now show the country decisively against the war  and the Bush Administration. The harsh realities have become visible.  The troops will have to come home.
  
  And while we work with increased determination to make this happen,  should we not think beyond this war? Should we begin to think, even  before this shameful war is over, about ending our addiction to massive  violence and instead using the enormous wealth of our country for human  needs? That is, should we begin to speak about ending war&#151;not just this  war or that war, but war itself? Perhaps the time has come to bring an  end to war, and turn the human race onto a path of health and healing.
  
  A group of internationally known figures, celebrated both for their  talent and their dedication to human rights (Gino Strada, Paul Farmer,  Kurt Vonnegut, Nadine Gordimer, Eduardo Galeano, and others), will soon  launch a worldwide campaign to enlist tens of millions of people in a  movement for the renunciation of war, hoping to reach the point where  governments, facing popular resistance, will find it difficult or  impossible to wage war.
  
  There is a persistent argument against such a possibility, which I have  heard from people on all parts of the political spectrum: We will never  do away with war because it comes out of human nature. The most  compelling counter to that claim is in history: We don&#146;t find people  spontaneously rushing to make war on others. What we find, rather, is  that governments must make the most strenuous efforts to mobilize  populations for war. They must entice soldiers with promises of money,  education, must hold out to young people whose chances in life look  very poor that here is an opportunity to attain respect and status. And  if those enticements don&#146;t work, governments must use coercion: They  must conscript young people, force them into military service, threaten  them with prison if they do not comply.
  
  Furthermore, the government must persuade young people and their  families that though the soldier may die, though he or she may lose  arms or legs, or become blind, that it is all for a noble cause, for  God, for country.
  
  When you look at the endless series of wars of this century you do not  find a public demanding war, but rather resisting it, until citizens  are bombarded with exhortations that appeal, not to a killer instinct,  but to a desire to do good, to spread democracy or liberty or overthrow  a tyrant.
  
  Woodrow Wilson found a citizenry so reluctant to enter the First World  War that he had to pummel the nation with propaganda and imprison  dissenters in order to get the country to join the butchery going on in  Europe.
  
  In the Second World War, there was indeed a strong moral imperative,  which still resonates among most people in this country and which  maintains the reputation of World War II as &#147;the good war.&#148; There was a  need to defeat the monstrosity of fascism. It was that belief that  drove me to enlist in the Air Force and fly bombing missions over  Europe.
  
  Only after the war did I begin to question the purity of the moral  crusade. Dropping bombs from five miles high, I had seen no human  beings, heard no screams, seen no children dismembered. But now I had  to think about Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the firebombings of Tokyo  and Dresden, the deaths of 600,000 civilians in Japan, and a similar  number in Germany.
  
  I came to a conclusion about the psychology of myself and other  warriors: Once we decided, at the start, that our side was the good  side and the other side was evil, once we had made that simple and  simplistic calculation, we did not have to think anymore. Then we could  commit unspeakable crimes and it was all right.
  
  I began to think about the motives of the Western powers and Stalinist  Russia and wondered if they cared as much about fascism as about  retaining their own empires, their own power, and if that was why they  had military priorities higher than bombing the rail lines leading to  Auschwitz. Six million Jews were killed in the death camps (allowed to  be killed?). Only 60,000 were saved by the war&#151;1 percent.
  
  A gunner on another crew, a reader of history with whom I had become  friends, said to me one day: &#147;You know this is an imperialist war. The  fascists are evil. But our side is not much better.&#148; I could not accept  his statement at the time, but it stuck with me.
  
  War, I decided, creates, insidiously, a common morality for all sides.  It poisons everyone who is engaged in it, however different they are in  many ways, turns them into killers and torturers, as we are seeing now.  It pretends to be concerned with toppling tyrants, and may in fact do  so, but the people it kills are the victims of the tyrants. It appears  to cleanse the world of evil, but that does not last, because its very  nature spawns more evil. Wars, like violence in general, I concluded,  is a drug. It gives a quick high, the thrill of victory, but that wears  off and then comes despair.
  
  I acknowledge the possibility of humanitarian intervention to prevent  atrocities, as in Rwanda. But war, defined as the indiscriminate  killing of large numbers of people, must be resisted.
  
  Whatever can be said about World War II, understanding its complexity,  the situations that followed&#151;Korea, Vietnam&#151;were so far from the kind  of threat that Germany and Japan had posed to the world that those wars  could be justified only by drawing on the glow of &#147;the good war.&#148; A  hysteria about communism led to McCarthyism at home and military  interventions in Asia and Latin America&#151;overt and covert&#151;justified by a  &#147;Soviet threat&#148; that was exaggerated just enough to mobilize the people  for war.
  
  Vietnam, however, proved to be a sobering experience, in which the  American public, over a period of several years, began to see through  the lies that had been told to justify all that bloodshed. The United  States was forced to withdraw from Vietnam, and the world didn&#146;t come  to an end. One half of one tiny country in Southeast Asia was now  joined to its communist other half, and 58,000 American lives and  millions of Vietnamese lives had been expended to prevent that. A  majority of Americans had come to oppose that war, which had provoked  the largest anti-war movement in the nation&#146;s history.
  
  The war in Vietnam ended with a public fed up with war. I believe that  the American people, once the fog of propaganda had dissipated, had  come back to a more natural state. Public opinion polls showed that  people in the United States were opposed to send troops anywhere in the  world, for any reason.
  
  The Establishment was alarmed. The government set out deliberately to  overcome what it called &#147;the Vietnam syndrome.&#148; Opposition to military  interventions abroad was a sickness, to be cured. And so they would  wean the American public away from its unhealthy attitude, by tighter  control of information, by avoiding a draft, and by engaging in short,  swift wars over weak opponents (Grenada, Panama, Iraq), which didn&#146;t  give the public time to develop an anti-war movement.
  
  I would argue that the end of the Vietnam War enabled the people of the  United States to shake the &#147;war syndrome,&#148; a disease not natural to the  human body. But they could be infected once again, and September 11  gave the government that opportunity. Terrorism became the  justification for war, but war is itself terrorism, breeding rage and  hate, as we are seeing now.
  
  The war in Iraq has revealed the hypocrisy of the &#147;war on terrorism.&#148;  And the government of the United States, indeed governments everywhere,  are becoming exposed as untrustworthy: that is, not to be entrusted  with the safety of human beings, or the safety of the planet, or the  guarding of its air, its water, its natural wealth, or the curing of  poverty and disease, or coping with the alarming growth of natural  disasters that plague so many of the six billion people on Earth.
  
  I don&#146;t believe that our government will be able to do once more what  it did after Vietnam&#151;prepare the population for still another plunge  into violence and dishonor. It seems to me that when the war in Iraq  ends, and the war syndrome heals, that there will be a great  opportunity to make that healing permanent.
  
  My hope is that the memory of death and disgrace will be so intense  that the people of the United States will be able to listen to a  message that the rest of the world, sobered by wars without end, can  also understand: that war itself is the enemy of the human race.
  
  Governments will resist this message. But their power is dependent on  the obedience of the citizenry. When that is withdrawn, governments are  helpless. We have seen this again and again in history.
  
  The abolition of war has become not only desirable but absolutely  necessary if the planet is to be saved. It is an idea whose time has  come.
  
  Howard Zinn is the co-author, with Anthony Arnove, of &#147;Voices of a People&#146;s History of the United States.&#148;
  
  
  
  

		
---------------------------------
 Yahoo! DSL Something to write home about. Just $16.99/mo. or less
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From arianna at huffingtonpost.com  Sat Dec 31 11:27:39 2005
From: arianna at huffingtonpost.com (Arianna Huffington)
Date: Sat Dec 31 14:02:15 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] The Huffington Post Weekly Digest -- 12.31.05
Message-ID: <E1EsocF-0000GJ-7G@smtpauth02.mail.atl.earthlink.net>

The Huffington Post's Weekly Digest
December 31, 2005

Happy New Year. I have taken the last week of the year off blogging, so the featured post today is from someone I have long admired, the playwright Chris Durang. -- Arianna

Chris Durang
Why Is God Sending Grass Fires to Texas?

I've been trying to figure out why God has been sending all those horrible grass fires to Texas. At first I thought it was because God dislikes George W. Bush, and so is punishing Texas.

But then in fairness, I realized that God's time is different than man's time, and it may be that God is having a delayed reaction to the governorship of Ann Richards, which means the grass fires are the Democrats' fault.

Or maybe God doesn't like Molly Ivins and is punishing Texas because of her. Maybe he's having a conniption fit about Brokeback Mountain. Of course, most of the sex scenes take place in Wyoming, while it's only Jake Gyllenhaal's pretend marriage that takes place in Texas. So if God was being more exact, He should send grass fires to Wyoming, not Texas. So maybe it is Molly Ivins.

Of course, Oklahoma is getting grass fires too. I'm not sure what God is saying through that gesture. Can it possibly be he disapproved of the Hugh Jackman British version of Oklahoma, and he thinks only Americans should do Oklahoma?

And why hasn't he sent grass fires (or a plague of toads) to the people of Dover, Pennsylvania, who voted out the school board who had insisted the topic of Intelligent Design be introduced in science class before evolution could be taught. And who also advised students to go to the library and read a book called Of Pandas and People, whose title certainly fascinates me. Though not quite enough to go get a copy.

Or maybe God doesn't micromanage the world the way I'm assuming.

Maybe it's all like the character Jean says in the second-to-last scene of John Osborne's play The Entertainer: "Here we are, we're alone in the universe, there's no God, it just seems that it all began by something as simple as sunlight striking on a piece of rock. And here we are. We've only got ourselves. Somehow, we've just got to make a go of it. We've only ourselves."

I was assigned that play my Freshman year at Harvard; it was taught by a wonderful professor, William Alfred (author of the play Hogan's Goat). Mr. Alfred was famously Catholic, and went to mass every single day. He was also sweet-natured and open-minded, not to mention brilliant.

If I were a Freshman now, and in a state-funded school, does the government now require that we be told about Intelligent Design and asked to read Of Pandas and People before we can read that speech? And if it doesn't so far, when will it?

We've only got ourselves. That concept makes me feel not a little despair in terms of what's happening to our country, and what may be happening in the world. Will the planet exist in 100 years? What will it be like even in the next 20 years?

I'm not actually an atheist, by the way (in case you're holding your breath), and I've sort of returned to one of my beliefs from my Catholic upbringing, that the soul has a continuing life. As Thornton Wilder says in Our Town, "everybody knows in their bones that something is eternal." To my surprise, in my later years, that kind of feels right to me.

But my concept of a Higher Power is extremely vague; and it cannot be, in my mind, some Being fashioned after quirky human beings and their messy emotions. "Man is created in the image of God," was one of the things Catholic school children were taught in the 50s and 60s. That's a highly debatable idea; obviously it's more likely that man, thinking of what God might be like, came up with "oh he's probably like a father, I know fathers." Understandable, but leads to all that confusion about is God is causing grass fires, and is he punishing people for sex, and is he helping actors win the Tony Award.

As more than one stand-up has pointed out, the God of the Old Testament most resembles a raging, alcoholic father. And Republicans, it seems to me, are always drawn to the firm, strict, overbearing fathers, aren't they? Like they think some Robert Duvall character, inexpressive and angry but oh so moral, is somehow the ideal view of the father.

I've tried to write this for several days, but have been in a bad and depressed mood. We've only got ourselves. Makes me a bit gloomy. No wonder the Rapture people are so happy - chaos and war in the Middle East means Jesus is coming soon. To me it means maybe the end of the planet. Not to mention, will all the advertising and the dirty tricks that passes for governing in the Bush administration continue to work with masses of our fellow citizens? Sigh. Well, Happy New Year.


OTHER HUFF POST BLOGGERS: Nora Ephron, Martin Garbus, Adam McKay, Bob Cesca, Jane Hamsher, David Mamet, Seth Greenland, Trey Ellis, All Bloggers


Top Blog Posts on HuffingtonPost.com

Steve Martin: Leap Second Lovers Are Traitors Says Bill O'Reilly
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steve-martin/leap-second-lovers-are-tr_b_13068.html>

Bill Maher: Thoughts on 2005
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-maher/thoughts-on-2005_b_12932.html>

Paul Reiser: Good News/Bad News
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-reiser/good-newsbad-news_b_12998.html>


Top News Stories on HuffingtonPost.com

Ann Coulter Writes Racist Kwanzaa Jingle: "Kwanzaa Bells, Dashikis Sell, Whitey Has To Pay; Burning, Shooting, Oh What Fun On This Made-Up Holiday!"...
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2005/12/30/ann-coulter-writes-racist_n_13073.html>

Chalabi Appointed Acting Head Of Oil Ministry...
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2005/12/30/chalabi-appointed-acting-_n_13075.html>

Study: Scalia 19 Times Funnier Than Ginsburg, 77 Times Funnier Than Thomas...
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2005/12/31/study-scalia-19-times-fu_n_13084.html>


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From ean at sbcglobal.net  Sat Dec 31 10:03:30 2005
From: ean at sbcglobal.net (ean@sbcglobal.net)
Date: Sat Dec 31 14:11:27 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] War without end
Message-ID: <E1EsolH-0000wg-Bz@smtpauth09.mail.atl.earthlink.net>


http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11416.htm

War without end

Only justice, not bombs, can make our dangerous world a safer place

By Robert Fisk

12/30/05 "The Independent" -- -- This was the year the "war on terror" -
an obnoxious expression which we all parroted after 11 September 2001 -
appeared to be almost as endless as George Bush once claimed it would be.
And unsuccessful. For, after all the bombing of Afghanistan, the overthrow
of the Taliban, the invasion of Iraq and its appallingly tragic aftermath,
can anyone claim today that they feel safer than they did a year ago?

We have gone on smashing away at the human rights we trumpeted at the
Russians - and the Arabs - during the Cold War. We have perhaps fatally
weakened all those provisions that were written into our treaties and
conventions in the aftermath of the Second World War to make the world a
safer place. And we claim we are winning.

Where, for example, is the terror? In the streets of Baghdad, to be sure.
And perhaps again in our glorious West if we go on with this folly. But
terror is also in the prisons and torture chambers of the Middle East. It
is in the very jails to which we have been merrily sending out trussed-up
prisoners these past three years. For Jack Straw to claim that men are not
being sent on their way to torture is surely one of the most extraordinary
- perhaps absurd is closer to the mark - statements to have been made in
the "war on terror". If they are not going to be tortured - like the
luckless Canadian shipped off to Damascus from New York - then what is the
purpose of sending them anywhere?

And how are we supposed to "win" this war by ignoring all the injustices
we are inflicting on that part of the world from which the hijackers of
September 11 originally came? How many times have Messrs Bush and Blair
talked about "democracy"? How few times have they talked about "justice",
the righting of historic wrongs, the ending of torture? Our principal
victims of the "war on terror", of course, have been in Iraq (where we
have done quite a bit of torturing ourselves).

But, strange to say, we are silent about the horrors the people of Iraq
are now enduring. We do not even know - are not allowed to know - how 
many
of them have died. We know that 1,100 Iraqis died by violence in Baghdad
in July alone. That's terror.

But how many died in the other cities of Iraq, in Mosul and Kirkuk and
Irbil, and in Amara and Fallujah and Ramadi and Najaf and Kerbala and
Basra? Three thousand in July? Or four thousand? And if those projections
are accurate, we are talking about 36,000 or 48,000 over the year - which
makes that projected post-April 2003 figure of 100,000 dead, which Blair
ridiculed, rather conservative, doesn't it?

It's not so long ago, I recall, that Bush explained to us that all the
Arabs would one day wish to have the freedoms of Iraq. I cannot think of
an Arab today who would wish to contemplate such ill fortune, not least
because of the increasingly sectarian nature of the authorities, elected
though they are.

The year did allow Ariel Sharon to achieve his aim of turning his colonial
war into part of the "war on terror". It also allowed al-Qa'ida's violence
to embrace more Arab countries. Jordan was added to Egypt. Woe betide
those of us who are now locked into the huge military machine that
embraces the Middle East. Why, Iraqis sometimes ask me, are American
forces - aerial or land - in Uzbekistan? And Kazakhstan and Afghanistan,
in Turkey and Jordan (and Iraq) and in Kuwait and Qatar and Bahrain and
Oman and Yemen and Egypt and Algeria (there is a US special forces unit
based near Tamanrasset, co-operating with the same Algerian army that was
involved in the massacre of civilians the 1990s)?

In fact, just look at the map and you can see the Americans in Greenland
and Iceland and Britain and Germany and ex-Yugoslavia and Greece - where
we join up with Turkey. How did this iron curtain from the ice cap to the
borders of Sudan emerge? What is its purpose? These are the key questions
that should engage anyone trying to understand the "war on terror".

And what of the bombers? Where are they coming from, these armies of
suiciders? Still we are obsessed with Osama bin Laden. Is he alive? Yes.
But does he matter? Quite possibly not. For he has created al-Qa'ida. The
monster has been born. To squander our millions searching for people like
Bin Laden is about as useless as arresting nuclear scientists after the
invention of the atom bomb. It is with us.

Alas, as long as we are not attending to the real problems of the Middle
East, of its record of suffering and injustice, it - al-Qa'ida - will
still be with us. My year began with a massive explosion in Beirut, just
400 metres from me, as a bomb killed the ex-prime minister Rafiq Hariri.
It continued on 7 July when a bomb blew up two trains back from me on the
Piccadilly line. Oh, the dangerous world we live in now. I suppose we all
have to make our personal choices these days. Mine is that I am not going
to allow 11 September 2001 to change my world. Bush may believe that 19
Arab murderers changed his world. But I'm not going to let them change
mine. I hope I'm right.

? 2005 Independent News and Media Limited

***


-- 
You are currently on Mha Atma's Earth Action Network email list, 
option D (up to 3 emails/day).  To be removed, or to switch options 
(option A - 1x/week, option B - 3/wk, option C - up to 1x/day, option D - 
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"A war of aggression is the supreme international crime." -- Robert Jackson,
 former U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice and Nuremberg prosecutor

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From ialterman at nyc.rr.com  Sat Dec 31 14:17:51 2005
From: ialterman at nyc.rr.com (Ian)
Date: Sat Dec 31 14:29:37 2005
Subject: [Mb-civic] Vote!!!!
Message-ID: <004901c60e58$0af64360$99ca6c42@iancn2ccrvzt0j>

Check this out, forward to all you know, and VOTE!!!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10562904

THE RESULTS WILL BLOW YOUR MIND!

(And, no, you cannot vote twice, at least from the same computer)
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