Bush Analysis

	Sign In Sign-Up

Bush Analysis

Home Page
Photo Page
Bush Analysis
How Did He Do It
How To Create An Enemy And Start A War
War Page
Patriot 2
Guest Book Page
The Rosey Network

Record Before President 10 is best and 1 is worst; scores are relative to other candidates Send us any information on Bush, not already discussed below, that falls within this sites issues. Written before the election, but still applies. Bush has lived up to all fears and the distruction predicted of his administration. If you read the detailed description of Al Gore's negatives and imagine who could be worse, you have some understanding of how Bush scores on most of this site's issues. Bush gets more money than Gore from all the people who created the problems mentioned in the paragraphs criticizing Gore. These very moneyed contributors normally contribute more to the politicians they feel will be helpful; Bush's record in Texas and his statements and appointments tell them he will be very responsive to their agenda (see the Bush contributors and the summary below) BUSH GORE MONEY TRAIL (source Center for Responsive Politics as of 6-1-00) Agribusiness: Bush : ,148,624 - Gore ,350 Oil & Gas: Bush $1,463,799 - Gore ,460 (Bush once said "You can't get too close to the oil industry") Construction: Bush ,472,821 - Gore ,938 Real Estate: Bush ,661,372 - Gore $1,213,310 Automotive: Bush $1,019,581 - Gore ,085 Drug companies: Republicans/Bush 73% of ,800,000 - Democrats/Gore 23% of ,800,000 (Wall Street Journal 7-7-00) CAMPAIGN, ELECTION REFORM 2 There is little indication that George W. would be willing to put off his generous funders by clamping down on the most egregious and damaging polluters in the nation by instituting any meaningful campaign reform. When put on the spot, Bush opposed most of the provisions of the McCain / Feingold Campaign reform act. Polling shows that the vast majority of voters want campaign finance reform. Yet in 1999 when the major media was giving Bush accolades and courting his big advertising budget, he probably could have broken the filibuster in the Senate led by Republican's Lott and McConnell which doomed the McCain / Feingold Campaign reform act. By publicly speaking out in favor of the bill he would have saved this needed reform and this would have helped Bush in his campaign against McCain, since voters viewed McCain as better on this important issue. Bush's key congressional supporters (Lott and McConnell and Company) are the people most hostile to campaign reform. Bush obviously does not want to limit the money he gets from the deep pockets in the Republican Party in favor of any real democracy in our election process. ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION 2 Even a cursory look at how George W. managed to accumulate the astounding sum of over million for his primary campaign, reveals a list of major polluters including Marathon Oil and Exxon. In Texas, which has the worst pollution in the nation, industry continues to call the shots (according to EPA figures Texas is ranked number one in air and water pollution). Examples of Bush's complicity with the major Texas polluters are well documented by Ken Silverstein in the Sierra Club article, "The Texas governor talks green, but he walks with the industry giants." In May of 1999 in what Bush refers to as his "biggest environmental achievement," a Texas bill, which purported to close loopholes that allowed 828 industrial plants to continue operating without obtaining air permits from the state, was actually drafted by the polluters themselves. Plants subsequently coming on-line were required to obtain a permit but the grand-fathered plants, some dating to the 1930's, which produce hundreds of thousands of tons of toxic emissions per year (or one third of Texas' industrial pollution), were allowed to continue as before because of voluntary compliance. Of the 461 polluting plants in Texas that did not face mandatory state or federal emission cuts, only 30 responded to Bush's voluntary program.(source Dallas Morning News). These industries contributed at least million to the George W. primary campaign. One of Bush's biggest contributors is Enron, a major beneficiary of Bush-enacted legislation. As Governor-elect in 1994, Bush opposed a new vehicle-emissions testing program that had been designed and contracted by the state to implement the 1990 Clean Air Act calling it "onerous and inconvenient". The first legislation Mr. Bush signed as Governor was a bill that put the emissions tests on hold reneging on its multimillion dollar contract with the major contractor for the program, Tejas Testing Technology. The contractor sued the state and won a settlement of million. Bush and other state officials raided the state's environmental programs (superfund cleanup and Texas clean air fund) to pay off of the settlement! The Texas Natural Resource Conversation Commission (TNRCC) - a rough equivalent of the EPA - has been labeled "Train Wreck" by Texas conservationists. Bush appointments to this commission range from a law firm oil specialist; to a former Dept of Agriculture commissioner who let a drive to gut "right to know" laws that protected farmworkers from unannounced aerial pesticide spraying. A "soap" actress who is also on the board of the National Rifle Association was another protect-the-status-quo appointment Bush, at the start of his run for president, declared himself an environmentalist and promised to do for the country what he has done so well for Texas! During the Bush administration no new parkland was purchased even though Texas is ranked 49th in per capita spending on state parks. Texas leads the nation in industrial toxic air pollution and in the number of facilities that violate clean-water standards. It also has the highest rate of toxic waste production as well as the greatest number of odious factory farms and feedlots. Bush vows to reverse Clinton's recent forest protection program and want increased timber sales from national forests, opposes new national parks, adocates oil drilling in the arctic national refuge, opposes Kyoto protocal, lobbied to weaken the federal Clean Air Act, opposed federal action on water standards for factory farms. Thankfully, Bush has stopped referring to himself as an "environmentalist." ANIMAL PROTECTION: 1 Kill 322 species of animals and receive the distinction of being a honorable member of Safari International! George W. was recently named "Governor of the Year" by Safari International and the "award" was accepted for him by his father before 10,000 cheering, animal killers. George W is clearly no friend of endangered creatures in Texas and through his agencies and appointments has opposed endangered species designation for the jaguar, Arkansas River shiner, Barton Springs salamander and the swift fox. In a friendly Bush NY Times newspaper piece by longtime pal, Terry Throckmorton, he recalled how "terrible to animals" he and Bush were as children in Midland Texas where, among other things, they delighted in blowing up frogs. The NRA (National Rifle Association), almost always on the wrong side of animal protection issues, has raised over ,000 for Bush and their VP openly bragged at a NRA meeting about the close relationship they will enjoy if Bush is elected. Bush has received the most contributions of the presidential candidates from the slaughterhouse industry, factory farms and cattle ranchers. Bush has indicated that increasing meat exports to foreign countries, especially China, will be one of his priorities to solve our balance of payments problem. (also see http://www.animalpeoplenews.org/rats1200.html) JUDICIAL REFORM: Criminal 3 Civil 5 Criminal 3 Keeping violent criminals off the street is a laudable goal, unfortunately Bush's actions limit this goal. In addition to violent criminals, who should be in jail, the Texas jails are filled with non-violent drug users and petty criminals at great tax payer expense. These non-violent prisoners are unnecessarily crowding expensive jail space and learning to become violent in the brutal prison environment. When released, they may have learned to become violent criminals to prey on the rest of us. Bush, who allegedly used cocaine in his youth, would have been incarcerated if he had been caught under Texas drug laws. He also has been honest enough to admit a serious drinking problem in his 20's and 30's. In Texas many people with this problem end up in jail at least once, unless they are protected by power and privilege. The point is, there are many people taking valuable jail space in Texas who were no different than Bush in his college days and post college days. There are better solutions and Bush knows it from personal experience. Bush has received large contributions from the prison industry in Texas. The huge number of non-violent criminals in Texas prisons helps the growth of the prison industry which in turn helps Bush through very generous campaign contributions. Civil 5 Bush statements and policies in Texas would indicate that he has some understanding of the problem of lawsuits that are mainly extortion schemes seeking settlement money from deep pockets. Gore and Nader seem naïve in this area. Bush would have had a higher score in this area except that his vision of tort reform severely limits suits against large entities where there is real damage and cover-up (such as major polluters), but does little to cure the relatively small but numerous extorting personal injury suits directed at individuals and there insurance carriers. Bush is inconsistent with his vision of tort reform. He did not consider the Texas Cattlemen Association's suit against Oprah Winfrey and Howard Lyman (ex-cattle rancher) for questioning the health and safety of the beef industry, a "frivolous" lawsuit. He supports the use of Texas "food disparagement laws" to bring lawsuits which will limit first amendment rights of free speech. BASIC HUMAN RIGHTS: 2 This may be the area to worry most about Bush. A list of his alignments and major supporters are clear indicators of his real philosophies as opposed to campaign rhetoric: His father (see the Bush Senior record as Director of the CIA); Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson of the Christian Right; his VP running mate Cheney (genocides and covert operations in Africa); Enron, the energy and oil multi-national and Bush's biggest corporate contributor (major environmental and human rights abuses in India, South America and Texas). See this site's Human Rights section and see progressive.org for recent articles on Enron and Cheney. Bush's own efforts to limit access to information in Texas and his attempts to shut down web sites that are critical of him even in a parody (gwbush.com), do not speak well of his understanding of the first amendment. He personally directing the Texas state police to arrest peaceful demonstrators blocking nothing is another indicator of his abuse of the first amendment. Bush has a long-term, historically strong alignment with the hard-core Christian Right leadership which has made every effort to take away a number of basic constitutional rights that most Americans still wish to retain. Bush and Cheney's ties and support from international arms dealers is far greater than Gores, which is already too high. If they are elected, past support indicates that there will be increased tax-payer supported military aid to dictatorships around the globe with a concurrent large increase in human rights abuses. (See this site's Human Rights section and keep in mind that Bush's father and Cheney will probably be his closes advisers, then look at their record and his stated policies on military foreign aid and the military budget.) As President, Bush would be likely to severely limit citizen right to know, right to criticize the government and right to control individual destiny. MEDIA REFORM: 2 Bush has been treated very well by the major media; having the largest political advertising budget has helped pave the way for the kid glove treatment he has received early in the campaign. Beyond his advertising dollars, there are long term ties to Bush through his father and the Republican party. If you follow the dollars and news coverage, it is relatively well know that General Electric (which owns NBC) executives have tilted towards the Republicans and Bush, primarily though their CEO (Welch) and the executives he installed to follow him. This is also true of the Murdock group; Fox through Gingrich and other prominent Republicans and to a large extent the major players at CBS are predominantly Republican. ABC through Eisner (CEO Disney -ABC) tends to be partial to Democrats, except in the 2000 election cycle Disney/ABC gave more to Republicans than Democrats. Bush had many opportunities to speak out against the consolidation of the public airwaves into the hands of a few; if you look at the contributions he has received from the industry you can see why he has not. SUSTAINABLE ECONOMICS: 4 The Bush negatives read just like Gore's on this issue except more so. With one exception, Bush has a little better understanding than Gore of the fact that most government institutions offer inefficient solutions to the average American's economic problems. It appears that the Bush tax plan is somewhat better than Gore's in the low income brackets, but overly generous and worse in the higher brackets. How American natural resources are extracted strongly relates to how sustainable large segments of the economy will be. In this area Bush has constantly succumbed to the wishes of the large resource extractors and polluters. He will probably encourage increased environmental destruction more than Gore because he is receiving more campaign contributions than Gore from polluters and resources extractors. Bush has supported all the Republican sponsored legislation which caused major clear-cuts and erosion in national forests. These practices cause a boom-bust economy in the effected industries; the bust cycle is usually much longer than the boom cycle. The salvage logging legislation and the Forest Services non-enforcement of sustainable logging practices are two of many examples of destructive Republican legislation. Many destructive managers in the Forests Service came in under Bush (Senior) and Reagan and with the contributions Bush is receiving from the multi-national timber companies, we can expect the same or worse. The Forest Services loses taxpayer dollars even though it auctions off public forest logging-rights to timber companies. It primarily creates this corporate welfare by paying for the logging roads which cause erosion and landslides and loss of fisheries which escalates the economic devastation. Bush has received more money from the massive hog farms, cattle feed lots and large factory farm chicken operations than Gore. These operations have caused massive water pollution and health problems which have eroded general worker productivity in these regions, lowered net disposable income and lowered real estate values in the areas neighboring these industries. The long term economic costs and jobs lost in other sectors produced by these industries far out weigh the small number of direct jobs these industries produce. In very brief summary, George Bush Junior will be George Bush Senior with a greater debt to destructive large campaign contributors and with even less "street knowledge" than his father and more vindictive towards those who criticize him. This news release of the near future says it best: "WASHINGTON, D.C. January 2001 -- The Republicans now control all aspects of the Federal Government. Top issues this session are: prayer in school, flag burning, missile defense system (star wars), gutting pollution standards, repealing the endangered species act, overturning Roe v. Wade, and packing the Federal Courts with right wing evangelical judges and appointees." News release paraphrased from: http://www.georgebush2000.com/preview1.html Longer version of Team Bush's original draft press release can be seen at: Bush Leaked Press Release Presidential Candidate's Score Matrix Top of this page www.knowthecandidates.org home © KnowTheCandidates.org permission to copy and distribute if this notice is included on copied material


	Record As President Title: U.S. Steps Up Secret Surveillance FBI, Justice Dept. Increase Use of Wiretaps Year Took Place: 2003 Category: big government Submitted by: linz Submitted on: 3/24/2003 Source: http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0324-02.htm Keywords: secret surveillance terroist act spying unamerican privacy Published on Monday, March 24, 2003 by the Washington Post U.S. Steps Up Secret Surveillance FBI, Justice Dept. Increase Use of Wiretaps, Records Searches by Dan Eggen and Robert O'Harrow Jr. ... The FBI, for example, has issued scores of "national security letters" that require businesses to turn over electronic records about finances, telephone calls, e-mail and other personal information,according to officials and documents. The letters, a type of administrative subpoena, may be issued independently by FBI field offices and are not subject to judicial review unless a case comes to court, officials said. Attorney General John D. Ashcroft has also personally signed more than 170 "emergency foreign intelligence warrants," three times the number authorized in the preceding 23 years, according to recent congressional testimony. Title: Voting Machine Lawsuit, plus voting software firm run by GOP members Year Took Place: 2003 Category: big government Submitted by: linz Submitted on: 2/28/2003 Source: http://www.blackboxvoting.com/votehere-lawsuit-1.html Keywords: voting cheney gates corruption democracy elections WHISTLEBLOWER LAWSUIT: Insider Sues Voting Machine Company Full Story at: http://www.blackboxvoting.com/votehere-lawsuit-1.html (Most untrust worthy GOP members involved in voting software -see end of this article) 2/25/2003 -- Dan Spillane, a voting machine test engineer, has filed a lawsuit against his former employer, DRE touch-screen voting machine manufacturer VoteHere. Spillane’s lawsuit charges wrongful and retaliatory termination; he contends he was removed so that he could not blow the whistle to certification labs and pass critical information to the US General Accounting Office. He says he has evidence which shows voting systems are certified despite known flaws, demonstrating a weakness in both the NASED and the ITA system for certifying machines. -- SANTA CLARA COUNTY decided Tuesday night to purchase machines without a paper trail, despite the urgent warnings of over 100 of the nation’s top computer security experts. Officials pointed to the strength of NASED and ITA certification when explaining their reasons for ignoring the warnings. -- Similarly, Collins County Texas decided this week not to follow safety recommendations for a paper ballot audit trail, in part due to assurances that the NASED and ITA certifications could be counted upon to catch errors or vote-rigging. Spillane, the first insider from a voting machine manufacturer to come forward, reports that system flaws sometimes go undetected. His former company, VoteHere, manufactures touch-screen machines of its own -- which have been certified by NASED and national ITAs -- but also markets its software for use inside machines made by other companies. Spillane says in his lawsuit that he reported over 250 issues in the VoteHere voting system, including critical errors that can prevent the machines from correctly registering the votes, or working efficiently on election day. He sought meetings with company officials to express concerns about integrity flaws, which he says led to his firing. His complaint indicates that VoteHere did not address the flaws, and that the VoteHere system was certified by independent testing labs despite known issues. Georgia recently approved VoteHere's machines, and the military and others are considering the technology. Spillane also alleges company officials bragged about using political connections to pass software, rather than meeting the rules. VoteHere's board of directors includes former CIA director Robert Gates. VoteHere's Chairman is Admiral Bill Owens, who was senior military assistant to Secretaries of Defense Frank Carlucci and Dick Cheney, and also includes Ralph Munro, a key Washington State politician. Spillane's findings also suggest the recently-passed Help America Vote Act makes problems worse, by releasing a large sum of up-front money for equipment based on the same approval system which led to Florida 2000. Title: Timber Sales of our Nation Forest- Bush moves to eliminate citizen input Year Took Place: 2003 Category: environment Submitted by: Margaret Submitted on: 2/15/2003 Source: Sierra Club Keywords: forest sales national corruption tax payer abuse The Bush Administration continues its barrage of regulatory proposals designed to weaken environmental protection and public involvement in our National Forests. One of the most serious attacks is aimed at citizens' rights to comment on and administratively appeal timber sales and other Forest Service land management activities. The timber industry could scarcely have wished for more than this scheme, which will drastically diminish the public's role in the management of its own public forests. Please take a moment to let the Forest Service know that you strongly oppose its proposed appeal regulations and other roll-backs in National Forest protection. he deadline for comments is February 18. You can take immediate action from http://ga1.org/ct/B11DM_n12pq5/ Title: CENSORSHIP: YellowTimes.org Shut Down!!! Year Took Place: 2003 Category: political Submitted by: Lucille Submitted on: 2/12/2003 Source: YellowTimes.org Keywords: censorship YellowTimes Hamza Khadduri media Subject: Re: CENSORSHIP: YellowTimes.org Shut Down!!! YellowTimes.org Shut Down! Stifling the Voice of Reason by Firas Al-Atraqchi for Dissident Voice February 10, 2003 The well known alternative news publication YellowTimes org was just shut down without explanation by its hosting company! It recently published an article by an Iraqi nuclear scientist! The campaign to stifle dissent and censor any questioning of current U.S. policies vis-a-vis the Middle East in general, and Iraq in particular, has reached new levels. Websites which host alternative views, and/or views that contradict U.S. foreign policy are no longer tolerated on the Internet and are systematically coming under hacker attack and political pressures to relocate." YellowTimes.org has for the past six months withstood intense hacker attacks as it publishes views that directly question, criticize, and berate the U.S. official line regarding the impending invasion of Iraq. "In addition to e-mail spoof attacks, I think they are attempting to overload our servers through denial of service attacks, forcing our website to go offline. Similar incidents happened last time we released an article from Imad Khadduri," says Erich Marquardt, YellowTimes.org publisher. Imad Khadduri, an Iraqi former nuclear scientist who was instrumental in Iraq's nuclear weapons program in the 1980s and early 1990s, has charged that recent allegations concerning the competence and progress of the Iraqi nuclear weapons program are baseless and untrue. In an article published on YellowTimes.org before it was taken off-line by its hosting company, Khadduri painted a dismal picture of Iraq's scientific community with many out of jobs and scrounging for work after the Gulf War and subsequent allied bombing reduced any nuclear hopes to rubble. Khadduri has also charged Khidhir Hamza, a former Iraqi scientist with whom Khadduri worked, with fabricating and exaggerating his importance in Iraq's nuclear program outlined in Hamza's book "Saddam's Bombmaker." While several YellowTimes.org writers have been lauded for bringing previously unpublished news to its readers and informing the public of news that has been virtually "blacked out" from mainstream North American media (CNN, New York Times, etc.), a marginal number of readers have found the website to be "sick and diseased," and "unpatriotic." Those who charge that intellectual debate is unpatriotic forget the words of John Adams, one of the forefathers of the U.S. Constitution: "The jaws of power are always open to devour, and her arm is always stretched out, if possible, to destroy the freedom of thinking, speaking, and writing. Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people, who have … a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge, I mean the characters and conduct of their rulers." Or perhaps they forget Thomas Jefferson: "The only security of all is in a free press. The force of public opinion cannot be resisted when permitted freely to be expressed. The agitation it produces must be submitted to. It is necessary, to keep the waters pure." Are more websites about to be "shut down"? For its part, YellowTimes.org is committed to continuing its ethos in providing its hundreds of thousands of monthly visitors with alternative news and views, and is not taking the recent shutdown lightly. "This setback is not going to stop us from speaking out against leaders and governments who commit gross injustices against humankind," said Marquardt. "Believe me, YellowTimes.org will be back." Title: Justice Dept. Drafts Sweeping Expansion of Anti-Terrorism Act Year Took Place: 2003 Category: big government Submitted by: linz Submitted on: 2/08/2003 Source: Public Integrety http://www.public-i.org Keywords: cia fbi kgb homeland security big government spying stalin hitler un patriot act Justice Dept. Drafts Sweeping Expansion of Anti-Terrorism Act Center Publishes Secret Draft of ‘Patriot II’ Legislation By Charles Lewis and Adam Mayle (WASHINGTON, Feb. 7, 2003) -- The Bush Administration is preparing a bold, comprehensive sequel to the USA Patriot Act passed in the wake of September 11, 2001, which will give the government broad, sweeping new powers to increase domestic intelligence-gathering, surveillance and law enforcement prerogatives, and simultaneously decrease judicial review and public access to information. The Center for Public Integrity has obtained a draft copy of the Justice Department's proposed Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003. If you thought the Patriot Act rolled back our liberties too much, and gave too much power to the executive branch, wait till you read this. Just a Examples: Gives the Attorney General (Ashcroft) authority to to engage in electronic surveillance, physical searchs, pen registers, WITHOUT the prior approval of the FISA court. This authority is triggered if Congress authorizes the use of military force, or the United States suffers a national emergency. Chemical companies would not have to report chemical spills or other tyope releases. Federal agencies would be able to be even more secretive. United States citizens could be STRIPPED of their citizenship. It vastly increases the powers of the Atorney General and his designated deputies. It offers protections from prosecution for those who engage in unconstitutional actions. It shields the executive branch even more from the Freedom of Informaiton Act. It makes more aspects of government secret, and increases penalties for whistleblowers. The list is long. For Full Story see http://www.public-i.org/dtaweb/report.asp?ReportID=502&L1=10&L2=10&L3=0&L4=0&L5=0 Title: Kurt Vonnegut's entertaining and informative rant about the Bush Regime Year Took Place: 2003 Category: big government Submitted by: linz Submitted on: 2/02/2003 Source: www.inthesetimes.com/comments.php?id=38_0_4_0_C Keywords: big government environment war pp yale human rights stalin Kurt Vonnegut's entertaining and informative rant about the Bush Regime. Full story at: http://inthesetimes.com/comments.php?id=38_0_4_0_C Title: More logging to save trees? (Bush team proposes widespread logging in the Giant Year Took Place: 2003 Category: environment Submitted by: linz Submitted on: 1/30/2003 Source: San Francisco Chronicle \| Feedback Keywords: environment logging Sequoia redwoods corruption More logging to save trees? Thursday, January 30, 2003 San Francisco Chronicle \| Feedback http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/01/30/ED15594.DTL PRESIDENT BUSH'S reckless bending of environmental rules has taken a graphic turn for California's outdoors. By administrative fiat, his team proposes widespread logging in the Giant Sequoia National Monument, home to nearly half of the remaining stands of the majestic trees. It's an abrupt change in public expectations for the newly-preserved sanctuary in the southern Sierra Nevada, east of Fresno. It's also a fresh reminder that the Bush administration appears intent on chipping away environmental policies here, there and everywhere. Snowmobiles may return to Yellowstone. Curbs on power plant emissions of carbon dioxide will be eased. Barriers to wetlands development are being reduced. Now, for California, comes a forestry plan that invites heavy-duty logging as a recipe for timberland health. In April 2000, President Clinton approved the Giant Sequoia National Monument. His signature capped a generation-long drive to preserve 34 groves in federal forests outside the Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks where the other stands are sheltered. The cinnamon-colored trees, some as tall as the Statue of Liberty, date back 2,000 years, making them among the largest and among the oldest organisms on Earth. Although sequoias have little commercial value, nearby pines and red fir trees were logged, threatening the habitat of the ancient trees. The monument status protected the trees, but posed a new problem that the Bush administration is worsening. The 330,000-acre monument must be managed by foresters to minimize fire danger and promote the health and regeneration of the big trees. After studying six alternatives, the U.S. Forest Service is recommending thinning out trees up to 30 inches in diameter, bigger than federal rules allow elsewhere in the Sierra. It would also permit 2-acre clearings and heavy- equipment use. The approach is a mix of economics, debatable science and local politics. Cutting the bigger trees -- worth thousands of dollars apiece -- would mean less cost to the government. It would also keep the remaining local timber mill open. The wider clearings would permit sunlight on the forest floor to regenerate the sequoias, though some tree scientists believe there are better ways, such as controlled burns, which generate enough heat to pop open seed cones and improve the soil. Last summer's McNally blaze, which singed 150,000 acres, has clearly spooked federal planners into taking drastic action to lessen fire dangers. But the Bush administration's favorite answer to all these challenges is more logging. It should be a mix of solutions that reflects good science, public agreement and preservation. Thinning of smaller trees and controlled burns should be preferred. A policy that matches the consensus-driven Sierra Framework for other federal lands in California should be borrowed. When Clinton approved the sequoia protections, a high threshold was set for safeguarding the huge trees. Timber cuts in the monument land were barred except when "clearly needed for ecological restoration and maintenance of public safety." Federal planners will take public comment on the Sequoia Monument management plan until March 17. There's a chance that the current overbroad approach will be reined in, but only if protests are loud and many. The public should speak up to protect the sequoias. Express your views The Bush administration proposes expanding logging among sequoia groves in the name of fire prevention. The tactic is opposed by environmental groups, who claim it undercuts protections intended by the Sequoia National Monument designation that President Clinton bestowed three years ago. Title: U.S.(Bush) to seek waivers on pesticide ban Year Took Place: 2003 Category: environment Submitted by: linz Submitted on: 1/30/2003 Source: Andrew C. Revkin, New York Times, an Francisco Chronicle \| Feedback Keywords: environment pesticide methyl bromide ozone treaty U.S. to seek waivers on pesticide ban Treaty to restore ozone layer outlaws methyl bromide by 2005 Andrew C. Revkin, New York Times Thursday, January 30, 2003 http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/01/30/MN21860.DTL The Bush administration is moving to help industries keep using methyl bromide, a pesticide that is scheduled to be banned under an international agreement to restore the Earth's protective ozone layer, several government officials say. Administration officials say they are prepared to request that some pesticide users -- ranging from farmers to golf course operators -- be exempted from the ban on methyl bromide that is called for by 2005 under the international treaty. The officials say the exemptions are justified under the treaty's language because there are no effective substitutes for methyl bromide and businesses would be harmed. The White House faces a Friday deadline for forwarding proposed exemptions to an international environmental body that administers the Montreal Protocol, a treaty protecting the ozone layer. But environmental activists say that if too many exemptions are granted, efforts to undo damage to the ozone layer will be set back by years. Fifty-six requests for exemptions have been made to the administration, totaling about 26 million pounds of methyl bromide. Senior government officials said that while no decision had been made on how many requests to submit to the U.N. committee, they saw no reason to limit the number as long as each was justified. After they are submitted, the U.S. exemptions and those sought by other industrialized countries will be reviewed this spring by an international committee of three dozen experts. American officials said they were concerned that the isolation of the United States on other international issues, including a climate treaty and a possible attack on Iraq, could result in the exemptions being rejected even if they were justified. There is no appeal process under the treaty. If the United States is granted most of the exemptions it seeks, use of the chemical -- which has been declining in industrialized countries since 1999 on a timetable set under the treaty -- could start rising again. Fruit farmers, vineyard owners, flour millers, country club managers and administration and government agriculture officials are among those saying the exemptions are badly needed because substitutes are not as cheap or effective. But environmental groups have pressed the White House to winnow the requests greatly. If the administration endorses most of the exemptions and the treaty organization accepts them, years of progress will be undone, according to David Doniger, an expert in international environmental policy at the Natural Resources Defense Council. Methyl bromide is a toxic gas that has been used since the 1960s to sterilize soils, fumigate flour and grain operations, and treat exports and imports to kill invasive pests. It kills weed seeds, insects, nematodes and all manner of other pests, allowing farmers and nursery owners to work on fields that are a biological clean slate. In the atmosphere, it breaks down, and the bromine it contains attacks ozone molecules, which shield the earth from harmful ultraviolet rays. Applications from U.S. companies include some that are very small, such as that from Stroope Bee & Honey Co. of Alvin, Texas. But they also include requests for large, and increasing, uses of the chemical. The California Grape and Tree Fruit League, in Fresno, has submitted a request for its membership to use 1,579,500 pounds of methyl bromide annually after 2005, although its members typically used less than 650,000 pounds of the chemical in the late 1990s. Title: Bush is Losing it - Marty Jezer Year Took Place: 2003 Category: economics Submitted by: Linz Submitted on: 1/30/2003 Source: http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=15012 Keywords: tax cuts economics war peace polls BUSH IS LOSING IT Marty Jezer, AlterNet In the United States, confidence in the Bush Administration is evaporating, and it's no wonder. Reality is out-running the rhetoric. Summary Only see full story at: http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=15012 Title: The United States of America has gone mad Year Took Place: 2003 Category: war and peace Submitted by: linz Submitted on: 1/19/2003 Source: John le Carré Keywords: war Iraq election freedom bin laden britain blair The United States of America has gone mad John le Carré(famous spy novelist) America has entered one of its periods of historical madness, but this is the worst I can remember: worse than McCarthyism, worse than the Bay of Pigs and in the long term potentially more disastrous than the Vietnam War. The reaction to 9/11 is beyond anything Osama bin Laden could have hoped for in his nastiest dreams. As in McCarthy times, the freedoms that have made America the envy of the world are being systematically eroded. The combination of compliant US media and vested corporate interests is once more ensuring that a debate that should be ringing out in every town square is confined to the loftier columns of the East Coast press. The imminent war was planned years before bin Laden struck, but it was he who made it possible. Without bin Laden, the Bush junta would still be trying to explain such tricky matters as how it came to be elected in the first place; Enron; its shameless favouring of the already-too-rich; its reckless disregard for the world's poor, the ecology and a raft of unilaterally abrogated international treaties. They might also have to be telling us why they support Israel in its continuing disregard for UN resolutions. But bin Laden conveniently swept all that under the carpet. The Bushies are riding high. Now 88 per cent of Americans want the war, we are told. The US defence budget has been raised by another billion to around billion. A splendid new generation of nuclear weapons is in the pipeline, so we can all breathe easy. Quite what war 88 per cent of Americans think they are supporting is a lot less clear. A war for how long, please? At what cost in American lives? At what cost to the American taxpayer's pocket? At what cost - because most of those 88 per cent are thoroughly decent and humane people - in Iraqi lives? How Bush and his junta succeeded in deflecting America's anger from bin Laden to Saddam Hussein is one of the great public relations conjuring tricks of history. But they swung it. A recent poll tells us that one in two Americans now believe Saddam was responsible for the attack on the World Trade Centre. But the American public is not merely being misled. It is being browbeaten and kept in a state of ignorance and fear. The carefully orchestrated neurosis should carry Bush and his fellow conspirators nicely into the next election. Those who are not with Mr Bush are against him. Worse, they are with the enemy. Which is odd, because I'm dead against Bush, but I would love to see Saddam's downfall - just not on Bush's terms and not by his methods. And not under the banner of such outrageous hypocrisy. The religious cant that will send American troops into battle is perhaps the most sickening aspect of this surreal war-to-be. Bush has an arm-lock on God. And God has very particular political opinions. God appointed America to save the world in any way that suits America. God appointed Israel to be the nexus of America's Middle Eastern policy, and anyone who wants to mess with that idea is a) anti-Semitic, b) anti-American, c) with the enemy, and d) a terrorist. God also has pretty scary connections. In America, where all men are equal in His sight, if not in one another's, the Bush family numbers one President, one ex-President, one ex-head of the CIA, the Governor of Florida and the ex-Governor of Texas. Care for a few pointers? George W. Bush, 1978-84: senior executive, Arbusto Energy/Bush Exploration, an oil company; 1986-90: senior executive of the Harken oil company. Dick Cheney, 1995-2000: chief executive of the Halliburton oil company. Condoleezza Rice, 1991-2000: senior executive with the Chevron oil company, which named an oil tanker after her. And so on. But none of these trifling associations affects the integrity of God's work. In 1993, while ex-President George Bush was visiting the ever-democratic Kingdom of Kuwait to receive thanks for liberating them, somebody tried to kill him. The CIA believes that "somebody" was Saddam. Hence Bush Jr's cry: "That man tried to kill my Daddy." But it's still not personal, this war. It's still necessary. It's still God's work. It's still about bringing freedom and democracy to oppressed Iraqi people. To be a member of the team you must also believe in Absolute Good and Absolute Evil, and Bush, with a lot of help from his friends, family and God, is there to tell us which is which. What Bush won't tell us is the truth about why we're going to war. What is at stake is not an Axis of Evil - but oil, money and people's lives. Saddam's misfortune is to sit on the second biggest oilfield in the world. Bush wants it, and who helps him get it will receive a piece of the cake. And who doesn't, won't. If Saddam didn't have the oil, he could torture his citizens to his heart's content. Other leaders do it every day - think Saudi Arabia, think Pakistan, think Turkey, think Syria, think Egypt. Baghdad represents no clear and present danger to its neighbours, and none to the US or Britain. Saddam's weapons of mass destruction, if he's still got them, will be peanuts by comparison with the stuff Israel or America could hurl at him at five minutes' notice. What is at stake is not an imminent military or terrorist threat, but the economic imperative of US growth. What is at stake is America's need to demonstrate its military power to all of us - to Europe and Russia and China, and poor mad little North Korea, as well as the Middle East; to show who rules America at home, and who is to be ruled by America abroad. The most charitable interpretation of Tony Blair's part in all this is that he believed that, by riding the tiger, he could steer it. He can't. Instead, he gave it a phoney legitimacy, and a smooth voice. Now I fear, the same tiger has him penned into a corner, and he can't get out. It is utterly laughable that, at a time when Blair has talked himself against the ropes, neither of Britain's opposition leaders can lay a glove on him. But that's Britain's tragedy, as it is America's: as our Governments spin, lie and lose their credibility, the electorate simply shrugs and looks the other way. Blair's best chance of personal survival must be that, at the eleventh hour, world protest and an improbably emboldened UN will force Bush to put his gun back in his holster unfired. But what happens when the world's greatest cowboy rides back into town without a tyrant's head to wave at the boys? Blair's worst chance is that, with or without the UN, he will drag us into a war that, if the will to negotiate energetically had ever been there, could have been avoided; a war that has been no more democratically debated in Britain than it has in America or at the UN. By doing so, Blair will have set back our relations with Europe and the Middle East for decades to come. He will have helped to provoke unforeseeable retaliation, great domestic unrest, and regional chaos in the Middle East. Welcome to the party of the ethical foreign policy. There is a middle way, but it's a tough one: Bush dives in without UN approval and Blair stays on the bank. Goodbye to the special relationship. I cringe when I hear my Prime Minister lend his head prefect's sophistries to this colonialist adventure. His very real anxieties about terror are shared by all sane men. What he can't explain is how he reconciles a global assault on al-Qaeda with a territorial assault on Iraq. We are in this war, if it takes place, to secure the fig leaf of our special relationship, to grab our share of the oil pot, and because, after all the public hand-holding in Washington and Camp David, Blair has to show up at the altar. "But will we win, Daddy?" "Of course, child. It will all be over while you're still in bed." "Why?" "Because otherwise Mr Bush's voters will get terribly impatient and may decide not to vote for him." "But will people be killed, Daddy?" "Nobody you know, darling. Just foreign people." "Can I watch it on television?" "Only if Mr Bush says you can." "And afterwards, will everything be normal again? Nobody will do anything horrid any more?" "Hush child, and go to sleep." Last Friday a friend of mine in California drove to his local supermarket with a sticker on his car saying: "Peace is also Patriotic". It was gone by the time he'd finished shopping. The author has also contributed to an openDemocracy debate on Iraq at http://www.opendemocracy.net/ Title: Bush economic stimulus package: a tragedy on top of a tragedy Year Took Place: 2001 Category: economics Submitted by: linz Submitted on: 1/19/2003 Source: www.aflcio.org/news/2001/1011_bushoutline.htm Keywords: tax cuts rich taxes economy unsustainable Bush economic stimulus package: a tragedy on top of a tragedy Summary: The stimulus plan in the wake of September 11th tragedy provides tax breaks and give-aways to corporations four times greater than the amount given to the over 400,000 workers who have lost their jobs. Portions of the package that have received little media scrutiny, such as permanent cuts in corporate taxes and taxes paid by the wealthiest 5% of the population, while cuts to middle- and lower-income families would be "one time" offers. http://www.aflcio.org/news/2001/1011_bushoutline.htm Title: ANTI-TERRORISM BILL PUTS THE CIA BACK IN THE BUSINESS OF SPYING ON AMERICANS Year Took Place: 2001 Category: freedom Submitted by: linz Submitted on: 1/19/2003 Source: www.aclu.org/congress/l100901b.html Keywords: freedom cia fbi spying terrorism constitution ANTI-TERRORISM BILL PUTS THE CIA BACK IN THE BUSINESS OF SPYING ON AMERICANS The Senate anti-terrorism legislation, the Uniting and Strengthening America Act (S. 1510, "USA Act") puts the Central Intelligence Agency back in the business of spying on Americans. It permits a vast array of information gathering on U.S. citizens from school records, financial transactions, Internet activity, telephone conversations and information gleaned from grand jury proceedings and criminal investigations to be shared with the CIA (and other non-law enforcement officials) and foreign governments pertaining to American citizens. The bill also gives the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, acting in his capacity as head of the Intelligence Community, enormous power to manage the collection and dissemination of intelligence information gathered in the U.S. This new authority supercedes existing guidelines issued to protect Americans from unwarranted surveillance by U.S. agencies such as the FBI. To Appreciate the Dangers of the USA Act, We Should Take a Moment to Revisit One of the Shameful Chapters in Recent History that Led to Restrictions on the CIA. Until the mid-1970's, both the CIA and the National Security Agency ("NSA") illegally investigated Americans. Despite the statutory prohibition in its charter prohibiting the CIA from engaging in law enforcement or internal security functions (50 U.S.C. 403-3(d)(1)), the CIA spied on as many as seven thousand Americans in Operation CHAOS. This operation in the 1960's and early 1970's involved spying on people who opposed the war in Vietnam, or were student activists or were so-called black nationalists. Operation CHAOS involved an extensive program of information sharing from the FBI and other agencies to the CIA. CIA received all of the FBI's reports on the American peace movement, which numbered over 1,000/month by June of 1970, according to a Senate report issued by the Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations With Respect To Intelligence Activities ("Church Committee Report"). The Church Committee Report revealed how simple passive information sharing from other agencies to the CIA became authorized spying and data collection on lawful American political activity protected by the First Amendment. Once CIA officials expressed interest in particular types of information on American individuals and groups, other federal and local agencies were persuaded to covertly spy on citizens at the CIA's behest. The Church Committee reported: The mechanics of the CHAOS operation, both in performing the mission undertaken by the CIA and in servicing the FBI's needs, involved the establishment of files and retention of information on thousands of Americans. To the extent that [the] information related to domestic activity, its maintenance by the CIA, although perhaps not itself the performance of an internal security function, is a step toward the dangers of a domestic secret police against which the prohibition of the charter sought to guard. After these abuses were exposed, the CIA's domestic surveillance activities and collection of information about Americas were greatly curtailed. For example, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act made it clear that the Department of Justice would have the leading role in gathering foreign intelligence in the United States. The question before the United States Congress today is whether there is justification to tear down these safeguards and once again permit the CIA to create dossiers on constitutionally protected activities of Americans and to eliminate judicial review of such practices. Sharing Information Developed in Criminal Proceedings about Americans with the CIA The "USA Act" permits the wide sharing of sensitive information gathered by law enforcement agencies with intelligence agencies including the CIA and the NSA, and other federal agencies including the INS, Secret Service, and Department of Defense. For example, Section 203(a) of the bill would permit law enforcement agents to provide to the CIA foreign intelligence and counterintelligence information revealed to a grand jury. No court order would be required. In authorizing this flow of sensitive information, Section 203(a) would re-define "foreign intelligence information" for purposes of this section to permit more liberal sharing of information about U.S. persons - citizens and lawful permanent residents of the United States. As a result, the foreign intelligence information about Americans that could be shared with the CIA need not be information that is necessary to protect against attacks, or is necessary to the national defense or security of the United States. This "necessity" requirement of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act effectively operates to protect Americans from unwarranted surveillance for "intelligence" as opposed to criminal purposes. This requirement is eviscerated under the information sharing provisions of the USA Act. The sharing of grand jury information is not limited to information about the person being investigated. Thus, a witness called before the grand jury to provide evidence against the person being investigated or others might be less forthcoming if it is known that the supposedly secret information could be shared with the CIA. Section 203(b) would permit law enforcement officers, to share with the CIA intercepts of telephone and Internet conversations. No court order would be necessary to authorize the sharing of this sensitive information. This section also broadens the definition of foreign intelligence information to include more information about Americans. It includes no meaningful restrictions on subsequent use of the recorded information. For example, there is nothing in the statute that prevents this information from being used to screen candidates who apply for government jobs. Also, Section 203(b) does not prohibit the CIA from sharing with a foreign government surveillance information gleaned from a criminal investigation, even if sharing that information that could put risk members of his family living abroad. Section 203(d) broadly permits the sharing of any foreign intelligence or counterintelligence information obtained as part of a criminal investigation to be disclosed to the CIA and other intelligence, defense and immigration authorities. No court order would be required, and for purposes of this information sharing, "foreign intelligence information" would be re-defined to permit more sharing of information about Americans. Section 905 of the bill likewise permits disclosure to the CIA of foreign intelligence information obtained in connection with a criminal investigation, but this section does not re-define "foreign intelligence information." These proposals represent extraordinary extensions of the current authorities of the foreign intelligence agencies, including the CIA, to obtain information about Americans. While some sharing of information may be appropriate in some limited circumstances, it should only be done with strict safeguards. The bill should be amended to prohibit the sharing of information about U.S. persons with the CIA and elements of the intelligence community. To fail to do this is to risk the abuses that the Church Committee exposed decades ago. Foreign intelligence information about non-U.S. persons that is developed in a criminal case should be shared only pursuant to court approval. The House terrorism bill, the PATRIOT Act (H.R. 2975) requires court approval before information can be shared. This provision should be included in the Senate Bill. Finally, all information developed in a criminal case that is shared with non-law enforcement officials should be clearly marked to indicate how it was obtained and how it can and cannot be used or disseminated. The current limitations on information sharing evolved from a long history of intelligence abuses against United States persons. Having the court, not the government, decide which information should be shared provides an extra level of privacy and helps protect against potential abuses. Recommendation: This provision could be improved by adding the additional safeguards of: barring the sharing of information about U.S. persons, requiring judicial review, marking the information to indicate how it was obtained and how it can and cannot be used or disseminated, and by specifying limitations on sharing information with foreign governments. Empowering the Director of Central Intelligence To Manage Domestic Intelligence Gathering Section 901 of the USA Act would empower the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency ("DCI"), to establish the priorities for the collection and dissemination of intelligence information gathered in the U.S. He would exercise this power while acting in his capacity as head of the intelligence community. The Attorney General currently performs this function. Though this provision includes language purporting to prohibit the DCI from directing or undertaking electronic surveillance operations, it includes no similar prohibition relating to physical searches for intelligence purposes. More importantly, Section 901 appears to contemplate that the DCI would be empowered to identify to the Department of Justice and to the FBI potential targets of intelligence surveillance in the United States, including particular people and groups to be surveilled. Such a power would be inherent to the ability to "establish requirements and priorities" for the collection of foreign intelligence information under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. It amounts to a rather clear case of giving the CIA an enhanced role in domestic intelligence gathering - including the gathering of intelligence about United States citizens - in the U.S. It also runs directly contrary to the statutory prohibition in the CIA's charter barring it from engaging in internal security functions (50 U.S.C. 403-3(d)(1)). Recommendation: This provision should be deleted from the bill. For more information on how the USA Act permits the seizure of confidential student records and personal financial information, See ACLU Fact Sheets entitled: How the Senate Anti-Terrorism Bill Puts the Privacy of Student Records at Risk and How the Senate Anti-Terrorism Bill Puts Financial Privacy at Risk. Title: ACLU "Bitterly Disappointed" in House-Senate Joint Passage of Anti-Terrorism Leg Year Took Place: 2001 Category: freedom Submitted by: linz Submitted on: 1/19/2003 Source: email aclu Keywords: freedom anti-terrorism ashcroft terrorism constitution From: http://www.aclu.org/safeandfree/ ACLU "Bitterly Disappointed" in House-Senate Joint Passage of Anti-Terrorism Legislation FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Friday, October 12, 2001 WASHINGTON -- The American Civil Liberties Union said today that it was bitterly disappointed with the passage of anti-terrorism legislation, which mirrored closely the highly controversial original legislative proposals the Administration submitted to the House of Representatives and the Senate. "This bill has simply missed the mark of maximizing security and, at the same time, minimizing any adverse effects on America's freedoms," said Laura W. Murphy, Director of the ACLU Washington National Office. "Most Americans do not recognize that Congress has just passed a bill that would give the government expanded power to invade our privacy, imprison people without due process and punish dissent." Late Thursday night, the Senate passed the so-called USA Act of 2001 (S. 1510) 96 to 1 with very little debate. Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) was the only Senator to vote against the bill. He also introduced three amendments - all of which were defeated by his colleagues - that would have fixed several of the bill's more glaring problems. Murphy praised Sen. Feingold for his "courageous attempt to protect American liberties." This morning, the House GOP leadership substituted legislative language which matched closely both the Senate bill and the Administration's anti-terrorism package. It replaced the language of the PATRIOT Act, a bill that had undergone significant revision in the House Judiciary Committee to protect civil liberties. The new legislative language was agreed to in the wee hours of Friday morning and its substitution passed by a very thin margin after minimal debate. Before final passage, the modified PATRIOT Act (HR 2975) was met by robust opposition on the floor by House Democrats but, nevertheless, was finally ratified by a vote of 337 to 79, with 3 Republicans voting against and 129 Democrats voting in favor. It is as yet unclear whether the Senate and House will have to negotiate a compromise between their respective bills in conference. Given the similarities between the bills, the Senate may take up the House bill, making a conference unnecessary and "therefore forestalling any real opportunity to make a bad bill better," Murphy said. It is possible that the legislation could reach the President's desk as early as next week. Pressure from the White House and the Department of Justice on Congress to quickly pass an anti-terrorism bill modeled closely on the Administration's proposals has been increasingly fierce over the past several days. The Washington Post criticized the Administration in an October 3rd editorial: "Attorney General John Ashcroft continues implicitly to flog Congress for engaging in the balancing act that should have been his responsibility but that he skipped past. He warns of the possibility of further terrorist activity, which we have no doubt is real. The implication is that if it occurs it will be partly the fault of those who insist on modifying this bill." "In rushing through its legislation, the Administration has undercut any attempt at good faith negotiation with Democrats, the American public and even members of its own party," Murphy said. "If the bill does go to conference, we urge lawmakers to reestablish in the bill the proper balance between the requirements of safety and the necessity of liberty," Murphy added. According to the ACLU, the most troubling provisions in both the Senate and the modified House anti-terrorism legislation now include: Permits Information Sharing: Allows information obtained during criminal investigations to be distributed to the CIA, NSA, INS, Secret Service and military, without judicial review, and with no limits as to how these agencies can use the information once they have it. Authorizes "Sneak and Peek Searches": Authorizes expanded use of covert searches for any criminal investigation, thus allowing the government to enter your home, office or other private place and conduct a search, take photographs, and download your computer files without notifying you until later. Allows Forum Shopping: Law enforcement can apply for warrants in any court in any jurisdiction where it is conducting an investigation for a search anywhere in the country. This would make it very difficult for individuals subjected to searches to challenge the warrant. Creates New Crime of Domestic Terrorism: Creates an entirely new type of crime, which is unnecessary for the prosecution of the "War on Terrorism." By expanding the definition of terrorism in such a way, the bill could potentially allow the government to levy heavy penalties for relatively minor offenses, including political protests. Allows the CIA to Spy on Americans: Gives the Director of Central Intelligence the power to manage the gathering of intelligence in America and mandate the disclosure of information obtained by the FBI about terrorism in general - even if it is about law-abiding American citizens - to the CIA. Imposes Indefinite Detention: Permits authorities to indefinitely detain non-citizens, without meaningful judicial review. Reduces Privacy in Student Records: Allows law enforcement to access, use and disseminate highly personal information about American and foreign students. Expands Wiretap Authority: Minimizes judicial supervision of law enforcement wiretap authority in several ways, including: permitting law enforcement to obtain the equivalent of "blank" warrants in the physical world; authorizing intelligence wiretaps that need not specify the phone to be tapped or require that only the target's conversations be eavesdropped upon; and allowing the FBI to use its "intelligence" authority to circumvent the judicial review of the probable cause requirement of the Fourth Amendment. Title: Anti-Terrorist Bill combines Stalin and Hitler methods Year Took Place: 2001 Category: freedom Submitted by: linz Submitted on: 1/19/2003 Source: email aclu Keywords: freedom human rights constitution terrorist fbi cia Anti-Terrorist Bill combines Stalin and Hitler methods: To All:RETROACTIVE Bills are VERY DANGEROUS!!!!!! NO ONE IS SAFE - When laws change RETROACTIVELY, ANYTHING YOU HAVE EVER DONE - regardless of how innocent the action was - WILL BECOME SUSPECT AND POSSIBLY BE DEFINED AS ILLEGAL - THIS IS A WITCH-HUNT! ACT NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Under Senate Bill 1510, Anti-terrorism act (passed 10-12-01): a.. An entire 501C3 organization or other organization, including its members, can have their assets seized for supporting bodily acts or international causes that the U.S. Secretary of State may deem terrorist activity. Political activities that were legal prior to S.1510 may "RETROACTIVELY" be deemed terrorist activity by U.S. Government. Participants and supporters may be charged with terrorist and other offenses. (2). S.1510 "RETROACTIVELY" abolishes the "Statue of Limitations" for many past offenses where no one was injured. After passage of S.1510, any past offense that can be broadly alleged to have put someone "at risk" may be used by federal and state prosecutors to charge a citizen with a terrorist act - even 30 years after the Statute of Limitations period had already passed. Government will have no difficulty manufacturing evidence to prosecute citizens once Constitutional safeguards against passing Retroactive Laws are abolished after passage of S.1510. (3) No "innocent owner defense" allowed against Asset Forfeiture when, after passage of S 1510, U.S. Government agencies will be able to seize assets of citizens, 501C3 and other organizations and their members without ever disclosing the evidence against their property. Government need only allege that disclosing such evidence may compromise National security and/or an ongoing investigation. S 1510 provides for paying "unnamed informants huge rewards" resulting from arrests and forfeited assets. It is hard to believe any organization or citizen could ever recover their assets once they are seized by a government agency in the name of National Security. That may include a citizen's home in which an informant secretly alleges someone said the wrong thing. (4) "D Below" is from the Senate Bill 1510. "(d) UNDERCOVER ACTIVITIES- Notwithstanding any provision of State law, including disciplinary rules, statutes, regulations, constitutional provisions, or case law, a Government attorney may, for the purpose of enforcing Federal law, provide legal advice, authorization, concurrence, direction, or supervision on conducting undercover activities, and any attorney employed as an investigator or other law enforcement agent by the Department of Justice who is not authorized to represent the United States In criminal or civil law enforcement litigation or to supervise such proceedings may participate in such activities, even though such activities may require the use of deceit or misrepresentation, where such activities are consistent with Federal law. (e) ADMISSIBILITY OF EVIDENCE- No violation of any disciplinary, ethical, or professional conduct rule shall be construed to permit the exclusion of otherwise admissible evidence in any Federal criminal proceedings". This bill is similar to the one Adolf Hitler pushed through the Reichstag after the Reichstag fire in the early 1930's. German Jews, horrified by the chaos in Germany after the fire, supported Hitler's legislation - then found he could (and planned to) use it against them. This is worse legislation than the Sedition Laws of the 1790's, later declared unconstitutional and leading to the end of John Adams' presidency. Understand! Under the law as now written, you and anyone connected with any organization - 501(c)(3), church, Rotary, any organization - can be snagged under this legislation. Lifting the Statute of Limitations means that you could have your home and other assets seized if you were a member of an organization that supported, for example, Leonard Peltier, or sent food or medicine to Cuba, or even protested against nukes in the '60s - and the U.S.G. decided that that organization was then or is now in any way associated with someone or some organization that is somehow connected to a "terrorist organization." Of course, it will be said that that is highly unlikely to happen if you keep your nose clean - and don't give financial or other support to any suspect organization. There are thousands of people in our prisons now, put there by the testimony of paid/"rewarded" informers. All it takes is for some such person to provide "testimony" that the ACLU or the Sierra Club or Pastors for Peace, or other organization is "supporting" terrorists. Or maybe some member of such an organization does provide support to a terrorist: all members are liable to imprisonment and seizure of their assets. Who, under a law like that, is going to give funding to any 501(c)(3) organization or any other actionist group - even for work with rehabilitating prisoners or drug addicts, or providing housing for the poor? Title: Bush sabatoge of biological weapons ban aids terrorists Year Took Place: 2001 Category: war and peace Submitted by: linz Submitted on: 1/19/2003 Source: Progressive Magazine 9-2001 Keywords: environment health war peace treaty biological terrorist Bush sabatoge of biological weapons ban aids terrorists The Progressive Magazine, September 2001 Lone Wolf Policy George Bush is not content with the United States being the top dog. He wants it to be the lone wolf. His snarling at one international accord after another besmirches the United States and makes the world a more dangerous place. When Bush snipped at the ABM treaty, tile com-prehensive test ban treaty the biological weapons protocol, and the small-arms convention, he sent an unmistakable signal that the United States doesn't care about arms control. This will only encourage other nations to bolster their own arsenals, arid the arms race will accelerate on every track. Even something as seemingly unobjectionable as verifying and enforcing the 1972 ban on biological weapons became an issue for Bush. In Geneva in late July, the Administration deep-sixed the effort. Why? Because it didn't want international inspectors to be able to look at the Pentagon's efforts or at the work of U.S. pharmaceutical and biotech companies. "In our assessment, the draft protocol would put national security and confidential business information at risk," said Donald Mahley the chief U.S. negotiator. But it's in the interest of U.S. national security to make sure that other countries are not vio-lating the ban on biological weapons, and the U.S. reluctance to go along suggests that it might still have its own notions of developing such weapons. what's more, the Bush Administration's concern for protecting "confidential business information" instead of protecting against biological warfare shows just how messed up its priorities ate. Arid when Bush led the United Scares out of' the Kyoto accord on global warming, he turned Wash-ington into a laughingstock, with 178 nations on one side and the United States on the other. By nor requiring U.S. companies, which produce a huge chunk of the world's carbon dioxide, to curb their emissions, Bush showed a reckless disregard for the environmental health of the planet. Several unfortunate attitudes underlie this wolfishness. The first is old-fashioned know-nothingism, a studied ignorance of the outside world that is a peculiar strain of the American culture. Bush plays this to the hilt; fuzzy math meets smoggy air. Global warming what global warming? The second is a severe and pro-nounced superiority complex. Like many know-nothings, he believes the United States is better than any other country'. They're foreigners; what do they know? So what if 178 nations dis-agree with us? We've got the Holy Grail. We're so different from all these other nations that our interests can't possibly coincide with theirs. Bush has the swag-ger that is symptomatic of this complex. After returning from Europe on his first trip, he bragged to Peggy Noonan, his dad's speechwriter, that he stood down more than twenty leaders (no matter they were our allies) so he could stand up for America. Bush may not look like Arnold Schwarzenegger, but he admires the role. Bush seems to feel the resentment that afflicts many an emperor. He views other countries as his subjects, and when they won't do what he wants them to do, he says to hell with them. If they won't trim the Kyoto agreement according to our specifications, we'll take our globe and go home. Bush also has Kissinger's phobia; the morbid fear that other countries will drag U.S. soldiers or states-men to The Hague or elsewhere for prosecution. Belgium is already trying to get its hands on Kissinger, and Bush wants to make sure that Americans elude any court outside our borders. The one job Bush takes seriously is that of chief executive of the corporate class. Boeing, Lockheed, and Philip Morris want to be able to ply their wares without interference from any international body, so Bush undercuts those bodies at every opportunity. The World Health Organization for instance, is crying to get countries to sign on to the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, which would, among other things, limit advertising, raise cigarette taxes, eliminate subsidies, arid consider the possibili-ty of expanding the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice so that tobacco companies could be tried for crimes against humanity. Tobacco killed four million people last year according to the World Health Organization, which predicts that ten million people a year will die by 2030, with most of those coming from the developing nations. The Bush Administration has tried to weaken the framework "at every turn," Judith Wilkenfeld of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids told the Wall Street Journal (Further repaying a campaign debt to the tobacco companies, the Bush Administration has gone to bat for them in South Korea. "American trade officials have intervened on behalf of U.S. tobacco companies to stop South Korea from imposing new requirements on foreign firms seeking Co sell and manufacture cigarettes in that country;" The Washington Post reported. One of those requirements would have been a 40 percent duty on all imported cigarettes. Philip Morris applauded the Bush Administrations move. "When it comes to high duties and barriers to our entering markets, we think the U.S. government has a role to play; said Mark Berlin, associate general counsel for the company.) U.S. arms manufacturers are equally grateful to the Bush Administration for sabotaging the U.N. effort to regulate the traffic in small arms. In July, more than 170 nations met to impose restric-tions on these arms, which include assault rifles, grenade launchers, and shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles. U.S. arms manufacturers are the leading exporters of small arms, accounting for $1.2 billion 0f the billion annual trade, according to the Swiss-based Small Arms Survey. The United Nations estimates that small arms "are used to kill at least half a million people each year," The Washington Post reported. "More than 80 percent of the victims are children and women." The U.N. conference wanted to ban personal ownership of military weapons and prohibit govern-ments from selling such weapons to rebel groups. The United States opposed both of those measures. "The vast majority of arms transfers in the world are rou-tine and not problematic," said John Bolton, Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and Internation-al Security Affairs. "We do not support measures that would constrain legal trade and legal manufacturing of small arms and light weapons. It might be helpful at this point to remember that, during the presidential campaign, a senior official of the National Rifle Association said the NRA would be operating out of the Oval Office if Bush won. The group seems to have taken up residence. Similarly, the Bush Administration opposed European efforts to crack down on money-laundering. European countries wanted to penalize places like the Cayman Islands that protect investors from legal scrutiny. But Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill said the United States wouldn't go along, as Lucy Komisar noted in The Nation. And according to The Wall Street Journal, the Administration "will consider casing draft regulations aimed at curbing tax evasion by foreigners" and "is looking at ways to ease anti-money-laundering regu-lations." For Bush, the war on drugs ends the second a dirty dollar arrives at a U.S. bank. Most notoriously, the U.S. decision to stand on the sidelines of the Kyoto protocol showed not only how isolated the Bush administration is bur also how myopic. Bush officials said they need more rime to study the science of global warming and that they will propose their own ideas for reducing greenhouse gases, but they won't get around to doing so any time soon. The United States accounts for as much as 25 percent of the world's greenhouse gases. and Bush was solidly behind the power plants and factories that produce those gases. Ironically, however, some U.S. companies take a more enlightened-or frightened-approach on global warming. "Corporate executives are getting increasingly worried that a backlash from irate for-eign countries could hurt their efforts for some coveted goodies. . . . They also worry that U.S. business-es could see their profit margins hit because of anti-American sentiment, or perceptions that they don't care about the global environment," The Wall Street Journal reported. Some U.S. business leaders fear the decision to boycott the Kyoto protocol could cost U.S. companies business in the area OF environmental technology." So even if Bush's ultimate objective is to boost the bottom line of U.S. corpo-rations, he may be going about it the wrong way. While mangy, Bush's lone wolf foreign policy is not a separate species from those of his prede-cessors. Presidents typically apply situational ethics to international bodies and treaties. If the United States can dominate them, then they're a good thing. But if the United States feels impeded by them, why then its time to go it alone. Ronald Reagan showed no concern whatsoever about the World Court's determination that the U.S. mining of the harbors of Nicaragua was illegal. George Bush the Elder cared little for international law when he invaded Panama. But he appreciated the cover of consensus during the Gulf War, lining up allies and getting a green light from the United Nations. Clinton, who liked to join hands and sing "We Are the World," was not afraid to be a unilateralist, either. Recall his obstinate refusal to sign on to the interna-tional treaty to ban land mines, his decision not to push for ratification of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, his opposition to the international crim-inal court, and his continued bombing of Iraq with just Boy Wonder Blair behind him. On Kyoto, lest we forget, Clinton and Gore went out of their way to water down the treaty and block provisions unfavor-able to U.S. companies. We should not be surprised by the predatory nature of U.S. foreign policy. Until the U.S. government and the American people get over their superiority com-plex. until they understand that the United States and most ocher nations have common interests that tran-scend borders and jingos, that cooperation not domi-nation is the way of the future, the foreign policy of the United States will have a familiar snarl. Title: OPPORTUNISM KNOCKS Year Took Place: 2001 Category: freedom Submitted by: linz Submitted on: 1/19/2003 Source: Raven EarlyGrow Keywords: freedom censorship fbi cia aclu anti terrorism OPPORTUNISM KNOCKS Raven Earlygrow (former Mayor of Point Arena, CA) If you think the attack on civil liberties is nothing more than a conspiratorial fantasy of the ACLU, then you haven't heard of the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2001 that the White House submitted to Congress. Among other horrors, it would permit the indefinite detention, without charges, of non-citizens deemed by the "authorities" to be "security risks." Though this particular memorabilia of Germany circa 1938 has been (at least for the moment) deleted in committee, the rest of the bill remains the most fundamental attempt to eviscerate the US Constitution since the Alien and Sedition Acts of the 1790's. But there's more… The politicians of the American right wing and the corporations they represent are using the war fever generated by 9/11 to hype an astonishing cocktail mix of greed and "patriotism" that will produce substantial profit for their friends and handlers. From Star Wars to Fast Track, there's apparently nothing on the Bush agenda that isn't being touted as essential to the effort to defeat bin Laden and his ilk. The Gold Star for Shameless Opportunism probably goes to Bush's Trade Czar Robert Zoellick. Eager to rush Congress to approval of Fast Track authority for the Free Trade Area of the Americas (NAFTA on steroids, extended to the entire hemisphere--except, of course, Cuba), Zoellick proclaimed, "Today's enemies will learn that America is the economic engine for freedom, opportunity and development. US leadership in promoting the international economic and trading system is vital. Trade….promotes the values at the heart of this protracted struggle." Ahhh, so corporate monopoly and access to cheap labor are what we're fighting for? I, for one, would like Zoellick to explain exactly how Fast Track, which limits congressional debate on controversial trade agreements, serves the cause of democracy or fights the twisted concepts of religious authoritarianism espoused by the Taliban. Nonetheless, watch for quick passage in the currently pliable House. Not to be out-shouted, Alaskan Senator Frank Murkowski called for rapid passage of a bill allowing oil drilling in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge. "At this time of national emergency, an expedited energy-security bill must be considered. Opening ANWR will be a central element in finally reducing this country's dangerous overdependence on unstable foreign sources of energy." Of course, the sane way to reduce that dependence would be through conservation, development of unlimited solar and wind power, and a quick increase in the federal fuel efficiency standards for the behemoth SUVs Americans use to tool around the urban off-road wilderness. Damn the caribou, we got a war to fight. And now Bush the Lesser tells us that since the economy sucks, we just better get busy and lower taxes for the rich and the corporations while we can. His proposed 75 billion "economic stimulus" program seems suspiciously tilted towards capital gains reductions and corporate tax cuts. Says the conservative National Taxpayers Union: "By reducing the rate at which capital gains are taxed, President Bush and Congress could help revitalize the sagging economy and bring new revenues to Washington-decidedly aiding our war against terrorism." It will also conveniently put lots more dollars in the pockets of those already in possession of plenty of capital. Don't expect much in the way of help for the 100,000 or so who've lost their jobs with the airlines. If American, United, Delta and the rest can get billion in taxpayer funds, why no relief for those laid off so the airlines can shore up their bottom line? Oh, I forgot, Bush has offered to extend unemployment benefits for two months for those who have been laid off and happen to live in Virginia, New Jersey or New York. Wow. And of course the purveyors of Star Wars were among the first to see the recent tragedies as a lever to open the spigot of military spending, urging the Administration to "use every tool at its disposal to ensure that the resources needed to develop and deploy missile defenses are made available." (The Center for Security Policy, a group of defense industry organizations.) Well, if the missile defense system worked, which is highly dubious, it might protect us from Libya's non-existent arsenal of ICBMs, but it sure as hell wouldn't do much about a handful of fanatics with box cutters. Nothing could be clearer now than the folly of the "missile defense" fantasy. So get ready for a sweeping attack on your civil liberties and another raid on your standard of living. The mega-rich apparently think nothing of using a period of national mourning as a springboard for advancing their policies of control and tightening the grip of their greed on national wealth. They obviously have no shame about wrapping themselves in the flag as they continue to plunder the earth's resources. And never forget, those internment camps for "national security risks" can just as easily be used for anyone silly enough to express the opinion that the Bill of Rights is more than just a bunch of words on old parchment. Raven Title: 13 Questions for Bush about America's Anti-terrorism Crusade Year Took Place: 2001 Category: war and peace Submitted by: linz Submitted on: 1/18/2003 Source: Martin Lee Keywords: freedom cia bin laden environment oil human rights 13 Questions for Bush about America's Anti-terrorism Crusade Mainstream journalists in the United States often function more like a fourth branch of government than a feisty fourth estate. If anything, the patterns of media bias that characterize sycophantic reporting in "peacetime" are amplified during a war or a national security crisis. Since the tragic events of September 11, the separation between press and state has dwindled nearly to the vanishing point. If we had an aggressive, independent press corps, our national conversation about the terrorist attacks that demolished the World Trade Center towers in New York and damaged the Pentagon would be far more probing and informative. Here are some examples of questions that reporters ought to be asking President Bush: 1. Before the attacks in New York and Washington, your administration quietly toleratedSaudi Arabian and Pakistani military and financial aid for the Taliban regime, even though it harbored terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden. But now you say fighting terrorism will be the main focus of your administration. By making counter-terrorism the top priority in bilateral relations, aren't you signaling to abusive governments in Sudan, Indonesia, Turkey, and elsewhere that they need not worry much about their human rights performance as long as they join America's anti-terrorist crusade? Will you barter human rights violations like corporations trade pollution credits? Will you condone, for example, the brutalization of Chechnya in exchange for Russian participation in the "war against terrorism"? Or will you send a message loud and clear to America's allies that they must not use the fight against terrorism as a cover for waging repressive campaigns that smother democratic aspirations in their own countries? 2. Terrorists finance their operations by laundering money through offshore banks and other hot money outlets. Yet your administration has undermined international efforts to crack down on tax havens. Last May, you withdrew support for a comprehensive initiative launched by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which sought greater transparency in tax and banking practices. In the wake of the September 11 massacre, will you reassess this decision and support the OECD proposal, even if it means displeasing wealthy Americans and campaign contributors who avoid paying taxes by hiding money in offshore accounts? 3. Four months ago, U.S. officials announced that Washington was giving million to the Taliban for its role in reducing the cultivation of opium poppies, despite the Taliban's heinous human rights record and its sheltering of Islamic terrorists of many nationalities. Doesn't this make the U.S. government guilty of supporting a country that harbors terrorists? Do you think your obsession with the "war on drugs" has distorted U.S. foreign policy in Southwest Asia and other regions? 4. According to U.S., German, and Russian intelligence sources, Osama bin Laden's operatives have been trying to acquire enriched uranium and other weapons-grade radioactive materials for a nuclear bomb. There are reports that in 1993 bin Laden's well-financed organization tried to buy enriched uranium from poorly maintained Russian facilities that lacked sufficient controls. Why has your administration proposed cutting funds for a program to help safeguard nuclear materials in the former Soviet Union? 5. On September 23rd , you announced plans to make public a detailed analysis of the evidence gathered by U.S intelligence and police agencies, which proves that Osama bin Laden and his cohorts are guilty of the terrorist attacks in New York and the Pentagon. But the next day your administration backpedaled. "As we look through [the evidence],"explained Secretary of State Colin Powell, "we can find areas that are unclassified and it will allow us to share this information with the public... But most of it is classified." Please explain this sudden flip-flop. How can we believe what you say about fighting terrorism if your administration can't make its case publicly with sufficient evidence? How do you expect to win the support of governments and people who otherwise might suspect Washington's motives, particularly some Muslim and Arab nations? 6. Exactly who is a terrorist, and who is not? When the CIA was busy doling out an estimated billion to support the Afghan mujahadeen in the 1980s, Osama bin Laden and his colleagues were hailed as anti-communist freedom fighters. During the cold war, U.S. national security strategists, many of whom are riding top saddle once again in your administration, didn't view bin Laden's fanatical religious beliefs as diametrically opposed to western civilization. But now bin Laden and his ilk are unabashed terrorists. Definitions of what constitutes terror and terrorism seem to change with the times. Before he became vice president, Dick Cheney and the U.S. State Department denounced Nelson Mandela, leader of the African National Congress, as a terrorist. Today Mandela, South Africa's president emeritus, is considered a great and dignified statesman. And what about Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon, who bears significant responsibility for the 1982 massacre of 1,800 innocents at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Lebanon. What role will Sharon play in your crusade against international terrorism? 7. There's been a lot of talk lately about unshackling the CIA and lifting the alleged ban on CIA assassinations. Many U.S. officials attribute the CIA's inability to thwart the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington to rules that supposedly have prohibited the CIA from utilizing gangsters, death squad leaders, and other "unsavory" characters as sources and assets. Why don't you set the record straight, Mr. President, and acknowledge there were always gaping loopholes in these rules, which allowed such activity to continue unabated? It's precisely this sort of dubious activity -- enlisting unsavory characters to advance U.S. foreign policy objectives -- that set the stage for tragic events on September 11th. It's hardly a secret that the CIA trained and financed Islamic extremists to topple the Soviet-backed regime in Afghanistan. Some of the same extremists supported by the CIA, most notably bin Laden, have since turned their psychotic wrath against the United States. Instead of rewarding the CIA with billions of additional dollars to fight terrorism, shouldn't you hold accountable those shortsighted and perilously naïve U.S. intelligence officials who ran the covert operation in Afghanistan that got us into this mess? 8. John Negroponte, the new U.S. ambassador the United Nations, says he intends to build an international anti-terrorist coalition. During the mid-1980s, Negroponte was involved in covering up right-wing death squad activity and other human rights abuses in Honduras when he served as ambassador to that country. Doesn't Negroponte's role in aiding and abetting state terrorism in Central America undermine the moral authority of the United States as it embarks upon a crusade against international terrorism? 9. The attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon brought home the frightening extent to which U.S. citizens and installations are vulnerable to terrorist attacks. If terrorists hit a nuclear power plant, it could result in an enormous public health disaster. In the interest of protecting national security, why haven't you ordered the immediate phase-out of the 103 nuclear power plants that are currently operating in the United States? Why doesn't your administration emphasize safe, renewable energy alternatives, such as solar and wind power, which would not invite terrorism? 10. After years of successful lobbying against rigorous safety procedures, the heads of the airline industry will receive a multibillion-dollar taxpayer bailout for their ailing companies. Given your support for the airline rescue package, do you now agree that letting the free market run its course won't resolve all our economic and social problems? (That's what anti-globalization activists have been saying all along.) And if airlines deserve a bail-out, how about a multibillion-dollar rescue package for human needs like health and education? Why aren't we bailing out our under-funded public schools, our insolvent hospitals, our national railroads, and other elements of our dilapidated social infrastructure? 11. September 11th will be remembered as a day of infamy in the United States because of the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington. In Chile, September 11th is also remembered as the day when a U.S.-back coup toppled the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende in 1973, initiating a reign of terror by General Augusto Pinochet. Given your administration's avowed stance against terrorism, will you cooperate with the various international legal cases that are honing in on ex-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger for colluding with Pinochet's murderous regime? 12. If the killing of innocent people in New York and Washington is indefensible, and surely it is, then why do U.S. officials defend American air strikes that kill innocent civilians in Iraq, Sudan, Serbia, and Afghanistan? More than 500,000 Iraqi children under age 5 have died as a result of the 1990 Gulf War, subsequent economic sanctions, and ongoing U.S. bombing raids against Iraq. Will your planned actions lead to a similar fate for the children of Afghanistan? 13. What will you accomplish if you bomb Afghanistan? Wouldn't this galvanize Islamic fundamentalist movements that are already powerful in Algeria, Egypt, Pakistan, Sudan, the oil-rich Arab monarchies, and the Balkans? Wouldn't a U.S.-led military onslaught against Afghanistan be the fastest way to create a new generation of terrorists? Adept at manipulating real grievances, terrorist networks breed on poverty, despair, and social injustice. Do you think you can wipe out or even reduce this scourge, Mr. President, without seriously and systematically addressing the root causes of terrorism? Martin A. Lee (martinalee17@yahoo.com) is the author of Acid Dreams and The Beast Reawakens. Title: An Afghani View Year Took Place: 2001 Category: war and peace Submitted by: linz Submitted on: 1/18/2003 Source: www.zmag.org Keywords: war peace terrorist afghanistan An Afghani View: http://www.zmag.org/ZNET.htm The belly to do what needs to be done. Tamim Ansary September 15, 2001: I've been hearing a lot of talk about "bombing Afghanistan back to the Stone Age." Ronn Owens, on KGO Talk Radio today, allowed that this would mean killing innocent people, people who had nothing to do with this atrocity, but "we're at war, we have to accept collateral damage. What else can we do?" Minutes later I heard some TV pundit discussing whether we "have the belly to do what must be done." And I thought about the issues being raised especially hard because I am from Afghanistan, and even though I've lived here for 35 years I've never lost track of what's going on there. So I want to tell anyone who will listen how it all looks from where I'm standing. I speak as one who hates the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden. There is no doubt in my mind that these people were responsible for the atrocity in New York. I agree that something must be done about those monsters. But the Taliban and Ben Laden are not Afghanistan. They're not even the government of Afghanistan. The Taliban are a cult of ignorant psychotics who took over Afghanistan in 1997. Bin Laden is a political criminal with a plan. When you think Taliban, think Nazis. When you think Bin Laden, think Hitler. And when you think "the people of Afghanistan" think "the Jews in the concentration camps." It's not only that the Afghan people had nothing to do with this atrocity. They were the first victims of the perpetrators. They would exult if someone would come in there, take out the Taliban and clear out the rats nest of international thugs holed up in their country. Some say, why don't the Afghans rise up and overthrow the Taliban? The answer is, they're starved, exhausted, hurt, incapacitated, suffering. A few years ago, the United Nations estimated that there are 500,000 disabled orphans in Afghanistan--a country with no economy, no food. There are millions of widows. And the Taliban has been burying these widows alive in mass graves. The soil is littered with land mines, the farms were all destroyed by the Soviets. These are a few of the reasons why the Afghan people have not overthrown the Taliban. We come now to the question of bombing Afghanistan back to the Stone Age. Trouble is, that's been done. The Soviets took care of it already. Make the Afghans suffer? They're already suffering. Level their houses? Done. Turn their schools into piles of rubble? Done. Eradicate their hospitals? Done. Destroy their infrastructure? Cut them off from medicine and health care? Too late. Someone already did all that. New bombs would only stir the rubble of earlier bombs. Would they at least get the Taliban? Not likely. In today's Afghanistan, only the Taliban eat, only they have the means to move around. They'd slip away and hide. Maybe the bombs would get some of those disabled orphans, they don't move too fast, they don't even have wheelchairs. But flying over Kabul and dropping bombs wouldn't really be a strike against the criminals who did this horrific thing. Actually it would only be making common cause with the Taliban--by raping once again the people they've been raping all this time. So what else is there? What can be done, then? Let me now speak with true fear and trembling. The only way to get Bin Laden is to go in there with ground troops. When people speak of "having the belly to do what needs to be done" they're thinking in terms of having the belly to kill as many as needed. Having the belly to overcome any moral qualms about killing innocent people. Let's pull our heads out of the sand. What's actually on the table is Americans dying. And not just because some Americans would die fighting their way through Afghanistan to Bin Laden's hideout. It's much bigger than that folks. Because to get any troops to Afghanistan, we'd have to go through Pakistan. Would they let us? Not likely. The conquest of Pakistan would have to be first. Will other Muslim nations just stand by? You see where I'm going. We're flirting with a world war between Islam and the West. And guess what: that's Bin Laden's program. That's exactly what he wants. That's why he did this. Read his speeches and statements. It's all right there. He really believes Islam would beat the west. It might seem ridiculous, but he figures if he can polarize the world into Islam and the West, he's got a billion soldiers. If the west wreaks a holocaust in those lands, that's a billion people with nothing left to lose, that's even better from Bin Laden's point of view. He's probably wrong, in the end the west would win, whatever that would mean, but the war would last for years and millions would die, not just theirs but ours. Who has the belly for that? Bin Laden does. Anyone else? Title: BUSH USES TRAGEDY TO IMPLEMENT CENSORSHIP OF UNRELATED INFORMATION? Year Took Place: 2001 Category: freedom Submitted by: linz Submitted on: 1/18/2003 Source: Robert Cohen Keywords: freedom censorship borders 911 BUSH USES TRAGEDY TO IMPLEMENT CENSORSHIP OF UNRELATED INFORMATION? (from Robert Cohen dated 9-17-01) Dear Friends, Yesterday, I spoke at the Natural Foods Conference in New York State..... (edited for brevity)One of the speakers, Gaston Naessens,was stopped at the Canadian border and denied entry into the United States. Immigration agents examined Dr. Naessen's literature and found negative comments about genetically modified foods. A decision was made to ban the good doctor from entering our once free nation. Many of our freedoms have been taken from us this past week. The freedom to live one's life without fear has been compromised. To take away freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution as was done to Dr. Nassons because of his passionate concerns about food safety, is to offend those of us who defend this great nation in which we live. We have warriors in the White House. Many of those warriors once worked for biotechnology companies and support genetic engineering. http://www.notmilk.com/pelican.html) By this incident, by their very actions,the United States government has used the horror of terrorism as a shield to terminate protest against genetic engineering. That censorship of thought represents a new form of terror threatening us all. Robert Cohen http://www.notmilk.com Title: UNDERSTANDING OSAMA BIN LADEN Year Took Place: 2001 Category: war and peace Submitted by: linz Submitted on: 1/18/2003 Source: www.alternet.org Keywords: terrorist bin laden oppression oil corruption war peace UNDERSTANDING OSAMA BIN LADEN William O. Beeman, Pacific News Service The media is pointing fingers at Osama bin Laden, but the causes of his anger are rarely discussed. Here is why he and his followers hate the U.S. so violently. full story at:http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=11487 Title: BUSH, THE CIA AND THE ROOTS OF TERRORISM Year Took Place: 2001 Category: war and peace Submitted by: linz Submitted on: 1/18/2003 Source: www.alternet.org Keywords: war peace cia moore terrorist BUSH, THE CIA AND THE ROOTS OF TERRORISM Michael Moore Let's mourn and grieve, but let's also examine our own contribution to our unsafe world -- be it lax airport security or the CIA training the terrorists who attack us. full story at:http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=11486 Title: TERRORISM, TELEVISION AND THE RAGE FOR VENGEANCE Year Took Place: 2001 Category: war and peace Submitted by: linz Submitted on: 1/18/2003 Source: www.alternet.org Keywords: war peace television media solomon 911 SOLOMON: TERRORISM, TELEVISION AND THE RAGE FOR VENGEANCE Norman Solomon, AlterNet In our struggle to understand the recent tragedy, the media has let us down with its selective silence around important information. What we don't know can hurt us. http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=11500 Title: War on Whom? Year Took Place: 2001 Category: war and peace Submitted by: linz Submitted on: 1/18/2003 Source: http://www.michaelmoore.com/ Keywords: war peace security moore 911 WAR ON WHOM? Michael Moore I am an American citizen, and my leaders have taken my money to fund mass murder. And now my friends have paid the price with their lives. see full story at:Moore page this site Title: BUSH'S FAUSTIAN DEAL WITH THE TALIBAN Year Took Place: 2001 Category: war and peace Submitted by: linz Submitted on: 1/18/2003 Source: www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v01/n922/a09.html Keywords: drugs terrorist taliban war taxpayers corruption Bush's Faustian Deal With The Taliban Author: Robert Scheer Enslave your girls and women, harbor anti-U.S. terrorists, destroy every vestige of civilization in your homeland, and the Bush administration will embrace you. All that matters is that you line up as an ally in the drug war, the only international cause that this nation still takes seriously. That's the message sent with the recent gift of million to the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan, the most virulent anti-American violators of human rights in the world today. The gift, announced last Thursday by Secretary of State Colin Powell, in addition to other recent aid, makes the U.S. the main sponsor of the Taliban and rewards that "rogue regime" for declaring that opium growing is against the will of God. So, too, by the Taliban's estimation, are most human activities, but it's the ban on drugs that catches this administration's attention. Never mind that Osama bin Laden still operates the leading anti-American terror operation from his base in Afghanistan, from which, among other crimes, he launched two bloody attacks on American embassies in Africa in 1998. Sadly, the Bush administration is cozying up to the Taliban regime at a time when the United Nations, at U.S. insistence, imposes sanctions on Afghanistan because the Kabul government will not turn over Bin Laden. The war on drugs has become our own fanatics' obsession and easily trumps all other concerns. How else could we come to reward the Taliban, who has subjected the female half of the Afghan population to a continual reign of terror in a country once considered enlightened in its treatment of women. At no point in modern history have women and girls been more systematically abused than in Afghanistan where, in the name of madness masquerading as Islam, the government in Kabul obliterates their fundamental human rights. Women may not appear in public without being covered from head to toe with the oppressive shroud called the burkha , and they may not leave the house without being accompanied by a male family member. They've not been permitted to attend school or be treated by male doctors, yet women have been banned from practicing medicine or any profession for that matter. The lot of males is better if they blindly accept the laws of an extreme religious theocracy that prescribes strict rules governing all behavior, from a ban on shaving to what crops may be grown. It is this last power that has captured the enthusiasm of the Bush White House. The Taliban fanatics, economically and diplomatically isolated, are at the breaking point, and so, in return for a pittance of legitimacy and cash from the Bush administration, they have been willing to appear to reverse themselves on the growing of opium. That a totalitarian country can effectively crack down on its farmers is not surprising. But it is grotesque for a U.S. official, James P. Callahan, director of the State Department's Asian anti-drug program, to describe the Taliban's special methods in the language of representative democracy: "The Taliban used a system of consensus-building," Callahan said after a visit with the Taliban, adding that the Taliban justified the ban on drugs "in very religious terms." Title: Terrorism, Patriotism, and Environmental Protection Year Took Place: 2003 Category: environment Submitted by: linz Submitted on: 1/17/2003 Source: alternet.org Keywords: air water foi right to know pollution terrorist act toxics Terrorism, Patriotism, and Environmental Protection John-Mark Stensvaag, AlterNet January 16, 2003 Viewed on January 17, 2003 These are dark days for environmentalists. Not since Republican legislators swept into Congress following the 1994 elections, promising to forge a new "Contract With America" has the environmental movement felt so besieged. In the earlier crisis, dozens of federal environmental programs survived a near-death experience when Congress came within two votes of enacting the Risk Assessment and Cost-Benefit Act of 1995. That statute would have prohibited any major health, safety or environmental protection rule unless substantial evidence demonstrated that the benefits would exceed the costs. Then-Sen. Bob Dole's version of the bill would have gone even further, allowing industry to challenge any existing regulation and automatically voiding any rule not supported promptly by cost-benefit proof. A rule providing that 13-year-olds cannot operate deli meat slicers on the job? Gone, if not quickly supported by cost-benefit calculations. A rule that hazardous waste cannot be dumped in an open field near a school playground? Ditto. To be sure, President Clinton threatened to veto these measures, but environmentalists were alarmed. Environmental law scholars and public interest groups have no doubt assumed that the newly elected Republican Congress will now dust off and enact the old cost-benefit bill. Perhaps it will. But there is a new dimension to the current environmental crisis, and it is not simply that Clinton no longer holds the veto pen. Environmental protection is imperiled today not merely because of Nov. 5 but also because of Sept. 11. One needs no crystal ball to predict that polluters and their allies in Congress may soon be trumpeting an Environmental Patriot Act. The thrust of such a statute is captured in the standard line understandably offered by the guardians of such highly vulnerable targets as airlines and nuclear power plants: "We do not comment on security." What does this have to do with environmental protection? For more than three decades, a core belief of American environmental law has been the notion that the public has a right to know what pollutants are discharged to water, emitted to the atmosphere, stored in neighborhood buildings, buried in communities and delivered through tap water. The Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act and the Community Right to Know Act require industrial polluters to monitor their pollutant releases, making this data available to the public. The resulting Toxic Release Inventory database -- readily available on the Web and searchable by zip code -- has been a powerful tool for environmentalists, frequently leading to dramatic reductions in toxic releases. The Safe Drinking Water Act's mandate that consumers be thoroughly informed about the content of drinking water has kept water treatment operators on their toes. This core public disclosure principle of environmental regulation may now become a casualty of the drive to make us safe from terrorism. Should the public forgo certain information to assure that it will not fall into the wrong hands? Drinking water treatment plants, for example, are inviting targets for terrorists; by dumping chemicals or pathogens into raw water sources, enemies may poison an entire metropolis in a matter of hours. Should contaminant monitoring routinely required by the Safe Drinking Water Act -- the pollutants being measured, the frequency of monitoring and so forth -- now be recast as anti-terrorism procedures? If so, "we do not comment on security." The cherished Toxic Release Inventory arguably may be misused by terrorists to release deadly chemicals from industrial facilities. Should we, as patriots, therefore sacrifice the hard-fought right to know which chemicals are stored in our back yards and released into the air and water of our communities? These are difficult questions requiring complicated and nuanced answers. What thoughtful environmentalists fear most in the upcoming congressional session is a rush to judgment. If a proposed Environmental Patriot Act gains momentum, Congress should remember that the toxic cloud slaying the innocent people of Bhopal, India, was not the result of a terrorist act but the consequence of business as usual. is a Professor of Law at the University of Iowa College of Law, has practiced and taught environmental law for almost twenty-seven years, and has written more than 5,000 pages of books and articles in the field. Title: Funding Terror, Saudi Style Year Took Place: 2003 Category: war and peace Submitted by: linz Submitted on: 1/11/2003 Source: Lucy Komisar, In These Times Keywords: corruption war terrorist saudi taxes economics Having a quarter of the world's oil reserves may mean never having to say you're sorry to Washington. Instead, when Newsweek reported in December that checks from the wife of the Saudi ambassador to the United States had been sent to associates of two of the Sept. 11 hijackers, Saudi and Washington officials revved up their spin machines. When the reports surfaced, Haifa bint Faisal, wife of Saudi ambassador Bandar bin Sultan, acknowledged that she sent nearly ,000 to the wife of a Saudi living in San Diego. The recipient, Majeda Ibrahin Dweikat, signed over some of the checks to a friend whose husband, Omar al-Bayoumi (with Dweikat's husband), helped hijackers Khalid Almidhar and Nawaf Alhazmi find housing in San Diego, open bank accounts, get Social Security cards, pay expenses and arrange flying lessons in Florida. U.S. authorities suspected days after Sept. 11 that al-Bayoumi, by then in Birmingham, England, had helped the hijackers. The British arrested him and, in a search of his house, found phone records showing calls to two diplomats at the Saudi Embassy in Washington. Lacking conclusive evidence, they released him, and he is now believed back in Saudi Arabia. U.S. authorities continued to investigate his connections. FBI spokesman Ed Cogswell told In These Times that the bureau had discovered the bint Faisal money transfers when it examined al-Bayoumi's accounts. (Records would have included the check endorsed to al-Bayoumi's wife.) Bint Faisal insists she did not knowingly aid the terrorists -- that she did not even know the woman -- but was only giving charity to Dweikat, a thyroid patient, whose husband had written seeking funds to pay medical bills. Yet the revelation again raises questions about U.S. policy, which has consistently supported the Saudi oil monarchy in spite of its refusal to cooperate with the United States in investigations of terrorist attacks against Americans. The links between bint Faisal's powerful Saudi family and financing of terrorism are even more extensive, however. The trails of both Omar al-Bayoumi, the man who aided the hijackers, and that of the financial network of bint Faisal's family each lead to Osama bin Laden. According to a 1996 U.S. State Department report, al-Shamal Islamic Bank in Khartoum, Sudan, was capitalized by bin Laden and wealthy members of Sudan's National Islamic Front. Bin Laden invested million in the bank. Mohammed al-Faisal, bint Faisal's brother, is an investor and board member at al-Shamal. Al-Shamal appears to have been a bin Laden bank of choice. Al-Qaeda members had accounts in al-Shamal, according to testimony during U.S. trials surrounding the 1998 attacks on American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. One al-Qaeda collaborator, Essam al-Ridi, recounted how bin Laden transferred ,000 from al-Shamal to a bank in Arizona to buy a plane to fly Stinger missiles from Pakistan to Sudan. One of the bank's three founding members and major shareholders is Saleh Abdullah Kamel. A major financial and media power in the Arab world, he is in addition the chairman of the Dallah al-Baraka Group (DBG). Al-Bayoumi was assistant to the Director of Finance for Dallah Avco, a DBG company that works with the Saudi aviation authority. The Wall Street Journal has reported that the United States believes the Dallah al-Baraka Bank, another DBG company, was also used by al-Qaeda. Mohammed Al-Faisal is president of Dar al-Mal al-Islami (DMI), the House of Finance of Islam. This Geneva-based bank is charged with distributing subsidies of the royal family in the Muslim world. DMI, founded in 1981 and with assets of an estimated .5 billion, also has connections to the bin Laden family: Its 12-member board of directors includes Haydar Mohamed bin Laden, Osama bin Laden's half-brother, and Khalid bin Mahfouz, whose sister Kaleda is one of Osama bin Laden's wives. (Bin Mahfouz was indicted by the United States in the notorious BCCI banking scandal, which defrauded depositors of billion, and in 1995 paid a -million fine.) DMI and al-Shamal are not the only banks that link al-Faisal to Osama bin Laden. Al-Faisal's DMI is also a major shareholder of al-Taqwa, the bank registered in the Bahamas and based in Switzerland that was shut down last November after Washington blacklisted it as a centerpiece of bin Laden's financial network. The United States has not, however, blacklisted al-Shamal. These banking connections are compounded by long-standing questions about the function of some Saudi charities. At a December press conference in Washington, Saudi adviser Adel al-Jubeir said, "We have not found a direct link or support from the Saudi charities to terrorist groups." Despite al-Jubeir's claims, one major Saudi charity -- the International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO), which directs millions of dollars a year to fundamentalist movements -- has strong connections to bin Laden. A 1999 Jordanian intelligence report, obtained by In These Times, said that Islamic Relief, "used by bin Laden's men,"was active in the Balkans, Chechnya, Azerbaijan and Kashmir. In Sept. 2001, after the terrorist attacks in the United States, Britain's Charity Commission took the IIRO off its list of registered charities on grounds it did not function as one. It is not, however, on the U.S. terrorist blacklist. The administration treads gingerly in targeting institutions that could lead to the Saudi royals and influentials. In December, Sens. Bob Graham (D-Florida) and Richard C. Shelby (R-Alabama) accused the Bush administration of refusing to declassify information that showed possible Saudi Arabian financial links to terrorists because it didn't want to embarrass the Saudis and endanger its political ties. Shelby, sworn not to reveal classified material, said the information could involve "a lot of their leaders and probably even the royal family." Title: Another Dividend For the Rich Year Took Place: 2003 Category: economics Submitted by: linz Submitted on: 1/11/2003 Source: www.alternet.org Mark Weisbrot Keywords: bad economics corruption taxes rich contributors Here we go again, as Ronald Reagan used to say. The Bush administration has already taken advantage of our most recent recession to pass a $1.35 trillion tax cut, of which 36 percent went to the richest 1 percent of taxpayers. These are people with an average annual income of $1.1 million. While most people see the coming recession as a danger, these champions of the rich and the super-rich see yet another opportunity to shift the tax burden away from their friends and campaign contributors. Hence the administration's bold new initiative: Eliminate the tax on stock dividends. (Dividends are a portion of a corporation's profits that are paid out to stockholders). About half of the households in this country are automatically excluded from this gift, since they don't own any stock at all, even through retirement accounts. You might think that at least the other half would get something out of this new tax loophole. No such luck. The vast majority of people who hold stock do so through retirement accounts. If you are in this category, your dividend income will accumulate just as it does now, in your retirement account. And then you will be taxed on this income when you draw it for your retirement. In other words, the millions of ordinary Americans who are holding stocks in retirement accounts will get absolutely nothing from eliminating the tax on dividends. And even among those who hold stock outside retirement accounts, ownership is highly concentrated. So most of this tax break will go to (surprise!) the richest taxpayers. So how are they selling this new scam? The same way they sold the last one: It's an "economic stimulus" package. According to R. Glenn Hubbard, chairman of President Bush's Council of Economic Advisors, the dividend tax cut could raise stock prices by 20 percent. Mr. Hubbard hasn't quite figured out what millions of people who lost much of their retirement savings in the last three years learned the hard way: There was a bubble in the market, and it's not coming back. Stocks are still a bit pricey even now; the market's price-to-earnings ratio -- the best measure of how expensive stocks are relative to the earnings that the companies can produce -- is about 18 to 1. The historic average over the last 75 years is about 14.5 to 1. The smart money isn't about to gamble on a big rebound for the stock market. The whole idea of stimulating the economy through the stock market is not one that economists would take seriously in any case. But then again, this tax cut isn't really meant to help the economy any more than the last one was. Recall that the actual stimulus that did result from the last tax cut was tacked on to President Bush's proposal by his toughest opponents: The House Progressive Caucus (almost all Democrats) added the rebate that you may have gotten last year. To give the economy a boost and avert a recession, we do not need to rewrite the tax code, as in 2001, over a 10-year period. Rather we need an immediate, one-time stimulus: for example, some serious help for the state and local governments that are desperately cutting spending on everything from hospitals to education in order to balance their budgets. And if we want something for individuals, how about a rebate for the 34 million taxpayers who didn't get even a dollar from the last round of tax cuts? To give them their rebate would cost billion, quite a bargain compared to the estimated billion over the next 10 years that the dividend tax giveaway will cost the U.S. Treasury. If Mr. Bush embarks on a war with Iraq, which he seems to want very badly, it will almost certainly cause serious harm to the economy. The situation will resemble that of September 11, 2001, when an economy that was already in recession fell under a cloud of uncertainty that further depressed business investment and consumer spending. At that point he may wish he had proposed a real economic stimulus instead of this scam. It is amazing that the President and his advisors have not considered this possibility. Or if they have, it hasn't worried them enough to make them take a break from their continuing "class warfare" -- which they regularly accuse their critics of waging -- on the home front. Title: The Secret War on Condoms Year Took Place: 2003 Category: health Submitted by: linz Submitted on: 1/11/2003 Source: www.nytimes.com/2003/01/10/opinion/ NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF Keywords: corruption population environment health aids church Three thousand years ago an amorous Egyptian couple (probably libidinous liberals) experimented with a linen pouch, producing the world's first known condom. Some right-wingers still haven't gotten over it. Over the last few years conservative groups in President Bush's support base have declared war on condoms, in a campaign that is downright weird - but that, if successful, could lead to millions of deaths from AIDS around the world. I first noticed this campaign last year, when I began to get e-mails from evangelical Christians insisting that condoms have pores about 10 microns in diameter, while the AIDS virus measures only about 0.1 micron. This is junk science (electron microscopes haven't found these pores), but the disinformation campaign turns out to be a far-reaching effort to discredit condoms, squelch any mention of them in schools and discourage their use abroad. "The only absolutely guaranteed, permanent contraception is castration," one Catholic site suggests helpfully. Hmmmm. You first. Then there are the radio spots in Texas: "Condoms will not protect people from many sexually transmitted diseases." A report by Human Rights Watch quotes a Texas school official as saying: "We don't discuss condom use, except to say that condoms don't work." I'm all for abstinence education, and there is some evidence that promoting abstinence helps delay and reduce sexual contacts both in the U.S. and abroad. But young people have been busily fornicating ever since sex was invented, in 1963 (as the poet Philip Larkin calculated), and disparaging condoms is far more likely to discourage their use than to discourage sex. The upshot will be more gonorrhea and AIDS among young Americans - and, abroad, many more people dying young. So far President Bush has not fully signed on to the campaign against condoms, but there are alarming signs that he is clambering on board. Last month at an international conference in Bangkok, U.S. officials demanded the deletion of a recommendation for "consistent condom use" to fight AIDS and sexual diseases. So what does this administration stand for? Inconsistent condom use? Then there was the Condom Caper on the Web site of the Centers for Disease Control. A fact sheet on condoms was removed in July 2001 and, eventually, replaced by one that emphasized that they may not work. "The Bush administration position basically condemns people to death by H.I.V./AIDS," said Adrienne Germain, president of the International Women's Health Coalition. "And we're talking about tens of millions of people." Evangelical groups do superb work in Africa, running clinics for some of the world's most wretched people - like poor AIDS victims. So it's baffling to see these same groups buying into junk science in ways that will lead to many more AIDS deaths. (The scientific consensus is simple: Condoms are far from perfect, but they greatly reduce the risk of H.I.V. and of gonorrhea for men, and they probably also reduce the risk of other sexual infections - but more studies are needed to prove the case definitively. See, for example, the National Institutes for Health report at http://www.niaid.nih.gov/dmid/stds/condomreport.pdf.) One study by the University of California at Berkeley found condom distribution to be astonishingly cost-effective, costing just .50 per year of life saved. In contrast, antiretroviral therapy cost almost $1,050. Yet the U.S. is now donating only 300 million condoms annually, down from about 800 million at the end of the first President Bush's term. Consider Botswana, which has the highest rate of H.I.V. infection in the world - 39 percent of adults. According to figures in a report on condoms by Population Action International, the average man in Botswana gets less than one condom per year from international donors. In the time it has taken to read this column, 28 people have died of AIDS, including 5 children. An additional 49 people have become infected. It's imperative that we get over our squeamishness, accept that condoms are flawed but far better than nothing, recognize that condoms no more cause sex than umbrellas cause rain, and ensure that couples in places like Botswana get more than one condom per year. Title: Bush and National Monuments Year Took Place: 2001 Category: environment Submitted by: Lindsay Submitted on: 1/10/2003 Source: web Keywords: environment national monuments parks corruption theft Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton recently stated that the Bush administration would be looking at "all public lands" for new sources of energy, including the new national monuments designated by President Clinton. This echoes a March 13 statement made by President Bush: "there are parts of the monument lands where we can explore without affecting the overall environment." According to The Denver Post, Norton and Bush "have stopped short of trying to directly repeal monument designations. Instead, they are looking at ways to pare them back and allow more uses, such as off-roading and mining." On March 28, Norton announced that she had sent letters to various elected officials in states where new monuments are located, inviting them to identify concerns they have about off-road vehicle use, boundaries, access to in-holdings, and "tradition multiple use activities." Title: Bush Administration Fails to Defend Roadless Rule Year Took Place: 2001 Category: environment Submitted by: Lindsay Submitted on: 1/10/2003 Source: email Keywords: environment roadless legal In a stealth move that signals tacit cooperation with the timber industry, the Bush administration offered an anemic defense to industry arguments that the Roadless Area Conservation Rule - the most significant national forest conservation measure of the past 100 years - should be overturned. Earlier this year, the Boise Cascade Company, the State of Idaho and others filed two separate lawsuits against the federal government to overturn the Roadless Area Conservation Rule. Boise Cascade and the State of Idaho also asked that the court issue an injunction to prevent the rule from being implemented while the case is being tried. On March 21, in response to the request for an injunction, and despite pledges by Attorney General John Ashcroft to the contrary, the Bush administration offered absolutely no defense of the Roadless Area Conservation Rule. In fact, the 5-page response did not attempt to address any of the legal claims raised by Boise Cascade and the State of Idaho, namely that the Roadless Area Conservation Rule lacked specific details, there was insufficient time for the State to respond and public participation was inadequate. Rather than the anemic response given by the Bush administration, the court should have been told the simple truth: that the injunction should not be granted because the Roadless Area Conservation Rule complies with all legal requirements. "By pulling its punches at this point, the administration is indicating that it may simply throw in the towel," said Mike Anderson of The Wilderness Society. "Their strategy seems to be either to use the lawsuits as an excuse to delay implementation of the rule or, by mounting so weak a defense as to lose the case, allow the rule to be rescinded." The Judge will likely determine whether the injunction should be granted sometime in early April, following a March 30 hearing. If he grants the injunction, the implementation of the Roadless Area Conservation Rule will be again delayed. The Wilderness Society, along with a coalition of organizations, has been granted standing in the lawsuit. Through the efforts of lawyers at Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund and National Resources Defense Council, the conservation community is working to uphold the Roadless Area Conservation Rule and protect our national forests.

	if you read all of that you deserve a medal now i wonder, what does that show? now that may have been a long list, but that only the tip of the iceberg, to list all of Dubya's activites would be virtually impossibleand i seriously doubt anyone would be bothered to read so thats as far as im going to go, for now
Your custom image