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Home To The World's Best Liberal Thought And Humor
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In This Edition
Greg Palast puts us on, "The Fast Track Trade Jihad."
Al Martin shows us the frightening future in, "Citizen, Can I See Your ID?"
Mary McGrory gives us, "Fear In A Handful Of Dust'."
Norman Solomon tunes us into, "The Televised Greatness Of George W. Bush."
Joe Conason explains NYC politics in, "Ferrer’s Friends Could Hurt Green."
Gene Lyons talks about, "Bush's Wasted Opportunity."
Ann Thomas cuts through the spin in, "Suffer The Little Children."
Ted Rall gives us, "Bombing Without Thinking: A Rational Alternative."
Stan Goff says, "The So-Called Evidence Is A Farce."
Chris Floyd explains the rules to these, "Mind Games."
Peter Jennings wins the Vidkun Quisling Award
Molly Ivins is, "Seeking Short, Simple Solutions."
David Podvin and Carolyn Kay report on, "Democracy, General Electric Style."
And finally in "Parting Shots Hank Blakely is back with another tale of Smirky in, "The Big Bamboozle: Danger Are My Bidness" but first Uncle Ernie laments, "Sometimes I Wish I Was Wrong."
This week we spotlight the cartoons of Doug Marlette with additional cartoons from Tom Tomorrow, Ben Sargent, Lederman, Ted Rall, Rayberry, Rex Babin, Jeff Danziger, Bill Day, Chris Whitehouse, GWBush Art, Chadsux and Political Strikes.
Plus we have all of your favorite departments! Welcome one and all to "Uncle Ernie's Issues & Alibis." We hope you enjoy your stay! |
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Since the coup d' etat was all about giving Poppa a second chance at ruling the world I knew sooner or later we'd be going back to Iraq but every word out of Foggy Bottom was screaming Osama, Osama, Osama. This struck me as funny until I realized Vice-Emperor Cheney had a deal to pipe Russian oil and gas through a rather hostile Afghanastan. Yes lets take care of business first before we seek revenge. Now that the end of the Taliban is in sight I see where our attention will fall next, right on Iraq. This along with the certain overthrow of the military regime in Pakistan for backing us, should give Osama and pals the "Holy Jihad" against this country that they've been dreaming of.
Like the once sane Cat Stevens said the other night, although he didn't agree with the hit put on Salmond Rushdie being a good Muslim he would have to go along with it, oh joy. If a once liberal person like Stevens would okay murder because someone told him too what will the rank and file Muslims do? Will we soon have 1,000,000,000 potential suicide bombers heading for America? Will our own citizens heed the call of the Imams and Mullahs? Still like that old time religion do you?
Meanwhile our own political masters are setting up the Office of Fatherland Security, yes I know but lets call a spade a spade shall we. Who do you fear more America, a hand full of running scared terrorist or our own home grown types? Now off go the National Guard and Army reserves to urban commando school to learn how to man the check points. To ask us for our papers at the airports, the checkpoints around government offices, the check points on the major highways, the checkpoints at our schools, the checkpoints at sports arenas, the checkpoints at concerts, at train stations, at bus stations, at shopping malls, at your front door, at well ... you get the picture! If not read Al Martin's column below, a very scary read indeed!
Of coursed Smirky and his Nazi pals have been quick to take advantage of America's fear. The corporate controlled media have been fanning the flames of panic making much ado out of molehills, spreading panic every time you turn on the tube or radio or pick up a newspaper. The reich-wingers are having a field day stealing money from tax payers, the poor and old folks to pay for this madness. And the really scary thing is America is lining right up to proudly march off behind our Texas Prairie Monkey all the way to Doomsday.
Normally I would laugh at them a bit, shake my head and wonder how people can be so stupid. But the ante has been upped. The rules have been changed and there is no longer anything to laugh about. We are certainly standing on the brink of destruction. And unlike our atheist opponents in the cold war our current enemies both foreign and domestic are all counting on an afterlife. The Russian and Chinese knew there was no afterlife and took great pains to keep from ending the only life we have. Now we have an Emperor who thinks he's going to meet Jesus and group of guys who are happy to die for their god in order to get to paradise and get at all them virgins. Be afraid America, be very afraid.
You may want to start stocking up on freeze drieds, large caliber weapons, a good solid granite cave and a large drug supply! Knowing when to leave and where to hide may be lives most important lessons!
Last chance to read the 1st chapter of my new book,
And finally for all you trick or treaters here's my Halloween poem, |
 The Fast Track Trade Jihad by Greg Palast for the Observer After the attack on the World Trade Center, some enterprising hucksters here in New York tried to sell little bags of ashes to victims' families, supposedly of their missing kin. The stomach-churning commercialization of mass murder didn't bottom out there. Barely had the towers hit the ground when U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick proclaimed the way to defeat Osama bin Laden was to grant George W. Bush extraordinary 'fast-track' trade treaty negotiating authority. Ambassador bin Zoellick, speaking from what looked like a cave on Capitol Hill, surrounded by unidentified Republicans, said Americans had to choose: for free trade or for terrorism. You'd think Democrats would blast Zoellick for this crude, heartless and somewhat oddball maneuver to jam through Bush's big business agenda while a nation mourned. But this week, war-spooked Democrats in Congress are expected to vote to revive the moribund trade legislation. 'Fast-track' gives Bush carte blanche authority to bargain a big expansion of the World Trade Organization's powers in anticipation of the WTO confab scheduled for Qatar in three weeks. 'Fast-track' also greases approval for a Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). The announcement was followed by a disturbing CNN video tape of corporate lobbyists dancing in the streets and handing out sweets to children. In a September 24 speech before the Institute for International Economics, Trade Ambassador Zoellick laid the groundwork for a new McCarthyism aimed at anti-globalization dissidents. "Terrorists hate the ideas America has championed around the world," he said. "It is inevitable that people will wonder if there are intellectual connections with others who have turned to violence to attack international finance, globalization and the United States." The implied evil link between opponents al-Queda and opponents of the WTO came to him, he said, from New Republic Magazine. This is the same journal, by the way, whose featured columnist suggested, "We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity." Exactly what are the particulars of the US trade agenda for the WTO that are supposed to make terrorists shake with fear? There are two holy grails in Zoellick's trade crusade which go by the benign namesm "national treatment in services" and "investor-to-state dispute resolution." Want to keep the Royal Post - pardon me, Consignia - in government hands, or air traffic control? Not a chance, says John Howard of the US Chamber of Commerce. As Howard explained it to me, a WTO 'national treatment' clause will take that decision out of the hands of pesky parliaments, requiring government agencies to bid against foreign operators. Which brings us to the Machiavellian side of these trade proposals (already promoted, by the way, by EU negotiators). Should Bechtel or any other foreign corporation challenge the continued public ownership of the London Underground, it will fall to Tony Blair to defend government ownership. If you suspect Blair's minions might not argue too forcefully before the disputes panel, you'll never find out. Unlike British and American court proceedings, WTO tribunals are closed and secretive. A Blair or a Bush or any potentate hostile to state-owned enterprises can use a 'national treatment' rule as a sword in their jihad against their own government's agencies. The other codicil sought by fast-track globalizers, "Investor-to-state dispute resolution," has already been deployed in the NAFTA zone. (NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, is where US industry uses Canada and Mexico for target practice to test trade weapons they will take international through WTO.) Investor-to-state dispute resolution allows a foreign corporation wronged by violations of a trade pact to receive compensation from the miscreant nation's treasury. It all sounds quite fair. In practice under NAFTA, corporations have used the system to demolish local governments' environmental and consumer protections. In 1997, a state government in Mexico attempted to stop an American operator building a toxic waste dump in an ecological preservation zone. A NAFTA disputes panel ordered Mexico to pay $15.6 million (£10.4 million) to Metalclad for delay of its polluting plan. The most dangerous case comes before a NAFTA panel this week. Loewen Corp, a big Canadian funeral home chain, is deeply unhappy about American tort law. In 1996, a Mississippi jury ruled that Loewen breached a contract and bullied a small operator as part of a schme to monopolize the industry and raise prices. Rather than appeal the verdict to a higher court, Loewen settled for $150 million - then whipped around and demanded the US government refund the sum and then some -- $725 million. In LOEWEN V. MISSISSIPPI JURY, the Canadian operator demands that a NAFTA panel overturn basic procedures of the US civil justice system as an illegal barrier to trade. While the case is pending on the facts, the disputes panel has accepted jurisdiction. That ruling in effect makes NAFTA, not the US Supreme Court nor our Constitution, the ultimate legal authority of North America. Small wonder that American and European business chiefs are chanting "Disputes Resolution is Great!" outside the walls of Doha, Qatar, as the WTO prepares for the ministerial meeting. If Zoellick's statements on terror and trade sound a bit over the top, he is only reflecting the Bush Administration's sense of panic over the Qatar confab which, even before September 11, was heading toward collapse and cancellation. WTO President Michael Moore failed to stampede less developed counties into putting a new round of comprehensive trade talks on the Qatar agenda. Add to that the US President's lack of authority to negotiate, and who would bother to fly to the Gulf state, especially now? Hence, Zoellick's whipping skeptical Democrats about the head and shoulders with the Stars and Stripes. The Trade Representative had a second target in his trade-or-terrorism tirade: the alliance of greens, populists and unionists who beat back prior attempts at 'fast track' legislation even when Congress was in Republican hands. Zoellick hopes to discredit this effective coalition by wrapping the anti-globalization movement in bin Laden's turban. Lamentably, Zoellick is getting a lot of help on his smear campaign from befuddled souls within the anti-globalization movement itself. Bush's trade chief quotes gleefully from an Earth Island Journal writer who took the ill line that the attack on the Trade Center was some kind of extension, if misguided and criminal, of the struggle against globalization. Bin Laden, born with a silver Rolls in his mouth and a stock portfolio to rival any Rockefeller, hardly qualifies as a class warrior. Nevertheless, Earth Island Journal's opportunistic hijacking of the mass murder to promote its agenda is not exceptional. There's a horrific weirdness in hearing both Zoellick and an unforgivable number of European Leftists (friends who should know better) calling the twin towers symbols of American capitalism. EXCUSE ME, but until I began scribbling for The Observer, I worked on Floor 50 of the North Tower - which stood, among New Yorkers, as a symbol of American SOCIALISM. These government-owned skyscrapers housed the Port Authority, proprietor of subways, bridges and more, America's first line of defense against the privatization jihad sweeping the rest of the planet. It is eery, anguishing and vile to watch Bush's free-market fanatics join together with a self-absorbed element of the left to use this tragedy to sell us their phoney little bags of political ashes.
Special thanks to Mary Bottari of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch for expert explanation and nonpareil research
material.
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There was a barrier that went across the road.
To the right was an elevated shed like structure,
elevated perhaps fifteen feet in the air. It had a
small second story that was open. On it was a sign
that read "Homeland Security Internal Checkpoint."
There were sandbags and the wooden arm that
crossed the road read "100% ID Checked." Then
there was a small shed to the right with a small
barbed wire area behind that. On this structure was
a sign, which read, "All citizens not having proper
identification will be detained. All foreign nationals
will be detained. All citizens who are deemed to be
acting in a suspicious manner will be detained." At
each of these posts there will be six armed Army or
National Guard reservists with M-16's with full field
kit. On top of the structure to the rear, the open
structure on top, there's a man with a machine gun
emplacement.
They showed the actual mockup used for
training purposes. They had new uniforms. They
weren't in their regular uniforms. It's a new gray
uniform with a gray helmet and a visor so you can't
see their eyes. The only thing you can see is from
their lips down because they said that's "to prevent
any retribution" from people who don't like this new
idea.
This uniform looked exactly like the Imperial
Storm Troopers from "Star Wars" except instead of
white, it was gray. All the helmets have little
transceivers so they can communicate with each
other. There will be six guards at each internal
security checkpoint. And there's another warning on
the inside of the barbed wire enclosure, "Any
detainees attempting to escape will be shot." It was
a yellow and red sign inside the detainment area.
The only person who actually spoke on camera
during this story was a sergeant, an Army Reservist
sergeant. You could tell that he completely
disagreed with what was going on. You couldn't
hear the question being asked, but he was looking
at the camera and he said, "We're here to protect
the people." Then he put his head down and shook
his head, and you could tell he didn't believe a word
of what he was saying -- like it was some big
frigging joke.
Then they showed the procedure they were
using to train these guys. An average American car,
like a Ford or a Chevy, drives up and there's
supposed to be a husband and wife in the front
seat and a couple of kiddies in the back. So they
drive up to the checkpoint, and the corporal comes
up to the car and says, "May I see your
identification, citizen."
They call everyone "citizen." I swear to God, I'm
not making this up. Then the guy asks for his
driver's license, then something else and
something else. Then he says, "Very good, citizen."
There's a spot on the gate that goes across the
road that they had x-ed out. But you could tell what it
said because the sergeant alluded to it. It said, "All
citizens are required to present their National
Identification Cards." But they left it blank as a black
spray-painted out spot because the legislation for
that hasn't happened yet.
The big sign on the side of the one and half
story shed with the machine gun nest on top said
"Homeland Security Internal Checkpoint." And now
we're all supposed to say, "Hail the Republic."
That's the new mantra. They showed a bunch of
guys being trained at Fort Campbell, Kentucky,
probably enlisted and reservists and such. And
they kept raising up their right arm saying, "Hail the
Republic."
The sergeant even said that they are duplicating
the ancient Roman Legions salute to Caesar,
using the right arm upraised with the fist. Instead of
"Hail Caesar," though they say, "Hail the Republic."
This is what's coming. People don't believe it or
people don't understand it but when 80% of the
people support whatever "security" measures are
necessary.
What does it all mean? We all better start
worrying when George Bush starts to play the
fiddle.
Congress is supposed to be recessed for the
rest of the year, but they will be giving the
Administration extraordinary wartime authority --
pursuant to all remaining legislation. In other
words, they will simply allow the Administration to
act under pending statutes. They are simply going
to transfer to the Administration emergency
wartime power to act under bills, which are still
pending, even though they haven't been passed.
The implication is that we will be under a
defacto state of martial law soon. There are
100,000 military being trained for these internal
security checkpoints.
When they were showing the lines of enlisted
and reserve people being trained in this camp, with
M-16s in their hands, I can tell you I don't think any
of them would hesitate to shoot at American
citizens. I think they're being indoctrinated. The
indoctrination they're going through is obvious. The
enlisted people are being told by the drill sergeant
that they are being given extraordinary authority that
"your job is to protect the security of the State at all
costs."
There is a direct parallel between the old Soviet
Union and the East Bloc and what we are doing.
We are establishing internal travel restrictions on
the American people. We are essentially following
the Soviet textbook. In the Soviet Communist Bloc,
for example, there were checkpoints in every city.
You had to have what's called an "internal travel
visa." You had to have that visa stamped at every
checkpoint in every city. Then they checked you out
at every entrance to every city. Then if you checked
out, they would affix a visa stamp and charge you
ten marks for it. It was a real racket.
What will be interesting to see is what kind of a
racket is going to go along with these internal
security check points. In other words, how much of
a "toll" are they going to charge? They're going to
have to do something to pay for all of this and one
of the obvious ways to pay for it would be to charge
everyone a one or two dollar "toll."
And this is what we should be looking forward
to - toll booths around the nation. They're not saying
this yet, but obviously in an effort to pay for this,
there's going to be some sort of a "security tax."
Since this system is incredibly cumbersome
(having to stop every single vehicle and check
identification) and we've been taught to be
suspicious of driver's licenses because it's so
easy to obtain false driver's licenses, the
implication is that national security cards are the
only thing that will eventually be accepted as
identification. The further implication is that in order
to accommodate traffic (this will create traffic jams
miles and miles long), there would be a separate
line for those carrying pre-approved internal visas
whose allegiance to the government has already
been checked.
The sergeant on the news report said that all
the people involved (100,000 military people) are
being forced to swear new loyalty oaths to the
United States. He just mentioned the government's
overall policy, which Bush talked about last week,
that all federal civilian employees are going to have
to take new oaths of allegiance to the "Republic."
And that extends to some members of the military
who will be involved in internal security.
Surprisingly enough all these border checks,
you would think, would be handled directly by the
military - or under the auspices of the military.
They're not. They're under the auspices of
"Homeland Security." What it means is that you
have 100,000 troops (reservists and national
guards people) based in the United States, which
will be seconded to the Office of Homeland
Security. Their ultimate jurisdiction is being
transferred from the Department of Defense to the
Office of Homeland Security.
In other words, the Office of Homeland Security
is gaining a militarized division of 100,000 troops.
It's finally getting some of the liberals nervous.
But it's coming. Day after day, they're showing polls
that seventy to eighty percent of the American
people are prepared to approve whatever security
measures are "necessary" to "fight terrorism."
* * *
MILITARY FRAUD DEPT.: According to the
Friendly Colonel, the Redstone Arsenal base
commander was chortling over the fact that the
accuracy of the missile strikes in Afghanistan thus
far was 37%. He was actually chortling on how
"high" the accuracy rate has been. The general's
exact words were that "the defense contractors will
get paid as long as the things go off and hit the
right country."
Also, the Friendly Colonel realizes the reason
the FBI didn't stop all those weapons shipments
from Huntsville Alabama (See previous story
http://www.almartinraw.com/column22.html)
What they were doing was pre-positioning
materiel in Pakistan. That leads one to the
conclusion which he had already made earlier -
that somebody knew this war was going to happen,
possibly as long as six months ago (May 2001). In
other words, they didn't know specifically the target,
but somebody thought it likely that a "terrorist event"
would happen that would precipitate a response by
the US in Afghanistan.
And Where Did the "Mushrooms" Go? (See
previous column
http://www.almartin.raw/column32.html) They were
intended for use by US armed forces. In other
words, they were pre-staging supplies. That's
where the "mushrooms" (anti-personnel land
mines) went. He got an explanation how these
"mushrooms" are used by Special Forces when
they are clearing an area. When an area is being
swept, they drop this weapons system behind
them - to protect their rear and also to prevent
anyone else from re-infiltrating an are which has
already been cleared. The specific use of these
mushrooms is in a sweep operation. When forces
sweep an area and they don't want the area
re-infiltrated they leave this passive weapons
system behind. These weapons are principally
used in an urban warfare environment.
The only correlation that can be made is that
there would be an attack against the United States
of sufficient size which would warrant a response,
hence the predisposition of these weapons
system, like these mushrooms which are under
intense international criticism by an anti-land mine
group in London.
The general also said that they're "re-ordering
missiles like crazy - the Cruise and Tomahawk
missiles." They are being reordered and Rockwell
is building them as fast as they can. Cruise
Missiles are about $1.6 million each, and the
Tomahawks, which are larger, longer range, more
advanced with a heavier payload, are about $3.5
million each.
He estimated that about 300 missiles have
been used so far. It's not big money, but these
missile systems are extremely profitable to build.
They have a simple guidance system, a simple
conventional explosive, and the micro-processors
necessary for the look-forward view capacity is
pretty simple. All they have to do is not hit the side
of a mountain on the way to their target…
* * *
MEDIA DEPT.: According to a reliable inside
source, all the mainstream media outlets have
received a confidential memorandum from the
White House asking that they change the monikers
they're using "Homeland Security" to "Home Front
Security." Apparently they believe that "Home Front
Security" sounds more patriotic and less sinister
than "Home Land Security."
They have also asked the media not to show
any more footage of the urban training and internal
security checkpoints and to minimize the coverage
of any "future" troop movements within the United
States. The implication is that when these internal
security checkpoints get set up, there will be a lot of
movement of troops, helicopters, etc. So as not to
disturb the domestic tranquility of the people by
telling the people the truth, the government is
asking the media to limit coverage of any domestic
troop movements.
All the media will comply because they're all
dying to jump on the government line. MSNBC has
in fact changed their moniker form "Homeland
Security" to "Home Front Security." "Home Front" is
more homey sounding and much more patriotic. It
strikes a chord with a lot of people especially older
people who remember this being so extensively
used for security measures put in place during the
Second World War.
* * *
EDUCATION/ INDOCTRINATION DEPT.: A
warning of note -- Mothers of America beware. Last
week during National Patriotism Day, sixty million
American schoolchildren were supposed to stand
up and say the Pledge of Allegiance together.
There was a little known and briefly shown
incident on TV about a teacher in New Jersey. He
was a fifth grade teacher who changed the words
of the Pledge of Allegiance from "I pledge
allegiance to the flag" to "I pledge allegiance to the
Office of Homeland Security." Subsequently it was
noted that in his opinion children are never too
young to be taught obedience to the State. It should
also be noted that the teacher in question who
professed to be a loyal Vietnam veteran with a flat
top hairdo, a Marine Corps. tattoo on his arm and a
Timex watch, and replete with a polyester tie. He
rather looked like some sort of reject for the corner
stool at the local VFW, when he explained that "he
never saw a commie he didn't want to bomb."
* * *
HISTORY OF FBI ANTI-TERRORISM SUCCESS
DEPT.: In 1995, pursuant to the first round of
"anti-terrorism" legislation a/k/a HR1701, the FBI
was given a special $300 million grant to track
down terrorist assets worldwide.
After a five-year search and an expenditure of
$300 million of American taxpayers' money, they
managed to find one bank account belonging to the
Hamas terrorist group. It was in a savings bank in
New Jersey, and it had $17000 in it.
The Treasury Department's current
pronouncements that the terrorist assets they're
freezing every day is just so much nonsense.
They're not giving us any details about who owns
these accounts or how they know they're connected
to terrorist groups. One of the accounts they seized
in California? Upon further investigation, it turned
out that the account with $346 in it was in fact the
coffee and donut fund for the local Arab American
Chamber of Commerce.
* * *
FREEDOM OF SPEECH DEPT.: Having gone
out to the $8.99 All You Can Eat Chinese Buffet with
a bunch of cohorts, we found out that unbeknownst
to us, there was an FBI agent sitting in the booth
nearby. He was there not in an official capacity, but
just having dinner with his wife. Anyway, we were
talking about the new Office of Homeland Security
and what the internal checkpoints were going to
look like and what the new parameters of our new
National Identity cards will be and, of course,
referencing George Bush as George "Never Saw a
Document He Didn't Want to Shred" Bush. And we
talked about the number of civil rights that the
American people will be giving up in this new
campaign against terrorism.
When we got up to leave, the FBI agent said to
me, "Hey pal, best flap your gums while you can
because a year from now I'll have the power to
arrest you for such seditious talk."
He was wearing his FBI badge on the inside to
ensure that he would get his 15% discount at the
restaurant.
My pals are all older and they're afraid that they'll
get their Social Security checks taken away from
them for hanging out with me. Then I told the FBI
agent that, "Hey, we're just speaking the truth." And
he said, "Like I said, seditious talk."
So remember - the new government mantra is
"Speaking the truth about government misdeeds
and abuses of power equals sedition."
* * *
AS SEEN ON TV DEPT.: The new checkpoints
have been established and they look just like the
mockups that were shown on TV. There's a large
red and yellow placard that says "Homeland
Security Internal Checkpoint." You have to show
your driver's license to go through and you're told
that soon even that will not be sufficient. There was
a company of National Guard setting up an
ancillary facility. They had their new gray helmets
with the visors on, so you couldn't see their eyes.
And it is true. We went through the checkpoint.
And yes, they really do address you as "Citizen." |
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A handful of anthrax particles sent through the mail to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) has sent Capitol Hill into an orbit
of jitters and confusion and set off a civil war (luckily only of words) between the House and Senate.
On Tuesday afternoon, Daschle set off alarm bells by calling the bacteria in his mail "potent." On Wednesday, he sponsored a news
conference where a military expert claimed that the anthrax was "garden variety." Were the terms mutually exclusive? No one knew
enough to know or ask.
The House reacted strongly to the news that terrorism had blasted through the ancient privileges and new barricades that protect the
Senate to invade the Hart Office Building. Thirty one employees tested positive for exposure, which is not to say infection, a distinction
overlooked in the rush to panic. Speaker J. Dennis Hastert announced that the House would shut down. Actually, the Senate is doing
pretty much the same thing, to do an environmental sweep. It just isn't saying so.
The Senate entrance offered a strange sight at 11 o'clock Wednesday morning. Tense groups of reporters surrounded senators
emerging from an emergency bipartisan session in their dining room. Their message: The show must go on. The House was
condemned for overreacting. The buzz around the edges of the little clots was that Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) was
going to have a word with Hastert to straighten him out about the protocol and priorities of not giving in to terrorists, whoever they are.
Farm boys among the senators comprised the instant new elite that has sprung up since the horror at the Hart Building, a third of
which has been sealed off ever since. Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) was offering the morning's most potent reassurance: "I grew up with
anthrax, we had it all the time. You just took penicillin."
Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) was another with first-hand knowledge of the barnyard plague who didn't think it should be allowed to shut
down the government, which of course, was the terrorist vision. "Just because the stuff was highly concentrated doesn't mean
necessarily it was potent."
At 12:45 p.m., in the little park opposite the Capitol, Daschle appeared, accompanied by Republican leader Lott and a phalanx of
experts in the fields of environment and public health, all of whom offered various forms of reassurance.
A much-decorated major general from Fort Detrick named Jon Parker pronounced the Daschle strain to be "a garden variety of
anthrax" and found it to be "sensitive to all kinds of antibiotics." This was good news to the hundreds, including Sen. Joe Lieberman
(D-Conn.), who had taken Cipro.
But within the hour, Hastert had resurfaced to restate his fears that the anthrax might have traveled through ventilating ducts or
tunnels, which necessitated a shutdown for proper house cleaning. House Democratic leader Dick Gephardt (Mo.) chimed in
unhelpfully with a first-time claim that the Daschle strain was "weapons grade."
With all the speculation and expertise being flung around, no one wanted to talk about the greatest mystery, which is not the strength
of the anthrax or its contagious quality, but who's spreading it around. Is Osama bin Laden laughing up his sleeve again, or is this the
work of home-grown, garden-variety terrorists? How did it strike a 7-month-old baby who visited ABC News, or get into the offices of
New York Gov. George Pataki's police detail? The governor was not tested for anthrax but took Cipro anyway, against all medical
advice.
As the crisis unfolded, the chief executive was taking his own advice. President Bush took off for Shanghai on schedule. He has
played a confusing hand in the reassurance game. When the FBI issued a warning last week of further trouble, he dismissed it as
more evidence, without specifics, of a vigilant government at work.
Perhaps his most baffling prescription for peace of mind was his curious treatment of the vice president. While the rest of us were
flying or buying or going to baseball games, Dick Cheney was stashed out of sight in an undisclosed safe location. He was not even
allowed to go to his office, in the interests of "continuity." Was someone after the vice president? Did the president know something
we didn't know?
Legislative and executive have both struck out now in helping us learn to live with terrorism. Maybe it's time for homeland security czar
Tom Ridge to speak up. |
 The Televised Greatness Of George W. Bush By Norman Solomon President Bush's upward spike of popularity owes a lot to his presence on television -- a medium that has not always been so kind. At times, under pressure, he has earned many comparisons to a deer in headlights. But after a wobbly performance on Sept. 11, Bush got into a groove of seizing the TV opportunity and making the most of it. Today's television environment is, more than ever, warmly hospitable to simple -- and simplistic -- declarative statements. That's just as well for Bush, who has shown a distinct tendency to get entangled in a morass of fragmentary linguistic riffs. Last year, on many occasions, he seemed painfully anxious to make his way to the end of sentences without further embarrassment. But now, for the most part, it's a very different story. For insights about recent shifts of George W. Bush's persona on television, I contacted media critic Mark Crispin Miller, whose 1988 book "Boxed In: The Culture of TV" was a groundbreaking analysis of the tube. In the book, he disputed the customary image of the U.S. president as a "mighty individual" -- and identified that image as "a corporate fiction, the careful work of committees and think tanks, repeatedly reprocessed by the television industry for daily distribution to a mass audience." Boosted by family ties and powerful corporate backers, Bush won the presidency (though not the popular vote) while projecting an affable personality that some have found endearing. But even while carrying out weighty duties of the presidency with all its trappings, he struck many Americans as a lightweight, ill-suited for the job. A turning point came with his dramatic speech to a joint session of Congress in mid-September. The rave media reaction "was understandable," Miller told me, "because it actually reflected less on Bush's speech per se than on the moment's strange and terrifying context. The speech was deemed 'Churchillian' because the audience (the American people, the Congress, the media) was so desperate for a proper leader at that fearful moment. At that moment of catastrophe, there was so fierce a hunger for a national father-figure that the audience saw one in the president, who therefore came across like Churchill, or like FDR, despite his lack of stature -- which, prior to the shock, had been quite clear to most observers." Miller's book "The Bush Dyslexicon: Observations on a National Disorder," published a few months ago, warns against assuming too much about the significance of Bush's habitual tongue-tangles. It's a cautionary note that now rings especially true. The man in the White House is shrewd and capable of high-impact rhetorical feats. Since Sept. 11, Miller says, President Bush "has continued, by and large, to speak with more authority than usual." While acknowledging that Bush "has at times reverted to his usual gaffery" (as in his announcement that "ticket counters and airplanes will be flying out of National Airport"), Miller observes that "on the subject of 'America's new war' -- 'the focus of this administration' -- Bush has managed to ad lib with an overall coherence that is, for him, extraordinary." Miller adds that "the president has lately spoken relatively well for the same reason that he's always broken into sudden fits of lucid English -- because, in speaking of our national mission of revenge, he's speaking from the heart." In fact, George W. Bush "has always spoken clearly on those subjects that genuinely matter to him. Thus it is that, when he talks about baseball, say, or about his property in Crawford, he has no problems with his syntax, grammar or vocabulary." Professor Miller, who specializes in media studies at New York University, contends that Bush also "is most articulate when speaking cruelly -- on the value of the death penalty, or when cracking jokes, or when saying no. It's when he tries to sound a higher note -- idealistically, or out of magnanimity, or on his trademark theme of 'compassion' -- that Bush starts speaking broken English, because, like most of us, his tongue will not cooperate when he is being insincere."
These days, President Bush is evidently sincere about wanting the
missiles to keep flying and the bombs to keep falling on Afghanistan --
circumstances that notably enhance his verbal skills. The fact that large
numbers of Afghan people are now facing imminent starvation due to the
ongoing attacks does not seem to bother our nation's leading compassionate
conservative. "The president," says Miller, "has lately spoken with unusual
coherence in his off-the-cuff remarks -- because his subject nowadays is war." |
 Ferrer’s Friends Could Hurt Green It’s hard to tell exactly what Fernando Ferrer and his prominent supporters think they’re doing right now. Assuming that the final vote counts in the Democratic primary runoff eventually show that Mark Green won, the post-primary media crusade that the Ferrer camp is mounting against him right now can only depress Democratic turnout in November and perhaps elect a Republican Mayor. Much worse, it could exacerbate racial and ethnic tension. This is a very curious activity for activists and officeholders who profess to be progressive Democrats. Among them are several Democratic members of Congress, most notably Charles Rangel of Harlem; the chairman of the Democratic organization in the Bronx, Roberto Ramirez; former Deputy Mayor Bill Lynch, who holds the rank of vice chairman on the Democratic National Committee; and Dennis Rivera, the president of the hospital-workers’ union, Local 1199. They’re angry about the negative tactics used by the Green campaign in the final hours before the runoff on Oct. 11. They point not only to a Green television commercial whose tagline—"Can we afford to take a chance?"—struck them as an appeal to white fear, but to anonymous telephone calls and fliers that warned about the Reverend Al Sharpton’s influence over Mr. Ferrer. Conversations with several of the furious Ferrer backers suggest that their anger is genuine, however exaggerated and tinged by previous personal animosities toward Mr. Green. They have produced no proof whatsoever that the Green campaign was responsible for those racially charged fliers and phone calls, which he has disowned and denounced. And their complaint about the TV ad sounds pretty silly, since that sort of tagline is a cliché of negative political advertising, used by all kinds of candidates against one another regardless of race, creed or color. As this dispute grows nastier, there are several facts that voters of all ethnic groups should remember. The Ferrer campaign depended heavily on Mr. Sharpton—a lifelong, enthusiastic and unapologetic exploiter of racial tensions—to mobilize its vote. The Ferrer campaign launched the first negative assault during the runoff, when its candidate stood chortling alongside Ed Koch while the former Mayor brayed so loudly about the "obnoxious" personality of Mr. Green—a theme Ferrer supporters continued to emphasize. The Ferrer campaign attempted to smear William Bratton as an enemy of minority communities, even though Mr. Ferrer had eagerly praised the former police commissioner years earlier, when that seemed more opportune. Embittered critics of Mr. Green now portray the Ferrer candidacy as a historic bid for Latino empowerment, and grumble that his defeat represents a betrayal by the Democratic Party of loyal constituencies long awaiting their turn in City Hall. There is a false note in this woeful song, however. If the Ferrer campaign represented a crusade for political equity, then why did Mr. Rivera, for example, dawdle so long before endorsing him at the last minute? Why did Mr. Rivera’s union almost choose Mr. Green instead, just after Labor Day? Why did Mr. Sharpton flirt so ostentatiously with a Green endorsement? Presumably they were just playing the games that power brokers play, hedging and bargaining in the traditional style that often lurks behind progressive rhetoric. Both Mr. Rivera and Mr. Sharpton have found reasons to cozy up to Republican candidates in years past when that best served their institutional interests. Just four years ago, Mr. Rivera unceremoniously dumped the Democratic challenger to Rudolph Giuliani, despite all of the Mayor’s many offenses to minority voters and union workers, and stood beside him for a smiling photo op just before Election Day. In 1986, Mr. Sharpton essentially sold his support to Senator Alfonse D’Amato, in exchange for a $550,000 federal grant to a drug-rehab center run by a Sharpton ally. (That episode became one of many counts in Mr. Green’s ethics complaint against the former Senator.) Indeed, Mr. Sharpton regularly threatens to bolt to the Republicans, whenever he isn’t seeking a Democratic nomination for himself. Power brokers like winners, and cynics might think that Mr. Sharpton and Mr. Rivera were initially attracted to Mr. Green because he appeared so likely to win the Democratic nomination all year. Yet there was another factor that permitted the Public Advocate to come as close as he did to winning the support of the hospital workers and even the Sharpton faction. Before their memories were clouded by the pain of defeat last week, people like Mr. Sharpton and Mr. Rivera surely recalled that Mr. Green was among the few white politicians in New York who was unafraid to stand by David Dinkins during the worst days of his Mayoralty.
Both Mr. Green and his angry critics face an important test. He has to set aside his pride to
reassure them that he really seeks to unify the city across racial lines, regardless of past
conflicts. And they must abandon the impulse for retribution at a moment when New Yorkers
need unity more than ever.
|
 Bush's Wasted Opportunity By Gene Lyons At this writing, it's hard to say anything worthwhile about how the war on terrorism is going. As most Americans understand, bombing defenseless Afghanistan is the easy part. All the hard choices and the tough fighting lay ahead. Complex military and geopolitical puzzles will need to be solved. Sad to say, one's confidence in President Bush's ability to make the right calls has not been enhanced by recent cave-ins to the dimwit right on the relatively mundane domestic issues of stimulating the economy and airline safety. Even as Washington pundits exult over his newfound "legitimacy," Bush appears to be blowing the political opportunity of a generation. With the nation united behind him and the "religious right" weakened by the crackpot pronouncements of Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, the president had an excellent chance to move toward the center and away from the puerile anti-government rhetoric and save-the-millionaires economics of House Republicans like Dick Armey and Tom de Lay. Instead, the White House has embraced them for reasons that virtually defy rational explanation. Last Oct. 12, the House Ways and Means Committee shoved through a bogus economic "stimulus" bill in the form of $100 billion tax giveaway to the same wealthy individuals and corporations who were already the prime beneficiaries of Bush's earlier tax cut. Passed on a party line vote, the House bill would do little to help the economy in the short run, and much to destabilize the federal budget years hence. At Democratic insistence, $300 checks will be sent to workers whose salaries were too low to get income tax rebates last summer. Because it's sure to be spent at once on necessities, this cash should give the economy a modest boost. But what have income tax cuts that award an added $39 billion to the richest one quarter of taxpayers between 2003 and 2005 got to do with today's recession? Absolutely nothing. Ditto for repealing the corporate minimum tax on profitable companies which would otherwise pay none. Temporarily speeding up depreciation on business investment might help in the short run; doing so permanently weakens the incentive and hurts the treasury. And so forth. Even Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill has called the bill "more than we'd like" and mocked the House drafting session as "show business for lobbyists." Its spirit was parodied by Washington Post columnist Mike Kinsley, who urged Congress "to seriously consider special tax considerations, regulatory relief and possibly even direct financial subsidies for people named "Mike" or "Michael." In this time of crisis, we cannot allow superficial considerations of fairness to prevent us from doing what is necessary to ensure that this essential group of Americans is fully engaged in the war effort." The White House wants to trim the numbers some, but basically supports the House bill. The Wall Street Journal reports rumors that if O'Neill doesn't get on board, he'll be fired. Which can only mean that President Bush, as many suspect, either can't do the arithmetic, or means to use the campaign against terrorism as a pretext to return the country to rising interest rates and permanent budget deficits. Apparently just so the Scrooge McDucks of the GOP right can hoard heaps of currency to roll in. If Bush's economic policies are unwise, going along with de Lay and the boys on the crucial issue of airline safety is downright irrational. As a 1996 commission chaired by, yes, Al Gore, tried to convince GOP pols in the first place, preventing terrorists from using domestic airliners as weapons of war is a national security issue. Last week the U.S. Senate voted 100-0 to put the Department of Justice in charge of airport security and impose a $2.50 tax on airline tickets to pay for it. Amazingly, House anti-labor union fanatics led by de Lay and Armey oppose the bill on the stated grounds that the private rent-a-cop firms who've done such a fine job so far can continue to do so more efficiently. Meanwhile, the U.S. Attorney in Philadelphia has indicted officials of Argenbright, the nation's largest airline security firm, for repeatedly violating FAA standards-including falsifying records to hide employees' criminal records.
What de Lay and company really fear is adding 28,000 unionized
workers to the federal payroll. Somebody needs to remind them that the New
York City cops and firemen who responded so heroically to the World Trade
Center attacks were members of the strongest municipal unions in the
country-career professionals whose pride, dedica-tion, and, yes,
brotherhood, have everything to do with the fact that making the force
isn't a minimum wage stopgap but the ambition of a lifetime.
Astonishingly, President Bush has sided with the House
know-nothings, and threatened to enforce their wishes by executive
order--bad politics, bad for the country, but good in the long run, I
suppose, for the Democratic party. |
"Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation
must begin by subduing the freeness of speech." ... Ben-Jamin' Franklin
 Suffer The Little Children By Ann Thomas Pardon me if I don't fall all over myself praising Bush, as many pundits and mouthpieces did last night, for his new plan to "help" the children of Afghanistan. The Shrub has announced that he'd like for all children to send a dollar to the "Fund for Any Surviving Afghan Kids" or whatever it's called. There are approximately seventy million children in the U.S., so if each one of them sent in a dollar, that'd be a whopping $70 million in aid. Of course, Bush is hoping that their parents will kick in a bit as well to increase the pot. Why does this make me angry? The U.S. has pledged to give $320 million in aid to the people of Afghanistan. That's certainly better than nothing, but does it mean that Bush gives a flying damn for the civilians whose lives are being further destroyed by his new oil war? Of course not; it's a PR move and nothing more, and anyone with a grain of common sense knows it. Now Bush has decided that the Afghan people need a bit more help. Is he pledging more aid? Hell, no - he's asking our kids to give it. The people of America, he claims, are "the most generous in the world", though how he could know this without visiting other countries and actually getting to know the people there is beyond me. Last night, shortly before Bush's press conference, John King of CNN said that Bush planned to bring up the subject of humanitarian aid (I suppose his plan to milk the American people for relief money was supposed to be a big deal) because, and I quote, "He wants to feed the Afghan people even while he bombs their country". Well, bully for him. He wants to make sure they have a peanut butter sandwich before we drop a bomb on them. What a guy. Speaking of dropping bombs, the US military has been dropping food packages on Afghanistan - your tax dollars at work. First, we dropped 37,000 food packages, which was touted by the media as evidence of Shrub's compassion. Thirty-seven thousand meals don't go very far in a country where millions are starving. And of course, there's no guarantee that the Afghan people will get to eat those meals...there are more land mines in Afghanistan than in any country in the world. You'd have to be pretty hungry to run across a mine-strewn field to get to a meal, but the people there ARE pretty hungry, so you can bet that's what they're doing. The children, whom Bush professes to care so much about, are no doubt among those risking - literally - life and limb to get a meal. We claim that we have to drop the food packages because it's the only safe way to get food to the people. Yet the reason it's no longer safe to take food into the country by traditional methods is because we're bombing the hell out of the country. But no fear - we're going to help those children, according to Bush. We're going to help them by coercing the people of the US to donate money, which will no doubt pay for more pretty packages to be dropped over a mine-ridden field. And if it's not enough food for the Afghan people now, it might be eventually, because they are dying. We've already killed at least one child with our bombs; he won't be the last. What, I wonder, was the cost of the bomb that killed him? How many children would it have fed? Some might say that the US, in this current economy, can't afford to give more than $320 million in aid to Afghanistan. Well, perhaps we can't. But we could sure afford to give $15 BILLION in aid to the airline corporations, a portion of which will be kicked back to the Republicans and the Bush administration in return for letting the airlines "police themselves" with regards to security. Fifteen billion dollars averages out to roughly two hundred and ten dollars for every child in the U.S. I'll tell you why I'm angry. I'm angry because our government gave an ungraspable sum of money to corporations whose skinflint practices may have enabled the terrorists to hijack four planes and kill thousands of people, but when it comes to giving money to starving people who have done nothing - NOTHING - to us, Bush gives a paltry $320 million and then states that anything more will have to be donated voluntarily by the American people, who are already feeling the pinch of the Bush economy. Oh, but not the American people in general -- the CHILDREN. I don't doubt that many, many children will faithfully send in their dollar and actually believe that they are helping their counterparts in Afghanistan. They'll do it because their parents will tell them it's the right thing to do, and of course, helping starving children IS the right thing to do. But what are our children learning? That it's okay to bomb people if we also send them a meal now and then? That our government can't afford to help starving children because it's spending too much money on corporate welfare and tax cuts, so it's up to us to do so? Here's an idea: have our government give $15 billion in aid to the people of Afghanistan, and $320 million in aid to the airlines. And then encourage the American people to donate to the airlines to help them out further. We could call the project "Schoolkids for Corporations".
In a perfect world... |
 Bombing Without Thinking: A Rational Alternative by Ted Rall Beware collateral damage, for today's hey-nothing-personal victims give rise to tomorrow's terrorists. As this goes to press, a bestiary of bombs-a few 500-pounders here, some "bunker busters" there-is falling on Afghan cities. Gulf War mythology of ordinance IQ notwithstanding, 21st century bombing is hardly a precision art. Smart or dumb, some bombs will always go off-course. And bombs hit things that then blow up, killing people who weren't themselves targets. Sometimes civilians hang out where they shouldn't. And sometimes information about bombing targets is just plain wrong or out-of-date. The bottom line is this: Ordinary Afghan people, men and women and children who have never done anything wrong to anyone, are getting mangled and killed by American bombs. The innocents have spouses, parents and friends, and these spouses, parents and friends may quite naturally end up hating those who mangled and killed their loved ones. That hate festers, and some of these people will eventually be persuaded that vengeance will soothe their pain. And one day they'll fly planes into office buildings or blow themselves up in shopping malls or do something else we haven't dared imagine yet. Needless to say, getting even for the 9-11 attacks doesn't do much good if our vengeance only creates more terrorism, which we will then feel compelled to avenge. And yet: the right-wingers are absolutely correct when they assert that doing nothing is not a viable option. Whether September 11th was something we "had coming" or not, giving peace a chance is not something we can imagine at the moment: there is no peace to give a chance to. And no nation is worthy of the name unless it's willing to react to the murder of its citizens with force. Bush is, like it or not, doing something. People respect that, even if that something later turns out to be counterproductive. There is, however, an intelligent middle ground between mindless bombing and mindless pacifism. A thoughtful solution - neither "liberal" nor "conservative" -- can be found by applying what we Americans are best at: simple common sense. The Objectives Like the "war on drugs" and the "war on poverty", a "war on terrorism" is too vast, vague and nebulous to "win". Our first priority ought to be to bring the surviving perpetrators of the attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center to justice; if they end up dead in the attempt, so be it. Second, while we'll never eradicate the possibility of terrorist attacks on American soil we can minimize their number and their intensity when they do occur. This requires a delicate combination of force and tact: We must be kind as well as forceful. What To Do Afghanistan's Taliban regime is at most indirectly involved with the September 11th hijackings. (The Bush Administration admits that it couldn't indict Osama or the Taliban on the evidence it currently possesses.) Follow the passports: 18 out of the 19 hijackers were Egyptian; 1 was Saudi. The smart money points to one of the Middle East's most venerable militant Muslim organizations, Gama'at al-Islamiyya, the Islamic Group. Founded by Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, who is currently serving a life sentence for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, Gama'at al-Islamiyya is best known for the November 1997 massacre of 62 tourists at the Temple of Luxor in Egypt and the assassination of Egyptian president Anwar Sadat in 1981. Though the Islamic Group is composed of numerous splinter cells whose ideologies vary, they share a common aim: the replacement of the secular government of Hosni Mubarek by an Islamic theocracy. The Islamic Group resents the U.S. for propping up the Mubarak government, and for its support for Israel. According to most reports, Egyptians are the main suspects for September 11th. So why are we attacking Afghanistan? American intelligence should work with the Egyptian government to track down any members of Gama'at al-Islamiyya who had anything to do with the New York and Washington attacks and put them on trial for mass murder. Arresting murderers ought to take precedence over bombing the places where they trained. A targeted approach would demonstrate to all but the most fanatic elements in the Arab world that the United States is a nation whose retribution is measured and just. It would also serve to destroy the one network to have drawn the most American blood-and reduce the odds of a repeat performance. Though we should continue providing economic and military assistance to Israel, that aid ought to be predicated on several conditions. First, all Israeli settlements in the Palestinian territories ought to be closed. Second, Israel should guarantee an end to its more egregious human rights abuses, such as the demolition of Arab homes and rocket attacks on civilian targets. Finally, internal border blockades of Gaza and the West Bank should be permanently halted. This bilateral policy-supporting Israel while refusing to tolerate religious apartheid-would show that we stand behind our friends but only to the extent that they behave in a civilized fashion. Best of all, it would end the absurd state of affairs in which a superpower is repeatedly manipulated by a resource-free desert nation the size of New Jersey. We should drop sanctions and military action against Iraq and Afghanistan in exchange for verifiable assurances that neither nation will harbor terrorists who target the United States. Then we should pour in humanitarian assistance to show ordinary Muslims that Americans care about their plight. Let a co-opted postwar Taliban root out Al Qaeda and other groups in their territory; it's a hell of a lot easier to let the locals do the dirty work than to send in American ground troops.
But first, let's stop this stupid bombing. |
|
But I wasn't just in the army. I studied and taught military science and doctrine. I was a tactics instructor at the
Jungle Operations Training Center in Panama, and I taught Military Science at West Point. And contrary to the
popular image of what Special Forces does, SF's mission is to teach. We offer advice and assistance to foreign
forces. That's everything from teaching marksmanship to a private to instructing a Battalion staff on how to
coordinate effective air operations with a sister service.
Based on that experience, and operations in eight designated conflict areas from Vietnam to Haiti, I have to say
that the story we hear on the news and read in the newspapers is simply not believable. The most cursory glance
at the verifiable facts, before, during, and after September 11th, does not support the official line or conform to the
current actions of the United States government.
But the official line only works if they can get everyone to accept its underlying premises. I'm not at all surprised
about the Republican and Democratic Parties repeating these premises. They are simply two factions within a
single dominant political class, and both are financed by the same economic powerhouses. My biggest
disappointment, as someone who identifies himself with the left, has been the tacit acceptance of those premises
by others on the left, sometimes naively, and sometimes to score some morality points. Those premises are
twofold. One, there is the premise that what this de facto administration is doing now is a "response" to
September 11th. Two, there is the premise that this attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon was done
by people based in Afghanistan. In my opinion, neither of these is sound.
To put this in perspective we have to go back not to September 11th, but to last year or further.
A man of limited intelligence, George W. Bush, with nothing more than his name and the behind-the-scenes
pressure of his powerful father-a former President, ex-director of Central Intelligence, and an oil man-is
systematically constructed as a candidate, at tremendous cost. Across the country, subtle and not-so-subtle
mechanisms are put into place to disfranchise a significant fraction of the Democrat's African-American voter
base. This doesn't come out until Florida becomes a battleground for Electoral College votes, and the magnitude of
the story has been suppressed by the corporate media to this day. In a decision so lacking in legitimacy, the
Supreme Court will neither by-line the author of the decision nor allow the decision to ever be used as a precedent,
Bush v. Gore awards the presidency of the United States to a man who loses the popular vote in Florida and loses
the national popular vote by over 600,000.
This de facto regime then organizes a very interesting cabinet. The Vice President is an oil executive and the
former Secretary of Defense. The National Security Advisor is a director on the board of a transnational oil
corporation and a Russia scholar. The Secretary of State is a man with no diplomatic experience whatsoever, and
the former Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The other interesting appointment is Donald Rumsfeld as Secretary of
Defense. Rumsfeld is the former CEO of Searle Pharmaceuticals. He and Cheney were featured as speakers at the
May, 2000, Russian-American Business Leaders Forum. So the consistent currents in this cabinet are petroleum,
the former Soviet Union, and the military.
Based on the record of Daddy Bush, in all his guises, and the general trajectory of US foreign policy as far back as
the Carter Administration, I feel I can reasonably conclude that Middle Eastern and South Asian fossil fuels are one
of their major preoccupations. Not just because this klavern has some very direct financial interests in fossil fuel,
but because they surely know that worldwide oil production is peaking as we speak, and will soon begin a
permanent and precipitous decline that will completely change the character of civilization as we know it within 20
years. Even the left seems to be in deep denial about this, but the math is available. And, no, alternative energies
and energy technologies will not save us. All the alternatives in the world can not begin to provide more than a tiny
fraction of the energy base now provided by oil. This makes it more than a resource, and the drive to control what's
left more than an economic competition.
I further conclude that the economic colonization of the former Soviet Union is probably high on that agenda, and in
fact has a powerful synergy with the issue of petroleum. Russia not only holds vast untapped resources that
beckon to imperialism in crisis, it remains a credible military and nuclear challenger in the region.
We have not one, but three members of the Bush de facto cabinet with military credentials, which makes the
cabinet look quite a lot like a military General Staff. All this way before September 11th.
Then there's the subject of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. NATO might have expected consignment to the
dustbin of the Cold War after the Eastern Bloc shattered in 1991. Peace dividend and all that. But it didn't. It
expanded directly into the former states of the Eastern Bloc toward the former Soviet Union, and contributed
significant forces to the devastation of Iraq-a key country in the world oil market, over which control translates into
the ability to manipulate oil prices.
NATO is a military formation, and the United States exerts the controlling interest in it. It seemed like a form without
a function, but it remedied that pretty quickly.
Then when Yugoslavia refused to play ball with the International Monetary Fund, the US and Germany began a
systematic campaign of destabilization there, even using some of the veterans of Afghanistan in that campaign.
NATO became the military arm of that agenda-the break-up of Yugoslavia into compliant statelets, the further
containment of the former Soviet Union, and the future pipeline easement for Caspain Sea oil to Western European
markets through Kosovo.
You see, this is important to understand, and people-even those against the war talk-are tending to overlook the
significance of it. NATO is not a guarantor of international law, and it is not a humanitarian organization.
It is a military alliance with one very dominant partner. And it can no longer claim to be a defensive alliance against
European socialists. It is an instrument of military aggression.
NATO is the organization that is now going to thrust further along the 40th parallel from the Balkans through the
Southern Asian Republics of the former Soviet Union. The US military has already taken control of a base in
Uzbekistan. No one is talking about how what we are doing seems to be a very logical extension of a strategy that
was already in motion, and has been in motion for two decades. Once we recognize the pattern of activity designed
to simultaneously consolidate control over Middle Eastern and South Asian oil, and contain and colonize the former
Soviet Union, Afghanistan is exactly where they need to go to pursue that agenda.
Afghanistan borders Iran, Pakistan, and even China but, more importantly, the Central Asian Republics of the
former Soviet Union, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan. These border Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan borders
Russia. Turkmenistan sits on the Southeastern quadrant of the Caspian Sea, whose oil the Bush Administration
dearly covets.
Afghanistan is necessary for two things: as a base of operations to begin the process of destabilizing,
breaking off, and establishing control over the South Asian Republics, which will begin within the next 18-24
months in my opinion, and constructing a pipeline through Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan to deliver
petroleum to the Asian market.
The BBC was recently told by Niaz Naik, a Pakistani Foreign Secretary, that senior American officials were warning
them as early as mid-July that military action for mid-October was being planned for Afghanistan. In 1996, the
Department of Energy was issuing reports on the desirability of a pipeline through Afghanistan, and in 1998, Unocal
testified before the House Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific that this pipeline was crucial to transport Caspian
Basin oil to the Indian Ocean.
Given this evidence that a military operation to secure at least a portion of Afghanistan has been on the table,
possibly as early as five years ago, I can't help but conclude that the actions we are seeing put into motion now are
part of a pre-September 11th agenda. I'm absolutely sure of that, in fact. The planning alone for operations, of this
scale, that are now taking shape, would take many months. And we are seeing them take shape in mere weeks.
It defies common sense. This administration is lying about this whole thing being a "reaction" to September 11th.
That leads me, in short order, to be very suspicious of their yet-to-be-provided evidence that someone in
Afghanistan is responsible. It's just too damn convenient. Which also leads me to wonder-just for the sake of
knowing-what actually did happen on September 11th, and who actually is responsible.
The so-called evidence is a farce. The US presented Tony Blair's puppet government with the evidence, and
of the 70 so-called points of evidence, only nine even referred to the attacks on the World Trade Center, and those
points were conjectural. This is a bullshit story from beginning to end. Presented with the available facts, any
16-year old with a liking for courtroom dramas could tear this story apart like a two-dollar shirt. But our corporate
press regurgitates it uncritically. But then, as we should know by now, their role is to legitimize.
This cartoon heavy they've turned bin Laden into makes no sense, when you begin to appreciate the complexity
and synchronicity of the attacks. As a former military person who's been involved in the development of countless
operations orders over the years, I can tell you that this was a very sophisticated and costly enterprise that would
have left what we call a huge "signature".
In other words, it would be very hard to effectively conceal.
So there's a real question about why there was no warning of this. That can be a question about the efficacy of the
government's intelligence apparatus. That can be a question about various policies in the various agencies that
had to be duped to orchestrate this action. And it can also be a question about whether or not there was
foreknowledge of the event, and that foreknowledge is being covered up. To dismiss this concern out of hand as
the rantings of conspiracy nuts is premature. And there is a history of this kind of thing being done by national
political bosses, including the darling of liberals, Franklin Roosevelt. The evidence is very compelling that the
Roosevelt Administration deliberately failed to act to stop Pearl Harbor in order to mobilize enough national anger
to enter the World War II.
I have no idea why people aren't asking some very specific questions about the actions of Bush and company on
the day of the attacks.
Follow along:
Four planes get hijacked and deviate from their flight plans, all the while on FAA radar. The planes are all hijacked
between 7:45 and 8:10 AM Eastern Daylight Time.
Who is notified?
This is an event already that is unprecedented. But the President is not notified and going to a Florida elementary
school to hear children read.
By around 8:15 AM, it should be very apparent that something is terribly wrong. The President is glad-handing
teachers.
By 8:45, when American Airlines Flight 11 crashes into the World Trade Center, Bush is settling in with children for
his photo ops at Booker Elementary. Four planes have obviously been hijacked simultaneously, an event never
before seen in history, and one has just dived into the worlds best know twin towers, and still no one notifies the
nominal Commander in Chief.
No one has apparently scrambled any Air Force interceptors either.
At 9:03, United Flight 175 crashes into the remaining World Trade Center building. At 9:05, Andrew Card, the
Presidential Chief of Staff whispers to George W. Bush. Bush "briefly turns somber" according to reporters.
Does he cancel the school visit and convene an emergency meeting? No.
He resumes listening to second graders read about a little girl's pet fucking goat, and continues this banality even
as American Airlines Flight 77 conducts an unscheduled point turn over Ohio and heads in the direction of
Washington DC.
Has he instructed Chief of Staff Card to scramble the Air Force? No.
An excruciating 25 minutes later, he finally deigns to give a public statement telling the United States what they
already have figured out; that there's been an attack by hijacked planes on the World Trade Center.
There's a hijacked plane bee-lining to Washington, but has the Air Force been scrambled to defend anything yet?
No.
At 9:30, when he makes his announcement, American Flight 77 is still ten minutes from its target, the Pentagon.
The Administration will later claim they had no way of knowing that the Pentagon might be a target, and that they
thought Flight 77 was headed to the White House, but the fact is that |
