U.S. Policy Seen as Big Loser in Palestinian Vote:
Standing in a sunny Rose Garden on June 24, 2002, surrounded by his top foreign policy advisers, President Bush issued a clarion call for resolving the deadly Israeli-Palestinian conflict: "I call on the Palestinian people to elect new leaders, leaders not compromised by terror."
This week, Palestinians gave their answer, handing a landslide victory in national legislative elections to Hamas, which has claimed responsibility for dozens of suicide bombings and desires the elimination of Israel. Bush's statement calling for new leaders was aimed at the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, but in the same speech he also said it was necessary to thwart Hamas -- formally the Islamic Resistance Movement -- and other militant groups
The election outcome signals a dramatic failure in the administration's strategy for Middle East peace, according to analysts and some U.S. officials. Since the United States cannot deal with an organization labeled a terrorist organization by the State Department, Hamas's victory is likely to curtail U.S. aid, limit official U.S. contacts with the Palestinian government and stall efforts to create an independent Palestinian state.
"More broadly, Hamas's victory is seen as a setback in the administration's campaign for greater democracy in the Middle East. Elections in Iran, Iraq, Egypt and now the Palestinian territories have resulted in the defeat of secular and moderate parties and the rise of Islamic parties hostile to U.S. interests.
The administration has long been criticized for being reluctant to get involved in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; even after Bush's 2002 speech, the policy drifted except for occasional high-profile speeches and events. But after Arafat's death in late 2004 and the beginning of the new presidential term, Bush vowed things would be different, saying he would invest 'political capital' in ensuring a Palestinian state before he leaves office three years from now.
The effort went wrong on three fronts, according to interviews inside and outside the administration:
*The administration put its hopes on the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, and poured hundreds of millions of dollars to fund public works projects. But it failed to back him when he asked for concrete help, especially in his dealings with the Israelis.
*The administration was highly attuned to the shifts of Israeli politics but tone-deaf to the upheaval in Palestinian society. It was so focused on facilitating Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip that it did not press Israel to end settlement expansion, release additional prisoners or take other measures that might have reduced Palestinian indignation.
*Despite deep Israeli misgivings, the administration late last year shifted policy and decided Hamas could participate in the elections even though it had not disarmed its militias, in contrast to rules set for elections in Afghanistan and Northern Ireland.
28.1.06
OPERATION NORTHWOODS: US PLANNED FAKE TERROR ATTACKS ON CITIZENS TO CREATE SUPPORT FOR CUBAN WAR
OPERATION NORTHWOODS: US PLANNED FAKE TERROR ATTACKS ON CITIZENS TO CREATE SUPPORT FOR CUBAN WAR
Code named Operation Northwoods, the plan, which had the written approval of the Chairman and every member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called for innocent people to be shot on American streets; for boats carrying refugees fleeing Cuba to be sunk on the high seas; for a wave of violent terrorism to be launched in Washington, D.C., Miami, and elsewhere.
People would be framed for bombings they did not commit; planes would be hijacked. Using phony evidence, all of it would be blamed on Castro, thus giving Lemnitzer and his cabal the excuse, as well as the public and international backing, they needed to launch their war.
SOUND FAMILIAR??? YOU JUST DID IT AGAIN THIS DECADE.
Code named Operation Northwoods, the plan, which had the written approval of the Chairman and every member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called for innocent people to be shot on American streets; for boats carrying refugees fleeing Cuba to be sunk on the high seas; for a wave of violent terrorism to be launched in Washington, D.C., Miami, and elsewhere.
People would be framed for bombings they did not commit; planes would be hijacked. Using phony evidence, all of it would be blamed on Castro, thus giving Lemnitzer and his cabal the excuse, as well as the public and international backing, they needed to launch their war.
SOUND FAMILIAR??? YOU JUST DID IT AGAIN THIS DECADE.
US Propaganda Aimed at Foreigners Reaches US Public: Pentagon Document
US Propaganda Aimed at Foreigners Reaches US Public: Pentagon Document
The Pentagon acknowledged in a newly declassified document that the US public is increasingly exposed to propaganda disseminated overseas in psychological operations.
But the document suggests that the Pentagon believes that US law that prohibits exposing the US public to propaganda does not apply to the unintended blowback from such operations.
[The Pentagon document] calls for 'boundaries' between information operations abroad and the news media at home, but provides for no such limits and claims that as long as the American public is not 'targeted,' any leakage of PSYOP to the American public does not matter.
(9/11? Remember Operation Northwoods???)
National Security Archives "The increasing ability of people in most parts of the globe to access international information sources makes targeting particular audiences more difficult," said the document.
"Today the distinction between foreign and domestic audiences become more a question of USG (US government) intent rather than information dissemination practices," it said.
Called the "Information Operations Roadmap," the document was approved by US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in October 2003.
It was made public by the National Security Archives, a private non-profit research group which obtained it through a Freedom of Information Act request.
The document said that psychological operations, or "psyops," are restricted by Pentagon policy and executive order from targeting US audiences, US military personnel and news agencies and outlets. BU*SH*IT
"However, information intended for foreign audiences, including public diplomacy and PSYOP, increasingly is consumed by our domestic audience and vice-versa."
In a press release, the National Security Archives said the document "calls for 'boundaries' between information operations abroad and the news media at home, but provides for no such limits and claims that as long as the American public is not 'targeted,' any leakage of PSYOP to the American public does not matter."
Pentagon spokesman Lawrence DiRita vehemently denied that the Pentagon was unconcerned about possible blowback.
"I reject the premise of this release which is, 'Hey if it bleeds back we're okay with it.' We're not okay with it," he said.
DiRita said that, with the exception of "battlefield deception," psychological operations used to influence foreign publics were based on factual, accurate information.
He said that the Pentagon has sought to erect "firewalls" between psychological operations that aim to "influence" foreign publics and public affairs, which "inform" the press and the US public.
But he acknowledged that the distinction between the two has become blurred. No sh**
"It's an important distinction to understand, but increasingly in the world we're in it's a distinction that deserves scrutiny," he said.
Disclosures last month that US military psychological operations units were secretly planting paid-for stories with the Iraqi press through a contractor brought some of those issues to the surface.
General George Casey, the US commander in Iraq, is reviewing the results of an investigation into the case, but officials have said that the disclosures have so far prompted no changes.
I've had enough of your psyops and control games, and the majority of americans are right behind me
The Pentagon acknowledged in a newly declassified document that the US public is increasingly exposed to propaganda disseminated overseas in psychological operations.
But the document suggests that the Pentagon believes that US law that prohibits exposing the US public to propaganda does not apply to the unintended blowback from such operations.
[The Pentagon document] calls for 'boundaries' between information operations abroad and the news media at home, but provides for no such limits and claims that as long as the American public is not 'targeted,' any leakage of PSYOP to the American public does not matter.
(9/11? Remember Operation Northwoods???)
National Security Archives "The increasing ability of people in most parts of the globe to access international information sources makes targeting particular audiences more difficult," said the document.
"Today the distinction between foreign and domestic audiences become more a question of USG (US government) intent rather than information dissemination practices," it said.
Called the "Information Operations Roadmap," the document was approved by US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in October 2003.
It was made public by the National Security Archives, a private non-profit research group which obtained it through a Freedom of Information Act request.
The document said that psychological operations, or "psyops," are restricted by Pentagon policy and executive order from targeting US audiences, US military personnel and news agencies and outlets. BU*SH*IT
"However, information intended for foreign audiences, including public diplomacy and PSYOP, increasingly is consumed by our domestic audience and vice-versa."
In a press release, the National Security Archives said the document "calls for 'boundaries' between information operations abroad and the news media at home, but provides for no such limits and claims that as long as the American public is not 'targeted,' any leakage of PSYOP to the American public does not matter."
Pentagon spokesman Lawrence DiRita vehemently denied that the Pentagon was unconcerned about possible blowback.
"I reject the premise of this release which is, 'Hey if it bleeds back we're okay with it.' We're not okay with it," he said.
DiRita said that, with the exception of "battlefield deception," psychological operations used to influence foreign publics were based on factual, accurate information.
He said that the Pentagon has sought to erect "firewalls" between psychological operations that aim to "influence" foreign publics and public affairs, which "inform" the press and the US public.
But he acknowledged that the distinction between the two has become blurred. No sh**
"It's an important distinction to understand, but increasingly in the world we're in it's a distinction that deserves scrutiny," he said.
Disclosures last month that US military psychological operations units were secretly planting paid-for stories with the Iraqi press through a contractor brought some of those issues to the surface.
General George Casey, the US commander in Iraq, is reviewing the results of an investigation into the case, but officials have said that the disclosures have so far prompted no changes.
I've had enough of your psyops and control games, and the majority of americans are right behind me
27.1.06
In Case About Google's Secrets, Yours Are Safe - New York Times
In Case About Google's Secrets, Yours Are Safe - New York Times
The Justice Department went to court last week to try to force Google, by far the world's largest Internet search engine, to turn over an entire week's worth of searches. The move, which Google is fighting, has alarmed its users, enraged privacy advocates, changed some people's Internet search habits and set off a debate about how much privacy one can expect on the Web.
But the case itself, according to people involved in it and scholars who are following it, has almost nothing to do with privacy. It will turn, instead, on serious but relatively routine questions about trade secrets and civil procedure.
The privacy debate prompted by the case may thus be an instance of the right answer to the wrong question. As recently demonstrated by disclosures of surveillance by the National Security Agency and secret inquiries under the USA Patriot Act, the government is aggressively collecting information to combat terror. BU*SH*IT
And even in ordinary criminal prosecutions and in civil lawsuits, Internet companies including Google routinely turn over authentically private information in response to focused warrants and subpoenas from prosecutors and litigants.
But "this particular subpoena does not raise serious privacy issues," said Timothy Wu, a law professor at Columbia. "These records are completely disconnected. They're just strings of words."
In its only extended discussion of its reasons for fighting the subpoena, a Google lawyer told the Justice Department in October that complying would be bad for business.
"Google objects," the lawyer, Ashok Ramani, wrote, "because to comply with the request could endanger its crown-jewel trade secrets."
"Google's acceding to the request would suggest that it is willing to reveal information about those who use its services," he wrote. "This is not a perception that Google can accept."
The problem with the subpoena, Mr. Fine said, is more general. "This is another instance of government overreaching," he said.
The Justice Department went to court last week to try to force Google, by far the world's largest Internet search engine, to turn over an entire week's worth of searches. The move, which Google is fighting, has alarmed its users, enraged privacy advocates, changed some people's Internet search habits and set off a debate about how much privacy one can expect on the Web.
But the case itself, according to people involved in it and scholars who are following it, has almost nothing to do with privacy. It will turn, instead, on serious but relatively routine questions about trade secrets and civil procedure.
The privacy debate prompted by the case may thus be an instance of the right answer to the wrong question. As recently demonstrated by disclosures of surveillance by the National Security Agency and secret inquiries under the USA Patriot Act, the government is aggressively collecting information to combat terror. BU*SH*IT
And even in ordinary criminal prosecutions and in civil lawsuits, Internet companies including Google routinely turn over authentically private information in response to focused warrants and subpoenas from prosecutors and litigants.
But "this particular subpoena does not raise serious privacy issues," said Timothy Wu, a law professor at Columbia. "These records are completely disconnected. They're just strings of words."
In its only extended discussion of its reasons for fighting the subpoena, a Google lawyer told the Justice Department in October that complying would be bad for business.
"Google objects," the lawyer, Ashok Ramani, wrote, "because to comply with the request could endanger its crown-jewel trade secrets."
"Google's acceding to the request would suggest that it is willing to reveal information about those who use its services," he wrote. "This is not a perception that Google can accept."
The problem with the subpoena, Mr. Fine said, is more general. "This is another instance of government overreaching," he said.
Holocaust Remembrance Day More Relevant Than Ever | Europe | Deutsche Welle | 27.01.2006
Holocaust Remembrance Day More Relevant Than Ever Europe Deutsche Welle 27.01.2006
Jan. 27, 1945: The Red Army liberated Auschwitz, exposing Nazi brutality to the world. Sixty years later, the event is honored as the first International Holocaust Day. It comes at a time of heightened anti-Semitism.
Nazi rule in Germany lasted from 1933 to 1945 and cost the lives of six million European Jews, who were gassed, starved or worked to death in concentration camps across the war-torn continent.
On January 27, 1945, the concentration camp at Auschwitz in Poland was liberated by the advancing Red Army of the Soviet Union. What they discovered there would become the legacy of the Nazi regime's brutality and inhumanity.
For ten years now, that date has been reserved in Germany for a day of remembrance, a day when the country remembers the day the Holocaust became a lasting scar on world history. This year, January 27 will become an international day of remembrance as the United Nations recognizes Holocaust Day as a global anniversary.
Jan. 27, 1945: The Red Army liberated Auschwitz, exposing Nazi brutality to the world. Sixty years later, the event is honored as the first International Holocaust Day. It comes at a time of heightened anti-Semitism.
Nazi rule in Germany lasted from 1933 to 1945 and cost the lives of six million European Jews, who were gassed, starved or worked to death in concentration camps across the war-torn continent.
On January 27, 1945, the concentration camp at Auschwitz in Poland was liberated by the advancing Red Army of the Soviet Union. What they discovered there would become the legacy of the Nazi regime's brutality and inhumanity.
For ten years now, that date has been reserved in Germany for a day of remembrance, a day when the country remembers the day the Holocaust became a lasting scar on world history. This year, January 27 will become an international day of remembrance as the United Nations recognizes Holocaust Day as a global anniversary.
What Al Gore's speech reveals about the state of US politics
What Al Gore's speech reveals about the state of US politics
In the ten days that have passed since the January 16 speech delivered by Al Gore in Washington charging President Bush with trampling on the Constitution in his conduct of the “war on terror,” the former vice president has been alternately vilified, ridiculed or ignored. There has been little serious discussion of his criticisms of the Bush administration, however, outside of the World Socialist Web Site. (See: “Bush administration domestic spying provokes lawsuits, calls for impeachment”)
The substance of Gore’s speech was the most sweeping indictment of the Bush administration by any significant figure within the US ruling elite since Bush took office in 2001.
He not only charged that the Bush White House seeks to exercise quasi-dictatorial powers over the American people, but he painted a picture of a judicial system and a Congress which are unwilling to challenge the presidential power-grab and uphold the traditional institutions of the American constitutional system, based on the separation of powers between Congress, the White House and the courts.
Such statements from such a source have extraordinary political significance. Gore is, after all, not an accidental figure in American politics.
The son of a longtime senator from Tennessee, he was in turn a congressman, senator, vice president for eight years—during which he played a central role in much of the policymaking of the Clinton administration—and then the presidential candidate of the Democratic Party in 2000. He received more than 50 million votes in that election, beating Bush by 500,000 in the popular vote.
Now this representative of the highest level of the American ruling elite declares that “America’s Constitution is in grave danger,” and that democratic values “have been placed at serious risk by the unprecedented claims of the administration to a truly breathtaking expansion of executive power.”
In the current exposure of illegal surveillance, Gore said, “What we do know about this pervasive wiretapping virtually compels the conclusion that the president of the United States has been breaking the law, repeatedly and insistently.
A president who breaks the law is a threat to the very structure of our government.” Hello?!
Can you hear me now?
In the ten days that have passed since the January 16 speech delivered by Al Gore in Washington charging President Bush with trampling on the Constitution in his conduct of the “war on terror,” the former vice president has been alternately vilified, ridiculed or ignored. There has been little serious discussion of his criticisms of the Bush administration, however, outside of the World Socialist Web Site. (See: “Bush administration domestic spying provokes lawsuits, calls for impeachment”)
The substance of Gore’s speech was the most sweeping indictment of the Bush administration by any significant figure within the US ruling elite since Bush took office in 2001.
He not only charged that the Bush White House seeks to exercise quasi-dictatorial powers over the American people, but he painted a picture of a judicial system and a Congress which are unwilling to challenge the presidential power-grab and uphold the traditional institutions of the American constitutional system, based on the separation of powers between Congress, the White House and the courts.
Such statements from such a source have extraordinary political significance. Gore is, after all, not an accidental figure in American politics.
The son of a longtime senator from Tennessee, he was in turn a congressman, senator, vice president for eight years—during which he played a central role in much of the policymaking of the Clinton administration—and then the presidential candidate of the Democratic Party in 2000. He received more than 50 million votes in that election, beating Bush by 500,000 in the popular vote.
Now this representative of the highest level of the American ruling elite declares that “America’s Constitution is in grave danger,” and that democratic values “have been placed at serious risk by the unprecedented claims of the administration to a truly breathtaking expansion of executive power.”
In the current exposure of illegal surveillance, Gore said, “What we do know about this pervasive wiretapping virtually compels the conclusion that the president of the United States has been breaking the law, repeatedly and insistently.
A president who breaks the law is a threat to the very structure of our government.” Hello?!
Can you hear me now?
Bush and China Endorse Russia's Nuclear Plan for Iran - New York Times
Bush and China Endorse Russia's Nuclear Plan for Iran - New York Times
As if you had a choice.
WASHINGTON, Jan. 26 — President Bush and the Chinese government both declared their full support on Thursday for a Russian proposal to allow Iran to operate civilian nuclear facilities as long as Russia and international nuclear inspectors are in full control of the fuel.
Mr. Bush's explicit public endorsement puts all of the major powers on record supporting the proposal, even as most acknowledge that it is a significant concession to Iran and runs the risk that the country will drag out the negotiations while continuing to produce nuclear material. Yet officials say they believe it is the best face-saving strategy to pursue a negotiated settlement with Iran.
Mr. Bush did not discuss the details of the Russian offer. (heh heh) Have you seen Russia's Russia's SS-27 ?
But American, European and Russian officials, who like others discussing the issue spoke on the condition of anonymity because they did not want to be seen as interfering in the negotiations, said the offer would allow Iran to continue operations at the plant that turns yellowcake, a concentrated form of uranium ore, into uranium hexafluoride, a toxic material that centrifuges spin into fuel for reactors or bombs.
Critics of that concession say that it could send a signal to Iran that it no longer has to comply with all provisions of its November 2004 agreement with Europe.
As if you had a choice.
WASHINGTON, Jan. 26 — President Bush and the Chinese government both declared their full support on Thursday for a Russian proposal to allow Iran to operate civilian nuclear facilities as long as Russia and international nuclear inspectors are in full control of the fuel.
Mr. Bush's explicit public endorsement puts all of the major powers on record supporting the proposal, even as most acknowledge that it is a significant concession to Iran and runs the risk that the country will drag out the negotiations while continuing to produce nuclear material. Yet officials say they believe it is the best face-saving strategy to pursue a negotiated settlement with Iran.
Mr. Bush did not discuss the details of the Russian offer. (heh heh) Have you seen Russia's Russia's SS-27 ?
But American, European and Russian officials, who like others discussing the issue spoke on the condition of anonymity because they did not want to be seen as interfering in the negotiations, said the offer would allow Iran to continue operations at the plant that turns yellowcake, a concentrated form of uranium ore, into uranium hexafluoride, a toxic material that centrifuges spin into fuel for reactors or bombs.
Critics of that concession say that it could send a signal to Iran that it no longer has to comply with all provisions of its November 2004 agreement with Europe.
Bush Defends His Goal of Spreading Democracy to the Mideast - New York Times
Bush Defends His Goal of Spreading Democracy to the Mideast - New York Times
What part of We are NOT buying your BULLSHIT, do you NOT Understand?
WASHINGTON, Jan. 26 — The sweeping victory of Hamas in the Palestinian elections threw President Bush and his aides on the defensive on Thursday, complicating the administration's policy of trying to promote democracy as an antidote to the spread of terrorism. (There are no terrorists, but you are going to create MANY)
Reacting uneasily to the Hamas triumph, Mr. Bush said the results spoke to the failures of President Mahmoud Abbas and the "old guard" of his Fatah faction to root out corruption and mismanagement, not to any flaws in the administration's policy of advocating democracy.
"There was a peaceful process as people went to the polls, and that's positive," Mr. Bush said. "But what's also positive is that it's a wake-up call to the leadership. Obviously people were not happy with the status quo. The people are demanding honest government. The people want services."
But without criticizing the Palestinian people for choosing leaders who advocate the destruction of Israel, a tenet at the very core of Hamas's creed, he said that the United States would never tolerate such a policy. In the same fashion, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice noted that Palestinians want a negotiated peace settlement with Israel, according to opinion polls, but she repeated that this goal remained possible only if Hamas renounced its violent ways.
Mr. Bush joined a chorus of world leaders — including the so-called quartet of principal parties in the moribund peace process — in calling on Hamas to renounce terrorism, disarm its militias and recognize the legitimacy of Israel now that it has won the elections. But his tone was less confrontational than invitational — in effect, inviting Hamas to embrace reconciliation.
For now, Mr. Bush called on President Abbas to stay in office and steer the Palestinian government on a moderate course.
(Here's the little dictator telling PALESTINIANS how to run their country. tutut- NOT smart.)
The Hamas victory was the fifth case recently of militants' winning significant gains through elections. They included the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Hezbollah in Lebanon, a radical president in Iran, and Shiites backed by militias in Iraq.
As these elections unfolded, there has been increasing criticism in some quarters — notably among the self-described "realists" in foreign policy, many of them veterans of past Republican administrations — that President Bush has naively pushed for democracy in countries without the civil society components to support it.
"The Hamas victory is a disillusioning result showing that democracy and American interests don't always coincide," said Nikolas K. Gvosdev, a Russia expert who is editor of The National Interest, a publication that echoes with debate about this subject.
"Given the weakness of Palestinian society, people should not have been surprised that this was the outcome," Mr. Gvosdev added.
Other critics, too, including some Arab leaders, say that the United States failed to do its part to shore up Mr. Abbas by wringing more concessions from Israel and doing more to revitalize the economy in the West Bank and Gaza.
A senior State Department official said recently that the Bush administration, five years ago, inherited what he called the old model: that economic growth, the development of a middle class and the spread of education needed to come before democracy could take hold in troubled countries.
"But that's a story that we can no longer accept," he said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of rules prohibiting him from publicly explaining administration policy.
"First of all you're not getting economic growth in a lot of places. We now understand that getting greater political openness and democracy in the Arab world is essential to our security." (No, you're not getting the BIG picture)
The problem faced by the administration on Thursday was how to coax Hamas into the mainstream.
The West has more tools than mere diplomatic pressure to influence Hamas and the Palestinian Authority. The authority, described by many as nearly bankrupt, has begun tapping its trust funds to pay daily expenses and is running a deficit that Israel calculates at more than $700 million a year.
Europe and the United States provide most of the $1 billion in foreign assistance that goes to the Palestinians. But some of this money has already been cut back in protest of the Palestinian leadership's raising salaries and welfare benefits, which make up a major part of the Palestinian economy.
American and European officials said they could not imagine outside aid continuing if there is a Hamas-led government that has not renounced violence or Hamas's commitment to destroying Israel.
Many of the reactions from Western diplomats took on dramatic tones, characterizing Hamas as now facing a trial of identity.
"What Hamas faces is not only a political but an existential dilemma," said Terje Roed-Larsen, the former United Nations envoy in the Middle East, in an interview. "They have built their identity on opposing elections and the institutions of the Palestinian Authority. Now they're the masters of the institutions they have been against."
Diplomats involved in the Middle East peace process known as the road map, the document that calls for reciprocal steps between Israelis and Palestinians toward creation of a Palestinian state, say that any immediate chances of reviving the Israeli-Palestinian dialogue are daunting if not impossible.
The immediate question before the administration is not whether negotiations can be revived but whether Israel can be encouraged to carry out more unilateral withdrawals from the West Bank.
As for dealing with Hamas, the Europeans are considered likely to see the problem differently, many diplomats say. Regarding both Hamas and Hezbollah, the Europeans have called for the West to use the template of Sinn Fein, the political wing of the Irish Republican Army, when dealing with them.
In other words, they say, talking to Hamas may help coax it toward eventual partnership in a peace negotiation. The problem, many diplomats and experts say, is that no one even pretends that there are truly separate wings of Hamas. Its armed forces and its political leaders are married to each other inextricably.
Do a little research on General Mahmoud Ahmad, and Pakistani ISI
What part of We are NOT buying your BULLSHIT, do you NOT Understand?
WASHINGTON, Jan. 26 — The sweeping victory of Hamas in the Palestinian elections threw President Bush and his aides on the defensive on Thursday, complicating the administration's policy of trying to promote democracy as an antidote to the spread of terrorism. (There are no terrorists, but you are going to create MANY)
Reacting uneasily to the Hamas triumph, Mr. Bush said the results spoke to the failures of President Mahmoud Abbas and the "old guard" of his Fatah faction to root out corruption and mismanagement, not to any flaws in the administration's policy of advocating democracy.
"There was a peaceful process as people went to the polls, and that's positive," Mr. Bush said. "But what's also positive is that it's a wake-up call to the leadership. Obviously people were not happy with the status quo. The people are demanding honest government. The people want services."
But without criticizing the Palestinian people for choosing leaders who advocate the destruction of Israel, a tenet at the very core of Hamas's creed, he said that the United States would never tolerate such a policy. In the same fashion, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice noted that Palestinians want a negotiated peace settlement with Israel, according to opinion polls, but she repeated that this goal remained possible only if Hamas renounced its violent ways.
Mr. Bush joined a chorus of world leaders — including the so-called quartet of principal parties in the moribund peace process — in calling on Hamas to renounce terrorism, disarm its militias and recognize the legitimacy of Israel now that it has won the elections. But his tone was less confrontational than invitational — in effect, inviting Hamas to embrace reconciliation.
For now, Mr. Bush called on President Abbas to stay in office and steer the Palestinian government on a moderate course.
(Here's the little dictator telling PALESTINIANS how to run their country. tutut- NOT smart.)
The Hamas victory was the fifth case recently of militants' winning significant gains through elections. They included the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Hezbollah in Lebanon, a radical president in Iran, and Shiites backed by militias in Iraq.
As these elections unfolded, there has been increasing criticism in some quarters — notably among the self-described "realists" in foreign policy, many of them veterans of past Republican administrations — that President Bush has naively pushed for democracy in countries without the civil society components to support it.
"The Hamas victory is a disillusioning result showing that democracy and American interests don't always coincide," said Nikolas K. Gvosdev, a Russia expert who is editor of The National Interest, a publication that echoes with debate about this subject.
"Given the weakness of Palestinian society, people should not have been surprised that this was the outcome," Mr. Gvosdev added.
Other critics, too, including some Arab leaders, say that the United States failed to do its part to shore up Mr. Abbas by wringing more concessions from Israel and doing more to revitalize the economy in the West Bank and Gaza.
A senior State Department official said recently that the Bush administration, five years ago, inherited what he called the old model: that economic growth, the development of a middle class and the spread of education needed to come before democracy could take hold in troubled countries.
"But that's a story that we can no longer accept," he said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of rules prohibiting him from publicly explaining administration policy.
"First of all you're not getting economic growth in a lot of places. We now understand that getting greater political openness and democracy in the Arab world is essential to our security." (No, you're not getting the BIG picture)
The problem faced by the administration on Thursday was how to coax Hamas into the mainstream.
The West has more tools than mere diplomatic pressure to influence Hamas and the Palestinian Authority. The authority, described by many as nearly bankrupt, has begun tapping its trust funds to pay daily expenses and is running a deficit that Israel calculates at more than $700 million a year.
Europe and the United States provide most of the $1 billion in foreign assistance that goes to the Palestinians. But some of this money has already been cut back in protest of the Palestinian leadership's raising salaries and welfare benefits, which make up a major part of the Palestinian economy.
American and European officials said they could not imagine outside aid continuing if there is a Hamas-led government that has not renounced violence or Hamas's commitment to destroying Israel.
Many of the reactions from Western diplomats took on dramatic tones, characterizing Hamas as now facing a trial of identity.
"What Hamas faces is not only a political but an existential dilemma," said Terje Roed-Larsen, the former United Nations envoy in the Middle East, in an interview. "They have built their identity on opposing elections and the institutions of the Palestinian Authority. Now they're the masters of the institutions they have been against."
Diplomats involved in the Middle East peace process known as the road map, the document that calls for reciprocal steps between Israelis and Palestinians toward creation of a Palestinian state, say that any immediate chances of reviving the Israeli-Palestinian dialogue are daunting if not impossible.
The immediate question before the administration is not whether negotiations can be revived but whether Israel can be encouraged to carry out more unilateral withdrawals from the West Bank.
As for dealing with Hamas, the Europeans are considered likely to see the problem differently, many diplomats say. Regarding both Hamas and Hezbollah, the Europeans have called for the West to use the template of Sinn Fein, the political wing of the Irish Republican Army, when dealing with them.
In other words, they say, talking to Hamas may help coax it toward eventual partnership in a peace negotiation. The problem, many diplomats and experts say, is that no one even pretends that there are truly separate wings of Hamas. Its armed forces and its political leaders are married to each other inextricably.
Do a little research on General Mahmoud Ahmad, and Pakistani ISI
From the Wilderness
January 27, 2006
BOMBING IRAN? Don’t Count On It
Unless the Neocons Exceed Their Known Capacity for Stupidity
by Stan Goff
DEAD MAN WALKING The US and Israel Cannot Attack Iran
The American Empire is Finished - One Way or the Other
by Michael C. Ruppert
Read these subscriber stories here: FromTheWilderness.com
BOMBING IRAN? Don’t Count On It
Unless the Neocons Exceed Their Known Capacity for Stupidity
by Stan Goff
- AND -
DEAD MAN WALKING The US and Israel Cannot Attack Iran
The American Empire is Finished - One Way or the Other
by Michael C. Ruppert
Read these subscriber stories here: FromTheWilderness.com
Pentagon plan calls for new WMD task force: report
Top News Article Reuters.com
The Neocons WILL Exceed Their Known Capacity for Stupidity
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon's latest strategy review proposes a new military unit that would prevent the transfer of weapons of mass destruction from states such as North Korea and Iran to terrorist groups, The Washington Times reported on Friday.
The WMD task force would be comprised of several hundred troops, including special operations forces and intelligence personnel, the Times said.
The Times said the proposal was included in the Pentagon's 2005 Quadrennial Defense Review, a sweeping assessment of U.S. defense strategy Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld will send to the White House and Congress on February 6.
Portions of an unclassified summary of the document were made available to The Washington Times, the newspaper said.
"A section on combating weapons of mass destruction said future U.S. military forces will have the capability to interdict and 'render safe' weapons of mass destruction before terrorists can use them," the newspaper reported.
A Pentagon spokeswoman had no immediate comment on the report. (duh)
The Times said Pentagon spokesman Larry DiRita declined to comment on the strategy review which has not been made public.
"We have over the past few years focused on ways of having a standing and rapidly deployable task force," DiRita was quoted as saying. "It's something that can respond quickly to a tough problem."
The Times said the Pentagon review stated that a core element of the new joint task force would be the Army's 20th Support Command, which would become a rapid deployment unit "to command and control WMD elimination missions by 2007."
"They will possess an expanded ability to locate, tag and track dangerous individuals and other high value targets globally," the review was quoted as saying.
Defense officials this week confirmed the planning document calls for the addition of nearly 8,000 troops to its elite Special Operations Forces next year to bolster the U.S. military's ability to fight terrorists and insurgents worldwide.
The Neocons WILL Exceed Their Known Capacity for Stupidity
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon's latest strategy review proposes a new military unit that would prevent the transfer of weapons of mass destruction from states such as North Korea and Iran to terrorist groups, The Washington Times reported on Friday.
The WMD task force would be comprised of several hundred troops, including special operations forces and intelligence personnel, the Times said.
The Times said the proposal was included in the Pentagon's 2005 Quadrennial Defense Review, a sweeping assessment of U.S. defense strategy Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld will send to the White House and Congress on February 6.
Portions of an unclassified summary of the document were made available to The Washington Times, the newspaper said.
"A section on combating weapons of mass destruction said future U.S. military forces will have the capability to interdict and 'render safe' weapons of mass destruction before terrorists can use them," the newspaper reported.
A Pentagon spokeswoman had no immediate comment on the report. (duh)
The Times said Pentagon spokesman Larry DiRita declined to comment on the strategy review which has not been made public.
"We have over the past few years focused on ways of having a standing and rapidly deployable task force," DiRita was quoted as saying. "It's something that can respond quickly to a tough problem."
The Times said the Pentagon review stated that a core element of the new joint task force would be the Army's 20th Support Command, which would become a rapid deployment unit "to command and control WMD elimination missions by 2007."
"They will possess an expanded ability to locate, tag and track dangerous individuals and other high value targets globally," the review was quoted as saying.
Defense officials this week confirmed the planning document calls for the addition of nearly 8,000 troops to its elite Special Operations Forces next year to bolster the U.S. military's ability to fight terrorists and insurgents worldwide.
Iraq Dispatches Digest, Vol 17, Issue 7
January 27, 2006
Interview with Karen KwiatkowskiIn July, 2003,
Karen Kwiatkowski retired as a lieutenant colonel fromthe U.S. Air Force, having served since 1978. From May, 2002, toFebruary, 2003, Karen Kwiatkowski served in the Pentagon's Near East and South Asia directorate (NESA).
Dr. Kwiatkowski presently teaches at James Madison University, and writes regularly for MilitaryWeek.com.
Interviewed by Omar Khan for http://www.dahrjamailiraq.com/, read the interviewof Dr. Kwiatkowski's blistering and revealing comments about theneo-conservatives, Bolsheviks, fascism and the Bush Administration agenda in Iraq and beyond.
OK: Could you say something about your reasons for joining the Air Force some 20 years ago?
KK: Basically, they gave me a full ROTC scholarship, and I needed money to go to college. That was the deal. I was happy to do it actually. I had applied for navy and army, and the one that I got was Air Force. My dad had served in the navy for 4 years in, I guess, the late 50s. And he used to always talk about how great the military was. So we were pretty disposed to the military, but I joined the Air Force because they're the ones that coughed up the money for college.
OK: So military service has been a tradition in your family for at least two generations.
KK: It's definitely looked highly upon in my family. Actually, I have two brothers, both-one was for his career in the navy, just retired. The other was in the marines for about seven or eight years.
OK: What do you mean when you've else where referred to the military as an apolitical institution?
KK: When I refer to the military as a political, that's because, as an institution, it's supposed to be. But it's kind of political in the sense that if you're what's called a conservative-usually you're in good company when you're in the military. You're around a lot of people that care about some of those basic things. So there's that aspect. But technically apolitical.
We swear an oath to the constitution-to defend it against enemies, both foreign and domestic. They're words, but every time you get promoted you have to retake the oath. So it does make you think about the constitution. You're reminded of it in a way that other people in other jobs are not reminded of it. So we have this constant idea-it's kind of reinforced to us throughout our careers: what we're supposed to be doing, what we're all about. (so we can call upon the military to defend the constitution here?)
OK: How did you see whistleblowing in terms of these values?
KK: You're oath is not to a political party, it's not to an institution, but to an idea: to a constitutional republic. So we have a president who serves for 4-8 years.
And he has-according to the constitution-limited duties that he take scare of. We have a legislature; and a judiciary. So if you care about those things, and you're out to preserve that balance-to respect that balance rather than persons-you don't think of it as whistleblowing, you think of it as, you know, my loyalty is to what is right, to how thesethings are supposed to work.
I was working pretty closely with those who lied to the American people into buying an unnecessary war, an illegal war, I think. But my loyalty is not to those people-whether those people are the president, Republican or Democrat, whether those people political appointees, whether those people are civil servants. The loyalty is to the system, and the system is set up in such a way to prevent stupid things from happening in foreign policy. (it failed)
OK: What do you mean when you characterize neoconservatism as a dead philosophy of anticommunism?
KK: In 2002, before I was actually working with people doing Near East policy and seeing and meeting these neoconservatives-I didn't even know what a neoconservative was. I began to look at who these individuals were, what they were doing before in our government, and what they cared about politically. These are the same guys that are responsible for Iran-Contra.
They don't care about the law. They are liberals at home-very much not a traditional conservative political perspective domestically, but closer to the more Social Democratic approach, somewhat like our Democratic party used to be, domestically; but, in terms of foreign policy, very hawkish, extremely hawkish, extremely aggressive-black and white, murder, death, kill basically. I hate to say that, but that's what it is: they have to die so we can live.
Intervention oriented foreign policy, which is not conservative either.This is kind of the political home of neoconservatives.The Cold War was perfect for this crowd; and this crowd made their political bones during that time. These guys were the hard core anticommunists even within the Reagan administration. Richard Perle actually left the administration in 1986 based on Reagan's overtures and receptivity to Gorbachev. Perle, Wolfowitz, Armitage, Rumsfeld,Cheney-all these guys, though not always in the exact same way, had a place in the Reagan administration as hardline hawks, even though many of them were not Republicans. In fact Richard Perle to this day is a registered Democrat.
OK: What is your view of the legacy to which the neocons are heirs?
KK: The intellectual fathers of neoconservatism-what shapes their approach internationally-are the Bolsheviks. International revolution, international change-radical change, global revolution. And these same terms, these same ideas-of international change, revolution,transformation-these are the words of Michael Ledeen and some of theother articulators of neoconservatism. And the actual people, and they're not ashamed to really say this, but guys like Irving Crystal and other intellectuals of the 30s had actually been Bolsheviks.
One of the characterizations of neocons today is that they are neo-Jacobins-philosophically, this idea that people are the same, all want the same thing, and should have the same thing. That 'same thing' in a modern neoconservative view is this idea of 'democracy.' But is it really democracy that they want, or is democracy simply a trojan horse?
Certainly for Iraq, George Bush has been left with one story as to why we went in. If they had democracy, they'd take a vote, and we'd be kicked out of there immediately.
Certainly we don't want them to have democracy, because then they'll make us leave. So it's unclear that democracy is a goal, but that's what they talk about: the God of Democracy. So it's not like Trotskyism in the sense that they're not advocating global communism but they are advocating universal, radical-and in effect, catastrophic-change. And this is kind of a clear thread for many years.
So the neoconservatives are not new; during the Reagan era, the 'Cold War' was their vehicle for credibility-this evil enemy that we must face, or else the end of the world is coming. They cannot work without this global enemy, almost a kind of class warfare. You can't just have a mere enemy; it has to be a monstrous enemy, something that can destroy us. They've found that in, or rather cultivated it, in what is called 'Islamic Fascism.' Unfortunately this doesn't exist. No one advocates it. No one articulates it.
In the 1930s, Hitler had fascism and he talked about it. Islamic Fascism is a made up thing. . But it doesn't matter: what matters is that it's useful in generating fear, and serves that same larger purpose-providing a platform from which to operate. Now you can follow the money too.
The neocon philosophy provides a construct within which we can-'we,' being the establishment, corporatism-can move. So you have this construct that talks of 'fear''protection,' 'security.' Which are used to advocate intervention-intervention for security, what Iraq was effectively sold as: 'intervention for American security.'
OK: Please say a little bit about your experience in the Pentagon.
KK: I worked four and a half years for the Pentagon. Between May of 2002 and March of 2003, I worked in Near East South Asia (NESA) bureau in the Pentagon, which worked along side The Office of Special Plans (OSP)-a group of twenty-five people or so in August 2002-under Bill Luti. It was dissolved in August 2003-about four months after the invasion and the mission accomplished declaration by the president. Its job had been done.
The whole idea with Iraq was to destroy Iraq. It was not to rebuild it,turn it into a democracy. It was simply to take a country that had no navy, no airforce, and a very small-you know-fourth rate army and turn it into a country with no navy, no airforce, and no army. We did this, and OSP did its part in promoting that. Once it was done there was no need for OSP. One of the amenities with which we were provided as staff officers were talking points-Saddam Hussein, WMD, and terrorism.
If there is anything that you'd need to research on Iraq, you'd only need to take verbatim from the latest version of what OSP had produced on any one of these talking points. These same bullet points would of course be in presidential speeches. I can only assume-since they were producing them for us, on a very routine basis-I can only assume that OSP was the creative entity here in doing that.The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) had a staff of 6 or 7 people dedicated intelligence people who had no other job than to support our boss, Bill Luti (Deputy under NESA and OSP). Their only job was to answer Bill Luti's questions and provide Bill Luti with the intelligence that the intelligence community had, particularly DIA intelligence.
So the means by which a policy receives its information was perverted. It may have been perverted before then, but I know that it was perverted inthe time that I was there, from May 2002 to March 2003. The DIA peoplewere told: 'no this is not what I want to hear, go back and do a betterjob' This is what I saw as an observer. Not as a person inside DIA. But I can tell you, I talked to these guys-who'd come over to brief the lower level people on a routine basis:
They were always under pressure. OSP saying, 'I don't need that, give me what I need,' and DIA saying, 'I can't give you something that doesn't exist. 'I actually explained this to the Senate staffers during the Phase I investigation of intelligence. They were like: oh, whatever. Basically unwilling to entertain the possibility. But there was clearly a huge contempt for information; what they did, instead was to ask for exactly what they wanted to hear, probably about 95% of which was entirely false.
Anyone who talked of sanctions and continual bombing of Iraq over a dozen years, or said that there's no evidence of Weapons of Mass Destruction in the Pentagon in 2002 was going to be told: I don't want to hear that, go back and find me something I can use. And if you didn't do that, like in the case of the DIA guy, who went back and looked and couldn't find anything, he was then disinvited from meetings.
Bill Lutihad one briefing on Weapons of Mass Destruction, supposed to be prepared by the DIA-had been historically prepared by the DIA guy, had been historically prepared by the DIA guy. He didn't like the way the DIA guy had done it, so transferred the responsibility to a policy office, that of course exaggerated, presented a threat that didn't exist. But this made everybody happy, since Americans were getting excited for war. A noble lie taken as far as it can go. (noble?..NO)
OK: How does this fit into what you've called 'grand plans' that today' walk the corridors of the Pentagon'?
KK: This global enemy-'Islamic fascism,' 'Islamic terrorism,' or whatever it is-enables war in the Mideast. (Which doesn't really exist) So the 'grand plan' is a Mideast transformation plan, which guys like Michael Ledeen have been talking about for a long time. Since we have this apocalyptic enemy, it's either us or them. So in Iraq: the money goes for 'security'-American bases, and police power to defend those bases. The things we've destroyed we have not rebuilt or fixed. (nor does Bush intend to fix)
The things that we have protected have been the Oil Ministry and the Finance Ministry. This is from the very beginning. Those bases in Iraq will be how we deal with (intimidate) the rest of the Middle East. Keep those other countries inline-politically, economically, and in every other way.
This is clearly articulated, for example, in "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm," actually written for Netanyahu: Iraq must first be changed, and from there we will be able to deal with our enemies-primarily, Syrians and Iranians. But this has nothing to do with America, or with American interests-in my opinion, anyway.
Who benefits from this kind of foreign policy? This needs to become a topic that can be publiclydiscussed. If we can't talk about it, then we shouldn't be paying for it.
What are they forecasting: something like 2 trillion dollars, or something, for this war? This is not an insignificant amount of money. So this question-Who benefits from this kind of foreign policy?-needs to become a topic that can be publicly discussed.
Interview with Karen KwiatkowskiIn July, 2003,
Karen Kwiatkowski retired as a lieutenant colonel fromthe U.S. Air Force, having served since 1978. From May, 2002, toFebruary, 2003, Karen Kwiatkowski served in the Pentagon's Near East and South Asia directorate (NESA).
Dr. Kwiatkowski presently teaches at James Madison University, and writes regularly for MilitaryWeek.com.
Interviewed by Omar Khan for http://www.dahrjamailiraq.com/, read the interviewof Dr. Kwiatkowski's blistering and revealing comments about theneo-conservatives, Bolsheviks, fascism and the Bush Administration agenda in Iraq and beyond.
OK: Could you say something about your reasons for joining the Air Force some 20 years ago?
KK: Basically, they gave me a full ROTC scholarship, and I needed money to go to college. That was the deal. I was happy to do it actually. I had applied for navy and army, and the one that I got was Air Force. My dad had served in the navy for 4 years in, I guess, the late 50s. And he used to always talk about how great the military was. So we were pretty disposed to the military, but I joined the Air Force because they're the ones that coughed up the money for college.
OK: So military service has been a tradition in your family for at least two generations.
KK: It's definitely looked highly upon in my family. Actually, I have two brothers, both-one was for his career in the navy, just retired. The other was in the marines for about seven or eight years.
OK: What do you mean when you've else where referred to the military as an apolitical institution?
KK: When I refer to the military as a political, that's because, as an institution, it's supposed to be. But it's kind of political in the sense that if you're what's called a conservative-usually you're in good company when you're in the military. You're around a lot of people that care about some of those basic things. So there's that aspect. But technically apolitical.
We swear an oath to the constitution-to defend it against enemies, both foreign and domestic. They're words, but every time you get promoted you have to retake the oath. So it does make you think about the constitution. You're reminded of it in a way that other people in other jobs are not reminded of it. So we have this constant idea-it's kind of reinforced to us throughout our careers: what we're supposed to be doing, what we're all about. (so we can call upon the military to defend the constitution here?)
OK: How did you see whistleblowing in terms of these values?
KK: You're oath is not to a political party, it's not to an institution, but to an idea: to a constitutional republic. So we have a president who serves for 4-8 years.
And he has-according to the constitution-limited duties that he take scare of. We have a legislature; and a judiciary. So if you care about those things, and you're out to preserve that balance-to respect that balance rather than persons-you don't think of it as whistleblowing, you think of it as, you know, my loyalty is to what is right, to how thesethings are supposed to work.
I was working pretty closely with those who lied to the American people into buying an unnecessary war, an illegal war, I think. But my loyalty is not to those people-whether those people are the president, Republican or Democrat, whether those people political appointees, whether those people are civil servants. The loyalty is to the system, and the system is set up in such a way to prevent stupid things from happening in foreign policy. (it failed)
OK: What do you mean when you characterize neoconservatism as a dead philosophy of anticommunism?
KK: In 2002, before I was actually working with people doing Near East policy and seeing and meeting these neoconservatives-I didn't even know what a neoconservative was. I began to look at who these individuals were, what they were doing before in our government, and what they cared about politically. These are the same guys that are responsible for Iran-Contra.
They don't care about the law. They are liberals at home-very much not a traditional conservative political perspective domestically, but closer to the more Social Democratic approach, somewhat like our Democratic party used to be, domestically; but, in terms of foreign policy, very hawkish, extremely hawkish, extremely aggressive-black and white, murder, death, kill basically. I hate to say that, but that's what it is: they have to die so we can live.
Intervention oriented foreign policy, which is not conservative either.This is kind of the political home of neoconservatives.The Cold War was perfect for this crowd; and this crowd made their political bones during that time. These guys were the hard core anticommunists even within the Reagan administration. Richard Perle actually left the administration in 1986 based on Reagan's overtures and receptivity to Gorbachev. Perle, Wolfowitz, Armitage, Rumsfeld,Cheney-all these guys, though not always in the exact same way, had a place in the Reagan administration as hardline hawks, even though many of them were not Republicans. In fact Richard Perle to this day is a registered Democrat.
OK: What is your view of the legacy to which the neocons are heirs?
KK: The intellectual fathers of neoconservatism-what shapes their approach internationally-are the Bolsheviks. International revolution, international change-radical change, global revolution. And these same terms, these same ideas-of international change, revolution,transformation-these are the words of Michael Ledeen and some of theother articulators of neoconservatism. And the actual people, and they're not ashamed to really say this, but guys like Irving Crystal and other intellectuals of the 30s had actually been Bolsheviks.
One of the characterizations of neocons today is that they are neo-Jacobins-philosophically, this idea that people are the same, all want the same thing, and should have the same thing. That 'same thing' in a modern neoconservative view is this idea of 'democracy.' But is it really democracy that they want, or is democracy simply a trojan horse?
Certainly for Iraq, George Bush has been left with one story as to why we went in. If they had democracy, they'd take a vote, and we'd be kicked out of there immediately.
Certainly we don't want them to have democracy, because then they'll make us leave. So it's unclear that democracy is a goal, but that's what they talk about: the God of Democracy. So it's not like Trotskyism in the sense that they're not advocating global communism but they are advocating universal, radical-and in effect, catastrophic-change. And this is kind of a clear thread for many years.
So the neoconservatives are not new; during the Reagan era, the 'Cold War' was their vehicle for credibility-this evil enemy that we must face, or else the end of the world is coming. They cannot work without this global enemy, almost a kind of class warfare. You can't just have a mere enemy; it has to be a monstrous enemy, something that can destroy us. They've found that in, or rather cultivated it, in what is called 'Islamic Fascism.' Unfortunately this doesn't exist. No one advocates it. No one articulates it.
In the 1930s, Hitler had fascism and he talked about it. Islamic Fascism is a made up thing. . But it doesn't matter: what matters is that it's useful in generating fear, and serves that same larger purpose-providing a platform from which to operate. Now you can follow the money too.
The neocon philosophy provides a construct within which we can-'we,' being the establishment, corporatism-can move. So you have this construct that talks of 'fear''protection,' 'security.' Which are used to advocate intervention-intervention for security, what Iraq was effectively sold as: 'intervention for American security.'
OK: Please say a little bit about your experience in the Pentagon.
KK: I worked four and a half years for the Pentagon. Between May of 2002 and March of 2003, I worked in Near East South Asia (NESA) bureau in the Pentagon, which worked along side The Office of Special Plans (OSP)-a group of twenty-five people or so in August 2002-under Bill Luti. It was dissolved in August 2003-about four months after the invasion and the mission accomplished declaration by the president. Its job had been done.
The whole idea with Iraq was to destroy Iraq. It was not to rebuild it,turn it into a democracy. It was simply to take a country that had no navy, no airforce, and a very small-you know-fourth rate army and turn it into a country with no navy, no airforce, and no army. We did this, and OSP did its part in promoting that. Once it was done there was no need for OSP. One of the amenities with which we were provided as staff officers were talking points-Saddam Hussein, WMD, and terrorism.
If there is anything that you'd need to research on Iraq, you'd only need to take verbatim from the latest version of what OSP had produced on any one of these talking points. These same bullet points would of course be in presidential speeches. I can only assume-since they were producing them for us, on a very routine basis-I can only assume that OSP was the creative entity here in doing that.The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) had a staff of 6 or 7 people dedicated intelligence people who had no other job than to support our boss, Bill Luti (Deputy under NESA and OSP). Their only job was to answer Bill Luti's questions and provide Bill Luti with the intelligence that the intelligence community had, particularly DIA intelligence.
So the means by which a policy receives its information was perverted. It may have been perverted before then, but I know that it was perverted inthe time that I was there, from May 2002 to March 2003. The DIA peoplewere told: 'no this is not what I want to hear, go back and do a betterjob' This is what I saw as an observer. Not as a person inside DIA. But I can tell you, I talked to these guys-who'd come over to brief the lower level people on a routine basis:
They were always under pressure. OSP saying, 'I don't need that, give me what I need,' and DIA saying, 'I can't give you something that doesn't exist. 'I actually explained this to the Senate staffers during the Phase I investigation of intelligence. They were like: oh, whatever. Basically unwilling to entertain the possibility. But there was clearly a huge contempt for information; what they did, instead was to ask for exactly what they wanted to hear, probably about 95% of which was entirely false.
Anyone who talked of sanctions and continual bombing of Iraq over a dozen years, or said that there's no evidence of Weapons of Mass Destruction in the Pentagon in 2002 was going to be told: I don't want to hear that, go back and find me something I can use. And if you didn't do that, like in the case of the DIA guy, who went back and looked and couldn't find anything, he was then disinvited from meetings.
Bill Lutihad one briefing on Weapons of Mass Destruction, supposed to be prepared by the DIA-had been historically prepared by the DIA guy, had been historically prepared by the DIA guy. He didn't like the way the DIA guy had done it, so transferred the responsibility to a policy office, that of course exaggerated, presented a threat that didn't exist. But this made everybody happy, since Americans were getting excited for war. A noble lie taken as far as it can go. (noble?..NO)
OK: How does this fit into what you've called 'grand plans' that today' walk the corridors of the Pentagon'?
KK: This global enemy-'Islamic fascism,' 'Islamic terrorism,' or whatever it is-enables war in the Mideast. (Which doesn't really exist) So the 'grand plan' is a Mideast transformation plan, which guys like Michael Ledeen have been talking about for a long time. Since we have this apocalyptic enemy, it's either us or them. So in Iraq: the money goes for 'security'-American bases, and police power to defend those bases. The things we've destroyed we have not rebuilt or fixed. (nor does Bush intend to fix)
The things that we have protected have been the Oil Ministry and the Finance Ministry. This is from the very beginning. Those bases in Iraq will be how we deal with (intimidate) the rest of the Middle East. Keep those other countries inline-politically, economically, and in every other way.
This is clearly articulated, for example, in "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm," actually written for Netanyahu: Iraq must first be changed, and from there we will be able to deal with our enemies-primarily, Syrians and Iranians. But this has nothing to do with America, or with American interests-in my opinion, anyway.
Who benefits from this kind of foreign policy? This needs to become a topic that can be publiclydiscussed. If we can't talk about it, then we shouldn't be paying for it.
What are they forecasting: something like 2 trillion dollars, or something, for this war? This is not an insignificant amount of money. So this question-Who benefits from this kind of foreign policy?-needs to become a topic that can be publicly discussed.
More Americans Favor Impeaching Bush, Poll Says
More Americans Favor Impeaching Bush, Poll Says
WASHINGTON - The word "impeachment" is popping up increasingly these days and not just off the lips of liberal activists spouting predictable bumper-sticker slogans.
After the unfounded claims about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and recent news of domestic spying without warrants, mainstream politicians and ordinary voters are talking openly about the possibility that President Bush could be impeached.
So is at least one powerful senator, Arlen Specter, R-Pa., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
So far, it's just talk. With Republicans controlling Congress, and memories still fresh of the bitter fight and national distraction inflamed by former President Clinton's 1998 impeachment, even the launching of an official inquiry is a very long shot.
But a poll released last week by Zogby International showed 52 percent of American adults thought Congress should consider impeaching Bush if he wiretapped U.S. citizens without court approval, including 59 percent of independents and 23 percent of Republicans. (The survey had a margin of error of 2.9 percentage points.)
Given those numbers, impeachment could become an issue in this fall's congressional elections, and dramatically raise the stakes. If Democrats win control of the House of Representatives, a leading proponent of starting an official impeachment inquiry, Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., would become chairman of the House committee that could pursue it.
Conyers introduced legislation last month to create a special panel to investigate the Bush administration's alleged manipulation of pre-Iraq war intelligence and "make recommendations regarding grounds for possible impeachment."
He's not the only one dropping the "I word." A day later, Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., wrote to four presidential scholars asking whether domestic spying by the National Security Agency was an impeachable offense.
Former Vice President Al Gore said last week that the NSA wiretapping could be an impeachable offense.
Bush contends that he holds authority as commander in chief to order the eavesdropping on international calls of terrorism suspects without court approval. He also claims that Congress' resolution authorizing him to use force against terrorists implicitly authorized his NSA spying.
But a 1978 law requires court-issued warrants for wiretapping people in the United States. And many in Congress, along with the non-partisan Congressional Research Service, said Bush is on shaky legal ground in ordering NSA spying without warrants as required by the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
Tucker Bounds, a Republican National Committee official, said impeachment talk is "nonsense."
But asked Jan. 15 what recourse there would be if Bush broke or ignored the law in authorizing wiretaps, Senate Judiciary Committee chair Specter mentioned impeachment.
"I'm not suggesting remotely that there's any basis, but you're asking, really, theory, what's the remedy?" he said on ABC's This Week. "Impeachment is the remedy."
Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Calif., said of a Bush impeachment, "I'm not saying it would happen, but I think it should be explored." She was one of a handful of House members to co-sponsor Conyers' bill, which is unlikely to get a hearing or vote as long as Republicans rule the House of Representatives.
Stanford University historian Jack Rakove, a constitutional expert, said breaking the law on domestic spying would qualify as an impeachable offense, but that Congress should be hesitant to pursue it. The Clinton impeachment was a major distraction for the nation, he said. Some have suggested it hurt the U.S. effort against al-Qaida before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Despite such concerns, some liberal activists say it's time to impeach Bush. Bob Fertik, president of Democrats.com, has formed ImpeachPAC to fund campaigns of congressional candidates who support impeachment. It has raised more than $52,000 in 10 weeks.
"If the truth comes out," Fertik said, "there will be an open-and-shut case for a high crime of breaking the law."
WASHINGTON - The word "impeachment" is popping up increasingly these days and not just off the lips of liberal activists spouting predictable bumper-sticker slogans.
After the unfounded claims about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and recent news of domestic spying without warrants, mainstream politicians and ordinary voters are talking openly about the possibility that President Bush could be impeached.
So is at least one powerful senator, Arlen Specter, R-Pa., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
So far, it's just talk. With Republicans controlling Congress, and memories still fresh of the bitter fight and national distraction inflamed by former President Clinton's 1998 impeachment, even the launching of an official inquiry is a very long shot.
But a poll released last week by Zogby International showed 52 percent of American adults thought Congress should consider impeaching Bush if he wiretapped U.S. citizens without court approval, including 59 percent of independents and 23 percent of Republicans. (The survey had a margin of error of 2.9 percentage points.)
Given those numbers, impeachment could become an issue in this fall's congressional elections, and dramatically raise the stakes. If Democrats win control of the House of Representatives, a leading proponent of starting an official impeachment inquiry, Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., would become chairman of the House committee that could pursue it.
Conyers introduced legislation last month to create a special panel to investigate the Bush administration's alleged manipulation of pre-Iraq war intelligence and "make recommendations regarding grounds for possible impeachment."
He's not the only one dropping the "I word." A day later, Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., wrote to four presidential scholars asking whether domestic spying by the National Security Agency was an impeachable offense.
Former Vice President Al Gore said last week that the NSA wiretapping could be an impeachable offense.
Bush contends that he holds authority as commander in chief to order the eavesdropping on international calls of terrorism suspects without court approval. He also claims that Congress' resolution authorizing him to use force against terrorists implicitly authorized his NSA spying.
But a 1978 law requires court-issued warrants for wiretapping people in the United States. And many in Congress, along with the non-partisan Congressional Research Service, said Bush is on shaky legal ground in ordering NSA spying without warrants as required by the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
Tucker Bounds, a Republican National Committee official, said impeachment talk is "nonsense."
But asked Jan. 15 what recourse there would be if Bush broke or ignored the law in authorizing wiretaps, Senate Judiciary Committee chair Specter mentioned impeachment.
"I'm not suggesting remotely that there's any basis, but you're asking, really, theory, what's the remedy?" he said on ABC's This Week. "Impeachment is the remedy."
Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Calif., said of a Bush impeachment, "I'm not saying it would happen, but I think it should be explored." She was one of a handful of House members to co-sponsor Conyers' bill, which is unlikely to get a hearing or vote as long as Republicans rule the House of Representatives.
Stanford University historian Jack Rakove, a constitutional expert, said breaking the law on domestic spying would qualify as an impeachable offense, but that Congress should be hesitant to pursue it. The Clinton impeachment was a major distraction for the nation, he said. Some have suggested it hurt the U.S. effort against al-Qaida before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Despite such concerns, some liberal activists say it's time to impeach Bush. Bob Fertik, president of Democrats.com, has formed ImpeachPAC to fund campaigns of congressional candidates who support impeachment. It has raised more than $52,000 in 10 weeks.
"If the truth comes out," Fertik said, "there will be an open-and-shut case for a high crime of breaking the law."
World Social Forum: A Loud, Multicoloured 'No' to Imperialism and War
World Social Forum: A Loud, Multicoloured 'No' to Imperialism and War
CARACAS - Although the sixth World Social Forum grants equal importance to all of the myriad workshops, seminars and other activities taking place this week in the Venezuelan capital and to all of the participating civil society groups and figures, that has not kept some personalities from standing out, like U.S. peace activist Cindy Sheehan, whose soldier son Casey was killed in Iraq.
We need to bring our troops home immediately," Sheehan told the thousands of protesters taking part in the march that kicked off the six-day Forum on Tuesday. "We need to hold someone responsible for all the death and destruction in the world. We need to see George Bush and the rest of them tried for crimes against humanity."
CARACAS - Although the sixth World Social Forum grants equal importance to all of the myriad workshops, seminars and other activities taking place this week in the Venezuelan capital and to all of the participating civil society groups and figures, that has not kept some personalities from standing out, like U.S. peace activist Cindy Sheehan, whose soldier son Casey was killed in Iraq.
We need to bring our troops home immediately," Sheehan told the thousands of protesters taking part in the march that kicked off the six-day Forum on Tuesday. "We need to hold someone responsible for all the death and destruction in the world. We need to see George Bush and the rest of them tried for crimes against humanity."
26.1.06
Starving woman curses God, dies in her sleep
Oddly Enough News Article Reuters.com
NAIROBI (Reuters) - A starving Kenyan woman placed a powerful tribal curse on God, accusing him of sending famine, and died in her sleep, local newspapers said Thursday.
The woman from eastern Kenya's drought-ravaged Kangundo district decided to invoke a dreaded oath from the Kamba community, famed for its potent witchcraft, media reports said.
"Whoever brought this famine, let him perish," the woman chanted, striking a cooking pot with a stick.
"She accomplished the feat at 10 a.m. and waited for the results, but God's wrath struck at night. She died peacefully in her sleep," the Kenya Times newspaper said.
Poor rains for three years running have left more than 3.5 million Kenyans on the edge of starvation, prompting President Mwai Kibaki to declare the drought a national disaster
They can get the story, but not feed the starving people?
NAIROBI (Reuters) - A starving Kenyan woman placed a powerful tribal curse on God, accusing him of sending famine, and died in her sleep, local newspapers said Thursday.
The woman from eastern Kenya's drought-ravaged Kangundo district decided to invoke a dreaded oath from the Kamba community, famed for its potent witchcraft, media reports said.
"Whoever brought this famine, let him perish," the woman chanted, striking a cooking pot with a stick.
"She accomplished the feat at 10 a.m. and waited for the results, but God's wrath struck at night. She died peacefully in her sleep," the Kenya Times newspaper said.
Poor rains for three years running have left more than 3.5 million Kenyans on the edge of starvation, prompting President Mwai Kibaki to declare the drought a national disaster
They can get the story, but not feed the starving people?
24.1.06
Ministry Sets up Crisis Unit for Kidnapped German Engineers | Germany | Deutsche Welle | 24.01.2006
Ministry Sets up Crisis Unit for Kidnapped German Engineers Germany Deutsche Welle 24.01.2006
Ministry Sets up Crisis Unit for Kidnapped German Engineers
Masked gunmen reportedly snatched the two engineers from an oil refinery in Baiji
Germany's foreign minister told reporters his office "must assume" that two German engineers were kidnapped Tuesday by armed men from a compound at an oil refinery in northern Iraq but he could not confirm reports.
The two men, working for a subsidiary of the oil refinery in Baiji, the largest in the country, were taken at gunpoint by men in military uniforms, a security official said, citing a local police report.
"At 8:00 am (0600 UTC), men wearing army uniforms aboard civilian cars entered the compound and, at gunpoint, took two German engineers working for an Arab firm making detergents," he added.
"We must assume the two Germans have been kidnapped," Steinmeier told reporters in Berlin, adding that they were workers from a company in the Leipzig area in eastern Germany.
Steinmeier said the foreign ministry had nevertheless set up a crisis cell similar to the one that handled the abduction in November of Susanne Osthoff, the German archeologist who spent more than three weeks as the hostage of unknown captors in Iraq.
Chancellor Angela Merkel's chief of staff Thomas de Maiziere added to Steinmeier’s statement by saying at an event in Berlin that the missing men were "young," in addition to being from Leipzig.
Some German nationals are understood to work at the Baiji power station, located some 200 kilometers (140 miles) north of Baghdad, from where a Brazilian engineer was kidnapped a year ago.
Joao Jose Vasconcellos was kidnapped in January 2005 and authorities have heard nothing of his fate since.
Iraq's oil ministry also said it was looking into the report.
Latest in a surge of abductions
German Susanne Osthoff was released by her Iraqi kidnappers in December
More than 250 foreigners have been taken hostage in Iraq since the 2003 US-led invasion toppled dictator Saddam Hussein. A number, including Westerners, have been killed.
The abduction of the Germans was just the latest seizure of foreigners in Iraq over the past few weeks.
US journalist Jill Carroll was taken captive Jan. 7 by militants who threatened to kill her, while two Kenyan telecommunications engineers were kidnapped last week.
There is still no news on the fate of four Western peace activists kidnapped in late November, while a Jordanian held hostage said in a videotape his captors set a new deadline to execute him.
It is unclear whether Germany paid a ransom for her release but many politicians noted the expense of the efforts to free her, including a round-the-clock crisis team operating at the foreign ministry.
Ministry Sets up Crisis Unit for Kidnapped German Engineers
Masked gunmen reportedly snatched the two engineers from an oil refinery in Baiji
Germany's foreign minister told reporters his office "must assume" that two German engineers were kidnapped Tuesday by armed men from a compound at an oil refinery in northern Iraq but he could not confirm reports.
The two men, working for a subsidiary of the oil refinery in Baiji, the largest in the country, were taken at gunpoint by men in military uniforms, a security official said, citing a local police report.
"At 8:00 am (0600 UTC), men wearing army uniforms aboard civilian cars entered the compound and, at gunpoint, took two German engineers working for an Arab firm making detergents," he added.
"We must assume the two Germans have been kidnapped," Steinmeier told reporters in Berlin, adding that they were workers from a company in the Leipzig area in eastern Germany.
Steinmeier said the foreign ministry had nevertheless set up a crisis cell similar to the one that handled the abduction in November of Susanne Osthoff, the German archeologist who spent more than three weeks as the hostage of unknown captors in Iraq.
Chancellor Angela Merkel's chief of staff Thomas de Maiziere added to Steinmeier’s statement by saying at an event in Berlin that the missing men were "young," in addition to being from Leipzig.
Some German nationals are understood to work at the Baiji power station, located some 200 kilometers (140 miles) north of Baghdad, from where a Brazilian engineer was kidnapped a year ago.
Joao Jose Vasconcellos was kidnapped in January 2005 and authorities have heard nothing of his fate since.
Iraq's oil ministry also said it was looking into the report.
Latest in a surge of abductions
German Susanne Osthoff was released by her Iraqi kidnappers in December
More than 250 foreigners have been taken hostage in Iraq since the 2003 US-led invasion toppled dictator Saddam Hussein. A number, including Westerners, have been killed.
The abduction of the Germans was just the latest seizure of foreigners in Iraq over the past few weeks.
US journalist Jill Carroll was taken captive Jan. 7 by militants who threatened to kill her, while two Kenyan telecommunications engineers were kidnapped last week.
There is still no news on the fate of four Western peace activists kidnapped in late November, while a Jordanian held hostage said in a videotape his captors set a new deadline to execute him.
It is unclear whether Germany paid a ransom for her release but many politicians noted the expense of the efforts to free her, including a round-the-clock crisis team operating at the foreign ministry.
Google execs take $1 annual pay as stock rebounds
Internet News Article Reuters.com
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Top executives of Google Inc. have once again agreed to be paid annual salaries of $1 each in 2006, counting instead on stock options and grants of the company's volatile stock for their pay.
In a regulatory filing on Monday with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the Web search leader said it had approved a base salary of $1 for Chairman and CEO Eric Schmidt and its two co-founders and co-presidents, Larry Page and Sergey Brin.
The three were paid $1 a piece in salary during 2005.
The action -- which was approved by Google last Tuesday but only disclosed this week -- occurred ahead of the 14 percent decline in the company's stock price last week amid investor concerns over the Internet sector's growth outlook and revelation of a legal spat with the U.S. Justice Department.
These guys are not your average people, which makes them very likeable in my book. They never cease to amaze me.
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Top executives of Google Inc. have once again agreed to be paid annual salaries of $1 each in 2006, counting instead on stock options and grants of the company's volatile stock for their pay.
In a regulatory filing on Monday with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the Web search leader said it had approved a base salary of $1 for Chairman and CEO Eric Schmidt and its two co-founders and co-presidents, Larry Page and Sergey Brin.
The three were paid $1 a piece in salary during 2005.
The action -- which was approved by Google last Tuesday but only disclosed this week -- occurred ahead of the 14 percent decline in the company's stock price last week amid investor concerns over the Internet sector's growth outlook and revelation of a legal spat with the U.S. Justice Department.
These guys are not your average people, which makes them very likeable in my book. They never cease to amaze me.
More revelations of illegal spying by US government
More revelations of illegal spying by US government
I skipped the first part, and cut to the chase;
The Bush administration continues to lie about the extent and purpose of the spying. In a speech on January 4 to the Heritage Foundation, Vice President Dick Cheney repeated the argument that the spying is authorized by the US Constitution and the congressional resolution passed following the attacks on September 11.
He also repeated the line that the spying is necessary for the “war on terrorism” and is limited to “terrorist-linked international communications.” If the surveillance had been in place prior to September 11, “we might have been able to pick up on two hijackers who subsequently flew a jet into the Pentagon,” he said.
According to the arguments of Cheney, Bush and the administration as a whole, the “war on terrorism” grants unlimited powers, and anyone who opposes these powers is aiding and abetting terrorism.
The claim that if the government had these powers before September 11, it would have been able to stop the attacks is absurd on two counts. First, it is by now well documented that the FBI and CIA had information on at least some of the hijackers but did not act on this information.
There is considerable evidence that points to the complicity at some level of the government itself in facilitating the attacks, which provided a pretext for a major policy shift, including the introduction of new spying powers and a vast expansion of US military action abroad, including the implementation of pre-existing plans to invade Iraq.
Second, plans for the expansion of NSA spying powers began before September 11.
Their aim is not to combat terrorism, but to monitor the activity of the American people.
I think they ought to mind their own business, if they know whats good for them. The american people can revolt, and are being push to the point of doing so. The wrath of the voices of america in light of continued unacceptable policies will make the final call. NOT the other way around. If we actually got you in office, we can take you out.
I skipped the first part, and cut to the chase;
The Bush administration continues to lie about the extent and purpose of the spying. In a speech on January 4 to the Heritage Foundation, Vice President Dick Cheney repeated the argument that the spying is authorized by the US Constitution and the congressional resolution passed following the attacks on September 11.
He also repeated the line that the spying is necessary for the “war on terrorism” and is limited to “terrorist-linked international communications.” If the surveillance had been in place prior to September 11, “we might have been able to pick up on two hijackers who subsequently flew a jet into the Pentagon,” he said.
According to the arguments of Cheney, Bush and the administration as a whole, the “war on terrorism” grants unlimited powers, and anyone who opposes these powers is aiding and abetting terrorism.
The claim that if the government had these powers before September 11, it would have been able to stop the attacks is absurd on two counts. First, it is by now well documented that the FBI and CIA had information on at least some of the hijackers but did not act on this information.
There is considerable evidence that points to the complicity at some level of the government itself in facilitating the attacks, which provided a pretext for a major policy shift, including the introduction of new spying powers and a vast expansion of US military action abroad, including the implementation of pre-existing plans to invade Iraq.
Second, plans for the expansion of NSA spying powers began before September 11.
Their aim is not to combat terrorism, but to monitor the activity of the American people.
I think they ought to mind their own business, if they know whats good for them. The american people can revolt, and are being push to the point of doing so. The wrath of the voices of america in light of continued unacceptable policies will make the final call. NOT the other way around. If we actually got you in office, we can take you out.
US government demands Google hand over Internet search data
US government demands Google hand over Internet search data
The US Department of Justice has asked a federal judge in San Jose, California, to compel Internet search giant Google to comply with a subpoena issued last year to turn over records that detail millions of Internet searches. F-U
Google denied requests for the data, while rivals Yahoo, Microsoft and AOL have all handed over records to government lawyers, who claim they need the data to bolster claims that the Child Online Protection Act (COPA) does not violate the Constitution. The act was introduced by the Clinton administration in 1998 under the auspices of protecting children from online pornography. It established criminal penalties for any commercial distribution of material harmful to minors. (not the real reason they want the info)
The legislation was suspended a year later after a successful suit by the American Civil Liberties Union and others claiming the act violated the constitutional right to free speech.
Like all such legislation, its scope was far broader than its supposed target, making it an offense for web sites to post material deemed “harmful to minors,” which, as civil rights campaigners said at the time, could criminalize sites of some art galleries and book stores.
The request for search data is said to be part of an attempt to overturn the decision of the Supreme Court, which in 2004 upheld a lower-court injunction against enforcement of COPA. The Justice Department claims it needs the data in order to show that filtering software is no alternative to COPA, and therefore the suspension of the act should be lifted.
Even if this were the whole story, Google is absolutely correct in refusing to hand over the data, and there is no legal basis for compelling it to do so. As the San Jose Mercury News said in its editorial of January 20, “The request is not an appropriate use of subpoena power.
The government wants Google’s data not as evidence in a case, but rather to conduct an experiment which it hopes will show that Internet porn filters are ineffective. In short, the government wants Google to help make its case, using the company as a research arm.”
But this is far from the whole story. The subpoena serves to highlight the extent of the Bush administration’s attacks upon privacy and democratic rights.
The government’s demand for search data was first made in August last year. In the same month, the Bush administration issued an order for the extension of the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) to cover broadband Internet access services and voice-over-IP telephony services.
CALEA requires that companies make it possible for law enforcement agencies to intercept any conversation carried out over their networks and that communication records be made available. It also requires that the person being monitored not be told.
This was only the latest in a string of antidemocratic legislation introduced in the aftermath of the terror attacks of September 2001, the most notorious of which are the multiple provisions of the USA Patriot Act.
Access to data held by Google and the other main search engines potentially goes much further in that it does not target named individuals but is essentially a fishing operation among random Internet users.
Assurances from the Justice Department that it is not interested in identifying individual users is of little comfort to those concerned about civil liberties, given recent revelations about illegal wiretaps and state spying on American citizens.
It has been widely reported in recent weeks that the US government has gained access to vast databases of telephone records and e-mails provided to it by telecommunications companies. It will no doubt seek to do the same for Internet activity by working with service providers and search engines.
The subpoena dated August 25 requests, “All URL’s that are available to be located through a query on your company’s search engine as of July 31, 2005” and “All queries that have been entered on your company’s search engine between June 1, 2005 and July 31, 2005, inclusive.”
As a result of Google’s objections, the request was narrowed to 1 million URLs and one week of search data—still a massive amount of data. In a response dated October 10, 2005, Google objected to the request as “overbroad, unduly burdensome, vague, and intended to harass.” It added that “Google’s acceding to the request would suggest that it is willing to reveal information about those who use its services. This is not a perception that Google can accept.
And one can envision scenarios where queries alone could reveal identifying information about a specific Google user, which is another outcome that Google cannot accept.”
Any possibility that specific users could be identified from the data requested is extremely troubling, given that the three largest search engines other than Google have all complied with government requests.
Yahoo spokesperson Mary Osako confirmed that the company complied with the Justice Department’s request, but added, “We are rigorous defenders of our users’ privacy. We did not provide any personal information in response to the Department of Justice’s subpoena.
In our opinion, this is not a privacy issue,” she said according to Information Week.
A Microsoft statement said the company “did comply with their request for data in regards to helping protect children in a way that ensured we also protected the privacy of our customers. We were able to share aggregated query data (not search results) that did not include any personally identifiable information.”
Whatever the extent of the information passed to the government in this case, it sets a dangerous precedent for the future and raises fundamental questions about the amount of personal data that is kept by Internet sites such as Google.
Through the use “cookies,” a small file placed on the user’s computer hard drive, Google keeps track of what searches are made by a user and what sites he or she chooses to visit.
In a statement published on its web site, the civil liberties group Electronic Freedom Frontier (EFF), while applauding Google for refusing to hand over the data, cited EFF Staff Attorney Kevin Bankston who said, “The only way Google can reasonably protect the privacy of its users from such legal demands now and in the future is to stop collecting so much information about its users, delete information that it does collect as soon as possible, and take real steps to minimize how much of the information it collects is traceable back to individual Google users.” Bankston added,
“If Google continues to gather and keep so much information about its users, government and private attorneys will continue to try and get it.”
Google’s refusal to comply with the order does deserve some credit. Had it taken the same position as its rivals, it may never have come to light that such a request had been made. If the company were serious about protecting the privacy of its users, however, it would immediately destroy any data it currently holds on them. Such an action is extremely unlikely. The user data collected by Google is among its greatest assets due to the revenue it raises from targeted advertising and other services.
See Also:
More revelations of illegal spying by US government
[7 January 2006]
Order broadens surveillance of Internet users
[26 October 2005]
The US Department of Justice has asked a federal judge in San Jose, California, to compel Internet search giant Google to comply with a subpoena issued last year to turn over records that detail millions of Internet searches. F-U
Google denied requests for the data, while rivals Yahoo, Microsoft and AOL have all handed over records to government lawyers, who claim they need the data to bolster claims that the Child Online Protection Act (COPA) does not violate the Constitution. The act was introduced by the Clinton administration in 1998 under the auspices of protecting children from online pornography. It established criminal penalties for any commercial distribution of material harmful to minors. (not the real reason they want the info)
The legislation was suspended a year later after a successful suit by the American Civil Liberties Union and others claiming the act violated the constitutional right to free speech.
Like all such legislation, its scope was far broader than its supposed target, making it an offense for web sites to post material deemed “harmful to minors,” which, as civil rights campaigners said at the time, could criminalize sites of some art galleries and book stores.
The request for search data is said to be part of an attempt to overturn the decision of the Supreme Court, which in 2004 upheld a lower-court injunction against enforcement of COPA. The Justice Department claims it needs the data in order to show that filtering software is no alternative to COPA, and therefore the suspension of the act should be lifted.
Even if this were the whole story, Google is absolutely correct in refusing to hand over the data, and there is no legal basis for compelling it to do so. As the San Jose Mercury News said in its editorial of January 20, “The request is not an appropriate use of subpoena power.
The government wants Google’s data not as evidence in a case, but rather to conduct an experiment which it hopes will show that Internet porn filters are ineffective. In short, the government wants Google to help make its case, using the company as a research arm.”
But this is far from the whole story. The subpoena serves to highlight the extent of the Bush administration’s attacks upon privacy and democratic rights.
The government’s demand for search data was first made in August last year. In the same month, the Bush administration issued an order for the extension of the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) to cover broadband Internet access services and voice-over-IP telephony services.
CALEA requires that companies make it possible for law enforcement agencies to intercept any conversation carried out over their networks and that communication records be made available. It also requires that the person being monitored not be told.
This was only the latest in a string of antidemocratic legislation introduced in the aftermath of the terror attacks of September 2001, the most notorious of which are the multiple provisions of the USA Patriot Act.
Access to data held by Google and the other main search engines potentially goes much further in that it does not target named individuals but is essentially a fishing operation among random Internet users.
Assurances from the Justice Department that it is not interested in identifying individual users is of little comfort to those concerned about civil liberties, given recent revelations about illegal wiretaps and state spying on American citizens.
It has been widely reported in recent weeks that the US government has gained access to vast databases of telephone records and e-mails provided to it by telecommunications companies. It will no doubt seek to do the same for Internet activity by working with service providers and search engines.
The subpoena dated August 25 requests, “All URL’s that are available to be located through a query on your company’s search engine as of July 31, 2005” and “All queries that have been entered on your company’s search engine between June 1, 2005 and July 31, 2005, inclusive.”
As a result of Google’s objections, the request was narrowed to 1 million URLs and one week of search data—still a massive amount of data. In a response dated October 10, 2005, Google objected to the request as “overbroad, unduly burdensome, vague, and intended to harass.” It added that “Google’s acceding to the request would suggest that it is willing to reveal information about those who use its services. This is not a perception that Google can accept.
And one can envision scenarios where queries alone could reveal identifying information about a specific Google user, which is another outcome that Google cannot accept.”
Any possibility that specific users could be identified from the data requested is extremely troubling, given that the three largest search engines other than Google have all complied with government requests.
Yahoo spokesperson Mary Osako confirmed that the company complied with the Justice Department’s request, but added, “We are rigorous defenders of our users’ privacy. We did not provide any personal information in response to the Department of Justice’s subpoena.
In our opinion, this is not a privacy issue,” she said according to Information Week.
A Microsoft statement said the company “did comply with their request for data in regards to helping protect children in a way that ensured we also protected the privacy of our customers. We were able to share aggregated query data (not search results) that did not include any personally identifiable information.”
Whatever the extent of the information passed to the government in this case, it sets a dangerous precedent for the future and raises fundamental questions about the amount of personal data that is kept by Internet sites such as Google.
Through the use “cookies,” a small file placed on the user’s computer hard drive, Google keeps track of what searches are made by a user and what sites he or she chooses to visit.
In a statement published on its web site, the civil liberties group Electronic Freedom Frontier (EFF), while applauding Google for refusing to hand over the data, cited EFF Staff Attorney Kevin Bankston who said, “The only way Google can reasonably protect the privacy of its users from such legal demands now and in the future is to stop collecting so much information about its users, delete information that it does collect as soon as possible, and take real steps to minimize how much of the information it collects is traceable back to individual Google users.” Bankston added,
“If Google continues to gather and keep so much information about its users, government and private attorneys will continue to try and get it.”
Google’s refusal to comply with the order does deserve some credit. Had it taken the same position as its rivals, it may never have come to light that such a request had been made. If the company were serious about protecting the privacy of its users, however, it would immediately destroy any data it currently holds on them. Such an action is extremely unlikely. The user data collected by Google is among its greatest assets due to the revenue it raises from targeted advertising and other services.
See Also:
More revelations of illegal spying by US government
[7 January 2006]
Order broadens surveillance of Internet users
[26 October 2005]
Bush, Abramoff Posed for Photos Five Times, Magazines Report
Bush, Abramoff Posed for Photos Five Times, Magazines Report
Tres amusant.
President George W. Bush posed for photographs with Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff at least five times since taking office, and one included an Indian tribal leader later indicted for embezzlement, Time magazine reported.
Time said its reporters were shown the photographs by a source whom it didn't identify. It said the source declined to make the photos available for publication. Washingtonian magazine also reported on its Web site that it had seen five photos of Bush and Abramoff.
One photograph taken in 2001 shows Bush, Abramoff and Raul Garza Sr., who was then chairman of the Kickapoo Indian tribe, an Abramoff client, Time reported. Garza was indicted in 2004 for allegedly embezzling more than $300,000 from his tribe.
Another photo bears Bush's signature and shows the president shaking hands with Abramoff. Three others are of Bush, Abramoff and one of the lobbyist's three sons, according to Time.
Disclosure of the existence of the photos is likely to fuel demands from Democrats that the Bush administration release records of any contacts it had with Abramoff, who's at the center of a federal corruption probe.
The Democratic National Committee yesterday sent out an e-mail highlighting the Time report about the photographs.
White House spokeswoman Dana Perino dismissed the images as a few among the ``tens upon thousands'' of pictures that Bush has taken with White House guests or supporters.
``It would not be surprising if the president met him at some of the widely attended events we know they both attended,'' Perino said yesterday.
Bush doesn't recall meeting Abramoff, she said, repeating past administration statements. She declined to comment further on the photographs. BU*SH*IT
Abramoff Guilty Plea
Abramoff, 46, pleaded guilty Jan. 3 to conspiracy to corrupt public officials and has agreed to cooperate in a federal investigation into political corruption. Democrats are signaling they will use the probe to raise the issue of ethics in the November congressional elections.
Tres amusant.
President George W. Bush posed for photographs with Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff at least five times since taking office, and one included an Indian tribal leader later indicted for embezzlement, Time magazine reported.
Time said its reporters were shown the photographs by a source whom it didn't identify. It said the source declined to make the photos available for publication. Washingtonian magazine also reported on its Web site that it had seen five photos of Bush and Abramoff.
One photograph taken in 2001 shows Bush, Abramoff and Raul Garza Sr., who was then chairman of the Kickapoo Indian tribe, an Abramoff client, Time reported. Garza was indicted in 2004 for allegedly embezzling more than $300,000 from his tribe.
Another photo bears Bush's signature and shows the president shaking hands with Abramoff. Three others are of Bush, Abramoff and one of the lobbyist's three sons, according to Time.
Disclosure of the existence of the photos is likely to fuel demands from Democrats that the Bush administration release records of any contacts it had with Abramoff, who's at the center of a federal corruption probe.
The Democratic National Committee yesterday sent out an e-mail highlighting the Time report about the photographs.
White House spokeswoman Dana Perino dismissed the images as a few among the ``tens upon thousands'' of pictures that Bush has taken with White House guests or supporters.
``It would not be surprising if the president met him at some of the widely attended events we know they both attended,'' Perino said yesterday.
Bush doesn't recall meeting Abramoff, she said, repeating past administration statements. She declined to comment further on the photographs. BU*SH*IT
Abramoff Guilty Plea
Abramoff, 46, pleaded guilty Jan. 3 to conspiracy to corrupt public officials and has agreed to cooperate in a federal investigation into political corruption. Democrats are signaling they will use the probe to raise the issue of ethics in the November congressional elections.
Iraq: Destruction Easier Than Reconstruction
Iraq: Destruction Easier Than Reconstruction
Published on Monday, January 23, 2006 by the Inter Press Service
Iraq: Destruction Easier Than Reconstruction
by Brian Conley and Isam Rashid
BAGHDAD - While politicians deliberate over Iraq's future, Iraqis are dealing with the reality of the present. They are looking at the debris of a country where reconstruction has come to a standstill.
They are also looking at a situation in which the capital of the oil-rich country has been stricken recently by a dire shortage of gas and kerosene. Iraqis in Baghdad had been receiving 12 to 13 hours of electricity a day on average over recent months.
Over the past few weeks they say supply has fallen to just a few hours a day. "We have no services at all," Usama Asa'ad, a 31 year-old mechanic told IPS.
"Our electricity is on only one or two hours a day." Many Iraqis thought the United States would improve their situation when the occupation began in April 2003, but those expectations are long over.
Iraqis complain that the situation in Baghdad now is worse than it ever was under Saddam. Electricity supply is inconsistent, and sometimes there is no water for a week or more at a time.
After the recent increase in petroleum prices mandated by the International Monetary Fund, the situation has become far more difficult for Iraqis.
"The petrol price became three times more than before, and this makes everything in the market more expensive," said Abdul Sattar, waiting in a queue at one of the petrol stations in Baghdad.
"I've been waiting for six hours in this queue and I'm not even sure whether I will get petrol. Yesterday I waited for seven hours but I didn't get anything. The petrol station isn't open at night because there is no security."
Iraqis continue to blame the United States and the occupation for the petrol shortages and the lack of security. President George W. Bush has declared that he would seek no more money for Iraq's reconstruction, further angering Iraqis. (Rightfully so, they should be very angry)
"The water is not clean enough, there is no petrol for our cars, and the occupation forces intend this," said Usama Asa'ad. "They want to make all of Iraq's services for private companies, so that United States companies will take as much money from Iraq as they can."
Zubair, a 33 year-old engineer at the Beiji refinery says production at the refinery is steady. "The refinery is working now the same as before the war.
We don't know about it (the petroleum problem), sometimes we hear that terrorists bomb the convoys, and sometimes we hear the petrol is taken by the United States army for their vehicles.
We don't know what is the truth." Iraqi resentment of the coalition forces is caused by more than the long petrol queues. The failure of the occupation to rebuild Iraq's security and services, combined with recurring night-time raids have left Iraqis angry and cynical.
"Security is the most important thing we need now," Nora, a 25 year-old housewife told IPS. "We need to sleep at night with no one raiding our house. Would you believe, we wear all our clothes at night? You can imagine what it is like for them to bomb the gate of your house, and how you will feel when you have children like me."
Iraq's new government will be formed within the next few months. Most parties appear to be pushing for a government of "national unity." Iraqis are expecting to see the new government make unequivocal changes over the consequences of the occupation.
Usama Asa'ad says they also expect to see the government reconstruct Iraq, since the United States is ending its own aid.
"The United States troops occupied Iraq in twenty days because they wanted to do that, but they didn't rebuild Iraq ever since they came almost three years ago, because they did not care to do that."
...and people in the states wonder why I've lost all respect for this country...because I choose to be informed about whats really going on.
Published on Monday, January 23, 2006 by the Inter Press Service
Iraq: Destruction Easier Than Reconstruction
by Brian Conley and Isam Rashid
BAGHDAD - While politicians deliberate over Iraq's future, Iraqis are dealing with the reality of the present. They are looking at the debris of a country where reconstruction has come to a standstill.
They are also looking at a situation in which the capital of the oil-rich country has been stricken recently by a dire shortage of gas and kerosene. Iraqis in Baghdad had been receiving 12 to 13 hours of electricity a day on average over recent months.
Over the past few weeks they say supply has fallen to just a few hours a day. "We have no services at all," Usama Asa'ad, a 31 year-old mechanic told IPS.
"Our electricity is on only one or two hours a day." Many Iraqis thought the United States would improve their situation when the occupation began in April 2003, but those expectations are long over.
Iraqis complain that the situation in Baghdad now is worse than it ever was under Saddam. Electricity supply is inconsistent, and sometimes there is no water for a week or more at a time.
After the recent increase in petroleum prices mandated by the International Monetary Fund, the situation has become far more difficult for Iraqis.
"The petrol price became three times more than before, and this makes everything in the market more expensive," said Abdul Sattar, waiting in a queue at one of the petrol stations in Baghdad.
"I've been waiting for six hours in this queue and I'm not even sure whether I will get petrol. Yesterday I waited for seven hours but I didn't get anything. The petrol station isn't open at night because there is no security."
Iraqis continue to blame the United States and the occupation for the petrol shortages and the lack of security. President George W. Bush has declared that he would seek no more money for Iraq's reconstruction, further angering Iraqis. (Rightfully so, they should be very angry)
"The water is not clean enough, there is no petrol for our cars, and the occupation forces intend this," said Usama Asa'ad. "They want to make all of Iraq's services for private companies, so that United States companies will take as much money from Iraq as they can."
Zubair, a 33 year-old engineer at the Beiji refinery says production at the refinery is steady. "The refinery is working now the same as before the war.
We don't know about it (the petroleum problem), sometimes we hear that terrorists bomb the convoys, and sometimes we hear the petrol is taken by the United States army for their vehicles.
We don't know what is the truth." Iraqi resentment of the coalition forces is caused by more than the long petrol queues. The failure of the occupation to rebuild Iraq's security and services, combined with recurring night-time raids have left Iraqis angry and cynical.
"Security is the most important thing we need now," Nora, a 25 year-old housewife told IPS. "We need to sleep at night with no one raiding our house. Would you believe, we wear all our clothes at night? You can imagine what it is like for them to bomb the gate of your house, and how you will feel when you have children like me."
Iraq's new government will be formed within the next few months. Most parties appear to be pushing for a government of "national unity." Iraqis are expecting to see the new government make unequivocal changes over the consequences of the occupation.
Usama Asa'ad says they also expect to see the government reconstruct Iraq, since the United States is ending its own aid.
"The United States troops occupied Iraq in twenty days because they wanted to do that, but they didn't rebuild Iraq ever since they came almost three years ago, because they did not care to do that."
...and people in the states wonder why I've lost all respect for this country...because I choose to be informed about whats really going on.
Journalist Deaths Hit Record in 2005: IFJ
Journalist Deaths Hit Record in 2005: IFJ
BRUSSELS - A record number of media workers died last year while doing their job, amid a growing trend toward the targeted killing of journalists, the International Federation of Journalists said on Monday.
"The numbers are staggering," IFJ general secretary Aidan White said in an annual report entitled "Targeting and tragedy - journalists and media staff killed in 2005".
"It was an unprecedented year ... the IFJ has counted 89 who were killed in the line of duty, singled out for their professional work. In 2005 the trend toward targeted assassination of editorial staff has intensified."
The largest number of deliberate killings, 38, was recorded in the Middle East, all but three of them in Iraq, making the region "by far the world's most deadly beat for reporters in the field," the report said.
BRUSSELS - A record number of media workers died last year while doing their job, amid a growing trend toward the targeted killing of journalists, the International Federation of Journalists said on Monday.
"The numbers are staggering," IFJ general secretary Aidan White said in an annual report entitled "Targeting and tragedy - journalists and media staff killed in 2005".
"It was an unprecedented year ... the IFJ has counted 89 who were killed in the line of duty, singled out for their professional work. In 2005 the trend toward targeted assassination of editorial staff has intensified."
The largest number of deliberate killings, 38, was recorded in the Middle East, all but three of them in Iraq, making the region "by far the world's most deadly beat for reporters in the field," the report said.
United States Ranks 28th on Environment, a New Study Says
United States Ranks 28th on Environment, a New Study Says:
"WASHINGTON - A pilot nation-by-nation study of environmental performance shows that just six nations - led by New Zealand, followed by five from Northern Europe - have achieved 85 percent or better success in meeting a set of critical environmental goals ranging from clean drinking water and low ozone levels to sustainable fisheries and low greenhouse gas emissions.
The study, jointly produced by Yale and Columbia Universities, ranked the United States 28th over all, behind most of Western Europe, Japan, Taiwan, Malaysia, Costa Rica and Chile, but ahead of Russia and South Korea.
The bottom half of the rankings is largely filled with the countries of Africa and Central and South Asia. Pakistan and India both rank among the 20 lowest-scoring countries, with overall success rates of 41.1 percent and 47.7 percent, respectively."
"WASHINGTON - A pilot nation-by-nation study of environmental performance shows that just six nations - led by New Zealand, followed by five from Northern Europe - have achieved 85 percent or better success in meeting a set of critical environmental goals ranging from clean drinking water and low ozone levels to sustainable fisheries and low greenhouse gas emissions.
The study, jointly produced by Yale and Columbia Universities, ranked the United States 28th over all, behind most of Western Europe, Japan, Taiwan, Malaysia, Costa Rica and Chile, but ahead of Russia and South Korea.
The bottom half of the rankings is largely filled with the countries of Africa and Central and South Asia. Pakistan and India both rank among the 20 lowest-scoring countries, with overall success rates of 41.1 percent and 47.7 percent, respectively."
23.1.06
Attacks Strain Efforts On Terror
Attacks Strain Efforts On Terror
Then wise up.
KABUL, Afghanistan, Jan. 22 -- Events along the ever-volatile Afghanistan-Pakistan border this month have exposed deep fault lines in the anti-terrorism alliance among the United States, Afghanistan and Pakistan, and officials on all sides say their joint efforts against militants in the region are now highly precarious.
The heightened tension comes as militant extremists and the United States have both become more aggressive in their tactics, with the Pakistani government caught in between.
Two incidents in particular, which each killed more than a dozen people, have revealed just how tenuous relations among the countries have become.
In the first, U.S. missiles struck a house in the Pakistani village of Damadola where Ayman Zawahiri, the deputy leader of al Qaeda, was thought to be having dinner.
In the second, three days later in the Afghan town of Spin Boldak, a man drove a motorbike into a crowd gathered to watch a wrestling match and blew himself up.
Because the incidents took place on opposite sides of the border, they elicited responses with vastly different focuses.
After the U.S. missile strike, thousands of Pakistanis took to the streets to condemn the United States. After the suicide bombing, thousands of Afghans took to the streets to condemn Pakistan.
The United States -- long frustrated because its soldiers are in Afghanistan while most of the militants they are hunting are believed to be in Pakistan -- has begun using unmanned aircraft known as Predators armed with Hellfire missiles to reach across the border.
Pakistani officials are apparently notified in advance of such missions, and assist with intelligence.
But the angry public response there to this month's attack raised questions about whether the government of Gen. Pervez Musharraf -- which has sought to cultivate ties to the West without alienating radical Islamic groups at home -- can handle the domestic political fallout.
Afghanistan, for its part, has applauded the more aggressive U.S. stance. Afghan officials say they want the United States to go even further to stop Pakistan-based militants, who are hitting hard at a time when international commitments to securing Afghanistan have come into doubt.
Meanwhile, along the border, tensions continue to rise.
"We have a lot of grief in our hearts," said Abdul Hakim Jan, an Afghan tribal leader who helped organize a protest beside a border crossing Wednesday following the deadliest suicide bombing in Afghanistan in the four years since the fall of Taliban rule.
"All the terrorists and the enemies of Afghanistan are because of Pakistan. They are receiving their training there and they are being sent to Afghanistan for attacks."
Pakistani tribal leaders, for their part, look a few miles west for the source of their troubles: the American military presence in Afghanistan.
Throughout the past week and continuing Sunday, tens of thousands of Pakistanis have participated in boisterous rallies at which protesters burned effigies of President Bush, chanted "Long live Osama!" and denounced the Pakistani government for cooperating with the United States.
"People are so angry that this could become a major movement against the American slaves who are ruling Pakistan these days," said Liaquat Baluch, a leader of Jamaat-e-Islami, the country's largest Islamic party.
Volatility in the border region is nothing new. For centuries, the rugged, mountainous area has been largely beyond the control of any government.
Both sides of the border are populated by religiously conservative Pashtuns, who in recent decades have freely transported money, drugs and weapons back and forth across the porous boundary.
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Then wise up.
KABUL, Afghanistan, Jan. 22 -- Events along the ever-volatile Afghanistan-Pakistan border this month have exposed deep fault lines in the anti-terrorism alliance among the United States, Afghanistan and Pakistan, and officials on all sides say their joint efforts against militants in the region are now highly precarious.
The heightened tension comes as militant extremists and the United States have both become more aggressive in their tactics, with the Pakistani government caught in between.
Two incidents in particular, which each killed more than a dozen people, have revealed just how tenuous relations among the countries have become.
In the first, U.S. missiles struck a house in the Pakistani village of Damadola where Ayman Zawahiri, the deputy leader of al Qaeda, was thought to be having dinner.
In the second, three days later in the Afghan town of Spin Boldak, a man drove a motorbike into a crowd gathered to watch a wrestling match and blew himself up.
Because the incidents took place on opposite sides of the border, they elicited responses with vastly different focuses.
After the U.S. missile strike, thousands of Pakistanis took to the streets to condemn the United States. After the suicide bombing, thousands of Afghans took to the streets to condemn Pakistan.
The United States -- long frustrated because its soldiers are in Afghanistan while most of the militants they are hunting are believed to be in Pakistan -- has begun using unmanned aircraft known as Predators armed with Hellfire missiles to reach across the border.
Pakistani officials are apparently notified in advance of such missions, and assist with intelligence.
But the angry public response there to this month's attack raised questions about whether the government of Gen. Pervez Musharraf -- which has sought to cultivate ties to the West without alienating radical Islamic groups at home -- can handle the domestic political fallout.
Afghanistan, for its part, has applauded the more aggressive U.S. stance. Afghan officials say they want the United States to go even further to stop Pakistan-based militants, who are hitting hard at a time when international commitments to securing Afghanistan have come into doubt.
Meanwhile, along the border, tensions continue to rise.
"We have a lot of grief in our hearts," said Abdul Hakim Jan, an Afghan tribal leader who helped organize a protest beside a border crossing Wednesday following the deadliest suicide bombing in Afghanistan in the four years since the fall of Taliban rule.
"All the terrorists and the enemies of Afghanistan are because of Pakistan. They are receiving their training there and they are being sent to Afghanistan for attacks."
Pakistani tribal leaders, for their part, look a few miles west for the source of their troubles: the American military presence in Afghanistan.
Throughout the past week and continuing Sunday, tens of thousands of Pakistanis have participated in boisterous rallies at which protesters burned effigies of President Bush, chanted "Long live Osama!" and denounced the Pakistani government for cooperating with the United States.
"People are so angry that this could become a major movement against the American slaves who are ruling Pakistan these days," said Liaquat Baluch, a leader of Jamaat-e-Islami, the country's largest Islamic party.
Volatility in the border region is nothing new. For centuries, the rugged, mountainous area has been largely beyond the control of any government.
Both sides of the border are populated by religiously conservative Pashtuns, who in recent decades have freely transported money, drugs and weapons back and forth across the porous boundary.
('2')('3')Next >
Official Google Blog: Googlebombing 'failure'
Official Google Blog: Googlebombing 'failure'
Set the record Straight :p
Googlebombing 'failure'
9/16/2005 12:54:00 PM
Posted by Marissa Mayer, Director of Consumer Web ProductsIf you do a Google search on the word [failure] or the phrase [miserable failure], the top result is currently the White House’s official biographical page for President Bush. We've received some complaints recently from users who assume that this reflects a political bias on our part. I'd like to explain how these results come up in order to allay these concerns.Google's search results are generated by computer programs that rank web pages in large part by examining the number and relative popularity of the sites that link to them. By using a practice called googlebombing, however, determined pranksters can occasionally produce odd results. In this case, a number of webmasters use the phrases [failure] and [miserable failure] to describe and link to President Bush's website, thus pushing it to the top of searches for those phrases. We don't condone the practice of googlebombing, or any other action that seeks to affect the integrity of our search results, but we're also reluctant to alter our results by hand in order to prevent such items from showing up. Pranks like this may be distracting to some, but they don't affect the overall quality of our search service, whose objectivity, as always, remains the core of our mission.
But if the shoe fits, he's wearing them
Set the record Straight :p
Googlebombing 'failure'
9/16/2005 12:54:00 PM
Posted by Marissa Mayer, Director of Consumer Web ProductsIf you do a Google search on the word [failure] or the phrase [miserable failure], the top result is currently the White House’s official biographical page for President Bush. We've received some complaints recently from users who assume that this reflects a political bias on our part. I'd like to explain how these results come up in order to allay these concerns.Google's search results are generated by computer programs that rank web pages in large part by examining the number and relative popularity of the sites that link to them. By using a practice called googlebombing, however, determined pranksters can occasionally produce odd results. In this case, a number of webmasters use the phrases [failure] and [miserable failure] to describe and link to President Bush's website, thus pushing it to the top of searches for those phrases. We don't condone the practice of googlebombing, or any other action that seeks to affect the integrity of our search results, but we're also reluctant to alter our results by hand in order to prevent such items from showing up. Pranks like this may be distracting to some, but they don't affect the overall quality of our search service, whose objectivity, as always, remains the core of our mission.
But if the shoe fits, he's wearing them
How W Got Elected in the First Place
Months before the 2000 presidential elections, the offices of Florida Governor Jeb Bush and Secretary of State Katherine Harris ordered the removal of 90,000 citizens from the voter rolls because they were convicted felons . . . and felons can?t vote in Florida. There was one problem: 97 percent of those on the list were, in fact, innocent.
They weren?t felons, but they were guilty . . . of not being white. Over half the list contained names of non-whites. I?m not guessing: I have the list from out of the computers of Katherine Harris? office -- and the ?scrubbed? voter?s race is listed with each name.
And that?s how our President was elected: by illegally removing tens of thousands of legal African American voters before the race.
But you knew that . . . at least you did if you read the British papers -- I reported this discovery for the Guardian of London. And I reported again on the nightly news. You saw that . . . if you live in Europe or Canada or South America.
In the USA, the story ran on page zero. Well, let me correct that a bit. The Washington Post did run the story on the fake felon list that selected our President -- even with a comment under my byline. I wrote the story within weeks of the election, while Al Gore was still in the race.
The Post courageously ran it . . . seven months after the election.
The New York Times ran it . . . well, never, even after Katherine Harris confessed the scam to a Florida court after she and the state were successfully sued by the NAACP.
So, I can?t say the New York Times always makes up the news. Sometimes the news just doesn?t make it.
They weren?t felons, but they were guilty . . . of not being white. Over half the list contained names of non-whites. I?m not guessing: I have the list from out of the computers of Katherine Harris? office -- and the ?scrubbed? voter?s race is listed with each name.
And that?s how our President was elected: by illegally removing tens of thousands of legal African American voters before the race.
But you knew that . . . at least you did if you read the British papers -- I reported this discovery for the Guardian of London. And I reported again on the nightly news. You saw that . . . if you live in Europe or Canada or South America.
In the USA, the story ran on page zero. Well, let me correct that a bit. The Washington Post did run the story on the fake felon list that selected our President -- even with a comment under my byline. I wrote the story within weeks of the election, while Al Gore was still in the race.
The Post courageously ran it . . . seven months after the election.
The New York Times ran it . . . well, never, even after Katherine Harris confessed the scam to a Florida court after she and the state were successfully sued by the NAACP.
So, I can?t say the New York Times always makes up the news. Sometimes the news just doesn?t make it.
Expatica's German news in English: Steinmeier rules out military option in Iran row
Expatica's German news in English: Steinmeier rules out military option in Iran row
Prudent decision; One I hope the US adheres to, but I won't hold my breath. US Government make selfish and very inappropriate choices.
19 January 2006
CAIRO - German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier on Thursday ruled out a military option in the ongoing dispute between the EU and Iran over Tehran's resumption of its controversial nuclear research programme.
Speaking after a meeting in Cairo with his Egyptian counterpart Ahmed Abul Gheit and President Hosny Mubarak, Steinmeier said the EU was interested in a diplomatic solution to the row and that none of the countries taking part in the talks with Iran "had a military option in mind."
The Egyptian leadership did not say whether Cairo would support moves by the EU Trio of Germany, France and Britain and the United States to refer Iran to the United Nations Security Council.
Steinmeier also met with Arab League Secretary General Amr Mussa to discuss Iran's nuclear programme. There was a common concern that the nuclearization of Iran would increase the risks to the Middle East, Steinmeier said.
Mussa stressed that it was important to keep the whole of the Middle East free of nuclear weapons, including Israel which has a complete "nuclear arsenal" outside of international control, which Mussa said was a great danger to the region.
The German foreign minister also thanked the Arab League for its help in securing the release of Susanne Osthoff, a German national taken hostage in Iraq.
The two sides discussed the upcoming parliamentary elections in the Palestinian Territories and the ongoing Middle East peace process.
Steinmeier arrived in Egypt on Wednesday for a two-day visit which was to include a speech to the Cairo Book Fair which has Germany as its guest of honour this year.
Prudent decision; One I hope the US adheres to, but I won't hold my breath. US Government make selfish and very inappropriate choices.
19 January 2006
CAIRO - German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier on Thursday ruled out a military option in the ongoing dispute between the EU and Iran over Tehran's resumption of its controversial nuclear research programme.
Speaking after a meeting in Cairo with his Egyptian counterpart Ahmed Abul Gheit and President Hosny Mubarak, Steinmeier said the EU was interested in a diplomatic solution to the row and that none of the countries taking part in the talks with Iran "had a military option in mind."
The Egyptian leadership did not say whether Cairo would support moves by the EU Trio of Germany, France and Britain and the United States to refer Iran to the United Nations Security Council.
Steinmeier also met with Arab League Secretary General Amr Mussa to discuss Iran's nuclear programme. There was a common concern that the nuclearization of Iran would increase the risks to the Middle East, Steinmeier said.
Mussa stressed that it was important to keep the whole of the Middle East free of nuclear weapons, including Israel which has a complete "nuclear arsenal" outside of international control, which Mussa said was a great danger to the region.
The German foreign minister also thanked the Arab League for its help in securing the release of Susanne Osthoff, a German national taken hostage in Iraq.
The two sides discussed the upcoming parliamentary elections in the Palestinian Territories and the ongoing Middle East peace process.
Steinmeier arrived in Egypt on Wednesday for a two-day visit which was to include a speech to the Cairo Book Fair which has Germany as its guest of honour this year.
Expatica's German news in English: Merkel to go ahead with 29-30 Jan Israel visit
Expatica's German news in English: Merkel to go ahead with 29-30 Jan Israel visit
20 January 2006
BERLIN - German Chancellor Angela Merkel was still scheduled Friday to pay her inaugural visit to Israel on January 29-30, a government spokesman, Thomas Steg, said in Berlin.
There had been suggestions that the grave illness of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon would force a cancellation.
Steg said Merkel was still ready to go ahead with a visit. Berlin had made clear from the start that it could "decide relatively flexibly" on a date. January 29-30 had not been scratched and was still free in Merkel's diary.
"We continue to assume this trip will take place," he said.
Chancellor Angela Merkel is quickly becoming my most admired political figure, and for me, that says a lot.
20 January 2006
BERLIN - German Chancellor Angela Merkel was still scheduled Friday to pay her inaugural visit to Israel on January 29-30, a government spokesman, Thomas Steg, said in Berlin.
There had been suggestions that the grave illness of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon would force a cancellation.
Steg said Merkel was still ready to go ahead with a visit. Berlin had made clear from the start that it could "decide relatively flexibly" on a date. January 29-30 had not been scratched and was still free in Merkel's diary.
"We continue to assume this trip will take place," he said.
Chancellor Angela Merkel is quickly becoming my most admired political figure, and for me, that says a lot.
Expatica's German news in English: Germany allows return of Guantanamo prisoner
Expatica's German news in English: Germany allows return of Guantanamo prisoner
20 January 2006
BREMEN, GERMANY - German officials cleared the way Thursday for the return to the country of a German-raised radical if he is released from the US detention centre at Guantanamo Bay.
Friends and relations of Murat Kurnaz, 23, a Turkish national who grew up in the German city of Bremen, have been campaigning for his release, nearly four years after US forces captured him in or near Afghanistan.
So far the United States has announced no decision.
Even if he had been released, he could only have travelled to Turkey. Until now, his return to Germany was blocked until May 2007 by the fact that he is on a European list of undesirables.
But a German administrative tribunal ruled last November in his favour.
Thomas Roewekamp, interior minister of the state of Bremen, said Thursday that this ruling could stand and would not be appealed.
Very good.
20 January 2006
BREMEN, GERMANY - German officials cleared the way Thursday for the return to the country of a German-raised radical if he is released from the US detention centre at Guantanamo Bay.
Friends and relations of Murat Kurnaz, 23, a Turkish national who grew up in the German city of Bremen, have been campaigning for his release, nearly four years after US forces captured him in or near Afghanistan.
So far the United States has announced no decision.
Even if he had been released, he could only have travelled to Turkey. Until now, his return to Germany was blocked until May 2007 by the fact that he is on a European list of undesirables.
But a German administrative tribunal ruled last November in his favour.
Thomas Roewekamp, interior minister of the state of Bremen, said Thursday that this ruling could stand and would not be appealed.
Very good.
Expatica's German news in English: Steinmeier defends German spy presence in Baghdad
Expatica's German news in English: Steinmeier defends German spy presence in Baghdad
Steinmeier defends German spy presence in Baghdad
20 January 2006
BERLIN - German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier defended Friday the wartime presence in Baghdad of two German intelligence agents in 2003, saying they had operated under clear rules.
Germany was shaken a week ago by allegations, strongly denied by Steinmeier, that the BND foreign intelligence service agents may have helped U.S. aircraft to aim bombs during the attack on Baghdad.
In a debate in the German parliament, he said: "It's clear that the BND was required to stick to the rules. There was a clear instruction to provide no support to operative fighting activity."
The agents had observed those instructions. He added that the fact that Germany had not
been hit by any terrorist attack since 2001 was partly luck but also to the credit of its intelligence services.
Steinmeier appealed to the Bundestag chamber not to launch a parliamentary inquiry into the BND activities.
"I'm concerned that a one-year-long inquiry could encourage anti-U.S. and anti-NATO sentiment in this country," he said.
The three opposition parties, the Free Democrats (FDP), Greens and Left Party, have all suggested such an inquiry, but the FDP and Greens were still at odds Friday over its proposed terms of reference.
I strongly support German spy presence in Iraq, because knowing my government, the US can not be trusted.
Steinmeier defends German spy presence in Baghdad
20 January 2006
BERLIN - German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier defended Friday the wartime presence in Baghdad of two German intelligence agents in 2003, saying they had operated under clear rules.
Germany was shaken a week ago by allegations, strongly denied by Steinmeier, that the BND foreign intelligence service agents may have helped U.S. aircraft to aim bombs during the attack on Baghdad.
In a debate in the German parliament, he said: "It's clear that the BND was required to stick to the rules. There was a clear instruction to provide no support to operative fighting activity."
The agents had observed those instructions. He added that the fact that Germany had not
been hit by any terrorist attack since 2001 was partly luck but also to the credit of its intelligence services.
Steinmeier appealed to the Bundestag chamber not to launch a parliamentary inquiry into the BND activities.
"I'm concerned that a one-year-long inquiry could encourage anti-U.S. and anti-NATO sentiment in this country," he said.
The three opposition parties, the Free Democrats (FDP), Greens and Left Party, have all suggested such an inquiry, but the FDP and Greens were still at odds Friday over its proposed terms of reference.
I strongly support German spy presence in Iraq, because knowing my government, the US can not be trusted.
Analysis: Google Case Raises New Questions
Analysis: Google Case Raises New Questions
Geez, and I thought US Intelligence already had access to this info so, why ask again...? Because they lied again...?
Published on Saturday, January 21, 2006 by the Associated Press
Analysis: Google Case Raises New Questions
by Tom Raum
Already on the defensive over its domestic spying program, the Bush administration has alarmed privacy and free-speech advocates by demanding search information about millions of users of Google and other Internet companies.
The moves raise questions about how far the government should be allowed to go to probe into American homes. The administration is pushing back hard, defending its surveillance as helping to protect the nation from terrorism and, to a lesser extent, shield minors from pornography. BU*SH*IT
Critics see the moves as an unwarranted expansion of presidential authority. Hello?!
"Sure, the more intrusive the government becomes, the more potential crime it can solve," said Daniel J. Solove, associate professor of law at George Washington University Law School.
"But our society is founded on the fact that we don't want to give the government this broad-based power," said Solove, author of the book, "The Digital Person: Technology and Privacy in the Information Age."
The administration, seeking to revive an online pornography law blocked by the Supreme Court, has subpoenaed Google Inc. for details on what its users have been looking for through its popular search engine.
Google is fighting the Justice Department subpoena that the company has termed "unduly burdensome, vague and intended to harass." Attorney General Alberto Gonzales this week asked a federal judge in California to order Google to comply. {Its NONE OF THEIR BUSINESS}
"We are trying to gather up information in order to help the enforcement of a federal law to ensure the protection, quite frankly, of our nation's children against pornography," Gonzales said in Washington on Friday. "We are not asking for the identity of Americans." BU*SH*IT
Yahoo Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO - news) and Microsoft Corp. confirmed that they had complied, at least partially, with similar subpoenas. America Online, owned by Time Warner Inc., said it provided a list of search requests already publicly available from other sources.
"You have to be alarmed at the idea that the government can come in and say, 'I want you to give me your statistical data.' This could be the first step on the way for asking for the content of the e-mails," said Shayana Kadidal, an attorney for the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights.
The Justice Department has not asked for names or computer addresses. But the search-engine subpoenas reinforced concerns about how much personal information the government should be entitled to. (can you say IP address)
Congress is holding hearings early next month over whether President Bush overstepped his authority in ordering warrantless domestic eavesdropping by the National Security Agency as part of the post-Sept. 11, 2001, war on terror.
Lawmakers, meanwhile, are also considering an administration request to extend the Patriot Act, which sharply expanded the government's ability to obtain private data on individuals.
Both the NSA eavesdropping and the demands for information on Internet consumer searches "are assertions of substantial powers that conflict with civil liberties," said I.M. Destler, a University of Maryland professor of public service who specializes in homeland security.
The White House has mounted an aggressive campaign to defend itself.
Bush will visit the NSA on Wednesday to underscore his claim that he has the constitutional authority to let intelligence officials listen in on international phone calls of Americans with suspected ties to terrorists.
"The American people want us to do everything in our power to prevent attacks," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Friday.
Gonzales and deputy national intelligence director Michael Hayden also have speeches planned for next week. And Vice President Dick Cheney on Thursday told a conservative think tank in New York that the surveillance program was an essential tool in monitoring al-Qaida and other terrorist organizations.
A majority of people — 56 percent — said the Bush administration should be required to get a warrant before monitoring phone conversations and Internet communications between American citizens and suspected terrorists, according to an AP-Ipsos poll earlier this month.
But when people have been asked in other polls to balance their worries about terrorist threats against their worries about intrusions on privacy, fighting terror is the higher priority.
"I think people are always in favor of civil liberties in the abstract. But in specific cases, they're more free to barter those freedoms away," said Neil M. Richards, an associate law professor at Washington University in St. Louis.
In the domestic eavesdropping case, "even if it's legal, it's a really bad idea. This sort of scrutiny really does raise the specter of Big Brother," Richards said.
What I do, and who I write to, and what I research is none of their business.
Stick to your guns, Google!
Geez, and I thought US Intelligence already had access to this info so, why ask again...? Because they lied again...?
Published on Saturday, January 21, 2006 by the Associated Press
Analysis: Google Case Raises New Questions
by Tom Raum
Already on the defensive over its domestic spying program, the Bush administration has alarmed privacy and free-speech advocates by demanding search information about millions of users of Google and other Internet companies.
The moves raise questions about how far the government should be allowed to go to probe into American homes. The administration is pushing back hard, defending its surveillance as helping to protect the nation from terrorism and, to a lesser extent, shield minors from pornography. BU*SH*IT
Critics see the moves as an unwarranted expansion of presidential authority. Hello?!
"Sure, the more intrusive the government becomes, the more potential crime it can solve," said Daniel J. Solove, associate professor of law at George Washington University Law School.
"But our society is founded on the fact that we don't want to give the government this broad-based power," said Solove, author of the book, "The Digital Person: Technology and Privacy in the Information Age."
The administration, seeking to revive an online pornography law blocked by the Supreme Court, has subpoenaed Google Inc. for details on what its users have been looking for through its popular search engine.
Google is fighting the Justice Department subpoena that the company has termed "unduly burdensome, vague and intended to harass." Attorney General Alberto Gonzales this week asked a federal judge in California to order Google to comply. {Its NONE OF THEIR BUSINESS}
"We are trying to gather up information in order to help the enforcement of a federal law to ensure the protection, quite frankly, of our nation's children against pornography," Gonzales said in Washington on Friday. "We are not asking for the identity of Americans." BU*SH*IT
Yahoo Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO - news) and Microsoft Corp. confirmed that they had complied, at least partially, with similar subpoenas. America Online, owned by Time Warner Inc., said it provided a list of search requests already publicly available from other sources.
"You have to be alarmed at the idea that the government can come in and say, 'I want you to give me your statistical data.' This could be the first step on the way for asking for the content of the e-mails," said Shayana Kadidal, an attorney for the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights.
The Justice Department has not asked for names or computer addresses. But the search-engine subpoenas reinforced concerns about how much personal information the government should be entitled to. (can you say IP address)
Congress is holding hearings early next month over whether President Bush overstepped his authority in ordering warrantless domestic eavesdropping by the National Security Agency as part of the post-Sept. 11, 2001, war on terror.
Lawmakers, meanwhile, are also considering an administration request to extend the Patriot Act, which sharply expanded the government's ability to obtain private data on individuals.
Both the NSA eavesdropping and the demands for information on Internet consumer searches "are assertions of substantial powers that conflict with civil liberties," said I.M. Destler, a University of Maryland professor of public service who specializes in homeland security.
The White House has mounted an aggressive campaign to defend itself.
Bush will visit the NSA on Wednesday to underscore his claim that he has the constitutional authority to let intelligence officials listen in on international phone calls of Americans with suspected ties to terrorists.
"The American people want us to do everything in our power to prevent attacks," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Friday.
Gonzales and deputy national intelligence director Michael Hayden also have speeches planned for next week. And Vice President Dick Cheney on Thursday told a conservative think tank in New York that the surveillance program was an essential tool in monitoring al-Qaida and other terrorist organizations.
A majority of people — 56 percent — said the Bush administration should be required to get a warrant before monitoring phone conversations and Internet communications between American citizens and suspected terrorists, according to an AP-Ipsos poll earlier this month.
But when people have been asked in other polls to balance their worries about terrorist threats against their worries about intrusions on privacy, fighting terror is the higher priority.
"I think people are always in favor of civil liberties in the abstract. But in specific cases, they're more free to barter those freedoms away," said Neil M. Richards, an associate law professor at Washington University in St. Louis.
In the domestic eavesdropping case, "even if it's legal, it's a really bad idea. This sort of scrutiny really does raise the specter of Big Brother," Richards said.
What I do, and who I write to, and what I research is none of their business.
Stick to your guns, Google!
22.1.06
Gas Pipeline Blast Injures 21 in South Russia, Terrorism Suspected - NEWS - MOSNEWS.COM
Gas Pipeline Blast Injures 21 in South Russia, Terrorism Suspected - NEWS - MOSNEWS.COM
Gas Pipeline Blast Injures 21 in South Russia, Terrorism Suspected
Created: 09.12.2004 10:30 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 10:30 MSK
MosNews
A major fire broke out on a section of a gas pipeline in south Russia’s Dagestan Wednesday night, after a blast that injured 21 people and is suspected of being sabotage.
A blast ripped through the Mozdok-Gazimagomed gas pipeline just after 10 p.m. Wednesday night in an area north of the regional capital Makhachkala, news agencies reported.
Dozens were injured, including two firemen, and six people were still in hospital as of Thursday morning. Over a hundred firefighters managed to put out the flames by midnight.
Although there were no residential buildings near the pipeline, 148,000 people have had their gas supplies cut off in nine surrounding residential areas.
By Thursday morning, rescue workers and specialists from state-owned gas giant Gazprom were working to repair the damaged segment of the pipeline.
Local authorities launched a criminal investigation into the incident, suspecting a terrorist attack was behind the blast, Itar-Tass reported.
Deutsche Welle English Service News January 22nd 2005, 16:00 UTC:
Blasts hit gas pipelines in South Russia
Two explosions on gas pipelines have halted gas deliveries from Russia to Georgia and Armenia. Russian officials said the blasts appear to have been set off deliberately. Georgia has gas reserves until Monday, but Russian authorities say repairs could take up to three days. Russian gas giant Gazprom says it is having trouble meeting domestic energy demands as the country shivers in the grip of an Arctic freeze.
Meanwhile, Georgia's president has accused Moscow of sabotaging the Russian pipelines. Mikhail Saakashvili says that the near simultaneous explosions close to Georgia's border were politically motivated.
Gas Pipeline Blast Injures 21 in South Russia, Terrorism Suspected
Created: 09.12.2004 10:30 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 10:30 MSK
MosNews
A major fire broke out on a section of a gas pipeline in south Russia’s Dagestan Wednesday night, after a blast that injured 21 people and is suspected of being sabotage.
A blast ripped through the Mozdok-Gazimagomed gas pipeline just after 10 p.m. Wednesday night in an area north of the regional capital Makhachkala, news agencies reported.
Dozens were injured, including two firemen, and six people were still in hospital as of Thursday morning. Over a hundred firefighters managed to put out the flames by midnight.
Although there were no residential buildings near the pipeline, 148,000 people have had their gas supplies cut off in nine surrounding residential areas.
By Thursday morning, rescue workers and specialists from state-owned gas giant Gazprom were working to repair the damaged segment of the pipeline.
Local authorities launched a criminal investigation into the incident, suspecting a terrorist attack was behind the blast, Itar-Tass reported.
Deutsche Welle English Service News January 22nd 2005, 16:00 UTC:
Blasts hit gas pipelines in South Russia
Two explosions on gas pipelines have halted gas deliveries from Russia to Georgia and Armenia. Russian officials said the blasts appear to have been set off deliberately. Georgia has gas reserves until Monday, but Russian authorities say repairs could take up to three days. Russian gas giant Gazprom says it is having trouble meeting domestic energy demands as the country shivers in the grip of an Arctic freeze.
Meanwhile, Georgia's president has accused Moscow of sabotaging the Russian pipelines. Mikhail Saakashvili says that the near simultaneous explosions close to Georgia's border were politically motivated.
Opinion: Learning to Think Outside the Box | Germany | Deutsche Welle | 22.01.2006
Opinion: Learning to Think Outside the Box Germany Deutsche Welle 22.01.2006
Once dismissed as "nonsense" by former Chancellor Schröder, family policies have now climbed to the top of Germany's political agenda. The debate is headed in the right direction, says DW-WORLD's Uta Thofern.
German Family Affairs Minister Ursula von der Leyen has been in the eye of a storm ever since her radical proposals for making Germany more family-friendly and encouraging women to have babies. The minister plans to "stay the course" amid the raging storm and she can be relied on to get her way.
After all, the emergence of the debate on family-friendliness itself is a victory. That's because despite the posturing of the Social Democrats and the conservative Christian Social Union in the current government coalition, the topic has managed to permanently bag a top spot in the country's political priorities.
Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: German Family Affairs Minister Von der Leyen has stirred up a storm
This positive development naturally isn't just thanks to von der Leyen's tenacity and appetitive for a good fight. The realization that promoting families is simply a necessity trickled into the awareness of both neo-liberal market-friendly politicians and libertarian proponents of an individualistic social model ever since alarm bells began ringing with regularity over the state of the country's pension coffers.
Competition for the best ideas
The damning Pisa study on Germany's education standards also contributed towards strengthening the process. Promoting children also means boosting education. And it's common knowledge that a highly industrialized country can't afford to ignore its young talent.
What has added charm to the ongoing debate is the departure from the traditional family policy reflexes of the two main parties. Now, finally there's a competition for the best ideas, fueled by the row between the two parties. The bitter fight over the details of a family-friendly package aimed at boosting the birth rate is proof that there has been a significant shift in thinking that has driven the traditionalists to take up arms.
In any case, the ruling coalition decided this week to make it easier for working mothers to continue being part of the labor market. Measures include tax breaks on child care as well as on new computers, seen as essential for remaining employed.
Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: If von der Leyen has her way, Germany will hopefully see more kids in the future
It's far removed from the traditional family image of both the conservatives as well the classical distribution policies of the Social Democrats because families with a higher income stand to profit more in terms of absolute figures. That also applies to child benefits decoupled from income. In other words, it's a salary compensation which rises with higher income.
Thus the family policies of the federal government have for the first time shaken off the social- and symbolic politics attached to it and have emerged on the level of Realpolitik, where results, not good intentions, matter.
Narrow-minded thinking doesn't help
Family Affairs Minister von der Leyen has realistically and pragmatically realized why so many well-educated women have decided not to have children. It's not about having 10 or 20 euros more in child benefits for all, but rather about possibilities to reconcile jobs and family without permanently endangering a hard-earned lifestyle.
For a successful university graduate, the bleak prospects of a badly-paid part-time job that perhaps allows her to coordinate it with the opening hours of a local kindergarten, is simply discouraging. Privately-financed full-day schools at least offer a chance not to miss getting back to work again even if the tax breaks only cushions the costs, and doesn't do away with them.
The new proposals of the family affairs package are innovative and correct, as is von der Leyen's bold idea to urge local councils to pay their own contribution.
Did someone say free kindergartens aren't financially viable? Maybe we need to change our priorities, define things anew. Narrow-minded thinking and taboos don't help in any case.
Home sweet home
Once dismissed as "nonsense" by former Chancellor Schröder, family policies have now climbed to the top of Germany's political agenda. The debate is headed in the right direction, says DW-WORLD's Uta Thofern.
German Family Affairs Minister Ursula von der Leyen has been in the eye of a storm ever since her radical proposals for making Germany more family-friendly and encouraging women to have babies. The minister plans to "stay the course" amid the raging storm and she can be relied on to get her way.
After all, the emergence of the debate on family-friendliness itself is a victory. That's because despite the posturing of the Social Democrats and the conservative Christian Social Union in the current government coalition, the topic has managed to permanently bag a top spot in the country's political priorities.
Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: German Family Affairs Minister Von der Leyen has stirred up a storm
This positive development naturally isn't just thanks to von der Leyen's tenacity and appetitive for a good fight. The realization that promoting families is simply a necessity trickled into the awareness of both neo-liberal market-friendly politicians and libertarian proponents of an individualistic social model ever since alarm bells began ringing with regularity over the state of the country's pension coffers.
Competition for the best ideas
The damning Pisa study on Germany's education standards also contributed towards strengthening the process. Promoting children also means boosting education. And it's common knowledge that a highly industrialized country can't afford to ignore its young talent.
What has added charm to the ongoing debate is the departure from the traditional family policy reflexes of the two main parties. Now, finally there's a competition for the best ideas, fueled by the row between the two parties. The bitter fight over the details of a family-friendly package aimed at boosting the birth rate is proof that there has been a significant shift in thinking that has driven the traditionalists to take up arms.
In any case, the ruling coalition decided this week to make it easier for working mothers to continue being part of the labor market. Measures include tax breaks on child care as well as on new computers, seen as essential for remaining employed.
Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: If von der Leyen has her way, Germany will hopefully see more kids in the future
It's far removed from the traditional family image of both the conservatives as well the classical distribution policies of the Social Democrats because families with a higher income stand to profit more in terms of absolute figures. That also applies to child benefits decoupled from income. In other words, it's a salary compensation which rises with higher income.
Thus the family policies of the federal government have for the first time shaken off the social- and symbolic politics attached to it and have emerged on the level of Realpolitik, where results, not good intentions, matter.
Narrow-minded thinking doesn't help
Family Affairs Minister von der Leyen has realistically and pragmatically realized why so many well-educated women have decided not to have children. It's not about having 10 or 20 euros more in child benefits for all, but rather about possibilities to reconcile jobs and family without permanently endangering a hard-earned lifestyle.
For a successful university graduate, the bleak prospects of a badly-paid part-time job that perhaps allows her to coordinate it with the opening hours of a local kindergarten, is simply discouraging. Privately-financed full-day schools at least offer a chance not to miss getting back to work again even if the tax breaks only cushions the costs, and doesn't do away with them.
The new proposals of the family affairs package are innovative and correct, as is von der Leyen's bold idea to urge local councils to pay their own contribution.
Did someone say free kindergartens aren't financially viable? Maybe we need to change our priorities, define things anew. Narrow-minded thinking and taboos don't help in any case.
Home sweet home
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