Sudan: Oil Profits Behind West’s Tears for Darfur - Worldpress.org:
For at least 18 months now, Western governments have quietly stood by as the non-Arabic-speaking black farmers of the Darfur region in western Sudan have borne the brunt of a vicious ethnic-cleansing campaign carried out by state-sponsored bandits known as the Janjaweed.
Refugees report that attacks on farming villages are often preceded by raids by Sudanese air force fighter-bombers and attack helicopters. The Janjaweed, recruited from Arabic-speaking pastoralist tribes, then routinely murder any male villagers they can get their hands on. They systematically rape or kidnap the women, and plunder and destroy the villages and crops.
The attacks and their consequences have resulted in the deaths of up to 50,000 people** (more than that) and the displacement of 1.5 million; aid agencies warn that hundreds of thousands may die from disease or starvation in the coming months.
Why then have the governments of the United States and the European Union (EU) only now begun to express concern over the fate of the people of western Sudan and demand that the Islamist military regime in Khartoum bring the Janjaweed under control?
The answer-as it most often is when rich countries threaten to intervene in the Middle East and Africa-access to invest in and extract profits from Sudan's burgeoning oil export industry.
Pressure on Khartoum
Beginning in July, Washington, backed by the EU, began to ratchet up the pressure on Khartoum to rein in the Janjaweed. On July 1, US Secretary of State Colin Powell visited Khartoum, where he sternly warned Sudan's government: "Unless we see more moves soon ... it may be necessary for the international community to begin considering other actions, to include Security Council action."
**(State Department finding that 60,000 to 160,000 deaths: Other surveys had pegged the death toll much higher -- ranging from a low of 180,000 deaths just from health causes to an overall high of 400,000) That is a huge range of uncertainty but with hard figures difficult to get, the toll has been fiercely contested by Sudan.
Article Continues
18.2.06
Bush Calls For More Muscle In Darfur
Bush Calls For More Muscle In Darfur
I am glad Bush is stepping in finally to assist Darfur, yet Africa has lots of OIL
Is it a conflict of interest to intervene with Arab Militia?
ORLANDO, Fla., Feb. 17 -- President Bush on Friday called for doubling the number of international troops in the war-ravaged Darfur region of Sudan and a bigger role for NATO in the peacekeeping effort.
Bush has concluded that peace talks will not halt the violence that has left tens of thousands dead and more than 2 million homeless in Darfur and that a more muscular military response is required, administration officials said.
After private talks with world leaders, including U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, Bush decided to call for an additional 7,000 or more troops to be placed under U.N. command, along with the 7,000 African Union troops already there, because such an expansion would be the quickest way to intervene in the bloody conflict, the officials said. But many details of the policy shift need to be worked out, including how many U.S. troops would be part of the beefed-up international peacekeeping effort. Lt. Cmdr. Joe Carpenter, a Pentagon spokesman, said it is "premature to speculate" on potential increases in U.S. troops.
"I'm in the process now of working with a variety of folks to encourage there to be more troops, probably under the United Nations," Bush said in Tampa in a question-and-answer session after he made a speech on terrorism. The announcement caught senior White House aides by surprise because details of the new policy have not been finalized. Still, a top White House official said the Bush statement is part of a significant shift that will drive Darfur policy in the months ahead.
The change is essentially an acknowledgment that the previous policy did not stop the killings, which Bush had described as genocide. He had resisted calls for a bigger U.S. role and relied on the African Union to take the lead, with increased NATO assistance. U.S. officials had also pressed Sudan to rein in the militias.
But the violence continued, and almost no progress has been made in the peace talks between Sudan's government and Darfur rebels. The negotiations are taking place in the Nigerian capital, Abuja.
There are also growing fears of a military clash between Sudan and neighboring Chad, where several hundred thousand refugees from Darfur are living in camps.
Four U.S. military planners were sent to the United Nations this week to assist the U.N. peacekeeping department in coming up with a range of options for the military forces, according to a State Department official. NATO would provide planning and logistical assistance.
The latest conflict began in early 2003, when two Darfur rebel groups took up arms against the Arab-led Islamic government in Khartoum, citing discrimination against the region's black tribes. The Sudanese government armed and organized a local Arab militia, known as the Janjaweed, to target local communities that were suspected of sympathizing with the rebels. U.N. officials say as many as 200,000 people may have been killed by violence and disease as a result of the attacks.
In a break from current policy, which has emphasized peace talks and long-term solutions, Bush concluded this month that the 7,000-member African Union peacekeeping force has been hamstrung by its size and limited rules of engagement, one official said. With memories of the failed 1993 U.S. military operation in Somalia fresh in their minds, many U.S. policymakers have been reluctant to commit U.S. forces unilaterally or through multilateral organizations such as NATO.
But Bush brushed aside the resistance of some senior policymakers and sided with White House adviser Michael J. Gerson and others who have been lobbying for more assistance to Darfur. Bush this week also proposed $500 million for Darfur as part of a larger special budget request to Congress.
There is some bipartisan support for intervening in the troubled region. Sens. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) and Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) plan to introduce a resolution in Congress calling for NATO troops to help the African Union "stop the genocide" in the Darfur region.
CONTINUED 1 ('2') ('Next') NextNext >
I am glad Bush is stepping in finally to assist Darfur, yet Africa has lots of OIL
Is it a conflict of interest to intervene with Arab Militia?
ORLANDO, Fla., Feb. 17 -- President Bush on Friday called for doubling the number of international troops in the war-ravaged Darfur region of Sudan and a bigger role for NATO in the peacekeeping effort.
Bush has concluded that peace talks will not halt the violence that has left tens of thousands dead and more than 2 million homeless in Darfur and that a more muscular military response is required, administration officials said.
After private talks with world leaders, including U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, Bush decided to call for an additional 7,000 or more troops to be placed under U.N. command, along with the 7,000 African Union troops already there, because such an expansion would be the quickest way to intervene in the bloody conflict, the officials said. But many details of the policy shift need to be worked out, including how many U.S. troops would be part of the beefed-up international peacekeeping effort. Lt. Cmdr. Joe Carpenter, a Pentagon spokesman, said it is "premature to speculate" on potential increases in U.S. troops.
"I'm in the process now of working with a variety of folks to encourage there to be more troops, probably under the United Nations," Bush said in Tampa in a question-and-answer session after he made a speech on terrorism. The announcement caught senior White House aides by surprise because details of the new policy have not been finalized. Still, a top White House official said the Bush statement is part of a significant shift that will drive Darfur policy in the months ahead.
The change is essentially an acknowledgment that the previous policy did not stop the killings, which Bush had described as genocide. He had resisted calls for a bigger U.S. role and relied on the African Union to take the lead, with increased NATO assistance. U.S. officials had also pressed Sudan to rein in the militias.
But the violence continued, and almost no progress has been made in the peace talks between Sudan's government and Darfur rebels. The negotiations are taking place in the Nigerian capital, Abuja.
There are also growing fears of a military clash between Sudan and neighboring Chad, where several hundred thousand refugees from Darfur are living in camps.
Four U.S. military planners were sent to the United Nations this week to assist the U.N. peacekeeping department in coming up with a range of options for the military forces, according to a State Department official. NATO would provide planning and logistical assistance.
The latest conflict began in early 2003, when two Darfur rebel groups took up arms against the Arab-led Islamic government in Khartoum, citing discrimination against the region's black tribes. The Sudanese government armed and organized a local Arab militia, known as the Janjaweed, to target local communities that were suspected of sympathizing with the rebels. U.N. officials say as many as 200,000 people may have been killed by violence and disease as a result of the attacks.
In a break from current policy, which has emphasized peace talks and long-term solutions, Bush concluded this month that the 7,000-member African Union peacekeeping force has been hamstrung by its size and limited rules of engagement, one official said. With memories of the failed 1993 U.S. military operation in Somalia fresh in their minds, many U.S. policymakers have been reluctant to commit U.S. forces unilaterally or through multilateral organizations such as NATO.
But Bush brushed aside the resistance of some senior policymakers and sided with White House adviser Michael J. Gerson and others who have been lobbying for more assistance to Darfur. Bush this week also proposed $500 million for Darfur as part of a larger special budget request to Congress.
There is some bipartisan support for intervening in the troubled region. Sens. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) and Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) plan to introduce a resolution in Congress calling for NATO troops to help the African Union "stop the genocide" in the Darfur region.
CONTINUED 1 ('2') ('Next') NextNext >
17.2.06
Outrage Spreads over New Images
Outrage Spreads over New Images
*Inter Press Service*
Dahr Jamail and Arkan Hamed*
BASRA, Feb 16 (IPS) - New footage of British soldiers beating up youngIraqi men in Amarah city in 2003, and the release of more photographs ofatrocities by U.S. soldiers against Iraqi detainees in Abu Ghraib prisonhas spread outrage across Iraq.
*The timing of the new images is potent, in the wake of violencespreading through Iraq and much of the Muslim world over cartoons ofProphet Mohammed carried by a Danish newspaper and then other European publications.
"We in Basra have decided not to cooperate in any way with the British troops," 43 year-old food merchant Ali Shehab Najim told IPS. "These occupiers of Basra are invaders and we will not sell them any of their requirements."Najim added, "None of us will work with them any longer either.
My cousin used to work with them inside their base, but not any more. He refuses to go to work, and we have decided to show our contempt for them in every way possible."Najim said people are particularly angry over the Danish military presence in Iraq.
He said he had first accepted the presence of occupation forces, but now"I think it's about time to tell them we do not respect them since they are behaving in a very bad way."After footage of British troops beating young Iraqis with fists andbatons was aired earlier, the Governorate of Basra announced it hassevered ties to the British military.
This included cancellation of joint security patrols."We condemn any of those actions by British and American troops intorturing our young people," former head city councillor of Basra governorate Qasim Atta Al-Joubori told IPS."Iraqis suffered a lot during the past 35 years, but now they are tortured by foreigners who invaded our country," said Al-Joubori, who was a city councillor in Basra for 40 years.
"We can't accept havingthem any more."Far from cooperating, people in Basra are now prepared to fight theoccupation forces, he said. "What these beatings and torture show isthat the occupiers are both assaulting and insulting all of the Iraqi people."Similar views are being echoed around Basra, a relatively quieter area in the south under charge of British troops.
"We are looking to the day we see those bastards out of our country," 55 year-old factory owner Abdullah Ibraheem told IPS. "Now they aretorturing the citizens of Basra, Baghdad and Amarah, so they have notonly lost the support of the Iraqi Sunnis but the Shias in this countryas well."He said most Iraqis know someone who has been in a military detention centre, but said the new video footage and photographic evidence oftorture have "demolished whatever credibility may have remained for the occupiers.
"The Australian television network Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) aired previously unpublished video footage and photographs Wednesday of abuse of Iraqis by U.S. soldiers inside the infamous Abu Ghraib prison in 2003.
The images are similar to those published in 2004 that led to furoreacross the Middle East. But many of the new images show a brutality andextent of sexual humiliation that many news outlets found too shocking to carry.
The American Civil Liberties Union had obtained the photographs from the U.S. government under a Freedom of Information request, but its memberssaid they were not aware how the SBS came to air its new footage and thephotographs.There could be yet more photographs to come. "I believe major newspapersin the U.S. like the Washington Post have scores more photos which areevidence of torture at Abu Ghraib, but they won't publish them due topressure from the U.S. government," an attorney at the Centre for Constitutional Rights in New York City told IPS.
In Washington, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman told reporters, "The abuses at Abu Ghraib have been fully investigated." He added, "When there have been abuses, this department has acted upon them promptly,investigated them thoroughly and where appropriate prosecuted individuals."He said the Pentagon believes that releasing of the new images wouldtrigger greater violence, and endanger U.S. forces in Iraq.
*Inter Press Service*
Dahr Jamail and Arkan Hamed*
BASRA, Feb 16 (IPS) - New footage of British soldiers beating up youngIraqi men in Amarah city in 2003, and the release of more photographs ofatrocities by U.S. soldiers against Iraqi detainees in Abu Ghraib prisonhas spread outrage across Iraq.
*The timing of the new images is potent, in the wake of violencespreading through Iraq and much of the Muslim world over cartoons ofProphet Mohammed carried by a Danish newspaper and then other European publications.
"We in Basra have decided not to cooperate in any way with the British troops," 43 year-old food merchant Ali Shehab Najim told IPS. "These occupiers of Basra are invaders and we will not sell them any of their requirements."Najim added, "None of us will work with them any longer either.
My cousin used to work with them inside their base, but not any more. He refuses to go to work, and we have decided to show our contempt for them in every way possible."Najim said people are particularly angry over the Danish military presence in Iraq.
He said he had first accepted the presence of occupation forces, but now"I think it's about time to tell them we do not respect them since they are behaving in a very bad way."After footage of British troops beating young Iraqis with fists andbatons was aired earlier, the Governorate of Basra announced it hassevered ties to the British military.
This included cancellation of joint security patrols."We condemn any of those actions by British and American troops intorturing our young people," former head city councillor of Basra governorate Qasim Atta Al-Joubori told IPS."Iraqis suffered a lot during the past 35 years, but now they are tortured by foreigners who invaded our country," said Al-Joubori, who was a city councillor in Basra for 40 years.
"We can't accept havingthem any more."Far from cooperating, people in Basra are now prepared to fight theoccupation forces, he said. "What these beatings and torture show isthat the occupiers are both assaulting and insulting all of the Iraqi people."Similar views are being echoed around Basra, a relatively quieter area in the south under charge of British troops.
"We are looking to the day we see those bastards out of our country," 55 year-old factory owner Abdullah Ibraheem told IPS. "Now they aretorturing the citizens of Basra, Baghdad and Amarah, so they have notonly lost the support of the Iraqi Sunnis but the Shias in this countryas well."He said most Iraqis know someone who has been in a military detention centre, but said the new video footage and photographic evidence oftorture have "demolished whatever credibility may have remained for the occupiers.
"The Australian television network Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) aired previously unpublished video footage and photographs Wednesday of abuse of Iraqis by U.S. soldiers inside the infamous Abu Ghraib prison in 2003.
The images are similar to those published in 2004 that led to furoreacross the Middle East. But many of the new images show a brutality andextent of sexual humiliation that many news outlets found too shocking to carry.
The American Civil Liberties Union had obtained the photographs from the U.S. government under a Freedom of Information request, but its memberssaid they were not aware how the SBS came to air its new footage and thephotographs.There could be yet more photographs to come. "I believe major newspapersin the U.S. like the Washington Post have scores more photos which areevidence of torture at Abu Ghraib, but they won't publish them due topressure from the U.S. government," an attorney at the Centre for Constitutional Rights in New York City told IPS.
In Washington, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman told reporters, "The abuses at Abu Ghraib have been fully investigated." He added, "When there have been abuses, this department has acted upon them promptly,investigated them thoroughly and where appropriate prosecuted individuals."He said the Pentagon believes that releasing of the new images wouldtrigger greater violence, and endanger U.S. forces in Iraq.
SBS in Australia broadcasts the real Abu Ghraib footage the US government will not allow you to see
SBS in Australia broadcasts the real Abu Ghraib footage the US government will not allow you to see.
*February 16, 2006*http://dahrjamailiraq.com
On Wednesday 16 February 2006, Australian public broadcaster SBS currentaffairs program DATELINE telecast a segment featring 60 new photos ofthe torture inflicted on prisoners in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
These photos were secured by court order - the ACLU figures prominentlyin the report - but these photos haven't yet been shown in the mediaanywhere in the United States. Because of the broadcast on SBS, you nowhave access to both Web-downloadable versions and BitTorrentfile-sharing network versions of the broadcast on this site.
*THESEPHOTOS ARE VERY DISTURBING. Please do not view this video if you areeasily disturbed by graphic imagery of torture and death
*.Download the SBS Abu Ghraib video (mp4)<http://www.dahrjamailiraq.com/multi_media/SBS-Dateline-Abu-Ghraib-tiny.mp4>
<http://win20ca.audiovideoweb.com/ca20win15004/dahrjamail512K.wmv>
*Server busy? Then download the .torrent file (google bittorrenttutorial for information on how to do this
<http://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial_s&hl=en&q=bittorrent+tutorial&btnG=Google+Search>
*.torrent mp4 tiny (13 megs)
<http://www.dahrjamailiraq.com/multi_media/SBS-Dateline-Abu-Ghraib-tiny.mp4.torrent>.torrent mp4 small (45 megs)
<http://www.dahrjamailiraq.com/multi_media/SBS-Dateline-Abu-Ghraib-low.mp4.torrent>
.torrent high res mp4 (90 megs)
<http://www.dahrjamailiraq.com/multi_media/SBS-Dateline-Abu-Ghraib-high-h264.mp4.torrent>
Learn about BitTorrent and see all of our torrents
<http://www.dahrjamailiraq.com/torrents>
*February 16, 2006*http://dahrjamailiraq.com
On Wednesday 16 February 2006, Australian public broadcaster SBS currentaffairs program DATELINE telecast a segment featring 60 new photos ofthe torture inflicted on prisoners in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
These photos were secured by court order - the ACLU figures prominentlyin the report - but these photos haven't yet been shown in the mediaanywhere in the United States. Because of the broadcast on SBS, you nowhave access to both Web-downloadable versions and BitTorrentfile-sharing network versions of the broadcast on this site.
*THESEPHOTOS ARE VERY DISTURBING. Please do not view this video if you areeasily disturbed by graphic imagery of torture and death
*.Download the SBS Abu Ghraib video (mp4)<http://www.dahrjamailiraq.com/multi_media/SBS-Dateline-Abu-Ghraib-tiny.mp4>
<http://win20ca.audiovideoweb.com/ca20win15004/dahrjamail512K.wmv>
*Server busy? Then download the .torrent file (google bittorrenttutorial for information on how to do this
<http://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial_s&hl=en&q=bittorrent+tutorial&btnG=Google+Search>
*.torrent mp4 tiny (13 megs)
<http://www.dahrjamailiraq.com/multi_media/SBS-Dateline-Abu-Ghraib-tiny.mp4.torrent>.torrent mp4 small (45 megs)
<http://www.dahrjamailiraq.com/multi_media/SBS-Dateline-Abu-Ghraib-low.mp4.torrent>
.torrent high res mp4 (90 megs)
<http://www.dahrjamailiraq.com/multi_media/SBS-Dateline-Abu-Ghraib-high-h264.mp4.torrent>
Learn about BitTorrent and see all of our torrents
<http://www.dahrjamailiraq.com/torrents>
15.2.06
Patriot Daily :: Bush Tags Bloggers As Terrorists!
Patriot Daily :: Bush Tags Bloggers As Terrorists!
All bloggers should know that if the government views the substantive content of your blog as "activist calls" or "deliberate misinformation campaigns," then you may be a domestic "terrorist." hahahahahahaahaha
While not a surprise, given all that has transpired in Bush's term, it still was a shocker to read that bloggers are now "terrorists." The nature of blogger terrorist acts should be a concern for both liberal and conservative bloggers: "Deliberate misinformation campaigns" may well describe actions taken by right-wingers and "activist calls" describes actions by bloggers regardless of political affiliation.
Homeland Security completed its "Cyber Storm" wargame to test how our government "would respond to devastating attacks over the Internet from anti-globalization activists, underground hackers and bloggers." Voilate my 1st amendment and I'll sue you.
Given that homeland security ran the "wargame," one may infer that the nature of the attacks by bloggers must be national security related. And, given that the major national security fear of our government is terrorists, then it looks like bloggers have made our government's hit list of potential terrorists. But, what is the nature of this "terrorist crime" that was the subject of these wargames?
"Participants confirmed parts of the worldwide simulation challenged government officials and industry executives to respond to deliberate misinformation campaigns and activist calls by Internet bloggers, online diarists whose "Web logs" include political rantings and musings about current events."
There are other indications that the Bush administration deems bloggers well within the reach of any definition of terrorist, if for no other reason than the crime of dissent and criticism. There are also indicators that relevant parties would be somewhat prepared to assist in the nabbing of terrorist bloggers: Vaffanculo!
(1) In what may have been a precursor to US bloggers, the US military and government apparently were not offended (at least did not take any publicly disclosed action to free the blogger) when an Iraqi blogger was arrested, interrogated and imprisoned for the crime of reading comments on another blogger's website at a public café:
"Then finally I understood why I was there, after few hours. Security guards at the university had printed out all the websites I was reading while I was online there. They were accusing me of "reading terrorism sites" and "having communications with foreign terrorists"."
Do you know what these pages are?"I looked at them and figured out they were the comment section of Raed in the Middle!! I opened the comments section while browsing in the university, read some comments, and didn't even post anything.
But these people don't seem to know what the internet is, and they don't speak English, so I was a major suspect of being an assistant of al Zarqawi maybe! Or that I have a terrorist group of my own, with foreign connections!I was accused of terrorism, and sent to jail after they decided that I'm not helping myself because I am not helping them!!!
(2) US plans to data mine blogs for stated purpose of finding terrorist information to connect the dots to prevent a terrorist attack:
"The U.S. government is developing a massive computer system that can collect huge amounts of data and, by linking far-flung information from blogs and e-mail to government records and intelligence reports, search for patterns of terrorist activity." F-U
(3) "The CIA is quietly funding federal research into surveillance of Internet chat rooms as part of an effort to identify possible terrorists, newly released documents reveal."
(4) American Internet providers have assisted foreign countries to jail bloggers for substantive content posted on their blogs:
"Last December, Microsoft shut down the Web site of a dissident Chinese blogger. A few months earlier, Yahoo gave Beijing the name of a dissident Chinese journalist. He got ten years in jail for his Web postings. Ironically, Google's Chinese kowtow comes as the company is resisting efforts by the U.S. government for access to its records."
(5) Indymedia was a subject of a secret, international terrorism investigation in which US government seized its hard drives. A Texas Internet company turned over hard drives pursuant to a court order under an international treaty governing crimes of terrorism, kidnapping and money laundering.
(6) The MSM has shown its willingness to paint bloggers and any lefty journalists as the domestic evil axis of treasonists so that the American people will understand the need to arrest bloggers to make this country safe from terrorists. BU*SH*IT
(7) The CIA now has its own bloggers and a government website that are part of a revised CIA office for monitoring, translating and analyzing publicly available information. It is good news that the CIA is evaluating publicly available information in the fight against terrorism. The problem is we now know that when our government says "monitoring," it's not just al-Qaeda.
(8) The Bush administration refused to turn over control of the Internet to an international body, preferring to maintain unilateral control over the Internet. The fear is that "policy decisions could at a stroke make all Web sites ending in a specific suffix essentially unreachable."
It should be noted that some of these indicators on their face are equivocal, but perhaps should be considered in the context of actions and policies of this administration. In this context, the Bush wagons are circling bloggers.
And, once the perception is created that bloggers are a danger to national security, that perception is hard to unravel. The danger is that the American people will continue to follow Bush's lead like sheep frightened by the terrorist wolf. Kiss my GERMAN american A**; you'll have to kill me before I'll go to jail.
All bloggers should know that if the government views the substantive content of your blog as "activist calls" or "deliberate misinformation campaigns," then you may be a domestic "terrorist." hahahahahahaahaha
While not a surprise, given all that has transpired in Bush's term, it still was a shocker to read that bloggers are now "terrorists." The nature of blogger terrorist acts should be a concern for both liberal and conservative bloggers: "Deliberate misinformation campaigns" may well describe actions taken by right-wingers and "activist calls" describes actions by bloggers regardless of political affiliation.
Homeland Security completed its "Cyber Storm" wargame to test how our government "would respond to devastating attacks over the Internet from anti-globalization activists, underground hackers and bloggers." Voilate my 1st amendment and I'll sue you.
Given that homeland security ran the "wargame," one may infer that the nature of the attacks by bloggers must be national security related. And, given that the major national security fear of our government is terrorists, then it looks like bloggers have made our government's hit list of potential terrorists. But, what is the nature of this "terrorist crime" that was the subject of these wargames?
"Participants confirmed parts of the worldwide simulation challenged government officials and industry executives to respond to deliberate misinformation campaigns and activist calls by Internet bloggers, online diarists whose "Web logs" include political rantings and musings about current events."
There are other indications that the Bush administration deems bloggers well within the reach of any definition of terrorist, if for no other reason than the crime of dissent and criticism. There are also indicators that relevant parties would be somewhat prepared to assist in the nabbing of terrorist bloggers: Vaffanculo!
(1) In what may have been a precursor to US bloggers, the US military and government apparently were not offended (at least did not take any publicly disclosed action to free the blogger) when an Iraqi blogger was arrested, interrogated and imprisoned for the crime of reading comments on another blogger's website at a public café:
"Then finally I understood why I was there, after few hours. Security guards at the university had printed out all the websites I was reading while I was online there. They were accusing me of "reading terrorism sites" and "having communications with foreign terrorists"."
Do you know what these pages are?"I looked at them and figured out they were the comment section of Raed in the Middle!! I opened the comments section while browsing in the university, read some comments, and didn't even post anything.
But these people don't seem to know what the internet is, and they don't speak English, so I was a major suspect of being an assistant of al Zarqawi maybe! Or that I have a terrorist group of my own, with foreign connections!I was accused of terrorism, and sent to jail after they decided that I'm not helping myself because I am not helping them!!!
(2) US plans to data mine blogs for stated purpose of finding terrorist information to connect the dots to prevent a terrorist attack:
"The U.S. government is developing a massive computer system that can collect huge amounts of data and, by linking far-flung information from blogs and e-mail to government records and intelligence reports, search for patterns of terrorist activity." F-U
(3) "The CIA is quietly funding federal research into surveillance of Internet chat rooms as part of an effort to identify possible terrorists, newly released documents reveal."
(4) American Internet providers have assisted foreign countries to jail bloggers for substantive content posted on their blogs:
"Last December, Microsoft shut down the Web site of a dissident Chinese blogger. A few months earlier, Yahoo gave Beijing the name of a dissident Chinese journalist. He got ten years in jail for his Web postings. Ironically, Google's Chinese kowtow comes as the company is resisting efforts by the U.S. government for access to its records."
(5) Indymedia was a subject of a secret, international terrorism investigation in which US government seized its hard drives. A Texas Internet company turned over hard drives pursuant to a court order under an international treaty governing crimes of terrorism, kidnapping and money laundering.
(6) The MSM has shown its willingness to paint bloggers and any lefty journalists as the domestic evil axis of treasonists so that the American people will understand the need to arrest bloggers to make this country safe from terrorists. BU*SH*IT
(7) The CIA now has its own bloggers and a government website that are part of a revised CIA office for monitoring, translating and analyzing publicly available information. It is good news that the CIA is evaluating publicly available information in the fight against terrorism. The problem is we now know that when our government says "monitoring," it's not just al-Qaeda.
(8) The Bush administration refused to turn over control of the Internet to an international body, preferring to maintain unilateral control over the Internet. The fear is that "policy decisions could at a stroke make all Web sites ending in a specific suffix essentially unreachable."
It should be noted that some of these indicators on their face are equivocal, but perhaps should be considered in the context of actions and policies of this administration. In this context, the Bush wagons are circling bloggers.
And, once the perception is created that bloggers are a danger to national security, that perception is hard to unravel. The danger is that the American people will continue to follow Bush's lead like sheep frightened by the terrorist wolf. Kiss my GERMAN american A**; you'll have to kill me before I'll go to jail.
Afghan Suicide Bombings, Tied to Taliban, Point to Pakistan - New York Times
Afghan Suicide Bombings, Tied to Taliban, Point to Pakistan - New York Times:
"KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, Feb. 12 — Arrests and interrogations of suspects in a recent series of suicide bombings in Afghanistan show that the attacks have been orchestrated from Pakistan by members of the ousted Taliban government with little interference by the Pakistani authorities, Afghan officials say.
Skip to next paragraph
In taped interviews by an Afghan interrogator, two Afghans and three Pakistanis who were among 21 people arrested in recent weeks described their roles in the attacks, which have killed at least 70 people in the last three months, most of them Afghan civilians but also international peacekeepers, a Canadian diplomat and a dozen Afghan police officers and soldiers.
In the tape, the men described a fairly low-budget network that begins with the recruitment of young bombers in the sprawling Pakistani port city of Karachi. The bombers are moved to safe houses in the border towns of Quetta and Chaman, and then transferred into Afghanistan, where they are provided with cars and explosives and sent out to find a target.
The tape appears to confirm Afghan officials' suspicions that the suicide bombings, which are largely a recent phenomenon in Afghanistan, were generated outside Afghanistan, and in particular from neighboring Pakistan. It was shown to The New York Times by an Afghan official who asked not to be identified because of the diplomatic implications of the contents.
A Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousuf Ahmadi, dismissed the claims of the Afghan government. 'This is a propaganda campaign of the government,' he said by satellite telephone from an unknown location. 'Our mujahedeen don't send one group to one area so they can be found and arrested. Our mujahedeen send different people to different areas at different times."
He added that there was no need to recruit Pakistanis for the attacks. "They are all Afghans," he said of the suicide bombers.
But Afghan officials said the confessions provided the proof they needed to demand action from Pakistan. "I think there is a factory for these bombers," said Asadullah Khaled, the governor of Kandahar Province, where 15 attacks have occurred in the last three months.
President Hamid Karzai is traveling to Pakistan on Wednesday specifically to raise the issue with President Pervez Musharraf and in speeches to Parliament and officers at a military academy as well.
"If you are the ones blowing yourselves up, why are you making the explosion in front of the police headquarters, where people like you are standing in front getting passports?" Mr. Karzai said, addressing the bombers rhetorically, in a televised speech to elders from southern Afghanistan last week.
He has spoken increasingly of the need to tackle the problem at the source. Anti-Pakistan sentiment has been rising in Afghanistan, and a popular refrain is that if the hand of Pakistan were cut, the Taliban, many of whom fled over the border when they were ousted in late 2001, would be no more.
"Most of the attackers are non-Afghans," the governor of Kandahar, Mr. Khaled, said Saturday at a memorial service for 14 victims of the latest bombing. "We have proof, we have prisoners," he added. "We have addresses, we have cassettes."
Pakistani officials in the past have said the Pakistanis arrested in Afghanistan are usually illiterate laborers looking for work.
Judging by the tape, Pakistan appeared to be the base for the terror network, however. In the interviews, all of the men appeared to speak freely, some expressing regret for what they had done. Only one showed some nervousness, though the interrogations seemed relatively relaxed.
Three of the men, speaking in Urdu, said they were Pakistanis and had been recruited as bombers.
Two of the men, Akhtar Ali and Sajjad, who only gave one name, said they had been recruited by a man named Jamal, who was working for the Taliban and who owns a bookstore in Karachi. Sajjad had been staying with his brother in Karachi when Jamal showed him video cassettes in which Muslim clerics urged listeners to go and fight a holy war and earn a sure way to paradise.
"I was doing nothing, walking around, playing cricket and football," Sajjad said, adding in reference to a senior cleric: "The maulavi sahib talked to me and showed me a cassette, so I got involved. They were talking on the cassettes and telling us to do this and that, telling me to kill Americans."
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"KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, Feb. 12 — Arrests and interrogations of suspects in a recent series of suicide bombings in Afghanistan show that the attacks have been orchestrated from Pakistan by members of the ousted Taliban government with little interference by the Pakistani authorities, Afghan officials say.
Skip to next paragraph
In taped interviews by an Afghan interrogator, two Afghans and three Pakistanis who were among 21 people arrested in recent weeks described their roles in the attacks, which have killed at least 70 people in the last three months, most of them Afghan civilians but also international peacekeepers, a Canadian diplomat and a dozen Afghan police officers and soldiers.
In the tape, the men described a fairly low-budget network that begins with the recruitment of young bombers in the sprawling Pakistani port city of Karachi. The bombers are moved to safe houses in the border towns of Quetta and Chaman, and then transferred into Afghanistan, where they are provided with cars and explosives and sent out to find a target.
The tape appears to confirm Afghan officials' suspicions that the suicide bombings, which are largely a recent phenomenon in Afghanistan, were generated outside Afghanistan, and in particular from neighboring Pakistan. It was shown to The New York Times by an Afghan official who asked not to be identified because of the diplomatic implications of the contents.
A Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousuf Ahmadi, dismissed the claims of the Afghan government. 'This is a propaganda campaign of the government,' he said by satellite telephone from an unknown location. 'Our mujahedeen don't send one group to one area so they can be found and arrested. Our mujahedeen send different people to different areas at different times."
He added that there was no need to recruit Pakistanis for the attacks. "They are all Afghans," he said of the suicide bombers.
But Afghan officials said the confessions provided the proof they needed to demand action from Pakistan. "I think there is a factory for these bombers," said Asadullah Khaled, the governor of Kandahar Province, where 15 attacks have occurred in the last three months.
President Hamid Karzai is traveling to Pakistan on Wednesday specifically to raise the issue with President Pervez Musharraf and in speeches to Parliament and officers at a military academy as well.
"If you are the ones blowing yourselves up, why are you making the explosion in front of the police headquarters, where people like you are standing in front getting passports?" Mr. Karzai said, addressing the bombers rhetorically, in a televised speech to elders from southern Afghanistan last week.
He has spoken increasingly of the need to tackle the problem at the source. Anti-Pakistan sentiment has been rising in Afghanistan, and a popular refrain is that if the hand of Pakistan were cut, the Taliban, many of whom fled over the border when they were ousted in late 2001, would be no more.
"Most of the attackers are non-Afghans," the governor of Kandahar, Mr. Khaled, said Saturday at a memorial service for 14 victims of the latest bombing. "We have proof, we have prisoners," he added. "We have addresses, we have cassettes."
Pakistani officials in the past have said the Pakistanis arrested in Afghanistan are usually illiterate laborers looking for work.
Judging by the tape, Pakistan appeared to be the base for the terror network, however. In the interviews, all of the men appeared to speak freely, some expressing regret for what they had done. Only one showed some nervousness, though the interrogations seemed relatively relaxed.
Three of the men, speaking in Urdu, said they were Pakistanis and had been recruited as bombers.
Two of the men, Akhtar Ali and Sajjad, who only gave one name, said they had been recruited by a man named Jamal, who was working for the Taliban and who owns a bookstore in Karachi. Sajjad had been staying with his brother in Karachi when Jamal showed him video cassettes in which Muslim clerics urged listeners to go and fight a holy war and earn a sure way to paradise.
"I was doing nothing, walking around, playing cricket and football," Sajjad said, adding in reference to a senior cleric: "The maulavi sahib talked to me and showed me a cassette, so I got involved. They were talking on the cassettes and telling us to do this and that, telling me to kill Americans."
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14.2.06
U.S. Anti-Terrorism Measures Said to Ensnare Refugees Fleeing Terror
U.S. Anti-Terrorism Measures Said to Ensnare Refugees Fleeing Terror
WASHINGTON - Terror victims are being denied sanctuary under U.S. counter-terrorism laws even as next year's federal budget threatens to push ever greater numbers to seek safe haven in the first place, refugee advocates said this week.
President George W. Bush has proposed altering foreign aid and refugee spending in ways that will intensify poverty, instability, and other ''push factors'' that drive people from their homes and countries, humanitarian groups said.
At issue are the USA PATRIOT Act of 2001 and REAL ID Act of 2005, measures that expanded the definition of terrorist activity and the types of organization that could be branded as terrorist.
This is resulting in ''a perverse outcome,'' said Joel Charny, vice president for policy at Refugees International: ''Victims of terrorism are being designated terrorist supporters and blocked from receiving sanctuary and a chance to start a new life in the United States.''
Additionally, President George W. Bush has proposed altering foreign aid and refugee spending in ways that will intensify poverty, instability, and other ''push factors'' that drive people from their homes and countries, humanitarian groups said.
Homeland security personnel have barred refugees on the grounds that the refugees provided ''material support'' to terrorists. Often however, Charny said, the refugees are forced at gunpoint or other types of ''extreme duress'' to provide food or shelter to members of armed factions in civil or drug wars, he added.
The rules need to be refined to grant admission to refugees and asylum-seekers whose support for so-called terrorist organizations was coerced, unintentional, or inconsequential, said Charny. His organization is among a coalition pushing for such a change under the umbrella of the Washington, D.C.-based Refugee Council USA.
Such amendments remained to be won after legislators struck a compromise Thursday to extend the USA PATRIOT Act, portions of which lapsed at the end of last year.
Bush repeatedly described the law, which expands police and prosecutorial powers, as essential to his ''war on terror'' but critics said it violated civil liberties and had been abused for political purposes.
Final passage of the latest compromise--which Republican senators said would protect civil liberties--awaited a formal vote.
The new measure did not address the ''material support'' issue, attorneys and advocates at Refugee Council USA and the International Rescue Committee (IRC) told OneWorld.
Charny highlighted Colombian and Burmese refugees hit by the current ''harsh application of the material support provision.''
Armed groups hold sway over swathes of Colombia's rural hinterland, ''terrorizing local communities and forcing them to donate food and other supplies under pain of torture, kidnapping, or execution,'' he said, citing cases documented by Refugees International.
The groups also force local people to pay so-called taxes. At least seven in 10 Colombian refugees who otherwise would be referred to the U.S. refugee resettlement program have thus been tainted, UN and other humanitarian workers have said.
In Thailand and Malaysia, refugees from Myanmar, also known as Burma, have fled violence committed against their communities under the government's strategy to combat a number of insurgencies.
''These individuals may have contributed to ethnic and religious organizations that are associated with groups taking up arms against the Burmese authorities but the fundamental fact is that the violence they experienced, and their claim to refugee status, are the product of state-sponsored persecution by the Burmese government,'' Charny said.
''Christian Chin refugees in Malaysia or refugees of Karen or Karenni ethnicity in Thailand constitute no security threat whatsoever to the United States or their current host country,'' he added.
''Ruling out entire refugee populations on the basis of material support concerns makes no sense,'' said Charny.
Congress has given the U.S. homeland security chief, secretary of state, and attorney general authority to decide that the ''material support'' bar need not apply to certain groups or individuals, he acknowledged. They have held talks but so far have failed to hammer out a solution to the problem.
U.S. refugee admissions have slowed down since 2001, consistently falling far short of the U.S. government's target of resettling 70,000 refugees per year, said Refugees International.
In addition to blocking refugees from finding safe haven in the United States, the slowdown could hurt their chances of getting to countries neighboring their own. Such countries--Thailand and Malaysia, in the case of those fleeing Burma--often represent the first stop in a years-long journey to a new place the refugees will be allowed to call home, at least until conditions in their homeland are deemed suitable for their return.
Many first-stop countries agree to host refugees because they expect other governments to share the burden by giving at least some of the refugees the opportunity to resettle in a new country.
''As the material support issue constrains U.S. resettlement efforts, host countries may respond by diminishing support for refugees,'' said Charny.
In a separate development, the IRC warned Thursday that Bush's latest budget proposal risks creating new waves of refugees even as it threatens existing programs to help them.
Bush's proposed budget for fiscal 2007, which begins this October, actually would increase overall funding for refugee aid. In particular, it would provide more money to resettle refugees in the United States--even as the number of admissions has fallen.
IRC said in a statement it supported that goal but warned the increase in spending at home ''would come at the expense of aid to refugees overseas.''
That, coupled with cuts in foreign disaster relief and aid programs that have sought to improve health, education and living standards, could fuel flight from unstable, poverty- and calamity-stricken nations and regions, IRC warned.
''It is much better to make a small investment in development now than to pay the costs of picking up the pieces after conflict and wars,'' said George Rupp, president of the organization, which specializes in global relief and rehabilitation efforts.
Added Anne Richard, the group's vice president in Washington, D.C.: ''IRC will need to ask Congress to ensure that desperately needed aid is also allocated to help refugees and the displaced around the world.''
WASHINGTON - Terror victims are being denied sanctuary under U.S. counter-terrorism laws even as next year's federal budget threatens to push ever greater numbers to seek safe haven in the first place, refugee advocates said this week.
President George W. Bush has proposed altering foreign aid and refugee spending in ways that will intensify poverty, instability, and other ''push factors'' that drive people from their homes and countries, humanitarian groups said.
At issue are the USA PATRIOT Act of 2001 and REAL ID Act of 2005, measures that expanded the definition of terrorist activity and the types of organization that could be branded as terrorist.
This is resulting in ''a perverse outcome,'' said Joel Charny, vice president for policy at Refugees International: ''Victims of terrorism are being designated terrorist supporters and blocked from receiving sanctuary and a chance to start a new life in the United States.''
Additionally, President George W. Bush has proposed altering foreign aid and refugee spending in ways that will intensify poverty, instability, and other ''push factors'' that drive people from their homes and countries, humanitarian groups said.
Homeland security personnel have barred refugees on the grounds that the refugees provided ''material support'' to terrorists. Often however, Charny said, the refugees are forced at gunpoint or other types of ''extreme duress'' to provide food or shelter to members of armed factions in civil or drug wars, he added.
The rules need to be refined to grant admission to refugees and asylum-seekers whose support for so-called terrorist organizations was coerced, unintentional, or inconsequential, said Charny. His organization is among a coalition pushing for such a change under the umbrella of the Washington, D.C.-based Refugee Council USA.
Such amendments remained to be won after legislators struck a compromise Thursday to extend the USA PATRIOT Act, portions of which lapsed at the end of last year.
Bush repeatedly described the law, which expands police and prosecutorial powers, as essential to his ''war on terror'' but critics said it violated civil liberties and had been abused for political purposes.
Final passage of the latest compromise--which Republican senators said would protect civil liberties--awaited a formal vote.
The new measure did not address the ''material support'' issue, attorneys and advocates at Refugee Council USA and the International Rescue Committee (IRC) told OneWorld.
Charny highlighted Colombian and Burmese refugees hit by the current ''harsh application of the material support provision.''
Armed groups hold sway over swathes of Colombia's rural hinterland, ''terrorizing local communities and forcing them to donate food and other supplies under pain of torture, kidnapping, or execution,'' he said, citing cases documented by Refugees International.
The groups also force local people to pay so-called taxes. At least seven in 10 Colombian refugees who otherwise would be referred to the U.S. refugee resettlement program have thus been tainted, UN and other humanitarian workers have said.
In Thailand and Malaysia, refugees from Myanmar, also known as Burma, have fled violence committed against their communities under the government's strategy to combat a number of insurgencies.
''These individuals may have contributed to ethnic and religious organizations that are associated with groups taking up arms against the Burmese authorities but the fundamental fact is that the violence they experienced, and their claim to refugee status, are the product of state-sponsored persecution by the Burmese government,'' Charny said.
''Christian Chin refugees in Malaysia or refugees of Karen or Karenni ethnicity in Thailand constitute no security threat whatsoever to the United States or their current host country,'' he added.
''Ruling out entire refugee populations on the basis of material support concerns makes no sense,'' said Charny.
Congress has given the U.S. homeland security chief, secretary of state, and attorney general authority to decide that the ''material support'' bar need not apply to certain groups or individuals, he acknowledged. They have held talks but so far have failed to hammer out a solution to the problem.
U.S. refugee admissions have slowed down since 2001, consistently falling far short of the U.S. government's target of resettling 70,000 refugees per year, said Refugees International.
In addition to blocking refugees from finding safe haven in the United States, the slowdown could hurt their chances of getting to countries neighboring their own. Such countries--Thailand and Malaysia, in the case of those fleeing Burma--often represent the first stop in a years-long journey to a new place the refugees will be allowed to call home, at least until conditions in their homeland are deemed suitable for their return.
Many first-stop countries agree to host refugees because they expect other governments to share the burden by giving at least some of the refugees the opportunity to resettle in a new country.
''As the material support issue constrains U.S. resettlement efforts, host countries may respond by diminishing support for refugees,'' said Charny.
In a separate development, the IRC warned Thursday that Bush's latest budget proposal risks creating new waves of refugees even as it threatens existing programs to help them.
Bush's proposed budget for fiscal 2007, which begins this October, actually would increase overall funding for refugee aid. In particular, it would provide more money to resettle refugees in the United States--even as the number of admissions has fallen.
IRC said in a statement it supported that goal but warned the increase in spending at home ''would come at the expense of aid to refugees overseas.''
That, coupled with cuts in foreign disaster relief and aid programs that have sought to improve health, education and living standards, could fuel flight from unstable, poverty- and calamity-stricken nations and regions, IRC warned.
''It is much better to make a small investment in development now than to pay the costs of picking up the pieces after conflict and wars,'' said George Rupp, president of the organization, which specializes in global relief and rehabilitation efforts.
Added Anne Richard, the group's vice president in Washington, D.C.: ''IRC will need to ask Congress to ensure that desperately needed aid is also allocated to help refugees and the displaced around the world.''
U.S. Record Deficit Reflects Failed Policies, Critics Say
U.S. Record Deficit Reflects Failed Policies, Critics Say
Does George know, or is he still using outdated stats?
Will the bubble ever burst?
WASHINGTON - The U.S. trade deficit with the world has reached an all-time high, setting new record levels with China, Japan, Europe and oil-exporting nations, the U.S. the Commerce Department's said Friday, even as some U.S. senators slammed China as the biggest contributor to the deficit.
Such a huge trade gap undercuts domestic manufacturing and destroys good U.S. jobs. America's gargantuan trade deficit is a weight around American workers' necks that is pulling them into a cycle of debt, bankruptcy and low-wage service jobs.
Richard Trumka, AFL-CIO's secretary-treasurer"These trade deficits show that our trade policy is an unbelievable failure that is selling out American jobs and weakening our country," said U.S. Senator Byron Dorgan, a Democrat from North Dakota, in a statement after the release of the figures. "If these new trade deficit numbers don't finally wake up the president and Congress, nothing will." Bubble land must burst.
The Commerce Department reported that the annual U.S. trade deficit for 2005 swelled 17.5 percent above the 2004 deficit of 617.6 billion dollars, to a whopping 725.8 billion dollars, the highest on record.
U.S. imports climbed nearly twice as much as exports, and the country set new deficit records with China, Japan, Europe, Canada, Mexico and the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).
The deficit with China alone hit 201.6 billion dollars last year -- a quarter of the total.
"I think we've reached a tipping point. Despite all the assurances that our trade policies are working, this is pretty damning evidence that they are not," Dorgan said.
Particularly disturbing to many U.S. lawmakers is the fact that the trade gap with China is now two and a half times bigger than it was when Washington signed a trade agreement with the Asian nation in 2000.
On Thursday, Dorgan and Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, introduced legislation that would repeal the Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR) status with China and subject the U.S. relationship with that country to an annual review by Congress.
When it was passed in 2000, PNTR paved the way for normal trade relations between U.S companies and China and helped Beijing join the World Trade Organisation.
Citing chronic "cheating" by China that has allegedly led to a huge and record-breaking U.S. trade deficit, the two senators, known here for their nationalistic tendencies, claimed that China was flooding the U.S. with its products. They charged that China keeps artificial barriers in place and uses a variety of unfair trade practices to keep U.S. products out of China.
The senators say that those practices include piracy, currency manipulation and violation of China's own labour laws.
The senators hope that by conducting an annual analysis of China's trade policies to review its trade status, they will provide incentives for China to curb its trade surplus with the United States.
Prior to gaining PNTR status in October 2000, China was subject to provisions of the so-called "Jackson-Vanik amendment", which meant that the country was given normal trade relations on an annual basis, with renewal subject to Congressional approval.
Since that time, the U.S. trade deficit with China has ballooned from 83 billion dollars in 2001 to more than 200 billion dollars in 2005.
"The American marketplace is the biggest and best marketplace in the world. Controlling access to that market is the best way to exert some leverage to get China to begin to practice fair trade," Dorgan said.
Another U.S. lawmaker, Sen. Olympia J. Snowe, said Friday that she sent a letter to Treasury Secretary John Snow to demand the George W. Bush administration take a stand against China by officially labeling the country a "currency manipulator" in its semi-annual report on International Economic and Exchange Rate Policy due to Congress in April.
Pres. Bush is hosting his Chinese counterpart, Hu Jintao, in Washington the same month.
"It is time for the administration to take a stand against China's unfair currency practices," Snowe said in her letter. He just gone done kissing up to them
The recent backlash against Beijing comes amid a rising chorus of demands to penalize China, a growing economic superpower, that has included U.S. lawmakers as well as industry and labor groups.
In January, the American Manufacturing Trade Action Coalition demanded that Congress pass legislation that would place large tariffs on Chinese imports if Beijing refused to float its currency. Sen. Charles Schumer, a leading critic of the Chinese currency policy, introduced the "China Free Trade Act" last year, a bill that would impose 27.5 percent tariffs on Chinese imports.
Labor unions also complain that the White House has done nothing to stem the migration of industry to cheaper markets overseas, leading to some three million manufacturing job losses in the United States over the last five years, in turn worsening the deficit.
"Such a huge trade gap undercuts domestic manufacturing and destroys good U.S. jobs," said Richard Trumka, secretary-treasurer of the powerful American Federation of Labour-Council of Industrial Organisations. "America's gargantuan trade deficit is a weight around American workers' necks that is pulling them into a cycle of debt, bankruptcy and low-wage service jobs."
Chinese officials have countered that any rise in the price of Chinese exports could hurt millions of people at home who depend on the country's exports boom.
Does George know, or is he still using outdated stats?
Will the bubble ever burst?
WASHINGTON - The U.S. trade deficit with the world has reached an all-time high, setting new record levels with China, Japan, Europe and oil-exporting nations, the U.S. the Commerce Department's said Friday, even as some U.S. senators slammed China as the biggest contributor to the deficit.
Such a huge trade gap undercuts domestic manufacturing and destroys good U.S. jobs. America's gargantuan trade deficit is a weight around American workers' necks that is pulling them into a cycle of debt, bankruptcy and low-wage service jobs.
Richard Trumka, AFL-CIO's secretary-treasurer"These trade deficits show that our trade policy is an unbelievable failure that is selling out American jobs and weakening our country," said U.S. Senator Byron Dorgan, a Democrat from North Dakota, in a statement after the release of the figures. "If these new trade deficit numbers don't finally wake up the president and Congress, nothing will." Bubble land must burst.
The Commerce Department reported that the annual U.S. trade deficit for 2005 swelled 17.5 percent above the 2004 deficit of 617.6 billion dollars, to a whopping 725.8 billion dollars, the highest on record.
U.S. imports climbed nearly twice as much as exports, and the country set new deficit records with China, Japan, Europe, Canada, Mexico and the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).
The deficit with China alone hit 201.6 billion dollars last year -- a quarter of the total.
"I think we've reached a tipping point. Despite all the assurances that our trade policies are working, this is pretty damning evidence that they are not," Dorgan said.
Particularly disturbing to many U.S. lawmakers is the fact that the trade gap with China is now two and a half times bigger than it was when Washington signed a trade agreement with the Asian nation in 2000.
On Thursday, Dorgan and Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, introduced legislation that would repeal the Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR) status with China and subject the U.S. relationship with that country to an annual review by Congress.
When it was passed in 2000, PNTR paved the way for normal trade relations between U.S companies and China and helped Beijing join the World Trade Organisation.
Citing chronic "cheating" by China that has allegedly led to a huge and record-breaking U.S. trade deficit, the two senators, known here for their nationalistic tendencies, claimed that China was flooding the U.S. with its products. They charged that China keeps artificial barriers in place and uses a variety of unfair trade practices to keep U.S. products out of China.
The senators say that those practices include piracy, currency manipulation and violation of China's own labour laws.
The senators hope that by conducting an annual analysis of China's trade policies to review its trade status, they will provide incentives for China to curb its trade surplus with the United States.
Prior to gaining PNTR status in October 2000, China was subject to provisions of the so-called "Jackson-Vanik amendment", which meant that the country was given normal trade relations on an annual basis, with renewal subject to Congressional approval.
Since that time, the U.S. trade deficit with China has ballooned from 83 billion dollars in 2001 to more than 200 billion dollars in 2005.
"The American marketplace is the biggest and best marketplace in the world. Controlling access to that market is the best way to exert some leverage to get China to begin to practice fair trade," Dorgan said.
Another U.S. lawmaker, Sen. Olympia J. Snowe, said Friday that she sent a letter to Treasury Secretary John Snow to demand the George W. Bush administration take a stand against China by officially labeling the country a "currency manipulator" in its semi-annual report on International Economic and Exchange Rate Policy due to Congress in April.
Pres. Bush is hosting his Chinese counterpart, Hu Jintao, in Washington the same month.
"It is time for the administration to take a stand against China's unfair currency practices," Snowe said in her letter. He just gone done kissing up to them
The recent backlash against Beijing comes amid a rising chorus of demands to penalize China, a growing economic superpower, that has included U.S. lawmakers as well as industry and labor groups.
In January, the American Manufacturing Trade Action Coalition demanded that Congress pass legislation that would place large tariffs on Chinese imports if Beijing refused to float its currency. Sen. Charles Schumer, a leading critic of the Chinese currency policy, introduced the "China Free Trade Act" last year, a bill that would impose 27.5 percent tariffs on Chinese imports.
Labor unions also complain that the White House has done nothing to stem the migration of industry to cheaper markets overseas, leading to some three million manufacturing job losses in the United States over the last five years, in turn worsening the deficit.
"Such a huge trade gap undercuts domestic manufacturing and destroys good U.S. jobs," said Richard Trumka, secretary-treasurer of the powerful American Federation of Labour-Council of Industrial Organisations. "America's gargantuan trade deficit is a weight around American workers' necks that is pulling them into a cycle of debt, bankruptcy and low-wage service jobs."
Chinese officials have countered that any rise in the price of Chinese exports could hurt millions of people at home who depend on the country's exports boom.
White House Deferred to Cheney on Shooting
White House Deferred to Cheney on Shooting
In a Break With Policy, Hunting Accident Was Not Disclosed for 14 Hours
The 78-year-old Texas lawyer who was shot by Vice President Cheney in a hunting accident this weekend was moved from intensive care in stable condition yesterday as new details emerged showing that the White House allowed Cheney to decide when and how to disclose details of the shooting to the local sheriff and the public the next morning.
President Bush and White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove were told of the shooting Saturday night but deferred to Cheney on providing information to the public, White House aides said.
In what one official described as a break with the White House practice of disclosing such high-level mishaps immediately, Cheney waited more than 14 hours after the shooting to disclose it publicly.
Cheney's spokesman said the vice president was more concerned about the health of the accident's victim, Republican lawyer Harry Whittington. But even some White House officials said Cheney mishandled the response and opened the administration to criticism that it was withholding important public information. Yes, that would be consistent with current White House Policies.
In his news briefing, White House spokesman Scott McClellan -- who was not alerted to Cheney's involvement in the shooting until early Sunday morning -- suggested he would have done it differently.
Cheney, 65, shot Whittington on Saturday afternoon at the exclusive 50,000-acre Armstrong Ranch near Corpus Christi during a hunting party with three other people.
The host, Katharine Armstrong, said no one had been drinking before the shooting and all were wearing blaze-orange safety gear. (My first question)
She said Whittington did not announce himself when trudging toward the group after picking up a quail he had just shot. Cheney did not see him as he swung his 28-gauge shotgun toward a covey of quail just taking flight, said Armstrong, who witnessed the accident.
Cheney hit Whittington with a spray of birdshot in the face, neck and chest.The White House directed reporters to Armstrong's comments and did not fault Cheney. Cheney, who had a private White House lunch with Bush yesterday, did not comment on the shooting.
Late yesterday, he issued a statement that did not mention the shooting but acknowledged not having paid $7 for a permit that allows him to shoot upland birds; it said he is sending a check to the state. Cheney said he expects to be issued a warning by state authorities for not obtaining the permit. (Far be it for Government officials to actually obey the law)
Hunting-safety experts said the onus would typically be on a hunter who had left his usual spot in a group to let the others know where he was. "The shooter always has the ultimate responsibility" but sometimes it is impossible to anticipate mistakes made by fellow hunters, said Donnie Buckland, senior vice president of Quail Unlimited.
But the experts also said hunters are taught to learn where everyone in their party is before firing."If you are squeezing the trigger, you will not get that shot back and you need to make sure of the target and surrounding area and make sure it is safe to shoot into to," said Mark Birkhauser of the International Hunter Education Association.
The details of the shooting remain murky because Armstrong was the only person present who has provided details to reporters.
Kenedy County Chief Deputy Gilbert San Miguel Jr. issued a statement late yesterday saying the incident had been investigated by local authorities and was determined to be "no more than a hunting accident." He told reporters the case remains open.
Local law enforcement officials did not interview Cheney until Sunday morning, about 14 hours after the shooting, in an agreement worked out between the Secret Service and Kenedy County Sheriff Ramon Salinas III.
Secret Service spokesman Eric Zahren said at least one deputy was turned away shortly after the shooting because security personnel at the ranch were not aware of the agreement between the sheriff and the Secret Service.
In a telephone interview, Armstrong said that she, her mother and her sister, Sara Storey Armstrong Hixon, decided on Sunday morning after breakfast to report the shooting accident to the media. "It was my family's own volition, and the vice president agreed.
We felt -- my family felt and we conferred as a family -- that the information needed to go public. It was our idea," Armstrong said.
In a Break With Policy, Hunting Accident Was Not Disclosed for 14 Hours
The 78-year-old Texas lawyer who was shot by Vice President Cheney in a hunting accident this weekend was moved from intensive care in stable condition yesterday as new details emerged showing that the White House allowed Cheney to decide when and how to disclose details of the shooting to the local sheriff and the public the next morning.
President Bush and White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove were told of the shooting Saturday night but deferred to Cheney on providing information to the public, White House aides said.
In what one official described as a break with the White House practice of disclosing such high-level mishaps immediately, Cheney waited more than 14 hours after the shooting to disclose it publicly.
Cheney's spokesman said the vice president was more concerned about the health of the accident's victim, Republican lawyer Harry Whittington. But even some White House officials said Cheney mishandled the response and opened the administration to criticism that it was withholding important public information. Yes, that would be consistent with current White House Policies.
In his news briefing, White House spokesman Scott McClellan -- who was not alerted to Cheney's involvement in the shooting until early Sunday morning -- suggested he would have done it differently.
Cheney, 65, shot Whittington on Saturday afternoon at the exclusive 50,000-acre Armstrong Ranch near Corpus Christi during a hunting party with three other people.
The host, Katharine Armstrong, said no one had been drinking before the shooting and all were wearing blaze-orange safety gear. (My first question)
She said Whittington did not announce himself when trudging toward the group after picking up a quail he had just shot. Cheney did not see him as he swung his 28-gauge shotgun toward a covey of quail just taking flight, said Armstrong, who witnessed the accident.
Cheney hit Whittington with a spray of birdshot in the face, neck and chest.The White House directed reporters to Armstrong's comments and did not fault Cheney. Cheney, who had a private White House lunch with Bush yesterday, did not comment on the shooting.
Late yesterday, he issued a statement that did not mention the shooting but acknowledged not having paid $7 for a permit that allows him to shoot upland birds; it said he is sending a check to the state. Cheney said he expects to be issued a warning by state authorities for not obtaining the permit. (Far be it for Government officials to actually obey the law)
Hunting-safety experts said the onus would typically be on a hunter who had left his usual spot in a group to let the others know where he was. "The shooter always has the ultimate responsibility" but sometimes it is impossible to anticipate mistakes made by fellow hunters, said Donnie Buckland, senior vice president of Quail Unlimited.
But the experts also said hunters are taught to learn where everyone in their party is before firing."If you are squeezing the trigger, you will not get that shot back and you need to make sure of the target and surrounding area and make sure it is safe to shoot into to," said Mark Birkhauser of the International Hunter Education Association.
The details of the shooting remain murky because Armstrong was the only person present who has provided details to reporters.
Kenedy County Chief Deputy Gilbert San Miguel Jr. issued a statement late yesterday saying the incident had been investigated by local authorities and was determined to be "no more than a hunting accident." He told reporters the case remains open.
Local law enforcement officials did not interview Cheney until Sunday morning, about 14 hours after the shooting, in an agreement worked out between the Secret Service and Kenedy County Sheriff Ramon Salinas III.
Secret Service spokesman Eric Zahren said at least one deputy was turned away shortly after the shooting because security personnel at the ranch were not aware of the agreement between the sheriff and the Secret Service.
In a telephone interview, Armstrong said that she, her mother and her sister, Sara Storey Armstrong Hixon, decided on Sunday morning after breakfast to report the shooting accident to the media. "It was my family's own volition, and the vice president agreed.
We felt -- my family felt and we conferred as a family -- that the information needed to go public. It was our idea," Armstrong said.
No Bravery
No Bravery
There are children standing here,
Arms outstretched into the sky,
Tears drying on their face.
He has been here.
Brothers lie in shallow graves.
Fathers lost without a trace.
A nation blind to their disgrace,
Since he's been here.
And I see no bravery,
No bravery in your eyes anymore.
Only sadness.
There are children standing here,
Arms outstretched into the sky,
Tears drying on their face.
He has been here.
Brothers lie in shallow graves.
Fathers lost without a trace.
A nation blind to their disgrace,
Since he's been here.
And I see no bravery,
No bravery in your eyes anymore.
Only sadness.
Houses burnt beyond repair.
The smell of death is in the air.
A woman weeping in despair says,
He has been here.
Tracer lighting up the sky.
It's another families' turn to die.
A child afraid to even cry out says,
He has been here.
And I see no bravery,
No bravery in your eyes anymore.
Only sadness.
The smell of death is in the air.
A woman weeping in despair says,
He has been here.
Tracer lighting up the sky.
It's another families' turn to die.
A child afraid to even cry out says,
He has been here.
And I see no bravery,
No bravery in your eyes anymore.
Only sadness.
There are children standing here,
Arms outstretched into the sky,
But no one asks the question why,
He has been here.
Old men kneel and accept their fate.
Wives and daughters cut and raped.
A generation drenched in hate.
Yes, he has been here.
Arms outstretched into the sky,
But no one asks the question why,
He has been here.
Old men kneel and accept their fate.
Wives and daughters cut and raped.
A generation drenched in hate.
Yes, he has been here.
And I see no bravery,
No bravery in your eyes anymore.
Only sadness.
No bravery in your eyes anymore.
Only sadness.
The Story of Blake Miller, Iraq War Veteran (aka: Marlboro Man)
Starving Polar Bears Shame Bush to Act
Starving Polar Bears Shame Bush to Act
by Geoffrey Lean
Starving polar bears are presenting an unprecedented challenge to George Bush's refusal to take action over global warming - and may succeed where environmentalists and other governments have failed in getting him to curb pollution.
Despite the President's obdurate stance on climate change, the US administration last week took the first steps towards officially listing the bear as an endangered species. The Arctic ice on which the iconic animal lives is melting away as the world heats up and, if the listing is finalized, the Bush administration will be obliged to modify its pollution policies to try to save the bear.
The move comes as the President faces attack for the first time over global warming from some of his strongest allies. Evangelical Christian leaders last week took out TV ads urging action, while, in Britain, Tony Blair has warned that the world has less than seven years to get to grips with climate change.
The Prime Minister made his statement on Tuesday, the same day the US Fish and Wildlife Service started the process of listing the polar bear in response to a lawsuit by environmental groups to get government protection for the species. It said the groups had presented "substantial scientific and commercial information indicating that listing the polar bear may be warranted".
The bears are vulnerable to climate change because they depend entirely on the polar ice to catch seals, their main prey. The seals swim too fast in open water, and so bears have to lie in wait for them to surface for air through holes and cracks in the ice. The seals congregate in the shallow waters of the continental shelves, and the bears can reach them only when the sea is frozen. But the ice now recedes far out to sea every summer.
A new report by the United Nations Environment Program concludes that the extent of summer ice in the Arctic has shrunk by more than a quarter in the past half-century. The US government's official National Snow and Ice Data Center adds that a "stunning" reduction in sea ice has taken place in the past four years. Last summer an area twice the size of Texas disappeared.
The center believes that the rate of retreat is accelerating. Worse still for the bears, the melting is starting earlier, depriving them of seals in the spring, when they have always stocked up on food to see them through the summer.
In desperation, more and more polar bears are swimming to land, and marauding through towns and villages. Made fearless by hunger, the half-ton animals have even broken into houses in search of food. One killed a 15-year-old girl in the far western Russian Arctic, while children in the northern Canadian town of Churchill are being taken to school under guard. There is even evidence from north-east Russia that polar bears have taken to eating their own species.
The Fish and Wildlife Service will gather evidence on the state of the bears over the next two months before coming to a decision at the end of the year. But Rosa Meehan, the head of its marine mammal programme in Anchorage, Alaska, has already said: "It's pretty easy to make a connection between what's happening to sea ice and what might happen to polar bears."
If the bear is listed under the US Endangered Species Act, regulatory agencies would be bound by law to take into account how their decisions would affect it. This could lead to tougher measures to control the spread of pollution that causes global warming, and stricter fuel-economy standards for vehicles.
Ignorant a**hole.
by Geoffrey Lean
Starving polar bears are presenting an unprecedented challenge to George Bush's refusal to take action over global warming - and may succeed where environmentalists and other governments have failed in getting him to curb pollution.
Despite the President's obdurate stance on climate change, the US administration last week took the first steps towards officially listing the bear as an endangered species. The Arctic ice on which the iconic animal lives is melting away as the world heats up and, if the listing is finalized, the Bush administration will be obliged to modify its pollution policies to try to save the bear.
The move comes as the President faces attack for the first time over global warming from some of his strongest allies. Evangelical Christian leaders last week took out TV ads urging action, while, in Britain, Tony Blair has warned that the world has less than seven years to get to grips with climate change.
The Prime Minister made his statement on Tuesday, the same day the US Fish and Wildlife Service started the process of listing the polar bear in response to a lawsuit by environmental groups to get government protection for the species. It said the groups had presented "substantial scientific and commercial information indicating that listing the polar bear may be warranted".
The bears are vulnerable to climate change because they depend entirely on the polar ice to catch seals, their main prey. The seals swim too fast in open water, and so bears have to lie in wait for them to surface for air through holes and cracks in the ice. The seals congregate in the shallow waters of the continental shelves, and the bears can reach them only when the sea is frozen. But the ice now recedes far out to sea every summer.
A new report by the United Nations Environment Program concludes that the extent of summer ice in the Arctic has shrunk by more than a quarter in the past half-century. The US government's official National Snow and Ice Data Center adds that a "stunning" reduction in sea ice has taken place in the past four years. Last summer an area twice the size of Texas disappeared.
The center believes that the rate of retreat is accelerating. Worse still for the bears, the melting is starting earlier, depriving them of seals in the spring, when they have always stocked up on food to see them through the summer.
In desperation, more and more polar bears are swimming to land, and marauding through towns and villages. Made fearless by hunger, the half-ton animals have even broken into houses in search of food. One killed a 15-year-old girl in the far western Russian Arctic, while children in the northern Canadian town of Churchill are being taken to school under guard. There is even evidence from north-east Russia that polar bears have taken to eating their own species.
The Fish and Wildlife Service will gather evidence on the state of the bears over the next two months before coming to a decision at the end of the year. But Rosa Meehan, the head of its marine mammal programme in Anchorage, Alaska, has already said: "It's pretty easy to make a connection between what's happening to sea ice and what might happen to polar bears."
If the bear is listed under the US Endangered Species Act, regulatory agencies would be bound by law to take into account how their decisions would affect it. This could lead to tougher measures to control the spread of pollution that causes global warming, and stricter fuel-economy standards for vehicles.
Ignorant a**hole.
13.2.06
US Prepares Military Blitz Against Iran's Nuclear Sites
US Prepares Military Blitz Against Iran's Nuclear Sites
IDIOTS!
Strategists at the Pentagon are drawing up plans for devastating bombing raids backed by submarine-launched ballistic missile attacks against Iran's nuclear sites as a "last resort" to block Teheran's efforts to develop an atomic bomb.
Central Command and Strategic Command planners are identifying targets, assessing weapon-loads and working on logistics for an operation, the Sunday Telegraph has learnt.
They are reporting to the office of Donald Rumsfeld, the defense secretary, as America updates plans for action if the diplomatic offensive fails to thwart the Islamic republic's nuclear bomb ambitions. Teheran claims that it is developing only a civilian energy program.
"This is more than just the standard military contingency assessment," said a senior Pentagon adviser. "This has taken on much greater urgency in recent months."
The prospect of military action could put Washington at odds with Britain which fears that an attack would spark violence across the Middle East, reprisals in the West and may not cripple Teheran's nuclear program. But the steady flow of disclosures about Iran's secret nuclear operations and the virulent anti-Israeli threats of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has prompted the fresh assessment of military options by Washington.
The most likely strategy would involve aerial bombardment by long-distance B2 bombers, each armed with up to 40,000lb of precision weapons, including the latest bunker-busting devices. They would fly from bases in Missouri with mid-air refuelling.
The Bush administration has recently announced plans to add conventional ballistic missiles to the armory of its nuclear Trident submarines within the next two years. If ready in time, they would also form part of the plan of attack.
Teheran has dispersed its nuclear plants, burying some deep underground, and has recently increased its air defenses, but Pentagon planners believe that the raids could seriously set back Iran's nuclear program.
Iran was last weekend reported to the United Nations Security Council by the International Atomic Energy Agency for its banned nuclear activities. Teheran reacted by announcing that it would resume full-scale uranium enrichment - producing material that could arm nuclear devices.
The White House says that it wants a diplomatic solution to the stand-off, but President George W Bush has refused to rule out military action and reaffirmed last weekend that Iran's nuclear ambitions "will not be tolerated".
Sen John McCain, the Republican front-runner to succeed Mr Bush in 2008, has advocated military strikes as a last resort. He said recently: "There is only only one thing worse than the United States exercising a military option and that is a nuclear-armed Iran."
Senator Joe Lieberman, a Democrat, has made the same case and Mr Bush is expected to be faced by the decision within two years.
By then, Iran will be close to acquiring the knowledge to make an atomic bomb, although the construction will take longer. The President will not want to be seen as leaving the White House having allowed Iran's ayatollahs to go atomic.
In Teheran yesterday, crowds celebrating the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic revolution chanted "Nuclear technology is our inalienable right" and cheered Mr Ahmadinejad when he said that Iran may reconsider membership of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
He was defiant over possible economic sanctions.
IDIOTS!
Strategists at the Pentagon are drawing up plans for devastating bombing raids backed by submarine-launched ballistic missile attacks against Iran's nuclear sites as a "last resort" to block Teheran's efforts to develop an atomic bomb.
Central Command and Strategic Command planners are identifying targets, assessing weapon-loads and working on logistics for an operation, the Sunday Telegraph has learnt.
They are reporting to the office of Donald Rumsfeld, the defense secretary, as America updates plans for action if the diplomatic offensive fails to thwart the Islamic republic's nuclear bomb ambitions. Teheran claims that it is developing only a civilian energy program.
"This is more than just the standard military contingency assessment," said a senior Pentagon adviser. "This has taken on much greater urgency in recent months."
The prospect of military action could put Washington at odds with Britain which fears that an attack would spark violence across the Middle East, reprisals in the West and may not cripple Teheran's nuclear program. But the steady flow of disclosures about Iran's secret nuclear operations and the virulent anti-Israeli threats of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has prompted the fresh assessment of military options by Washington.
The most likely strategy would involve aerial bombardment by long-distance B2 bombers, each armed with up to 40,000lb of precision weapons, including the latest bunker-busting devices. They would fly from bases in Missouri with mid-air refuelling.
The Bush administration has recently announced plans to add conventional ballistic missiles to the armory of its nuclear Trident submarines within the next two years. If ready in time, they would also form part of the plan of attack.
Teheran has dispersed its nuclear plants, burying some deep underground, and has recently increased its air defenses, but Pentagon planners believe that the raids could seriously set back Iran's nuclear program.
Iran was last weekend reported to the United Nations Security Council by the International Atomic Energy Agency for its banned nuclear activities. Teheran reacted by announcing that it would resume full-scale uranium enrichment - producing material that could arm nuclear devices.
The White House says that it wants a diplomatic solution to the stand-off, but President George W Bush has refused to rule out military action and reaffirmed last weekend that Iran's nuclear ambitions "will not be tolerated".
Sen John McCain, the Republican front-runner to succeed Mr Bush in 2008, has advocated military strikes as a last resort. He said recently: "There is only only one thing worse than the United States exercising a military option and that is a nuclear-armed Iran."
Senator Joe Lieberman, a Democrat, has made the same case and Mr Bush is expected to be faced by the decision within two years.
By then, Iran will be close to acquiring the knowledge to make an atomic bomb, although the construction will take longer. The President will not want to be seen as leaving the White House having allowed Iran's ayatollahs to go atomic.
In Teheran yesterday, crowds celebrating the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic revolution chanted "Nuclear technology is our inalienable right" and cheered Mr Ahmadinejad when he said that Iran may reconsider membership of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
He was defiant over possible economic sanctions.
Cheney Shoots Fellow Hunter in Texas Accident
Cheney Shoots Fellow Hunter in Texas Accident
Vice President Cheney accidentally sprayed a companion with birdshot while hunting quail on a private Texas ranch, injuring the man in the face, neck and chest, the vice president's office confirmed yesterday after a Texas newspaper reported the incident.
The shooting occurred late Saturday afternoon while Cheney was hunting with Harry Whittington, 78, a prominent Austin lawyer, on the Armstrong Ranch in south Texas. Hearing a covey of birds, Cheney shot at one, not realizing that Whittington had startled the quail and that he was in the line of fire.
Whittington was treated on the scene by Cheney's traveling medical detail before being taken by helicopter to a Corpus Christi hospital. He was in the intensive care unit at Christus Spohn Health System and listed in stable condition yesterday evening.
Katharine Armstrong, the ranch's owner, saw what happened Saturday and told reporters yesterday that Cheney was using a 28-gauge shotgun, which shoots fewer pellets and has a smaller shot pattern than a 12-gauge shotgun, making it harder to hit the target. Whittington was about 30 yards away when he was hit in the cheek, neck and chest, she said.
According to Armstrong's account, she was watching from a car while Cheney, Whittington and another hunter got out of the vehicle to shoot at a covey of quail. Whittington shot a bird and as he went to retrieve it, Cheney and the third hunter discovered a second covey.
Whittington "came up from behind the vice president and the other hunter and didn't signal them or indicate to them or announce himself," Armstrong said, according to the Associated Press.
It was Armstrong's decision to alert the news media. Cheney's office made no public announcement, deciding to defer to Armstrong because the incident had taken place on her property. Armstrong called the Corpus Christi Caller-Times, and when a reporter from the paper called the White House, the vice president's office confirmed the account.
Cheney's office referred other reporters to Armstrong for a witness account, but after speaking to some members of the media yesterday afternoon, Armstrong stopped returning phone calls.
She told reporters that the small shotgun pellets "broke the skin" and that the blast "knocked him silly. But he was fine. He was talking. His eyes were open. It didn't get in his eyes or anything like that."
"Fortunately, the vice president has got a lot of medical people around him and so they were right there and probably more cautious than we would have been," she said. "The vice president has got an ambulance on call, so the ambulance came."
The International Hunter Education Association, which represents safety coordinators for fish and wildlife agencies and tracks incident reports by state, said on its Web site that hunting accidents in the United States have declined about 30 percent over the past decade. In 2002, the most recent year for which data were available, 89 fatal and 761 nonfatal incidents were reported. In 26 of the cases, including one fatality, the intended target was quail.
"The vice president visited Harry Whittington at the hospital and was pleased to see that he's doing fine and in good spirits," Cheney spokeswoman Lea Anne McBride said yesterday. Cheney returned to Washington last night.
CONTINUED 1 ('2') ('Next') >
If you look at the photo of Cheney's face that appears in this article (the link at the top) and know anything of his demeanor...it makes me wonder how much of an accident it was.
Vice President Cheney accidentally sprayed a companion with birdshot while hunting quail on a private Texas ranch, injuring the man in the face, neck and chest, the vice president's office confirmed yesterday after a Texas newspaper reported the incident.
The shooting occurred late Saturday afternoon while Cheney was hunting with Harry Whittington, 78, a prominent Austin lawyer, on the Armstrong Ranch in south Texas. Hearing a covey of birds, Cheney shot at one, not realizing that Whittington had startled the quail and that he was in the line of fire.
Whittington was treated on the scene by Cheney's traveling medical detail before being taken by helicopter to a Corpus Christi hospital. He was in the intensive care unit at Christus Spohn Health System and listed in stable condition yesterday evening.
Katharine Armstrong, the ranch's owner, saw what happened Saturday and told reporters yesterday that Cheney was using a 28-gauge shotgun, which shoots fewer pellets and has a smaller shot pattern than a 12-gauge shotgun, making it harder to hit the target. Whittington was about 30 yards away when he was hit in the cheek, neck and chest, she said.
According to Armstrong's account, she was watching from a car while Cheney, Whittington and another hunter got out of the vehicle to shoot at a covey of quail. Whittington shot a bird and as he went to retrieve it, Cheney and the third hunter discovered a second covey.
Whittington "came up from behind the vice president and the other hunter and didn't signal them or indicate to them or announce himself," Armstrong said, according to the Associated Press.
It was Armstrong's decision to alert the news media. Cheney's office made no public announcement, deciding to defer to Armstrong because the incident had taken place on her property. Armstrong called the Corpus Christi Caller-Times, and when a reporter from the paper called the White House, the vice president's office confirmed the account.
Cheney's office referred other reporters to Armstrong for a witness account, but after speaking to some members of the media yesterday afternoon, Armstrong stopped returning phone calls.
She told reporters that the small shotgun pellets "broke the skin" and that the blast "knocked him silly. But he was fine. He was talking. His eyes were open. It didn't get in his eyes or anything like that."
"Fortunately, the vice president has got a lot of medical people around him and so they were right there and probably more cautious than we would have been," she said. "The vice president has got an ambulance on call, so the ambulance came."
The International Hunter Education Association, which represents safety coordinators for fish and wildlife agencies and tracks incident reports by state, said on its Web site that hunting accidents in the United States have declined about 30 percent over the past decade. In 2002, the most recent year for which data were available, 89 fatal and 761 nonfatal incidents were reported. In 26 of the cases, including one fatality, the intended target was quail.
"The vice president visited Harry Whittington at the hospital and was pleased to see that he's doing fine and in good spirits," Cheney spokeswoman Lea Anne McBride said yesterday. Cheney returned to Washington last night.
CONTINUED 1 ('2') ('Next') >
If you look at the photo of Cheney's face that appears in this article (the link at the top) and know anything of his demeanor...it makes me wonder how much of an accident it was.
12.2.06
'NY Times' Publishes First Abramoff-Bush Photo
'NY Times' Publishes First Abramoff-Bush Photo
NEW YORK The first of the rumored photographs of President George W. Bush with indicted Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff was published by The New York Times on its Web site Saturday afternoon. Time magazine also published, and commented on, it.
For weeks, the White House has declined to release pictures of Bush with Abramoff. The president has said he does not know Abramoff and the White House has claimed that the only photos shows the two men at official White House parties and social functions.
The photo in the Times shows a partly obscured image of Abramoff in the background as Bush greets an Indian chief in May 2001. The chief turned the photo over to the Times, it said. Talking about the photo, Abramoff has told friends, "I was standing right next to the window and after the picture was taken, the President came over and shook hands with me, and we chatted and joked," according to the Time magazine report.
The Times describes the photo as less than startling but adds that it "leaves unanswered questions about how Mr. Abramoff and the tribal leader, whom he was trying to sign as a client, gained access to a meeting with the president on the White House grounds that was ostensibly for a group of state legislators who were supporting Mr. Bush's 2001 tax cut plan.
"The White House confirmed the authenticity of the photograph. It was provided to the newspaper by Raul Garza of the Kickapoo tribe of Texas. Garza, who is under indictment on federal charges of embezzling money from his tribe, told the paper he was eager to demonstrate that he had "nothing to hide" in his dealings with the White House and the lobbyist.
"A lawyer for Mr. Garza said Mr. Abramoff arranged for the chief to attend the meeting, in a conference room in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building adjacent to the White House," the Times revealed.
"The meeting took place at a time when the lobbyist was seeking a contract to represent the 800-member tribe and its casino, which was producing hundreds of thousands of dollars a month in revenue. Mr. Abramoff never got the contract.
"It is not clear what contact, if any, Mr. Abramoff had with Mr. Bush during the 20 minutes or so that the session lasted."Mr. Garza said he had been offered money from news organizations to reproduce the photograph, which also shows in partial profile Karl Rove, the president's top political adviser, at the May 9, 2001, meeting. The chief did not seek payment from The Times for the photo — and two others in which he appears with Mr. Bush — but insisted without explanation that they be published only in black and white."
The picture was taken by a White House photographer. It shows up on the Time site in color. The magazine said Garza had supplied it. Benigno Fitial, the governor of the Northern Mariana Islands, told Time he attended the 2001 meeting as well, as an Abramoff client. He recalled that the president was "very gracious" at the session.
"He knew quite a few of the people in the room; I know that because he called them by their first name. The responses showed that the President was no stranger to these people," he said.
NEW YORK The first of the rumored photographs of President George W. Bush with indicted Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff was published by The New York Times on its Web site Saturday afternoon. Time magazine also published, and commented on, it.
For weeks, the White House has declined to release pictures of Bush with Abramoff. The president has said he does not know Abramoff and the White House has claimed that the only photos shows the two men at official White House parties and social functions.
The photo in the Times shows a partly obscured image of Abramoff in the background as Bush greets an Indian chief in May 2001. The chief turned the photo over to the Times, it said. Talking about the photo, Abramoff has told friends, "I was standing right next to the window and after the picture was taken, the President came over and shook hands with me, and we chatted and joked," according to the Time magazine report.
The Times describes the photo as less than startling but adds that it "leaves unanswered questions about how Mr. Abramoff and the tribal leader, whom he was trying to sign as a client, gained access to a meeting with the president on the White House grounds that was ostensibly for a group of state legislators who were supporting Mr. Bush's 2001 tax cut plan.
"The White House confirmed the authenticity of the photograph. It was provided to the newspaper by Raul Garza of the Kickapoo tribe of Texas. Garza, who is under indictment on federal charges of embezzling money from his tribe, told the paper he was eager to demonstrate that he had "nothing to hide" in his dealings with the White House and the lobbyist.
"A lawyer for Mr. Garza said Mr. Abramoff arranged for the chief to attend the meeting, in a conference room in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building adjacent to the White House," the Times revealed.
"The meeting took place at a time when the lobbyist was seeking a contract to represent the 800-member tribe and its casino, which was producing hundreds of thousands of dollars a month in revenue. Mr. Abramoff never got the contract.
"It is not clear what contact, if any, Mr. Abramoff had with Mr. Bush during the 20 minutes or so that the session lasted."Mr. Garza said he had been offered money from news organizations to reproduce the photograph, which also shows in partial profile Karl Rove, the president's top political adviser, at the May 9, 2001, meeting. The chief did not seek payment from The Times for the photo — and two others in which he appears with Mr. Bush — but insisted without explanation that they be published only in black and white."
The picture was taken by a White House photographer. It shows up on the Time site in color. The magazine said Garza had supplied it. Benigno Fitial, the governor of the Northern Mariana Islands, told Time he attended the 2001 meeting as well, as an Abramoff client. He recalled that the president was "very gracious" at the session.
"He knew quite a few of the people in the room; I know that because he called them by their first name. The responses showed that the President was no stranger to these people," he said.
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