9/23/02
1:39:27 PM
What The UN Should Have Heard
by Ian Kleinfeld, YellowTimes.org, September 21, 2002
Ladies and Gentlemen of the International Community:
I speak to you today of a grave threat to the international order and peace. There is a nation among us that is an immediate danger to us all, requiring immediate action by all peace-loving countries that believe in the rule of law.
We are dealing with a nation that routinely thwarts the will of the international community; it has both possession of and continues to seek further weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons despite international laws and treaties prohibiting it.
This country has shown itself to be a belligerent force, invading sovereign nations it does not approve of with impunity and in violation of international laws and consensus. It uses its military solely to further its power over oil.
It has shown complete disregard for the safety of the international community by overthrowing legitimate governments, supporting and arming dictators, and murdering civilians by the millions.
Thousands of dissidents have disappeared in its jails without legal recourse, in contradiction to the words and spirit of its own Constitution and Bill of Rights.
It destroys its own natural resources and contributes to massive environmental destruction worldwide, while using its military force to squelch opposition to its policies.
This country has a long history of brutality and disrespect of civil rights and international law. The list of UN resolutions that it has ignored or sabotaged is nearly endless. It uses its power in the UN to aid its allies and punish its ideological adversaries with no regard for what is right, true, ethical, or in the best interests of the greater good. Even now it threatens to act with unilateral violence if the UN fails to take action it wants.
A government like this has no place in the international community.
It is for all these reasons that I call on you today to foment regime change in the United States by any means necessary. In the years to come, your actions will go down in history as a courageous people acting the interest of the world to ensure peace.
If you fail to act, the consequences are enormous, and will lead to an ever-increasing cycle of violence, and the end of peace on this planet as we know it, making the 3037 who died on September 11th appear a small tragedy in comparison.
Act now, act decisively, and act effectively.
Ian Kleinfeld is an activist, writer, and actor living in San Francisco, California, and is the webmaster for: http://www.DemocracyMeansYou.com
He is also working to get a state initiative on the ballot to prevent the yearly annual buget crisis in California.
There is more information on that at: http://www.CaliforniaBudget.org
Ian Kleinfeld encourages your comments: mailto:ian@democracymeansyou.com
YellowTimes.org is an international publication. YellowTimes.org encourages its material to be reproduced, reprinted, or broadcast provided that any such reproduction must identify the original source:
9/21/02
7:21:57 PM
Untested administration hawks clamor for war
by James Bamford for USA TODAY
Beware of war hawks who never served in the military.
That, in essence, was the message of retired four-star Marine Corps general Anthony Zinni, a highly decorated veteran of the Vietnam War and the White House point man on the Middle East crisis. Zinni is one of a growing number of uniformed officers, in and out of the Pentagon, urging caution on the issue of a pre-emptive strike against Iraq.
In an address recently in Florida, he warned his audience to watch out for the administration's civilian superhawks, most of whom avoided military service as best they could. "If you ask me my opinion," said Zinni, referring to Iraq, "Gen. (Brent) Scowcroft, Gen. (Colin) Powell, Gen. (Norman) Schwarzkopf and Gen. Zinni maybe all see this the same way. It might be interesting to wonder why all of the generals see it the same way, and all those (who) never fired a shot in anger (and) are really hellbent to go to war see it a different way.
"That's usually the way it is in history," he said.
Another veteran, Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., who served in combat in Vietnam and now sits on the Foreign Relations Committee, was even more blunt. "It is interesting to me that many of those who want to rush this country into war and think it would be so quick and easy don't know anything about war," he said. "They come at it from an intellectual perspective vs. having sat in jungles or foxholes and watched their friends get their heads blown off."
The problem is not new. More than 100 years ago, another battle-scarred soldier, Civil War Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman, observed: "It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, more vengeance, more desolation."
Last month, Vice President Cheney emerged briefly to give several two-gun talks before veterans groups in which he spoke of "regime change" and a "liberated Iraq."
"We must take the battle to the enemy," he said of the war on terrorism. Cheney went on to praise the virtue of military service. "The single most important asset we have," he said, "is the man or woman who steps forward and puts on the uniform of this great nation."
But during the bloodiest years of the Vietnam War, Cheney decided against wearing that uniform. Instead, he used multiple deferments to avoid military service altogether. "I had other priorities in the '60s than military service," he once said.
Cheney is far from alone. For instance, neither Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy Defense secretary, nor Richard Perle, chairman of the Defense Policy Board, has served in uniform, yet they are now two of the most bellicose champions of launching a bloody war in the Middle East.
What frightens many is the arrogance, naïveté and cavalier attitude toward war. "The Army guys don't know anything," Perle told The Nation's David Corn earlier this year. With "40,000 troops," he said, the United States could easily take over Iraq. "We don't need anyone else." But by most other estimates, a minimum of 200,000 to 250,000 troops would be needed, plus the support of many allies.
Even among Republicans, the warfare between the veterans and non-vets can be intense. "Maybe Mr. Perle would like to be in the first wave of those who go into Baghdad," Hagel, who came home from Vietnam with two Purple Hearts and a Bronze Star, told The New York Times.
Secretary of State Colin Powell, a Vietnam combat veteran and former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has often expressed anger about the class gap between those who fought in Vietnam and those who did not.
"I am angry that so many of the sons of the powerful and well-placed managed to wangle slots in Reserve and National Guard units," he wrote in his 1995 autobiography, My American Journey. "Of the many tragedies of Vietnam, this raw class discrimination strikes me as the most damaging to the ideal that all Americans are created equal and owe equal allegiance to their country."
Non-combatants, however, litter the top ranks of the Republican hierarchy. President Bush served peacefully in the Texas National Guard. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld spent his time in a Princeton classroom as others in his age group were fighting and dying on Korean battlefields (he later joined the peacetime Navy). Another major player in the administration's war strategy, Douglas Feith, the Defense undersecretary for policy, has no experience in the military. Nor does Cheney's influential chief of staff, Lewis Libby.
The top congressional Republican leaders — Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott, House Speaker Dennis Hastert, House Majority Leader Dick Armey and House Majority Whip Tom Delay — never saw military service, either; only one, Armey, has shown hesitation about invading Iraq. In contrast, House International Relations Committee Chairman Henry Hyde, R-Ill., a World War II combat veteran, has expressed skepticism about hasty U.S. action, as have some prominent Democrats — House Minority Whip David Bonior, Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle and former vice president Al Gore — who were in the military during the Vietnam War.
No administration's senior ranks, of course, have to be packed with military veterans in order to make good military decisions. But what is remarkable about this administration is that so many of those who are now shouting the loudest and pushing the hardest for this generation's war are the same people who avoided combat, or often even a uniform, in Vietnam, their generation's war.
Military veterans from any era tend to have more appreciation for the greater difficulty of getting out of a military action than getting in — a topic administration war hawks haven't said much about when it comes to Iraq.
Indeed, the Bush administration's non-veteran hawks should review the origins of the Vietnam quagmire. Along the way, they might come across a quote from still another general, this one William Westmoreland, who once directed the war in Vietnam.
"The military don't start wars," he said ruefully. "Politicians start wars."
James Bamford is author of Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency and a member of USA TODAY's board of contributors.
Source: http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/2002-09-16-oplede_x.htm
9/21/02
7:18:17 PM
A Look At The 'Powerful Jewish Lobby'
by Mark Weber
For decades Israel has violated well established precepts of international law and defied numerous United Nations resolutions in its occupation of conquered lands, in extra-judicial killings and in its repeated acts of military aggression.
Most of the world regards Israel's policies, and especially its oppression of Palestinians, as outrageous and criminal. This international consensus is reflected, for example, in numerous UN resolutions condemning Israel, which have been approved with overwhelming majorities.
"The whole world," United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan recently said, "is demanding that Israel withdraw [from occupied Palestinian territories]. I don't think the whole world ... can be wrong."[note 1]
Only in the United States do politicians and the media still fervently support Israel and its policies. For decades the U.S. has provided Israel with crucial military, diplomatic and financial backing, including more than $3 billion each year in aid.
Why is the U.S. the only remaining bastion of support for Israel?
Bishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa, who was awarded the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize, has candidly identified the reason: "The Israeli government is placed on a pedestal [in the U.S.], and to criticize it is to be immediately dubbed anti-Semitic," he said. "People are scared in this country, to say wrong is wrong because the Jewish lobby is powerful -- very powerful."[note 2]
Bishop Tutu spoke the truth. Although Jews make up only about three percent of the U.S. population, they wield immense power and influence -- vastly more than any other ethnic or religious group.
As Jewish author and political science professor Benjamin Ginsberg has pointed out:[note 3]
"Since the 1960s, Jews have come to wield considerable influence in American economic, cultural, intellectual and political life. Jews played a central role in American finance during the 1980s, and they were among the chief beneficiaries of that decade's corporate mergers and reorganizations. Today, though barely two percent of the nation's population is Jewish, close to half its billionaires are Jews. The chief executive officers of the three major television networks and the four largest film studios are Jews, as are the owners of the nation's largest newspaper chain and the most influential single newspaper, The New York Times ... The role and influence of Jews in American politics is equally marked ...
"Jews are only three percent of the nation's population and comprise eleven percent of what this study defines as the nation's elite. However, Jews constitute more than 25 percent of the elite journalists and publishers, more than 17 percent of the leaders of important voluntary and public interest organizations, and more than 15 percent of the top ranking civil servants."
Stephen Steinlight, former Director of National Affairs of the American Jewish Committee, similarly notes the "disproportionate political power" of Jews, which is "pound for pound the greatest of any ethnic/cultural group in America." He goes on to explain that "Jewish economic influence and power are disproportionately concentrated in Hollywood, television, and in the news industry."[note 4]
Two well-known Jewish writers, Seymour Lipset and Earl Raab, pointed out in their 1995 book, Jews and the New American Scene:[note 5]
"During the last three decades Jews [in the United States] have made up 50 percent of the top two hundred intellectuals ... 20 percent of professors at the leading universities ... 40 percent of partners in the leading law firms in New York and Washington ... 59 percent of the directors, writers and producers of the 50 top-grossing motion pictures from 1965 to 1982, and 58 percent of directors, writers and producers in two or more primetime television series."
The influence of American Jewry in Washington, notes the Israeli daily Jerusalem Post, is "far disproportionate to the size of the community, Jewish leaders and U.S. officials acknowledge. But so is the amount of money they contribute to [election] campaigns." One member of the influential Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations "estimated Jews alone had contributed 50 percent of the funds for [President Bill] Clinton's 1996 re-election campaign."[note 6]
"It makes no sense at all to try to deny the reality of Jewish power and prominence in popular culture," acknowledges Michael Medved, a well-known Jewish author and film critic. "Any list of the most influential production executives at each of the major movie studios will produce a heavy majority of recognizably Jewish names."[note 7]
One person who has carefully studied this subject is Jonathan J. Goldberg, now Editor of the influential Jewish community weekly Forward. In his 1996 book, Jewish Power, he wrote:[note 8]
"In a few key sectors of the media, notably among Hollywood studio executives, Jews are so numerically dominant that calling these businesses Jewish-controlled is little more than a statistical observation ...
"Hollywood at the end of the twentieth century is still an industry with a pronounced ethnic tinge. Virtually all the senior executives at the major studios are Jews. Writers, producers and to a lesser degree directors are disproportionately Jewish -- one recent study showed the figure as high as 59 percent among top-grossing films.
"The combined weight of so many Jews in one of America's most lucrative and important industries gives the Jews of Hollywood a great deal of political power. They are a major source of money for Democratic candidates."
Reflecting their role in the American media, Jews are routinely portrayed as high-minded, altruistic, trustworthy, compassionate and deserving of sympathy and support. While millions of Americans readily accept such stereotyped imagery, not everyone is impressed. "I am very angry with some of the Jews," complained actor Marlon Brando during a 1996 interview. "They know perfectly well what their responsibilities are ... Hollywood is run by Jews. It's owned by Jews, and they should have a greater sensitivity about the issue of people who are suffering."[note 9]
A Well-Entrenched Factor
The intimidating power of the "Jewish lobby" is not a new phenomenon, but has long been an important factor in American life.
In 1941, Charles Lindbergh spoke about the danger of Jewish power in the media and government. The shy 39-year-old -- known around the world for his epic 1927 New York to Paris flight, the first solo trans-Atlantic crossing -- was addressing 7,000 people in Des Moines, Iowa, on September 11, 1941, about the dangers of U.S. involvement in the war then raging in Europe. The three most important groups pressing America into war, he explained, were the British, the Jews and the Roosevelt Administration.
Of the Jews, he said: "Their greatest danger to this country lies in their large ownership and influence in our motion pictures, our press, our radio, and our government." Lindbergh went on:
"... For reasons which are understandable from their viewpoint as they are inadvisable from ours, for reasons which are not American, [they] wish to involve us in the war. We cannot blame them for looking out for what they believe to be their own interests, but we must also look out for ours. We cannot allow the natural passions and prejudices of other peoples to lead our country to destruction."
In 1978, Jewish American scholar Alfred M. Lilienthal wrote in his detailed study, The Zionist Connection:[note 10]
"How has the Zionist will been imposed on the American people?... It is the Jewish connection, the tribal solidarity among themselves and the amazing pull on non-Jews, that has molded this unprecedented power ... In the larger metropolitan areas, the Jewish-Zionist connection thoroughly pervades affluent financial, commercial, social, entertainment and art circles."
As a result of the Jewish grip on the media, wrote Lilienthal, news coverage of the Israel-Palestine conflict in American television, newspapers and magazines is relentlessly sympathetic to Israel. This is manifest, for example, in the misleading portrayal of Palestinian "terrorism." As Lilienthal put it: "One-sided reportage on terrorism, in which cause is never related to effect, was assured because the most effective component of the Jewish connection is probably that of media control."
One-Sided 'Holocaust' History
The Jewish hold on cultural and academic life has had a profound impact on how Americans look at the past. Nowhere is the well entrenched Judeocentric view of history more obvious than in the "Holocaust" media campaign, which focuses on the fate of Jews in Europe during World War II.
Israeli Holocaust historian Yehuda Bauer, a professor at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, has remarked:[note 11]
"Whether presented authentically or inauthentically, in accordance with the historical facts or in contradiction to them, with empathy and understanding or as monumental kitsch, the Holocaust has become a ruling symbol of our culture ... Hardly a month goes by without a new TV production, a new film, a new drama, new books, prose or poetry, dealing with the subject, and the flood is increasing rather than abating."
Non-Jewish suffering simply does not merit comparable attention. Overshadowed in the focus on Jewish victimization are, for example, the tens of millions of victims of America's World War II ally, Stalinist Russia, along with the tens of millions of victims of China's Maoist regime, as well as the 12 to 14 million Germans, victims of the flight and expulsion of 1944-1949, of whom some two million lost their lives.
The well-financed Holocaust media and "educational" campaign is crucially important to the interests of Israel. Paula Hyman, a professor of modern Jewish history at Yale University, has observed: "With regard to Israel, the Holocaust may be used to forestall political criticism and suppress debate; it reinforces the sense of Jews as an eternally beleaguered people who can rely for their defense only upon themselves. The invocation of the suffering endured by the Jews under the Nazis often takes the place of rational argument, and is expected to convince doubters of the legitimacy of current Israeli government policy."[note 12]
Norman Finkelstein, a Jewish scholar who has taught political science at City University of New York (Hunter College), says in his book, The Holocaust Industry, that "invoking The Holocaust" is "a ploy to delegitimize all criticism of Jews."[note 13] "By conferring total blamelessness on Jews, the Holocaust dogma immunizes Israel and American Jewry from legitimate censure ... Organized Jewry has exploited the Nazi holocaust to deflect criticism of Israel's and its own morally indefensible policies." He writes of the brazen "shakedown" of Germany, Switzerland and other countries by Israel and organized Jewry "to extort billions of dollars." "The Holocaust," Finkelstein predicts, "may yet turn out to be the 'greatest robbery in the history of mankind'."
Jews in Israel feel free to act brutally against Arabs, writes Israeli journalist Ari Shavit, "believing with absolute certitude that now, with the White House, the Senate and much of the American media in our hands, the lives of others do not count as much as our own."[note 14]
Admiral Thomas Moorer, former Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, has spoken with blunt exasperation about the Jewish-Israeli hold on the United States:[note 15]
"I've never seen a President -- I don't care who he is -- stand up to them [the Israelis]. It just boggles the mind. They always get what they want. The Israelis know what is going on all the time. I got to the point where I wasn't writing anything down. If the American people understood what a grip those people have got on our government, they would rise up in arms. Our citizens certainly don't have any idea what goes on."
Today the danger is greater than ever. Israel and Jewish organizations, in collaboration with this country's pro-Zionist "amen corner," are prodding the United States -- the world's foremost military and economic power -- into new wars against Israel's enemies. As the French Ambassador in London recently acknowledged, Israel -- which he called "that shitty little country" -- is a threat to world peace. "Why should the world be in danger of World War III because of those people?," he said.[note 16]
To sum up: Jews wield immense power and influence in the United States. The "Jewish lobby" is a decisive factor in U.S. support for Israel. Jewish-Zionist interests are not identical to American interests. In fact, they often conflict.
As long as the "very powerful" Jewish lobby remains entrenched, there will be no end to the systematic Jewish distortion of current affairs and history, the Jewish-Zionist domination of the U.S. political system, Zionist oppression of Palestinians, the bloody conflict between Jews and non-Jews in the Middle East and the Israeli threat to peace.
Source: http://www.ihr.org/leaflets/jewishlobby.html
9/21/02
7:08:23 PM
"We stand looking out upon the new horizon of the 21st Century. It is still daybreak, the sun is about to come up like thunder... there is no better time to review age old challenges with new thinking that peace is not only the absence of violence, but the presence of a higher evolution of human awareness with respect, trust and integrity toward humankind. Our founding fathers recognized that peace was one of the highest duties of the newly organized free and independent states. But too often, we have overlooked the long-term solution of peace for instant gratification of war. This continued downward spiral of violence must stop to ensure that future generations will live in peace and harmony."
Congressman Dennis Kucinich
9/21/02
7:07:15 PM
International Action Center
39 W. 14th Street #206 New York, NY 10011
September 20, 2002
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Tony Murphy (212)633-6646
RAMSEY CLARK SENDS LETTER TO UN SAYING:
DO NOT NOT SUPPORT A CRIMINAL ATTACK ON IRAQ
The following letter by former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark has been sent to all members of the UN Security Council, with copies to the UN General Assembly. Clark is the spokesperson for the October 26 National March on Washington to Stop the War on Iraq.
September 20, 2002
Secretary General Kofi Annan United Nations New York, NY
Dear Secretary General Annan,
George Bush will invade Iraq unless restrained by the United Nations. Other international organizations -- including the European Union, the African Union, the OAS, the Arab League, stalwart nations courageous enough to speak out against superpower aggression, international peace movements, political leadership, and public opinion within the United States -- must do their part for peace. If the United Nations, above all, fails to oppose a U.S. invasion of Iraq, it will forfeit its honor, integrity and raison d’etre.
A military attack on Iraq is obviously criminal; completely inconsistent with urgent needs of the Peoples of the United Nations; unjustifiable on any legal or moral ground; irrational in light of the known facts; out of proportion to other existing threats of war and violence; and a dangerous adventure risking continuing conflict throughout the region and far beyond for years to come. The most careful analysis must be made as to why the world is subjected to such threats of violence by its only superpower, which could so safely and importantly lead us on the road to peace, and how the UN can avoid the human tragedy of yet another major assault on Iraq and the powerful stimulus for retaliatory terrorism it would create.
1. President George Bush Came to Office Determined to Attack Iraq and Change its Government.
George Bush is moving apace to make his war unstoppable and soon. Having stated last Friday that he did not believe Iraq would accept UN inspectors, he responded to Iraq’s prompt, unconditional acceptance by calling any reliance on it a “false hope” and promising to attack Iraq alone if the UN does not act. He is obsessed with the desire to wage war against Iraq and install his surrogates to govern Iraq by force.
Days after the most bellicose address ever made before the United Nations --an unprecedented assault on the Charter of the United Nations, the rule of law and the quest for peace -- the U.S. announced it was changing its stated targets in Iraq over the past eleven years, from retaliation for threats and attacks on U.S. aircraft which were illegally invading Iraq’s airspace on a daily basis. How serious could those threats and attacks have been if no U.S. aircraft was ever hit? Yet hundreds of people were killed in Iraq by U.S. rockets and bombs, and not just in the so called “no fly zone,” but in Baghdad itself. Now the U.S. proclaims its intentions to destroy major military facilities in Iraq in preparation for its invasion, a clear promise of aggression now.
Every day there are threats and more propaganda is unleashed to overcome resistance to George Bush’s rush to war. The acceleration will continue until the tanks roll, unless nonviolent persuasion prevails.
2. George Bush Is Leading the United States and Taking the UN and All Nations Toward a Lawless World of Endless Wars.
George Bush in his “War on Terrorism” has asserted his right to attack any country, organization, or people first, without warning in his sole discretion. He and members of his administration have proclaimed the old restraints that law sought to impose on aggression by governments and repression of their people, no longer consistent with national security.
Terrorism is such a danger, they say, that necessity compels the U.S. to strike first to destroy the potential for terrorist acts from abroad and to make arbitrary arrests, detentions, interrogations, controls and treatment of people abroad and within the U.S. Law has become the enemy of public safety. “Necessity is the argument of tyrants.” “Necessity never makes a good bargain.”
Heinrich Himmler, who instructed the Nazi Gestapo “Shoot first, ask questions later, and I will protect you,” is vindicated by George Bush. Like the Germany described by Jorge Luis Borges in Deutsches Requiem, George Bush has now “proffered (the world) violence and faith in the sword,” as Nazi Germany did. And as Borges wrote, it did not matter to faith in the sword that Germany was defeated. “What matters is that violence ... now rules.” Two generations of Germans have rejected that faith. Their perseverance in the pursuit of peace will earn the respect of succeeding generations everywhere.
The Peoples of the United Nations are threatened with the end of international law and protection for human rights by George Bush’s war on terrorism and determination to invade Iraq.
Since George Bush proclaimed his “war on terrorism,” other countries have claimed the right to strike first. India and Pakistan brought the earth and their own people closer to nuclear conflict than at any time since October 1962 as a direct consequence of claims by the U.S. of the unrestricted right to pursue and kill terrorists, or attack nations protecting them, based on a unilateral decision without consulting the United Nations, a trial, or revealing any clear factual basis for claiming its targets are terrorists and confined to them.
There is already a near epidemic of nations proclaiming the right to attack other nations or intensify violations of human rights of their own people on the basis of George Bush’s assertions of power in the war against terrorism. Mary Robinson, in her quietly courageous statements as her term as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights ended, has spoken of the “ripple effect” U.S. claims of right to strike first and suspend fundamental human rights protection is having.
On September 11, 2002, Colombia, whose new administration is strongly supported by the U.S., “claimed new authority to arrest suspects without warrants and declare zones under military control,” including “[N]ew powers, which also make it easier to wiretap phones and limit foreigners’ access to conflict zones... allow security agents to enter your house or office without a warrant at any time of day because they think you’re suspicious.” These additional threats to human rights follow post–September 11 “emergency” plans to set up a network of a million informants in a nation of forty million. See, New York Times, September 12, 2002, p. A7.
3. The United States, Not Iraq, Is the Greatest Single Threat to the Independence and Purpose of the United Nations.
President Bush’s claim that Iraq is a threat justifying war is false. Eighty percent of Iraq’s military capacity was destroyed in 1991 according to the Pentagon. Ninety percent of materials and equipment required to manufacture weapons of mass destruction was destroyed by UN inspectors during more than eight years of inspections. Iraq was powerful, compared to most of its neighbors, in 1990. Today it is weak. One infant out of four born live in Iraq weighs less than 2 kilos, promising short lives, illness and impaired development. In 1989, fewer than one in twenty infants born live weighed less than two kilos. Any threat to peace Iraq might become is remote, far less than that of many other nations and groups and cannot justify a violent assault. An attack on Iraq will make attacks in retaliation against the U.S. and governments which support its actions far more probable for years to come.
George Bush proclaims Iraq a threat to the authority of the United Nations while U.S.-coerced UN sanctions continue to cause the death rate of the Iraqi people to increase. Deaths caused by sanctions have been at genocidal levels for twelve years. Iraq can only plead helplessly for an end to this crime against its people. The UN role in the sanctions against Iraq compromise and stain the UN’s integrity and honor. This makes it all the more important for the UN now to resist this war.
Inspections were used as an excuse to continue sanctions for eight years while thousands of Iraqi children and elderly died each month. Iraq is the victim of criminal sanctions that should have been lifted in 1991. For every person killed by terrorist acts in the U.S. on 9/11, five hundred people have died in Iraq from sanctions.
It is the U.S. that threatens not merely the authority of the United Nations, but its independence, integrity and hope for effectiveness. The U.S. pays UN dues if, when and in the amount it chooses. It coerces votes of members. It coerces choices of personnel on the Secretariat. It rejoined UNESCO to gain temporary favor after 18 years of opposition to its very purposes. It places spies in UN inspection teams.
The U.S. has renounced treaties controlling nuclear weapons and their prolifer ation, voted against the protocol enabling enforcement of the Biological Weapons Convention, rejected the treaty banning land mines, endeavored to prevent its creation and since to cripple the International Criminal Court, and frustrated the Convention on the Child and the prohibition against using children in war. The U.S. has opposed virtually every other international effort to control and limit war, protect the environment, reduce poverty and protect health.
George Bush cites two invasions of other countries by Iraq during the last 22 years. He ignores the many scores of U.S. invasions and assaults on other countries in Africa, Asia, and the Americas during the last 220 years, and the permanent seizure of lands from Native Americans and other nations — lands like Florida, Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, California, and Puerto Rico, among others, seized by force and threat.
In the same last 22 years the U.S. has invaded, or assaulted Grenada, Nicaragua, Libya, Panama, Haiti, Somalia, Sudan, Iraq, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and others directly, while supporting assaults and invasions elsewhere in Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas.
It is healthy to remember that the U.S. invaded and occupied little Grenada in 1983 after a year of threats, killing hundreds of civilians and destroying its small mental hospital, where many patients died. In a surprise attack on the sleeping and defenseless cities of Tripoli and Benghazi in April 1986, the U.S. killed hundreds of civilians and damaged four foreign embassies. It launched 21 Tomahawk cruise missiles against the El Shifa pharmaceutical plant in Khartoum in August 1998, destroying the source of half the medicines available to the people of Sudan. For years it has armed forces in Uganda and southern Sudan fighting the government of Sudan. The U.S. has bombed Iraq on hundreds of occasions since the Gulf War, including this week, killing hundreds of people without a casualty or damage to an attacking plane.
4. Why Has George Bush Decided The U.S. Must Attack Iraq Now?
There is no rational basis to believe Iraq is a threat to the United States, or any other country. The reason to attack Iraq must be found elsewhere.
As governor of Texas, George Bush presided over scores of executions, more than any governor in the United States since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976 (after a hiatus from 1967). He revealed the same zeal he has shown for “regime change” for Iraq when he oversaw the executions of minors, women, retarded persons and aliens whose rights under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations of notification of their arrest to a foreign mission of their nationality were violated. The Supreme Court of the U.S. held that executions of a mentally retarded person constitute cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the U.S. Constitution. George Bush addresses the United Nations with these same values and willfulness.
His motives may include to save a failing Presidency which has converted a healthy economy and treasury surplus into multi-trillion dollar losses; to fulfill the dream, which will become a nightmare, of a new world order to serve special interests in the U.S.; to settle a family grudge against Iraq; to weaken the Arab nation, one people at a time; to strike a Muslim nation to weaken Islam; to protect Israel, or make its position more dominant in the region; to secure control of Iraq’s oil to enrich U.S. interests, further dominate oil in the region and control oil prices. Aggression against Iraq for any of these purposes is criminal and a violation of a great many international conventions and laws including the General Assembly Resolution on the Definition of Aggression of December 14, 1974.
Prior regime changes by the U.S. brought to power among a long list of tyrants, such leaders as the Shah of Iran, Mobutu in the Congo, Pinochet in Chile, all replacing democratically elected heads of government.
5. A Rational Policy Intended to Reduce the Threat of Weapons of Mass Destruction in The Middle East Must Include Israel.
A UN or U.S. policy of selecting enemies of the U.S. for attack is criminal and can only heighten hatred, division, terrorism and lead to war.
The U.S. gives Israel far more aid per capita than the total per capita income of sub Sahara Africans from all sources. U.S.-coerced sanctions have reduced per capita income for the people of Iraq by 75% since 1989. Per capita income in Israel over the past decade has been approximately 12 times the per capita income of Palestinians.
Israel increased its decades-long attacks on the Palestinian people, using George Bush’s proclamation of war on terrorism as an excuse, to indiscriminately destroy cities and towns in the West Bank and Gaza and seize more land in violation of international law and repeated Security Council and General Assembly resolutions.
Israel has a stockpile of hundreds of nuclear warheads derived from the United States, sophisticated rockets capable of accurate delivery at distances of several thousand kilometers, and contracts with the U.S. for joint development of more sophisticated rocketry and other arms with the U.S.
Possession of weapons of mass destruction by a single nation in a region with a history of hostility promotes a race for proliferation and war. The UN must act to reduce and eliminate all weapons of mass destruction, not submit to demands to punish areas of evil and enemies of the superpower that possesses the majority of all such weapons and capacity for their delivery.
Israel has violated and ignored more UN Resolutions for forty years than any other nation. It has done so with impunity.
The violation of Security Council resolutions cannot be the basis for a UN-approved assault on any nation, or people, in a time of peace, or the absence of a threat of imminent attack, but comparable efforts to enforce Security Council resolutions must be made against all nations who violate them.
6. The Choice Is War Or Peace.
The UN and the U.S. must seek peace, not war. An attack on Iraq may open a Pandora’s box that will condemn the world to decades of spreading violence. Peace is not only possible; it is essential, considering the heights to which science and technology have raised the human art of planetary and self-destruction.
If George Bush is permitted to attack Iraq with or without the approval of the UN, he will become Public Enemy Number One -- and the UN itself worse than useless, an accomplice in the wars it was created to end. The peoples of the world then will have to find some way to begin again if they hope to end the scourge of war.
This is a defining moment for the United Nations. Will it stand strong, independent and true to its Charter, international law and the reasons for its being -- or will it submit to the coercion of a superpower leading us toward a lawless world and condone war against the cradle of civilization?
Do not let this happen.
Sincerely,
Ramsey Clark
9/21/02
7:05:45 PM
America's Saddam
by Jack Wheeler Freedom Research Foundation, September 19, 2002
In light of Janet Reno's concession of defeat in Florida's primary elections, and as an addendum to Chris Ruddy and Carl Limbacher's current best seller, "Catastrophe," America needs to remember the horrific evil perpetrated by then-Attorney General Reno in the first months of the Clinton presidency.
In March of 1993, I was the keynote speaker at a conference of business and civic leaders held in Indianapolis. One of those attending was a federal judge named Joe (it's best not to mention his last name). He seemed a nice, decent fellow who not once hinted that (as I had been informed by the organizer of the conference) he was on the short list of candidates to be the new director of the FBI. The current FBI director, William Sessions, had announced his attention to resign as soon as the recently inaugurated Bill Clinton found a replacement.
Joe and I sat together at lunch and the conversation was pleasant – until someone at the table brought up Waco.
The ATF had assaulted the Davidian church complex a month earlier and the standoff was ensuing, with the final holocaust a month away. When I asked Joe what he thought of what was going on at Waco, his entire demeanor and body language changed, his face turned purple with rage, and he announced: "I'll tell you what the FBI should do. Those people [the Davidians] killed federal agents. We should go in there and kill every last one of them."
Someone responded, "There are children in there, Joe." Joe brushed the comment aside with a wave of his hand. "You don't understand. No one can get away with killing federal agents. They all deserve to be killed in return."
Joe was passed over in favor of Louis Freeh, but he exemplified the mindset not just of the FBI but also of so many in law enforcement in general. As anyone who has made the mistake of arguing with a police officer giving them a traffic ticket understands, the most heinous crime anyone can commit, more evil and depraved than child molestation, is Contempt of Cop.
You know the joke: A conservative is a liberal who's been mugged; a liberal is a conservative who's been arrested. Smart-mouth a cop and you're asking for a world of grief. Fight back and defend yourself from police action, no matter what the action is, and your life is in danger.
This is what happened at Waco. The Davidians tried to defend themselves from an armed ATF raid, set up as a pure publicity stunt to better argue for increased funding. That the raid had a flimsy pretext and was botched was irrelevant to the federal law enforcement community, however. No matter how and why, federal agents were killed and revenge had to be taken. The FBI man in charge of the siege and final death raid of April 19, Richard Rogers, thought exactly like Joe.
It is important to grasp that what happened in Waco was no accident, that the Davidians were killed on purpose in an act of revenge by the American government. And it is important to know just how they were killed, that the method of their killing was as grisly and evil as anything perpetrated by Saddam Hussein.
On the morning of April 19, 1993, the FBI smashed holes into the Davidian church complex and began pumping in a chemical warfare agent known as CS (o-chlorobenzylidenemalononitrile). It is a solid in the form of white crystals. The FBI dissolved the CS powder in an organic solvent so they could liquid spray it into the buildings.
A lot of attention has been paid to the horror of CS, but not much on the solvent. It's called methylene chloride, MC. Ever bought paint remover and noticed the label warning to use it "only in a well-ventilated area"? That's because it contains MC.
The effects of MC are exactly the same as those of chloroform if you use twice as much of it. When a person breathes MC (or chloroform at half the concentration) vapor he or she first becomes irritable. Second, they lose their coordination and judgment, while their vision becomes blurred. Third, they become paranoid and hyper-excitable. Fourth, they experience auditory and visual hallucinations. Fifth, they lapse into muscular paralysis and unconsciousness.
It is this fifth stage that caused surgeons to use chloroform as the first anesthetic in the 19th century. But doctors switched to ether because of uncontrollable behavior of the patients going through the first four stages – and because of a last sixth stage. If you use only about two times as much chloroform as it takes to render someone unconscious, the patient suffers respiratory paralysis, stops breathing, and dies. It is the same with MC.
The FBI cut off the electricity to the Davidians and knew all they had for light were kerosene lamps. Yet they sprayed into their buildings hundreds of pounds of methylene chloride, which makes people stumble around like they're drunk, with no coordination, with blurry vision, hallucinating and excitable: a guarantee that kerosene lamps would be knocked over and fires started.
In the presence of fire, MC vapor decomposes into hydrogen chloride, which has the same effect on any moisture-laden area of the body as sulfur mustard gas used in World War I: excruciating searing pain in the eyes, the mucous lining of the nose, and the lungs.
Remember that the FBI used MC as a solvent to dissolve CS crystals. It turns out that when CS is burned, it produces hydrogen cyanide, the same gas used to execute prisoners on Death Row.
During the Iran-Iraq war, Saddam Hussein discovered the most lethal chemical warfare agent was a combination of sulfur mustard gas with hydrogen cyanide, which he used in artillery shells to slaughter thousands of Iranians. It was in effect this same combination that the FBI used to slaughter 87 men, women and children in Waco.
The question is: Who authorized the CS/MC combination? CS is not normally dissolved into a solution. Who knew about MC and could order it to be a solvent for CS? Sit down, folks, and hold on tight: Janet Reno has a Bachelor of Science Degree in Chemistry from Cornell University. Cornell has a very good chemistry department. MC is used as an organic solvent for many experiments. There is no question Reno would be very familiar with it, and was informed of its dangers by her professors. Janet Reno is America's Saddam Hussein.
Congressman Bob Barr, R-Ga., has a coroner's photograph taken of one of the Davidian victims entitled "Doe #57." It is of a little girl around 5 or 6 years old, her charred body burned beyond recognition and twisted in the ghastly rictus contortion typical of subjection to hydrogen cyanide.
There are few more monstrous crimes against humanity than torturing children to death in screaming pain, poison-gassing them to death on purpose. That the perpetrator of this crime wasn't tried and executed for mass homicide, but was instead lionized by the media, served out her term of office, and came close to being elected as the Democrat nominee for the governor of Florida says something very dark about human nature.
The slaughter of American citizens by their government at Waco was dismissed by many Americans, because the people killed were "just cultists" – like Germans who excused Nazi pogroms because the people killed were "just Jews." As America comes to grips with the danger and evil of Saddam Hussein and gets ready to extinguish it, America also needs to come to grips with the evil it condoned at Waco.
America condoned a vast amount of depravity during the Clinton years. Yet the depravity of Waco was the worst of all. Unless expunged through public revulsion of Janet Reno, it will remain an ineradicable stain on America's soul.
9/21/02
7:01:40 PM
FAIR
Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting
Media analysis, critiques and activism
ACTION ALERT: PBS Fails to Hold Rumsfeld Accountable
September 20, 2002
Asking tough questions of those in power is one of a journalist's most important jobs-- especially when a country may be going to war. But PBS's Jim Lehrer failed to challenge Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in a September 18 interview on the "NewsHour with Jim Lehrer"-- even when Rumsfeld made factually inaccurate assertions.
For instance, Rumsfeld repeatedly referred to the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) weapons inspectors being expelled from Iraq, saying, "We have seen the situation with Iraq where they have violated some 16 U.N. resolutions and finally threw the inspectors out." Rumsfeld went on to say that "we have gone through... four years where they threw the inspectors out and there's been no one there."
In December 1998, the U.N. inspectors were not thrown out; they were pulled out by UNSCOM chief Richard Butler prior to a U.S. bombing campaign in Iraq. As Madeleine Albright told Lehrer at the time (12/17/98), Butler "made an independent decision that UNSCOM could no longer work."
Rumsfeld also made a dubious assertion about Iraq's plans for "invading Saudi Arabia, which they were ready to do." This was presumably a reference to the Pentagon's claim in September 1990, after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, that Iraq was massing hundreds of thousands of troops along the Saudi border in preparation to take over that country as well. But the St. Petersburg Times (1/6/91) published satellite imagery from the region that appeared to disprove the Pentagon claim, since no massive Iraqi build-up was visible in the satellite photos.
After the war, a U.S. "senior commander" admitted to Newsday (3/1/91) that reports of a major Iraqi troop mobilization were exaggerated, saying, "There was a great disinformation campaign surrounding this war." Despite the serious doubts about the veracity of Rumsfeld's charge, Lehrer allowed it to stand without comment.
A recent segment on CNN demonstrates precisely how journalists can clarify misleading statements from government officials. On September 18, CNN reporter Richard Roth explained the confusion about the UNSCOM inspectors this way:
"On our air, Donald Rumsfeld, secretary of defense... said look, it was Iraq, he said, that booted out, kicked out those weapons inspectors. That's not exactly accurate. It was the U.N. and the weapons inspections agency that withdrew them, under pressure from the U.S., because they had barely gotten out with their bags when U.S. military strikes occurred."
It's always important for journalists to correct misstatements of fact, but when an official is offering misinformation as a justification for war, that journalistic duty becomes an imperative.
ACTION: Please contact the PBS NewsHour and encourage them to correct the inaccurate statements made by Donald Rumsfeld. You might also suggest that NewsHour media correspondent Terrence Smith take a look at how the NewsHour and other broadcast outlets handle official inaccuracies.
CONTACT:
NewsHour with Jim Lehrer
As always, please remember that your comments are taken more seriously if you maintain a polite tone. Please cc fair@fair.org with your correspondence.
9/21/02
7:00:32 PM
DAILY GRIST
<http://www.gristmagazine.com>
EL SMOG
Mexico City declared its first pollution alert in almost three years yesterday, when ozone levels in the famously smoggy city reached about 250 percent of acceptable levels. The alert resulted in some 350,000 cars being ordered off the city streets. That's a lot, but it's far fewer than the nearly half of the city's estimated 3 million vehicles that were forced off the streets by such alerts before many residents upgraded to newer, cleaner models, which are permitted on the roads even during pollution emergencies. Despite its reputation for terrible air quality, the Mexican capital has made some strides, and many scientists now believe it has cleaner air than several other major metropolitan regions, especially in Asia. But environmentalists say the air pollution is still a serious problem, and are urging the city to stiffen its standards for smog alerts.
straight to the source: San Francisco Chronicle, Associated Press, 19 Sep 2002 <http://www.gristmagazine.com/forward.pl?forward_id=497>
ACTING UP
The Bush administration announced yesterday that it plans to consider new rules for enforcing the Clean Water Act. Some conservative lawmakers have been pressuring the administration to revise the enforcement rules since January 2001, when the Supreme Court imposed new limits on the scope of the act. Some interpreted that court ruling to suggest that the federal government should leave more water pollution control up to the states, but environmentalists fear that doing so would leave hundreds of thousands of miles of isolated streams, tributaries, and wetlands without critical protection, and they see the move as another effort by the White House to gut environmental regulations. For its part, the administration contends that it is merely trying to clarify the act's jurisdiction.
straight to the source: Washington Post, Eric Pianin, 20 Sep 2002 <http://www.gristmagazine.com/forward.pl?forward_id=493>
DEAF CHARGES
In better news for environmentalists, a federal judge has rejected an effort by the White House and the U.S. Navy to exempt underwater military testing and other deep-sea activities from environmental review. Judge Christina Snyder ruled yesterday that the National Environmental Policy Act applies to such activities even if they are conducted beyond U.S. territorial water (but within 200 miles of U.S. shores). At issue was a Navy sonar system using bursts of sound so loud they could cause temporary or permanent loss of hearing in marine mammals, abandonment of habitat, and disruption of mating, feeding, nursing, and migration, according to some scientists. The ruling was cheered by environmentalists, who had feared that a victory by the Bush administration could also have exempted from review such activities as ocean dumping and commercial fishing.
straight to the source: Los Angeles Times, Gary Polakovic, 20 Sep 2002 <http://www.gristmagazine.com/forward.pl?forward_id=494>
BOWL GAME
In an effort to reconcile the problems posed by a growing population and shrinking water supplies, city councilors are contemplating a plan that would retrofit existing buildings with water-saving toilets. The Public Utilities Committee has recommended that the full council adopt a plan whereby builders would retrofit toilets to earn credits toward new building permits. To earn a new building permit, builders would have to retrofit eight to 12 toilets in existing structures. The plan ties together two different water-conservation visions: reining in the water-hungry construction industry, and reducing water demand by improving efficiency in plumbing.
straight to the source: Santa Fe New Mexican, Tom Sharpe, 20 Sep 2002 <http://www.gristmagazine.com/forward.pl?forward_id=495>
FEELING GASSY
Negotiators for the U.S. House and Senate have reached an agreement on new fuel-economy rules that would expand rather than decrease the country's oil consumption. Under the agreement, automakers would continue to receive credits through the model year 2008 for manufacturing vehicles that can run on both ethanol and gasoline. These credits are used to offset the production of SUVs and other low-gas-mileage vehicles. Environmentalist criticize the credits as a giveaway, because those who drive the flexible-fuel vehicles seldom make use of the ethanol option. A recent government report found that extending the credit program through 2008 would increase petroleum consumption by at least 9 billion gallons. The House-Senate agreement also calls for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to rewrite fuel-economy standards to reduce the fuel consumption of light trucks by at least 5 billion gallons of gasoline by the 2012 model year. Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), who co-sponsored an earlier, failed proposal to substantially tighten fuel-efficiency standards, said, "It's shocking to me we couldn't do better when we're on the brink of war with Iraq and we know how much oil comes from the most volatile parts of the world."
straight to the source: New York Times, Danny Hakim, 20 Sep 2002 <http://www.gristmagazine.com/forward.pl?forward_id=496>
9/21/02
6:58:21 PM
SciTech Daily Review
http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=1337165
An ancient piece of Greek clockwork shows the deep roots of modern technology
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992823
The latest measurement of the faint afterglow of the Big Bang has revealed for the first time that the relic microwaves are polarised. The discovery should help probe the birth of the Universe
http://www.nature.com/nsu/020909/020909-5.html
Gene therapy that converts a patient's lungs into a living, breathing medicine factory could one day eliminate regular drug doses for diabetics and haemophiliacs
http://abc.net.au/news/scitech/2002/09/item20020919191637_1.htm
China has agreed to make its latest research on mapping the rice genome freely available, in a move expected to enhance the food security and livelihoods of millions of rice farmers around the world
http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/internet/09/19/offbeat.smiley.reut/index.html
:-) turns 20. Twenty years ago Scott Fahlman gave the internet an unusual gift: the ability to smile
http://www.ojr.org/ojc/commentary/1031344046.php
As companies offering free services are trying to push users towards paid e-mail, people are discovering that Web mail is becoming less user-friendly
http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/healthmindandbody/story/0,6000,784082,00.html
Burnout is ruining the lives of huge numbers of people, many of them still in their twenties. Yet a new theory suggests that a breakdown could turn out to be a breakthrough
http://www.salon.com/books/int/2002/08/28/ward/index.html
Not a drop to drink: Forget oil -- Diane Raines Ward, an expert on the world's water supply, talks about the vital substance we will hoard, ration and probably go to war for in the near future
http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/325/7360/396
On the subject of the euthanasia controversy, it can seem as if we've heard all the arguments before. But a closer look at the history of euthanasia reveals chapters we generally prefer to ignore (registration required)
9/21/02
6:57:18 PM
Planet Ark World Environment News
Southern African nations seek GMO advisory body - BOTSWANA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17850/story.htm
El Nino seen disrupting rains in Brazil crop zones - BRAZIL http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17852/story.htm
New EU aid fund targets billion euro disasters - EU http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17842/story.htm
INTERVIEW - Willy may never be free says whale group -NORWAY http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17854/story.htm
British Energy bailout illegal - Greenpeace - UK http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17846/story.htm
FEATURE - Pension funds push Big Business to go green - UK http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17840/story.htm
INTERVIEW - Norton wants energy bill veto if no ANWR drilling - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17841/story.htm
GM aims to cut PGM use by 17 percent by 2006 - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17843/story.htm
NewBiz - Organic innovator tackles corn pests - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17844/story.htm
Dog, squirrel deaths prompt new West Nile worries - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17839/story.htm
Whole Foods retail chain won't sell biotech fish - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17847/story.htm
FEATURE - West Nile virus takes toll on US birds - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17848/story.htm
White House seeks US oil drilling to counter OPEC - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17849/story.htm
USDA to unveil $700 Mln drought aid today - reports - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17851/story.htm
Earth to warm even if greenhouse gas cut - US study - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17853/story.htm
UPDATE - US lawmakers agree to trim vehicle gasoline use - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17845/story.htm
9/21/02
6:56:00 PM
Public Citizen issued the following two press releases, Sept. 19 House-Senate Energy Conferees Take Step Backward on Fuel Economy; Provisions Increase Net Fuel Use
WASHINGTON, D.C. - In a crucial vote today, House and Senate conferees adopted a retrograde fuel economy plan that actually increases the country's net consumption of gasoline by four billion gallons through 2012. The negotiations were part of the conference to reconcile massive energy bills passed earlier by both chambers.
"The congressional negotiators walked away from an opportunity to reduce our dependence of Middle East oil, cut pollution and put money back into consumers' pockets, and succumbed to intense pressure from automobile industry lobbyists and the White House to pass a compromise riddled with half-measures and loopholes," said Public Citizen President Joan Claybrook. "This entire energy bill is nothing but a massive handout to corporate America at a time when the public is suffering through a sour economy caused in large part by corporate crime and excess, much of it in the energy business."
Conferees adopted a House provision projected to improve fuel economy for light trucks by about one mile per gallon - saving about five billion gallons of fuel. But those savings were more than offset by another measure that gives automobile manufacturers credits for producing "dual-fuel" vehicles. Combined, the two provisions increase consumption by four billion gallons.
On a positive note, Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) succeeded in rallying Democrats to thwart a last-minute lobbying push by the White House to adopt new regulatory hurdles to improving fuel economy that would have given industry new avenues to delay and challenge rules in court.
"This was a malicious ploy to throw a new monkeywrench into the already overburdened rulemaking process and give the auto industry, which is closely aligned with the White House, the opportunity to paralyze regulators," Claybrook said.
Measures adopted by the conferees today include:
· A House provision requiring the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to enact fuel economy standards for light trucks (including SUVs), for model years 2006 through 2012, that ensure a fuel savings of about five billion gallons. The 2006 date for action is two years later than called for in the original House bill.
· Extension of a monstrous loophole for so-called "dual-fuel" vehicles, which can run on either gasoline or ethanol. The catch is that because ethanol is available at only 121 of 176,000 service stations nationwide, even in dual-fuel vehicles drivers use gasoline rather than ethanol. This provision actually increases fuel use by nine billion gallons, because automakers get credit for fuel savings that never occur, lowering the corporate fuel economy they must achieve. Although a National Academy of Sciences study found that lawmakers should fix this problem, the conferees voted to extend this boondoggle until 2012.
· Language calling for another fuel economy study by the National Academy of Sciences, a waste of taxpayer money and a delaying tactic.
Claybrook faulted Sen. Frank Murkowski (R-Alaska) for trying to add back in some regulatory hurdles to make it harder for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to set stronger fuel economy standards.
"Sen. Murkowski trotted out the discredited industry canard that greater fuel economy means compromising safety and leads to the loss of jobs," Claybrook said. "But study after study shows that increasing fuel economy creates jobs. And he is flatly wrong on the safety issue. Because this bill addresses only fuel economy improvements for light trucks, taking some of the heft out of those vehicles would be a blessing for other motorists who would face a reduced risk of getting crushed by these lumbering behemoths."
xoxox
Public Citizen is a national consumer advocacy organization with 150,000 members. Ms. Claybrook is a former administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
Water Companies' Reputations, Business Practices Going Down the Drain
Sewerage and Water Board Should Reject All Bids, Focus on Improving Public System
NEW ORLEANS - The international water conglomerates trying to persuade New Orleans to privatize the city's water and wastewater system aren't fit to provide such a vital public service, a new Public Citizen report explains.
Two for the Road: An Update on the Companies Vying for Control of New Orleans' Water examines recent developments connected to the two corporate finalists being considered by the New Orleans Sewerage and Water Board: USFilter, a subsidiary of Vivendi Universal, and United Water, a subsidiary of Suez.
At a press conference today, an international coalition encouraged the New Orleans' city water board to reject all three bids, due to be voted on in the coming days.
"Water will soon be one of New Orleans' greatest assets as much of the country faces shortages and droughts," said Edward Melendez, principal of the Urban Conservancy. "We support democratically controlled management of the city's water system, both for the well being of citizens and the economic development of our community. Urban Conservancy urges citizens to reject all bids for privatization of water services in the city and to demand close scrutiny of any process to reengineer our city's water services."
"New Orleans is faced with a tough decision," said Aaron Viles, Gulf States Field Organizer for the United States Public Interest Research Group. "But the thing to remember is there are no corporate white knights riding in to save us from ourselves."
One of the companies is mired in dizzying financial uncertainties, while both have recent histories of operational bungling and putting profits ahead of public interest. Among developments detailed in the report:
· Despite assertions by company officials to the contrary, USFilter remains hopelessly entangled with Vivendi Universal, its debt-choked, mission-puzzled corporate parent. While USFilter executives have attempted to distance their company from Vivendi as it scrambles for deals, Vivendi has proclaimed that it has no intention of reducing its control in the water side of the corporation's far-flung interests. USFilter could find itself cannibalized, squeezed and drained as the corporate parent tries to eke every last drop out of the corporate "cash cow" to bankroll whatever whimsical strategy Vivendi Universal finally lands on.
· United Water's performance in Atlanta, where the company's long-term contract was once touted as the model for municipal water privatization, has been so dismal that the company has been put on 90-day notice that the contract may be terminated. Atlanta officials have identified myriad problems with United Water's operation of the city's water system, including billing the city for work that was never done, dramatic staff reductions and an unacceptable increase in backlogged maintenance requests.
· Houston considered privatization but determined it would be in the public's interest to instead re-engineer the publicly owned system. However, Houston did privatize operation of a water treatment plant, contracting with United Water. After its contract was not renewed, United Water decided to sue the city for $900,000. Houston has countersued for $2 million, claiming United Water failed to maintain the plant and that necessary repairs will cost $2 million.
"Vivendi is a debt-smothered giant desperately trying to stave off financial ruin, and is clueless about what it wants to be when it grows up," said Wenonah Hauter, director of Public Citizen's Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program. "Suez never misses an opportunity to slash a workforce, break a promise and show that it cares more about getting money from you than getting water to you."
A third bid before the Sewerage and Water Board, presented by the public water system, promises more savings than either private bid. But none of the three bids offers truly significant savings. Moreover, all three bids were submitted under a flawed process that fails to account for the total future responsibilities and expenses of operating the system safely and efficiently.
Experiences in other cities show that the most money could be saved by continuing to identify opportunities for efficiencies under public ownership, and implementing those opportunities through a focused re-engineering program-not a de facto, inadequate restructuring of the water and sewer system's administration as would happen if the employees' bid is accepted.
Public Citizen urges the board to reject all the bids and instead allow employees to comprehensively re-engineer the system to address all future challenges, based on the fundamental mission of providing the people of New Orleans safe, reliable, affordable and publicly controlled water and sewer service.
"There's a looming world water crisis that private companies are taking advantage of," said Tony Clarke, executive director of the Polaris Institute. "In all likelihood, the water companies are interested in New Orleans because they want access to the mighty Mississippi River for bulk water sales in the future."
A copy of Public Citizen's report is available at
http://www.citizen.org/documents/two%20for%20the%20road.pdf.
Dr. Peter Lurie, deputy director of Public Citizen's Health Research Group, delivered testimony before an FDA advisory committee on safety issues relating to acetaminophen. That testimony is available on the Web at http://www.citizen.org/publications/release.cfm?ID=7202
Public Citizen is a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization based in Washington, D.C.
For more information, please visit http://www.citizen.org
9/21/02
6:53:47 PM
Greenpeace's Positive Energy
September 14 - 20, 2002
Time for Greenpeace's CLEAN ENERGY NOW! campaign's weekly good news update!!!
Inside this edition:
- UC Go Solar!
- The Florida Candidates Challenge
- Bonnie Raitt Helps San Diego Go Solar
UC Go Solar!
With the start of the 2002-2003 school year, students and the Greenpeace Clean Energy Now! campaign are working to bring green buildings to all ten University of California campuses. Our goal is to get the Board of Regents to adopt a system-wide standard requiring all new and renovated buildings to use 50 percent clean energy and meet the green LEED standards, which are guidelines developed by the U.S. Green Building Council. We are asking the Board of Regents to meet the silver LEED standard or higher.
If you are a UC student, watch out for the Rolling Sunlight, Greenpeace's solar truck, which will be touring all UC campuses next week. The Sunlight will be powering concerts featuring local bands and making solar smoothies!
Take action right now by sending a fax to UC President, Richard Atkinson, and urge him to support clean energy now!
http://www.cleanenergynow.org/bin/takeaction.fpl?action_id=147
The Florida Candidates Challenge
Greenpeace and other state and local groups are working in Florida to change the state's reliance on dirty fossil fuels to a reliance on one of the state's most plentiful resources: the sun. The 2002 elections this November provide a unique opportunity to force candidates to decide if they will protect Florida's people and resources. Currently Florida uses less solar power than New York! Candidates have a responsibility to ensure the "Sunshine State" lives up to its name.
To learn more about the challenge, go to:
http://www.cleanenergynow.org/fl/elections.html
Read a recently published Editorial about Clean Energy Now! in Florida:
http://www.sunsentinel.com/news/opinion/editorial/search/sfl-edittdenergysep15.story
Bonnie Raitt Helps San Diego Go Solar
Bonnie Raitt wants San Diego to fight global warming and air pollution by investing in large-scale solar energy projects.
She's donated special benefit tickets for her concert with Lyle Lovett at the San Diego State University Open Air Amphitheatre on September 21, 2002. The tickets will benefit the Vote Solar Initiative, a non-profit organization dedicated to helping cities implement large-scale solar programs. And if you are lucky, you may also hang with Bonnie at a private reception following the show!
To purchase tickets, please call (800)728-6223.
9/21/02
6:52:07 PM
TomPaine.com
TONY SOPRANO GETS HISTORICAL:
Was Columbus A Hero Or A Slave Trader?
An Interview With Historian Howard Zinn
by Sharon Basco
"Tony would welcome the idea that the Europeans came here and they conquered this land. After all, Tony is a conquerer himself. He takes things by force. The United States takes things by force.... Tony Soprano has a lot in common with the political leaders of the United States."
http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/6415
ASKING BUT NOT TELLING
Bush's Persistent Fundraising Breaks Clinton Record
by Jill Rachel Jacobs
"The current president has broken Clinton's campaign cash-grabbing record, but hardly anybody seems to have noticed, commented or cared."
http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/6401
IS IT NOT TRUE?
Questions On Iraq From A GOP Congressman
by Rep. Ron Paul
Some questions that GOP Representative Ron Paul would like answered by those who are urging us to start this war.
http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/6404
EYEWITNESS IN BAGHDAD
An Interview With Norman Solomon
by Steven Rosenfeld
On the ground in Baghdad, Norman Solomon describes the emotions and tensions in meetings with Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz and Speaker of the Iraqi National Assembly Sa'doun Hammadi.
http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/6403
PUBLIC OPINION WATCH:
September 9 - September 13
A Weekly Compendium And Commentary On Recent Polling
by Ruy Teixeira
Is The Public Ready To Go To War With Iraq? ... Why Do Professionals Vote Democratic ... and more!
http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/6406
9/21/02
6:50:23 PM
DAILY GRIST
<http://www.gristmagazine.com>
THE DARK SIDE
In most major metropolitan areas, you can count the stars visible in the night sky on your fingers. Now, the phenomenon is spreading; due to urban sprawl, bright artificial lights are drowning out the darkness in more and more of the world. That's bad news for astronomers, public energy budgets -- and many plant and animal species. Since the 1970s, scientists have been studying the effect of light on organisms' biological clocks and nocturnal behavior patterns. They have found that in urban areas, night migrating birds orbit bright lights until they drop with exhaustion or collide with buildings or other birds; that bright lights discourage female sea turtles from laying eggs; that the nighttime travel habits of mountain lions are disrupted by light pollution; and that small invertebrates that normally rise at night to feed on surface algae in lakes and ponds become less active as light levels increase, possibly leading to more algae blooms and lower water quality. In response, nine U.S. states have adopted "dark sky" provisions and 11 more are considering similar measures.
straight to the source: Christian Science Monitor, Peter N. Spotts, 19 Sep 2002 <http://www.gristmagazine.com/forward.pl?forward_id=488>
AMERICAN BEAUTY
In last month's "Ask Umbra" column, green advice guru Umbra Fisk fielded a question from a Florida firefighter looking to swap the Sunshine State in favor of the perfect eco-friendly new home. Umbra turned the question over to her readers, and the letters came pouring in. From Nahcotta, Wash. to Dalton, N.Y., Gristies sang the praises of small towns from sea to shining sea. Get a sampling of perfect places to live, plus Umbra's advice on how to kill your lawn, only on the Grist Magazine website.
only in Grist: There's no place like home -- sage advice on eco-friendly communities and how to kill your lawn, in Ask Umbra <http://www.gristmagazine.com/ask/ask091902.asp>
SPEED LIMIT
President Bush issued an executive order yesterday directing federal agencies to speed environmental reviews of important transportation projects, arguing that highways, airports, and other such projects are critical to the nation's economy and need to be freed of red tape. Environmentalists immediately denounced the move, calling it part of a systemic effort to restrict public debate and undermine environmental protections, including the 32-year-old National Environmental Policy Act. That act requires federal agencies to study and disclose the environmental impact of their actions and to involve the public in their decision-making processes. Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta claims the permit system has increased the time it takes to build an airport to an average of 10 years and a new highway to an average of 13 years, but Fred Krupp, executive director of Environmental Defense, disputed claims that any projects had been significantly delayed by environmental impact studies.
straight to the source: New York Times, Christopher Marquis, 19 Sep 2002 <http://www.gristmagazine.com/forward.pl?forward_id=489>
LOCKE AND KEY
Meanwhile, in the other Washington, Gov. Gary Locke (D) signed an executive order yesterday calling for sustainable environmental practices in all state agencies. The order includes a directive that the state's $1.1 billion annual purchasing power be spent on environmentally friendly products and conservation. Washington already has some exemplary sustainability policies in place, including programs to reduce energy use in capitol buildings and another to encourage green construction projects that use eco-friendly materials, improve workplace air quality, increase efficiency, and reduce utility costs. But, Locke said, "There is more that we can do to close the gap between production and consumption." Under his executive order, state agencies will be required to work with an advisory committee and the Office of Financial Management to develop sustainability goals and implementation plans.
straight to the source: Olympian, John Dodge, 19 Sep 2002 <http://www.gristmagazine.com/forward.pl?forward_id=492>
do good: Take action to do a home energy audit <http://www.gristmagazine.com/dogood/climate.asp?source=daily#audit>
SEA, SEA, MY PLAYMATE
More than 200 small grocers, restaurants, and seafood distributors in 40 U.S. states have announced that they will not buy, sell, or serve genetically altered fish. Among those joining the biotech boycott are such celebrity chefs as Alice Waters at Chez Panisse in Berkeley and Michael Schenk at Oceana in New York City. Whole Foods Market, the world's largest natural foods retailer, also signed on, but big seafood-restaurant chains such as Long John Silver and Red Lobster declined to join the boycott. The campaign, launched yesterday by the Center for Food Safety, Friends of the Earth, and Clean Water Action, is largely a preemptive strike, since there are currently no genetically engineered fish on the market. But one company, Aqua Bounty Farms in Waltham, Mass., has applied for FDA approval of bioengineered salmon. Environmentalists fear escaped GM fish could interbreed with wild species and taint their genetic makeup, prey on native species, or take over their food supplies and habitat.
straight to the source: San Francisco Chronicle, Jane Kay, 19 Sep 2002 <http://www.gristmagazine.com/forward.pl?forward_id=490>
straight to the source: Planet Ark, Reuters, Randy Fabi, 19 Sep 2002 <http://www.gristmagazine.com/forward.pl?forward_id=491>
do good: Take action to stop genetically engineered fish <http://www.gristmagazine.com/dogood/rivers.asp?source=daily#gefish>
9/21/02
6:42:07 PM
9/11 Report Says Agencies Received Credible Clues
Hill Panel To Release Findings Today
by Dana Priest Washington Post Staff Writer, September 18, 2002; Page A12
The U.S. intelligence community received a surprising number of credible reports of a likely terrorist attack prior to Sept. 11, including some threats to domestic targets, according to a congressional report to be unveiled today.
The preliminary findings of the staff of the Senate-House intelligence panel investigating the Sept. 11 strikes also show that some intelligence analysts had focused on the possibility that terrorists might use "airplanes as weapons" in the attacks, a congressional official said yesterday.
National security adviser Condoleezza Rice said in mid-May that prior to the attacks, analysts did not seriously consider the use of planes as bombs and therefore were surprised by the method of attack on Sept. 11. "All this reporting about hijacking was about traditional hijacking," Rice said at a May briefing on what President Bush knew before the attacks.
The 30-page unclassified report also will "raise serious questions" about whether the U.S. government shared enough information with the public about what it knew to be a grave threat from Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda terrorist network, the official said.
After reading and analyzing hundreds of thousands of pages of documents from the CIA, the National Security Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency and other government agencies, "you start thinking: Did anyone really explain to the public how serious this stuff was? . . . Did the American people really realize the strength of the threat out there?"
The committee report, the first official examination of how much intelligence agencies knew about the terror threat to the United States prior to Sept. 11, contains no single piece of information that could have been used to thwart the strikes that killed 3,000 people in New York, Virginia and Pennsylvania, the official said.
But while the committee staff found no information that revealed the exact date, time and place of the attack, the official said there were numerous credible reports of possible domestic attacks and suggested that some may have been played down because the intelligence agencies were too focused on threats to U.S. interests overseas.
"There was reporting on [the possibility of] domestic attacks, even though a lot of people were focused overseas," the official said.
The official said that even in the summer of 2001, when intelligence officials were describing a dangerous spike in threats against the United States, the seriousness of the threat from bin Laden may not have been uniformly recognized.
"At least some part of our intelligence community recognized what [was] out there," the official said. But "there are issues about information sharing with the intelligence community and between the intelligence community and the rest of the federal government."
The official noted that it is not the intelligence community's responsibility to warn the public about threats. Asked if White House officials, who would make the call on a public warning, were cooperating with the panel, the official deferred. "We've had discussions and requests," the official said. "They've answered some questions and some, maybe not."
On Aug. 6, 2001, President Bush received a daily intelligence briefing that covered bin Laden's use of hijacking as a method of terror. Following disclosure of the briefing in the media this spring, Rice held a news conference in which she made it clear that the intelligence community had not seriously focused on the possibility that alQaeda would think to use planes as flying bombs.
"I will say that, again, hijacking before 9/11 and hijacking after 9/11 do mean two very, very different things," she said.The House and Senate formed a joint intelligence panel shortly after Sept. 11 to assess the performance of the $35 billion intelligence community and to recommend ways to repair and improve it.
The panel got off to a rocky start. Members could not agree on its scope and its first staff director was forced to resign. It delayed public hearings; the first one, in fact, is set for today.
A second public hearing is still in question. The panel is having a difficult time convincing intelligence officials to appear in open session while the U.S. war on terrorism continues.
"There are people who don't want to do public hearings on this at all," the official said.
Today's meeting will not delve into the extensive information the panel has collected on the hijackers and to what extent U.S. intelligence agencies were monitoring any of them. That will be the subject of a future hearing.
The panel has met 10 times in closed sessions. The staff has culled through 400,000 documents from the various intelligence agencies and found roughly 70,000 pages it considered relevant to the investigation.
A working group at the CIA was set up to streamline the normal declassification process.
While hundreds of documents have been declassified, the official said there continue to be active disagreements between the panel staff and intelligence agencies over declassifying more.
Many members of Congress, concerned that the panel would not meet its October deadline, have called for an independent and more thorough probe into what many of them have called the largest intelligence failure since the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A31207-2002Sep17.html
9/21/02
5:24:24 PM
SciTech Daily Review
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992796
Off-the-shelf equipment found in any college science department can be used to transmit electric signals at least four times the speed of light
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2002/16sep_rightstuff.htm
Imagine a "holistic spaceship" that tells you when it feels bad, travels faster and weighs less than ordinary spacecraft, and has been engineered down to the last molecule. This is the challenge facing designers of the next generation spacecraft
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,55145,00.html
Malicious hackers are no longer limited to looking at private data -- now they can also see their victims, by transforming some video-conferencing systems into video-surveillance units
http://books.guardian.co.uk/reviews/healthmindandbody/0,6121,792111,00.html
Steven Pinker's invective against Marxists, feminists and all those who think they can change human minds in The Blank Slate is entertaining, says Robin McKie -- but is it justified?
http://www.nationalpost.com/world/story.html?id={5CDECF4A-D5AD-468C-A644-87A090384474
A scholarly German priest perpetrated one of the world's great hoaxes in an effort to debunk Nazi imperialist propaganda, claims a Norwegian scholar. The hoax? The Vinland Map
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1136-2002Aug9.html
It's getting harder and harder to tell what science is or isn't -- or rather, to find and heed people who might be able to tell us
9/21/02
5:20:59 PM
Dear EmailNation Subscriber,
Read new Nation weblogs today:
CAPITAL GAMES by David Corn
De-Saddamization, Not Disarmament: Bush Presses On
"No sensible person wants to go to war if war can be avoided," Colin Powell says. Next time he is at the White House, he should take a good look around.
http://www.thenation.com/thebeat/index.mhtml?bid=1&pid=103
THE ONLINE BEAT by John Nichols
US Congressman Rahall Speaks in Iraq
Official Washington was caught by surprise when Rep. Nick Rahall spoke to the Iraqi Assembly in Baghdad this past Sunday "as a member of Congress concerned with peace."
http://www.thenation.com/thebeat/index.mhtml?bid=1&pid=103
And see The Nation's antiwar page with activist ideas, articles, links and other resources:
http://www.thenation.com/directory/view.mhtml?t=040307
Finally, please remember that you can email any article on The Nation website to friends, family and foes using the Email-To-A-Friend feature found by clicking on the "email" link in the box adjoining each published article.
Best Regards, Peter Rothberg Associate Publisher, The Nation
P.S. If you like what you read on The Nation website and you're not currently a subscriber to the magazine, please consider taking advantage of our special offer--only $35.97 for 47 weekly issues in print. It's the only way to be able to read ALL of what appears in The Nation week after week.
This special offer available at:
https://ssl.thenation.com/usa.mhtml
P.P.S. Check out the NationBooks site at:
9/21/02
5:18:23 PM
Planet Ark World Environment News
Alaska's Cook Inlet oil pipelines leaky - report - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17814/story.htm
Americans get free pass to US forests, monuments - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17832/story.htm
INTERVIEW - Norton wants energy bill veto if no ANWR drilling - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17831/story.htm
Whole Foods retail chain won't sell biotech fish - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17833/story.htm
FEATURE - Garbage rule change hits New York scavengers - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17830/story.htm
Green group says UK not checking GM crops properly - UK http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17816/story.htm
ExxonMobil puts all five Chad oil rigs to work - UK http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17817/story.htm
Britain launches study into greenhouse gas storage - UK http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17818/story.htm
UK should not rescue B.Energy-green group - UK http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17819/story.htm
INTERVIEW - UK must protect nuke industry, save BEnergy - expert - UK http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17821/story.htm
Plants fighting back against African desert areas - UK http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17813/story.htm
UK nuclear waste completes trip from Japan - UK http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17827/story.htm
South Africa hopes to pump oil spill wreck dry - SOUTH AFRICA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17828/story.htm
Iran to build more nuke power plants - atomic chief - IRAN http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17820/story.htm
German party in U-turn on atomic, green power - GERMANY http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17822/story.htm
FACTBOX - German political parties' main electoral pledges - GERMANY http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17824/story.htm
Canada spotted owls endangered, green groups warn - CANADA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17815/story.htm
Brazil genomists see GMOs protecting world forests - BRAZIL http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17826/story.htm
Brazil seeks to woo back ethanol car drivers - BRAZIL http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17823/story.htm
Dousing fails to relieve drought-hit Australia - AUSTRALIA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17829/story.htm
Shy Koalas to be lured with taped mating calls - AUSTRALIA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17825/story.htm
ENVIRONMENTAL NEWS PICTURES:
AUSTRALIA: Satellite Images of Hole in Ozone Layer Above Antarctica http://www.planetark.org/envpicstory.cfm/newsid/17838
CHINA: Allen Cheung Wears a Mask to Protect from Air Pollution in Hong Kong
http://www.planetark.org/envpicstory.cfm/newsid/17834
UK: Armed Police Guard the Dock Side Where a Cylinder Containing Nuclear Waste was Unloaded From the Pacific Pintail in Barrow http://www.planetark.org/envpicstory.cfm/newsid/17835
SOUTH AFRICA: The Grounded Freighter Jolly Rubino awaits Assistance as Environmental Fears Grow http://www.planetark.org/envpicstory.cfm/newsid/17836
RUSSIA: Russian Police Guards Red Square in the Smog in Moscow http://www.planetark.org/envpicstory.cfm/newsid/17837
9/21/02
5:13:04 PM
All the news unfit to print: Top 10 censored stories
Project Censored's annual list always serves as a fascinating chronicle of recent political history. Their broad definition of censorship reflects the fact that these stories often emerge only to disappear and lurk below the surface, often for months or years, before being noticed by our less than fearless corporate media.
Here are their picks for 2001:
1. Corporate Takeover of the Airwaves
2. General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) For-Profit Model Threatens to Gobble Up World's Water
3. U.S. Policy Funds Human Rights Abuses in Colombia
4. Bush Administration Ordered FBI Off Bin Laden Trail
5. U.S. Destruction of Iraqi Water Supply
6. Renewed Threat of Nuclear Warfare
7. Public Schools Become Guinea Pigs for HMO Model
8. NAFTA Impoverishes Small Family Farmers
9. Housing Crisis in the U.S.
10. CIA Spooks Destabilize Macedonia
Get the details on these under-reported stories at:
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=14016
And for a daily news source that goes beyond the mainstream:
9/21/02
5:08:48 PM
Contrasting Casualties In The Middle East
* Number of Israelis killed by Palestinians from Sept. 29, 2000 to August 19, 2002: 619
* Number of Israeli children killed: 72
* Israelis killed outside the green line in the Occupied Territories: 328
* Members of the Israeli security forces among them: 118
xoxox
* Number of Palestinians killed by Israelis from Sept. 29, 2000 to August 19, 2002: 1,658
* Killed by Israeli security forces: 1,576
* Killed by Israeli settlers: 21
* Died at check points: 61
* Number of Palestinian children (under 18) killed: 294
* Chance that an Israeli assassination of terrorist suspects will result in the death of an innocent bystander: 48% (44 bystanders killed in 91 assassinations)
Source: A Jewish Voice For Peace
http://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org
9/21/02
5:06:19 PM
Public Citizen issued the following press release, Sept. 18, 2002
House-Senate Conferees Poised to Repeal Law Protecting Consumers, Investors from Enron-style Accounting and Market Manipulation
Corporations Seeking Repeal Accused of Trading Scams in California
WASHINGTON, D.C. - Some of the major corporations pushing Congress to repeal the consumer-protection law known as the Public Utility Holding Company Act (PUHCA) are the same ones that are being investigated for gouging ratepayers and manipulating the California energy market through schemes involving sham energy trading and the withholding of electricity, according to a Public Citizen report released today.
House and Senate conferees, who are trying to reconcile differences in energy legislation passed by both chambers, are expected to begin taking up the electricity provisions of the competing bills as early as Thursday. While most public debate has centered on the massive subsidies to energy companies in the bill, the Senate bill also repeals PUHCA, an obscure, Depression-era law that is supposed to ensure that electric, natural gas and water utilities invest profits in providing reliable service rather than fueling the Enron-style acquisition of assets unrelated to their core energy business.
"Members of Congress declare themselves to be tough on corporate crime when the camera is rolling, but behind closed doors they are trying to make it even easier for rapacious energy companies to rip off the public and investors," said Joan Claybrook, president of Public Citizen. "The energy giants that are being investigated for rigging the California energy market are the same ones that are lobbying behind the scenes to get rid of the Public Utility Holding Company Act. Rather than protecting ratepayers and shareholders, Congress is preparing to strip away any vestige of accountability and transparency there is left."
The energy industry poured $44 million into lobbying Congress on PUHCA and other issues in 2001 alone, and has contributed more than $16 million to federal candidates since 1999, according to the report. This total includes lobbying by individual companies and their various anti-regulation trade associations, such as the Edison Electric Institute and the Coalition to Repeal PUHCA Now!.
Enacted in 1935, PUHCA has historically prohibited holding companies from investing ratepayers' money in assets that will not directly contribute to low bills and reliable service, such as out-of-region power plants or non-electricity industries like water or telecommunications. However, the 1992 Energy Policy Act allowed holding companies to invest ratepayer money in foreign power projects. This permitted the development of offshore subsidiaries and sham transactions that eventually led to the downfall of sprawling corporate structures. The law has been further weakened by exemptions and lack of adequate enforcement by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Abolishing PUHCA would largely remove government oversight from companies such as American Electric Power, Duke Energy, CMS Energy, Southern Company/ Mirant and Xcel. As some of the leading energy providers in today's deregulated markets, these corporations claim they can be trusted in the absence of supervision. But it was exactly that - the lack of government supervision - that allowed Enron to build its far-flung empire, manipulate markets and use accounting gimmickry to conceal debt and inflate income. Had there been a regulated system to ensure corporate responsibility and transparent accounting practices, it is likely that California's recent energy crisis and the accounting fraud that followed would have been impossible.
In the report, Public Citizen examines the record of five companies seeking PUHCA repeal: American Electric Power, Duke Energy, CMS Energy, Southern Company/ Mirant and Xcel - all of which are under investigation for fraudulent trading and/or accounting practices and accused by state and federal investigators of gouging billions of dollars from California consumers during the artificially created energy "crisis" of 2000 and 2001.
"The repeal of PUHCA would have devastating consequences for consumers and investors by leading to more Enron-style meltdowns, further industry consolidation and the creation of complex corporate structures that reduced transparency and accountability," said Tyson Slocum, research director for Public Citizen's Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program. "We need to demand that these energy companies be good corporate citizens, but it's clear they will not do it without strict standards of accountability. Government oversight is an indispensable measure needed to maintain an affordable and reliable energy market. Congress should be strengthening PUHCA, not ditching it."
Public Citizen's report shows:
· On Jan. 18, 2002, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled that the SEC failed to prove that the June 15, 2000, merger of American Electric Power with Central & South West met the requirements of PUHCA and sent the case back to the SEC for further review. Specifically, the court told the SEC to revisit its conclusion that the merger met PUHCA requirements that utilities be "physically interconnected" and confined to a "single area or region."
· In early June 2002, the SEC ordered Duke Energy to release information on its trading practices, and in July the energy trader admitted that it had misled investors and federal officials about its trading operations. In July, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) issued a subpoena to Duke, and the company has been under investigation by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) since May. In addition, Duke is under investigation by the Justice Department's Houston office as part of a grand jury investigation into allegedly fraudulent trading practices. The federal grand jury subpoenaed Duke on July 12.
· The SEC, CFTC, FERC and the Justice Department have all been formally investigating CMS Energy since May 2002, making CMS Energy the most investigated energy trader next to Enron. Shortly after the investigative offensive, long-time CMS Energy Chairman and CEO William McCormick resigned. That was followed by the firing of the company's auditor, Arthur Andersen. At the time of the accounting firm's dismissal, Arthur Andersen noted that its approval of the company's books could no longer be relied upon, which should not come as a surprise since 71 percent of the $5.6 million CMS Energy paid Arthur Anderson was for non-audit consulting services.
The full report can be viewed online at
http://www.citizen.org/documents/cmeep15.pdf.
Public Citizen is a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization based in Washington, D.C.
For more information, please visit http;//www.citizen.org
9/21/02
5:05:08 PM
Cow Theory Of Government
DEMOCRAT
You have two cows. Your neighbor has none. You feel guilty for being successful. You vote people into office that put a tax on your cows, forcing you to sell one to raise money to pay the tax. The people you voted for then take the tax money, buy a cow and give it to your neighbor. You feel righteous. Barbara Streisand sings for you.
SOCIALIST
You have two cows. The government takes one and gives it to your neighbor. You form a cooperative to tell him how to manage his cow.
REPUBLICAN
You have two cows. Your neighbor has none. So?
COMMUNIST
You have two cows. The government seizes both and provides you with milk. You wait in line for hours to get it. It is expensive and sour.
CAPITALISM - AMERICAN STYLE
You have two cows. You sell one, buy a bull, and build a herd of cows.
DEMOCRACY - AMERICAN STYLE
You have two cows. The government taxes you to the point you have to sell both to support a man in a foreign country who has only one cow, which was a gift from your government.
BUREAUCRACY - AMERICAN STYLE
You have two cows. The government takes them both, shoots one, milks the other, pays you for the milk, and then pours the milk down the drain.
AMERICAN CORPORATION
You have two cows. You sell one, lease it back to yourself and do an IPO on the 2nd one. You force the two cows to produce the milk of four cows. You are surprised when one cow drops dead. You spin an announcement to the analysts stating you have downsized and are reducing expenses. Your stock goes up.
FRENCH CORPORAT