The Bureau emphasized that the third-quarter "advance" estimates are based on source data that are incomplete or subject to further revision by the source agency (see the box on page 3). The third-quarter "preliminary" estimates, based on more comprehensive data, will be released on November 25, 2003.
(http://www.bea.gov/bea/newsrel/gdp303a.htm)

"Ultimately, if you don't create jobs, you're going to undermine demand, which is the key to everything," said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Economy.com, an analysis firm in West Chester, Pa. "Right now, the recovery is not self-sustaining."

Consumer spending is likely to slow this fall as the impact of the tax cut and the mortgage-refinancing boom fades. Auto sales surged in August as car makers used incentives to try to clear out their 2003 models, but such sales have already tailed off.

The growing federal budget deficit all but rules out another major tax cut to juice the economy.

Jobs would make the recovery self-sustaining. They would increase consumer spending and lead companies to step up production and create more jobs, starting the cycle all over again.

It's a bit chicken and egg, though. Job creation is the key to a sustainable recovery, but companies are reluctant to hire until they are sure the recovery will be sustained. The last thing they want is to be saddled with more employees if the recovery falters. (http://www.sltrib.com/2003/Oct/10302003/business/106614.asp)

In the report itself, it is also revealed that:

Three months of source data were available for consumer spending on goods; shipments of capital equipment other than aircraft; motor vehicle sales and inventories; manufacturing durables inventories; federal government outlays; and consumer, producer, and international prices. Only two months of data were available for most other key data sources.

***For the key series shown in this table, actual data for the third month of the quarter usually are not available in time for inclusion in the advance GDP estimate. BEA makes assumptions for the source data that are not yet available; assumptions for September 2003 are shown in the last column of the
table. For most series shown, the data for August are preliminary and subject to further revision. Occasionally, the data for earlier months are also subject to revision.

All series shown in the table are in billions of dollars, seasonally adjusted at annual rates, and are published by the Bureau of the Census.

2003
                           Apr.       May       Jun.       Jul.       Aug.        Sept. *
Private fixed investment:
Nonresidential structures:
1 Value of new total private
construction put in place less
residential (inc. improvements) 218.9   216.1   217.1   217.8   212.0    213.4

Equipment and software:
2 Manufacturers' shipments of
complete aircraft.................. 20.0   22.6    34.1    29.1   24.8    21.9

Residential structures:
Value of new residential
construction put in place:
3 Single family.................... 287.6    290.6   292.9   297.3   303.0   308.7

4 Multifamily....................... 32.7   33.6   33.4    33.9   34.4   35.0

Change in private inventories:
5 Change in inventories for
nondurable manufacturing ... 2.4    -3.9   10.9    -4.6   4.3   1.2

5a Change in inventories for merchant wholesale and retail industries other
than motor vehicles and
equipment .......... -14.7    -24.5   5.6   15.2   -4.6   -12.4

Net exports:
Exports of goods:
6 U.S. exports of goods, international-transactions-
accounts basis................... 686.8   693.1   711.1   724.2   693.0   712.1

6a Excluding gold............... 682.9   687.9   703.3   720.5   686.0   707.8

Imports of goods:
7 U.S. imports of goods, international-transactions-
accounts basis.................. 1243.1   1253.0   1252.0   1264.6   1226.9    1268.7

7a Excluding gold.......... 1240.2   1249.4   1246.2   1262.1   1221.5   1265.0

8 Net exports of goods..... -556.3   -559.8   -540.9   -540.4   -533.9   -556.6

8a Excluding gold............. -557.3    -561.5    -542.9   -541.6   -535.6   -557.2

Government:
State and local:
Structures:
9 Value of new construction put
in place........................... 191.5   193.2   199.5   198.1   198.8   198.5
____________
*Assumption.

WASHINGTON — Accelerating from a jog to a sprint, the economy surged from July through September at the fastest pace in nearly two decades. Both consumers and businesses helped power the gains, fresh evidence the national rebound is on firmer footing.

The broadest measure of the economy's performance, gross domestic product, grew at a breakneck 7.2 percent annual rate during those three months, more than double the 3.3 percent rate in the previous quarter, the Commerce Department reported Thursday.
http://www.kgw.com/sharedcontent/business/topstories/103003ccbizeconomy.1a9272.htm

All rights resevered by author.

What has changed, and why China?

Well, a number of things have changed it seems. First is the US policy change regarding nuclear weapons and preemption. This is not a policy that has made the world safer, and we see nations one by one slipping into the race, and preemption as a legitimate "defense." Korea, Israel, and now France are those who have officially declared themselves.

The US anger at France over blocking it over Iraq (not once, but multiple times) has certainly played some role. While France specifically says "rogue states" and names China as an area of concern, it would be foolish to not include consideration of the US in that category. Given the approach being taken by the current administration, the US has to loom as a "rogue state" in everyone's mind. Of course, few would put it quite that way.

And why would China pop up on France's radar so ti speak? Perhaps because they are moving into a new era. China is a nation with nuclear capability, that is on a rapid development path. THey have just successfully completed their first "manned" space launch, and they are making some interesting alliances. One of the more interesting in my mind is Pakistan (with whom they recently concluded joint naval exercises).

Another long shot consideration is the NATO policy change of not requiring all member's approval before committing NATO forces. That presents some interesting potential conflicts all by itself.

It is disappointing though for France to about face in this manner. They were one of the few rays of hope and sanity - at least in terms of foreign policy. It definitely raises the question of if France, then who is next? Canada, Germany, Russia? All of these also did not support invading and occupying Iraq. Therefore all of them are also on the "don't invite to parties list."

I had higher expectations of France, which had taken such a strong and visible stand in regards to Iraq. I have high hopes of Canada as well. Hopefully those hopes will not also prove unrealistic.

People get even a bit more nervous when we move from plants (which many see as being highly dissimilar from humans) and into animals (who on a good day are seen as being biologically and emotionally much closer to human). The FDA has already ruled GM crops as "genetically equivalent" of non-GM crops. I know, how can a billion identical copies of anything be "genetically equivalent" of natural diversity? I think the answer to the FDA's choice in that matter needs little discussion. We know what the inducements are already.

But hey, how about those cloned cows and chickens? And how about that cloned milk, cheese, butter, and eggs? Apparently "farmers" are chomping at the bit to get this approved. "Farmers" is in quotes because my best guess is that it isn't your sterotypical farmer who can hardly wait for cloning to be approved, but your agri-business dependent farmer, and your corporate farmer who are, but I digress.

It is hard to imagine any independent farmer being supportive of this. For all the hype, cloning is not a perfected technology - not even for plants. The failure rate in more complex species ("animals" for example) fails many more times than it succeeds, and there are some nagging problems. Problems such as:
- Why do they have so many defects and anomalies (serious, deadly ones)?
- Why are they born old and die young?
- Why does cloning just "fail to take" so frequently?

Then there are those other nagging questions such as:
- What are the effects of consuming cloned products?
- If in addition to being cloned, there are genetic modifications, what are the long term health effects of those?
- What happens if a disease sweeps through that "strain"? And related,
- what happens to those who have regularly consumed that genetically modified cloned strain?

Just little nagging questions which I am sure that the Food Safety Board of the FDA will not have too many problems addressing. Namely by responding that "There is no scientific proof that there are negative health consequences." Therefore cloned food animals and food products are "safe" and because they are likely to be deemed "genetically equivalent" then no special labeling will likely be required either.

Just guesses on my part - hopefully inaccurate guesses. But my suspicion is that when the report is released it is not going to make the evening news. It is likely that the FDA has learned from the FCC debacle about going directly contrary to the public's feelings on policy. Wouldn't want those "loony" animal rights folks to get hung up on this one. No sirree! Wouldn't want millions of irate citizens burying the FDA in emails, letters, and phone messages the way they did the FCC. (HINT) Wouldn't want the Congress to get bombarded either because then they might need to step up to the plate (HINT). Nope, better to keep it quiet don't you think? After all, who is it going to harm?

We seem to be at a point in the US where everything is essentially terrorism. There are no distinctions made. Last spring, when the rebels from Chechnya took the hostages in the Moscow theater, they were claimed to be terrorists and were dealt with with deadly force - deadly for the Chechnyans and deadly for the hostages. As we watch the bombings in Iraq, what are we really seeing? We are told it is Ba'athists and al Qaeda linked terrorist groups. We are told that these are acts of terrorism. However, there is growing discontent in Iraq with the US occupation (and it is clear at this point that it is an occupation).

I'm not saying that there are not terrorist attacks. I am saying that I am no longer clear what constitutes terrorism. What is clear is that we are being told it is terrorism. What affect does this constant "telling" do to people's perceptions of the world?

If we look at the "war on crime" and the "war on drugs" we know that the "information" on those fronts have led to the perception that crime and drugs are out of control and we need to "get tough." However, changes in the drug laws have resulted in the almost tripling of the population under corrections control. People seem to be more afraid of being victimized, and more willing to "lock 'em up and throw away the key." This perception exists even though the actual rate of crime has gone down, and more and more authorities are stating that addiction is a disease - a disease not cured by imprisonment.

This example might also be a forewarning of the "war on terrorism." The broad generalization of terrorists and terrorism may well result in increased fear, support for harsher and more unilateral sanctions, and very possibly increased resistance on the part of those oppressed and killed by those policies. The cycle is very difficult to stop, and we can see that in the eye for an eye relationship between Israel and Palestine. Is that the world we want? Is that the United States that we want?

The full story of American savagery in Vietnam will perhaps never be told. We have had other glimpses of it, as for example when former CIA Director William Colby, responding to a titanic power struggle inside the CIA, revealed Project Phoenix, a secret program for the mass murder of civilian leaders regarded as sympathetic to the enemy. There were the revelations about a number of individuals engaging in barbarism, most notably, former Nebraska Senator and Medal of Honor winner Bob Kerrey having been part of a butcher-civilians operation.

The so-called Tail-Wind affair, whose discovery cost some very reputable journalists their jobs, is now consigned to the ever-handy conspiracy bin, but intelligent skeptics can hardly doubt that with all the other savageries of Vietnam, a secret operation to poison-gas American prisoners of war cooperating with the enemy is totally plausible.

To this day, thousands of American veterans attend meetings or counseling for post-traumatic stress disorder, the bureaucratic term for minds deranged by the horrors they saw or inflicted. War is always full of horror, but in the midst of the brutality in Vietnam, it dawned on many that the war served no good purpose and that most of its victims were civilians. The military draft sent a lot of people to Vietnam who weren't suited to

the business of serious killing. And while the number of Americans killed was small for a long war, it still proved too many for people enjoying ice cream and beer at ballgames.

For years after Vietnam, Americans talked of the war's lessons, but just what lessons were those? For a while, many believed the lessons might concern the values of the Bill of Rights, words so often abused as hollow marketing slogans. America's armed forces would never again be sent to kill and torture for colonial interests.

But that was a hasty conclusion, as we see in Iraq. America perfected its technology for killing and terrifying so that at least for a small county, it is able to overwhelm fairly quickly. Relatively few American soldiers die, those that do are professionals, and the whole thing is quickly over.

Of course, there is a deep and jagged pit along this smooth-sounding path to military dominance, and it has to do with occupying and rebuilding a country, how you assume responsibility for tens of millions of new dependants. No people on earth today is less inclined or qualified for this task than Americans. You only have to look at the individualistic, selfish, and impatient nature of American society itself to understand why this should be so. The word dependant in America often is used as a term of abuse.

Recall Richard Nixon's "madman theory" of the early 1970s. Nixon was trying to pressure the North Vietnamese in Paris for a settlement, and he deliberately spread the idea that he was a madman, quite capable of doing something irrational, and that it would be better for everyone to reach a settlement before he did so. The context that gave his suggestion force included his shattering bombardment of civilians in North Vietnam and Cambodia, as well as nightmarish programs like Project Phoenix, started under him.

I'll set aside the fact that Nixon truly was something of a madman - for, apart from his lifelong career of promoting divisiveness, intense hatreds, and suspicions, who else but a genuine madman relishes being credited as one? In the end, Nixon was outfoxed by the Vietnamese, and America lost a major war. A decade of shameful destruction, vast resources consumed, rage, and riots were for nothing.

This did not go unnoticed by the American establishment - the Bushes, the Cheneys, the Rumsfelds, and all the other arrogant, insatiably-rapacious people who've given you war in Iraq. Their major lesson from Vietnam - apart from the unreliability of conscripts, the need for tight news control, and the need to improve the efficiency of killing with high-tech weapons - was that threats not acted upon were useless. This lesson comes packaged with a new release of the error-riddled Domino Theory: that a decisive demonstration of power in the Middle East would serve to stabilize the area. The Democrats' regrettable Wesley Clark, among others, has pontificated along these very lines.

Lost in the armchair toying with other people's lives and countries you might think is the fact that Nixon's threat was nuclear, but actually it is not lost. Bush wants to develop and deploy a new generation of compact nuclear weapons, the implication being that these somehow would be useable, as for such wholesome crusade tasks as "bunker busting." Please recall, the main bunker busted in the first Gulf War was the Al Firdos bunker in Baghdad packed with over four hundred civilians who were roasted alive by two "smart bomb" direct hits.

Vietnam truly was a twentieth-century version of burning witches, the witches in that case being communists rather than people who were either demented or senile as in the witch-burnings of a few centuries ago. Powerful people in the 17th century understood that witches were superstitious nonsense, but they used the phenomenon to their own purposes. We've almost run out of communist witches, so now the crusade has been redirected against evil spirits far less well defined, terrorists.

Not that there is no such thing as genuine terrorists. Of course, there are. Terrorism - from the Sons of Liberty and the Klu Klux Klan to black street gangs and camouflage-obsessed militia-nuts - is a rich part of American history. Please note that it has not been dealt with by blowing up whole neighborhoods of innocent people.

The communist-panic after World War II was promoted and manipulated by the America's establishment, that ruthlessly ambitious segment of American society that does not consist solely of Republicans. American liberals today often seem unaware that Democrats like Robert Kennedy gladly played energetic and nasty roles. The establishment sought the immense bounty of new military contracts, forced access to other peoples' resources and markets, and the swaggering sense of exercising vast power throughout the world. Note that the communist-panic began with the precipitous decline in military spending after the world war and with the opportunities for expansion represented by the sudden decline of former colonial powers.

At the end of the Cold War, there was a tendency for military expenditure to slide in real terms. America's current terror-panic, manipulated and exploited relentlessly by Bush, and always echoed by Sharon for his own dark purposes, serves almost identical ends. The average American cannot even grasp the unholy amounts of money now changing hands to almost no good purpose.

I once described a scene in the wake of 9/11 where some Americans in a bar hooted and pumped their arms at the television image of ships equipped with cruise missiles, as though the ships or the missiles had the slightest relevance for individuals bent on killing others through their own suicides. That televised image comes pretty close to symbolizing Bush's entire policy on terror. He has spent tens of billions of dollars, killed many thousands of innocent people, and made many Americans feel intimidated in their own country, but he has done little to end the threat of terrorism. He may even have increased its long-term prospects.

Terrorism predates modern history, and it generally comes as a result of great and oppressive injustice against a definable group of people. Short of ruthlessly repressing the group of people from whose ranks terrorists are drawn - something attempted many times, as, for example, by Cromwell in Ireland or Stalin in the Soviet Union - violence offers no effective solution.

Even Cromwellian repression fails over the long term, Ireland being a potent example. An oppressor eventually tires of repression. It may well have been some such dark thought that helped motivate Hitler in history's greatest bloodbath, the invasion of the Soviet Union and the simultaneous start of the Holocaust (27 million and 6 million victims respectively). He demanded utter ruthlessness in these vast murderous enterprises. The people whose wealth and resources he was seizing, would not get the chance ever to become terrorists.

Bush's policy is partway along the path of repression, a virtual copy of Sharon's policy in Palestine, but has Sharon ended terror? Does Sharon not almost weekly become more violent and desperate, recognizing the futility of all he has done to date?

Bush's prospects and opportunities are in some ways even more limited than Sharon's, despite the immense and terrible power at his disposal. Although Al Qaeda was a relatively small organization - and nothing has come to light that contradicts an early conclusion that Al Qaeda, though dispersed and having some allies, was no bigger than a Chicago street gang - Bush's tactics have created waves of sympathizers and new enemies, likely even more determined through their confrontation with such a bully. He is not opposed by a group of people confined to a tiny place like Palestine. Rather, he faces opposition in many forms in many countries with mobility across continents. You can't just bomb it all.

The more verbal blunders Bush and his associates make - consider the idiotic statements made recently by Lt. Gen. William Boykin, a man associated directly with secret activities in places like Pakistan, to gatherings of American Christian fundamentalists - the more Bush's efforts come to be viewed as broadly anti-Islamic. The word blunder here is only appropriate because such statements are errors in managing public affairs. They are not blunders in a more basic sense: these nasty, narrow people do believe what they are saying, and although that belief is not what launched Bush's crusade, it undoubtedly motivates many along the way.

Terror is one response of those with terrible grievances who lack effective conventional means to fight for them, although if you listened to Bush you would think there were mobs of natural-born terrorists out there, ready to kill for no reason other than jealousy at America's great good fortune and beneficence. As in the case of Northern Ireland, terror can only be ended by redressing the grievances, and even then, great patience and tenacity are required.

A general military action against terror is an insane concept, too destructive and unfocused to have predictable results. You cannot fight beliefs or grievances with armored divisions. You can only have vengeance that way, but vengeance can hardly be called policy and is unworthy of a great power claiming high ideals.

The example of Sharon's brutality just couldn't offer a clearer lesson. The Palestinians have immense grievances that virtually the entire world recognizes as legitimate. Assassinate all the leaders you please, bulldoze all the homes and shops and orchards you can, bomb and shoot civilians time after time as reprisals, the grievances not only remain, they are intensified. The ultimate danger in a situation like this is that Sharon's frustration will drive him to move beyond Cromwell.

And so, too, Bush, but note that I use his name only as shorthand for that much bigger thing, the pitiless greed and arrogance of a large segment of America.

John Chuckman copyright 2003

It is an understatement to say that war is a dirty, nasty business. It seems inevitable that "inhuman" things are going to occur in war. There are at least two aspects of atrocity in war: those carried our individually by those fighting, and those carried out collectively by forces on orders.

The Troops
Soldiers (apparently of all nations and times) are trained to kill. In order to do this on command and automatically, the training must first remove the "ordinary resistance" of people to killing others. This is done through a variety of techniques, but they generally involve both dehumanizing and then objectifying the "enemy." Add to this construction of enemy as object (and a despicable object at that) the belief that "they" will kill you at the drop of a hat, and that they won't "fight fair," and you have the underpinnings of potential atrocity. The training involves training to fear and to hate. Unfortunately, fear and hatered rarely stay contained to combatants. Between fears that enemy troops will pose as civilians, and that the enemy is at once the soldier in front of you, the nation of that soldier, and therefore the people of that nation, then everyone who is not "us" is fair game.

Of course, soldiers are trained to kill. Pride is instilled for that killing. It is more than survival, it is patriotic. The soldiers to emulate are the ones who kill a lot (and survive). Is it surprising therefore that soldiers take "trophies" of ears, or fingers, or other easily portable body parts, to prove their prowess and status? Just as a hunter will have the head of a deer mounted on his or her wall? After all, these are no longer people, they are monsters and winning against them deserves some recognition does it not?

The enemy soldier blends into the general "face" of the population. All are possible enemies. They either are the parents of the monsters one is fighting, the bearers of monsters to be, or they will grow up to be monsters. The line gets blurry, things get "crazy" and atrocity ... happens. Soldiers captured supposedly have certain protections ... but they are monsters too, no matter how contained. Rumors (or fact) spreads that your comrades taken in battle are not being treated appropriately under the rules, so why should captured enemies be treated any differently? It is not surprising if there is a response of everything from indifference to what happens to those captured, to the outright torture and death.

And there is the rub. No matter how horrified we might be, it really isn't surprising at all. We all hope that "our" troops will have better control. Perhaps we even believe that they do, or that "our" side just couldn't do that. However, we all know that it can happen, it does happen, and it will continue to happen.

What is a surprise is that we expect veterans to just put all this aside when they return home. Just forget it; write it off; be "normal." We are not only surprised, we ignore the situation at best and blame the ex-soldier at worst.

The Governments and Military Decision-makers
While troops engaging in "bad behavior" on the "ground" is seen as reprehensible, the general actions of war are not seen that way. Bombing population centers, destroying food supplies, using weapons that will keep on killing for decades, are all generally accepted. Both in Afghanistan, and in Iraq, massive amounts of munitions were used against civilians. The Pentagon stating that they don't target civilians is ridiculous. If they don't target them, why do they consistently hit them? How can you bomb the same Red Cross facility on three different ocassions without aiming for it? Civilians damaged by these direct activites are "collateral damage." There is a totally dehumanized and sanitized term for you. Further, there is no acceptance of responsibility for long term damage to current and future generations (such as the use of "cluster bombs," land mines, and depleted uranium shells). The long term decimation of the enemy population doesn't rise high enough to recognize. They are just the "casualites of war."

When the US engaged in the "shock and awe" attack of Iraq, who was it that was supposed to be shocked and awed. Certainly not Hussein or the military as the US was firing on cities, towns, and other population centers. When children and others stumble across bomblets from the cluster bombs and they explode killing and maiming them, are these the "enemy?" When the people develop diseases from the intentional destruction of water treatment systems, people get cancer and infants are born malformed due to exposure to "depleted" uranium, is this just the "cost of war?" Are these things not atrocities?

When nations use these types of weapons and strategies fully expecting civilian suffering and death, what message does it send to those who serve? Does it send the message to behave with care for the humans in one's path? Does it show distinction between those who wear uniforms (if they can afford them) and bear arms, from those who do not? Do those who bear arms at the demand of their government, and follow orders on penalty of death from their commanders, have a vote about whether they will fight and on what terms?

Who bears the responsibility for the death and destruction. Who bears responsibility for the atrocities of war? Is it the soldier, the general, the Congress, the President? Or, in a nation such as ours where (purportedly) the rulers rule at our behest, and the soldiers believe they are fighting to defend us, and where the leaders say that our interests are paramount and worth the lives of both "monsters" and our own soldiers, do we bear the responsibility? Do we, the citizens, bear the ultimate responsibility for the actions of our government, of our leaders, of each soldier placed in the environment of monster creating and monster destroying?

Leaders cannot go where followers will not follow. And sometimes, leaders will go where followers tell them they must. Perhaps it is time to acknowledge that war itself is the atrocity, and find a better way to solve problems than through the death and destruction of people and land and animals and all that we think that we value and cherish. Perhaps it is time to tell leaders where they must go rather than letting them plan where they will take us.

Are not these things atrocities as well?

Mr. Moore argued that we are living in an environment of enforced ignorance in the US. That there is a deliberate lack of information and lack of knowledge about the world and our place in it. He shared a poll that had been done recently where people were asked to identify nations on a map. He said that 85% couldn't find Iraq, 60% couldn't find Britain, and 11% couldn't find the US. Regarding Iraq, he argued "Shouldn't there be a rule that if you can't find it on the map you can't bomb it?" He stated that enforced ignorance leads to fear, leads to hate, leads to violence. And further, that it is very easy to lie to an ignorant population.

To demonstrate this point he had nine self-identified "A" students from the US, and one self-identified below average Canadian student join him on the stage to participate in a "game show." The US contestants ranged from a middle school student to a PH.D. candidate in physiscs. Moore asked a series of reciprocal questions. For example, he asked the Canadian what the capital of the US is, and asked the US "A" students what the capital of Canada is. Anyway, though humorous, the Canadian (as predicted) did win hands down. The point? The "dumbest" Canadian in the crowd knew more about the world than the "smartest Americans" in the crowd.

He talked at some length about the US being the only nation in a long list of nations that "pisses" on their poor. He said that other nations could understand our actions in the world, manipulating and attacking other nations, but they couldn't understand why we treated our own poor so cruely. He argued that one of the fundamental differences between the US and Canada is that Canadians have drilled into their bones that all Canadians are Canadian - they are in the same boat. What happens to one of them is perceived as happening to all of them. Therefore it is unthinkable to let people "fall through the cracks." This is far different that the individualistic , "me me me" of the US.

Michael Moore made a passionate and cogent argument about the 2004 elections. He said that we had to take back the White House and the Congress. He argued that now is the time to push the various candidates to embrace the direction that we want to go - that it was our responsibility to make them better candidates. He argued that the Democratic party keeps edging to the right because that is where they seem to think that the public is; however, that the public is actually very liberal on social issues (from aid for the poor, to a woman's right to choose, to concerns about the environment). We are tired of being given the choice of "fake" republicans running against real republicans. In this regard, he gave a different spin to the recent events in California - Schwartzenegger had to voice a "liberal" social agenda and be married to a Kennedy, in order to win. Likewise, in the last Governor's election in California the voters elected a Democrat they despised for over a right wing Republican.

He argued that "the right" is aware of this shift in the masses and that is why they are so angry. They control the White House, the Congress, most of the state governments and the corporate media - yet they are still angry. He argued that the angry roar from the right was the roar of a "dying dinosaur." It is in this context that Lars Larson received a phone message from the 10,000 assembled to hear Moore.

Moore stated he would be putting up a web site this coming summer with those districts where there was a swing vote possibility to unseat the Republican incumbent, and extracted a promise from those attending to descend on those districts from all over the country to help in the campaigns.

Overall, Michael Moore pushed the crowd to engage in our democratic process and to reclaim the country. He feels that it is critical that we do so, and that we need to act now - not wait until after the Democrats have chosen which "horse" they will run. He argued that if it is left in the hands of the party, that they will likely choose yet another "fake Republican" to try to appeal to a supposedly broader voter base. While several times the crowd indicated that it wanted Moore to get into politics, he made clear that was not where he wanted to go. He did say that all of us should be running for office from precinct captains up.

It was good to laugh, there is far too little of that these days. It was great to see the passion of Michael Moore and of those in attendance. The evening was much more than a book tour presentation by a popular author. It was a call to arms.

I would look carefully at the actions of our "allies" in this "war on terrorism." The corporate press is by and large maintaining a low profile for Saudia Arabia, which seems to be a major source of fundamentalist extremists - some of whom go on to join terrorist organizations (note that 15 of the alleged 19 terrorists involved in 9/11/01 came from Saudia Arabia. However, they are a major source of oil for the US, a big player in OPEC, and the House of Saud are long time "good friends" of the Bush's. One has to wonder if the desire for a nuclear bomb is in part a hedge against the loss of that "friendship."

But back to Pakistan. It seems that they are positioning themselves as a force to be reckoned with and acquiring their own "good friends." Of course, at least part of their nuclear weapons technology is from the US. Hmm, that raises a slew of questions all on its own now doesn't it? Is the long term US policy peace ... or chaos?

First of all, no WMDs have been found in Iraq, hardly an Al Qaida terrorist and the nation, which could supposedly launch a bio-chemical missile attack within 45 minutes, found itself vanquished in three weeks. The special 75th Exploitation Task Force, assigned to uncover WMDs in Iraq, have left no stones unturned, only to find not even footprints in the sand. All they got were just two supposedly "mobile bio-weapons labs." Let's hope the Pentagon's new, 2,000-strong Iraq Survey Team does better or that the much-maligned Hans Blix gets a return trip to Baghdad. But there are lots of bones though, and that probably can be traced back to an era when "sanctions" had a different, tacit connotation. The madman and his equally lunatic sons have disappeared mysteriously, but who cares that the US Leviathan, and it's British Bulldog, with their panoply of gizmos and intelligence still can't find them. Or Bin Laden, who is probably watching this freak show unfold on Al Jazeera while enjoying a plate of qabile pilau in some Pashtun stronghold? The next project is already planned, which, might garner the same degree of patriotic support, but this time probably only in the US. The world's scepticism has reached its apogee, despite Tony Blair's assertions that he has "secret proof" of WMDs in Iraq, coincidentally uttered while in St Petersburg, Russia. There was a joke a while back that some Russian general was going to get rich soon. If that fails, an Iraqi scientist's "confession" might do. According to the Guardian (June 1), this drama "follows a week in which Government and intelligence sources appear(ed) to have changed their story on the likelihood of finding WMDs on an almost daily basis." While British leaders are forced - by public opinion - to do some sort of soul searching, the Americans do not seem that perturbed. Paul Wolfowitz casually stated that the pre-war spectre of WMDs was merely "bureaucratic", something that was useful to psyche up a nation for war. A statement like this would have caused a riot even in "less democratic" capitals, but not so in Washington DC.

The tergiversations of US officials, which, certainly doesn't follow old Nicolaus' cosmic laws, may yet carry them through, with the active connivance of well-paid stooges in the mainstream media. America has always been a country struggling with collective solipsism. It's hard to blame the people. The roots can be traced to founding fathers like James Madison, who according to Noam Chomsky declared that the new republic's ethos was "to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority," or the "great beast", as described by Alexander Hamilton. This plutocratic blueprint is being etched even deeper into soul of the society. Freedoms purportedly enshrined in the US constitution are systematically being dismantled. The Patriot Act II and its concomitant tools of social emasculation are just the latest manifestation. A society hooked to the factoids of the elite, beamed to homes in spectacular audio-visuals, accompanied by cheap casuistry, will tend to believe the long anthology of glorified myths i.e. Vietnam was a great patriotic war. It may be difficult to tell the citizens of a superpower, marked by their egregious geographical illiteracy about the frauds perpetrated abroad, or even within. The criminal media is loath to mention that many developing nations have a more humane and accessible health care system. There are hardly any allusions either to niggling facts like the frequent hunger facing 30 million Americans or that the benevolent Uncle Sam has the highest rate of child poverty among industrialized nations. (Institute for Food and Development Policy (1998) Or, even the ultimate irony - the nation that seeks to impose "freedom" abroad has the highest concentration of inmates in jail. The heart of capitalism has a large constituency of the lumpenproletariat. Karl Marx must be laughing in his grave. This is mass hypnosis on a scale never seen before. For while Hitler had to brutalize his population en route to power, a similar feat is accomplished in the US through a Fabian Orwellianism of the most furtive kind The population mustn't be sufficiently informed, otherwise someone like Ralph Nader would hijack cherished American values. What was his share of votes during the last elections anyway? In the meantime, as always, whoever sits on the White House can rest assured, barring those little ruffles of life that most human do not have the privilege to face. Pennsylvania Avenue is not paved with gold, but it certainly is littered with mind-numbing propaganda, hagiographic novels and Airforce One-type Hollywood flicks. There is a tangible difference between the New World and the Old Europe.

Tony Blair, on the other hand, is sweating right now. It has nothing to do with a lingering dessert heat that may have melted him to deliver an unusual "common touch" speech before his troops. Those five-minute stirring words in Iraq recently were a rather conspicuous departure from his usual didactic assaults on Doubting Thomases. The Guardian described that the British troops were on "their best behaviour" no applause, quite unlike that raucous, jubilant scene on USS Lincoln when a fighter jock landed on May 1. Photo shots of a young child thankfully singing Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star, and a grateful kiss by a schoolboy will certainly not cool the temperature at Westminster, where a growing number of MPs, for whatever reason, are revving up their rage over a medley of deceptions that forced a nation into war. Perhaps, the British aren't just getting the sub contracts they were hoping for and its payback time. More likely, the Old Europe that Britain actually belongs to is better-informed, more cognizant over international affairs and individual rights, and demands greater public accountability. They have free or government subsidised healthcare and education, besides a more humane welfare safety net. The trade unions in Europe are stronger, and worker rights are not something to be taken very lightly. There is already talk of a wealth tax in Germany while George Bush is doing just the reverse. A good sociological treatise may throw up the fundamentals of this phenomenon vis a vis the US. For quickie insight, forget Foucault or Baudrillard, just watch Anne Robinson's quiz show, The Weakest Link. One might routinely find British housewives, caravan operators, firemen and clerks scintillating with their general knowledge. I once watched Robinson's specially made show for the US audience, where the transatlantic deficits in worldview were glaring, despite the similarity in social class, and a pretty military officer of rank. That's the difference between the Old Europe and Uncle Sam, though Rumsfeld's elucidations result in freedom fries, freedom toasts and "freedom letters?" Take this further, and a Quebecois becomes a Freedom Canadian. For a man who thinks that all human beings have an IQ like his president, I wouldn't put it past him to utter those words one day.

Many paeans have been sung about the special Anglo-American ties. The British government has long advertised its special leverage on successive White House administrations and this fantasy is eagerly played up by Whitehall Mandarins. Public fears must be allayed that the fountainhead of the Greatest Empire ever has not been reverse-colonised, yet. Whatever the illusion, Chomsky, describes modern Britain as "much of an independent actor as Ukraine was in the pre-Gorbachev years." There are historical facts to support such cynicism. One defining moment was the embarrassing Suez Canal crisis in 1956, which destroyed the career of Prime Minister Anthony Eden. It seems a livid President Eisenhower despatched Secretary of State John Foster Dulles to remind Eden who was boss with a crisp "Whoa Boy." (It must have momentarily relieved Eden of his liver problem, which later killed him anyway. Apologists claim excess bile led the Prime Minister into that irrational enterprise. It doesn't explain how he convinced the French and the Israelis to act as fellow mercenaries.)

Then of course, there is that well-known funnelling of transatlantic funds into IRA coffers from sympathetic Irish Americans, an issue that was brought up in UK dailies when there was much outrage expressed over Islamic charities that funded Al Qaida, post Sept 11. Again, Blair came to the rescue, pledging wholehearted British support; backed with a revisionist account of how the US stood by their ally during the Battle of Britain (not true really, unless certain convoys carrying logistical supplies - for profit- sailed into the horizons of victor's history. The US only entered the fray after Hitler declared war). The very same Britain that has the compulsive urge to enforce "peace" elsewhere needs Clinton and Dubya to sort out the messy Northern Ireland issue, on supposedly sovereign British territory. So, why self-relegate once own proud nation into a secondary role? Someone needs to do the dirty work and the ones most beholden are the ones entrusted.

The coalition of the willing included not only Blair but also others like Jose Maria Aznar and Silvio Berlusconi, whose populations again, were against the war. Again, why do these leaders actually risk their incumbency by supporting an unpopular, illegitimate action? As for Blair, he can always franchise his image rights to Pedigree Chum or whatever poodles love, Berlusconi might be going to jail, so what the heck, anyway? As for Maria Aznar, who knows? This is not the first time that the thin red line called vox populi vox dei had been deliberately crossed, disregarding a democratic electorate, for which there is only one rational explanation - the background role played by the rarefied eyries of high finance. These are occupied by invisible creatures who, from their lofty vantage points, decide which course a nation state should take. For these movers and shakers, opaque veneers are needed, cloaking them with legitimacy. Politicians can disregard their electorate but not their paymasters who can both re-engineer a comeback or open that closet full of skeletons. And just who are these mysterious people? Oh, this clique can never be totally penetrated, and all attempts leave behind a trail of conspiracy theories ranging from ludicrous UFO fairy tales to a very revealing image of a pyramid on the greenback. No other image symbolises elitism and a pecking order for humanity than that multi-tiered structure which narrows at the top. It well reflects what the Founding Fathers had in mind, for their society and beyond.

Political machinations can generally be sleuthed out, but financial ones are far more slippery. For example, China's former Kuomintang Prime Minister T.V. Soong was alleged to have held a large stake in General Motors while his family kept on duping American citizens over their Christian credentials and their wanton usurpations of US aid. (Time magazine's founder, Henry Luce played a magnanimous role in this). The truth is now out, except perhaps where the GM connection is concerned. There is a branch of historians and sociologists who claim that the whole truth will never be known for sure. We just get a semblance or worse, an illusion of reality. The gaps are filled with conjectures (sometimes correct) or as Gore Vidal puts it "conspiracy stuff is now shorthand for unspeakable truth." He may be right. After all, total power is more easily applied through total invisibility. For every snafu, politicians can take the flak. That's what international fall guys are for. Wasn't it Mayer Amschel Rothschild who purportedly said "Give me control of a nation's money and I care not who makes the laws?" If it wasn't for him, and his brood, Waterloo would have been won by Napoleon, there would be no freedom fries and this article would have been written in French. Ne c'est pas? There might not have been a Suez Canal either, or, it would have flowed along another historical course. So, what if Blair was recently voted as the Worst Briton during a recent poll? Someone else can fill his shoes.

The "special relationship" between UK and the US is most likely due to a permanent interlocking of financial interests, with the same Overlords coordinating policy. It explains the UK government's servility, tough it would be grossly unfair and incorrect to extend this state of mind to the British race.

Britain's equation in this relationship changed a long time back. During the Yalta conference in 1945, Churchill was chagrined to note that President Roosevelt was paying more attention to Stalin. The latter two had a prior understanding that British Imperialism was no longer needed. It was, more or less, contained in a note delivered to Stalin through Joseph E. Davies, Roosevelt's former envoy to the USSR in May 1943. The victory over the Germans was in, financial terms, rather pyrrhic. The sun was finally setting on the British Empire and it wasn't Mahatma Gandhi who effectuated this, rather the prospect of bankruptcy. Any claim otherwise doesn't hold much ground. With the right resources, it doesn't take much to subdue a huge region as the Israeli existence amply testifies. Rationing in Britain went on till the Queen's coronation in 1953. Britain now had to play a new role, not a very painful unless one brings up questions like national pride and sovereignty. That is reserved for issues like the Euro. Hugo Young of the Guardian recently wrote of "the strangest diplomatic axiom ever laid down by a prime minister - that British policy must be guided by the need to protect Washington from isolation." Why? Does the sole superpower need protection from a far lesser power? Or is Blair either carefully guided or hopelessly delusional?

The Old Europe's qualms towards the Iraqi war could be explained by the existence of a more detached financial power base, if only slightly. They can be reconciled, as money is the universal lingua franca, not English. Notice the new rapprochement between Chirac and Bush? Iran is being warned in Russian as well.

In the meantime, we are treated to another merry-go-round fanfare about the Middle East peace process, or the Palestinian Solution or whatever it's called. For the main actors involved, it's a great opportunity to master the art of gambit and verbal mendacity. This time, the US seems "serious," after much statesmanlike "persuasion" from Blair, to which Ariel Sharon ripostes with the self-incriminating term "occupation" for the first time. ("Occupation" was hastily corrected to not "ruling" Palestinians restricted within high-walled ghettoes, meaning illegal settlements can remain). Well, the US presidential elections are around the corner and after that Judea and Samaria or Eretz Israel can be loudly proclaimed again. It's significant that Bush recently paid a visit to Auschwitz while in Poland. We don't have to wait too long. Just look at the pre-negotiation constraints forced upon Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas. There are many ways, after all, to rip up any road map to shreds besides bus bombings at Jaffa Street. Another famous visit to the Temple Mount alone, "for religious reasons," can negate prior, "sincere" pledges.

During Nazism's zenith, one toady got Hitler into a paroxysm of laughter when he offered to present a decorative chest that would preserve all the treaties the latter had torn up. Perhaps Blair could offer something similar to Bush. A giant replica of Long John Silver's chest would be nice as it could accommodate volumes of documented lies and certainly more than 15 dead men. Plus, a bottle of rum too! Yo ho ho!

Copyright 2003 Mathew Maavak
June 3, 2003

In yet another sign of caring for our troops, Bush's 2004 budget not only doesn't increase funding for Veterans Affairs, but effectively cuts that budget. See today's The Daily Mislead, President's Spending for Ex-Soldiers Falls Short of Promise to Give Them "Priority" Treatment .

A last, bridging disrespect and campaign 2004 publicity, Bush has told the media to not cover the arrival of soldiers killed in the "war of terrorism." According to Dana Milbank at the NY Times (10/21/03) the Curtains Ordered for Media Coverage of Returning Coffins.
From the article:

Since the end of the Vietnam War, presidents have worried that their military actions would lose support once the public glimpsed the remains of U.S. soldiers arriving at air bases in flag-draped caskets.

To this problem, the Bush administration has found a simple solution: It has ended the public dissemination of such images by banning news coverage and photography of dead soldiers' homecomings on all military bases.

Oh well. so much for "support the troops."

Moussaoui has been in custody since August of 2001. He was picked up on an immigration violation. The Justice Department sought the death penalty for him because of his (alleged) involvement in the events of 9/11/01. Now they state that he was not involved.

This man has admitted to being linked to al Qaeda, but denied all involvement in the crimes with which he was charged. The Justice Department actively pursued the death penalty knowing that he was not guilty of the charges. Moussaoui is still not free, and it is possible that he may end up a Guantanamo for the remainder of the "war on terrorism."

This admission by the FBI clearly demonstrates just what the Justice Department is doing with its expanded powers, and how little "justice" has to do with it. Ashcroft tromped all over the country trying to sell the value of the U.S.A. P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act, and how effective it has been. He was doing that pitch to garner support for a strengthening and expansion of power under "Patriot II.

Last week, the last of the "Portland Six" admitted to involvement in supporting al Qaeda. They did this as part of a plea bargain with the Justice Department. The DOJ here too had "secret evidence" and "secret witnesses." The admissions were largely greeted as a vindication that the government was doing a "good job" and that the U.S.A. P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act had served us well again. But had it? It is claimed that many of those being tried as "terrorists" are entering guilty pleas on lesser charges. They are doing so under the threat of being held as "enemy combatants" for the duration of the "war on terror." The pleas at least give them a determinate sentence.

A defense is virtually impossible when the government claims its powers of "national security," secret evidence, and secret witnesses who cannot appear in court. ("Take our word for it, this is true information" says the government). One of the issues in the Portland SIx cases was the use of FISA to purportedly gain information. FISA was created to deal with foreign agents, and did not apply to US citizens who have constitutional protections. Most of the Portland Six are US citizens, but the U.S.A. P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act removed their constitutional protections.

How far will the government go? Well, if it hadn't been for Judge Brinkema it might have meant the death of a man known to be innocent of the charges of which he was accused.

Other Information
U.S.A. P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act stands for "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Apporpriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism"

Brinkema ruling - Government Lawyers Fear 9/11 Ruling Threatens Qaeda Cases, Shenon, NY Times, 10/04/03.

The basic problem with the above quoted information is that sexual identity and sexual orientation are two very different things. The basic assumption here is that everyone is heterosexual. Therefore, if folks don't act heterosexual it is because they are really the "opposite" sex on the inside (brain, hormones whatever).

However, our sexual identity (whether we perceive ourselves as male or female) is a totally different issue than who we are emotionally and sexually attracted to. Further, if sexual identity is truly linked to sexual orientation, then what "sex" do bisexuals" feel they are? And what is their 54 gene distribution. Further, what about those who are attracted to their same "internal" sex identity? In other words, males (with the right gene combo for male sexual identity) are attracted to other males (with the appropriate gene combo for male sexual identity)?

Underlying the problem is a belief that a physiological difference (one's sex, and now apparently one's self perceived sex) fits into a socially constructed phenomenon - sexual orientation.

This stuff drives me nuts. A couple of years ago they were arguing that sexual orientation was set in the womb because of changes in development reflected in cochlear (inner ear) development. Lesbians had more "masculine cochlear development, gay males more "feminine" cochlear development, etc. Sameproblems as this study (as far as I'm concerned) with linking these differences to sexual orientation.

This does not mean that I think that sexual orientation is a choice. I don't know what spaes it, but my guess is it is complex. Further, it seems to devlop very early - along with other aspects of our identity, and is relatively resistant to change (as are most parts of our self identity). Sexual orientation is a short hand labeling for a very complex process. Essentially, what the sex one is (in this case either physically or in our brains) and what sex (or sexes) one is intimately drawn to. As with most simplistic labeling and categorization, it totally misses the richness of who we are.

You can duplicate my process and find out other information by going to the US Department of Education and looking at their reports. Or, you can use their data extraction tool the CCD build a table - which is what I did.

The results are not totally accurate, because selecting different options seems to give different totals, but here is what I found.

Comparing the number of students who received free or reduced cost lunches as an indicator of "economic disadvantage," and comparing that to total student enrollment for 1998 and 2001, I found that alost 5 million more children are receiving free or reduced cost lunches in 2001 than in 1998 - an increase of roughly 8.5 %. [Free/Reduced 1998 - 12,598,056, 2001 - 17,387,793; Total Students 1998 - 46,538,585, 2001 - 47,687,871] These numbers are interesting in themselves because while there was only about a 2.5% increase in the total number of students in PK-12 education, there was roughly a 27.5% increase in those in economic need.

However, the above information was really not getting at what I was looking for so I tried the Nation's Report Card. This site has a map that you can click on and get the following type of information:

The information below is for the state of Texas.
Student Characteristics
Number enrolled: 4,163,447
Percent in Title I schools: 57.7%
With Individualized Education Programs (IEP): 11.9%
Percent in limited-English proficiency programs: 14.5%
Percent eligible for free/reduced lunch: 45.4%

Racial/Ethnic Background
White: 40.9%
Black: 14.4%
Hispanic: 41.7%
Asian/Pacific Islander: 2.8%
American Indian/Alaskan Native: 0.3%

School/District Characteristics
Number of school districts: 1,254
Number of schools: 7,761
Number of charter schools: 243
Per-pupil expenditures: $6,5391
Pupil/teacher ratio: 14.7
Number of FTE teachers: 282,846

So, the number of disadvantaged students has gone up, and there is a claim of 85% in the Houston schools (which I couldn't verify).

One might ask what the big deal is. Well, the 25% increase nationally could be a relflection of the economy going down. Or it could be a reflection of something perhaps more significant - the flight of those who can afford to take their children out of public schools. I deeply suspect that this is driving the increasing numbers of "economically disadvantaged" schools.

Back to the NOW report and how this relates.
It seems almost certain that the Texas schools cooked the books to get their figures. They "disappeared" students who dropped out, and they switched students to special programs (special education, english as a second language, remedial classes, etc) to take them out of the standardized testing mix. This obviously has dramatic negative impacts on students as well as presenting a totally false impression of the effectiveness of standardized testing and accountability. Further, as these students have effectively "disappeared," then programs to help them (such as tutoring or GED classes) are also no longer needed or the demand is significantly under estimated and under funded.

The other issue that Bush supports is essentially ending public education through "voucher" programs. Voucher programs are not going to serve poor families and the money for vouchers comes out of the public education budget. This leaves even fewer resources for those who are trapped in an organized effort to defund public education.

The seemingly increasing numbers of economically disadvantaged schools also become part of another downward spiral. As those with resources remove their children from public schools, they may no longer feel inclined to bear the cost of supporting schools that their children do not attend. Therefore, public support for education funding goes down at the same time that structured efforts undermine the education system.

The social and personal costs of this trend are significant and increase inequality and disadvantage at the same time it makes the problem seemingly "disappear."

I am not arguing that the public education system is perfect. There is no way that it could be with the historical structured inequality and the current policies that are driving it into the ground. I do believe that public education is critical in the US, and that to decimate it will cost us dearly. It also cruelly writes off those children and families for whom the public system is the one hope to improve their lives economically.

The Texas debacle points to the mechanisms of contriving data to say what you want - regardless of the impacts of that contriving.

Iran almost certainly wants to become a nuclear power, and it has nothing to do with being "evil." It is for all the reasons that Israel secretly went nuclear, for all the reasons that South Africa secretly went nuclear before the end of apartheid, and for all the reasons that North Korea has gone nuclear. When you have determined enemies, and especially when they include, as they do in Iran's case, the world's great power, nuclear weapons must appear reassuring.

This is certainly the case for North Korea, another country branded as "evil," and Bush is directly responsible for destroying a framework of understanding and cooperation with that country established through years of hard diplomacy, all in the interest of bluster and demonstrating how tough he is. There have been many threatening words and activities aimed at North Korea under the Bush version of foreign policy, as for example significant changes being made to the deployment of American forces at North Korea's southern border.

The United States has invaded and occupied Iran's neighbor, Iraq, has pointedly designated Iran as "evil," and during the long and vicious Iran-Iraq war, it supported the aggressor, Iraq, even to the point of shooting down an Iranian airliner in error without so much as a proper apology and disgracefully tolerating Iraq's extensive use of chemical weapons. The older generation of Iranians must remember, too, that the United States overthrew their democratically-elected government and supported the Shah who for decades terrorized all who opposed him. Much of the excess of the Iranian Revolution sprang from grievances over that.

Of course, we have to put in the balance the so-called Bush Doctrine, a rather exalted-sounding expression for a crude threat against anyone suspected of wrong-doing by America's narrow and paranoid reckoning, something that has sent shivers through much of the world and will almost certainly drive still others towards more sophisticated weaponry. My, what a contribution to peace and stability.

Israel launched an attack against Syria (again using those American weapons supposedly restricted to defense), claiming it was against bases harboring terrorists. The President of the United States almost welcomed this open act of war, whose stated reason remains about as well demonstrated as Iraq's strategic weapons stockpile, but then Bush had talked around invading Syria himself before coming to understand into what a hornet's nest he had heedlessly thrust his fist in Iraq.

Someone in Gaza has killed Americans. It may well have been an accident because it truly does not serve the interests of residents. One has to admire the restraint shown by Palestinians all these years since America has hurt them many times with unfulfilled promises and unbalanced policy, a situation now grotesquely pushed to extremes by Bush. Almost any brutal thing Israel does is an act for peace. The Palestinians are told even who their leader cannot be and are treated like wayward children by a President himself never elected to office.

Sharon's concrete-monster wall, called a neighborly-sounding fence in the odd political language of Israel, continues abuilding, taking additional Palestinian land here and there as its millions of pounds of concrete are poured. The wall effectively serves as a giant tourniquet applied to the arteries of any future Palestinian state, but that almost certainly is the idea, a new and less violent approach to ridding the area of undesirable residents. Greater Israel remains a dream for many, but especially for the party in power and its key allies.

I just received an e-mail vividly reminding me of that. It was from an Israeli still dreaming about Arab states taking the Palestinians, even naming the places they might go, as though these economically-depressed places with some of the world's highest birthrates could absorb about 3 1/2 million immigrants. In his dreaming there was no awareness that he truly was describing a form of ethnic-cleansing, no awareness that the hideous Nazis tried exactly same thing during the 1930s. Their effort to export Germany's innocent Jews, to expel those their blind ideology insisted were a problem, failed. This man's dream, too, cannot but fail, and God knows where that will take us.

[John's pieces appear in Counterpunch, Online Journal, Yellow Times, Media Monitors, Scoop, and many other sites. This was sent as a guest submission to Uncommon Thought. John Chuckman can be reached at [email protected], [email protected], or [email protected]]

With this context in mind, Resolution 1511 essentially says (once again) that Iraq is a sovereign nation whose sovereignty rests with the people of Iraq. It gives interrim recognition to the Governing Council of Iraq, and reinforces that the "Coalition Provisional Authority" is temporary, and will cease to exist when an internationally recognized government is sworn in (item 1).

Calls on the Coalition Governing Authority to turn over governnance to the people of Iraq as soon as possible (item 6).

Asks for a transition timetable no later that 12/15/03 (item 7).

Reinforces the desire to see a larger UN role in Iraq (item 8).

It authorizes a multi-national force under "unified command" to help in peacekeeping (item 13)

"Urges" member nations to participate in peacekeeping and aid to Iraq (item 14).

And sets the resoultion for review no later than 10/16/04.

This is not the resolution that the US wanted, but its passage does reflect a desire on the part of the Council to not be endlessly split and the desire to tell the people of Iraq that the UN is deeply interested in seeing authority return to their hands, and their nation rebuilt.

There are two very good discussions of the Resolution and what it means at Foreign Policy in Focus: A Fig Leaf to Cover Occupation by Phyllis Bennis 10/16/03, and Threading the Needle: UN Resolution 1511 and the Iraqi Occupation by Ian Williams, 10/16/03.

Summary of the study:

The united States (and UK) conducted a strategic influence campaign that:
- ... distorted perceptions of the situation both before and during the conflict.
- ... caused misdirection of portions of the military operation.
- ... was irresponsible in parts.
- ... might have been illegal in some ways.
- ... cost big bucks.
- ... will be even more serious in the future.

For all the information packed within Gardiner's report, perhaps the most concerning is that the powers that be see these activities as so successful, that they will do more of them in the future.

As is already known, the spin doctors are out with the PR campaign to convince the US public that the lies are truth - even going so far as to repeat stories that have already been disproven. Information can uundermine lies and misdirections. So, my recommendations? Look over the report. Save it to disk. Share it with others.

While this report is not the only compilation of information surfacing, it does have credibility behind it. We seem to be living in a time of lies and outright fairy tales where the bluring of reality and fantasy is becoming increasingly difficult to determine. My guess is that this process will become more artful rather than less.

I have also placed the link under "Featured Articles" for easy access.

But there is more, Halliburton (and other US contractors) are importing South Asian workers to Iraq. Yes, even though the unemplyment rate in Iraq is running around 60%. I guess that the imported labor is still cheaper (Six in Ten Iraqis Unemployed, but U. S. Subcontractors Hire Cheap Migrant Laborers, The Daily Mislead, 10/16/03).

Just in case you wondered, Veep Cheney has no interests in these profits even though he is still receiving deferred payment from Halliburton. He claims that if he gets any profit from exercising his stock options he'll give the proceeds to charity (Maragasak, 10/16/03). Is that only while he is Vice President? One would think that he may be out of office long before Halliburton has finished raking in the bucks in Iraq.

But fear not, because in this war "god is on our side." So claims Lt. Gen. William Boykin, a new deputy of defense whose job it is to track down terrorists (Top terrorist hunter's divisive views, Myers, NBC, 10/15/03). Here's some choice quotes from our lead terrorist hunter:

"Well, is he [bin Laden] the enemy? Next slide. Or is this man [Saddam] the enemy? The enemy is none of these people I have showed you here. The enemy is a spiritual enemy. He's called the principality of darkness. The enemy is a guy called Satan."
Why are terrorists out to destroy the United States? Boykin said: "They're after us because we're a Christian nation."

.....

During a January church speech in Daytona, Fla., Boykin recalled a Muslim fighter in Somalia who bragged on television the Americans would never get him because his God, Allah, would protect him: "Well, you know what I knew, that my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God, and his was an idol."
The Somali was captured, and Boykin said he told the man: "Mr. Atto, you underestimated our God."

And what about "our man in the White House?"

Boykin also routinely tells audiences that God, not the voters, chose President Bush: "Why is this man in the White House? The majority of Americans did not vote for him. Why is he there? And I tell you this morning that he's in the White House because God put him there for a time such as this."

So by extension I guess that US contractors are also "God's soldiers", and certainly "God" wants to see "his" chosen children prosper.

p.s. Boykin is going to refrain from his church and prayer group presentations for a while as he doesn't "want ... to be misconstrued. I don't want to come across as a right-wing radical."

To coin a phrase, "God forbid!"

The US has also not only failed to give a cautioning word to Israel about its attacks in Syria and Rafa, but is proposing sanctions against Syria as a "state sponsor of terrorism. Further, there has been no word of caution to Israel in its announcing to willingness to use its nuclear armament anywhere, anytime, it sees necessary for its "defense."

The Bush Administration had put forward a "road map" which is now obviously a map to nowhere. By its lack of action and leadership, not to mention blatant support for Israel's recent actions, the US has lost any credibility as an impartial negotiator between Israel and Palestine. Instead, by both our silence and our actions we have clearly affirmed a perception that we are firmly in Israel's corner no matter how outrageous its actions.

This affects our possible influence and credibility (whatever remains) with the rest of the Middle East and most likely South Asia as well. While the governments of the region may feel (and temporarily bow to) the influence (threat) of the US, they will not stand for long if the public rises up in outrage. But then perhaps that is the aim of all this seemingly counterproductive activity.

If US policy in the Middle East follows the the direction of the rest of Bush Administration policy, stability means chaos, democracy means totalitarian rule, and peace definitely means war. Chaos certainly serves the US (and western) military industrial complex, and also provides for other opportunistic deals and actions.

Looking at what is happening with Israel and US response to it, I am hauntingly reminded of the clear effort to drive the US government (and with it the states) into economic dysfunction. The headlong race towards disaster is clear in both cases. The policies seem insane, but they are certainly insane with a mission. The question becomes what are the goals of such a destructive course (in the US and internationally)? There is certainly a lot of speculation about domestic policy, and the argument could be made that oil and natural gas are the goals in the Middle East and Southern Asia. My guess is that it is more complicated than simple answers or single purposes.

We have an escalating nuclear situation, and not just with Israel. Iran is "under the gun;" North Korea has already made its intentions clear; Pakistan is testing new missles capable of carrying the nuclear warheads it possesses; just to name a few. This is not to mention the wide availablilty of both military grade nuclear material or of the even more widely available material for "dirty bombs." We are rushing headlong towards a situation where the question is not if nuclear weapons will be used, but when nuclear weapons will be used. And likewise, the question is not whether the US will invade someone else but who will be the first on the list of invasions.

Obviously, the nuclear issue is not the only deadly weapon out there, but it is perhaps the longest lasting. Even a pandemic caused by biological weapons would ultimately "burn itself out." The use of nuclear weapons (and not just depleted uranium which is bad enough) will not be one shot and contained. If they start flying they are going to continue to fly. If Israel (hypothetically) launched a nuclear attack on Iran, then if there is nuclear capability (either state or non-state) available it will be used. Russia, who stands by Iran, would very likely be put into the position of possibly putting their nuclear forces into play, and if they do the US definitely will (if we haven't already). Pakistan (our purported ally) might be drawn into firing their nukes in support of the US, which would definitely not go over well with India (who also has nukes). Nor with China who also has nukes and definitely would not like Russia and the US waving their missles and bombs.

There are those who would say that no one would be crazy enough to set such a cascade of disaster into motion. I hope those folks are right, because from where I sit there definitely are those crazy enough to do just that.

While at this point this scenario seems likely to me, it is not inevitable. The PEOPLE have to force the POLITICIANS to stand up and stop this. This is more than a risky game that is being played. It is not Russian roulette with one bullet in the chamber. It is Russion roulette with three bullets in the chamber, and more bullets are being added with each round of insane action. There is too much instability, too much unpredictability, and too much fear and anger to just let things follow their own course.

Lets take the last the two momentous events alone – Sept 11 and the Gulf War 11. Momentous depends on what Power tells you. How many remember the Bangladesh floods, which killed 140,000, sometime around Gulf War 1? Even the Muslim media was more troubled over the liberation of Kuwait and its bloody aftermath. While CNN cheered, through Kuwaiti Sheikhs who gleefully waved off bombing missions from US bases, most of the region demurred, at best.

What is generally perceived in the West may be entirely different somewhere else. Osama bin Laden is the devil incarnate to some, but he is also a hero to many. That’s what sanitised news tries to avoid. Saddam is definitely a monster but to many Bush is the greater evil. In between, mainly in the West, there are individuals holding a variety of opinion over one event like Sept 11 alone. What is this leading to? A global consciousness?

In ancient times, an invading army could wipe out an entire race, erasing any trace behind. Communities without a written tradition had the added disadvantage of leaving not enough jigsaw remnants for an anthropologist or archaeologist to piece together. As species become extinct daily, without even getting the dignity of a Latin/Greek nomenclature, mankind too has lost its countless tribes, never to be known. Furthermore, it’s just not possible in some regions to maintain delicate tomes. The weather would turn it into mildew within years, unless you had a dedicated priestly/intellectual class who could maintain an unbroken line of descent and scholarship i.e. the Brahmins of India. This may be one reason why those with ancient written traditions, with extant documents, still dominate human endeavour. They have the recorded pedigree or myths that are so essential for identity. Notice the ferocious revitalisation process going on in Iran while the Saudis are regressing in practically everything, including financially. Persians can access antiquated records going way back to the time of Zoroaster while I haven’t yet heard of any notable pre-Islamic texts from the Saudi Peninsula. There might be, but likely stored elsewhere now. The Saudis lack, or aren’t allowed an alternate ancient connectivity, leaving them choked with limited interpretations and philosophical plurality. Sept 11 can be engineered easier in such conditions.

Japan progressed at a breakneck speed when four monsters, one carrying Commodore Matthew Perry, appeared unannounced at Tokyo Bay. Their presence petrified a nation, which, in less than a century, could sacrifice the Yamato, the greatest battleship of its time, in a chivalrous way. That’s the versatility of a society that could produce and maintain a classic called The Tale of Genji, and others, spanning millennia. But while Japan had to be reckoned, the perceived untermensch, with nothing much to offer for warring aliens, got weeded out. The Indians provided a wealth of knowledge, technology and most of all, a huge market for its one-time British masters. The Australian aborigines and Native American could offer limited novelties like boomerangs and tepees. Nothing has changed. The arrows of time still travel in a linear manner, with all our atavistic instincts intact. But it is travelling faster now, with mankind struggling to keep apace.

Some of the history you read is just plain dung. Of all established fields, it’s the most imprecise as a good degree of it is the victor’s version. The official US death toll in Vietnam, as quoted by honest historians, is around 58, 000. The actual sum is probably double, mainly suicides from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. There is no difference intrinsically between an instantly blown up body and a ticking time bomb. Nobody gets it right all the time in this field. But this could be attributed to an innocuous cognitive factor or unresolved data. This doesn’t excuse the outright lies still found in our textbooks.

China’s last Dowager Empress Tzu Hsi was regarded as lascivious, ‘murderous old Buddha’ who garrotted her nation until recent scholarship, especially by Sterling Seagrave, portray an entirely different character. That of a hapless thoroughly manipulated lady, deserving of empathy. Thankfully, Seagrave was honest enough to clarify this legend (in the Dragon Lady), a U-turn from a brief reference in his previous work (The Soong Dynasty), by accessing more recondite records instead of relying on the ‘factual’ chimera of a sex-crazed psychotic called Sir Edmund Backhouse (who claimed to have had a steamy affair with the lady). Historians rubber-stamped his twilight zone encounters and falsifications, as Backhouse was an indispensable source for benighted Far East correspondents from venerable dailies. Together, they generated Western indignation over this oriental Jezebel, made worse as her Ahab or Ah Seng wasn’t around. You will also find too many references to an attempted 1936 ‘rightwing’ coup in Japan, which later proved convenient for exonerating Emperor Hirohito. The dailies are still around today, historical repositories that retain their vintage halo, churning out the same drivel, watered down but better packaged, yet quintessentially the same. Recall all those commentaries, editorials and expert analyses about the famous 45-minute claim, WMD, Al Qaeda links, and tons of viruses that were supposedly compacted in mobile labs?

Apart from the victor’s scripting, communications itself gets inflected over time, even inadvertently. The hidden signals between communicators take a life of their own, and the message gets varnished and grated along its way to distortion, redolent of Michael Polanyi’s Tacit Dimension. The sole eyewitness account of a nervy lady will differ from that of a cool, silk-stockinged soignée. Facts sometimes depend on whom you listen to.

Heard about the looting at Baghdad’s museum, its subsequent rebuttal and the reassertion of most of the original reports? Thankfully, despite their mistakes, we have some of the world’s finest reporting on this. Better yet, what about the daily conflicting reports emanating from either side of a Green Line separating two “cousins”? (The Israelis claim its DNA certified). One side will choose to keep one side of any story; the stuff racists and tyrants of all types thrive on. William of Orange’s legacy resulted in blown up kids centuries later. Elvis will always be alive to some, but Bin Laden will be venerated by the hordes. St Bernard can be denounced by his own people now, but never so with Saladin. Will Saddam and Bin Laden become swear words in their region after two or three generations? That much is precise, as history will show you. The global village is not possible, except under a particular scenario. How do you unite mankind in this information age when even the most outlandish claims are recorded for posterity? Both Saddam and Bin Laden may one day receive Saladin’s mantle, not for their non-existent moral qualities but more for their defiance, slowly ossified to create a monolithic symbol of sanctity. After all, how are the Jaffa Street suicide bombers or the former Stern Gang’s terrorist surpremo Yitzhak Shamir regarded, alongside Huntington’s seismic fault lines? If you soak in that historical novel O’ Jerusalem, Shamir was eclipsed by an Arab Doppelganger named Fawzi al-Kutub. At the time of writing, a search for this elusive figure scored 72 hits on Google, with only three sites actually relating to him, in three separate ways. And this was the bin Laden of his day? But if you think our search technologies are still primitive, and as reliable as our histories, read on.

Now, as (dis)information is stored in incalculable zeroes and ones, what will it augur for our children? Well, in this information age, we are developing separate histories, potent and unparalleled, because we have the repositories for them. The myths or knowledge in an ancient edifice can now be compacted in a few tiny CDs, perhaps just one. Information overload causes emotions to be swayed by the herd. The solution? Genuflect to power and be selective! Delusions are safer than the truth in many a circumstance. Records will be kept for another generation, who will fight for a cause they didn’t know was hollow in the first place. The fictions of yesterday might become the gospel truth of today, all for a murder tomorrow. Even for those descendents of slain pagans, the spoils of Jihads and Inquisitions, who now profess other faiths. Who cares if your good ancestors went to hell?

If it weren’t for prior widespread dissemination, the knowledge at the library (or libraries) at Alexandria would have been lost forever, and in the process, impoverish mankind. Luckily, as the story goes, the great library also had a rival in Pergamon. However, there are three claimants for vandalism’s crowning glory - Julius Caesar, Patriarch Theophilus of Alexandria and Caliph Omar of Damascus. That’s definitive history for you. The Mongol hordes led by Hulagu razed Baghdad’s library in 1258 until the Tigris turned black with the ink of its ravaged documents. Was that Baghdad looting recently an unstoppable, mindless act then? Or an attempt to macerate the soul of a society capable of great regeneration?

Separate histories spawn a tenuous global link and competing power centres. It’s fissiparous and a New World Order cannot be effectuated when we have conflicting grievances. For the master builders, there is one ominous solution. Pop songs, satiated with the word “love” are showing us the way. Something like this had been predicted long back, but the manner it is developing may have surprised even Foucault. We have finally crossed the Rubicon into the Age of Total Surveillance.

Notice how record companies have been hunting down music pirates with stunning speed and efficiency in recent weeks? Downloading Yazoo’s Nobody’s Diary might entail weeks of foraging at US stores (its not an American genre) unless you resort to Amazon.com. Either way, you cough up for the unwanted peripherals. The primrose path may land you in big trouble. But that’s not the point. Is this a trial run for things to come, despite RIAA's very recent setback at the courts? Invading people’s privacy through their “friendly” service providers to probe for some illegal melodies is simply Orwellian. These tools can be used to extricate your sweetheart’s photos or insert child porn as well. Use your imagination; the possibilities are boundless. Third World tyrants will drool over such tools to staunch ‘terrorist’ activity. Assuredly, they will be given to ‘allies’. As Bush discharges a logorrhoea over ‘our freedom’ and ‘terrorists’ intent on destroying ‘our nation’, his team sure have got their priorities right. Shared MP3s, for our listening pleasure, have superseded “coded” terrorist messages in that coloured level of threat. In recent weeks, a pirated Whitney Houston was stark red. Grandmothers are now scared stiff when a threatening letter is issued all coz a young, suicidal soul in the house takes daily inspiration from Don McLean’s Starry, Starry Night or a divine gospel hit. This intrusive juggernaut was not developed overnight, even if Big Brother had 1,000 MacGyvers working round the clock for months, post Sept 11. It was planned long back and brought to fruition recently. Net savvy older people, who remember those laborious snail mail days, still pause to marvel at e-mails that are despatched thousands of miles away in seconds, for free. But there is a saying ‘there is no such thing as a free meal’. We are hooked, a society of electronic junkies!

Sept 11 was a great opportunity to ramrod ‘anti-terrorist’ bills that a cowed society acquiesced for its ‘freedom’. Now its MP3s, next what? You can bet that the Unabomber’s manifesto will still be around and so will terrorist proclamations. Are these the same ISPs that unknowingly foster the freedom ‘to kill’ by hosting the Anarchist Cookbook and another refreshing title called The Terrorist's Handbook and How to Make Bombs? The former offers recipes for confecting anything from atom bombs to rocket launches for less than five bucks! (Guardian, July 1, 2000). A good steak costs more. This gourmet classic has panned out well; it is still around. Now, at least, we have the freedom of ‘speech’, the freedom to bear arms but not the freedom to steal ballads. If the music industry thinks it has scored a coup, it can repay any benevolence by playing the Badenweiler March - country-style - the next time Bush trots up to deliver his State of the Union speech.

For the next stage, passions have to be inflamed until hell never freezes and then comes the grand nostrum - total surveillance, promising security, peace and freedom in exchange for a real-time detailed oversight of your life, even when you switch off the lights for those moments of love. Is this a ridiculous thought in an inured, callous society? Mutilated corpses elicit dutiful indignation from journalists over TV while an hour later, kids vicariously blow up limbs on the PC. Flesh that was once covered is bared for all, and children in Britain – a supposedly conservative society – are televisually coached in the fine art of copulation way before a number of them attain teenage pregnancy. Check out some programmes there that start at 9pm, when the night is still young enough for tender minds to think that sex is cheap, more of a casual, bestial drive than an act of love. That’s freedom of speech but a bunch of Anglican evangelicals who oppose gay bishops get excoriated badly by UK’s media zealots. The two-state solution we parrot about in the Levant somehow can’t be applicable to the church. You call this a clash of civilisations? But separation is applicable elsewhere, even in other houses of worship. While in UK, a Hindu friend of mine who accompanied a Muslim colleague to a mosque, was politely turned away at the entrance, by the same friend. It seems it was haram (forbidden) for non-Muslims to enter. It’s not an isolated case. Now, what is our doughty religiously correct British Press doing about this? Jesus Christ can be odiously depicted at elegant art galleries, without inviting a lynching, but Salman Rushdie’s attempt at prose creates an international crisis. Rushdie is always on their minds, apart from deep-set editorial policies and imposed social norms. For heaven’s sake, a bare-legged, ‘short-skirted’ Princess Diana can grace the Badshahi Mosque in Lahore, Pakistan in 1991, drawing additional fury when she was presented with a copy of the Koran as well (Reuters, Aug 1, 2002). The same ilk now claims she had converted to Islam before that fateful crash. This is a country where teenage girls get horribly murdered just for chatting up a boy (a sin called khalwat or “close proximity”). Here is another irony. The very khateeb (an Islamic religious official) who welcomed her had issued a fatwa against Benazir Bhutto from becoming Prime Minister. Simply because she was a woman (later retracted)! The Pope had a Damascene experience at the famous Omayyad Mosque in Syria. Since John Paul II wore papal robes, he was heartily lionised. Double standards, that reward raw power, arouse otherwise dormant or nonexistent sentiments, and many gladly gravitate to another power base called the Far Right, instead of listening to some dumb, intellectual mealy-mouthing. This may not be a game of appeasing a minority but another where we are allowed to reach a boiling point, beyond which its time for the ogres to offer their panacea, that of a one-size-fits-all universal control. And that’s just one strand in the master plan.

There is another law working – the conflict between a heteropian modi vivendi and those unbearable pressures towards conformism. We like personal PC settings, special ring tones and custom-made cars. All the while, our plurality is dwindling rapidly. We have become impoverished linguistically, culturally, morally and even sartorially. Believe me, those pricey haute couture is just a montage of the original stuff. We are converging in many ways. We wear the same suits, sit on the same Ikea sofas and lose our mother tongues for an alien language, while the family mores of yore (the good ones) languish. Was Christmas more enjoyable 50 years back? I keep wondering as the post-modern era is one of atomised existence. On Christmas, expect children to celebrate the occasion with a relative while their mother maintains a bank’s database and the father prowls a few floors below as the security guard. My Muslim acquaintances tell me that their Eid ul Fitr is no longer as joyous either and it has nothing to do with Palestine or Iraq. They blame it on changing attitudes, modernity and even prosperity. The days of innocence and simple joys are long over. Add in the avalanche of daily simulacra and you will know why Jean Baudrillard said, “We live in a world where there is more and more information, and less and less meaning.” The result? An agonised self mired in cynicism, groping for order, reality and tranquillity. Things should be simplified, and there are selfless souls ready to do this for you. Old Adolph did, even with books, and that guy from Crawford ranch is doing his best. This is the future Faustian pact we might have to make. Anything that stands in the way might face thunderbolts from a Cyclopean superstructure as The All Seeing Eye will know where you are. The All Seeing Eye will know where you are. In the end, we get not an idyllic global village, but a ghettoed planet. And we will finally enjoy one version of everything. Don’t worry; it will be unlike the crude, Angka-indoctrinated nine-year-old Khmer Rouge’s lethal view on spectacles. Ray Bans, personal ring tones and other superficial choices will proliferate.

There is still hope. Ignore those fatalistic doomsayers. The arrows of time can yet be deflected.

Copyright 2003 Mathew Maavak
Aug 6 2003

Other reports of low moral have also been all over the news, along with the lack of adequate supplies and food. Combine this with unspecified delays in leave from Iraq. The call up, and for some the repeat call up, of Reservist and Guard forces has put a lot of folks on extended active duty with desperation at home and in the field. I would imagine the stress is incredible. Of course, it doesn't help that Rumsfeld's little experiment of using as few troops as possible stretches everyone thin. It seems likely that there are also inadequate support personnel in Iraq as well inadequate troop strength?

While the Bush Administration rushes around legitimating its actions and talking about how good things are going in Iraq, these types of reports paint a rather different picture.

Obviously, Israel is following suit. North Korea has been waving nuclear possibility as a negotiation tool and a defeterrent to US aggression. Iran is alleged to be developing nuclear weapons capability - they already have chemical.

But the troublesome news of the day is a move in NATO policy (NATO could change process for deploying troops Squitieri, USA Today, 10/13/03).

NATO officials, trying to turn their alliance into a potent machine to fight terrorism, are considering an unprecedented plan that would allow the military body to respond to specific crises without the approval of every member nation.

Who in NATO would decide when troops would be sent and where, and with what mission? The arguement is that there needs to be the capability for more rapid deployment, and for an expansion of available troops to deploy.

This approach, to me seems tantamount to the national version of preemption and similar to the illegal power give to George Bush by the US Congress. It creates a situation where someone - without reasoned discussion with representatives- can decide to launch troops into a conflict.

According to the article:

US soldiers driving bulldozers, with jazz blaring from loudspeakers, have uprooted ancient groves of date palms as well as orange and lemon trees in central Iraq as part of a new policy of collective punishment of farmers who do not give information about guerrillas attacking US troops.

The stumps of palm trees, some 70 years old, protrude from the brown earth scoured by the bulldozers beside the road at Dhuluaya, a small town 50 miles north of Baghdad. Local women were yesterday busily bundling together the branches of the uprooted orange and lemon trees and carrying then back to their homes for firewood.

Nusayef Jassim, one of 32 farmers who saw their fruit trees destroyed, said: "They told us that the resistance fighters hide in our farms, but this is not true. They didn't capture anything. They didn't find any weapons."

Other farmers said that US troops had told them, over a loudspeaker in Arabic, that the fruit groves were being bulldozed to punish the farmers for not informing on the resistance which is very active in this Sunni Muslim district.

"They made a sort of joke against us by playing jazz music while they were cutting down the trees," said one man. Ambushes of US troops have taken place around Dhuluaya. But Sheikh Hussein Ali Saleh al-Jabouri, a member of a delegation that went to the nearby US base to ask for compensation for the loss of the fruit trees, said American officers described what had happened as "a punishment of local people because 'you know who is in the resistance and do not tell us'." What the Israelis had done by way of collective punishment of Palestinians was now happening in Iraq, Sheikh Hussein added.

This is an unjust and indefensible military response in my opinion - whether the US is doing it in Iraq or Israel is doing it in Palestine. This goes beyond destoying a "crop" which might possibly be replanted. This is akin to sowing the land with salt so that it can't be used. These are orchards. These are the food supply and livlihood of the community. These are "crops" that will not be able to produce for perhaps decades.

To further engage in such retaliation in such a manner moves the message from what might be possibly stretched as a warning to one of we have total power and there's not a thing you can do about it. These types of actions (and the way they are carried out) are certainly not going to "win hearts and minds." These are the types of things that fan anger, resentment, and are a gold mine as a recruitment tool against the US. For those in the US who have only self-interest at heart, it also directly increases the danger of troops and aid workers in Iraq (and elsewhere).

As reports like this leak out of Iraq, one has to wonder what is not getting out. I have to also ask the unpopular question of when actions transition into something else. When does US activity move from supposedly legitimante activity to occupation and outright repression? When does supposedly terrorist activity move from terrorism to people fighting for their liberation?

The media can label the attacks on troops and other symbols of US presence in Iraq as "terrorism" with all the emotion that conveys. But what is the message being sent to the people of Iraq when troops fire on protesters, raid homes, and bulldoze orchards as "punishment?" What are legitimate activities of "war" (which we say is over)? On the other hand, what are acts of "terrorism," and what are acts of "resistence?" I guess that one could say that this depends on who is doing the defining, but it would seem that there must be a clearer ground than simple opinion here. If not, then anybody can justify anything.

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But is big brother cautioning little brother to not be foolhardy? No.

Congress is debating further sanctions on Syria for being a "state sponsor of terrorism," and the US is blocking even a condemnation of Israel's attack on Syria in the UN Security Council (Sharon Acts Tough, Sensing U.S. Assent, Weisman, NY Times, 10/12/03).

Of course, this is not being received well by Syria - Syrian Official Says Relations With U.S. Plunge to New Low, MacFarquar, NY Times, 10/12/03). One would imagine that it is not being well received by others whose support we need in the Middle East either. If the US is clearly supporting (as well as arming) Israel's "get tough" show of force, then what legitimacy does the US have in relationship to brokering an Israeli - Palestinian settlement? What legitimacy does the US have if it supports one nation (Israel) to follow its path of preemption and use of lethal weapons, while telling other nations (Iran and North Korea most visibly) that they cannot take that path.

Surely, there is a hypocrisy here that can't be excused away by the "US is under constant threat of attack." For crying out loud, we have told the world that they are all under that threat - from the US.

The Bush administration is proposing far-reaching changes to conservation policies that would allow hunters, circuses and the pet industry to kill, capture and import animals on the brink of extinction in other countries.

And the high level thought capabilities behind this ingenious plan?

GIVING AMERICANS access to endangered animals, officials said, would feed the gigantic U.S. demand for live animals, skins, parts and trophies, and generate profits that would allow poor nations to pay for conservation of the remaining animals and their habitat.

Yeah, go ahead and read that twice. US demand for live and dead animals on the verge of extinction will fuel the economy of "poor nations" so they can pay for conserving what's left.

Of course, the animals in question are endangered and on the verge of extinction. Removing a few to feed "gigantic" US demand shouldn't make much difference. Noah was able to rebuild the entire biosystem of the planet with 2 animals of each species. Oh yeah, and God only started with one, but we won't say that we are god. That's all you need right? WRONG. You can't rebuild a healthy population with two animals, or even with ten. Inbreeding, you know, leads to all sorts of problems such as birth defects -- and decreased intelligence. (Anybody know the family trees of the neo-cons? I've heard there has been a fair amount of inbreeding at the top levels of the hierarchy).

Watch the petition sites for this one and sign up quick.

On the other hand, the White House IS part of this system, and operating within the framework of "the rules" (and laws), operating within the framework of "national security," "patriotism" (as defined by the neo-cons), the Bush Administration deserves to be investigated and exposed on this issue. Both because of the criminal nature of the act, but also because of the deep hypocrisy it reflects.

However, it feels like a massaging of presentation, or at least allowing misperception to prevail, to attack the hypocrisy and danger of blowing Plame's cover without some sort of caveat about my position on the CIA. To not do so plays the same game as the Corporate Media in shaping opinion.

While I don't support the CIA and the way it does business. I also don't support blowing Valerie Plame's cover. I believe that the criticism and attack on the White House in relationship to this issue is totally justified. But, in doing so I (personally) don't want to be interpretted as supporting the system that has been violated.

Some would (and do) argue that a "liberal" president wouldn't get "attacked" for the things that a "conservative" president does. They would (and do) argue that it is about political agenda - not honest outrage. I totally disagree with those claims and perceptions. The Bush Administration deserves more penalties and scrutiny than it is likely to get for what it is doing and how it is doing it (secrecy and working against the true interests and needs of the public and the democracy). ANY administration - be they Democarat, Republican, or Green - should be exposed and mobilized against if they engage in the kinds of things that this Administration has. HOWEVER, by leaving out the broader bias that I have, my concerns can be perceived as political expediency.

As a teacher, I have been shocked and dismayed more times than I can count by students' interpretations of what I have said in class. So here I am trying to clarify. I don't feel that I am being hypocritical in my concerns about the Plame situation, but it could certainly be interpretted as hypocritical or disingenuous.

So there you have it - my attempt at intellectual honesty.

But he outdid himself this time. His description of anti-social behavior on a global scale as support for the world community must have provided a sophisticated audience interesting dinner topics. One can imagine the bons mots around the subject of the world's most incorrigible, obvious liar claiming he defends UN credibility. As with Dostoevsky's Father Karamazov, it was as though all his recent vicious and disturbing behavior had simply never happened.

Of course, he sees the UN as good for a big handout towards the financial and human cost of rebuilding the waste he made of Iraq. This may seem odd for one of those "we ain't a gonna pay no damn UN dues" types, but, remember, psychopaths are complete narcissists.

But a handout is not Bush's critical need. Facing an election, he is looking for ways to deflect growing criticism and doubt from American voters. Americans have been remarkably quiescent over the dirty wars in Afghanistan and Iraq because they cost so few American lives and provided a reassuring sense of the nation's vast capacity for revenge, even if they killed mostly innocent people and few or any of those associated with 9/11.

But night after night of car bombs and dead American soldiers on television have a way of changing perceptions. America's press, "embedded" with the Pentagon long before the term was invented for the Iraq war, often poorly reports around foreign policy, but it simply cannot resist blood-and-ambulances stuff with real American victims. With this continuing week after week, it is likely more Americans will see the Iraq war for what it was - nothing to do with justice or democracy or rights or even terror - but one more kill-a-commie-for-Christ campaign, only on a vast scale with high-technology killing and no commies. And, as with all previous such holy wars, it just happens to serve the interests of America's utterly selfish foreign policy.

The UN is widely misunderstood in America, a circumstance people of Bush's leaning have always diligently cultivated, and its involvement on any appreciable scale gives Bush something external and vaguely-disliked to manipulate in explaining all the violence and confusion yet to come as a people revolt against conquest, occupation, and misery.

International involvement gives room for maneuver, wiggle room, and can be twisted with words to serve many purposes, including the claim that it vindicates Bush's wisdom, all those do-nothing, effete foreigners finally coming to recognize the threat of terror - and, yes, he once again with unblinking dishonesty linked terror with Iraq during his UN performance, terror being, with the bitterest irony, Bush's best ally in garnering votes. Iraqis fighting back with limited means against the world's military and technological Frankenstein naturally has to be called something else, so it is called terror, just as violent resistance to endless occupation and abuse in Gaza and the West Bank is.

Psychopathy likely is one of those many glitches in the gene pool, an evolutionary trial-and-error that served a useful purpose before modern urban society, psychopathic warriors being valued for their ability at defending early human settlements and terrifying potential enemies. Probably most of our legends of monsters such as vampires or ghouls derive from human experience with all-too-real psychopathic personalities.

Psychopaths are valued to this day as torturers for secret police, assassins, and dirty-tricks operatives for intelligence services. Police and prison-guard services who are careful about their hiring screen out such people with tests (there are extremely reliable ones), since psychopaths are naturally drawn to work where others will be at their mercy.

As with many mental disorders, from depression to schizophrenia, there appears to be degrees of psychopathy. The father of the late Jeffrey Dahmer, a man who killed, consumed and memorialized portions of his victims in his Milwaukee apartment, wrote a courageous book after the discovery of his son's horrific deeds. He recognized in retrospect signs from his son's childhood that something unusual was developing. He also, very importantly, recognized that there were uncomfortable thoughts he had had as a young man which now might be understood as a milder inclination in the same direction.

Politics with the power of elected office and the glow of press attention surely is a draw for at least the more moderately afflicted. There is reason to believe that psychopathy helps explain the careers of some horrible and bizarre politicians. The example that leaps to mind is the late Senator McCarthy. Yes, he was a nasty drunk, but lots of drunks function in politics without becoming destroyers of others' lives. The great Winston Churchill, for example, couldn't get through a day without his brandy.

How do you get rid of a political psychopath like Bush? Well, I hope the Democratic party doesn't see its only option as simply running another one. The Democratic contenders include at least a couple characters who might well qualify as having the disorder.

The armed forces have always been natural repositories for these dark creatures, the work of killing and the skill of being able to do it with relish making good fits. We have a general who suddenly discovered at nearly sixty years of age that he is a Democrat. What that means in the context of the general's military experience, which includes probable war crimes and extremely hazardous judgments in Serbia, is not clear.

We have a Senator who always smilingly supports death, whether as part of American foreign policy, Israeli foreign policy, or in prisons.

Maybe that's just how it has to be in a vast bloated empire that pretends it represents principle. After all, you need to keep all those disagreeable foreigners in line. Statesmen and humanitarian leaders aren't very good material for the job.

[John's pieces appear in Counterpunch, Online Journal, Yellow Times, Media Monitors, Scoop, and many other sites. This was sent as a guest submission to Uncommon Thought. John Chuckman can be reached at [email protected], [email protected], or [email protected]]

Now another tiff is highlighted and being downplayed between Rice and Rumsfeld, and for now Rice has won.

In a weird twist of politics or loyalty, Rumsfeld has had Iraq taken from him. He wasn't in on the transfer apparently (see Rumsfeld 'Not Told' of Postwar Shake-Up, Spiegel, Financial Times/UK, 10/07/03). The authority in the reorganization of post-war Iraq (if you think it IS post-war) is Colin Powell, Secretary of State? No, folks it is Condoleezza Rice - the National Security Advisor. An interesting choice I'd say. Of course it might have been more telling if Tom Ridge of Homeland Security was put in charge. But wait... Ridge might have been a logical choice as FEMA is under Homeland Security (along with the liasons of all the intelligence branches). Yep, that might have made some sense, but then it really would have looked like we were annexing Iraq - a bit too blatant perhaps. But then the National Security Advisor seems a bit blatant as well. Looks like both Rumsfeld and Powell are temporarily "benched."

There is also that (fading from the news) investigation into the White House leak, and poor Ashcroft's conflict of interest - support the team or do his job. So far he is trying to take a supposed middle ground, where there is an investigation but the White House calls the shots. My guess is that it will be the public that will have to push this one as it is clear where the investigation is heading - nowhere.

Here is one of my favorite quotes in the new campaign:

"It is undeniable that Saddam was a deceiver and a danger," Bush said. "The Security Council was right to demand that Saddam disarm and America was right to enforce that demand." (Bush defends progress in Iraq, MSNBC, 10/09/03)

WHOA! So Saddam lied and had dreams of grandeur and that is why the US invaded Iraq and overthrew the government? Boy does that set a precedent. Who else do we know who deceives and has dreams of grandeur? Hmm, have to think about that one.

He is also arguing :

"There's a lot more to investigate," he said. "Yet, it is now undeniable, undeniable that Saddam Hussein was in clear violation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1441," which threatened Iraq with "serious consequences" if it failed to disarm.

And this is the party line from Rice:

"Right up until the end, Saddam lied to the Security Council. And let there be no mistake, right up to the end, Saddam Hussein continued to harbor ambitions to threaten the world with weapons of mass destruction," she said. (Bush Adviser Rice: Saddam Never Disarmed, Dizon, AP, 10/08/03)

The only thing that is "undeniable" is that Hussein didn't turn over his weapons of mass destruction (which he obviously didn't have) and that he did not go into exile as the US (not the UN) demanded. I am somewhat unclear what was actually violated, and the UN Security Council apparently had similar concerns which is why they wanted more time for inspections - not a rush to invasion - so the US went its own way.

A lot of the same claims are coming out now as in the PR push prior to invasion, though couched in even more nebulous terms than before. Supposed findings to support the old WMD claim are thrown out - once again without substantiation - and with the twists that have become so characteristic of this administration.

The hedged assertion is that Hussein had "ambition" to "threaten the world." The logic being that if he had the "ambition" that he would act given the opportunity (Dizon, 10/08/03). Unfortunately, the reason for the preemptive invasion of Iraq was based on selling the idea of actual possession of "wmds" and the structure to deliver them in "45 minutes." It was NOT based on ambition with no materials in hand to make the threat imminent.

What is clear is that Kay and crew have found nothing to suggest that Hussein had existing nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons. They have not found that any existing manufacturing facilities or delivery mechanisms - nor the infrastructure to construct them. They have not found massive stockpiles of the ingredients for either chemical or biological weapons. They apparently DO have "reports" from folks who have purportedly volunteered information that these things (or plans for these things) existed.

One thing that is prefacing most to the reports on the Administration's new push on legitimating the Invasion of Iraq is that it is a "PR campaign" in response to slipping poll numbers and a vote on the requested $87 Billion in additional funding. It is also being pushed at a time when the Administration is trying to: downplay the felony "leak" of information about Valerie Plame; a seemingly escalating level of unrest and death in Iraq; troops stuck in Iraq without adequate equipment; news reports of troops on leave having to pay their own air fare home, pay cuts for those troops, the charging of wounded personnel for their food while in the hospital; and let us not forget - campaigning and fund raising for the 2004 election.

An array of environmental groups fought sustained court battles to keep the Navy from deploying their LFA system. Ultimately, they were allowed to deploy it with some restrictions (totally minimal and apparently ineffective). The Department of Defense is virtually excluded from compliance with either environmental laws and from the Marine Mammal Protection Act. With the new findings in hand, the NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council) is heading back to court.

The Navy denied that their sonar had any negative affects on marine mammals (or other sea life) even though it was loud enough to explode the ear drums of human divers at under 1/4 mile). Whales, dolphins, and porpoises, use sonar for communication and navigation and there is evidence that their calls can be heard around the globe. Therefore, the LFA system which is much "louder" could also have global seas effects on marine life.

It is unknown at this time what impact the new findings will have on the Navy's deployment of LFA. We can hope that they are banned from using it.

PRIDE passed out of the Senate Finance Committee on September 10, 2003, and Grassley hopes for quick movement of the bill. According to Grassley's own summation of the bill in a press release:

Highlights of the Personal Responsibility and Individual Development for Everyone Act (PRIDE)

The following provisions are maintained from current law:

No individual entitlement
Five year time limit
Same core activities for work
Maintain funding level for TANF block grant
Maintain supplemental grants at current level
States can count up to 12 months of vocational education as meeting work requirment
States can count minor parents in school as fully participating in work
Maintains current sanction policies

Strengthens Work

Increases the work participation rates for states 5% each year, from 50% in 2004 to 70% in 2008.

Eliminates the caseload reduction credit (which has erased most states' obligation to ensure that ANY TANF recipient is engaged in work) and replaces it with an employment credit which emphasizes good jobs.

Caps the credit, so that the states have a real participation rate. The value of the credit is phased down so that in FY 2008, all states must have a real work participation rate of 50%. Most state now have an effective participation threshold of 0.

Increases the minimum threshold for participation in core work activities from 20 to 24 hours.

Increases the standard weekly average number of hours from 30 for parents with a child over six. Adopts a tiered approach, assigning credit along a range of hours, with the standard hour at 34.

Increases the standard weekly average of hours from 20 for parents with a child under six. Adopts a tiered approach, assigning credit along a range of hours, with the standard hour at 24.

Ensures that every TANF family has a plan for achieving self-sufficiency. States must prepare a plan for every family receiving assistance and in most cases that plan should involve some amount of work or work readiness activities.

Improves State Flexibility

Allows states to claim partial credit for hours work below the standard hour. Currently, a recipient only counts toward the work participation requirement if the recipient meets the standard hour.

Allows states to engage individuals in a broader range of activities, including job search, substance abuse treatment, post-secondary education and training and other barrier removal activities after the 24 hour threshold of core work activities is met.

Allows states to engage adult recipients in a broad range of activities, including: substance abuse treatment, post-secondary education and training and other barrier removal activities for six months out of 24 months.

Allows states to determine, on a case-by-case basis, whether or not to count families towards their participation rate in the first month of assistance.

Makes contingency fund more accessible to states.

Promotes Marriage and Family

Provides $100 million a year in matching grants for marriage promotion and $100 million a year for research, demonstration and technical assistance primarily related to marriage.

Adopts the Domenici/Bayh/Santorum bill to promote responsible fatherhood

Includes a special rule relating to a single parent caring for a child or dependent with a physical or mental impairment.

Improves child support collection, assignment and distribution

Increases child care spending for the current unmet need, consistent with the Budget Resolution

The major changes are increasing work requirements and increasing promotion of marriage. The first change of requiring high work levels of those receiving aid seems irresponsible at best. Since GWB the country has lost 3 million jobs and growing. In this economic atmosphere of large unemployment, and under employment, and ongoing job loss, welfare recipients are placed into an impossible situation. Failuyre to meet the increased requirements makes them ineligible for needed aid.

This job loss is also being reflected in the continued growth in the number of those living near or below the poverty line. As discussed in a previous post,
Win one lose some - TIA down poverty up (9/26/03), the poverty level is rising fastest in the suburbs and among married couples. The implications here are troubling, as higher skill level folks (generically speaking) are now going to be competing with those having lower skills and job barriers for two scarce resources - temporary assistance and the jobs necessary to receive it.

Further, the bill proposes $200 Million to promote marriage and abstinance. Well, if the rate is growing among married couple, it is hard to see how promoting marriage is going to do anything. Further, promoting abstinance also seems questionable as I know of no studies that indicate that these programs are effective in reducing teen sexual activity.

I am beyond frustrated with the policy implication that women and women's sexuality is what creates poverty. Women with children are not in poverty because they aren't married, but because of wage inequalities between men and women and the low pay of most women's occupations. Welfare Reform, the ammendments to it, and now PRIDE all tell women that they should find a husband or stay in bad marriages in order to remove their families from poverty. Many single mothers are single mothers because of domestic violence, or the absence of the fathers for a variey of reasons. (Some men just take off, but many are quite bluntly - locked up. There is clearly a relationship to the war on crime and drugs and the absence of fathers from their children's lives.)

Placing poverty on women's shoulders also means that other areas of economic dysfunction and chaos don't have to be addressed - declining economy, exportation of jobs outside the country, growing economic disparity as those at the top of the economic spectrum pull further and further away from the rest of the population, or even the dramaticaly increasing cost of living. These other economic issues are reflected in the changing demographics of who is poor.

While abstinance training seems gender neutral, it is in fact aimed at telling women to abstain - not men. It assumes that women are ultimately responsible for sexual activity and the consequences thereof. THat is why women who are afraid to give the names of the fathers of their children because of incest, rape, and domesticvc violence are denied support for "noncompliance." It is pretty clear that women, particularly young women, may not have anywhere near the level of "say" in this matter that politicians (overwhelmingly male) want to believe. It is an interesting paradox that male status is strongly linked to sexual prowess and conquest, but "she made me do it" is the justification for everything from rape to out-of-wedlock fatherhood.

So it comes down to controling women. Women are told to "get married and stay married" regardless of the situation. Women are told that they are to "blame" for both sexual activity and the consequences thereof. How is this different that what women are told in elswhere in the world (say Afghanistan and Iraq - see Women Please Be Patient this journal). Will we soon be seeing that women in the US also need to present themselves both anonymously and chastely (cover up any "tempting" physical attributes, and stay inside their homes)? Somehow it does not seem to be a far stretch from where we are.

See also
HR4 Thomas Guide current version of the bill Put on the Senate Calendar (Item 305) on 9/10/2003.

The reason I suggest this possibility (even though I am not convinced it is true) is an article in the NY Times by Jeff Gerth (10/05/03) - Report Offered Bleak Outlook About Iraq Oil . Prior to the invasion of Iraq, the Administration (including the major planners of the invasion and post invasion - Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz et al), had in hand a Pentagon-based task force report about the weakness of Iraq's oil infrastructure. The reported higlighted the reality that Iraq's oil production was diminished, and increased production a long time in coming. However, the response to questions about the cost of reconstruction always stated that much of it would be financed through Iraq's own oil.

This assertion goes along with assertions about the level of threat Hussein posed, weapons of mass destruction, links to terrorism - especially al Qaeda, etc. All things which were and are unproven or outright fabrications. We have the complaints out of the Intelligence community and the Pentagon that there was pressure to find the evidence to support the claims; pressures to present information in specific ways. All of this seems so deliberate that one can't help thinking that it is intentional.

But there is something else we know about the inner circle of the Bush Administration. They belong to a highly conservative (and fundamentalist) clique on the whole. Many have interacted at the highest levels in this clique (and in politics) for a very long period of time. They are insular. That means that they largely communicate primarily with each other, assign projects to their appointees and go outside the framework of their agencies (DoD for example) to get the reports they want. They listen primarily to each other and they share a world view and agenda. Some have referred to this structure in the current administration as a secret government.

But if we step back, another possibility emerges. Not a group characterized by liars, but a group engaged in group think. Indeed, we might almost characterize this group (and their extra-governmental associations) as a cult, or secret society. The information with which they make decisions filters through a very narrow lens of belief and intent. Their intense insularity reinforces their perceptions and beliefs about what is real.

Within the framework of this is also a shared perspective of the position and role of the US in the world, how that should be attained and maintained, and the creation of a global theocracy reinforced by the full military and economic hegemony of a their vision of the US.

There is a zealotry that is openly held by various members of this group, and promoted as making them the adjudicators of morality and right. They feel it is their mission to lead the uninformed and unwashed to the "new world." They feel that they are the superiors of all. They have a strict hierarchy which dictates that their actions should unquestioned, and blind obedience is mandatory. Opposition to this view and approach are dealt with harshly. "You are with us or against us" period. No debate, no conversation.

Within this framework, they may feel fully justified in taking actions that are immoral, illegal, and deadly because the fulfullment of "the plan" takes preeminence. We may be seeing an a disasterous example of "the end justifies the means." These are "God's soldiers." In fact, they may see themselves as "God's Generals."

It is a frightening scenario. At least as frightening as a group engaging in a conspiracy to highjack the country, and the world. In this scenario, they truly believe their own rhetoric, AND they are willing to lie and deceive and kill to fulfill the "higher purpose."

The outcomes are obviously similar whether one thinks this is a cabal with a higher purpose, or a cabal with the intent of furthering their own self interest. The problem is that in pushing the "moral authority" of neo-fundamentalist Christianity, they pull upon the values and legitimations of Christianity in the US - God is on our side. This garners a high level of emotional support which translates into both political and popular support for the agenda. If instead, they are a self-interested cabal, that is, at the very least, distasteful to most in the US and undermines moral, political and public support. If they are shown as a self-interested cabal focused on a long term strategy of power and domination, and pandering Christian values support to further their control, that might also boomerang on them.

Why bother to even look at these different issues? Well, how one reaches and influences the different populations supporting the administration changes depending on which perception is held. The groups who agree with the religious higher calling may overlap with, but are different from, the "patriotic" America First folks. And both of those groups may be very different from those who are led along by rhetoric and misdirection in the name of democracy.

In Iraq under Saddam Hussein, women faced largely the same controls as males, but were remarkably free to pursue education and occupation. For all that Iraq was a dictatorship, it was a secular dictatorship. Women in Iraq are among the most educated in the Middle East.

Now Iraq is "liberated" and the conditions for women are rapidly deteriorating. Women are being ridiculed, kidnapped, attacked and raped. But fear not, a "democracy" is being established.

There is a logical fallacy in the argument that "womens' rights" somehow are second to liberation. In the US, during the leftist and civil rights movements of the 1960s and 70s, women were told that "their turn would come." Or that somehow women's social equality would naturally flow from other struggles for equality. Seeing that was not happening, women started organizing for our own equality.

Somehow, consistently, women's conditions are subordinated to, and considered less fundamental than, the "people's conditions." When these kinds of distinctions are made, who then are the "people?" If you extract women's equality and participation from the collectivity of "people," what remains are men. Men's concerns and conditions; men's freedom and equality; men throwing off the yoke of "oppression;" men creating another society (or reshaping society) for the "people," and people equals men.

If there is active concern for the full participation of various ethnic and religious groups within Iraq as a prerequisite for a "democratic" Iraq, how can the group which composes over half of each of those ethnic and religious groups be excluded from the table? If it is despicable to oppress the Kurds (for example), then why is it not equally despicable to oppress women? And why can this fabrication go on and on?

The simple answer is that patriarchy systematically excludes women - whether that is the patriarchy of US mainstream society, Afghan society, Iraqi society, etc. But underlying the process is the conceptual doublethink that "people" and "human" equals everyone when in fact it consistently means "men." Further, because we are so used to this conceptual machination and the systems that support it, it seems only appropriate that somehow the health and freedom of the "people" supercedes the health and freedom of "women." There is more than a suggestion that women are somehow being selfish and cruel to assert that their issues be considered and accommodated. "Step back ladies, we'll get to you."

Excluding women from the processes of the society, especially the reconstruction of societies, seems doomed to recreating the same structures over and over again. Some would argue that this is a cultural issue, and certainly culture plays a huge part in this, but there is something bigger than culture. Certainly in US international policies the often brutal conditions which women experience is not a significant barrier to political and economic exchange. Despite global pleas for pressure to be placed on the Taliban because of the brutality of Afghan women's lives, the US (and other nations) continued to support the Taliban. It only came up as a public political issue to help justify the invasion of Afghanistan and overthrow of the Taliban. Of course, women are not "equal" in the US either though the myth exists that we are.

So I posit the radical notion that the denial of rights and oppression of women is equally important as the denial of rights and the oppression of any other group in a society. Underlying this notion is that women ARE those other groups and one cannot separate them out from "the rest of the population" seeking a better life.

Articles of interest
Where are Iraq's Women? Westcott, BBC, 5/08/03.
Iraq: Women's Rights Put on Hold, Pejman, IPS, 10/04/03.
WOMEN IN AFGHANISTAN: A human rights catastrophe Amnesty International 1995.
The Plight of the Afghan Women, Afghanistan Online.
Beaten, Abused, Chained. This is One Afghan Woman's 'Liberation' Monakhov, Observer/UK, 10/05/03

The US really can't say anything as Israel is following in the US policy footsteps. That path of preemption and attacks across borders without consulting nations was set by the US after the events of September 11, 2001. Shortly after the US announced its intention to pursue and attack terrorists (and states that support terrorists) any time it chose, with or without UN Security Council input, with or without the agreement of other nations, Israel began a major invasion of Palestinian terrorities. This escalated the current (extended) round of attacks back and forth.

Now Israel has followed the US again by attacking Syria (or at least within Syrian borders). Once again, the US has been there, done that. It is US policy (now). How can we say to Israel anything other than it's a bad idea. Interesting as there is some concern of this escalating violence ain the region, but the US invasion of Iraq is promoted as stabilizing. Maybe if Israel had tried a "regime change" in Syria the US might have been publiclly supportive.

Not unexpectedly, we now hear IDF denies launching air strike on targets (Harel & Ash, Ha'aretz, 10/06/03). The claims counter each other. IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) claims that two vehicles fired at them from the Lebanon side of the border. Lebanon claims that IDF fired on the cars. Either seems equally likely as Israel's attack into Syria is virtually guaranteed to stimiulate retaliation from somebody.

One has to wonder what Israel was really trying to do. Attacking a civilian (or even a military) areas inside another nation is not going to make any friends. It is a move that seems to send all the wrong messages (to me). And it seems fool hardy unless one wants to unify groups against you and escalate attacks against you. Even if the US only wags its finger at Israel, one wonders if even we would be so shortsighted as to launch a preemptive strik on our close neighbors. It is easy to be a unilateral from afar - a different story entirely when you are within arms reach.

An Addendum of Interest
Robert Fisk has a critical article in relationship to this issue, US Gave Israel Greenlight for Attack - Raid on Syria is a Lethal Step Towards War (CounterPunch, 10/06/03). In it he discusses the Syria Accountability Act which has been moving through Congress, that if passed will impose sanctions on Syria for it's support of "terrorism" and occupation of Lebanon.

Massaging the message IS important as was also demonstrated by:

"The analysis released Thursday also correlated the misperceptions with the primary news source of the mistaken respondents. For example, 80 percent of those who said they relied on Fox News and 71 percent of those who said they relied on CBS believed at least one of the three misperceptions.

The comparable figures were 47 percent for those who said they relied most on newspapers and magazines and 23 percent for those who said they relied on PBS or National Public Radio. "

Certainly a factor in the "misperceptions" is the old addage of "if you say it often enough it must be true." And certainly all of the above lies were said or linked in context often enough to influence reality. But the wide variance across news sources also demonstrates something else entirely. That it is not just what is stated, but the web of perception in which it is stated that has a dramatic influence. It isn't really surprising that 80% of those watching FOX news believe these lies about Iraq. After all, it was not only the reporting of these Administration lines that were reported, but the supporting commentary, the outright statements that those questioning the plan to invade Iraq were unpatriotic and aiding "terrorists."

What is frightening is that these polls are not reflections of the past, but go to perceptions on mid-September 2003. In other words, even as contradictory, and even invaldiating, information has hit the US corporate media, that large numbers of people are not changing what has now become a "belief."

It is strange that this is happening at the same time that I am hearing renewed proclamations of the influence of the "liberal media." Excuse me? If anything points to the corporate media being a "liberal media," this poll (and series of polls) shows that claim to be a fallacy. But what the renewed charges of "liberal media" do something perhaps more damaging. That is to encourage people to think that current "news" on Iraq's lack of weapons, ties to terrorists, etc." are the propaganda. This in turn may lead to an actual cementing of the lies in some people's minds.

It is one of those examples of broken logic that seems so common in human perception of the world. Listening to the corporate media and believing the message (including Fox's emphasis on the unreliability and bias of other news sources) then discounting new information from that same media because of perceptions of bias.

Many would look at these polls and what is happening in the US and shake their heads as to how people can't see what is going on. After all, "It's as plain as the nose on your face." But remember that it is very difficult to see the nose on one's face, and what one does see is highly distorted. Others can see the nose on our face, we can see the nose on our face if we look in a mirror (or other reflective surface." And this tells us something very important about perceptions which requires a reflective distance. Of course. we also have the problem that others perceptions of our nose may influence us in striking ways even if we do look in a mirror.

Resources
10/03/03 Davies, NY Times, Study: Misperceptions About Iraq War Contributed to Support For It
10/02/03 The PIPA/Knowledge Networks Poll report in full Misperception, the Media, and the Iraq War

It is up for grabs what the Justice Department will now do with the case. According to what I've read there are four options.

First, they could drop the case and have charges dismissed against Moussaoui. This seems unlikely given the high profile of the case and the charges the government has claimed against him.

Second, they could take the case to civil court where the burden of proof is much lower than in a criminal case. This also seems to me to be unlikely.

Third, they could take it out of the courts all together and go to a military tribunal. This would be a huge blow to our rights, and send the dramatic message that "if the government wants you they will get you even if they have to take you outside the environment where the US Constitution prevails.

Fourth, they could appeal the case to the U. S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, and hope 1) to overturn Brinkema's ruling and, 2) prevail in the mechanisms of voiding the Constitutional rights (in particular the Sixth Amendment) for prosecution of "terrorist" suspects. If they go the appeal route, they may find a friendlier reception in the Fourth Circuit. Of the fourteen Justices currently on the Fourth Circuit one was appointed by Nixon, four were appointed by Reagan, four were appointed by George Bush I, one was appointed by George Bush II, and four were appointed by Clinton. That adds up to ten Republican appointee's and four appointees by Democrats.

Some will argue that it is unethical or unpatriotic to imply that politics has anything to do with our federal court system. But let me remind you that one of the most lasting impacts that President's have is appointments to the Federal bench. Those appointments are for life, and it is a highly political process.

The decision made by the Justice Department on how to prosecute Moussaoiu may have more to do with what message is to be sent to the people of the United States, than to Moussaoui's actual level of involvement in the events of September 11, 2001. Is the message that the government will pursue its recourses within the framework of US law, or that it will step outside that law through use of a Military Tribunal? There may be another possibility, which is to turn Moussaoui over to some other nation for prosecution. Another nation whose laws to not have the limits and controls of the US court system.

For Further Reading and Information
Government Lawyers Fear 9/11 Ruling Threatens Qaeda Cases, Shenon, NY Times, 10/04/03.