Hurricane Hugo at the U.N.

By Mike Whitney

09/18/05 "ICH" -- -- "Practically no one in the United States knows that we've donated millions of dollars to the governorship of Louisiana, to the New Orleans Red Cross. We're now giving care to more than 5,000 victims, and now we're going to supply gasoline, freely in some cases, and with discounts in other cases, to the poorest of communities, starting with New Orleans and its surroundings... We've been helping. And we've been even rescuing people." Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez; "Nightline" with Ted Koppel, 9-16-05

Hugo Chavez's performance at the UN was greeted with the bucket-loads of bile that one expects from America's rightward-titling media. Washington Post hatchet-man Colum Lynch provided a typical summary of the speech by dismissing it as "a rant" from the Venezuelan "bad-boy". But, Lynch isn't alone in his hostility; the outpouring of venom came from all corners; appearing in many newspapers across the nation, invoking the hackneyed expressions of contempt for any foreign leader who rebuffs Washington or who follows redistributive economic policies.

In fact, the speech was a brilliant and impassioned analysis of the current state of the world and of the United Nations. Chavez noted that the original intention of the gathering had been "completely distorted" by the so-called reform process introduced by John Bolton. The reforms are entirely designed to transform the UN into a cats-paw for American power creating greater flexibility for Washington's preemptive wars and for dismantling the foundations of international law. They signal the demise of the UN as a legitimate forum for world development and an invitation for Bush and co. to act with even greater impunity.

The Bush administration's maneuvering has successfully sabotaged the efforts made by the international community for real improvement. The goals of the Millennium Summit, to reduce hunger, poverty and ignorance, will not be achieved and the mission of the UN has been effectively torpedoed by Bolton's machinations. Chavez speech draws this same obvious conclusion: "Friends of the world, The United Nations has exhausted its model, and it is not all about reform. The XXI century claims deep changes that will only be possible if a new organization is founded. This UN does not work. We have to say it. It is the truth."

Chavez's remarks are not intended to disgrace the UN, but to offer a different vision for the future. He recognizes the pressing requirements of the new century and realizes that many of these problems "do not have a national solution: radioactive clouds, world oil prices, diseases, warming of the planet or the hole in the ozone layer. These are not domestic problems."

Chavez proposes his own set of reforms for the UN, including expansion of the Security Council, greater transparency, increasing the powers of the Secretary General, and "suppressing" the power of one nation to veto resolutions made by the council. But, he does not believe that reforms are enough by themselves and insists that the UN be transformed completely, beginning with a change of venue from New York to an "international city with its own sovereignty". Chavez's logic is inescapable; if the United States continues to flaunt UN resolutions and violate international law, as it has with the Iraq war, it should not be host to the world body. Chavez's suggestion was not made to humiliate the United States, but to demonstrate the urgency of the calamity the world faces if action is not taken swiftly on matters of mutual concern. Chavez takes a keen interest in these issues even though Washington chooses to ignore them.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we are facing an unprecedented energy crisis in which an unstoppable increase of energy is perilously reaching record highs, as well as the incapacity of increase oil supply and the perspective of a decline in the proven reserves of fuel worldwide. Oil is starting to become exhausted.

For the year 2020 the daily demand for oil will be 120 million barrels. Such demand, even without counting future increments- would consume in 20 years what humanity has used up to now. This means that more carbon dioxide will inevitably be increased, thus warming our planet even more."

Chavez cogently draws a straight line between global warming to the devastation of Hurricane Katrina; the first major city lost because from rising ocean temperatures. He deftly connects the tragedy to the neoliberal economic model which continues to thrust the world in a catastrophic direction.

"It is unpractical and unethical to sacrifice the human race by appealing in an insane manner the validity of a socioeconomic model that has a galloping destructive capacity. It would be suicidal to spread it and impose it as an infallible remedy for the evils which are caused precisely by them."

Chavez also defended his record as a reformer and a man willing to take risks for the sake of his own people. In one particularly stinging remark, he noted the progress that had been made in Venezuela since 9-11, while the Bush administration was busy using the pretext of terrorism to violate international law and initiate hostilities against Iraq.

"One million four hundred and six thousand Venezuelans learned to read and write. We are 25 million total. And the country will, in a few days, be declared an illiteracy-free territory. And three million Venezuelans, who had always been excluded because of poverty, are now part of primary, secondary and higher studies.

Seventeen million Venezuelans, almost 70% of the population, are receiving, and for the first time, universal healthcare, including the medicine, and in a few years, all Venezuelans will have free access to an excellent healthcare service. More that a million seven hundred tons of food are channeled to over 12 million people at subsidized prices, almost half the population. One million gets them completely free, as they are in a transition period. More than 700 thousand new jobs have been created, thus reducing unemployment by 9 points. All of this amid internal and external aggressions, including a coup d'etat and an oil industry shutdown organized by Washington."

Unlike Bush, Chavez's record is backed up by a solid performance in nearly every area of social development. Its no wonder the elitist American media, driven by their class-based ideology, has tried so desperately to discredit him.

Chavez oratory to the General Assembly will undoubtedly elevate him in the eyes of many as a serious futurist who offers genuine solutions for a war-ravaged planet. His personal fortitude and optimism are matched by his selfless conduct as President; working persistently on behalf of his people and strengthening global relations. His iconic image around the world is well deserved.

"We will fight for Venezuela, for Latin American integration and the world. We reaffirm our infinite faith in humankind. We are thirsty for peace and justice in order to survive as species... Now is the time to not allow our hands to be idle or our souls to rest until we save humanity."

His speech was received with thunderous applause.

(Note: "Operation Balboa; the plan to invade Venezuela; President Chavez announced on "Nightline" Friday edition 9-16-05 that, "I have evidence that there are plans to invade Venezuela. Furthermore, we have documentation: how many bombers will over-fly Venezuela on the day of the invasion, how many trans-Atlantic carriers, how many aircraft carriers need to be sent to (inaudible) even during (inaudible)." The US is carrying out maneuvers at Curacao Island, and Chavez claims to have documentation to back up his allegations. "The plan is called Balboa and Venezuela is indicated as its objective.")

See also: - President Chavez's Speech to the United Nations: - Transcript: Hugo Chavez Nightline Interview:

Link Here

"One cannot help but wonder what it was all about. "

From Britian

This is a mess of our own

making

Tim Collins told his troops this was a war of liberation, not conquest. Now he says that he was naive to believe it

Sunday September 18, 2005
The Observer


When I led my men of the 1st Battalion the Royal Irish Regiment across the border into Iraq we believed we were going to do some good. Goodwill and optimism abounded; it was to be a liberation, I had told my men, not a conquest.
In Iraq I sought to surround myself with advisers - Iraqis - who could help me understand what needed to be done. One of the first things they taught me was that the Baath party had been a fact of life for 35 years. Like the Nazi party, they said, it needed to be decapitated, harnessed and dismantled, each function replaced with the new regime. Many of these advisers were Baathists, yet were eager to co-operate, fired with the enthusiasm of the liberation. How must it look to them now?

What I had not realised was that there was no real plan at the higher levels to replace anything, indeed a simplistic and unimaginative overreliance in some senior quarters on the power of destruction and crude military might. We were to beat the Iraqis. That simple. Everything would come together after that.

The Iraqi army was defeated - it walked away from most fights - but was then dismissed without pay to join the ranks of the looters smashing the little infrastructure left, and to rail against their treatment. The Baath party was left undisturbed. The careful records it kept were destroyed with precision munitions by the coalition; the evidence erased, they were left with a free rein to agitate and organise the insurrection. A vacuum was created in which the coalition floundered, the Iraqis suffered and terrorists thrived.

One cannot help but wonder what it was all about. If it was part of the war on terror then history might notice that the invasion has arguably acted as the best recruiting sergeant for al-Qaeda ever: a sort of large-scale equivalent of the Bloody Sunday shootings in Derry in 1972, which in its day filled the ranks of the IRA. If it was an attempt to influence the price of oil, then the motorists who queued last week would hardly be convinced. If freedom and a chance to live a dignified, stable life free from terror was the motive, then I can think of more than 170 families in Iraq last week who would have settled for what they had under Saddam. UK military casualties reached 95 last week. I nightly pray the total never reaches 100.

The consequences of this adventure may run even deeper. Hurricane Katrina has caused a reappraisal of the motives and aims of this war in the US. The storm came perhaps in the nick of time as hawks in Washington were glancing towards Iran and its newly found self-confidence in global affairs. Meanwhile, China and India are growing and sucking up every drop of oil, every scrap of concrete or steel even as the old-world powers of the UK and US pour blood and treasure into overseas campaigns which seem to have no ending and no goal.

It is time for our leaders to explain what is going on. It was as a battalion commander trying to explain to his men why they would embark on a war that I came to public notice. The irony is that I made certain assumptions that my goodwill and altruistic motivations went to the top. Clearly I was naive. This time it is the role of the leaders of nations to explain where we are going and why. I, for one, demand to know.

· Colonel Tim Collins gave a celebrated speech to his troops about their mission to liberate, not conquer, in Iraq. He has since left the army.

"If big media look like they’re propping up W’s presidency, they are."

Deadline Hollywood

They Shoot News

Anchors, Don’t They?

Media moguls, not looters, killed Katrina’s truth tellers
by NIKKI FINKE
Link Here


At first, only CNN appeared not to have thoroughly read the proverbial memo. It was the only network, on air and on its Web site, to compare and contrast the wildly contradictory statements by federal, state and local officials, sometimes within hours, but often within minutes of each other. It was CNN that posted the first full transcript of New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin’s profanity- and passion-filled September 2 interview on local radio. It was also CNN that first exposed the gruesome nature of the conditions at the Superdome, at the convention center and in the hospital corridors. Its broadcasters were the first to keep a heart-wrenching online blog during Katrina. Even as late as September 6, political correspondent Ed Henry was the first to counter the claims by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay that local officials and not the feds were to blame, by reporting that congressional Republicans, in a secret confab, were giving the Bush administration a big fat F.

Then the fix was in.

On September 8, CNN anchorette Kyra Phillips was chewing into House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi for “continuing to criticize the administration, and criticize the director of FEMA... I think it’s unfair that FEMA is just singled out. There are so many people responsible for what has happened in the state of Louisiana.”

Instead of smiling through clenched teeth, the San Francisco Democrat bit back: “I’m sorry that you think it’s unfair. But I don’t . . . If you want to make a case for the White House, you should go on their payroll.”

By September 12, even the White House admitted that FEMA had been its own disaster area by pushing out its Arabian-horseman-turned-jackass head, Michael Brown. (Bush finally admitted on Tuesday that the buck was going to stop with him whether he liked it or not. “To the extent the federal government didn’t fully do its job right, I take responsibility,” he said.) That same day, CNN’s parent company, Time Warner, announced the hiring of DeLay’s chief of staff as a top Washington lobbyist. This news, and its timing, prompted Jeff Chester of the Center for Digital Democracy to tell the L.A. Weekly: “Time Warner aligning itself with the right-wing DeLay machine should send shudders [down] CNN and HBO. Clearly, TW wants DeLay insurance so it won’t have to face cable-ownership safeguards, à la carte rules and broadband non-discrimination policies.”

For the first 120 hours after Hurricane Katrina, TV journalists were let off their leashes by their mogul owners, the result of a rare conjoining of flawless timing (summer’s biggest vacation week) and foulest tragedy (America’s worst natural disaster). All of a sudden, broadcasters narrated disturbing images of the poor, the minority, the aged, the sick and the dead, and discussed complex issues like poverty, race, class, infirmity and ecology that never make it on the air in this swift-boat/anti-gay-marriage/Michael Jackson media-sideshow era. So began a perfect storm of controversy.

Contrary to the scripture so often quoted in these areas of Louisiana and Mississippi, the TV newscasters knew the truth, but the truth did not set them free. Because once the crisis point had passed, most TV journalists went back to business-as-usual, their choke chains yanked by no-longer-inattentive parent-company bosses who, fearful of fallout from fingering Dubya for the FEMA fuckups, decided yet again to sacrifice community need for corporate greed. Too quickly, Katrina’s wake was spun into a web of deceit by the Bush administration, then disseminated by the Big Media boys’ club. (Karl Rove spent the post-hurricane weekend conjuring up ways to shift blame.)


If big media look like they’re propping up W’s presidency, they are. Because doing so is good for corporate coffers — in the form of government contracts, billion-dollar tax breaks, regulatory relaxations and security favors. At least that wily old codger Sumner Redstone, head of Viacom, parent company of CBS, has admitted what everyone already knows is true: that, while he personally may be a Democrat, “It happens that I vote for Viacom. Viacom is my life, and I do believe that a Republican administration is better for media companies than a Democratic one.”

When it comes to NBC’s parent company, GE’s No. 1 and No. 2, Jeffrey Immelt and Bob Wright, are avowed Republicans, as are Time Warner’s Dick Parsons (CNN) and News Corp.’s Rupert Murdoch (Fox News Channel). (Forget that Murdoch’s No. 2, Peter Chernin, and Redstone’s co–No. 2, Les Moonves, are avowed Democrats — it’s meaningless because Murdoch and Redstone are the owners.)

Once upon a time, large corporations and their executives typically avoided any public discussion of their politics because partisan positions alienated customers and employees. But all of that changed after GE bought NBC in 1986. For seemingly eons, Immelt’s predecessor, the legendary Jack Welch, was a rabid right-winger who boasted openly about helping turn former liberals Chris Matthews and Tim Russert into neocons. (And Los Angeles Representative Henry Waxman is still waiting for GE to turn over those in-house tapes that would prove once and for all whether Welch, in 2000, ordered his network and cable stations to reverse course and call the election for Bush instead of Gore.)

As for Immelt, he publicly wishes his MSNBC could be a clone of FNC. Not surprising, since he let his network and cable news cheerlead the run-up to the Iraqi war without ever bothering to tell viewers GE had billions in contracts pending. More than half of Iraq’s power grid is GE technology. It was also under Immelt that GE installed a former adviser to W and Condi, who also served as press secretary to former first lady Barbara “Let ’em eat cake” Bush, as NBC Universal’s executive vice president of communications.

And let’s not forget that in October 2004, the Republican-controlled House and Senate and White House okayed a $137 billion corporate-tax bill — dubbed “No Lobbyist Left Behind” — that gave a huge $8 billion tax break to GE, which had bankrolled a record $17 million lobbying effort for it. (Meanwhile, in that same bill, House Republicans at the last minute stripped the movie studios of about $1 billion worth of tax credits because of Hollywood’s near-constant support of the Democratic Party and its candidates.)

Disney, parent company of ABC, has turned most of its extensive radio network and owned-and-operated stations into a 24/7 orgy of right-wing talk. (Sean Hannity is their poster boy.) Disney’s chief lobbyist, Preston Padden, is not only one of Washington, D.C.’s most infamous Republican lobbyists, but he used to work for Rupert Murdoch. Bush even pleaded just days after 9/11 for Americans to “go down to Disney World in Florida.” Meanwhile, Disney World has benefited from special security measures, including extra protection and a federally declared “no-flyover zone.” And let’s not forget that Michael Eisner pulled the distribution plug on Fahrenheit 9/11.

As for Rupert Murdoch, his News Corp. continues to defy a July 2001 FCC order requiring it to divest itself of a TV station in exchange for the agency’s approval to buy 10 TV stations from Chris-Craft Industries Inc. for $5.4 billion. What, Rupert worry? This W cheerleader can rest assured that the FCC will amend its prohibition on owning broadcast outlets and newspapers in the same market.

And lest anyone think there’s no connection between Murdoch’s business and editorial, several news organizations have noticed a détente between the New York Post and Senator Hillary Clinton because Rupert needs congressional Democrats on News Corp.’s side to oppose a change in the Nielsen ratings that could harm its TV stations.


Given all of the above, it comes as no surprise that, as early as that first Saturday, certainly by Sunday, inevitably by Monday, and no later than Tuesday, the post-Katrina images and issues were heavily weighted once again toward the power brokers and the predictable. The angry black guys were gone, and the lying white guys were back, hogging all the TV airtime. So many congressional Republicans were lined up on air to denounce the “blame-Bush game” — all the while decrying the Louisiana Democrats-in-charge — that it could have been conga night at the Chevy Chase Country Club.

And the attitudes of some TV personalities did a dramatic 180.

At MSNBC, right-winger Joe Scarborough had looked genuinely disgusted for a few days by the death and destruction that went unrelieved around him in Biloxi, even daring to demand answers from Bush on down. But Scarborough was back to his left-baiting self in short order. Inside FNC’s studio, conservative crank Sean Hannity had been rendered somewhat speechless by the tragedy. Soon, he was back in full voice, barking at Shep Smith (who was still staking out that I-10 bridge and sympathizing with its thousands of refugees) to keep “perspective.” The Mississippi-bred Smith boomed back in his baritone, “This is perspective!”

FNC’s Bill O’Reilly, who spent last month verbally abusing the grieving mother of a dead Iraqi war soldier, then whiled away the early days of Katrina’s aftermath giving lip to New Orleans’ looters and shooters, eventually blamed the hurricane’s poorest victims for creating their situations and for even expecting any government help at all.

On NBC, Meet the Press host Tim Russert cut off Jefferson Parish’s Andre Broussard during one of TV’s most moving and memorable outpourings of emotion. Instead, to fill up airtime, Russert let Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour praise Bush’s response ad nauseam without reading back Barbour’s sharp criticism of the feds days earlier.

On MSNBC, Hardball’s hard-brained Chris Matthews chided viewers and guests alike not to talk about who’s to blame — unless it was Louisiana Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco or Mayor Nagin. Interesting how Barbour’s state was also dehydrated and starving, but nobody on TV news blamed him, since he just happens to be a former chairman of the Republican National Committee.

And Don Imus skewered Dubya’s “disgusting performance” at the start of his MSNBC TV show (simulcast on the Viacom/CBS-owned Infinity radio network) and then turned over just 24 hours later, directing blame at Mayor Nagin.

Meanwhile, the TV news situation is about to get worse. Incoming Disney CEO Bob Iger has tried repeatedly to dismantle Nightline for a mindless celeb talk show. And CBS chairman Les Moonves wants to reinvent TV news to be more like entertainment shows — as if it’s not that way already — hosted by even prettier people.

Of course, no one could have anticipated that, to their immense credit, TV’s prettiest-boy anchors (CNN’s Anderson Cooper and FNC’s Shep Smith and NBC’s Brian Williams) would be boldly and tearfully relating horror whenever and wherever they found it, no matter if the fault lay with Mother Nature or President Dubya. But the real test of pathos vs. profit is still before us: whether the TV newscasters will spend the fresh reservoir of trust earned with the public to not only rattle Bush’s cage but also battle their own bosses. If not, it won’t be long before TV truth telling will be muzzled permanently.

Email at nikkifinke@deadlinehollywood.com

The Iraq Georgie does not want you to see.

.

The accumulation of blunders has led a Pentagon guerrilla-warfare expert to conclude, "We are repeating every mistake we made in Vietnam."

RAW STORY


Time Magazine's Joe Klein reports in the magazine's paid-restricted online edition that senior intelligence officials increasingly believe that the Bush Administration's focus on finding WMDs dramatically reduced their ability to stave off an Iraq insurgency, RAW STORY can reveal.

"Five men met in an automobile in a Baghdad park a few weeks after the fall of Saddam Hussein's Baathist regime in April 2003, according to U.S. intelligence sources," TIME's Klein begins. "One of the five was Saddam. The other four were among his closest advisers. Now a U.S. coup had taken place, and Saddam turned to al-Ahmed and the others and told them to start "rebuilding your networks." Excerpts follow.

#
More than two years into the war, U.S. intelligence sources concede that they still don't know enough about the nearly impenetrable web of what Iraqis call ahl al-thiqa (trust networks), which are at the heart of the insurgency. It's an inchoate movement without a single inspirational leader like Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh--a movement whose primary goal is perhaps even more improbable than the U.S. dream of creating an Iraqi democracy: restoring Sunni control in a country where Sunnis represent just 20% of the population. Intelligence experts can't credibly estimate the rebels' numbers but say most are Iraqis. Foreigners account for perhaps 2% of the suspected guerrillas who have been captured or killed, although they represent the vast majority of suicide bombers. ("They are ordnance," a U.S. intelligence official says.) The level of violence has been growing steadily. There have been roughly 80 attacks a day in recent weeks. Suicide bombs killed more than 200 people, mostly in Baghdad, during four days of carnage last week, among the deadliest since Saddam's fall.

More than a dozen current and former intelligence officers knowledgeable about Iraq spoke with TIME in recent weeks to share details about the conflict. They voiced their growing frustration with a war that they feel was not properly anticipated by the Bush Administration, a war fought with insufficient resources, a war that almost all of them now believe is not winnable militarily. "We're good at fighting armies, but we don't know how to do this," says a recently retired four-star general with Middle East experience. "We don't have enough intelligence analysts working on this problem. The Defense Intelligence Agency [DIA] puts most of its emphasis and its assets on Iran, North Korea and China. The Iraqi insurgency is simply not top priority, and that's a damn shame."

The intelligence officers stressed these points:

• They believe that Saddam's inner circle--especially those from the Military Bureau--initially organized the insurgency's support structure and that networks led by former Saddam associates like al-Ahmed and al-Duri still provide money and logistical help.

• The Bush Administration's fixation on finding weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in 2003 diverted precious intelligence resources that could have helped thwart the fledgling insurgency.

• From the beginning of the insurgency, U.S. military officers have tried to contact and negotiate with rebel leaders, including, as a senior Iraq expert puts it, "some of the people with blood on their hands."

• The frequent replacement of U.S. military and administrative teams in Baghdad has made it difficult to develop a counterinsurgency strategy.

The accumulation of blunders has led a Pentagon guerrilla-warfare expert to conclude, "We are repeating every mistake we made in Vietnam."

Art For Everyone

.

Security Situation in Baghdad Sinking like the Titanic

Sunday, September 18, 2005
Link Here

Security Situation in Baghdad Sinking like the Titanic

An observer in Iraq writes to me:


"The situation has deteriorated in Baghdad dramatically today. Five neighborhoods (hay) in Baghdad are controlled by insurgents, and they are Amiraya, Ghazilya, Shurta, Yarmouk and Doura. It is very bad. My guys there report that cars have come into these neighborhoods and blocked off the streets. Masked gunmen with AKs and other weapons are roaming these areas, announcing that people should stay home. One of my drivers in Amiraya reports that his neighborhood is shut down totally, and even those who need food or provisions are warned not to go out.

The government will respond feebly. It will go into a contested neighborhood, and then just like Fallujah, Ramadi, Tel Afar, the insurgents will flee to take over another area on another day. Bit by bit they are taking over the main parts of Baghdad. The only place we are sure they cannot control is Sadr City, unless of course they want to take on Jaish Mahdy [Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army], and that would be bloody.

A few minutes ago Jaafari came on television to tell everyone in Baghdad to stay home. Can't wait for his next bold move.

There are flyers in public areas of Baghdad warning people not to gather in large numbers because they will thereby become targets. I am trying to get a copy of the flyer.

Notwithstanding Al-Hayat's claim that Zarqawi and the Sunni resistance are not together, my street listeners claim otherwise. My folks are convinced that the two groups, broadly defined, are together, "100 percent" is the claim of certainty. It is hard to get a handle on this because people in Baghdad tend to lump all resistance groups, except for Zarqawi, into one large category.

More and more of even the most patriotic intelligentsia are departing. The situation is dire, and those with escape valves are using them. [Some organizations are]sending more of [their] staff to Arbil and Sulamaniyah and out of Baghdad. Until about March this year, [some] thought that there was a chance of returning to Baghdad. It is remarkable how incapable this government is. Its only success is that it exists at all.

In the meantime, the embassy people act as if nothing in Baghdad is wrong (except that they cannot walk in the Green Zone without body armor and they have to take precautions against kidnapping). Recently, a group from State and the military parachuted in from Washington [with fatuous advice] . . . It is a fantasy world."

posted by Juan @ 9/18/2005 06:30:00 AM

Bill Clinton Bitch Slaps Georgie

Clinton launches withering

attack on Bush on Iraq,

Katrina, budget

Link Here

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Former US president Bill Clinton sharply criticised George W. Bush for the Iraq War and the handling of Hurricane Katrina, and voiced alarm at the swelling US budget deficit.

Breaking with tradition under which US presidents mute criticisms of their successors, Clinton said the Bush administration had decided to invade Iraq "virtually alone and before UN inspections were completed, with no real urgency, no evidence that there were weapons of mass destruction."

The Iraq war diverted US attention from the war on terrorism "and undermined the support that we might have had," Bush said in an interview with an ABC's "This Week" programme.

Clinton said there had been a "heroic but so far unsuccessful" effort to put together an constitution that would be universally supported in Iraq.

The US strategy of trying to develop the Iraqi military and police so that they can cope without US support "I think is the best strategy. The problem is we may not have, in the short run, enough troops to do that," said Clinton.

On Hurricane Katrina, Clinton faulted the authorities' failure to evacuate New Orleans ahead of the storm's strike on August 29.

People with cars were able to heed the evacuation order, but many of those who were poor, disabled or elderly were left behind.

"If we really wanted to do it right, we would have had lots of buses lined up to take them out," Clinton.

He agreed that some responsibility for this lay with the local and state authorities, but pointed the finger, without naming him, at the former director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

FEMA boss Michael Brown quit in response to criticism of his handling of the Katrina disaster. He was viewed as a political appointee with no experience of disaster management or dealing with government officials.

"When James Lee Witt ran FEMA, because he had been both a local official and a federal official, he was always there early, and we always thought about that," Clinton said, referring to FEMA's head during his 1993-2001 presidency.

"But both of us came out of environments with a disproportionate number of poor people."

On the US budget, Clinton warned that the federal deficit may be coming untenable, driven by foreign wars, the post-hurricane recovery programme and tax cuts that benefitted just the richest one percent of the US population, himself included.

"What Americans need to understand is that ... every single day of the year, our government goes into the market and borrows money from other countries to finance Iraq, Afghanistan, Katrina, and our tax cuts," he said.

"We have never done this before. Never in the history of our republic have we ever financed a conflict, military conflict, by borrowing money from somewhere else."

Clinton added: "We depend on Japan, China, the United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, and Korea primarily to basically loan us money every day of the year to cover my tax cut and these conflicts and Katrina. I don't think it makes any sense."

" show how the diaries by respected former BBC journalist Price have thrown the Government into a panic."

Blair 'relished sending

British forces to war'

By SIMON WALTERS, Mail on Sunday
Link Here
08:56am 18th September 2005


Price claims Blair appeared privately to 'relish' sending British troops to war in Iraq

An explosive political row erupted last night after Downing Street tried to censor a book by one of Tony Blair's most senior former aides, revealing shocking details of how the Prime Minister runs the country.

Ex-No 10 spin doctor Lance Price has enraged Mr Blair by publishing the first-ever first-hand account of the inner workings of New Labour.

And he has defied the Cabinet Secretary's attempts to prevent the publication of his devastating memoirs, The Spin Doctor's Diary, serialised in The Mail on Sunday today.

They give a blow-by-blow account of endless backbiting, tantrums and rows between senior Ministers and officials and lay bare the cynicism of Blair's team.

But there are further claims which Price was told to remove from the book after intervention by the Government and which we can now reveal, including:

That Blair appeared privately to "relish" sending British troops to war in Iraq as his "first blooding", while publicly claiming he did it "with a heavy heart".
That the Government promised media mogul Rupert Murdoch it would not change its policy on Europe without telling him first.

That the Prime Minister repeatedly bawled out in rage 'f****** Welsh' when an election in the principality was going against Labour.

Two leaked letters obtained by The Mail on Sunday show how the diaries by respected former BBC journalist Price have thrown the Government into a panic. The first, sent by Cabinet Secretary Sir Gus O'Donnell to Price's publishers nine days ago, angrily accuses him of "betrayal" for refusing to be gagged.

The second, sent by one of O'Donnell's senior officials on Thursday, secretly warns up to 20 Ministers that they feature in Price's exposé, and tells them how to protect their reputations.

Copies of the deleted sections of Price's manuscript have been circulated around No10.

Astonishingly, Downing Street hit back last night by launching a campaign to smear Price, who remains a staunch New Labour supporter.

One senior civil servant told The Mail on Sunday: "Officials in No10 met last week and decided to go for Price's jugular by claiming he is a liar and fantasist. They know he isn't, but they have read the book and are horrified at what people will think."

In a bitter irony, the dirty tricks targeted at Price are almost identical to those he exposes in his book.

As deputy to Alastair Campbell for three years, he uses his diary to reveal how Labour was prepared to lie and cheat to get its message across. Price candidly admits that at times he was involved, if not always willingly.

He paints a damning and chaotic picture of a Government that makes major policies on the hoof, sometimes minutes before Blair goes on TV; of Ministers constantly at each other's throats; and of a Cabinet reduced to the role of impotent bystanders as Blair, and sometimes his spin doctors, make the big decisions.

The media is bullied, browbeaten and bribed with favours to report Labour favourably and the BBC is cowed into revealing its questions in advance to Blair at Press conferences in return for having the chance to pose them first.

The diaries are the most sensational political memoirs since those of the late Tory MP Alan Clark. Nearly every page is packed with colourful and shocking anecdotes. And it reveals how two Labour officials were caught having sex on a sofa in Mr Blair's office on Election night, yards from partying Ministers.

Under Civil Service rules, Price, 47, was obliged to submit his manuscript to the Government for clearance. He was then pressured into making cuts.

Three items deleted from the book at the last minute - and obtained by The Mail on Sunday - were clearly not taken out to protect national security. It is unclear whether they were removed because the Government disputed their accuracy - or simply to spare Mr Blair embarrassment.

The first relates to the first time Mr Blair sent British forces into Iraq when the UK and US launched air strikes at Christmas 1998.

Price's diary entry written at the time said: "I couldn't help feeling TB was rather relishing his first blooding as PM, sending the boys into action. Despite all the necessary stuff about taking action 'with a heavy heart', I think he feels it is part of his coming of age as a leader."

But the censored account reads: "I couldn't help feeling TB had mixed emotions about sending the boys into action. He said he did it with a 'heavy heart', but at the same time he must have known it would happen sometime and maybe it's part of his coming of age as a leader."

The diary is also littered with examples of the close links between Rupert Murdoch, owner of News International, which publishes The Times and Sun newspapers, and Mr Blair.

But Price was pressured into changing the entry relating to the Government's stance on whether the UK will join the euro. His original diary said No 10 was "very edgy" after pro-euro comments by Peter Mandelson "because apparently we've promised News International we won't make any changes to our Europe policy without talking to them".

The Downing Street censors demanded that Price change the entry to: "... apparently, News International are under the impression we won't make any changes without asking them."

Any hint that the virulently anti-euro Mr Murdoch has a veto over any changes in policy will outrage Labour's pro-European supporters.

Countless stories that escaped the censor are just as controversial and shocking.

For the full article and the serialisation of the most explosive political diaries since Alan Clark buy the Mail on Sunday

FOCUS | Bolton Visited Judith Miller...

By E&P Staff

Published: September 17, 2005 11:15 AM ET

NEW YORK Increasingly overlooked or forgotten by the media in recent weeks, jailed New York Times reporter Judith Miler has still received plenty of upclose and personal support. According to a document, exactly 99 friends or supporters (or former sources) visited her between her July 6 detention and Labor Day. Among them, confirming earlier rumors, was John R. Bolton, the new U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

Others on the list: Tom Brokaw, film director Irwin Winkler, Richard Clarke and two of his former aides, Iraqi weapons hunter Charles Duelfer, Bob Dole, publisher Mort Zuckerman, Sen. Arlen Spector, and famed book editor Alice Mayhew. Many more are turned away, as Miller and an assistant to her lawyer manage the flood of requests.

"She's very popular, and it's kind of hard to get on the schedule," longtime friend Ellen Chesler, who visited Miller in July but has not been able to get back in since, told the Washington Post, which obtained the document.

One court official familiar with her schedule told the Post: "She's running an office down there."

The Post reported that as a low-risk prisoner, Miller, 57, is generally allowed as many as three visitors a day for a total of 30 minutes.

Miller's attorney, Robert S. Bennett, said jail authorities give his client no special treatment.

“Bolton's visit raised some eyebrows in Washington,” the Post said. “A vocal defender of administration claims in 2003 that Iraq was seeking weapons of mass destruction, he could have had access to a State Department memo, parts of which were classified, that detailed Wilson's trip to Niger to determine whether Iraq was seeking uranium there and identified his wife as a covert CIA operative. Who saw or discussed the memo has been a central question for Fitzgerald.

“Bolton declined through a spokesman to discuss his visit to Miller or his reasons for going. ‘This has nothing to do with his job here,' the spokesman said. 'He doesn't want to talk about it.’”

Miller will remain jailed for another month or more, when the grand jury investigating the Plame/CIA leak will probably disband.

"Well, she's not the most famous person we have here," one employee at the detention center, which also houses convicted al Qaeda terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui, told the Post "But she does have some visitors."

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Veterans Lead Counter Recruitment Efforts

Memory's Revenge

By JoAnn Wypijewski
Mother Jones

September/October 2005 Issue

The planners of Operation Iraqi Freedom forgot another thing on the road to Baghdad: how veterans would affect their ability to get new boots on the ground.
Think about ya life, the choices you make. Recruiters out to get you, don't make a mistake. Is obvious, right, they target the 'hood. Take a homeboy and write, what's wrong and what's good. My words are truth, heal like medicine. Don't believe me? Man, holla at a veteran.

Rayniel, a New York City teenager, rapper, serious Catholic, had been talking to veterans for years by the time he became a senior at West Side High School, an alternative public school where the lived history of men in war has become a regular part of the conversation and curriculum. Rayniel himself never considered the military a career option, but as recruiting and counter-recruiting became all the word around inner-city high schools late last spring, he picked up a flyer from the American Friends Service Committee (a.k.a. Quakers) and added his own riff on its "Ten Points to Consider Before You Sign a Military Enlistment Agreement." Points one through three advise young people to "not make a quick decision," to "take a witness when speaking with a recruiter," and to "talk with veterans." Or, in Rayniel's translation, "Think about ya life...."

Jim Murphy wasn't thinking about much as a high school student near Rochester, New York, in the early 1960s. A kid with all the others sitting in the back row-the ones without a plan, sullen and indifferent, on whom their teachers had by then given up-he was, he says now, "really dead in the water. College, I blew it off. I was so far in the back row I had my hand up for the bathroom, the easiest fresh meat right there." He signed up for Vietnam and has been thinking about it ever since, the leeches and rashes and flamable boredom, the obsidian memory of death and horror purchased with lies.

Murphy is an administrator at West Side High today, and just before graduation Rayniel made him a gift of the customized "Ten Points" to give to students when he talks to them about war this fall. The two, Rayniel and Murphy, represent the U.S. military's deepest desire and greatest fear-youth and experience, except the one is not so young as to be unacquainted with cynicism nor the other so experienced as to have drowned in it. Recruiters know not to waste time with the Rayniels, and because they won't roam schools without a welcoming administration, they stay away from West Side High. But Murphy and a team of veterans will go where the recruiters go, making the rounds of New York's front-line high schools as they did last year, presenting themselves as primary sources in a district where Tim O'Brien's testament to war and narrative remembering, The Things They Carried, is on the official reading list for senior year. They'll address themselves most to those kids in the back row, the recruiters' softest targets, answering again the simple, searing question about Vietnam that they always get: "How did it change you?"

The Pentagon's recruitment crisis is only the latest evidence that the authors of Operation Iraqi Freedom forgot something on the way to war: the adamant memory of Vietnam, and not in the usual sense. There's a truism among military strategists that "the war before" colors the one you're fighting. World War II corporatized the military, in everything from management style to procurement to the seemingly permanent draft, even as it helped make the middle class and valorized combat experience as the ultimate manly credential. The Vietnam War was born of all that and then convulsed on it, transforming the draft into political dynamite and restructuring the Army to make wars like the one in Iraq unthinkable, or so almost everyone on up to Colin Powell once thought. Now retired Army officers will say openly that there's no precedent for running a full-scale war with a volunteer army; they will cite the Powell Doctrine-prescribing war only on condition of mass public support, swift and overwhelming force, and a clear exit strategy-as the lost lesson of the war before, the thing that Bush and Cheney, with no experience of Vietnam, were mindless of, and that Powell, whether too weak, too ambitious, or too loyal, failed to impress upon them.

Such critiques miss the fundamental lesson, which is that soldiers forced to become criminals for old men's ambitions won't all come home quietly. After Jim Murphy returned from Vietnam in 1969 he became part of the most rocking, because least expected, movement against the Vietnam War, the GI rebellion. He doesn't describe this in his presentation to high schoolers-in 40 minutes it's all that he and his fellow vets can do to convey the reality of war, the nature of military commitment beyond a recruiter's promises, and alternative sources of scholarships, jobs, or adventure-but it forms the essential context.

By Christmas 1971, when Murphy was among a band of Vietnam Veterans Against the War who seized the Statue of Liberty for three days, many thousands of GIs had participated in antiwar protests in American cities and at many major U.S. military bases in the world, including Saigon. They produced more than 100 underground GI newspapers, listened to underground GI radio, put their heads together at dozens of GI coffeehouses established by soldiers and activists in U.S. military towns, and formed a subset of the counterculture that took a playful whack at the Army's early-'60s recruiting promise of "fun, travel, adventure," FTA, appropriating the acronym for an unvarnished answer back: "Fuck the Army." By the hundreds they were jailed, by the thousands exiled. Their coffeehouses were attacked by the Klan in Texas, firebombed in Idaho and South Carolina, harassed by police and local officials everywhere. Riots burst out in nearly every U.S. military prison in the world, and in the field officers were being fragged. In 1971 the Pentagon totalled up 503,926 "incidents of desertion" since 1966, and concluded that more than half of U.S. ground forces in Vietnam openly opposed the war. Mutiny then spread to sailors and airmen.

Those veterans are someone's father or uncle or teacher or coach today, someone's grandfather or neighbor or coworker or family friend. They are among those whom military recruiters call "influencers." That the Pentagon has been caught off guard by the elders discouraging youths from enlisting indicates not only how captured it is by its own propaganda (the war as a heavily armed school-building, sewer-digging, democracy-spreading program) but also how completely it has been gulled by the revisionist machinery that for decades has manufactured a story of Vietnam veterans and antiwar protesters as two camps, distinct and hostile.

A spanner is about to be thrown into that revisionist machinery. Sir! No Sir!, a shattering documentary by David Zeiger expected to be in theaters by year's end, provides many of the statistics of Vietnam-era GI resistance cited above. More, it discloses the soul of soldiers, in story after story, who thought about their life, about everything they'd believed about fair play and honor and being a man and saw it negated, cynically; who realized, as former Air Force linguist Tom Bernard says in the film, that "the lies were so stark it challenged your own dignity, it challenged your own loyalty, it challenged your own humanity."

Iraq veterans are coming home with some of the same conclusions and nightmares. Few talk about this publicly, but a caution to a young brother or sister, an unaccustomed silence or strange anger, and word travels. Murphy says that 50 to 70 percent of the kids he addresses say

they know someone who's in the military, in Iraq, or just returned. A Jamaican kid named Conrad ("just Conrad") tells me about a student he met whose father is a recruiter. Recruiters don't necessarily choose the job; they're assigned because they're good talkers, good looking, and this father "comes home so angry and stressed out all the time because he's lying to these kids." Whatever their dream, he's got to pitch the Army as the highway to it. And then Conrad remembers something a returned soldier told him. There was this Iraqi whom everyone in the platoon knew, and knew his name, but "they call him hadji, and everyone in Iraq is hadji." In Vietnam, "they called them gooks," Conrad says, recalling what his history teacher, a vet, had told him. "And I was like-wow-that's a racist name, there's no moral attachment so you can just kill them," which is what that teacher has been carrying for 30-some years. When I met Conrad, he was with a citywide group called the YA-YA Network (for Youth Activists, Youth Allies), which runs counter-recruitment workshops for teenagers and won the legal right to leaflet outside schools. YA-YA doesn't lecture about hegemony; it explains the job of the soldier at this time and place. "That's where it starts," says Dave Cline, reviewing his own trajectory from grunt in Vietnam to war protester to president of Veterans for Peace.

And so the Pentagon's crisis spreads-without streets abuzz or ablaze, without galvanizing sit-ins, sit-downs, occupations, or other such events that have come too narrowly to define protest politics. Desperate for blood, bodies, boots on the ground, the Army is soliciting dropouts, the out-of-shape, and the underachieving. Beginning September 24, the antiwar coalition United for Peace and Justice will put on three days of disruption in Washington, D.C., the first such mass action in more than a year. Over that long silence, the generation that has been targeted by the police, targeted by the military, left stranded by the economy, abandoned by politicians has begun to learn what it took Jim Murphy four years in Vietnam to learn: how to say no. This fall Rayniel will be in college. Murphy hopes more Iraq veterans and military families will join the school tours. On the flyer he carries, the one hip-hopified by his former student, the Quakers' final three points-that any enlistment promise can be broken by the military and any job switched arbitrarily, that all individual liberties can be restricted, that there are alternatives to enlistment-contain a new day's change on FTA:

Now do you wanna R.I.P., Rayniel from N.Y.C. telling you there's no guarantee... J.O.B. You have no clue. This is for the ones who keep it real in the military, you can't be you. So think, listen and see. Is a puppet to America really "all you can be"?

-------------

JoAnn Wypijewski is a former senior editor of The Nation.

-------

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Michael Schiavo to Co-Write Book

By Associated Press

September 18, 2005, 3:13 PM EDT

PUNTA GORDA, Fla. -- Michael Schiavo is co-writing a book with author Michael Hirsh to tell his side of the end-of-life case that divided much of the country.

Schiavo's wife Terri suffered a brain injury in 1990 that left her in what some doctors called a "persistent vegetative state." She died March 31 after a bitter court battle between her husband and her parents.

Hirsh expects the 280-page book, "Terri: the Truth," to be available just before the first anniversary of Terri's death. Dutton Publishing publicity manager Jean Anne Rose confirmed that the company is publishing the book in March.

Michael Schiavo's decision to remove a feeding tube that kept his brain-damaged wife alive alienated him from her parents, drew a Congressional intervention and even prompted criticism from President Bush.

Hirsh, 62, is a Vietnam veteran and a former Los Angeles television producer who has written three books about the military.

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Rove surfaces to clear path for Bush

Correspondents in Washington
September 19, 2005

"BUSH'S brain" was missing when floodwaters swamped New Orleans.

Karl Rove, the White House aide who goes by that unofficial title, was suffering from kidney stones and was admitted to hospital in the middle of the biggest crisis so far of President George W.Bush's second term.

Once his condition improved, it was Mr Rove who urged the President, against the advice of White House economists, to spend $US200billion ($260billion) to rebuild the stricken city "higher and better", as Mr Bush went on to promise. Though many Republicans are horrified by the cost, Mr Rove is determined to revive Mr Bush's dormant image as a compassionate conservative, the theme of his first presidential campaign in 2000, and will be overseeing the reconstruction effort.

Bill Kristol, editor of the neo-conservative Weekly Standard, said Mr Rove's absence had made a significant difference after the hurricane hit.

"He was out of commission for 24 to 36 hours and he's indispensable. It's a thin White House and it's not a good thing that the Government could become paralysed for a day," Mr Kristol said.

One of Mr Rove's tasks will be to find a person capable of leading a project that compares to the Depression-era public works launched by Democrat president Franklin D.Roosevelt.

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin insisted the reconstruction leader must have local roots. "I don't want anyone outside of New Orleans telling us how to plan this city," he said.

In the city this weekend, displaced residents were streaming back to check their homes and belongings and, in places, to resume their old lives.

The reopening could eventually bring as many as 200,000 people back to a city whose population was about 445,000 before the storm. There are no plans to reopen the most heavily damaged areas, some of which remain under floodwaters.

Mr Nagin defended the plan to return people to the city, despite concerns about the short supply of drinking water and the heavily polluted floodwaters.

Coast Guard Vice-Admiral Thad Allen, head of the federal disaster relief effort, said Mr Nagin's idea was "extremely ambitious and extremely problematic". Tap water remained unfit for drinking and washing in most of the city and was a prime public health concern, he said.

But Mr Nagin said his plan was developed in co-operation with the federal Government and balanced safety concerns and the needs of citizens to rebuild.

Business owners were allowed back in to some sections of the city to begin the long process of cleaning up and rebuilding, part of Mr Nagin's plan to begin reviving the city by resuming a limited amount of commerce.

Mr Nagin has pledged to rebuild New Orleans from scratch.

"We are not taking any crap," he said. "If you think it's going

to be the way it was before, we have a rude awakening for you."

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who grew up in the segregated South, has become the most prominent champion of a comprehensive anti-poverty campaign in Katrina's wake.

Dr Rice said the South had a problem with "persistent poverty", but dismissed allegations that racism was to blame for Mr Bush's tardy reaction.

Mr Bush also sought to reject charges of racism by asking TDJakes, a black evangelist, to deliver the sermon of remembrance for the victims of Katrina held in Washington last week.

Some churchmen were outraged by what they regarded as a blatantly political choice of preacher.

John Podhoretz, a supportive biographer of Mr Bush, described the President's reconstruction effort as potentially "catastrophic" for him, in courting voters who would never regard Mr Bush favourably while alienating his core support.

Mr Kristol, while welcoming Mr Bush's speech, said: "I hope he hasn't talked himself into believing that his legacy will depend on this. The truth is Bush's legacy will be determined by Iraq."

The Sunday Times, AP

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Art For Everyone

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Bush poll slips 4% after his lousy speech.

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September 18, 2005--Thirty-five percent (35%) of Americans now say that President Bush has done a good or excellent job responding to Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. That's down from 39% before his speech from New Orleans.

The latest Rasmussen Reports survey shows that 41% give the President poor marks for handling the crisis, that's up 37% before the speech.

Fifty percent (50%) of Americans favor the main proposal from that speech--a federal commitment of $200 billion to help rebuild New Orleans. Twenty-seven percent (27%) are opposed and 23% are not sure.

The spending plan has not been well received by conservative voters--just 43% favor the huge federal commitment partisan while 37% are opposed. This is especially striking given how supportive the President's base has remained throughout his Administration.

The President's reconstruction plan is favored by 66% of liberal voters. Still, only 10% of liberals give the President a good or an excellent rating for handling the crisis.

Al-Qaeda's slaughter has one aim: civil war

150 died in one day in Baghdad -
and Iraqis, not foreign fighters,
are now the insurgency's keenest
recruits. Peter Beaumont i
nvestigates how this crucial
shift has changed the fight

Sunday September 18, 2005
The Observer

The unemployed gather like blown drifts where jobs are to be had. They queue around the block in weary, patient lines at barracks and police stations, clutching their identity papers. They queue to dig ditches or shovel rubbish from the streets, or gather in the early morning in dusty streets and squares where builders tout for labourers.

Last week the bombers came to al-Uruba Square in Kadhimiya, a Shia area of Baghdad. With its vast, important, gold-domed mosque, it has been a favourite for the suicide bombers. On Wednesday the driver of a van, pretending to seek day labourers, called men to his vehicle. As they approached, he detonated 220 kilos of high explosives, killing 114 people and injuring 150 more.

This was the beginning of one of Iraq's bloodiest days, but, despite the carnage, far from its most murderous. In a series of bomb explosions and shootings, 150 people would lose their lives and 500 would be injured.

It was followed by yesterday's toll of 30 people killed and 38 wounded in a car bombing in Nahrwan, around 30 miles from Baghdad. Earlier in the day police in Baghdad found nine bodies shot in the head and chest in three separate incidents, while in Baquba one man died and 17 people, including three Iraqi soldiers, were wounded when a car driven by a suicide bomber exploded near an Iraqi army patrol.

As officials of Iraq's Shia-dominated government, including those at the overworked Institute of Forensic Medicine, study the aftermath of the latest bombings, it is with a new fear: that they will find the bomber was not a Syrian, Yemeni, Saudi or even a Briton, but a brother Iraqi recruited by al-Qaeda.>>>>continued

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Blair attacks BBC for 'anti-US bias'

James Robinson, David Smith and Ned Temko
Sunday September 18, 2005
The Observer

Tony Blair has denounced the BBC's coverage of Hurricane Katrina as 'full of hatred of America' and 'gloating' at the country's plight, it was reported yesterday.
Blair allegedly made the remarks privately to Rupert Murdoch, chairman and chief executive of News Corporation, which owns the rival Sky News.

The comments threatened a new rift between the government and the BBC following the Andrew Gilligan affair over events leading to the Iraq war and recent criticisms of ministers Today presenter John Humphrys, which were controversially leaked to the press.

Downing Street said last night it had no comment on the report in the Financial Times. The BBC said that its coverage had been 'committed solely to relaying the events fully, accurately and impartially'.
Murdoch, a long-standing critic of the BBC, was addressing the Clinton Global Initiative conference in New York. Chuckling, he said: 'I probably shouldn't be telling you this' before recounting a recent conversation with Blair. He said the Prime Minister was in New Delhi when he criticised BBC coverage of the catastrophe in New Orleans: 'He said it was just full of hatred of America and gloating at our troubles.'

Bill Clinton, the former US President who was hosting the conference, also attacked the tone of the BBC coverage at a seminar on the media. He said it had been 'stacked up' to criticise the federal government's slow response.

Sir Howard Stringer, chief executive of Sony Corporation and a former head of CBS News, said he had been 'nervous about the slight level of gloating' by the corporation.

The disapproval will come as a blow to BBC executives, who had declared themselves delighted with the hurricane coverage, led by Matt Frei. They believed they had learnt the lessons from the Boxing Day tsunami in Asia, when the BBC was regarded as being slow off the mark.

Blair's reported comments were strongly criticised last night by Martin Bell, the former BBC war correspondent and former MP.

Bell said: 'Assuming it's accurate - it may of course be that Tony Blair was simply telling Rupert Murdoch what he thought he wanted to hear. If he really does have a gripe with the BBC coverage, there is no shortage of forums in which he can say so publicly. But the last time he picked a fight with the BBC, as I recall, the government came off rather badly.'

He added: 'I think Matt Frei's reporting was absolutely immaculate and reflected the fact that one of the things the BBC is there for is to report events as they happened rather than as politicians may want them perceived to have happened. If Tony Blair does want to confront the BBC over this, I'd be surprised - because he would find absolutely zero support, except perhaps among his usual henchmen.'

Charles Wheeler, the veteran former US correspondent for the BBC, said: 'I don't believe Murdoch actually said that. It doesn't sound like Blair to me. The coverage I saw was extremely good and got better and better. Matt Frei was very good. He got quite angry, which is what might have annoyed people.

'I don't see why people should be unemotional; I never was. You have to tell people what you feel and what you hate - that's part of legitimate reporting.'

A spokesman for the BBC said last night: 'We have received no complaint from Downing Street, so it would be remiss of us to comment on what is reported as a private conversation.'

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Sharon avoids London fearing arrest for war crimes

9/18/2005 6:00:00 AM GMT

The Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon turned down an invitation from British premier Tony Blair visit Britain, fearing he may be arrested for war crimes, according to press reports.

Blair had invited Sharon to visit UK when the two leaders held talks on the sidelines on the sidelines of the UN summit in New York last week.

Sharon’s fears come after chief-of-staff General Dan Halutz also avoided visiting UK after former Israeli commander Doron Almog narrowly escaped arrest last week at London's Heathrow Airport, The Times reported.

According to a report published by The Irish Sun on Saturday, Sharon had complained about the legal proceedings brought against the commander during his meeting with the British PM, when he declined the invitation.

"I would really like to visit Britain. The trouble is that I, like General Almog, also served in the IDF (Israeli Defence Force) for many years," he was quoted saying. "I too am a general," he added.

During his flight from Israel to London, Almog received a warning that a British court had issued a warrant for his arrest on charges of war crimes, thus he refused to leave the plane on arrival.

Israel’s military chiefs face arrest under the 1957 Geneva Conventions Act that permits the prosecution in Britain for war criminals whatever their nationality, even if their actions were committed abroad, according to IRNA news agency.

On Friday, The Guardian newspaper reported that Israeli foreign minister, Silvan Shalom, was also planning to ask the British Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, for a change in the law that makes such warrants possible.

• Israel violates Geneva Convention

On Sunday MK Ahmed Tibi (Hadash-Ta'al) submitted a petition to the High Court of Justice demanding Israel to release all Gaza residents it holds in its prisons, Haaretz reported.

Under the Fourth Geneva Convention, Israel must from the moment it ended its rule over the Gaza Strip, hand over all Gazan prisoners to the Palestinian Authority, Tibi said.

Article 77 of the Fourth Geneva Convention stipulates that when an occupying country withdraws from territory, it is then demanded to hand over all prisoners from that territory to the governing body replacing it.

In response to Tibi's demands, the Israeli military said that international law and the Fourth Geneva Convention do not require the release of the prisoners, especially those that have committed serious security offenses against Israel.

The military argued that the holding those prisoners is in compliance with temporary emergency regulations under Israeli Law.

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Israeli Gen. escapes UK arrest on war crimes charges

9/12/2005 3:00:00 PM GMT

The former head of Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip escaped arrest Sunday by the London police anti-terrorist and war crimes unit, Israel's Haaretz daily reported.
Maj. Gen. Doron Almog is accused of violating international law during the Israeli occupation of the Gaza Strip, BBC reported.

According to Haaretz, Almog arrived in London's Heathrow airport on an EL-Al jet. Israel's Ambassador Zvi Hefetz knew of a plan to arrest Almog on war crimes charges, and quickly warned him not to leave his plane.
The 54-year-old ex-general decided to remain on the plane which took him back to Israel several hours later.

Almog said he arrived at Heathrow for a three-day visit to raise funds for a centre for disabled Israeli children. "We were about to get off the plane, then one of the stewards came up to me and said the pilot asked that I disembark last," he told Israeli Army Radio.

"After some time, the chief steward said the Israeli military attache was on his way and wanted to speak to me.

"I phoned him and he told me not to get off the plane," he added.

War crimes: >>>continued

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The Arabs paid a high price for their leaders’ weakness and America’s meddling in their countries’ affairs.

9/17/2005 2:52:00 PM GMT

Dear Dr. Kareem…

Are the Arabs satisfied with their governments? Are those governments credibly elected?

I didn’t vote for President Mubarak, and I’m completely against him. Also I don’t trust the credibility of the recent elections.

However, I see no logic in the argument supporting the U.S. mission in the Middle East to bring democracy as part of President Bush's so-called "war on terrorism".

The Middle East and the Arab world has long showed great ability of solving their problems on their own. The U.S. help is definitely not needed.

Remember January election in Iraq? It was nothing more than an American movie made to convince the world that “mission is accomplished” in Iraq.

The Arab nations paid a high price for their leaders’ weakness and permitting America meddle in their countries’ affairs.

Amina from Egypt

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear Amina,

I totally agree with you. The United States' policy in the Middle East has brought nothing but chaos and mayhem.

Washington has long accused the Arab governments of being repressive. But the truth is problems started surfacing in the Middle East countries with the initial stages of the U.S. interference, a vivid example is Iran. In 1953 the U.S. plotted for the removal of the democratically elected Iranian government to place the puppet Shah.

If we’re going to discuss the Arab leaderships we must look at the former Egyptian President Gama Abdel Naser, UAE's Sheikh Zayed, and Syria's former President Hafez Al Assad; they're all great leaders who brought properity and stability to their nations, the but unfortunately the West often look at the present and forget the past.

The current havoc in Iraq and the slump in Bush’s ratings are a glowing example of the tumbling down of American politics.

Indeed, the U.S. has a long history of placing puppets in power.

But I can see in the emergence of a new generation of Arab youth whose hearts crave for freedom a sure solution for the U.S. influence in the Middle East and the corruption of the Arab leaderships.

Sheikha Sajida
On behalf of Dr. Kareem

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A nation should not be punished for crimes committed by its leader ...

9/14/2005 9:00:00 PM GMT

Dear Dr. Kareem,

Bush, Cheney, Powell, Rumsfeld, and Rice all sold America for a pack of lies- The facts as reported speak for itself...What more do we want?

The tragedy is that majority of the American public accepted the pack of lies, and the biggest crime is that these liars are in power and deciding for the future of the United States and the world.

Impeach the lot I say and put them on trial at international criminal court of justice together with their allies Blair, Sharon and Howard.

Haji MF from South Africa
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Haji,

Now, of course, we all know that Bush lied, Cheney lied, Powell lied, as well as Rumsfeld and Rice, and they continue to. Also we all agree that we don’t have the authority to bring a direct end to death and human devastation in Iraq that result from the U.S. persistent military presence there.

But let’s try to look at the bright side- I’ve come to realise that an increasing number of Americans started to believe that their President has deceived them, and that there’s something beyond their government-controlled media that they need to listen to and believe.

Less than half of Americans now believe that Bush is an honest President who possesses "strong leadership qualities," while a solid majority say he is a liar.

I receive numerous messages from Americans apologizing for the horrible crimes their President has committed and the terrible suffering and chaos he brought to the world.

I’m as much concerned about Americans, who are now facing great animosity worldwide brought to them by this illegal war, as much as I am about the Iraqi people dying everyday under the U.S. occupation.

We need to realise that this war has brought nothing but death to the Iraqis and hate against the Americans. I add my voice to all the Americans who feel ashamed of their President, and I reiterate a nation should not be punished for crimes committed by its leader.

I call on the world citizens to put aside hate. I urge them to unite and be fair in their judgment- this is the only way to bring peace and end brutal dictatorships in this world.

Sheikha Sajida
On behalf of Dr. Kareem

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Al Zarqawi phenomenon

***
REVIEWS: "The Americans are using him for their propaganda. "Think about it. With all of their power and intelligence capabilities – they cannot find one man?"

Says it all. What about Osama?

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The Cartoon That Haunts Patriots

.

Obama Rama

Obama says

Democrats must

hold White House

accountable

BY JEFF ZELENY

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CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - (KRT) - Sen. Barack Obama urged fellow Democrats on Saturday not to automatically view President Bush's proposed reconstruction of the hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast with a cynical eye, but said: "It is absolutely imperative that we call him on his bluff."

"In the immediate aftermath of the hurricane, I think it's important that we don't just assume that George Bush is lying when he says he's finally been awakened to the fact that there is poverty and racism in our midst," said Obama, D-Ill. "It's tempting to do so, especially when he decides to put Karl Rove in charge of reconstruction."

Rove, the top political adviser to the president, will play a role through his position as deputy White House chief of staff, but he has not been tapped to supervise the rebuilding.

In an address at Harvard Law School's "Celebration of Black Alumni," Obama said Democrats shared responsibility for failing to make a larger issue of poverty in the United States. But he said it was the opposition party's duty to hold the White House accountable for fixing problems exposed by Hurricane Katrina.

"We should trust although we should verify," said Obama. "We should actively reach out to him and say, `Mr. President, we believe, in fact, that those differences were as disturbing to you as they were disturbing to us.'"

A majority of the hurricane victims in the squalid shelters of New Orleans were black, a fact that touched off a debate about whether racism had a role in the sluggish rescue efforts. Obama, the only African-American in the U.S. Senate, said he does not believe the administration was racist.

As a huge federal reconstruction project begins, and political debate about it intensifies, Obama urged Democrats to look forward rather than criticizing the government's leadership and response to the hurricane.

"There is a certain danger of smugness and self-satisfaction on the part of those who didn't vote for George W. Bush. There is a certain sense of `I told you so,'" Obama said.

"I share the anger and I share the outrage," he added. "But what I also want to do is accept some responsibility. The truth is that we haven't been entirely on the case either. We've been a little complacent."


--Ok Obama... welcome to the party, Senator. It is about damn time. Geez, we've only been waiting what.... Ummm since last NOVEMBER.--

Bring Them Home

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Art For Girls

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Oh Really..?

New twist on Iraq

aid: U.S. seeks

donations

BY CAM SIMPSON

Chicago Tribune


WASHINGTON - (KRT) - From the Indian Ocean tsunami to the church around the corner, Americans have shown time and again they are willing to open their pocketbooks for charity, for a total of about $250 billion last year alone.

But now, amid pleas for aid after Hurricane Katrina, the Bush administration has launched an unusual effort to raise charitable contributions for another cause: the government's attempt to rebuild Iraq.

Although more than $30 billion in taxpayer funds have been appropriated for Iraqi reconstruction, the administration earlier this month launched an Internet-based fundraising effort that it says is aimed at giving Americans "a further stake in building a free and prosperous Iraq."

Contributors have no way of knowing who's getting the money or precisely where it's headed, because the government says it must keep the details secret for security reasons.

But taxpayers already finance the projects the administration is seeking charitable donations for, such as providing water pumps for farmers. And officials say any contributions they receive will increase the scope of those efforts, rather than relieve existing taxpayer burdens.

The campaign is raising eyebrows in the international development and not-for-profit communities, where there are questions about its timing - given needs at home - and whether it will set the government in competition with international not-for-profits.

On a more basic level, experts wonder whether Americans will make charitable donations to a government foreign aid program, and whether the contentious environment surrounding Iraq will make a tough pitch even tougher.

"I'm a little skeptical, and the timing certainly isn't the best," said James Ferris, director of the Center on Philanthropy and Public Policy at the University of Southern California. "It's going to be a hard sell."

The U.S. Agency for International Development, the federal government's primary distributor of foreign aid, said Friday, "Charitable contributions play an important role in enriching and extending U.S. government efforts."

The effort is just the newest twist in the administration's struggle to rebuild Iraq. Andrew Natsios, head of USAID, first predicted it would cost taxpayers no more than $1.7 billion. The tab has since risen to more than $30 billion, with congressional Republicans and Democrats sharply critical of the high cost and slow pace of progress.

In addition, the new campaign comes amid increasing concerns that some of the administration's major projects in Iraq will be scrapped or only partially completed because of rising costs, especially for security. Some officials fear money may run out before key projects are completed.

Natsios announced the Internet-based campaign in a speech Sept. 9. In a press release issued the same day, USAID said its new Web site "will help American citizens learn more about official U.S. assistance for Iraq and make contributions to high-impact development projects."

Although USAID has received private donations from corporations in the past, this may be the first time it has geared a charity pitch for U.S. foreign aid dollars to citizens.

Initially, the Web site, called Iraqpartnership.org, is offering potential contributors a choice of eight projects, each seeking $10,000 or less. They include purchasing computers for centers designed to assist Iraqi entrepreneurs, buying furniture and supplies for Iraqi elementary and high schools, paying for the production of posters to promote "awareness of disabilities and rights issues" and buying water pumps for farmers.

There is also a general Iraq country fund, offering donors "another high-impact giving opportunity without making them have to specify a project."

All of the projects are from USAID's existing portfolio of reconstruction programs in Iraq, according to the agency.

Heather Layman, a USAID spokeswoman, said the efforts are being carried out by five private organizations working on Iraq reconstruction with USAID funding. The site does not provide details about the groups involved, or the project locations, because of "security issues in Iraq."

The government says all contributions are tax-deductible.

William Reese, the president and CEO of the International Youth Foundation, said USAID officials did not discuss the campaign with a special advisory committee that he serves on and formerly chaired.

That committee, made up primarily of representatives from nonprofit groups working overseas, is supposed to help "provide the underpinning for cooperation between the public and private sectors in U.S. foreign assistance programs," according to USAID.

Reese said some not-for-profit groups may see the effort as competition, but he predicted few would be concerned because of a more basic issue: While Americans are generous, he said, "I don't think your average Joe is going to write a check to the U.S. government."

Carol Lancaster, a foreign aid expert and an associate professor at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service, also questioned the premise of the program.

"Places that are seen as public agencies or clones of public agencies don't get private donations," said Lancaster, who also served as a former deputy administrator at USAID. "People generally believe, `It's government, so government should pay for it.'"

Nassarie Carew, a spokeswoman for InterAction, an umbrella group of more than 160 nonprofits working overseas, said her organization also was not aware of the effort. Its CEO, Mohammad Akhter, serves on the USAID advisory panel. Carew declined to comment until the group had a chance to survey its members.

Layman, the USAID spokeswoman, called the Web site "a passive solicitation," saying potential donors would likely find it only if they were "looking for a way to support Iraq's redevelopment."

She also said some "people who might have donated to projects in Iraq will now choose to put money toward Katrina relief," but that others "will still want to help in Iraq."

She said Iraqi-Americans had specifically asked USAID to help them find an avenue for contributions.

Raising charitable contributions for overseas projects can be a challenge even when the U.S. government is not at the center of the pitch. And Iraq is one of the government's most controversial foreign policy ventures in decades.

The group that set up the web site for USAID, DevelopmentSpace Foundation, Inc., operates its own, separate Web site seeking charitable donations for small-scale projects in developing countries.

Since its founding in 2001, that effort has raised a total of about $2 million, said Allison Koch, a foundation spokeswoman.

The organization keeps a 10 percent commission for contributions, and has received most of its operating funds through major grants from several other foundations. USAID also gave it a grant of $1.5 million.

Although still in its infancy, the Iraqpartnership Web site had generated contributions totaling $39 as of Friday night.

According to the Giving USA Foundation, which tracks annual charitable donations by Americans, international giving accounted for only 2.1 percent of all charity in the United States last year.

Ferris, the director of the USC philanthropy center, said that's because people want to donate to causes closer to home.

Except for the fact that the aim of foreign aid is to bolster U.S. foreign policy objectives overseas, Ferris said the new USAID campaign seems like a natural extension of the growing trend toward public-private partnerships.

"There is this blurring of the lines," he said. "A lot of things once paid for by the public are now paid through private sources."

THIS IS WHY BUSH DID NOT RESCUE OUR PEOPLE

Katrina Wallops

Black Voters

By Earl Ofari Hutchinson, Pacific News Service. Posted September 16, 2005.
Link Here


The aftermath of the hurricane could dilute black voter and Democratic strength throughout the South.

President Bush, Karl Rove, and top GOP strategists would never publicly gloat over Katrina's unintended political consequence. But there was a big and potentially lethal one for black voters and the Democratic Party. Nature's catastrophe scattered thousands of poor, black Democratic voters throughout more than 30 states from New Hampshire to California. That could dilute black voter and Democratic strength in Louisiana, and the South.

Black voters make up one third of the state's voters, and nearly one-half of New Orleans voters. They gave Clinton more than 90 percent of the vote in 1992 and 1996. That propelled him to victory over Bush Sr. and Robert Dole, and helped break the GOP stranglehold on state offices.

It also momentarily dented the GOP's Southern strategy. The strategy entailed saying and doing as little as possible about civil rights, actively courting conservative whites, and subtly pandering to the bigotry of Dixiecrats turned Republicans. Presidents Nixon, Reagan, and Bush Sr. (in his 1988 win) banked on that to grab the White House. Transforming Louisiana, with its nine electoral votes, into a crucial swing state, forced the GOP to pour resources, time, and energy into the state to win it.

Though Bush decisively beat Democratic presidential contenders Al Gore and John Kerry in 2000 and 2004, the top heavy black vote for them enabled Democrats to bag many top state and local offices in Louisiana, but just narrowly. A shift of a few thousand votes could tip those offices back to Republicans. The loss of thousands of black votes could also crack the thirty years of unbroken black, and Democratic dominance of City Hall in New Orleans. The streets were barely dry in New Orleans blackest, and poorest wards, when there was talk that a white Republican may challenge black Congressional Democrat William Jefferson.

If the majority of black voters in Jefferson's district don't return, and the likelihood is that many won't, that could make the GOP dream of seizing the Democratic Congressional seat more than just talk. Black voter dispersal could also spell trouble for Mayor Ray Nagin. He grabbed a majority of the white votes in his surprise election victory in 2002. That could easily change in 2006. He's up for reelection, and a white candidate that plays hard on the widespread perception that Nagin, as Bush, also bungled the city's relief efforts could rally white voters.


The future of black vote strength in Louisiana depends on who comes back to the city and state, and when. Many of the mostly white upscale parts of New Orleans received relatively minor storm damage. The voters in these areas will stay, and those whose homes were damaged have the resources to rebuild them. Many of them are Republican. Thousands of poor blacks don't have the resources to rebuild.

Even if many blacks choose to live permanently in the states they relocated to, that could dilute their vote, and further marginalize their political power. To prevent that, the NAACP and other voter groups have called on Congress to pass emergency legislation to extend special protections of the Voting Rights Act, which will expire in 2007, to displaced Louisiana voters.

The aim is to insure that they can vote without restrictions in the places where they relocated. There's little chance that GOP Congressional leaders will do that. They insist that there are enough protections to prevent state officials from tampering with voting laws and procedures. The Act currently requires that the Justice Department or federal courts must approve any changes in vote procedures that involve redistricting, district annexation, registration requirements, holding at large elections, and methods to qualify candidates to safeguard against discrimination.

But this hasn't stopped states from making changes in voting procedures that hurt minority voters. That includes changing, or consolidating polling place locations, tightening voter identification procedures, and adding new and tougher requirements on the timing for filing absentee ballots.

State officials claim that the changes were made to prevent fraud or streamline the voting process. There's no evidence that the changes were deliberately made to thin the ranks of minority voters. Still, if minority voters don't have proper identification, have not been informed of polling changes, or locations, or don't have transportation to get to them, they could be shut of the voting booth. The identification documents of thousands of blacks displaced by Katrina was destroyed or lost in flight.

Even with no polling restrictions, or roadblocks, the vote power of the evacuees could still be crippled. Black political strength lay in their numbers and concentration in key states such as Louisiana. Dispersal reduces them to a blip on the political chart in far-flung states they've ended up in. That further waters down their voting strength, and potential political clout.

Katrina destroyed the fortunes of thousands of New Orleans blacks, while potentially boasting the political fortunes of the GOP. That certainly hasn't escaped Bush and Rove.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He is the author of 'The Crisis in Black and Black' (Middle Passage Press).