I'd be into it.But in all fairness, since the band is three forths Rugburn,if they have a Neckties subsite they should have a Rugburn subsite.

Actually, since I keep finding Colombian Neckties fliers, lyrics sheets, photos, and interviews as I go through old papers, and since John has already converted one of the old tapes to cd, I was wondering if you guys might want to set up a Neckties sub-site and put a link to it on the Blowback site (even if that one Neckties video is lost forever)?

So you guys gonna cover "Big Lies"? I think you should do "Big Lies" with updated lyrics.

The facts of the matter remain:Bush said that the WMD in Iraq were the reason for pre-emptive war - NONE HAVE BEEN FOUNDBush said that Iraq had been reconstituting its nuclear program - THE CIA HAD BEEN WARNING HIM THAT THE FOUNDATION OF THAT "EVIDENCE" WAS A FRAUD AND HE USED IT ANYWAYSAmerican GIs are still dying; why the silence from all the superpatriots? don't they care about their GIs who are being killed for a BIG LIE?Blanket of DreadBy MAUREEN DOWDWASHINGTONThere is no more delightful way to pass a summer's day in Washington than going up to Capitol Hill to watch senators jump ugly on Wolfie.Many Democrats and Republicans on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee felt they had been snookered by Paul Wolfowitz, and they did not want to be played again.They waited gimlet-eyed yesterday while Wolfowitz of Arabia shimmied away once more from giving the cost, in lives or troops or dollars, of remaking a roiling Iraq.Instead, he offered a highly dramatic travelogue of his recent Iraq trip, sleeping in Saddam's palace and flying with members of the Tennessee National Guard, who made him "very unhappy" when they told him about their nearly two years of active duty. (Gee, whose fault is that?) He described Saddam's "torture tree," "unspeakable torture," "torture chamber" and "a smothering blanket of apprehension and dread woven by 35 years of repression.""The military and rehabilitation efforts now under way in Iraq are an essential part of the war on terror," Mr. Wolfowitz proclaimed, capitalizing the "W" and the "T" in his written testimony, and underlining the sentence for those too dim to understand its essential importance.Brazening out the failure to find the Saddam-Qaeda links and W.M.D. the administration aggrandized before the war, Mr. Wolfowitz has simply done an Orwellian fan dance, covering up the lack of concrete ties to the 9/11 terrorists with feathery assertions that securing "the peace in Iraq is now the central battle in the war on terror."It is a new line of defense that was also used by Dick Cheney in a speech last week ("In Iraq, we took another essential step in the war on terror") and by the president in a speech on Monday ("And our current mission in Iraq is essential to the broader war on terror; it's essential to the security of the American people").Even now that it's clear the Bushies played up the terror angle because they thought it was the best way to whip up support for getting rid of Saddam, the administration refuses to level with the public.It dishes out the same old sauerkraut — conjuring up images of Al Qaeda by calling Iraqi guerrillas and foreign fighters "terrorists." Meanwhile, the real Qaeda may be planning more suicide hijackings of passenger planes on the East Coast this summer, Homeland Security says.Noting that the administration is tamping down Iraq while Al Qaeda is bubbling up elsewhere, Senator Russ Feingold pressed: "I would ask you, Secretary Wolfowitz, are you sure we have our eye on the ball?"Senator Lincoln Chafee, Republican of Rhode Island, responded to Mr. Wolfowitz's oration about Saddam's tyranny by noting sharply that Liberia's Charles Taylor is also a vicious tyrant famous for dismembering and burning victims, and spreading war. "But we're doing nothing in Liberia," he said. He objected to Mr. Wolfowitz's using 9/11 to push regime change in Iraq, even though the hawk had advocated getting rid of Saddam all through the late 90's.Senator Joseph Biden excoriated Mr. Wolfowitz for his lack of candor and said his own review of the Iraqi police force — "almost looked like the Katzenjammer Kids" — had convinced him democracy was way off."I no more agree, just for the record, with your assessment that Iraq is the hotbed of terror now than I did [with] your assertions about Al Qaeda connections at the front end," Mr. Biden said, adding that if officials did not tell the truth to the public about the costs in Iraq, they would lose credibility.Spill all the facts? This crowd? Fat chance. Only yesterday, the administration showed ingenious new talent for insidious secrecy. President Bush refused to declassify the 28-page redaction about the Saudi government's role in financing the hijackings, even though the Saudi foreign minister flew to the U.S. to ask the president to do that. (You know you're in trouble when the Saudis are begging you to be more open.)And Mr. Secrecy, John Poindexter, had another boneheaded scheme canceled at the Pentagon, when stunned senators learned that his department had started an online trading market, a dead pool, where investors could wager on terror attacks.Even Mr. Wolfowitz, who has shown an audacious imagination in refashioning the Middle East, thought the death wagers were over the top: "It sounds like maybe they got too imaginative in this area."

Overtime Plan Draws Angry Letters By Kirstin DowneyWashington Post Staff WriterTuesday, July 29, 2003; Page E01 The letters and e-mails from nurses and prison guards, from stay-at-home moms and corporate executives, fill dozens of bound white plastic folders on shelves in a Labor Department reading room, part of more than 80,000 comments on the Bush administration's effort to change the rules that govern payment for overtime work.Many are form letters generated by business or labor groups. Many are personal stories from individuals who heard about the proposal and fear losing extra pay they have built into their budgets, even if it's not clear that they will be affected by the changes. A recent review of 23,000 comments, the first batch made available, found that the mail is running heavily against the rule change designed to update a 65-year-old law."Shame on you, President Bush," Patrick L. Crane, 47, a prison guard from Highland, Ill., wrote to the department in early June. ". . . I would not appreciate being mandated to work extra hours in a prison and become injured or killed for working exhausted."Crane said he has used his time-and-a-half pay to replace his car's broken transmission; help care for his mother, who has dementia; and pay medical bills for his brain cancer treatments."What they are proposing is downright absurd, extremely unfair and un-American," wrote Jennifer Igo, a nurse at the Joe DiMaggio Children's Hospital Intensive Care Unit in Hollywood, Fla., in a letter that was co-signed by 48 co-workers there. "Nurses are already overworked," she wrote."Please do not take away our overtime pay," wrote Megan Musser, 22, of Severn, Md., who said her husband, David, worked 30 hours of overtime a week so that Megan could be a stay-at-home mother to their daughter, Bailey, for the first 21/2 years of her life instead of working nights as a waitress. In her letter, she called the Labor Department plan "deplorable."The passion of the letters is an indication of why the overtime regulation has become a hot political issue. House Democrats tried to block the proposed regulations earlier this month but were defeated, 213 to 210, after heavy lobbying. Senate Democrats are seeking to add a similar blocking amendment to legislation this week. If it fails, the Bush administration will be able to proceed with the change; if it passes, the bill that it is attached to will go to conference with the House.Republican and Democratic administrations alike have attempted to update the overtime provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 over the past 25 years but have been worn down by the complexities of the rules and the politics.The law established the expectation of a 40-hour workweek by guaranteeing the right to overtime pay, at time and a half, for each hour worked beyond 40. Though about 80 percent of the workforce is theoretically entitled to overtime pay, far fewer workers -- about 11.6 million last year -- actually receive it.Under the Bush proposal, managers making up to $22,100 would be guaranteed overtime pay, but many salaried workers making more than $65,000 a year would be exempt. Now exempt from overtime pay are workers who fall into special managerial, administrative or professional categories, whose higher level of career involvement assumes they work longer hours under more flexible conditions. The proposed changes, in essence, would reclassify more mid-level workers as "learned professionals," or administrative or executive workers, making them exempt.Some business groups suggest the $65,000 pay cap is too high. The International Foodservice Distributors Association wrote that $50,000 a year "would be much more reasonable." The National Restaurant Association said that $45,000 a year "would be more appropriate."Deborah Greenfield, the AFL-CIO's associate general counsel, said: "People are outraged and they are scared. . . . This is a bread-and-butter issue for our members." About 200,000 union members have sent letters to the White House protesting the proposed change, union officials said.Victoria A. Lipnic, assistant labor secretary for employment standards, said department officials were not taken aback by the heavy volume of comments, in part because Internet filing makes it easier for people to air their opinions. "It's not surprising when you propose a change to something that has been in place for 54 years," Lipnic said. "You can expect some vigorous debate about it. Overtime is important to people, and we know that. . . . We really welcome the suggestions."The Labor Department will review all the comments and take them into account in implementing the final regulations, which Lipnic said could happen within a year. She said the department is trying to develop rules that will "cause the least economic disruption possible."A sign of the complexity of the issue is the wide range of numbers the department and interest groups have tossed around in estimating how many workers would lose extra pay if the changes tale effect. The Labor Department says 644,000 workers. The business-backed Employment Policy Foundation came up with 1.16 million workers. A labor-funded think tank, the Economic Policy Institute, said 8 million.In the reams of comment letters, many workers expressed strong feelings, volunteering details about how they use overtime earnings to pay their bills and to provide extras for their children."The 40-hour week was enshrined in American labor law during the Great Depression," wrote Ron A. Nerad, a computer systems integrator in St. Louis. "It's still a good idea. Workers who labor longer deserve premium pay. Why? Because it creates an incentive for the employer to treat the employee's time with respect!"Lawrence Busch, a pharmacist from Tehachapi, Calif., wrote asking for the names and phone and fax numbers of every government official involved in the decision to cut overtime. "If you think there is a [pharmacist] shortage now, wait until you tell a pharmacist who is making loan payments on a $120,000 education that he or she cannot make time and a half after eight hours in one of the most stressful professions on earth," Busch wrote.Business groups, on the other hand, applauded the department's work and asked for more exemptions.The Illinois Credit Union League asked for language making it clear that loan officers, executive assistants, compliance specialists, credit managers and bookkeepers hold a "position of responsibility" and should be exempt from overtime requirements.The National Funeral Directors Association asked that funeral directors and embalmers be specified as ineligible for overtime to avoid "confusion and litigation" over their employment status.The National Association of Broadcasters, which represents owners of television and radio stations, wants the rule to make it more explicit that television and radio reporters, producers, directors, news camerapersons, and "other relevant jobs" are ineligible for overtime.Their views are echoed by the Newspaper Association of America, which would like language specifying that reporters, editors and photographers are exempt from overtime. It also suggests that development, payroll, environmental services, security, loss-prevention, information technology, legal, computer services and customer service workers should also be considered for exclusion.ACA International, which represents more than 5,000 debt-collection companies, said debt-collection employees should be exempt from overtime pay because they occupy a "specialized and important position of trust."Dart Transit Co., based in Egan, Minn., said it is becoming so difficult to manage its trucker drivers, whom it employs as independent contractors, resulting in high turnover, that its dispatchers are becoming "key personnel," and urged the Labor Department to make them exempt from overtime.Letters revealed that workers and bosses at the same company are on opposite sides of the issue. Boeing employee Joel Funfarm of Enumclaw, Wash., said he was worried that a rule change would result in the company "simply overworking the few they have left." Another employee, Cynthia Cole, an engineer at Boeing for 25 years, wrote that the overhaul "is not doing justice to the name of the act: FAIR labor standards."Boeing, which has laid off thousands of workers in the past few years, wrote commending the department for updating rules that "have long been out of date." It then asked that team leaders, logistics specialists, manufacturing-technology analysts and some administrative workers be made exempt from overtime pay. Join The One Big Union For All Workers!http://www.iww.org

From http://www.workersolidarity.org/Boycott David's Jade Palace Restaurant!Background A group of Chinese workers are protesting against sweatshop conditions in a Westchester County, New York resturant. The workers got fired after they tried to join the 318 Restaurant Workers union, an independent self-managed union that was started in New York City's Chinatown over twenty years ago. The local town police have not been allowing the workers to picket on the little island in front of the restaurant. The workers havebeen forced to stand literally in the gutter of a main street, in the midst of speeding traffic! Text of leaflet being distributed by resturant workers at David's Jade Palace: Owner David Ng Fosters Sweatshop Workplace ConditionsDear Customers: We ask you to boycott David¹s Jade Palace Restaurant. In a time when the economy is weak and life for restaurant workers is tough, conditions at David¹s Jade Palace Restaurant could not be worse. Our boss¹ greed knows no limit and crosses the boundaries of human decency and labor laws. Restaurant owner, David Ng, is sadistic: He forces us to work 12 hours a day, six days a week and pays us only $350 a month. Provides no break time except a 10-minute break to eat Cheats us of 7.65 percent of our tips claiming that it is for taxes but does not pay these monies to the IRS. Takes great joy in punishing people, often boasting that in just two years he has fired over 200 waiters and busboys. He also brags that he knows the police and therefore can run his sweatshop however way he wants. The working conditions inside the restaurant were so abusive that we had to take action by filing a lawsuit and petitioning to join a union. In retaliation, our sweatshop boss fired all the waiters who dared to speak against the illegal and abusive conditions. We demand to be reinstated under fair and legal working conditions and ask you to help us by boycotting the restaurant. Sincerely, Waiters of David¹s Jade Palace Restaurant David¹s Jade Palace Restaurant is located at: 156 S. Central Park AvenueHartsdale, NY 10530Tel: (914) 288-8008 Please contact us about Picket times, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays! Postscript:Solidarity donations are urgently needed. Your check or money order (US dollars only) should be made out to: NMASS or National Mobilization Against Sweatshops and then earmarked for Justice Will Be Served or David's Jade Palace. Please send your donation to: NMASSPost Office Box 130293New York, New York 10013-0995 USAwww.NMASS.orgnmass@yahoo.comFor more information please contact the Justice Will Be Served Campaign, a service workers campaign of the NMASS (National Mobilization Against Sweatshops) (917) 734-3907.

And the hits just keep on comin'...War FolkloreDon’t listen to the latest groupspeak. Just as we migrate from Scott Peterson to Kobe Bryant and back to Jessica Lynch, so too did the snowy peaks of Afghanistan bow out to the sandstorm-induced pause in Iraq and that in turn to 16 words of the president's speech. But amid all these expressions of fleeting American madness, we need to carefully separate larger truths from the folklore that our elite mob for the moment is mouthing. Here are a random five examples of the current groupspeak that defy common sense.1. Tens of thousands of troops deployed in Iraq represent an unacceptable escalating and open-ended commitment of American blood and treasure.It was never so simple as staying or leaving — inasmuch as we already had been in Iraq for over a decade in a manner that had saved thousands of Kurds and Shiites. Against the present cost of pacifying Iraq must be set a half-generation and the $20-30 billion already spent to secure two-thirds of the airspace of Iraq. Then there was the costly naval enforcement of the U.N. embargo from the Gulf to the Indian Ocean — as well as years of prior shootings and bombings along the way. Add another decade's outlay of keeping 10,000 troops in Saudi Arabia — with all the political risks of putting Americans in such a strange place. Consider further the thousands of Americans stationed elsewhere in the Gulf since 1991 to thwart Saddam Hussein. This three-week conflict, in other words, marked the start of the denouement — not the first act — of a long, costly engagement that began in 1991.If, with the demise of Saddam Hussein — who was the original reason for our aid to his weak and vulnerable neighbors — we can withdraw or at least downsize from places like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Turkey, and the Gulf sheikdoms, then a great deal of the present investment will represent a transfer of expenses rather than an entirely new commitment. Unless we are activating entirely new National Guard units or creating ex nihilo divisions, some percentage of our costs for troops is static and previously budgeted anyway — whether American soldiers are to be fed and housed in Texas or in Baghdad.The present task has a definable goal — leave with consensual government established in Iraq — whereas the last twelve years really were open-ended and led nowhere.2. Iraq was a complete distraction from the war against terror. This is a tired allegation made by a number of Democratic presidential hopefuls, especially Senator Graham. First, none of the oft-repeated and dire predictions — increased terror, an inflamed Arab street, the fall of "moderate" governments in Jordan and Egypt, a ruined Turkish economy, millions of refugees, thousands dead, endless sectarian fighting, and other horsemen of the Apocalypse — have followed from Saddam's ouster. Indeed, the end of Saddam Hussein has already brought dividends in other areas. Consider the following collateral developments in little over 100 days. There is some movement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Soon an American military presence in Saudi Arabia will end. We already see a cessation of cash rewards for suicide murderers; the death or arrests of terrorists like Abu Nidal, Abu Abbas, and al Qaedists in Kurdistan; probable disruption of Iraqi cash flows to terrorist groups based in Lebanon; Hamas worried in Syria; democratic foment in Iran; and a growing sense that the United States is not something terrorists wish to arouse.The Democratic leadership needs to cease its embarrassing rants before its last shred of credibility is lost. The pause was not a setback; the museum attack was not a 170,000-icon heist because Americans were off in the oilfields; Jessica Lynch really did go through hell and her s really did die shooting. Despite the recent rants from some out-of-touch Democratic congressmen, it is not wrong to kill mass murderers in a firefight. Indeed, those Democrats should be reminding Americans that they are proud that the Senate voted long ago to go into Iraq and to eliminate a fascist Baathist state that had murdered tens of thousands.3. The lack of tangible evidence of weapons of mass destruction undermines the success of the war — and gives powerful ammunition to the Democrats' criticism of Mr. Bush.This would be true if there had not been ample reasons presented for going to war — from Saddam's violation of the 1991 accords, his expulsion of U.N. inspectors, his past history of invading and attacking his neighbors, his connection with terrorists, and prior confirmation by the U.N. and the Clinton administration of a continued Iraq WMD program. There are also political problems on the horizon. If senators — who had access to classified intelligence — voted to authorize the president to take measures against Iraq and now object to the circumstances of our (successful) intervention, then either their prior sanction or their present objection is wrong: and they need to tell us which it is and why. If President Clinton once authorized a four-day war because of Saddam's non-compliance with past promises, and no subsequent evidence was adduced that those stockpiles of WMD were in fact recovered or destroyed, then were the Clinton administration and the U.N. wrong, or disingenuous, in their belief that such weapons ever really existed? And — putting all put aside WMD, curbing terrorism, and concerns over our own security — is saving thousands of Iraqis any less humanitarian than intervening in Liberia?It will also be difficult for Democrats to say much about proliferation elsewhere since they now allege that there was no real prewar evidence of WMD in Iraq. So their current harangues will have the pernicious effect of convincing us in the future to ignore accepted reports of enriched uranium in Iran or undiscovered reactors in Korea. Why hassle sifting through tricky intelligence reports when you will only be ankle-bitten later for acting on purportedly fabricated evidence? Most Americans will instead shrug and say, "No way: let the Europeans or the Japanese — not us — worry about Iranian or Korean nukes." The current conundrum is also predicated on two other shaky premises: that evidence of WMD won't be found and that things in Iraq will get worse. Neither is likely. American aid and oil revenue will bring more, not less money, to the Iraq economy in the months ahead. Freedom grows sweeter, not more bitter, to its new beneficiaries. A year from now it is also probable that millions of unsavory Baathist documents will have been cataloged and translated. The fate of the Hussein tribe is becoming clear. Consensual government will be stronger. Those in the know about Saddam's past crimes will become more talkative. Finally, note that the purported communiqués from Saddam's guerrillas repeatedly insist that America's intervention was based on lies and falsehoods about WMD. In contrast, 25 million Iraqis are mostly silent on the issue. Are Saddam's murderers, or his victims, the better allies in the present debate?The discovery of a single cache of weapons or the arrest or corpse of any Hussein will, of course, soon put an end the entire pseudo-controversy — as we are now just witnessing with late-breaking news of the dead eones.4. We have done lasting damage to international alliances and institutions.Careful scrutiny reveals just the opposite: the U.N., NATO, the EU, South Korea, and other bodies and nations are reexamining their own, not our, behavior. The U.N. is not debating leaving the United States or expelling us from the Security Council, but in fact is reviewing its entire constitution: from the exclusion of powerful nations like Japan, Germany, and India from the Security Council to the nature of odious regimes that participate on important commissions — such as that paragon of human rights, Libya. The Belgians are worried about curtailing, not empowering their lunatic courts. They want NATO headquarters to remain, not be moved to Warsaw. Except for the temporary rise of the euro, the news from the EU is of confusion, not lockstep anger at the United States. North versus South, East versus West, Britain versus the Continent — all that reveals intrinsic European fault lines not of our own making.For all the present calumny, Mr. Blair still enjoys far more prestige and admiration abroad than do Messrs. Chirac, Schroeder, Villepin, or Fischer. And among the English-speaking nations, it is just as likely that Canada will move closer to the Australian position vis-à-vis the United States than vice versa. South Korea is keeping silent about its "sunshine policy" — and suddenly quite worried about its anti-American demonstrations — as we ponder our evolving new relationship. In short, a new honesty and maturity are the real dividends of American actions.5. In a drive for global hegemony, America is crafting a new imperialism to rule the world.The trendy notion of America as a "hyperpower" is largely an artifact of the aftermath of the Cold War. True, we enjoy unmatched military strength. Sure, we spend more on defense than do the next ten or so nations collectively. But that imbalance is not a reflection of a wish to dominate the globe, but mostly due to the abject collapse of an empire that failed to do precisely that — and the cleanup of the resulting detritus of Soviet interventions and clients, from Serbia to Afghanistan to Iraq. In terms of percentages of GNP, we are spending no more on our military budget than we did through most years of the Cold War. Both at home and abroad, the real story is just as often the abandonment, not the construction, of military bases.Our sin was mostly that we won the Cold War, kept active in NATO, and did not disarm after the fall of the Berlin Wall. When one of two superpowers is still standing, then ipso facto the survivor usually enjoys twice its former relative power. The fact is that we have been consistent in a predictable 60-year commitment to national security, while our friends and former enemies — by intent or default — have followed different paths since 1989. We stayed mostly the same as they became hypopowers that, to take a small example, would and could do nothing should a madman in Korea wish to kill millions. Without 9/11, remember, we would not now be in either Iraq or Afghanistan — the two points of departure for most of the recent critiques of America as the new Rome.Postscript. These are still perilous times. But if anyone on September 12, 2001, had predicted that 22 months later there would still be no repeat of 9/11; that bin Laden would be either quiet, dead, or in hiding; that al Qaeda would be dispersed, the Taliban gone, and the likes of a Mr. Karzai in Kabul; that Saddam Hussein would be out of power, his sons dead, and an Iraqi national council emerging in his place; that troops would be leaving Saudi Arabia, Arafat ostracized, and Sharon seeking negotiations; that new Middle East agreements under discussion — and all at a cost of fewer than 300 American lives — then he would surely have been written off as a madman. All that and more were no mere accidents. They were the direct result of the work of thousands of brave and astute Americans who were as likely to be slurred during their risky ordeal as they were to be third-guessed in its successful aftermath — and predictably by the same opportunistic bystanders. So far we have lost fewer lives in Afghanistan and Iraq than we did in a single day's butchery in the Marine barracks in Lebanon. But unlike that terrible sacrifice, this time Americans are fighting back, winning, and changing for the better the lives of millions in the most remarkable, ambitious, and risky endeavor since the end of World War II.We need to remember all of that, and get a grip on ourselves amid the latest outbreak of what we can now diagnose as a chronic and embarrassing hysteria Americana

Speaking of the Post, here is another good perspective of things:Middle East: The Realities By Charles KrauthammerFriday, July 25, 2003; Page A25 Amid the general media and Democratic frenzy over Niger yellowcake, it is Bill Clinton who injected a note of sanity. "What happened often happens," Clinton told Larry King. "There was a disagreement between British intelligence and American intelligence. The president said it was British intelligence that said it. . . . . British intelligence still maintains that they think the nuclear story was true. I don't know what was true, what was false. I thought the White House did the right thing in just saying, 'Well, we probably shouldn't have said that.' " Big deal. End of story. End of scandal.The fact that the Democrats and the media can't seem to let go of it, however, is testimony to their need (and ability) to change the subject. From what? From the moral and strategic realities of Iraq. The moral reality finally burst through the yellowcake fog with the death of the Hussein brothers, psychopathic torturers who would be running Iraq if not for the policy enunciated by President Bush in that very same State of the Union address.That moral reality is a little hard for the left to explain, considering the fact that it parades as the guardian of human rights and all-around general decency, and rallied millions to prevent the policy that liberated Iraq from Uday and Qusay's reign of terror.Then there are the strategic realities. Consider what has happened in the Near East since Sept. 11, 2001:(1) In Afghanistan, the Taliban have been overthrown and a decent government has been installed.(2) In Iraq, the Saddam Hussein regime has been overthrown, the dynasty has been destroyed and the possibility for a civilized form of governance exists for the first time in 30 years.(3) In Iran, with dictatorships toppled to the east (Afghanistan) and the west (Iraq), popular resistance to the dictatorship of the mullahs has intensified.(4) In Pakistan, once the sponsor and chief supporter of the Taliban, the government radically reversed course and became a leading American ally in the war on terror.(5) In Saudi Arabia, where the presence of U.S. troops near the holy cities of Mecca and Medina deeply inflamed relations with many Muslims, the American military is leaving -- not in retreat or with apology but because it is no longer needed to protect Saudi Arabia from Hussein.(6) Yemen, totally unhelpful to the United States after the attack on the USS Cole, has started cooperating in the war on terror.(7) In the small, stable Gulf states, new alliances with the United States have been established.(8) Kuwait's future is secure, the threat from Saddam Hussein having been eliminated.(9) Jordan is secure, no longer having Iraq's tank armies and radical nationalist influence at its back.(10) Syria has gone quiet, closing terrorist offices in Damascus and playing down its traditional anti-Americanism.(11) Lebanon's southern frontier is quiet for the first time in years, as Hezbollah, reading the new strategic situation, has stopped cross-border attacks into Israel.(12) Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations have been restarted, a truce has been declared and a fledgling Palestinian leadership has been established that might actually be prepared to make a real peace with Israel.That's every country from the Khyber Pass to the Mediterranean Sea. Everywhere you look, the forces of moderation have been strengthened. This is a huge strategic advance not just for the region but for the world, because this region in its decades-long stagnation has incubated the world's most virulent anti-American, anti-Western, anti-democratic and anti-modernist fanaticism.This is not to say that the Near East has been forever transformed. It is only to say that because of American resolution and action, there is a historic possibility for such a transformation.But it all hinges on success in Iraq. On America's not being driven out of Iraq the way it was driven out of Lebanon and Somalia -- which is what every terrorist and every terrorist state wants to see happen. And with everything at stake, what is the left doing? Everything it can to undermine the enterprise. By implying both that it was launched fraudulently (see yellowcake) and, alternately, that it has ensnared us in a hopeless quagmire.Yes, the cost is great. The number of soldiers killed is relatively small, but every death is painful and every life uniquely valuable. But remember that just yesterday we lost 3,000 lives in one day. And if this region is not transformed, on some future day we will lose 300,000.The lives of those as yet unknown innocents hinge now on success in Iraq. If we win the peace and leave behind a decent democratic society, enjoying, as it does today, the freest press and speech in the entire Arab world, it will revolutionize the region. And if we leave in failure, the whole region will fall back into chaos, and worse. source© 2003 The Washington Post Company

I like Mike's idea of having an investigation on claims about Iraq that goes back a few Administrations.I think South Park could do a good version of the veracity of all of their claims, as well as adding Hussein's two sons as characters, although the Washington Post is doing a good enough job of demonizing them.

Subject: They're doing WHAT to Medicare?Date: Thu, 24 July 2003 Congress is considering prescription drug legislationthat would radically change Medicare. What they're NOTtelling you about the Medicare prescription drug billsCAN hurt current and future retirees, including you. Thesechanges in Medicare are a BAD DEAL for America's retirees.They would: + Privatize Medicare and put seniors at the mercy of insurancecompanies. + Leave millions of seniors with huge drug costs. + Threaten employer-provided prescription drug coverage--4.4million retirees who have coverage now could lose it.+ Increase future premiums by 25 percent if you stay inthe Medicare you know with the doctor of your choice.+ Prevent our government from reining in prescriptiondrug prices. You can take action to stop these harmful changes beforethey become law. Please take one minute right now to sendyour U.S. senators and representative a fax by clickingon the link below. http://www.unionvoice.org/campaign/j24medicarerx/87nwk3zy5nmm After you've taken action, please send a message to yourfriends, family and co-workers about these changes inMedicare by clicking on the link below. http://www.unionvoice.org/campaign/j24medicarerx/forward/87nwk3zy5nmm The final votes in the U.S. Senate and House of Representativescould happen very soon. It is important that you act today.SUMMER READING LIST: "The Big Fix:" exposes how the pharmaceuticalindustry guarantees big profits--at the expense of workingfamilies and seniors. You can buy it now at the AFL-CIO'sUnion Shop Online by clicking on the link below: http://www.unionvoice.org/ct/Q11qe641c7qC/

from a little bird with good solid info - i don't id the little bird because it was an informal communication and i don't know whether this was fact-checked - but it's interesting, very interesting:Argentine Judge Canicoba has just ordered the arrest of 45 Argentine military officers and one civilian on the basis of Judge Garzon's extradition request, which was reissued July 8th. There is currently a decree put in place by De la Rua that says that Argentina won't extradite Argentines to third countries for crimes committed at home, but the new Argentine President, Kirchner, has stated publicly that he plans to eliminate that decree (he's also talked about eliminating the Argentine amnesty laws) and his Foreign Minister has stated for the record, "if they can't be tried here, they will be tried in other countries." It sounds pretty wild, but so did the arrest of Pinochet at one point, so I just thought you might want to know.

Funny Joke:Son: Dad, I have a special report for school. Can I ask you a question? Dad: Sure son, what's the question? Son: What is politics? Dad: Well son, let's take our home for example. I am the wage earner, so let's call me the management. Your mother is the administrator of the money, so let's call her the government. We take care of you and your needs, so let's call you the people. We'll call the maid the working class and your baby brother the future. Understand? Son: I'm not really sure dad, I'll have to think about it. That night, the boy is awakened by his baby brother's crying, so he went to see what was wrong. Discovering that the baby had a heavily soiled nappy, the boy went to his parent's room and found his mother fast asleep. He than went to the maid's room, where, peeking through the keyhole, he saw his father in bed with the maid. The boy's knocking went totally unheard. The boy went back to his room and went to sleep. The next morning... Son: Dad, I think I understand politics. Dad: That's great son, explain it to me in your own words. Son: While the management is screwing the working class, the government is fast asleep, the people are being completely ignored and the future is full of shit.

Leading Democrats Go AWOL on Overtime Vote by Nikos Valance Village Voice There are millions of men and women in America who not only work hard every day but also put in overtime. Sometimes the overtime helps to pay the bills. Sometimes it helps them stay a little ahead of the game or to save for things they otherwise couldn't afford, like a college education or a bigger house for a growing family. There was once a time in America when these men and women believed they could depend on Democrats in Washington to defend their interests and to battle to protect their rights.That time is apparently gone. On Thursday, the House of Representatives-with seven Democrats absent, including presidential candidate Richard Gephardt-voted 213 to 210 to approve new regulations that would cut off a universe of Americans-anywhere from 1 million to 8 million-from guaranteed overtime pay. Under the new rules, backed by the Bush administration and campaigned for heavily by business lobbyists, those employees would still have to put in extra hours. They just wouldn't get any extra pay. Instead, some would qualify for comp time-try paying the rent with that-and others would simply be reclassified as executives, even if they wield little managerial authority.Where were the Democrats? Nowhere to be found. Gephardt was in Iowa getting an endorsement from the International Order of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, promising veterans of the picket line they'd be part of a new American prosperity. Among the leading Democratic contenders, neither Gephardt nor senators John Edwards, John Kerry, or Joe Lieberman returned repeated Voice calls for comment. The office of Representative Dennis Kucinich, a staunch labor supporter who voted against the measure, at least returned a call, as did former Vermont governor Howard Dean's office. Dean spokesperson Tricia Enright says of Gephardt's absence, "It's disgraceful. . . . Don't votes like this keep people off the picket lines?"It's fine for Dean's people to take a shot at Gephardt on this issue, but the fact of the matter is that none of the presidential candidates made this into a major national issue. Neither did any of the Democrats in Congress. Yet all are counting on support from labor, and they're likely to get it.Even more mind-boggling is the reaction from organized labor. Bill Samuels, the legislative director of the AFL-CIO said he "was disappointed by the vote in the House." Just disappointed? Is that all? He went on to say the next step was to try to win a vote in the Senate, a vote that hasn't yet been scheduled, and about which labor leaders can only hope. Because if Kerry, Edwards, Lieberman, or Bob Graham decide not to be present, the unions are bound to lose. With such a narrow margin in the Senate-Republicans hold a one-vote majority-the chances of labor winning a vote there are viewed as very slim. And with the House vote sealed, the general consensus is that the new regs are a done deal.Some labor execs have interesting theories as to why the candidates are not more outspoken about the issue. Nicholas Clark, an attorney with the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW), thinks the candidates may be lying low in order not to interfere with a bipartisan effort to beat back the administration. Meanwhile the Bush White House is working its own overtime to make sure the new regs go through. The president took a high- profile stand before the House vote, threatening to veto the education, health, and human-services spending bill if an amendment blocking his new overtime rules wasn't lifted. For a president who has presided over the largest net job loss since Herbert Hoover to show such determination to cut workers' overtime pay is, in the words of UFCW chief lobbyist Michael Wilson, "handing the Democrats an issue."If only. The day after the defeated amendment in the House, Wilson did show some fire in his belly toward the Democrats, and Gephardt in particular. Wilson said he now wants all the candidates to state publicly that on the day they're elected president, they will immediately announce the reversal of the Bush policy. So far, only Kucinich has said unequivocally that he will.

I say let's open up the investigation on ALL parties involved:July 21, 2003, 11:00 a.m. Lies about Iraqi Nukes Bill Clinton & Carl Levin. n December 16, 1998, Bill Clinton informed the nation that he had ordered military action against Iraq. No less than three times Clinton referred to Iraq's nuclear arms or nuclear program. Example 1: "Earlier today, I ordered America's armed forces to strike military and security targets in Iraq. They are joined by British forces. Their mission is to attack Iraq's nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons programs and its military capacity to threaten its neighbors." Example 2: "Saddam Hussein must not be allowed to threaten his neighbors or the world with nuclear arms, poison gas, or biological weapons." Example 3: "And so we had to act and act now. Let me explain why. First, without a strong inspection system, Iraq would be free to retain and begin to rebuild its chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons programs in months, not years." Notice that in the first example, Clinton speaks of attacking Iraq's nuclear program, which obviously requires the known existence — indeed, the location — of such a program. And in the third example, Clinton warns of an imminent threat Iraq could reconstitute, among other things, its nuclear-weapons program, thereby alleging its existence. Now, on what basis did Clinton conclude that Saddam Hussein had a nuclear weapon, a nuclear-weapons program, or the ability to reconstitute such a program in months? Well, let's look at certain key public statements and representations by Clinton himself and his top people. Fact 1: On September 3, 1998, Clinton reported to Congress on "Iraq's non-compliance with U.N. Security Council resolutions." In the section of the report labeled "Nuclear Weapons," Clinton's report stated: In an interim report to the UNSC July 29, the IAEA ["International Atomic Energy Agency"] said that Iraq had provided no new information regarding outstanding issues and concerns. The IAEA said while it has a 'technically coherent picture' of Iraq's nuclear program, Iraq has never been fully transparent and its lack of transparency compounds remaining uncertainties. The IAEA noted Iraq claims to have no further documentation on such issues as weapons design engineering drawings, experimental data, and drawings received from foreign sources in connection with Iraq's centrifuge enrichment program. The IAEA also reported that Iraq was 'unsuccessful' in its efforts to locate verifiable documentation of the abandonment of the nuclear program.... Thus, Clinton's own report to Congress, during the lead up to military action against Iraq, contained no substantive information about Iraq's "nuclear arms" or "nuclear weapons program." Instead, it emphasized the near total lack of insight into such matters. Fact 2: On September 9, 1998, in response to the United Nations Security Council's vote to suspend Iraqi sanction reviews, Clinton issued a short statement which said, in part: ... The Security Council has made crystal clear that the burden remains on Iraq to declare and destroy all its nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons and the missiles to deliver them. But Iraq did not "declare" its "nuclear weapons." In fact, there's no evidence Iraq actually had "nuclear weapons," per se, as opposed to certain materials or parts that might be used to build such weapons. Clinton's statement regarding Iraq's "nuclear weapons" was utterly false. Fact 3: During Mike McCurry's September 30, 1998, press briefing, McCurry contradicted Clinton's September 9 statement. McCurry stated, in part: ... [W]e are aware of the allegations that Iraq retained weapons-related components, but we can't confirm the specific allegation that they have acquired those devices. There's little doubt that they have sought nuclear capability. That's been one of our long-standing concerns and one of the reasons why we have insisted on support for the international efforts by the International Atomic Energy Agency to monitor and to investigate suspected activities in Iraq. It's why we've supported UNSCOM, as well, for similar and related issues. Iraq's current refusal to allow inspections by both the IAEA and UNSCOM ... is totally unacceptable. We continue to believe that there is a lot more to know about Iraq's nuclear program. We've sought clarification before we're willing to consider what kind of final punctuation mark you can place on efforts by Iraq to acquire nuclear related technology. So, McCurry made clear that the Clinton administration could not confirm that Iraq had actually acquired "devices" for producing nuclear weapons, or even the extent to which Iraq was attempting to acquire "nuclear-related technology." Fact 4: At a September 30, 1998, State Department press briefing, Secretary of State Madeline Albright's spokesman, James Foley, was asked about Iraq's nuclear capabilities. Question: "I was just asking about the Iraqi progress towards nuclear weapons. There [are] two reports in the past two years, apparently, that the United States has been told that Iraq is building atomic bombs, at least the nuclear shells, the nuclear weapons without the atomic cores. Can you comment on that? Mr. Foley: "Well, I'm not aware that the United States has been told any such thing. But what I can say in response to your question and the articles is that we are aware of allegations that Iraq retained weapons-related components, but we cannot confirm these allegations. ... ... In terms of the allegation itself, again, it's not something we can confirm; it's important, though, to understand the potential ramifications. Having several components of a warhead does not mean that one necessarily has a usable nuclear weapon. In this regard the IAEA, we're told, feels confident, that Iraq does not have sufficient fissile material or the ability to produce that material for a weapon. Again, this really underscores our concern about the lack of intrusive UNSCOM and IAEA inspections. The limited ongoing monitoring program can help deter obvious Iraqi attempts to rebuild the WMD capability during this period, but we are very concerned, obviously, about the longer run." Foley, therefore, could not even confirm that Iraq retained nuclear weapons-related components. And Foley emphasized that without U.N. inspections, the Clinton administration did not and would not have insight into nuclear-related issues involving Iraq. Consequently, on December 16, 1998, when Clinton told the nation that he ordered military strikes against Iraq to, among other things, attack its nuclear program, to prevent Saddam Hussein from threatening the world with nuclear arms, and to stop Hussein from rebuilding his nuclear weapons program in a matter of months, he had no basis for these assertions. They were utterly false. Moreover, I could find no statements from Secretary of State Albright endorsing Clinton's characterization of Iraq's nuclear capabilities. When you contrast Clinton's unequivocal yet insupportable arguments about Iraq's nuclear program with the qualified yet accurate 16-words President George Bush used in his January 28, 2003, State of the Union Address to describe Iraq's effort to secure uranium, the liberal bias of the mainstream media in giving a continuing voice to Democratic charges becomes obvious. The Democrats are, and will remain, unsatisfied with any response provided by the Bush administration. Such is their political strategy. As if to highlight the point, Democratic-party advertisements accusing the president of lying already began appearing on television last week. And President Bush's chief accuser is a long-serving, little-known liberal partisan from Michigan, Senator Carl Levin. Levin charges that "[t]he uranium issue is not just about sixteen words. It is about the conscious decisions that were made, apparently by the NSC and concurred in by the CIA, to create a false impression" to help President Bush justify war with Iraq. Although Levin is chairman of no committee, he's now conducting his own "investigation." But Levin never questioned Clinton's assertions about Iraq's nuclear arms, nuclear program, or imminent nuclear threat. He didn't accuse Clinton of manipulating intelligence as a cover to attack Iraq. He didn't demand hearings and investigations. In fact, back then, Levin himself played fast and loose with the facts. On October 9, 1998, in a speech on the Senate floor, Levin stated, in part: With respect to Iraq's history, the Security Council noted Iraq's threat during the Gulf War to use chemical weapons in violation of its treaty obligations, Iraq's prior use of chemical weapons, Iraq's use of ballistic missiles in unprovoked attacks, and reports that Iraq attempted to acquire materials for a nuclear weapons program contrary to its treaty obligations. But as described above, in 1998 the U.N.'s IAEA, McCurry, and Foley had no evidence that Iraq was attempting to acquire materials for nuclear weapons, which is why they all decried the lack of U.N. inspectors in Iraq. Clinton's report to Congress, which Levin would have seen, provided no evidence. In other words, Levin, like Clinton, and many other Democrats, did, in fact, mislead the American people. Don't expect the mainstream media to notice, however. They're too busy regurgitating the Democrats' talking points.

> Bill Capowski, a member of the IWW, left the US on July 1 to volunteerwith> the International Solidarity Movement to help the Palestinian people> peacefully resist Israeli military occupation. He traveled to a small> village of 900 residents in the northern West Bank, near Jenin. OnSunday,> Bill, three other internationals, and the local population set up a peace> camp. At the camp, they played games with children during the day and> talked with men and women during the evening about the villagers'> rage and despair that a 30-foot tall concrete seperation wall is being> built through their farmland. The camp was erected directly in> the path of the planned construction of the wall.>> To make the story short, the four internationals were arrested by the> Israeli army on Wednesday July 9 after refusing to leave the area. Theywere> beaten, taken to a military base, and denied legal counsel. At their> deportation hearing they were issued deportation orders, which they would> not sign. They were transferred to Ariel Police Station on Thursday.During> the ride to the station, the police captain transporting them was driving93> miles per hour and got into a serious car accident with Bill and theothers> in the back, who were shackled and not wearing seatbelts. They areinjured> and need independent medical personnel to evaluate and treat them. Thefour> remain in cell #4 at the Ariel Police Station, and are denied visitation> from lawyers and others, phone calls, proper food, exercise and natural> light. It has been a week now since their capture and there is no word on> their next hearing. There is talk that they are engaging in a hunger> strike.>>> HOW WE CAN HELP:> On Thursday, July 17, take a moment to ask the US Consulate to issue a> formal, written protest and make a visit to Ariel Police Station.>>> US Embassy> Consular Section> 71 Hayarkon St> Tel Aviv> Israel>> Telephone numbers (when dialing from US and Canada):> 011-972-3-519-7551> 011-972-3-519-7369> 011-972-3-519-7454> 011-972-3-519-7458> 011-972-3-519-7453>> Fax: 011-972-3-516-4390>> E-mail: amctelaviv@state.gov>> http://usembassy-israel.org.il/publish/consular.htm

Tell your Senators to block the Bush overtime take away. You may have heard the news. An opportunity to block President Bush's drive to take away overtime pay from millions of Americans has just come up. Before the end of July we need to tell Congress to block the Bush overtime cuts. We lost the vote in the U.S. House on this last Thursday but we have another chance when the Senate considers an effort to block Bush's overtime cuts. More than 8 million people are slated to LOSE THEIR OVERTIME PAY in the coming months. Here is what is needed in the next couple of weeks: First, please click on the link below to SEND AN E-MAIL TO your Senators and Representative with a copy to President Bush. Tell them to act to repeal the Bush overtime take away. http://www.unionvoice.org/campaign/SenateOTrider/8u7bxw4zj883 Second, E-MAIL YOUR FRIENDS, FAMILY AND CO-WORKERS and ask them to get involved and help stop these pay cuts. Click on the link below to send them a message. http://www.unionvoice.org/campaign/SenateOTrider/forward/8u7bxw4zj883 Or, cut and paste the following link into your own e-mail message: http://www.unionvoice.org/campaign/SenateOTrider/ (This might make it easier to send the link and a message to lots of people in your e-mail address book.) Overtime pay cuts being pushed by the Bush administration are slated to go into effect for millions of workers as soon as September of this year. These changes would erode the 40-hour workweek and mean that if you receive overtime pay now, you might not in the future. Overtime pay makes up about one-fourth of the average weekly earnings of workers who receive it. That is an average pay cut of $161 a week and can add up to thousands of dollars a year. Can you imagine the government cutting the pay of a firefighter by thousands of dollars per year? How much would you lose? These overtime pay cuts are like a giant new tax on working families by a president who, at the same time, works hard to give tax breaks to millionaires. With a failing economy, millions out of work and staggering health care and prescription drug costs, this is a burden America’s workers should NOT have to bear. The overtime rules protect workers from bosses who would impose unbearably long hours if they didn’t have to pay extra for overtime work. Many workers would have less predictable work schedules because of the increased demand for overtime work. Source: http://www.jwj.org

File This One Under As "The Seven Dwarves: Early Day Class War Agitators"?Federal Judge Nathaniel Gorton has issued an injunction against CWA Local 1365 members whistling on the job at the request of OFS/Fitel, a Massachusetts fiber optic cable maker which says the whistling - part of an in-plant solidarity campaign - disrupted production, violated the union's no-strike clause, and drove managers batty.Source: Industrial Worker, July/August 2003

Interesting site about reducing the hours of the average work week but increasing wages.http://lamar.colostate.edu/~terrel/details.htm#freedom

It's hard to figure out what happened here. Bush said something along the lines of "Recently the British have learned that Iraq tried to buy uranium from an African nation...." Some reports say that the CIA told the White House it could not verify this, and that is why the White House cited the British instead. That's not deliberate lying, but it is a case of the administration not wanting to get to the truth, lest the truth weaken its case for war. Willful ignorance, I suppose. What's interesting to me is that the documents purporting to show uranium purchase were known to be forgeries before the war -- as related by Franklin in this forum -- but no one in the media or government seemed to care at the time.

a good question from the New York Times:We're glad that someone in Washington has finally taken responsibility for letting President Bush make a false accusation about Saddam Hussein's nuclear weapons program in the State of the Union address last January, but the matter will not end there. George Tenet, the director of central intelligence, stepped up to the issue yesterday when he said the C.I.A. had approved Mr. Bush's speech and failed to advise him to drop the mistaken charge that Iraq had recently tried to import significant quantities of uranium from an African nation, later identified as Niger. Now the American people need to know how the accusation got into the speech in the first place, and whether it was put there with an intent to deceive the nation. The White House has a lot of explaining to do.

The Real WinnersA rogue's gallery of war profiteers.BY TODD TAVARESART BY NICK THORKELSON Even as bombs were raining down on Baghdad, a short list of private beneficiaries was being drawn up behind closed doors. As the invasion entered its final phase, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Army Corps of Engineers (funded through the Pentagon) began doling out contracts. Citing security concerns and time constraints, they hand picked the companies that would be allowed to bid for the contracts (American firms only, thank you), and in some cases they awarded colossal sums with no bidding at all. USAID, whose mission is to further "America’s foreign policy interests in expanding democracy and free markets while improving the lives of the citizens of the developing world," invited 21 firms to bid on eight contracts worth $1.7 billion. Many of the contract details have not been revealed to American taxpayers or the Iraqi people. A look at the past records of the companies that received contracts reveals that most have long histories of project work with USAID, specialize in privatization, and maintain strong political connections. These are the firms that benefited most from the reconstruction largesse. In fact, they may be the war’s real winners.Where two figures are given for award amount, the low number is money allocated to begin work and the high number is the estimated final cost. STEVEDORING SERVICES OF AMERICA (SSA)Seattle-based private operator of port facilities. Awarded: $4.8 million (initially) For: Seaport Administration (to assess Umm Qasr port facilities; develop improvement plan; hire port pilots; facilitate cargo-handling services; coordinate transport shipments from Umm Qasr) Stevedoring Services of America is the largest marine and rail-cargo handler in the United States and the largest terminal operator in the world, with annual revenue of $1 billion. A notorious union-buster, SSA is the dominant member of the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA), the stevedoring trade association responsible for paying longshore workers. Joseph Miniace, the PMA president alleged to have been installed by SSA, worked for years to break union power by outsourcing and automating the ports. It was the International Longshore and Warehouse Union’s (ILWU) effort to resist his changes and maintain full unionization that prompted the PMA to lock out port workers in September 2002. After USAID gave SSA the Iraq contract, its security office discovered that the firm did not have the necessary security clearance. Instead of revoking the contract and awarding it to a company with the correct clearance credentials, USAID waived the requirement. INTERNATIONAL RESOURCES GROUP (IRG)Washington, D.C.-based private consulting firm. Awarded: $7.1 million minimum (90 day initial contract, renewable for two additional 1-year terms) For: Personnel Support (to provide technical expertise for reconstruction) USAID contacted International Resources Group to discuss the post-war reconstruction contract in January 2003, well before the U.S. and allied invasion began, according to the Washington Post. Granted, the agency and the consulting conglomerate have a longstanding relationship—since 1978, USAID has awarded IRG over 200 contracts amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars. About one-third of the company’s total business is done for USAID. Its other projects are funded by government agencies, foreign states, the World Bank, and the Asian Development Bank. IRG also does extensive energy-related consulting work in the private sector, notably for large oil firms. Its contract to provide personnel services for the reconstruction of Iraq was "sole sourced," meaning the job was simply handed to IRG. No other bids were solicited. ABT ASSOCIATES, INC.Cambridge, Massachusetts-based government and business consulting firm; employee owned and for-profit. Awarded: $10 million to $43.8 million (12 month contract) For: Public Health (supporting the Iraqi Ministry of Health; delivering health services; providing medical equipment and supplies; training and recruiting health staff; providing health education and information; and determining the specific needs of the health sector and vulnerable populations such as women and children) One of the largest for-profit research and consulting firms in the world, Abt’s clients include governments, international organizations, business and industry, foundations, and nonprofit associations. One of its specialty areas is privatization. The firm offers client states "technical assistance to facilitate policy reforms in countries moving from command economies to market-oriented economies." The firm helped privatize government-owned pharmaceutical industries in Kazakhstan and worked on other privatization efforts in the former Soviet Union involving health, financing, and service delivery activities. Abt has also undertaken privatization projects in Central America, the Caribbean, African and Asia. USAID has a history of funding these "market-based reforms." CREATIVE ASSOCIATES INTERNATIONAL, INC. (CAII) Washington, D.C.-based private for-profit international consulting firm. Awarded: $1 million to $62.6 million (12-month contract) For: Primary and Secondary Education (to increase enrollment and quality; provide necessary supplies; retain students and increase baseline indicators) Since 1977, Creative Associates International has assisted "the stabilization of post-conflict environments" in many countries—including such casualties of U.S.-sponsored conflict as Angola, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Nicaragua, according to its website. Ninety percent of its business is funded by USAID. In March, CAII snagged an agency grant of $6 million to produce textbooks for students in Afghanistan. It won the bid over the previous bid-holder, the University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO). UNO had insisted the textbooks be produced by Afghans themselves in order to employ residents of Kabul and provide a small measure of self-sufficiency to the Afghan people. CAII promptly transferred the printing to Indonesia, resulting in job losses in Kabul. RESEARCH TRIANGLE INSTITUTE (RTI) Research Triangle Park, North Carolina-based nonprofit research and development organization. Awarded: $7.9 million to $167.9 million (12 month contract) For: Local Governance (strengthening of management skills and capacity of local administrations and civic institutions; training programs in communications, conflict resolution, leadership skills and political analysis) Research Triangle Institute does a strange mix of business through its 12 offices. The 2,100-person firm helps transfer NASA research to the private sector, "commercializing" NASA’s technologies and "bringing them to markets." It also receives Defense Department funding. RTI was recently awarded a USAID grant for $60 million to implement Pakistan’s "Education Sector Reform Action," a plan for reforming Pakistan’s education system, increasing literacy, and increasing public-private partnerships in the education sector. In Iraq the firm will provide local governance support through a project dubbed the "Iraq Sub-National Governance and Civic Institution Support Program." Little detailed information about the program has been made public. BECHTEL GROUP San Francisco-based, private for-profit engineering and construction firm; one of the largest in the world. Awarded: $34.6 million to $680 million (18 month contract) For: Capital Construction (to repair and rehabilitate water, power, and sewage infrastructure; repair and upgrade Umm Qasr seaport; repair hospitals, schools, ministry buildings, irrigation and transportation links) The construction giant now in control of repairing the water and irrigation systems of Iraq is a renown water privatizer. A Bechtel subsidiary privatized the water of Cochabamba, Bolivia in the late 1990s, making it unaffordable to the poor. Massive protests ensued, in which at least six people were killed and hundreds injured by the police. When the Bolivian government canceled the company’s contract, the firm sued for loss of potential profit. The $13.3 billion family-owned conglomerate has strong connections to the current and previous Republican administrations. In fact, a revolving door between Bechtel and Washington has been spinning around for decades. Caspar Weinberger was a Bechtel executive before he became Secretary of Defense under Reagan. Former CIA Director William Casey also rose from the Bechtel ranks. Current Bechtel board member George Shultz was president and director of the company from 1974 until he became Secretary of State under Reagan in 1982. Earlier this year, the good Mr. Schultz cheered loudly for the Iraq war, not only in op-ed pieces, but also as a member of the Committee for the Liberation for Iraq (CLI), an eclectic mix of warmongers—Democrat and Republican—lobbying for combat. The CLI included former Senator Bob Kerrey, former House speaker Newt Gingrich, and Senators John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.). In February 2003, President Bush appointed company CEO (and Republican Party loyalist) Riley Bechtel to the Export Council, a group dedicated to expanding the U.S. export market. Other senior executives of Bechtel who double as government advisors include Senior Vice President Jack Sheehan, who advises the Pentagon through the Defense Policy Board, and Senior Vice President Daniel Chao, who serves on the advisory committee of the U.S. Export-Import Bank. Bechtel is also a major campaign contributor—its employees gave $1.3 million to federal candidates and party committees between 1999 and 2002 (59% to Republicans, 41% to Democrats). Another interesting plotline in the story of Bechtel’s contract coup is the company’s relationship with the current head of USAID, Andrew Natsios. As chairman of the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority in 2000-2001, Natsios worked closely with Bechtel on Boston’s "Big Dig" construction project—Bechtel was and is the project’s principle contractor. In the 1980s, Bechtel estimated the Big Dig’s price tag would be $2.5 billion. Since then the cost has ballooned by more than 560% to over $14 billion due in large part to Bechtel mismanagement and the lack of state oversight of its work. When Natsios took over the Turnpike Authority, he promised to rein in the overruns. He worked with Bechtel to renegotiate its Big Dig contract, and succeeded in reducing their management fees. But Natsios permitted the Bechtel team to continue to review and evaluate their own work, basically changing little. During Natsios’ tenure, the cost estimate of the Big Dig continued to rise. A few months after he left for his post at USAID, $300 million more in cost overruns were announced. Natsios denies allegations that he gave preferential treatment to Bechtel for the Iraq reconstruction contract. KELLOGG BROWN AND ROOT (KBR) (A HALLIBURTON SUBSIDIARY) KBR is the engineering and construction wing of the Houston, Texas-based petroleum and gas service firm; Halliburton is publicly traded on NYSE (HAL). Amount: Unlimited For: Repair of Petroleum Infrastructure (putting out oil fires, contingency planning) The contract to extinguish and repair the oil infrastructure of Iraq is the true gem of the reconstruction spoils. For starters it is a "cost plus" contract in which the government pays the total cost of work done, plus a profit. The Army Corps of Engineers predicts the total value will amount to $7 billion over two years with KBR taking 7% (about $490 million) as profit. The contract also gives KBR the right to produce and sell oil inside the country of Iraq. Remarkably, this was a closed-door handout granted to KBR without bidding. It seems odd that the Halliburton subsidiary would be chosen for the plum contract, given that a recent KBR contract in the Balkans resulted in $2 million in fines to resolve claims the firm committed fraud. And KBR recently admitted to the SEC that they had bribed Nigerian officials to avoid paying their fair share of taxes. This is not exactly the type of organization you’d think the administration would want heading the "we’re here to help you" parade in a newly occupied country. But Halliburton is not only a darling of Republican fundraisers—95% of their $700,000 donations between 1999 and 2002 went to Republican candidates—the company also has an intimate relationship with vice president Dick Cheney, a relationship that helps explain the firm’s good fortune. As Secretary of Defense under George H. W. Bush, Cheney hired then-Brown and Root to consult the army about privatizing army jobs. Brown and Root would later win a contract to provide worldwide logistics for the Army Corps of Engineers. When Cheney became Halliburton CEO (1995-2000), the company became the 18th largest Pentagon contractor, up from 73rd. Cheney also helped change tax payments of $302,000,000 in 1998 to tax refunds of $85,000,000 in 1999 in part by quintupling its offshore subsidiaries. Since he left Halliburton to run for vice president, Cheney has continued to receive deferred compensation from his former company of between $100,000 and $1,000,000 per year. QUALCOMM, INC.San Diego-based, publicly traded wireless-communications technology firm. Awarded: Nothing Although it has not yet been decided who will build the cell-phone network in post-war Iraq, it seems likely that it will be built to the specifications of GSM technology—the Middle East and European standard. For Qualcomm, which produces and collects royalties from chip sales of a rival system (CDMA), Iraq’s adoption of GSM would represent a tremendous loss. Upon learning of the GSM plans, a Qualcomm lobbyist went to Rep. Darrel E. Issa (R-Calif.), the recipient of $5,500 in Qualcomm campaign contributions. Together the wireless technology firm and the congressman drafted a letter advocating use of CDMA technology in Iraq, had it signed by 41 lawmakers, and sent it to USAID and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. The letter argued that CDMA is technologically superior and that the money spent on reconstruction should benefit American firms, not the European firms that developed GSM. Unfortunately for Qualcomm, the use of GSM would isolate Iraq from neighboring countries. And in terms of American benefits, many firms make GSM handsets and at least one owns royalty-gaining GSM patents. The only real beneficiary of a CDMA system in Iraq would be Qualcomm itself. Rep. Issa introduced a bill that would mandate the use of Qualcomm’s technology to the House of Representatives at the end of March. It is not expected to pass. Todd Tavares is a Dollars & Sense intern and a student at Northeastern University. Stack the deck in favor of peace. Donate to the Ruckus Society (www.ruckus.org), and get your own War Profiteers Card Deck. SOURCES Financial Times May 6, 2003; New York Times April 9, 2003, April 11, 2003; www.citizenworks.org; www.corpwatch.org;. Campaign contribution information is from Open Secrets. USAID contracts and updates can be found at www.usaid.goc/iraq/activities.html. Issue #248, July/August 2003

There was unanimous and universal praise for those (unionised) ordinary people of the United States who had died doing their jobs on 11 September 2001. And then the Bush administration returned to its policy of stripping workers of their rights and de-unionising whole zones of employment.http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=10&ItemID=3789

Labor Day, and American workers' rightsBy Ralph NaderAs Americans celebrate Labor Day and honor the nation's working people, we should all be ashamed that American labor law and American labor law enforcement makes a mockery of workers' basic rights to organize, join unions and exercise collective bargaining.Workers face enormous obstacles to form a union and exercise fundamental rights once unionized. One in ten union supporters campaigning to form a union is fired illegally, and employers are effectively free to fire ("permanently replace") workers on strike.Much of the flawed framework of American labor law is traceable to the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947. More than 50 years after its passage, it is time for Congress to repeal this denial of workers' civil rights.Employers and forces opposed to unions' right to exist passed Taft-Hartley in a climate of fear and anti-union zealotry. The result remains a heavily imbalanced labor law, which includes Taft-Hartley provisions that:Ban secondary boycotts, severely diminishing the organizing and bargaining power of labor unions. Define "employee" to exclude supervisors and independent contractors. This diminishes the pool of workers eligible to be unionized. The exclusion of supervisors from union organizing activity has meant they are used as management's "front line" in anti-organizing efforts. Require the National Labor Relations Board to hold an election to determine representation; prior to Taft Hartley, the Board at its discretion could certify unions through other means, potentially including card-checks. Authorize states to adopt misnamed "right-to-work" laws, barring union security clauses. Union security clauses mean all workers in a unionized shop who receive the economic benefits of union representation pay dues to share the cost of maintaining the union (though they do not have to be members and cannot be compelled to support political positions they oppose). As Professor Stephen Abraham has noted, "Many ... studies find that right-to-work laws have a negative effect on the unionization in the states possessing them; the studies also suggest that right-to-work laws negatively impact on state wage levels. These studies generally conclude that the statistics cited demonstrate that right-to-work laws reduce unionizations by increasing union organizing and maintenance costs given the existence of 'free riders' in the bargaining unit, and/or decrease the bargaining power of unions" (Steven Abraham, "How the Taft-Hartley Act Hindered Unions," Hofstra Labor Law Journal, Fall 1994 (Vol. 12, No. 1, pp. 1-37)). Permit decertification elections -- enabling employers to maintain ongoing campaigns against unions' very existence. Strong, vibrant and democratic unions are essential to advance workplace safety, to ensure decent conditions of work, to restrain corporate employers' exploitative instincts and more broadly to ensure a functioning and flourishing democracy. Unfortunately, union representation and labor power have steadily declined over the last four decades -- with unions now representing only approximately 10 percent of the private workforce, the lowest percentage in 60 years.More or more workers are toiling in jobs near the minimum wage, in non-unionized operations like Wal-Mart, K-Mart and McDonald's. These service sector jobs are not inherently low-wage. They are low wage because they are non-union.Exacerbating the situation of low-wage workers, the minimum wage has failed to keep pace with inflation. The present $5.15 minimum wage represents more than $2.00 less in real, inflation-adjusted purchasing power than the minimum wage of 1968. (According to theInstitute for Policy Studies, if the minimum wage, which stood at $3.80 an hour in 1990, had grown at the same rate as CEO pay over the decade, it would now be $25.50 an hour, rather than the current $5.15 an hour.)The decline in union representation is due to many factors -- including unencumbered corporate globalization -- but high among them is Taft-Hartley and our system of inadequate legal protections for workers. Other industrialized countries with more substantial legal protections for workers -- such as Canada and countries throughout Western Europe -- evidence much higher rates of union membership.Before its 55th anniversary next year, the Taft-Hartley blemish should be removed from our laws. Doing so would truly honor American workers.The large unions in this country need to start a major campaign to repeal Taft-Hartley and get their friends in the Democratic Party in Congress on board.

LYNN, Mass.--General Electric (GE) retiree Peter Dow once dreamed that when he retired he would take trips to Florida or go camping with his grandchildren in New Hampshire. But, as he told the Boston Globe, his pension of $850 a month leaves him struggling to stay afloat. With his co-pay for his GE health plan and prescription drugs for diabetes costing him $160 a month, Dow has to live in a basement room in his children’s house and has recently had to take a job as a crossing guard.When Charles http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfmSectionID=10&ItemID=3690

Would you pay $40 Million to live in NYC?NEW YORK (July 10) - The cost of living large in New York went through the roof on Thursday when a British financier agreed to pay $40 million for an apartment space on the edge of Central Park.The buyer, who was not identified by brokers, is purchasing the 8,400-square-foot, 76th floor of AOL Time Warner's new home and half of the floor above in the most expensive apartment sale in the city's history.The pending deal, which includes a terrace that wraps around the 76th floor, tops the former record sale of a Park Avenue apartment for $36 million.The property, located in the south tower of the two-tower structure being built on Columbus Circle, was sold raw, with the space lacking internal walls and interior decoration."Whomever he chooses to design it for him is going to have one of the greatest blank spaces in the world," said Pamela Liebman, head of Corcoran Group, which represented the buyer.The space in the 80-story high rise on the southwest corner of the park has Manhattan views that stretch from the Hudson River on the west to the East River."It's one of those odd, singular, unique, one-of-a-kind opportunities," said Steven James, senior executive vice president of real estate brokerage firm Douglas Elliman.The towers will also be home to a jazz music center, a hotel, restaurants and shops in addition to media conglomerate AOL Time Warner Inc., and will have some 200 apartment units ranging in price from $1.8 million to $30 million.The AOL Time Warner Center is planned to open in phases, beginning with the residential units this autumn.

Mike, If I remember correctly, the author of your posting, Amir Taheri, wrote an interesting book called "Den of Thieves" which among other aspects, discussed the role of the CIA in destabilizing Iran. But that was a while ago, i think mid-80s, when his book came out.I agree that liberal democracy is infinitely better than theocratic tyranny as in Saudi Arabia or just plain tyranny. But the Bush team has proven themselves to be deceitful scoundrels who have no idea what they're doing. Our worst fears are being confirmed and US GIs continue to be picked off on a daily basis. Just so that Cheney's and Bush's oil and contracting pals could get big payoffs. Disgraceful. Makes Clinton look like an altar boy. And these are the kleptocrats who promised to bring "dignity" to the White House? If "dignity" is a code word for shameless stealing and lying.p.s. Richard Perle is the Antichrist

The Crackup of the Arab Tyrannies?They tried every bad idea of the 20th century. Maybe it's time for liberal democracy.by Amir Taheri 07/07/2003, Volume 008, Issue 42 IN A SPEECH in Washington on February 26, 2003, President George W. Bush spoke of his hope that a change of regime in Iraq would herald the Arab nations' joining the worldwide movement toward democracy. Some critics dismissed this "pious hope," arguing that Arab culture, and Islamic civilization generally, were unready for so momentous a transformation. Others questioned the president's sincerity, at a time when members of his administration were still debating Iraqi self-rule after Saddam. Yet one thing was certain then and remains so today: The Arab world is in crisis, and change in Iraq could trigger change across the whole arc from North Africa to the Indian Ocean. While it is too soon to tell the shape of things to come in Iraq, it is clear that we are witnessing the end of a certain nationalist and socialist model developed in several Arab countries in the 20th century. Most of the states where the nationalist-socialist model developed were created after the First World War, with the crumbling of the Ottoman Empire. Britain and France played the central role in shaping them. Sometimes described as "Sykes-Picot" offspring, the new states were designed to protect or further the strategic interests of the colonial power. Iraq, for instance, was created around the oil fields of Mosul and Kirkuk. Egypt's task was to protect the Suez Canal. Lebanon was carved out to place the interests of the Maronite Christians under French protection. Transjordan was a British military outpost with the task of keeping an eye on the Arabian Peninsula, to the south and east, and providing a base for intervention in the Levant. Each new state was built around an army created by the colonial power largely for policing purposes. In almost every case, the new army drew its officer corps from ethnic and religious minorities. In Iraq, Assyrian, Turkmen, Kurdish, Faili, and Arab Sunni Muslims provided the backbone of the British-made army. In Syria, the French favored officers from the Alawaite minority. In Transjordan, most of the officers were Bedouin, Circassian, or Chechen fighters. In Egypt, many senior officers had Turkish or Albanian ethnic backgrounds. With the advent of decolonization, these newborn army-based Arab states lost their original function. Anxious to protect their power and privilege, the military elites decided to seize power. Armies that were originally instruments of colonial domination redefined themselves as standard-bearers of Arab nationalism. The excuse they found for intervening in politics was the Arab defeat at the hands of the new state of Israel in 1948. The Arab armies blamed their poor performance on incompetent or even treacherous political leadership, and vowed that, once they were in power themselves, they would restore Arab honor. A SERIES of coups d'état began in Syria (1948) and continued in Egypt (1952), Iraq (1958), Yemen (1960), the Sudan (1962), Algeria (1965), and Libya (1969). In most cases, the military overthrew a traditional regime that derived its legitimacy from Islam and tribal loyalties. The new military regimes, by contrast, found nationalism doubly attractive because it cut across religious divides and thus legitimized rule by officers who subscribed to creeds other than mainstream Sunni Islam. Socialism appealed to the urban poor and a secular intelligentsia that wanted to distance itself from tribal and "feudal" social and cultural structures. The army's direct assumption of power led to a gradual militarization of Arab politics. Force came to be seen as the main source of legitimacy, and the rulers did what they knew how to do: wage war. They began by waging war on their own societies, with the aim of destroying within them all potential alternative sources of authority. They disarmed as many of the tribes as they could and executed, imprisoned, exiled, or bought most tribal leaders. In some cases, these measures reached the level of genocide--the anti-Kurd campaigns in Iraq between 1932 and 1988 come to mind. Operations akin to ethnic cleansing were also conducted against Coptic Christians in Upper Egypt and against Jews and Persians in Iraq. (At one point almost a fifth of Baghdad's population were Jews. By 1968, only a handful remained, all others having fled to Iran, emigrated to Israel, or been put to death by military rulers. In 1972-73, Saddam Hussein conducted the biggest ethnic cleansing campaign in Iraq's history when he expelled over 600,000 Iraqis to Iran on the grounds that they might have had Persian ancestry.) Next it was the turn of religious authorities to be brought under state control and deprived of the independence they had enjoyed for over 1,000 years. Traditional religious organizations such as Sufi fraternities, esoteric sects, and charitable structures were either infiltrated or dismantled. The new states assumed control of these groups' property, worth billions, depriving civil society of its most important economic base. The military state also annexed the educational system, nationalizing thousands of private Koranic schools and dictating the curricula at all levels of schooling. The traditional guilds of trades and crafts, some with centuries of history, were also disbanded. Political parties and cultural associations did not escape the destruction. In the 1950s, some of the newly independent Arab countries were home to genuine political movements representing the various ideologies of the 20th century. By the end of the 1970s, all of them, including parties such as the Baath that were nominally in power in Syria and Iraq, had been destroyed. The elimination of the independent press, state ownership and control of all radio and television networks, and the vast resources allocated to "information" ministries enabled the new Arab regimes to stifle dissident voices and impose their version of reality. Evolving toward totalitarianism, the Arab military state embarked upon wholesale nationalization. In some cases, such as the nationalization of the Suez Canal in 1956, this clashed with the interests of the former colonial powers and led to war. In other cases, such as land reform in Egypt in the late 1950s and the seizure of small businesses by the first Baathist regime in Iraq in 1963, the result was economic dislocation and widespread hardship for the most vulnerable strata of society. The fact that the state now controlled the biggest sources of national revenue--the canal in Egypt, oil in Iraq--facilitated the imposition of a command economy. It also meant that the state had no real need of the population. Foreign experts and workers managed and ran vital sectors of the economy. (In 1990, Iraq hosted 1.5 million foreign experts and workers, almost 50 percent of the non-military, non-civil service urban work force.) And the government drew little or no revenue from taxes, relying instead on national assets like oil and the canal--and, from the 1960s onwards, on foreign aid. The new Arab state could also do without the people when it came to national defense. The officer corps provided the bulk of the manpower for special units designed to protect the regime. In a broader context, the regimes relied on foreign alliances, mostly with the Soviet Union, for arms, training, and ultimate protection against potentially hostile neighbors. (Thus, in the late 1960s, Egypt was host to some 25,000 military experts from the Soviet bloc.) Finally, the new regimes didn't need the people to vote for them. Although elections were introduced in the 1980s, their aim was merely to confirm the rulers in power, with 99.99 percent or even 100 percent majorities. By the start of the 1970s, traditional Arab society had been all but destroyed. Totalitarian states--ideologically confused, unsure of their legitimacy, addicted to violence, and ridden with corruption--dominated all aspects of life. The allocation of large budgetary resources to the military further warped the economies of these countries. Average spending on Arab armies in the 1950s was no more than 2.3 percent of their estimated gross domestic products. By the mid-1980s, however, the figure had risen to 18 percent, with some countries, Iraq and Syria notably, spending as much as 23 percent. Virtually all Arab states maintained armies far larger than their demographic base warranted. The military machine also distorted labor markets by sucking up most of the scant technical and managerial skills available. In time, the military in these countries developed into a new caste of rulers that controlled most decision-making positions: High government officials, provincial governors, ambassadors, chief executives of state-owned companies, and even media editors were recruited from the ranks of active or retired officers. The new caste was reinforced by an even more tightknit sub-caste, the intelligence and security services (mukhabarat), which eventually established themselves as the source of power in almost all the Arab states. The emergence of this monstrous new state apparatus was accompanied by tens of thousands of executions, the imprisonment of countless people, the flight into exile of millions, and, last but not least, the destruction of the moral fabric of Arab society. IT WAS NOT ONLY against its own people that the new Arab regime waged war. Almost inevitably, it became embroiled in foreign wars--conflicts unrelated to the national interests of the countries concerned. The Suez dispute could have been resolved through negotiations to phase out Franco-British ownership. Instead, the Egyptian leader, Gamal Abdel-Nasser, provoked a war that he must have known he could not win against a Franco-British-Israeli triple alliance. That he was bailed out of his crushing defeat by the diplomatic efforts of the United States and the Soviet Union working in tandem does not alter the fact that Nasser took a reckless risk with Egyptian national interests. In 1960, Nasser intervened in Yemen, first covertly, then openly, dispatching a 60,000-strong army of occupation, which remained bogged down for almost seven years. In the early 1960s, Nasserite agents and sympathizers engineered Egypt's annexation of Syria. In 1967, Nasser provoked another, more disastrous, war with Israel, which ended with his losing the Sinai Peninsula and the Israeli army dipping its feet in the Suez Canal (which remained closed for a decade). Syria, Jordan, and Iraq also participated in the Six Day War, this time sharing defeat with Egypt. Syria lost the Golan Heights, while Jordan lost the West Bank, the eastern part of Jerusalem, and chunks of territory along its border with historic Palestine. And Egypt engaged in smaller military adventures, in the Sudan, the (Belgian) Congo, Somalia, and the British protectorates of southern Arabia. The Iraqi military regime flexed its muscles with an attempted annexation of Kuwait in 1961, setting the pattern it would follow for three decades. Between 1969 and 1975, Iraq fought a major, but unpublicized, border war against Iran that ended with Iraqi capitulation in 1975. In 1977, Iraq had a military showdown with Turkey over the water of the Euphrates river. Border clashes took place between Syria and Iraq in 1978. In 1980, Iraq invaded Iran, starting a conflict that lasted eight years and claimed a million lives on both sides. In 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait and remained in a state of war against the United Nations until the fall of Saddam Hussein. The Syrian military regime, for its part, clashed with Turkey over the Iskanderun enclave, and fought several battles with the Jordanian army on the pretext of protecting the Palestinians. From the late 1950s onwards, military intervention in Lebanon was to become a permanent feature of Syrian policy. Then in 1973 came defeat in the Six Day War. Other Arab military regimes had their share of war. Algeria triggered a war against Morocco over the issue of the Spanish Sahara starting in the 1970s. In the 1980s, Libya tried to conquer Chad, an adventure that ended, despite the investment of billions of dollars, in a decisive defeat for Colonel Muammar Qaddafi's government. All the Arab military regimes also used terrorism as a routine instrument of policy. One can hardly find a terrorist organization, from the Japanese Red Army to the Irish Republican Army, including the Basque ETA and the Peruvian Sendero Luminoso, that did not forge some link with one or more of the Arab military regimes. In some cases, the links came via Palestinian terror organizations, including Yasser Arafat's Al Fatah. In other cases, the link was the Soviet or East German intelligence service. In the 1970s, Syria and Iraq were the most active centers of international terrorism, providing shelter and diplomatic and sometimes financial support to dozens of groups. Depending on the Soviet bloc for aid, protection, and diplomatic guidance, the Arab regimes closed their societies to influences from the West, thus reversing a trend that had started in the 19th century. Many of the Arab regimes concluded treaties of friendship and cooperation with the USSR and sent tens of thousands of their young men and women to study in the Soviet empire. The result was a deepening of the culture of totalitarianism within the ruling elite. By the mid-1980s, the last representatives of Western-style liberal thought in the Arab world were either dead or dying. That opened the way for the reemergence of Islamic extremism as the only alternative to military rule. In Egypt, the regime alternated between ruthless repression of the Islamists (under Nasser), unsuccessful co-optation (under Sadat), and a mixture of the two (under President Hosni Mubarak). In Libya, the state has been fighting an Islamist insurgency since 1986. In Syria, the regime managed to break the back of the Islamist movement by organizing the massacre of an estimated 20,000 people in the city of Hama in 1983. In Iraq, the regime used the iron fist against the Islamists, mostly Shiites, throughout the 1980s, then adopted an Islamist posture of its own in 1991 to rally support against the U.S.-led coalition. In 1991, Saddam ordered the slogan Allah Akbar (God is supreme) inscribed on the Iraqi flag. In Algeria, the government's war against the Islamists started in 1986 and intensified after 1992. In the Sudan, the military came to power in alliance with the Islamists but broke with them in 1999 and has cracked down on their leaders and organizations ever since. By the start of 2003, the Arab Islamist movement was in deep crisis. It was split in Egypt between those who urged accommodation with governments and those who preached endless war. In the Sudan, the Islamists were going through a process of "self-criticism" and trying to recast themselves almost as Western-style democrats, though few people were convinced. In Iraq, the Islamist movement found itself faced with a choice between alliance with the United States to topple Saddam Hussein and alliance with him in the name of patriotic unity. In Algeria, despite persistent terrorist violence, the divided Islamist movement seemed to be petering out. In Libya, the Islamist guerrillas appeared to be reduced to an enclave in the Jabal al-Akhdar region, while in Syria, hopes for reform under President Bashar al-Assad led to a split within the Islamist movement. The pan-Islamist movement seems to have suffered a strategic setback with the failure of the Islamic revolution in Iran, the tragic experience of Islamism in the Sudan, and the dramatic end of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. The emergence of al Qaeda as the most potent symbol of Islamism also weakened the movement by alienating key elements within the Arab urban middle classes. Al Qaeda's extremism frightened large segments of Arab traditional opinion, forcing them to rally behind the regimes in support of the status quo. THE PRESENT SEASON of change in Iraq comes at a time when both the Arab military state and its principal challenger, the Islamist movement, are both in crisis. Nor can traditional monarchy, still present in some Arab states, offer a serious alternative. (Jordan's campaign to restore the monarchy in Iraq has been rejected by virtually all Iraqi political parties.) So what might a new Arab state look like? The failed model is the power state, known in Islamic literature as "saltana," whose legitimacy rests on the possession and use of the means of collective violence. In saltana, there are no citizens, only subjects, while the ruler is unaccountable except to God. The only alternative to this failed model is what might be called the political state, whose legitimacy rests on the free expression of the citizens' will. Such a model could be based on what the 14th-century historian Ibn Khaldoun called "al-assabiyah," a secular bond among citizens. The key feature of this model is pluralism, known in modern Islamic political literature as "ta'adudiyah" and "kisrat-garai." Both the Islamists and the secular authoritarians of the Arab world have persistently opposed the idea of bonding through citizenship. Nevertheless, Islamic political and philosophical literature offers a wealth of analyses that could be deployed in any battle of ideas against both the Islamist and secular enemies of pluralism. Both Farabi (d.950) and Avicenna (d. 1037), partly inspired by the work of the Mutazilite school, showed that there need be no contradiction between revelation and reason in developing a political system that responds to the earthly needs of citizens. On the contrary, because Islam places strict limits on the powers of the ruler, it theoretically cannot be used as the basis for tyranny. The new model for the Arab state should reassert those limits. It should allow civil society to revive. The resuscitation and renewal of nongovernmental institutions should be accompanied by a massive program of privatization, designed to reduce the government's power to dictate economic policy, including the allocation of national resources. The early privatization of the media should receive top priority, as it did in post-Nazi Germany and Japan. In a multi-ethnic, multi-faith country like Iraq, a federal structure would encourage popular participation in decision-making while limiting the power of the central authority to impose any radical ideology on the nation as a whole. The army should be reduced in size, its role redefined to emphasize defense against external threats and rule out internal repression. Its relationship with the political authority should be clearly stipulated. The Arab Middle East is one of the few parts of the world as yet untouched by the wave of democratization that eventually swept away the Soviet empire and numerous dictatorships in the Third World. The liberation of Iraq provides a historic opportunity to open the entire Arab world to democracy. For the liberators to allow tactical concerns to distract them from that strategic opportunity would be a grave mistake. To sell the democratic ideal, it is important to draw on the experience of past generations of Arabs and Muslims who struggled for democracy and in some places--Turkey, Iran, Egypt, Iraq, and elsewhere--achieved certain victories against tyrannical regimes. It is essential to show that the ideal of self-government is not alien to Islam and that, given a chance, many Muslims will reject the despotic model in favor of one respectful of human rights and popular participation in the political process. Winning the military war against Iraq's dictatorship may prove to have been the easy part. Defeated in war, despotism must also be defeated politically. The hardest battles remain to be fought on the field of ideas. Amir Taheri is an Iranian journalist and the author of ten books on the Middle East and Islam. © Copyright 2003, News Corporation, Weekly Standard, All Rights Reserved.

More on the incredibly stupid war we are still stuck in...(and don't forget to always ask all you meet: why are Americans and Iraquis still dying? why did we go in there?)What I Didn't Find in AfricaBy JOSEPH C. WILSON 4thDid the Bush administration manipulate intelligence about Saddam Hussein's weapons programs to justify an invasion of Iraq?Based on my experience with the administration in the months leading up to the war, I have little choice but to conclude that some of the intelligence related to Iraq's nuclear weapons program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat. For 23 years, from 1976 to 1998, I was a career foreign service officer and ambassador. In 1990, as chargé d'affaires in Baghdad, I was the last American diplomat to meet with Saddam Hussein. (I was also a forceful advocate for his removal from Kuwait.) After Iraq, I was President George H. W. Bush's ambassador to Gabon and São Tomé and Príncipe; under President Bill Clinton, I helped direct Africa policy for the National Security Council. It was my experience in Africa that led me to play a small role in the effort to verify information about Africa's suspected link to Iraq's nonconventional weapons programs. Those news stories about that unnamed former envoy who went to Niger? That's me. In February 2002, I was informed by officials at the Central Intelligence Agency that Vice President Dick Cheney's office had questions about a particular intelligence report. While I never saw the report, I was told that it referred to a memorandum of agreement that documented the sale of uranium yellowcake — a form of lightly processed ore — by Niger to Iraq in the late 1990's. The agency officials asked if I would travel to Niger to check out the story so they could provide a response to the vice president's office. After consulting with the State Department's African Affairs Bureau (and through it with Barbro Owens-Kirkpatrick, the United States ambassador to Niger), I agreed to make the trip. The mission I undertook was discreet but by no means secret. While the C.I.A. paid my expenses (my time was offered pro bono), I made it abundantly clear to everyone I met that I was acting on behalf of the United States government.In late February 2002, I arrived in Niger's capital, Niamey, where I had been a diplomat in the mid-70's and visited as a National Security Council official in the late 90's. The city was much as I remembered it. Seasonal winds had clogged the air with dust and sand. Through the haze, I could see camel caravans crossing the Niger River (over the John F. Kennedy bridge), the setting sun behind them. Most people had wrapped scarves around their faces to protect against the grit, leaving only their eyes visible.The next morning, I met with Ambassador Owens-Kirkpatrick at the embassy. For reasons that are understandable, the embassy staff has always kept a close eye on Niger's uranium business. I was not surprised, then, when the ambassador told me that she knew about the allegations of uranium sales to Iraq — and that she felt she had already debunked them in her reports to Washington. Nevertheless, she and I agreed that my time would be best spent interviewing people who had been in government when the deal supposedly took place, which was before her arrival.I spent the next eight days drinking sweet mint tea and meeting with dozens of people: current government officials, former government officials, people associated with the country's uranium business. It did not take long to conclude that it was highly doubtful that any such transaction had ever taken place. Given the structure of the consortiums that operated the mines, it would be exceedingly difficult for Niger to transfer uranium to Iraq. Niger's uranium business consists of two mines, Somair and Cominak, which are run by French, Spanish, Japanese, German and Nigerian interests. If the government wanted to remove uranium from a mine, it would have to notify the consortium, which in turn is strictly monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Moreover, because the two mines are closely regulated, quasi-governmental entities, selling uranium would require the approval of the minister of mines, the prime minister and probably the president. In short, there's simply too much oversight over too small an industry for a sale to have transpired.(As for the actual memorandum, I never saw it. But news accounts have pointed out that the documents had glaring errors — they were signed, for example, by officials who were no longer in government — and were probably forged. And then there's the fact that Niger formally denied the charges.)Before I left Niger, I briefed the ambassador on my findings, which were consistent with her own. I also shared my conclusions with members of her staff. In early March, I arrived in Washington and promptly provided a detailed briefing to the C.I.A. I later shared my conclusions with the State Department African Affairs Bureau. There was nothing secret or earth-shattering in my report, just as there was nothing secret about my trip.Though I did not file a written report, there should be at least four documents in United States government archives confirming my mission. The documents should include the ambassador's report of my debriefing in Niamey, a separate report written by the embassy staff, a C.I.A. report summing up my trip, and a specific answer from the agency to the office of the vice president (this may have been delivered orally). While I have not seen any of these reports, I have spent enough time in government to know that this is standard operating procedure.I thought the Niger matter was settled and went back to my life. (I did take part in the Iraq debate, arguing that a strict containment regime backed by the threat of force was preferable to an invasion.) In September 2002, however, Niger re-emerged. The British government published a "white paper" asserting that Saddam Hussein and his unconventional arms posed an immediate danger. As evidence, the report cited Iraq's attempts to purchase uranium from an African country. Then, in January, President Bush, citing the British dossier, repeated the charges about Iraqi efforts to buy uranium from Africa. The next day, I reminded a friend at the State Department of my trip and suggested that if the president had been referring to Niger, then his conclusion was not borne out by the facts as I understood them. He replied that perhaps the president was speaking about one of the other three African countries that produce uranium: Gabon, South Africa or Namibia. At the time, I accepted the explanation. I didn't know that in December, a month before the president's address, the State Department had published a fact sheet that mentioned the Niger case.Those are the facts surrounding my efforts. The vice president's office asked a serious question. I was asked to help formulate the answer. I did so, and I have every confidence that the answer I provided was circulated to the appropriate officials within our government. The question now is how that answer was or was not used by our political leadership. If my information was deemed inaccurate, I understand (though I would be very interested to know why). If, however, the information was ignored because it did not fit certain preconceptions about Iraq, then a legitimate argument can be made that we went to war under false pretenses. (It's worth remembering that in his March "Meet the Press" appearance, Mr. Cheney said that Saddam Hussein was "trying once again to produce nuclear weapons.") At a minimum, Congress, which authorized the use of military force at the president's behest, should want to know if the assertions about Iraq were warranted.I was convinced before the war that the threat of weapons of mass destruction in the hands of Saddam Hussein required a vigorous and sustained international response to disarm him. Iraq possessed and had used chemical weapons; it had an active biological weapons program and quite possibly a nuclear research program — all of which were in violation of United Nations resolutions. Having encountered Mr. Hussein and his thugs in the run-up to the Persian Gulf war of 1991, I was only too aware of the dangers he posed.But were these dangers the same ones the administration told us about? We have to find out. America's foreign policy depends on the sanctity of its information. For this reason, questioning the selective use of intelligence to justify the war in Iraq is neither idle sniping nor "revisionist history," as Mr. Bush has suggested. The act of war is the last option of a democracy, taken when there is a grave threat to our national security. More than 200 American soldiers have lost their lives in Iraq already. We have a duty to ensure that their sacrifice came for the right reasons.Joseph C. Wilson 4th, United States ambassador to Gabon from 1992 to 1995, is an international business consultant.

Walmarts to take over banking industry?04/27/03 Banks fear Wal-Mart may become rivalBLOOMBERG NEWSTulsa World (Copyright 2003) WASHINGTON -- Wal - Mart Stores Inc., the world's largest retailer, may be encouraged to compete with banks across the United States under a bill before Congress, said community lenders who want lawmakers to change the proposal. "We have seen what Wal - Mart has done to the local hardware store and grocery store," said Jim Ghiglieri, president of Alpha Community Bank in Toluca, Ill., about 40 miles northeast of Peoria. Giving Wal - Mart entry to the banking business "is not good for community banks, andespecially not for the consumer."The bill, intended to eliminate outdated banking rules, would let banks and industrial loan companies expand more easily across state lines. By purchasing an industrial loan company, Wal - Mart , which has more than 3,300 stores, super centers and Sam's Clubs in all 50 states, could ownbanks nationwide, the Independent Community Bankers of America wrote Congress. "Branch banking by ILCs makes them a tempting target for Wal - Mart ," said Michael Wilson, chief lobbyist for the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (AFL-CIO), which is trying to organize workers at Wal - Mart , a non-union company that opposes the measure. Industrial loan companies resemble banks in that they can take deposits and sell loans. They differ because they can be owned by commercial businesses, such as Wal - Mart . Banks can't. The debate over the bill may lead Congress to more broadly consider the role of industrial loan companies, state versus federal regulation of financial institutions and the traditional barriers in the U.S. between banking and commerce. " Wal - Mart 's got everybody scared," said Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., the ranking Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee. Industrial loan companies were set up in the early 1900s to make loans in areas that banks avoided. Today, many offer checking accounts and deposits insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.The House has already passed a bill allowing industrial loan companies to pay interest on business checking accounts, a move that would make them more like banks and "would alter the structure of banking in the United States," Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said in a letter last month to House Financial Services Committee Chairman Michael Oxley.Wal - Mart says the proposed law "really has no connection to our business," according to spokesman Tom Williams. "We don't own any banks, so we don't have a comment on it. We don't speculate on what we may or may not do." "The Wal - Mart scenario is not theoretical," the UFCW union wrote lawmakers. " Wal - Mart has tried to enter the banking industry several times." Bentonville, Ark.-based Wal - Mart tried to buy Franklin Bank, an industrial loan company in Orange, Calif., last year. The bid failed after the California legislature banned commercial companies from owning such companies. Wal - Mart 's 1999 effort to buy Broken Arrow-based Federal BankCentre, since renamed First BankCentre, was thwarted after Congress passed a law prohibiting commercial firms from obtaining thrift charters after May 4 of that year, a deadline that ruled out Wal - Mart . In January, the retailer said it would expand financial services to offer check cashing, money orders and wire transfers. The company already rents space in some 900 locations to local banks. The interstate banking provision in the bill, sponsored by Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., would preempt requirements in 33 states that banks and industrial loan companies must buy a bank in a new state to establish a branch there. Frank and Capito said they are working on amending the measure to respond to the bankers' concerns. "I want to see if we can ease their anxiety over this," Capito said. Other lawmakers will be looking out for the industrial loan companies.Utah Republican Senator Robert Bennett "sees no reason to prohibit ILCs from operating across state lines," said Maryjane Collipriest, his spokeswoman. "They should have the same access as other financial institutions."