|
Luminous
ring of dust particles in orbit around Fomalhaut a bright
star located 25 light years away in the constellation Pisces
Austalis or the Southern Fish
"Everybody has to move, run and grab as many
hilltops as they can to enlarge the settlements because
everything we take now will stay ours... Everything
we don't grab will go to them."
- Ariel Sharon, as Israeli Foreign Minister,
addressing a meeting of militants from the extreme
right-wing Tsomet Party, Agence France Presse, November
15, 1998.
By now it should be clear to all Middle East analysts
that the main impediment to peace in the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict is Ariel Sharon and the right-wing extremists
in his Likud party. Time and again the Palestinians
have expressed their sincere desire to end the inhuman
conditions under which they are forced to live by the
occupying IDF forces, yet every time that a peaceful
settlement seems to be within their grasp, Hamas will
bizarrely decide to fire a few usually harmless, Qasam
rockets at an illegal Israeli settlement, or unknown
"Palestinian gunmen" will murder an Israeli
settler.
How can we explain such apparently repeated self-defeating
acts by the alleged representatives of the beleaguered
Palestinian people? It has been obvious for several
years now that the Palestinians cannot win an armed
conflict with Israel and any further attacks against
Israeli forces, population or interests simply provides
Sharon with the justification to increase Israeli control
and oppression in the occupied territories. It is equally
obvious that the international community has all but
washed its hands of the conflict and is resigned to
allowing it to play out to its final tragic denouement.
In yesterday's "summit" between Sharon and
PA authority Chairman Abbas, Abbas told the Israelis
that he wanted "freedom of movement in and out
of Gaza, air and sea ports re-opened, key Palestinian
towns handed back to their control and the release of
Palestinian prisoners." Such demands are the precursor
to the formation of a Palestinian state, an eventuality
that Sharon has built his political career on ensuring
never occurs.
Israel agreed to Abbas' demands on the proviso that
all Palestinian attacks against Israel must first stop.
Sharon willingly accepted these demands because he is
confident that he can ensure that the Palestinian authority
never meets the condition of a cessation of all "terrorist"
attacks.
It is clear that Israeli government oppression of Palestinians
has little to do with "security concerns"
and everything to do with harassing and often murdering
Palestinian civilians and leaders in order to prevent
them from establishing themselves as a independent people
with a sovereign voice on the world stage.
Central to this goal is the continued portrayal of
any Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation as
"terrorism" when, in reality, resistance (including
armed) to an occupying power is a fundamental right
laid down in the article four of the third
Geneva Convention.
However, according to humanitarian law, in order to
lawfully use force in a conflict you must first be designated
a lawful 'combatant'. To be a 'combatant', you have
to belong to an 'armed resistance group' and that group
must belong to a 'party' to the conflict. It is in this
fact that we find one of the chief reasons why Israel
will NEVER willingly allow the creation of a Palestinian
state.
As long as Palestine does not have official state status,
any Palestinian resistance group cannot claim to be
a party in the conflict and must remain a simple independent
resistance group, or a "terrorist" group in
modern parlance.
Not only did the developed world oversee the theft
of Palestinian land in order to create the state of
Israel in 1948, but in continuing to refuse to lobby
for an independent Palestinian state, they ensure that
any Palestinian resistance to Israeli aggression is
delegitimised in advance.
So how can Sharon be so confident that the Palestinian
dream of state of their own will remain just that -
a dream?
Israel controls all entrances and exits to and from
the Gaza strip and the West Bank, it is Israel therefore
- or more accurately the Israeli military and intelligence
apparatus - that decides who and what gets in and out
of the occupied Palestinian territories. Without doubt
the Israeli army could, with relative ease, accomplish
the goal of a cessation of all "terrorist"
attacks that Sharon demands of Abbas, yet the hard,
cold fact of the matter is that Israel's present position
as the dominant force in the Middle East is DEPENDENT
on the continued existence of a terrorist threat. This
point was made clear by Israeli commentator, Yoram Bar
Porath, in the Israeli News outlet, Yediot Aahronot
of 14 July 1972:
"It is the duty of Israeli leaders to explain
to public opinion, clearly and courageously, a certain
number of facts that are forgotten with time. The
first of these is that there is no Zionism, colonialization
or Jewish State without the eviction of the Arabs
and the expropriation of their lands."
In attempting to ensure that the "terrorism"
so necessary to the state of Israel is never vanquished,
Sharon and his predecessors have gone to great lengths
to infiltrate and co-opt various Palestinian resistance
organizations. Indeed, there is much evidence to support
the thesis that, far from being the victim of terrorism,
Israel is in fact one of the prime instigators of terrorist
attacks in the Palestinian territories, attacks that
are conveniently set up to look like the work of Palestinians.
For example, consider the following excerpt from a UPI
article from June 2002:
Hamas
history tied to Israel
By Richard Sale
UPI Terrorism Correspondent
Published 6/18/2002
In the wake of a suicide bomb attack Tuesday on a
crowded Jerusalem city bus that killed 19 people and
wounded at least 70 more, the Islamic Resistance Movement,
Hamas, took credit for the blast.
Israeli officials called it the deadliest attack
in Jerusalem in six years.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon immediately vowed
to fight "Palestinian terror" and summoned
his cabinet to decide on a military response to the
organization that Sharon had once described as "the
deadliest terrorist group that we have ever had to
face."
Active in Gaza and the West Bank, Hamas wants to
liberate all of Palestine and establish a radical
Islamic state in place of Israel. It is has gained
notoriety with its assassinations, car bombs and other
acts of terrorism.
But Sharon left something out.
Israel and Hamas may currently be locked in deadly
combat, but, according to several current and former
U.S. intelligence officials, beginning in the late
1970s, Tel Aviv gave direct and indirect financial
aid to Hamas over a period of years.
Israel "aided Hamas directly -- the Israelis
wanted to use it as a counterbalance to the PLO (Palestinian
Liberation Organization)," said Tony Cordesman,
Middle East analyst for the Center for Strategic Studies.
Israel's support for Hamas "was a direct attempt
to divide and dilute support for a strong, secular
PLO by using a competing religious alternative,"
said a former senior CIA official. [...]
Of course, here, we are deep into conspiracy theory
territory, yet, when several current and former U.S.
intelligence officials openly state that Hamas is basically
a tool of Israeli intelligence, are we talking about
a conspiracy theory, or simply the much-ignored SOP
(standard operating procedure) of most of the world's
spy agencies? Readers should also take note of the fact
that, over the past few years, it has been Hamas that
has repeatedly scuppered Palestinian aspirations for
statehood by launching attacks on Israeli targets at
the most inopportune moments and thereby giving Sharon
the justification to renege on his promises.
Of course, Israel has a willing partner in its phony
terror-crime in the American government. Vast sums ($billions)
in donations are funneled every year from the pockets
of US taxpayers into the coffers of the Israeli treasury
for the purpose of "fighting terrorism". Israel,
with the implicit support of the US, has been allowed
to contravene
or ignore dozens of UN resolutions, the Geneva conventions
and Humanitarian and International law because it claims
it is "fighting terrorism". Indeed, the role
of the current US government in facilitating the continued
persecution of the Palestinian people can be clearly
seen in its promotion of the phony "war on terror"
that has greatly benefited Sharon and the equally phony
9/11 attacks that precipitated it.
Israel then, in its present configuration, is an illegal
state founded on the unlawful theft of Palestinian land
and the blood of the thousands of innocent Palestinian
people that refused, and continue to refuse, to bow
down to the murderous racism of their Israeli taskmasters.
Sharon knows this. He also knows that the day that he
allows Palestine to be officially recognised as an independent
state, is the day that Israel will no longer have the
right to bulldoze Palestinian homes or arbitrarily execute
Palestinian school children and claim that they are
"fighting terrorism". On that day, Palestinian
resistance to a brutal occupying power will be legitimised
and the actions of Sharon and the IDF recognised for
the war crimes that they are.
For this very reason, all "peace summits"
between Sharon and Abbas are nothing more than a sop
to the spineless international political community and
a publicity stunt to give the appearance that Sharon
is genuinely interested in peace. He, like his predecessors
have but one plan in mind and it is best summed up by
the words of current Chief Advisor to Sharon, Rafi Eitan
as quoted by Gad Becker of the Yediot Ahronot and which
appeared in the 14 April 1983 edition of the New York
Times:
"We declare openly that the Arabs have no right
to settle on even one centimeter of Eretz (Greater)
Israel... Force is all they do or ever will understand.
We shall use the ultimate force until the Palestinians
come crawling to us on all fours."
|
The first talks between
the Israeli and Palestinian leaders in over four months
were high on security. [...]
The Palestinians told the Israelis that they want freedom
of movement in and out of Gaza. They want air and sea
ports re-opened.
They also want Israel to release their prisoners.
And they want key Palestinian towns handed back to
their control.
'Unrealistic conditions'
Israel said that was fine, but first
all Palestinian attacks against Israel must stop.
And the devil is in that little word "all".
Many analysts will tell you that Israel
is placing unrealistic conditions on the Palestinian
leadership.
While Israel's prime minister insists
the problem starts and ends with Palestinian terrorism,
the Palestinians see it differently.
They say the attacks against
Israel are a result of almost 40 years of occupation
of Palestinian lands. So "all" may be a pretty
tall order.
After the meeting, Israel put a positive spin on the
day. The Palestinians were clearly desperately upset.
Israel had again set the conditions for any movement
on some crucial issues.
We expected to hear from the Palestinian leader Mahmoud
Abbas. But he didn't appear at a planned press conference.
Instead the prime minister, Ahmed Qurei, turned up,
looking drained, and disappointed.
"None of the issues improved or progressed up
to what we had expected," he said.
"Overall what was presented to us was not convincing
or satisfying at all."
In contrast, Israel's prime minister - tonight guest
of honour at a dinner in Jerusalem - was in a better
mood.
"We will co-ordinate our withdrawal from Gaza,"
Ariel Sharon said. "It's better for both sides.
But we won't allow withdrawal under fire. We will not
stop the pullout. We will stop the terror."
Progress towards wider peace talks "will not be
possible until there is a complete end to terrorist
attacks," he added. [...]
Ariel Sharon - who politically is
vulnerable - desperately needs to get people back on
side.
So he is speaking the language he
knows will win him support.
"No" to the Palestinians,
unless they stop the attacks. And if the Palestinians
don't, Israel will.
Whatever the pressure from his key ally - the US -
to work with the Palestinians, Ariel Sharon possibly
felt it was better this day to play to his domestic
audience.
And the result seems to have been little progress from
an important meeting. |
Officials said Abbas spent
the night after Tuesday's summit working the phones to
world leaders, including US Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Jordan's King
Abdullah II and Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdul
Aziz. |
Palestinian gunmen challenged
the authority of their own leaders in a West Bank refugee
camp yesterday, firing weapons and setting off a bomb
as Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia delivered an emotional
lecture on the need to end internal violence.
Palestinian gunmen challenged the authority of their
own leaders in a West Bank refugee camp yesterday, firing
weapons and setting off a bomb as Prime Minister Ahmed
Qureia delivered an emotional lecture on the need to
end internal violence.
“This country needs order, needs quiet,”
Qureia shouted, repeating a theme he has been pressing
for weeks. But as he spoke yesterday in the Balata camp
next to the city of Nablus, gunfire rang out, startling
the prime minister and putting his bodyguards on high
alert.
After Qureia’s speech, gunmen opened fire again
and set off an explosive about 300 yards from his convoy.
No one was injured and Qureia was whisked away.
Internal violence is becoming as important an issue
for Palestinians as their conflict with Israel, and
controlling it is a key political test for Abbas, Qureia
and their government – with armed gangs ruling
streets and officials becoming targets.
After his violent reception yesterday, Qureia emerged
from a cabinet meeting in Nablus and promised again
to take action, but he did not spell out plans.
“There are a lot of problems in Nablus, including
unemployment,” Qureia said. “We do not want
to give anyone excuses. The security of the citizen
and the nation is more important than anything else.”
Last week the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights released
a report listing violent incidents in Palestinian areas
from June 9 to June 14 that killed seven people and
injured at least 20 others.
After more than four years of Palestinian-Israeli violence
and an ailing economy, Palestinians are growing tired
of gun-toting thugs wreaking havoc in their neighbourhoods,
and complain the Palestinian Authority is doing little
to restore order.
Palestinian officials have said efforts
to restore order have been complicated by a security
service devastated during the fighting with Israel,
when many officers crossed over to the militant groups
after Israel targeted police headquarters. |
Aharon Barak, Chief Justice
at the Israeli High Court of Justice, said that Israel
“has the right to construct the wall along Jerusalem
municipal borders, therefore “the question whether
the construction in Jerusalem is security of politically
motivated becomes irrelevant”, according to Barak. |
Israeli Occupation Forces
(IOF) demolished on Wednesday eight houses in al-Jeftlek
area, north of the West Bank, witnesses said. Local witnesses
revealed that Israeli bulldozers, escorted by IOF, broke
into the area and knocked down eight houses, making the
households homeless. |
A lawyer of the Palestinian
Prisoners Society, Fahmi Shqeirat, reported that detainee
Salama Mohammad Rashaida, 30, from Bethlehem, lost his
sight as a result of torture in Asqalan detention. Shqeirat
stated that the detainee was recently repeatedly interrogated
for 40 hours each time, until he bodily collapsed and
lost his sight. |
Tuesday marked yet another assassination
of a Lebanese politician by a remote-control bomb planted
underneath his car seat. A search for this story on
Google
News gives a total of 634 stories, most of which
carried headlines that dealt with the story in a straightforward
manner. There were several however, that chose to focus
on comments made by Condoleezza Rice that indirectly
implicated Syria in the bombing.
We present the following stories as an example of how
some western mainstream news outlets, by choosing certain
words for their headlines, can taint or bias a story
before the reader has a chance to discern for themselves
what really happened.
Judging by the means, motive and timing of this latest
assassination, the second to last story in the series
hits very close to home. |
BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) - Secretary
of State Condoleezza Rice linked
the assassination Tuesday of an anti-Syrian politician
in Lebanon with the continued activities of longtime
overlord Syria, but said
she cannot be certain who is behind the killing.
"I do not know who was responsible for this and
I don't want to say that I know who was responsible,
because I don't,'' Rice said. "But there is a context
and an atmosphere of instability. Syria's activities
are a part of that context and that atmosphere and they
need to knock it off.''
Former Lebanese Communist Party leader George Hawi
was killed instantly when his car blew up in Beirut.
It was the second killing of
an anti-Syrian figure this month, and closely followed
elections won by an anti-Syrian slate.
Rice said there is "uncertainty about Syrian
activities in Lebanon,'' despite Syrian claims that
it pulled the last of its troops and intelligence forces
out of the country in April.
The Bush administration has cast public doubt on the
Syrian claims, but Rice made the allegation specific.
"Their visible forces are gone but they clearly
are still acting ... in Lebanon,'' she said.
Syria held political and military sway in tiny neighboring
Lebanon for some three decades. In addition to the armed
troops on Beirut streets, Syrian intelligence forces
were often a shadowy but pervasive force in Lebanese
daily life.
Rice answered a question about the killing by alluding
to claims from U.S. officials this month that Syria
may be running down a hit list of opposition figures.
"You know that we have been concerned about the
potential for further assassinations of political figures
in Lebanon - anti-Syrian political figures,'' Rice told
reporters after completing a four-day diplomatic tour
of the Middle East. [...] |
BRUSSELS -- Secretary
of State Condoleezza Rice accused Syria of contributing
to the "atmosphere" that led to the assassination
of an anti-Syrian politician in Lebanon yesterday,
telling Damascus to "knock it off."
Although she said she did not
know who killed George Hawi, a former leader
of the Lebanese Communist Party whose car was ripped
by a bomb in Beirut, Miss Rice
had no qualms about pointing the finger at Damascus.
[...] |
Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary
of state, blamed Syria yesterday for contributing to
an "atmosphere" of instability in Lebanon
following the assassination of another anti-Syrian Lebanese
figure - the second this month.
"I do not know who was responsible for this,"
she said of the murder yesterday of George Hawi, the
former head of the Lebanese Communist party. "But
there is a context and an atmosphere of instability,
Syria's activities are a part of that context and that
atmosphere and they need to knock it off."
Mr Hawi was killed by a car bomb in the Lebanese capital,
Beirut. The assassination came two days after the end
of Lebanon's month-long general elections, during which
the anti-Syrian coalition won a majority of parliamentary
seats.
The killing of Mr Hawi appeared to confirm fears raised
recently by Washington and Lebanese anti-Syrian figures
of the existence of a hit-list of politicians and journalists,
probably targeted because of their anti-Syrian stance.
"Those who killed him are the same as those who
killed Rafiq Hariri and Samir Kassir. It's the security
regime that is in power," said Rafi Madoyan,
Mr Hawi's stepson, referring to Lebanon's former prime
minister, assassinated in February, and the anti-Syrian
columnist, killed on June 2.
Mr Madoyan's comments were echoed by many in the opposition
who blamed Syria and its allies in Lebanon for the violence.
Damascus has denied involvement.
"This terrorist crime aims to disrupt the success
achieved in holding parliamentary elections and is a
futile attempt to create division among the Lebanese
and prevent the restoration of the country's well-being,"
said Lebanon's minister of interior, Hassan al Sabeh,
Lebanon's minister of interior, who has been in his
post since April and is close to the opposition. [...] |
Another ring of assassinations
by an "unknown perpetrator" has been added
to the chain of those that began with the assassination
of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafuq Hariri on February
14.
Following the Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon in April,
the "Damascus opponents" lost yet another
support immediately following last week's general elections
in the country. Former Communist
Party leader George Hawi was the latest victim
of an assassination plot that took place on Tuesday
in the capital Beirut. Reportedly,
the attack was plotted using a remote control bomb placed
under the passenger seat of his car, in the attack
Hawi's driver was seriously injured. A 68 year old Christian,
Hawi busied the agenda with his anti-Syrian remarks.
The Damascus administration
harshly condemned the attack, describing Hawi as a "respected
pro-dialogue statesman". Syria announced, Syria
is deeply saddened by the attacks that Lebanese politicians
are subjected to and that security in neighboring Lebanon
is under threat. Lebanese Prime Minister Najib
Miqati expressed they were appalled by the attack and
acknowledged that whenever a step forward is taken in
the country, attempts for instability are undertaken.
Tuesday's assassination became
the second just three weeks later after another anti-Syrian
supporter, journalist Semir Kesir was killed in another
bomb attack. In February,
Hariri was assassinated and Western countries in particular
the US, turned their eyes towards Syria as the perpetrator.
In the aftermath of Hariri's assassination, protests
brought the end of the 29 year of Syrian military presence
in Lebanon also as a result of increasing international
pressure. Attention has also been drawn to the fact
that the continuation of these
sorts of attacks brings increasing animosity towards
Damascus to the fore.
Syrian opponents in Lebanon hold the Damascus administration
responsible for yesterday's assassination. The reports
spreading around suggest that those listed as enemies
of Syria are preparing themselves. The US administration
had previously warned Damascus regarding the black list.
Hawi's stepson, politician Rafi Madoian also pointed
at the pro-Syrian security services as the perpetrators.
"There are others in the hit list," said his
stepson. Lebanese opposition leader Walid Jumblatt implied
pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud and security services
are the parties responsible for the assassinations.
|
Syria has strongly deplored the
assassination of the former secretary general of the
Lebanese communist party George Hawi by bowing up of
his car in Beirut on Tuesday, considering that "this
falls in the course of repeated damages behind which
the enemies of Lebanon stand."
The Syrian minister of information Mahdi Dakhlallah
expressed his regret over the assassinations of Lebanese
figures, acts which undermine Lebanon's stability and
security, he said.
The Syrian minister also commended
Hawi's resistance of the Israeli aggression and his
struggle for the sake of Lebanon's unity and
"its national reconciliation and the fraternal
and historical relations linking it to Syria."
He also stressed Syria's continued care to maintain
social peace and security in Lebanon and organizing
the Lebanese internal affairs without foreign intervention.
The Lebanese President Emil Lahoud questioned the
objective of dispatching bloody messages, just few hours
on the end if the Lebanese elections which "brought
back confidence to Lebanon and its people." |
In the first reactions to the assassination
of the former secretary general of the Lebanese communist
party, George Hawi, the party's
secretary general Khalil Hadadeh who arrived at the
site of the explosion accused "intelligence instruments
and Israel of such a series of aggressions."
However, Elias Atallah, an opposition politician held
elements supporting Syria the responsibility of the
incident, noting that Hawi was opposing the Syrian presence
in Lebanon and the return back of its intelligence to
the area.
The Lebanese prime minister Najib Miqati said that
the assassination is aimed at the security of the Lebanese
state and "we see one who wants to undermine our
security and sends message of such kind (assassination).
But I am sure that all Lebanese are attached to their
unity and homeland. On this ground I made certain contacts
with the security departments to carry out the investigations
and I am all hope this will lead to ensure security
to the citizens." |
BEIRUT, - The killing of George
Hawi, a former secretary-general of the Communist Party
who started anti-Israeli operations
in the 1980s and who then became an opponent of Syria,
heightened opposition fears of an organized assassination
plot against Lebanese politicians.
Hawi's killing came as the U.N. investigation committee
conducted its first interrogation of a Lebanese security
official in connection with the Feb. 14 killing of former
Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
It also provoked accusations from the Lebanese opposition
about remnants of pro-Syrian Lebanese intelligence services
and more calls for the resignation of President Emile
Lahoud, whom it accuses of protecting those services.
Hawi, a 67-year-old Christian, was killed Tuesday
when a bomb planted in his car detonated shortly after
he boarded it near his house in Wata al-Musaitbeh neighborhood
in Beirut. His driver suffered minor injuries.
This was the second such assassination this month.
Samir Kassir, a columnist for An Nahar newspaper known
for his harsh criticism of Lebanese security services
and Syria's military presence in Lebanon, was killed
in a similar blast June 2.
Both men were killed the same way:
a bomb planted in their cars and detonated by remote
control.
"It is the same style
and who carried (the assassinations) is one," said
Rafi Madayan, Hawi's daughter-in-law. "The one
who killed George Hawi and Samir Kassir is the one who
killed Rafik Hariri and tried to kill (former minister)
Marwan Hamade (last October). He is also the one who
killed (Druze leader) Kamal Jumblat (in 1978.)"
Since Hariri's killing, opposition figures have blamed
the assassinations on Lebanese and Syrian intelligence
services, which were active when Syria was in control
of Lebanon. Syrian troops and intelligence services
completed their withdrawal from Lebanon April 26 in
line with U.N. resolutions. [...] |
ISRAEL has resumed an assassination
policy against Islamic Jihad militants, a sign of how
far a truce with the Palestinians has deteriorated.
An Israeli aircraft fired missiles at four Islamic
Jihad men in the Gaza village of Beit Lahiya today as
they launched rockets into Israel.
No one was hurt. The army said the strike targeted
the launchers, not people.
A government official had earlier
said Israel could stage air strikes in Gaza, even
at the risk of Palestinian civilian casualties, to
ensure its Gaza pullout did not come under fire.
Israel shelved "targeted killings" of militants
in February as part of a new truce deal.
But resurgent violence has raised the spectre of disruption
to Israel's planned August withdrawal from Gaza and
dimmed hopes for "road map" peace talks afterwards.
Word that the assassination policy had been dusted
off came with Israeli confirmation of a failed missile
strike yesterday.
"An opportunity presented itself. Any means to
neutralise the organisation are relevant and possible,"
Public Security Minister Gideon Ezra said.
Islamic Jihad has resumed mortar bomb and rocket salvoes
against Jewish settlements in Gaza in what it calls
retaliation for continued Israeli raids to capture wanted
militants.
"The attempt yesterday to kill an Islamic Jihad
leader in Gaza signalled the resumption of the targeted
killing policy," an Israeli security source said.
Khaled al-Batsh, a senior Islamic
Jihad leader, warned of "terrible consequences"
if Israel carried out assassinations.
"The calm would thereby end. We will not be dictated
to by Israel," he said.
Later, a senior adviser to Israeli Prime Minister
Ariel Sharon said Israel could stage air strikes in
Gaza if militants tried to attack departing settlers
to try to show they were chasing them out of occupied
territory.
Withdrawing from Gaza under fire would be political
poison for Sharon, strengthening rightist foes who have
said the pullout would be perceived by the Palestinians
and Arab world as a sign of weakness after four years
of bloodshed.
"Israel will act in a very resolute manner to
prevent terror attacks ... while the disengagement is
being implemented," said Eival Giladi, head of
the government team coordinating the plan.
"If pinpoint response proves
insufficient, we may have to use weaponry that causes
major collateral damage."
Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said
Israel could respond to any Palestinian attacks from
Gaza even after the pullout.
"If needed, Israel will return to Gaza after
the disengagement for a few days in order to stop the
terrorism," the Haaretz newspaper quoted Mr Shalom
as telling foreign diplomats. |
HAMZA HENDAWIBAGHDAD (AP) - Four
car bombs exploded at dusk Wednesday, killing
at least 23 people, including sidewalk diners and passengers
at a bus station. The co-ordinated attacks served
as a chilling reminder of how potent militants remain
in the capital despite around-the-clock American and
Iraqi troop patrols.
In all, at least 32 people were killed across Iraq,
including a prominent Sunni law professor assassinated
by gunmen. Jassim al-Issawi was a former judge who put
his name forward at one point to join the committee
drafting Iraq's constitution. The
assassination appeared aimed at intimidating Sunni Arabs
willing to join Iraq's efforts to create a stable political
system.
The U.S. military said three U.S. soldiers were killed
a day earlier during combat operations west of Baghdad
near the insurgent stronghold of Ramadi.
The first three car bombs -
clearly co-ordinated - went off almost simultaneously
only blocks apart in the predominantly Shiite neighbourhood
of Shula where al-Issawi was killed only hours earlier.
Two bombs exploded in front of a pair of restaurants,
killing at least 11 and wounding 28.
"The body parts of the dead were scattered everywhere,
along with fragments of broken glass from nearby shops
and the meat from the meals," said police Maj.
Musa Abdul Karim, who was at the scene. "Blood
was everywhere."
The third car bomb exploded when a suicide bomber
rammed a nearby bus station, killing at least eight
and wounding 20, police said.
About 15 minutes later, a suicide car bomber struck
an Iraqi army patrol in a nearby suburb, killing at
least four bystanders, police said. The
dead included a woman and a child. No Iraqi soldiers
were among the wounded.
A fifth car bomb targeting a U.S. military convoy
missed, killing instead three Iraqis and wounded seven
in the northern city of Mosul, officials said.
Four Iraqis also were killed in two
roadside bombs and a group of children drove their bicycles
over a bomb planted beneath the ground in Baqouba, northeast
of the capital. A nine-year-old boy was killed and two
others, ages 6 and 7, were wounded.
Al-Issawi's killing, potentially the most politically
significant act of violence since Prime Minister Ibrahim
al-Jaafari came to office nearly two months ago, marked
the first direct attempt to scare moderates away from
political participation.
It sent a powerful message to the Sunni Arab community
to either boycott involvement in the fledgling government
or risk death. [...] |
GENEVA - U.N. human rights investigators
on Thursday accused the United States of stalling on
their request to visit foreign terror suspects at U.S.-run
prisons in Iraq, Afghanistan and at Guantanamo Bay.
They said they had had no reply to
their year-old request to probe "serious allegations
of torture," arbitrary detention and violations
of the right to health and due process at Guantanamo.
"We deeply regret that the government of the United
States has still not invited us to visit those persons
arrested, detained or tried on grounds of alleged terrorism
or other violations in Iraq, Afghanistan, or the Guantanamo
Bay naval base," the four rights investigators
said in a statement.
"The lack of a definitive answer
despite repeated requests suggests that the United States
is not willing to cooperate with the United Nations
human rights machinery on this issue," they added.
Their request to visit followed the scandal sparked
by photographs taken in the U.S.-run prison of Abu Ghraib
in Iraq, showing inmates, some in hoods, being sexually
humiliated by soldiers and intimidated with dogs.
The investigators have global U.N. mandates to probe
allegations of torture and arbitrary detention as well
as ensuring that rights to health and judicial independence
are upheld.
Activists have expressed alarm that many people arrested
since the Sept 11, 2001 attacks on the United States
have been held for more than three years without charges
being laid, often incommunicado, in a legal blackhole
facilitating mistreatment.
The Pentagon says it is holding 520 men in Guantanamo,
mainly detained in Afghanistan. Only four have been
charged. |
Someone is lying. You decide who.
Option A: Military officials who are on the ground
in Iraq.
From Wednesday's NY
Times:
American casualties from bomb attacks in Iraq have
reached new heights in the last two months as insurgents
have begun to deploy devices that leave armored vehicles
increasingly vulnerable, according to military records.
Last month there were about 700 attacks against
American forces using so-called improvised explosive
devices, or I.E.D.'s, the highest number since the
invasion of Iraq in 2003, according to the American
military command in Iraq and a senior Pentagon military
official. Attacks on Iraqis also reached unprecedented
levels, Lt. Gen. John Vines, a senior American ground
commander in Iraq, told reporters on Tuesday.
Option B: Scott McClellan, Bush and Cheney.
From today's White House briefing thanks to E&P:
Q Scott, can we get a clear "yes" or "no"
answer on whether the President agrees on the Vice
President's assessment that the insurgency is in "its
last throes?" Is it a "yes" or "no"?
MR. McCLELLAN: I think I already answered this question
the last couple of days.
Q Is it "yes" or is it "no"?
MR. McCLELLAN: And I've talked about it the last
couple of days. If you look -- if you look at the
terrorists and the regime elements that are seeking
to derail the transition to democracy, they are in
a desperate mode, and here's why. Let me walk you
through this.
First of all, I think, to begin with, you ought
to go back and look back at the full context of the
Vice President's remarks, where he talked about the
progress we're making to go after and capture al Qaeda
elements that are inside Iraq -- like Zarqawi lieutenants.
Just last week, we captured one of his top lieutenants,
a very dangerous man who is responsible for the killing
of a lot of innocent civilians inside Iraq....
So I think you have to look at the facts on the
ground. And the facts on the ground show that the
Iraqi people are making important progress on the
political front to build a free and democratic future.
The vision of the terrorists is one of chaos and destruction.
They really have no vision. Their only alternative
is chaos and destruction and the killing of innocent
civilians.
And that's what I talked about yesterday. They,
every step of the way, have not been able to stop
the progress that the Iraqi people are making on the
political front. And they are being defeated and they
will be defeated.
Q So that's a "yes"?
MR. McCLELLAN: Yes, I said that. I said that the
other day.
|
Fascism is not a four-letter word,
but it might as well be. As defined in Webster's Unabridged
Dictionary, fascism is totalitarianism marked by forcibly
suppressing opposition and criticism, regimenting all
industry and commerce, and bellicose nationalism. The
means of production might be privately owned, but are
in effect controlled by government edict.
Fascism reflects the constant
use of patriotic mottoes, slogans, symbols, songs and
other paraphernalia, and flags are seen everywhere including
flag symbols on clothing.
Fascism uses fear and the need for security as its motivating
force to persuade individuals that human rights can
be ignored in certain cases because of "need."
Fascism rallies individuals into
a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate
a perceived threat whether it is racial, ethnic, religious,
sexual orientation, conservatives, liberals, communists,
socialists or any other group.
Fascism controls the privately-owned media through
government regulation. Fascism
uses the most common religion in a nation as a tool
to manipulate public opinion even when the major tenets
of the religion are diametrically opposed to a fascist
government's policies and/or actions. Fascism
does not tolerate different points of view and therefore
it is not uncommon for professors and other academics
to be censored or even arrested and free expression
in the arts and letters is openly attacked.
It is likely the Patriot Act will be renewed this
year.
It allows the government to monitor religious and
political institutions - even without suspecting criminal
activity - to assist in terror investigations.
It allows prosecution of librarians or other keepers
of records if they tell anyone that the government subpoenaed
information in a terrorism investigation.
It allows monitoring of federal prison conversations
between attorneys and clients and denies attorneys to
individuals accused of crimes.
It allows search and seizure of an individual's papers
and effects without probable cause to assist terror
investigations.
And it allows individuals to be jailed indefinitely
without a trial and without being charged or being able
to confront witnesses against them.
It behooves all individuals to know
and understand what fascism is and to be able to recognize
it when it raises its ugly head or it begins to be raised.
Government officials always state that their actions
are in the best interest of the individual. However,
it was government officials who stated that the Social
Security number would never be used for identification.
Today, no one can accomplish much without using that
number.
Government officials also told individuals in 1913
that the income tax would only affect the wealthy. Today,
the income tax impacts all income levels.
Fascism must be recognized for what it is - government
control of all human activity - and it must be recognized
when it begins to exist or else the light of individual
liberty could be snuffed out. |
The United States’
House of Representatives today moved towards approving
a constitutional amendment that would give Congress the
power to ban desecration of the American flag, a measure
that for the first time stands a chance of passing the
Senate as well.
Members of the House debated – as they have six
times before – whether such a ban would uphold
or run afoul of the Constitution’s free-speech
protections.
Supporters said the measure reflected patriotism that
deepened after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks,
and they accused detractors of being out of touch with
public sentiment.
“Ask the men and women who stood on top of the
(World) Trade Centre,” said Representative Randy
Cunningham, a California Republican.
But Representative Jerrold Nadler, a New York Democrat,
said: “If the flag needs protection at all, it
needs protection from members of Congress who value
the symbol more than the freedoms the flag represents.”
[...] |
"When I use a word, "Humpty
Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means
just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor
less." "The question is," said Alice,
"whether you can make words mean so many different
things." "The question is," said Humpty
Dumpty, "which is to be master – that's all."
~ Lewis Carroll
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Democratic Senator Richard Durbin committed one of
the cardinal sins of modern political discourse: he
used the Hitler metaphor beyond the boundaries licensed
by the gatekeepers of "politically correct"
rhetoric. Referring to an e-mail from an FBI agent describing
his visit to the Guantanamo Bay prison, Durbin declared
that had he not identified what Americans had been doing
to prisoners, "you would most certainly believe
this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their
gulags, or . . . Pol Pot or others."
To politicians accustomed to playing bipartisan pat-a-cake
games with their "esteemed gentlemen" colleagues,
or media voices who regard the results of an opinion
poll as a meaningful debate, Durbin's remarks were shocking.
Newt Gingrich – who established his credentials
as an abuser of metaphors when he spoke of coercively
imposed GOP policies as a "contract with America"
– called upon the Senate to censure Durbin for
his remarks, which he said demeaned the "dignity"
and "honor" of America. Mr. Gingrich apparently
does not regard the lies, deceit, and forgeries that
have thus far produced the deaths of over 100,000 persons
in Iraq, as a stain upon American "dignity"
and "honor."
Gingrich's reaction – typical of many defenders
of the political order – reflects the Shakespearian
sentiment that "the lady doth protest too much."
It's not that this crowd resents those who take liberties
with the Hitler analogy: you will recall that George
Bush I compared Saddam Hussein to der Führer as
a justification for his Gulf War. I
suspect that members of the establishment get angry
over such comparisons not because they are wrong, but
because they know they are too close to the truth.
The ominous parallels between current political thinking
and many of Hitler's policies were developed in an earlier
article of mine.
While it is quite easy for critics to overuse comparisons
to Hitler, one must understand how and why this occurs.
Following World War II, Nazi Germany and Hitler became
the standard by which "tyranny" was to be
defined. Other regimes were just as vicious and murderous
as Hitler's (e.g., Stalin, Mao Tse Tung, Pol Pot), but
their wrongs received little attention from the establishment
mind-setters. If you doubt this, go to any library or
bookstore and count the number of books written about
(a) the Nazi Holocaust, and (b) Stalinist despotism.
How many movies have been made about the evils perpetrated
by Hitler, and how many about Stalin? So continuous
has been the effort to single out Nazism that television's
The History Channel is often referred to as The Hitler
Channel, for its frequent showing of films and programs
concerning this period.
My point is not to minimize the heinous nature of
the Nazi regime. Quite the contrary! Hitler was a butcherous
tyrant whose "jack-booted Gestapo" agents,
concentration camps, "storm-troopers," and
"SS" functionaries, help to define what we
think of as a police-state. But Hitler was not the inventor
of vicious, totalitarian rule, nor did he monopolize
such practices during his lifetime. If the numbers of
victims impress you, Stalin was a far deadlier thug.
But Adolf Hitler and Nazism were concepts to be segregated
within the human consciousness; quarantined behind locked
doors of the mind as a sui generis aberration fostered
by peculiar circumstances. In an age in which the powerfully
ambitious pursued their own brands of political hegemony,
Nazism was not to be thought of as a symptom of a disease
intrinsic to all species of statism. Hitler and his
movement were to be wrapped in a cocoon – or,
a more apt metaphor, buried in concrete as was done
with vampire-like monsters in horror films – to
keep them from ever again threatening the common folk.
Holocaust museums were constructed, helping to reinforce
the idea that Nazism was a brutal relic of the past,
from which modern humanity learned a lesson that will
never be repeated.
Whatever may have been the motivations of those who
helped to create Hitler as an historic singularity,
they have unwittingly marginalized the human costs of
tyrannical systems. We are asked
to condemn – as we should – the concentration
camp deaths of millions of Jews, gypsies, and homosexuals;
but only scant reference is ever made of the millions
of Ukrainians intentionally starved to death by Stalin.
Hitler's wrong was that
he systematically murdered people, not just Jewish people!
Would his crimes have
been more acceptable had he slaughtered without regard
to race, religion, ethnicity, or sexual preference?
Are we so detached from the suffering generated by political
systems that we insist upon such distinctions?
Such "politically correct" definitions of
wrongs to other people have been responsible for the
creation of that legalistic monstrosity: the "hate
crime." We are now expected to more strongly condemn
violence against members of certain selected groups
than others, provided one was motivated to inflict such
injury. It is but another manifestation of the Orwellian
proposition that while all persons are equal, some are
more equal than others. This kind of twisted thinking
also helps to sanitize war: as long as you don't "hate"
the people you are slaughtering, their deaths can be
dismissed as "collateral damage," with no
moral repercussions!
Having enshrined Hitler as the epitome of modern tyranny,
should we be surprised to find polemic speech employing
such a standard? Would one reasonably expect a critic
of George W. Bush to condemn his policies as "akin
to Charles de Gaulle"? While, as I stated earlier,
I find some very disturbing comparisons between the
mindset of people in 1930s Germany and modern America,
I do not find the comparison of George Bush to Hitler
all that convincing. I find Bush's counterpart more
in Benito Mussolini: the strutting mountebank, hands
on hips, with the sneering smile that accompanies the
arrogance of power. Bush is too transparent, more like
Charlie Chaplin's comic buffoon in The Great Dictator.
What may be most troublesome to members of the political
establishment in bringing the Hitler analogy to bear
upon American political behavior relates to the dynamics
of mass-mindedness upon which Nazism fed. I have written,
frequently, of the "dark side" forces within
each of us which, when mobilized, can cause us to become
eager participants in the brutalization of others. While
most people prefer to think of Hitler as a "madman"
who, somehow or other, "seized power," the
reality is much different.
Our lives are haunted by "dark side" influences
within our collective unconscious that cause us more
anguish than do "terrorists" from the external
world. Such inner "shadow" forces represent
all the shortcomings, doubts, fears, temptations, anger,
and other discomforting qualities we have about ourselves;
but about which we may be induced to part by projecting
such traits onto others. Political systems thrive on
the unresolved conflicts we have within ourselves, by
convincing us that our inner turmoil is really the fault
of others; others who need to be punished and/or controlled
in order to make our lives more orderly. Those selected
as recipients of our projections (i.e., the "scapegoats")
can be comprised of any number of interchangeable persons
or groups. Depending upon circumstances, the "scapegoat"
can be either "Jewish" or "Palestinian,"
"secularist" or "evangelical," "manufacturer"
or "consumer," or any seemingly endless mix
useful for the moment. The statists need only concoct
a plausible foe that enough people will accept as an
explanation for their difficulties, and then begin the
task of mobilizing opinion against the "scapegoat."
Hitler knew that "[a]ll propaganda
has to be popular and has to adapt its spiritual level
to the perception of the least intelligent of those
towards whom it intends to direct itself." His
propaganda specialist, Joseph Goebbels, noted that "[i]f
you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people
will eventually come to believe it." Goebbels then
stated what has become a truism for all modern political
systems: "[i]t is the absolute right of the State
to supervise the formation of public opinion,"
urging underlings to "[t]hink of the press as a
great keyboard on which the government can play."
Who can read these admonitions and not find in them
a reflection of how modern politics is played out upon
the minds of the "least intelligent" who will
"come to believe" a "big enough"
lie, particularly if you "keep repeating it?"
Consider how "the press" has allowed itself
to become "a great keyboard on which the government
can play" in its efforts "to supervise the
formation of public opinion."
If the dynamics by which the state manipulates public
opinion in furtherance of destructive, power-enhancing
ends are comparable to similar processes employed by
earlier totalitarian regimes, such analogies ought to
be taken seriously. Those who make such well-reasoned
comparisons are performing a genuine service to all
of humanity by discovering, from the past, the consequences
that are implicit in current behavior.
Since political systems depend upon the actuating
of "dark side" forces, the state will not
want such processes explored. It will appeal to concrete-bound
minds to eschew what is merely analogous, and to insist
upon precise replications. If there are no concentration
camps with gas chambers, then comparisons to Hitler
are wild hyperbole.
But as long as the "dark side" of humanity
is being exploited for political ends, the same deadly
games will continue; the political show will go on.
The costumes may change –
no more brown-shirts, knee-high black boots, or swagger
sticks; and no martial music to accompany a goose-stepping
choreography. Plastic-encased ID cards will replace
swastika armbands as indicia of authority, while "ATF"
jacket insignias will take the place of "SS"
lapel pins.
The motion picture, The Usual Suspects, has a wonderful
closing line: "the greatest trick the devil ever
played was convincing the world he didn't exist."
I don't believe in devils, other than those "dark
side" specters that reside within each of us: frightful
visions which we prefer to deflect onto others. The
Hitlers, Stalins, Pol Pots – yes, and the George
Bushes – are all products of our minds. Such men
– and the tyrants who preceded them over the course
of history – are both the fomenters and beneficiaries
of psychic forces which, once unleashed, work their
destructive powers upon humanity. Like small children,
we cannot pretend these forces out of existence by closing
our eyes and pulling the blankets up over our heads. |
The year is 2010. A salesman,
traveling by train from Dulles International Airport
to Union Station in Washington, hears a beep emanate
from his mobile phone. He's startled, because the sound
indicates that a chemical sensor in his briefcase detects
the presence of penthrite somewhere in the train car.
Penthrite, one of the world's strongest explosives,
is used to manufacture a sophisticated form of C-4,
the plastic explosive that Richard Reid hid in his shoes
when he boarded an American Airlines flight in December
2001.
The salesman quickly scans the train car and spies
a beat-up-looking backpack under a seat at the far end.
He realizes that his mobile phone has gone off like
this before, and nothing dire has transpired. But at
the next stop, a woman boards and stands next to the
backpack, and a pager-like device strapped to her waist
also emits a beeping noise.
As each rider's sensor detects penthrite, it alerts
an agent in the National Counterterrorism Center, the
U.S. government's fusion point for all terrorism intelligence.
Seeing two alarms go off, the agent calls the salesman
and sends a text message to the woman, asking them to
describe, independently, what they see. How big is the
backpack? Where is its owner? What is he wearing? The
agent then enters their observations into a powerful
computer. The machine quickly churns the information
and looks for meaningful patterns, which, hopefully,
will reveal whether there's a real attack in the offing.
This vaguely Orwellian futuristic scenario is how two
network theorists imagine a country might enlist its
citizens in fighting terrorists.
They call it Global Neighborhood Watch. Just as a traditional
neighborhood watch deputizes people living on the same
block to prevent local crime, the global watch would
turn participants into mobile intelligence gatherers,
feeding data from chemical sensors or simply with their
own eyes into a sophisticated, governmentrun system
that would create hypotheses about what that data means.
This widely distributed, and largely autonomous intelligence
network, is the brainchild of two academics who've spent
their careers studying how and why people organize themselves
into groups - Bill Mc- Kelvey, a professor at the Anderson
School of Management at UCLA, who conducted some of
the earliest categorizing of organizational forms in
society and business, and Max Boisot, a senior research
fellow at the Sol C. Snider Entrepreneurial Research
Center at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School.
They are inspired by a fairly unshakable piece of conventional
wisdom in the post-Sept. 11 era, one which, in their
view, is off the mark. Namely,
that stopping terrorists before they act requires human
beings to connect the dots, or data, between people,
organizations, places and actions that ultimately spell
out what terrorists are plotting to do.
No work reinforced the importance of dot connection
to intelligence analysis more than The 9/11 Commission
Report, which called for a national intelligence director
to ensure that the government's 15 intelligence agencies
are constantly connecting. But McKelvey and Boisot urge
caution. "Joining the dots, whilst a problem, is
not the problem," they wrote in an unpublished
paper they have shown to a small number of current and
former intelligence officials in Washington. That's
because connected dots reveal not only information,
but patterns, which are far more variable and confusing,
but are necessary to developing probable explanations
of what's going on.On their own, dots don't describe
what is happening, or what might happen. But as more
dots are connected, the number of patterns they create
grows exponentially. Therefore, McKelvey and Boisot
wrote, the real problem isn't only collecting dots,
but "finding the computational capability to process
and corroborate trillions of possible patterns."
The professors set their train scenario in the future,
because today, they say, the computational power and
the social willingness to create such a pattern recognition
network don't exist.
From McKelvey and Boisot's perspective, intelligence
agencies are drowning in dots. Global
Neighborhood Watch, while possibly becoming a giant
dot collector, would marry the filtering and cognitive
power of human beings with the computational power of
advanced technology - something the professors call
a "socio-computational" approach to intelligence
analysis.
People have an innate, and largely mysterious, ability
to rapidly filter out irrelevant or confusing signals
and quickly identify signs of potential danger - backpacks
left unattended on crowded train cars, for instance.
Only a few such signals can rapidly generate trillions
of possible patterns, so computers are needed, both
to find a few key patterns, based on what's in their
memory about the most relevant signals of a potential
act of terrorism, and then to generate hypotheses about
what's happening, so officials can act.
In the case of the train riders, two sensor firings
establish a link between events. The National Counterterrorism
Center agent, with the aid of the computer, uses that
information to ask the watch members various questions,
which add context. Is the owner of the backpack nearby?
If so, what does he look like? Union Station is situated
near Georgetown University Law Center. Could he be a
student? Working back and forth like this, McKelvey
and Boisot theorize, the center is more likely to devise
a scenario than it could working on its own.
The intelligence center is up and running now. But
the professors fear that with its mandate to fuse data
from 15 agencies, it merely adds a layer to the top
of those hierarchical silos. What's needed, they argue,
is a network-oriented approach, since, after all, terrorists
operate in that fashion.
"Our 'distributed' socio-computational approach
gets around silo thinking," McKelvey and Boisot
wrote. Silos extract information and meaning from data
and then pass it up to the next level. "That is,
dots [data] collected at the base get 'joined' or linked
. . . by intelligence analysts in the middle of the
hierarchy before being 'assessed' " at the top,
they wrote.
By contrast, the distributed neighborhood watch, and
its attendant computing power, focuses less on collecting
many dots and more on establishing meaningful relationships
and patterns from them. "Assessment does not thereby
disappear, but it now operates across different levels,"
the professors wrote. The watch members help find the
most promising patterns, and the intelligence center
and government officials select the ones upon which
to act.
McKelvey and Boisot readily admit the global watch's
most obvious drawback: "It
requires ordinary citizens to take on the role of secret
agents and to snoop on other citizens' neighbors."
In 2002, then-Attorney General John Ashcroft proposed
a nationwide snooping program called the Terrorism Information
and Prevention System - Operation TIPS - that was ridiculed
and effectively dismissed. But McKelvey and Boisot aren't
Washington insiders, and so likely feel more emboldened
to offer up controversial and, some might say, heretical
ideas.
Boisot argues that the government and the public should
discuss what it would take to compel people to join
citizen-based anti-terror groups, not just in the United
States, but especially in countries where Islamic fundamentalism
is spreading, perhaps to the chagrin of the citizenry
there. With traditional neighborhood watches, which
have operated for years and contribute to a reduction
in crime, citizens have agreed that policing their own
neighborhoods, while diminishing personal privacy, offers
substantial benefits, he says. Similarly, societies
must feel a shared responsibility for stopping terrorism
and decide whether there are shared benefits in doing
so, even if they don't end up reporting what they see
to the government, Boisot contends.
McKelvey and Boisot are waiting to see how the intelligence
establishment reacts to their ideas. Boisot says he
has sent the paper to a senior CIA official known for
encouraging dialogue among diverse groups in the production
of intelligence analysis. A CIA spokeswoman said the
official wouldn't be able to comment on McKelvey and
Boisot's work. |
The Social Security Administration
has relaxed privacy rules and searched thousands of
files for FBI terrorism investigations.
WASHINGTON - The Social Security Administration has
relaxed its privacy restrictions and searched thousands
of its files at the FBI's request as part of terrorism
investigations since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, newly
disclosed records and interviews show.
The privacy policy typically bans the sharing of such
sensitive information, which includes home addresses,
medical information and other personal data. But
Social Security agency senior officials agreed to an
"ad hoc" policy that authorized the release
of information to the FBI for Sept. 11-related investigations
because officials saw a "life-threatening"
emergency, internal memos say.
The Internal Revenue Service also worked with the
bureau and the Social Security agency to provide income
and taxpayer information in terror inquiries, law enforcement
officials said. Officials said the IRS information was
limited because legal restrictions prevented the sharing
of taxpayer information except by court order or in
cases of "imminent danger" or other exemptions.
The tax agency refused to comment.
The Social Security memorandums were obtained through
a Freedom of Information Act request by the Electronic
Privacy Information Center, a civil liberties group.
Social Security and law enforcement officials said
that they were sensitive to privacy concerns and had
put safeguards in place, but that they believed that
the information gave investigators a valuable tool.
"We ran thousands of Social Security
numbers," said a former senior FBI official who
insisted on anonymity because the files involved internal
cases.
"We got very useful information, that's for sure,"
the former official said. "We recognized the value
of having that information to track leads, and, to their
credit, so did the Social Security Administration."
But Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., who has sought information
from the Social Security agency on the issue, said the
new policy had "real civil liberties implications
for abuse." Maloney also questioned whether Congress
was adequately informed.
"If we don't know when the Social Security Administration
decides to change its rules to disclose personal information,"
she said, "I think Americans have a right to be
skeptical about their privacy."
Marcia Hofmann, director of the Open Government Project
at the Electronic Privacy Information Center, acknowledged
the need for investigators to have access to vital information.
"But an ad hoc policy like this
is so broad that it allows law enforcement to obtain
really sensitive information by merely claiming that
the information is relevant to the 9/11 investigation,"
Hofmann said. "There appears to be very little
oversight."
The Social Security agency also agreed to waive normal
privacy restrictions for information related to the
FBI investigation on the Washington region sniper attacks
in 2002, the internal memos show. But it doesn't appear
that any data was ultimately turned over.
The agency agreed two days after the Sept. 11 attacks
to give the FBI access to material to obtain information
on the hijackers, anyone with "relevant information"
on the attacks and victims' relatives.
Under Social Security Administration policy, which
goes beyond federal privacy law, such information can't
typically be shared with law enforcement officials unless
the subject has been indicted or convicted of a crime.
A looser policy was updated and reauthorized last year,
the internal memos show, and Social Security officials
said Tuesday that it remained in place.
"Thankfully, these requests don't come up that
often," Jonathan Cantor, the privacy officer at
the agency, said. "You just have to look at each
situation as it comes in, and it's my job to balance
the privacy of the records against legitimate requests
for that information."
Bush administration officials say it is imperative
for investigators to have broad tools to track terror
suspects. But some members of Congress are pushing to
curtail the powers that the USA Patriot Act and other
initiatives give the FBI.
Critics point to recent episodes of broad information
sharing such as the Census Bureau giving customs officials
information on Arab Americans and airlines giving the
FBI data on 257 million passengers after the Sept. 11
attacks as evidence that the balance has swung too far
from protecting privacy and civil liberties.
"This kind of pattern," Hofmann said, "just
opens the door to abuse." |
Under the plans police will be
able to store fingerprints and DNA
Scottish police may be handed powers to store DNA profiles
and fingerprints of anyone they have arrested.
The Scottish Executive is to launch a three-month
consultation on the idea following pressure from police
chiefs.
Under the plans, evidence taken from a person could
be retained even if they are subsequently found not
guilty.
Opposition parties and human rights campaigners are
against the idea, claiming it is a move towards the
creation of a "police state".
Westminster's Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001
has enabled forces in England and Wales to retain all
prints and DNA samples, even if there is no prosecution,
or the individual is acquitted.
At the time, the executive rejected the introduction
of similar powers across Scotland.
However, the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act, passed
in February 2003, allows police to retain DNA and fingerprints
given voluntarily.
A spokeswoman for First Minister Jack McConnell said
the executive remained "neutral" on the issue
but believed a debate on the issue was required.
The government acknowledged concerns about civil liberties
but said the consultation would allow the powers to
be introduced as part of the upcoming Police Bill if
ministers deemed them necessary.
A spokeswoman said: "We are responding to calls
from the police to have a look at this as they feel
it might help them clear up more crimes.
"It's a three-month consultation and if there
was to be a decision to take this forward it would need
legislation and we could use the Police Bill, which
is expected to be introduced to parliament in the next
session.
"This has been happening in England and Wales
for the last four years.
"We took the view at the time not to do that
but now we are saying 'let's have a proper debate' and
look at all the arguments for and against."
Scottish Human Rights Centre chairman John Scott said
the executive must reject the idea.
The criminal lawyer said police had no more right
to retain the prints or DNA evidence of a suspect who
was never charged or cleared by a court than those of
the population at large.
Mr Scott said: "This would be a worrying continuation
of a trend where the rights of the individual are ignored
in favour of the state.
"Unfortunately, this is all part of the same
march towards the sort of potential for a police state
that we have had warnings about in the past and which
people don't take seriously.
"The infrastructure is steadily coming to pass
and I hope the executive will show the same caution
on this as it has in relation to ID cards."
'Big Brother'
Labour's coalition partners, the Scottish Liberal
Democrats, are understood to be particularly uneasy
about the proposals and insisted that the consultation
be worded in neutral terms.
A senior party source said today: "We are sceptical
about this and while we will await the outcome of the
consultation, to overcome that scepticism there would
require to be some unquestionably significant and unarguable
evidence."
Opposition parties also expressed concern about the
plan.
Kenny MacAskill, the Scottish National Party's justice
spokesman, said it could lead to a "Big Brother"
state.
"This encroaches too far into our individual
human rights," he said.
"If such a scheme is to be implemented in Scotland,
we would have to be fully satisfied and assured that
this is not part of some Big Brother exercise that would
see further state monitoring and control of individuals'
actions.
"Everyone wants to fight crime, but we have to
ensure that in doing so we do not criminalise the innocent."
Scottish Tory justice spokeswoman Annabel Goldie added:
"I am anxious to see the full details of the Executive's
proposals, but I do have concerns about individual civil
liberties.
"There is a danger, for example, that those who
freely offer DNA samples in an investigation might be
more reluctant to come forward in future.
In a brief statement the Association of Chief Police
Officers in Scotland (Acpos) said: "Acpos welcomes
the opportunity to debate the proposals to retain fingerprint
and DNA samples and will carefully consider its position
on that matter." |
Downing
Street Is For Liars
Why aren't the media screaming about the latest proofs
of Bush's war scams? Don't you know? |
By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
Wednesday, June 22, 2005 |
This is the white-hot question
right now gushing forth from many on the Left, from
progressive blogs and liberal patriots and blue staters
and angry anti-Bushers alike, and it is like a plea,
a rallying call, an indignant stomp of deep frustration.
It is this:
Why are major American media not swarming all over
the Downing Street Memos thing? Why is the entire nation
not just appalled and disgusted and aghast at finding
seemingly irrefutable proofs about what we all already
knew, which is that BushCo planned to invade Iraq long
before 9/11 and needed to find a way to justify it?
And, we now know, he was even willing to go so far
as to rig the intelligence and "fix the facts"
and screw the U.S. economy and screw any sort of exit
strategy and screw the potential for lost lives and
let's just blindly stomp on in there and bomb the living
crap outta Saddam despite the undeniable pre-Iraq evidence
that Saddam had zero WMDs and that his nuclear program
was "effectively frozen," and despite how
BushCo and the CIA and FBI and DOD and the Clinton administration
and your grandma all knew it?
This is what the infamous Downing Street Memos allegedly
contain, more undeniable proofs in the form of meeting
notes with higher-ups in Britain and the U.S., talking
about the supposedly "dire" threat of WMDs
and nailing Iraq well before Bush was handed the tragic
and morose political gift of 9/11 to leverage and whore
and turn into his own personal Jesus.
And to be sure, the outcry from the Left is healthy
and good and appropriate and only now are a handful
of newspapers and magazines (you go, Newsweek) taking
up the Downing Street Memo debacle, asking slightly
more inflamed questions of BushCo.
So then, why aren't U.S. media roaring more angrily
about this? Why aren't the major players up in arms
and trumpeting banner headlines and screaming for Bush
to answer for his obvious and plentiful crimes against
the nation and the Earth and peace?
Answer: Because it's not really news. Not anymore.
Because, to be honest, what the memos actually reveal
is not quite as much as the Left wishes they did, and
while they certainly do reveal that Bush is a noted
liar and distorter of fact and that we can easily deduce
that his snarling war hawks torqued the Brits into complicity
and mangled the U.N. laws and misled the American people
into war perhaps more deviously and violently than any
administration in recent American history, well, there
is not a single thing in the words you just read that
most of us did not already know.
It's true. There is, unfortunately, nothing here that
not already been trumpeted to death by the Left, and
therefore to try to trumpet it all again as some sort
of irrefutable revelation that should change the face
and temperament of the nation is sort of like beating
a dead horse we all knew was already dead but that is
only now taking on a new dimension of stink.
Look at it this way: The majority of the nation knows
Bush lied like a dog to drive us into an unwinnable
(but, for his cronies, incredibly profitable) war. The
rest either refuse to believe it, or they claim, with
equal parts ignorance and blind jingoism, that the ends
(ousting a pip-squeak dictator who was no real threat
to anyone and who had been successfully contained for
20 years) justify the means ($200 billion, 1,700 dead
Americans, over 10,000 wounded and disabled U.S. soldiers,
countless tens of thousands of dead innocent Iraqis,
staggering economic debt, the open disrespect -- if
not outright contempt -- of the entire international
community).
Here is the American cynic's view: It is almost too
late to care about the lies. It is almost pointless
to scream and rant and point fingers of blame. We all
know who is to blame, and it ain't Saddam, and it ain't
Osama, and it ain't "terror," and it ain't
our "freedoms." Bush has driven us so deep
into the Iraq hellhole it serves almost no purpose to
whine about the obvious deceptions and blatant whorelike
pre-9/11 machinations that got us here.
We are now, instead, focused on endurance. On gritting
teeth and getting through and getting the hell out of
this new Vietnam Bush has imbecilically driven us into,
all while surviving 3.5 more years of one of the most
abusive, secretive cadres of warmongering leadership
in American history.
Oh, and rest assured, Iraq is indeed a new Vietnam.
The parallels are undeniable and mounting -- all the
elements are in place: staggering civilian death tolls,
inmate abuse and torture, international embarrassment,
economic pillaging, executive impudence, a vicious drive
toward empire and power, a false sense of "victory"
and the overpowering sense we are so deeply entrenched
in this violent, chaotic quagmire, it will take many
more years and many thousands of more U.S. dead and
countless more billions before we are anywhere near
stabilization.
But oh, you might cry (and this column might regularly
wail), shouldn't Bush be held accountable? Shouldn't
he be made to answer for these lies, these obvious abuses
of power?
Answer: You're goddamn right he should. He should
also be strapped to an incredibly uncomfortable chair
and made to look at the smoking bones of ten thousand
dead Iraqi children. But that's just me.
The lies that led us into this war are indeed staggering,
appalling, make Clinton's lies about his stupid little
affair sound like, well, a stupid little affair. As
Dubya's tanking poll ratings prove, even many moderate
Republicans are backing away from calling Iraq a success,
or even a necessary action. And Dems have recently begun
demanding that BushCo develop some kind of exit strategy
to begin pulling out U.S. troops within a year.
BushCo's answer? No way in hell, bucko. Impossible.
And why? Because we are in way too deep. The violence
is escalating, not dying down. Every major U.S. general,
strategist, policy wonk says we are far too screwed
to leave anytime soon. And "Mission accomplished"
has become perhaps the most tragic punch line to one
of the most bitter jokes ever told in your lifetime.
Let's just say it outright: Of course Bush deserves
to be impeached. But of course Bush will not be impeached,
because impeachment requires a massive federal investigation
and an act of Congress and the support of countless
senators and representatives, and right now the GOP
controls Congress with a little iron penis, and therefore
any sort of uprising or scandal or suggestion of punishment
gets immediately slammed down or scoffed away or buried
under an avalanche of shrugs and yawns and neoconservative
smugness. Isn't that right, Mr. Gannon? Mr. DeLay? Abu
Ghraib? Gitmo? Saddam? Et al.
BushCo survived the illegal sanctioning of inhumane
torture. They survived a gay male prostitute acting
as a journalist. They survived Enron and Diebold and
the rigging of the first election and they will survive
Downing Street simply because all the people who should
be on the attack about these atrocities all work for
the guys who committed them.
So then, the question is not merely when will the
stack of lies, of abuses become so high, so unstable,
so inexcusable that the entire nation finally takes
notice and the whole house of cards comes crashing to
the ground in a big nasty soul-jarring spirit-cleansing
patriotism-redefining whoomp and smothers the whole
lot of them, but rather, can it be soon enough?
And to that question, we all know the answer. |
Investigators from
the United Nations have accused the US of stalling over
their repeated requests to visit detainees at Guantanamo
Bay.
The US is holding hundreds of suspected members of the
Taleban and al-Qaeda at the detention facility in Cuba.
The UN said for over a year there had been no response
to its requests to check on the condition of detainees.
This suggested the US was "not willing to co-operate
with the United Nations human rights machinery,"
the team said. |
Propagandists on behalf
of Israel have held a corner on public discourse about
the Palestinian-Israeli conflict for the nearly six decades
of Israel’s existence, but these purveyors of the
Israeli line have become increasingly deceptive and malign
-- and increasingly effective – with time. The propaganda
machine serving Israel disseminates a steady stream of
talking points and argumentation that today effectively
controls all public discourse, so that in media arenas
large and small throughout the country there are always
grassroots propagandists available to put out a uniformly
favorable twist on Israel’s actions and always to
paint the Palestinians in black colors.
The propaganda machine has not missed even the small,
out-of-the-way town of Santa Fe, NM. Although not usually
at the forefront of nationally significant political debates,
Santa Fe is currently in the midst of a controversy about
an issue of large national relevance. The controversy
involves media treatment of Israel and the Palestinians
that is typical of the distortion found throughout the
country.
On June 9, 2005, John Greenspan, chairman of the board
of directors of KSFR-FM, a Santa Fe public radio station,
substituted for Mary-Charlotte Domandi, the vacationing
host of a weekday morning program known as “The
Radio Café,” and had among his guests a spokesperson
for a pro-Israel propaganda organization, The Israel Project,
based in Washington, D.C. Both Greenspan and the guest,
Megan Wachter, spent this 15-minute segment broadcasting
what we and many honest, objective observers regard as
serious pro-Israeli, anti-Palestinian distortions and,
in at least one instance, an outright lie about an American
human rights activist. Greenspan and Wachter made one
false allegation after another, reaching ever increasing
levels of distortion as the broadcast went on. We are
appalled at the level of misrepresentation in this brief
exchange and are particularly dismayed that these two
propagandists did not merely stop at attempting to put
Israel in a good light, but seemed to bend over backwards
to cast the Palestinians and anyone who supports them
in a particularly negative light, as all but universally
hate-filled, uneducated, unenlightened terrorists.
The principal reason for having Wachter on the program
was to publicize and recruit attendees for a workshop
to be held on June 26 and 27 in Washington, D.C., sponsored
by The Israel Project and intended to train “pro-Israel
advocates” in what the organization’s website
(http://www.theisraelproject.org) describes as “cutting-edge
skills to create positive media coverage, strengthen Israel’s
public image, and win support for Israel and the Jewish
people.” The Israel Project, the newest of a decades-long
list of organizations advocating for Israel, was created
three years ago by two well known Republican pollsters,
Frank Luntz and Jennifer Lazlo Mizrahi. Mizrahi is the
Israel Project president. Luntz serves as a strategist
for the organization. He also runs his own separate public
relations/propaganda outfit, which gives advice to Republican
Party activists, and he has frequently written advice
for the Israeli government and major American-Jewish organizations
on how best to “frame” Israel’s case
for public consumption.
A transcript of the pertinent segment of the program
is at Appendix 1. The following is a rebuttal of the several
distortions put forth by both Greenspan and Wachter. [...] |
BEIJING, June 23 --
White House has declined to criticize Israel for resuming
an assassination policy against Islamic Jihad militants.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters
on Wednesday that these militants are determined to derail
peace efforts between Israel and Palestine.
The spokesman noted Washington encourages the Palestinian
leadership to do more to go after those who engage in
violence.
He also praised the latest meeting between Israeli and
Palestinian leaders to discuss the evacuation of Israeli
citizens from the Gaza strip.
The assassination policy came after a failed missile
strike on the life of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon
and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas on Tuesday. |
BEIJING, June 23 --
The world faces an estimated 50 percent chance of a nuclear,
biological, chemical or radiological attack over the next
five years, according to US national security analysts
surveyed for a congressional study released Wednesday.
Using a poll of 85 nonproliferation and US national
security experts, the report also estimated the risk of
attack by weapons of mass destruction at as high as 70
percent over the coming decade.
The US Senate Foreign Relations Committee surveyed analysts
around the world in late 2004 and early this year to determine
what they thought was the threat posed by weapons of mass
destruction.
The study was commissioned by committee Chairman Sen.
Richard Lugar, whose nonproliferation efforts in US Congress
have been credited with helping the states of the former
Soviet Union lessen their stockpiles of nuclear, chemical
and biological weapons.
"The bottom line is this: For the foreseeable future,
the United States and other nations will face an existential
threat from the intersection of terrorism and weapons
of mass destruction," Lugar said in a statement.
Committee aides sent out surveys asking respondents
the percentage probability that a biological, chemical,
nuclear and radiological attack would occur over the next
five and 10 years.
"If one compounds these answers, the odds of some
type of WMD attack occurring during the next decade are
extremely high," the report said, using the acronym
for weapons of mass destruction.
The study said the risks of biological or chemical attacks
were comparable to or slightly higher than the risk of
a nuclear attack. However, the study found a "significantly
higher" risk of a radiological attack.
It also said:
- Three-fourths of those surveyed said one or two new
countries would acquire nuclear weapons during the next
five years, and as many as five new countries could
have such weapons over the next 10 years.
- Four-fifths of those surveyed said their country
was not spending enough money on nonproliferation efforts.
- Survey respondents also agreed that terrorists —
rather than governments — were more likely to
carry out a nuclear attack.
|
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- An American U-2
spy plane crashed while returning to its base in the
United Arab Emirates on Wednesday, killing the pilot
after a mission in support of U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
The aircraft crashed in the Emirates while approaching
the base to land, said a Pentagon official, speaking
on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity
of the operation. Early reports gave no indication of
any hostile fire, but it was too soon to be certain
why it crashed, the official said.
The U-2 is a single-seat, single-engine reconnaissance
plane that operates at an altitude of more than 70,000
feet and has been used in every major conflict the United
States has fought since the aircraft went into service
a half-century ago.
Flying beyond the range of most surface-to-air missiles
-- the pilot must wear a full pressure suit similar
to those used by astronauts -- the U-2 was famously
shot down in 1960 over the Soviet Union.
With its bicycle-type landing gear and the challenges
of handling the aircraft at low altitudes, the U-2 requires
a high degree of precision during landing. Forward visibility
is limited, partly because of the extended nose. A second
pilot normally "chases" the U-2 while it lands,
assisting the pilot by providing information on altitude
and runway alignment.
The military did not immediately release the location
or circumstances of the crash because it did not want
to create problems for the nation where the plane went
down. Officials also withheld the name of the pilot
pending notification of relatives.
According to the military, the crash happened at 7:30
p.m. Tuesday EDT, which would be early Wednesday in
the United Arab Emirates.
In Washington, Lt. Col. Barry Venable, a Pentagon
spokesman, said the plane had completed a mission related
to Operation Enduring Freedom, the code name for American
operations in Afghanistan.
There has been heavy fighting in southern Afghanistan
in recent days, with American fighter planes bombarding
rebel hideouts with missiles and bombs, killing up to
76 insurgents in fighting Tuesday and Wednesday.
A U.S. security team was at the site of the crash,
Venable said. [...] |
WASHINGTON -- The post-Sept. 11
security blanket designed to keep nuclear material out
of U.S. ports still has plenty of holes, including scores
of false alarms from radiation detectors, scientists
told Congress on Tuesday.
Port Authority of New York and New Jersey security
manager Bethann Rooney said the facility receives "about
150 alarms a day" from the 22 radiation portal
monitors at the site. That's
more than 10 times the number of false alarms originally
expected.
Rooney was among a handful of experts who testified
before a House Homeland Security subcommittee reviewing
the nation's anti-nuke efforts.
Federal agents at Rooney's facilities use radiation
detectors on about 45 percent of containers, and they
plan to raise that to 85 percent at the end of the year
after receiving additional detectors.
Rooney said the false alarms have not slowed shipping
out of her port because follow-up inspections usually
take less than 10 minutes.
Rep. Bill Pascrell, D-N.J., said he was worried that
the high number of false alarms has prompted some agents
to reduce the sensitivity of the devices, making them
less effective in spotting real danger.
An official with the Government Accountability Office,
the investigative arm of Congress, said the high number
of false alarms is not limited to the New Jersey port.
Gene Aloise also noted that some border agents have
been improperly using handheld radiation detectors to
try to sweep an entire container, and he urged better
training to rectify that error. [...] |
PHILADELPHIA -- Nancy Carroll
didn't know schools were giving military recruiters
her family's contact information until a recruiter called
her 17-year-old granddaughter.
That didn't sit well with Carroll, who believes recruiters
unfairly target minority students. So she joined activists
across the country who are urging families to notify
schools that they don't want their children's contact
information given out.
"People of color who go into
the military are put on the front line," said the
67-year-old Carroll, who is black.
President Bush's No Child Left
Behind Act requires school districts to provide military
recruiters with student phone numbers and addresses
or risk losing millions in federal funds. Parents
or students 18 and over can "opt out" by submitting
a written request to keep the information private.
But critics say schools do not always convey that
message. In New Mexico, the American Civil Liberties
Union chapter sued the Albuquerque Public Schools last
month, charging it does not adequately inform parents
of the opt-out provision.
Some critics say the law provides an unfair opportunity
for the military to sway young minds, especially in
economically depressed communities.
"They're not going to all the
schools. They're going to the schools where they figure
the kids will have less chance to go to college,"
said Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.). "It's an insidious
kind of draft, quite frankly."
"I wouldn't want them to join," Carroll
said of her grandchildren.
But Pentagon officials say the military deserves the
same access to students that schools give to colleges
and employers.
"In the past, it was all too common for a school
district to make student directory information readily
available to vendors, prospective employers and postsecondary
institutions while intentionally excluding the services,"
Air Force Lt. Col. Ellen Krenke, a Pentagon spokeswoman,
said.
"Having access to 17- to 24-year-olds is very
key to us," said Maj. Gen. Michael Rochelle, commander
of the Army Recruiting Command, at a news conference
last week.
Asked about aggressive recruiters targeting young
people, he said: "I would certainly hope that we
are harassing no one. ... I'm not asking my recruiters
to be any less aggressive. I would not wish for them
to be overbearing or annoying."
As military conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan continue,
the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines are having trouble
attracting recruits to their reserve forces, though
only the Army is falling short in attracting people
for its active-duty ranks.
Andrew Rinaldi, a senior at Edison
High School in Edison, N.J., filed an opt-out letter
but said he was contacted anyway. He said the recruiter
mocked his pacifist views.
"They're becoming more aggressive," he said.
None of the nation's approximately 22,600 high schools
has failed to comply, Krenke said. None has lost funding.
Before No Child Left Behind became law in 2002, about
12 percent of the nation's schools refused to turn over
student records to military recruiters, Pentagon officials
said.
In Montclair, N.J., more than 80 percent of Montclair
High School students have opted out.
"It's a place where military
recruiters are not likely to have a ton of success,
anyway, partly because ... a lot of parents can assist
their kids with going to college," school
district spokeswoman Laura Federico said.
In the urban blight of North Philadelphia, Joshua
Gordy said the lure of college money led him to join
the Army Reserve at age 17. He said recruiters at his
high school told him he could earn $35,000 for college.
That hasn't happened. Gordy, a 20-year-old reservist,
said he apparently failed to send in the right paperwork
in time. He hopes to enroll in community college this
fall. |
WASHINGTON - The Defense Department
began working yesterday with a private marketing firm
to create a database of high school students ages 16
to 18 and all college students to help the military
identify potential recruits in a time of dwindling enlistment
in some branches.
The program is provoking a furor among privacy advocates.
The new database will include
personal information including birth dates, Social Security
numbers, e-mail addresses, grade-point averages, ethnicity
and what subjects the students are studying.
The data will be managed by BeNow Inc. of Wakefield,
Mass., one of many marketing firms that use computers
to analyze large amounts of data to target potential
customers based on their personal profiles and habits.
"The purpose of the system . .
. is to provide a single central facility within the
Department of Defense to compile, process and distribute
files of individuals who meet age and minimum school
requirements for military service," according to
the official notice of the program.
Privacy advocates said the plan appeared to be an
effort to circumvent laws that restrict the government's
right to collect or hold citizen information by turning
to private firms to do the work.
Some information on high school students already is
given to military recruiters in a separate program under
provisions of the 2002 No Child Left Behind Act. Recruiters
have been using the information to contact students
at home, angering some parents and school districts
around the country.
School systems that fail to
provide that information risk losing federal funds,
although individual parents or students can withhold
information that would be transferred to the military
by their districts. John Moriarty, president of the
PTA at Walter Johnson High School in Bethesda, said
the issue has "generated a great deal of angst"
among many parents participating in an e-mail discussion
group. [...]
The Pentagon's statements added that anyone can "opt
out" of the system by providing detailed personal
information that will be kept in a separate "suppression
file." That file will be matched with the full
database regularly to ensure that those who do not wish
to be contacted are not, according to the Pentagon.
[...] |
Caracas, Clues on opposition groups
attempting to assassinate Venezuelan President Hugo
Chavez increasingly point to Colombia, although without
the participation of the country's authorities, VEA
newspaper reported Wednesday.
According to the daily, Venezuelan
authorities discovered for recruiting terrorists and
hired assassins in Bogota and Cucuta an organized network,
which is sponsored by Miami and groups linked to US
intelligence services.
The source, who wishes to remain anonymous, stated
the Venezuelan government has photos and documents on
the network's activities. It has not determined foreign
officials' relations in this activity, although it reveals
that Colombian paramilitary groups and senators have
said Chavez' enemies are being recruited.
VEA daily warned Monday of alleged infiltrations of
Colombian paramilitary groups in the states of Lara
and Portuguesa, supported by Venezuelan opposition groups. |
SHANGHAI - A Chinese state-controlled
oil company made a $18.5 billion unsolicited bid for
Unocal today, igniting the first-ever takeover battle
between corporations in China and the United States.
The bold bid by the China National Offshore Oil Corporation,
or CNOOC, may be a watershed in Chinese corporate behavior
and demonstrates the increasing influence of Wall Street's
bare-knuckled tactics in Asia. The offer also illustrates
how crucial oil and gas resources are to China given
its huge growth.
CNOOC's bid, which comes two months after Unocal agreed
to be sold to the American energy giant Chevron for
$16.8 billion, is expected to provoke a fierce debate
in Washington about the nation's trade policies with
China and the role of the two governments in the growing
trend of deal making between companies in both countries.
[...] |
NEW YORK - In another display of
China's growing economic clout, appliance maker Haier
has entered the bidding to take over Maytag Corp., a
proud but struggling icon of the US white goods industry.
Maytag said late Monday that it had received a "preliminary
non-binding proposal" worth 1.28 billion dollars
in cash from Haier America Trading and two US buyout
groups -- Bain Capital Partners and Blackstone Capital
Partners IV.
The takeover offer, which remains subject to due diligence,
is worth 16 dollars a share. A month ago, Maytag agreed
to an offer worth 14 dollars a share from a US investor
group led by Ripplewood Holdings.
Investors welcomed the interest from China's Haier,
marking shares of the Newton, Iowa-based Maytag up 6.0
percent to a close of 16.15 dollars. [...] |
ORLEANS, France (AP) - A student
armed with a .22-calibre rifle entered a vocational
college in central France and opened fire Wednesday,
killing a fellow student, a regional official said.
The man fired three times at his victim, identified
as a 20-year-old woman, who was hit in the neck by one
of the bullets. She died from her injuries after being
rushed to a hospital.
Initial investigations showed that the man knew his
victim well, said an official who spoke on condition
of anonymity. [...] |
LONDON - The brains of players of violent video games
react as if the violence were real, a study has suggested.
Klaus Mathiak at the University of Aachen in Germany
studied the brain patterns of 13 men aged 18 to 26 who,
on average, played video games for two hours a day.
Wired up to a scanner, they were asked to play a game
involving navigating through a complicated bunker, killing
attackers and rescuing hostages.
Mathiak found that as violence became imminent, the
cognitive parts of the brain became active and that
during a fight, emotional parts of the brain were shut
down.
The pattern was the same as that seen in subjects
who have had brain scans during other simulated violent
situations.
It suggests that video games are a "training
for the brain to react with this pattern," Mathiak
says.
The research was presented at a meeting in Canada
and reported by New Scientist magazine.
Whether violent videos make people more aggressive
though is hard to prove, the magazine noted. Studies
have suggested players of violent games are in fact
more aggressive but have left open the question of whether
the games made them that way. |
GENEVA: Switzerland's entire state
railway network came grinding to a halt following a
power failure that left about 100,000 people stranded
at the height of the rush-hour, Swiss Federal Railways
(SBB) said. Practically all trains in the country, which
takes great pride in the efficiency of its public transport
system, were at a standstill, spokesman Jean-Philippe
Schmidt told AFP.
"We have a power failure, a problem with power
regulation," he said. "The problem started
towards 6.00 pm (1600 GMT) and we are trying to find
the source," he added.
About 100,000 people were thought to be stranded on
trains on a hot summer evening, Swiss television SF1
reported, although most travellers were able to leave
halted trains an hour after the incident.
"That estimate seems plausible. We had all the
commuters heading home," said SBB spokesman Jean-Louis
Scherz.
Travellers were being advised to listen to the radio
or seek advice from extra personnel drafted into stations.
Schmidt said he could not recall a failure on a similar
nationwide scale before and the incident was described
as "absolutely extraordinary". [...] |
A deadly strain of influenza B
has claimed three young lives in the past six weeks
and is now an epidemic among children in the North Island.
The Health Ministry appealed for vigilance yesterday
after revealing that the flu outbreak, which has struck
thousands of children and swept through schools around
the country, had killed a third victim.
All three young people died after developing complications
from the Hong Kong B strain of the virus. [...] |
Elective surgery
has been postponed as Hawke's Bay Hospital reels from
the impact of the flu bug and other viruses which have
hit staff and patients and filled its beds.
The hospital is "full to
capacity", Hawke's Bay District Health Board's
chief operating officer Ray Lind said.
It was the second time in as many months that the hospital
has been hit hard by people suffering from seasonal
illnesses.
Mr Lind urged people to take steps to look after themselves.
"If you or your children are sick, take time off
to recover before going back to work or sending your
children back to school," Mr Lind said.
"It's vitally important to seek medical attention
early, from your GP or medical centre. In many cases
a trip to the doctor for expert advice and treatment
can stop people getting so sick that they have to be
admitted to hospital," he said.
Mr Lind also made a plea to the local community to
rally round and support elderly family and neighbours.
[...] |
New Zealand - This year's flu vaccine
did not not offer protection against a virulent strain
which has infected thousands.
Three young people have died from complications after
contracting the Hong Kong strain of influenza B.
Ministry of Health Chief Advisor
Pat Tuohy says the World Health Organisation did not
issue a warning about this particular strain,
so it was not included in this year's vaccination. He
says the current outbreak is significant, with thousands
of children affected.
The outbreak comes as a new campaign is launched, to
reduce the spread of viruses amongst children.
Virologist Dr Lance Jennings says children are particularly
susceptible to viruses and on average, have one respiratory
infection every two months. He says germs spread through
schools like wildfire.
Dr Jennings suggests the use of anti-viral tissues
which kill bugs as soon as they hit the tissue. [...]
|
School
reopens after mystery bug
Classrooms commercially cleaned over weekend and St Marks
Church School reopens after unidentified virus caused
illness |
NZCity 30
May 2005 |
St Marks Church School in Wellington
reopens this morning after more than a quarter of its
pupils were off sick last week, due to an unidentified
virus.
It is one of
several schools in the region to struck by the illness,
which has not yet been identified.
The school's classrooms were commercially cleaned over
the weekend to help stop the bug spreading.
Schools across Auckland are
also battling a winter virus outbreak and hundreds of
students have been stricken. [...] |
A probable West Nile
virus case reported in Kansas last week is the first human
case in the nation this year, the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention said.
A 51-year-old Douglas County resident was diagnosed in
mid-May with West Nile fever, a condition that may include
headache, rash, muscle aches and weakness.
Last year, Kansas did not report its first human case
of West Nile illness until August.
West Nile virus is spread to people by mosquitoes. So
far this year, at least 17 states, including Missouri,
have reported West Nile virus infections in birds, mosquitoes
or other animals, the CDC said. Kansas has not reported
any cases among animals. |
An earthquake measuring
4.4 degree on Richter scale jolted surrounding areas of
Qir va Karzin City in Fars province on Wednesday afternoon.
According to Seismological center affiliated to Geophysics
Institute of Tehran University, the tremor occurred at
18:07:09 local time (13:37 GMT) and the epicenter of earthquake
was at 28:18 degree latitude and 52:79 longitude surrounding
areas of Qir va Karzin City, 150 kilometer southwest of
Shiraz.
There is no immediate report on possible damages or injuries.
|
Servicemembers and civilians in
Afghanistan got a rude awakening Monday morning when
a magnitude 5.4 earthquake shook the region around the
country's capital city. The temblor was felt by soldiers
and airmen from Bagram Air Base to Kabul, military officials
said.
No significant damage was reported to base or civilian
infrastructure by Tuesday afternoon, officials said.
"At first I thought something was wrong with
my chair or there was a heavy truck going by. I've grown
accustomed to the ground shaking when there are controlled
demolition explosions here, so I did not think much
about it. An earthquake was the furthest thing from
my mind," Air Force Tech. Sgt. Johnathan Raford,
of the 455th Expeditionary Mission Support Group, was
quoted in a military news release about the quake.
Air Force weather teams, who tracked the quake, reported
its epicenter was in the Hindu Kush mountains approximately
150 miles northeast of Bagram. [...] |
British tourists were back on the
beach today having emerged unscathed from an earthquake
that shook their Greek holiday island.
A 4.8-scale undersea tremor affected the island of Zakynthos
– also known as Zante – at just after midnight
UK time today. There were no reports of any damage or
casualties.
The earthquake was about 175 miles south west of Athens
in the Ionian Sea.
Zakynthos is a resort strongly featured in UK tour
operators' holiday brochures.
A spokeswoman for the MyTravel company said: "We
have spoken to our reps on the island and everyone is
fine."
A spokeswoman at the Zante Beach hotel in the resort
of Planos on the island said: "We didn't really
feel anything. All our British guests are all right.
They are on the beach enjoying themselves." |
Seismologists agree on one
thing regarding last week's cluster of tremors: Nobody
knows for sure what it portends, if anything.
Were last week's quakes in California connected? Maybe.
Did they relieve pressure on major fault lines? Perhaps,
but not much.
Did they make a bigger quake more likely? Possibly.
These are not exactly the answers quake-rattled Californians
are looking for.
But the recent temblors involve some of the issues
that seismologists most often debate. And the more research
they do, the more they sometimes disagree. Even husband
and wife seismologists don't see eye to eye.
The quakes - including two felt across Southern California
and a 7.2 temblor June 14 off the coast of Eureka that
prompted a tsunami warning along the entire West Coast,
followed by a 6.7 two days later - didn't cause much
damage or injury.
They captured much attention because they came so
close together and hit after a period of less-than-normal
seismic activity.
One of the first questions Californians had after
the series of temblors was whether there was some connection
among the quakes.
Lucy Jones, a seismologist with the U.S. Geological
Survey, believes that the 5.2 Anza quake June 12 probably
triggered the 4.9 Yucaipa quake four days later.
She noted that both quakes were within about 25 miles
of each other and occurred on secondary faults - the
Anza quake near the San Jacinto fault and the Yucaipa
around the San Andreas.
Data have shown that even a modest earthquake can
trigger another quake - even at that distance, she said.
One of her colleagues, Jones added, believes that
the Yucaipa event might have been an aftershock of the
Anza quake.
But Jones' husband, Caltech seismologist Egill Hauksson,
is skeptical, arguing that the temblors were too small
and too far apart to have been connected.
"But as you can see, some people disagree with
me," he said with a laugh.
Fellow Caltech seismologist Thomas Heaton also believes
that the two quakes may well have been just a coincidence.
There is general agreement that the Southern California
quakes were not connected to the ones in Northern California,
mainly because of the distance between them.
Another question arising from the quake cluster is
whether these temblors make a massive quake more likely.
It has long been held that earthquakes relieve pressure
on fault lines, potentially decreasing the threat of
a massive quake.
But experts said it was not that simple.
Heaton believes that the quakes last week were too
small to significantly reduce stress on major faults.
|
A colossal earthquake that caused
damage from South Carolina to Washington D.C. and temporarily
reversed the course of the Mississippi River nearly
two centuries ago could be repeated within the next
50 years, scientists said today.
Strain is building on a fault near Memphis, Tennessee
that was the site of a magnitude 8.1 earthquake in 1812,
according to new observations that settle a debate on
the risk of another huge quake.
The odds of another 8.0 event within 50 years are between
7 and 10 percent, geologists said today. The
assessment, based on new data from a recently installed
array of sensors, puts to rest a 1990s claim that strain
was not increasing.
Such a strong earthquake would rock the entire eastern
half of the country and prove devastating to the local
region. A lesser but still damaging quake of magnitude
6 or greater has a 90 percent chance of striking in
the next five decades.
The new study, detailed in the June 23 issue of the
journal Nature, reveals a vexing characteristic of the
fault that traverses the region. The ground moves more
near the fault, creeping a few millimeters every year,
than it does farther from it.
"I can't explain how the movement is driven,"
said study team member Michael Ellis, a geologist at
the University of Memphis.
That lack of understanding makes the task of pinpointing
when the next quake might hit even more challenging.
Repeating history
In a three-month period in 1811-12, three major earthquakes
rattled a broad expanse of the United States, causing
damage as far away as Charleston, South Carolina and
even rattling nerves in Boston. The quakes triggered
landslides into the Mississippi River and, according
to some boaters who were not drowned, sent part of the
river running the other direction for a time.
The earthquakes were centered around
New Madrid, Missouri. They measured 8.1, 8.0 and 7.8
and represent three of the four strongest earthquakes
ever recorded in the lower 48 states.
Over the past 12 years, geologists have found evidence
for other prehistoric calamities along the New Madrid
fault. Sandy soil in some areas became liquefied in
past events, leaving telltale "sandblows"
when the material was squished to the surface. This
tendency for soil east of the Rockies to liquefy, along
with other differences in geology, means earthquakes
there pack more potential for damage and are felt over
a much wider region than western temblors.
The sandblows indicate that three or possibly four
earthquakes of magnitude 7.6 or better struck the region
in the past 2,000 years, in addition to the incredible
series of three in the early 1800s. [...] |
Lethbridge,
Alta. - Just days after heavy rains pummelled the area,
severe weather again spawned tornadoes, hail and rain
in southwestern Alberta.
Environment Canada reported several tornadoes were
spotted near Vauxhall, Taber and Coalhurst on Tuesday.
There were no reports of damage or injuries.
Charmaine Weasel Fat said a tornado touched down in
her father's field on the Blood reserve on Tuesday evening.
The funnel kicked up the dirt in the field, about 400
metres south of their home.
Ms. Weasel Fat and five other adults to grab the baby
and leave the area.
"We just jumped in our vehicle and took off down
the road," she said.
"You could see the dirt flying left and right
and it was coming toward us. It was scary."
The funnel cloud came within six kilometres north
of Taber, said Brad Mason, the town's emergency services
director.
Vauxhall's fire chief Chuck Pozzo said if there was
a tornado, it wasn't close to town.
He said he had no reports of damage.
"There was lots of hail, some the size of golf
balls," he said. [...] |
China has evacuated 100,000 residents
of a southern city to escape a swollen river in one
of three provinces where heavy rains have triggered
landslides and floods killing more than 44 people.
Floodwaters forced the mass evacuation overnight of
residents in low-lying areas of the industrial city
of Wuzhou, where the Xijiang river had reached 25.74
meters by Tuesday night, more than eight meters higher
than the warning level, state media said.
Notices on the mass evacuation were posted on walls,
warning sirens blared in the dark of night and Wuzhou
residents began to load up cars, trucks and carts with
valuables and flee the area for higher ground.
"In the face of these floods, the attitude of
the government is to make sure that no one is killed,''
Ren Kuikang, chief of the Wuzhou flood control and drought
relief office, told state television.
With much of the south now under threat, Premier Wen
Jiabao urged local governments to step up the fight
against the flooding, which kills hundreds in the country
each summer and causes millions of yuan in damage to
homes and crops.
Earlier this month, a flash flood swept through a
low-lying primary school in northeastern Heilongjiang
province, killing 117 people, 105 of them children.
Flooding in Guangxi had killed 24 people and left
23 missing, Xinhua said, citing provincial flood control
officials.
More than 330,000 people had been evacuated to higher
ground in the region, where the flooding has caused
1.67 billion yuan (HK$1.57 billion) in economic losses,
damaged 328,000 hectares of crops and toppled more than
20,000 houses, it said.
Flooding damaged another 50,000 houses regionwide.
Authorities had expected the Xijiang river, which
has risen at a rate of 10 centimeters per hour, to peak
Wednesday night at a hydrographic station in Wuzhou.
Heavy rains have killed nine people since Saturday
in Guangdong, where a landslide disrupted traffic on
a rail line linking the mainland with Hong Kong, Xinhua
said.
Rainstorms in eastern Guangdong caused cave-ins on
part of the Beijing-Kowloon railway line, forcing dozens
of trains to either delay or turn back while repairs
were made, it said.
Water levels on two other rivers in Guangxi - the
Qianjiang and Xunjiang - were above warning levels and
the province had suffered nearly US$45 million (HK$351
million) in economic losses as of Monday due to the
recent deluges, Xinhua said.
While the south is suffering a deluge, much of northern
China is sweating through a heat wave, which has driven
temperatures to nearly 40 degrees in Beijing and convinced
the southwestern city of Chongqing to open air raid
shelters to provide shady relief. |
YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, Wyo.
-- Lightning struck near a boardwalk Tuesday where a
crowd had gathered to watch an eruption of the Old Faithful
Geyser, injuring 11 people, one seriously.
The lightning bolt hit the ground in front of the
geyser, near the Old Faithful Visitor Center, said park
spokeswoman Cheryl Matthews. It did not strike anyone
directly.
The most badly injured was a 12-year-old boy. Two
doctors and a nurse were among the visitors and resuscitated
him, and he was flown to a hospital in Idaho Falls.
The other 10 people were cared for at the scene, Matthews
said.
The lightning was part of an intense mid-afternoon storm
that also produced heavy rain and hail. |
Five popular High Sierra camps
in Yosemite National Park will remain closed all summer
because of heavy snow, which is still piled up to 15
feet deep, the park announced Tuesday.
It's only the second time since 1916 that the camps
have not been able to open, according to a spokeswoman
for the concession company that operates them. The first
was in the El Niño year of 1996.
The closing does not affect campgrounds on the Yosemite
Valley floor, where most park visitors stay. But it
is a blow to the more than 4,300 hikers who won High
Sierra camp reservations in an annual lottery. [...] |
MORONGO VALLEY, Calif. (AP) - The
first major wildfire of the summer raced across more
than 5,500 acres of tinder-dry desert brush, destroying
at least seven homes, threatening hundreds of others
and sending residents of this sparsely populated Mojave
Desert community fleeing for their lives.
A second fire, about 35 miles away, burned across more
than 2,000 acres but did not threaten any structures,
authorities said. The larger blaze started when a single
home went up in flames Wednesday afternoon and those
flames quickly spread into nearby desert brush and tall
field grass.
Elsewhere, fire crews fought back fast-moving flames
approaching Arizona communities near the Tonto National
Forest. Two lightning-sparked brush fires blackened
12,500-acres, forcing the evacuation of 175 people from
homes in the area. No injuries were reported. [...] |
Paris - With tens of thousands
of deaths in a sizzling summer of 2003 still fresh on
people's minds, Europe suffered in a new heat wave Tuesday,
the first day of summer, while farmers warned of a historic
drought.
In Paris, the health ministry ordered authorities
in three counties to activate their heat wave plans
after they were informed that "the current wave
could present a health risk for the population as of
June 21."
Record temperatures for mid-June have been registered
in northern France, with the thermometer registering
35.7 degrees Celsius (97 F) on the outskirts of Paris
Monday.
The heat has already killed a 41-year-old marathon
runner who died in hospital after collapsing during
the 24th kilometer (15th mile) of a race at the picturesque
Mont Saint Michel in Normandy on Sunday.
Also worried were farmers in Portugal, where rising
temperatures are likely to worsen an already stinging
drought - the worse the country has seen in 60 years.
According to the national water institute, as of mid-June
50 percent of mainland Portugal is suffering from extreme
drought, and another 30 percent is witnessing a "severe"
drought. [...] |
Severe drought state could
occur within 2 weeks
June, at least according to the Specialty Tea Institute,
is National Iced Tea Month.
Unfortunately, that's about the only thirst-quenching
thing going for a month that's been so dry only a flood
insurer could love it.
Indeed, with no more rain this month - and chances
are close to nil for at least the next several days
- Houston would set a record for the driest June since
annual data collection began in 1889.
At Bush Intercontinental Airport just 0.08 inches
have fallen, about the thickness of a nickel. The record
for June is 0.12 inches, set in 1934 during the Dust
Bowl era.
And although it hasn't been the hottest month ever,
daily highs and lows have been, on average, 2 or 3 degrees
above normal for the region. [...] |
WELLINGTON : A seven-year-old
New Zealand girl was killed by a shark while swimming
off a beach in the South Pacific island nation of Vanuatu,
New Zealand's foreign ministry said on Thursday.
Alysha Margaret Webster was killed off Malekula Island
in northern Vanuatu on Wednesday, the ministry said.
She had been in Vanuatu with her family on a yachting
holiday.
The family, who did not wish to speak to the media,
was returning home to Whitianga, in the North Island
of New Zealand. |
SIMFEROPOL, Ukraine - A landslide
on a beach in southern Ukraine Tuesday killed at least
one teenager, officials said, as rescuers searched for
others feared trapped underneath.
The landslide occurred around noon (0900 GMT) on a city
beach in Sebastopol in the Crimea, when some 600 cubic
meters (21,000 cubic feet) of soil came crashing down
onto the beach below, a spokesman for the emergencies
ministry told AFP.
One person was killed as a result, said a top Sebstopol
city official. |
FORT WALTON BEACH, Fla. (AP) --
A foot-tall cross washed away from a ground-floor condominium
unit during Hurricane Ivan's storm surge last September
was washed back ashore when Tropical Storm Arlene hit
the Panhandle earlier this month.
As Island Echoes condominium workers watched Arlene
roll in June 11, they noticed an object that had been
swept in by the oncoming water.
"I looked down and said, 'Pick up the cross,' "
recalled general manager Phyllis Shanks.
For all she knew the cross could have come from anywhere,
but a closer look showed "1E" inscribed on
the bottom of its pedestal. Shanks then suspected it
must have come from the Island Echoes because other
nearby condos number their units differently.
Unit owners Dean and Ruth Lindsey, of Carmel, Ind.,
were stunned when they got an e-mail from Shanks about
the cross being found.
"It was amazing," Ruth Lindsey said. "It's
the most miraculous thing I've ever seen."
The couple leave it in the condo when they return to
Indiana after spending the winter in the Florida Panhandle
and will do so again. They say summer tourists who rent
the unit are respectful of it.
"Maybe that cross will protect us," Ruth Lindsey
said. "We just assumed everything was gone. All
the furniture (in the condo) was smashed against the
wall." |
Bank robbers usually
try to conceal their identity, but according to Winona
police, that wasn't the case Saturday.
Police say a man walked into Fortress Bank, 225 Lafayette
St., at 9:52 a.m. and handed a teller a note that said,
"Hi, I am Thomas Mason."
The note went on to demand $1,000 in $100 and $20 bills
and that he would, "kill everyone in the bank if
he had to come back with weapon in hand," police
reports said.
The teller gave the man the money and the suspect left.
Bank employees saw him go to Midtown Foods, police said.
The employees then continued to watch the Midtown Foods
entrance until police arrived.
Police searched Midtown but couldn't find the suspect.
At 10:14 a.m., Officer Chris Stark found a man matching
the description of the robber behind Third Street Liquor.
The man was drinking beer from a case he'd just purchased
from the liquor store and scratching off the $100 worth
of lottery tickets he'd purchased from Midtown Foods.
According to Stark's report, when he approached, the
man said, "I think I am the guy you want."
The man is identified as Thomas Eugene Mason, 37, of
252 W. Seventh St.
Stark patted him down and found $813 cash and the note
but no weapon.
Mason is being charged with aggravated robbery and terrorist
threats and is being held at the Winona County Jail. His
past criminal history includes a theft conviction.
The incident was captured on the bank's security tape.
"He's not a career bank robber," said Sgt.
Chris Nelson. "He certainly makes the list of dumbest
criminals." |
Boy it must be fun
to be in the Bush cabinet. Take today’s Presidential
trip to the Calvert Cliffs nuclear power plant, for example.
Energy secretary Samuel Bodman (who?) joined Bush on the
exciting trip and here is how his boss paid him back:
THE PRESIDENT: I appreciate the Secretary of Energy
joining me today. He's a good man, he knows a lot about
the subject, you'll be pleased to hear. I was teasing
him -- he taught at MIT, and -- do you have a PhD?
SECRETARY BODMAN: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, a PhD. (Laughter.) Now I want you
to pay careful attention to this -- he's the PhD, and
I'm the C student, but notice who is the advisor and
who is the President.
Yipee! Take a field trip and have your ego smashed. Ain’t
it great fun? The Army should try this to get its recruitment
numbers up: "Now I want you to pay careful attention
to this -- he's the soldier, I'm the one who avoided active
service, but look who's sending people to die?" —
FRED BECKER |
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