http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&e=1&u=/ap/20040829/ap_on_el_pr/cvn_convention_rdp
Delegates, Protesters Descend on New York
By RON FOURNIER, AP Political Writer
NEW YORK - Abortion-rights protesters and the first Republican delegates descended on President Bush (news - web sites)'s heavily fortified convention city Saturday as campaign officials said their boss would use the nomination spotlight to defend his hawkish foreign polices and offer a second-term agenda for health care, education and job training.
"He believes it's important for a candidate to talk about what he's done and, most important, where he wants to lead," said adviser Karen Hughes, aboard Bush's campaign bus in Ohio. "The speech is very forward-looking. It talks about what another four years of a Bush presidency would look like."
Democratic rival Sen. John Kerry (news - web sites) said most voters won't look kindly on another term for the Republican. "For the last four years, we've had a dark cloud over Washington," Kerry told supporters on an overcast day in Washington state. "We're going to get rid of it on Nov. 2."
With his decorated combat record in question, Kerry said, "I'm in a fighting mood," and a campaign ally chided Bush for serving stateside in the Texas Air National Guard while others fought in Vietnam.
In an interview, Bush told NBC's "Today" that Kerry "going to Vietnam was more heroic than my flying fighter jets. He was in harm's way and I wasn't. On the other hand, I served my country. Had my unit been called up, I would have gone."
Pre-convention polls showed the race evenly split, though the challenger has lost ground since his convention in Boston a month ago. The four-day Republican convention opens Monday.
Bush campaigned deliberately through battleground states en route to an overwhelmingly Democratic convention city — fertile ground for protests against his foreign and domestic policies. Thousands of abortion-rights activists marched across the Brooklyn Bridge, 10 abreast in a protest a half-mile long. The night before, 264 people were arrested for disorderly conduct in a bicycle protest past Madison Square Garden. New York police said 25 people were arrested Saturday for various convention-related incidents, bringing the three-day total to 311.
The convention site is less than five miles from Ground Zero, where two hijacked planes destroyed the Twin Towers, killing 2,749 people and catapulting the nation into war. Bush's approval ratings soared as he led the nation in mourning, then ordered troops into Afghanistan (news - web sites) to overthrow the Taliban regime and begin the search for Osama bin Laden (news - web sites).
Three years later, the terrorist leader is still at large, and the U.S. military is fighting an unpopular war in Iraq (news - web sites). As the death toll of U.S. troops nears 1,000, Bush hopes to persuade voters that the invasion of Iraq has made the nation safer.
"The power of liberty cannot be stopped," the president told supporters in Lima, Ohio, borrowing a line from his work-in-progress acceptance address. "Freedom is peace. Free societies are not going to harbor al-Qaida."
But even free societies must be diligent. Security precautions here showed it.
Police were out in force guarding New York roadways, bridges, tunnels and ports, while vehicle restrictions on an 18-square-block area around the Garden snarled traffic in a city already congested.
Police said they might have headed off disaster as they arrested a U.S. citizen and a Pakistani national in an alleged plot to bomb a subway station in midtown Manhattan.
Inside the hall, the transformation from sports and entertainment center to convention site was complete, with a custom-made podium filling one side of the hall and thousands of balloons above.
A smattering of delegates had arrived midweek for platform hearings, and scores more were making their way to the city. They won't starve for food or attention. Among the parties planned was a huge gathering at the Temple of Dendur at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and an intimate affair in an apartment high above Fifth Avenue overlooking Central Park.
Bush arrives in his convention city Wednesday after an eight-state campaign swing. He'll spend one night in New York before bolting for the battlegrounds of Pennsylvania, Ohio and beyond shortly after accepting the GOP nomination.
Hughes said Bush will argue that the world and the nation are changing rapidly in the new century, forcing U.S. leaders to adapt. While a desire for stability guided foreign policy for decades, "now we recognize that only when our values and beliefs in freedom are able to take hold will we see our security improve."
Campaigning with Kerry in Washington state, retired Army Gen. Wesley Clark (news - web sites) said Bush failed to act on terrorism before Sept. 11 and should be replaced. "George Bush (news - web sites) is an incompetent commander in chief," said Clark, a former presidential candidate.
The domestic terrain is changing, too, with people constantly shifting jobs and women flooding the work force, Hughes said. "So he'll talk about skills and training and education and portability of things like health care and the ability to own a piece of your retirement."
Hughes declined to give details, but other Bush advisers said he was expected to outline new initiatives on health care and post-secondary education. He will renew calls for tax simplification and allowing people to privatize part of their Social Security (news - web sites) benefits, but is not expected to offer new initiatives in those areas.
Individually, none of the measures will be colossal, aides said, but collectively it will make a bold package that they argued will appeal to moderates, many of whom have grown wary of Bush's conservative views and the Iraq war.
Looking to the fall, campaign chairman Marc Racicot said he couldn't find any fault with an independent commission's proposal to sponsor three presidential debates and one vice presidential session. Kerry has accepted the proposal. Bush has not.
Bush comes to his convention with a bit of momentum in a race so evenly divided that the smallest movement could cause major ripples. A Time magazine poll suggests that Bush has gained ground on Kerry on the economy, Iraq and the question of who could best lead the nation through a difficult time.
But a potential problem loomed for Bush. In Washington, the FBI (news - web sites) was investigating whether a Pentagon (news - web sites) analyst fed secret materials to Israel.
Friday, August 27, 2004
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2004/08/25/made_in_iraq_the_new_antiwar_veteran/
Made in Iraq: the new antiwar veteran
By Robert J. Lifton August 25, 2004
ON THE FRINGE of the recent Democratic National Convention in Boston, there was a miniconvention of a group called Veterans for Peace. Most of the 400-plus participants were Vietnam veterans, though there were smaller contingents of veterans of World War II, the Korean War, and the first Gulf War. But the most dramatic presence was that of a group of new kids on the block, veterans of the war in Iraq. These new veterans could come to have a powerful influence on our country. Iraq veterans undergo the same psychological struggles of all survivors over images of deaths , how much to feel and not to feel, pain and guilt from the deaths of buddies and their own behavior. Above all, war survivors hunger for meaning -- for some kind of moral judgment about their encounters with death.
In this quest for understanding, it turns out that Iraq veterans have much in common with their older compatriots who fought in Vietnam. Both groups were involved in a confusing counterinsurgency war conducted in an alien, hostile environment against a nonwhite enemy as elusive as he was dangerous. The result in both cases was an atrocity-producing situation -- one structured militarily and psychologically so that ordinary soldiers with no special history of violence or antisocial behavior were suddenly capable of killing or torturing civilians who were loosely designated as "the enemy."
A significant number of Vietnam veterans found meaning in opposing their war while it was in progress. The hearings on American war crimes and the throwing away of medals were their way of rejecting the war and holding not just themselves but their country accountable.
Their impact on the nation was different from that of other antiwar protesters because they were able to bring the Vietnam death scene directly to the American public, as John Kerry did in his 1971 testimony before a US Senate subcommittee, when he asked, "How we can ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?"
What Kerry and other antiwar veterans were contesting was the wartime tradition that in order to make sure the fallen did not "die in vain," one must rally round the flag, assert the nobility of the cause, and prosecute the war ever more vigorously.Instead, they invoked the authority of the dead to oppose rather than perpetuate the war.
This kind of alternative is by no means new -- it was powerfully expressed by writers surviving World War I and goes back as far as Homer.
Iraq veterans are beginning to express similar sentiments. In Boston they sounded not unlike their Vietnam predecessors. They emphasized the large-scale killing of Iraqi civilians by American firepower, along with their own widespread confusion. "We were lost. We had no idea what we were doing," was the way one put it.
These veterans formed a new organization at the convention, Iraq Veterans Against the War, modeled on the earlier Vietnam Veterans Against the War. It is too early to say how many will join this new group; much depends on what happens in Iraq and on the extent of antiwar opposition at home.
But there is already a personal and primal connection between veterans of Vietnam and Iraq: They are literally fathers and sons or daughters. Generational transmission of war experience has always had enormous psychological importance. Men who fought in Vietnam told me decades ago of having heard, on their fathers' knees, tales of courage and heroism in fighting the "good war." Those World War II fathers were often perplexed and angered by their sons' disillusionment with and bitter opposition to their own war. But Vietnam veteran fathers may have no such difficulty with the disillusionment of their children.
The sharing of an antiwar sentiment may indeed be a powerful bond. That was the case with an Iraq veteran, the daughter of a Vietnam veteran, who spoke at the meeting of the extreme chaos in which neither Americans nor Iraqis could be "protected" and of her constant question of "what we were doing there."
American soldiers fighting in Iraq are also saying things reminiscent of their Vietnam veteran fathers and uncles. The British newspaper The Guardian reported American soldiers as saying: "It's really frustrating cause I mean we can't find these guys. They shoot at us all the time, they run away, we try to figure out who it is, we interrogate people -- do they know who it was? No, nobody knows who it was"; and "This is the last place I'd probably ever want to die"; and "I don't have any idea of what we're trying to do out here. I don't know what the [goal] is, and I don't think our commanders do either."
These feelings arise from the war in Iraq. But the Vietnam experience hovers over everything; it is reactivated by what we hear about Iraq. In that sense a shared parent-child antiwar sentiment may come to reverberate throughout society. We have not heard the last of this poignant generational alliance.
Robert J. Lifton is a lecturer in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and author, most recently, of "Superpower Syndrome: America's Apocalyptic Confrontation with the World."
Made in Iraq: the new antiwar veteran
By Robert J. Lifton August 25, 2004
ON THE FRINGE of the recent Democratic National Convention in Boston, there was a miniconvention of a group called Veterans for Peace. Most of the 400-plus participants were Vietnam veterans, though there were smaller contingents of veterans of World War II, the Korean War, and the first Gulf War. But the most dramatic presence was that of a group of new kids on the block, veterans of the war in Iraq. These new veterans could come to have a powerful influence on our country. Iraq veterans undergo the same psychological struggles of all survivors over images of deaths , how much to feel and not to feel, pain and guilt from the deaths of buddies and their own behavior. Above all, war survivors hunger for meaning -- for some kind of moral judgment about their encounters with death.
In this quest for understanding, it turns out that Iraq veterans have much in common with their older compatriots who fought in Vietnam. Both groups were involved in a confusing counterinsurgency war conducted in an alien, hostile environment against a nonwhite enemy as elusive as he was dangerous. The result in both cases was an atrocity-producing situation -- one structured militarily and psychologically so that ordinary soldiers with no special history of violence or antisocial behavior were suddenly capable of killing or torturing civilians who were loosely designated as "the enemy."
A significant number of Vietnam veterans found meaning in opposing their war while it was in progress. The hearings on American war crimes and the throwing away of medals were their way of rejecting the war and holding not just themselves but their country accountable.
Their impact on the nation was different from that of other antiwar protesters because they were able to bring the Vietnam death scene directly to the American public, as John Kerry did in his 1971 testimony before a US Senate subcommittee, when he asked, "How we can ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?"
What Kerry and other antiwar veterans were contesting was the wartime tradition that in order to make sure the fallen did not "die in vain," one must rally round the flag, assert the nobility of the cause, and prosecute the war ever more vigorously.Instead, they invoked the authority of the dead to oppose rather than perpetuate the war.
This kind of alternative is by no means new -- it was powerfully expressed by writers surviving World War I and goes back as far as Homer.
Iraq veterans are beginning to express similar sentiments. In Boston they sounded not unlike their Vietnam predecessors. They emphasized the large-scale killing of Iraqi civilians by American firepower, along with their own widespread confusion. "We were lost. We had no idea what we were doing," was the way one put it.
These veterans formed a new organization at the convention, Iraq Veterans Against the War, modeled on the earlier Vietnam Veterans Against the War. It is too early to say how many will join this new group; much depends on what happens in Iraq and on the extent of antiwar opposition at home.
But there is already a personal and primal connection between veterans of Vietnam and Iraq: They are literally fathers and sons or daughters. Generational transmission of war experience has always had enormous psychological importance. Men who fought in Vietnam told me decades ago of having heard, on their fathers' knees, tales of courage and heroism in fighting the "good war." Those World War II fathers were often perplexed and angered by their sons' disillusionment with and bitter opposition to their own war. But Vietnam veteran fathers may have no such difficulty with the disillusionment of their children.
The sharing of an antiwar sentiment may indeed be a powerful bond. That was the case with an Iraq veteran, the daughter of a Vietnam veteran, who spoke at the meeting of the extreme chaos in which neither Americans nor Iraqis could be "protected" and of her constant question of "what we were doing there."
American soldiers fighting in Iraq are also saying things reminiscent of their Vietnam veteran fathers and uncles. The British newspaper The Guardian reported American soldiers as saying: "It's really frustrating cause I mean we can't find these guys. They shoot at us all the time, they run away, we try to figure out who it is, we interrogate people -- do they know who it was? No, nobody knows who it was"; and "This is the last place I'd probably ever want to die"; and "I don't have any idea of what we're trying to do out here. I don't know what the [goal] is, and I don't think our commanders do either."
These feelings arise from the war in Iraq. But the Vietnam experience hovers over everything; it is reactivated by what we hear about Iraq. In that sense a shared parent-child antiwar sentiment may come to reverberate throughout society. We have not heard the last of this poignant generational alliance.
Robert J. Lifton is a lecturer in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and author, most recently, of "Superpower Syndrome: America's Apocalyptic Confrontation with the World."
Thursday, August 19, 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-religion-general.html?pagewanted=print&position
August 18, 2004
U.S. General Violated Rules with 'Satan' Speeches
By REUTERS
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. Army general violated Pentagon rules by failing to properly clear speeches in which he described the war on terror as a Christian battle against Satan and should be punished, according to an inspector general's report obtained by Reuters on Wednesday.
The Department of Defense's watchdog agency said Lt. Gen. William Boykin, a top-ranking intelligence officer, used official data in some of the 23 religious-oriented speeches he gave after January 2002 which should have been cleared.
Boykin touched off a firestorm last October after giving speeches while in uniform in which he referred to the war on terror as a battle with Satan and said America had been targeted ``because we're a Christian nation.'' He said later he was not anti-Islam or any other religion.
Boykin was obliged to clear the speeches, given ``the sensitive nature of his remarks concerning U.S. policy and the likelihood that he would be perceived by his audiences as a DOD spokesman based on his official position and his appearance in uniform,'' the report said.
Boykin, an evangelical Christian, violated other rules by failing to issue a required disclaimer at the speeches that he was not representing official Pentagon policy, it said.
He also failed to report his receipt of one travel payment exceeding $260 from a non-government source, said the report, which was submitted to the Senate Armed Services Committee.
The report said Boykin did make ``good faith efforts'' to consult legal advisers about his speaking activities and that should be considered when the Army Secretary assessed the seriousness of the violations.
``We recommend that the Acting Secretary of the Army take appropriate corrective action with respect to Lt. Gen. Boykin,'' the report said.
The investigation did not focus on whether the substance of Boykin's remarks was appropriate for a senior Pentagon official or whether it compromised his fitness for performing his duties.
A Pentagon spokeswoman had no comment on the report, or what type of punishment the general would face. ``That report has not been released. At this point it would be inappropriate for me to comment,'' said Navy Lt. Cmdr. Jane Campbell.
Ibrahim Hooper of the Council on American Islamic Relations welcomed the report's findings but said they came too late to prevent damage to the image of the United States and the U.S. military in the Muslim world.
He said his group supported Boykin's right to free speech, but not his speeches while in uniform.
``He's free to have views on Islam that are objectionable. We don't like it, but he has that right, just not as a representative of the U.S. military,'' Hooper said.
Muslim groups and U.S. lawmakers condemned Boykin's comments when they were reported last fall and President Bush said the remarks ``didn't reflect my opinion.''
At the time, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld praised Boykin's ``outstanding record'' and refused to reprimand the general, who played a role in a 1993 clash with Somali warlords and the ill-fated hostage rescue attempt in Iran in 1980.
Since then, Muslim groups also raised questions about what role Boykin, deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence, may have played in creating U.S. military interrogation policy amid a scandal over the abuse of prisoners in Iraq.
Boykin issued a written apology last October to anyone offended by his remarks, but did not take any of them back.
Tuesday, August 17, 2004
This article was sent to me by Claudia.
Jak, this is an egregious crime. A biocide. We must get rid of George Bush. Please blog this article! The world must know the truth! -- Starcats
Appalachia Is Paying Price for White House Rule Change
By Joby Warrick
BECKLEY, W.Va. -- The coal industry chafes at the name -- "mountaintop removal" -- but it aptly describes the novel mining method that became popular in this part of Appalachia in the late 1980s. Miners target a green peak, scrape it bare of trees and topsoil, and then blast away layer after layer of rock until the mountaintop is gone.
In just over a decade, coal miners used the technique to flatten hundreds of peaks across a region spanning West Virginia, eastern Kentucky and Tennessee. Thousands of tons of rocky debris were dumped into valleys, permanently burying more than 700 miles of mountain streams. By 1999, concerns over the damage to waterways triggered a backlash of lawsuits and court rulings that slowed the industry's growth to a trickle.
Today, mountaintop removal is booming again, and the practice of dumping mining debris into streambeds is explicitly protected, thanks to a small wording change to federal environmental regulations. U.S. officials simply reclassified the debris from objectionable "waste" to legally acceptable "fill."
The "fill rule," as the May 2002 rule change is now known, is a case study of how the Bush administration has attempted to reshape environmental policy in the face of fierce opposition from environmentalists, citizens groups and political opponents. Rather than proposing broad changes or drafting new legislation, administration officials often have taken existing regulations and made subtle tweaks that carry large consequences.
Sometimes the change hinges on a single critical phrase or definition. For example, when the Environmental Protection Agency announced proposals last year to control mercury emissions, it also moved to downgrade the "hazardous" classification of mercury pollution from power plants -- a seemingly minor change that effectively gave utilities 15 more years to implement the most costly controls. Earlier this year, the Energy Department helped insert wording into a Senate bill to reclassify millions of gallons of "high-level" radioactive waste as "incidental," a change that would spare the government the expense of removing and treating the waste.
The fill rule is one of several key changes to coal-mining regulations that have been enacted or proposed by the Bush administration, which took office promising to ease bureaucratic burdens for the coal industry and expand the nation's energy production. To administration officials and mining companies, the changes are simply clarifications that eliminated ambiguities in the law. To environmental groups, they are the administration's payback to an industry that has raised $9 million for Republicans since 1998. The coal industry is a political force in West Virginia, a vital swing state whose five electoral votes for George W. Bush helped put him over the top in 2000.
One proposed change -- described by administration officials as a "clarification" of the Clean Water Act -- would effectively void a two-decade-old ban on mining within 100 feet of a stream. Another proposal would scale back the federal government's legal obligation to police state mining agencies, by reclassifying certain duties from "nondiscretionary" to "discretionary."
In October 2001, the Bush administration intervened to change the focus of a federal mining study that was poised to recommend limits on the size of new mountaintop mines. And, in an internal policy change this spring, the administration promulgated guidelines that allow ditches dug by coal companies to serve as substitutes for streams that were being buried by debris.
"They call them 'clarifications,' but it's really all about removing obstacles," said Jack Spadaro, who regulated coal mines for 32 years as a federal mine inspector and senior mining safety officer. "They've made it easier for companies to dump mining waste into streams, and harder for citizens to challenge them."
Bush administration officials defend the new policies, saying they are in keeping with a national energy strategy that seeks greater independence from foreign sources without sacrificing environmental safeguards.
"It's hard to strike that balance, but we believe, right down to the core of this agency, that we can do both," said Jeffrey D. Jarrett, director of the federal Office of Surface Mining. Noting that it was Congress that approved the practice of mountaintop mining 30 years ago, Jarrett said the administration's actions have introduced a measure of "stability and certainty" for the mines and their neighbors.
Mining industry officials say the changes benefited ordinary Americans by ensuring a steady supply of cheap, domestic coal at a time of instability in global oil and natural gas markets. "President Bush recognized the value of coal to our economy, and the role it plays in providing electricity," said Jack N. Gerard, president of the National Mining Association. "The administration has been diligent in its efforts to avoid disruptions in our energy supply."
Government studies show that mountaintop mining inflicts a heavy toll. Streams that have not been buried under mining debris carry high levels of silt and toxic chemicals, experts say. About 5 percent of forest cover in southern West Virginia has been stripped away by mines, along with popular mountain vistas that can never be replaced.
With a rebounding industry now seeking permits for more and larger mines, the environmental impact is likely to grow, the reports show. One federal study projects that if current trends hold, over the next decade affected land will encompass 2,200 square miles, an area larger than Rhode Island.
"A huge percentage of the watershed is being filled in and mined out, and we have no idea what the downstream impacts will be," said one senior government scientist who has studied mountaintop mining extensively but insisted on anonymity for fear of repercussions at work. "All we know is that nothing on this scale has ever happened before."
Big Costs -- and Big Payoff
Dismantling something as large as a mountain requires advanced technology, big machines and massive amounts of explosives. Opponents in West Virginia describe the result as "strip mines on steroids."
Rather than tunneling into a mountain's face to reach the coal, mountaintop miners remove as much as 600 vertical feet of summit to get at the coal seams inside. Many of the mines encompass multiple peaks and thousands of acres in between, including large swaths of temperate hardwoods and myriad streams.
After the trees are cleared away, miners detonate scores of explosive charges to shear slabs of rock from the underlying coal. Gargantuan machines called draglines clear away the rock with bucket scoops that can hold 100,000 pounds, or as much weight as 40 Toyota Corollas.
While the capital costs are enormous, so is the payoff to the industry. Traditional mines extract about 70 percent of the coal from an underground seam; the recovery rate for mountaintop mines approaches 100 percent. The new mines also require far fewer workers -- sometimes only a few dozen per mine. Still, those jobs are high-paying and highly coveted, and the mines themselves continue to generate billions of dollars for local economies. For those reasons, many state politicians and even labor unions embrace the technique.
A growing number in central Appalachia despise it. A poll commissioned by a West Virginia environmental group this year found that opponents of the practice outnumber supporters by 2 to 1. "Opposition is broad and deep, traversing all demographic groups and every region of the state," said Daniel Gotoff of Lake Snell Perry & Associates, a Democratic polling firm based in the District.
As more mountaintops disappear and sometimes entire villages along with them, resistance has spread. Coal companies have offered to buy and demolish houses near the mines, effectively depopulating settlements. Residents who remain recite a familiar litany of complaints: dust, truck traffic, constant blasting that rattles nerves and sometimes damages houses. Even more jarring for many is the sight of the destruction of the ancient hills, familiar landmarks and touchstones for generations of families.
"I've been coming up through these mountains since I was 5 years old. Now the place looks like an asteroid hit," Bo Webb, a retired businessman and Vietnam veteran, said of the 1,800-acre mountaintop mine above his house in central West Virginia's Raleigh County. "A lot of us up here have fought for our country. To see what is happening now to our homes makes me so mad."
The state's top elected officials, including Democratic Gov. Robert E. Wise Jr. and his Republican predecessor Cecil H. Underwood, have supported mountaintop mining as critical to the coal industry's existence in West Virginia. Appalachian coal competes not only against other energy sources -- such as cleaner-burning natural gas -- but also against coal imports and other coal-producing regions of the country.
"Intense competition leads to bigger mines," said Mark Muchow, West Virginia's chief administrator for revenue operations. "You need bigger mining operations just to stay competitive."
Coal industry officials also contend the miners are careful stewards of the land, strictly adhering to laws requiring them to rehabilitate sheared-off mountains by planting grass and trees. Some claim a positive aspect to the toppling of West Virginia's famous green peaks: In a region where flat land is at a premium, the industry has created what officials describe as "unique" spaces for commercial development or wildlife habitat. "People have used these sites to build high schools and golf courses -- they see it as an opportunity to stimulate the economy and create jobs," said Gerard, the National Mining Association president. "Some of the sites are so beautifully reclaimed, many people can't tell the difference."
But the environmental damage is hard to miss. In mining areas, the waste rock piles up in huge "valley fills" that are sometimes more than a mile long and hundreds of feet deep. They have buried more than 700 miles of headwater streams across central Appalachia, government studies show.
Other impacts are felt downstream. Federal water-quality studies have found substantially higher levels of selenium, a mineral that is toxic to fish in high doses -- in rivers near the mines. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimated that as many as 244 species, including several that are endangered, were being affected by the loss of forest and aquatic habitats. "The individual and cumulative impacts to both aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems are unprecedented," the agency's West Virginia field office concluded in a September 2001 report.
Only in the late 1990s did the problems begin to command the sustained attention of federal environmental officials. W. Michael McCabe, a deputy administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency in the late 1990s, recalled feeling astonished during a 1998 plane flight in which he passed over several of the largest mines in the middle of the lush West Virginia highlands. The denuded, flattened hills were a jarring sight, "like landing decks for alien spacecraft," he said.
McCabe said his agency had not anticipated the exponential growth of mountaintop mines. A key factor, he said, was a decision by mining companies in the 1980s to apply the techniques and supersize machines of western strip mines to Appalachia, where coal mines historically had been smaller and less efficient.
"The acreage affected by these mines went through the roof -- from the hundreds to the thousands of acres," said McCabe, now a private consultant. "It was the difference between a hand saw and a chain saw."
Bending Policies
Ironically, the fill rule that reopened the door to mountaintop mining grew out of an attempt by the Clinton administration to strengthen government oversight of these dramatically larger new mines. But what happened to the proposal shows how different administrations can bend the policies of their predecessors to meet their own priorities.
By mid-1998, McCabe and other senior EPA officials wanted a broad review of federal policies for mountaintop mines. They were motivated not only by accumulating evidence from the field but also by growing external pressure from local environmentalists and citizens groups, current and former agency officials said in interviews.
A lawsuit filed in 1998 accused federal agencies of violating the Clean Water Act by granting permits for mountaintop mines. The suit, filed by the environmental group West Virginia Highlands Conservancy, cited a little-noticed clause in the regulations of the Army Corps of Engineers, the agency that grants approval for most construction projects involving alterations to streams, rivers or wetlands. While the Army allowed builders to put clean "fill" materials in waterways for purposes such as building bridges or artificial reefs, the rules explicitly forbade the dumping of waste.
As the Army defined it, mining debris was "clearly waste," said Joe Lovett, director of the Appalachian Center for the Economy and the Environment, a nonprofit law firm that represented activists in the suit. Yet, for more than a decade, Army officials had issued the permits anyway.
"The Army was allowing coal companies to use waterways as giant trash heaps, without any environmental analysis," Lovett said. "They did not have the authority to do that."
In 1999, a federal judge agreed with Lovett's interpretation in a decision that called into question the legality of virtually every mountaintop mine in Appalachia. Faced with a potentially disastrous shutdown of the region's most powerful industry, the Clinton administration agreed to an out-of-court settlement: The activists would drop the lawsuit in exchange for a federal promise of closer scrutiny of mining permits and a thorough scientific review, called an environmental impact statement.
The administration would allow mining debris to be deposited in streams, but only as part of a comprehensive approach that would address long-term environmental concerns. "We would not go forward with the fill rule except as part of this comprehensive approach," McCabe said.
But the comprehensive approach went nowhere. Negotiations between the EPA and industry officials on proposals for limiting the size of valley fills stalled and then stopped altogether as the presidential election of 2000 approached. The court ruling that questioned the legality of valley fills was overturned on appeal. Meanwhile, West Virginia coal executives had begun to stake their hopes on an administration change in Washington. The state's coal firms raised $275,000 for Bush. Many West Virginia coal miners, fearing that Democratic contender Al Gore's environmental policies would eliminate coal field jobs, joined prominent business leaders in campaigning for the Texas governor.
After the election, administration officials publicly promised to remove the legal bureaucratic roadblocks to the mining permits. Newly appointed Deputy Interior Secretary J. Steven Griles, a former coal industry lobbyist, made a specific pledge to the West Virginia Coal Association in a speech in August 2001:
"We will fix the federal rules very soon on water and spoil placement," Griles said. New Administration Under the new Bush administration, the "fixes" were rolled out in quick succession. The first was the fill rule, which had been proposed by the Clinton administration but essentially abandoned in the face of harsh criticism from local opponents and environmentalists, who flooded the EPA with 17,000 letters and public comments.
On April 6, 2001, four months after Bush's inauguration, representatives of the National Mining Association met with EPA officials for 90 minutes to argue for reviving the rule -- but with significant changes. For starters, the mining representatives said, the Clinton-era rule set too many limits on the kinds of materials that could be classified as "fill," according to an EPA memo summarizing the meeting.
Industry officials "expressed opposition to adding a definition of 'unsuitable fill material,' " the memo states.
The attempt to revive the rule drew protests not only from environmentalists but also from many Republicans in Congress. Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.) joined Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. (D-N.J.) in sponsoring a bill that would have outlawed dumping mine waste in streams. And, as the Bush administration had not scheduled additional public hearings on the revised rule, Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.) convened a Senate hearing to decry what he described as a "shameful" attempt to weaken the Clean Water Act. Among those speaking out against the rule at the hearing was Kevin Richardson, a Kentucky native and member of the pop group the Backstreet Boys.
Yet, the final version of the Bush administration's fill rule published in May 2002 contained nearly all the changes the mining industry requested. The definition of "fill" was expanded to include "rock, sand, clay, plastics, construction debris, wood chips [and] overburden from mining." Only garbage was expressly excluded.
As the fill rule moved through the bureaucracy, the administration was taking steps to contain another potential threat to mountaintop mining: the environmental impact study begun under President Bill Clinton to assess the need for limits on the size of future mines.
As part of the study, federal scientists and engineers had spent more than two years documenting damage to Appalachian streams and wildlife. Some panel members had prepared draft recommendations that called for restricting valley fills larger than 250 acres. But Griles, the Interior Department undersecretary, informed panel members in an Oct. 5, 2001, memo that their study lacked the proper focus and needed restructuring. He ordered recommendations for "centralizing and streamlining coal-mine permitting," according to the memo, which the environmental law firm Earthjustice obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.
"We do not believe the [study] as currently drafted focuses sufficiently on those goals," Griles wrote.
Scientists who were at work on the report found the change in direction inexplicable, internal memos and e-mails show. "Our proposed approach was subsequently voted down within the executive committee," one Fish and Wildlife Service employee explained to colleagues in a memo, "in part because a decision appears to have been made that even minor modifications to current regulatory practices are now considered to be outside the scope" of the study.
The Bush administration defended its handling of the environmental study. In a written statement, the Interior Department said Griles had not sought to influence the panel. The statement notes that Griles had urged scientists to recommend ways to allow mining to continue "in an environmentally sound manner."
By the time the Bush administration released the study, all proposals for limiting valley fills had indeed been omitted. And, as Griles had urged, the document's main recommendations called for cutting bureaucratic red tape and speeding up the permitting process.
One government scientist complained in an e-mail to colleagues: "All we have proposed is alternative locations to house the rubber stamp that issues the permits."
In January 2004, the administration took another major step to help the coal industry dodge legal obstacles. At the time, mining permits were being challenged in court on grounds that they violated a 20-year-old regulation that banned mining within 100 feet of a stream. Like the fill rule, the "buffer zone" rule, adopted during the Reagan administration, was widely ignored in practice. Owing to the sheer size of the projects, mountaintop mining in Appalachia always entailed destroying streams.
Under the Bush administration's proposal, miners would be exempt from the buffer rule, provided they could show that they took measures "to the extent possible" to protect water quality and avoid harm to fish and wildlife. Administration officials contend that the buffer-zone rule does not weaken environmental protections but merely recognizes a reality that has existed in the coal fields for decades.
The changes have not entirely eliminated legal threats to mining. Last month, a federal judge revoked permits for 11 West Virginia mines, ruling that federal officials used improper procedures in granting fast-track approval for new mines. Industry officials are preparing an appeal while lawyers study the implications of the ruling.
But overall, the cumulative impact of the regulatory changes has been to close legal avenues industry opponents use to challenge the practice that industry officials prefer to call "steep-slope mining," coal supporters and critics agree.
"These changes were unequivocally helpful," Chris Hamilton, vice president of the West Virginia Coal Association, said in an interview. "By revising certain ambiguous regulations and contorted legal interpretations of the Clean Water Act, the administration has improved regulatory stability and predictability."
Campaigning for Coal
Buoyed by higher coal prices and an improving regulatory climate, West Virginia's coal companies recently took to the road to make their case for increased public support for mountaintop removal. Last month, at a workshop in Shepherdstown, W.Va., co-sponsored by state academic and elected leaders, industry executives argued that increased coal production could even help win the war against terrorism.
The workshop's theme: "The role of coal in economic and homeland security."
Coal boosters at the seminar touted the industry's present and future role as energy supplier to the nation, noting that the United States' vast domestic coal reserve generates half of the nation's electricity supply, and could continue to do so for centuries, at current consumption rates. Officials also played up the economic importance of an industry that pays $1 billion in direct wages in West Virginia and accounts for nearly 13 percent of the gross state product.
"Coal keeps the lights on," said Roger Lilly, marketing manager for Walker Machinery Co., a supplier of heavy equipment for mountaintop mines. "Coal today also is a cleaner, greener fuel, and it's our bridge to the future. We've got to show people what a great job we're doing."
Critics of the industry, however, feel anything but secure.
"It makes me furious," said Janice Nease, 68, a retired teacher who became an anti-mining activist after her village, a settlement of about 30 homes, was bought and destroyed to make room for a mine. "We keep on plugging away, but it's harder."
For years, Maria Gunnoe, 36, a waitress and single mother, watched nervously as coal companies hacked their way north along a ridge of mountains near the town of Bob White, W.Va. Then, three years ago, the first mining crews arrived on what she calls "my mountain," a rocky ridge called Island Creek Mountain directly above her house, her family's home for three generations.
"I sit here in the evening and listen to the equipment ripping and tearing at the mountain," Gunnoe, a coal miner's daughter, said as she sat on her porch on a late spring afternoon. "It's the same as if they were ripping and tearing at the siding of my house."
She has seen flooding wash away a third of her front yard and destroy the only bridge that connects her property to a public highway. Her car has been vandalized and her children have been bullied because of her outspoken opposition to the mine, she said. Her nerves are raw from the near-constant blasting, which continues even on holidays. "It sends the kids screaming, running through the house. The dogs hit the dirt," she said.
Far worse, she said, is the emotional toll. A peak that served as the natural backdrop for her entire life, the lives of her parents, her grandparents and her two young children is vanishing before her eyes. The family has received offers from coal companies to sell the small wood-frame cottage her father built. Gunnoe says she will never sell, but she wonders how long her family can hold on.
"The true cost of coal is here," she said quietly, staring off into the crisp mountain air, at her mountain. "We pay for it with our lives and our future. And also our past."
Sunday, August 15, 2004
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20040815/pl_afp/us_vote_040815092928
Kerry leading Bush in key swing states
WASHINGTON (AFP) - Although polls show the US presidential race a virtual dead heat, Democrat John Kerry (news - web sites) appears to be gaining an edge over George W. Bush among the key states that could decide the outcome.
An AFP review of various polls showed the Massachusetts senator leading in the hunt for the decisive 538 electoral votes that are apportioned among the states and awarded in separate winner-take-all contests.
Nationwide, the November 2 election is shaping up as every bit as close as the 2000 cliffhanger in which outgoing vice president Al Gore (news - web sites) won the popular tally but lost to the Republican Bush by five electoral votes.
Voter surveys show Bush and Kerry running even. A Pew Research Center poll released Thursday put Kerry ahead 47-45 percent while a Gallup study Friday had Bush on top 48-47 percent, both margins statistically insignificant.
But with the electorate highly polarized and largely decided, Kerry seemed to have an advantage among the 16 "battleground" states stretching from Oregon to Florida that are considered still up for grabs.
The states account for 177 of the 270 electoral votes needed to win. Polls show the Democrat leading in 10 states with 119 electoral votes, Bush ahead in one state with six, and five states with 52 electors a tossup.
Added to the other states where no change is believed likely from 2000, the breakdown would give Kerry a 291-195 lead in electoral votes. But with 11 weeks to go before the election, the political chessboard could be easily upset.
If Bush once looked comfortable in the midwestern state of Ohio, which he won in 2000, Kerry has inched ahead in some polls. But the president is making a strong move in neighboring Pennsylvania, where he lost four years ago.
In some states it would take tantalizingly little to overturn the previous result: 6,765 votes in Oregon, 5,708 in Wisconsin, 4,144 in Iowa, 366 in New Mexico, and the famous 537 in Florida that clinched the deal for Bush.
So both candidates have been investing most of their time and media dollars in the battlegrounds, putting their chips down and hoping they can make the math come out right.
It's no coincidence that seven of the eight states on Bush's campaign tour last week were battlegrounds. Kerry's "Believe in America" road trip hit 13 of the 16 swing states.
The patchwork nature of US elections obliges the candidates to mix their broader pronouncements on Iraq (news - web sites), terrorism and the economy with attention to particular local sore points that could win or cost votes.
It might be rural education in Arkansas, immigration in Florida and New Mexico, nuclear waste disposal in Nevada, or the loss of jobs just about across the board -- the message gets tailored to the audience.
The importance of the swing states has raised the profile of voting communities such as Hispanics, who may be a minority but are strong in several coveted areas such as Florida, New Mexico and Nevada.
Even native Americans have made it onto the political radar screen. Indians are just one percent of the US population but 9.5 percent of New Mexico, so the Republicans have started to air radio spots in Navajo.
The system has also kept independent candidate Ralph Nader (news - web sites) alive as a spoiler. Current polls show him with two percent support in Florida, slightly more than in 2000 when he arguably siphoned off critical votes from Gore.
The latest polls come after last month's Democratic convention, which produced only a marginal boost for Kerry. Republicans are playing down Bush's chances of doing much better when their gala opens in two weeks in New York.
But as both sides gear up for the home stretch run of their marathon campaign, they are mindful of Gore's agony when he beat Bush by 544,000 votes nationwide but lost the presidency after a bitter recount fight in Florida.
Gore, only the fourth man in US history to win the popular vote but lose the White House, joked at his party's convention, "You know the old saying: You win some, you lose some. And then there's that little-known third category."
A lesson from the Electoral College (news - web sites).
Kerry leading Bush in key swing states
WASHINGTON (AFP) - Although polls show the US presidential race a virtual dead heat, Democrat John Kerry (news - web sites) appears to be gaining an edge over George W. Bush among the key states that could decide the outcome.
An AFP review of various polls showed the Massachusetts senator leading in the hunt for the decisive 538 electoral votes that are apportioned among the states and awarded in separate winner-take-all contests.
Nationwide, the November 2 election is shaping up as every bit as close as the 2000 cliffhanger in which outgoing vice president Al Gore (news - web sites) won the popular tally but lost to the Republican Bush by five electoral votes.
Voter surveys show Bush and Kerry running even. A Pew Research Center poll released Thursday put Kerry ahead 47-45 percent while a Gallup study Friday had Bush on top 48-47 percent, both margins statistically insignificant.
But with the electorate highly polarized and largely decided, Kerry seemed to have an advantage among the 16 "battleground" states stretching from Oregon to Florida that are considered still up for grabs.
The states account for 177 of the 270 electoral votes needed to win. Polls show the Democrat leading in 10 states with 119 electoral votes, Bush ahead in one state with six, and five states with 52 electors a tossup.
Added to the other states where no change is believed likely from 2000, the breakdown would give Kerry a 291-195 lead in electoral votes. But with 11 weeks to go before the election, the political chessboard could be easily upset.
If Bush once looked comfortable in the midwestern state of Ohio, which he won in 2000, Kerry has inched ahead in some polls. But the president is making a strong move in neighboring Pennsylvania, where he lost four years ago.
In some states it would take tantalizingly little to overturn the previous result: 6,765 votes in Oregon, 5,708 in Wisconsin, 4,144 in Iowa, 366 in New Mexico, and the famous 537 in Florida that clinched the deal for Bush.
So both candidates have been investing most of their time and media dollars in the battlegrounds, putting their chips down and hoping they can make the math come out right.
It's no coincidence that seven of the eight states on Bush's campaign tour last week were battlegrounds. Kerry's "Believe in America" road trip hit 13 of the 16 swing states.
The patchwork nature of US elections obliges the candidates to mix their broader pronouncements on Iraq (news - web sites), terrorism and the economy with attention to particular local sore points that could win or cost votes.
It might be rural education in Arkansas, immigration in Florida and New Mexico, nuclear waste disposal in Nevada, or the loss of jobs just about across the board -- the message gets tailored to the audience.
The importance of the swing states has raised the profile of voting communities such as Hispanics, who may be a minority but are strong in several coveted areas such as Florida, New Mexico and Nevada.
Even native Americans have made it onto the political radar screen. Indians are just one percent of the US population but 9.5 percent of New Mexico, so the Republicans have started to air radio spots in Navajo.
The system has also kept independent candidate Ralph Nader (news - web sites) alive as a spoiler. Current polls show him with two percent support in Florida, slightly more than in 2000 when he arguably siphoned off critical votes from Gore.
The latest polls come after last month's Democratic convention, which produced only a marginal boost for Kerry. Republicans are playing down Bush's chances of doing much better when their gala opens in two weeks in New York.
But as both sides gear up for the home stretch run of their marathon campaign, they are mindful of Gore's agony when he beat Bush by 544,000 votes nationwide but lost the presidency after a bitter recount fight in Florida.
Gore, only the fourth man in US history to win the popular vote but lose the White House, joked at his party's convention, "You know the old saying: You win some, you lose some. And then there's that little-known third category."
A lesson from the Electoral College (news - web sites).
Tuesday, August 10, 2004
Rep. Goss Nominated to Lead Embattled CIA
By TERENCE HUNT, AP White House Correspondent
WASHINGTON - President Bush (news - web sites) on Tuesday nominated Rep. Porter Goss (news, bio, voting record) of Florida to head the CIA (news - web sites) amid terror and tumult, saying the former undercover operative "knows the CIA inside and out" and can bolster its spy network.
"He is well prepared for this mission," the president said of Goss, chairman of the House intelligence committee who was an Army intelligence operative before joining the CIA the 1960s. "He's the right man to lead and support the agency at this critical moment in our nation's history."
Goss, whose nomination must be confirmed by the Senate, had been mentioned prominently in speculation about a successor to departed CIA Director George Tenet, who left amid a torrent of criticism of the agency's handling of prewar intelligence on Iraq (news - web sites).
Bush still has a major decision ahead of him. He has embraced a cornerstone recommendation by the commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks: creation of a new intelligence czar to oversee the activities of the CIA and more than a dozen other intelligence agencies. Bush has not named the czar.
"I think every American knows the importance of getting the best possible intelligence we can get to our decision-makers," Goss, 65, said during the Rose Garden announcement.
Retired Adm. Stansfield Turner, who was CIA chief during the Carter administration and supports Sen. John Kerry (news - web sites)'s presidential bid, said Goss' selection marked "a bad day for the CIA." Goss was chosen simply "to help George Bush win votes in Florida, he said.
"This is the worst appointment that's ever been made to the office of director of central intelligence because that's an office that needs to be kept above partisan politics," Turner said.
White House press secretary Scott McClellan would not rule out Goss being picked as intelligence czar, if Congress creates that position. He also would not say if Goss was a leading candidate.
Bush invited Goss for dinner at the White House Monday evening and formally offered him the job, McClellan said.
If the president names an intelligence czar, his CIA chief would lose some power in the reshuffling and essentially would be required to report to the new head of all intelligence operations.
Neither Bush nor Goss discussed the new organization, and the CIA had no comment Tuesday on Bush's appointment. The president said Goss will advise him on how to implement the Sept. 11 panel's recommendations.
Both men stressed that Goss' experience as an undercover CIA officer would help the agency bolster its ability to use spies, instead of just technology, to infiltrate terrorist networks. "The essence of our intelligence capability is people," the Florida Republican said.
Said Bush: "To stop them from killing our citizens, we must have the best intelligence possible."
Tenet's last day was July 11, and the much-criticized agency since then has been under the leadership of acting Director John McLaughlin.
The administration was believed to have debated internally whether to choose a permanent successor to Tenet before the fall elections, thus putting itself in the position of having to defend its choice in confirmation hearings held in a politically charged atmosphere.
Bush said he expected that Goss would garner support "on both sides of the aisle" at the Capitol during the confirmation process.
"He's a fine man and the fact that he's a Republican congressman doesn't bother me," said Sen. Charles Schumer (news, bio, voting record), D-N.Y. "I would find it very hard to support any nominee who did not endorse the 9/11 commission recommendations on intelligence... The focal point of this nomination is not who he is, but these recommendations."
Sen. Mike DeWine (news, bio, voting record), R-Ohio, a member of the Intelligence Committee, said Goss has the credentials to be the overall intelligence czar, if Congress creates that position. "He could be this new person, if we go there," DeWine said. He described Goss and tough and pragmatic and said, "He'll be someone who can walk into the president and look him into the eye and tell him what the truth is and not flinch."
Sen. Trent Lott (news, bio, voting record), R-Miss., said in a statement that he considered Goss "a very good choice" and urged the Senate to "handle Porter Goss' confirmation expeditiously."
Goss would take over the agency at a pivotal moment.
Leaders of various intelligence agencies worry about a series of high-profile events this summer that could become attractive terrorist targets. It is widely believed that al-Qaida and its allies might try to strike the United States in a way that replicates the political and economic impact of March's train bombings in Madrid, Spain.
The Connecticut-born Goss graduated from Yale in 1960 and launched a clandestine career, working for Army intelligence for two years and eventually the CIA's most well-known division, the Directorate of Operations.
When he got into politics, Goss had to get special permission to reveal that he was associated with "the agency" for roughly a decade, reportedly in Europe and Latin America. Goss still doesn't discuss classified details of his work, although he has said he was deployed in Miami during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.
"I had some very interesting moments in the Florida Straits," Goss told The Washington Post in 2002.
In the early 1970s, an almost deadly staph infection forced him to retire to Sanibel, Fla., where retired CIA officers who had made the coastal community their home had convinced him to come for recovery. Each day, he tried to walk to the ocean as part of his rehabilitation.
Gradually, he stepped into local politics and ran for the House in 1988.
Goss has served in Congress for 16 years, including eight years as House Intelligence chairman. He planned on making his 2000 election bid his last, but decided to stay on after the Sept. 11 attacks — with encouragement from Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney (news - web sites). The opportunity was sweetened when Republicans waived a rule limiting his chairmanship to six years.
Monday, August 09, 2004
International team to monitor presidential election
Observers will be part of OSCE's human rights office
From David de Sola
CNN
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A team of international observers will monitor the presidential election in November, according to the U.S. State Department.
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe was invited to monitor the election by the State Department. The observers will come from the OSCE's Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights.
It will be the first time such a team has been present for a U.S. presidential election.
"The U.S. is obliged to invite us, as all OSCE countries should," spokeswoman Urdur Gunnarsdottir said. "It's not legally binding, but it's a political commitment. They signed a document 10 years ago to ask OSCE to observe elections."
Thirteen Democratic members of the House of Representatives, raising the specter of possible civil rights violations that they said took place in Florida and elsewhere in the 2000 election, wrote to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan in July, asking him to send observers.
After Annan rejected their request, saying the administration must make the application, the Democrats asked Secretary of State Colin Powell to do so.
The issue was hotly debated in the House, and Republicans got an amendment to a foreign aid bill that barred federal funds from being used for the United Nations to monitor U.S. elections, The Associated Press reported.
In a letter dated July 30 and released last week, Assistant Secretary of State Paul Kelly told the Democrats about the invitation to OSCE, without mentioning the U.N. issue.
"I am pleased that Secretary Powell is as committed as I am to a fair and democratic process," said Democratic Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson of Texas, who spearheaded the effort to get U.N. observers.
"The presence of monitors will assure Americans that America cares about their votes and it cares about its standing in the world," she said in a news release.
Democratic Rep. Barbara Lee of California agreed.
"This represents a step in the right direction toward ensuring that this year's elections are fair and transparent," she said.
"I am pleased that the State Department responded by acting on this need for international monitors. We sincerely hope that the presence of the monitors will make certain that every person's voice is heard, every person's vote is counted."
OSCE, the world's largest regional security organization, will send a preliminary mission to Washington in September to assess the size, scope, logistics and cost of the mission, Gunnarsdottir said.
The organization, which counts among its missions conflict prevention and postconflict rehabilitation, will then determine how many observers are required and where in the United States they will be sent.
"OSCE-participating [nations] agreed in 1990 to observe elections in one another's countries. The OSCE routinely monitors elections within its 55-state membership, including Europe, Eurasia, Canada and the United States," a State Department spokesman said.
The spokesman said the United States does not have any details on the size and composition of the observers or what countries will provide them.
OSCE, based in Vienna, Austria, has sent more than 10,000 personnel to monitor more than 150 elections and referenda in more than 30 countries during the past decade, Gunnarsdottir said.
In November 2002, OSCE sent 10 observers on a weeklong mission to monitor the U.S. midterm elections. OSCE also sent observers to monitor the California gubernatorial recall election last year.
More recently, OSCE monitored the elections in Northern Ireland in November and in Spain in March.
Copyright 2004 CNN. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Political & Personal Astrology for a New Millennium
Madness takes its toll. Please have exact change.
Illegitimus non carborundum.
"What a stupendous, what an incomprehensible machine is man! Who can endure toil, famine, stripes, imprisonment & death itself in vindication of his own liberty, and the next moment ... inflict on his fellow men a bondage, one hour of which is fraught with more misery than ages of that which he rose in rebellion to oppose." -- Thomas Jefferson
Madness takes its toll. Please have exact change.
Illegitimus non carborundum.
"What a stupendous, what an incomprehensible machine is man! Who can endure toil, famine, stripes, imprisonment & death itself in vindication of his own liberty, and the next moment ... inflict on his fellow men a bondage, one hour of which is fraught with more misery than ages of that which he rose in rebellion to oppose." -- Thomas Jefferson
Sunday, August 08, 2004
Presidential war games
By Ian Williams
This week Republican Senator John McCain showed an unusual nuance in United States politics. He supported his party's president, sort of, even as he dealt him one of the deadliest subtle put-downs in recent US history.
He called on the George W Bush campaign to condemn the recent anti-Kerry TV ads questioning the Democratic contender's Vietnam War record, saying, "I think John Kerry served honorably in Vietnam. I think George Bush served honorably in the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam War."
The contrast is killing. The advertisement, paid for by "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth", alleges to be from a group of veterans who seem to have some form of recovered-memory syndrome, since they have only chosen to speak out some 35 years late. They have ties to the Republican Party going back as far as Richard Nixon. But as McCain so subtly implies, they all inadvertently confirm one thing. Kerry was in Vietnam, in combat.
In contrast, not even the best investigator's dirty-tricks department can find a single veteran who saw Bush in any military capacity whatsoever in Vietnam. Nor during his National Guard service in Alabama for 12 months from May 1972.
Indeed, there are no veterans to dispute the merit of First Lieutenant George W Bush's combat medals or the quality and depth of the wounds that he suffered for his Purple Hearts. Because he was never in combat.
Of course, that is the whole barb of Vietnam veteran McCain's nuanced knockout. Bush "honorably" chose the height of the Tet Offensive to engage in aggressive maneuvers - using his family influence to get into the Texas Air National Guard specifically to avoid being drafted to go to Vietnam.
To do so, he overcame a 25% score on his pilot aptitude test - and a series of driving convictions that should have required a special waiver. He was commissioned an officer despite having no pilot experience, no time in the Reserve Officer Training Corp, and without attending Officer Training School. He ticked the box saying "no" to overseas service.
It was not that he disagreed with the war. Not at all. He kept taking time off to go to campaign for Republican pro-war candidates around the US South.
It was in the course of one of these campaigns, in Alabama, that he secured a transfer to the local Air National Guard - and never turned up. He "failed to accomplish" his flight medical there, and then did not turn up to the inquiry that should have been called about his failure, which in effect deprived the US Air Force of several years' expensive training as a jet pilot.
The organization that sponsored the anti-Kerry ads declares on its site: "We believe it is incumbent on ALL presidential candidates to be totally honest and forthcoming regarding personal background and policy information that would help the voting public make an informed decision when choosing the next president of the United States."
One of the effects of recovered-memory syndrome is that the memories thus conjured up do not necessarily join up. None of these veterans seem at all exercised about the holes in Bush's war record, let along the gaps in his public memories of this era.
Strangely, the group originally waxed angry because Kerry went home early from the war and denounced the free fire zones and "collateral damage" to civilians. The massacre of My Lai notwithstanding, these amnesiacs deny that any such thing ever happened, but now they claim that indeed there was at least one atrocity - young Lieutenant Kerry shot a fleeing wounded Viet Cong.
There are many strange aspects to this for non-Americans. Why is Vietnam an issue in a US election in 2004? For many voters today, it is almost as remote as the question of whether politicians in the 1960s had served in World War I.
Then there is the stunning sound of silence. There is no debate whatsoever about the ethics of a war that killed millions of Vietnamese, or about the way it was fought. Even Kerry, who returned from the war repelled by what he saw, and then campaigned against it, no longer seems to question why he was there.
It is of course the Republican Party that made the war its own and began to attack the integrity of those who did not serve in the "war of their generation". Strangely enough, however, it was Democrat John F Kennedy who got the war rolling, his Democratic successor Lyndon Baines Johnson who pumped it up to its height - and the Republican Richard Nixon who eventually ended it and left America's South Vietnamese allies in the lurch.
Now the issue has been an appropriated Republican one. Campaigners around the Bush family first drew blood with it. Their first big target was Bill Clinton, who disagreed with the war. Clinton had waffled a lot about it, and eventually put his name down for the draft - but with his typical luck, was not called.
As Clinton pointed out at the time, if he had had the blue-blooded connections of Dan Quayle, he could have wangled his way into the National Guard and avoided the war. But while Quayle's intellect was often called into question, no one attacked his "patriotism".
There was only one side firing this gun. His own evasion of war service didn't really even become an issue for George W Bush in his various campaigns, not least since records frequently went missing and, after all, from a liberal-Democratic point of view, what was wrong with not going to Vietnam? It was only sensible to avoid it.
But as they got away with it, they became even more shameless. Democratic Senator Max Cleland, who lost three limbs in Vietnam, was unseated after a campaign that impugned his patriotism.
The same team even operated inside the Republican Party, suggesting that McCain, when he was running against Bush, had problems because of his long incarceration by the Vietnamese - in between allegedly fathering an illegitimate black child. (In fact he had adopted a Bangladeshi girl.)
So now we have a belligerent Republican administration, whose least bellicose member is the only actual Vietnam veteran, Colin Powell, whose president, vice president and leading hawks all dodged service in the "war of their generation", who decided to attack Kerry's fitness to be "commander in chief" in the "war on terror".
Bush himself, notably with his landing in a pilot's outfit on the USS Abraham Lincoln a year and 800 dead GIs ago to declare "mission accomplished", has never missed an opportunity to appear on military bases in bits of uniform and declare himself to be commander-in-chief.
In the face of this assault, it made sense, of a sort, for Kerry to surround himself with veterans, to parade his military credentials, not least because he actually has them.
But it does present a bizarre spectacle for outsiders. The two contenders for the leadership of the free world and democracy are sparring about who is the best military commander with the best combat experience.
It only adds marginally to the oddity that the instigator of the fight has no military credentials, went AWOL (absent without leave) during Vietnam, and now has his country bogged down in a desert replay of that messy conflict.
However, fighting on the ground of who has more medals on his chest is fighting on the Republican ground where perception is everything. One cannot help but long for Kerry actually to state outright what he did 30 years ago. "I fought in Vietnam. What we did there was wrong for the Vietnamese, and wrong for Americans. And what you have done now is wrong for Iraqis and equally wrong for Americans."
But he won't, so this strange shadow-boxing will go on.
(Ian Williams' latest book is Deserter; Bush's War on Military Families, Veterans, and His Past (Nation Books).
(Copyright 2004 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved.
Please contact content@atimes.com for information on our sales and syndication policies.)
By Ian Williams
This week Republican Senator John McCain showed an unusual nuance in United States politics. He supported his party's president, sort of, even as he dealt him one of the deadliest subtle put-downs in recent US history.
He called on the George W Bush campaign to condemn the recent anti-Kerry TV ads questioning the Democratic contender's Vietnam War record, saying, "I think John Kerry served honorably in Vietnam. I think George Bush served honorably in the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam War."
The contrast is killing. The advertisement, paid for by "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth", alleges to be from a group of veterans who seem to have some form of recovered-memory syndrome, since they have only chosen to speak out some 35 years late. They have ties to the Republican Party going back as far as Richard Nixon. But as McCain so subtly implies, they all inadvertently confirm one thing. Kerry was in Vietnam, in combat.
In contrast, not even the best investigator's dirty-tricks department can find a single veteran who saw Bush in any military capacity whatsoever in Vietnam. Nor during his National Guard service in Alabama for 12 months from May 1972.
Indeed, there are no veterans to dispute the merit of First Lieutenant George W Bush's combat medals or the quality and depth of the wounds that he suffered for his Purple Hearts. Because he was never in combat.
Of course, that is the whole barb of Vietnam veteran McCain's nuanced knockout. Bush "honorably" chose the height of the Tet Offensive to engage in aggressive maneuvers - using his family influence to get into the Texas Air National Guard specifically to avoid being drafted to go to Vietnam.
To do so, he overcame a 25% score on his pilot aptitude test - and a series of driving convictions that should have required a special waiver. He was commissioned an officer despite having no pilot experience, no time in the Reserve Officer Training Corp, and without attending Officer Training School. He ticked the box saying "no" to overseas service.
It was not that he disagreed with the war. Not at all. He kept taking time off to go to campaign for Republican pro-war candidates around the US South.
It was in the course of one of these campaigns, in Alabama, that he secured a transfer to the local Air National Guard - and never turned up. He "failed to accomplish" his flight medical there, and then did not turn up to the inquiry that should have been called about his failure, which in effect deprived the US Air Force of several years' expensive training as a jet pilot.
The organization that sponsored the anti-Kerry ads declares on its site: "We believe it is incumbent on ALL presidential candidates to be totally honest and forthcoming regarding personal background and policy information that would help the voting public make an informed decision when choosing the next president of the United States."
One of the effects of recovered-memory syndrome is that the memories thus conjured up do not necessarily join up. None of these veterans seem at all exercised about the holes in Bush's war record, let along the gaps in his public memories of this era.
Strangely, the group originally waxed angry because Kerry went home early from the war and denounced the free fire zones and "collateral damage" to civilians. The massacre of My Lai notwithstanding, these amnesiacs deny that any such thing ever happened, but now they claim that indeed there was at least one atrocity - young Lieutenant Kerry shot a fleeing wounded Viet Cong.
There are many strange aspects to this for non-Americans. Why is Vietnam an issue in a US election in 2004? For many voters today, it is almost as remote as the question of whether politicians in the 1960s had served in World War I.
Then there is the stunning sound of silence. There is no debate whatsoever about the ethics of a war that killed millions of Vietnamese, or about the way it was fought. Even Kerry, who returned from the war repelled by what he saw, and then campaigned against it, no longer seems to question why he was there.
It is of course the Republican Party that made the war its own and began to attack the integrity of those who did not serve in the "war of their generation". Strangely enough, however, it was Democrat John F Kennedy who got the war rolling, his Democratic successor Lyndon Baines Johnson who pumped it up to its height - and the Republican Richard Nixon who eventually ended it and left America's South Vietnamese allies in the lurch.
Now the issue has been an appropriated Republican one. Campaigners around the Bush family first drew blood with it. Their first big target was Bill Clinton, who disagreed with the war. Clinton had waffled a lot about it, and eventually put his name down for the draft - but with his typical luck, was not called.
As Clinton pointed out at the time, if he had had the blue-blooded connections of Dan Quayle, he could have wangled his way into the National Guard and avoided the war. But while Quayle's intellect was often called into question, no one attacked his "patriotism".
There was only one side firing this gun. His own evasion of war service didn't really even become an issue for George W Bush in his various campaigns, not least since records frequently went missing and, after all, from a liberal-Democratic point of view, what was wrong with not going to Vietnam? It was only sensible to avoid it.
But as they got away with it, they became even more shameless. Democratic Senator Max Cleland, who lost three limbs in Vietnam, was unseated after a campaign that impugned his patriotism.
The same team even operated inside the Republican Party, suggesting that McCain, when he was running against Bush, had problems because of his long incarceration by the Vietnamese - in between allegedly fathering an illegitimate black child. (In fact he had adopted a Bangladeshi girl.)
So now we have a belligerent Republican administration, whose least bellicose member is the only actual Vietnam veteran, Colin Powell, whose president, vice president and leading hawks all dodged service in the "war of their generation", who decided to attack Kerry's fitness to be "commander in chief" in the "war on terror".
Bush himself, notably with his landing in a pilot's outfit on the USS Abraham Lincoln a year and 800 dead GIs ago to declare "mission accomplished", has never missed an opportunity to appear on military bases in bits of uniform and declare himself to be commander-in-chief.
In the face of this assault, it made sense, of a sort, for Kerry to surround himself with veterans, to parade his military credentials, not least because he actually has them.
But it does present a bizarre spectacle for outsiders. The two contenders for the leadership of the free world and democracy are sparring about who is the best military commander with the best combat experience.
It only adds marginally to the oddity that the instigator of the fight has no military credentials, went AWOL (absent without leave) during Vietnam, and now has his country bogged down in a desert replay of that messy conflict.
However, fighting on the ground of who has more medals on his chest is fighting on the Republican ground where perception is everything. One cannot help but long for Kerry actually to state outright what he did 30 years ago. "I fought in Vietnam. What we did there was wrong for the Vietnamese, and wrong for Americans. And what you have done now is wrong for Iraqis and equally wrong for Americans."
But he won't, so this strange shadow-boxing will go on.
(Ian Williams' latest book is Deserter; Bush's War on Military Families, Veterans, and His Past (Nation Books).
(Copyright 2004 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved.
Please contact content@atimes.com for information on our sales and syndication policies.)
Friday, August 06, 2004
Email link just sent to me by Claudia:
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/politics/9331704.htm?&1c
Posted on Fri, Aug. 06, 2004
Unabashed Racist Wins GOP Primary in Tenn.
WOODY BAIRD
Associated Press
MEMPHIS, Tenn. - An unabashed racist will represent the Republican party in the November election for a congressional seat after a write-in candidate failed to derail his effort.
With 86 percent of the primary vote counted Thursday, write-in candidate Dennis Bertrand had just 1,554 votes compared to 7,671, or 83 percent, for James L. Hart, a believer in the discredited, phony science of eugenics.
In November, the GOP candidate will oppose Rep. John Tanner, a Democrat who has represented the northwest Tennessee district for 15 years.
Hart, 60, vows if elected to work toward keeping "less favored races" from reproducing or immigrating to the United States. In campaign literature, Hart contends that "poverty genes" threaten to turn the United States into "one big Detroit."
"I didn't expect to win," Hart said. "I thought their network would beat my ideas."
He has run for the 8th District seat before and drawn little attention. But people began to notice this time because he was the only Republican on the ballot.
Since the deadline for getting on the ballot had passed, Bertrand, also a Republican, began a write-in campaign, saying he wanted to protect the party's honor.
"I think his beliefs are not beliefs of any party that I know of," Bertrand said Thursday night. "I knew it was going to be a really long shot, but in good conscience, I had to at least give it an attempt."
Bertrand, a financial analyst and former military officer, was on active duty with the National Guard when the deadline to get on the primary ballot passed.
Hart said he will have lots of time to campaign for the general election since he was forced Wednesday to resign from his job as a real estate salesman because of the attention he drew during the primary.
"They didn't say 'You're fired' in exactly those words, but it was pretty clear what they wanted," Hart said.
While campaigning, Hart sometimes wears a protective vest and carries a .40-caliber pistol, but he said he has run into no trouble.
"When I knock on a door and say white children deserve the same rights as everybody else, the enthusiastic response is truly amazing," he said.
If a black person opens the door, he says he simply drops off campaign literature and leaves.
F*CK OFF BUDDY!
http://www.salon.com/ent/wire/2004/08/06/clinton_daily/index.html
Bill Clinton to appear on "Daily Show"
- - - - - - - - - - - -
Aug. 6, 2004 NEW YORK (AP) -- Bill Clinton has been all over television promoting his new book. But one show he won't be visiting is "Saturday Night Live."
The former president has turned down an invitation to be guest host of the NBC sketch-comedy series next season, spokesman Marc Liepis confirmed Friday. No reason was given for Clinton rejecting the offer, first reported by TV Guide Online.
But far from going into retreat, Clinton will sit down with Jon Stewart on Comedy Central's "Daily Show" Monday at 11 p.m. EDT, presumably to say more about his best-selling memoir, "My Life," as well as global affairs and the presidential race.
This appearance comes on the heels of Clinton's guest shot on CBS' "Late Show" Tuesday, when he brought a copy of his book as a birthday gift for host David Letterman's 9-month-old son. Meanwhile, Clinton gave Letterman a rare ratings win over NBC's "Tonight Show," delivering the biggest audience for "Late Show" since last March, when Janet Jackson drew a crowd for her first post-Super Bowl interview.
Fueled by Clinton's ongoing publicity blitz, his book has sold more than 1.5 million copies since its June 22 release.
------
On the Net:
http://www.comedycentral.com
Claudia D. Dikinishttp://starcats.com >^..^
Madness takes its toll. Please have exact change.
Illegitimus non carborundum.
"Individuals have international duties which transcend the national obligations of obedience ... Therefore [individual citizens] have the duty to violate domestic laws to prevent crimes against peace and humanity from occurring.": The Nuremberg Tribunal 1945-1946.
Bill Clinton to appear on "Daily Show"
- - - - - - - - - - - -
Aug. 6, 2004 NEW YORK (AP) -- Bill Clinton has been all over television promoting his new book. But one show he won't be visiting is "Saturday Night Live."
The former president has turned down an invitation to be guest host of the NBC sketch-comedy series next season, spokesman Marc Liepis confirmed Friday. No reason was given for Clinton rejecting the offer, first reported by TV Guide Online.
But far from going into retreat, Clinton will sit down with Jon Stewart on Comedy Central's "Daily Show" Monday at 11 p.m. EDT, presumably to say more about his best-selling memoir, "My Life," as well as global affairs and the presidential race.
This appearance comes on the heels of Clinton's guest shot on CBS' "Late Show" Tuesday, when he brought a copy of his book as a birthday gift for host David Letterman's 9-month-old son. Meanwhile, Clinton gave Letterman a rare ratings win over NBC's "Tonight Show," delivering the biggest audience for "Late Show" since last March, when Janet Jackson drew a crowd for her first post-Super Bowl interview.
Fueled by Clinton's ongoing publicity blitz, his book has sold more than 1.5 million copies since its June 22 release.
------
On the Net:
http://www.comedycentral.com
Claudia D. Dikinishttp://starcats.com >^..^
Madness takes its toll. Please have exact change.
Illegitimus non carborundum.
"Individuals have international duties which transcend the national obligations of obedience ... Therefore [individual citizens] have the duty to violate domestic laws to prevent crimes against peace and humanity from occurring.": The Nuremberg Tribunal 1945-1946.
Tuesday, August 03, 2004
If Ashcroft could get away with it, I think he'd be burning people at the stake in his backyard. Imagine ole' Johnny standing there wearing his chef's hat.
http://www.buzzflash.com/alerts/04/08/ale04025.html
August 2, 2004
Ashcroft Tells Libraries to Destroy Citizen-Friendly Publications
A BUZZFLASH NEWS ALERT
Statement regarding DOJ request for removal of government publications by depository libraries
The following statement has been issued by President-Elect Michael Gorman, representing President Carol Brey-Casiano, who is currently in Guatemala representing the Association:July 30,
2004Statement from ALA President-Elect Michael Gorman:
Last week, the American Library Association learned that the Department of Justice asked the Government Printing Office Superintendent of Documents to instruct depository libraries to destroy five publications the Department has deemed not "appropriate for external use." The Department of Justice has called for these five these public documents,two of which are texts of federal statutes, to be removed from depository libraries and destroyed, making their content available only to those with access to a law office or law library.
The topics addressed in the named documents include information on how citizens can retrieve items that may have been confiscated by the government during an investigation. The documents to be removed and destroyed include: Civil and Criminal Forfeiture Procedure; Select Criminal Forfeiture Forms; Select Federal Asset Forfeiture Statutes; Asset forfeiture and money laundering resource directory; and Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act of 2000 (CAFRA).
ALA has submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for the withdrawn materials in order to obtain an official response from the Department of Justice regarding this unusual action, and why the Department has requested that documents that have been available to the public for as long as four years be removed from depository library collections. ALA is committed to ensuring that public documents remain available to the public and will do its best to bring about a satisfactory resolution of this matter.
Librarians should note that, according to policy 72, written authorization from the Superintendent of Documents is required to remove any documents. To this date no such written authorization in hard copy has been issued.
Keith Michael Fiels
Executive Director
American Library Association
(800) 545-2433 ext.1392
Claudia D. Dikinis
http://starcats.com >^..^<
Political & Personal Astrology for a New Millennium
Madness takes its toll. Please have exact change.
Illegitimus non carborundum.
"Individuals have international duties which transcend the national obligations of obedience ... Therefore [individual citizens] have the duty to violate domestic laws to prevent crimes against peace and humanity from occurring.": The Nuremberg Tribunal 1945-1946.
http://www.buzzflash.com/alerts/04/08/ale04025.html
August 2, 2004
Ashcroft Tells Libraries to Destroy Citizen-Friendly Publications
A BUZZFLASH NEWS ALERT
Statement regarding DOJ request for removal of government publications by depository libraries
The following statement has been issued by President-Elect Michael Gorman, representing President Carol Brey-Casiano, who is currently in Guatemala representing the Association:July 30,
2004Statement from ALA President-Elect Michael Gorman:
Last week, the American Library Association learned that the Department of Justice asked the Government Printing Office Superintendent of Documents to instruct depository libraries to destroy five publications the Department has deemed not "appropriate for external use." The Department of Justice has called for these five these public documents,two of which are texts of federal statutes, to be removed from depository libraries and destroyed, making their content available only to those with access to a law office or law library.
The topics addressed in the named documents include information on how citizens can retrieve items that may have been confiscated by the government during an investigation. The documents to be removed and destroyed include: Civil and Criminal Forfeiture Procedure; Select Criminal Forfeiture Forms; Select Federal Asset Forfeiture Statutes; Asset forfeiture and money laundering resource directory; and Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act of 2000 (CAFRA).
ALA has submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for the withdrawn materials in order to obtain an official response from the Department of Justice regarding this unusual action, and why the Department has requested that documents that have been available to the public for as long as four years be removed from depository library collections. ALA is committed to ensuring that public documents remain available to the public and will do its best to bring about a satisfactory resolution of this matter.
Librarians should note that, according to policy 72, written authorization from the Superintendent of Documents is required to remove any documents. To this date no such written authorization in hard copy has been issued.
Keith Michael Fiels
Executive Director
American Library Association
(800) 545-2433 ext.1392
Claudia D. Dikinis
http://starcats.com >^..^<
Political & Personal Astrology for a New Millennium
Madness takes its toll. Please have exact change.
Illegitimus non carborundum.
"Individuals have international duties which transcend the national obligations of obedience ... Therefore [individual citizens] have the duty to violate domestic laws to prevent crimes against peace and humanity from occurring.": The Nuremberg Tribunal 1945-1946.
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