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Politics : Impeach George W. Bush -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: jttmab who wrote (13098)	6/5/2002 12:25:39 PM
From: Karen Lawrence	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 93284

Re: Ari Fleischer. That figures that the Bush admin would hire a pyschopathic liar to be the spokesperson for the most duplicitous group of scoundrals ever to darken the WH. Here's a good piece from doa4now over at Raging Bull....excerpt: It's our national addiction to foreign oil, not to drugs, that does the most to bankroll terror. OT: TRUTH, DRUGS AND OIL "Truth is the 'anti-drug', according to those government-funded advertisements our tax dollars pay for on the television. One recent advertisement from the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy's National Youth Anti-Drug Campaign makes a link between drug use and international terror. But the whole truth is a bit problematic. It's our national addiction to foreign oil, not to drugs, that does the most to bankroll terror. And the questions that poses are not as politically palatable as an anti-drug campaign. No doubt some terror groups do use drug money. But it's misleading when the Web site, www.theantidrug.com, talks about the demise of the World Trade Center, implying that drug money played a major role in the attacks. Fifteen of the 19 hijackers on that September morning were from Saudi Arabia. ( A desert oasis is the perfect hideout for a pot farm. Or a meth lab. Why didn't our satellites pick up those anhydrous ammonia tanks? We should've known ... ) Drugs aren't the fuel of the threat our nation has been facing. Oil is where Osama bin Laden's wealth is derived, that's what finances the extremist schools that a minority of wealthy Saudis, and others in oil-rich nations, support. The U.S. even buys oil from Iraq. Of course, that funding is restricted to humanitarian purposes. Uh-huh. Politicians from Bill Salier to Al Gore have urged the U.S. to step away from its chemical dependence on petroleum. They have different motivations and vastly different solutions, but they're both right. But so far, I haven't seen that the Bush Administration is willing to take the necessary steps to wean Americans off oil. The political withdrawal symptoms would be painful for us all. So this new wrinkle in the government's anti-drug campaign is convenient. The arguments presented get even stranger when the government-funded Web site notes that the Taliban helped support their government with drug money. Of course, they forget about our friends in the Afghanistan's Northern Alliance, who, until recently, were even more dependent on drug trafficking. They lacked oil-rich patrons. The real evidence of the American drug demand destabilizing social institutions is in Latin America. But that's not what leaps to mind to most when they see those television ads. As far as wreaking social havoc in Latin America is concerned, I thought that was the one area where the CIA has a demonstrated record of competence. Telling the whole truth is good enough to keep kids off drugs. But tax dollars shouldn't be used for a campaign that's deceptive. The harm here is not that it's deceptive about the dangers of drugs, it misleads Americans about the root causes of the terrorist challenge. And that's something we desperately need to address.