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Politics : Stockman Scott's Political Debate Porch -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TigerPaw who wrote (7860)	10/7/2002 7:58:00 AM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 89467

Purported bin Laden Tape Warns U.S. By RAWYA RAGEH, Associated Press Writer Sun Oct 6, 5:35 PM ET CAIRO, Egypt (AP) - The Arab satellite station al-Jazeera broadcast an audiotape Sunday in which a male voice attributed to Osama bin Laden ( news - web sites) said the "youths of God" are planning more attacks against the United States. "By God, the youths of God are preparing for you things that would fill your hearts with terror and target your economic lifeline until you stop your oppression and aggression" against Muslims, said the voice in the audiotape. There was no way to verify whether the person speaking on the tape was bin Laden, or when the recording was made. The short message was broadcast with a photograph of bin Laden in the background. Al-Jazeera chief editor Ibrahim Helal told The Associated Press by telephone that the station received the tape two hours before the Sunday evening broadcast. He refused to say how the tape was received. "We had no doubt this was bin Laden. It was not only the tone of the voice but also the way he spoke and the logic of the message," Helal said. He said the fact the message was so brief "showed that the man (bin Laden) was in tough circumstances and does not have a chance to talk." Qatar-based al-Jazeera has become known for its broadcast of audio and videotapes of al-Qaida leaders. Last month, it aired excerpts from a videotape in which a voice said to be bin Laden's is heard naming the leaders of the 19 Sept. 11 hijackers. Until then, bin Laden had not been heard from since shortly after the U.S.-led bombing campaign began in Afghanistan ( news - web sites) last October. In the recording broadcast Sunday, the man said his message was addressed to the American people, whom he urged to "understand the message of the New York and Washington attacks which came in response to some of your previous crimes." "Those who have initiated (the attacks) are the ones who brought injustice," he said. "But those who follow the activities of the band of criminals in the White House, the Jewish agents, who are preparing for an attack on the Muslim world ... feel that you have not understood anything from the message of the two attacks," he said. "So let America increase the pace of this conflict or decrease it, and we will respond in kind," he said. The reference appeared to be to the U.S.-Iraq confrontation many believe will lead to war, which would date the tape to recent weeks. The reference, however, could have been to another conflict. Al-Jazeera said one of its correspondents conducted an interview in June with two top al-Qaida fugitives was aired to correspond with the first anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. Shortly afterward, U.S. officials announced one of the fugitives had been captured in Pakistan. American officials have called the network biased in its coverage of the war on terrorism, the Israeli-Arab conflict and U.S. Mideast policy. Al-Jazeera journalists say they strive to tell all sides of events from the Arab and Muslim point of view, and they have angered Arab governments as often as they have Washington. The U.S. State Department had no immediate reaction to the tape. The satellite station, initially funded by the Qatari government, began operations in November 1996. It is editorially independent of the government, which has its own official station to broadcast its point of view. story.news.yahoo.com

To: TigerPaw who wrote (7860)	10/7/2002 5:42:52 PM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 89467

The Bush response only aggravates the problem By William Pfaff The International Herald Tribune Monday, October 7, 2002 iht.com Anti-Americanism in Europe Paris - A good deal of printer's ink has been spent debating anti-Americanism during the last year, both in and out of the United States. The latest instance followed Germany's parliamentary election at the end of September, when Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's party coalition won a narrow victory, credited by analysts to his stand against German participation in any American attack on Iraq. The German chancellor's lèse-majesté provoked outrage in the Bush administration and warnings in American neoconservative circles that it will be 50 years before Germany will have recovered the trust of the United States, and thereby once again become an important state. In fact, from the European side of the Atlantic, it seemed that Schröder's stand added to Germany's international authority. Germany previously having tended to be seen as a satellite of Washington's rather than a nation with convictions of its own. Since a majority in German public opinion already opposed an attack on Iraq, and Schröder merely profited from supporting the majority, it is a surprise that the Germans have not been given the same propaganda treatment the French got a few months ago, attacked in U.S. neoconservative circles as an anti-Semitic society because of popular French pro-Palestinian sympathies. Official Washington has perhaps realized that the United States needs U.S. bases in Germany, but Germany does not. They are essential to the U.S. global strategic position. The subject of anti-Americanism can, however, be intelligently discussed, an example being a recent exchange between a French writer with a long record of sympathy for the United States, Jean-François Revel, and a younger colleague with family connections to the United States and a British education, Emmanuel Todd. Todd maintains that the United States today actually is displaying weakness. He says, "I have always had a positive vision of the United States" and "taken for granted that it was a reasonable power" but now "I have the sense of a disquieting semi-bellicosity, an agitation, a feverishness." He puts this down to an unarticulated sense of vulnerability in the United States, caused by its budget dependence on European and Japanese investment and its lingering strategic anxiety about Russia and China. He argues that current American emphasis on military and diplomatic action against weak rogue states is a kind of unacknowledged compensation for this anxiety. Thus embargoes are imposed on countries incapable of defending themselves, and tribal armies and "disarmed civil populations" are subjected to high-tech bombardment. He presumably has Serbia in mind. Revel answers that blaming America has always been a reflex of European intellectuals. He says that American politicians are given to hyperbole that should not be taken too seriously, and that Europeans have only themselves to blame for today's American predominance, since Europe's own failures in the 20th century made a gift of global power to the United States. He also says that the French themselves would be obsessed with terrorism if suicide planes had simultaneously attacked the Opéra, the Arc de Triomphe, and other prominent Paris sites - although he himself mentions the series of attacks on crowded Paris stores and train and metro stations in 1995, which were met without panic. It strikes me that the two are actually discussing two separate kinds of anti-Americanism. The old kind, which Revel stoutly opposed, was influential some thirty years ago, when news of the Gulag was only belatedly being admitted by a French intelligentsia traditionally disposed to uncritical support for the left. Then, every American Cold War measure was attacked as if it were an unprovoked provocation to the Soviet Union. The new kind of anti-Americanism is the one Todd talks about, and is a reaction to the post-Sept. 11 policies of the Bush administration, which he takes as revealing deep-seated anxieties in American society which have economic and demographic structural causes - a fragile economy, and loss of the old sense of national identity. He also argues that Washington's preoccupation with the rogue states and China - actually a weak state - and its concern that they might become allies with Russia, avoids looking at the real strategic threat, which is that a nuclear Russia would ally itself with the two most important real power centers outside the United States, which are Europe and Japan. This analysis is not one that seems to concern Washington, which makes much of the symptoms of anti-Americanism in Europe while actually making the problem worse. Chancellor Schröder did not whip up anti-Americanism in Germany. It was there already. That is what should worry Washington. ____________________________________________________ International Herald Tribune Los Angeles Times Syndicate International iht.com

To: TigerPaw who wrote (7860)	10/7/2002 7:12:58 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 89467

Tech Spending Seen Rising 7 Percent October 07, 2002 02:22 PM ET By Caroline Humer LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. (Reuters) - Worldwide spending on technology will rise 3.4 percent in 2002 and 7 percent next year, research firm Gartner Dataquest said on Monday, scaling back its earlier forecasts by several percentage points. Gartner, which is holding a technology conference here, said the timing for a rebound in corporate spending is proving elusive. Companies are not confident in the economy or in the technology sector and that has to happen before spending will turn, Gartner analyst Roger Fulton said. "The inflection point in the market moved away another six months," Fulton said. Corporations have cut back on spending amid the economic downturn as they worry about their companies' own bottom lines. Customers of the nation's largest telecommunications equipment maker Cisco Systems Inc. CSCO.O are increasingly unable to forecast their future business, President and Chief Executive John Chambers said during the conference. "Their visibility now is getting tighter," said Chambers. Gartner said when companies start buying, personal computers, low-end computer servers and infrastructure software will be at the top of their list. Gartner lowered its 2002 technology spending growth forecast to 3.4 percent from 7.6 percent, and said growth in software, services and telecommunications would make up for a decline in sales of new computers. In 2003, Gartner said, it sees spending rising 7 percent, not 9.6 percent as previously forecast, as hardware sales begin to turn around, albeit at a slower pace. Gartner's outlook for muted spending in 2002 and 2003 comes at a time when stocks of technology companies are trading near record lows as their executives struggle to forecast when the industry will begin to grow again. Several technology companies, including microchip maker Advanced Micro Devices Inc. AMD.N , data storage company EMC Corp. EMC.N and computer services company EDS Corp. EDS.N have warned in recent weeks that their quarterly financials are worse than expected. To fight the stalled growth, companies have pushed into new markets. Cisco, for instance, is pushing into the data storage business as that has become part of the corporate network. Chambers said on Monday that Cisco will probably work with storage software company Veritas Software Co. VRTS.O . Gartner said it expects technology revenue of $2.30 trillion in 2002 and $2.46 trillion in 2003, up from $2.23 trillion in 2001. In 2001, Gartner said tech spending fell by 0.4 percent. This year hardware revenue will contract to $323.3 billion, the research firm said, before growing to $338.8 billion in 2003. Gartner said the PC market will increase slightly in 2002. Services revenue growth will slow in 2002 to 2.8 percent and sales will total $557.5 billion, up from $542.3 billion in 2001. In 2003, services will grow to $597.1 billion, up 7.1 percent. Telecommunications and networking revenue will be $1.34 trillion in 2002, up 4.8 percent from 2001, and then grow 7.5 percent to $1.45 trillion in 2003, Gartner said. Software revenues will grow 3.6 percent to $77 billion in 2002 and then grow another 6.5 percent to $82 billion in 2003.

To: TigerPaw who wrote (7860)	10/8/2002 5:43:22 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 89467

CIOs Will Do More With the Same or Less in 2003... www2.cio.com Tech Poll... cio.com "Worldwide IT Spending Is On Pace To Increase 3 Percent In 2002"... www4.gartner.com

To: TigerPaw who wrote (7860)	10/12/2002 9:32:48 AM
From: surfbaron	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 89467

Tigress: do you deny Tip commited to less spending? <<<<It was Reagan's elimination of progressive taxes that meant the burdon had to be carried by social security taxes, paid primarily by the working middle and lower middle class>> you are misinterpreting history. If his tax cuts were so wrongheaded why then did social security receipts go through the roof in the 80's? You might reply that it was the ss rate increase, but that also hit biz owners. you can not argue that his cuts didn't increase revenue. the proper argument is the mis-accounting of those revenues i.e. ss receipts went for general spending.