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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Done, gone. who wrote (507092)	12/10/2003 9:56:43 AM
From: PROLIFE	Respond to of 769667

Six enemies of freedom - by Martin L. Gross washtimes.com Once again, as we have since 1917, America is heavily engaged in its altruistic efforts to save the world. We have conquered German militarism, Fascist Italy and Japan, Nazi Germany, then the brutal conspiracy of the Soviet Union, creating the structure for world peace and prosperity. The past and future of the world is in the capable hands of the United States, now as before. Our latest effort to secure a decent life for the entire planet now brings us into a new conflict, the defeat of the extremist Muslim world with its capability for suicide bombing and other terrorist acts, whether in Iraq, or Indonesia, or Afghanistan, or Israel, or in America — warfare being conducted by hostile elements in Iraq, Syria, Iran and elsewhere. This worldwide war against extremist Muslims is only now beginning to be recognized by free peoples as one that must be fought as assiduously as World War I, or World War II or the Cold War. In the final analysis, we won them all, with only a few backward states holding out, temporarily. The score is heavily in our favor. We have freed some 60 nations in the span of the last 60 years, a record of superb achievement. Now, we are engaged in another broad conflict. We have some allies, but we have an equal number of enemies who are dedicated in their desire to stop our efforts for peace and freedom. In fact, I have catalogued six of them, all working feverishly to thwart this latest effort to free the world from tyranny. The six enemies are: (1) The Muslim extremists, who after falling several centuries behind the West, falsely believe terrorism against America will restore their former glory, a pathetic piece of illogic and misinterpretation of the Koran, which will only result in their eventual defeat. (2) The majority of the Muslim nations, whose governments are not extremist, but which are focusing their energies on the hopeless task of defeating Israel rather than on their true mission of developing democracy and technology. These are present failures that will ensure continuation of the poverty and ignorance of their peoples. Like Japan in the 1850s, they must turn their back on their traditional ways. They must join America in creating an open-minded tolerant Western society, the only hope for their peoples' future. (3) The Europeans, whose major nations have lost touch with the modern world, and are retreating into the narrow-mindedness that spawned fascism, Nazism and communism on their soil before American freed them. Out of stymied progress, continual unemployment of more than 10 percent and perpetual near-recession, they are becoming increasingly envious of their savior, America. Their national judgment has always been suspect, a lack of wisdom that harbored tyranny, only to be rescued three times by America's altruism. The American political soul is deeper than that of the Europeans, a fact that galls them, resulting in anti-Americanism. By contrast, the newer nations of Europe, only recently freed from communism, understand the blessings American foreign policy brings to the world. (4) France is a special case, a particularly near-psychotic enemy, which not only has shown ingratitude but has developed a fervent anti-Americanism based upon its failure as a world influence. Once the center of culture and intellect, France now is in the position of the Arab world of the 13th century, when their arrogance and anti-Christianity set the stage for the fall of the Muslim empire that had conquered half the civilized world. The same is now true of France, whose contributions to the world — intellectually, culturally, and scientifically — have virtually ceased, while America's continue to grow each year. Their envy will be their downfall. In fact, a recent book by a Frenchman, "La France Qui Tombe," or "France Which is Falling," has become a best-seller in that frightened, paralyzed nation. (5) The American Media. This home-grown enemy has become more than a loud nuisance ever since reporters gained fame and fortune exposing Watergate. Much of the American media have now positioned themselves as adversaries of the national government and its policies, including the wars against tyranny in Iraq and Afghanistan. This animosity, which gains prestige points among other journalists, has grown, fostered by peer pressure and by the anti-American propaganda would-be journalists ingest in both liberal arts colleges and schools of journalism. Many faculty members at such schools pride themselves on objecting to American foreign policy. So, rather than the media — with certain exceptions — treating the long-range war against Muslim extremism with objectivity, our every action is portrayed as failure, and worse. When the going in Iraq was tough in the first few days, the media pointed that up, with apparent glee. When the tide turned in our favor, the press quickly hailed the military. When the guerrilla war began in Iraq, they once again defiled our efforts. Fortunately, much of the America media that has twisted the truth to back its false ideology will be shown as shallow and propagandistic when America eventually succeeds in its goal of peace in Middle Asia. (6) Perhaps the most dangerous enemy America faces today is much of the leadership of the Democratic Party — anti-national elements within our body politic. As a former official of the once-patriotic Democratic Party, it is obvious that anti-Americans are at the helm of that party, as witnessed by the actions of the 10 candidates for president, all of whom are giving comfort to the enemy. By 1972, anti-Americans had taken over much of the machinery — if not the average voters — of the Democratic Party, as witnessed by the presidential nomination of Sen. George McGovern, whose plan to confront the Soviet Union was to cut our defense budget by one-third. Today, those defeatist sentiments are echoed by all 10 candidates for the presidency, including retired Army Gen. Wesley Clark, who supported the effort until his ambitions tarnished his soul. Until that party has returned to its patriotic past as exemplified by Harry Truman, America and the world will not be safe. America must be concerned, but must not panic before the onslaught of its enemies. History tells us the altruism and beneficent nature of America will eventually defeat all six enemies, just as it has vanquished others in the past.

To: Done, gone. who wrote (507092)	12/10/2003 9:57:18 AM
From: Done, gone.	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 769667

Pentagon gets around ‘news filter’ by starting own news outlet The Pentagon will begin broadcasting C-SPAN Baghdad soon — a satellite feed from Iraq that will circumvent the “filter” of the national networks and send images chosen by the Defense Department right into America’s living rooms by way of local news affiliates. Why do this? Because: Administration officials assert that U.S. news organizations have emphasized violence and setbacks in occupied Iraq while playing down progress. The officials say the satellite capability is designed to help local stations interview U.S. authorities in Iraq and offer live coverage of military ceremonies and briefings relevant to their geographic areas. Avoiding questions from big-time reporters from the major networks is part of of larger strategy begun last month by the Bush Administration which saw Bush, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and others gave interviews to, for example, the local ABC affiliate in Kalamzoo. In an Oct. 20 article by Elisabeth Bumiller of The New York Times, Bush is quoted as saying: ”’There’s a sense that people in America aren’t getting the truth,’ [he] said to a reporter for Hearst-Argyle Television, one of five back-to-back White House interviews he granted to regional broadcasters. ‘I’m mindful of the filter through which some news travels, and sometimes you have to go over the heads of the filter and speak directly to the people.’” White House spokesman Dan Bartlett expanded on his boss’ words with, “We believe local media and regional broadcasters are more interested in letting viewers or readers see or hear what the president has to say. It’s less analytical and more reporting.” This newest plan is more of the same. The Post quoted an unnamed senior administration official as saying, “We want the stations to show not just the shocking picture but the whole picture. Car bombs are news, but there’s a journalistic responsibility to paint a more comprehensive picture.” Indeed there is, but somehow I’m not comforted that the guy in charge of pointing out the media’s responsibilities in reporting on Iraq, J. Dorrance Smith, was the guy who advised Bush on his Floridan recount strategy in 2000. What’s most interesting about C-SPAN Baghdad is that it’s a DoD operation, not a State Department one. (Not surprising, considering that sway the Pentagon has with the Bushies.) Some have thought it might be a clever legal hack getting around some pesky United States code forbidding domestic propaganda efforts, specifically 22 USC Sec. 1461-1a, the Ban on Domestic Activities by the United States Information Agency. (Thanks Congressional Research Service!) As the law states: Except as provided in section 1461 of this title and this section, no funds authorized to be appropriated to the United States Information Agency shall be used to influence public opinion in the United States, and no program material prepared by the United States Information Agency shall be distributed within the United States. Joel Kaplan, who teaches advanced reporting and communications law at the Newhouse School at Syracuse University, said he felt there was no legal problem with C-SPAN Baghdad. For one, that law applies only to the USIA, not the DoD. Instead, he says, this plan is more like what Congress does when it uses the broadcast facilities outside its chambers to provide local media access to their senators and representatives. However, he notes, often it’s the Congress members’ own press secretaries interviewing them, and the resulting video often gets shown on local affiliates as a video press release without much comment from the local journalists. It’s not exactly propaganda, Kaplan says, although “obviously everything is propaganda depending on your definition.” It’s a technique that counts on journalistic laziness, Kaplan says. And that’s exactly why the Bush administration is doing this. “It’s up to the journalists to decide what is propaganda or not,” he says. Apparently, the Bush team is betting local journalists won’t make any decision at all. This is insulting on many levels. It’s insulting to the local journalists because some of them are pretty good — it was a local television reporter who made then-Gov. Bush squirm in 2000 when he was asked to name various heads of state. It’s insulting to the American people, because it’s obvious what the Bush Administration is doing. And by circumventing the journalists on the ground in Iraq, this DoD network insults the very idea of a free and independent press as a watchdog institution and as an agent of the American people. Now, much of the modern media — particularly broadcast media — can hardly be held blameless. They have often shown themselves to be willing partners in the White House’s ham-handed manipulation of a story. With Bush TV on the air, it’s likely to get worse before it gets better. back-to-iraq.com

To: Done, gone. who wrote (507092)	12/10/2003 10:55:42 AM
From: Done, gone.	Respond to of 769667

Italy halts in grief for Iraq dead news.bbc.co.uk

To: Done, gone. who wrote (507092)	12/10/2003 11:32:00 AM
From: Done, gone.	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769667

More Afghan children die in raids The US military in Afghanistan has revealed that six children died in a raid on suspected militants in the eastern province of Paktia last week. News of the deaths came shortly after the US apologised for killing nine children in a separate raid in the neighbouring province of Ghazni. However, the US has warned it will not be deterred by civilian casualties. Afghan President Hamid Karzai has sent investigators to Ghazni amid concern the raids are alienating local people. This is not helping really the government... and people will be angry and everybody is embarrassed like myself Nazir Saberi Afghan cabinet minister A US spokesman, Lieutenant Colonel Bryan Hilferty, told reporters in Kabul on Wednesday that the bodies of six children were found under a collapsed wall at a compound 20 kilometres (12 miles) east of Gardez, in Paktia province. Two adults' bodies were also found at the scene when ground forces searched the area on Saturday. The US spokesman said there had been no indication that civilians were at the scene and he suggested the victims were partly to blame for being at a site used by militants to store munitions. "If non-combatants surround themselves with thousands of weapons and hundreds of rounds of ammunition and howitzers and mortars, in a compound known to be used by a terrorist, we are not completely responsible for the consequences," he said. The raid was launched in the belief that a suspected militant, Mullah Jilani, was staying in the compound. When troops arrived they did not find the suspect but made nine other arrests, a US spokesman said. US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has defended the aggressive pursuit of militant leaders in Afghanistan, saying the Pentagon is equally happy to capture or kill them. 'No guarantee' The US military earlier admitted mistakenly killing nine children in an air attack on Saturday against another suspected militant in Ghazni Province. BOMBING ERRORS* Dec 2001: 65 killed in bombing of convoy of tribal elders April 2002: Four Canadian soldiers killed July 2002: 48 killed when bomb hits wedding party April 2003: 11 killed by bomb in village of Shkin Dec 2003: Nine children killed by bombing in Ghazni Province; six children killed in raid in Paktia province *Mistakes accepted by US "I can't guarantee that we will not injure more civilians," said Lieutenant Colonel Hilferty, adding: "I wish I could". During the Ghazni raid, an A-10 ground attack aircraft opened fire at a figure thought to be that of a militant leader, Mullah Wazir. The identity of the man killed along with the children has been disputed. Villagers say he was a local labourer and that the intended target had left the area days before the attack. General Richard Myers, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, was among senior US figures to offer condolences after Saturday's deaths. "We haven't been perfect," he said. 'This is not helping' Afghan officials have warned that "mistakes" such as the Ghazni deaths risk undermining the US-backed Afghan Government. Hamid Karzai said on Wednesday he had sent his own investigators to Ghazni but the president, a key US ally, was careful not to apportion blame. "We are trying to find... the best possible manner to prevent incidents like that," he said. "We are thinking if aerial activity is helpful or if it causes suffering." Nazir Saberi, a minister in the Afghan Government, told the BBC's Newshour programme that he was "angry at the people who are not being very, very careful about these things". He said that coalition forces had to "learn to coordinate with the Afghan authorities". "This is not helping really the government... and people will be angry and everybody is embarrassed like myself," he added. "It is terrible, the tragedy of children being killed." Story from BBC NEWS: news.bbc.co.uk Published: 2003/12/10 14:39:21 GMT © BBC MMIII

To: Done, gone. who wrote (507092)	12/10/2003 12:06:44 PM
From: Done, gone.	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769667

Iraq to Stop Counting Civilian Dead By NIKO PRICE, Associated Press Writer BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraq (news - web sites)'s Health Ministry has ordered a halt to a count of civilians killed during the war and told its statistics department not to release figures compiled so far, the official who oversaw the count told The Associated Press on Wednesday. The order was relayed by the ministry's director of planning, Dr. Nazar Shabandar, but the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority, which oversees the ministry, also wanted the counting to stop, said Dr. Nagham Mohsen, the head of the ministry's statistics department. "We have stopped the collection of this information because our minister didn't agree with it," she said, adding: "The CPA doesn't want this to be done." A spokesman for the CPA had no immediate response. The U.S. and British militaries don't count civilian casualties from their wars, saying only that they try to minimize civilian deaths. A major investigation of Iraq's wartime civilian casualties was compiled by The Associated Press, which documented the deaths of 3,240 civilians between March 20 and April 20. That investigation, conducted in May and June, surveyed about half of Iraq's hospitals, and reported that the real number of civilian deaths was sure to be much higher. The Health Ministry's count, based on records of all hospitals, promised to be more complete. Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s regime fell April 9, and President Bush (news - web sites) declared major combat operations over on May 1. The ministry began its survey at the end of July, when shaky nationwide communication links began to improve. It sent letters to all hospitals and clinics in Iraq, asking them to send back details of civilians killed or wounded in the war. Many hospitals responded with statistics, Mohsen said, but last month Shabinder summoned her and told her that the minister, Dr. Khodeir Abbas, wanted the count halted. He also told her not to release the partial information she had already collected, she said. "He told me, `You should move far away from this subject,'" Mohsen said. "I don't know why." Shabandar's office said he was attending a conference in Egypt and wouldn't return for two weeks. Abbas' secretary said he, too, was out of the country and would return in late December. The coalition spokesman said officials who direct the Health Ministry weren't immediately available for comment. Mohsen insisted that despite communications that remain poor and incomplete record-keeping by some hospitals, the statistics she received indicated that a significant count could have been completed. "I could do it if the CPA and our minister agree that I can," she said in an interview in English. Under Saddam's government, the ministry counted 1,196 civilian deaths during the war, but was forced to stop as U.S. and British forces overran southern Iraqi cities. Over the summer, the ministry compiled more figures that had been sent in previously, reaching a total of 1,764. But officials said those numbers account for only a small number of the hospitals in Iraq, and none provided statistics through the end of the war. The number of U.S. soldiers killed in the war is well documented. The Pentagon (news - web sites) says 115 American military personnel were killed in combat from the start of the war to May 1, when President Bush declared major combat over, and 195 since. Iraq kept meticulous records of its soldiers killed in action but never released them publicly. Military doctors have said the Iraqi military kept "perfect" records, but burned them as the war wound down. ___ Niko Price is correspondent-at-large for The Associated Press. story.news.yahoo.com

To: Done, gone. who wrote (507092)	12/10/2003 6:33:07 PM
From: Done, gone.	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769667

Why does President Bush avoid funeral ceremonies of US soldiers? There was a time when the US presidents or very senior members of the administration used to share the sorrow of the families of soldiers, killed in war, by attending memorial services. President Bill Clinton was on the tarmac to receive the dead from the bombing of the USS Cole in 2000. Presidents Reagan and Carter attended services for the 241 killed in Beirut and for the troops killed in the failed hostage-rescue in Iran. The Bush administration departed from this traditional practice. Neither the president nor any of his senior members of the team such as Vice President Dick Cheney, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld or the Secretary of State Colin Powell attends the funeral ceremony of the deceased US personnel killed in Iraq. President Bush and his senior members of his administration have fenced off themselves from funeral ceremonies and banned cameramen entering the central military morgue at Dover, in Delaware state where hundreds who died in Iraq were received. It is also difficult for the photographers to get past security at the Walter Reed Army Medical Centre in Washington, where thousands of the wounded in Iraq are being treated. The question is: Why? The American dead and the injured from Iraq are being ignored by the Bush administration so as to give the impression to the public in the US that nothing wrong has been happening in Iraq. The administration wants to claim that it is the US soldiers who are winning the game in Iraq and everything is going on as planned. Many consider that this behaviour of the administration is compared to that of "Comical Ali" of Iraq ( Information Minister Mohammad Saeed al-Sahaf) who assured reporters, even as US tanks rumbled in Baghdad, that: "There are no American infidels in Baghdad. Never!" One of the reasons for such callous regard for the dead soldiers appears to be that the Bush administration knows at its heart that Iraq war was unprovoked and illegal under international law. The war began with illogic: false intelligence used to bolster a false "imminent threat" to the US. The same illogic continues today: the more Americans die, the more it is a sign of US progress in Iraq. The illogical conclusions led the administration to conclude that it is desirable not to meet the reality of war, the dead soldiers coming in bags to the US. It seems that they do not understand the political implications of sidetracking truth. As the columnist Maureen Dowd in the New York Times recently wrote: " No juxtaposition is too absurd to stop Bush officials from insisting nothing is wrong. Car bombs and a blitz of air-to-ground missiles turned Iraq into a hideous tangle of ambulances, stretchers and dead bodies, just after Paul Wolfowitz, arrived there to show-case success." It is reported that some Republican commentators have begun to question the President's aloofness. But asked about the remarkable Presidential silence that greeted the death of 15-soldiers in the downing of a Chinook helicopter in Iraq early last month, Dan Barlett, the president's communications director, defended : "If a helicopter were hit an hour later, after he (the President) came out and spoke, should he come out again? The public wants the commander-in-chief to have a proper perspective and to keep his eye on the big picture and on the ball." This seems to be the classic statement of spin-doctors to protect the president. Many political observers have commented on the Bush administration's ongoing war with the media. The administration is attacking them for using the term "resistance fighters" in Iraq and for not reporting "good news" out of Iraq. It is surprisingly noted that majority of print and electronic media have become subservient to the US administration in a country known for its objective and fair reporting. No nation is more replete with patriotic imagery in word, in song and symbol than America. This is inherently nothing wrong. However patriotism is being fully exploited to advance the ideology of the administration. The more uncritical the kind of patriotism that rules popular imagination, the more insulated and different the American people feel. As Dr. Samuel Johnson famously noted in 1775, on the eve of the American Revolution, "Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel." After the September 11 attacks, the Bush administration has not only told the stories from its own perspective but also attempted to influence the rest of the world. However the Qatar-based Al Jazeera TV has come out boldly with real stories in Iraq. As Lewis Lapham, Editor of Harper's Magazine, put it in 1997: "I wonder how a society can long endure by defining truth as the acceptance of untruth, or by passing legislation incapable of being enforced, or by thinking that freedom is a trust fund inherited at birth and certain to a lifetime." Commentators in the US have pointed out that while families and communities grieve about their losses in Iraq, the President storms the country with his hand out for tens of millions of dollars in donations for his forthcoming re-election campaign. But does he avoid photo-opportunity with the mothers of the dead from Iraq? No wonder the public in the US is being disillusioned by the rhetoric of the Bush administration. For the first time since the opening attack on Baghdad on March 20, most Americans -- 51% -- reportedly disapprove of the president's handling of the war. In a Washington Post/ABC News opinion poll taken before the Chinook helicopter disaster, 87% of respondents said that they feared the US would be bogged down in Iraq and 62% regarded the death toll as unacceptable. Meanwhile George Soros, one of the world's richest men, reportedly told the media that he had a new project in his hand: beating President George Bush. He said, "It is the central focus of my life and the presidential race in 2004 is a matter of life and death . . . America under Bush, is a danger to the world. I am willing to put my money where my mouth is." With the passing of each week, the war touches thousands more American families in the most direct way. But the President moves on with rhetoric of "progress" in Iraq and the spin doctors within the administration seem to distance the President and the families of the dead from Iraq. The Bush administration's change of heart to transfer power to Iraqis by the end of June next year is propelled by the fragile security situation and the mounting death toll in Iraq. During the Vietnam War it took two years from 1963 to end of 1964, for American combat deaths to reach 324. The US has surpassed that figure in Iraq in only seven months where at the time of writing 398 American servicemen died. The last exit strategy in Vietnam was Vietnamisation, training South Vietnamese to fight the North Vietnamese and guerrillas. Now the buzzword is Iraqisation. Just as President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair began joint a press conference in London in November, the bombers hit the British targets in Istanbul with utter devastation and turned the conference into somber reality that their efforts to contain terrorism had miserably failed in attacking Iraq. Both of them perhaps realize that the two countries under their leaderships have been sucked into escalating cycle of violence. The president's avoidance of attending funerals of the American dead soldiers brings to mind one story that during the Vietnam war when the then US Defence Secretary Robert McNamara was told : "Mr. Secretary, we have got serious problems here. You ought to know what they are." And McNamara replied: "I don't want to hear about your problems. I want to hear about progress." It seems that same story is repeated now in the case of American occupation in Iraq. Barrister Harun ur Rashid is a former Bangladesh Ambassador to the UN, Geneva. thedailystar.net