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Politics : Bush Administration's Media Manipulation--MediaGate? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Patricia Trinchero who wrote (736)	3/2/2005 7:26:45 PM
From: PartyTime	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9838

Wolfowitz, huh! It gets worse: truthout.org Wolfowitz and Fiorina in Race to Head World Bank By Elizabeth Becker The International Herald Tribune Wednesday 02 March 2005 Washington - Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy secretary of defense, is under serious consideration to become the next president of the World Bank, according to a source in the administration of George W. Bush. Another new candidate to emerge is Carly Fiorina, who lost her job as chief executive of Hewlett-Packard two weeks ago, the official said on condition of anonymity. Robert Zoellick, until last week the U.S. trade representative, had been the White House's candidate to replace James Wolfensohn, the current bank president, who completes his second five-year term in May. But when Zoellick was tapped to become the new deputy secretary of state, the White House reopened the bidding. Remaining on the short list of contenders are Randall Tobias, the AIDS coordinator for the White House and formerly vice chairman of AT&T International and head of Eli Lilly; and John Taylor, the top official at the Treasury Department for international affairs. Peter McPherson, the president of Michigan State University, is no longer one of the leading candidates. The administration declined to comment on the Wolfowitz candidacy, which was first reported in The Financial Times. By tradition, the United States names the head of the bank, while Europe names the director of the International Monetary Fund. Increasingly, Bush has pushed to put his mark on foreign aid policy, stressing targeted aid to countries meeting his criteria for responsible government. In the new budget proposal, foreign aid was spared the deep cuts that were made in domestic programs. Whether Wolfowitz would be the best candidate to pursue these ideas could be questioned by some of the other big players at the World Bank. As one of the chief architects of the Iraq war, Wolfowitz is not among the favorites of some European nations. They could take a page from the United States and block Wolfowitz's nomination just as the administration of Bill Clinton in 2000 blocked the appointment of Caio Koch Weser, the German candidate to head the International Monetary Fund, as lacking the necessary strengths. Fiorina, the sole woman on the list, carries far less political baggage and has a reputation for dynamic leadership. As the head of a Fortune 500 company for six years, she gained managerial experience that puts her near the top of the list for the World Bank job. She would also add glamour as probably the only candidate famous enough to be known in business circles by her first name. As the assistant secretary of state for East Asia and later U.S. ambassador to Indonesia, Wolfowitz did oversee policy covering the developing world. However, neither Wolfowitz nor Fiorina is an expert in development.

To: Patricia Trinchero who wrote (736)	3/2/2005 7:35:31 PM
From: PartyTime	Respond to of 9838

Amitabh Pal is Managing Editor of The Progressive. His weblog will be posted every Tuesday. February 1, 2005 Even mass murder doesn't get in way of White House's fixations The White House is not letting even mass murder get in the way of its phobia of international institutions. The Bush Administration is blocking attempts to bring before the International Criminal Court the Sudanese government for the crimes it is committing in the Darfur region of its country. (Approximately 400,000 people have been killed in that region over the past two years, with the Sudanese government responsible for the deaths of the overwhelming majority.) Never mind that a U.N. panel has found that crimes against humanity and war crimes have been committed in Darfur--just the sort of offenses the International Criminal Court was set up to deal with. And never mind that Kofi Annan has said that the court is the "logical place" for the criminals to be tried. The Bush folks have never let logic get in the way. And this time they are honest about their motives. "We don't want to be party to legitimizing the I.C.C.," says Pierre-Richard Prosper, the U.S. ambassador at large for war crimes. So there. The Bush Administration is instead suggesting that a new tribunal be set up at Arusha, Tanzania, the site of a previous tribunal to try those involved in the Rwandan genocide. This blithely ignores the additional time, trouble, and expense such a new effort would take. Richard Grenell, the spokesperson for the U.S. mission at the United Nations, insists, contrary to common sense, that the U.S. proposal would cost less than bringing it before an existing institution. His accountant-style calculation also overlooks the fact that, as Richard Dicker of Human Rights Watch points out, "the delay involved in setting up a new tribunal would only lead to the loss of more innocent lives in Darfur." The notion of an international court to try crimes such as genocide actually dates back to the start of the United Nations as an attempt to deal with the horrors of the Holocaust. Unfortunately, the Cold War got in the way and the move toward getting the court instituted began only in the 1990s. Sadly, the United States has been unfriendly toward the court right from the very start. The Clinton Administration actually instructed U.S. embassies to ask military commanders in their host nations to lobby their governments against the creation. In typical half-hearted style, the Clinton Administration signed the treaty during its final days, with no intention of having Congress ratify the move. Bush’s campaign against the court, however, has gone much further than Clinton's. The Bush Administration announced that it was "unsigning" the treaty, a pointless move from a practical standpoint. The United States also got the Security Council to grant it an exemption on U.N. peacekeeping missions, until the council balked last year in the wake of Abu Ghraib. And with the White House's support, Congress in 2002 passed the American Servicemembers' Protection Act that mandates noncooperation with the court. The law threatens sanction against countries that have refused to sign bilateral agreements with the United States guaranteeing immunity of U.S. servicemembers from prosecution at the International Criminal Court. Under its provisions, the Bush Administration has threatened to cut off certain types of aid from allies such as Jordan and Colombia and a proposed amendment to the law even targets NATO members. More than ninety countries have caved in and signed these agreements. The Sudan move is the most heinous example of the Bush Administration's attack on the International Criminal Court, but it is only the latest. The White House and other foes of the court claim that if it were allowed to exercise its power, American troops would be brought before it on frivolous charges. But there are enough safeguards to ensure that the chances of this are slim, at best. For instance, the court can try people only when the home country's judicial system is "genuinely unable or unwilling" to do that. Or is the Bush Administration not confident enough that the U.S. legal system will pass that test? The real reasons for Bush's campaign against the court are far more deep-seated: a visceral hostility toward any notions of internationalism and a brazen notion of going it alone in the world. And if crimes against humanity and mass murder are not punished in the process, then his attitude is, so be it. progressive.org

To: Patricia Trinchero who wrote (736)	3/3/2005 10:50:45 AM
From: PartyTime	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9838

The Return of the Swift Boat Veterans By Molly Ivins, AlterNet. Posted March 1, 2005. Yes, our old friends from the Swift Boat Veterans for "Truth" are back again. These same friendly folk are now attacking the AARP, a group largely known for advocating afternoon naps for the elderly. I'm sorry, but every now and again a girl just finds it necessary to lay her head down on the table and howl with laughter. I wrote a column warning that USA Next, a Republican Astroturf (meaning "fake grassroots") group was going to attack the AARP. The senior citizens' lobby does not support the privatization of Social Security, and so clearly incurs the wrath of all God-fearing, true-believing, highly-paid Republican public relations firms. But I have to confess, even I did not see this one coming. You may not believe it, but I swear it is true: USA Next's first salvo was to accuse the geezer lobby of being against our troops in Iraq and in favor of homosexual marriage. No joke, what journalist-blogger Josh Marshall calls "the fogey-bund" stands accused of being anti-soldier and pro-gay-knot-tying. A charming internet ad shows a muscular hero of the desert in combat fatigues with a big X across his picture, and on the other side are two guys in tuxedos getting hitched with a big check across their picture. Under these two pictures, it says, "The REAL AARP Agenda." I haven't laughed so hard since President Bush informed us that we have had a close and enduring friendship with Japan for the past 150 years. Being old enough myself to join the AARP – not a member, but well into Wrinkly City – I find this the most deliciously zany, mortifyingly awful moment since the time a speaker of the Texas House called on a bunch of people in wheelchairs to stand and be recognized. I'm really curious as to how far this "anti-military, pro-gay" attack stuff can be extended. Take the Pope, for example. The Pope differs from the president on the matter of capital punishment. In fact, I can remember at least two occasions when the Pope wrote then-Gov. Bush agonized pleas on behalf of some of our more spectacularly pardonable prisoners. Karl, does this mean the Pope is anti-military and pro-gay? Yes, our old friends from the Swift Boat Veterans for "Truth" are back again. The very people who told you that John Kerry was anti-military and pro-gay – the people who told you he didn't deserve his medals from Vietnam, who said he testified before Congress that American soldiers were all war criminals – these same friendly folk are back again, attacking the AARP, a group largely known for advocating afternoon naps for the elderly. (Disclosure: I once wrote an article for the AARP magazine Modern Maturity," and not only did they pay well, but they got the jokes, too.) Despite this happy onetime experience, I am not an AARP fan. I consider its support of the abomination that is the Medicare prescription drug coverage bill the most ill-advised sellout since the memorably awful 1996 telecommunications deregulation bill. (Enjoying that one, everyone? Your bills gone down lately?) USA Next has the same address as O'Neill Marketing Co., although Charlie Jarvis, head of Next, says he's three floors down. O'Neill is a list company – it sells lists of names, and its clients are various branches of the Republican Party. O'Neill was once partnered with the United Seniors Association, which then morphed into USA Next. So subtle. Hi, Karl. Speaking of healing laughter, the president is providing all Europe with chuckles. After he denounced the idea that the United States is getting ready to attack Iran as "ridiculous," he then promptly added, "All options are on the table." So they laughed, apparently on the polite assumption that the man must be joking. Not being veteran Bush-listeners, they are unaccustomed to the fact that he often contradicts himself, sometimes from one sentence to the next. They have also failed to master the key element of Bush-listening – you must understand that George W. Bush is never, ever wrong. He does not make mistakes. And if he is against something one day and for it the next (that would be everything from opposing the 9-11 commission to the corporate law brought on by the Enron scandals), he is still never wrong. He is right to oppose things, and he is right to support those same things. He's not a flip-flopper, like you-know-who. And if something he says turns out to be completely untrue (hard to think of such a case, but the letters WMD somehow float to mind), it is never his fault and best to ignore it. If you do not pretend to believe everything Bush says, then you are unpatriotic, against Our Troops and probably in support of gay marriage. Those Europeans understand nothing. Speaking of unsatisfactory allies, Canada has had the nerve (!) to announce it does not want to be under our nuclear shield, if we ever get it built. Gee, how could it not want to buy into (and help pay for) our Star Wars defense system? Just because it doesn't work and costs the earth? Well, they're partly French, you know. Molly Ivins is a best-selling author and columnist who writes about politics, Texas and other bizarre happenings. alternet.org