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Politics : Clinton's Scandals: Is this corruption the worst ever? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: henry8th who wrote (11998)	3/24/1999 8:10:00 PM
From: Gary E. Johnson	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 13994

THE NEW BILL OF RIGHTS We the People of the United States of America, in an attempt to help everyone get along, restore some semblance of justice, avoid any more riots, keep our nation safe, promote positive behavior, and secure the blessings of debt free liberty for our selves and our great-great-great-grandchildren, hereby try one more time to ordain and establish some common sense guidelines for the terminally whiny, guilt ridden, delusional, and other liberal, bed-wetters. We hold these truths to be self-evident: that a whole lot of people are confused by the Bill of Rights and are so dim that they even require a Bill of Rights. ARTICLE I: You do not have a right to a new car, big screen TV or any other form of wealth. More power to you if you can legally acquire them, but there is no guarantees. ARTICLE II: You do not have the right to never be offended. This country is based on freedoms, and that means freedom for everyone - not just you! You may leave the room, turn the channel, express a different opinion, lower the volume, but the world is full of idiots, and probably always will be. ARTICLE III: You do not have the right to be free from harm. You are responsible for your actions. If you stick a screwdriver in your eye, learn to be more careful, do not expect the tool company to make you and your relatives independently wealthy. ARTICLE IV: You do not have the right to free food and housing. Americans are the most charitable people to be found, and will gladly help anyone in need, but are quickly growing weary of subsidizing generation after generation of professional couch potatoes who achieve nothing more than the creation of another generation of professional couch potatoes. ARTICLE V: You do not have the right to free health care. That would be nice, but from the looks of how you care for your free public housing, we are just not interested in free public health care. Article VI: You do not have the right to physically harm other people. If you kidnap, rape, intentionally maim, abort, or kill someone, do not be surprised if the rest of us want to see you fry in the electric chair. ARTICLE VII: You do not have the right to the possessions of others. If you rob, cheat or coerce away the goods or services of other citizens, do not be surprised if the rest of us get together and lock you in a place where you still do not have a right to a big screen TV or a life of leisure. ARTICLE VIII: You do not have a right to demand our children risk their lives in foreign wars to soothe your aching conscience. We hate oppressive governments and wouldn't stop political actions or you yourself from going to fight if you would like. However, we do not enjoy parenting the entire world and do not want to spend so much of our time battling each and every little tyrant with a military uniform and a funny hat. Editors Note: The above article lacks some foresight. I would move that we not allow tyrants to come to power in the first place. Thus we would not be expected to participate in his removal after he has created a military power. ARTICLE IX: You do not have the right to a job. All of us sure want all of you to have one, and will gladly help you along in hard times, but we expect you to take advantage of the opportunities of education and vocational training laid before you to make yourself useful. ARTICLE X: You do not have the right to happiness! Being an American means you have the right to pursue happiness - which by the way, is a great deal easier if you are not encumbered by an overabundance of idiotic laws created for those who have no common sense by those who were confused by the Bill of Rights and obeyed only by those that don't need them in the first place.. Please pass this on to whomever you wish. We think it is about time common sense is allowed to flourish - call it the age of reason revisited.

To: henry8th who wrote (11998)	3/25/1999 9:44:00 PM
From: Catfish	Respond to of 13994

The KLA - Drugs money linked to the Kosovo rebels FROM ROGER BOYES AND ESKE WRIGHT IN BONN March 24 1999 KOSOVO CRISIS Times Newspapers Ltd the-times.co.uk Posted for educational and discussion purposes only. THE Kosovo Liberation Army, which has won the support of the West for its guerrilla struggle against the heavy armour of the Serbs, is a Marxist-led force funded by dubious sources, including drug money. That is the judgment of senior police officers across Europe. An investigation by The Times has established that police forces in three Western European countries, together with Europol, the European police authority, are separately investigating growing evidence that drug money is funding the KLA's leap from obscurity to power. The financing of the Kosovo guerrilla war poses critical questions and it sorely tests claims to an "ethical" foreign policy. Should the West back a guerrilla army that appears to be partly financed by organised crime? Could the KLA's need for funds be fuelling the heroin trade across Europe? The KLA has become an essential component of the Kosovo peace agreement; without it, there would be no equal negotiating partner for the Belgrade Government. In military terms, it is in no sense equal to the Serb forces. But it has grown from a theoretical notion to an often successful, very mobile and very visible guerrilla grouping in a remarkably short time. Much of the money funding the KLA is believed to come from legitimate sources - raised by the People's Movement of Kosovo, which is the political wing of the resistance movement. There are about 500,000 Kosovan Albanians in Western Europe who send money back home because it funds healthcare for their cousins. However, some of this cash is believed to be siphoned off for the military. As well as diverting charit-able donations from exiled Kosovans, some of the KLA money is thought to come from drug dealing. Sweden is investigating suspicions of a KLA drug connection. "We have intelligence leading us to believe that there could be a connection between drug money and the Kosovo Liberation Army," said Walter Kege, head of the drug enforcement unit in the Swedish police intelligence service. Supporting intelligence has come from other states. "We have yet to find direct evidence, but our experience tells us that the channels for trading hard drugs are also used for weapons," said one Swiss police commander. An official in the Bavarian Interior Ministry also told The Times of a recent fundraising meeting involving some 200 Kosovans in southern Germany. "At the end of the session they raised DM100,000 [about £40,000]." This represents a huge sum for ordinary Kosovans and fuels speculation that apparently legitimate fundraising activities are used to launder dirty money. One Western intelligence report quoted by Berliner Zeitung says that DM900 million has reached Kosovo since the guerrillas began operations and half the sum is said to be illegal drug money. In particular, European countries are investigating the Albanian connection: whether Kosovan Albanians living primarily in Germany and Switzerland are creaming off the profits from inner-city heroin dealing and sending the cash to the KLA. Albania - which plays a key role in channelling money to the Kosovans - is at the hub of Europe's drug trade. An intelligence report which was prepared by Germany's Federal Criminal Agency concluded: "Ethnic Albanians are now the most prominent group in the distribution of heroin in Western consumer countries." Europol, which is based in The Hague, is preparing a report for European interior and justice ministers on a connection between the KLA and Albanian drug gangs. Police in the Czech Republic recently tracked down a Kosovo Albanian drug dealer named Doboshi who had escaped from a Norwegian prison where he was serving 12 years for heroin trading. A raid on Doboshi's apartment turned up documents linking him with arms purchases for the KLA. Police sources in Germany have made plain their suspicions: the sudden ascendancy of Kosovan Albanians in the heroin trade in Switzerland, Germany and Scandinavia coincides with the sudden growth of the KLA from a ragamuffin peasants' army two years ago to a 30,000-strong force equipped with grenade launchers, anti-tank weapons and AK47s.