Issue 104 Table of Contents

Issue 104
Table of Contents

	Iraq Debate: "This is Another Gulf of Tonkin"	by Jeff Elliott Whatever happens (or doesn't happen) in a U.S. conflict with Iraq, the historic moment came on the Senate floor on October 4, 2002. On that day, three senior members of the U.S. Senate stood in that chamber and debated what President Bush has recently insisted is the most pressing issue before the nation. The colloquy that unfolded on that Friday afternoon was remarkable -- although the event was scarcely noticed at all by the press
	The Top Censored Stories of 2001 & 2002	by Peter Phillips and Project Censored Washington sex scandals, celebrity exposes, gruesome murders, schoolyard attacks, gangs, crime, corruption, and conspicuous consumption fill the airwaves and newspapers. Media representatives say they need to protect their bottom-line, and that these types of news stories increase ratings. Corporate media seem to have abdicated their First Amendment responsibility to keep the public informed
	The Anthrax Letters: Five deaths, Five grams, Five Clues	by Paul de Armond Now as the anniversary of the attacks approaches, the FBI investigation remains an embarrassing failure. The problems with the investigation lie with the circumstances that made the attack possible, not with the cleverness of the attacker
	Death and Boredom in the Afghan War	by Ron Callari Rall sees Afghanistan as a "clash between Islamic fundamentalism...left-over Soviet totalitarian dictatorships, mixed with its special witches' brew of tribal feuds and a Caspian Sea Oil rush." His 112-page "To Afghanistan and Back" reads like a dispatch from the wartime trenches, but the book's centerpiece is a 50-page graphic depiction that features Rall's unique cartooning style
	Killing the Chicken to Scare the Monkey	by Joshua Samuel Brown The meaning of the shift in U.S. policy is a hot topic among the politically savvy Beijing public. "Bush's speech was clearly aimed at China" one taxi driver told me during a crawl through rush hour traffic. "We Chinese have a saying -- sha ji, ch'ing ho. (Kill the chicken to frighten the monkey). Iraq is the chicken, and China, the monkey. Don't think we don't see this." One of the aunties who lives in my building believes me to be a conduit to the White House. "Why does your George Bush still want to attack Iraq? Doesn't he know how bad war is?" she told me last week "Tell him that I have lived through war, and it's terrible" I promised to pass her message along should the opportunity arise
	Welcome to my Nightmare	by Clarence Brown No one knows what is happening in the world. Planes fly over. Whose? The water runs for only an hour a day. One thing is sure. Iraq is no longer a threat to world peace. Saddam had himself photographed in the Oval Office, wearing his idiotic Homburg and sporting an automatic weapon
	Welcome to Post-Constitutional America	by Randolph T. Holhut Right after the Sept. 11 attacks, the Justice Department rounded up more than 1,000 people and imprisoned them in secret. Many of them are still behind bars today, even though not one those still jailed have been formally charged with any crimes related to Sept. 11. Few Americans have complained about this. The jailed are immigrants, mostly Arabs and Muslims. The average American doesn't have to fear being jailed without being formally charged without a crime or being held incommunicado indefinitely. But the downward slope can get slippery in a hurry in an age of fear
	Oil and the Permanent War	by Lucy Komisar Oil's critical role in global hot spots is not usually acknowledged by governments. They prefer to speak about defending liberty, not economic interests. But it was a subject at a private gathering of American and European business people, diplomats, journalists and scholars in Divonne, France, this spring. There, at Forum 21, an annual event organized by two Americans, Paul and Abby Hirsch Weinstein, one could hear the subtexts of the disputes roiling the globe. Among them, the frank comments of two oilmen and a Kuwaiti policy analyst were trenchant and enlightening
	1 in 3 of World's Primates Now Endangered	by Cat Lazaroff 1 in 3 of the world's apes, monkeys, lemurs and other primates are now threatened with extinction, warns a new report by international conservation groups. The report notes that primate species and subspecies classified as endangered or critically endangered has jumped by almost 63 percent since the last version of the report was issued in January 2000
	Bali Terrorism Was Wake-Up Call For Indonesia	by Andreas Harsono Three bomb blasts that killed 216 people, most of them foreign tourists in Bali, were a wake-up call for many Indonesians who may have been slow to recognize that terrorists pose a real and deadly threat in the world's largest Muslim country
	U.S. Media Coverage of Bali Terrorism Was Superficial	by Barbie Zelizer Indonesia, in fact, has been held up as a prime example of Islam's moderate face. It is the largest Muslim country in the world, with 170.3 million out of its 220 million people adherents of Islam. The Nahdlatul Ulama, with a membership of 40 million Muslims, encourages the country's faithful to take a moderate path. Yet in the eyes of many, this image has suffered due to Saturday's massive bombing and will place this region's Muslims in a further predicament if investigators link militant Muslims to the bloodshed
	Bali Terrorism: History Repeats Itself, We Don't Pay Attention	by Lawrence Pintak Terrorize the West and destabilize weak regimes. The approach is synergistic. Terror breeds instability. Unstable countries are breeding grounds for terror. "Bali is no longer the last paradise," a friend who lives on that tropical island emailed me after the bombing. The terrorists' message is clear: If they can create Hell in Paradise, then nowhere is safe. The bonus: A body-blow to Indonesia's feeble economy, undercutting the already-weak position of the moderate leader of the world's largest Muslim country
	Claim Of Al-Qaeda Link To Bali Terror "Reckless," Say Muslims	by Marwaan Macan-Markar Indonesia, in fact, has been held up as a prime example of Islam's moderate face. It is the largest Muslim country in the world, with 170.3 million out of its 220 million people adherents of Islam. The Nahdlatul Ulama, with a membership of 40 million Muslims, encourages the country's faithful to take a moderate path. Yet in the eyes of many, this image has suffered due to Saturday's massive bombing and will place this region's Muslims in a further predicament if investigators link militant Muslims to the bloodshed
	Indonesia's Homegrown Extremists	by Andreas Harsono In Jakarta on Monday everybody talked about the Bali bombing, from nice-looking television anchors in their studios to street vendors in the crowded streets of Jakarta. But what surprised me was that many of them subscribed to the conspiracy theory that the bombing was done by "American agents."
	Israel Complaining About Setbacks in Propaganda War	by Ferry Biedermann Israelis blame more and more what they see as skewed reporting by the foreign media. "The playing field is not level," says Danny Seaman, director of Israel's Government Press Office (GPO). "We play by democratic rules and have open access and freedom of expression, while the other side does not." Seaman is unapologetic about restrictions such as closing Palestinian towns to reporters. The GPO no longer offers accreditation to Palestinian journalists working for the foreign media in the West Bank and the Gaza strip. Foreign journalists often depend on these journalists for translations, contacts and sometimes even for interpretation of events
	Bush Finds Suprising Aid From China In Iraq War Plan	by Antoaneta Bezlova Washington has been pleasantly surprised to find that Beijing's position on strong measures against Iraq has been more flexible than it expected. China abstained on almost all votes on the Iraq issue before the 1991 Gulf War and opposed sanctions on that country afterwards. As one of the permanent Security Council members wielding veto power and one that traditionally opposes U.S. "hegemonism," China is a player that could still tip the balance on a tough resolution setting new terms for Iraq to disarm chemical or biological weapons. Noticeably too, state media has been void of the usual condemnation of the U.S. belligerent policy of interference in the "internal affairs of other countries."
	Post-Sept. 11 Military Deals Result in China Encircled	by Rahul Bedi Through a complex web of alliances, ostensibly to fight the scourge of terrorism, backed by economic sops and clever strategic agreements, the world's lone superpower has manoeuvred not only to exploit the Central Asian republics' vast energy resources, but also to encircle China, its potential economic and military rival
	UN Toothless in Mideast Crisis	by N. Janardhan "The United Nations has become an organization which can churn out plenty of resolutions but is helpless in implementing any of them," Koechler told a conference on "Human Rights, Victims of War and International Law" here last week. Criticizing the United Nations for its failure in undertaking an independent investigation of the grave violations of international law by the Israeli occupying forces in Palestine, Koechler says the UN secretary-general's attitude has been one of "defeatism" when confronted with Israeli moves such as its rejection of the visit by the fact-finding team for Jenin
	Indonesia Covering up 1999 Atrocities, UN Says	by Thalif Deen Human rights activists and senior UN officials have faulted an Indonesian tribunal for imposing a lenient sentence on a former governor of East Timor charged with war crimes. On August 15, the tribunal also found that the former regional police commander and five other military, police and government officials were not guilty of similar crimes
	Syria Worries: "After Iraq, It Could Be Us"	by George Baghdadi Syria is on the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism for its support to the Lebanese resistance group Hizbollah and radical Palestinian factions. Concern for itself is backed by anger over Iraq. There are few signs of any love for Saddam Hussein in Syria. But there is anger that an Arab nation is in the target of President George W. Bush
	Bush Infuriates Muslims By Naming Jerusalem Offical Israel Capitol	by N Janardhan The bill -- 2003 Foreign Relations Authorization Act -- that provides over $4 billion to run the State Department in 2003 called for the relocation of the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and denied funding for any official U.S. document unless it identifies the city as Israel's capital. Despite Bush's insistence that he reserved the right to override the clause in the bill as he signed it on Monday, the move from a U.S. administration already seen in the Arab world as blatantly pro-Israeli caused an uproar across the region
	Acid Rain Far More Hazardous Than Earlier Believed	by Cheryl Dorschner As the EPA and Bush administration plan to make it easy for power plants, oil refineries and chemical factories to expand without installing new pollution controls, a new study revealed that the damage they cause to America's forests may be much more widespread than previously believed. The acid rain that results may actually create conditions in trees similar to compromised immune systems in humans, establishing a vulnerability with grave potential implications
	Russia Seeks to Delay Bioweapons Destruction	by Sergei Blagov Although Russia has pledged to destroy all its chemical weapons, Moscow has been slow to implement its commitments under the Chemical Weapons Convention, citing lack of funding. Russian officials reportedly informed the ongoing 5th international Chemical Weapons Convention conference in the Hague that now Russia aims to destroy its chemical weapons by April 29, 2012
	Russia Hostage Crisis Puts Chechnya Back at Center Stage	by Sergei Blagov The Russian army retook Chechnya in 1999 after it was driven out by separatists in 1996. More than 3,000 Russian servicemen have died in the course of the "second Chechen war," according to official statements. Russian troops repeatedly search Chechen villages in operations known as zachistki, or cleansing. The searches are officially aimed at checking documents and locating rebels. But there have been numerous allegations of murder. other abuses and looting by troops
	N Korean Nukes An Open Secret Since 1999	by Ranjit Devraj The newly revealed "missiles-for-nuclear-bombs deal" between Pakistan and North Korea comes as no surprise to India, whose officials have almost monotonously referred to the link between the two countries -- separated by China's expanse -- every time Islamabad has sent up a missile. The question that is being asked by analysts here is how Washington could have missed this proliferation axis that links Beijing to its two closest allies in Asia -- except deliberately
	Israeli Siege of PLO Headquarters A Big Win For Arafat	by N. Janardhan For Arafat, who has been facing the most serious challenge to his leadership for the slow pace of reforms or even lack of it, Israel's siege has temporarily hushed his critics and put him back in the limelight
	Taliban Are Coming Back In Afghanistan	by Franz Shurmann Tayyib Agha says that when the Americans started their military actions against Afghanistan, the Taliban sustained heavy losses. But now they are "more organized, flexible and in better condition than before." He also said that many Afghan-Arabs are still "with bin Laden" who too is alive and never left Afghanistan. But both Mullah Omar and bin Laden never stay in one place very long. They are always on the move. The Taliban have an image in the West of barbarous cruelty and oppression of women. Nevertheless they did what no other Afghan faction had been able to do. They disarmed the population and provided security
	Despite Lack of Evidence, Bush Convinces Most Americans of Saddam Link to 9/11	by Jim Lobe Despite strong pressure from the administration of President George W Bush -- so strong that critics charge that it amounts to an effort to "politicize" intelligence -- U.S. spy agencies appear unanimous that evidence linking Baghdad with the Sept. 11 attacks, or any attacks against western targets since 1993, is simply non-existent. But conservative columnists William Safire, Robert Novak, and other hawks have turned unreliable evidence into damning proof
	Bush Unveils Lite Prescription Drug Reform	by Emad Mekay Democrats say the move is a Republican political ploy in the run-up to Nov. 5 congressional elections. They say the Bush plan goes too easy on big drug makers, and they favor a Senate bill designed to make drugs more affordable, partly by getting generics to the market faster. Although foreign policy issues have dominated the election campaign, the economy is becoming an increasingly bitter battleground, with the drugs issue at the forefront
	I, Rumsfeld	by Jim Lobe Of all the heavyweights in President George W. Bush's cabinet, Rumsfeld has emerged as by far the most aggressive. During his tenure, the Pentagon has been systematically encroaching on the turf of other major national-security bureaucracies. In addition, Rumsfeld, a master bureaucratic operator whom former secretary of state Henry Kissinger once called �the most ruthless" man he ever confronted, appears to enjoy the unconditional backing of Dick Cheney, who is himself widely considered to be the most powerful vice president in U.S. history
	Bush Shifts Farther Right For Iraq War Rationale	by Emad Mekay "It may be excusable as a fantasy of some Israelis reacting to the trauma of the Second Intifada. As American policy, however, it crosses the line between neo-conservative and neo-crazy," said Anthony Cordesman, a Mideast specialist at the conservative Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). He was speaking about the latest rationale offered with increasing insistence by forces both within the administration of President George W. Bush and outside it for invading Iraq: the notion that ousting President Saddam Hussein would result in a flourishing of democracy, not just in Iraq but through the entire Middle East
	Bush Shifts Farther Right For Iraq War Rationale	by Jim Lobe "It may be excusable as a fantasy of some Israelis reacting to the trauma of the Second Intifada. As American policy, however, it crosses the line between neo-conservative and neo-crazy," said Anthony Cordesman, a Mideast specialist at the conservative Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). He was speaking about the latest rationale offered with increasing insistence by forces both within the administration of President George W. Bush and outside it for invading Iraq: the notion that ousting President Saddam Hussein would result in a flourishing of democracy, not just in Iraq but through the entire Middle East
	Bush Forces Rush Decision on Iraq War	by Jim Lobe Despite the stakes, Congress has given itself very little time to consider the full implications of whatever decision it makes
	Bush Ultra-Hawks May Have Overplayed Iraq Bluster	by Jim Lobe The most visible sign that the hawks may have lost momentum came last week when the White House announced that Bush will seek formal Congressional authorization for an invasion of Iraq. The announcement seemed to pull the rug out from under Vice President Dick Cheney, who only a few days before, said Bush saw no need for Congressional action before a military attack
	Barbara Lee Was Right	by Randolph T. Holhut In its haste to be seen as good, red-blooded patriotic Americans, Congress gave President Bush the power to wage a war that has no geographic limits, no clearly defined enemies, no clearly defined goals and no clear beginning or end. But too few people voiced this opinion last September and those who did were effectively drowned out in the flag-waving, hyper-patriotic fervor after the attacks. Eleven months later, Lee now looks like a visionary as the Bush administration plans for a war wider than any sane person would have imagined last fall
	How America's Really Changed Since Sept. 11	by Randolph T. Holhut The nine months before the Sept. 11 attacks were marked by the Bush administration snubbing the world as they rejected or refused to take action on more international agreements than any administration in memory. There was no reexamination of U.S. foreign policy after Sept. 11, starting with considering the reasons why America is so hated and mistrusted by the rest of the world. Or why was so much energy devoted to building an anti-ballistic missile system when 19 guys with box cutters and razor blades turned four jetliners into suicide bombs. Or why we stopped caring about the Mideast peace process until it was too late to avert a bloodbath?
	Clinton, Israel Share Blame For Peace Talk Failure, Says Film	by Julio Godoy Charles Enderlin, Israeli correspondent for the French television channel France 2 shows in a 150-minute documentary that Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was not the only leader responsible for failure of the peace negotiations with Israel at Camp David in July 2001
	In Starving Southern Africa, Women Risk AIDS For Food	by Penny Dale More and more women are resorting to bartering sex for food, often without the use of a condom, therefore putting themselves and others at risk. Where food is most scarce, the report warns, HIV prevalence is correspondingly high
	Christian Right Agitates For More Israel Support	by Jim Lobe Stand for Israel unveiled a one-minute video which will be run in "tens of thousands" of churches with combined memberships of 3.2 million people on Sunday, Oct. 20, exhorting Christians to pray for Israel whose enemies, it says, "are on the attack again." "God has promised that those who bless Israel will themselves be blessed," says the video, which is filled with recent images of violence in Israel and the West Bank
	Farm Bill Hurts Everyone Except Big Agribusiness, Report Says	by Emad Mekay With help from institutions such as the World Trade Organization (WTO), Third World countries are forced to open their markets to U.S. agricultural exports. With the farm bill depressing prices to below the cost of production, those firms can out-compete local farmers at the marketplace. The result is dumping of subsidized imports on Third World countries, which collapses local agricultural markets and destroys the livelihoods of family farmers, while exacerbating hunger and food insecurity, says the report
	Tobacco Companies Targeted Asian-Americans	by Bob Burton Tobacco company strategies included emphasis on "Asian-owned stores, direct marketing of specific cigarette brands through community cultural events, youth-orientated promotions, and corporate sponsorship"
	Secret U.S. Biopharms Growing Experimental Drugs	The experimental application of biotechnology in which plants are genetically engineered to produce pharmaceutical proteins and chemicals they do not produce naturally has been termed "biopharming." Companies engaged in biopharming keep their activities secret, citing the secret plantings as confidential business information. "Just one mistake by a biotech company and we'll be eating other people's prescription drugs in our corn flakes," said Larry Bohlen, director of health and environment programs at Friends of the Earth
	Japan - N Korea Breakthrough Upsets Bush Hawks	by Jim Lobe The historic breakthrough achieved by Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's unprecedented trip to North Korea yesterday may cause new tensions in the Bush administration. Senior State Department officials have been urging Washington for months to send an envoy to Pyongyang to begin a serious dialogue. But such a move has been blocked by hawks in the Pentagon and Vice President Dick Cheney's office, especially since last January's State of the Union speech, when President George W. Bush lumped North Korea in with Iraq and Iran as an "axis of evil"
	Fertilizer From Sewage Linked To Illness, Deaths	by Kim Carlyle Burning eyes, burning lungs, skin rashes and other symptoms of illness have been found in a study of residents living near land fertilized with byproducts of human waste. Researchers found that affected residents lived within approximately one kilometer of land application sites generally complained of irritation after exposure to winds blowing from treated fields. Approximately 25 percent of the individuals surveyed were infected, and two died
	N Korean Nukes Make "Axis of Evil" Less Simple	by Robert Scheer Why not engineer a regime change in North Korea and Pakistan before getting around to Iraq, where functioning nuclear weapons, according to our latest CIA intelligence, are only a gleam in Hussein's eyes? For all the loose talk about Hussein's purported chemical and biological weapons threat -- smallpox vaccine, anyone? -- it is nuclear weapons, combined with the missile delivery systems possessed by North Korea and Pakistan, that represent the most serious threat of mass destruction
	Bush Jumps the Gun With Preemptive Strikes	by Robert Scheer Bush's haste to make war on Iraq is understandable only as a ploy to avoid dealing with the struggling U.S. economy, a still-shadowy Al Qaeda leadership that has not been brought to heel yet and the alarming disintegration of the Mideast peace process. There simply is no evidence that Iraq had anything to do with the tragedy that has so traumatized this nation. Why then a sudden policy shift threatening preemptive strikes against any nation producing weapons of mass destruction when advanced weaponry played no role in our troubles?
	Truth on Iraq Seeps Through	by Robert Scheer More important than its psychoanalyzing of Iraq's megalomaniacal leader is the CIA's concession that the much-maligned inspections actually worked quite well. What we have here is our top intelligence agency endorsing the past success of a peaceful, enforceable disarmament technique while our president and his Cabinet repeatedly belittle it as a sham
	The Sun Can't Set on This Empire Too Soon	by Robert Scheer With the end of the Cold War, we were at a loss for a noble rationale to justify our heavy Mideast presence, which has been enormously profitable to some American corporations and industries that are well represented in this administration. Support democracy? We do subsidize Israel, the region's only functioning democracy, but our motives look less than pure when we fawn over cooperative dictatorships such as the regime in the United Arab Emirates, which forked over $6.4 billion to Lockheed Martin for fighter jets and gives us access to its oil
	Mr. Bush, Heed Carter and Learn	by Robert Scheer Bush seems unaware that the Gordian knot of global terrorism pulled tightly in years past by our allies in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia will not be cut unless the quest for peace initiated by Carter at Camp David is finally completed. Whether to avenge his father or to "wag the dog" ahead of elections, Bush has undermined the lofty goal of eliminating terrorism
	Bush War Plans Undermining UN Credibility	by Thalif Deen If Bush does go to war unilaterally, say diplomats, the Security Council will be reduced to a politically impotent body. The situation is "fraught with dangerous implications extending far beyond the region," says former Indian ambassador Chinmaya Gharekhan, an adviser to one-time UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, who was forced out of office by U.S. pressure. "Will the world witness the first authorized or unilateral use of force to topple a head of state?" he asks
	Pakistan - U.S. "War on Terror" Alliance Falling Apart	by Mushahid Hussain Musharraf's arrival in the United States was heralded by two public expositions of U.S. concerns: one, an official statement criticizing the military government in Islamabad and the other, reports that al-Qaeda presence is growing in Pakistan
	Automakers Drop Electric Cars As Sales Sag	by Katherine Stapp The world's biggest automakers are abandoning their experiments with battery-powered cars, saying most drivers are unwilling to give up their cheaper fuel-burning vehicles. Companies like Ford and General Motors (GM) also say they will focus on producing hybrid gas-electric vehicles and other cutting-edge technologies that offer greater versatility than electric vehicles (EVs)
	State Dept. Asked Court to Drop ExxonMobil Human Rights Suit	by Jim Lobe The department's letter caught human rights groups by surprise, especially because it is the first time it has urged the dismissal of a case filed under the Alien Tort Claims Act (ATCA), a law that permits foreigners to sue for damages for serious human rights violations in federal court against defendants who are present in the United States
	Study Finds Anti-Western Bias Among Arabs Just a Myth	by Jalal Ghazi Breaking long-held stereotypes about the Arab world and its supposed anti-Western sentiment, France, Canada and Germany receive among the highest approval ratings, demonstrating that low approval ratings for the United States and the United Kingdom stem from those countries' foreign policies
	Bush Ignored Facts to Withhold UN Aid	by Alex Sanger Bush Monday not to approve $34 million in aid for the United Nations Population Fund, which provides voluntary family-planning assistance in more than 140 nations worldwide -- although the President's own fact-finding team came back from China with a report that clears the UN agency of involvement in these activities
	Bush Signs Corporate Reform Law, Then Undermines It	by Philip E. Daoust Only hours after signing the Accounting Industry Reform Act in a grand East Room ceremony on Tuesday, the White House released a statement that it was narrowly interpreting a number of the bill's provisions, including a section that offers federal protection to corporate whistle-blowers who present Congress with evidence of fraud. Members from both parties of Congress are openly criticizing the President's action, accusing him of endorsing a "watered-down" version of the legislation
	Congress Fights Over Special Bankruptcy Protection For Abortion Clinic Protestors	by Philip E. Daoust A hotly-contested provision that would prohibit anti-abortion protestors from declaring bankruptcy to avoid paying court fines became the central obstacle in getting a final vote on the bill before the Congressional recess
	Bush Team Squabbles With Dad's Crowd Over Iraq War	by Jim Lobe For now, the war is strictly among Republicans -- between the old-line conservatives from the administration of former President George H.W. Bush and the new-line hawkish conservatives among the civilians in the Pentagon and in Vice President Dick Cheney's office. A series of leaks this month from senior military brass, who have grown increasingly distrustful of the warlike tendencies of their civilian bosses, marked the preliminary skirmishes in the conflict
	Brent Scowcroft, Unlikely Peacenik	by Jim Lobe The second-most frustrated man in Washington's foreign-policy establishment these days -- next to Secretary of State Colin Powell -- must be Brent Scowcroft, the courtly and self-effacing retired army general who served as George Bush Sr's national security adviser. The significance of the fact that Scowcroft has gone public with his advice on several occasions over the last three months cannot be exaggerated
	Bush Sneaks Subsidy Cheat Factory Farmer Into USDA	by Jim Hightower As head of a large corporate farm in Iowa, Thomas Dorr was slipperier than an Enron executive. He once made the unfortunate comment that three Iowa counties were enjoying economic progress because of their homogeneity -- meaning white and Christian. Dorr also doesn't like small, as in small farmers. He says that 200,000-acre factory farms fit his vision of what agriculture should be
	No Dissent Welcome at Bush Economic "Summit"	by Jim Hightower At taxpayer expense, Bush flew in Vice President Cheney, seven cabinet members, a gaggle of White House aides and a load of PR flacks to sit around for four hours with fat cat CEOs, a bunch of economists, and a handpicked crowd of partisan cheerleaders -- all to tell him what an excellent job he's doing. Afterwards, Bush's top political operative bragged with a straight face that "There was unanimity that we've taken the right [economic] steps, that we're going in the right direction." Then he scolded critics: "Everyone ought to applaud when the president sits down with ordinary people"
	Holding Dick Cheney "Accountable"	by Arianna Huffington Let's start by looking at the problem of the vice president and Halliburton. During the number two's time as the company's number one, the number of Halliburton subsidiaries registered in tax-friendly locations ballooned from nine in 1995 to 44 in 1999. The result? A dramatic drop in Halliburton's federal taxes, which fell from $302 million in 1998 to less than zero -- to wit, an $85 million rebate -- in 1999. At the same time they were hard at work stiffing U.S. taxpayers, Cheney and Halliburton were happily feasting at the public trough
	Harvey Pitt's Job Insurance: Protecting Bush	by Jim Hightower Because he's been such a toy poodle for corporations that now are proving to be systemically corrupt, Harvey's been taking heat, including bipartisan demands that he resign. But he says he won't quit because he has the "full support" of Bush. Why would the president keep such a weak regulator when the White House is trying to look tough on corporate crime? Because Harvey recently turned into Pitt the Ferocious Bulldog on another agency matter: Keeping the media and We the People away from SEC File No. MHO-3180
	As U.S. Attention Turns to Iraq, Afghanistan Slides Toward Chaos	by Jim Lobe The foiled assassination attempt Sept. 5 against Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai and blasts in the capital Kabul that reportedly killed at least 10 people give weight to critics of Bush's apparent determination to go to war against Baghdad who say Washington should consolidate its victory over the Taliban in Afghanistan before moving on to other military adventures
	Israel Threatens War With Lebanon Over Water Project	by N Janardhan Israel opposes Lebanon's plans to divert to around 20 southern villages the waters of the Wazzani -- a tributary of the Hasbani River -- that flows from Lebanon into the Sea of Galilee, Israel's main source of drinking water. The situation is explosive also due to the presence in the religion of the Shiite Muslim resistance force Hezbollah, largely credited with forcing Israel out of south Lebanon in May 2000 after a 22-year occupation. The Israeli army has been monitoring the project, notably after Prime Minister Ariel Sharon warned a week ago that Israel could go to war over the issue. Foreign Minister Shimon Peres described Lebanon's project as an "unnecessary provocation"
	New Study Supports India Women Fighting Birth Control Injections	by Ranjit Devraj Armed with reports of 50 women who were injected with contraceptives at a government hospital, women's rights activists have renewed calls to ensure that the controversial drugs are not quietly slipped into the country's coercive population control program
	Many Nations Have Ignored UN Resolutions	by Danielle Knight South Africa resisted UN condemnation -- including Security Council resolutions -- of apartheid for decades. India and Pakistan, he added, have failed to comply with a recent Security Council resolution demanding that they end their nuclear weapons programs. For decades, India has ignored a Security Council resolution calling for a UN-supervised plebiscite in the disputed territory of Kashmir. And Israel is in violation of numerous Security Council resolution
	Saudi Royals On Tightrope Between Islamists, Moderates	by N Janardhan The Saudi royal family is weathering the biggest challenge to its rule since it founded the kingdom about 70 years ago. But the task is harder without a definite roadmap to guide it through the post-Sept. 11 pressure aimed at diluting the influence of the puritan Wahabism brand of Islam in daily life. Today, the country where Islam emerged 14 centuries ago and houses the holy sites of Mecca and Medina is struggling to curb militancy without confronting the religious powerhouses or inviting the wrath of the public, especially after it transpired that 15 of the 19 hijackers on Sept. 11 were Saudi nationals
	Judge in Pooh Case Orders New Accounting	by Joe Shea A Los Angeles Superior Court Judge has now ordered a new accounting of royalties paid by the Walt Disney Co. to the owners of commercial rights to Winnie the Pooh, the studio's hottest-selling character. The judge finalized a ruling Friday that accused the accountants appointed by the court of bias against the owners of the Pooh rights. The court also revamped a critical portion of his August 19 ruling to order that a fresh set of auditors be given access to Disney's books -- including some chosen by Stephen Slesinger Inc., the family-owned branding firm that licensed the Pooh rights to Disney in 1961 -- so they can come to their own conclusion about how much money Disney may owe the heirs for retail and theme park sales of Pooh merchandise
	India Faces Economic Collapse as Worst-Ever Drought Looms	by Aman Singh This year is set to break all previous records as India reels again under a drought that could leave an already sluggish economy even slower and inflation driving prices at the market out of reach. Millions of families in India's northern and central states could go hungry as the nation faces its worst drought since 1987
	No Fed Funding for Church-Centered Chastity Programs, Judge Rules	by Asjylyn Loder Some groups funded by the Louisiana program used the money to sponsor religious revivals, radio messages and school skits and clubs that preached abstinence in a Christian context, Porteous wrote. A fact sheet distributed to Louisiana high school students by the governor's program asked why sexually transmitted diseases had spread over the last 30 years. "The answer is moral relativism," the fact sheet stated. "We removed God from the classroom." Another fact sheet read, "It's time to restore our Judeo-Christian heritage in America"
	Seahorses Join Tigers, Rhinos on Endangered List	by Jim Lobe The Patagonian toothfish and seahorses, for which demand has mushroomed in recent years, have joined tigers and Sumatran rhinos -- perennials on WWF's "most-wanted" list for the past decade -- as increasingly endangered by international commerce
	Cigarette Marketing Can Undermine Even Strict Parenting	by Nancy Stringer Marketing themes of tobacco ads, such as independence, coolness, fun, imagination, sex, risk-taking and excitement, may be more "novel, salient and relevant" to children of authoritative parents
	Jimmy Carter Emerging As Leading Voice Against Bush War Plans	by Jim Lobe That former U.S. president Jimmy Carter will receive this year's Nobel Peace Prize represents a dramatic challenge to the current president, George W. Bush, and his administration's unilateralist foreign policy. It will also serve to propel the former president, who over the past year has publicly assailed Bush policies on Iraq, the Middle East, Cuba and aid to combat the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Africa, back into the limelight within just hours of Bush receiving congressional authority to wage war against Iraq
	Few Women In Zimbabwe Get Land Promised by Reforms	by Nicole Itano When Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe first embarked on his fast-track land-reform program more than two years ago, he promised that the rich, red land that was being taken from the country's white commercial farmers would go to the poor and landless. Female-headed households like Kugoda's were supposed to receive 20 percent of redistributed land. But as Zimbabwe's last white commercial farmers are driven from their homes, their land parceled up and handed to new, black owners, little of the land has gone to the poor and even less to women
	Bowling for Baghdad	by Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman Michael Moore's juxtaposition of government and corporate violence with grainy film from the Columbine school's security camera capturing young children massacring young children drives home Moore's larger point -- that the violence and duplicity in our society starts at the top. Which brings us back to our nation's capital, where both parties' leadership, in part at the urging of the military-industrial-complex, gave the green light last week for a pre-emptive attack on Iraq
	Arab Activists Move From Street Protests To Basement Bomb-Making	by Earl Ofari Hutchinson, Those wondering how the �Arab street� will react to a U.S. attack on Iraq miss an important shift in the Arab world. American and Israeli ignorance and brutality and repressive Arab governments have driven young Arabs away from open protest and into dark basement bomb factories. Saner and more humane policy -- not an American attack on Iraq -- could bring them out
	Arab Activists Move From Street Protests To Basement Bomb-Making	by Rami G. Khouri Those wondering how the �Arab street� will react to a U.S. attack on Iraq miss an important shift in the Arab world. American and Israeli ignorance and brutality and repressive Arab governments have driven young Arabs away from open protest and into dark basement bomb factories. Saner and more humane policy -- not an American attack on Iraq -- could bring them out
	Accused Sniper's Muslim Link Causes Fears Of Witch Hunt	by Earl Ofari Hutchinson While no evidence has yet appeared to link the suspect in the Washington D.C. area sniper case to terrorist or religious fanatic groups, the fact that he is black and reportedly Muslim has many African American Muslims -- they number 2 million -- deeply worried about a witch hunt. Turning Americans against each other is one goal of any kind of terror-monger writes PNS contributor Earl Ofari Hutchinson, and that must not happen now
	Why The Waterfront War Will Spread	by David Bacon The companies want to automate shipping, at first using automated scanners and tracking devices to replace waterfront clerks. Eventually, the cranes and dockside machines will be operated by remote control, perhaps by people miles away from the wharves. Again the union has said it won't oppose these moves, so long as its members get to do the new jobs technology creates. But this time, the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) wants the union confined to the jobs that will disappear, and non-unionized workers employed in the new jobs
	Study Proves EPA Toothless Since Bush Takeover	by Katherine Stapp A new study bolsters charges by environmentalists that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has drastically cut back its pursuit of polluters. Using EPA data, researchers in the office of Democratic Congressman Edward J. Markey found that the Bush administration has brought nearly 50 percent fewer administrative actions against polluters than were undertaken under former president Bill Clinton
	Bush "War on Terrorism" Stumbles With New Attacks, Lack Of Support	by Jim Lobe While the White House succeeded last week in winning Congress's approval for an assault on Iraq, a spate of attacks on key Western targets has suggested that, despite its defeat in Afghanistan, al-Qaeda and its supporters may be far from finished. Even more distressing, particularly for those running the war against terror, was last Thursday's vote in Pakistan, when a coalition of Islamist parties, some openly sympathetic to al-Qaeda, emerged with much greater support than anyone had predicted
	European Left, Muslim Immigrant Forge Alliance Against Bush	by Paolo Pontoniere Just months after neo-Nazi Jean-Marie Le Pen shocked the world with a strong showing in French presidential elections, George W. Bush's aggressive stance toward Iraq seems to have accomplished what European activists could not: a strengthened European left, which is aligning itself with the continent's long-isolated Muslim immigrants
	The Bush Gang Dreams of Empire	by Randolph T. Holhut It's now official. The United States now reserves the right to attack any nation at any time for any reason. The plan is actually a reprise of an earlier strategic proposal drawn up for the Pentagon by Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and Cheney's chief of staff Lewis Libby in the early 1990s. That plan envisioned a world where the guiding principle of U.S. foreign policy is establishing permanent U.S. dominance over the Persian Gulf region and any other part of the world where U.S. interests lie
	Bush Plays the Old Shell Game	by Molly Ivins Nothing like a lot of distracting saber-rattling to get you to take your eyes off the shell with the pea under it
	The Sickness of Infectious Greed	by Molly Ivins The most commonly asked political question in America today is, "Where the hell are the Democrats?" The answer is they're also corrupted by campaign financing, but since they are the only ones likely to do anything about this mess, I suggest the gutless wonders that pass for an opposition party in Washington get up off their fat duffs and get to work
	Insurance Companies Turn the Screws	by Molly Ivins There's been a lot of screaming about how the cost of med-mal is driving doctors into retirement, but Public Citizen did a 21-state study that shows insurance premiums are rising at the same rate across the board -- homeowners, car and health.
	Bush Guts Corp Reform While You Weren't Looking	by Molly Ivins Congress actually passed the Sarbanes bill, including a new board to oversee the accounting industry and $776 million for the SEC, a 77 percent increase. Bush signed the bill amidst great fanfare and later took credit for solving the corporate corruption problems (even though he had opposed the bill almost until the moment he signed it). And everyone agreed, "What a good first step." Oops. Bush and his man Harvey Pitt at the SEC have already gutted the new accounting oversight board, and last week he urged Congress to appropriate 27 percent less
	Bush Hits New Low By Rejecting UN Population Funds	by Molly Ivins So who's in favor of poop on poultry? Surprise, it's the meat and poultry industry! Industry officials have argued for years that food poisoning bacteria are natural constituents of raw meat and poultry, and that they have no obligation to control them. It's up to the consumer to cook them properly. That would be fine except, as CFA points out, cooking doesn't stop cross-contamination
	Thank Bush For Your Food Poisoning	by Molly Ivins So who's in favor of poop on poultry? Surprise, it's the meat and poultry industry! Industry officials have argued for years that food poisoning bacteria are natural constituents of raw meat and poultry, and that they have no obligation to control them. It's up to the consumer to cook them properly. That would be fine except, as CFA points out, cooking doesn't stop cross-contamination
	Cheap Shots at Jimmy Carter	by Molly Ivins For those interested in high points in the history of Bad Manners, there was rather a breathtaking moment last week when columnist and television pundit Bob Novak chose to use the occasion of Jimmy Carter's winning the Nobel Peace Prize to trash the man
	Remember Promises of Corporate Reform? It's Over	by Molly Ivins They've already called off the reform effort; it's over. Corporate muscle showed up and shut it down. Forget expensing options, independent directors, going after offshore shams, derivatives regulation. For that matter, forget even basic reforms like separating the auditing and consulting functions of accounting firms and rotating accounting firms every few years. Bottom line: It's all going to happen again. We learned zip from the entire financial collapse. Our political system is too bought-off to respond intelligently
	Pentagon Learns From Its Mistakes -- Sometimes	by Molly Ivins Getting the Pentagon to spend money sensibly, or even keep track of it -- one day it announced it couldn't account for $7 billion -- is apparently a task beyond human resource. For generations, we've been sending beady-eyed bean-counters like Robert McNamara into the Pentagon to straighten things out, and they all stagger out years later with a dazed look about them. There is not an unemployment office or a children's health program in the country run with such insanely loose accounting
	Who Owns the Water Owns Everything	by Molly Ivins In the United States, foreign corporations, mostly French, are grabbing up water rights as fast as they can. The major U.S. players include Bechtel, T. Boone Pickens of Texas and Monsanto. The situation in Cochabamba, Bolivia, where the American firm Bechtel bought the public water utility and then doubled prices, led to a general strike and transportation stoppage, mass arrests, violence and several deaths. You don't have to assume that a corporation like Enron might get into the water business: Enron was in the water business
	The Creepy Bush Plan for World Domination	by Molly Ivins All the experts tell us anti-Americanism thrives on the perception that we are arrogant, that we care nothing for what the rest of the world thinks. Even our innocent mistakes are often blamed on obnoxious triumphalism. The announced plan of this administration for world domination reinforces every paranoid, anti-American prejudice on this earth. This plan is guaranteed to produce more terrorists. Even if this country were to become some insane, 21st century version of Sparta -- armed to teeth, guards on every foot of our borders -- we would still not be safe. Have the Israelis been able to stop terrorism with their tactics?
	Fearless Leader Won't be Deterred	by Molly Ivins If you step back and look at this debate, it just gets stranger and stranger. For one thing, all the evidence is that the administration has already made up its mind and we're going into Iraq this winter. President Bush went to the United Nations and demanded they back him, he's going to Congress to demand they back him, and there it is. This is not a debate, it's Bush in his "You're either with us or against us" mode. It is not a discussion of whether invading Iraq is either necessary or wise
	Billie Carr, Godmother of Texas Liberals	by Molly Ivins I love Texas, but it is a nasty old rawhide mother in the way it bears down on the people who have the fewest defenses. Not many can claim a better record for justice and freedom -- Billie Carr was there for the workers and the unions, she was there for the African-Americans, she was there for the Hispanics, she was there for the women, she was there for the gays. And this wasn't all high-minded or we-should-all-be-kinder-to-one another. This was tough, down, gritty, political trench warfare -- money against people. She bulled her way to the table of power, and then she used that place to get everybody else there, too. If you ain't ready to sweat, and you ain't smart enough to deal, you can't play in her league
	Bankrupcy Bill Reveals a Corrupt Congress	by Molly Ivins Congress is on the verge of taking a final vote on the bankruptcy bill, the product of a five-year effort by credit-card companies to stack the law in their favor and against average citizens. But you will be relieved to learn that our lawmakers have thoughtfully included a loophole that leaves six states, including Florida and Texas, free to continue providing extraordinary advantages to rich citizens from all over the country who need to shelter their gelt from bankruptcy proceedings. The millionaire protection amendment
	What People Power Looks Like	by Molly Ivins If you've forgotten what people power looks like, go to an IAF rally. Democracy only works if people work at it, and these folks do. It's actually a grand thing to see politicians forced to answer questions specifically -- no ducking, dodging or bull. Do you support us on this issue, yes or no? Will you work with us on it, yes or no?
	Cheney's Scam	by Molly Ivins So if Saddam is "the world's worst leader," how come Cheney sold him the equipment to get his dilapidated oil fields up and running so he to could afford to build weapons of mass destruction?
	Public Relations on a Grand Scale	by Molly Ivins As the U.S. distinguishes itself by being by being all-but-absent from the Earth Summit in Johannesburg, Africa, --- we sent a "low-level" delegation --- of course we are reminded of the words of our peerless leader on the subject of global warming: "We'll get used to it," said Bush
	Media Snoozed, Bush Jogged	by Molly Ivins The media have achieved such a perfect he-said/she-said knot of confusion on the story of Bush and Harken energy, it would be a wonder if the public ever gets any of it straight. Even though the Center for Public Integrity has posted the relevant documents from Harken on its Web site, the news has been buried under a scrum of pundits shouting, "It's old news" or "Is not, it's new news." All I can say is, if Slick Willie Clinton had ever eeled out from under information like this, Rush Limbaugh would've had a heart attack
	Bush 's Folly: Plans for Fighting a War Without Allies	by Molly Ivins Anti-Americanism thrives on the perception that we don't give a rat's behind how the rest of the world feels about anything. That's the famous "arrogance" for which we get criticized. On that count, a war with Iraq could play right into terrorist hands. It's apparent that our ally Saudi Arabia has a far stronger connection to Sept. 11 than our enemy Saddam Hussein, so attacking Hussein makes us look like hypocrites willing to sell out our foreign policy for oil
	CEOs and Ashcroft's Selective Prosecution	by Molly Ivins Attorney General John Ashcroft makes five guys do a perp walk and thinks we're dumb enough to assume that's the end of corporate fraud. It is notoriously difficult to prove fraud and I, for one, am cynical enough to believe that there is a class of people in the country called Too Rich to Go to Prison
	Bush Economic Summit Shows Repubs Just Don't Get It	by Molly Ivins The president dropped in on the assorted gabfests, repeating the same fatuous remarks. "I want a self-regulating (financial) industry," "I want to see a self-policing industry." There was a lot of this self-congratulatory gush about, "We have the world's best whatever." I haven't seen any polls on the state of envy in the rest of the world, but I do know what they think of President Bush
	Class Warfare by any Other Name	by Molly Ivins Some days, you have to believe right-wing ideologues have lost touch with reality completely. Their latest proposal to prevent future Enrons is -- ta-da! -- cut the capital gains tax. And exactly what does that do to prevent future Enrons? Nothing. Except Ken Lay won't have to pay taxes on the stock he sold while his company cratered and his employees watched their life savings disappear
	Guilty as (Not) Charged	by Molly Ivins Now is not the time to dismiss concerns over civil liberties as alarmist. "O pshaw," is not a helpful response to violations of the Constitution. Worse than the dismissive pooh-poohing of concern is the implication that those who speak up on behalf of those caught up in the post-Sept. 11 sweep who have still not been charged with anything are themselves somehow unpatriotic. Boy, is that standing the world on its head. Seems to me every sentient patriot should be concerned
	The Joy of Texas Mudslinging	by Molly Ivins This is the summer of our discontent -- the stock market is dropping like a rock, the corporate world is riddled with crooks, the Washington politicians are hand-in-glove with the crooks, terrorists threaten, John Ashcroft is in charge of civil liberty, a baseball strike looms and, except for the miners, there's nothing but gloom in Mudville. Except here in the Lone Star, where it's back-scratching time at the old corral
	Three Little Horrors Behind Enron Economics	by Molly Ivins The Sarbanes bill, which would never have seen the light of day had the stock market not tanked, fixes one of the Three Little Horrors that set up Enron Economics. Good on Sen. Sarbanes and all who toiled with him to pass it. Lord knows, many years at the Texas Legislature have taught me how hard it is to pass a bill supported by no special interest, but only in the public interest
	Wall St. Scams and Born Again Populists	by Molly Ivins We are now treated to the edifying sight of innumerable politicians scrambling to get right with Jesus, or at least with the voters. Witnessing this land-rush toward civic virtue requires a cast-iron stomach
	The Bad Lessons of the Telecom Bill	by Molly Ivins The Telecommunications Deregulation Act of 1996 was actually written by industry lobbyists, each of the several components of telecom snarling at one another like wolves over a piece of meat as they ripped up 70 years worth of regulatory experience. The wolves united once the bill hit the floor to push it through. We few, we happy few, who raised hell about it at the time had it condescendingly explained to us that the magic of the marketplace would take care of all our doubts
	Widget World vs. Enron Economics	by Molly Ivins As many economic poohbahs have been at pains to explain to us lately, out there in Widget World, where people produce actual goods and provide useful services, things are going along quite nicely. It's the financial sector that's the disaster, the part where they play fancy games with other people's money for a living. That's Enron Economics, the land of stock options, commodities futures, derivatives, swaps, financializing markets and offshore partnerships
	Our Selective View of UN Resolutions	by Norman Solomon While the president claims the right to violently enforce UN Security Council resolutions, Leaver adds, "there are almost 100 current Security Council resolutions that are being ignored, in addition to the 12 or so resolutions that Iraq is ignoring. What the U.S. is saying here is that it has the right to determine which Security Council resolutions are relevant and which are not"
	Media Lets D.C. Sniper Bump Off Election	by Norman Solomon Leading the television race to the bottom, national cable outlets fixated on sniper attacks while giving scant coverage to key election issues. Every once in a while, anchors and correspondents -- as though disassociating from their own roles -- paused to marvel at how the sniping story was deflecting public attention from the stretch drive of the 2002 campaign
	Polls: When Measuring Is Manipulating	by Norman Solomon We may believe that polls tell us what Americans are thinking. But polls also gauge the effectiveness of media spin -- and contribute to it. Opinion polls don't just measure; they also manipulate, helping to shape thoughts and tilting our perceptions of how most people think
	Baghdad, Autumn 2002: City of Doom	by Norman Solomon Iraqi deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz described the box that Washington has meticulously constructed for Iraq, he put it this way: "Doomed if you do, doomed if you don't"
	Sen. John Kerry's Unprincipled Change of Heart	by Norman Solomon In recent days -- despite the outspoken and sometimes courageous positions taken by some members of Congress -- leading Democrats have been shamefully deferential to war planners. If there is an afterlife, the late Americans now weeping at events on Capitol Hill this autumn surely include Sen. Wayne Morse and Rep. Patsy Mink, early opponents of the Vietnam War who refused to put their consciences on hold
	The Politics of Solitary Confinement for Life	by Anita Roddick I met a man last month who has spent more than 30 years in solitary confinement. When I returned home to tell of my visit to Angola, friends and colleagues shook their heads sternly, muttering about African nations torn apart by civil war and chaos. They reminded me how hard it is for Westerners to grasp the traditions and political realities of the Third World. Thank God, they added, for Amnesty International. But, I said, I wasn't in Africa. I wasn't in the Third World. I was in Louisiana, at Angola prison
	October Surprises	by Alexander Cockburn If the economy continues to slide, Bush and his circle will face a truly desperate gamble, trying to figure whether a $200 billion war on Iraq will save them or just plunge them into the mother of all messes
	Dockers and Capitalists	by Alexander Cockburn The West Coast longshoremen stand as a good symbol of what organized labor can do: get its members a decent wage (after 30 years or so of dangerous, skillful work they can maybe hope to earn what an MBA in his mid-20s, two years out of the Wharton School, would demand on walking in the door at a Wall Street firm); display a social and political conscience; and advertise the unfashionable idea that blue-collar work does not have to mean a starvation wage, looted pension fund and no health care
	An Entire Class of Thieves	by Alexander Cockburn The scale of looting? Prodigious. This orgy of thievery, without parallel in the history of capitalism, was condoned and abetted year after year by the archbishop of our economy, Alan Greenspan, a man with a finely honed sense of distinction between the scale of reproof merited by the very rich and those less powerful. When Ron Carey led the Teamsters to victory in 1997, Greenspan rushed to denounce the "inflationary" potential of modestly improved wage packets. Even though declared innocent by a jury of his peers, Carey was forbidden ever to run in a union election again. Where are the sermons from Greenspan about the inflationary potential of stock-option fortunes lofted on the hot air of crooked accountancy and kindred conspiracies?
	Don't Expect The U.S. To Ever Grant Prison Amnesty	by Alexander Cockburn Saddam declared amnesty for not only political prisoners but also criminals. Murderers, both convicted and accused, have to get an OK from the mother of the victim, and debtors need a green light from their creditors. Clearly the Iraqi Corrections Officers' Union hasn't much clout in Baghdad. Nor has the prison construction industry. Imagine what would happen in this country if word leaked out that the president was thinking of amnestying ANY violent criminal, let alone almost all of the inmates of the federal Gulag. A blanket amnesty for all non-violent drug offenders? Within 24 hours the prison industry, the prison guards' unions and law enforcement lobbying groups would swamp Congress with e-mails and personal delegations
	Jimmy Carter and the D.C. Sniper	by Alexander Cockburn There are a lot of retired, highly trained psychopathic killers out there. And some of them aren't even retired. Ask the relatives of the wives of Fort Bragg, murdered by husbands back from Afghanistan, so highly trained they kill if the vacuum cleaner gets on their nerves
	Bush Speech Failed to Make Case for Iraq War	As Congress debated whether to grant President Bush sweeping new powers to wage war, the White House promised that an upcoming speech to the American people would make the case for war against Iraq. Shortly after that Oct. 7 speech, the Institute for Public Accuracy -- a non-partisan consortium that includes top experts on the Middle East -- invited policy researchers to analyze the speech
	When One Honest Man Made a Difference	by Carl Jensen Thirty years ago, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger was talking peace with the North Vietnamese leaders in Paris. Meanwhile, three of America's top military leaders were expanding the war by launching unauthorized and illegal bombing raids over North Vietnam. It marked the beginning of an untold story of honor versus glory -- a warning that needs repeating today
	Senate Panel Says White House May Have Acted Illegally	by Cat Lazaroff "It was wrong for the administration to second guess these final rules," said Senator Joseph Lieberman, the Connecticut Democrat who now chairs the Governmental Affairs Committee. "It was wrong to discount a well established scientific record. And it was wrong for the administration to use stealth tactics to achieve its ideologically driven ends." The report by the Committee's majority staff argues that by discounting regulatory procedures and the value of public participation, the administration set an antagonistic tone for its approach to environmental and health regulations. By excluding public input from the reviews, the administration may even have violated federal law, the report say
	The Spinelessness of the Democrats	by Randolph T. Holhut The mid-term elections that are less than a month away may be the first opportunity to slow down the Bush administration's rush to take this nation into the abyss of war and economic collapse. But this implies that the Democrats have the backbone to stop President Bush
	Leashing the Dogs of War	by Paul Findley Even if the consensus of nationwide debate leads Congress to conclude that pre-emptive acts of war can be justified, other fundamental questions demand thoughtful examination. Should Congress limit the president's authority to make pre-emptive strikes by requiring advance congressional approval in each case? If the answer is affirmative, can Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq be considered a sufficient threat to U.S. security to qualify for pre-emptive assault? Congress needs to beware of unintended consequences. Whatever resolution is enacted by Congress must be drafted so carefully that it cannot be construed as a declaration of war, an interpretation that would automatically convey dictatorial powers to the president
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