This if from Reuters.
This is good news since the Philippines is very much dependent on foreign oil making the cost of gasoline and diesel quite high.
REFILE-UPDATE 1-Philippines' Galoc oilfield to start in April
Thu Feb 28, 2008 3:26am EST
(Corrects web site name in paragraph 4.)
(Adds details throughout)
By Maryelle Demongeot
SINGAPORE, Feb 28 (Reuters) - The Philippines' 17,500 barrels per day (bpd) Galoc oilfield will start commercial production in April, slightly behind plans for a first-quarter launch, an executive with Nido Petroleum Ltd (NDO.AX: Quote, Profile, Research) said on Thursday.
The new crude will raise the Philippines' domestic crude oil output by some 70 percent to up to 42,500 bpd and will provide the first major crude oil addition to the Asia-Pacific region this year.
"Wells are now ready for production services in April 2008," Jon Pattillo, head of exploration for Australia's Nido Petroleum, which holds a 22.279 percent in the development, told an industry conference in Singapore.
Two wells, Galoc-3 and Galoc-4, were completed earlier this month. Galoc-4 flowed at 6,150 bpd and Galoc-3 at 5,200 bpd, operator Galoc production company said in statements earlier this month (www.galoc.com).
The light sweet crude, with a 35 American Petroleum Institute (API) gravity will be marketed by European trader Vitol, a partner in the field, said a company official last year.
Around 240,000 bpd of new sweet crude are expected to come onstream in Asia this year, well below oil demand in the region.
Benchmark Malaysian Tapis crude settled at a record-high of $104.00 a barrel on Wednesday, according to Reuters calculations, above over other bellwethers, which also hit records, reflecting the higher quality of Asia-Pacific grades.
Pattillo said the timing for the Galoc field to come on stream could not have been better. "With $100 oil, the timing is perfect," he told the 13th Asia Upstream Conference.
Pattillo had predicted at the same conference last year that Galoc could come online in the fourth quarter of 2007 and other officials said later in the year the field would start during the first quarter of this year.
Pattillo told Reuters on the sidelines of the conference the timing had slipped from the year-ago plans because of delays in drilling the wells.
The country consumes about 330,000 bpd, which forces it to rely on expensive crude imports.
Other partners in the Galoc field, located in the Northwest Palawan basin, offshore Philippines, include several Philippine companies, Australia's Otto Energy (OEL.AX: Quote, Profile, Research) and Vitol. (Editing by Ramthan Hussain)
© Reuters 2007. All rights reserved.
Friday, February 29, 2008
1 in 100 U.S. Adults behind bars
Even though the average yearly cost for retaining someone in jail is $23,000, it seems there is still lots of support for being being tough or even tougher on crime. The U.S. is now number one in incarcertang their citizens surpassing even Russia. The prison-industrial complex will probably not suffer from any recession.
1 in 100 U.S. Adults Behind Bars, New Study Says
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/28/us/28cnd-prison.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
By ADAM
LIPTAK
Published: February 28, 2008
For the first time in the nation's history, more than one in 100
American
adults is behind bars, according to a new report.
Nationwide, the prison population grew by 25,000 last year, bringing it
to
almost 1.6 million. Another 723,000 people are in local jails. The
number of
American adults is about 230 million, meaning that one in every 99.1
adults
is behind bars.
Incarceration rates are even higher for some groups. One in 36 Hispanic
adults is behind bars, based on Justice Department figures for 2006.
One in
15 black adults is, too, as is one in nine black men between the ages
of 20
and 34.
The report, from the Pew Center on the States, also found that only one
in
355 white women between the ages of 35 and 39 is behind bars, but that
one
in 100 black women is.
The report's methodology differed from that used by the Justice
Department,
which calculates the incarceration rate by using the total population
rather
than the adult population as the denominator. Using the department's
methodology, about one in 130 Americans is behind bars.
Either way, said Susan Urahn, the center's managing director, "we
aren't
really getting the return in public safety from this level of
incarceration."
"We tend to be a country in which incarceration is an easy response to
crime," Ms. Urahn continued. "Being tough on crime is an easy position
to
take, particularly if you have the money. And we did have the money in
the
'80s and '90s."
Now, with fewer resources available to the states, the report said,
"prison
costs are blowing a hole in state budgets." On average, states spend
almost
7 percent on their budgets on corrections, trailing only healthcare,
education and transportation.
In 2007, according to the National Association of State Budgeting
Officers,
states spent $44 billion in tax dollars on corrections. That is up from
$10.6 billion in 1987, a 127 increase once adjusted for inflation. With
money from bond issues and from the federal government included, total
state
spending on corrections last year was $49 billion. By 2011, the report
said,
states are on track to spend an additional $25 billion.
It cost an average of $23,876 to imprison someone in 2005, the most
recent
year for which data is available. But state spending varies widely,
from
$45,000 a year for each inmate in Rhode Island to just $13,000 in
Louisiana.
The cost of medical care is growing by 10 percent annually, the report
said,
a rate that will accelerate as the prison population ages.
About one in nine state government employees works in corrections, and
some
states are finding it hard to fill those jobs. California spent more
than
$500 million on overtime alone in 2006.
The number of prisoners in California dropped by 4,000 last year,
making
Texas's prison system the nation's largest, at about 172,000 inmates.
But
the Texas legislature approved broad changes to the state's corrections
system, including expansions of drug treatment programs and drug courts
and
revisions to parole practices.
"Our violent offenders, we lock them up for a very long time —
rapists,
murderers, child molestors," said John Whitmire, a Democratic state
senator
from Houston and the chairman of the state senate's criminal justice
committee. "The problem was that we weren't smart about nonviolent
offenders. The legislature finally caught up with the public."
He gave an example.
"We have 5,500 D.W.I offenders in prison," he said, including people
caught
driving under the influence who had not been in an accident. "They're
in the
general population. As serious as drinking and driving is, we should
segregate them and give them treatment."
The Pew report recommended diverting nonviolent offenders away from
prison
and using punishments short of reincarceration for minor or technical
violations of probation or parole. It also urged states to consider
earlier
release of some prisoners.
Before the recent changes in Texas, Mr. Whitmire said, "we were
recycling
nonviolent offenders."
1 in 100 U.S. Adults Behind Bars, New Study Says
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/28/us/28cnd-prison.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
By ADAM
LIPTAK
Published: February 28, 2008
For the first time in the nation's history, more than one in 100
American
adults is behind bars, according to a new report.
Nationwide, the prison population grew by 25,000 last year, bringing it
to
almost 1.6 million. Another 723,000 people are in local jails. The
number of
American adults is about 230 million, meaning that one in every 99.1
adults
is behind bars.
Incarceration rates are even higher for some groups. One in 36 Hispanic
adults is behind bars, based on Justice Department figures for 2006.
One in
15 black adults is, too, as is one in nine black men between the ages
of 20
and 34.
The report, from the Pew Center on the States, also found that only one
in
355 white women between the ages of 35 and 39 is behind bars, but that
one
in 100 black women is.
The report's methodology differed from that used by the Justice
Department,
which calculates the incarceration rate by using the total population
rather
than the adult population as the denominator. Using the department's
methodology, about one in 130 Americans is behind bars.
Either way, said Susan Urahn, the center's managing director, "we
aren't
really getting the return in public safety from this level of
incarceration."
"We tend to be a country in which incarceration is an easy response to
crime," Ms. Urahn continued. "Being tough on crime is an easy position
to
take, particularly if you have the money. And we did have the money in
the
'80s and '90s."
Now, with fewer resources available to the states, the report said,
"prison
costs are blowing a hole in state budgets." On average, states spend
almost
7 percent on their budgets on corrections, trailing only healthcare,
education and transportation.
In 2007, according to the National Association of State Budgeting
Officers,
states spent $44 billion in tax dollars on corrections. That is up from
$10.6 billion in 1987, a 127 increase once adjusted for inflation. With
money from bond issues and from the federal government included, total
state
spending on corrections last year was $49 billion. By 2011, the report
said,
states are on track to spend an additional $25 billion.
It cost an average of $23,876 to imprison someone in 2005, the most
recent
year for which data is available. But state spending varies widely,
from
$45,000 a year for each inmate in Rhode Island to just $13,000 in
Louisiana.
The cost of medical care is growing by 10 percent annually, the report
said,
a rate that will accelerate as the prison population ages.
About one in nine state government employees works in corrections, and
some
states are finding it hard to fill those jobs. California spent more
than
$500 million on overtime alone in 2006.
The number of prisoners in California dropped by 4,000 last year,
making
Texas's prison system the nation's largest, at about 172,000 inmates.
But
the Texas legislature approved broad changes to the state's corrections
system, including expansions of drug treatment programs and drug courts
and
revisions to parole practices.
"Our violent offenders, we lock them up for a very long time —
rapists,
murderers, child molestors," said John Whitmire, a Democratic state
senator
from Houston and the chairman of the state senate's criminal justice
committee. "The problem was that we weren't smart about nonviolent
offenders. The legislature finally caught up with the public."
He gave an example.
"We have 5,500 D.W.I offenders in prison," he said, including people
caught
driving under the influence who had not been in an accident. "They're
in the
general population. As serious as drinking and driving is, we should
segregate them and give them treatment."
The Pew report recommended diverting nonviolent offenders away from
prison
and using punishments short of reincarceration for minor or technical
violations of probation or parole. It also urged states to consider
earlier
release of some prisoners.
Before the recent changes in Texas, Mr. Whitmire said, "we were
recycling
nonviolent offenders."
More than 900,000 on U.S. terror list.
Wow! Surely this creates a niche market and leaves room for an operator to fly terror suspects. Perhaps those flights that the CIA used for rendition could now be resumed as for profit flights to help recoup some of the U.S. taxpayers money that was spent on costly rendition flights of terror susspects to foreign torture sites.
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/ACLU_calls_out_US_over_absurd_0227.html
ACLU calls out US over 'absurd bloating' of terror watch list
Nick Juliano
The Raw Story
More that 900,000 people are currently listed as suspected terrorists
on the
US government's "do not fly" list, and that number will grow to beyond
1
million by summer, says the American Civil Liberties Union.
"If there were a million terrorists in this country, our cities would
be in
ruins," Barry Steinhardt, director of the ACLU's Technology and Liberty
Program, stated in a press release from the group. "The absurd bloating
of
the terrorist watch lists is yet another example of how incompetence by
our
security apparatus threatens our rights without offering any real
security."
The ACLU has launched a new Web site to track the growth of the watch
list,
which it says includes thousands of innocent Americans, including
prominent
politicians and authors as well as people with common names.
CONTINUES:
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/ACLU_calls_out_US_over_absurd_0227.html
___________________________________
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/ACLU_calls_out_US_over_absurd_0227.html
ACLU calls out US over 'absurd bloating' of terror watch list
Nick Juliano
The Raw Story
More that 900,000 people are currently listed as suspected terrorists
on the
US government's "do not fly" list, and that number will grow to beyond
1
million by summer, says the American Civil Liberties Union.
"If there were a million terrorists in this country, our cities would
be in
ruins," Barry Steinhardt, director of the ACLU's Technology and Liberty
Program, stated in a press release from the group. "The absurd bloating
of
the terrorist watch lists is yet another example of how incompetence by
our
security apparatus threatens our rights without offering any real
security."
The ACLU has launched a new Web site to track the growth of the watch
list,
which it says includes thousands of innocent Americans, including
prominent
politicians and authors as well as people with common names.
CONTINUES:
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/ACLU_calls_out_US_over_absurd_0227.html
___________________________________
Joseph Stiglitz: The Three Trillion Dollar War
This sounds as if it will be an interesting book. I am amazed that there is so little discussion of the cost of the Iraq and Afghan wars. The Democratic front-runner wants to increase the size of the military so that Americans are unlikely to see any decline in military spending. The type of Keynesian militarism that has fuelled the U.S. economy for ages does not seem to be even within the radar of present discussions of the U.S. economic crisis.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/28891.html
By Kevin G. Hall | McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON — When U.S. troops invaded Iraq in March 2003, the Bush
administration predicted that the war would be self-financing and that
rebuilding the nation would cost less than $2 billion.
Coming up on the fifth anniversary of the invasion, a Nobel laureate
now
estimates that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are costing America
more
than $3 trillion.
That estimate from Noble Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz also
serves
as the title of his new book, "The Three Trillion Dollar War," which
hits
store shelves Friday.
CONINUES: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/28891.html
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/28891.html
By Kevin G. Hall | McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON — When U.S. troops invaded Iraq in March 2003, the Bush
administration predicted that the war would be self-financing and that
rebuilding the nation would cost less than $2 billion.
Coming up on the fifth anniversary of the invasion, a Nobel laureate
now
estimates that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are costing America
more
than $3 trillion.
That estimate from Noble Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz also
serves
as the title of his new book, "The Three Trillion Dollar War," which
hits
store shelves Friday.
CONINUES: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/28891.html
Obama and Clinton flip-flops
There are five from each Democratic candidate. Perhaps the Republican candidates never flip-flop!
from washingtonpost.com
Monday, February 25, 2008; A04
Top Obama Flip-Flops
1. Special interests. In January, the Obama campaign described union
contributions to the campaigns of Clinton and John Edwards as "special
interest" money. Obama changed his tune as he began gathering his own
union endorsements. He now refers respectfully to unions as the
representatives of "working people" and says he is "thrilled" by their
support.
2. Public financing. Obama replied "yes" in September 2007 when asked
if he would agree to public financing of the presidential election if
his GOP opponent did the same. Obama has now attached several
conditions to such an agreement, including regulating spending by
outside groups. His spokesman says the candidate never committed
himself on the matter.
3. The Cuba embargo. In January 2004, Obama said it was time "to end
the embargo with Cuba" because it had "utterly failed in the effort to
overthrow Castro." Speaking to a Cuban American audience in Miami in
August 2007, he said he would not "take off the embargo" as president
because it is "an important inducement for change."
4. Illegal immigration. In a March 2004 questionnaire, Obama was asked
if the government should "crack down on businesses that hire illegal
immigrants." He replied "Oppose." In a Jan. 31, 2008, televised
debate, he said that "we do have to crack down on those employers that
are taking advantage of the situation."
5. Decriminalization of marijuana. While running for the U.S. Senate
in January 2004, Obama told Illinois college students that he
supported eliminating criminal penalties for marijuana use. In the
Oct. 30, 2007, presidential debate, he joined other Democratic
candidates in opposing the decriminalization of marijuana.
Top Clinton Flip-Flops
1. NAFTA. In a January 2004 news conference, Clinton said she thought
that "on balance [NAFTA] has been good for New York and good for
America." She now says she has "long been a critic of the shortcomings
of NAFTA" and advocates a "time out" from similar trade agreements.
2. No Child Left Behind. Clinton voted in favor of the 2002 education
bill that focused on raising student achievement levels, hailing the
measure as "a major step forward." She now attacks the law at campaign
rallies and meetings with teachers, describing it as a "test, test,
test" approach.
3. Ending the war in Iraq. In June 2006, Clinton restated her
long-standing opposition to establishing timetables for withdrawing
U.S. forces in Iraq. In a Jan. 15, 2008, Democratic debate in Las
Vegas, she proposed to "start withdrawing" troops within 60 days of
her inauguration, to bring out "one or two brigades a month" and to
have "nearly all of the troops out" by the end of 2009.
4 . Driver's licenses for illegal immigrants. In a campaign statement
on Oct. 31, 2007, Clinton expressed support for a plan by New York
Gov. Eliot L. Spitzer (D) to offer limited driver's licenses to
illegal immigrants, after going back and forth on the matter in a
televised debate. In a Nov. 15, 2007, televised debate from Nevada,
she replied with a simple "no" when asked if she approved the driver's
license idea in the absence of comprehensive immigration changes.
5. Florida and Michigan delegates. In September 2007, the Clinton
campaign formally pledged not to participate in primary or caucus
elections staged before Feb. 5, 2008, in defiance of Democratic
National Committee rules. She now says delegates from Florida and
Michigan should be seated at the Democratic National Convention,
despite their flouting of rules that all the major Democratic
candidates endorsed.
(c) 2008 The Washington Post Company
from washingtonpost.com
Monday, February 25, 2008; A04
Top Obama Flip-Flops
1. Special interests. In January, the Obama campaign described union
contributions to the campaigns of Clinton and John Edwards as "special
interest" money. Obama changed his tune as he began gathering his own
union endorsements. He now refers respectfully to unions as the
representatives of "working people" and says he is "thrilled" by their
support.
2. Public financing. Obama replied "yes" in September 2007 when asked
if he would agree to public financing of the presidential election if
his GOP opponent did the same. Obama has now attached several
conditions to such an agreement, including regulating spending by
outside groups. His spokesman says the candidate never committed
himself on the matter.
3. The Cuba embargo. In January 2004, Obama said it was time "to end
the embargo with Cuba" because it had "utterly failed in the effort to
overthrow Castro." Speaking to a Cuban American audience in Miami in
August 2007, he said he would not "take off the embargo" as president
because it is "an important inducement for change."
4. Illegal immigration. In a March 2004 questionnaire, Obama was asked
if the government should "crack down on businesses that hire illegal
immigrants." He replied "Oppose." In a Jan. 31, 2008, televised
debate, he said that "we do have to crack down on those employers that
are taking advantage of the situation."
5. Decriminalization of marijuana. While running for the U.S. Senate
in January 2004, Obama told Illinois college students that he
supported eliminating criminal penalties for marijuana use. In the
Oct. 30, 2007, presidential debate, he joined other Democratic
candidates in opposing the decriminalization of marijuana.
Top Clinton Flip-Flops
1. NAFTA. In a January 2004 news conference, Clinton said she thought
that "on balance [NAFTA] has been good for New York and good for
America." She now says she has "long been a critic of the shortcomings
of NAFTA" and advocates a "time out" from similar trade agreements.
2. No Child Left Behind. Clinton voted in favor of the 2002 education
bill that focused on raising student achievement levels, hailing the
measure as "a major step forward." She now attacks the law at campaign
rallies and meetings with teachers, describing it as a "test, test,
test" approach.
3. Ending the war in Iraq. In June 2006, Clinton restated her
long-standing opposition to establishing timetables for withdrawing
U.S. forces in Iraq. In a Jan. 15, 2008, Democratic debate in Las
Vegas, she proposed to "start withdrawing" troops within 60 days of
her inauguration, to bring out "one or two brigades a month" and to
have "nearly all of the troops out" by the end of 2009.
4 . Driver's licenses for illegal immigrants. In a campaign statement
on Oct. 31, 2007, Clinton expressed support for a plan by New York
Gov. Eliot L. Spitzer (D) to offer limited driver's licenses to
illegal immigrants, after going back and forth on the matter in a
televised debate. In a Nov. 15, 2007, televised debate from Nevada,
she replied with a simple "no" when asked if she approved the driver's
license idea in the absence of comprehensive immigration changes.
5. Florida and Michigan delegates. In September 2007, the Clinton
campaign formally pledged not to participate in primary or caucus
elections staged before Feb. 5, 2008, in defiance of Democratic
National Committee rules. She now says delegates from Florida and
Michigan should be seated at the Democratic National Convention,
despite their flouting of rules that all the major Democratic
candidates endorsed.
(c) 2008 The Washington Post Company
Thursday, February 28, 2008
U.S. Demonstrators protest Iraq Oil Law.
This is from the Freepress. As noted, the mainstream press simply ignores demonstrations such as this. At least, some segments of labor have shown solidarity with Iraqi labor. Imagine that unions in the public sector are still banned so that the government does not recognise the oil unions. How many Americans are even aware of this?
Kick that barrel
by Mike Ferner
February 23, 2008
In a town awash in irony, this particular example of it couldn’t have been more striking.
Yesterday, in Washington, D.C., former Marine Corps Sergeant and Iraq War vet, Adam Kokesh, kick-rolled a 55-gallon oil drum lettered “Hands Off Iraqi Oil” across K Street – an avenue that has become synonymous with the power of corporate lobbyists.
Kokesh, former Army National Guard Sergeant Geoff Millard, and former Army Private Marc Trainer, in the center of a knot of demonstrators, took turns kicking the barrel up 16th Street towards Lafayette Park, adjoining the White House, for a protest sponsored by U.S. Labor Against the War (USLAW), Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW), and Oil Change International.
The protest and an earlier news conference at the Institute for Policy Studies was called to bring public attention to the Oil Law passed by the Iraqi Cabinet one year ago and now waiting approval by Parliament.
Citing a letter USLAW sent yesterday to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and George Bush, Gene Bruskin, co-convenor of USLAW, said that under Paul Bremer, the man Bush put in charge of running Iraq right after the invasion, the Hussein administration laws were wiped off the books – except for Law 150 and Law 151 which prohibit Iraqi workers from organizing unions in the public sector, some two-thirds of the nation’s economy.
“For there to be freedom in Iraq,” Bruskin said, “working people have to have representation. And not just on labor contracts but on social policy.” He pledged the continuing support of USLAW, whose member organizations represent some three million U.S. workers, to Iraqi oil workers and their union, the Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions.
Kokesh, who said his time in Iraq taught him that “we are making enemies faster than we can kill them,” called the U.S. presence in Iraq a military and an economic occupation, and that they are “inherently tied.”
Trina Zahller, representing Oil Change International, stated, “No law passed under the U.S. occupation can have legitimacy. Iraqi oil is not a resource for the oil companies, it is for the Iraqi people.”
She said her group’s position is that there should be an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq; that no oil law or long term contracts law be passed under the U.S. occupation; and that international oil companies should be prohibited from owning Iraqi oil. She added that the pending Oil Law provides that currently operating fields stay under Iraqi control, but that future profits from “undiscovered” oil – estimated at 50 percent of all Iraq’s oil – be controlled by oil corporations.
Maintaining its tradition of largely ignoring events critical of U.S. policy in Iraq, U.S. corporate news outlets were conspicuously absent from yesterday’s news conference and protest. United Press International, Talk Radio News, Voice of America and a D.C. television station were the only U.S. news media present. Representing the international press were Reuters; Agence France Press, one of the world’s top newswires; Telesur, a TV network serving much of Latin America; Al Jazeera; and the Japanese newspaper, Akahata.
---
Ferner is an independent journalist and author of “Inside the Red Zone: A Veteran For Peace Reports from Iraq.”
Kick that barrel
by Mike Ferner
February 23, 2008
In a town awash in irony, this particular example of it couldn’t have been more striking.
Yesterday, in Washington, D.C., former Marine Corps Sergeant and Iraq War vet, Adam Kokesh, kick-rolled a 55-gallon oil drum lettered “Hands Off Iraqi Oil” across K Street – an avenue that has become synonymous with the power of corporate lobbyists.
Kokesh, former Army National Guard Sergeant Geoff Millard, and former Army Private Marc Trainer, in the center of a knot of demonstrators, took turns kicking the barrel up 16th Street towards Lafayette Park, adjoining the White House, for a protest sponsored by U.S. Labor Against the War (USLAW), Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW), and Oil Change International.
The protest and an earlier news conference at the Institute for Policy Studies was called to bring public attention to the Oil Law passed by the Iraqi Cabinet one year ago and now waiting approval by Parliament.
Citing a letter USLAW sent yesterday to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and George Bush, Gene Bruskin, co-convenor of USLAW, said that under Paul Bremer, the man Bush put in charge of running Iraq right after the invasion, the Hussein administration laws were wiped off the books – except for Law 150 and Law 151 which prohibit Iraqi workers from organizing unions in the public sector, some two-thirds of the nation’s economy.
“For there to be freedom in Iraq,” Bruskin said, “working people have to have representation. And not just on labor contracts but on social policy.” He pledged the continuing support of USLAW, whose member organizations represent some three million U.S. workers, to Iraqi oil workers and their union, the Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions.
Kokesh, who said his time in Iraq taught him that “we are making enemies faster than we can kill them,” called the U.S. presence in Iraq a military and an economic occupation, and that they are “inherently tied.”
Trina Zahller, representing Oil Change International, stated, “No law passed under the U.S. occupation can have legitimacy. Iraqi oil is not a resource for the oil companies, it is for the Iraqi people.”
She said her group’s position is that there should be an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq; that no oil law or long term contracts law be passed under the U.S. occupation; and that international oil companies should be prohibited from owning Iraqi oil. She added that the pending Oil Law provides that currently operating fields stay under Iraqi control, but that future profits from “undiscovered” oil – estimated at 50 percent of all Iraq’s oil – be controlled by oil corporations.
Maintaining its tradition of largely ignoring events critical of U.S. policy in Iraq, U.S. corporate news outlets were conspicuously absent from yesterday’s news conference and protest. United Press International, Talk Radio News, Voice of America and a D.C. television station were the only U.S. news media present. Representing the international press were Reuters; Agence France Press, one of the world’s top newswires; Telesur, a TV network serving much of Latin America; Al Jazeera; and the Japanese newspaper, Akahata.
---
Ferner is an independent journalist and author of “Inside the Red Zone: A Veteran For Peace Reports from Iraq.”
Chomsky: The World According to Washington
The whole article is at Asia Times. With his usual sharp sarcasm Chomsky reveals at great length and in detail the transparent hypocrisy involved in Washington's (and to a great extent the world press) moralistic and vehement denunciation of some terrorist acts while studiously ignoring others.
'The world' according to Washington
By Noam Chomsky
On February 13, Imad Moughniyeh, a senior commander of Hezbollah, was assassinated in Damascus. "The world is a better place without this man in it," US State Department spokesperson Sean McCormack said. "One way or the other he was brought to justice." Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell added that Moughniyeh had been "responsible for more deaths of Americans and Israelis than any other terrorist with the exception of Osama bin Laden".
Joy was unconstrained in Israel too, as "one of the US and Israel's most wanted men" was brought to justice, the London Financial Times reported. Under the heading, "A militant wanted the world over", an accompanying story reported that he was "superseded on the most-wanted list by Osama bin Laden" after
September 11, 2001, and so ranked second among "the most wanted militants in the world".
The terminology is accurate enough, according to the rules of Anglo-American discourse, which defines "the world" as the political class in Washington and London (and whoever happens to agree with them on specific matters). It is common, for example, to read that "the world" fully supported President George W Bush when he ordered the bombing of Afghanistan in 2001. That may be true of "the world", but hardly of the world, as revealed in an international Gallup Poll after the bombing was announced. Global support was slight.
In Latin America, which has some experience with US behavior, support ranged from 2% in Mexico to 16% in Panama, and that support was conditional on the culprits being identified (they still weren't eight months later, the Federal Bureau of Investigation reported), and civilian targets being spared (they were attacked at once). There was an overwhelming preference in the world for diplomatic/judicial measures, rejected out of hand by "the world".
Following the terror trail
In the present case, if "the world" were extended to the world, we might find some other candidates for the honor of most hated arch-criminal. It is instructive to ask why this might be true.
The Financial Times reports that most of the charges against Moughniyeh are unsubstantiated, but "one of the very few times when his involvement can be ascertained with certainty [is in] the hijacking of a TWA plane in 1985 in which a US Navy diver was killed". This was one of two terrorist atrocities that led a poll of newspaper editors to select terrorism in the Middle East as the top story of 1985; the other was the hijacking of the passenger liner Achille Lauro, in which a crippled American, Leon Klinghoffer, was brutally murdered. That reflects the judgment of "the world". It may be that the world saw matters somewhat differently.
The Achille Lauro hijacking was a retaliation for the bombing of Tunis ordered a week earlier by Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres. His air force killed 75 Tunisians and Palestinians with smart bombs that tore them to shreds, among other atrocities, as vividly reported from the scene by the prominent Israeli journalist Amnon Kapeliouk. Washington cooperated by failing to warn its ally Tunisia that the bombers were on the way, though the Sixth Fleet and US intelligence could not have been unaware of the impending attack. Secretary of State George Shultz informed Israeli Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir that Washington "had considerable sympathy for the Israeli action", which he termed "a legitimate response" to "terrorist attacks", to general approbation. A few days later, the UN Security Council unanimously denounced the bombing as an "act of armed aggression" (with the US abstaining). "Aggression" is, of course, a far more serious crime than international terrorism. But giving the United States and Israel the benefit of the doubt, let us keep to the lesser charge against their leadership.
A few days after, Peres went to Washington to consult with the leading international terrorist of the day, Ronald Reagan, who denounced "the evil scourge of terrorism", again with general acclaim by "the world".
The "terrorist attacks" that Shultz and Peres offered as the pretext for the bombing of Tunis were the killings of three Israelis in Larnaca, Cyprus. The killers, as Israel conceded, had nothing to do with Tunis, though they might have had Syrian connections. Tunis was a preferable target, however. It was defenseless, unlike Damascus. And there was an extra pleasure: more exiled Palestinians could be killed there.
The Larnaca killings, in turn, were regarded as retaliation by the perpetrators: They were a response to regular Israeli hijackings in international waters in which many victims were killed - and many more kidnapped and sent to prisons in Israel, commonly to be held without charge for long periods. The most notorious of these has been the secret prison/torture chamber Facility 1391. A good deal can be learned about it from the Israeli and foreign press. Such regular Israeli crimes are, of course, known to editors of the national press in the US and occasionally receive some casual mention.
Klinghoffer's murder was properly viewed with horror and is very famous. It was the topic of an acclaimed opera and a made-for-TV movie, as well as much shocked commentary deploring the savagery of Palestinians - "two-headed beasts" (Prime Minister Menachem Begin), "drugged roaches scurrying around in a bottle" (Chief of Staff Raful Eitan), "like grasshoppers compared to us," whose heads should be "smashed against the boulders and walls" (Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir). Or more commonly just "Araboushim," the slang counterpart of "kike" or "nigger".
Thus, after a particularly depraved display of settler-military terror and purposeful humiliation in the West Bank town of Halhul in December 1982, which disgusted even Israeli hawks, the well-known military/political analyst Yoram Peri wrote in dismay that one "task of the army today [is] to demolish the rights of innocent people just because they are Araboushim living in territories that God promised to us", a task that became far more urgent, and was carried out with far more brutality, when the Araboushim began to "raise their heads" a few years later.
We can easily assess the sincerity of the sentiments expressed about the Klinghoffer murder. It is only necessary to investigate the reaction to comparable US-backed Israeli crimes. Take, for example, the murder in April 2002 of two crippled Palestinians, Kemal Zughayer and Jamal Rashid, by Israeli forces rampaging through the refugee camp of Jenin in the West Bank. Zughayer's crushed body and the remains of his wheelchair were found by British reporters, along with the remains of the white flag he was holding when he was shot dead while seeking to flee the Israeli tanks which then drove over him, ripping his face in two and severing his arms and legs.
Jamal Rashid was crushed in his wheelchair when one of Israel's huge US-supplied Caterpillar bulldozers demolished his home in Jenin with his family inside. The differential reaction, or rather non-reaction, has become so routine and so easy to explain that no further commentary is necessary.
Car bomb
Plainly, the 1985 Tunis bombing was a vastly more severe terrorist crime than the Achille Lauro hijacking, or the crime for which Moughniyeh's "involvement can be ascertained with certainty" in the same year. But even the Tunis bombing had competitors for the prize for worst terrorist atrocity in the Mideast in the peak year of 1985.
One challenger was a car-bombing in Beirut right outside a mosque, timed to go off as worshippers were leaving Friday prayers. It killed 80 people and wounded 256. Most of the dead were girls and women, who had been leaving the mosque, though the ferocity of the blast "burned babies in their beds", "killed a bride buying her trousseau", and "blew away three children as they walked home from the mosque". It also "devastated the main street of the densely populated" West Beirut suburb, reported Nora Boustany three years later in the Washington Post.
The intended target had been the Shi'ite cleric Sheikh Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah, who escaped. The bombing was carried out by Reagan's CIA and his Saudi allies, with Britain's help, and was specifically authorized by CIA director William Casey, according to Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward's account in his book Veil: The Secret Wars of the CIA, 1981-1987. Little is known beyond the bare facts, thanks to rigorous adherence to the doctrine that we do not investigate our own crimes (unless they become too prominent to suppress, and the inquiry can be limited to some low-level "bad apples" who were naturally "out of control").
'Terrorist villagers'
A third competitor for the 1985 Mideast terrorism prize was Prime Minister Peres' "Iron Fist" operations in southern Lebanese territories then occupied by Israel in violation of Security Council orders. The targets were what the Israeli high command called "terrorist villagers". Peres's crimes in this case sank to new depths of "calculated brutality and arbitrary murder" in the words of a Western diplomat familiar with the area, an assessment amply supported by direct coverage. They are, however, of no interest to "the world" and therefore remain uninvestigated, in accordance with the usual conventions.
We might well ask whether these crimes fall under international terrorism or the far more severe crime of aggression, but let us again give the benefit of the doubt to Israel and its backers in Washington and keep to the lesser charge.
These are a few of the thoughts that might cross the minds of people elsewhere in the world, even if not those of "the world", when considering "one of the very few times" Imad Moughniyeh was clearly implicated in a terrorist crime.
The US also accuses him of responsibility for devastating double suicide truck-bomb attacks on US Marine and French paratrooper barracks in Lebanon in 1983, killing 241 Marines and 58 paratroopers, as well as a prior attack on the US Embassy in Beirut, killing 63, a particularly serious blow because of a meeting there of CIA officials at the time.
The Financial Times has, however, attributed the attack on the Marine barracks to Islamic Jihad, not Hezbollah. Fawaz Gerges, one of the leading scholars on the jihadi movements and on Lebanon, has written that responsibility was taken by an "unknown group called Islamic Jihad". A voice speaking in classical Arabic called for all Americans to leave Lebanon or face death. It has been claimed that Moughniyeh was the head of Islamic Jihad at the time, but to my knowledge, evidence is sparse.
The opinion of the world has not been sampled on the subject, but it is possible that there might be some hesitancy about calling an attack on a military base in a foreign country a "terrorist attack", particularly when US and French forces were carrying out heavy naval bombardments and air strikes in Lebanon, and shortly after the US provided decisive support for the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, which killed some 20,000 people and devastated the south, while leaving much of Beirut in ruins. It was finally called off by President Reagan when international protest became too intense to ignore after the Sabra-Shatila massacres.
In the United States, the Israeli invasion of Lebanon is regularly described as a reaction to Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) terrorist attacks on northern Israel from their Lebanese bases, making our crucial contribution to these major war crimes understandable.
'The world' according to Washington
By Noam Chomsky
On February 13, Imad Moughniyeh, a senior commander of Hezbollah, was assassinated in Damascus. "The world is a better place without this man in it," US State Department spokesperson Sean McCormack said. "One way or the other he was brought to justice." Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell added that Moughniyeh had been "responsible for more deaths of Americans and Israelis than any other terrorist with the exception of Osama bin Laden".
Joy was unconstrained in Israel too, as "one of the US and Israel's most wanted men" was brought to justice, the London Financial Times reported. Under the heading, "A militant wanted the world over", an accompanying story reported that he was "superseded on the most-wanted list by Osama bin Laden" after
September 11, 2001, and so ranked second among "the most wanted militants in the world".
The terminology is accurate enough, according to the rules of Anglo-American discourse, which defines "the world" as the political class in Washington and London (and whoever happens to agree with them on specific matters). It is common, for example, to read that "the world" fully supported President George W Bush when he ordered the bombing of Afghanistan in 2001. That may be true of "the world", but hardly of the world, as revealed in an international Gallup Poll after the bombing was announced. Global support was slight.
In Latin America, which has some experience with US behavior, support ranged from 2% in Mexico to 16% in Panama, and that support was conditional on the culprits being identified (they still weren't eight months later, the Federal Bureau of Investigation reported), and civilian targets being spared (they were attacked at once). There was an overwhelming preference in the world for diplomatic/judicial measures, rejected out of hand by "the world".
Following the terror trail
In the present case, if "the world" were extended to the world, we might find some other candidates for the honor of most hated arch-criminal. It is instructive to ask why this might be true.
The Financial Times reports that most of the charges against Moughniyeh are unsubstantiated, but "one of the very few times when his involvement can be ascertained with certainty [is in] the hijacking of a TWA plane in 1985 in which a US Navy diver was killed". This was one of two terrorist atrocities that led a poll of newspaper editors to select terrorism in the Middle East as the top story of 1985; the other was the hijacking of the passenger liner Achille Lauro, in which a crippled American, Leon Klinghoffer, was brutally murdered. That reflects the judgment of "the world". It may be that the world saw matters somewhat differently.
The Achille Lauro hijacking was a retaliation for the bombing of Tunis ordered a week earlier by Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres. His air force killed 75 Tunisians and Palestinians with smart bombs that tore them to shreds, among other atrocities, as vividly reported from the scene by the prominent Israeli journalist Amnon Kapeliouk. Washington cooperated by failing to warn its ally Tunisia that the bombers were on the way, though the Sixth Fleet and US intelligence could not have been unaware of the impending attack. Secretary of State George Shultz informed Israeli Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir that Washington "had considerable sympathy for the Israeli action", which he termed "a legitimate response" to "terrorist attacks", to general approbation. A few days later, the UN Security Council unanimously denounced the bombing as an "act of armed aggression" (with the US abstaining). "Aggression" is, of course, a far more serious crime than international terrorism. But giving the United States and Israel the benefit of the doubt, let us keep to the lesser charge against their leadership.
A few days after, Peres went to Washington to consult with the leading international terrorist of the day, Ronald Reagan, who denounced "the evil scourge of terrorism", again with general acclaim by "the world".
The "terrorist attacks" that Shultz and Peres offered as the pretext for the bombing of Tunis were the killings of three Israelis in Larnaca, Cyprus. The killers, as Israel conceded, had nothing to do with Tunis, though they might have had Syrian connections. Tunis was a preferable target, however. It was defenseless, unlike Damascus. And there was an extra pleasure: more exiled Palestinians could be killed there.
The Larnaca killings, in turn, were regarded as retaliation by the perpetrators: They were a response to regular Israeli hijackings in international waters in which many victims were killed - and many more kidnapped and sent to prisons in Israel, commonly to be held without charge for long periods. The most notorious of these has been the secret prison/torture chamber Facility 1391. A good deal can be learned about it from the Israeli and foreign press. Such regular Israeli crimes are, of course, known to editors of the national press in the US and occasionally receive some casual mention.
Klinghoffer's murder was properly viewed with horror and is very famous. It was the topic of an acclaimed opera and a made-for-TV movie, as well as much shocked commentary deploring the savagery of Palestinians - "two-headed beasts" (Prime Minister Menachem Begin), "drugged roaches scurrying around in a bottle" (Chief of Staff Raful Eitan), "like grasshoppers compared to us," whose heads should be "smashed against the boulders and walls" (Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir). Or more commonly just "Araboushim," the slang counterpart of "kike" or "nigger".
Thus, after a particularly depraved display of settler-military terror and purposeful humiliation in the West Bank town of Halhul in December 1982, which disgusted even Israeli hawks, the well-known military/political analyst Yoram Peri wrote in dismay that one "task of the army today [is] to demolish the rights of innocent people just because they are Araboushim living in territories that God promised to us", a task that became far more urgent, and was carried out with far more brutality, when the Araboushim began to "raise their heads" a few years later.
We can easily assess the sincerity of the sentiments expressed about the Klinghoffer murder. It is only necessary to investigate the reaction to comparable US-backed Israeli crimes. Take, for example, the murder in April 2002 of two crippled Palestinians, Kemal Zughayer and Jamal Rashid, by Israeli forces rampaging through the refugee camp of Jenin in the West Bank. Zughayer's crushed body and the remains of his wheelchair were found by British reporters, along with the remains of the white flag he was holding when he was shot dead while seeking to flee the Israeli tanks which then drove over him, ripping his face in two and severing his arms and legs.
Jamal Rashid was crushed in his wheelchair when one of Israel's huge US-supplied Caterpillar bulldozers demolished his home in Jenin with his family inside. The differential reaction, or rather non-reaction, has become so routine and so easy to explain that no further commentary is necessary.
Car bomb
Plainly, the 1985 Tunis bombing was a vastly more severe terrorist crime than the Achille Lauro hijacking, or the crime for which Moughniyeh's "involvement can be ascertained with certainty" in the same year. But even the Tunis bombing had competitors for the prize for worst terrorist atrocity in the Mideast in the peak year of 1985.
One challenger was a car-bombing in Beirut right outside a mosque, timed to go off as worshippers were leaving Friday prayers. It killed 80 people and wounded 256. Most of the dead were girls and women, who had been leaving the mosque, though the ferocity of the blast "burned babies in their beds", "killed a bride buying her trousseau", and "blew away three children as they walked home from the mosque". It also "devastated the main street of the densely populated" West Beirut suburb, reported Nora Boustany three years later in the Washington Post.
The intended target had been the Shi'ite cleric Sheikh Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah, who escaped. The bombing was carried out by Reagan's CIA and his Saudi allies, with Britain's help, and was specifically authorized by CIA director William Casey, according to Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward's account in his book Veil: The Secret Wars of the CIA, 1981-1987. Little is known beyond the bare facts, thanks to rigorous adherence to the doctrine that we do not investigate our own crimes (unless they become too prominent to suppress, and the inquiry can be limited to some low-level "bad apples" who were naturally "out of control").
'Terrorist villagers'
A third competitor for the 1985 Mideast terrorism prize was Prime Minister Peres' "Iron Fist" operations in southern Lebanese territories then occupied by Israel in violation of Security Council orders. The targets were what the Israeli high command called "terrorist villagers". Peres's crimes in this case sank to new depths of "calculated brutality and arbitrary murder" in the words of a Western diplomat familiar with the area, an assessment amply supported by direct coverage. They are, however, of no interest to "the world" and therefore remain uninvestigated, in accordance with the usual conventions.
We might well ask whether these crimes fall under international terrorism or the far more severe crime of aggression, but let us again give the benefit of the doubt to Israel and its backers in Washington and keep to the lesser charge.
These are a few of the thoughts that might cross the minds of people elsewhere in the world, even if not those of "the world", when considering "one of the very few times" Imad Moughniyeh was clearly implicated in a terrorist crime.
The US also accuses him of responsibility for devastating double suicide truck-bomb attacks on US Marine and French paratrooper barracks in Lebanon in 1983, killing 241 Marines and 58 paratroopers, as well as a prior attack on the US Embassy in Beirut, killing 63, a particularly serious blow because of a meeting there of CIA officials at the time.
The Financial Times has, however, attributed the attack on the Marine barracks to Islamic Jihad, not Hezbollah. Fawaz Gerges, one of the leading scholars on the jihadi movements and on Lebanon, has written that responsibility was taken by an "unknown group called Islamic Jihad". A voice speaking in classical Arabic called for all Americans to leave Lebanon or face death. It has been claimed that Moughniyeh was the head of Islamic Jihad at the time, but to my knowledge, evidence is sparse.
The opinion of the world has not been sampled on the subject, but it is possible that there might be some hesitancy about calling an attack on a military base in a foreign country a "terrorist attack", particularly when US and French forces were carrying out heavy naval bombardments and air strikes in Lebanon, and shortly after the US provided decisive support for the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, which killed some 20,000 people and devastated the south, while leaving much of Beirut in ruins. It was finally called off by President Reagan when international protest became too intense to ignore after the Sabra-Shatila massacres.
In the United States, the Israeli invasion of Lebanon is regularly described as a reaction to Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) terrorist attacks on northern Israel from their Lebanese bases, making our crucial contribution to these major war crimes understandable.
In the Dragon's Lair
This is part of an article from Asiatimes. Those humanitarian and infra-structure programs of the U.S. military are designed to make the Philippines easily available for use by U.S. forces. I wonder if these secret CSL's or Co-operative Security Locations are even discussed in the Philippines. Don't be surprised if there is some corruption involving them and key filipino politicians and business people.
IN THE DRAGON'S LAIR
US prowls for China in the Philippines
By Herbert Docena Since the closure of its military bases in the country in 1991, the United States has incrementally regained, transformed and deepened its military presence and intervention in the Philippines. The manner in which the US has attempted to re-establish basing in the Philippines illustrates its attempts to radically overhaul its global offensive capabilities to become more agile and efficient while overcoming mounting domestic opposition to its presence around the world. The objectives with which the United States has sought to achieve this in the Philippines - a country that is firmly within what US analysts and strategists call "the dragon's lair" - point to the
emerging US strategy toward what it has officially identified as the one country with "the greatest potential to compete with the United States" - China. In this strategy, the Philippines, by virtue both of its location as well as its political disposition towards the US relative to its neighbors, plays a crucial role. Basing without basesAfter George W Bush came to power, the US began to attempt in earnest to implement what its proponents bill as the most comprehensive reconfiguration of its global military presence since World War II. The underlying rationale is clear: the positioning and forms of US military bases of the past - built as they were for the Cold War - no longer suffice for the present. The US overseas basing must therefore be transformed so as to enable the US military to become leaner and meaner, quicker and more agile. In the Philippines, as in a growing number of places around the world, the one persistent constraint for both the US and Philippine governments, however, has been the long-standing domestic sensitivity to US bases in the country. This opposition was actually an important - if not the decisive - factor in the decision to close the bases in 1991 and in the adoption in the post-Ferdinand Marcos 1987 constitution of provisions banning foreign military bases in the country. As it has embarked on the project of transforming its global presence, the US has also sought to adapt to and undermine domestic opposition to its bases. In this, the US military's reconceptualization of its global military presence - no longer as merely a collection of physical structures but as a global "posture" - is illuminating. By posture, explained US Under Secretary of Defense Douglas J Feith, "We are not talking only about basing, we're talking about the ability of our forces to operate when and where they are needed." Thus, recognizing that the local political situation is not yet ripe for the re-establishment of the kind of large military bases it once had in the Philippines, the United States has instead moved to achieve this ability in various other ways. Recurring deploymentsThe United States has been deploying a growing number of its troops, ships and equipment all over the Philippines ostensibly for training exercises, humanitarian and engineering projects, and other missions. In 2006 alone, up to 37 military exercises were scheduled - up from around 24 in the preceding years. As many as 6,000 US troops are involved, depending on the exercise. Although packaged as on-and-off temporary programs to train US and Filipino troops, such exercises are seen as an alternative way for the US military to secure access to the Philippines. "The habitual relationships built through exercises and training," former US Pacific Command head Admiral Thomas Fargo noted in March 2003, "is our biggest guarantor of access in time of need." He continued: "Access over time can develop into habitual use of certain facilities by deployed US forces with the eventual goal of being guaranteed use in a crisis, or permission to preposition logistics stocks and other critical material in strategic forward locations." As US troops come and go in rotation for frequent and regular exercises, their presence - when taken together - makes up a formidable forward presence that brings them closer to areas of possible action without need for huge infrastructure to support them and without inciting a lot of public attention and opposition. As the US National Defense Strategy states, "Our posture also includes the many military activities in which we engage around the world. This means not only our physical presence in key regions, but also our training, exercises, and operations." Along with troops, an increasing number of ships have also been entering the country's territorial waters and docking at various ports with growing frequency. Such ship visits are also seen as ways to establish presence. As the US Congressional Budget Office has pointed out, The Navy counts those ships as providing overseas presence full time, even when they are training or simply tied up at the pier." Dual-use infrastructureApart from the troop deployments and ship visits, the US has also been constructing an increasing number of structures and facilities that could be useful for the US military when the contingency arises - while at the same time allowing it to buy political support from the national and local governments. In various parts of the country, especially in the southern regions of Mindanao, the US has been engaged in a flurry of construction activities, building or renovating airports, piers, wharves, roads and other infrastructure. In General Santos City, for example, the US constructed a deep-water port and one of the most modern airports in the country, connected to each other by one of the country's best roads. Why the United States was so intent on financing and building this modern airport in a small city where relatively few passenger or cargo planes land could not be explained if not for its potential military use. In Fort Magsaysay in Nueva Ecija, where US troops routinely go for exercises, the airport has been renovated and its runway strengthened to carry the weight of C-130 planes. In Sulu, the US is renovating the airport, upgrading roads, and building ports that can berth huge ships. All this is consistent with a US Air Force (USAF)-funded study which recommended having more deployments to have more infrastructure. By increasing deployments, notes the study, the United States can get into arrangements that "include measures to tailor local infrastructure to USAF operations by extending runways, improving air traffic control facilities, repairing parking aprons and the like". Cooperative security locationsThe US is also establishing in the Philippines a new category of military installations it calls "Cooperative Security Locations" (CSLs). As part of the innovations introduced in the ongoing revamping of the global US network of bases, CSLs refer to facilities owned either by host-governments or even by private companies that are to be made available for use by the US military as needed. According to the Pentagon, these CSLs are to be run and maintained by either host governments or private contractors and are as useful for prepositioning logistics support or as venues for joint operations with host militaries. While intended to be small so as not to attract attention, they could be expanded to become larger bases when necessary. In August 2005, the US Overseas Basing Commission, the official commission tasked to review US basing, categorically identified the Philippines as one of the countries where such CSLs are being developed by the US in the region. The Philippine government, however, has refused to disclose the locations and other details about these CSLs. Base services without basingThe US has obliged the Philippines to provide it with a broad range of locally provided services that would enable it to launch and sustain operations from the Philippines when necessary. In November 2002, the US and Philippine governments signed the Mutual Logistics Support Agreement (MLSA), which researchers with the US Congressional Research Service describe as "allowing the United States to use the Philippines as a supply base for military operations throughout the region". The MLSA obliges the Philippine government to provide the US with logistical supplies, support and services during exercises, training, operations, and other US military deployments. These supplies include food, water, petroleum, oils, clothing, ammunition, spare parts and components, billeting, transportation, communication, medical services, operation support, training services, repair and maintenance, storage .
IN THE DRAGON'S LAIR
US prowls for China in the Philippines
By Herbert Docena Since the closure of its military bases in the country in 1991, the United States has incrementally regained, transformed and deepened its military presence and intervention in the Philippines. The manner in which the US has attempted to re-establish basing in the Philippines illustrates its attempts to radically overhaul its global offensive capabilities to become more agile and efficient while overcoming mounting domestic opposition to its presence around the world. The objectives with which the United States has sought to achieve this in the Philippines - a country that is firmly within what US analysts and strategists call "the dragon's lair" - point to the
emerging US strategy toward what it has officially identified as the one country with "the greatest potential to compete with the United States" - China. In this strategy, the Philippines, by virtue both of its location as well as its political disposition towards the US relative to its neighbors, plays a crucial role. Basing without basesAfter George W Bush came to power, the US began to attempt in earnest to implement what its proponents bill as the most comprehensive reconfiguration of its global military presence since World War II. The underlying rationale is clear: the positioning and forms of US military bases of the past - built as they were for the Cold War - no longer suffice for the present. The US overseas basing must therefore be transformed so as to enable the US military to become leaner and meaner, quicker and more agile. In the Philippines, as in a growing number of places around the world, the one persistent constraint for both the US and Philippine governments, however, has been the long-standing domestic sensitivity to US bases in the country. This opposition was actually an important - if not the decisive - factor in the decision to close the bases in 1991 and in the adoption in the post-Ferdinand Marcos 1987 constitution of provisions banning foreign military bases in the country. As it has embarked on the project of transforming its global presence, the US has also sought to adapt to and undermine domestic opposition to its bases. In this, the US military's reconceptualization of its global military presence - no longer as merely a collection of physical structures but as a global "posture" - is illuminating. By posture, explained US Under Secretary of Defense Douglas J Feith, "We are not talking only about basing, we're talking about the ability of our forces to operate when and where they are needed." Thus, recognizing that the local political situation is not yet ripe for the re-establishment of the kind of large military bases it once had in the Philippines, the United States has instead moved to achieve this ability in various other ways. Recurring deploymentsThe United States has been deploying a growing number of its troops, ships and equipment all over the Philippines ostensibly for training exercises, humanitarian and engineering projects, and other missions. In 2006 alone, up to 37 military exercises were scheduled - up from around 24 in the preceding years. As many as 6,000 US troops are involved, depending on the exercise. Although packaged as on-and-off temporary programs to train US and Filipino troops, such exercises are seen as an alternative way for the US military to secure access to the Philippines. "The habitual relationships built through exercises and training," former US Pacific Command head Admiral Thomas Fargo noted in March 2003, "is our biggest guarantor of access in time of need." He continued: "Access over time can develop into habitual use of certain facilities by deployed US forces with the eventual goal of being guaranteed use in a crisis, or permission to preposition logistics stocks and other critical material in strategic forward locations." As US troops come and go in rotation for frequent and regular exercises, their presence - when taken together - makes up a formidable forward presence that brings them closer to areas of possible action without need for huge infrastructure to support them and without inciting a lot of public attention and opposition. As the US National Defense Strategy states, "Our posture also includes the many military activities in which we engage around the world. This means not only our physical presence in key regions, but also our training, exercises, and operations." Along with troops, an increasing number of ships have also been entering the country's territorial waters and docking at various ports with growing frequency. Such ship visits are also seen as ways to establish presence. As the US Congressional Budget Office has pointed out, The Navy counts those ships as providing overseas presence full time, even when they are training or simply tied up at the pier." Dual-use infrastructureApart from the troop deployments and ship visits, the US has also been constructing an increasing number of structures and facilities that could be useful for the US military when the contingency arises - while at the same time allowing it to buy political support from the national and local governments. In various parts of the country, especially in the southern regions of Mindanao, the US has been engaged in a flurry of construction activities, building or renovating airports, piers, wharves, roads and other infrastructure. In General Santos City, for example, the US constructed a deep-water port and one of the most modern airports in the country, connected to each other by one of the country's best roads. Why the United States was so intent on financing and building this modern airport in a small city where relatively few passenger or cargo planes land could not be explained if not for its potential military use. In Fort Magsaysay in Nueva Ecija, where US troops routinely go for exercises, the airport has been renovated and its runway strengthened to carry the weight of C-130 planes. In Sulu, the US is renovating the airport, upgrading roads, and building ports that can berth huge ships. All this is consistent with a US Air Force (USAF)-funded study which recommended having more deployments to have more infrastructure. By increasing deployments, notes the study, the United States can get into arrangements that "include measures to tailor local infrastructure to USAF operations by extending runways, improving air traffic control facilities, repairing parking aprons and the like". Cooperative security locationsThe US is also establishing in the Philippines a new category of military installations it calls "Cooperative Security Locations" (CSLs). As part of the innovations introduced in the ongoing revamping of the global US network of bases, CSLs refer to facilities owned either by host-governments or even by private companies that are to be made available for use by the US military as needed. According to the Pentagon, these CSLs are to be run and maintained by either host governments or private contractors and are as useful for prepositioning logistics support or as venues for joint operations with host militaries. While intended to be small so as not to attract attention, they could be expanded to become larger bases when necessary. In August 2005, the US Overseas Basing Commission, the official commission tasked to review US basing, categorically identified the Philippines as one of the countries where such CSLs are being developed by the US in the region. The Philippine government, however, has refused to disclose the locations and other details about these CSLs. Base services without basingThe US has obliged the Philippines to provide it with a broad range of locally provided services that would enable it to launch and sustain operations from the Philippines when necessary. In November 2002, the US and Philippine governments signed the Mutual Logistics Support Agreement (MLSA), which researchers with the US Congressional Research Service describe as "allowing the United States to use the Philippines as a supply base for military operations throughout the region". The MLSA obliges the Philippine government to provide the US with logistical supplies, support and services during exercises, training, operations, and other US military deployments. These supplies include food, water, petroleum, oils, clothing, ammunition, spare parts and components, billeting, transportation, communication, medical services, operation support, training services, repair and maintenance, storage .
Philippines: Tiklos and Carinosa
My wife is teaching two Philippine folk dances the Tiklos and Carinosa to public school kids in a rural area. You tube has a number of videos of the dances. Philippine folk dances sound very Spanish to me! Here are a couple of addresses for the You Tube videos. There is a wealth of other material linking to the sites.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yg_LxU5ZBcA&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjU1QDKetiQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yg_LxU5ZBcA&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjU1QDKetiQ
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Defense Dept.: More troops for Iraq and Afghanistan.
This is from the CSMonitor. There seems little reaction against the huge military buildup and expenditures by Americans. Even Obama is promising not to reduce the military but to expand it. So much for change. If he is elected there will be the same U.S. drive for hegemony as before. No one dares suggest a draft of course so what we have is more carrots. I wonder how this scheme will fit with those who are already enlisted and don't receive this benefit:
ALBANY, N.Y. -- How's this for a recruiting slogan? Join the Army, Buy a House. Faced with the challenge of expanding the U.S. Army in wartime, the military is testing an incentive program that pays enlistees up to $40,000 toward a home or a startup business after their commitment. The Army Advantage Fund program is being tested here and four other areas _ Montgomery, Ala., Cleveland, Seattle and San Antonio _ for the next six to nine months.
More troops for Iraq and Afghanistan, Defense Department says
An Army general warns of strain on deployed troops.
By David Montero
posted February 26, 2008 at 10:25 am EST
The Defense Department says it needs more troops to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan. But an Army general warns that troops already in the fight are under too much strain. The warning comes as violence in Afghanistan – unlike Iraq, where violence is down - is expected to increase.
The Defense Department announced that by July 2008, it will have more troops on the ground in Iraq than when the "surge was announced last January, while troop levels in Afghanistan will be at their highest since 2001, the Associated Press reports:
Lt. Gen. Carter Ham, operations chief for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters that by July, the troop total [in Iraq] is likely to be 140,000. That compares with 132,000 when President Bush approved orders to send an additional five Army brigades to Iraq to improve security and avert civil war.
Ham also announced that the Pentagon believes U.S. force levels in Afghanistan will stand at 32,000 in late summer, up from about 28,000 currently. The current total is the highest since the war began in October 2001, and another 3,200 Marines are scheduled to deploy to Afghanistan this spring.
As that announcement comes, "Gen. George Casey, the Army chief of staff, told a Senate panel that the Army is under serious strain from years of war-fighting and must reduce the length of combat tours as soon as possible," the Associated Press reports.
"The cumulative effects of the last six-plus years at war have left our Army out of balance, consumed by the current fight and unable to do the things we know we need to do to properly sustain our all-volunteer force and restore our flexibility for an uncertain future," Casey said.
USA Today adds that Casey pointed out that stress in the Army has added to these concerns:
"Discipline. Desertions and unexcused absences have increased," Casey said. "You're seeing folks not showing up for deployments."
Divorce and suicide. Divorce rates spiked in 2004 but have leveled off, he said. Suicides have increased, however. "That is a disturbing trend," he said. He maintained that the Army, while stressed, is resilient and able to meet its commitments. "It's not broken; it's not hollow."
The revelation comes at a bad time. In a recent survey, Foreign Policy magazine and the Center for New American Security interviewed 3,400 military leaders and found widespread beliefs that the war has "stretched the U.S. military dangerously thin." More than half the officers also said the war had not broken the military. (A PDF copy of the report is available here.)
In a recent profile of Defense Secretary Robert Gates by The New York Times, Mr. Gates, on a November visit to an Army base at Fort Hood, Texas, is quoted telling a group of wives of soldiers still in Iraq that he knew the 15-month tours were "exhausting" soldiers and families and hoped to return to the usual 12-month tours by the end of 2008.
But all these calculations depended on two crucial premises — that security continues to improve in Iraq and that Iraqi politicians settle their sectarian disputes. If those premises don't hold, further troop cuts beyond July might not be possible; deployment schedules might not be relaxed, either. Under those circumstances, it will be hard for the Army to sign up tens of thousands of extra recruits.
One recent recruiting initiative, which has been compared to the GI Bill of Rights, offers $40,000 toward a home after an enlistee commits to the military, reports the Associated Press.
Still, as the US continues to struggle with its frayed military units
ALBANY, N.Y. -- How's this for a recruiting slogan? Join the Army, Buy a House. Faced with the challenge of expanding the U.S. Army in wartime, the military is testing an incentive program that pays enlistees up to $40,000 toward a home or a startup business after their commitment. The Army Advantage Fund program is being tested here and four other areas _ Montgomery, Ala., Cleveland, Seattle and San Antonio _ for the next six to nine months.
More troops for Iraq and Afghanistan, Defense Department says
An Army general warns of strain on deployed troops.
By David Montero
posted February 26, 2008 at 10:25 am EST
The Defense Department says it needs more troops to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan. But an Army general warns that troops already in the fight are under too much strain. The warning comes as violence in Afghanistan – unlike Iraq, where violence is down - is expected to increase.
The Defense Department announced that by July 2008, it will have more troops on the ground in Iraq than when the "surge was announced last January, while troop levels in Afghanistan will be at their highest since 2001, the Associated Press reports:
Lt. Gen. Carter Ham, operations chief for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters that by July, the troop total [in Iraq] is likely to be 140,000. That compares with 132,000 when President Bush approved orders to send an additional five Army brigades to Iraq to improve security and avert civil war.
Ham also announced that the Pentagon believes U.S. force levels in Afghanistan will stand at 32,000 in late summer, up from about 28,000 currently. The current total is the highest since the war began in October 2001, and another 3,200 Marines are scheduled to deploy to Afghanistan this spring.
As that announcement comes, "Gen. George Casey, the Army chief of staff, told a Senate panel that the Army is under serious strain from years of war-fighting and must reduce the length of combat tours as soon as possible," the Associated Press reports.
"The cumulative effects of the last six-plus years at war have left our Army out of balance, consumed by the current fight and unable to do the things we know we need to do to properly sustain our all-volunteer force and restore our flexibility for an uncertain future," Casey said.
USA Today adds that Casey pointed out that stress in the Army has added to these concerns:
"Discipline. Desertions and unexcused absences have increased," Casey said. "You're seeing folks not showing up for deployments."
Divorce and suicide. Divorce rates spiked in 2004 but have leveled off, he said. Suicides have increased, however. "That is a disturbing trend," he said. He maintained that the Army, while stressed, is resilient and able to meet its commitments. "It's not broken; it's not hollow."
The revelation comes at a bad time. In a recent survey, Foreign Policy magazine and the Center for New American Security interviewed 3,400 military leaders and found widespread beliefs that the war has "stretched the U.S. military dangerously thin." More than half the officers also said the war had not broken the military. (A PDF copy of the report is available here.)
In a recent profile of Defense Secretary Robert Gates by The New York Times, Mr. Gates, on a November visit to an Army base at Fort Hood, Texas, is quoted telling a group of wives of soldiers still in Iraq that he knew the 15-month tours were "exhausting" soldiers and families and hoped to return to the usual 12-month tours by the end of 2008.
But all these calculations depended on two crucial premises — that security continues to improve in Iraq and that Iraqi politicians settle their sectarian disputes. If those premises don't hold, further troop cuts beyond July might not be possible; deployment schedules might not be relaxed, either. Under those circumstances, it will be hard for the Army to sign up tens of thousands of extra recruits.
One recent recruiting initiative, which has been compared to the GI Bill of Rights, offers $40,000 toward a home after an enlistee commits to the military, reports the Associated Press.
Still, as the US continues to struggle with its frayed military units
Esperon says military preparing for old and new threats:Philippines
This is from the Inquirer. It seems that there is never a time when the AFP leadership does not think that someone is out to overthrow the leadership. This shows how popular the leadership is and how restive are the rank and file. For a change the AFP is actually talking about threats from the right! Usually it is the NPA (Communists) or Muslim separatists who are regarded as threats.
Esperon says military preparing for old and new threats
By Nikko DizonPhilippine Daily InquirerFirst Posted 23:16:00 02/26/2008
MARAGONDON, Cavite, Philippines -- Armed Forces Chief of Staff Hermogenes Esperon Jr. is not taking any chances.
Despite the assurances of the heads of the major service commands they were on top of the situation, the AFP is looking at all possible rightist threats that may arise in the face of the NBN-ZTE corruption scandal hounding the Arroyo administration, Esperon said.
And this means not just the threat posed by the Magdalo group of renegade officers led by Senator Antonio Trillanes IV, he added.
“When you look at the security threat situation, you do not have to confine yourself to known threats. You have to continue looking at other angles without necessarily casting doubt on anybody,” Esperon told reporters here.
Esperon was here with US Ambassador Kristie Kenney and Admiral Timothy Keating, commander of the US Pacific Command, to check on the construction of a four-classroom school building at Maragondon National High School by Philippine and US troops under the Balikatan joint military exercises of 2008.
Esperon said that while the military would certainly not intervene in the crisis faced by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, he said that “there is and there will always be” a lingering threat from rightist groups.
“What we’re saying is there might be a new group. So we keep on doing what we call counter-intelligence operations to see if there really is another group. As of now, there is none,” Esperon said.
Esperon said the Magdalo, as well as the Marine and Army Scout Ranger officers implicated in the alleged February 2006 power grab, were considered by the military not so much as threats but as “deviants from the normal military behavior.”
“How can we treat them as threats when they are already confined?” Esperon said.
In July 2003, a group of junior officers calling themselves the Magdalo took over the Oakwood serviced apartments at the Makati commercial center and called for the overthrow of the government
Esperon says military preparing for old and new threats
By Nikko DizonPhilippine Daily InquirerFirst Posted 23:16:00 02/26/2008
MARAGONDON, Cavite, Philippines -- Armed Forces Chief of Staff Hermogenes Esperon Jr. is not taking any chances.
Despite the assurances of the heads of the major service commands they were on top of the situation, the AFP is looking at all possible rightist threats that may arise in the face of the NBN-ZTE corruption scandal hounding the Arroyo administration, Esperon said.
And this means not just the threat posed by the Magdalo group of renegade officers led by Senator Antonio Trillanes IV, he added.
“When you look at the security threat situation, you do not have to confine yourself to known threats. You have to continue looking at other angles without necessarily casting doubt on anybody,” Esperon told reporters here.
Esperon was here with US Ambassador Kristie Kenney and Admiral Timothy Keating, commander of the US Pacific Command, to check on the construction of a four-classroom school building at Maragondon National High School by Philippine and US troops under the Balikatan joint military exercises of 2008.
Esperon said that while the military would certainly not intervene in the crisis faced by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, he said that “there is and there will always be” a lingering threat from rightist groups.
“What we’re saying is there might be a new group. So we keep on doing what we call counter-intelligence operations to see if there really is another group. As of now, there is none,” Esperon said.
Esperon said the Magdalo, as well as the Marine and Army Scout Ranger officers implicated in the alleged February 2006 power grab, were considered by the military not so much as threats but as “deviants from the normal military behavior.”
“How can we treat them as threats when they are already confined?” Esperon said.
In July 2003, a group of junior officers calling themselves the Magdalo took over the Oakwood serviced apartments at the Makati commercial center and called for the overthrow of the government
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Obama's religion
I have seen some of this stuff about Obama being a Muslim etc. on the net. This is from MSNBC. As usual the posts are not totally baseless but a mixture of fact and fiction. Obama's father was a Muslim and Obama was in Indonesia but rather than attending a Muslim school he went to Catholic and secular institutions.
"I've been to the same church _ the same Christian church _ for almost 20 years," Obama said, stressing the word Christian and drawing cheers from the faithful in reply. "I was sworn in with my hand on the family Bible. Whenever I'm in the United States Senate, I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. So if you get some silly e-mail ... send it back to whoever sent it and tell them this is all crazy. Educate."
"I've been to the same church _ the same Christian church _ for almost 20 years," Obama said, stressing the word Christian and drawing cheers from the faithful in reply. "I was sworn in with my hand on the family Bible. Whenever I'm in the United States Senate, I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. So if you get some silly e-mail ... send it back to whoever sent it and tell them this is all crazy. Educate."
Conflict in the SEIU
It seems from these posts that Stern wants to increase union membership and thus dues by making sweetheart deals with employers. Rosselli is supposedly "old-fashioned" because he places members' interests first! With the increasing weakness of labor there is a big markout for sellout union leaders. The press applauds such leaders as "innovators" !
<http://www.sfweekly.com/2008-02-20/news/local-union-leader-rosselli- blasts-seiu-boss-andy-stern/>SF Weekly - February 20, 2008Local Union Leader Rosselli Blasts SEIU Boss Andy SternBy Matt SmithSomewhere in California there's a woman alone in a nursing home with bedsores that grow more painful and life-threatening by the day. And down the hall there's an orderly who would like to do something about her but can't, because during some shifts he's one of just two care- givers on a ward with dozens of patients."California nursing homes are sweatshops, [and] a terrible place to live," said Sal Rosselli, president of California's largest healthcare workers' union local, Oakland-based United Healthcare Workers–West, during an online interview last week with the magazine Labor Notes.While Rosselli's statement might sound like ordinary pre-strike cant, his words are actually much more radical than that.Rosselli's criticisms are directed at America's most famous labor leader, Andy Stern, the celebrity president of the two-million-member Service Employees International Union (SEIU). According to Rosselli, Stern's expansion of the union has cost workers the ability to complain or fight to improve conditions."People join unions because they want to change their lives," Rosselli told Labor Notes. "Workers in struggle create real moral authority, and other people see it and it makes them want to join unions, too. The same is not true with these top-down deals ... where the union agrees to prenegotiated contracts that severely limit workers' bargaining rights and voice."I've written before about these SEIU deals (see "Partners in Slime," June 30, 2004, and "Union Disunity," April 11, 2007), where the union agrees to prohibit workers from complaining about conditions in exchange for being able to recruit more members in nursing-home chains. I've also described how this strategy privately angered workers and organizers in California, the union's greatest stronghold.But last week Rosselli turned this once-secret dispute into an open rebellion. This is no minor quarrel. Until recently, he was the head of the 600,000-member SEIU California state council; he resigned earlier this month as a member of the policy-setting national SEIU executive committee, while retaining his post as president of United Healthcare Workers–West, the 150,000-member SEIU branch representing California hospital, nursing home, and home-care workers.Rosselli's new dissident movement has the potential to derail Stern's ambitious plans to expand into home daycare, alliances with overseas unions in countries such as China, and collaborative agreements with companies such as Wal-Mart, which joined with SEIU last year to push for broadened healthcare coverage. By painting SEIU's national leadership as bent on undermining workers' rights, Rosselli's renegade battle could harm efforts by SEIU to present a united front during a crucial presidential campaign. Last week, SEIU endorsed Barack Obama, and is mobilizing members to work on his primary and general election campaigns.Rosselli announced his resignation in an open letter claiming that Stern has focused on growth at any cost. Rosselli's local has also launched a new Web site, www.seiuvoice.com, accusing Stern of expanding union power at workers' expense. Rosselli also issued a series of statements in response to inquiries from SF Weekly in which he made public for the first time his accusations of a Stern power grab. SEIU's national press office did not respond by press time to my request for an interview with Stern or his representatives.Stern's supporters may protest that this is a bad time to open a national discussion about whether the key Democratic Party ally has been instrumental in curtailing workers' rights. But after a decade in which the poor have gotten poorer, the sick have received less care, and organized labor has made few inroads into making things better, I can think of no better moment for a long-delayed debate over whether Stern's vision of expansion at any cost is truly in the best interest of workers.During an election year filled with calls for "change," it may seem ironic that an anachronism within an anachronism might be a source for change within the Democratic Party.To the extent organized labor appears in the press as something other than a component of a political or business story, it's portrayed as outdated and irrelevant — unless the story happens to mention Stern. He is known for pursuing a "collaborative" rather than adversarial relationship with employers. As Stern's fame has grown, his supposed modernization campaign has become the most-covered story in the labor movement.Rosselli, meanwhile, is a longtime activist little known outside the old-line labor city of San Francisco, despite leading a behemoth California healthcare union. He is a former nursing home worker who was president of the Alice B. Toklas Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender Democratic Club in the early days of the AIDS crisis. In 1988, he led a dissident faction in the local healthcare workers' union that blamed decline in membership on "30 years of international control," referring to the union's top leadership. Rosselli defeated a slate of candidates who had been handpicked by the national SEIU and has been one of California's top labor leaders ever since.In the storyline of the current U.S. labor movement — as depicted in piles of Stern magazine profiles — Rosselli is the kind of old- fashioned leader that history might forget. But it's Stern's cheap- trick "modernization" that should be left in the dust.This view has been challenged by the specific details of Stern's supposed "modernizing" labor deals. A nursing home pact (first described in SF Weekly's 2004 story) between the union and home operators took away the right of patients and their families to sue those operators in cases where patients are injured, raped, or killed. Subsequent contracts obtained by SF Weekly showed these deals stifled workers' free speech rights while also curbing their ability to earn decent pay. Rosselli had previously privately criticized these agreements within the union while giving them tacit public support. Last week he made his criticisms public, creating the first credible rebellion against Stern's leadership.In his letter to Stern, Rosselli lists a series of grievances suggesting that SEIU's sellout model of union organizing stretches beyond the wards of nursing homes.Rosselli described secret negotiations last fall between Stern and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. In these meetings, Stern allegedly agreed to support a watered-down healthcare package in exchange for measures that would help expand SEIU's membership. Some union leaders had urged California Democrats to support a single-payer plan that would eliminate private insurers. An eventual compromise bill between the Democrats and Schwarzenegger was based on requiring more Californians to have insurance. The bill is now considered dead."Your secret meetings with Governor Schwarzenegger and other elected officials, without the participation of SEIU California leaders, fatally weakened our many years of disciplined work to bring about true healthcare reform," Rosselli wrote to Stern.While the healthcare bill may now be dead, the Schwarzenegger-Stern negotiations appear to be the legislative equivalent of a ghost. According to Sacramento insiders, Senate Bill 867 was the quid pro quo SEIU demanded in order to back the doomed healthcare plan. If passed, it would help SEIU absorb into its union ranks people who provide state-subsidized day care in their homes. Though healthcare reform has died, this apparent sop to SEIU lives on. The bill was sent to committee last week.Rosselli alleged that Stern grabbed for power elsewhere, too, claiming that Stern is poised to weaken Rosselli's local union's influence by attempting to separate 65,000 home care workers out of Rosselli's UHW, essentially cutting Roselli's union in half. Rosselli also accused Stern of sabotaging his local unions' efforts to participate in negotiations on new contracts with healthcare systems affiliated with the Catholic Church."We are concerned that SEIU's international leadership has charted a course that values growth above all other principles," Rosselli said in a statement responding to questions from SF Weekly."Our folks are enraged," Rosselli told Labor Notes. "We had been working for 20 years toward similar working conditions and standards for nursing home workers and hospital workers. They are different now, and very different in terms of conditions for patients."Rosselli's bid to incite open revolt inside what is America's fastest- growing union seems a long shot. Stern enjoys firm control over SEIU's national executive committee. During the past year, Rosselli's complaints have been brushed off by national leadership.But despite Stern's status as American labor's biggest celebrity, some union members — many of them outside Rosselli's dissident healthcare union — are furious about the way he has wielded power during the past few years. In California and elsewhere, the SEIU has consolidated what used to be dozens of small local unions into large industry-based locals. In the process, union staff have been laid off or moved into different jobs with worse benefits. This has created a bizarre situation where the AFL-CIO–affiliated union that represents SEIU organizers, secretaries, and other union office staff has filed complaints with the National Labor Relations Board alleging that SEIU itself has behaved as an abusive employer. Rank-and-file workers, meanwhile, feel that in some cases their ability to select their own leadership has been either diluted or abridged.And there's the issue of the downright nastiness of Stern-led deals that trade away the legal rights of people as helpless as the elderly and the disabled. SF Weekly's stories about SEIU's nursing-home deals have been widely read within organized labor as evidence that Stern's "collaborative" arrangements with employers aren't modernization at all. Instead they hark back to the bad old days of company-union sweetheart deals that have given organized labor a reputation for corruption.Rosselli's open rebellion is premised on the hope that somewhere in America, there are SEIU workers growing tired of Stern's ruse who will begin to advocate for real workers' rights.___________________________________
This is from Harper's:
ttp://www.harpers.org/archive/2008/02/hbc-90002386>
Internal Dispute at SEIU Deepens
Ken Silverstein
February 13, 2008
A few months back I reported on internal fighting at the Service
Employees International Union (SEIU), describing what looked to be a
power grab by President Andy Stern. Now Stern’s chief in-house
critic, Sal Rosselli, the president of United Healthcare Workers West
(UHW), has resigned from the SEIU’s Executive Committee. In his
resignation letter, reproduced below, Rosselli accused Stern of
disenfranchising workers, cutting backroom deals with companies and
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, and trying to block an
SEIU endorsement of Barack Obama.
February 9, 2008
Dear Brother Stern:
Like you, I take great pride in the recent growth of SEIU and the
prominent position our union holds in the labor movement and in
public policy debates of critical importance to working families. I
was honored four years ago when you appointed me to your executive
committee. During the previous eight years, we had worked together
constructively to help hundreds of thousands of health care workers
in California and beyond join our union and change their lives.
In United Healthcare Workers West (UHW), we have always believed that
our international union should be about more than numbers and
headlines. Over the past two years, a stark difference has evolved
between SEIU’s projected image and its real world practices. An
overly zealous focus on growth—growth at any cost, apparently—has
eclipsed SEIU’s commitment to its members. As labor leaders, we are
obligated to place the needs of our members first and to uphold
democratic principles not only in the workplace, but also in our
union. That is increasingly being blocked, circumvented and
manipulated.
It is said that “democracy dies in the darkness.” It is with deep
disappointment and great concern that I have watched dark shadows
fall upon SEIU, diminishing our hopes for revitalizing the labor
movement. Let me shed some light on the undemocratic practices we in
UHW have experienced firsthand:
You unilaterally decided to eliminate the Catholic Healthcare West
(CHW) Unity Council and appointed an International Union consultant
to manage our collective bargaining relationship, even though the
Council's creation was adopted by CHW rank-and-file leaders and
approved by the International Executive Board. By all accounts, our
relationship with CHW had been enormously successful and had led to
significant growth and dramatic improvement in the lives of SEIU
members who work at CHW. Your decision potentially weakens us just as
we are about to enter negotiations for 16,000 CHW employees,
jeopardizing the lead contract of our 2008 contract campaign that has
lined up the expiration dates of nearly 100 acute care hospitals
covering approximately 100,000 caregivers.
Similarly, you silenced workers' voices in bargaining with the
California Nursing Home Alliance by directing International Union
representatives to meet with our employers behind our backs and then
abused your power by barring UHW members and staff from participating
in direct negotiations with our employers, despite the fact that UHW
represents 75 percent of the nursing home members in bargaining.
Based on our recent meetings with representatives of the nursing home
industry, it is obvious that the International Union's secret
discussions with our employers are continuing.
You recently decided to intensify the divisive debate about
separating long-term care workers from hospital workers in California
which will further undermine our unity just as negotiations commence
for contracts at more than 100 nursing homes—contracts we fought for
years to align on a common expiration date of June 2008 — in order to
win major improvements for caregivers and residents and secure
organizing rights for workers in as many as 98 additional facilities,
including 17 where organizing drives are already under way.
Despite our representation of the largest number of workers in
Catholic health care of any SEIU local and the direct involvement of
two employers with whom we are engaged in active campaigns, you
exclude UHW from participation in discussions with the United States
Conference of Catholic Bishops. In response to our request for review
of your decision, you have now scheduled a hearing in Chicago for
February 12, with only 8 days' notice, whose scope is far broader
than anything approved by the International Executive Board, on the
alleged ground that it is necessary to review all aspects of our
Catholic health care employer relations and representation, raising
the specter that these matters will be placed entirely under control
of the International Union and its bureaucracy where rank and file
members will have no say, and no ability to affect their workplace
destiny.
In a deliberate attempt to create instability in important ongoing
organizing campaigns by fomenting mass resignations among our
Southern California organizing staff, your officers and staff helped
orchestrate the recent resignation of Southern California Organizing
Director, Amado David, whose letter of resignation appeared to have
been created on SEIU equipment weeks before his resigning and is now
being circulated by you to other SEIU leaders, all as a pretext for
taking further action against UHW's leaders and members. Despite this
attempt, our UHW Southern California organizing program remains fully
staffed and staff remain committed to UHW's organizing program.
You and other international officers interfered in the affairs of the
SEIU California State Council—our collective vehicle for state
legislative and electoral action—using the imposition of a revised
constitution and bylaws to prompt a presidential election when none
had been anticipated, then manipulating the per capita voting formula
and procedures in order to produce the outcome you desired.
Ultimately, you permitted provisional locals with no members (and
locals that have never paid per capita) and locals that were months
behind in per capita payments (owing the State Council nearly $2
million) to vote in the election so that you could control the
outcome of the election and seat the leader of your choice.
Your secret meetings with Governor Schwarzenegger and other elected
officials, without the participation of SEIU California leaders,
fatally weakened our many years of disciplined work to bring about
true health care reform. Those secret discussions with the governor
and his staff led them to believe that SEIU—and the labor movement
along with us—would settle for far less than was necessary to protect
the interests of working families or to win the support of
California's voters. The final deal that was struck, while far better
than the settlement you had recommended, was flawed and tainted as a
result of your actions and was politically doomed.
Just last week you attempted secretly, although unsuccessfully, to
squelch the SEIU California State Council's endorsement of Barack
Obama for President.
You removed a UHW administrative vice president from the Executive
Board of the California United Homecare Workers Union (CUHW) for
asking questions about "budget and allocation of funds." Your actions
like this have created a culture of fear throughout SEIU, making
local officers, members and staff afraid to speak up for fear of
reprisal.
Your international officers and staff manipulated voting procedures
in Unity Council bargaining with Tenet Healthcare in order to thwart
the will of the members and achieve your desired outcome.
Specifically, international officers tried to cast "per capita" votes
on behalf of unorganized workers who had no knowledge of the
negotiations, paid no dues to SEIU, and were not even in the process
of forming a union. Your failed effort would have given away our
members' right to strike for seven years and would have forced them
to accept lower standards.
As you know, UHW (formerly Locals 250 and 399) is the oldest health
care union in the country, with 75 years of proud and historic
accomplishments. We stand for the principle of one member, one vote
and the basic belief that members must have a seat at the bargaining
table and the right to vote on all agreements that affect them. We
believe that involving members at all levels of our union, providing
rank-and-file workers with the support they need to decide our
direction and lead our struggles, while winning good contracts that
improve caregivers' lives and the quality of the care we provide.
These are the best examples we can use to organize the unorganized.
Consistent with this, we believe that the deterioration of democracy
in our union will have disastrous consequences.
The Nursing Home Alliance agreements and others negotiated by the
International Union appear to relegate entire categories of workers
to permanent second-tier status, without basic rights and standards
to be expected in a union contract or any reasonable hope of
achieving them. This transactional exchange of members’ rights and
standards for greater numbers contradicts the core mission of SEIU.
We must be committed to fight for higher standards so that workers
who perform the same work will ultimately earn the same pay and
benefits, regardless of the identity of their employer.
Let me be clear. We fully support a culture of organizing and
strongly approve the goal of organizing our core industries. We also
understand the obligation that union strongholds like California and
New York have to help organize health care workers outside those two
states. Our own organizing record, our leadership in developing and
supporting the organizing recommendations of the President’s
Committee 2000 and the establishment of the Unity Funds, our
successful bargaining-to-organize fights in CHW, Tenet and HCA that
led to growth opportunities outside of California, and our direct
assistance to local and international organizing efforts throughout
the country leave no doubt regarding our commitment.
Each year UHW provides $23 million in per capita payments and Unity
Fund contributions to the International Union. We do so, even though
this is the fourth straight year in which not a dime is spent in
California. However, we cannot support, as you propose, sending even
more of our organizing dollars to Washington and giving the
International Union even greater control of their use when so many of
SEIU’s organizing ventures have not and will not build power in our
core industries, which was the purpose of the dues increase.
Furthermore, we see an ever diminishing International Union
commitment to improve workers’ lives now or in the future.
Much of what I have outlined here I have said to you directly and in
Executive Committee meetings. I have abided by the code of conduct
for Executive Committee members that requires what is said in the
committee to stay in the committee and that positions adopted by
majority vote of the committee should determine the position of all
its members.
In good conscience, I can no longer allow simple majorities of the
Executive Committee to outweigh my responsibility to our members to
act out of principle on these critically important matters. I say
this with no ill will, but with a deep sense of conviction.
As an elected leader of UHW and an elected international union vice
president, I believe that maintaining my silence about the sacrifice
of our principles and our failing to give voice to a clear and honest
disagreement about the road we are on and the future direction of our
International Union is too high of a price to pay. Therefore, my
conscience leaves me no option but to resign my position as a member
of the Executive Committee, effective immediately.
I believe that workers must have a voice. Indeed, that is the central
reason I believe in our union. I believe that for workers to have a
representative and effective voice, capable of changing their lives
and the direction of our nation, many voices must be heard, not just
those from Washington. I resign not to walk away, but to stay
involved and to be able to speak freely.
In Unity,
Sal Rosselli
___________________________________
<http://www.sfweekly.com/2008-02-20/news/local-union-leader-rosselli- blasts-seiu-boss-andy-stern/>SF Weekly - February 20, 2008Local Union Leader Rosselli Blasts SEIU Boss Andy SternBy Matt SmithSomewhere in California there's a woman alone in a nursing home with bedsores that grow more painful and life-threatening by the day. And down the hall there's an orderly who would like to do something about her but can't, because during some shifts he's one of just two care- givers on a ward with dozens of patients."California nursing homes are sweatshops, [and] a terrible place to live," said Sal Rosselli, president of California's largest healthcare workers' union local, Oakland-based United Healthcare Workers–West, during an online interview last week with the magazine Labor Notes.While Rosselli's statement might sound like ordinary pre-strike cant, his words are actually much more radical than that.Rosselli's criticisms are directed at America's most famous labor leader, Andy Stern, the celebrity president of the two-million-member Service Employees International Union (SEIU). According to Rosselli, Stern's expansion of the union has cost workers the ability to complain or fight to improve conditions."People join unions because they want to change their lives," Rosselli told Labor Notes. "Workers in struggle create real moral authority, and other people see it and it makes them want to join unions, too. The same is not true with these top-down deals ... where the union agrees to prenegotiated contracts that severely limit workers' bargaining rights and voice."I've written before about these SEIU deals (see "Partners in Slime," June 30, 2004, and "Union Disunity," April 11, 2007), where the union agrees to prohibit workers from complaining about conditions in exchange for being able to recruit more members in nursing-home chains. I've also described how this strategy privately angered workers and organizers in California, the union's greatest stronghold.But last week Rosselli turned this once-secret dispute into an open rebellion. This is no minor quarrel. Until recently, he was the head of the 600,000-member SEIU California state council; he resigned earlier this month as a member of the policy-setting national SEIU executive committee, while retaining his post as president of United Healthcare Workers–West, the 150,000-member SEIU branch representing California hospital, nursing home, and home-care workers.Rosselli's new dissident movement has the potential to derail Stern's ambitious plans to expand into home daycare, alliances with overseas unions in countries such as China, and collaborative agreements with companies such as Wal-Mart, which joined with SEIU last year to push for broadened healthcare coverage. By painting SEIU's national leadership as bent on undermining workers' rights, Rosselli's renegade battle could harm efforts by SEIU to present a united front during a crucial presidential campaign. Last week, SEIU endorsed Barack Obama, and is mobilizing members to work on his primary and general election campaigns.Rosselli announced his resignation in an open letter claiming that Stern has focused on growth at any cost. Rosselli's local has also launched a new Web site, www.seiuvoice.com, accusing Stern of expanding union power at workers' expense. Rosselli also issued a series of statements in response to inquiries from SF Weekly in which he made public for the first time his accusations of a Stern power grab. SEIU's national press office did not respond by press time to my request for an interview with Stern or his representatives.Stern's supporters may protest that this is a bad time to open a national discussion about whether the key Democratic Party ally has been instrumental in curtailing workers' rights. But after a decade in which the poor have gotten poorer, the sick have received less care, and organized labor has made few inroads into making things better, I can think of no better moment for a long-delayed debate over whether Stern's vision of expansion at any cost is truly in the best interest of workers.During an election year filled with calls for "change," it may seem ironic that an anachronism within an anachronism might be a source for change within the Democratic Party.To the extent organized labor appears in the press as something other than a component of a political or business story, it's portrayed as outdated and irrelevant — unless the story happens to mention Stern. He is known for pursuing a "collaborative" rather than adversarial relationship with employers. As Stern's fame has grown, his supposed modernization campaign has become the most-covered story in the labor movement.Rosselli, meanwhile, is a longtime activist little known outside the old-line labor city of San Francisco, despite leading a behemoth California healthcare union. He is a former nursing home worker who was president of the Alice B. Toklas Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender Democratic Club in the early days of the AIDS crisis. In 1988, he led a dissident faction in the local healthcare workers' union that blamed decline in membership on "30 years of international control," referring to the union's top leadership. Rosselli defeated a slate of candidates who had been handpicked by the national SEIU and has been one of California's top labor leaders ever since.In the storyline of the current U.S. labor movement — as depicted in piles of Stern magazine profiles — Rosselli is the kind of old- fashioned leader that history might forget. But it's Stern's cheap- trick "modernization" that should be left in the dust.This view has been challenged by the specific details of Stern's supposed "modernizing" labor deals. A nursing home pact (first described in SF Weekly's 2004 story) between the union and home operators took away the right of patients and their families to sue those operators in cases where patients are injured, raped, or killed. Subsequent contracts obtained by SF Weekly showed these deals stifled workers' free speech rights while also curbing their ability to earn decent pay. Rosselli had previously privately criticized these agreements within the union while giving them tacit public support. Last week he made his criticisms public, creating the first credible rebellion against Stern's leadership.In his letter to Stern, Rosselli lists a series of grievances suggesting that SEIU's sellout model of union organizing stretches beyond the wards of nursing homes.Rosselli described secret negotiations last fall between Stern and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. In these meetings, Stern allegedly agreed to support a watered-down healthcare package in exchange for measures that would help expand SEIU's membership. Some union leaders had urged California Democrats to support a single-payer plan that would eliminate private insurers. An eventual compromise bill between the Democrats and Schwarzenegger was based on requiring more Californians to have insurance. The bill is now considered dead."Your secret meetings with Governor Schwarzenegger and other elected officials, without the participation of SEIU California leaders, fatally weakened our many years of disciplined work to bring about true healthcare reform," Rosselli wrote to Stern.While the healthcare bill may now be dead, the Schwarzenegger-Stern negotiations appear to be the legislative equivalent of a ghost. According to Sacramento insiders, Senate Bill 867 was the quid pro quo SEIU demanded in order to back the doomed healthcare plan. If passed, it would help SEIU absorb into its union ranks people who provide state-subsidized day care in their homes. Though healthcare reform has died, this apparent sop to SEIU lives on. The bill was sent to committee last week.Rosselli alleged that Stern grabbed for power elsewhere, too, claiming that Stern is poised to weaken Rosselli's local union's influence by attempting to separate 65,000 home care workers out of Rosselli's UHW, essentially cutting Roselli's union in half. Rosselli also accused Stern of sabotaging his local unions' efforts to participate in negotiations on new contracts with healthcare systems affiliated with the Catholic Church."We are concerned that SEIU's international leadership has charted a course that values growth above all other principles," Rosselli said in a statement responding to questions from SF Weekly."Our folks are enraged," Rosselli told Labor Notes. "We had been working for 20 years toward similar working conditions and standards for nursing home workers and hospital workers. They are different now, and very different in terms of conditions for patients."Rosselli's bid to incite open revolt inside what is America's fastest- growing union seems a long shot. Stern enjoys firm control over SEIU's national executive committee. During the past year, Rosselli's complaints have been brushed off by national leadership.But despite Stern's status as American labor's biggest celebrity, some union members — many of them outside Rosselli's dissident healthcare union — are furious about the way he has wielded power during the past few years. In California and elsewhere, the SEIU has consolidated what used to be dozens of small local unions into large industry-based locals. In the process, union staff have been laid off or moved into different jobs with worse benefits. This has created a bizarre situation where the AFL-CIO–affiliated union that represents SEIU organizers, secretaries, and other union office staff has filed complaints with the National Labor Relations Board alleging that SEIU itself has behaved as an abusive employer. Rank-and-file workers, meanwhile, feel that in some cases their ability to select their own leadership has been either diluted or abridged.And there's the issue of the downright nastiness of Stern-led deals that trade away the legal rights of people as helpless as the elderly and the disabled. SF Weekly's stories about SEIU's nursing-home deals have been widely read within organized labor as evidence that Stern's "collaborative" arrangements with employers aren't modernization at all. Instead they hark back to the bad old days of company-union sweetheart deals that have given organized labor a reputation for corruption.Rosselli's open rebellion is premised on the hope that somewhere in America, there are SEIU workers growing tired of Stern's ruse who will begin to advocate for real workers' rights.___________________________________
This is from Harper's:
ttp://www.harpers.org/archive/2008/02/hbc-90002386>
Internal Dispute at SEIU Deepens
Ken Silverstein
February 13, 2008
A few months back I reported on internal fighting at the Service
Employees International Union (SEIU), describing what looked to be a
power grab by President Andy Stern. Now Stern’s chief in-house
critic, Sal Rosselli, the president of United Healthcare Workers West
(UHW), has resigned from the SEIU’s Executive Committee. In his
resignation letter, reproduced below, Rosselli accused Stern of
disenfranchising workers, cutting backroom deals with companies and
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, and trying to block an
SEIU endorsement of Barack Obama.
February 9, 2008
Dear Brother Stern:
Like you, I take great pride in the recent growth of SEIU and the
prominent position our union holds in the labor movement and in
public policy debates of critical importance to working families. I
was honored four years ago when you appointed me to your executive
committee. During the previous eight years, we had worked together
constructively to help hundreds of thousands of health care workers
in California and beyond join our union and change their lives.
In United Healthcare Workers West (UHW), we have always believed that
our international union should be about more than numbers and
headlines. Over the past two years, a stark difference has evolved
between SEIU’s projected image and its real world practices. An
overly zealous focus on growth—growth at any cost, apparently—has
eclipsed SEIU’s commitment to its members. As labor leaders, we are
obligated to place the needs of our members first and to uphold
democratic principles not only in the workplace, but also in our
union. That is increasingly being blocked, circumvented and
manipulated.
It is said that “democracy dies in the darkness.” It is with deep
disappointment and great concern that I have watched dark shadows
fall upon SEIU, diminishing our hopes for revitalizing the labor
movement. Let me shed some light on the undemocratic practices we in
UHW have experienced firsthand:
You unilaterally decided to eliminate the Catholic Healthcare West
(CHW) Unity Council and appointed an International Union consultant
to manage our collective bargaining relationship, even though the
Council's creation was adopted by CHW rank-and-file leaders and
approved by the International Executive Board. By all accounts, our
relationship with CHW had been enormously successful and had led to
significant growth and dramatic improvement in the lives of SEIU
members who work at CHW. Your decision potentially weakens us just as
we are about to enter negotiations for 16,000 CHW employees,
jeopardizing the lead contract of our 2008 contract campaign that has
lined up the expiration dates of nearly 100 acute care hospitals
covering approximately 100,000 caregivers.
Similarly, you silenced workers' voices in bargaining with the
California Nursing Home Alliance by directing International Union
representatives to meet with our employers behind our backs and then
abused your power by barring UHW members and staff from participating
in direct negotiations with our employers, despite the fact that UHW
represents 75 percent of the nursing home members in bargaining.
Based on our recent meetings with representatives of the nursing home
industry, it is obvious that the International Union's secret
discussions with our employers are continuing.
You recently decided to intensify the divisive debate about
separating long-term care workers from hospital workers in California
which will further undermine our unity just as negotiations commence
for contracts at more than 100 nursing homes—contracts we fought for
years to align on a common expiration date of June 2008 — in order to
win major improvements for caregivers and residents and secure
organizing rights for workers in as many as 98 additional facilities,
including 17 where organizing drives are already under way.
Despite our representation of the largest number of workers in
Catholic health care of any SEIU local and the direct involvement of
two employers with whom we are engaged in active campaigns, you
exclude UHW from participation in discussions with the United States
Conference of Catholic Bishops. In response to our request for review
of your decision, you have now scheduled a hearing in Chicago for
February 12, with only 8 days' notice, whose scope is far broader
than anything approved by the International Executive Board, on the
alleged ground that it is necessary to review all aspects of our
Catholic health care employer relations and representation, raising
the specter that these matters will be placed entirely under control
of the International Union and its bureaucracy where rank and file
members will have no say, and no ability to affect their workplace
destiny.
In a deliberate attempt to create instability in important ongoing
organizing campaigns by fomenting mass resignations among our
Southern California organizing staff, your officers and staff helped
orchestrate the recent resignation of Southern California Organizing
Director, Amado David, whose letter of resignation appeared to have
been created on SEIU equipment weeks before his resigning and is now
being circulated by you to other SEIU leaders, all as a pretext for
taking further action against UHW's leaders and members. Despite this
attempt, our UHW Southern California organizing program remains fully
staffed and staff remain committed to UHW's organizing program.
You and other international officers interfered in the affairs of the
SEIU California State Council—our collective vehicle for state
legislative and electoral action—using the imposition of a revised
constitution and bylaws to prompt a presidential election when none
had been anticipated, then manipulating the per capita voting formula
and procedures in order to produce the outcome you desired.
Ultimately, you permitted provisional locals with no members (and
locals that have never paid per capita) and locals that were months
behind in per capita payments (owing the State Council nearly $2
million) to vote in the election so that you could control the
outcome of the election and seat the leader of your choice.
Your secret meetings with Governor Schwarzenegger and other elected
officials, without the participation of SEIU California leaders,
fatally weakened our many years of disciplined work to bring about
true health care reform. Those secret discussions with the governor
and his staff led them to believe that SEIU—and the labor movement
along with us—would settle for far less than was necessary to protect
the interests of working families or to win the support of
California's voters. The final deal that was struck, while far better
than the settlement you had recommended, was flawed and tainted as a
result of your actions and was politically doomed.
Just last week you attempted secretly, although unsuccessfully, to
squelch the SEIU California State Council's endorsement of Barack
Obama for President.
You removed a UHW administrative vice president from the Executive
Board of the California United Homecare Workers Union (CUHW) for
asking questions about "budget and allocation of funds." Your actions
like this have created a culture of fear throughout SEIU, making
local officers, members and staff afraid to speak up for fear of
reprisal.
Your international officers and staff manipulated voting procedures
in Unity Council bargaining with Tenet Healthcare in order to thwart
the will of the members and achieve your desired outcome.
Specifically, international officers tried to cast "per capita" votes
on behalf of unorganized workers who had no knowledge of the
negotiations, paid no dues to SEIU, and were not even in the process
of forming a union. Your failed effort would have given away our
members' right to strike for seven years and would have forced them
to accept lower standards.
As you know, UHW (formerly Locals 250 and 399) is the oldest health
care union in the country, with 75 years of proud and historic
accomplishments. We stand for the principle of one member, one vote
and the basic belief that members must have a seat at the bargaining
table and the right to vote on all agreements that affect them. We
believe that involving members at all levels of our union, providing
rank-and-file workers with the support they need to decide our
direction and lead our struggles, while winning good contracts that
improve caregivers' lives and the quality of the care we provide.
These are the best examples we can use to organize the unorganized.
Consistent with this, we believe that the deterioration of democracy
in our union will have disastrous consequences.
The Nursing Home Alliance agreements and others negotiated by the
International Union appear to relegate entire categories of workers
to permanent second-tier status, without basic rights and standards
to be expected in a union contract or any reasonable hope of
achieving them. This transactional exchange of members’ rights and
standards for greater numbers contradicts the core mission of SEIU.
We must be committed to fight for higher standards so that workers
who perform the same work will ultimately earn the same pay and
benefits, regardless of the identity of their employer.
Let me be clear. We fully support a culture of organizing and
strongly approve the goal of organizing our core industries. We also
understand the obligation that union strongholds like California and
New York have to help organize health care workers outside those two
states. Our own organizing record, our leadership in developing and
supporting the organizing recommendations of the President’s
Committee 2000 and the establishment of the Unity Funds, our
successful bargaining-to-organize fights in CHW, Tenet and HCA that
led to growth opportunities outside of California, and our direct
assistance to local and international organizing efforts throughout
the country leave no doubt regarding our commitment.
Each year UHW provides $23 million in per capita payments and Unity
Fund contributions to the International Union. We do so, even though
this is the fourth straight year in which not a dime is spent in
California. However, we cannot support, as you propose, sending even
more of our organizing dollars to Washington and giving the
International Union even greater control of their use when so many of
SEIU’s organizing ventures have not and will not build power in our
core industries, which was the purpose of the dues increase.
Furthermore, we see an ever diminishing International Union
commitment to improve workers’ lives now or in the future.
Much of what I have outlined here I have said to you directly and in
Executive Committee meetings. I have abided by the code of conduct
for Executive Committee members that requires what is said in the
committee to stay in the committee and that positions adopted by
majority vote of the committee should determine the position of all
its members.
In good conscience, I can no longer allow simple majorities of the
Executive Committee to outweigh my responsibility to our members to
act out of principle on these critically important matters. I say
this with no ill will, but with a deep sense of conviction.
As an elected leader of UHW and an elected international union vice
president, I believe that maintaining my silence about the sacrifice
of our principles and our failing to give voice to a clear and honest
disagreement about the road we are on and the future direction of our
International Union is too high of a price to pay. Therefore, my
conscience leaves me no option but to resign my position as a member
of the Executive Committee, effective immediately.
I believe that workers must have a voice. Indeed, that is the central
reason I believe in our union. I believe that for workers to have a
representative and effective voice, capable of changing their lives
and the direction of our nation, many voices must be heard, not just
those from Washington. I resign not to walk away, but to stay
involved and to be able to speak freely.
In Unity,
Sal Rosselli
___________________________________
Who Americans will not vote for....
This survey does not bode well for McCain or perhaps to a lesser extent for Hillary but Obama can take comfort!
An atheist 65%
Someone in "their" 70s 50
Muslim 48
Homosexual 46
Mormon 32
Hispanic 15
Woman 11
Black 4etc.<http://pewresearch.org/pubs/744/mccain-too-old>
An atheist 65%
Someone in "their" 70s 50
Muslim 48
Homosexual 46
Mormon 32
Hispanic 15
Woman 11
Black 4etc.<http://pewresearch.org/pubs/744/mccain-too-old>
Phillipine business community divided on another "People Power" revolt.
This is from the Inquirer.
Politics is rather different in the Philippines than the U.S. I can't even imagine the U.S. public organised to overthrow the U.S. government even though Bush is very unpopular and has done much to violate American's rights as well as advancing the interests of his crony capitalist friends. Even less can one imagine business groups backing such an overthrow. I guess this just goes to show how much more politically advanced the Philippine populace is compared to Americans !
One American revolution was more than enough it seems. Homeland Security is ready for any People Power in the U.S.
Business divided on another 'People Power' revolt
Philippine Daily InquirerFirst Posted 19:42:00 02/24/2008
MANILA, Philippines--Like many sectors of the Philippine society, the business community is divided over the prospect of another people power revolt unseating President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
They are also divided over the ability of the country to weather another mass uprising.
Surprisingly, however, anecdotal evidence shows that more and more business people are now open to the possibility of an extra-constitutional change in government under specific conditions.
This shift has become more palpable over the past few months and contrasts starkly with the sentiment of business leaders who speak regularly to the Philippine Daily Inquirer from their positions just a couple of years ago.
Makati Business Club trustee Jose L. Cuisia Jr., who played an active role in Edsa I, laid out preconditions under which the country could survive another people power.
"I agree with Archbishop Angel N. Lagdameo about what he calls a different brand of people power," he said.
Cuisia, who is also president and chief executive of Philamlife, said another people power would make sense if there were no street protests or bloodshed, and if it would result in a major change in the country's leadership.
"[We may need people power again] because reforms have not taken place and the system rewards the same [groups]," Cuisia said. "If it would be a different kind of people power, then yes the economy can [weather it]."
SGV & Co. chair David Balangue believed that the country could survive another people power convulsion, saying that people should "try again" after failing to get it right in the last episode.
"We need to try and try again until we get it right, because the systems of checks and balances provided for in the Constitution are not working," Balangue said.
At the same time, other members of the business community felt strongly against an uprising, and warned of dire consequences should another one occur.
Industrialist Raul T. Concepcion said the Philippines could not afford another revolt unless it would bring the country together as what happened in Edsa I in 1986.
"Edsa I was correct in that respect, but Edsa II in 2001 was different," Concepcion said. "We can't have an Edsa III because it would not change the system."
The Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI) also opposed the idea, with its chairman Sergio Ortiz-Luis Jr. warning that people power would be "almost fatal" to the economy at this point.
"Even without any semblance of another people power, foreign investors have been holding off with regard to the Philippines," he said.
"What more if there would actually be another?"
"The first people power was OK. The second was a problem," Ortiz-Luis said. "A third would be very bad [for business]."
Economists also have opposing views on whether another people power will adversely affect the country's economy, which some said had just started to take off following the 31-year-high gross domestic product growth of 7.3 percent in 2007.
Cielito Habito, an economist from the Ateneo de Manila University, said that he believed that the Philippine economy had somehow developed a wall shielding it from the goings on in politics.
"The economy seems to have a life of its own. Last year, we saw how the peso strengthened and stock market prices rose to record highs despite political problems," Habito said.
Economist Benjamin Diokno of the University of the Philippines did not believe another people power would be bad for the economy.
The economy should not be made an excuse for doing what would be best for the country, he said.
"The economy has grown despite Mrs. Arroyo," he said.
"It's more because of sustained OFW [overseas Filipino workers] remittances and favorable global economic environment. If she has to go because she has lost moral authority to govern then she has to go," he said.
But economist Victor Abola said another people power would undermine the country's institutions and worsen political instability, which could drive away investors.
"I don't think people will be willing to do another revolt, but if that happens, it's the economy that will suffer," he said. "The elections are just two years [away]. Why would we need to do something that will undermine our institutions?"
From the outside, however, the verdict is clearer.
The Philippine economy is widely seen to be in a stronger position to survive any domestic political turbulence like another uprising—but not necessarily emerge out of it unscathed.
"Given that the macroeconomic fundamentals are now stronger than they were three or four years ago, that means that whatever disruption that may occur, whether it's people power revolution or something else, the country will be able to withstand more," said Agost Benard, sovereign credit analyst at Standard & Poor's.
"But, of course, events of such nature will threaten to undo some of the progress," Benard said.
The Philippine credit rating already takes into account a big degree of domestic political uncertainty, which has for a long time been a feature of the economy, according to Benard. He said the uncertainty tended to affect and interfere with policy making.
"But the current events are not something that will change our view," the S&P credit analyst said.
An economist at a New York-based think tank said that the effect of political turbulence on growth numbers would probably not be big given the momentum of domestic demand.
Margarita Gonzales of Global Source also noted that growth had been largely driven by OFW remittance-induced private consumption. "But it matters how the business sector and investors view the change," she said.
If leadership change would be swift and resolve the problem quickly, the economy might stay resilient. But if it were to lead to further political instability or plant the seed for future instability, the economy could suffer greatly, Gonzalez said.
Despite the disparate views among business people, it was clear that the disagreements came from the time frame—whether long- or short-term—with which they assessed the effects of politics on the economy.
"I think our economy is resilient enough that it should survive over the long term," said JV Emmanuel de Dios, former energy undersecretary and now president of Nido Petroleum Philippines Inc.
"The question is whether we are willing to accept the short-term consequences which may derail the momentum the economy currently enjoys," De Dios said.Reports from Ronnel Domingo, Doris Dumlao, Michelle Remo, Abigail Ho, Riza Olchondra and Daxim Lucas
Copyright 2008 Philippine Daily Inquirer. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Politics is rather different in the Philippines than the U.S. I can't even imagine the U.S. public organised to overthrow the U.S. government even though Bush is very unpopular and has done much to violate American's rights as well as advancing the interests of his crony capitalist friends. Even less can one imagine business groups backing such an overthrow. I guess this just goes to show how much more politically advanced the Philippine populace is compared to Americans !
One American revolution was more than enough it seems. Homeland Security is ready for any People Power in the U.S.
Business divided on another 'People Power' revolt
Philippine Daily InquirerFirst Posted 19:42:00 02/24/2008
MANILA, Philippines--Like many sectors of the Philippine society, the business community is divided over the prospect of another people power revolt unseating President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
They are also divided over the ability of the country to weather another mass uprising.
Surprisingly, however, anecdotal evidence shows that more and more business people are now open to the possibility of an extra-constitutional change in government under specific conditions.
This shift has become more palpable over the past few months and contrasts starkly with the sentiment of business leaders who speak regularly to the Philippine Daily Inquirer from their positions just a couple of years ago.
Makati Business Club trustee Jose L. Cuisia Jr., who played an active role in Edsa I, laid out preconditions under which the country could survive another people power.
"I agree with Archbishop Angel N. Lagdameo about what he calls a different brand of people power," he said.
Cuisia, who is also president and chief executive of Philamlife, said another people power would make sense if there were no street protests or bloodshed, and if it would result in a major change in the country's leadership.
"[We may need people power again] because reforms have not taken place and the system rewards the same [groups]," Cuisia said. "If it would be a different kind of people power, then yes the economy can [weather it]."
SGV & Co. chair David Balangue believed that the country could survive another people power convulsion, saying that people should "try again" after failing to get it right in the last episode.
"We need to try and try again until we get it right, because the systems of checks and balances provided for in the Constitution are not working," Balangue said.
At the same time, other members of the business community felt strongly against an uprising, and warned of dire consequences should another one occur.
Industrialist Raul T. Concepcion said the Philippines could not afford another revolt unless it would bring the country together as what happened in Edsa I in 1986.
"Edsa I was correct in that respect, but Edsa II in 2001 was different," Concepcion said. "We can't have an Edsa III because it would not change the system."
The Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI) also opposed the idea, with its chairman Sergio Ortiz-Luis Jr. warning that people power would be "almost fatal" to the economy at this point.
"Even without any semblance of another people power, foreign investors have been holding off with regard to the Philippines," he said.
"What more if there would actually be another?"
"The first people power was OK. The second was a problem," Ortiz-Luis said. "A third would be very bad [for business]."
Economists also have opposing views on whether another people power will adversely affect the country's economy, which some said had just started to take off following the 31-year-high gross domestic product growth of 7.3 percent in 2007.
Cielito Habito, an economist from the Ateneo de Manila University, said that he believed that the Philippine economy had somehow developed a wall shielding it from the goings on in politics.
"The economy seems to have a life of its own. Last year, we saw how the peso strengthened and stock market prices rose to record highs despite political problems," Habito said.
Economist Benjamin Diokno of the University of the Philippines did not believe another people power would be bad for the economy.
The economy should not be made an excuse for doing what would be best for the country, he said.
"The economy has grown despite Mrs. Arroyo," he said.
"It's more because of sustained OFW [overseas Filipino workers] remittances and favorable global economic environment. If she has to go because she has lost moral authority to govern then she has to go," he said.
But economist Victor Abola said another people power would undermine the country's institutions and worsen political instability, which could drive away investors.
"I don't think people will be willing to do another revolt, but if that happens, it's the economy that will suffer," he said. "The elections are just two years [away]. Why would we need to do something that will undermine our institutions?"
From the outside, however, the verdict is clearer.
The Philippine economy is widely seen to be in a stronger position to survive any domestic political turbulence like another uprising—but not necessarily emerge out of it unscathed.
"Given that the macroeconomic fundamentals are now stronger than they were three or four years ago, that means that whatever disruption that may occur, whether it's people power revolution or something else, the country will be able to withstand more," said Agost Benard, sovereign credit analyst at Standard & Poor's.
"But, of course, events of such nature will threaten to undo some of the progress," Benard said.
The Philippine credit rating already takes into account a big degree of domestic political uncertainty, which has for a long time been a feature of the economy, according to Benard. He said the uncertainty tended to affect and interfere with policy making.
"But the current events are not something that will change our view," the S&P credit analyst said.
An economist at a New York-based think tank said that the effect of political turbulence on growth numbers would probably not be big given the momentum of domestic demand.
Margarita Gonzales of Global Source also noted that growth had been largely driven by OFW remittance-induced private consumption. "But it matters how the business sector and investors view the change," she said.
If leadership change would be swift and resolve the problem quickly, the economy might stay resilient. But if it were to lead to further political instability or plant the seed for future instability, the economy could suffer greatly, Gonzalez said.
Despite the disparate views among business people, it was clear that the disagreements came from the time frame—whether long- or short-term—with which they assessed the effects of politics on the economy.
"I think our economy is resilient enough that it should survive over the long term," said JV Emmanuel de Dios, former energy undersecretary and now president of Nido Petroleum Philippines Inc.
"The question is whether we are willing to accept the short-term consequences which may derail the momentum the economy currently enjoys," De Dios said.Reports from Ronnel Domingo, Doris Dumlao, Michelle Remo, Abigail Ho, Riza Olchondra and Daxim Lucas
Copyright 2008 Philippine Daily Inquirer. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Al Sadr demans end to Turkish incursion.
The Turkish incursion has the effect of creating some unity between groups that are often at loggerheads. Al Sadr is very much an Iraqi nationalist and does not look favorably on Kurdish separatism or regionalism. However, it is interesting that Al Sadr also blames the occupying authorities for the situation implying (no doubt correctly) that the U.S. has in effect allowed if not sanctioned the incursion. The U.S. should have acted long ago and the Turks simply lost patience as virtually nothing was done to stop the PKK in northern Iraq.
Muqtada al-Sadr's office demands end to Turkish military offensive in northern Iraq
The Associated Press
Sunday, February 24, 2008
BAGHDAD: Iraq's firebrand Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's office demanded on Sunday an immediate withdrawal of Turkish forces from northern Iraq and advised negotiations instead.
"We demand that the Turkish government withdraw its forces immediately from the Iraqi territory and rely on negotiations to solve this conflict," al-Sadr's influential political committee said in a statement issued by his office in the Shiite holy city of Najaf.
The incursion is the first confirmed Turkish military ground operation in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003.
"We call upon the Muslim neighbor Turkey through its Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and its Muslim people to be an element of peace and security in the region," the statement added.
The Sadrists also held the Iraqi government and U.S.-led forces responsible for the "deteriorating security situation on our northern borders."
"The government is called upon to move rapidly to guarantee the security of our Muslim Kurdish people according to its constitutional responsibilities," the statement said. Al-Sadr's political committee is composed of senior members of al-Sadr's movement.
Monday, February 25, 2008
American History: The water cure etc. in the Philippines a century ago.
Annals Of American HistoryThe Water CureDebating torture and counterinsurgency—a century ago.By Paul Kramer 21/02/08 "New Yorker" --- Many Americans were puzzled by the news, in 1902, that United States soldiers were torturing Filipinos with water. The United States, throughout its emergence as a world power, had spoken the language of liberation, rescue, and freedom. This was the language that, when coupled with expanding military and commercial ambitions, had helped launch two very different wars. The first had been in 1898, against Spain, whose remaining empire was crumbling in the face of popular revolts in two of its colonies, Cuba and the Philippines. The brief campaign was pitched to the American public in terms of freedom and national honor (the U.S.S. Maine had blown up mysteriously in Havana Harbor), rather than of sugar and naval bases, and resulted in a formally independent Cuba.
A picture of a “water detail,” reportedly taken in May, 1901, in Sual, the Philippines. “It is a terrible torture,” one soldier wrote.
The Americans were not done liberating. Rising trade in East Asia suggested to imperialists that the Philippines, Spain’s largest colony, might serve as an effective “stepping stone” to China’s markets. U.S. naval plans included provisions for an attack on the Spanish Navy in the event of war, and led to a decisive victory against the Spanish fleet at Manila Bay in May, 1898. Shortly afterward, Commodore George Dewey returned the exiled Filipino revolutionary Emilio Aguinaldo to the islands. Aguinaldo defeated Spanish forces on land, declared the Philippines independent in June, and organized a government led by the Philippine élite.During the next half year, it became clear that American and Filipino visions for the islands’ future were at odds. U.S. forces seized Manila from Spain—keeping the army of their ostensible ally Aguinaldo from entering the city—and President William McKinley refused to
recognize Filipino claims to independence, pushing his negotiators to demand that Spain cede sovereignty over the islands to the United States, while talking about Filipinos’ need for “benevolent assimilation.” Aguinaldo and some of his advisers, who had been inspired by the United States as a model republic and had greeted its soldiers as liberators, became increasingly suspicious of American motivations. When, after a period of mounting tensions, a U.S. sentry fired on Filipino soldiers outside Manila in February, 1899, the second war erupted, just days before the Senate ratified a treaty with Spain securing American sovereignty over the islands in exchange for twenty million dollars. In the next three years, U.S. troops waged a war to “free” the islands’ population from the regime that Aguinaldo had established. The conflict cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of Filipinos and about four thousand U.S. soldiers.Within the first year of the war, news of atrocities by U.S. forces—the torching of villages, the killing of prisoners—began to appear in American newspapers. Although the U.S. military censored outgoing cables, stories crossed the Pacific through the mail, which wasn’t censored. Soldiers, in their letters home, wrote about extreme violence against Filipinos, alongside complaints about the weather, the food, and their officers; and some of these letters were published in home-town newspapers. A letter by A. F. Miller, of the 32nd Volunteer Infantry Regiment, published in the Omaha World-Herald in May, 1900, told of how Miller’s unit uncovered hidden weapons by subjecting a prisoner to what he and others called the “water cure.” “Now, this is the way we give them the water cure,” he explained. “Lay them on their backs, a man standing on each hand and each foot, then put a round stick in the mouth and pour a pail of water in the mouth and nose, and if they don’t give up pour in another pail. They swell up like toads. I’ll tell you it is a terrible torture.”On occasion, someone—a local antiwar activist, one suspects—forwarded these clippings to centers of anti-imperialist publishing in the Northeast. But the war’s critics were at first hesitant to do much with them: they were hard to substantiate, and they would, it was felt, subject the publishers to charges of anti-Americanism. This was especially true as the politics of imperialism became entangled in the 1900 Presidential campaign. As the Democratic candidate, William Jennings Bryan, clashed with the Republican incumbent over imperialism, which the Democrats called “the paramount issue,” critics of the war had to defend themselves against accusations of having treasonously inspired the insurgency, prolonged the conflict, and betrayed American soldiers. But, after McKinley won a second term, the critics may have felt that they had little to lose. Ultimately, outraged dissenters—chief among them the relentless Philadelphia-based reformer Herbert Welsh—forced the question of U.S. atrocities into the light. Welsh, who was descended from a wealthy merchant family, might have seemed an unlikely investigator of military abuse at the edge of empire. His main antagonists had previously been Philadelphia’s party bosses, whose sordid machinations were extensively reported in Welsh’s earnest upstart weekly, City and State. Yet he had also been a founder of the “Indian rights” movement, which attempted to curtail white violence and fraud while pursuing Native American “civilization” through Christianity, U.S. citizenship, and individual land tenure. An expansive concern with bloodshed and corruption at the nation’s periphery is perhaps what drew Welsh’s imagination from the Dakotas to Southeast Asia. He had initially been skeptical of reports of misconduct by U.S. troops. But by late 1901, faced with what he considered “overwhelming” proof, Welsh emerged as a single-minded campaigner for the exposure and punishment of atrocities, running an idiosyncratic investigation out of his Philadelphia offices. As one who “professes to believe in the gospel of Christ,” he declared, he felt obliged to condemn “the cruelties and barbarities which have been perpetrated under our flag in the Philippines.” Only the vigorous pursuit of justice could restore “the credit of the American nation in the eyes of the civilized world.” By early 1902, three assistants to Welsh were chasing down returning soldiers for their testimony, and Philippine “cruelties” began to crowd Philadelphia’s party bosses from the pages of City and State.
Dr. June Terpstra
Faculty
Justice Studies
Northeastern Ilinois University
http://juneterpstra.com
A picture of a “water detail,” reportedly taken in May, 1901, in Sual, the Philippines. “It is a terrible torture,” one soldier wrote.
The Americans were not done liberating. Rising trade in East Asia suggested to imperialists that the Philippines, Spain’s largest colony, might serve as an effective “stepping stone” to China’s markets. U.S. naval plans included provisions for an attack on the Spanish Navy in the event of war, and led to a decisive victory against the Spanish fleet at Manila Bay in May, 1898. Shortly afterward, Commodore George Dewey returned the exiled Filipino revolutionary Emilio Aguinaldo to the islands. Aguinaldo defeated Spanish forces on land, declared the Philippines independent in June, and organized a government led by the Philippine élite.During the next half year, it became clear that American and Filipino visions for the islands’ future were at odds. U.S. forces seized Manila from Spain—keeping the army of their ostensible ally Aguinaldo from entering the city—and President William McKinley refused to
recognize Filipino claims to independence, pushing his negotiators to demand that Spain cede sovereignty over the islands to the United States, while talking about Filipinos’ need for “benevolent assimilation.” Aguinaldo and some of his advisers, who had been inspired by the United States as a model republic and had greeted its soldiers as liberators, became increasingly suspicious of American motivations. When, after a period of mounting tensions, a U.S. sentry fired on Filipino soldiers outside Manila in February, 1899, the second war erupted, just days before the Senate ratified a treaty with Spain securing American sovereignty over the islands in exchange for twenty million dollars. In the next three years, U.S. troops waged a war to “free” the islands’ population from the regime that Aguinaldo had established. The conflict cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of Filipinos and about four thousand U.S. soldiers.Within the first year of the war, news of atrocities by U.S. forces—the torching of villages, the killing of prisoners—began to appear in American newspapers. Although the U.S. military censored outgoing cables, stories crossed the Pacific through the mail, which wasn’t censored. Soldiers, in their letters home, wrote about extreme violence against Filipinos, alongside complaints about the weather, the food, and their officers; and some of these letters were published in home-town newspapers. A letter by A. F. Miller, of the 32nd Volunteer Infantry Regiment, published in the Omaha World-Herald in May, 1900, told of how Miller’s unit uncovered hidden weapons by subjecting a prisoner to what he and others called the “water cure.” “Now, this is the way we give them the water cure,” he explained. “Lay them on their backs, a man standing on each hand and each foot, then put a round stick in the mouth and pour a pail of water in the mouth and nose, and if they don’t give up pour in another pail. They swell up like toads. I’ll tell you it is a terrible torture.”On occasion, someone—a local antiwar activist, one suspects—forwarded these clippings to centers of anti-imperialist publishing in the Northeast. But the war’s critics were at first hesitant to do much with them: they were hard to substantiate, and they would, it was felt, subject the publishers to charges of anti-Americanism. This was especially true as the politics of imperialism became entangled in the 1900 Presidential campaign. As the Democratic candidate, William Jennings Bryan, clashed with the Republican incumbent over imperialism, which the Democrats called “the paramount issue,” critics of the war had to defend themselves against accusations of having treasonously inspired the insurgency, prolonged the conflict, and betrayed American soldiers. But, after McKinley won a second term, the critics may have felt that they had little to lose. Ultimately, outraged dissenters—chief among them the relentless Philadelphia-based reformer Herbert Welsh—forced the question of U.S. atrocities into the light. Welsh, who was descended from a wealthy merchant family, might have seemed an unlikely investigator of military abuse at the edge of empire. His main antagonists had previously been Philadelphia’s party bosses, whose sordid machinations were extensively reported in Welsh’s earnest upstart weekly, City and State. Yet he had also been a founder of the “Indian rights” movement, which attempted to curtail white violence and fraud while pursuing Native American “civilization” through Christianity, U.S. citizenship, and individual land tenure. An expansive concern with bloodshed and corruption at the nation’s periphery is perhaps what drew Welsh’s imagination from the Dakotas to Southeast Asia. He had initially been skeptical of reports of misconduct by U.S. troops. But by late 1901, faced with what he considered “overwhelming” proof, Welsh emerged as a single-minded campaigner for the exposure and punishment of atrocities, running an idiosyncratic investigation out of his Philadelphia offices. As one who “professes to believe in the gospel of Christ,” he declared, he felt obliged to condemn “the cruelties and barbarities which have been perpetrated under our flag in the Philippines.” Only the vigorous pursuit of justice could restore “the credit of the American nation in the eyes of the civilized world.” By early 1902, three assistants to Welsh were chasing down returning soldiers for their testimony, and Philippine “cruelties” began to crowd Philadelphia’s party bosses from the pages of City and State.
Dr. June Terpstra
Faculty
Justice Studies
Northeastern Ilinois University
http://juneterpstra.com
Kosovo and Greater Albania
The Greater Albania push is an aspect of Kosovo's declaration of independence that is ignored by much of the media. Imagine those seeking independence are carrying mostly Albanian flags. I noticed that there were also many U.S. flags in some demonstrations since the Kosovans are quite appreciative of the fact that the U.S. had assured them that they would recognise Kosovo.
The recognition just ignores that the U.N. recognises the "sanctity" of existing borders so that parts of a country cannot simply secede without the consent of the country as a whole. There was not even a referendum held in Kosovo. While there is little doubt the vast majority in Kosovo do not want to be part of Serbia the unilateral declaration has split the global community. Other countries that face separatist challenges such as China, Russia and Spain have not recognised the state. Canada is still sitting on the fence but in the end will no doubt go along with the U.S. U.K. Italy etc.
Operation Independence Kosovo: NATO and the New Step Toward "Greater Albania"
Sungur Savran
The celebrations by the Albanian people of Kosovo upon the declaration of an "independent and sovereign" state were aired on television extensively. Two flags were waved during these celebrations. One was the familiar U.S. flag. And the second one? This flag with a double-headed black eagle on a red background, which country might that belong to? Better not to be too rash and say that it is the flag of the newly "independent" state of Kosovo, for that would be misunderstanding the true nature of what has happened. In the newly "independent" state of Kosovo, the people celebrating on the streets were waving the flag of another country. This was the flag of Albania!
The declaration of the "independence" of Kosovo is, first and foremost, a vast step forward for one of the pet projects of the U.S. in the Balkans, the creation of a "Greater Albania." This fact is so tangible, so concrete that when Martti Ahtisaari, the Special Envoy of the United Nations (UN), in a report he submitted in spring 2007 after two years of negotiations between Kosovo and Serbia had reached a deadlock, recommended the "independence" of Kosovo, he had to qualify this by a special formula, "supervised independence." And against what would the "independence" of Kosovo be "supervised"? Why, the first precondition that Ahtisaari had to propose was to rule out unification with Albania! The mere imposition of this qualification demonstrates, beyond a shadow of doubt, that the real aspiration of the Albanians of Kosovo (and of the U.S.) is the creation of a "Greater Albania" through unification with the present state of Albania. Hence, the "independence" of Kosovo is sham independence.
And who is supposed to "supervise" the "independence" of Kosovo? The answer to this question gives us the second dimension of Kosovo's "independence." It is a well-known fact that, after the seventy four-day air strikes inflicted on the former Yugoslavia by NATO, Kosovo was delivered to the civilian rule of UNMIK (the UN Kosovo Mission) and the military control of KFOR (the Kosovo Peace Force). According to the terms of the resolution adopted by the UN after the termination of the Kosovo War, Kosovo was to remain Serbian territory, but was also to be converted into a "UN protectorate." This was a legal formula that was permeated with contradiction, since the status of "protectorate" is an entirely colonial status and to declare a territory that is under the sovereignty of an independent state (the former Yugoslavia and today's successor state of Serbia) a colonial belonging defies logic.
The "independence" granted today to Kosovo removes this contradiction, making it thereby a straightforward colony, one under multilateral rule. The initiative regarding the declaration of "independence" does not belong to Hashim Thaci, the leader of the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army become prime minister in January this year, but Ahtisaari on behalf of the UN. It is a travesty to pretend that Thaci is a "hero." Imperialism has offered "independence" to the KLA on a golden platter. Today Kosovo is controlled by 17 thousand NATO troops. It is being delivered to the rule of the EU, which will be sending an additional force of 1800 to police the territory. "Independence" on the force of arms of others is sham independence!
The real historic significance of this sham independence resides in this, that the U.S. and the EU have, through the Kosovo War, forcibly wrested a part of Serbia away from the country! (It would not be futile to remind EU fanatics that, in contrast to the Iraq War of 2003 for instance, all the big EU countries were comrades in arms with the USA, and even led, the Kosovo war.) The 1999 war was fought on the declared grounds of stopping the cruel treatment and ethnic cleansing the Albanians of Kosovo were suffering at the hands of Milosevic. But the final outcome nine years later demonstrates that the real aim was to carry to its conclusion the dismemberment of Yugoslavia. "Operation independence Kosovo" is but the belated consummation of the forcible destruction of Yugoslavia in the years 1991 to 1999.
A clear understanding regarding the aims of this imperialistic policy is of paramount importance. To start with, the Balkans are the South-western tip of Eurasia, an immense region that has come up for grabs as a result of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the other degenerated workers' states in Europe between 1989 and 1992. It was imperative for imperialism to prevent the survival of a state (Federal Yugoslavia) that had the capacity of obstructing imperialist plans in the Balkans. The dismemberment of Yugoslavia was the most violent form that capitalist restoration took in this historical period. Secondly, for the smooth implementation of EU plans to annex central and Eastern Europe, it was necessary to carve Federal Yugoslavia into mini-states and subsequently to destroy the historically strong identity of the Balkans through the imposition of the concept of "Southeast Europe." The so-called "Southeast Europe Stability Pact" (of which Turkey is such an ardent protagonist) is a product of this operation. Third, the Albanians were promoted as a special ally of the USA. Albania has today become the stronghold of reaction and pro-imperialist policies, as well as the Balkan centre of trafficking in drugs and prostitution. The project of "Greater Albania" is a U.S. initiative, developed as a counterweight to the preponderance of the Southern Slavs in the Balkans. Today Albania and Kosovo seem to embody the two heads of the eagle on the Albanian flag. Tomorrow, the eagle may become triple-headed, with the Albanians of Macedonia joining the band wagon. The "independence" of Kosovo should be situated in this overall picture.
The Albanians of Kosovo seem to be overwhelmingly in favour of secession from Serbia. Would it not be appropriate under these circumstances, it might be asked, for internationalists to support this "independence" on the basis of the right of nations to self-determination? The specific evolution of Kosovo history and the existence of a project to establish a "Greater Albania" complicate matters. Before it came under Ottoman domination in the wake of the notorious Kosovo War of 1399, Kosovo used to be the historic centre of Serbia. It was only towards the end of the 19th century that Albanians became the majority in this territory as a result of the ethnic cleansing of the Serbs under Ottoman colonial policy and the support extended by the Empire to Islamised Albanians as against the Serbs. Add to this the fact that Albanians already wield a state that neighbours the Serbian state. Under these circumstances the national question in Kosovo overlaps with that of the quest of one state to expand its territory (and population) at the expense of another. Beyond the plain and simple principle of the right of nations to self-determination, we see here a struggle for power between two sovereign states. But all these arguments pale beside the fact that the status accorded to Kosovo today has nothing to do with "independence." A new colony is born. How long the status of protectorate will last is totally unforeseeable, given the policy of imperialism in the Balkans.
That Turkey should have recognised the "independence" of Kosovo immediately, on the same day as the U.S. and the larger states of the EU, and this despite its own Kurdish question and its fears regarding the Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraq, has certainly nothing to do with respect for the rights of oppressed nations. The ruling classes of Turkey have made it a principle to serve the policies of imperialism, and of U.S. imperialism in particular, in the region of Eurasia, as long as these do not come into direct conflict with its own interests as in the case of the Kurdish question. The Eurasia policy of Turkey, pursued since Özal established it in 1991, has taken the form of military support to all kinds of imperialist endeavours (Somali, Afghanistan, Lebanon etc.)
During the Kosovo War, Turkish bombers poured death over the Serbian people arm in arm with the air forces of imperialist powers, three military air strips were allocated to imperialist fighter jets (but were not ultimately used because the war ended earlier than predicted), and the supposedly nationalist prime minister Ecevit declared, in the early stages of the war, that Turkey was prepared for land combat. The recognition of the "independence" of Kosovo implies that Turkey continues to play the game of imperialism and is directly connected to the agreement of 5 November 2007 between Bush and Erdogan related to the bombing of Kurdish (PKK) targets in Northern Iraq. Given the oppression of the Serbs by the Turks and the role they played under the Ottoman Empire in the forcible Islamisation of Kosovo, this policy becomes all the more shameless.
Sungur Savran is editor of the newspaper Isci Mucadelesi (Workers' Struggle) in Istanbul, Turkey (http://www.iscimucadelesi.net/).
The recognition just ignores that the U.N. recognises the "sanctity" of existing borders so that parts of a country cannot simply secede without the consent of the country as a whole. There was not even a referendum held in Kosovo. While there is little doubt the vast majority in Kosovo do not want to be part of Serbia the unilateral declaration has split the global community. Other countries that face separatist challenges such as China, Russia and Spain have not recognised the state. Canada is still sitting on the fence but in the end will no doubt go along with the U.S. U.K. Italy etc.
Operation Independence Kosovo: NATO and the New Step Toward "Greater Albania"
Sungur Savran
The celebrations by the Albanian people of Kosovo upon the declaration of an "independent and sovereign" state were aired on television extensively. Two flags were waved during these celebrations. One was the familiar U.S. flag. And the second one? This flag with a double-headed black eagle on a red background, which country might that belong to? Better not to be too rash and say that it is the flag of the newly "independent" state of Kosovo, for that would be misunderstanding the true nature of what has happened. In the newly "independent" state of Kosovo, the people celebrating on the streets were waving the flag of another country. This was the flag of Albania!
The declaration of the "independence" of Kosovo is, first and foremost, a vast step forward for one of the pet projects of the U.S. in the Balkans, the creation of a "Greater Albania." This fact is so tangible, so concrete that when Martti Ahtisaari, the Special Envoy of the United Nations (UN), in a report he submitted in spring 2007 after two years of negotiations between Kosovo and Serbia had reached a deadlock, recommended the "independence" of Kosovo, he had to qualify this by a special formula, "supervised independence." And against what would the "independence" of Kosovo be "supervised"? Why, the first precondition that Ahtisaari had to propose was to rule out unification with Albania! The mere imposition of this qualification demonstrates, beyond a shadow of doubt, that the real aspiration of the Albanians of Kosovo (and of the U.S.) is the creation of a "Greater Albania" through unification with the present state of Albania. Hence, the "independence" of Kosovo is sham independence.
And who is supposed to "supervise" the "independence" of Kosovo? The answer to this question gives us the second dimension of Kosovo's "independence." It is a well-known fact that, after the seventy four-day air strikes inflicted on the former Yugoslavia by NATO, Kosovo was delivered to the civilian rule of UNMIK (the UN Kosovo Mission) and the military control of KFOR (the Kosovo Peace Force). According to the terms of the resolution adopted by the UN after the termination of the Kosovo War, Kosovo was to remain Serbian territory, but was also to be converted into a "UN protectorate." This was a legal formula that was permeated with contradiction, since the status of "protectorate" is an entirely colonial status and to declare a territory that is under the sovereignty of an independent state (the former Yugoslavia and today's successor state of Serbia) a colonial belonging defies logic.
The "independence" granted today to Kosovo removes this contradiction, making it thereby a straightforward colony, one under multilateral rule. The initiative regarding the declaration of "independence" does not belong to Hashim Thaci, the leader of the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army become prime minister in January this year, but Ahtisaari on behalf of the UN. It is a travesty to pretend that Thaci is a "hero." Imperialism has offered "independence" to the KLA on a golden platter. Today Kosovo is controlled by 17 thousand NATO troops. It is being delivered to the rule of the EU, which will be sending an additional force of 1800 to police the territory. "Independence" on the force of arms of others is sham independence!
The real historic significance of this sham independence resides in this, that the U.S. and the EU have, through the Kosovo War, forcibly wrested a part of Serbia away from the country! (It would not be futile to remind EU fanatics that, in contrast to the Iraq War of 2003 for instance, all the big EU countries were comrades in arms with the USA, and even led, the Kosovo war.) The 1999 war was fought on the declared grounds of stopping the cruel treatment and ethnic cleansing the Albanians of Kosovo were suffering at the hands of Milosevic. But the final outcome nine years later demonstrates that the real aim was to carry to its conclusion the dismemberment of Yugoslavia. "Operation independence Kosovo" is but the belated consummation of the forcible destruction of Yugoslavia in the years 1991 to 1999.
A clear understanding regarding the aims of this imperialistic policy is of paramount importance. To start with, the Balkans are the South-western tip of Eurasia, an immense region that has come up for grabs as a result of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the other degenerated workers' states in Europe between 1989 and 1992. It was imperative for imperialism to prevent the survival of a state (Federal Yugoslavia) that had the capacity of obstructing imperialist plans in the Balkans. The dismemberment of Yugoslavia was the most violent form that capitalist restoration took in this historical period. Secondly, for the smooth implementation of EU plans to annex central and Eastern Europe, it was necessary to carve Federal Yugoslavia into mini-states and subsequently to destroy the historically strong identity of the Balkans through the imposition of the concept of "Southeast Europe." The so-called "Southeast Europe Stability Pact" (of which Turkey is such an ardent protagonist) is a product of this operation. Third, the Albanians were promoted as a special ally of the USA. Albania has today become the stronghold of reaction and pro-imperialist policies, as well as the Balkan centre of trafficking in drugs and prostitution. The project of "Greater Albania" is a U.S. initiative, developed as a counterweight to the preponderance of the Southern Slavs in the Balkans. Today Albania and Kosovo seem to embody the two heads of the eagle on the Albanian flag. Tomorrow, the eagle may become triple-headed, with the Albanians of Macedonia joining the band wagon. The "independence" of Kosovo should be situated in this overall picture.
The Albanians of Kosovo seem to be overwhelmingly in favour of secession from Serbia. Would it not be appropriate under these circumstances, it might be asked, for internationalists to support this "independence" on the basis of the right of nations to self-determination? The specific evolution of Kosovo history and the existence of a project to establish a "Greater Albania" complicate matters. Before it came under Ottoman domination in the wake of the notorious Kosovo War of 1399, Kosovo used to be the historic centre of Serbia. It was only towards the end of the 19th century that Albanians became the majority in this territory as a result of the ethnic cleansing of the Serbs under Ottoman colonial policy and the support extended by the Empire to Islamised Albanians as against the Serbs. Add to this the fact that Albanians already wield a state that neighbours the Serbian state. Under these circumstances the national question in Kosovo overlaps with that of the quest of one state to expand its territory (and population) at the expense of another. Beyond the plain and simple principle of the right of nations to self-determination, we see here a struggle for power between two sovereign states. But all these arguments pale beside the fact that the status accorded to Kosovo today has nothing to do with "independence." A new colony is born. How long the status of protectorate will last is totally unforeseeable, given the policy of imperialism in the Balkans.
That Turkey should have recognised the "independence" of Kosovo immediately, on the same day as the U.S. and the larger states of the EU, and this despite its own Kurdish question and its fears regarding the Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraq, has certainly nothing to do with respect for the rights of oppressed nations. The ruling classes of Turkey have made it a principle to serve the policies of imperialism, and of U.S. imperialism in particular, in the region of Eurasia, as long as these do not come into direct conflict with its own interests as in the case of the Kurdish question. The Eurasia policy of Turkey, pursued since Özal established it in 1991, has taken the form of military support to all kinds of imperialist endeavours (Somali, Afghanistan, Lebanon etc.)
During the Kosovo War, Turkish bombers poured death over the Serbian people arm in arm with the air forces of imperialist powers, three military air strips were allocated to imperialist fighter jets (but were not ultimately used because the war ended earlier than predicted), and the supposedly nationalist prime minister Ecevit declared, in the early stages of the war, that Turkey was prepared for land combat. The recognition of the "independence" of Kosovo implies that Turkey continues to play the game of imperialism and is directly connected to the agreement of 5 November 2007 between Bush and Erdogan related to the bombing of Kurdish (PKK) targets in Northern Iraq. Given the oppression of the Serbs by the Turks and the role they played under the Ottoman Empire in the forcible Islamisation of Kosovo, this policy becomes all the more shameless.
Sungur Savran is editor of the newspaper Isci Mucadelesi (Workers' Struggle) in Istanbul, Turkey (http://www.iscimucadelesi.net/).
Economic change in China and India
This article shows that the economic changes in China and India are not as simple as is portrayed in the commonly accepted view in the west.
http://bostonreview.net/BR33.1/bardhan.php
Pranab Bardhan//////After more than a century of relative stagnation, the economies of India and China have been growing at remarkably high rates over the past 25 years. In 1820 the two countries contributed nearly half of the world’s income; by 1950, with the industrialized West having pulled away, their share had fallen to less than one-tenth. Today it is just less than one-fifth, and projections suggest that by 2025 it will rise to one-third. (In 2008 the World Bank is expected to issue revised numbers about cost of living in China and India, which may somewhat reduce these estimated income shares, both current and future).The consequences of this expansion are extraordinary. The Chinese economy in particular has made the most headway against poverty in world history, with hundreds of millions of people moved out of the most extreme poverty within just a generation. (The environmental consequences are comparably remarkable, though perhaps proportionately disastrous).What explains this strikingly rapid growth? The answer that continues to dominate public discussion in the United States runs along the following lines: decades of socialist controls and regulations stifled enterprise in India and China and led them to a dead end. A mix of market reforms and global integration finally unleashed their entrepreneurial energies. As these giants shook off their “socialist slumber,” they entered the “flattened” playing field of global capitalism. The result has been high economic growth in both countries and correspondingly large declines in poverty.While India’s performance has been substantial, China’s has been truly dramatic. The particularly dramatic Chinese performance (like the earlier economic “miracles” in South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore) suggests, in the dominant narrative, that authoritarianism may be better than democracy for development—at least in its early stages. Regional economic decentralization provided local autonomy and incentives, and, even without democracy, led to broad-based local development. But the narrative warns that global capitalism has brought rising inequality, more in China than in India. The idea is that this may portend serious trouble for Chinese political stability, as China does not have the capability of democratic India to let off the steam of inequality-induced discontent.
This story contains a few elements of truth and provides many comforts to our preconceptions. But through sheer repetition it has acquired an authority that does not withstand scrutiny.* * *Start with the claim that global integration and associated market reforms resulted in high growth, which in turn produced dramatic declines in extreme poverty. Applied to China, the timing simply does not fit. China has indeed made large strides in foreign trade and investment since the 1990s, but well before then, say between 1978 and 1993, the country had already achieved an average annual growth rate of about nine percent—even higher than the impressive seven percent growth rate in East Asia between 1960 and 1980.China’s poverty-reduction storyline is similarly flawed. While expansion of exports of labor-intensive manufactures lifted many people out of poverty over the past decade, the principal reason for the dramatic decline over the past three decades may lie elsewhere. World Bank estimates suggest that two-thirds of the decline in extremely poor people (those living below the admittedly crude poverty line of one dollar a day per capita at 1993 international parity prices) between 1981 and 2004 had taken place by the mid-1980s. Much of the extreme poverty was concentrated in rural areas, and its large decline in the first half of the 1980s may have been principally the result of domestic factors that have little if anything to do with global integration: a spurt in agricultural growth following de-collectivization, in which output increased at 7.1% per year on average between 1979 and 1984, almost triple the 1970-78 rate; a land reform program, involving a highly egalitarian distribution of land-cultivation rights subject only to differences in regional average and family size, which provided a floor for rural income; and increased farm procurement prices.As for India, market reforms may not be mainly responsible for its recent high growth. Reform has clearly made the Indian corporate sector more vibrant and competitive, but most of the Indian economy lies outside the corporate sector; for example, 93 percent of the labor force works outside the corporate sector, private or public.Take the fast-growing service sector, where India’s IT-enabled services have acquired a global reputation while employing less than a quarter of one percent of the total Indian labor force. Service subsectors like finance, business services (including those IT-enabled services), and telecommunication, where reform may have made a significant difference, constitute only about a quarter of total service-sector output. Two-thirds of service output is in traditional or “unorganized” activities, in tiny enterprises often below the policy radar and unlikely to have been directly much affected by regulatory or foreign trade policy reforms. It is a matter of some dispute how much of the growth in traditional services (mostly non-traded) can be explained by a rise in service demand in the rest of the economy, and how much of it is a statistical artifact, since the way output is measured in these traditional services has been rather shaky all along.As for poverty, the latest Indian household survey data suggest that the rate of decline, if anything, slowed somewhat in 1993-2005—the period of global integration—compared with the ’70s and ’80s. Moreover, some non-income indicators of poverty such as those relating to child health, already rather dismal, have hardly improved in recent years. (For example, the percentage of underweight children in India is much larger than in sub-Saharan Africa and has not changed much in the past decade or so). Growth in agriculture, where much of the poverty is concentrated, has declined somewhat over the past decade, largely because of the decline of public investment in rural infrastructure such as irrigation. Little of this has much to do with globalization. Indeed, some disaggregated studies across districts in India have found trade liberalization slowing down the decline in rural poverty. Such results may indicate the difficulty displaced farmers and workers have had adjusting to new activities and sectors due to various constraints such as minimal access to credit, information, or infrastructural facilities like power and roads; the high-school-dropout rate; and labor market rigidities—even as new opportunities are opened up by globalization.The pace of poverty reduction in India has been slower than that in China not simply because Chinese growth has been faster, but also because the same one percent growth rate reduces poverty in India by much less, thanks largely to higher wealth inequalities (particularly in land and education). The Gini coefficient (a standard statistical measure of inequality, with a value of one indicating extreme inequality and zero indicating perfect equality) of land distribution in rural India was 0.74 in 2003; the corresponding figure in China was 0.49 in 2002. To a large extent this difference reflects a higher proportion of landless and near-landless people in India. In addition, educational inequality in India is among the worst in the world. According to the /World Development Report 2006/, the Gini coefficient of the distribution of adult schooling years in the population was 0.56 in India in 1998/2000, which is not only higher than China’s 0.37 in 2000, but even higher than almost all Latin American countries. To a large extent, this indicator reflects the high number of illiterate and near-illiterate people relative to the rest of the population in India.* * *The storyline about China and India’s “socialist slumber” is equally suspect. China and India have become poster children for market reform and globalization in much of the financial press, even though both countries’ economic policies with regard to privatization, property rights, and deregulation have departed demonstrably from free-market orthodoxy in many ways.And what about the earlier period? Was it really an utter waste? While socialist control and regulations undoubtedly inhibited initiative and enterprise in both countries, the positive legacy of reforms undertaken in the ‘70s and ‘80s cannot be denied, particularly in China’s recent pattern of state-controlled capitalist growth.China’s earlier socialist period arguably provided a good launching pad for market reform. That foundation provided wide access to education and health care; highly egalitarian land redistribution that created a rural safety net and thus eased the process of market reform, with all its wrenching disruptions and dislocations; increased female labor participation and education that enhanced women’s contribution to economic growth; and a system of regional economic decentralization (that linked the career paths of Communist Party officials to local area performance). County governments were in charge of production enterprises long before Deng Xiaoping’s economic reforms set in, and, even more significantly, the earlier commune system’s production brigades evolved into the highly successful township and village enterprises that led the later phenomenal rise of rural industrialization.In all these respects China’s legacy from the earlier period has been much more distinctive than that in India. When I grew up in India, I used to hear leftists say that the Chinese were better socialists than us. Now I am used to hearing that the Chinese are better capitalists than us. I tell people, only half-flippantly, that the Chinese are better capitalists now because they were better socialists then!The earlier period’s legacy in both countries is also evident in the cumulative effect of the state’s active role in technological development. It is often overlooked that the Chinese have succeeded in international markets with more than simple labor-intensive products such as clothing, toys, shoes, and wigs. Both China and India (but China more so) have succeeded in exporting more sophisticated products than is usual in countries in their respective per capita income ranges: China, in consumer electronics, including computers and other information- and communication-technology-related goods, and auto parts; India, in software, pharmaceuticals, vehicles, steel, and auto parts. This performance is remarkable (though more in gross value of exports than in value-added terms, as some of the components and technology used in production are acquired from abroad) and is due primarily to sizeable skill and technological bases, enriched over the years of “socialist slumbering” by indigenous learning-by-doing and nurtured by government policies of building domestic capability—sometimes at the expense of static resource allocation efficiency.Of course, there are many cases in which protection from foreign competition sheltered massive inefficiency. But the overall storyline is by no means so simple. Consider auto parts. For many decades both countries practiced protection of “local content” (of components) in automobiles, contrary to the orthodox free-trade policy prescription. As a result workers in the auto parts industry acquired skills necessary to compete successfully in the global economy and have now reached international best practice.* * *What about democracy’s role in economic growth? The much more dramatic success of China (and, earlier, that of other East Asian countries under authoritarian regimes) compared with India does not in any way prove the superiority of authoritarianism over democracy in matters of development. Authoritarianism is neither necessary nor sufficient for development. That it is not necessary is illustrated not only by today’s developed countries, but by scattered cases of recent development success: Costa Rica, Botswana, and now India. That it is not sufficient is amply evident from disastrous authoritarian regimes in Africa and elsewhere.The relationship between democracy and development is much more complex than the conventional wisdom suggests. Even if we were not to value democracy for its own sake (or regard it as an integral part of development by definition), and looked at it in a purely instrumental way, democracy has at least four advantages from the point of view of development. Democracies are better able to avoid catastrophic mistakes, (such as China’s Great Leap Forward and the ensuing great famine that killed nearly thirty million people, or its Cultural Revolution, which may have resulted in the largest destruction of human capital in history) and have greater healing powers after difficult times. Democracies also experience more intense pressure to share the benefits of development, thus making it sustainable, and provide more scope for popular movements against industrial fallout such as environmental degradation. In addition, they are better able to mitigate social inequalities (especially acute in India) that act as barriers to social and economic mobility and to the full development of individual potential. Finally, democratic open societies provide a better environment for nurturing the development of information and related technologies, a matter of some importance in the current knowledge-driven global economy. Intensive cyber-censorship in China may seriously limit future innovations in this area.All that said, India’s experience suggests that democracy can also hinder development in a number of ways. Competitive populism—short-run pandering and handouts to win elections—may hurt long-run investment, particularly in infrastructure, which is the key bottleneck for Indian development. Such political arrangements make it difficult, for example, to charge user fees for roads, electricity, and irrigation, discouraging investment in these areas, unlike in China where infrastructure companies charge full commercial rates. Competitive populism also makes it harder to cut losses resulting from experimentation in industrial policy in India, where retreating from a failed project—with inevitable job losses and bail-out pressures—has electoral consequences that discourage leaders from carrying out policy experimentation in the first place. Finally, democracy’s slow decision-making processes can be costly in a world of fast-changing markets and technology.China is widely, and rightly, acclaimed for its decentralized development: in the 1980s and ’90s local industries flourished under the control of local governments and collectives. This aspect of industrialization has largely bypassed India so far, even though important constitutional changes favoring devolution of power to local governments were carried out in the ’90s. Of course, decentralization is not always a good thing for development. Some have complained that decentralization in post-Soviet Russia was growth-retarding, as provincial governments were captured by oligarchs, thus legitimizing the subsequent centralization of power by Vladimir Putin. Although egalitarian land reform in China may have helped avert the capture of local institutions by local elites—at least in the initial years of market growth—the problem has plagued regional decentralization in India and Russia.But even China has had trouble with decentralization in recent years. With local party officials prospering in a reward system that emphasizes local economic performance (with access to profits of local collective enterprises and the power to privatize them), the central government in China is now finding it difficult to rein them in, particularly in matters of land acquisition (where local officials are often in cahoots with local commercial developers), toxic pollution and violation of consumer- product safety regulations (often in collusion with local businesses). The “harmonious society” mantra chanted by the central leadership has not yet succeeded in curbing the capitalist excesses of local business and officialdom. The centralization of tax reform since 1994 has reduced the incentives of the local bureaucracy to serve social needs, particularly in interior provinces. The lack of democratic-accountability mechanisms is, and will continue to be, felt acutely by local populations who face limits both in the types of economic growth they can pursue and in the delivery of social services.In short, in the absence of democratic devolution, China’s much-celebrated regional decentralization may now be a source of much discontent and may undermine the economic growth it has done so much to foster.* * *A final element of conventional wisdom is that globalization has led to rising inequality, and that inequality-induced grievances, particularly in rural China, cloud the country’s political future and hence its economic stability. But the effect of globalization on inequality is difficult to disentangle from that of other ongoing changes (such as skill-biased technical progress due to new information and communication technology), and so the causal link between globalization and inequality is not always clear. Moreover, Chinese provinces with more global exposure and higher growth did not have a greater rise in inequality compared with the other provinces in the interior. Decline in agricultural growth in recent years, in both China and India, may also have something to do with the rise in aggregate inequality, as inequality is significantly lower in agriculture than in other sectors.As for inequality-induced political instability, a frequently cited fact reported from official police records is that incidents of social unrest have multiplied nearly nine-fold between 1994 and 2005. While the Chinese leadership is right to be concerned about inequality, the conventional wisdom in this matter is somewhat askew, as has been pointed out by Harvard sociologist Martin Whyte and his team. Data from their 2004 national representative survey in China show that the presumed disadvantaged in rural or remote areas are not particularly upset by rising inequality. This may be because of the “tunnel effect,” a familiar concept in the literature on inequality: when you see other people prospering you are hopeful that your chance will soon come (you are more hopeful in a tunnel when blocked traffic in the next lane starts moving). This is particularly so with the relaxation of restrictions on migration from villages and improvement in roads and transportation. Farmers are incensed by forcible land acquisitions or the severe environmental damage of land, air, and water than they are by inequality. Chinese leaders have so far succeeded in deflecting the wrath felt toward corrupt local officials and in localizing and containing rural unrest.It may seem counterintuitive but the potential for unrest is arguably greater in the currently booming urban areas where, along with the breaking of the real estate bubble, a possible global recession could ripple through the excess-capacity industries and financially-shaky public banks. With a more Internet-connected and vocal middle class, a recent history of massive worker layoffs, and a large underclass of migrants, urban unrest could be more difficult to contain.When faced with political shocks, the Chinese leadership has a tendency to overreact, suppress information, and act heavy-handedly, unnecessarily exacerbating the problem. Still, China now has a very strong economy, which can act as a cushion, and provide more financial resources for assuaging local grievances.Chinese and Indian economic performance has been far better in the last quarter-century than in the previous two hundred years—and this is one of the striking events in the recent history of the international economy. Other countries must adjust to this reality, and learn to treat the partial restoration of the earlier global importance of these two countries as an opportunity for trade, investment, and exchange of ideas, not as a threat. (We also need to work in tandem with them on the environment.) But we must remember that the story of their rise is more complicated and nuanced than standard accounts make out. That more complex story includes the positive legacy of China and India’s earlier statist periods, which offers general lessons for the process of development much too often ignored.
http://bostonreview.net/BR33.1/bardhan.php
Pranab Bardhan//////After more than a century of relative stagnation, the economies of India and China have been growing at remarkably high rates over the past 25 years. In 1820 the two countries contributed nearly half of the world’s income; by 1950, with the industrialized West having pulled away, their share had fallen to less than one-tenth. Today it is just less than one-fifth, and projections suggest that by 2025 it will rise to one-third. (In 2008 the World Bank is expected to issue revised numbers about cost of living in China and India, which may somewhat reduce these estimated income shares, both current and future).The consequences of this expansion are extraordinary. The Chinese economy in particular has made the most headway against poverty in world history, with hundreds of millions of people moved out of the most extreme poverty within just a generation. (The environmental consequences are comparably remarkable, though perhaps proportionately disastrous).What explains this strikingly rapid growth? The answer that continues to dominate public discussion in the United States runs along the following lines: decades of socialist controls and regulations stifled enterprise in India and China and led them to a dead end. A mix of market reforms and global integration finally unleashed their entrepreneurial energies. As these giants shook off their “socialist slumber,” they entered the “flattened” playing field of global capitalism. The result has been high economic growth in both countries and correspondingly large declines in poverty.While India’s performance has been substantial, China’s has been truly dramatic. The particularly dramatic Chinese performance (like the earlier economic “miracles” in South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore) suggests, in the dominant narrative, that authoritarianism may be better than democracy for development—at least in its early stages. Regional economic decentralization provided local autonomy and incentives, and, even without democracy, led to broad-based local development. But the narrative warns that global capitalism has brought rising inequality, more in China than in India. The idea is that this may portend serious trouble for Chinese political stability, as China does not have the capability of democratic India to let off the steam of inequality-induced discontent.
This story contains a few elements of truth and provides many comforts to our preconceptions. But through sheer repetition it has acquired an authority that does not withstand scrutiny.* * *Start with the claim that global integration and associated market reforms resulted in high growth, which in turn produced dramatic declines in extreme poverty. Applied to China, the timing simply does not fit. China has indeed made large strides in foreign trade and investment since the 1990s, but well before then, say between 1978 and 1993, the country had already achieved an average annual growth rate of about nine percent—even higher than the impressive seven percent growth rate in East Asia between 1960 and 1980.China’s poverty-reduction storyline is similarly flawed. While expansion of exports of labor-intensive manufactures lifted many people out of poverty over the past decade, the principal reason for the dramatic decline over the past three decades may lie elsewhere. World Bank estimates suggest that two-thirds of the decline in extremely poor people (those living below the admittedly crude poverty line of one dollar a day per capita at 1993 international parity prices) between 1981 and 2004 had taken place by the mid-1980s. Much of the extreme poverty was concentrated in rural areas, and its large decline in the first half of the 1980s may have been principally the result of domestic factors that have little if anything to do with global integration: a spurt in agricultural growth following de-collectivization, in which output increased at 7.1% per year on average between 1979 and 1984, almost triple the 1970-78 rate; a land reform program, involving a highly egalitarian distribution of land-cultivation rights subject only to differences in regional average and family size, which provided a floor for rural income; and increased farm procurement prices.As for India, market reforms may not be mainly responsible for its recent high growth. Reform has clearly made the Indian corporate sector more vibrant and competitive, but most of the Indian economy lies outside the corporate sector; for example, 93 percent of the labor force works outside the corporate sector, private or public.Take the fast-growing service sector, where India’s IT-enabled services have acquired a global reputation while employing less than a quarter of one percent of the total Indian labor force. Service subsectors like finance, business services (including those IT-enabled services), and telecommunication, where reform may have made a significant difference, constitute only about a quarter of total service-sector output. Two-thirds of service output is in traditional or “unorganized” activities, in tiny enterprises often below the policy radar and unlikely to have been directly much affected by regulatory or foreign trade policy reforms. It is a matter of some dispute how much of the growth in traditional services (mostly non-traded) can be explained by a rise in service demand in the rest of the economy, and how much of it is a statistical artifact, since the way output is measured in these traditional services has been rather shaky all along.As for poverty, the latest Indian household survey data suggest that the rate of decline, if anything, slowed somewhat in 1993-2005—the period of global integration—compared with the ’70s and ’80s. Moreover, some non-income indicators of poverty such as those relating to child health, already rather dismal, have hardly improved in recent years. (For example, the percentage of underweight children in India is much larger than in sub-Saharan Africa and has not changed much in the past decade or so). Growth in agriculture, where much of the poverty is concentrated, has declined somewhat over the past decade, largely because of the decline of public investment in rural infrastructure such as irrigation. Little of this has much to do with globalization. Indeed, some disaggregated studies across districts in India have found trade liberalization slowing down the decline in rural poverty. Such results may indicate the difficulty displaced farmers and workers have had adjusting to new activities and sectors due to various constraints such as minimal access to credit, information, or infrastructural facilities like power and roads; the high-school-dropout rate; and labor market rigidities—even as new opportunities are opened up by globalization.The pace of poverty reduction in India has been slower than that in China not simply because Chinese growth has been faster, but also because the same one percent growth rate reduces poverty in India by much less, thanks largely to higher wealth inequalities (particularly in land and education). The Gini coefficient (a standard statistical measure of inequality, with a value of one indicating extreme inequality and zero indicating perfect equality) of land distribution in rural India was 0.74 in 2003; the corresponding figure in China was 0.49 in 2002. To a large extent this difference reflects a higher proportion of landless and near-landless people in India. In addition, educational inequality in India is among the worst in the world. According to the /World Development Report 2006/, the Gini coefficient of the distribution of adult schooling years in the population was 0.56 in India in 1998/2000, which is not only higher than China’s 0.37 in 2000, but even higher than almost all Latin American countries. To a large extent, this indicator reflects the high number of illiterate and near-illiterate people relative to the rest of the population in India.* * *The storyline about China and India’s “socialist slumber” is equally suspect. China and India have become poster children for market reform and globalization in much of the financial press, even though both countries’ economic policies with regard to privatization, property rights, and deregulation have departed demonstrably from free-market orthodoxy in many ways.And what about the earlier period? Was it really an utter waste? While socialist control and regulations undoubtedly inhibited initiative and enterprise in both countries, the positive legacy of reforms undertaken in the ‘70s and ‘80s cannot be denied, particularly in China’s recent pattern of state-controlled capitalist growth.China’s earlier socialist period arguably provided a good launching pad for market reform. That foundation provided wide access to education and health care; highly egalitarian land redistribution that created a rural safety net and thus eased the process of market reform, with all its wrenching disruptions and dislocations; increased female labor participation and education that enhanced women’s contribution to economic growth; and a system of regional economic decentralization (that linked the career paths of Communist Party officials to local area performance). County governments were in charge of production enterprises long before Deng Xiaoping’s economic reforms set in, and, even more significantly, the earlier commune system’s production brigades evolved into the highly successful township and village enterprises that led the later phenomenal rise of rural industrialization.In all these respects China’s legacy from the earlier period has been much more distinctive than that in India. When I grew up in India, I used to hear leftists say that the Chinese were better socialists than us. Now I am used to hearing that the Chinese are better capitalists than us. I tell people, only half-flippantly, that the Chinese are better capitalists now because they were better socialists then!The earlier period’s legacy in both countries is also evident in the cumulative effect of the state’s active role in technological development. It is often overlooked that the Chinese have succeeded in international markets with more than simple labor-intensive products such as clothing, toys, shoes, and wigs. Both China and India (but China more so) have succeeded in exporting more sophisticated products than is usual in countries in their respective per capita income ranges: China, in consumer electronics, including computers and other information- and communication-technology-related goods, and auto parts; India, in software, pharmaceuticals, vehicles, steel, and auto parts. This performance is remarkable (though more in gross value of exports than in value-added terms, as some of the components and technology used in production are acquired from abroad) and is due primarily to sizeable skill and technological bases, enriched over the years of “socialist slumbering” by indigenous learning-by-doing and nurtured by government policies of building domestic capability—sometimes at the expense of static resource allocation efficiency.Of course, there are many cases in which protection from foreign competition sheltered massive inefficiency. But the overall storyline is by no means so simple. Consider auto parts. For many decades both countries practiced protection of “local content” (of components) in automobiles, contrary to the orthodox free-trade policy prescription. As a result workers in the auto parts industry acquired skills necessary to compete successfully in the global economy and have now reached international best practice.* * *What about democracy’s role in economic growth? The much more dramatic success of China (and, earlier, that of other East Asian countries under authoritarian regimes) compared with India does not in any way prove the superiority of authoritarianism over democracy in matters of development. Authoritarianism is neither necessary nor sufficient for development. That it is not necessary is illustrated not only by today’s developed countries, but by scattered cases of recent development success: Costa Rica, Botswana, and now India. That it is not sufficient is amply evident from disastrous authoritarian regimes in Africa and elsewhere.The relationship between democracy and development is much more complex than the conventional wisdom suggests. Even if we were not to value democracy for its own sake (or regard it as an integral part of development by definition), and looked at it in a purely instrumental way, democracy has at least four advantages from the point of view of development. Democracies are better able to avoid catastrophic mistakes, (such as China’s Great Leap Forward and the ensuing great famine that killed nearly thirty million people, or its Cultural Revolution, which may have resulted in the largest destruction of human capital in history) and have greater healing powers after difficult times. Democracies also experience more intense pressure to share the benefits of development, thus making it sustainable, and provide more scope for popular movements against industrial fallout such as environmental degradation. In addition, they are better able to mitigate social inequalities (especially acute in India) that act as barriers to social and economic mobility and to the full development of individual potential. Finally, democratic open societies provide a better environment for nurturing the development of information and related technologies, a matter of some importance in the current knowledge-driven global economy. Intensive cyber-censorship in China may seriously limit future innovations in this area.All that said, India’s experience suggests that democracy can also hinder development in a number of ways. Competitive populism—short-run pandering and handouts to win elections—may hurt long-run investment, particularly in infrastructure, which is the key bottleneck for Indian development. Such political arrangements make it difficult, for example, to charge user fees for roads, electricity, and irrigation, discouraging investment in these areas, unlike in China where infrastructure companies charge full commercial rates. Competitive populism also makes it harder to cut losses resulting from experimentation in industrial policy in India, where retreating from a failed project—with inevitable job losses and bail-out pressures—has electoral consequences that discourage leaders from carrying out policy experimentation in the first place. Finally, democracy’s slow decision-making processes can be costly in a world of fast-changing markets and technology.China is widely, and rightly, acclaimed for its decentralized development: in the 1980s and ’90s local industries flourished under the control of local governments and collectives. This aspect of industrialization has largely bypassed India so far, even though important constitutional changes favoring devolution of power to local governments were carried out in the ’90s. Of course, decentralization is not always a good thing for development. Some have complained that decentralization in post-Soviet Russia was growth-retarding, as provincial governments were captured by oligarchs, thus legitimizing the subsequent centralization of power by Vladimir Putin. Although egalitarian land reform in China may have helped avert the capture of local institutions by local elites—at least in the initial years of market growth—the problem has plagued regional decentralization in India and Russia.But even China has had trouble with decentralization in recent years. With local party officials prospering in a reward system that emphasizes local economic performance (with access to profits of local collective enterprises and the power to privatize them), the central government in China is now finding it difficult to rein them in, particularly in matters of land acquisition (where local officials are often in cahoots with local commercial developers), toxic pollution and violation of consumer- product safety regulations (often in collusion with local businesses). The “harmonious society” mantra chanted by the central leadership has not yet succeeded in curbing the capitalist excesses of local business and officialdom. The centralization of tax reform since 1994 has reduced the incentives of the local bureaucracy to serve social needs, particularly in interior provinces. The lack of democratic-accountability mechanisms is, and will continue to be, felt acutely by local populations who face limits both in the types of economic growth they can pursue and in the delivery of social services.In short, in the absence of democratic devolution, China’s much-celebrated regional decentralization may now be a source of much discontent and may undermine the economic growth it has done so much to foster.* * *A final element of conventional wisdom is that globalization has led to rising inequality, and that inequality-induced grievances, particularly in rural China, cloud the country’s political future and hence its economic stability. But the effect of globalization on inequality is difficult to disentangle from that of other ongoing changes (such as skill-biased technical progress due to new information and communication technology), and so the causal link between globalization and inequality is not always clear. Moreover, Chinese provinces with more global exposure and higher growth did not have a greater rise in inequality compared with the other provinces in the interior. Decline in agricultural growth in recent years, in both China and India, may also have something to do with the rise in aggregate inequality, as inequality is significantly lower in agriculture than in other sectors.As for inequality-induced political instability, a frequently cited fact reported from official police records is that incidents of social unrest have multiplied nearly nine-fold between 1994 and 2005. While the Chinese leadership is right to be concerned about inequality, the conventional wisdom in this matter is somewhat askew, as has been pointed out by Harvard sociologist Martin Whyte and his team. Data from their 2004 national representative survey in China show that the presumed disadvantaged in rural or remote areas are not particularly upset by rising inequality. This may be because of the “tunnel effect,” a familiar concept in the literature on inequality: when you see other people prospering you are hopeful that your chance will soon come (you are more hopeful in a tunnel when blocked traffic in the next lane starts moving). This is particularly so with the relaxation of restrictions on migration from villages and improvement in roads and transportation. Farmers are incensed by forcible land acquisitions or the severe environmental damage of land, air, and water than they are by inequality. Chinese leaders have so far succeeded in deflecting the wrath felt toward corrupt local officials and in localizing and containing rural unrest.It may seem counterintuitive but the potential for unrest is arguably greater in the currently booming urban areas where, along with the breaking of the real estate bubble, a possible global recession could ripple through the excess-capacity industries and financially-shaky public banks. With a more Internet-connected and vocal middle class, a recent history of massive worker layoffs, and a large underclass of migrants, urban unrest could be more difficult to contain.When faced with political shocks, the Chinese leadership has a tendency to overreact, suppress information, and act heavy-handedly, unnecessarily exacerbating the problem. Still, China now has a very strong economy, which can act as a cushion, and provide more financial resources for assuaging local grievances.Chinese and Indian economic performance has been far better in the last quarter-century than in the previous two hundred years—and this is one of the striking events in the recent history of the international economy. Other countries must adjust to this reality, and learn to treat the partial restoration of the earlier global importance of these two countries as an opportunity for trade, investment, and exchange of ideas, not as a threat. (We also need to work in tandem with them on the environment.) But we must remember that the story of their rise is more complicated and nuanced than standard accounts make out. That more complex story includes the positive legacy of China and India’s earlier statist periods, which offers general lessons for the process of development much too often ignored.
Sunday, February 24, 2008
U.S. policy on Militarisation of Space
This is a short excerpt from a much longer article at acronym. Critics of the U.S. shooting down of the spy satellite are concerned that the satellite and perhaps its shooting down are all part of the policy outlined below.
This latest version of Star Wars can be traced back to the unquenched aspirations of the earlier advocates, notably Donald Rumsfeld. Shortly after President Bush's speech inaugurating his vision of missile defence, Rumsfeld, Bush's Secretary of Defense, declared: "There is no question but that the use of land and sea and air and space are all things that need to be considered if one is looking at the best way to provide the kind of security from ballistic missiles that is desirable for the United States and for our friends and allies." For some in the US military, it is clear that the weaponisation of space is not only a possible basing mode for missile interceptors, but a primary future military objective. In 1996, the Commander-in-Chief of US Space Command (CINCSPACE) and of NORAD declared "We're going to fight a war in space. We're going to fight from space and we're going to fight into space..."
Space Weaponisation: Full Spectrum Dominance
"Space offers attractive options not only for missile defense but for a broad range of interrelated civil and military missions. It truly is the ultimate high ground. We are exploring concepts and technologies for space-based intercepts."
During the Cold War, the United States and Soviet Union placed intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and location/navigational assets in space to enhance their conventional forces. Although they pursued sophisticated research programmes, they decided against deploying space-based weapons or "orbital bombardment systems" capable of attacking terrestrial targets. Instead, they promoted the 1967 Outer Space Treaty and the 1972 ABM Treaty. Among other things, these treaties prohibited the stationing of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in space, along with the development, testing and deployment of space-based ABM systems and components.
In the mid-1980s, the US Congress opposed further development on anti-satellite weapons (ASAT) and pushed for outer space to be treated as a sanctuary, permitting commercial and military activities that stopped short of the deployment of weapons in and from space.
During the 1990s, US Space Command renewed its challenge to the Cold War consensus on not deploying weapons in space, declaring that "the medium of space is the fourth medium of warfare - along with land, sea and air." In January 2001, the Commission to Assess US National Security Space Management and Organisation, chaired by Donald Rumsfeld, published a report that powerfully evoked the image of a potential 'Space Pearl Harbour', and made the case that weapons in space would be needed to counter perceived US vulnerabilities. It argued in particular that the US government should pursue the relevant capabilities "to ensure that the President will have the option to deploy weapons in space to deter threats to and, if necessary, defend against attacks on US interests".
In October 2002, Rumsfeld's Deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, confirmed the Bush administration's ambition to see weapons in space become part of its multitiered concept of missile defence: "while we have demonstrated that hit-to-kill works, as we look ahead we need to think about areas that would provide higher leverage. Nowhere is that more true than in space. Space offers attractive options not only for missile defense but for a broad range of interrelated civil and military missions. It truly is the ultimate high ground. We are exploring concepts and technologies for space-based intercepts."
Responsible for around 64% of world expenditure on the commercial uses of space and 95% of military space assets, US proponents of space weaponisation rely on three assumptions: control - that controlling space offers unrivalled military and commercial advantage on Earth; vulnerability - that reliance on space assets presents particular vulnerabilities; and inevitability - that weapons in space follow from land, sea and air developments, and that it would be to the US' advantage to be first.
This latest version of Star Wars can be traced back to the unquenched aspirations of the earlier advocates, notably Donald Rumsfeld. Shortly after President Bush's speech inaugurating his vision of missile defence, Rumsfeld, Bush's Secretary of Defense, declared: "There is no question but that the use of land and sea and air and space are all things that need to be considered if one is looking at the best way to provide the kind of security from ballistic missiles that is desirable for the United States and for our friends and allies." For some in the US military, it is clear that the weaponisation of space is not only a possible basing mode for missile interceptors, but a primary future military objective. In 1996, the Commander-in-Chief of US Space Command (CINCSPACE) and of NORAD declared "We're going to fight a war in space. We're going to fight from space and we're going to fight into space..."
Space Weaponisation: Full Spectrum Dominance
"Space offers attractive options not only for missile defense but for a broad range of interrelated civil and military missions. It truly is the ultimate high ground. We are exploring concepts and technologies for space-based intercepts."
During the Cold War, the United States and Soviet Union placed intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and location/navigational assets in space to enhance their conventional forces. Although they pursued sophisticated research programmes, they decided against deploying space-based weapons or "orbital bombardment systems" capable of attacking terrestrial targets. Instead, they promoted the 1967 Outer Space Treaty and the 1972 ABM Treaty. Among other things, these treaties prohibited the stationing of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in space, along with the development, testing and deployment of space-based ABM systems and components.
In the mid-1980s, the US Congress opposed further development on anti-satellite weapons (ASAT) and pushed for outer space to be treated as a sanctuary, permitting commercial and military activities that stopped short of the deployment of weapons in and from space.
During the 1990s, US Space Command renewed its challenge to the Cold War consensus on not deploying weapons in space, declaring that "the medium of space is the fourth medium of warfare - along with land, sea and air." In January 2001, the Commission to Assess US National Security Space Management and Organisation, chaired by Donald Rumsfeld, published a report that powerfully evoked the image of a potential 'Space Pearl Harbour', and made the case that weapons in space would be needed to counter perceived US vulnerabilities. It argued in particular that the US government should pursue the relevant capabilities "to ensure that the President will have the option to deploy weapons in space to deter threats to and, if necessary, defend against attacks on US interests".
In October 2002, Rumsfeld's Deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, confirmed the Bush administration's ambition to see weapons in space become part of its multitiered concept of missile defence: "while we have demonstrated that hit-to-kill works, as we look ahead we need to think about areas that would provide higher leverage. Nowhere is that more true than in space. Space offers attractive options not only for missile defense but for a broad range of interrelated civil and military missions. It truly is the ultimate high ground. We are exploring concepts and technologies for space-based intercepts."
Responsible for around 64% of world expenditure on the commercial uses of space and 95% of military space assets, US proponents of space weaponisation rely on three assumptions: control - that controlling space offers unrivalled military and commercial advantage on Earth; vulnerability - that reliance on space assets presents particular vulnerabilities; and inevitability - that weapons in space follow from land, sea and air developments, and that it would be to the US' advantage to be first.
Iraq reconstruction worth 150bn U.S.
There is plenty of money to be made from occupation and destruction. The head of the IDP does not have a very Iraqi-sounding name!
" John Glassey, Managing Director of the Iraq Development Programme (IDP), demand for materials and technology within the key sectors of the Iraqi economy will generate business worth more than $150bn. The IDP estimates said $60-$70 billion is needed to fully implement the projects already under way in sectors such as oil and gas, energy, construction, health, education, security and transport. "
Bigwigs from large U.S. corporations as well as important U.S. defence officials are involved in the conference. This is what the Iraq occupation is all about. Of course there is complete silence in the U.S. press about this. The circus (with only rhetorical bread) of the U.S. primaries is of much more importance. This is from business 24-7.
Iraq reconstruction worth $150bn
By VM Sathish on Sunday, February 17 , 2008
A high-level delegation of Iraqi officials and private sector firms are in Dubai to attract investors and suppliers to participate in rebuilding the war-torn infrastructure of the country.
International experts estimate to generate business worth $150 billion (Dh550bn). About $60bn-$70bn is needed to fully implement the projects already under way.
The delegation includes Iraqi Defence Minister Abdul Qadir Obeidi, National Security Affairs Minister Sherwin Shirwan Al Waili, Acting Communications Minister Jassim Mohammed Ja’fer and Kurdish RG Interior Minister Karim Sinjari
According to John Glassey, Managing Director of the Iraq Development Programme (IDP), demand for materials and technology within the key sectors of the Iraqi economy will generate business worth more than $150bn. The IDP estimates said $60-$70 billion is needed to fully implement the projects already under way in sectors such as oil and gas, energy, construction, health, education, security and transport.
Projecting Iraq with the potential to become the highest revenue-generating country in the Middle East, Iraq Defence, Security and Communication conference organisers said the summit is endorsed by several business chambers from around the world.
IDP is an initiative to develop Iraq into an economic force as the country has the potential to earn between $10bn and $15bn from oil sales over the next few years. The oil production objective is to produce six million barrels per day by 2010.
The summit, organised by IDP in Dubai until tomorrow, is addressed, among others, by Paul Brinkley, Deputy Undersecretary of Defence, US Department of Defence, and other high-profile personnel. Leading defence and security contractors, including Raytheon Corporation, BAE Systems, EADS, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, have participated in the round-table discussion with several high-profile Iraqi officials from the defence, interior and telecommunication ministries and the regional government of Kurdistan.
According to IDP, coalition forces do not have sufficient time or resources to protect all of the organisations and individuals involved in the development of Iraq. “The security industry has a crucial role to play in providing services to visitors working on both short-term and long-term basis in Iraq. Opportunities are available for suppliers of security and emergency service infrastructure, including ambulances and emergency equipment, fire trucks and fire-fighting equipment, and police motorcycles.
There is also a need for closed-circuit television, control systems and anti-burglar alarms, perimeter protection, surveillance and telecommunications equipment, IT security, identification processing, and uniforms and protective clothing. Companies dealing in crowd and access control management will also have an important role to play,” IDP said in its communique.
The second day of the summit today will focus on communication infrastructure in Iraq and the participants include Ali Dahwi, General Manager of Zain Iraq, and senior officials.
“Demand for communication within Iraq varies greatly, with many opportunities for companies looking to help restore Iraq’s telecommunications network. A variety of products and services is needed within the sector, from wired and wireless networks for voice, data and internet services to other equipment such as cables, telecom masts and antennae, public networks and repair equipment. There is a huge need for investment in the sector, with the Ministry of Communications looking to generate significant funds to implement its regeneration programme.
The reconstruction of Iraq has created a huge demand for building equipment and basic building materials, finishing products, engineering skills, technology and environmental awareness and maintenance systems. There is a shortage of 1.4 million housing units and the poor quality of existing structures mean that Iraq’s housing market has high potential in the country. Prisons and schools too have to be constructed.
Iraq has an extensive network of about 38,000 km of roads and highways, the majority of which were constructed in the 1970s and 1980s, needing immediate maintenance. The strain caused by both heavy military use and trucks have added to the problems.
There are more than 1,000 bridges in Iraq. These bridges are in varying states of disrepair. Some of the bridges are only temporary pontoon bridges that need permanent structures, the IDP said.
" John Glassey, Managing Director of the Iraq Development Programme (IDP), demand for materials and technology within the key sectors of the Iraqi economy will generate business worth more than $150bn. The IDP estimates said $60-$70 billion is needed to fully implement the projects already under way in sectors such as oil and gas, energy, construction, health, education, security and transport. "
Bigwigs from large U.S. corporations as well as important U.S. defence officials are involved in the conference. This is what the Iraq occupation is all about. Of course there is complete silence in the U.S. press about this. The circus (with only rhetorical bread) of the U.S. primaries is of much more importance. This is from business 24-7.
Iraq reconstruction worth $150bn
By VM Sathish on Sunday, February 17 , 2008
A high-level delegation of Iraqi officials and private sector firms are in Dubai to attract investors and suppliers to participate in rebuilding the war-torn infrastructure of the country.
International experts estimate to generate business worth $150 billion (Dh550bn). About $60bn-$70bn is needed to fully implement the projects already under way.
The delegation includes Iraqi Defence Minister Abdul Qadir Obeidi, National Security Affairs Minister Sherwin Shirwan Al Waili, Acting Communications Minister Jassim Mohammed Ja’fer and Kurdish RG Interior Minister Karim Sinjari
According to John Glassey, Managing Director of the Iraq Development Programme (IDP), demand for materials and technology within the key sectors of the Iraqi economy will generate business worth more than $150bn. The IDP estimates said $60-$70 billion is needed to fully implement the projects already under way in sectors such as oil and gas, energy, construction, health, education, security and transport.
Projecting Iraq with the potential to become the highest revenue-generating country in the Middle East, Iraq Defence, Security and Communication conference organisers said the summit is endorsed by several business chambers from around the world.
IDP is an initiative to develop Iraq into an economic force as the country has the potential to earn between $10bn and $15bn from oil sales over the next few years. The oil production objective is to produce six million barrels per day by 2010.
The summit, organised by IDP in Dubai until tomorrow, is addressed, among others, by Paul Brinkley, Deputy Undersecretary of Defence, US Department of Defence, and other high-profile personnel. Leading defence and security contractors, including Raytheon Corporation, BAE Systems, EADS, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, have participated in the round-table discussion with several high-profile Iraqi officials from the defence, interior and telecommunication ministries and the regional government of Kurdistan.
According to IDP, coalition forces do not have sufficient time or resources to protect all of the organisations and individuals involved in the development of Iraq. “The security industry has a crucial role to play in providing services to visitors working on both short-term and long-term basis in Iraq. Opportunities are available for suppliers of security and emergency service infrastructure, including ambulances and emergency equipment, fire trucks and fire-fighting equipment, and police motorcycles.
There is also a need for closed-circuit television, control systems and anti-burglar alarms, perimeter protection, surveillance and telecommunications equipment, IT security, identification processing, and uniforms and protective clothing. Companies dealing in crowd and access control management will also have an important role to play,” IDP said in its communique.
The second day of the summit today will focus on communication infrastructure in Iraq and the participants include Ali Dahwi, General Manager of Zain Iraq, and senior officials.
“Demand for communication within Iraq varies greatly, with many opportunities for companies looking to help restore Iraq’s telecommunications network. A variety of products and services is needed within the sector, from wired and wireless networks for voice, data and internet services to other equipment such as cables, telecom masts and antennae, public networks and repair equipment. There is a huge need for investment in the sector, with the Ministry of Communications looking to generate significant funds to implement its regeneration programme.
The reconstruction of Iraq has created a huge demand for building equipment and basic building materials, finishing products, engineering skills, technology and environmental awareness and maintenance systems. There is a shortage of 1.4 million housing units and the poor quality of existing structures mean that Iraq’s housing market has high potential in the country. Prisons and schools too have to be constructed.
Iraq has an extensive network of about 38,000 km of roads and highways, the majority of which were constructed in the 1970s and 1980s, needing immediate maintenance. The strain caused by both heavy military use and trucks have added to the problems.
There are more than 1,000 bridges in Iraq. These bridges are in varying states of disrepair. Some of the bridges are only temporary pontoon bridges that need permanent structures, the IDP said.
Bishops split on Arroyo quit call
Umentioned but in the background is the Papal prohibition of overt political action. The bishops probably feel that in calling for demonstrations against corruptions they have done about all they can. To go further would displease the Papacy and probably George Bush as well! The U.S. considers Arroyo preferable to the alternatives available at present! This is from the Inquirer.
Bishops split on Arroyo quit call
But all urge truth in NBN deal, end to corruptionBy Inquirer BureausPhilippine Daily InquirerFirst Posted 01:59:00 02/22/2008
MANILA, Philippines -- There is a strong demand among bishops in the provinces for the truth to emerge in the scandal-ridden National Broadband Network (NBN) project, but President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s resignation or ouster is an issue that divides them.
Of the 12 prelates reached by the Philippine Daily Inquirer on Tuesday and Wednesday, only one -- Puerto Princesa Bishop Pedro D. Arigo -- openly said the President should step down.
“She should resign,” Arigo said. “Tama na, sobra na (Enough is enough)!”
Zambales Bishop Florentino Lavarias said he would abide by whatever decision the leaders of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines would reach regarding the calls for Ms Arroyo’s resignation.
Pampanga Bishop Pablo Virgilio David, on the other hand, said he was calling for the resignation of the members of the Arroyo Cabinet.
David said the CBCP was categorical in saying that Catholics should “reject evil.”
No qualified successor
“I ask the Catholics among [the Cabinet officials] to stop receiving communion, confess their lives and make the sacrifice demanded of them -- repair the damage they’ve done to the nation’s soul and well-being,” he said, adding:
“They still have a way out of the hell they are in now.”
Six Church leaders -- Bishops Carlito Cenzon of Baguio, Florentino Cinense of Tarlac, Crispin Varquez of Borongan, Martin Jumoad of Basilan and Juan de Dios Pueblos of Butuan, and Cotabato Auxiliary Bishop Jose Collin Bagaforo -- want Ms Arroyo to complete her term.
Varquez said that while he agreed that Malacañang under Ms Arroyo had committed some blunders, there was no qualified candidate to take her place.Bagaforo said there was “not enough reason” to support the calls for Ms Arroyo’s resignation, but her administration should rectify the purported corruption.
“My own stand is no resignation,” he said.
Church as ‘energizer’
Bacolod Bishop Vicente Navarra called on the people to back whistle-blower Rodolfo Lozada Jr. and on Commission on Higher Education Chair Romulo Neri to speak the truth about the scrapped NBN deal with China’s ZTE Corp.
But Navarra stopped short of calling for the President’s resignation, saying: “The Church is just an energizer in the campaign against corruption.”
Laguna Bishop Leo Drona said he was one with the CBCP in its call for communal action in the face of the purported bribery and overprice that attended the NBN-ZTE deal.
He said communal action simply meant that the people should “pray together, reflect together, decide together and act together.”
General Santos Bishop Dinualdo Gutierrez said that instead of stepping down, the President should take a leave of absence for some “soul-searching.”
Gutierrez also said he did not expect the CBCP to initiate moves to oust Ms Arroyo. He said that if there would be change, it should start with the people themselves.
Bishops split on Arroyo quit call
But all urge truth in NBN deal, end to corruptionBy Inquirer BureausPhilippine Daily InquirerFirst Posted 01:59:00 02/22/2008
MANILA, Philippines -- There is a strong demand among bishops in the provinces for the truth to emerge in the scandal-ridden National Broadband Network (NBN) project, but President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s resignation or ouster is an issue that divides them.
Of the 12 prelates reached by the Philippine Daily Inquirer on Tuesday and Wednesday, only one -- Puerto Princesa Bishop Pedro D. Arigo -- openly said the President should step down.
“She should resign,” Arigo said. “Tama na, sobra na (Enough is enough)!”
Zambales Bishop Florentino Lavarias said he would abide by whatever decision the leaders of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines would reach regarding the calls for Ms Arroyo’s resignation.
Pampanga Bishop Pablo Virgilio David, on the other hand, said he was calling for the resignation of the members of the Arroyo Cabinet.
David said the CBCP was categorical in saying that Catholics should “reject evil.”
No qualified successor
“I ask the Catholics among [the Cabinet officials] to stop receiving communion, confess their lives and make the sacrifice demanded of them -- repair the damage they’ve done to the nation’s soul and well-being,” he said, adding:
“They still have a way out of the hell they are in now.”
Six Church leaders -- Bishops Carlito Cenzon of Baguio, Florentino Cinense of Tarlac, Crispin Varquez of Borongan, Martin Jumoad of Basilan and Juan de Dios Pueblos of Butuan, and Cotabato Auxiliary Bishop Jose Collin Bagaforo -- want Ms Arroyo to complete her term.
Varquez said that while he agreed that Malacañang under Ms Arroyo had committed some blunders, there was no qualified candidate to take her place.Bagaforo said there was “not enough reason” to support the calls for Ms Arroyo’s resignation, but her administration should rectify the purported corruption.
“My own stand is no resignation,” he said.
Church as ‘energizer’
Bacolod Bishop Vicente Navarra called on the people to back whistle-blower Rodolfo Lozada Jr. and on Commission on Higher Education Chair Romulo Neri to speak the truth about the scrapped NBN deal with China’s ZTE Corp.
But Navarra stopped short of calling for the President’s resignation, saying: “The Church is just an energizer in the campaign against corruption.”
Laguna Bishop Leo Drona said he was one with the CBCP in its call for communal action in the face of the purported bribery and overprice that attended the NBN-ZTE deal.
He said communal action simply meant that the people should “pray together, reflect together, decide together and act together.”
General Santos Bishop Dinualdo Gutierrez said that instead of stepping down, the President should take a leave of absence for some “soul-searching.”
Gutierrez also said he did not expect the CBCP to initiate moves to oust Ms Arroyo. He said that if there would be change, it should start with the people themselves.
Friday, February 22, 2008
More than debris fallout from satellite shoot-down
This is from McClatchy Newspapers. The usual U.S. hypocrisy is evident but as usual also unmentioned in most reports of this event. When China shot down an aging weather satellite the U.S. criticised them harshly! Most western sources have nothing critical to say about this shoot-down. There is at most some question as to the motives. It would seem that there might be the possibility that if not shot down information about U.S. technology might get into the wrong hands.
Experts fear debris isn't the only fallout from satellite shoot-down
By Nancy A. Youssef McClatchy Newspapers
Posted on Thursday, February 21, 2008
U.S. Navy News / MCT
The single modified tactical Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) launches from the U.S. Navy AEGIS cruiser USS Lake Erie (CG 70). View larger image
WASHINGTON — A U.S. missile strike that appeared Thursday to have shattered a crippled spy satellite and vaporized its hazardous hydrazine fuel sent up cheers among Pentagon planners, who for three weeks had worked feverishly to turn an anti-missile system into one that could track and kill an object orbiting the Earth.
But even as debris from the shattered satellite began raining down over the Pacific Ocean, there were worries that the U.S. achievement might spur other nations to advance their own anti-satellite programs and turn outer space into a potential battlefield.
"I don't see how other nations don't see this as an anti-satellite test," said Theresa Hitchens, the director of the Washington D.C.-based Center for Defense Information, a centrist national security policy institute. "They'll see it as the weaponization of space."
China, which last year came under harsh U.S. criticism for using a missile to destroy an aged weather satellite hundreds of miles in space, was the first to react.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry issued a statement demanding that the United States share details of the shoot-down, which took place at approximately 10:26 p.m. Eastern time Wednesday as the satellite passed over the Pacific Ocean about 600 miles west of Hawaii. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, on a visit to Hawaii, said the military would provide "appropriate" data to the Chinese.
Russia had no immediate reaction, though Russian President Vladimir Putin warned recently that the U.S. use of its anti-missile system against satellites would bring a response.
Hitchens said she believed that both China and Russia would use the U.S. destruction of the satellite as reason to step up development of their own anti-satellite weapons. China, she said, is "likely to use this as an excuse to do what they wanted to do already." Russia, she added, "will come down hard on this."
For U.S. military officials, confirmation that the missile probably destroyed the satellite and its hydrazine tank came in two forms.
The first was a dramatic video — possibly shot from another satellite, though military officials wouldn't say — that showed the satellite as a small point of light. Suddenly, the light explodes into a fireball and then becomes a roiling, expanding cloud that military officials believe was the hydrazine vaporizing.
The second was tracking data that indicated that only football-sized debris remained from the 5,000-pound, bus-size satellite.
Marine Gen. James Cartwright, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said officials had a "high degree of confidence" that the missile had fulfilled its mission, which U.S. officials ordered out of concern that the hydrazine fuel tank would survive re-entry and land in a populated area.
It'll be several more days before the military can be certain that the missile struck the tank, Cartwright said. Evidence yet to be reviewed includes video from the missile itself moments before it struck the satellite, which failed hours after it was lifted into space in December 2006.
Cartwright said that debris already had begun falling over both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans near northern Canada, but that no piece had reached the Earth's surface and that it was likely none would.
President Bush authorized the shoot-down three weeks ago after the Pentagon and NASA raised concerns about the hydrazine.
The Navy's ship-based anti-missile defense system required adjustment to strike the satellite, which would be traveling faster than a ballistic missile and would be difficult to track because its lack of power made it cold and not easily visible to a missile's infra-red sensors.
Pentagon planners timed the shoot-down for late afternoon so that the sun would have warmed the satellite's surface.
Cartwright said there's little the military can learn from the shoot-down that could be applied to missile defense.
"It doesn't cross over," he said.
Loren Thompson, a defense analyst at the Washington D.C. area-based Lexington Institute, agreed, noting that most satellites' orbits are too high to be hit by ship-based missiles.
Experts fear debris isn't the only fallout from satellite shoot-down
By Nancy A. Youssef McClatchy Newspapers
Posted on Thursday, February 21, 2008
U.S. Navy News / MCT
The single modified tactical Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) launches from the U.S. Navy AEGIS cruiser USS Lake Erie (CG 70). View larger image
WASHINGTON — A U.S. missile strike that appeared Thursday to have shattered a crippled spy satellite and vaporized its hazardous hydrazine fuel sent up cheers among Pentagon planners, who for three weeks had worked feverishly to turn an anti-missile system into one that could track and kill an object orbiting the Earth.
But even as debris from the shattered satellite began raining down over the Pacific Ocean, there were worries that the U.S. achievement might spur other nations to advance their own anti-satellite programs and turn outer space into a potential battlefield.
"I don't see how other nations don't see this as an anti-satellite test," said Theresa Hitchens, the director of the Washington D.C.-based Center for Defense Information, a centrist national security policy institute. "They'll see it as the weaponization of space."
China, which last year came under harsh U.S. criticism for using a missile to destroy an aged weather satellite hundreds of miles in space, was the first to react.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry issued a statement demanding that the United States share details of the shoot-down, which took place at approximately 10:26 p.m. Eastern time Wednesday as the satellite passed over the Pacific Ocean about 600 miles west of Hawaii. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, on a visit to Hawaii, said the military would provide "appropriate" data to the Chinese.
Russia had no immediate reaction, though Russian President Vladimir Putin warned recently that the U.S. use of its anti-missile system against satellites would bring a response.
Hitchens said she believed that both China and Russia would use the U.S. destruction of the satellite as reason to step up development of their own anti-satellite weapons. China, she said, is "likely to use this as an excuse to do what they wanted to do already." Russia, she added, "will come down hard on this."
For U.S. military officials, confirmation that the missile probably destroyed the satellite and its hydrazine tank came in two forms.
The first was a dramatic video — possibly shot from another satellite, though military officials wouldn't say — that showed the satellite as a small point of light. Suddenly, the light explodes into a fireball and then becomes a roiling, expanding cloud that military officials believe was the hydrazine vaporizing.
The second was tracking data that indicated that only football-sized debris remained from the 5,000-pound, bus-size satellite.
Marine Gen. James Cartwright, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said officials had a "high degree of confidence" that the missile had fulfilled its mission, which U.S. officials ordered out of concern that the hydrazine fuel tank would survive re-entry and land in a populated area.
It'll be several more days before the military can be certain that the missile struck the tank, Cartwright said. Evidence yet to be reviewed includes video from the missile itself moments before it struck the satellite, which failed hours after it was lifted into space in December 2006.
Cartwright said that debris already had begun falling over both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans near northern Canada, but that no piece had reached the Earth's surface and that it was likely none would.
President Bush authorized the shoot-down three weeks ago after the Pentagon and NASA raised concerns about the hydrazine.
The Navy's ship-based anti-missile defense system required adjustment to strike the satellite, which would be traveling faster than a ballistic missile and would be difficult to track because its lack of power made it cold and not easily visible to a missile's infra-red sensors.
Pentagon planners timed the shoot-down for late afternoon so that the sun would have warmed the satellite's surface.
Cartwright said there's little the military can learn from the shoot-down that could be applied to missile defense.
"It doesn't cross over," he said.
Loren Thompson, a defense analyst at the Washington D.C. area-based Lexington Institute, agreed, noting that most satellites' orbits are too high to be hit by ship-based missiles.
Sadr's Militia Enforces Cease-Fire with a Deadly Purge
To a considerable extent the decrease in violence in Iraq has little to do with the surge and much more to deal with changed tactics by both sides. The anti-U.S. Sunnis have been paid by the U.S. to deal with Al Qaeda and Sadr has decided to consolidate his power while declaring a ceasefire against the U.S. The U.S. has in effect helped him destroy some rebels against Sadr's leadership. These are allies of convenience both basically anti-U.S. and if conditions change they will once again turn against the occupiers. There are also indications that at the grassroots level many want the "freeze" to end.
It is interesting how U.S. attitudes can reverse direction in the blink of an eye. Al Sadr has all of a sudden become "honorable" etc. and is flattered simply because he is pursuing policies that the U.S. approves. He is just as radical and brutal as ever but that means nothing. Stand by a month from now he make be back in his original media role as a big threat a radical, etc. etc.
Sadr's Militia Enforces Cease-Fire With a Deadly Purge
By Amit R. PaleyWashington Post Foreign ServiceThursday, February 21, 2008; A10
BAGHDAD -- The Mahdi Army fighters recalled dragging the 25-year-old man into a dark house where, while verses were chanted from the Koran, he was hanged from a hook in the ceiling.
The execution, carried out last month by Iraq's largest Shiite militia, would have been unexceptional but for one fact: The victim was one of its own.
The man, a Mahdi Army commander whose nom de guerre was Hamza, had killed and kidnapped scores of people despite what was then a five-month-old order to militia members to lay down their weapons, group leaders said. So after Hamza confessed to his crimes during repeated interrogations, a three-page death sentence was issued by the office of the militia's leader, anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, they said.
"We were ordered to eliminate him and we did," said Mohammed Ali, 24, a commander of the militia in the Sholeh neighborhood who took part in the operation and described how it took place. "This is how we have been cleaning the Mahdi Army."
Hundreds of Mahdi Army members have been similarly executed, jailed or excommunicated by the militia since the freeze was ordered by Sadr in late August, part of a nationwide reorganization that has dramatically altered the group's public image in Iraq and has been a crucial reason for the recent downturn in violence, according to senior militia leaders and U.S. officials.
The purge has boosted Sadr's reputation -- particularly among American commanders who once considered him an enemy but now refer to him respectfully -- while also helping Sadr exert more control over his sprawling irregular army. At the same time, members say, the freeze has made the Sadrist movement more vulnerable to attacks and repression by rival Shiite groups.
Sadr is expected to announce by Saturday whether the freeze will be extended, his aides said. But interviews with more than a dozen leaders of the Sadrist movement suggest that whether or not it is continued, the freeze has already transformed the militia and its place in Iraqi society.
"The freeze brought many secrets to the surface," said Ahmed Abdul Hussein, 33, a Mahdi Army leader from Sadr City, a vast Shiite district of Baghdad. "Now we know who is good and who is bad. Now everyone thinks of the Mahdi Army in a new light. I think everything will be different now."
Last summer, Mahdi Army members were widely viewed as having carried out some of the most vicious violence against Sunnis, pushing the country to the brink of civil war. The militia clashed often with U.S. and British forces.
The militia's public image reached its nadir when more than 50 people were killed in the holy city of Karbala because of fierce fighting between the Mahdi Army and forces loyal to its chief Shiite political rival, the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq. The next day, on Aug. 29, Sadr declared a six-month suspension of the militia's operations.
Sadr's office said at the time that the aim of the freeze was to push out elements not under the cleric's control.
"The freeze has helped us to distinguish and push out the bad figures," said Salah al-Obaidi, a top Sadr aide, who added that the militia now has more than 100,000 followers.
Abu Jaffar, 31, a day laborer from the Shaab area of Baghdad, was one of those purged, according to current Mahdi Army members.
Shortly after the freeze was declared, Abu Jaffar said in a telephone interview, he received a summons from a Mahdi Army unit known as the Golden Battalion, often described as an intelligence service that maintains internal discipline. Abu Jaffar said the battalion members blamed him for allowing the 100 or so men under his command to commit crimes against civilians.
"They came to me and said, 'Why didn't you know about the mistakes of your people when you are the commander of this company?' " said Abu Jaffar, who, like others interviewed for this article, would not give his full name for fear that it would lead to his arrest by U.S. or Iraqi forces. "They said, 'You are not capable to command.' And because of that I was fired."
Abu Jaffar said he learned that his men had kidnapped and fought with people, though he declined to give details and said he had no knowledge of their actions. Other Mahdi Army leaders, however, said that the company was also linked to killings of civilians and that Abu Jaffar was aware they were taking place.
"The Mahdi Army was strict with me because it is controlled by a strict law," Abu Jaffar said. "It doesn't permit any mistakes."
Signs of the purge dot the sewer-filled streets of Sadr City, which the Mahdi Army controls.
During some Friday afternoon prayers, the names of those expelled from the militia are read aloud. Many of those identified flee their neighborhoods and sometimes the country to avoid punishment.
Some walls bear posters announcing who has been purged and why, though these are often quickly ripped down by friends and family members of the accused.
One flier, addressed to "All Mahdi Army Members" from the militia's Baghdad Battalion, reported the firing of one member because of his "immoral actions" and "use of the blessed name of the army to loot, kidnap and bargain."
Elegant calligraphy at the top of the flier read: "Lions in the day and priests in the night."
In many Sadrist strongholds, the militia's focus has shifted from militancy to providing services to residents, as the Mahdi Army continues recasting itself as a political and social force.
On a recent afternoon at the main Sadr office in Sadr City, a woman dressed in a black head-to-toe abaya arrived and began explaining that her husband was beating her.
"I have problems!" wailed the woman, who gave her name as Um Mohammed. "I need the help of the Sadr office."
After about 15 minutes, an official scribbled a note requesting that her husband come to the office for mediation.
"We solve hundreds of problems like this," said the official, Abu Haider. "This is what the Mahdi Army is doing now."
But many residents grumble that robberies, car thefts and other crimes in some parts of the city have gone up since the militia was ordered to lay down its weapons. And in southern Iraq, Sadrists have complained that they have been victimized by rival forces, leading many to demand that the freeze be lifted.
Amar Jabar Saadoon, 35, a Karbala resident who fled to Sadr City, said security forces linked to the armed wing of the Supreme Council destroyed his house and threatened his family.
"We pray to God that the freeze will end soon," he said.
U.S. military commanders, who have fought some of their bloodiest battles of the war against the militia, now praise Sadr and say the Mahdi Army is no longer participating in violence. Anyone disobeying the freeze, they say, cannot be a member in good standing of the militia. The military refers to splinter elements as "special groups" and links them primarily to Iran.
U.S. officials and some Mahdi Army members view the freeze as Sadr's attempt to cleanse Iranian elements from the militia.
"They said, 'Look, we have two foreign influences that are battling for control of Iraq: Iran and the American occupation,' " said a senior U.S. Embassy official, who spoke on condition of anonymity under diplomatic ground rules. " 'And of the two, we need to be more concerned with Iran. We can deal with the U.S. politically and they are going to withdraw soon anyways.' "
Although American officials say they do not have direct contact with Sadr, they convey messages to him through intermediaries and have publicly flattered him.
The commander of U.S. troops in Baghdad, Maj. Gen. Jeffery W. Hammond, whose soldiers were killed in fighting with the Mahdi Army during his first tour in Iraq, now refers to the militia's leader as "the honorable Moqtada al-Sadr."
"His decision to order the freeze has been a most honorable decision," Hammond said.
Sunni leaders, who as recently as last year were accusing Mahdi Army members of sectarian cleansing, said the freeze has ended most of the horrific violence by the militia. "We are not afraid of them now," Tariq al-Hashimi, a Sunni and one of the country's two vice presidents, said in an interview. "Now we don't have eye-catching sectarian strife."
But there are still areas where men professing to be Mahdi Army members continue to engage in sectarian violence.
In December, a dozen Mahdi Army fighters on motorcycles stormed into an ice factory in the capital's Tobji neighborhood and kidnapped its Sunni owner, Maath Salman Feneer, a 30-year-old with three children, according to his family.
When the family complained to the Sadr office in Tobji, officials there said the attack had been carried out by Mahdi Army fighters in the neighboring Hurriyah area, according to Feneer's cousin, Ahmed Abdullah. He said the office in Tobji told the kidnappers to return Feneer or a complaint would be made to the main Sadr office in Najaf.
In discussions with the family about a ransom, the kidnappers disregarded the threat and used an expletive to refer to Sadr. "We don't take orders from anyone," they said, Abdullah recalled. His cousin's bullet-riddled body was found a few days later.
"I don't trust anyone in the Mahdi Army," said Abdullah, 37, a plumbing store owner. "They are all killers."
At the Sadr office in Sadr City, Salman al-Fareji, the local head of the organization, disagreed. "The main reason for the freeze is to save the Iraqi blood," he said. "This is our goal. This is our brightest hope."
It is interesting how U.S. attitudes can reverse direction in the blink of an eye. Al Sadr has all of a sudden become "honorable" etc. and is flattered simply because he is pursuing policies that the U.S. approves. He is just as radical and brutal as ever but that means nothing. Stand by a month from now he make be back in his original media role as a big threat a radical, etc. etc.
Sadr's Militia Enforces Cease-Fire With a Deadly Purge
By Amit R. PaleyWashington Post Foreign ServiceThursday, February 21, 2008; A10
BAGHDAD -- The Mahdi Army fighters recalled dragging the 25-year-old man into a dark house where, while verses were chanted from the Koran, he was hanged from a hook in the ceiling.
The execution, carried out last month by Iraq's largest Shiite militia, would have been unexceptional but for one fact: The victim was one of its own.
The man, a Mahdi Army commander whose nom de guerre was Hamza, had killed and kidnapped scores of people despite what was then a five-month-old order to militia members to lay down their weapons, group leaders said. So after Hamza confessed to his crimes during repeated interrogations, a three-page death sentence was issued by the office of the militia's leader, anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, they said.
"We were ordered to eliminate him and we did," said Mohammed Ali, 24, a commander of the militia in the Sholeh neighborhood who took part in the operation and described how it took place. "This is how we have been cleaning the Mahdi Army."
Hundreds of Mahdi Army members have been similarly executed, jailed or excommunicated by the militia since the freeze was ordered by Sadr in late August, part of a nationwide reorganization that has dramatically altered the group's public image in Iraq and has been a crucial reason for the recent downturn in violence, according to senior militia leaders and U.S. officials.
The purge has boosted Sadr's reputation -- particularly among American commanders who once considered him an enemy but now refer to him respectfully -- while also helping Sadr exert more control over his sprawling irregular army. At the same time, members say, the freeze has made the Sadrist movement more vulnerable to attacks and repression by rival Shiite groups.
Sadr is expected to announce by Saturday whether the freeze will be extended, his aides said. But interviews with more than a dozen leaders of the Sadrist movement suggest that whether or not it is continued, the freeze has already transformed the militia and its place in Iraqi society.
"The freeze brought many secrets to the surface," said Ahmed Abdul Hussein, 33, a Mahdi Army leader from Sadr City, a vast Shiite district of Baghdad. "Now we know who is good and who is bad. Now everyone thinks of the Mahdi Army in a new light. I think everything will be different now."
Last summer, Mahdi Army members were widely viewed as having carried out some of the most vicious violence against Sunnis, pushing the country to the brink of civil war. The militia clashed often with U.S. and British forces.
The militia's public image reached its nadir when more than 50 people were killed in the holy city of Karbala because of fierce fighting between the Mahdi Army and forces loyal to its chief Shiite political rival, the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq. The next day, on Aug. 29, Sadr declared a six-month suspension of the militia's operations.
Sadr's office said at the time that the aim of the freeze was to push out elements not under the cleric's control.
"The freeze has helped us to distinguish and push out the bad figures," said Salah al-Obaidi, a top Sadr aide, who added that the militia now has more than 100,000 followers.
Abu Jaffar, 31, a day laborer from the Shaab area of Baghdad, was one of those purged, according to current Mahdi Army members.
Shortly after the freeze was declared, Abu Jaffar said in a telephone interview, he received a summons from a Mahdi Army unit known as the Golden Battalion, often described as an intelligence service that maintains internal discipline. Abu Jaffar said the battalion members blamed him for allowing the 100 or so men under his command to commit crimes against civilians.
"They came to me and said, 'Why didn't you know about the mistakes of your people when you are the commander of this company?' " said Abu Jaffar, who, like others interviewed for this article, would not give his full name for fear that it would lead to his arrest by U.S. or Iraqi forces. "They said, 'You are not capable to command.' And because of that I was fired."
Abu Jaffar said he learned that his men had kidnapped and fought with people, though he declined to give details and said he had no knowledge of their actions. Other Mahdi Army leaders, however, said that the company was also linked to killings of civilians and that Abu Jaffar was aware they were taking place.
"The Mahdi Army was strict with me because it is controlled by a strict law," Abu Jaffar said. "It doesn't permit any mistakes."
Signs of the purge dot the sewer-filled streets of Sadr City, which the Mahdi Army controls.
During some Friday afternoon prayers, the names of those expelled from the militia are read aloud. Many of those identified flee their neighborhoods and sometimes the country to avoid punishment.
Some walls bear posters announcing who has been purged and why, though these are often quickly ripped down by friends and family members of the accused.
One flier, addressed to "All Mahdi Army Members" from the militia's Baghdad Battalion, reported the firing of one member because of his "immoral actions" and "use of the blessed name of the army to loot, kidnap and bargain."
Elegant calligraphy at the top of the flier read: "Lions in the day and priests in the night."
In many Sadrist strongholds, the militia's focus has shifted from militancy to providing services to residents, as the Mahdi Army continues recasting itself as a political and social force.
On a recent afternoon at the main Sadr office in Sadr City, a woman dressed in a black head-to-toe abaya arrived and began explaining that her husband was beating her.
"I have problems!" wailed the woman, who gave her name as Um Mohammed. "I need the help of the Sadr office."
After about 15 minutes, an official scribbled a note requesting that her husband come to the office for mediation.
"We solve hundreds of problems like this," said the official, Abu Haider. "This is what the Mahdi Army is doing now."
But many residents grumble that robberies, car thefts and other crimes in some parts of the city have gone up since the militia was ordered to lay down its weapons. And in southern Iraq, Sadrists have complained that they have been victimized by rival forces, leading many to demand that the freeze be lifted.
Amar Jabar Saadoon, 35, a Karbala resident who fled to Sadr City, said security forces linked to the armed wing of the Supreme Council destroyed his house and threatened his family.
"We pray to God that the freeze will end soon," he said.
U.S. military commanders, who have fought some of their bloodiest battles of the war against the militia, now praise Sadr and say the Mahdi Army is no longer participating in violence. Anyone disobeying the freeze, they say, cannot be a member in good standing of the militia. The military refers to splinter elements as "special groups" and links them primarily to Iran.
U.S. officials and some Mahdi Army members view the freeze as Sadr's attempt to cleanse Iranian elements from the militia.
"They said, 'Look, we have two foreign influences that are battling for control of Iraq: Iran and the American occupation,' " said a senior U.S. Embassy official, who spoke on condition of anonymity under diplomatic ground rules. " 'And of the two, we need to be more concerned with Iran. We can deal with the U.S. politically and they are going to withdraw soon anyways.' "
Although American officials say they do not have direct contact with Sadr, they convey messages to him through intermediaries and have publicly flattered him.
The commander of U.S. troops in Baghdad, Maj. Gen. Jeffery W. Hammond, whose soldiers were killed in fighting with the Mahdi Army during his first tour in Iraq, now refers to the militia's leader as "the honorable Moqtada al-Sadr."
"His decision to order the freeze has been a most honorable decision," Hammond said.
Sunni leaders, who as recently as last year were accusing Mahdi Army members of sectarian cleansing, said the freeze has ended most of the horrific violence by the militia. "We are not afraid of them now," Tariq al-Hashimi, a Sunni and one of the country's two vice presidents, said in an interview. "Now we don't have eye-catching sectarian strife."
But there are still areas where men professing to be Mahdi Army members continue to engage in sectarian violence.
In December, a dozen Mahdi Army fighters on motorcycles stormed into an ice factory in the capital's Tobji neighborhood and kidnapped its Sunni owner, Maath Salman Feneer, a 30-year-old with three children, according to his family.
When the family complained to the Sadr office in Tobji, officials there said the attack had been carried out by Mahdi Army fighters in the neighboring Hurriyah area, according to Feneer's cousin, Ahmed Abdullah. He said the office in Tobji told the kidnappers to return Feneer or a complaint would be made to the main Sadr office in Najaf.
In discussions with the family about a ransom, the kidnappers disregarded the threat and used an expletive to refer to Sadr. "We don't take orders from anyone," they said, Abdullah recalled. His cousin's bullet-riddled body was found a few days later.
"I don't trust anyone in the Mahdi Army," said Abdullah, 37, a plumbing store owner. "They are all killers."
At the Sadr office in Sadr City, Salman al-Fareji, the local head of the organization, disagreed. "The main reason for the freeze is to save the Iraqi blood," he said. "This is our goal. This is our brightest hope."
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Obama on Israel and the U.S. military.
This is from Obama's website. Typical of the bi-partisan support for U.S. hegemony that has its underpinning a military that is many times the size of the nearest rival Obama does not question military spending. In fact he wants to expand the military. So much for any change in US foreign policy! He may mouth a different rhetoric but he wants a bigger stick.
If you read through the paragraphs on Israel there is not one single criticism of Israel or any single sentence about any rights the Palestinians might have. The donations will be just pouring in.
Expand the Military: We have learned from Iraq that our military needs more men and women in uniform to reduce the strain on our active force. Obama will increase the size of ground forces, adding 65,000 soldiers to the Army and 27,000 Marines.
New Capabilities: Obama will give our troops new equipment, armor, training, and skills like language training. He will also strengthen our civilian capacity, so that our civilian agencies have the critical skills and equipment they need to integrate their efforts with our military.
On Israel
Ensure a Strong U.S.-Israel Partnership: Barack Obama strongly supports the U.S.-Israel relationship, believes that our first and incontrovertible commitment in the Middle East must be to the security of Israel, America's strongest ally in the Middle East. Obama supports this closeness, stating that that the United States would never distance itself from Israel.
Support Israel's Right to Self Defense: During the July 2006 Lebanon war, Barack Obama stood up strongly for Israel's right to defend itself from Hezbollah raids and rocket attacks, cosponsoring a Senate resolution against Iran and Syria's involvement in the war, and insisting that Israel should not be pressured into a ceasefire that did not deal with the threat of Hezbollah missiles. He believes strongly in Israel's right to protect its citizens.
Support Foreign Assistance to Israel: Barack Obama has consistently supported foreign assistance to Israel. He defends and supports the annual foreign aid package that involves both military and economic assistance to Israel and has advocated increased foreign aid budgets to ensure that these funding priorities are met. He has called for continuing U.S. cooperation with Israel in the development of missile defense systems.
If you read through the paragraphs on Israel there is not one single criticism of Israel or any single sentence about any rights the Palestinians might have. The donations will be just pouring in.
Expand the Military: We have learned from Iraq that our military needs more men and women in uniform to reduce the strain on our active force. Obama will increase the size of ground forces, adding 65,000 soldiers to the Army and 27,000 Marines.
New Capabilities: Obama will give our troops new equipment, armor, training, and skills like language training. He will also strengthen our civilian capacity, so that our civilian agencies have the critical skills and equipment they need to integrate their efforts with our military.
On Israel
Ensure a Strong U.S.-Israel Partnership: Barack Obama strongly supports the U.S.-Israel relationship, believes that our first and incontrovertible commitment in the Middle East must be to the security of Israel, America's strongest ally in the Middle East. Obama supports this closeness, stating that that the United States would never distance itself from Israel.
Support Israel's Right to Self Defense: During the July 2006 Lebanon war, Barack Obama stood up strongly for Israel's right to defend itself from Hezbollah raids and rocket attacks, cosponsoring a Senate resolution against Iran and Syria's involvement in the war, and insisting that Israel should not be pressured into a ceasefire that did not deal with the threat of Hezbollah missiles. He believes strongly in Israel's right to protect its citizens.
Support Foreign Assistance to Israel: Barack Obama has consistently supported foreign assistance to Israel. He defends and supports the annual foreign aid package that involves both military and economic assistance to Israel and has advocated increased foreign aid budgets to ensure that these funding priorities are met. He has called for continuing U.S. cooperation with Israel in the development of missile defense systems.
U.S. enterprises to invest U.S. 10 billion in Vietnamese tourist development.
This is from a Vietnamese news agency. This is symptomatic of Vietnam's great leap forward into global capitalism. The U.S. could have avoided the Vietnam war altogether by just enticing a new leadership to follow the capitalist road as has happened as well in China.
US enterprises to invest US $10 billion to Quang Nam
Nhan Dan - The People’s Committee of the central province of Quang Nam on February 15 officially submitted to the Government a US $10 billion tourism project to be invested by giant US economic groups for an investment license.
If approved, this will be the biggest tourism project in the central and Central Highlands area, said Mr Dinh Van Thu, a spokesman of the Quang Nam People’s Committee.
The project is invested by the US’s Global C&D Inc. and some other US companies.
According to Chairman of the Quang Nam People’s Committee Nguyen Duc Hai, the project, named Dragon Beach Tourism Resort, have been worked on by Global C&D Inc. and local authorities for years now.
Under the project, a luxury sea resort including hotels, casinos, a trade centre, a conventional centre, a golf course and entertainment facilities will be built on an area of 460 hectares in Dien Ban district.
US enterprises to invest US $10 billion to Quang Nam
Nhan Dan - The People’s Committee of the central province of Quang Nam on February 15 officially submitted to the Government a US $10 billion tourism project to be invested by giant US economic groups for an investment license.
If approved, this will be the biggest tourism project in the central and Central Highlands area, said Mr Dinh Van Thu, a spokesman of the Quang Nam People’s Committee.
The project is invested by the US’s Global C&D Inc. and some other US companies.
According to Chairman of the Quang Nam People’s Committee Nguyen Duc Hai, the project, named Dragon Beach Tourism Resort, have been worked on by Global C&D Inc. and local authorities for years now.
Under the project, a luxury sea resort including hotels, casinos, a trade centre, a conventional centre, a golf course and entertainment facilities will be built on an area of 460 hectares in Dien Ban district.
Thousands Protest against Arroyo
This is from the Boston Globe. The Roman Catholic clergy and the legal fronts of the Communist Party of the Philippines are regular fixtures along with many different activists at Philippine rallies. Although the groups certainly differ in their views it doesn't prevent their joining together to protest against Arroyo.
As if on demand, when one of these rallies is about to happen all of a sudden reports of assassination plots against Arroyo surface to deflect attention from the corruption issue.
Thousands protest against Philippines' Arroyo
By Manny Mogato
February 15, 2008
MANILA (Reuters) - Thousands of people rallied in Manila on Friday calling for the resignation of Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo over a corruption scandal.
more stories like this
Police said around 10,000 people, including left-wing activists, students, religious groups and lawyers, had taken to the streets.
The protests, sparked by a Senate inquiry into government kickbacks in a telecom deal, were the biggest since tens of thousands of people demonstrated against Arroyo in 2005 amid allegations she cheated in elections the previous year.
"We are outraged by the reports of corruption and greed in government," said Maita Gomez, an activist who said she was wearing red because it was the color of anger.
Nuns, priests, artists and office workers danced as a local group belted out tunes, including Bob Marley's "Get Up, Stand up" from a makeshift stage. People waved flags and posters with the words "Out Gloria," one large banner read "Gangster Regime."
"This is a good starting point for future mass actions. By that time, the numbers would have grown significantly," said Renato Reyes, the secretary general of Bayan, a left-wing group.
But analysts said it would be difficult to get more people to join the protests because after three impeachment bids and at least three coup plots against Arroyo, the electorate craves stability and the opposition lacks unity.
"She's still on the safe side," said Earl Parreno, an analyst at the Institute for Political and Electoral Reforms.
"It's a challenge to the political opposition to fan the emotions, I have not seen the spontaneity as in past popular uprisings."
In an interview with Reuters earlier this week, Arroyo said she would complete her final term and in a briefing with investors on Friday, she assured them that the latest allegations were part of the typical political rough-and-tumble.
"These types of charges have regularly emerged even in previous administrations, as part of our less than impressive political culture," said the former economist, whose final term runs out in 2010.
The Senate inquiry has heard renewed allegations that the country's former election chief demanded $130 million to broker a $329 million deal with China's ZTE to build a broadband network for government agencies.
The election official denied the charge, but the deal was scrapped last year.
MERRY-GO-ROUND
But political analysts say the president's position appears safe due to support from the military and the lower house of Congress and the apathy of many Filipinos, who are sick of the political merry-go-round in Manila.
Arroyo herself took over after former President Joseph Estrada was ousted following street protests seven years ago. He was later convicted of plunder, but Arroyo granted him a pardon last year.
The latest scandal has, however, unsettled some investors. The Philippine stock index bucked the regional uptrend on Thursday and continued to fall on Friday, finishing down 0.9 percent.
The Philippines is currently on an economic roll, with growth at a 31-year high and the budget deficit at a 10-year low, and Arroyo said the momentum would be sustained despite a slowdown in the United States through accelerated infrastructure spending.
(Writing by Carmel Crimmins; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan and Sanjeev Miglani)
As if on demand, when one of these rallies is about to happen all of a sudden reports of assassination plots against Arroyo surface to deflect attention from the corruption issue.
Thousands protest against Philippines' Arroyo
By Manny Mogato
February 15, 2008
MANILA (Reuters) - Thousands of people rallied in Manila on Friday calling for the resignation of Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo over a corruption scandal.
more stories like this
Police said around 10,000 people, including left-wing activists, students, religious groups and lawyers, had taken to the streets.
The protests, sparked by a Senate inquiry into government kickbacks in a telecom deal, were the biggest since tens of thousands of people demonstrated against Arroyo in 2005 amid allegations she cheated in elections the previous year.
"We are outraged by the reports of corruption and greed in government," said Maita Gomez, an activist who said she was wearing red because it was the color of anger.
Nuns, priests, artists and office workers danced as a local group belted out tunes, including Bob Marley's "Get Up, Stand up" from a makeshift stage. People waved flags and posters with the words "Out Gloria," one large banner read "Gangster Regime."
"This is a good starting point for future mass actions. By that time, the numbers would have grown significantly," said Renato Reyes, the secretary general of Bayan, a left-wing group.
But analysts said it would be difficult to get more people to join the protests because after three impeachment bids and at least three coup plots against Arroyo, the electorate craves stability and the opposition lacks unity.
"She's still on the safe side," said Earl Parreno, an analyst at the Institute for Political and Electoral Reforms.
"It's a challenge to the political opposition to fan the emotions, I have not seen the spontaneity as in past popular uprisings."
In an interview with Reuters earlier this week, Arroyo said she would complete her final term and in a briefing with investors on Friday, she assured them that the latest allegations were part of the typical political rough-and-tumble.
"These types of charges have regularly emerged even in previous administrations, as part of our less than impressive political culture," said the former economist, whose final term runs out in 2010.
The Senate inquiry has heard renewed allegations that the country's former election chief demanded $130 million to broker a $329 million deal with China's ZTE to build a broadband network for government agencies.
The election official denied the charge, but the deal was scrapped last year.
MERRY-GO-ROUND
But political analysts say the president's position appears safe due to support from the military and the lower house of Congress and the apathy of many Filipinos, who are sick of the political merry-go-round in Manila.
Arroyo herself took over after former President Joseph Estrada was ousted following street protests seven years ago. He was later convicted of plunder, but Arroyo granted him a pardon last year.
The latest scandal has, however, unsettled some investors. The Philippine stock index bucked the regional uptrend on Thursday and continued to fall on Friday, finishing down 0.9 percent.
The Philippines is currently on an economic roll, with growth at a 31-year high and the budget deficit at a 10-year low, and Arroyo said the momentum would be sustained despite a slowdown in the United States through accelerated infrastructure spending.
(Writing by Carmel Crimmins; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan and Sanjeev Miglani)
Arab Media Question U.S. motives in Darfur
This is from ncmonline. Oil is virtually never mentioned with respect to events in the Sudan. There is total concentration on the humanitarian disaster but nothing that ever links this to Sudan's oil resources. Well hardly ever, I have seen one article that mentions that China continues to support the Sudan govt. because it is interested in Sudanese oil.
Arab Media Question U.S. Motives in Darfur
Eye on Arab Media
New America Media, News Report, Jalal Ghazi, Posted: Feb 18, 2008
Editor’s Note: Steven Spielberg’s decision to step down as artistic adviser for this summer's Olympic Games in Beijing – citing China’s trade with Sudan despite a humanitarian crisis in Darfur – is the latest spotlight on the “crisis” in Darfur. While Americans portray Darfur as the greatest genocide of modern times, Arab media say that, as with Iraq, the United States is only interested in its oil.As Americans criticize China for putting profit ahead of human rights abuses in Sudan, Arab media say that the United States is in no position to judge. Arab officials and journalists say the Bush administration’s focus on the “crisis in Darfur” has more to do with reclaiming Sudanese oil fields than carrying out a humanitarian mission.Sudanese President Omar Al Bashier, who spoke with London-based Arab News Broadcast in December 2007, believes the dispute between the United States and Sudan did not start in 2003, when rebel groups rose up against the Sudanese government. Al Bashier argues that the countries were already feuding over oil two decades before the United States became concerned about the supposed one million refugees. The American oil company Chevron made the first oil discovery in Sudan in 1979. Over the next few years, along with Shell, Chevron spent millions of dollars in extensive seismic testing and drilled some 52 wells. In 1983, Chevron came to an agreement with the Sudanese government and the Arab Petroleum Investments Corporation (APICORP) to jointly build an oil pipeline, linking Sudanese oil fields to Port Sudan on the Red Sea. Chevron suspended its activities in Sudan after one of their facilities was attacked and three workers were killed during a civil war in the area.However, journalist and political analysts Kahled al-Aa’esr says that American oil companies did not necessarily want to leave Sudan. The United States considered the Sudanese oil fields to be a part of their own oil reserves, and wanted access to these fields at a time of their choosing. Al-Aa’esr argues that this is what initially soured the relationship between the United States and Sudan. “The American oil companies didn’t fully develop Sudan’s oil infrastructure at that time, but they wanted to come back in 40 or 50 years,” al-Aa’esr says, when there was greater demand for oil and they could increase their profit margin.
Arab Media Question U.S. Motives in Darfur
Eye on Arab Media
New America Media, News Report, Jalal Ghazi, Posted: Feb 18, 2008
Editor’s Note: Steven Spielberg’s decision to step down as artistic adviser for this summer's Olympic Games in Beijing – citing China’s trade with Sudan despite a humanitarian crisis in Darfur – is the latest spotlight on the “crisis” in Darfur. While Americans portray Darfur as the greatest genocide of modern times, Arab media say that, as with Iraq, the United States is only interested in its oil.As Americans criticize China for putting profit ahead of human rights abuses in Sudan, Arab media say that the United States is in no position to judge. Arab officials and journalists say the Bush administration’s focus on the “crisis in Darfur” has more to do with reclaiming Sudanese oil fields than carrying out a humanitarian mission.Sudanese President Omar Al Bashier, who spoke with London-based Arab News Broadcast in December 2007, believes the dispute between the United States and Sudan did not start in 2003, when rebel groups rose up against the Sudanese government. Al Bashier argues that the countries were already feuding over oil two decades before the United States became concerned about the supposed one million refugees. The American oil company Chevron made the first oil discovery in Sudan in 1979. Over the next few years, along with Shell, Chevron spent millions of dollars in extensive seismic testing and drilled some 52 wells. In 1983, Chevron came to an agreement with the Sudanese government and the Arab Petroleum Investments Corporation (APICORP) to jointly build an oil pipeline, linking Sudanese oil fields to Port Sudan on the Red Sea. Chevron suspended its activities in Sudan after one of their facilities was attacked and three workers were killed during a civil war in the area.However, journalist and political analysts Kahled al-Aa’esr says that American oil companies did not necessarily want to leave Sudan. The United States considered the Sudanese oil fields to be a part of their own oil reserves, and wanted access to these fields at a time of their choosing. Al-Aa’esr argues that this is what initially soured the relationship between the United States and Sudan. “The American oil companies didn’t fully develop Sudan’s oil infrastructure at that time, but they wanted to come back in 40 or 50 years,” al-Aa’esr says, when there was greater demand for oil and they could increase their profit margin.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Clinton's right-wing media romans sours..
It seems that the right-wing media considers the market more important than ideology and will give media coverage to a front-runner. What is more important than being Liberal or Democrat, liberal or conservative, is being a winner. Of course some grass-roots Conservatives might beg to differ!
<http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0208/8549.html>Clinton's right-wing media romance soursBy: Ben SmithFebruary 16, 2008 10:27 AM ESTOver the course of her six years as a New York senator and in the early days of her presidential campaign, Hillary Rodham Clinton cultivated an unlikely set of allies: the conservative media. From Rupert Murdoch to David Brooks to Matt Drudge, her campaign courted them with every instrument at its disposal, including targeted leaks and Bill Clinton's legendary personal charm.But when Sen. Clinton's campaign started to stumble, those hard-won friends were the first to go. Murdoch's pet tabloid, the New York Post, repudiated her and endorsed Sen. Barack Obama. The Drudge Report rode her decline as gleefully as it watched her rise. And the pundit class moved from its grudging respect for Clinton into an infatuation with Obama.The forces at work in that collapse are varied: individual decisions, relationships gone sour and Clinton's own leftward shift as the campaign grew more competitive. But as much as anything else, Clinton's courtship of the right collapsed under the weight of a force conservatives can appreciate: the market.Whatever the views of pundits and opinion-makers, the conservative audience still makes up a voracious market for bad news about the Clintons. And the bad Clinton news has just been too good to pass up."Hillary's a lot easier to hate," said Ryan Sager, a columnist for the New York Post."Readers of Drudge, watchers of Fox News, they truly hate her. That's simply not true of Obama."Clinton's successful outreach to the right had three pillars: the conservative columnists who had begun to see her as the tough-minded centrist of the Democratic field; the media baron Rupert Murdoch; and the most powerful man in American political media, Matt Drudge, whose Drudge Report often sets the agenda for television coverage and broader political perceptions.And if the conservative base hated her, many members of the conservative elite did not.When the campaign got underway in the beginning of 2007, Clinton was under pressure to apologize for her vote to authorize the invasion of Iraq. To liberals, her refusal was her Achilles' heel. To conservatives, it was an unexpected sign of a backbone."The conservative respect for her has 97 percent to do with her refusal to renege on her vote on Iraq," said John Podhoretz, the editor of Commentary magazine. "That is the sole sum and substance of the entire business."The position won her influential, and unexpected, defenders on the right."Clinton's biggest breach with the liberal wing actually opened up later, in the fall of 2003. Most liberals went into full opposition, wanting to see Bush disgraced. Clinton — while an early critic of the troop levels, the postwar plans and all the rest — tried to stay constructive," David Brooks wrote in The New York Times last February."She wanted to see America and Iraq succeed, even if Bush was not disgraced," he wrote, reflecting a broader respect for Clinton as a principled centrist, a hawk — a president with whom, perhaps, conservatives could do business.But as the race heated up, Clinton and Obama — pressed from their left by former Sen. John Edwards — began calling more urgently for withdrawing troops from Iraq. She still hasn't apologized for her vote, but she has promised to begin withdrawing troops within 30 days of her election. And she, like Obama, abandoned an initial resistance to the notion of setting a timeline for withdrawal."She certainly ran a more centrist campaign when she thought it was going to be a coronation," said conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer who, unlike Brooks, never credited Clinton with any principles. "She was more circumspect about withdrawal..Then Obama rises — she's really under threat — she has to go back to the base because he's taking it away from her."When she had to tack back left, obviously the right was less sympathetic to her," he said in an interview.And into that gap came another conservative flirtation: one with Obama."Many Republicans are rooting for him to knock off Clinton. If that makes it more difficult to keep the White House, so be it," Fred Barnes wrote in the Weekly Standard this week.Ideology is one thing. Murdoch, the chairman of News Corp., which owns the Fox News Channel, the New York Post and The Wall Street Journal, was another matter. More businessman than ideologue, Murdoch has a storied history of putting his media resources to the service of politicians ranging from Ed Koch to Tony Blair, and extracting a price for his support.His New York Post had done its best to derail Clinton's 2000 Senate bid, but after she was elected, and particularly after the terror attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, he — and his paper — turned a kinder eye toward her.Murdoch and Sen. Clinton lunched together in News Corp.'s private dining room in 2002, and courting him soon became a special project of Bill Clinton's.The courtship became public when the former president visited the New York Post's newsroom in January 2003, after which insulting caricatures of the former president largely disappeared from its pages. Later, Murdoch appeared at his annual conference, the Clinton Global Initiative, and Clinton spoke at a News Corp. gathering in Pebble Beach, Calif. They began speaking regularly on the telephone, people familiar with the conversations say. The Clinton Foundation even employed Murdoch's daughter-in-law as a consultant.Fox News began treating Clinton with, if not consistent respect, something short of the loathing it had shown in the 1990s. Murdoch even hosted a fundraiser for Clinton's reelection campaign. And the alliance seemed to have been consummated when the conservative Post endorsed Clinton for reelection to the Senate, a move that would have been unthinkable years earlier."We think she's done such a good job these last six years that she'd do well to serve six more," the paper wrote, cheekily but not without sincerity.The relationship seemed to be intact last year. Murdoch contributed the maximum, $2,300, to Clinton's White House bid. Clinton was the only one of the leading Democratic candidates not to attack Fox amid outrage that the right-leaning network would host a Democratic debate. (She did not, however, actually defend Fox.)Meanwhile, her campaign thought the Fox News Channel treated Clinton relatively fairly — compared to MSNBC, with which it is now openly at war.So the media establishment in Clinton's home state was stunned when the Post, on Jan. 30, backed Obama. And amid some very tepid praise for the Illinois senator, the editorial scalded Sen. Clinton and her husband.Ironically, it was Bill Clinton — who had worked so hard to woo Murdoch — who ultimately lost his endorsement."Bill Clinton's thuggishly self-centered campaign antics conjure so many bad, sad memories that it's hard to know where to begin. Suffice it to say that his Peck's-Bad-Boy smirk — the Clinton trademark — wore thin a very long time ago," the paper wrote.And there was no doubt as to whether Murdoch had approved the endorsement."The Post is Murdoch's authentic voice," said the former editor of one Murdoch paper.People close to the decision said the editorial represented Murdoch's genuine disgust at the former president's return to political combat. Murdoch's political aide, Gary Ginsberg, declined to comment on the move.Others suspected that some unknown factor had soured the relationship."I don't know what happened between them — that I can't tell you — but clearly something did," said former New York Mayor Ed Koch, who has credited the Post's endorsement with winning him that job, and who subsequently looked kindly on Murdoch's business interests as mayor.Before the autumn, back when she was still the conservative pundits' favorite Democrat, and when News Corp. seemed like an unlikely ally, Clinton worked on a third front: Drudge.The online pioneer became the recipient of choice campaign leaks. Last April 1, her much-anticipated quarterly numbers went first to Drudge, setting a pattern of such leaks for the year. And he reported prominently on her campaign's successes, leading Obama aides to complain that he was channeling her campaign's message and that he was an ally.The impression intensified when New York magazine quoted Drudge saying, on his radio show:"I need Hillary Clinton. You don't get it. I need to be part of her world. That's my bank. Like Leo DiCaprio has the environment and Al Gore has the environment and Jimmy Carter has anti-Americanism. I have Hillary."Drudge "seems obsessed with making Hillary Clinton our next president," the magazine observed.Some in Clinton's circle date the change in the tone of the Drudge Report to Oct. 22, when The New York Times published its own front- page look at the campaign's courtship of the website. The piece further elevated Drudge's stature. It also turned his professed affection for Clinton into conventional wisdom.The Drudge Report soon shattered that conventional wisdom.On Nov. 25, Drudge floated the rumor she was having a lesbian affair with an aide over the teasing headline, "Don't Go There."On Dec. 17, as doubts about her ability to win Iowa grew, he led the site with an unflattering but attention-grabbing photo of Clinton looking tired and haggard.The headline: "The Toll of a Campaign."Now each day features stories of Clinton campaign turmoil competing with those of Obama's surging popularity."ADIÓS: HILLARY'S TOP LATINA SIDELINED..." was the Feb. 11 headline, when Clinton's campaign manager left her post."OBAMA WINS NEBRASKA; WASHINGTON; LOUISIANA; MAINE...EVEN WINS ... A GRAMMY!Ties Clinton to Past...read items below."The next day, the site led with the tearstained visage of an Obama supporter. The headline: "Screams and tears of delight."Clinton's communications director, Howard Wolfson, declined to comment on the Drudge Report, as did the consultant who serves as Clinton's liaison to Drudge, Tracy Sefl.But while speculation in the Clinton campaign runs to mind-reading — had Drudge gotten self-conscious? had Obama aides wooed him? what was his true agenda? — other close watchers saw it as classic Drudge."Matt is not a player of favorites," said Podhoretz. "They fed him and he took what they had to give him."And when it came time to choose the news, he was both driving and riding two of the great developing storylines of the moment: Clinton's fall and Obama's rise.It was a story that appears everywhere. Clinton has hardly won a news cycle since the fall, and Obama has hardly lost one. There are no tidbits of turmoil inside Obama's campaign, no destructive leaks on which to harp. The role of Drudge — and Clinton's other former allies in the media — has been to amplify the signs of her weakness, not to create them.As for the broader collapse of Clinton's romance with the conservative media, Podhoretz and many others offered similar explanations."When people thought she was a winner, then they were inclined to feel more warmly toward her, and when they suspect that she's a loser, they decide — like all Americans toward all losers — that she must be humiliated and crushed," he said.
<http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0208/8549.html>Clinton's right-wing media romance soursBy: Ben SmithFebruary 16, 2008 10:27 AM ESTOver the course of her six years as a New York senator and in the early days of her presidential campaign, Hillary Rodham Clinton cultivated an unlikely set of allies: the conservative media. From Rupert Murdoch to David Brooks to Matt Drudge, her campaign courted them with every instrument at its disposal, including targeted leaks and Bill Clinton's legendary personal charm.But when Sen. Clinton's campaign started to stumble, those hard-won friends were the first to go. Murdoch's pet tabloid, the New York Post, repudiated her and endorsed Sen. Barack Obama. The Drudge Report rode her decline as gleefully as it watched her rise. And the pundit class moved from its grudging respect for Clinton into an infatuation with Obama.The forces at work in that collapse are varied: individual decisions, relationships gone sour and Clinton's own leftward shift as the campaign grew more competitive. But as much as anything else, Clinton's courtship of the right collapsed under the weight of a force conservatives can appreciate: the market.Whatever the views of pundits and opinion-makers, the conservative audience still makes up a voracious market for bad news about the Clintons. And the bad Clinton news has just been too good to pass up."Hillary's a lot easier to hate," said Ryan Sager, a columnist for the New York Post."Readers of Drudge, watchers of Fox News, they truly hate her. That's simply not true of Obama."Clinton's successful outreach to the right had three pillars: the conservative columnists who had begun to see her as the tough-minded centrist of the Democratic field; the media baron Rupert Murdoch; and the most powerful man in American political media, Matt Drudge, whose Drudge Report often sets the agenda for television coverage and broader political perceptions.And if the conservative base hated her, many members of the conservative elite did not.When the campaign got underway in the beginning of 2007, Clinton was under pressure to apologize for her vote to authorize the invasion of Iraq. To liberals, her refusal was her Achilles' heel. To conservatives, it was an unexpected sign of a backbone."The conservative respect for her has 97 percent to do with her refusal to renege on her vote on Iraq," said John Podhoretz, the editor of Commentary magazine. "That is the sole sum and substance of the entire business."The position won her influential, and unexpected, defenders on the right."Clinton's biggest breach with the liberal wing actually opened up later, in the fall of 2003. Most liberals went into full opposition, wanting to see Bush disgraced. Clinton — while an early critic of the troop levels, the postwar plans and all the rest — tried to stay constructive," David Brooks wrote in The New York Times last February."She wanted to see America and Iraq succeed, even if Bush was not disgraced," he wrote, reflecting a broader respect for Clinton as a principled centrist, a hawk — a president with whom, perhaps, conservatives could do business.But as the race heated up, Clinton and Obama — pressed from their left by former Sen. John Edwards — began calling more urgently for withdrawing troops from Iraq. She still hasn't apologized for her vote, but she has promised to begin withdrawing troops within 30 days of her election. And she, like Obama, abandoned an initial resistance to the notion of setting a timeline for withdrawal."She certainly ran a more centrist campaign when she thought it was going to be a coronation," said conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer who, unlike Brooks, never credited Clinton with any principles. "She was more circumspect about withdrawal..Then Obama rises — she's really under threat — she has to go back to the base because he's taking it away from her."When she had to tack back left, obviously the right was less sympathetic to her," he said in an interview.And into that gap came another conservative flirtation: one with Obama."Many Republicans are rooting for him to knock off Clinton. If that makes it more difficult to keep the White House, so be it," Fred Barnes wrote in the Weekly Standard this week.Ideology is one thing. Murdoch, the chairman of News Corp., which owns the Fox News Channel, the New York Post and The Wall Street Journal, was another matter. More businessman than ideologue, Murdoch has a storied history of putting his media resources to the service of politicians ranging from Ed Koch to Tony Blair, and extracting a price for his support.His New York Post had done its best to derail Clinton's 2000 Senate bid, but after she was elected, and particularly after the terror attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, he — and his paper — turned a kinder eye toward her.Murdoch and Sen. Clinton lunched together in News Corp.'s private dining room in 2002, and courting him soon became a special project of Bill Clinton's.The courtship became public when the former president visited the New York Post's newsroom in January 2003, after which insulting caricatures of the former president largely disappeared from its pages. Later, Murdoch appeared at his annual conference, the Clinton Global Initiative, and Clinton spoke at a News Corp. gathering in Pebble Beach, Calif. They began speaking regularly on the telephone, people familiar with the conversations say. The Clinton Foundation even employed Murdoch's daughter-in-law as a consultant.Fox News began treating Clinton with, if not consistent respect, something short of the loathing it had shown in the 1990s. Murdoch even hosted a fundraiser for Clinton's reelection campaign. And the alliance seemed to have been consummated when the conservative Post endorsed Clinton for reelection to the Senate, a move that would have been unthinkable years earlier."We think she's done such a good job these last six years that she'd do well to serve six more," the paper wrote, cheekily but not without sincerity.The relationship seemed to be intact last year. Murdoch contributed the maximum, $2,300, to Clinton's White House bid. Clinton was the only one of the leading Democratic candidates not to attack Fox amid outrage that the right-leaning network would host a Democratic debate. (She did not, however, actually defend Fox.)Meanwhile, her campaign thought the Fox News Channel treated Clinton relatively fairly — compared to MSNBC, with which it is now openly at war.So the media establishment in Clinton's home state was stunned when the Post, on Jan. 30, backed Obama. And amid some very tepid praise for the Illinois senator, the editorial scalded Sen. Clinton and her husband.Ironically, it was Bill Clinton — who had worked so hard to woo Murdoch — who ultimately lost his endorsement."Bill Clinton's thuggishly self-centered campaign antics conjure so many bad, sad memories that it's hard to know where to begin. Suffice it to say that his Peck's-Bad-Boy smirk — the Clinton trademark — wore thin a very long time ago," the paper wrote.And there was no doubt as to whether Murdoch had approved the endorsement."The Post is Murdoch's authentic voice," said the former editor of one Murdoch paper.People close to the decision said the editorial represented Murdoch's genuine disgust at the former president's return to political combat. Murdoch's political aide, Gary Ginsberg, declined to comment on the move.Others suspected that some unknown factor had soured the relationship."I don't know what happened between them — that I can't tell you — but clearly something did," said former New York Mayor Ed Koch, who has credited the Post's endorsement with winning him that job, and who subsequently looked kindly on Murdoch's business interests as mayor.Before the autumn, back when she was still the conservative pundits' favorite Democrat, and when News Corp. seemed like an unlikely ally, Clinton worked on a third front: Drudge.The online pioneer became the recipient of choice campaign leaks. Last April 1, her much-anticipated quarterly numbers went first to Drudge, setting a pattern of such leaks for the year. And he reported prominently on her campaign's successes, leading Obama aides to complain that he was channeling her campaign's message and that he was an ally.The impression intensified when New York magazine quoted Drudge saying, on his radio show:"I need Hillary Clinton. You don't get it. I need to be part of her world. That's my bank. Like Leo DiCaprio has the environment and Al Gore has the environment and Jimmy Carter has anti-Americanism. I have Hillary."Drudge "seems obsessed with making Hillary Clinton our next president," the magazine observed.Some in Clinton's circle date the change in the tone of the Drudge Report to Oct. 22, when The New York Times published its own front- page look at the campaign's courtship of the website. The piece further elevated Drudge's stature. It also turned his professed affection for Clinton into conventional wisdom.The Drudge Report soon shattered that conventional wisdom.On Nov. 25, Drudge floated the rumor she was having a lesbian affair with an aide over the teasing headline, "Don't Go There."On Dec. 17, as doubts about her ability to win Iowa grew, he led the site with an unflattering but attention-grabbing photo of Clinton looking tired and haggard.The headline: "The Toll of a Campaign."Now each day features stories of Clinton campaign turmoil competing with those of Obama's surging popularity."ADIÓS: HILLARY'S TOP LATINA SIDELINED..." was the Feb. 11 headline, when Clinton's campaign manager left her post."OBAMA WINS NEBRASKA; WASHINGTON; LOUISIANA; MAINE...EVEN WINS ... A GRAMMY!Ties Clinton to Past...read items below."The next day, the site led with the tearstained visage of an Obama supporter. The headline: "Screams and tears of delight."Clinton's communications director, Howard Wolfson, declined to comment on the Drudge Report, as did the consultant who serves as Clinton's liaison to Drudge, Tracy Sefl.But while speculation in the Clinton campaign runs to mind-reading — had Drudge gotten self-conscious? had Obama aides wooed him? what was his true agenda? — other close watchers saw it as classic Drudge."Matt is not a player of favorites," said Podhoretz. "They fed him and he took what they had to give him."And when it came time to choose the news, he was both driving and riding two of the great developing storylines of the moment: Clinton's fall and Obama's rise.It was a story that appears everywhere. Clinton has hardly won a news cycle since the fall, and Obama has hardly lost one. There are no tidbits of turmoil inside Obama's campaign, no destructive leaks on which to harp. The role of Drudge — and Clinton's other former allies in the media — has been to amplify the signs of her weakness, not to create them.As for the broader collapse of Clinton's romance with the conservative media, Podhoretz and many others offered similar explanations."When people thought she was a winner, then they were inclined to feel more warmly toward her, and when they suspect that she's a loser, they decide — like all Americans toward all losers — that she must be humiliated and crushed," he said.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Two articles on joint U.S.-Philippine exercises..
The first article is from a Chinese news agency. The article mentions the demonstrations against the exercises and the headline calls them wargames.
The second article is from a French News Agency (AFP) The article fails to mention any demonstration and headlines the exercises as welfare not warfare.
This is typical of different spins and inclusion or exclusion of information.
U.S.-Philippine war game begins, with civilians protesting
www.chinaview.cn 2008-02-18 22:56:26
Print
MANILA, Feb. 18 (Xinhua) -- Hundreds of Filipinos chanted anti-U.S. slogans and burned imitated American flags on Monday as the two-week joint military drill held by Filipino and American troops began.
The two armies held joint military drills almost every year in the past decade in the Philippines.
On Monday, Philippine Foreign Affairs Secretary Alberto Romulo, with presence of U.S. Ambassador Kristie Kenny and Philippine Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro, formally opened the RP-US Balikatan 2008 at the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Commissioned Officers' Country Club in Camp Aguinaldo in Metro Manila.
This year's drill, with participation of 6,000 American soldiers and 2,000 Filipino soldiers, will focus on humanitarian missions which will boost the cooperation between two armies in delivering relief and assistance during natural disasters and other crisis that endanger public safety, according to the army authority.
The training ground is set at the northern Luzon region and the insurgency-infested southern region of Mindanao.
However, hundreds of civilian Filipinos marched to Camp Aguinaldo to protest against the war game in the Muslim-dominated Mindanao, where the U.S. government has been funding Filipino troops to fight militants belonging to the deemed regional terrorist organization Abu Sayyaf.
Local media reported that there were thousands of protesters in several big cities in Mindanao on Monday.
Protesters said the presence of American troops in Mindanao will only worsen the peace and order situation in the region.
House Representative Satur Ocampo said the war games were launched under the "auspices of the onerous and one-sided Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT) and the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) between two countries."
He reiterated calls for the pull-out of U.S. troops from Philippine soil and the scrapping of the military treaty.
Public rage towards the joint war game has been stoking since 2005 when an American soldier in the Balikatan exercise was sentenced to life jail after he was found guilty of raping a 23-year-old woman in the former U.S. military base in northern Philippines.
Next the AFP article:
US troops start welfare, not warfare, exercises in Philippines
22 hours ago
MANILA, Feb 18, 2008 (AFP) — Several thousand US troops began arriving in the southern Philippines on Monday to take part in joint military exercises aimed at community building rather than warfare.
The annual Balikatan (shoulder-to-shoulder) exercises will involve some 6,000 US and 2,000 Filipino troops taking part in medical missions, building roads, artesian wells and day care centres.
Some of the exercises will be held in the southern region of Mindanao, where the US government is providing economic aid as well as military training to Filipino troops fighting Islamic militants whose support has been fuelled by poverty and underdevelopment.
Although armed, the US troops will be restricted from joining combat patrols in the southern islands of Basilan and Jolo where Philippine troops have been fighting members of the Muslim militant Abu Sayyaf group.
"It's a wonderful opportunity to reaffirm a great partnership that's been going on so many years between our militaries and our people," US ambassador Kristie Kenney told reporters at the launching ceremony at the armed forces headquarters in Manila.
She said the two armies would train on "how to respond to humanitarian disasters."
Philippine armed forces chief of staff General Hermogenes Esperon said the annual exercises were "always timely if only to maintain our inter-operability and proficiency."
He said that since the annual manoeveres began in 1991, "the emphasis has shifted also to humanitarian assistance."
The second article is from a French News Agency (AFP) The article fails to mention any demonstration and headlines the exercises as welfare not warfare.
This is typical of different spins and inclusion or exclusion of information.
U.S.-Philippine war game begins, with civilians protesting
www.chinaview.cn 2008-02-18 22:56:26
MANILA, Feb. 18 (Xinhua) -- Hundreds of Filipinos chanted anti-U.S. slogans and burned imitated American flags on Monday as the two-week joint military drill held by Filipino and American troops began.
The two armies held joint military drills almost every year in the past decade in the Philippines.
On Monday, Philippine Foreign Affairs Secretary Alberto Romulo, with presence of U.S. Ambassador Kristie Kenny and Philippine Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro, formally opened the RP-US Balikatan 2008 at the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Commissioned Officers' Country Club in Camp Aguinaldo in Metro Manila.
This year's drill, with participation of 6,000 American soldiers and 2,000 Filipino soldiers, will focus on humanitarian missions which will boost the cooperation between two armies in delivering relief and assistance during natural disasters and other crisis that endanger public safety, according to the army authority.
The training ground is set at the northern Luzon region and the insurgency-infested southern region of Mindanao.
However, hundreds of civilian Filipinos marched to Camp Aguinaldo to protest against the war game in the Muslim-dominated Mindanao, where the U.S. government has been funding Filipino troops to fight militants belonging to the deemed regional terrorist organization Abu Sayyaf.
Local media reported that there were thousands of protesters in several big cities in Mindanao on Monday.
Protesters said the presence of American troops in Mindanao will only worsen the peace and order situation in the region.
House Representative Satur Ocampo said the war games were launched under the "auspices of the onerous and one-sided Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT) and the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) between two countries."
He reiterated calls for the pull-out of U.S. troops from Philippine soil and the scrapping of the military treaty.
Public rage towards the joint war game has been stoking since 2005 when an American soldier in the Balikatan exercise was sentenced to life jail after he was found guilty of raping a 23-year-old woman in the former U.S. military base in northern Philippines.
Next the AFP article:
US troops start welfare, not warfare, exercises in Philippines
22 hours ago
MANILA, Feb 18, 2008 (AFP) — Several thousand US troops began arriving in the southern Philippines on Monday to take part in joint military exercises aimed at community building rather than warfare.
The annual Balikatan (shoulder-to-shoulder) exercises will involve some 6,000 US and 2,000 Filipino troops taking part in medical missions, building roads, artesian wells and day care centres.
Some of the exercises will be held in the southern region of Mindanao, where the US government is providing economic aid as well as military training to Filipino troops fighting Islamic militants whose support has been fuelled by poverty and underdevelopment.
Although armed, the US troops will be restricted from joining combat patrols in the southern islands of Basilan and Jolo where Philippine troops have been fighting members of the Muslim militant Abu Sayyaf group.
"It's a wonderful opportunity to reaffirm a great partnership that's been going on so many years between our militaries and our people," US ambassador Kristie Kenney told reporters at the launching ceremony at the armed forces headquarters in Manila.
She said the two armies would train on "how to respond to humanitarian disasters."
Philippine armed forces chief of staff General Hermogenes Esperon said the annual exercises were "always timely if only to maintain our inter-operability and proficiency."
He said that since the annual manoeveres began in 1991, "the emphasis has shifted also to humanitarian assistance."
Deng Xiao Ping Theory: The Framework Guiding China's Development.
This is taken from another list. The author seems to see China through rose coloured glasses. They certainly are not red glasses since there is little that relates to socialism except the name and perhaps that there are still a lot of publicly owned enterprises. The anti-capitalist aspect of socialism especially Marxist socialism is absent. Everything is mostly sweetness and light. There is nothing about labor problems or human rights issues. Class conflict is bad and talk of it to be purged from the Brave New China.
However the article probably does reflect the official line in China and is worth while simply as a summary of that view.
Deng Xiao Ping Theory: The Framework which Guides China's Development by Eric Sommer
In the movement of new knowledge and innovations across the globe,, some things travel quickly. But other things, especially those which encounter cultural or ideological barriers, may move with glacial slowness or not at all. The whole world knows that China is the fastest expanding economy in the world, with average 10% or more growth per year, and a potential economic and political super-power. But the framework which guides China's remarkable development remains almost unknown outside the country.
What makes outside ignorance particularly odd is that the theory is known to almost everybody inside China, for it is a key part of the curriculm in public school, and is a required subject for many university programs. It is also the offical policy of the Chinese Government and the Chinese Communist Party, and it is currently a key part of the education of the 60 million or so members of the communist party in China.
Chinese people call this framework - which guides China's development - 'Deng Xiao Ping Theory'. And it was, to a great extent, created by China's late president Deng Xiao Ping. To fully understand Dengs' contribution, we need to see it within the historical context from which it emerged.
After Mao Tse Tung's Death in 1976, Deng re-emerged as a national leader, and moved the party to break the 'cult of personality' around Mao which had deified him as a human God who could make no mistakes. Deng declared that the Chinese people need *not* always follow 'the way indicated by Chairman Mao'. Instead, he insisted that 'everyone can think for themselves' about China and its development. Moreover, under Dengs' leadership the party made a serious critique of Mao's role. Critique of Mao
This critique found that in the first part of his life Mao's contribution to China was mostly good: This contribution was, first, Mao's leadership role in the revolution" with its anti-feudal aim to free peasant farmers from the terrible exploitation and oppression they suffered under feudal landlords; second, Mao's special method of popular 'people's war' using guerrilla warfare based on the peasantry, the elimination of the control of different parts of the country by separate warlods; and the elimination of foreign domination. Mao also made a great contribution in providing Communist leadership in the anti-Japanese war during the Japanese invasion and occupation of large parts of China.
In the second part of his life, however, the party found that Mao made very serious mistakes - mistakes which had been harmful to China's people and to their economy.. These mistakes included the great leap forward and the cultural revolution. (Brief explanation of cultural revolution needed here.) The root cause of these mistakes, the party found, was Mao's wrongheaded, and economically and socially disastrous view that class struggle was the key to solving all problems, and his idea that class struggle must continue unabated in China even *after* its socialist revolution. (Brief explanation needed of the class-struggle-after-revolution concept.)
Relevance to other Developing Countries
Deng played a crucial role in getting the party, and the country, to accept the view that not class struggle but economic development was now central for solving China's problems, and that it, and not class struggle inside China, is the key to China's further development.
In developing his theory, , Deng Xiao Ping persuaded the Communist party and government of China to adopt a completely new approach to Socialist and economic development in the post-Mao era:
Deng articulated three meta-economic criteria for evaluating all policies - policies and practices should !) maximize the productivity of China, 2) maximize the range of skills and abilities within China, and 3) maximize the standard of living of workers and peasents.
The Market Belongs to Socialism
To begin with, Deng reaffirmed long-term commitment to a cooperative socialist future for China. He said that, in fact, after a very long time the whole world will adopt advanced socialist or communist forms of cooperation and sharing. As a Marxist, he viewed even the collapse of the Soviet Union as a temporary setback. He believed that in an extended world-historical process humanity's' productive forces are gradually built up and, ultimately, will be socially shared resources for all people.
Next, Deng declared that 'the market belongs to socialism as well as capitalism'. Deng proposed that In the period of socialist development - and especially for a developing country like China - private and public enterprises should function through the market. Deng called this view 'the socialist market economy'.
Western world pundits, and especially those in the U.S., often equate the market with private ownership, while state planning is equated with socialism. One of Deng's key innovations was to say that under market socialism, state, cooperative, and private firms could *all* trade and function through the market. In China, the market does not mean only private enterprise. This is something which seems very hard for westerners, and perhaps especially American's, to understand. To those who think China is now simply a capitalist economy, it may come as a shock to learn that within China's mixed economy, China's state-owned enterprises had the most profitable year in their history in 2004; and that nearly half or so of all Chinese exports were from these firms.
Deng's framework rests, in important part, on the Marxist notion that the build-up of social productive forces - skills, knowledge, tools, machines, social organization, and all else that contributes to human productions - leads, ultimately, to a cooperative socialist society.
Openning up and Knowledge Transfer.
A third pillar of Deng Xiao Ping's thinking was the theory of 'openning up'. Deng insisted that China needs to learn from the whole world. Deng rejected what western management theorists call the 'not-invented here fallacy'. This is the fallacy whereby some companies or organizations assume that anything they have not developed themselves cannot help them or is not valuable. Deng did not make this mistake. He clearly stated that China urgently needed injections of both knowledge and of capital from the outside world for its development.. Deng was deeply aware of China's need for scientific, technical, and managerial knowledge from the rest of the world, and especially from the 'advanced countries'. Joint ventures with foreign companies and organizations, and allowing foreign companies to operate in China under government guidelines, were seen as key means to access the needed knowledge and capital.
China's Economy Today.
China's economy is frequently characterized, in western periodicals like the Economist, as dynamic but 'held back' by the presence of SOE's (state owned enterprises). Asian people often say that all things have a good side and a bad side. And this applies to the SOE's. Bad debts, some inefficiencies, corruption problems, and other problems (amplify this point) were the bad side for state owned banks and enterprises. However, many of these problems have been or are being resolved. Many unprofitable SOE's have been sold or closed. In addition, however, at the macro-economic level, and in meeting social needs, and in generating revenues without imposing heavy taxes on the private sector, the combination of private and state owned sectors gives the government, and the country, enormous flexibility.
Within the guidelines of Deng Xiao Ping Theory, China can utilize all economic forms to build productive forces and meet social needs.
Enterprises can be owned and operated by large state companies associated with the central government, by city governments, by regional government economic organs, by workers cooperatives, and by private companies.
Moreover, a mixture of these forms is frequently achieved through joint-venture enterprises owned jointly by state and by private parties.
Deng Xao Ping famously summed-up this part of his approach with the aphorism: "It doesn't matter if the cat is black or white as long as it catches the mice." He meant that building up China's productive forces, and the standard of living of its people, is the priority, and that government, cooperative, or privately owned enterprises could all play a role in this process.
The size of the social sector of the Chinese economy is sometimes underestimated due to government use of joint-stock economy forms. For example, government directives to SOE's to take on thousands of employees, and to take other special measures, were used to stabilize China's economy, and that of Asia and the world, during the severe Asian economic crisis during the late 1990's. Though deeply relieved at the time, western, and especially U.S., ideological assumptions about the 'purity' of private enterprise have prevented proper credit from being given to the Chinese mixed economy for stabilizing Asia at a crucial moment.
Latest Developments - Greening of China and Turn towards Greater Social Equality:
To be added here: Explanation of the new 'scientific concept of development' as wholistic sustainable development, and explanation of the 'Construction of a New Socialist Countryside'.
The Communist party and national People's congress of China recently held major meetings on the 11th five year plan for the country in Beijing. A new approach, based on upgrading social welfare, education, and medical services and medical insurance for all Chinese people, and also featuring protection of the environment and construction of a 'New Socialist Countryside' to radically upgrade the standard of living and life opportunities of farmers is being put in place.
The concept of 'some can get rich first' which fueled the initial stages of the economic boom is being replaced with the goal of 'common prosperity for all' - and the notion that 'before the countryside supported the cities (in the initial stages of modernization and development) but now the 'cities must support the countryside (in providing the economic muscle to deliver medical care and health insurance, educational systems, increase crop yields, diversified economic base, and more to the 1 billion Chinese who inhabit the countryside). These new policies are, in a way, a reach backward to the socialist traditions of China but utilizing the market system - both public and private companies operating through the market - as the engine of development.
There will now also be more emphasis on independent research, innovation, and science and technological development is also included. This is important and has been - as usual - inadequately reported in the western media. The government buzzword here is to turn China into an 'Innovation Society'.
In addition, a completely revised set of GDP measurements, which will take environmental costs, and costs to workers health and well-being into account - is being prepared. This will vault China into a leading position, from its past poor record, on environment.
One Center; Two Points
Deng Xiao Ping Theory is the official policy of the Chinese Communist party. It is elegantly summarized by the party itself as 'One Center; two points." The Center is Economic Development. The Two points are Opening up and the Socialist Road A third 'point' now being added, may be said to be the 'greening of China', which now sports the world's first GDP to include substantial ecological criteria.
China in recent decades has pioneered a new path of development, Chinese authorities are quick to point out that no nation should blindly imitate China's economic and political approach; each nation, they say, must find its own path of development which is suited to its historical, social, and other conditions.
Nevertheless, the tremendous progress achieved by China, a nation of 1.3 billion people, under Deng Xiao Ping Theory is worthy of note by the rest of the world. Moreover, while blind imitation is unwise, careful study and selective use of elements of this theory by other developing countries in Africa, Latin America, and Asia might well be of real benefit to the people of those nations and the world
However the article probably does reflect the official line in China and is worth while simply as a summary of that view.
Deng Xiao Ping Theory: The Framework which Guides China's Development by Eric Sommer
In the movement of new knowledge and innovations across the globe,, some things travel quickly. But other things, especially those which encounter cultural or ideological barriers, may move with glacial slowness or not at all. The whole world knows that China is the fastest expanding economy in the world, with average 10% or more growth per year, and a potential economic and political super-power. But the framework which guides China's remarkable development remains almost unknown outside the country.
What makes outside ignorance particularly odd is that the theory is known to almost everybody inside China, for it is a key part of the curriculm in public school, and is a required subject for many university programs. It is also the offical policy of the Chinese Government and the Chinese Communist Party, and it is currently a key part of the education of the 60 million or so members of the communist party in China.
Chinese people call this framework - which guides China's development - 'Deng Xiao Ping Theory'. And it was, to a great extent, created by China's late president Deng Xiao Ping. To fully understand Dengs' contribution, we need to see it within the historical context from which it emerged.
After Mao Tse Tung's Death in 1976, Deng re-emerged as a national leader, and moved the party to break the 'cult of personality' around Mao which had deified him as a human God who could make no mistakes. Deng declared that the Chinese people need *not* always follow 'the way indicated by Chairman Mao'. Instead, he insisted that 'everyone can think for themselves' about China and its development. Moreover, under Dengs' leadership the party made a serious critique of Mao's role. Critique of Mao
This critique found that in the first part of his life Mao's contribution to China was mostly good: This contribution was, first, Mao's leadership role in the revolution" with its anti-feudal aim to free peasant farmers from the terrible exploitation and oppression they suffered under feudal landlords; second, Mao's special method of popular 'people's war' using guerrilla warfare based on the peasantry, the elimination of the control of different parts of the country by separate warlods; and the elimination of foreign domination. Mao also made a great contribution in providing Communist leadership in the anti-Japanese war during the Japanese invasion and occupation of large parts of China.
In the second part of his life, however, the party found that Mao made very serious mistakes - mistakes which had been harmful to China's people and to their economy.. These mistakes included the great leap forward and the cultural revolution. (Brief explanation of cultural revolution needed here.) The root cause of these mistakes, the party found, was Mao's wrongheaded, and economically and socially disastrous view that class struggle was the key to solving all problems, and his idea that class struggle must continue unabated in China even *after* its socialist revolution. (Brief explanation needed of the class-struggle-after-revolution concept.)
Relevance to other Developing Countries
Deng played a crucial role in getting the party, and the country, to accept the view that not class struggle but economic development was now central for solving China's problems, and that it, and not class struggle inside China, is the key to China's further development.
In developing his theory, , Deng Xiao Ping persuaded the Communist party and government of China to adopt a completely new approach to Socialist and economic development in the post-Mao era:
Deng articulated three meta-economic criteria for evaluating all policies - policies and practices should !) maximize the productivity of China, 2) maximize the range of skills and abilities within China, and 3) maximize the standard of living of workers and peasents.
The Market Belongs to Socialism
To begin with, Deng reaffirmed long-term commitment to a cooperative socialist future for China. He said that, in fact, after a very long time the whole world will adopt advanced socialist or communist forms of cooperation and sharing. As a Marxist, he viewed even the collapse of the Soviet Union as a temporary setback. He believed that in an extended world-historical process humanity's' productive forces are gradually built up and, ultimately, will be socially shared resources for all people.
Next, Deng declared that 'the market belongs to socialism as well as capitalism'. Deng proposed that In the period of socialist development - and especially for a developing country like China - private and public enterprises should function through the market. Deng called this view 'the socialist market economy'.
Western world pundits, and especially those in the U.S., often equate the market with private ownership, while state planning is equated with socialism. One of Deng's key innovations was to say that under market socialism, state, cooperative, and private firms could *all* trade and function through the market. In China, the market does not mean only private enterprise. This is something which seems very hard for westerners, and perhaps especially American's, to understand. To those who think China is now simply a capitalist economy, it may come as a shock to learn that within China's mixed economy, China's state-owned enterprises had the most profitable year in their history in 2004; and that nearly half or so of all Chinese exports were from these firms.
Deng's framework rests, in important part, on the Marxist notion that the build-up of social productive forces - skills, knowledge, tools, machines, social organization, and all else that contributes to human productions - leads, ultimately, to a cooperative socialist society.
Openning up and Knowledge Transfer.
A third pillar of Deng Xiao Ping's thinking was the theory of 'openning up'. Deng insisted that China needs to learn from the whole world. Deng rejected what western management theorists call the 'not-invented here fallacy'. This is the fallacy whereby some companies or organizations assume that anything they have not developed themselves cannot help them or is not valuable. Deng did not make this mistake. He clearly stated that China urgently needed injections of both knowledge and of capital from the outside world for its development.. Deng was deeply aware of China's need for scientific, technical, and managerial knowledge from the rest of the world, and especially from the 'advanced countries'. Joint ventures with foreign companies and organizations, and allowing foreign companies to operate in China under government guidelines, were seen as key means to access the needed knowledge and capital.
China's Economy Today.
China's economy is frequently characterized, in western periodicals like the Economist, as dynamic but 'held back' by the presence of SOE's (state owned enterprises). Asian people often say that all things have a good side and a bad side. And this applies to the SOE's. Bad debts, some inefficiencies, corruption problems, and other problems (amplify this point) were the bad side for state owned banks and enterprises. However, many of these problems have been or are being resolved. Many unprofitable SOE's have been sold or closed. In addition, however, at the macro-economic level, and in meeting social needs, and in generating revenues without imposing heavy taxes on the private sector, the combination of private and state owned sectors gives the government, and the country, enormous flexibility.
Within the guidelines of Deng Xiao Ping Theory, China can utilize all economic forms to build productive forces and meet social needs.
Enterprises can be owned and operated by large state companies associated with the central government, by city governments, by regional government economic organs, by workers cooperatives, and by private companies.
Moreover, a mixture of these forms is frequently achieved through joint-venture enterprises owned jointly by state and by private parties.
Deng Xao Ping famously summed-up this part of his approach with the aphorism: "It doesn't matter if the cat is black or white as long as it catches the mice." He meant that building up China's productive forces, and the standard of living of its people, is the priority, and that government, cooperative, or privately owned enterprises could all play a role in this process.
The size of the social sector of the Chinese economy is sometimes underestimated due to government use of joint-stock economy forms. For example, government directives to SOE's to take on thousands of employees, and to take other special measures, were used to stabilize China's economy, and that of Asia and the world, during the severe Asian economic crisis during the late 1990's. Though deeply relieved at the time, western, and especially U.S., ideological assumptions about the 'purity' of private enterprise have prevented proper credit from being given to the Chinese mixed economy for stabilizing Asia at a crucial moment.
Latest Developments - Greening of China and Turn towards Greater Social Equality:
To be added here: Explanation of the new 'scientific concept of development' as wholistic sustainable development, and explanation of the 'Construction of a New Socialist Countryside'.
The Communist party and national People's congress of China recently held major meetings on the 11th five year plan for the country in Beijing. A new approach, based on upgrading social welfare, education, and medical services and medical insurance for all Chinese people, and also featuring protection of the environment and construction of a 'New Socialist Countryside' to radically upgrade the standard of living and life opportunities of farmers is being put in place.
The concept of 'some can get rich first' which fueled the initial stages of the economic boom is being replaced with the goal of 'common prosperity for all' - and the notion that 'before the countryside supported the cities (in the initial stages of modernization and development) but now the 'cities must support the countryside (in providing the economic muscle to deliver medical care and health insurance, educational systems, increase crop yields, diversified economic base, and more to the 1 billion Chinese who inhabit the countryside). These new policies are, in a way, a reach backward to the socialist traditions of China but utilizing the market system - both public and private companies operating through the market - as the engine of development.
There will now also be more emphasis on independent research, innovation, and science and technological development is also included. This is important and has been - as usual - inadequately reported in the western media. The government buzzword here is to turn China into an 'Innovation Society'.
In addition, a completely revised set of GDP measurements, which will take environmental costs, and costs to workers health and well-being into account - is being prepared. This will vault China into a leading position, from its past poor record, on environment.
One Center; Two Points
Deng Xiao Ping Theory is the official policy of the Chinese Communist party. It is elegantly summarized by the party itself as 'One Center; two points." The Center is Economic Development. The Two points are Opening up and the Socialist Road A third 'point' now being added, may be said to be the 'greening of China', which now sports the world's first GDP to include substantial ecological criteria.
China in recent decades has pioneered a new path of development, Chinese authorities are quick to point out that no nation should blindly imitate China's economic and political approach; each nation, they say, must find its own path of development which is suited to its historical, social, and other conditions.
Nevertheless, the tremendous progress achieved by China, a nation of 1.3 billion people, under Deng Xiao Ping Theory is worthy of note by the rest of the world. Moreover, while blind imitation is unwise, careful study and selective use of elements of this theory by other developing countries in Africa, Latin America, and Asia might well be of real benefit to the people of those nations and the world
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Serbian Enclave Vows never to secede.
This is from ABC news.
Perhaps this will lead to demands to be annexed to Serbia!
Serbian Enclave Vows Never to Secede
Time Has Stood Still in Kosovska Mitrovica, Where the Locals Still Act Like Nothing Is Going to Change
By DRAGANA JOVANOVIC
MITROVICA, Kosovo, Feb. 16, 2008—
Surrounded by working-class, Tito-era skyscrapers, a triangular dirt area sits at the center of northern Mitrovica, the main Serbian enclave in Kosovo.
In this muddy, grim and miserable setting sits a brand new beautiful bronze statue. Erected in the middle of the plain earth, it features a handsome man with mustache, wearing a coat with starry decorations. But this isn't some Serbian hero of the liberation wars of the 19th century against the Ottoman occupation.
The character, a certain Chcherbina Gregory Stepanovich (1868-1903), was a representative of the Russian tsar in Mitrovica, which at the time was the largest city of Kosovo. He spent his time hunting. One day, wandering alone in the woods, he was assassinated by "katchaks," Albanian bandits.
Two tall poles surround the statue. One flag has horizontal stripes -- the red, blue and white of Serbia. On the other pole waves a Russian flag with similar white stripes, red and blue. To make things even clearer, a banner hangs from the intersection crying: "Rusijo pomozi" (Russia, come to our help).
While the Albanians -- who make up 90 percent of the province's population and are supported by the United States -- are preparing to proclaim a unilateral declaration of independence, Russia has informed the United Nations that it would veto recognition of the new state as long as Serbia does not agree.
The United States is admired by Kosovo's ethnic Albanians for its support of their struggle to separate from Serbia. A U.S.-led NATO bombing campaign halted a Serb offensive against ethnic Albanian separatists in 1999. Kosovo is the only predominantly Muslim territory where people are completely pro-American. American flags are everywhere and the main street of the capital Pristina is called Bill Clinton Boulevard.
The United States and most European Union members, except the countries that have their own separatist problems like Spain, Cyprus and Romania, support Kosovo's independence after years of international administration.
But Russia, a traditional Serb ally, showing Orthodox Slavic solidarity with the Serbs, has objected to any unilateral declaration, fearing it would encourage other separatist movements in the region. Russia is using Kosovo for its tactical advantage, as part of a strategy to reassert itself on the international stage.
"International law is clear: Kosovo is an integral part of the territory of my country, Serbia, I would never accept its independence, or even its division," explains Velimir Krstic, a retired high school teacher, who has always lived in Mitrovica. "I do not want Serbs to be expelled from here, as they were in 1999, expelled from Pristina or Metohija ( in the western part of the province, which historically belonged to the Serbian Orthodox Church)."
It is almost impossible to find a difference of opinion within this community. Even among the more moderate like Bojan Vasic, a 24-year-old law student.
"Both sides are ethnically homogeneous too, it encourages extremism. Therefore, nationalism against nationalism," he says. "And if the United States and the Europeans rush to recognize an independent Kosovo, this will only enlarge a sense of humiliation among Serbs and their radicalization. But we will not leave."
In the spring of 1999, a U.S.-led NATO bombing campaign halted the onslaught of forced evictions and killings of up to tens of thousands of ethnic Albanians by Serbian security forces and paramilitary bands.
Belgrade authorities were forced to withdraw its forces, and NATO deployed thousands of peacekeeping troops, allowing the estimated 700,000 ethnic Albanians to return from Albania and Macedonia. NATO forces, however, failed to prevent a revenge ethnic cleansing campaign against non-Albanians led by the guerrillas of the Kosovo Liberation Army. Fleeing murders, kidnappings and arson, more than 200,000 Serbs left for Serbia. During the summer of 1999, Pristina was "cleansed" of it's 40,000 Serb inhabitants.
Only the northern part of Mitrovica (separated by the Ibar River) withstood the wave of vengeance, thanks largely to French troops who put up roadblocks on the two bridges spanning the Ibar River.
Since then, the situation has not changed. Representing nine percent of the area of the province, the enclave is home to 50,000 Mitrovica Serbs, who use Serbian money, read Serbian newspapers, use Serbian license plates and have neither the intention to flee, nor to accept authority from anywhere other than Belgrade.
Oliver Ivanovic, former Deputy Director General of the Feronikl mining company, was the main organizer of the Serbian self-defense mobilization in the summer of 1999. When asked what his reaction will be to the day when the Albanians unilaterally proclaim their independence, he replies quietly, with the calm of a former national karate champion: "I will simply ignore that statement, it's illegal under international law."
Situated in an enclave where industrial production has steadily declined since the fall of Tito's communist regime, the Serbs in Kosovska Mitrovica know that the winds of history do not blow their way. But they do not care. They are proud of their "inat," a Serbian word meaning both stubbornness and spite.
"This is the same inat that had the Serbs reject the ultimatum of Austria-Hungary in July 1914, and the dictates of Hitler in April 1941," says orthopedic surgeon Marko Jaksic, chairman of Parliament of "Municipalities of the Serb enclave of Mitrovica".
"We have lived here for centuries. Why abandon our land, under the pretext that the Americans demand it? The wind of history [will] eventually turn in our favor. As always in the Balkans, whoever wins is the one who is able to show more patience. You see, one day we will return to Kosovo as a whole," exclaims this huge supporter of Serbian Prime Minister Kostunica.
When asked if people would be ready to defend themselves against Albanian assaults (according to a UN report, there are 400,000 Kalashnikovs secretly stashed on the territory of Kosovo), the surgeon simply replies: " Belgrade will never drop us. Ultimately, Serbia ia a guarantee for our security!"
Young Serbs here, mostly condemned to unemployment and inactivity, never cross the river to the Albanian neighborhoods or to the capital of Pristina, because they are scared. In March 2004, the old Serbian Orthodox church was burned during a massive pogrom that NATO was unable to prevent.
The tombs of a Serb cemetery in southern Mitrovica were vandalized, while the Albanian cemetery north Mitrovica has remained intact (thanks to the intervention of Oliver Ivanovic).This time, Kosovo's NATO-led security force, known as KFOR, whose numbers throughout Kosovo total some 16,000, is confident it can keep the peace whatever happens in the territory.
On a hill overlooking the north of the city, not far from the communist concrete monument commemorating the resistance of Kosovo children to Nazi occupation, a sports center is under construction with funding from Belgrade. Nothing else new is being built in North Mitrovica, a city that vaguely feels that it is doomed, but does not accept it.
Copyright © 2008 ABC News Internet Ventures
Perhaps this will lead to demands to be annexed to Serbia!
Serbian Enclave Vows Never to Secede
Time Has Stood Still in Kosovska Mitrovica, Where the Locals Still Act Like Nothing Is Going to Change
By DRAGANA JOVANOVIC
MITROVICA, Kosovo, Feb. 16, 2008—
Surrounded by working-class, Tito-era skyscrapers, a triangular dirt area sits at the center of northern Mitrovica, the main Serbian enclave in Kosovo.
In this muddy, grim and miserable setting sits a brand new beautiful bronze statue. Erected in the middle of the plain earth, it features a handsome man with mustache, wearing a coat with starry decorations. But this isn't some Serbian hero of the liberation wars of the 19th century against the Ottoman occupation.
The character, a certain Chcherbina Gregory Stepanovich (1868-1903), was a representative of the Russian tsar in Mitrovica, which at the time was the largest city of Kosovo. He spent his time hunting. One day, wandering alone in the woods, he was assassinated by "katchaks," Albanian bandits.
Two tall poles surround the statue. One flag has horizontal stripes -- the red, blue and white of Serbia. On the other pole waves a Russian flag with similar white stripes, red and blue. To make things even clearer, a banner hangs from the intersection crying: "Rusijo pomozi" (Russia, come to our help).
While the Albanians -- who make up 90 percent of the province's population and are supported by the United States -- are preparing to proclaim a unilateral declaration of independence, Russia has informed the United Nations that it would veto recognition of the new state as long as Serbia does not agree.
The United States is admired by Kosovo's ethnic Albanians for its support of their struggle to separate from Serbia. A U.S.-led NATO bombing campaign halted a Serb offensive against ethnic Albanian separatists in 1999. Kosovo is the only predominantly Muslim territory where people are completely pro-American. American flags are everywhere and the main street of the capital Pristina is called Bill Clinton Boulevard.
The United States and most European Union members, except the countries that have their own separatist problems like Spain, Cyprus and Romania, support Kosovo's independence after years of international administration.
But Russia, a traditional Serb ally, showing Orthodox Slavic solidarity with the Serbs, has objected to any unilateral declaration, fearing it would encourage other separatist movements in the region. Russia is using Kosovo for its tactical advantage, as part of a strategy to reassert itself on the international stage.
"International law is clear: Kosovo is an integral part of the territory of my country, Serbia, I would never accept its independence, or even its division," explains Velimir Krstic, a retired high school teacher, who has always lived in Mitrovica. "I do not want Serbs to be expelled from here, as they were in 1999, expelled from Pristina or Metohija ( in the western part of the province, which historically belonged to the Serbian Orthodox Church)."
It is almost impossible to find a difference of opinion within this community. Even among the more moderate like Bojan Vasic, a 24-year-old law student.
"Both sides are ethnically homogeneous too, it encourages extremism. Therefore, nationalism against nationalism," he says. "And if the United States and the Europeans rush to recognize an independent Kosovo, this will only enlarge a sense of humiliation among Serbs and their radicalization. But we will not leave."
In the spring of 1999, a U.S.-led NATO bombing campaign halted the onslaught of forced evictions and killings of up to tens of thousands of ethnic Albanians by Serbian security forces and paramilitary bands.
Belgrade authorities were forced to withdraw its forces, and NATO deployed thousands of peacekeeping troops, allowing the estimated 700,000 ethnic Albanians to return from Albania and Macedonia. NATO forces, however, failed to prevent a revenge ethnic cleansing campaign against non-Albanians led by the guerrillas of the Kosovo Liberation Army. Fleeing murders, kidnappings and arson, more than 200,000 Serbs left for Serbia. During the summer of 1999, Pristina was "cleansed" of it's 40,000 Serb inhabitants.
Only the northern part of Mitrovica (separated by the Ibar River) withstood the wave of vengeance, thanks largely to French troops who put up roadblocks on the two bridges spanning the Ibar River.
Since then, the situation has not changed. Representing nine percent of the area of the province, the enclave is home to 50,000 Mitrovica Serbs, who use Serbian money, read Serbian newspapers, use Serbian license plates and have neither the intention to flee, nor to accept authority from anywhere other than Belgrade.
Oliver Ivanovic, former Deputy Director General of the Feronikl mining company, was the main organizer of the Serbian self-defense mobilization in the summer of 1999. When asked what his reaction will be to the day when the Albanians unilaterally proclaim their independence, he replies quietly, with the calm of a former national karate champion: "I will simply ignore that statement, it's illegal under international law."
Situated in an enclave where industrial production has steadily declined since the fall of Tito's communist regime, the Serbs in Kosovska Mitrovica know that the winds of history do not blow their way. But they do not care. They are proud of their "inat," a Serbian word meaning both stubbornness and spite.
"This is the same inat that had the Serbs reject the ultimatum of Austria-Hungary in July 1914, and the dictates of Hitler in April 1941," says orthopedic surgeon Marko Jaksic, chairman of Parliament of "Municipalities of the Serb enclave of Mitrovica".
"We have lived here for centuries. Why abandon our land, under the pretext that the Americans demand it? The wind of history [will] eventually turn in our favor. As always in the Balkans, whoever wins is the one who is able to show more patience. You see, one day we will return to Kosovo as a whole," exclaims this huge supporter of Serbian Prime Minister Kostunica.
When asked if people would be ready to defend themselves against Albanian assaults (according to a UN report, there are 400,000 Kalashnikovs secretly stashed on the territory of Kosovo), the surgeon simply replies: " Belgrade will never drop us. Ultimately, Serbia ia a guarantee for our security!"
Young Serbs here, mostly condemned to unemployment and inactivity, never cross the river to the Albanian neighborhoods or to the capital of Pristina, because they are scared. In March 2004, the old Serbian Orthodox church was burned during a massive pogrom that NATO was unable to prevent.
The tombs of a Serb cemetery in southern Mitrovica were vandalized, while the Albanian cemetery north Mitrovica has remained intact (thanks to the intervention of Oliver Ivanovic).This time, Kosovo's NATO-led security force, known as KFOR, whose numbers throughout Kosovo total some 16,000, is confident it can keep the peace whatever happens in the territory.
On a hill overlooking the north of the city, not far from the communist concrete monument commemorating the resistance of Kosovo children to Nazi occupation, a sports center is under construction with funding from Belgrade. Nothing else new is being built in North Mitrovica, a city that vaguely feels that it is doomed, but does not accept it.
Copyright © 2008 ABC News Internet Ventures
Poverty Redction: What we know and don't know: Philippines
This is from the Inquirer.
This is quite an informative article showing the degree of poverty in the Philippines and comparing the situation with other Asian countries. The comparison shows that the Philippines is not doing very well compared to countries such as China, Thailand and Vietnam. Of course these countries also are growing faster than the Philippines. However, growth alone will not solve the poverty problem. Surprisingly the article makes no mention of population growth as a factor and does not suggest limiting population growth a key tactic in countries such as China.
Poverty reduction: What we know and don’t know
By Arsenio M. BalisacanPhilippine Daily InquirerFirst Posted 19:36:00 02/16/2008
WHAT EXACTLY IS THE NATURE OF OUR POVERTY PROBLEM? WHAT DO we know and don’t know about effective strategies and measures to win this protracted war against poverty? Given that the world has become increasingly globalized and competitive, what policy levers can be expected to generate high returns in terms of poverty reduction? Can the country’s governance deliver highly pro-poor development agenda? What are facts? What are fancies?
These were some of the questions that three economists attempted to answer at the University of the Philippines (UP) Centennial Lecture Series on Jan. 31 at UP Diliman.
We are featuring Arsenio Balisacan’s lecture, which provides an overview of the poverty problem and key policy issues and lessons from the ongoing study titled “Causes of Poverty in the Philippines.” The study is jointly undertaken by the UP School of Economics and the Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture.
* * *
ADDRESSING widespread poverty is the single most important policy challenge facing the Philippines. Not only is poverty high compared with other countries in East and Southeast Asia, but also its reduction is so slow that the country has become the basket case in the region.
Although poverty is recognized to be a multidimensional concept, income poverty in the Philippines is pervasive. Thus, the bulk of the income poor is likely to be also deprived in other dimensions such as educational achievement and good health.
Hence, we define the poor as those whose incomes fall below a predetermined income threshold. In comparing poverty across countries, it is common to use a fixed norm or poverty line (for example, the $1 a day per person, in purchasing power parity, employed by the World Bank).
Our estimates of poverty based on official poverty lines reveal that, in 2006, the latest year when nationally representative data on household incomes are available, 32 percent of our population were poor. Given the total population of 84 million Filipinos that year, there were 27 million deemed poor, or one of every three Filipinos failed to meet the official poverty line.
Owing to comparability problems, the official poverty estimates could not be used to assess the country’s performance in poverty reduction over time and across space. We have employed a consistent procedure to quantify the magnitude of absolute poverty over time and across geographic areas or population groups.
The resulting estimates for the years with available comparable household survey data (1985-2006) reveal a number of striking observations:
As a proportion of the population, poverty decreased during the period, although it tended to rise in recent years.
The number of poor people rose to its highest level in 2006.
Poverty increased between 2003 and 2006 despite the quite respectable economic performance (by the country’s historical standard), as reflected in growth domestic product (GDP) growth during this period. This observation generally holds true for other income measures of poverty, such as those that are sensitive to the depth and severity of poverty, as well as for other equally plausible poverty lines. It thus appears that the economic growth in recent years has bypassed the poor!
Poverty reduction in the Philippines has lagged far behind those of its East and Southeast Asian neighbors, particularly Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam and China. Both China and Vietnam started with higher levels of poverty incidence than did the Philippines during the mid-1980s, but their absolute poverty soon dwindled and became much lower than the Philippines’ during the early 2000s.
Both Malaysia and Thailand also had virtually eliminated absolute poverty in just 20 years. Interestingly, while the Philippines had a much higher average income ($1,129, in 2000 prices) in the mid-2000s than Vietnam ($538) and Indonesia ($942), its absolute poverty was actually much higher than either of the latter countries.
Much of what the public sees in media on the state of social development in the Philippines is the poverty in Metro Manila’s slums. Yet, the poor in Metro Manila account for only four percent of the country’s total poor population. Metro Manila’s poverty incidence is also the lowest among the regions.
The four regions with the highest incidence are Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), Western Mindanao, Bicol and Eastern Visayas. Their poverty incidence figures in 2006 were roughly four times that of Metro Manila’s. These poorest regions account for about one-third of the country’s total number of the poor.
What is quite remarkable is the very high spatial diversity of poverty and poverty reduction in the Philippines. In recent years, some regions have done quite well in attaining high per capita income growth and reducing poverty, but disturbingly others have experienced declines in per capita income and increases in poverty. Note, for example, the alarmingly substantial increase in poverty in ARMM between 1988 and 2006. During this period, poverty also increased in Central Mindanao and Caraga provinces.
Viewed from an international perspective, such disparities could breed regional unrest, armed conflicts and political upheavals, thereby undermining the progress in securing sustained economic growth and national development.
The Philippine Human Development Report 2005 shows that measures of deprivation—such as disparities in access to reliable water supply, electricity and especially education—predict well the occurrence of armed conflicts.
As in most of Asia’s developing countries and despite rapid urbanization in the past 20 years, poverty in the Philippines is still largely a rural phenomenon.
Two of every three poor persons in the country are in rural areas and are dependent predominantly on agricultural employment and incomes. Poverty incidence among agricultural households is roughly three times that in the rest of the population. While the share of agriculture in the total labor force has gone down from about one-half in the late 1980s to only a little more than just one-third by the mid-2000s, the sector continues to account for about 60 percent of total poverty.
Sustained increases in national income—that is, economic growth—are required for poverty reduction. Recent developments present clear evidence that every country that has chalked up significant achievements in poverty reduction and human development has also done quite well in securing long-term economic growth. Indeed, viewed from a medium- to long-term perspective, there is an almost one-to-one correspondence between growth in the incomes of the poor and the country’s average income growth.
This correlation is not unexpected: economic growth is an essential condition for the generation of resources needed to sustain investments in health, education, infrastructure and good governance (law enforcement, regulation), among others.
Viewed from a long-term perspective, the country’s economic growth has been quite anemic, barely exceeding the population growth rate, which has continued to expand rapidly at 2.3 percent a year for most of the past two decades. Economic growth has quickened in the past three years, but questions linger on its sustainability.
Even at the present pace (per capita GDP growth of 4 percent per year in 2004-2007), it can hardly be argued that the Philippines has come close to the growth trajectories of its dynamic neighbors. It is thus not surprising that serious students of Philippine development contend that shifting the economy to a higher growth path—and keeping it there for the long term–should be first and foremost on the development agenda.
The obvious question is: How? What reforms in policies and institutions can bring about an economic climate conducive to high growth and sustained development?
That achieving economic growth should be at the forefront of policy agenda does not at all imply that there is nothing else apart from growth that can be done to lick the poverty problem. On the contrary, developments abroad indicate that much can be done to enhance the poverty-reducing effects of growth. For example, some countries have been more successful than others in reducing poverty, even after controlling for differences in income growth rates.
Studies indicate that the response of poverty to economic growth in the Philippines, especially in recent years, is greatly muted in relation to Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam. Partly explaining this is the comparatively high inequality in incomes and productive assets, including agricultural lands, in the Philippines.
Key to achieving pro-poor growth, or what operationally amounts to the same thing—“inclusive growth,” is expansion in access to economic opportunities, human development, social services and productive assets, particularly by the poor. The underlying weakness of the Philippine economy lies in its inability to create productive employment opportunities for its fast-growing labor force.
Even among those who are employed, productivity is low compared with the country’s neighbors. Furthermore, access to available, productive employment opportunities favors the rich (typically skilled) more than the poor (typically unskilled).
In recent decades, the experience of other countries suggests a strong connection between agricultural and rural development, on the one hand, and poverty reduction, on the other. Fostering productivity growth in agriculture is thus key to lifting rural inhabitants out of poverty. However, for many of today’s rural poor, the route out of poverty often leads out of agriculture altogether.
Rural income diversification and migration to productive nonfarm sectors, including overseas migration, offer important pathways out of poverty. Enhancing the efficiency of the labor market is thus essential to ensuring that migration is a boon rather than a bane to the poor.
Inadequate human capabilities have often been the underlying cause of poverty and inequality. In recent years, economic growth has favored the highly skilled and educated. Even in agriculture, which has been the reservoir of low-skilled labor, growth is increasingly anchored on higher levels of human capabilities.
Yet, the country’s public spending in basic infrastructure, education and health, whether in terms of its share in GDP or in expenditure per person, has been lagging well behind those of its East Asian neighbors. To catch up with these countries in terms of poverty reduction and human development outcomes, the government has to simply prioritize spending on infrastructure and the social sector, especially in basic education, health and family planning services and environment.
The reform effort has to go beyond simply raising the level of public investment in basic infrastructure and social services, particularly education and health. It has to be made pro-poor as well. The data indicate that the poorest groups in society have the least access to health, education and family planning services. Targeting of public spending must be improved so that poorer individuals would receive proportionately more opportunities for publicly funded social services and infrastructure.
Reforms have to likewise include deepening of our participation in the global marketplace. Contrary to fears expressed in various circles, globalization, defined broadly to mean interconnectedness of markets and communities across national borders, has been beneficial to the poor.
Evidence indicates that in cases where globalization (in the more limited sense of openness to international trade) has hurt the poor, the culprit is often not globalization per se but the failure of domestic governance to secure policy and institutional reforms needed to enhance the efficiency of domestic markets and ensure a more inclusive access to technology, infrastructure and human development.
The big challenge for the Philippines, therefore, is to pursue a strongly pro-poor development agenda in a regime in which institutions are initially weak and governance is fragile. Many past, costly programs (e.g. credit programs, food subsidy programs, etc.) were christened in the name of the poor and equity, but in practice, these benefited disproportionately the nonpoor, including politicians, bureaucrats and the elites. It cannot be overemphasized that the quality of our institutions has to be upgraded so that they become more responsive to the needs and aspirations of those in the lowest rung of the social ladder.
Researchers and policy reform advocates need to identify win-win solutions to the inequity problem, clearly specifying the winners and losers as well as the means or options to pacifying or compensating the losers, or designing social contracts that enable actors in society to make credible commitments.
Do those aspiring to be national leaders in 2010 have what it takes to meet this challenge?
* * *
(Balisacan is the executive director of Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture. He delivered this paper on Jan. 31 at the Centennial Lecture Series at University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City.)
Copyright 2008 Philippine Daily Inquirer
This is quite an informative article showing the degree of poverty in the Philippines and comparing the situation with other Asian countries. The comparison shows that the Philippines is not doing very well compared to countries such as China, Thailand and Vietnam. Of course these countries also are growing faster than the Philippines. However, growth alone will not solve the poverty problem. Surprisingly the article makes no mention of population growth as a factor and does not suggest limiting population growth a key tactic in countries such as China.
Poverty reduction: What we know and don’t know
By Arsenio M. BalisacanPhilippine Daily InquirerFirst Posted 19:36:00 02/16/2008
WHAT EXACTLY IS THE NATURE OF OUR POVERTY PROBLEM? WHAT DO we know and don’t know about effective strategies and measures to win this protracted war against poverty? Given that the world has become increasingly globalized and competitive, what policy levers can be expected to generate high returns in terms of poverty reduction? Can the country’s governance deliver highly pro-poor development agenda? What are facts? What are fancies?
These were some of the questions that three economists attempted to answer at the University of the Philippines (UP) Centennial Lecture Series on Jan. 31 at UP Diliman.
We are featuring Arsenio Balisacan’s lecture, which provides an overview of the poverty problem and key policy issues and lessons from the ongoing study titled “Causes of Poverty in the Philippines.” The study is jointly undertaken by the UP School of Economics and the Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture.
* * *
ADDRESSING widespread poverty is the single most important policy challenge facing the Philippines. Not only is poverty high compared with other countries in East and Southeast Asia, but also its reduction is so slow that the country has become the basket case in the region.
Although poverty is recognized to be a multidimensional concept, income poverty in the Philippines is pervasive. Thus, the bulk of the income poor is likely to be also deprived in other dimensions such as educational achievement and good health.
Hence, we define the poor as those whose incomes fall below a predetermined income threshold. In comparing poverty across countries, it is common to use a fixed norm or poverty line (for example, the $1 a day per person, in purchasing power parity, employed by the World Bank).
Our estimates of poverty based on official poverty lines reveal that, in 2006, the latest year when nationally representative data on household incomes are available, 32 percent of our population were poor. Given the total population of 84 million Filipinos that year, there were 27 million deemed poor, or one of every three Filipinos failed to meet the official poverty line.
Owing to comparability problems, the official poverty estimates could not be used to assess the country’s performance in poverty reduction over time and across space. We have employed a consistent procedure to quantify the magnitude of absolute poverty over time and across geographic areas or population groups.
The resulting estimates for the years with available comparable household survey data (1985-2006) reveal a number of striking observations:
As a proportion of the population, poverty decreased during the period, although it tended to rise in recent years.
The number of poor people rose to its highest level in 2006.
Poverty increased between 2003 and 2006 despite the quite respectable economic performance (by the country’s historical standard), as reflected in growth domestic product (GDP) growth during this period. This observation generally holds true for other income measures of poverty, such as those that are sensitive to the depth and severity of poverty, as well as for other equally plausible poverty lines. It thus appears that the economic growth in recent years has bypassed the poor!
Poverty reduction in the Philippines has lagged far behind those of its East and Southeast Asian neighbors, particularly Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam and China. Both China and Vietnam started with higher levels of poverty incidence than did the Philippines during the mid-1980s, but their absolute poverty soon dwindled and became much lower than the Philippines’ during the early 2000s.
Both Malaysia and Thailand also had virtually eliminated absolute poverty in just 20 years. Interestingly, while the Philippines had a much higher average income ($1,129, in 2000 prices) in the mid-2000s than Vietnam ($538) and Indonesia ($942), its absolute poverty was actually much higher than either of the latter countries.
Much of what the public sees in media on the state of social development in the Philippines is the poverty in Metro Manila’s slums. Yet, the poor in Metro Manila account for only four percent of the country’s total poor population. Metro Manila’s poverty incidence is also the lowest among the regions.
The four regions with the highest incidence are Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), Western Mindanao, Bicol and Eastern Visayas. Their poverty incidence figures in 2006 were roughly four times that of Metro Manila’s. These poorest regions account for about one-third of the country’s total number of the poor.
What is quite remarkable is the very high spatial diversity of poverty and poverty reduction in the Philippines. In recent years, some regions have done quite well in attaining high per capita income growth and reducing poverty, but disturbingly others have experienced declines in per capita income and increases in poverty. Note, for example, the alarmingly substantial increase in poverty in ARMM between 1988 and 2006. During this period, poverty also increased in Central Mindanao and Caraga provinces.
Viewed from an international perspective, such disparities could breed regional unrest, armed conflicts and political upheavals, thereby undermining the progress in securing sustained economic growth and national development.
The Philippine Human Development Report 2005 shows that measures of deprivation—such as disparities in access to reliable water supply, electricity and especially education—predict well the occurrence of armed conflicts.
As in most of Asia’s developing countries and despite rapid urbanization in the past 20 years, poverty in the Philippines is still largely a rural phenomenon.
Two of every three poor persons in the country are in rural areas and are dependent predominantly on agricultural employment and incomes. Poverty incidence among agricultural households is roughly three times that in the rest of the population. While the share of agriculture in the total labor force has gone down from about one-half in the late 1980s to only a little more than just one-third by the mid-2000s, the sector continues to account for about 60 percent of total poverty.
Sustained increases in national income—that is, economic growth—are required for poverty reduction. Recent developments present clear evidence that every country that has chalked up significant achievements in poverty reduction and human development has also done quite well in securing long-term economic growth. Indeed, viewed from a medium- to long-term perspective, there is an almost one-to-one correspondence between growth in the incomes of the poor and the country’s average income growth.
This correlation is not unexpected: economic growth is an essential condition for the generation of resources needed to sustain investments in health, education, infrastructure and good governance (law enforcement, regulation), among others.
Viewed from a long-term perspective, the country’s economic growth has been quite anemic, barely exceeding the population growth rate, which has continued to expand rapidly at 2.3 percent a year for most of the past two decades. Economic growth has quickened in the past three years, but questions linger on its sustainability.
Even at the present pace (per capita GDP growth of 4 percent per year in 2004-2007), it can hardly be argued that the Philippines has come close to the growth trajectories of its dynamic neighbors. It is thus not surprising that serious students of Philippine development contend that shifting the economy to a higher growth path—and keeping it there for the long term–should be first and foremost on the development agenda.
The obvious question is: How? What reforms in policies and institutions can bring about an economic climate conducive to high growth and sustained development?
That achieving economic growth should be at the forefront of policy agenda does not at all imply that there is nothing else apart from growth that can be done to lick the poverty problem. On the contrary, developments abroad indicate that much can be done to enhance the poverty-reducing effects of growth. For example, some countries have been more successful than others in reducing poverty, even after controlling for differences in income growth rates.
Studies indicate that the response of poverty to economic growth in the Philippines, especially in recent years, is greatly muted in relation to Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam. Partly explaining this is the comparatively high inequality in incomes and productive assets, including agricultural lands, in the Philippines.
Key to achieving pro-poor growth, or what operationally amounts to the same thing—“inclusive growth,” is expansion in access to economic opportunities, human development, social services and productive assets, particularly by the poor. The underlying weakness of the Philippine economy lies in its inability to create productive employment opportunities for its fast-growing labor force.
Even among those who are employed, productivity is low compared with the country’s neighbors. Furthermore, access to available, productive employment opportunities favors the rich (typically skilled) more than the poor (typically unskilled).
In recent decades, the experience of other countries suggests a strong connection between agricultural and rural development, on the one hand, and poverty reduction, on the other. Fostering productivity growth in agriculture is thus key to lifting rural inhabitants out of poverty. However, for many of today’s rural poor, the route out of poverty often leads out of agriculture altogether.
Rural income diversification and migration to productive nonfarm sectors, including overseas migration, offer important pathways out of poverty. Enhancing the efficiency of the labor market is thus essential to ensuring that migration is a boon rather than a bane to the poor.
Inadequate human capabilities have often been the underlying cause of poverty and inequality. In recent years, economic growth has favored the highly skilled and educated. Even in agriculture, which has been the reservoir of low-skilled labor, growth is increasingly anchored on higher levels of human capabilities.
Yet, the country’s public spending in basic infrastructure, education and health, whether in terms of its share in GDP or in expenditure per person, has been lagging well behind those of its East Asian neighbors. To catch up with these countries in terms of poverty reduction and human development outcomes, the government has to simply prioritize spending on infrastructure and the social sector, especially in basic education, health and family planning services and environment.
The reform effort has to go beyond simply raising the level of public investment in basic infrastructure and social services, particularly education and health. It has to be made pro-poor as well. The data indicate that the poorest groups in society have the least access to health, education and family planning services. Targeting of public spending must be improved so that poorer individuals would receive proportionately more opportunities for publicly funded social services and infrastructure.
Reforms have to likewise include deepening of our participation in the global marketplace. Contrary to fears expressed in various circles, globalization, defined broadly to mean interconnectedness of markets and communities across national borders, has been beneficial to the poor.
Evidence indicates that in cases where globalization (in the more limited sense of openness to international trade) has hurt the poor, the culprit is often not globalization per se but the failure of domestic governance to secure policy and institutional reforms needed to enhance the efficiency of domestic markets and ensure a more inclusive access to technology, infrastructure and human development.
The big challenge for the Philippines, therefore, is to pursue a strongly pro-poor development agenda in a regime in which institutions are initially weak and governance is fragile. Many past, costly programs (e.g. credit programs, food subsidy programs, etc.) were christened in the name of the poor and equity, but in practice, these benefited disproportionately the nonpoor, including politicians, bureaucrats and the elites. It cannot be overemphasized that the quality of our institutions has to be upgraded so that they become more responsive to the needs and aspirations of those in the lowest rung of the social ladder.
Researchers and policy reform advocates need to identify win-win solutions to the inequity problem, clearly specifying the winners and losers as well as the means or options to pacifying or compensating the losers, or designing social contracts that enable actors in society to make credible commitments.
Do those aspiring to be national leaders in 2010 have what it takes to meet this challenge?
* * *
(Balisacan is the executive director of Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture. He delivered this paper on Jan. 31 at the Centennial Lecture Series at University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City.)
Copyright 2008 Philippine Daily Inquirer
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Best U.S. factory jobs in jeopardy.
These processes seem to be more or less an inevitable result of processes of capitalist globalisation. Some protectionist measures that favor capital within a nation may be possible but over the longer term especially the nation state will play less a role in fostering capital growth as multinational capitalist corporations come to be more important. Perhaps regional blocks will become more important such as the EU.
The standard of living in the U.S. seems bound to decline for the middle class. The unions have for years been non-revolutionary and hence it is difficult for them to take a position that might bring them into any basic conflict with the needs of their capitalist bosses. Hence the once mighty auto workers union has negotiated away decent salaries for the next generation of auto workers of the sort that their workers enjoyed as well as many benefits.
from the February 15, 2008 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0215/p01s04-usec.htmlBest U.S. factory jobs in rising jeopardyAs productivity abroad rises, US manufacturing is competing by trimming workers and wages.By Mark Trumbull Staff writer of The Christian Science MonitorA new round of cutbacks by Detroit's automakers carries a larger message – that America's manufacturing workers are under new pressure in jobs where labor unions had once been able to command middle-class wages for assembly-line jobs.The point was punctuated this week as General Motors announced the largest ever annual loss by a maker of automobiles. In a bid to restore profitability, GM said it would offer incentives to convince older, highly paid assembly workers to retire early. Ford and Chrysler are pursuing similar worker buyouts.The moves signal what some analysts say is an accelerating effort to trim wages and workforces. Essentially, the old Big Three are becoming a much smaller three. The pressures facing Detroit fit a larger pattern. Many US manufacturers are facing rising pressure from foreign rivals. The good news is that US factories are becoming more competitive. The bad news is that the needed streamlining is coming at the expense of American workers."Those jobs are going and they're not coming back," says Gary Chaison, a labor expert at Clark University in Worcester, Mass. In part, he says, manufacturers see moves such as the job buyouts as "a path for them to become low-cost producers by eliminating the high costs of American labor."Not every industry faces the same degree of foreign competition from challengers based overseas. The US remains a big manufacturing nation, accounting for about 10 percent of US employment and 12 percent of annual economic output. And the high productivity of American workers still allows them to reap higher pay than their peers overseas.Furthermore, the falling value of the dollar in relation to foreign currencies makes American workers more competitive globally.But as worker productivity surges forward around the world, the balance of power has shifted. America's heavy industry isn't producing the number of jobs that it used to.The US lost 3 million manufacturing jobs between 2000 and 2006, according to the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, citing figures from government reports.Meanwhile, the average hourly earnings of manufacturing workers have grown more slowly than pay in service-sector jobs, even though productivity has risen much faster for manufacturing workers."All of US manufacturing is competing on a global basis," says Michelle Krebs, senior editor of Edmunds's AutoObserver.com, which tracks the car industry.A weaker dollar should helpOne bright spot for US manufacturers: Since 2002, a weakening exchange rate for the US dollar has been helping to make US exports more attractive to foreign buyers.Exports have been growing steadily, and have been a key factor behind a narrowing trade deficit, seen in new numbers released Thursday. This gap by which America's imports exceed its exports fell to $712 billion for the 2007 calendar year, down from $759 billion the year before."We believe we are in the early stages of a manufacturing renaissance," David Rosenberg, an economist at the investment firm Merrill Lynch, wrote in a recent report to clients.Foreign investment in US manufacturing facilities jumped in both 2005 and 2006, he notes.The auto industry has long been at the forefront of foreign investment. Global carmakers, pushing for access to US consumers, have set up much of their production in the US. That has prodded the Detroit Three, in turn, to seek much of their profits from overseas operations.The Big Three are all aiming at a common strategy: Cut labor costs to become profitable again in the US, while also looking overseas for growth opportunities.The worker buyouts, analysts say, could do a lot to help them get back toward profitability again.At the heart of GM's $38.7 billion loss for 2007 were North American challenges.But company executives say the new labor contract with the United Auto Workers (UAW) creates the possibility of big improvements ahead.It transforms retiree healthcare benefits – resulting in cost cuts starting around 2010.And the worker buyouts, GM chief executive Rick Wagoner told CNBC this week, can help in two ways. First, "we get the opportunity under the new labor contract to … substitute from jobs which have traditionally been paid at the full assembler rate to a lower tier."Now, in fact, starting pay for a Big Three job will be about $14 an hour, barely half the previous level.Second, Mr. Wagoner said the new contract allows GM to better adjust its staffing to demand levels. It can buy out some older workers and not replace them at all.The new UAW contracts also put new limits on how long the automakers must keep workers on their payroll after their jobs have been eliminated. Workers will no longer sit indefinitely in a so-called "jobs bank."New labor flexibility for GMThese changes, for GM and its peers, open a new era of flexibility in managing their labor force.That could mean even more job cuts for an industry that has already been downsizing. The pace of auto sales has been slowing in recent months, and could cool further if the economy enters a recession.Almost immediately after the new contract was ratified, Chrysler announced plans to shed 10,000 jobs, following on a cut of 13,000 that was already under way.Many Chrysler workers felt betrayed by the move, since they had just made pay and benefit concessions, in the hopes that their job security would be enhanced.Now, in this industry at least, the tough times could even lead to downward pressure on wages in nonunion factories owned by Toyota, Honda, and other foreign firms that operate in the US."I think you'll see a ... cut in those wages, too," says Chris Kutalik, editor of Labor Notes, a union movement newsletter based in Detroit.
The standard of living in the U.S. seems bound to decline for the middle class. The unions have for years been non-revolutionary and hence it is difficult for them to take a position that might bring them into any basic conflict with the needs of their capitalist bosses. Hence the once mighty auto workers union has negotiated away decent salaries for the next generation of auto workers of the sort that their workers enjoyed as well as many benefits.
from the February 15, 2008 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0215/p01s04-usec.htmlBest U.S. factory jobs in rising jeopardyAs productivity abroad rises, US manufacturing is competing by trimming workers and wages.By Mark Trumbull Staff writer of The Christian Science MonitorA new round of cutbacks by Detroit's automakers carries a larger message – that America's manufacturing workers are under new pressure in jobs where labor unions had once been able to command middle-class wages for assembly-line jobs.The point was punctuated this week as General Motors announced the largest ever annual loss by a maker of automobiles. In a bid to restore profitability, GM said it would offer incentives to convince older, highly paid assembly workers to retire early. Ford and Chrysler are pursuing similar worker buyouts.The moves signal what some analysts say is an accelerating effort to trim wages and workforces. Essentially, the old Big Three are becoming a much smaller three. The pressures facing Detroit fit a larger pattern. Many US manufacturers are facing rising pressure from foreign rivals. The good news is that US factories are becoming more competitive. The bad news is that the needed streamlining is coming at the expense of American workers."Those jobs are going and they're not coming back," says Gary Chaison, a labor expert at Clark University in Worcester, Mass. In part, he says, manufacturers see moves such as the job buyouts as "a path for them to become low-cost producers by eliminating the high costs of American labor."Not every industry faces the same degree of foreign competition from challengers based overseas. The US remains a big manufacturing nation, accounting for about 10 percent of US employment and 12 percent of annual economic output. And the high productivity of American workers still allows them to reap higher pay than their peers overseas.Furthermore, the falling value of the dollar in relation to foreign currencies makes American workers more competitive globally.But as worker productivity surges forward around the world, the balance of power has shifted. America's heavy industry isn't producing the number of jobs that it used to.The US lost 3 million manufacturing jobs between 2000 and 2006, according to the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, citing figures from government reports.Meanwhile, the average hourly earnings of manufacturing workers have grown more slowly than pay in service-sector jobs, even though productivity has risen much faster for manufacturing workers."All of US manufacturing is competing on a global basis," says Michelle Krebs, senior editor of Edmunds's AutoObserver.com, which tracks the car industry.A weaker dollar should helpOne bright spot for US manufacturers: Since 2002, a weakening exchange rate for the US dollar has been helping to make US exports more attractive to foreign buyers.Exports have been growing steadily, and have been a key factor behind a narrowing trade deficit, seen in new numbers released Thursday. This gap by which America's imports exceed its exports fell to $712 billion for the 2007 calendar year, down from $759 billion the year before."We believe we are in the early stages of a manufacturing renaissance," David Rosenberg, an economist at the investment firm Merrill Lynch, wrote in a recent report to clients.Foreign investment in US manufacturing facilities jumped in both 2005 and 2006, he notes.The auto industry has long been at the forefront of foreign investment. Global carmakers, pushing for access to US consumers, have set up much of their production in the US. That has prodded the Detroit Three, in turn, to seek much of their profits from overseas operations.The Big Three are all aiming at a common strategy: Cut labor costs to become profitable again in the US, while also looking overseas for growth opportunities.The worker buyouts, analysts say, could do a lot to help them get back toward profitability again.At the heart of GM's $38.7 billion loss for 2007 were North American challenges.But company executives say the new labor contract with the United Auto Workers (UAW) creates the possibility of big improvements ahead.It transforms retiree healthcare benefits – resulting in cost cuts starting around 2010.And the worker buyouts, GM chief executive Rick Wagoner told CNBC this week, can help in two ways. First, "we get the opportunity under the new labor contract to … substitute from jobs which have traditionally been paid at the full assembler rate to a lower tier."Now, in fact, starting pay for a Big Three job will be about $14 an hour, barely half the previous level.Second, Mr. Wagoner said the new contract allows GM to better adjust its staffing to demand levels. It can buy out some older workers and not replace them at all.The new UAW contracts also put new limits on how long the automakers must keep workers on their payroll after their jobs have been eliminated. Workers will no longer sit indefinitely in a so-called "jobs bank."New labor flexibility for GMThese changes, for GM and its peers, open a new era of flexibility in managing their labor force.That could mean even more job cuts for an industry that has already been downsizing. The pace of auto sales has been slowing in recent months, and could cool further if the economy enters a recession.Almost immediately after the new contract was ratified, Chrysler announced plans to shed 10,000 jobs, following on a cut of 13,000 that was already under way.Many Chrysler workers felt betrayed by the move, since they had just made pay and benefit concessions, in the hopes that their job security would be enhanced.Now, in this industry at least, the tough times could even lead to downward pressure on wages in nonunion factories owned by Toyota, Honda, and other foreign firms that operate in the US."I think you'll see a ... cut in those wages, too," says Chris Kutalik, editor of Labor Notes, a union movement newsletter based in Detroit.
Clinton, Obama Offer Similar Economic Visions
There are quite a few positive progressive policies outlined here although some of Obama's economic advisors are not very leftish and I imagine the same would be true of Clinton. What is clear is that as with products from the same company marginal differences must be used to develop strong brand identification to sell similar packages to the consumer. At least with Obama and Clinton they have skin color and gender to differentiate them!
Clinton, Obama Offer Similar Economic VisionsBy Jonathan Weisman and Anne E. KornblutWashington Post Staff WritersFriday, February 15, 2008; A01WARREN, Ohio, Feb. 14 -- Hillary Rodham Clinton slammed Barack Obamaduring an appearance at a General Motors plant here on Thursday for whatshe charged was a lack of a record of achievement on the economy. But asboth Democratic presidential candidates announced comprehensive economicplans this week, they advocated similar visions for what has become thesingle biggest issue for voters in the 2008 campaign.Clinton and Obama both promised that they would make the tax code moremiddle-income-friendly and would protect consumers from threats --including predatory credit card companies and rapacious college lenders.Both candidates condemned corporate tax breaks that they say send jobsoverseas. Both pledged to protect homeowners and said they would repealPresident Bush's upper-income tax cuts while extending those for themiddle class. Both promised to rein in credit card companies thatarbitrarily raise interest rates, sending families into a downwardspiral of debt."I've been looking for ways to differentiate these two, and it hasn'tbeen easy," said Jared Bernstein, an economist at the liberal EconomicPolicy Institute. This week's economic speeches do not "make it a wholelot easier," he added.Despite the similarities, Clinton, eager to generate positive news abouther campaign, went on the offensive during her tour of an automotiveplant. She sharpened her line of attack against Obama and what sheargues is his lack of substance. "Over the years, you've heard plenty ofpromises from plenty of people in plenty of speeches," Clinton told agroup of factory workers. "Speeches don't put food on the table.Speeches don't fill up your tank. Speeches don't fill your prescriptions."She continued: "That's the difference between me and my Democraticopponent. My opponent makes speeches. I offer solutions."But even with the economy teetering on the edge of a recession and bothDemocrats hoping to win union-heavy Ohio -- not to mention theendorsement of former senator and rival John Edwards (N.C.) in the daysahead -- neither Clinton nor, a day earlier, Obama swerved into an overtpopulist appeal. Where Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.) castigated "BenedictArnold CEOs" during his White House bid four years ago, Clinton andObama seem to be channeling the Bill Clinton of 1992."I won't stand here and tell you that we can -- or should -- stop freetrade. We can't stop every job from going overseas," Obama told GMemployees on Wednesday, just hours after the company offered thousandsof worker buyouts. "But I also won't stand here and accept an Americawhere we do nothing to help American workers who have lost jobs andopportunities because of these trade agreements."The relative restraint has been somewhat surprising, party economistssay. Ohio Democrats have been pushing them toward a harder edge,especially on trade, but so far to no avail. "We want them to addressjob losses, the outsourcing issue, renegotiating trade agreements andthe mortgage crisis," said Rep. Marcy Kaptur (Ohio). "But we're hearinga lot of generalities."The economic clouds are darkening rapidly. Federal Reserve Chairman BenS. Bernanke warned the Senate budget committee on Thursday that theeconomic outlook has worsened, sending stock prices tumbling."They're operating in an environment where for the first time on record,we could be going into a recession with household incomes actually lowerthan they were the last time we were in recession," said Jason Furman, aBrookings Institution economist who advised Kerry. "The economicpressures are just that much greater."Still, in choosing government as the tool to deliver health care,protect consumers, and direct investment in energy and infrastructure,both Democrats are setting up a general-election fight that will followa familiar partisan argument about what the size and scope of governmentshould be.Said Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), the presumptive Republican nominee: "Wewill have a spirited and respectful discussion of the issues, but,believe me, I believe that I and my party, which is a center-right,conservative outlook, both philosophically and in legislative action,will prevail over the big-government, big-spending Democrats."For Clinton, the new emphasis on the economy allowed her to pushpolicies Thursday that align with the core of her message -- that shewould help ordinary voters.Her proposals are tailor-made for an industrial heartland hemorrhagingmanufacturing jobs and crippled by mortgage defaults and rising debt.She would rescue the Manufacturing Extension Partnership, afederal-local program for small manufacturers perpetually targeted forelimination by Bush, and would immediately limit credit card interestrates and stop credit card companies from raising those rates withoutwarning and from applying higher rates to old transactions.She would also establish a Financial Product Safety Commission, similarto the Consumer Product Safety Commission, to crack down on abusivelending practices in the credit card, auto loan and mortgage markets.To lower college tuition costs, Clinton said that she would crack downon lenders that shower college financial aid officers with gifts, stockoptions and trips in exchange for steering students to captive lendingmarkets.Many of those plans mirror Obama's promises. To pay for some of them,both candidates said they would eliminate tax breaks for companies thatsend jobs overseas. The current corporate tax code allows companies todefer taxes indefinitely on profits earned at facilities overseas. In2004, Kerry proposed subjecting those earnings to taxation immediatelybut using the proceeds to lower the domestic corporate income tax, aplan designed to tack him to the economic center. Clinton and Obama seeno reason for such gestures of moderation.Clinton did offer far more detail on how her initiatives would befunded. She backed up her promise to invest tens of billions of dollarsin renewable energy technology by handing the bill to the oil companies.They could either invest in renewable energy on their own or finance thefederal effort, largely funded by imposing real royalties on drilling onpublic land and by repealing recent tax breaks.Likewise, Clinton said she would end the "carried interest" loophole, aquirk in the tax code that has allowed private equity and hedge fundmanagers to pay tax rates of just 15 percent on millions of dollars inincome. Attempts to plug that loophole have also run into bipartisanopposition from lawmakers flooded with Wall Street campaign cash. ButDemocratic economists have been in a forgiving mood toward both candidates."There's definitely some hand-waving here," Bernstein acknowledged, "butfor people running for office, it's folly to ask precisely what they'regoing to do and precisely how you're going to pay for it."
Clinton, Obama Offer Similar Economic VisionsBy Jonathan Weisman and Anne E. KornblutWashington Post Staff WritersFriday, February 15, 2008; A01WARREN, Ohio, Feb. 14 -- Hillary Rodham Clinton slammed Barack Obamaduring an appearance at a General Motors plant here on Thursday for whatshe charged was a lack of a record of achievement on the economy. But asboth Democratic presidential candidates announced comprehensive economicplans this week, they advocated similar visions for what has become thesingle biggest issue for voters in the 2008 campaign.Clinton and Obama both promised that they would make the tax code moremiddle-income-friendly and would protect consumers from threats --including predatory credit card companies and rapacious college lenders.Both candidates condemned corporate tax breaks that they say send jobsoverseas. Both pledged to protect homeowners and said they would repealPresident Bush's upper-income tax cuts while extending those for themiddle class. Both promised to rein in credit card companies thatarbitrarily raise interest rates, sending families into a downwardspiral of debt."I've been looking for ways to differentiate these two, and it hasn'tbeen easy," said Jared Bernstein, an economist at the liberal EconomicPolicy Institute. This week's economic speeches do not "make it a wholelot easier," he added.Despite the similarities, Clinton, eager to generate positive news abouther campaign, went on the offensive during her tour of an automotiveplant. She sharpened her line of attack against Obama and what sheargues is his lack of substance. "Over the years, you've heard plenty ofpromises from plenty of people in plenty of speeches," Clinton told agroup of factory workers. "Speeches don't put food on the table.Speeches don't fill up your tank. Speeches don't fill your prescriptions."She continued: "That's the difference between me and my Democraticopponent. My opponent makes speeches. I offer solutions."But even with the economy teetering on the edge of a recession and bothDemocrats hoping to win union-heavy Ohio -- not to mention theendorsement of former senator and rival John Edwards (N.C.) in the daysahead -- neither Clinton nor, a day earlier, Obama swerved into an overtpopulist appeal. Where Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.) castigated "BenedictArnold CEOs" during his White House bid four years ago, Clinton andObama seem to be channeling the Bill Clinton of 1992."I won't stand here and tell you that we can -- or should -- stop freetrade. We can't stop every job from going overseas," Obama told GMemployees on Wednesday, just hours after the company offered thousandsof worker buyouts. "But I also won't stand here and accept an Americawhere we do nothing to help American workers who have lost jobs andopportunities because of these trade agreements."The relative restraint has been somewhat surprising, party economistssay. Ohio Democrats have been pushing them toward a harder edge,especially on trade, but so far to no avail. "We want them to addressjob losses, the outsourcing issue, renegotiating trade agreements andthe mortgage crisis," said Rep. Marcy Kaptur (Ohio). "But we're hearinga lot of generalities."The economic clouds are darkening rapidly. Federal Reserve Chairman BenS. Bernanke warned the Senate budget committee on Thursday that theeconomic outlook has worsened, sending stock prices tumbling."They're operating in an environment where for the first time on record,we could be going into a recession with household incomes actually lowerthan they were the last time we were in recession," said Jason Furman, aBrookings Institution economist who advised Kerry. "The economicpressures are just that much greater."Still, in choosing government as the tool to deliver health care,protect consumers, and direct investment in energy and infrastructure,both Democrats are setting up a general-election fight that will followa familiar partisan argument about what the size and scope of governmentshould be.Said Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), the presumptive Republican nominee: "Wewill have a spirited and respectful discussion of the issues, but,believe me, I believe that I and my party, which is a center-right,conservative outlook, both philosophically and in legislative action,will prevail over the big-government, big-spending Democrats."For Clinton, the new emphasis on the economy allowed her to pushpolicies Thursday that align with the core of her message -- that shewould help ordinary voters.Her proposals are tailor-made for an industrial heartland hemorrhagingmanufacturing jobs and crippled by mortgage defaults and rising debt.She would rescue the Manufacturing Extension Partnership, afederal-local program for small manufacturers perpetually targeted forelimination by Bush, and would immediately limit credit card interestrates and stop credit card companies from raising those rates withoutwarning and from applying higher rates to old transactions.She would also establish a Financial Product Safety Commission, similarto the Consumer Product Safety Commission, to crack down on abusivelending practices in the credit card, auto loan and mortgage markets.To lower college tuition costs, Clinton said that she would crack downon lenders that shower college financial aid officers with gifts, stockoptions and trips in exchange for steering students to captive lendingmarkets.Many of those plans mirror Obama's promises. To pay for some of them,both candidates said they would eliminate tax breaks for companies thatsend jobs overseas. The current corporate tax code allows companies todefer taxes indefinitely on profits earned at facilities overseas. In2004, Kerry proposed subjecting those earnings to taxation immediatelybut using the proceeds to lower the domestic corporate income tax, aplan designed to tack him to the economic center. Clinton and Obama seeno reason for such gestures of moderation.Clinton did offer far more detail on how her initiatives would befunded. She backed up her promise to invest tens of billions of dollarsin renewable energy technology by handing the bill to the oil companies.They could either invest in renewable energy on their own or finance thefederal effort, largely funded by imposing real royalties on drilling onpublic land and by repealing recent tax breaks.Likewise, Clinton said she would end the "carried interest" loophole, aquirk in the tax code that has allowed private equity and hedge fundmanagers to pay tax rates of just 15 percent on millions of dollars inincome. Attempts to plug that loophole have also run into bipartisanopposition from lawmakers flooded with Wall Street campaign cash. ButDemocratic economists have been in a forgiving mood toward both candidates."There's definitely some hand-waving here," Bernstein acknowledged, "butfor people running for office, it's folly to ask precisely what they'regoing to do and precisely how you're going to pay for it."
An explanation of the sub-prime crisis!
This is an amusing explanation in power point form with cartoon stick figures.
It comes from Michael Perelman's blog but is by David Shemano.
presentation1.pps
It comes from Michael Perelman's blog but is by David Shemano.
presentation1.pps
Friday, February 15, 2008
The Supposed Plot Against Arroyo
The International Press seems to take this threat seriously but in the Philippines there is widespread scepticism. A less outright sketical article can be found in the AP. The article below is from the Daily Tribune a regular thorn in the side of the Arroyo administration. The plot is a good excuse to keep Arroyo away from protests. For someone who first got in through people power Arroyo fears demonstrations it seems. I guess she knows that they can on occasion work!
Too hoary a slay try tale
EDITORIAL
02/16/2008
Gloria Arroyo and her military-police generals are incredibly moronic in their ways of justifying their establishing a Big Brother state in their attempts to spy on, and cow the Filipino people into state submission, along with their bid to gain public sympathy.
The assassination plot on Gloria by a group they claim has ties with the Indonesian-based Jemaah Islamiyah, the bandit group Abu Sayaff, a breakaway group of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, and — get this — even the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army (NPA), is too hoary a Palace tale, given that, as claimed by the Philippine National Police, the document on this alleged assassination attempt on Gloria, plus other alleged targets, was, uh, found in a seat of a parked car somewhere in Metro Manila by a security guard that had turned over the document, written in Arabic, to the police.
Notice too, that Gloria’s police and military goons don’t quite bring out the details — leaving them vague, such as the non-identification of parking lot, the city itself, but there was, too, the other target claimed, such as unidentified embassies — which means the place of target is Makati — and just where the big rally against Gloria would be held.
As for the entry of the NPAs and the other commies infiltrating the rallies, which is why there are military troops deployed, as well as the police, that is such an old discredited line.
Just how many times have the police and military come up with this claim, and just how many times have they been proven wrong?
How many times did Gloria and her aides come up with coup plot and bombing claims everytime there was what they feared a massive protest action against her, all on the basis of their manufactured “intelligence reports,” only to later claim that they had neutralized these threats?
They are just too moronic for words. What was the business of an unidentified security guard opening the door of a parked private vehicle, and taking with him some documents from that car then immediately bringing this to the police? Was the car suspiciously parked for days on end? Why open the car door just like that just to get documents from the seat when the car could have been rigged with an explosive?
Then too, these assassins must be so amateurish and stupid for them to leave such “incriminating” documents inside a presumably unlocked vehicle. Yet the police and the Presidential Secrutiy Group (PSG) of Gloria claim that this incredulous tale is a serious slay threat. Notice that everytime, the military and police always claim to find “documents” even during claimed encounters with the rebels. They are so good at planting manufactured evidence, complete in Arabic too.
But wasn’t this “big reveal” of a slay plot on Gloria by her prostituted police and military just conveniently timed for Gloria to have an excuse not to attend the Philippine Military Academy (PMA) homecoming where the Commander-in-Chief is traditionally present? And wasn’t it also timed for Gloria to gain public sympathy given the fact that a whooping majority of Filipinos want her out of Malacañang and pronto?
Evidently, while Gloria can bank on her prostituted generals in the police and the military, she can’t quite bank on either the former graduates of the PMA or perhaps even the fresh batch of candidates for graduation of the very young miltary officers.
Talk making the rounds was that the alumni — or at least a group within the alumni -- were prepared to greet Gloria with a manifesto of sorts that would impact negatively on her, plus staging some mild protest action against her, to get the military sentiments against her governance and her prostitution of the military across, the reason Gloria chose not to be in Baguio for the PMA rites.
It is also too coincidental that this assassination report is announced by Malacañang at this particular time, considering that the public focus is on the abduction of ZTE-National Broadband Network.
If as claimed by her police chief, these documents were found last week yet, why come up with these now, and why even bother to announce it at this time?
It would have been better, if, as claimed, the assassination plot is a true one, for them to have kept quiet about it and worked silently to get at the assigned assassins.
Security people do not announce their finds and their moves, to give the assassins — if there is a shred of truth in that claim — a chance to go to ground.
That’s how moronic they, in the police and the military, are.
Too hoary a slay try tale
EDITORIAL
02/16/2008
Gloria Arroyo and her military-police generals are incredibly moronic in their ways of justifying their establishing a Big Brother state in their attempts to spy on, and cow the Filipino people into state submission, along with their bid to gain public sympathy.
The assassination plot on Gloria by a group they claim has ties with the Indonesian-based Jemaah Islamiyah, the bandit group Abu Sayaff, a breakaway group of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, and — get this — even the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army (NPA), is too hoary a Palace tale, given that, as claimed by the Philippine National Police, the document on this alleged assassination attempt on Gloria, plus other alleged targets, was, uh, found in a seat of a parked car somewhere in Metro Manila by a security guard that had turned over the document, written in Arabic, to the police.
Notice too, that Gloria’s police and military goons don’t quite bring out the details — leaving them vague, such as the non-identification of parking lot, the city itself, but there was, too, the other target claimed, such as unidentified embassies — which means the place of target is Makati — and just where the big rally against Gloria would be held.
As for the entry of the NPAs and the other commies infiltrating the rallies, which is why there are military troops deployed, as well as the police, that is such an old discredited line.
Just how many times have the police and military come up with this claim, and just how many times have they been proven wrong?
How many times did Gloria and her aides come up with coup plot and bombing claims everytime there was what they feared a massive protest action against her, all on the basis of their manufactured “intelligence reports,” only to later claim that they had neutralized these threats?
They are just too moronic for words. What was the business of an unidentified security guard opening the door of a parked private vehicle, and taking with him some documents from that car then immediately bringing this to the police? Was the car suspiciously parked for days on end? Why open the car door just like that just to get documents from the seat when the car could have been rigged with an explosive?
Then too, these assassins must be so amateurish and stupid for them to leave such “incriminating” documents inside a presumably unlocked vehicle. Yet the police and the Presidential Secrutiy Group (PSG) of Gloria claim that this incredulous tale is a serious slay threat. Notice that everytime, the military and police always claim to find “documents” even during claimed encounters with the rebels. They are so good at planting manufactured evidence, complete in Arabic too.
But wasn’t this “big reveal” of a slay plot on Gloria by her prostituted police and military just conveniently timed for Gloria to have an excuse not to attend the Philippine Military Academy (PMA) homecoming where the Commander-in-Chief is traditionally present? And wasn’t it also timed for Gloria to gain public sympathy given the fact that a whooping majority of Filipinos want her out of Malacañang and pronto?
Evidently, while Gloria can bank on her prostituted generals in the police and the military, she can’t quite bank on either the former graduates of the PMA or perhaps even the fresh batch of candidates for graduation of the very young miltary officers.
Talk making the rounds was that the alumni — or at least a group within the alumni -- were prepared to greet Gloria with a manifesto of sorts that would impact negatively on her, plus staging some mild protest action against her, to get the military sentiments against her governance and her prostitution of the military across, the reason Gloria chose not to be in Baguio for the PMA rites.
It is also too coincidental that this assassination report is announced by Malacañang at this particular time, considering that the public focus is on the abduction of ZTE-National Broadband Network.
If as claimed by her police chief, these documents were found last week yet, why come up with these now, and why even bother to announce it at this time?
It would have been better, if, as claimed, the assassination plot is a true one, for them to have kept quiet about it and worked silently to get at the assigned assassins.
Security people do not announce their finds and their moves, to give the assassins — if there is a shred of truth in that claim — a chance to go to ground.
That’s how moronic they, in the police and the military, are.
Swan Song for NATO
This is from Information Clearing House. Whitney is usually interesting and provocative but this as many of his articles loses some credibility through exagerration and inflated rhetoric. The Taliban control is limited to certain areas and it is only partial control. The Taliban is unable to resist a concerted attack and so uses for the most part classic techniques of guerilla warfare. Any attempt to actually exert complete control will result in being driven out by occupying forces and attempts to resist would be costly for the insurgents.
In spite of very little support for missions some European countries such as France and Poland seem anxious to curry favor with the U.S. Popular antipathy to the mission even in democracies is not determining of policy. The same is true in the U.S.
Swan Song for NATOThe Real Cost Of Defeat In Forgettistan By Mike Whitney"It is our right to defend our country. We are not a threat to other countries. But we have to use our rights when our country is occupied by foreign forces." - Mullah Omar, Taliban leader13/02/08 "ICH" -- - It was supposed to be "the good war"; a war against terror; a war of liberation. It was intended to fix the eyes of the world on America's state of the art weaponry, its crack troops and its overwhelming firepower. It was supposed to demonstrate—once and for all-- that the world's only superpower could no longer be beaten or resisted; that Washington could deploy its troops anywhere in the world and crush its adversaries at will.Then everything went sideways. The war veered from the Pentagon's script. The Taliban retreated, waited, regrouped and retaliated. They enlisted support from the Pashtuns and the tribal leaders who could see that America would never honor its commitments; that order would never be restored. Operation Enduring Freedom has brought neither peace nor prosperity to Afghanistan; just occupation. Seven years have passed and the country is still ruled by warlords and drug-merchants. Nothing has gotten better. The country is in shambles and the government is a fraud. The humiliation of foreign occupation persists while the killing goes on with no end in sight. War is not foreign policy. It is slaughter. Seven years later; it's still slaughter. The Taliban have taken over more than half of Afghanistan. They have conducted military operations in the capital of Kabul. They're dug in at Logar, Wardak and Ghazni and control vast swathes of territory in Zabul, Helmand, Urzgan and Kandahar. Now they are getting ready to step-up operations and mount a Spring offensive. That means the hostilities will progressively intensify. The Taliban's approach is methodical and deliberate. They've shown they can survive the harshest conditions and still achieve tactical victories over a better-equipped enemy. They are highly-motivated and believe their cause is just. After all, they're not fighting to occupy a foreign nation; they're fighting to defend their own country. That strengthens their resolve and keeps morale high. When NATO and American troops leave Afghanistan; the Taliban will remain, just as they did when the Russians left 20 years ago. No difference. The US occupation will just be another grim footnote in the country's tragic history. The United States has gained nothing from its invasion of Afghanistan. US troops do not control even a square inch of Afghan soil. The moment a soldier lifts his boot-heel; that ground is returned to the native people. That won't change either. General Dan McNeill said recently that "if proper US military counterinsurgency doctrine were followed; the US would need 400,000 troops to defeat Pashtun tribal resistance in Afghanistan." Currently, the US and NATO have only 66,000 troops on the ground and the allies are refusing to send more. On a purely logistical level; victory is impossible. The battle for hearts and minds has been lost, too. A statement from the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) sums it up like this: "The reinstatement of the Northern Alliance to power crushed the hopes of our people for freedom and prosperity and proved that, for the Bush administration, defeating terrorism has no meaning at all....The US doesn’t want to defeat the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, because then they will have no excuse to stay in Afghanistan and achieve their economic and strategic goals in the region....After seven years, there is no peace, human rights, democracy or reconstruction in Afghanistan. The destitution and suffering of our people is increasing everyday. ...We believe that if the troops leave Afghanistan, our people will become more free and come out of their current puzzlement and doubts...Afghanistan’s freedom can only be achieved by Afghan people themselves. Relying on one enemy to defeat another is a wrong policy which has just tightened the grip of the Northern Alliance and their masters on the neck of our nation." (RAWA www.rawa.org) Gradually, the Allies are beginning to see that Bush's war cannot be won and that continuing the fighting is counterproductive. There is no military solution to the conflict in Afghanistan and the political objectives are getting murkier all the time. The lack of direction just adds to the growing frustration. Recently Secretary of Defense Robert Gates tried to bully the allies into sending more combat troops to fight in the South, but he met with stiff resistance . He said:"I am concerned that many people on this continent may not comprehend the magnitude of the direct threat to European security," Gates said. "We must not become a two-tiered alliance of those who are willing to fight and those who are not. Such a development, with all its implications for collective security, would in effect destroy the alliance." But public support for the war is waning in Europe. This is America's war, not theirs. Europeans don't need to occupy foreign nations to meet their energy needs. Their economies are thriving and they can simply pay for their fuel on the open market. Only America wants the war. It's all part of a crazy geopolitical "grand strategy" to project US power into the region to control its resources. So far, there's no indication that the plan will succeed. Germany has the third biggest economy in the world. Over the last few years, they have strengthened ties with Russia and made agreements that will satisfy their long-term energy needs. But German involvement in Afghanistan has put a strain on relations with Moscow. Putin thinks that the US is using the war to put down roots in Central Asia so it can control pipeline-routes from the Caspian Basin while surrounding Russia and China with military bases. Putin is right. Naturally, he'd like to persuade German Chancellor Angela Merkel to withdraw from Afghanistan which would strike a blow against the US-led alliance. And, that is the way it will probably turn out, too. Eventually, German leaders will see that its foolish to tweak the nose of the people who provide them with energy (Russia) just to support Washington's adventures. When Germany withdraws from Afghanistan; NATO will disband, new coalitions will form, and the transatlantic alliance fall apart. The cracks are already visible. President Bush has said that the war in Afghanistan must continue or the country will become a haven for drugs, terrorism and organized crime. He says we are fighting a “poisonous ideology of Islamic extremism which threatens to become a global movement”.But the Taliban and Pashtun tribesmen see it differently. They see the conflict as an imperial war of aggression which has only added to the suffering of their people. A recent report by the United Nations Human Development Fund appears to support this view. It shows that Afghanistan has fallen in every category. The average life expectancy has gone down, malnutrition has risen, literacy has dropped, and more than half the population is living below the poverty-line. Hundreds of thousands of people have been internally displaced by the war. The occupation has created plenty of misery, but no democracy. The war was a failure. Afghanistan now produces 90% of the world's opium; more than any other country. The booming drug trade is the direct corollary of the US invasion. No one even denies this. Bush has created the world's largest narco-colony. Is that success? Presently, there are no plans to improve the lives of ordinary Afghanis or to remove the warlords. Reconstruction is at a standstill. If the US stays in Afghanistan, the situation 10 years from now will be the same as it is today, only more people will have needlessly died. Most Afghanis now understand that the promise of democracy was a lie. The only thing the occupation has brought is more grinding poverty and random violence.There's no back-up plan for Afghanistan. In fact, there is no plan at all. The administration thought the Taliban would see America's high-tech, laser-guided weaponry and run for the hills. They did. Now they're back. And now we are embroiled in an “unwinnable” war with a tenacious enemy that grows stronger and more resolute by the day. Eventually, the Europeans will see the futility of the war and leave. And that will be the end of NATO.
In spite of very little support for missions some European countries such as France and Poland seem anxious to curry favor with the U.S. Popular antipathy to the mission even in democracies is not determining of policy. The same is true in the U.S.
Swan Song for NATOThe Real Cost Of Defeat In Forgettistan By Mike Whitney"It is our right to defend our country. We are not a threat to other countries. But we have to use our rights when our country is occupied by foreign forces." - Mullah Omar, Taliban leader13/02/08 "ICH" -- - It was supposed to be "the good war"; a war against terror; a war of liberation. It was intended to fix the eyes of the world on America's state of the art weaponry, its crack troops and its overwhelming firepower. It was supposed to demonstrate—once and for all-- that the world's only superpower could no longer be beaten or resisted; that Washington could deploy its troops anywhere in the world and crush its adversaries at will.Then everything went sideways. The war veered from the Pentagon's script. The Taliban retreated, waited, regrouped and retaliated. They enlisted support from the Pashtuns and the tribal leaders who could see that America would never honor its commitments; that order would never be restored. Operation Enduring Freedom has brought neither peace nor prosperity to Afghanistan; just occupation. Seven years have passed and the country is still ruled by warlords and drug-merchants. Nothing has gotten better. The country is in shambles and the government is a fraud. The humiliation of foreign occupation persists while the killing goes on with no end in sight. War is not foreign policy. It is slaughter. Seven years later; it's still slaughter. The Taliban have taken over more than half of Afghanistan. They have conducted military operations in the capital of Kabul. They're dug in at Logar, Wardak and Ghazni and control vast swathes of territory in Zabul, Helmand, Urzgan and Kandahar. Now they are getting ready to step-up operations and mount a Spring offensive. That means the hostilities will progressively intensify. The Taliban's approach is methodical and deliberate. They've shown they can survive the harshest conditions and still achieve tactical victories over a better-equipped enemy. They are highly-motivated and believe their cause is just. After all, they're not fighting to occupy a foreign nation; they're fighting to defend their own country. That strengthens their resolve and keeps morale high. When NATO and American troops leave Afghanistan; the Taliban will remain, just as they did when the Russians left 20 years ago. No difference. The US occupation will just be another grim footnote in the country's tragic history. The United States has gained nothing from its invasion of Afghanistan. US troops do not control even a square inch of Afghan soil. The moment a soldier lifts his boot-heel; that ground is returned to the native people. That won't change either. General Dan McNeill said recently that "if proper US military counterinsurgency doctrine were followed; the US would need 400,000 troops to defeat Pashtun tribal resistance in Afghanistan." Currently, the US and NATO have only 66,000 troops on the ground and the allies are refusing to send more. On a purely logistical level; victory is impossible. The battle for hearts and minds has been lost, too. A statement from the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) sums it up like this: "The reinstatement of the Northern Alliance to power crushed the hopes of our people for freedom and prosperity and proved that, for the Bush administration, defeating terrorism has no meaning at all....The US doesn’t want to defeat the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, because then they will have no excuse to stay in Afghanistan and achieve their economic and strategic goals in the region....After seven years, there is no peace, human rights, democracy or reconstruction in Afghanistan. The destitution and suffering of our people is increasing everyday. ...We believe that if the troops leave Afghanistan, our people will become more free and come out of their current puzzlement and doubts...Afghanistan’s freedom can only be achieved by Afghan people themselves. Relying on one enemy to defeat another is a wrong policy which has just tightened the grip of the Northern Alliance and their masters on the neck of our nation." (RAWA www.rawa.org) Gradually, the Allies are beginning to see that Bush's war cannot be won and that continuing the fighting is counterproductive. There is no military solution to the conflict in Afghanistan and the political objectives are getting murkier all the time. The lack of direction just adds to the growing frustration. Recently Secretary of Defense Robert Gates tried to bully the allies into sending more combat troops to fight in the South, but he met with stiff resistance . He said:"I am concerned that many people on this continent may not comprehend the magnitude of the direct threat to European security," Gates said. "We must not become a two-tiered alliance of those who are willing to fight and those who are not. Such a development, with all its implications for collective security, would in effect destroy the alliance." But public support for the war is waning in Europe. This is America's war, not theirs. Europeans don't need to occupy foreign nations to meet their energy needs. Their economies are thriving and they can simply pay for their fuel on the open market. Only America wants the war. It's all part of a crazy geopolitical "grand strategy" to project US power into the region to control its resources. So far, there's no indication that the plan will succeed. Germany has the third biggest economy in the world. Over the last few years, they have strengthened ties with Russia and made agreements that will satisfy their long-term energy needs. But German involvement in Afghanistan has put a strain on relations with Moscow. Putin thinks that the US is using the war to put down roots in Central Asia so it can control pipeline-routes from the Caspian Basin while surrounding Russia and China with military bases. Putin is right. Naturally, he'd like to persuade German Chancellor Angela Merkel to withdraw from Afghanistan which would strike a blow against the US-led alliance. And, that is the way it will probably turn out, too. Eventually, German leaders will see that its foolish to tweak the nose of the people who provide them with energy (Russia) just to support Washington's adventures. When Germany withdraws from Afghanistan; NATO will disband, new coalitions will form, and the transatlantic alliance fall apart. The cracks are already visible. President Bush has said that the war in Afghanistan must continue or the country will become a haven for drugs, terrorism and organized crime. He says we are fighting a “poisonous ideology of Islamic extremism which threatens to become a global movement”.But the Taliban and Pashtun tribesmen see it differently. They see the conflict as an imperial war of aggression which has only added to the suffering of their people. A recent report by the United Nations Human Development Fund appears to support this view. It shows that Afghanistan has fallen in every category. The average life expectancy has gone down, malnutrition has risen, literacy has dropped, and more than half the population is living below the poverty-line. Hundreds of thousands of people have been internally displaced by the war. The occupation has created plenty of misery, but no democracy. The war was a failure. Afghanistan now produces 90% of the world's opium; more than any other country. The booming drug trade is the direct corollary of the US invasion. No one even denies this. Bush has created the world's largest narco-colony. Is that success? Presently, there are no plans to improve the lives of ordinary Afghanis or to remove the warlords. Reconstruction is at a standstill. If the US stays in Afghanistan, the situation 10 years from now will be the same as it is today, only more people will have needlessly died. Most Afghanis now understand that the promise of democracy was a lie. The only thing the occupation has brought is more grinding poverty and random violence.There's no back-up plan for Afghanistan. In fact, there is no plan at all. The administration thought the Taliban would see America's high-tech, laser-guided weaponry and run for the hills. They did. Now they're back. And now we are embroiled in an “unwinnable” war with a tenacious enemy that grows stronger and more resolute by the day. Eventually, the Europeans will see the futility of the war and leave. And that will be the end of NATO.
Thursday, February 14, 2008
U.S military aid to the Philippines
This is from UPI. In absolute terms 13 million seems like a drop in the bucket as far as US defense expenditures are concerned but no doubt it is an important boost for the AFP. The U.S. has always used a carrot and stick approach in fighting terrorism but the stick is always bigger than the carrot it seems.
There is no mention of the recent killing of civilians in the battle against terrorists. There is nothing much said about the NPA (New People's Army) the long lasting Maoist insurgency. Of course extra-judicial killings are not mentioned either. After all, the US does the same thing with drones and no doubt through special forces as does Israel. However in the Philippines extra-judicial killings seem to target many who are simply leftist activists rather than suspected terrorists. The NPA also eliminates some it does not like as well.
Analysis: U.S. military aid to Philippines
Published: Feb. 12, 2008 at 11:20 PM
By SHAUN WATERMANUPI Homeland and National Security EditorWASHINGTON, Feb. 12 (UPI) -- U.S. military assistance to the Philippines has been effective in building counterinsurgency capacity, according to a forthcoming study for the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, but critics say it has come at the price of a U.S. blind eye to extrajudicial killings there.The debate highlights different views among policymakers and experts about the right way to implement a hearts and minds approach to counterinsurgency and counter-terrorism.The Filipino government has been locked for decades in a conflict with separatist groups in the southern region of Mindanao, home to the far flung archipelago nation's Muslim minority.Peace deals and cease-fires were negotiated with the mainstream rebel groups in the 1990s, and Mindanao was granted autonomy in 1996, but more radical elements, some linked to al-Qaida and other Islamic terror groups have emerged since -- principally the Abu Sayyaf Group, or ASG, the primary target of U.S. and Filipino counter-terrorist operations in the area.In addition to ASG's links with transnational terror networks, the study, to be released by the U.S. Military Academy's Combating Terrorism Center Thursday, says the U.S. government "views the ASG as posing a direct threat to a highly important ally."The current Filipino government, it says, is "one of the most ardent supporters in President Bush's global war on terrorism" and "remains crucial to legitimating U.S. basing options in the wider Asia-Pacific."The Philippines is now the largest benefactor of the Pentagon's Foreign Military Financing budget, receiving $11 million in 2005, $12 million in 2006 and $13 million in 2007. "The bulk of this money has been used to promote defense reform and underwrite the logistics for ongoing counter-terrorism efforts in the southern Philippines," reads the study.According to the study the main thrust of U.S. security assistance "has been directed toward vitiating the operational tempo of the ASG -- an effort that, at this point, has met with some relatively significant results.""One of the key factors" in the success of the U.S. assistance program "was the attitude of the Philippines government," its author, Peter Chalk, told United Press International.Chalk, an analyst at the RAND Corp., a think tank with historic links to the U.S. military, said Filipino officials had "recognized they need help, taken ownership of the problem and come to table" to get the assistance they. "If you don't have that buy-in, you can't succeed," said Chalk.Chalk said there were currently "less than 1000" U.S troops in Mindanao, about one third of them special forces."The strategy (the Filipino military) were employing -- hit 'em as hard as you can -- wasn't working," said Chalk, adding that the new strategy, implemented with U.S. assistance, was oriented to winning hearts and minds."The key drivers of militancy in the south are seen as poverty and underdevelopment," he said, adding that the Filipino military was now concentrating on so-called civil-military operations -- using troops to do development work like building roads, sewer systems and clinics.He cited the forthcoming U.S.-Filipino joint training exercise called Balikatan 2008, scheduled to start later this month, which he said would not involve any war games or conventional military exercises. "That will be exclusively civil-military operations," he said.Human-rights advocates were unimpressed by the study, citing reports that the Filipino military was involved in widespread extrajudicial killings of government opponents. "What is needed to build (the population's) confidence in the military is for people all the way up the chain of command to be prosecuted for their involvement in these killings," Human Rights Watch Asia Program Deputy Director Sophie Richardson told UPI.She accused U.S. officials of soft-pedaling the issue of accountability for the killings and other human-rights abuses."The United States disgracefully backed one murderous dictator" in the Philippines, she said, referring to U.S. support for anti-Communist strongman Ferdinand Marcos. "The tragedy of U.S. policy is that they cannot see that it is not inimical to their counter-terrorism agenda to push for … accountability.""It is ironic," she added, that U.S. officials could not see the value of "publicly enforcing the laws" in combating an insurgency "partly fueled by disenfranchisement and discrimination -- precisely the feeling that the laws offer them no protection." Other observers say that counterinsurgency operations directed against the ASG have complicated the peace negotiations that the government is conducting with other armed Islamic groups in the region. "It is a complicated situation," acknowledged Chalk.He said that the other plank of U.S. assistance, reform of the Filipino military, was also moving ahead.For the first time the government had a strategic plan for resource allocation within the military, he said, and the armed forces were engaged in a process of transformation."They are moving away from large scale procurement (of aircraft and other major weapons systems) designed to enable them to do force projection against an external enemy."Instead, military leaders were trying to shape "a smaller, more nimble force oriented towards dealing with internal security threats."Critics said these observations were beside the point."Improved budgeting processes and better administration … cannot be the benchmark" for reform, Richardson said. Real reform would be orientated towards producing "a truly disciplined, rights respecting military.""I don't see any evidence of that," she concluded.
© 2008 United Press International. All Rights Reserved.This material may not be reproduced, redistributed, or manipulated in any form.
There is no mention of the recent killing of civilians in the battle against terrorists. There is nothing much said about the NPA (New People's Army) the long lasting Maoist insurgency. Of course extra-judicial killings are not mentioned either. After all, the US does the same thing with drones and no doubt through special forces as does Israel. However in the Philippines extra-judicial killings seem to target many who are simply leftist activists rather than suspected terrorists. The NPA also eliminates some it does not like as well.
Analysis: U.S. military aid to Philippines
Published: Feb. 12, 2008 at 11:20 PM
By SHAUN WATERMANUPI Homeland and National Security EditorWASHINGTON, Feb. 12 (UPI) -- U.S. military assistance to the Philippines has been effective in building counterinsurgency capacity, according to a forthcoming study for the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, but critics say it has come at the price of a U.S. blind eye to extrajudicial killings there.The debate highlights different views among policymakers and experts about the right way to implement a hearts and minds approach to counterinsurgency and counter-terrorism.The Filipino government has been locked for decades in a conflict with separatist groups in the southern region of Mindanao, home to the far flung archipelago nation's Muslim minority.Peace deals and cease-fires were negotiated with the mainstream rebel groups in the 1990s, and Mindanao was granted autonomy in 1996, but more radical elements, some linked to al-Qaida and other Islamic terror groups have emerged since -- principally the Abu Sayyaf Group, or ASG, the primary target of U.S. and Filipino counter-terrorist operations in the area.In addition to ASG's links with transnational terror networks, the study, to be released by the U.S. Military Academy's Combating Terrorism Center Thursday, says the U.S. government "views the ASG as posing a direct threat to a highly important ally."The current Filipino government, it says, is "one of the most ardent supporters in President Bush's global war on terrorism" and "remains crucial to legitimating U.S. basing options in the wider Asia-Pacific."The Philippines is now the largest benefactor of the Pentagon's Foreign Military Financing budget, receiving $11 million in 2005, $12 million in 2006 and $13 million in 2007. "The bulk of this money has been used to promote defense reform and underwrite the logistics for ongoing counter-terrorism efforts in the southern Philippines," reads the study.According to the study the main thrust of U.S. security assistance "has been directed toward vitiating the operational tempo of the ASG -- an effort that, at this point, has met with some relatively significant results.""One of the key factors" in the success of the U.S. assistance program "was the attitude of the Philippines government," its author, Peter Chalk, told United Press International.Chalk, an analyst at the RAND Corp., a think tank with historic links to the U.S. military, said Filipino officials had "recognized they need help, taken ownership of the problem and come to table" to get the assistance they. "If you don't have that buy-in, you can't succeed," said Chalk.Chalk said there were currently "less than 1000" U.S troops in Mindanao, about one third of them special forces."The strategy (the Filipino military) were employing -- hit 'em as hard as you can -- wasn't working," said Chalk, adding that the new strategy, implemented with U.S. assistance, was oriented to winning hearts and minds."The key drivers of militancy in the south are seen as poverty and underdevelopment," he said, adding that the Filipino military was now concentrating on so-called civil-military operations -- using troops to do development work like building roads, sewer systems and clinics.He cited the forthcoming U.S.-Filipino joint training exercise called Balikatan 2008, scheduled to start later this month, which he said would not involve any war games or conventional military exercises. "That will be exclusively civil-military operations," he said.Human-rights advocates were unimpressed by the study, citing reports that the Filipino military was involved in widespread extrajudicial killings of government opponents. "What is needed to build (the population's) confidence in the military is for people all the way up the chain of command to be prosecuted for their involvement in these killings," Human Rights Watch Asia Program Deputy Director Sophie Richardson told UPI.She accused U.S. officials of soft-pedaling the issue of accountability for the killings and other human-rights abuses."The United States disgracefully backed one murderous dictator" in the Philippines, she said, referring to U.S. support for anti-Communist strongman Ferdinand Marcos. "The tragedy of U.S. policy is that they cannot see that it is not inimical to their counter-terrorism agenda to push for … accountability.""It is ironic," she added, that U.S. officials could not see the value of "publicly enforcing the laws" in combating an insurgency "partly fueled by disenfranchisement and discrimination -- precisely the feeling that the laws offer them no protection." Other observers say that counterinsurgency operations directed against the ASG have complicated the peace negotiations that the government is conducting with other armed Islamic groups in the region. "It is a complicated situation," acknowledged Chalk.He said that the other plank of U.S. assistance, reform of the Filipino military, was also moving ahead.For the first time the government had a strategic plan for resource allocation within the military, he said, and the armed forces were engaged in a process of transformation."They are moving away from large scale procurement (of aircraft and other major weapons systems) designed to enable them to do force projection against an external enemy."Instead, military leaders were trying to shape "a smaller, more nimble force oriented towards dealing with internal security threats."Critics said these observations were beside the point."Improved budgeting processes and better administration … cannot be the benchmark" for reform, Richardson said. Real reform would be orientated towards producing "a truly disciplined, rights respecting military.""I don't see any evidence of that," she concluded.
© 2008 United Press International. All Rights Reserved.This material may not be reproduced, redistributed, or manipulated in any form.
Robert Reich: Totally Spent
Reich has an interesting analysis of the present recession and its causes. However, his idea that the way out is to increase wages and the power of unions seems out of whack with present power relationships within US capitalism. Labor is weak and because of global competition capital is quite strong. The buyouts by General Motors are a good example. New workers are hired at very much lower wages than former workers. Wages are likely to fall as cheap labor in developing economies attract capital.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/13/opinion/13reich.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=sloginFebruary 13, 2008Op-Ed ContributorTotally SpentBy ROBERT B. REICHBerkeley, Calif.WE’RE sliding into recession, or worse, and Washingtonis turning to the normal remedies for economicdownturns. But the normal remedies are not likely towork this time, because this isn’t a normal downturn.The problem lies deeper. It is the culmination ofthree decades during which American consumers havespent beyond their means. That era is now coming to anend. Consumers have run out of ways to keep thespending binge going.The only lasting remedy, other than for Americans toaccept a lower standard of living and for businessesto adjust to a smaller economy, is to give middle- andlower-income Americans more buying power — and notjust temporarily.Much of the current debate is irrelevant. Even withmore tax breaks for business like accelerateddepreciation, companies won’t invest in more factoriesor equipment when demand is dropping for products andservices across the board, as it is now. And temporaryfixes like a stimulus package that would givehouseholds a one-time cash infusion won’t getconsumers back to the malls, because consumers knowthe assistance is temporary. The problems mostconsumers face are permanent, so they are likely topocket the extra money instead of spending it.Another Fed rate cut might unfreeze credit markets andgive consumers access to somewhat cheaper loans, butthere’s no going back to the easy money of a few yearsago. Lenders and borrowers have been badly burned, andthe values of houses and other assets are droppingfaster than interest rates can be lowered.The underlying problem has been building for decades.America’s median hourly wage is barely higher than itwas 35 years ago, adjusted for inflation. The incomeof a man in his 30s is now 12 percent below that of aman his age three decades ago. Most of what’s beenearned in America since then has gone to the richest 5percent.Yet the rich devote a smaller percentage of theirearnings to buying things than the rest of us because,after all, they’re rich. They already have most ofwhat they want. Instead of buying, and thusstimulating the American economy, the rich are morelikely to invest their earnings wherever around theworld they can get the highest return.The problem has been masked for years as middle- andlower-income Americans found ways to live beyond theirpaychecks. But now they have run out of ways.The first way was to send more women into paid work.Most women streamed into the work force in the 1970sless because new professional opportunities opened upto them than because they had to prop up familyincomes. The percentage of American working motherswith school-age children has almost doubled since 1970— to more than 70 percent. But there’s a limit to howmany mothers can maintain paying jobs.So Americans turned to a second way of spending beyondtheir hourly wages. They worked more hours. Thetypical American now works more each year than he orshe did three decades ago. Americans became veritableworkaholics, putting in 350 more hours a year than theaverage European, more even than the notoriouslyindustrious Japanese.But there’s also a limit to how many hours Americanscan put into work, so Americans turned to a third wayof spending beyond their wages. They began to borrow.With housing prices rising briskly through the 1990sand even faster from 2002 to 2006, they turned theirhomes into piggy banks by refinancing home mortgagesand taking out home-equity loans. But this thirdstrategy also had a built-in limit. With the burstingof the housing bubble, the piggy banks are closing.The binge seems to be over. We’re finally reaping thewhirlwind of widening inequality and ever moreconcentrated wealth.The only way to keep the economy going over the longrun is to increase the wages of the bottom two-thirdsof Americans. The answer is not to protect jobsthrough trade protection. That would only drive up theprices of everything purchased from abroad. Mostroutine jobs are being automated anyway.A larger earned-income tax credit, financed by ahigher marginal income tax on top earners, isrequired. The tax credit functions like a reverseincome tax. Enlarging it would mean giving workers atthe bottom a bigger wage supplement, as well asphasing it out at a higher wage. The currentsupplement for a worker with two children who earns upto $16,000 a year is about $5,000. That amountdeclines as earnings increase and is eliminated atabout $38,000. It should be increased to, say, $8,000at the low end and phased out at an income of $46,000.We also need stronger unions, especially in the localservice sector that’s sheltered from globalcompetition. Employees should be able to form a unionwithout the current protracted certification processthat gives employers too much opportunity tointimidate or coerce them. Workers should be able todecide whether to form a union with a simple majorityvote.And employers who fire workers for trying to organizeshould have to pay substantial fines. Right now, thetypical penalty is back pay for the worker, plusinterest — a slap on the wrist.Over the longer term, inequality can be reversed onlythrough better schools for children in lower- andmoderate-income communities. This will require, at theleast, good preschools, fewer students per classroomand better pay for teachers in such schools, in orderto attract the teaching talent these students need.These measures are necessary to give Americans enoughbuying power to keep the American economy going. Theyare also needed to overcome widening inequality, andthereby keep America in one piece.Robert B. Reich, a professor of public policy at theUniversity of California, Berkeley, is the author,most recently, of “Supercapitalism.”___________________________________
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/13/opinion/13reich.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=sloginFebruary 13, 2008Op-Ed ContributorTotally SpentBy ROBERT B. REICHBerkeley, Calif.WE’RE sliding into recession, or worse, and Washingtonis turning to the normal remedies for economicdownturns. But the normal remedies are not likely towork this time, because this isn’t a normal downturn.The problem lies deeper. It is the culmination ofthree decades during which American consumers havespent beyond their means. That era is now coming to anend. Consumers have run out of ways to keep thespending binge going.The only lasting remedy, other than for Americans toaccept a lower standard of living and for businessesto adjust to a smaller economy, is to give middle- andlower-income Americans more buying power — and notjust temporarily.Much of the current debate is irrelevant. Even withmore tax breaks for business like accelerateddepreciation, companies won’t invest in more factoriesor equipment when demand is dropping for products andservices across the board, as it is now. And temporaryfixes like a stimulus package that would givehouseholds a one-time cash infusion won’t getconsumers back to the malls, because consumers knowthe assistance is temporary. The problems mostconsumers face are permanent, so they are likely topocket the extra money instead of spending it.Another Fed rate cut might unfreeze credit markets andgive consumers access to somewhat cheaper loans, butthere’s no going back to the easy money of a few yearsago. Lenders and borrowers have been badly burned, andthe values of houses and other assets are droppingfaster than interest rates can be lowered.The underlying problem has been building for decades.America’s median hourly wage is barely higher than itwas 35 years ago, adjusted for inflation. The incomeof a man in his 30s is now 12 percent below that of aman his age three decades ago. Most of what’s beenearned in America since then has gone to the richest 5percent.Yet the rich devote a smaller percentage of theirearnings to buying things than the rest of us because,after all, they’re rich. They already have most ofwhat they want. Instead of buying, and thusstimulating the American economy, the rich are morelikely to invest their earnings wherever around theworld they can get the highest return.The problem has been masked for years as middle- andlower-income Americans found ways to live beyond theirpaychecks. But now they have run out of ways.The first way was to send more women into paid work.Most women streamed into the work force in the 1970sless because new professional opportunities opened upto them than because they had to prop up familyincomes. The percentage of American working motherswith school-age children has almost doubled since 1970— to more than 70 percent. But there’s a limit to howmany mothers can maintain paying jobs.So Americans turned to a second way of spending beyondtheir hourly wages. They worked more hours. Thetypical American now works more each year than he orshe did three decades ago. Americans became veritableworkaholics, putting in 350 more hours a year than theaverage European, more even than the notoriouslyindustrious Japanese.But there’s also a limit to how many hours Americanscan put into work, so Americans turned to a third wayof spending beyond their wages. They began to borrow.With housing prices rising briskly through the 1990sand even faster from 2002 to 2006, they turned theirhomes into piggy banks by refinancing home mortgagesand taking out home-equity loans. But this thirdstrategy also had a built-in limit. With the burstingof the housing bubble, the piggy banks are closing.The binge seems to be over. We’re finally reaping thewhirlwind of widening inequality and ever moreconcentrated wealth.The only way to keep the economy going over the longrun is to increase the wages of the bottom two-thirdsof Americans. The answer is not to protect jobsthrough trade protection. That would only drive up theprices of everything purchased from abroad. Mostroutine jobs are being automated anyway.A larger earned-income tax credit, financed by ahigher marginal income tax on top earners, isrequired. The tax credit functions like a reverseincome tax. Enlarging it would mean giving workers atthe bottom a bigger wage supplement, as well asphasing it out at a higher wage. The currentsupplement for a worker with two children who earns upto $16,000 a year is about $5,000. That amountdeclines as earnings increase and is eliminated atabout $38,000. It should be increased to, say, $8,000at the low end and phased out at an income of $46,000.We also need stronger unions, especially in the localservice sector that’s sheltered from globalcompetition. Employees should be able to form a unionwithout the current protracted certification processthat gives employers too much opportunity tointimidate or coerce them. Workers should be able todecide whether to form a union with a simple majorityvote.And employers who fire workers for trying to organizeshould have to pay substantial fines. Right now, thetypical penalty is back pay for the worker, plusinterest — a slap on the wrist.Over the longer term, inequality can be reversed onlythrough better schools for children in lower- andmoderate-income communities. This will require, at theleast, good preschools, fewer students per classroomand better pay for teachers in such schools, in orderto attract the teaching talent these students need.These measures are necessary to give Americans enoughbuying power to keep the American economy going. Theyare also needed to overcome widening inequality, andthereby keep America in one piece.Robert B. Reich, a professor of public policy at theUniversity of California, Berkeley, is the author,most recently, of “Supercapitalism.”___________________________________
GI Bill Falling Short of College Tuition Costs: Pentagon Resists Boosts in Benefits
The government supports Veterans while on active duty but once they demand benefits for which many enlisted in the first place the Scrooge complex sets in as was evident in the earlier problems with medical services.
from the Boston Globe.Sennott, Charles M. 2008. "GI Bill Falling Short of College Tuition Costs: PentagonResists Boost In Benefits." Boston Globe (10February).<http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2008/02/10/gi_bill_falling_short_of_college_tuition_costs/>"The original GI Bill provided full tuition, housing, and living costs for some 8million veterans; for many, it was the engine of opportunity in the postwar years.But, in the mid 1980s, the program was scaled back to a peacetime program that paysa flat sum. Today the most a veteran can receive is approximately $9,600 a year forfour years -- no matter what college costs.""The Pentagon and White House have so far resisted a new GI Bill out of fear thattoo many will use it -- choosing to shed the uniform in favor of school and civilianlife. "The incentive to serve and leave," said Robert Clarke, assistant director ofaccessions policy at the Department of Defense, may "outweigh the incentive to havethem stay".""Paul Rieckhoff, an Iraq war veteran and director of the Iraq and AfghanistanVeterans of America, an organization based in New York, said that enhancing the GIBill is a solid investment in the country's future. One study he cites suggests thatevery dollar spent on the original GI Bill created a seven-fold return for theeconomy. "Funding the GI Bill as Senator Webb proposes it for one year would costthis country what it spends in Iraq in 36 hours," he said.""Beyond the financial struggle is a daunting bureaucratic obstacle course that canconfound veterans and sometimes steer them away from the benefit altogether. Thatstruggle starts with the requirement that all participants buy into the program witha $1,200 upfront payment. William Bardenwerper, an Army veteran of Iraq with anundergraduate degree from Princeton University, described a six-month odyssey ofpaperwork in trying to navigate the current GI Bill. He kept a detailed log of hisfrustrating, and to-date fruitless, effort to access his benefits for graduateschool. "Not to sound elitist," said Bardenwerper, "but if a 31-year-old Princetongrad has a hard time deciphering what he is entitled to, then I have no idea how a21-year-old armed only with a GED could navigate this system.""Clarke, of the Department of Defense, said it is simply off-base to compare whatwas offered to World War II veterans to the situation today. There was no concernabout retention rates back then, he said; rapid demobilization was the order of theday."
from the Boston Globe.Sennott, Charles M. 2008. "GI Bill Falling Short of College Tuition Costs: PentagonResists Boost In Benefits." Boston Globe (10February).<http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2008/02/10/gi_bill_falling_short_of_college_tuition_costs/>"The original GI Bill provided full tuition, housing, and living costs for some 8million veterans; for many, it was the engine of opportunity in the postwar years.But, in the mid 1980s, the program was scaled back to a peacetime program that paysa flat sum. Today the most a veteran can receive is approximately $9,600 a year forfour years -- no matter what college costs.""The Pentagon and White House have so far resisted a new GI Bill out of fear thattoo many will use it -- choosing to shed the uniform in favor of school and civilianlife. "The incentive to serve and leave," said Robert Clarke, assistant director ofaccessions policy at the Department of Defense, may "outweigh the incentive to havethem stay".""Paul Rieckhoff, an Iraq war veteran and director of the Iraq and AfghanistanVeterans of America, an organization based in New York, said that enhancing the GIBill is a solid investment in the country's future. One study he cites suggests thatevery dollar spent on the original GI Bill created a seven-fold return for theeconomy. "Funding the GI Bill as Senator Webb proposes it for one year would costthis country what it spends in Iraq in 36 hours," he said.""Beyond the financial struggle is a daunting bureaucratic obstacle course that canconfound veterans and sometimes steer them away from the benefit altogether. Thatstruggle starts with the requirement that all participants buy into the program witha $1,200 upfront payment. William Bardenwerper, an Army veteran of Iraq with anundergraduate degree from Princeton University, described a six-month odyssey ofpaperwork in trying to navigate the current GI Bill. He kept a detailed log of hisfrustrating, and to-date fruitless, effort to access his benefits for graduateschool. "Not to sound elitist," said Bardenwerper, "but if a 31-year-old Princetongrad has a hard time deciphering what he is entitled to, then I have no idea how a21-year-old armed only with a GED could navigate this system.""Clarke, of the Department of Defense, said it is simply off-base to compare whatwas offered to World War II veterans to the situation today. There was no concernabout retention rates back then, he said; rapid demobilization was the order of theday."
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
U.S. Crackdown on security guards "paralysing Afghanistan'
This is from the Timesonline. No doubt the Karzai govt. wants to favor its own security firms and have them get the gravy instead of ladling it all towards U.S. and U.K. firms. It is interesting that there are so many private security operatives that Afghanistan would be supposedly paralyzed without them. The firms do not seem to win many friends for the occupiers.
Crackdown on guards 'paralysing Afghanistan'
International operations are being threatened by a police crackdown on private security guards, the US has said
Jeremy Page in Kabul
The United States has warned President Karzai of Afghanistan that international military and civilian operations are being paralysed by a police crackdown on private security guards carrying firearms.
William Wood, the US Ambassador to Kabul, met Mr Karzai on Sunday to ask him to intervene in the stand-off between the Interior Ministry and the booming private security industry, The Times has learnt.
The ministry said it was cracking down on unlicensed weapons and illegal security companies, but industry insiders accuse Afghan firms with links to the police - including one owned by Mr Karzai's cousin - of trying to steal their clients.
Afghanistan's security industry has grown from nothing in late 2001, when a US-led invasion toppled the Taleban Government, to a multimillion-dollar business, with 60 companies employing 30,000 people - 10,000 of them foreigners.
Humayun Hamidzada, a spokesman for Mr Karzai, confirmed the meeting with the ambassador and said that the issue would be resolved soon. But he gave no timetable and said that Afghan forces should eventually take over many of the responsibilities of the security industry. “We're working on an interim arrangement in order to allow the legitimate companies to operate,” he told The Times. “There is no double treatment for Afghan and foreign companies. But there has to be Afghan security over the longer term.”
The US Embassy declined to comment, but diplomatic sources fear that the issue could further sour relations between the international community and Mr Karzai, who has criticised British operations in the south and blocked the candidacy of Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon as UN “super-envoy” to Afghanistan.
Mr Wood's meeting came three days after Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, and David Miliband, the British Foreign Secretary, made a surprise visit to Kabul to try to mend fences with Mr Karzai.
Crackdown on guards 'paralysing Afghanistan'
International operations are being threatened by a police crackdown on private security guards, the US has said
Jeremy Page in Kabul
The United States has warned President Karzai of Afghanistan that international military and civilian operations are being paralysed by a police crackdown on private security guards carrying firearms.
William Wood, the US Ambassador to Kabul, met Mr Karzai on Sunday to ask him to intervene in the stand-off between the Interior Ministry and the booming private security industry, The Times has learnt.
The ministry said it was cracking down on unlicensed weapons and illegal security companies, but industry insiders accuse Afghan firms with links to the police - including one owned by Mr Karzai's cousin - of trying to steal their clients.
Afghanistan's security industry has grown from nothing in late 2001, when a US-led invasion toppled the Taleban Government, to a multimillion-dollar business, with 60 companies employing 30,000 people - 10,000 of them foreigners.
Humayun Hamidzada, a spokesman for Mr Karzai, confirmed the meeting with the ambassador and said that the issue would be resolved soon. But he gave no timetable and said that Afghan forces should eventually take over many of the responsibilities of the security industry. “We're working on an interim arrangement in order to allow the legitimate companies to operate,” he told The Times. “There is no double treatment for Afghan and foreign companies. But there has to be Afghan security over the longer term.”
The US Embassy declined to comment, but diplomatic sources fear that the issue could further sour relations between the international community and Mr Karzai, who has criticised British operations in the south and blocked the candidacy of Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon as UN “super-envoy” to Afghanistan.
Mr Wood's meeting came three days after Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, and David Miliband, the British Foreign Secretary, made a surprise visit to Kabul to try to mend fences with Mr Karzai.
A Very Negative Take on the U.S. economic crisis
In stock market terms this article is exceedingly bearish. Nevertheless the article clearly points out some of the underlying problems causing the present problems. However, it remains to be seen whether the situation is nearly as dire as Kunstler makes out but at least along with his rhetoric he gives relevant arguments why the downturn could be much worse than the mainstream press portrays it.
Burning Down the House
by Jim Kunstler
Comment on current events by the author of The Long Emergency
(Atlantic Monthly Press, 2005)
www.kunstler.com (February 11 2008)
Behind all the blather and bullshit about the Federal Reserve's rescue
gambits and the machinations of the ratings agencies, and the wiles of
foreign sovereign wealth, and the incomprehensible mysteries of
markets, and the various weather forecasts of a gathering "recession"
is the simple fact that the USA is a way poorer nation than we
imagined ourselves to be six months ago. The American economy has been
running on the fumes of "creatively engineered" finance (that is, new
and improved swindling) for years, and now these swindles are
unraveling. In their aftermath, they leave empty wallets, drained bank
accounts, plundered retirements funds, boiled away capital reserves,
worthless stocks, bankrupt companies, vandalized housing tracts,
ruined families, and Wall Street executives who are still pulling down
multimillion-dollar pay packages despite running their companies into
the ground.
We're burning down the house and kidding ourselves that there is a
remedy for it. All the rate cuts and loans to big banks and bank-like
corporate organisms, and "monoline" bond insurers, and mortgage mills
amount to little more than a final desperate shell game to conceal the
radioactive pea of aggregate loss. The losses are everywhere, and when
you add up seven billion here and eleven billion there they probably
amount to something like a trillion dollars in sheer capital
evaporation - not counting the abstract "positions" that the capital
was leveraged onto by the playerz and boyz who mistook algorithms for
productive activity.
The shell game may run a few more weeks but personally I believe the
timbers are burning. The losses are no longer "contained" or
concealable. A consensus has now formed that we're in for a
"recession". The idea is that, yes, this seems to be the low arc of
the business cycle. Fewer Hamptons villas will be redecorated in the
interim. We'll gird our loins and get through the bad weather and when
the sun shines again, we'll be ready with new algorithms for new sport
with capital.
Uh-uh. Think again. This is not so much financial bad weather as
financial climate change. Something is happenin' Mr Jones, and you
don't know what it is, do ya? There has been too much misbehavior and
it can no longer be mitigated. We're not heading into a recession but
a major depression, worse than the fabled trauma of the 1930s. That
one occurred against the background of a society that had plenty of
everything except money. Back then, we had plenty of mineral
resources, lots of trained-and-regimented manpower, millions of
productive family farms, factories that were practically new, and more
than ninety percent left of the greatest petroleum reserve anywhere in
the world. It took a world war to get all that stuff humming
cooperatively again, and once it did, we devoted its productive
capacity to building an empire of happy motoring leisure. (Tragic
choice there.)
This new depression, which I call The Long Emergency, will play out
against the background of a society that has pissed away its oil
endowment, bulldozed its factories, arbitraged its productive labor,
destroyed both family farms and the commercial infrastructure of main
street, and trained its population to become overfed diabetic TV
zombie "consumers" of other peoples' productivity, paid for by "money"
they haven't earned.
There is a theory (see Nouriel Roubini's blog) that a reform process
will now ensue in the financial realm, new regulation and oversight of
the same old familiar activities {1}. This too, I'm afraid, will prove
to be wishful thinking. The financial system will not be reformed
until it lies in smoking wreckage, and when that "re-form" happens the
armature of the re-organizing society will barely resemble the one
that the previous burnt-down-house was designed to dwell in. Among
other things, it will not support capital enterprise at anything like
the scale that we became accustomed to lately. Globalism will be over.
The great nations of the world will be scrambling desperately for the
world's remaining oil supplies. It will not be a friendly contest, and
anyone who thinks that current trade relations and capital flows will
continue despite that is liable to be disappointed. (Are you reading
this Tom Friedman?)
Long before the mathematical projections of oil depletion play out,
the oil markets themselves - and all the complex operations that they
comprise, such as drilling and exploration, and the movement of
tankers around the planet - will destabilize and seize up. We will no
longer be any oil exporter's "favored customer". Many of the exporters
will enjoy watching us suffer. Contrary to the political
platitude-du-jour, the USA will never become "energy independent" in
the way we currently imagine. Rather we'll become energy independent
by being deprived of imported oil, and we'll be thrown back on our own
dwindling supplies - which means that we're not going to run our
system of daily life the way it has been set up to run. When Americans
can no longer run their cars on a whim, they will simply go apeshit
and you can kiss normal politics goodbye.
The financial system that emerges from this cataclysm, and the economy
it serves (which is supposed to be the master of its capital
deployment "arm", not its servant) will likely be modest to a degree
that will shock and embarrass everyone currently connected with what
we have lately called finance. If it even trades in paper, that paper
will have to stand for something based in reality, either a productive
activity or a genuine asset. It may take decades for this society to
even regain the confidence necessary to operate such an elementary
system - or it may not come back at all, at least as far as the
horizon lies before us. That's how bad the mischief and the damage has
been.
It's not hard to understand why the Bernankes, Paulsons, Lawrence
Kudlows and other public representatives of capital keep pretending
that everything is under control. On the other side of their pretenses
lies disorder and hardship. One wonders, of course, what they really
see in their private minds' eyes. Do they actually believe that the
statistics issued by their serveling agencies amount to a plausible
picture of reality? Are they so lost in their fantasies of
"management" that they think they're controlling events?
My guess is that their credibility is spent. In the weeks ahead,
nobody will know who or what to believe. We may even run out of
questions to ask as we just all collectively stand there in a thrall
of wonder and nausea, watching the nation's financial house burn down.
{1}: http://www.rgemonitor.com/blog/roubini/242906/
http://jameshowardkunstler.typepad.com/clusterfuck_nation/
http://www.billtotten.blogspot.com http://www.ashisuto.co.jp
Burning Down the House
by Jim Kunstler
Comment on current events by the author of The Long Emergency
(Atlantic Monthly Press, 2005)
www.kunstler.com (February 11 2008)
Behind all the blather and bullshit about the Federal Reserve's rescue
gambits and the machinations of the ratings agencies, and the wiles of
foreign sovereign wealth, and the incomprehensible mysteries of
markets, and the various weather forecasts of a gathering "recession"
is the simple fact that the USA is a way poorer nation than we
imagined ourselves to be six months ago. The American economy has been
running on the fumes of "creatively engineered" finance (that is, new
and improved swindling) for years, and now these swindles are
unraveling. In their aftermath, they leave empty wallets, drained bank
accounts, plundered retirements funds, boiled away capital reserves,
worthless stocks, bankrupt companies, vandalized housing tracts,
ruined families, and Wall Street executives who are still pulling down
multimillion-dollar pay packages despite running their companies into
the ground.
We're burning down the house and kidding ourselves that there is a
remedy for it. All the rate cuts and loans to big banks and bank-like
corporate organisms, and "monoline" bond insurers, and mortgage mills
amount to little more than a final desperate shell game to conceal the
radioactive pea of aggregate loss. The losses are everywhere, and when
you add up seven billion here and eleven billion there they probably
amount to something like a trillion dollars in sheer capital
evaporation - not counting the abstract "positions" that the capital
was leveraged onto by the playerz and boyz who mistook algorithms for
productive activity.
The shell game may run a few more weeks but personally I believe the
timbers are burning. The losses are no longer "contained" or
concealable. A consensus has now formed that we're in for a
"recession". The idea is that, yes, this seems to be the low arc of
the business cycle. Fewer Hamptons villas will be redecorated in the
interim. We'll gird our loins and get through the bad weather and when
the sun shines again, we'll be ready with new algorithms for new sport
with capital.
Uh-uh. Think again. This is not so much financial bad weather as
financial climate change. Something is happenin' Mr Jones, and you
don't know what it is, do ya? There has been too much misbehavior and
it can no longer be mitigated. We're not heading into a recession but
a major depression, worse than the fabled trauma of the 1930s. That
one occurred against the background of a society that had plenty of
everything except money. Back then, we had plenty of mineral
resources, lots of trained-and-regimented manpower, millions of
productive family farms, factories that were practically new, and more
than ninety percent left of the greatest petroleum reserve anywhere in
the world. It took a world war to get all that stuff humming
cooperatively again, and once it did, we devoted its productive
capacity to building an empire of happy motoring leisure. (Tragic
choice there.)
This new depression, which I call The Long Emergency, will play out
against the background of a society that has pissed away its oil
endowment, bulldozed its factories, arbitraged its productive labor,
destroyed both family farms and the commercial infrastructure of main
street, and trained its population to become overfed diabetic TV
zombie "consumers" of other peoples' productivity, paid for by "money"
they haven't earned.
There is a theory (see Nouriel Roubini's blog) that a reform process
will now ensue in the financial realm, new regulation and oversight of
the same old familiar activities {1}. This too, I'm afraid, will prove
to be wishful thinking. The financial system will not be reformed
until it lies in smoking wreckage, and when that "re-form" happens the
armature of the re-organizing society will barely resemble the one
that the previous burnt-down-house was designed to dwell in. Among
other things, it will not support capital enterprise at anything like
the scale that we became accustomed to lately. Globalism will be over.
The great nations of the world will be scrambling desperately for the
world's remaining oil supplies. It will not be a friendly contest, and
anyone who thinks that current trade relations and capital flows will
continue despite that is liable to be disappointed. (Are you reading
this Tom Friedman?)
Long before the mathematical projections of oil depletion play out,
the oil markets themselves - and all the complex operations that they
comprise, such as drilling and exploration, and the movement of
tankers around the planet - will destabilize and seize up. We will no
longer be any oil exporter's "favored customer". Many of the exporters
will enjoy watching us suffer. Contrary to the political
platitude-du-jour, the USA will never become "energy independent" in
the way we currently imagine. Rather we'll become energy independent
by being deprived of imported oil, and we'll be thrown back on our own
dwindling supplies - which means that we're not going to run our
system of daily life the way it has been set up to run. When Americans
can no longer run their cars on a whim, they will simply go apeshit
and you can kiss normal politics goodbye.
The financial system that emerges from this cataclysm, and the economy
it serves (which is supposed to be the master of its capital
deployment "arm", not its servant) will likely be modest to a degree
that will shock and embarrass everyone currently connected with what
we have lately called finance. If it even trades in paper, that paper
will have to stand for something based in reality, either a productive
activity or a genuine asset. It may take decades for this society to
even regain the confidence necessary to operate such an elementary
system - or it may not come back at all, at least as far as the
horizon lies before us. That's how bad the mischief and the damage has
been.
It's not hard to understand why the Bernankes, Paulsons, Lawrence
Kudlows and other public representatives of capital keep pretending
that everything is under control. On the other side of their pretenses
lies disorder and hardship. One wonders, of course, what they really
see in their private minds' eyes. Do they actually believe that the
statistics issued by their serveling agencies amount to a plausible
picture of reality? Are they so lost in their fantasies of
"management" that they think they're controlling events?
My guess is that their credibility is spent. In the weeks ahead,
nobody will know who or what to believe. We may even run out of
questions to ask as we just all collectively stand there in a thrall
of wonder and nausea, watching the nation's financial house burn down.
{1}: http://www.rgemonitor.com/blog/roubini/242906/
http://jameshowardkunstler.typepad.com/clusterfuck_nation/
http://www.billtotten.blogspot.com http://www.ashisuto.co.jp
Philippine bishops endorse "communal action" against government corruption.
This from Catholic News. Actually the Church certainly has helped unmake Philippine governments before--and also helped prop them up. The bishops seem to be speaking out more lately perhaps due to the level of disgust among the populace. No doubt the Church is weighing the dangers to its credibility if it says nothing and the wrath of Arroyo and perhaps the displeasure of the Papacy that doesn't look kindly on political activism any more except on their favorite moral issues such as abortion.
Philippines bishops endorse “communal action” against government corruption
Manila, Feb 12, 2008 / 05:01 am (CNA).- Recent exposure of government corruption in the Philippines has prompted the country’s Catholic Bishops’ Conference (CBCP) to call for non-violent “communal action” to spur political reform.
A former environmental official, Rodolfo Lozada, has in recent testimony before the country’s senate exposed alleged corruption at the highest levels of government. Jose de Venecia, Jr., an ousted House speaker, has also added his testimony to the public inquiry into corruption.
Archbishop Angel Lagdameo, president of the CBCP said Lozado’s and de Venecia’s actions could save people from being “hostage to scandalous and shady government deals.” While noting they somehow had involvement in the corruption they were exposing, he said their exposure of the matter may yet be called “courageous.”
Though their testimony could affect their political careers, Archbishop Lagdameo affirmed the virtue of their actions. “Truth hurts. But the truth must be served. The truth will set our country free,” he stressed.
“We have to confess that corruption is in truth our greatest shame as a people,” said Archbishop Lagdameo.Archbishop Oscar Cruz of Lingayen-Dagupan said the call for communal action was “open-ended” and directed to all people seeking genuine governmental reform.
“One thing is clear, it will be an act against the present administration but as to how and who will answer to it it’s up to the people,” Archbishop Cruz said.
The archbishop said the bishops would support legitimate, non-violent actions of the majority of the people.“As long as there will be no bloodshed and it remains constitutional, we will support it,” he said.
Responding to those who challenged the CBCP to call for the resignation of Philippines President Gloria Arroyo, Archbishop Cruz said the bishops’ conference “is not the sovereign Filipino people.”
He added, “It would be a big mistake to expect the Church to make or unmake a government.”
Philippines bishops endorse “communal action” against government corruption
Manila, Feb 12, 2008 / 05:01 am (CNA).- Recent exposure of government corruption in the Philippines has prompted the country’s Catholic Bishops’ Conference (CBCP) to call for non-violent “communal action” to spur political reform.
A former environmental official, Rodolfo Lozada, has in recent testimony before the country’s senate exposed alleged corruption at the highest levels of government. Jose de Venecia, Jr., an ousted House speaker, has also added his testimony to the public inquiry into corruption.
Archbishop Angel Lagdameo, president of the CBCP said Lozado’s and de Venecia’s actions could save people from being “hostage to scandalous and shady government deals.” While noting they somehow had involvement in the corruption they were exposing, he said their exposure of the matter may yet be called “courageous.”
Though their testimony could affect their political careers, Archbishop Lagdameo affirmed the virtue of their actions. “Truth hurts. But the truth must be served. The truth will set our country free,” he stressed.
“We have to confess that corruption is in truth our greatest shame as a people,” said Archbishop Lagdameo.Archbishop Oscar Cruz of Lingayen-Dagupan said the call for communal action was “open-ended” and directed to all people seeking genuine governmental reform.
“One thing is clear, it will be an act against the present administration but as to how and who will answer to it it’s up to the people,” Archbishop Cruz said.
The archbishop said the bishops would support legitimate, non-violent actions of the majority of the people.“As long as there will be no bloodshed and it remains constitutional, we will support it,” he said.
Responding to those who challenged the CBCP to call for the resignation of Philippines President Gloria Arroyo, Archbishop Cruz said the bishops’ conference “is not the sovereign Filipino people.”
He added, “It would be a big mistake to expect the Church to make or unmake a government.”
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Iraq oil dealings ongoing, met by protests.
This is from the Earthtimes. The Oil law one of Bush's main benchmarks is still stalled after almost a year. Meanwhile Kurds passed their own law. The meetings described in this article apparently are not of sufficient news value to make it into mainstream media news reports. I guess that is because the Iraq war is not supposed to have anything to do with oil. Shhhh!
Iraq oil dealings ongoing, met by protests
Posted : Wed, 06 Feb 2008 00:30:22 GMT
Author : General News Editor
LONDON, Feb. 5 Negotiations between international oil companies and Iraq Oil Ministry officials appear to be progressing, despite protests at a conference in London.Iraq is in direct talks with the world's largest oil companies and is prepping for a first round of bids to develop its oil fields. Iraq's reserves, the third largest in the world, are producing about 2.3 million barrels per day, and Iraq Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani said the direct talks will help boost that to 2.8 million bpd by the end of the year.The Middle East Economic Survey confirms widespread reports that top officials at Shell, BP, ExxonMobil and Chevron met last week in Amman with a delegation from Baghdad, led by Natiq al-Bayati, the Oil Ministry's director general of the Petroleum Contracts & Licensing Directorate.Shahristani said contracts will be signed "within a few weeks," MEES reports. The technical service agreements will dedicate expertise, training and equipment to a handful of Iraq's oldest and largest fields. Iraq has given a Feb. 18 deadline for any interested oil firms to pre-register to be considered for more extensive contracts to develop Iraq oil fields, which Shahristani said will be an open bidding and transparent process. It's expected to take place later this year.Oil companies are interested, as evidenced by continual discussions with the Oil Ministry over the past five years and the upcoming bidding round. But security and legal questions remain."It is a country of interest to us but we are waiting for political and security stability to return before we will take anything further," a BP spokesman told The Guardian, confirming the Jordan meeting."We are in the race so to say, we would like to work in Iraq," Shell Chief Executive Officer Jeroen van der Veer said last week, the Financial Times reports, "but the petroleum law is not ratified so we don't know the conditions. We would like to know the rules of the game."MEES quoted a source from one of the Big Oil firms that there are concerns on "rates of return, how these contracts are going to be structured, will they be honored. There are concerns over Parliament's reaction in the absence of a hydrocarbon law."The draft oil law is in a major holdup, however. The central and Kurdish regional governments dispute the extent of control over Iraq's oil sector. The Kurds are so frustrated they passed a regional oil law and have signed dozens of production-sharing contracts.Iraq's oil unions and civil society organizations around the world have taken the oil law to task for allowing contracts such as the PSCs, which they fear will lead to control over Iraq's oil by oil companies.A Middle East oil conference in London Tuesday, where Iraqi, British and industry oil leaders attended, was met by protesters who fear Iraq's oil wealth will be squandered.Copyright 2008 by UPI
Iraq oil dealings ongoing, met by protests
Posted : Wed, 06 Feb 2008 00:30:22 GMT
Author : General News Editor
LONDON, Feb. 5 Negotiations between international oil companies and Iraq Oil Ministry officials appear to be progressing, despite protests at a conference in London.Iraq is in direct talks with the world's largest oil companies and is prepping for a first round of bids to develop its oil fields. Iraq's reserves, the third largest in the world, are producing about 2.3 million barrels per day, and Iraq Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani said the direct talks will help boost that to 2.8 million bpd by the end of the year.The Middle East Economic Survey confirms widespread reports that top officials at Shell, BP, ExxonMobil and Chevron met last week in Amman with a delegation from Baghdad, led by Natiq al-Bayati, the Oil Ministry's director general of the Petroleum Contracts & Licensing Directorate.Shahristani said contracts will be signed "within a few weeks," MEES reports. The technical service agreements will dedicate expertise, training and equipment to a handful of Iraq's oldest and largest fields. Iraq has given a Feb. 18 deadline for any interested oil firms to pre-register to be considered for more extensive contracts to develop Iraq oil fields, which Shahristani said will be an open bidding and transparent process. It's expected to take place later this year.Oil companies are interested, as evidenced by continual discussions with the Oil Ministry over the past five years and the upcoming bidding round. But security and legal questions remain."It is a country of interest to us but we are waiting for political and security stability to return before we will take anything further," a BP spokesman told The Guardian, confirming the Jordan meeting."We are in the race so to say, we would like to work in Iraq," Shell Chief Executive Officer Jeroen van der Veer said last week, the Financial Times reports, "but the petroleum law is not ratified so we don't know the conditions. We would like to know the rules of the game."MEES quoted a source from one of the Big Oil firms that there are concerns on "rates of return, how these contracts are going to be structured, will they be honored. There are concerns over Parliament's reaction in the absence of a hydrocarbon law."The draft oil law is in a major holdup, however. The central and Kurdish regional governments dispute the extent of control over Iraq's oil sector. The Kurds are so frustrated they passed a regional oil law and have signed dozens of production-sharing contracts.Iraq's oil unions and civil society organizations around the world have taken the oil law to task for allowing contracts such as the PSCs, which they fear will lead to control over Iraq's oil by oil companies.A Middle East oil conference in London Tuesday, where Iraqi, British and industry oil leaders attended, was met by protesters who fear Iraq's oil wealth will be squandered.Copyright 2008 by UPI
Arroyo: Philippine Economy has turned corner
This is from the AFP. With the slowdown in the U.S. and the higher peso value, exports will probably decline. Also, the value of overseas remittances will shrink in value at least those in U.S. dollars. The corner turned will probably be in terms of lower growth and inflationary problems caused by the increased price of oil.
Philippines economy has turned corner: Arroyo
MANILA (AFP) — Philippine President Gloria Arroyo told business leaders Monday that the country had made a permanent economic turnaround but conceded the ailing US economy was a concern.
"We are confident the turnaround is permanent," she told an international conference, citing economic growth of 7.3 percent in 2007, which was the highest rate in more than three decades.
She also cited growth over the past seven years, local currency strength, stock market resilience and the lower budget deficit, saying "the Philippines is on a path of permanent economic growth and stability."
But Arroyo conceded that the risk of a recession in the United States, the country's main trading partner, was a concern.
"The more connected we become ... the more we need to minimise the ups and downs of other nation's economic bubbles," she said.
She made no mention of the current political scandal surrounding her administration.
It has been alleged that her allies, including possibly her husband, tried to get millions of dollars in bribes out of a government broadband deal with a Chinese company.
Her husband Jose Miguel Arroyo has denied the claims.
Philippines economy has turned corner: Arroyo
MANILA (AFP) — Philippine President Gloria Arroyo told business leaders Monday that the country had made a permanent economic turnaround but conceded the ailing US economy was a concern.
"We are confident the turnaround is permanent," she told an international conference, citing economic growth of 7.3 percent in 2007, which was the highest rate in more than three decades.
She also cited growth over the past seven years, local currency strength, stock market resilience and the lower budget deficit, saying "the Philippines is on a path of permanent economic growth and stability."
But Arroyo conceded that the risk of a recession in the United States, the country's main trading partner, was a concern.
"The more connected we become ... the more we need to minimise the ups and downs of other nation's economic bubbles," she said.
She made no mention of the current political scandal surrounding her administration.
It has been alleged that her allies, including possibly her husband, tried to get millions of dollars in bribes out of a government broadband deal with a Chinese company.
Her husband Jose Miguel Arroyo has denied the claims.
U.S. sees Russia, China and OPEC financial threats
This is from Reuters. The U.S. considers itself an exception. It is perfectly OK for the U.S. to use its financial clout for political purposes. Of course any powerful country would do so. What is so risible is that the U.S. complains of other countries doing so and that many people will read such complaints as somehow morally justified.
As its influence grows the article notes that China will demand more respect for its interests. This is obviously a problem for the US because the U.S. often does not respect other countries' interests but depends upon its own power to demand that U.S. interests be recognised.
U.S. sees Russia, China and OPEC financial threat
Tue Feb 5, 2008 4:11pm EST
By Randall Mikkelsen
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States is worried that Russia, China and OPEC oil-producing countries could use their growing financial clout to advance political goals, the top U.S. spy chief told Congress on Tuesday.
Such economic matters joined terrorism, nuclear proliferation and computer-network vulnerabilities as top U.S. security threats described by National Director of Intelligence Michael McConnell in an annual assessment.
McConnell said U.S. intelligence agencies had "concerns about the financial capabilities of Russia, China and OPEC countries and the potential use of their market access to exert financial leverage to political ends."
Russia, bolstered in part by oil revenues, was positioning itself to control an energy supply and transportation network from Europe to East Asia, and the Russian military had begun to reverse a long decline, he told the Senate Intelligence Committee.
China has pursued a policy of global engagement out of a desire to expand its growing economy and obtain access markets, resources, technology and expertise, McConnell said.
It seeks a constructive relationship with the United States and other countries, but as its influence grows "Beijing probably will increasingly expect its interests to be respected by other countries," he said.
Russia and China have long been able to target U.S. computer systems to collect intelligence, he said. "The worrisome part is, today, they also could target information infrastructure systems for degradation or destruction."
In the energy sector, a weak U.S. dollar had prompted some oil suppliers, including Iran, Syria and Libya, to ask for payment in other currencies, or to delink their currencies from the dollar, McConnell said. "Continued concerns about dollar depreciation could tempt other producers to follow suit."
(Editing by Doina Chiacu)
© Reuters 2007. All rights reserved.
As its influence grows the article notes that China will demand more respect for its interests. This is obviously a problem for the US because the U.S. often does not respect other countries' interests but depends upon its own power to demand that U.S. interests be recognised.
U.S. sees Russia, China and OPEC financial threat
Tue Feb 5, 2008 4:11pm EST
By Randall Mikkelsen
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States is worried that Russia, China and OPEC oil-producing countries could use their growing financial clout to advance political goals, the top U.S. spy chief told Congress on Tuesday.
Such economic matters joined terrorism, nuclear proliferation and computer-network vulnerabilities as top U.S. security threats described by National Director of Intelligence Michael McConnell in an annual assessment.
McConnell said U.S. intelligence agencies had "concerns about the financial capabilities of Russia, China and OPEC countries and the potential use of their market access to exert financial leverage to political ends."
Russia, bolstered in part by oil revenues, was positioning itself to control an energy supply and transportation network from Europe to East Asia, and the Russian military had begun to reverse a long decline, he told the Senate Intelligence Committee.
China has pursued a policy of global engagement out of a desire to expand its growing economy and obtain access markets, resources, technology and expertise, McConnell said.
It seeks a constructive relationship with the United States and other countries, but as its influence grows "Beijing probably will increasingly expect its interests to be respected by other countries," he said.
Russia and China have long been able to target U.S. computer systems to collect intelligence, he said. "The worrisome part is, today, they also could target information infrastructure systems for degradation or destruction."
In the energy sector, a weak U.S. dollar had prompted some oil suppliers, including Iran, Syria and Libya, to ask for payment in other currencies, or to delink their currencies from the dollar, McConnell said. "Continued concerns about dollar depreciation could tempt other producers to follow suit."
(Editing by Doina Chiacu)
© Reuters 2007. All rights reserved.
Monday, February 11, 2008
U.S. warns of 'implosion' of NATO alliance in Afghanistan
If European countries devote much more to the Afghan mission the governments who do so face an implosion of support in the next elections. There is precious little support for the missions among citizens of the countries involved. The U.S. managed to drag NATO into the swamp through the UN and ISAF.
The whole original U.S. led Afghan mission with its ludicrously named Operation Enduring Freedom has managed to restore Afghanistan to the biggest opium producer in the world not too long after Powell had given the Taliban a multi-million dollar check for drastically curtailing poppy production. With the overthrow of the Taliban all this changed. Now the Taliban, plus drug lords, plus Karzai officials are again earning millions from the trade.
The Afghans are free to fly kites but not to convert to Christianity or even to publish material about women's rights. They are not free even to criticise each other in parliament!
The U.S. rescued NATO from oblivion by making it an instrument of its foreign policy aims when the UN will not or cannot meet them. The sooner it implodes the better. NATO is a relic of the Cold War and the sooner its re-incarnation as an instrument to help out the U.S. in its foolhardy and dangerous mission to spread democracy, freedom, etc. meaning U.S. power and securing of resources and markets the better.
Independent.co.uk
US warns of 'implosion' of Nato alliance in Afghanistan
By Mary Dejevsky in MunichMonday, 11 February 2008
Mr Gates said that the transatlantic alliance was under such stress over operations in Afghanistan that it risked imploding. Speaking in Munich to an audience that included presidents, foreign and defence ministers of many EU countries, Mr Gates acknowledged serious shortcomings in Nato operations in Afghanistan.
This was because the alliance was not working properly together to share the burden, he said.
"I am concerned that many people on this continent may not comprehend the magnitude of the direct threat to European security," he said. "We must not – we cannot – become a two-tiered alliance of those who are willing to fight and those who are not. Such a development, with all its implications for collective security, would in effect destroy the alliance."
Mr Gates's words took to a new, and far more acute, level arguments that have become ever sharper in recent months and culminated at an ill-tempered Nato summit in Lithuania last week. While the disputes at the Vilnius summit remained mostly behind closed doors, however, Mr Gates brought them loudly into the open at Munich.
Mr Gates was careful to name no names, but suggestions that some allies were less willing than others to sustain casualties have become a sensitive matter in Germany, where politicians are fending off calls from the Nato command either to contribute more troops to the international force as a whole, or to divert some of the troops serving under German command in northern Afghanistan to the more hostile terrain in the south.
Both the German Foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, and the Defence minister, Franz Josef Jung, who had already addressed the Munich conference, had been at pains to set the record straight from their perspective. They insisted that the total number of German troops had been limited by the Bundestag, and there was little chance of an increase. They insisted, too, that northern Afghanistan was a dangerous place and Germany has taken casualties. They also argued that if, as Nato has proposed, some German troops were redeployed in the south, this would put at risk the continued success of the operation in the north.
German ministers recognise that their unwillingness to redeploy troops or increase the number is seen in some quarters as evidence of something akin to national cowardice.
While it is possible that France will send an additional 1,000 troops to help out in the south, this will not end the argument, which is partly about the whole performance of the alliance in Afghanistan, and partly about broader issues, such as the Nato command structure and commitment of individual members. As other speakers also noted, there was a deep gulf in public support for the operation between the US and many European countries, where it was doubted that success was even possible.
Mr Gates went out of his way to defend the Afghanistan operation as all of a piece with Nato's "core" purpose: "To defend the security interests and values of the transatlantic community". He presented Afghanistan as the epitome, in practice, of the threats that had been discussed by the alliance in theory during the 1990s – with the combination of an unstable state, terrorists linked by new technology; the nexus between drugs, terrorism and organised crime, as well as a "safe haven" that would allow "Islamic extremists to turn a poisonous ideology into a global movement".
The whole original U.S. led Afghan mission with its ludicrously named Operation Enduring Freedom has managed to restore Afghanistan to the biggest opium producer in the world not too long after Powell had given the Taliban a multi-million dollar check for drastically curtailing poppy production. With the overthrow of the Taliban all this changed. Now the Taliban, plus drug lords, plus Karzai officials are again earning millions from the trade.
The Afghans are free to fly kites but not to convert to Christianity or even to publish material about women's rights. They are not free even to criticise each other in parliament!
The U.S. rescued NATO from oblivion by making it an instrument of its foreign policy aims when the UN will not or cannot meet them. The sooner it implodes the better. NATO is a relic of the Cold War and the sooner its re-incarnation as an instrument to help out the U.S. in its foolhardy and dangerous mission to spread democracy, freedom, etc. meaning U.S. power and securing of resources and markets the better.
Independent.co.uk
US warns of 'implosion' of Nato alliance in Afghanistan
By Mary Dejevsky in MunichMonday, 11 February 2008
Mr Gates said that the transatlantic alliance was under such stress over operations in Afghanistan that it risked imploding. Speaking in Munich to an audience that included presidents, foreign and defence ministers of many EU countries, Mr Gates acknowledged serious shortcomings in Nato operations in Afghanistan.
This was because the alliance was not working properly together to share the burden, he said.
"I am concerned that many people on this continent may not comprehend the magnitude of the direct threat to European security," he said. "We must not – we cannot – become a two-tiered alliance of those who are willing to fight and those who are not. Such a development, with all its implications for collective security, would in effect destroy the alliance."
Mr Gates's words took to a new, and far more acute, level arguments that have become ever sharper in recent months and culminated at an ill-tempered Nato summit in Lithuania last week. While the disputes at the Vilnius summit remained mostly behind closed doors, however, Mr Gates brought them loudly into the open at Munich.
Mr Gates was careful to name no names, but suggestions that some allies were less willing than others to sustain casualties have become a sensitive matter in Germany, where politicians are fending off calls from the Nato command either to contribute more troops to the international force as a whole, or to divert some of the troops serving under German command in northern Afghanistan to the more hostile terrain in the south.
Both the German Foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, and the Defence minister, Franz Josef Jung, who had already addressed the Munich conference, had been at pains to set the record straight from their perspective. They insisted that the total number of German troops had been limited by the Bundestag, and there was little chance of an increase. They insisted, too, that northern Afghanistan was a dangerous place and Germany has taken casualties. They also argued that if, as Nato has proposed, some German troops were redeployed in the south, this would put at risk the continued success of the operation in the north.
German ministers recognise that their unwillingness to redeploy troops or increase the number is seen in some quarters as evidence of something akin to national cowardice.
While it is possible that France will send an additional 1,000 troops to help out in the south, this will not end the argument, which is partly about the whole performance of the alliance in Afghanistan, and partly about broader issues, such as the Nato command structure and commitment of individual members. As other speakers also noted, there was a deep gulf in public support for the operation between the US and many European countries, where it was doubted that success was even possible.
Mr Gates went out of his way to defend the Afghanistan operation as all of a piece with Nato's "core" purpose: "To defend the security interests and values of the transatlantic community". He presented Afghanistan as the epitome, in practice, of the threats that had been discussed by the alliance in theory during the 1990s – with the combination of an unstable state, terrorists linked by new technology; the nexus between drugs, terrorism and organised crime, as well as a "safe haven" that would allow "Islamic extremists to turn a poisonous ideology into a global movement".
Philippines: Catholic bishops back officials who exposed alleged corruption
Catholic bishops back two officials who exposed alleged Philippine corruption. This is from IHT.
The Catholic bishops regularly issue pronouncements on moral and political issues even though the Vatican has frowned on political involvement of late. There is a long tradition of political activism within the Catholic Church in the Philippines. The Daily Tribune had been egging the bishops on to stand up and say something. The Church was active in the earlier people movements and also clergy often participate in demonstrations. However, it seems as if most corruption charges against Arroyo seem to fizzle out eventually. Hopefully, this doesn't mean that God is on Arroyo's side!
The Associated Press
Published: February 10, 2008
MANILA, Philippines: Influential Roman Catholic bishops voiced support Sunday for two officials who exposed allegations of large-scale corruption in the Philippine government, urging Filipinos to back efforts to uncover the truth.
The Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines praised former House Speaker Jose de Venecia and a government consultant, Rodolfo Lozada Jr., for bringing to public attention a bribery scandal that implicated President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo's husband and a resigned election official.
The Philippines is predominantly Roman Catholic, and the church played key roles in the nonviolent revolts that ousted dictator Ferdinand Marcos in 1986 and President Joseph Estrada in 2001 over allegations of massive corruption and misrule.
In the latest instance the bishops, led by Archbishop Angel Lagdameo, called de Venecia and Lozada "courageous" for exposing "the high level of graft and corruption."
"Their public confession may be considered a providential event that may yet save our country from being hostage to scandalous and shady government deals," Lagdameo said in a statement posted on the Web site of the bishops' group.
"Our country has too long been captive to the corruption of people in governance," he said. "We have to confess that corruption is, in truth, our greatest shame as a people."
Lagdameo urged the Philippines to back religious groups' efforts to uncover the truth behind the alleged corruption and to join protest prayers.
"This truth challenges us now to communal action," he said.
De Venecia, 71, was the longest-serving speaker of the powerful House of Representatives. Arroyo's dominant allies removed him from the post in a Feb. 5 vote.
Arroyo's alliance with de Venecia frayed last year when his son, Jose "Joey" de Venecia III — a losing bidder in a government broadband contract — told a Senate inquiry that Arroyo's husband had been promised a US$70 million kickback from the deal. Her husband, Jose "Mike" Miguel Arroyo, denied the allegation.
De Venecia stood by his son's allegations, and claims he has knowledge of cheating in the 2004 presidential elections that Arroyo won.
Lozada, a government consultant for the US$330 million broadband contract, told a Senate inquiry last week that Benjamin Abalos, a former elections chief, allegedly acted as a broker for the deal and threatened to kill him if he did not obtain a kickback of about US$130 million for him from the deal. Abalos denied the charge and threatened to sue Lozada for libel.
Lozada and his family alleged he was forcibly taken by authorities as he arrived from a foreign trip last week, to prevent him from testifying about the scandal. Police denied his claim.
Lozada has been under the protection of the Senate, an opposition bastion that plans to resume an investigation of the alleged abduction and bribery scandal on Monday.
___
The Catholic bishops regularly issue pronouncements on moral and political issues even though the Vatican has frowned on political involvement of late. There is a long tradition of political activism within the Catholic Church in the Philippines. The Daily Tribune had been egging the bishops on to stand up and say something. The Church was active in the earlier people movements and also clergy often participate in demonstrations. However, it seems as if most corruption charges against Arroyo seem to fizzle out eventually. Hopefully, this doesn't mean that God is on Arroyo's side!
The Associated Press
Published: February 10, 2008
MANILA, Philippines: Influential Roman Catholic bishops voiced support Sunday for two officials who exposed allegations of large-scale corruption in the Philippine government, urging Filipinos to back efforts to uncover the truth.
The Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines praised former House Speaker Jose de Venecia and a government consultant, Rodolfo Lozada Jr., for bringing to public attention a bribery scandal that implicated President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo's husband and a resigned election official.
The Philippines is predominantly Roman Catholic, and the church played key roles in the nonviolent revolts that ousted dictator Ferdinand Marcos in 1986 and President Joseph Estrada in 2001 over allegations of massive corruption and misrule.
In the latest instance the bishops, led by Archbishop Angel Lagdameo, called de Venecia and Lozada "courageous" for exposing "the high level of graft and corruption."
"Their public confession may be considered a providential event that may yet save our country from being hostage to scandalous and shady government deals," Lagdameo said in a statement posted on the Web site of the bishops' group.
"Our country has too long been captive to the corruption of people in governance," he said. "We have to confess that corruption is, in truth, our greatest shame as a people."
Lagdameo urged the Philippines to back religious groups' efforts to uncover the truth behind the alleged corruption and to join protest prayers.
"This truth challenges us now to communal action," he said.
De Venecia, 71, was the longest-serving speaker of the powerful House of Representatives. Arroyo's dominant allies removed him from the post in a Feb. 5 vote.
Arroyo's alliance with de Venecia frayed last year when his son, Jose "Joey" de Venecia III — a losing bidder in a government broadband contract — told a Senate inquiry that Arroyo's husband had been promised a US$70 million kickback from the deal. Her husband, Jose "Mike" Miguel Arroyo, denied the allegation.
De Venecia stood by his son's allegations, and claims he has knowledge of cheating in the 2004 presidential elections that Arroyo won.
Lozada, a government consultant for the US$330 million broadband contract, told a Senate inquiry last week that Benjamin Abalos, a former elections chief, allegedly acted as a broker for the deal and threatened to kill him if he did not obtain a kickback of about US$130 million for him from the deal. Abalos denied the charge and threatened to sue Lozada for libel.
Lozada and his family alleged he was forcibly taken by authorities as he arrived from a foreign trip last week, to prevent him from testifying about the scandal. Police denied his claim.
Lozada has been under the protection of the Senate, an opposition bastion that plans to resume an investigation of the alleged abduction and bribery scandal on Monday.
___
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Arroyo orders investigation into killings of civilians by soldiers
This is from the International Herald Tribune. There is another article on the situation in Reuters but not as informative. Many people distrust the AFP and this would be especially true in Muslim areas. The early reports certainly do not look that good. This is an area where US troops are active supposedly limited to humanitarian and training activities. The US presence is also very much resented not just in the Muslim area but by many throughout the Philippines who see the country as too much under the influence of the U.S. However, the U.S. has close links to the AFP in the war on terror.
Philippine president orders investigation into killings of civilians by soldiers
By Carlos H. Conde
Sunday, February 10, 2008
MANILA: President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo of the Philippines has ordered an investigation into the killings last week of seven civilians and an off-duty soldier by Philippine military personnel in the southern province of Sulu.
"The instruction of the president is to have a credible investigation," Gilberto Teodoro, the defense secretary, told reporters Saturday. He also disclosed that at least 50 of the soldiers had been restricted to barracks pending the completion of the investigation.
The Philippine military said last week that its soldiers had encountered a group of militants from the Islamist group Abu Sayyaf in the village of Ipil, in Sulu, early Feb. 4. In the ensuing firefight, it said, three terrorists, two soldiers, seven civilians and one off-duty soldier were killed. Four of those killed were children and other minors, Sulu officials said.
Survivors and relatives of the dead, however, said the victims had been deliberately killed. One survivor, Rawina Wahid, widow of the off-duty soldier, told Teodoro in a meeting last week that soldiers had tied her husband's hands behind his back and shot him while he was facedown on the ground.
She said the soldiers had allowed her to accompany the body of her husband, and those of the other people killed, on a boat to Jolo town, and claimed to have seen American as well as Philippine soldiers on the boat just before she was blindfolded. That allegation has led to outraged condemnations from Muslim and leftist groups that oppose the U.S. military presence in the southern Philippines.
Rebecca Thompson, spokeswoman for the U.S. Embassy here, said American soldiers do not take part in combat operations in the Philippines. "They are here at the invitation of the Philippine government to share information and work with the Armed Forces of the Philippines on humanitarian and civic projects that benefit the people and benefit the local community," The Associated Press quoted her as saying.
Two units took part in the Ipil raid: the army's Light Reaction Company and the navy's Special Warfare Group. Both units have received training and logistical and intelligence assistance from the U.S. military.
U.S. military personnel have been stationed in the southern Philippines, where Islamist extremist groups such as Abu Sayyaf and Jemaah Islamiyah operate, since 2002.
Abdusakur Tan, the governor of Sulu, said last week that his office was preparing to file charges against the Philippine military.
The Commission on Human Rights, which sent a team to the island last week, said its initial investigation had found that most of the civilian victims had been killed while sleeping and that there were no signs of an exchange of gunfire.
Philippine president orders investigation into killings of civilians by soldiers
By Carlos H. Conde
Sunday, February 10, 2008
MANILA: President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo of the Philippines has ordered an investigation into the killings last week of seven civilians and an off-duty soldier by Philippine military personnel in the southern province of Sulu.
"The instruction of the president is to have a credible investigation," Gilberto Teodoro, the defense secretary, told reporters Saturday. He also disclosed that at least 50 of the soldiers had been restricted to barracks pending the completion of the investigation.
The Philippine military said last week that its soldiers had encountered a group of militants from the Islamist group Abu Sayyaf in the village of Ipil, in Sulu, early Feb. 4. In the ensuing firefight, it said, three terrorists, two soldiers, seven civilians and one off-duty soldier were killed. Four of those killed were children and other minors, Sulu officials said.
Survivors and relatives of the dead, however, said the victims had been deliberately killed. One survivor, Rawina Wahid, widow of the off-duty soldier, told Teodoro in a meeting last week that soldiers had tied her husband's hands behind his back and shot him while he was facedown on the ground.
She said the soldiers had allowed her to accompany the body of her husband, and those of the other people killed, on a boat to Jolo town, and claimed to have seen American as well as Philippine soldiers on the boat just before she was blindfolded. That allegation has led to outraged condemnations from Muslim and leftist groups that oppose the U.S. military presence in the southern Philippines.
Rebecca Thompson, spokeswoman for the U.S. Embassy here, said American soldiers do not take part in combat operations in the Philippines. "They are here at the invitation of the Philippine government to share information and work with the Armed Forces of the Philippines on humanitarian and civic projects that benefit the people and benefit the local community," The Associated Press quoted her as saying.
Two units took part in the Ipil raid: the army's Light Reaction Company and the navy's Special Warfare Group. Both units have received training and logistical and intelligence assistance from the U.S. military.
U.S. military personnel have been stationed in the southern Philippines, where Islamist extremist groups such as Abu Sayyaf and Jemaah Islamiyah operate, since 2002.
Abdusakur Tan, the governor of Sulu, said last week that his office was preparing to file charges against the Philippine military.
The Commission on Human Rights, which sent a team to the island last week, said its initial investigation had found that most of the civilian victims had been killed while sleeping and that there were no signs of an exchange of gunfire.
Conflicts between Iraqi government and US backed Sunni groups
This is from the NY Times. This type of reaction was predicted at the time the policy was first begun. The Shia government has always had doubts about the ultimate results of the policy. As evidence begins to emerge that the groups funded by the US may be used to purge Shia from Sunni areas this will just exacerbate the tension between Shia and Sunni.
February 10, 2008
Conflicts Deepen Between Local Iraqi Governments and U.S.-Backed Sunni Groups
By ALISSA J. RUBIN
BAGHDAD — Conflicts between provincial governments and local Sunni Arab forces allied with the United States intensified this weekend in two provinces. The conflicts raise the prospect that the creation of the forces, known as Awakening Councils or Concerned Local Citizens, formed to fight extremists and bring calm to the country, might instead add to the unrest in Diyala and Anbar provinces.
In Diyala, northeast of Baghdad, 300 members of the local concerned citizens groups, many of whom are former insurgents, left the outposts, from which they start patrols and guard the surrounding areas.
The citizens groups said the walkout was a protest against the Shiite police commander for the province, whom they accuse of being sectarian and a member of the Mahdi Army, a militia affiliated with the Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr, according to an official in the governor’s office who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
The police commander, Staff. Gen. Ghanim al-Quraishi, has accused many in those citizens groups of continuing their past activities of killing and displacing Shiite families, and he has removed some of them from their posts and detained others.
The American military recruits and pays the groups to fight Islamic extremists. Although the groups have mostly seemed to be cooperating, more recently their behavior has been problematic.
In Anbar Province, tensions escalated between leaders of the local Awakening movement and the Iraqi Islamic Party, which as the sole major Sunni party to contest the most recent local elections won control of the provincial council. Party members said Saturday that they might bring a lawsuit against the Awakening leaders for saying they would oust the party from control; the leaders had previously called for a new election in the next few months in order to try to win seats on the council.
February 10, 2008
Conflicts Deepen Between Local Iraqi Governments and U.S.-Backed Sunni Groups
By ALISSA J. RUBIN
BAGHDAD — Conflicts between provincial governments and local Sunni Arab forces allied with the United States intensified this weekend in two provinces. The conflicts raise the prospect that the creation of the forces, known as Awakening Councils or Concerned Local Citizens, formed to fight extremists and bring calm to the country, might instead add to the unrest in Diyala and Anbar provinces.
In Diyala, northeast of Baghdad, 300 members of the local concerned citizens groups, many of whom are former insurgents, left the outposts, from which they start patrols and guard the surrounding areas.
The citizens groups said the walkout was a protest against the Shiite police commander for the province, whom they accuse of being sectarian and a member of the Mahdi Army, a militia affiliated with the Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr, according to an official in the governor’s office who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
The police commander, Staff. Gen. Ghanim al-Quraishi, has accused many in those citizens groups of continuing their past activities of killing and displacing Shiite families, and he has removed some of them from their posts and detained others.
The American military recruits and pays the groups to fight Islamic extremists. Although the groups have mostly seemed to be cooperating, more recently their behavior has been problematic.
In Anbar Province, tensions escalated between leaders of the local Awakening movement and the Iraqi Islamic Party, which as the sole major Sunni party to contest the most recent local elections won control of the provincial council. Party members said Saturday that they might bring a lawsuit against the Awakening leaders for saying they would oust the party from control; the leaders had previously called for a new election in the next few months in order to try to win seats on the council.
This is from Wiredispatch. The expansion of NATO to Russia's borders and the placing of a missile defence system in Europe is naturally viewed as a threat against Russia. The U.S. excuses are widely seen as making little sense no matter the excuses are delivered in serious tones!
Russia is not about to simply accept with grace the new situation. Putin's angry responses are bound to make him even more popular in Russia. While Western criticism of democratic rights in Russia are true enough as far as they go it is also true that Putin really has the support of a large majority of Russians.
I notice that a new NATO report on Afghanistan talks of the West capitalised in just that way. Russia is not included. Not only Russia will be involved in a new arms race but China as well.
Putin lashes out at West's "new arms race"
Michael StottReuters North American News Service
Feb 08, 2008 09:00 EST
MOSCOW, Feb 8 (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin said on Friday a new global arms race was starting and Russia was "forced to retaliate" with new, high-tech weapons.
In a tough speech outlining his vision for Russia to 2020, Putin accused the West of ignoring Moscow's concerns on security by expanding the NATO military alliance to its borders and deploying a missile defence system in Central Europe.
"It is already clear that a new arms race is unfolding in the world. It's not our fault, we didn't start it," Putin told government, business and military leaders at the Kremlin, three months before his presidency is due to end.
"In effect, we are forced to retaliate...Russia has and always will have a response to these new challenges," he added.
Apparently referring to plans for new nuclear-capable missiles, Putin said "over the next few years Russia will start production of new types of weapons which...are in no way inferior to what other states have and in some cases are superior".
Putin also said there was a "fierce fight" for natural resources around the globe and many conflicts and foreign policy actions "smell of oil and gas". Moscow needed to be on its guard against attempts to get access to its resources, he added.
"Under the disguise of turgid declarations about freedom and open society, sometimes the sovereignty of certain states and whole regions is being destroyed," Putin said, in an apparent reference to U.S. policy in the Middle East and in particular the war in Iraq.
Speaking ahead of presidential elections next month which are widely expected to be won by his chosen successor Dmitry Medvedev, Putin attacked foreign countries for "immoral and illegal" attempts to interfere in Russia's domestic affairs.
The West's main election watchdog, the ODIHR, said on Thursday it was scrapping plans to monitor Russia's presidential election because of restrictions by Moscow on the number of observers and the amount of time they could work.
Western countries have criticised democracy in Russia, saying the Kremlin's dominance over the airwaves and its liberal use of government resources to help official candidates make it impossible for the opposition to compete fairly. Putin said democracy was a "cornerstone" of Russian society.
Although Putin's speech was billed in Russian media as a blueprint for Medvedev to follow, the president did not mention his successor by name in his 50 minutes of remarks or refer to the next government. There were few specific policy details.
Putin has said he intends to stay active in politics and will become prime minister under Medvedev.
But many analysts find improbable the scenario of an all-powerful, popular leader such as Putin voluntarily handing over the reins to a loyal subordinate and taking a lesser position himself.
Medvedev, sitting among cabinet members in the front row of seats in the Kremlin's St. George Hall, listened attentively as Putin hailed Russia's economic growth and stability during his eight years in power and called for fresh efforts to wean the economy off its dependence on exports of raw materials.
He hailed the new-found strength of the Russian economy, pointing to a boom in investment, state coffers which are now full and gross domestic product growth of over 8 percent a year.
But Putin also conceded that the economy was "still very ineffective" and criticised the lack of progress in turning Moscow's large scientific research programme into concrete technological advances.
Around 80 percent of Russia's exports are raw materials and imports are rising rapidly, threatening to tip the country's trade balance into the red within three years.
"Russia should become a world leader in technology," Putin said. "...the pace of development in innovation must be dramatically higher than it is today".
He proposed tax breaks for companies investing in employees' training and healthcare and said the government should help promote scientific research and innovation.
Russia faces a major demographic crisis, with its population falling because of low birthrates and limited life expectancy. Putin said this had to change.
"Today, every other man in Russia does not have the chance to live to be 60 years old. That is shameful...we must do everything to cut the mortality level in Russia", he said. (Writing by Michael Stott; editing by Philippa Fletcher)
Source: Reuters North American News Service
Russia is not about to simply accept with grace the new situation. Putin's angry responses are bound to make him even more popular in Russia. While Western criticism of democratic rights in Russia are true enough as far as they go it is also true that Putin really has the support of a large majority of Russians.
I notice that a new NATO report on Afghanistan talks of the West capitalised in just that way. Russia is not included. Not only Russia will be involved in a new arms race but China as well.
Putin lashes out at West's "new arms race"
Michael StottReuters North American News Service
Feb 08, 2008 09:00 EST
MOSCOW, Feb 8 (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin said on Friday a new global arms race was starting and Russia was "forced to retaliate" with new, high-tech weapons.
In a tough speech outlining his vision for Russia to 2020, Putin accused the West of ignoring Moscow's concerns on security by expanding the NATO military alliance to its borders and deploying a missile defence system in Central Europe.
"It is already clear that a new arms race is unfolding in the world. It's not our fault, we didn't start it," Putin told government, business and military leaders at the Kremlin, three months before his presidency is due to end.
"In effect, we are forced to retaliate...Russia has and always will have a response to these new challenges," he added.
Apparently referring to plans for new nuclear-capable missiles, Putin said "over the next few years Russia will start production of new types of weapons which...are in no way inferior to what other states have and in some cases are superior".
Putin also said there was a "fierce fight" for natural resources around the globe and many conflicts and foreign policy actions "smell of oil and gas". Moscow needed to be on its guard against attempts to get access to its resources, he added.
"Under the disguise of turgid declarations about freedom and open society, sometimes the sovereignty of certain states and whole regions is being destroyed," Putin said, in an apparent reference to U.S. policy in the Middle East and in particular the war in Iraq.
Speaking ahead of presidential elections next month which are widely expected to be won by his chosen successor Dmitry Medvedev, Putin attacked foreign countries for "immoral and illegal" attempts to interfere in Russia's domestic affairs.
The West's main election watchdog, the ODIHR, said on Thursday it was scrapping plans to monitor Russia's presidential election because of restrictions by Moscow on the number of observers and the amount of time they could work.
Western countries have criticised democracy in Russia, saying the Kremlin's dominance over the airwaves and its liberal use of government resources to help official candidates make it impossible for the opposition to compete fairly. Putin said democracy was a "cornerstone" of Russian society.
Although Putin's speech was billed in Russian media as a blueprint for Medvedev to follow, the president did not mention his successor by name in his 50 minutes of remarks or refer to the next government. There were few specific policy details.
Putin has said he intends to stay active in politics and will become prime minister under Medvedev.
But many analysts find improbable the scenario of an all-powerful, popular leader such as Putin voluntarily handing over the reins to a loyal subordinate and taking a lesser position himself.
Medvedev, sitting among cabinet members in the front row of seats in the Kremlin's St. George Hall, listened attentively as Putin hailed Russia's economic growth and stability during his eight years in power and called for fresh efforts to wean the economy off its dependence on exports of raw materials.
He hailed the new-found strength of the Russian economy, pointing to a boom in investment, state coffers which are now full and gross domestic product growth of over 8 percent a year.
But Putin also conceded that the economy was "still very ineffective" and criticised the lack of progress in turning Moscow's large scientific research programme into concrete technological advances.
Around 80 percent of Russia's exports are raw materials and imports are rising rapidly, threatening to tip the country's trade balance into the red within three years.
"Russia should become a world leader in technology," Putin said. "...the pace of development in innovation must be dramatically higher than it is today".
He proposed tax breaks for companies investing in employees' training and healthcare and said the government should help promote scientific research and innovation.
Russia faces a major demographic crisis, with its population falling because of low birthrates and limited life expectancy. Putin said this had to change.
"Today, every other man in Russia does not have the chance to live to be 60 years old. That is shameful...we must do everything to cut the mortality level in Russia", he said. (Writing by Michael Stott; editing by Philippa Fletcher)
Source: Reuters North American News Service
Saturday, February 9, 2008
Arroyo allows officials to testify in NBN probe.
This is from the Inquirer. Arroyo apparently decided that it would be better to send her officials to testify to counter other evidence. In many cases she has invoked a gag rule. From evidence presented so far there seems to be corruption involved in the National Broadband Network (NBN) award. Usually nothing comes of these investigations ultimately. Someone could probably write a long book by now with a chapter on each case!
By the way when articles mention Malacanang Americans could substitute White House or the government.
Arroyo officials set to testify in Senate’s NBN probe
By Michael Lim UbacPhilippine Daily InquirerFirst Posted 02:09:00 02/10/2008
MANILA, Philippines -- In an unexpected turnaround, Malacañang has decided it will not block the appearance in the Senate of all the top-ranking government officials implicated in the testimony of Rodolfo Lozada, the Senate’s new star witness in its probe into the allegedly irregular National Broadband Network (NBN) project, as well as Lozada’s alleged kidnapping.
“I suppose that’s the only way we can better address the things he [Lozada] said. They have to be refuted,” said Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita.
This means that the officials concerned will not be invoking Executive Order No. 464, which bars senior executive and military officials from appearing before congressional inquiries without the approval of President Macapagal-Arroyo
Invoking national security and the public interest, the President issued EO 464 in September 2005, the same day that then Brig. Gen. Francisco Gudani and Col. Alexander Balutan were scheduled to testify in a Senate inquiry into the alleged election cheating in Mindanao during the 2004 elections. Other executive branch officials have since routinely invoked EO 464 to avoid a Senate appearance.
In a phone interview, Ermita said allowing the members of the Senate and the general public to listen to the side of Environment Secretary Lito Atienza, Philippine National Police chief Avelino Razon Jr. and Commission on Higher Education Chair Romulo Neri, among others, would “provide a clearer picture” of the latest development in the NBN-ZTE controversy.
“By listening to them, we will also see the underlying reasons, the motives for all these statements and behind this drama that unfolded before us,” said Ermita.
“Let the truth come out. I’m very sure the truth will come out,” he said.
Ermita himself figured in Lozada’s testimony albeit indirectly. While being held by unidentified men, Lozada said Atienza called him at one point saying, “Mag-uusap kami ni ES and si ma’am (I’ll be talking with ES and ma’am). Lozada presumed “ES” referred to Executive Secretary Ermita and ma’am as President Arroyo.
Lozada, the former president of the state-owned Philippine Forest Corp., testified in a Senate hearing last Thursday about the alleged irregularities in the NBN deal with China’s ZTE Corp. and the alleged involvement in it of the President’s husband, Jose Miguel Arroyo, and former Commission on Elections Chair Benjamin Abalos Sr.
Lozada, who was earlier ordered arrested by the Senate for failing to appear before it, also told of how various administration officials tried to stop him from appearing before the chamber by sending him to Hong Kong and then having him “kidnapped” on his return last Tuesday.
He named Atienza, his immediate superior, and Neri as the officials he dealt with during this ordeal, as well as the escorts with military haircuts who collected him at the airport on his arrival and took him on a scary five-hour ride where he didn’t know what they would do to him and where they were going.
Neri, a friend of Lozada’s who took him in as a consultant to review the NBN project when Neri headed the National Economic and Development Authority, has himself invoked EO 464 to sidestep a Senate appearance.
Ermita said that as a Palace official, he could not comment on Lozada’s credibility.
“It’s very hard for me to pass judgment now. I’m in the administration. Whatever I say can easily be discredited also,” he said.
But “we can’t take hook, line and sinker what he said,” he said.
“I don’t know what his real motive is. I think some people whom he has mentioned should be allowed also to say their piece about this affair,” he said.
Ermita said Atienza and Razon were some of the “important people” that may be called by the Senate “to shed light” on the Lozada affair.
By the way when articles mention Malacanang Americans could substitute White House or the government.
Arroyo officials set to testify in Senate’s NBN probe
By Michael Lim UbacPhilippine Daily InquirerFirst Posted 02:09:00 02/10/2008
MANILA, Philippines -- In an unexpected turnaround, Malacañang has decided it will not block the appearance in the Senate of all the top-ranking government officials implicated in the testimony of Rodolfo Lozada, the Senate’s new star witness in its probe into the allegedly irregular National Broadband Network (NBN) project, as well as Lozada’s alleged kidnapping.
“I suppose that’s the only way we can better address the things he [Lozada] said. They have to be refuted,” said Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita.
This means that the officials concerned will not be invoking Executive Order No. 464, which bars senior executive and military officials from appearing before congressional inquiries without the approval of President Macapagal-Arroyo
Invoking national security and the public interest, the President issued EO 464 in September 2005, the same day that then Brig. Gen. Francisco Gudani and Col. Alexander Balutan were scheduled to testify in a Senate inquiry into the alleged election cheating in Mindanao during the 2004 elections. Other executive branch officials have since routinely invoked EO 464 to avoid a Senate appearance.
In a phone interview, Ermita said allowing the members of the Senate and the general public to listen to the side of Environment Secretary Lito Atienza, Philippine National Police chief Avelino Razon Jr. and Commission on Higher Education Chair Romulo Neri, among others, would “provide a clearer picture” of the latest development in the NBN-ZTE controversy.
“By listening to them, we will also see the underlying reasons, the motives for all these statements and behind this drama that unfolded before us,” said Ermita.
“Let the truth come out. I’m very sure the truth will come out,” he said.
Ermita himself figured in Lozada’s testimony albeit indirectly. While being held by unidentified men, Lozada said Atienza called him at one point saying, “Mag-uusap kami ni ES and si ma’am (I’ll be talking with ES and ma’am). Lozada presumed “ES” referred to Executive Secretary Ermita and ma’am as President Arroyo.
Lozada, the former president of the state-owned Philippine Forest Corp., testified in a Senate hearing last Thursday about the alleged irregularities in the NBN deal with China’s ZTE Corp. and the alleged involvement in it of the President’s husband, Jose Miguel Arroyo, and former Commission on Elections Chair Benjamin Abalos Sr.
Lozada, who was earlier ordered arrested by the Senate for failing to appear before it, also told of how various administration officials tried to stop him from appearing before the chamber by sending him to Hong Kong and then having him “kidnapped” on his return last Tuesday.
He named Atienza, his immediate superior, and Neri as the officials he dealt with during this ordeal, as well as the escorts with military haircuts who collected him at the airport on his arrival and took him on a scary five-hour ride where he didn’t know what they would do to him and where they were going.
Neri, a friend of Lozada’s who took him in as a consultant to review the NBN project when Neri headed the National Economic and Development Authority, has himself invoked EO 464 to sidestep a Senate appearance.
Ermita said that as a Palace official, he could not comment on Lozada’s credibility.
“It’s very hard for me to pass judgment now. I’m in the administration. Whatever I say can easily be discredited also,” he said.
But “we can’t take hook, line and sinker what he said,” he said.
“I don’t know what his real motive is. I think some people whom he has mentioned should be allowed also to say their piece about this affair,” he said.
Ermita said Atienza and Razon were some of the “important people” that may be called by the Senate “to shed light” on the Lozada affair.
AP Poll: Leaving Iraq will help economy..
This is from wiredispatch.
Actually the Iraq war is itself a stimulus a type of what is called Military Keynesianism. I suppose what people are thinking is that the money used in Iraq could be better used as a stimulus back at home in other areas than military spending. Or it may be that people are worried about the debt caused by the Iraq war spending. Politicians do not seem to raise this issue.
AP Poll: Leaving Iraq will help economy
AP Poll: Stimulus Checks Welcome, but to Really Help the Economy US Should Leave Iraq
JEANNINE AVERSAAP News
Feb 08, 2008 18:00 EST
The heck with Congress' big stimulus bill. The way to get the country out of recession — and most people think we're in one — is to get the country out of Iraq, according to an Associated Press-Ipsos poll.
Pulling out of the war ranked first among proposed remedies in the survey, followed by spending more on domestic programs, cutting taxes and, at the bottom end, giving rebates to poor people in hopes they'll spend the economy into recovery.
The $168 billion economic rescue package Congress rushed to approval this week includes rebates of $600 to $1,200 for most taxpayers, the hope being that they will spend the money and help revive ailing businesses. President Bush is expected to sign the measure next week. Poor wage-earners, as well as seniors and veterans who live almost entirely off Social Security and disability benefits, would get $300 checks.
However, just 19 percent of the people surveyed said they planned to go out and spend the money; 45 percent said they'd use it to pay bills. And nearly half said what the government really should do is get out of Iraq.
Forty-eight percent said a pullout would help fix the country's economic problems "a great deal," and an additional 20 percent said it would help at least somewhat. Some 43 percent said increasing government spending on health care, education and housing programs would help a great deal; 36 percent said cutting taxes.
"Let's stop paying for this war," said Hilda Sanchez, 44, of Waterford, Calif. "There are a lot of people who are struggling. We can use the money to pay for medical care and help people who were put out of their homes."
The subject of leaving Iraq shows a sharp partisan divide — 65 percent of Democrats think it would help the economy a lot, but only 18 percent of Republicans think so.
Just 29 percent of people think putting more money in the hands of the poor would help a great deal in fixing the country's economic problems.
According to many economists, the lower people are on the income ladder, the more probable it is that they will spend a rebate and do it quickly — a shot in the arm for the ailing economy.
In the poll, 61 percent said they think the economy is already in a recession.
"Things are bad, but it will get a lot worse," said Jim Sims, 60, of Greer, S.C.
And Nanette Dahlin, 52, of St. Louis Park, Minn., said the economic stimulus package "would only make a recession less damaging."
The economy nearly stalled in the final three months of last year. Some economists, like the majority of poll respondents, say it may actually be shrinking now, given the strains from a persistent housing slump and a painful credit crunch. The worry is that people and businesses will hunker down further and pull back their spending, sending the economy into a tailspin.
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has gotten more forceful in cutting interest rates to spur people to buy more and to energize businesses. And now Republicans, Democrats and the White House have shown rare cooperation in approving relief.
Rebate checks could start showing up in mailboxes in May. However, Sanchez is typical is saying the money will "go automatically to bills." Thirty-two percent said they would save or invest the rebate. Said Sims: "I'm hoping to hold onto it."
Just 19 percent — like Dahlin — said they would spend it, while 4 percent said they would donate it to charity.
Paying off bills or saving the money won't give the economy a quick boost, though it may well be a wise financial decision for many people who are up to their eyeballs in bills.
"What is good for the economy as a whole — spending a rebate — is not the best idea at an individual household level if you are buried in debt," said Greg McBride, senior financial analyst at Bankrate.com. "Issuing rebate checks to give a boost to consumer spending amounts to a Band-Aid over the much bigger problem of consumer debt burdens," he said.
With Wall Street in turmoil, the top economic worry for poll respondents was seeing their nest eggs shrink. Fifty-nine percent said they were worried "a lot" or "some" about seeing the value of stocks and retirement investments drop. Those approaching retirement fretted the most.
Nearly half — 46 percent — said they were worried about being able to pay their bills. This is especially a concern for people whose household incomes are under $50,000, and for minorities. Twenty-eight percent most feared losing their jobs; minorities and those with a high school education or less were especially concerned.
Also, 48 percent of homeowners polled worried that the value of their homes would drop. The housing bust has led to record-high foreclosures, and weaker home values have made people feel less wealthy.
Who deserves most of the blame for the economy's troubles?
More than half — 56 percent — pointed the finger at mortgage lenders. Forty-four percent said Bush deserves a lot of the blame. After that come Congress, Wall Street, consumers themselves and in last place the Federal Reserve.
The Fed has the public's confidence that it will be able to right the economy.
More than half — 55 percent — said they have a great deal or some confidence in Fed to turn things around. Forty-one percent said that about Congress, only 28 percent about Bush.
In fact, economic problems have contributed to pulling the president's approval ratings to all-time lows. Only 29 percent approve of his handling of the economy, the lowest mark yet in this polling. Bush's overall job-approval rating slid to 30 percent, also a record low.
The AP-Ipsos poll was conducted Monday through Wednesday this week and involved telephone interviews with 1,006 adults. It had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
___
Actually the Iraq war is itself a stimulus a type of what is called Military Keynesianism. I suppose what people are thinking is that the money used in Iraq could be better used as a stimulus back at home in other areas than military spending. Or it may be that people are worried about the debt caused by the Iraq war spending. Politicians do not seem to raise this issue.
AP Poll: Leaving Iraq will help economy
AP Poll: Stimulus Checks Welcome, but to Really Help the Economy US Should Leave Iraq
JEANNINE AVERSAAP News
Feb 08, 2008 18:00 EST
The heck with Congress' big stimulus bill. The way to get the country out of recession — and most people think we're in one — is to get the country out of Iraq, according to an Associated Press-Ipsos poll.
Pulling out of the war ranked first among proposed remedies in the survey, followed by spending more on domestic programs, cutting taxes and, at the bottom end, giving rebates to poor people in hopes they'll spend the economy into recovery.
The $168 billion economic rescue package Congress rushed to approval this week includes rebates of $600 to $1,200 for most taxpayers, the hope being that they will spend the money and help revive ailing businesses. President Bush is expected to sign the measure next week. Poor wage-earners, as well as seniors and veterans who live almost entirely off Social Security and disability benefits, would get $300 checks.
However, just 19 percent of the people surveyed said they planned to go out and spend the money; 45 percent said they'd use it to pay bills. And nearly half said what the government really should do is get out of Iraq.
Forty-eight percent said a pullout would help fix the country's economic problems "a great deal," and an additional 20 percent said it would help at least somewhat. Some 43 percent said increasing government spending on health care, education and housing programs would help a great deal; 36 percent said cutting taxes.
"Let's stop paying for this war," said Hilda Sanchez, 44, of Waterford, Calif. "There are a lot of people who are struggling. We can use the money to pay for medical care and help people who were put out of their homes."
The subject of leaving Iraq shows a sharp partisan divide — 65 percent of Democrats think it would help the economy a lot, but only 18 percent of Republicans think so.
Just 29 percent of people think putting more money in the hands of the poor would help a great deal in fixing the country's economic problems.
According to many economists, the lower people are on the income ladder, the more probable it is that they will spend a rebate and do it quickly — a shot in the arm for the ailing economy.
In the poll, 61 percent said they think the economy is already in a recession.
"Things are bad, but it will get a lot worse," said Jim Sims, 60, of Greer, S.C.
And Nanette Dahlin, 52, of St. Louis Park, Minn., said the economic stimulus package "would only make a recession less damaging."
The economy nearly stalled in the final three months of last year. Some economists, like the majority of poll respondents, say it may actually be shrinking now, given the strains from a persistent housing slump and a painful credit crunch. The worry is that people and businesses will hunker down further and pull back their spending, sending the economy into a tailspin.
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has gotten more forceful in cutting interest rates to spur people to buy more and to energize businesses. And now Republicans, Democrats and the White House have shown rare cooperation in approving relief.
Rebate checks could start showing up in mailboxes in May. However, Sanchez is typical is saying the money will "go automatically to bills." Thirty-two percent said they would save or invest the rebate. Said Sims: "I'm hoping to hold onto it."
Just 19 percent — like Dahlin — said they would spend it, while 4 percent said they would donate it to charity.
Paying off bills or saving the money won't give the economy a quick boost, though it may well be a wise financial decision for many people who are up to their eyeballs in bills.
"What is good for the economy as a whole — spending a rebate — is not the best idea at an individual household level if you are buried in debt," said Greg McBride, senior financial analyst at Bankrate.com. "Issuing rebate checks to give a boost to consumer spending amounts to a Band-Aid over the much bigger problem of consumer debt burdens," he said.
With Wall Street in turmoil, the top economic worry for poll respondents was seeing their nest eggs shrink. Fifty-nine percent said they were worried "a lot" or "some" about seeing the value of stocks and retirement investments drop. Those approaching retirement fretted the most.
Nearly half — 46 percent — said they were worried about being able to pay their bills. This is especially a concern for people whose household incomes are under $50,000, and for minorities. Twenty-eight percent most feared losing their jobs; minorities and those with a high school education or less were especially concerned.
Also, 48 percent of homeowners polled worried that the value of their homes would drop. The housing bust has led to record-high foreclosures, and weaker home values have made people feel less wealthy.
Who deserves most of the blame for the economy's troubles?
More than half — 56 percent — pointed the finger at mortgage lenders. Forty-four percent said Bush deserves a lot of the blame. After that come Congress, Wall Street, consumers themselves and in last place the Federal Reserve.
The Fed has the public's confidence that it will be able to right the economy.
More than half — 55 percent — said they have a great deal or some confidence in Fed to turn things around. Forty-one percent said that about Congress, only 28 percent about Bush.
In fact, economic problems have contributed to pulling the president's approval ratings to all-time lows. Only 29 percent approve of his handling of the economy, the lowest mark yet in this polling. Bush's overall job-approval rating slid to 30 percent, also a record low.
The AP-Ipsos poll was conducted Monday through Wednesday this week and involved telephone interviews with 1,006 adults. It had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
___
Friday, February 8, 2008
Obama as Community Activist..
This is excerpted from the Black Commentator. The article shows how "radicals" are sifted out very carefully to ensure that any except marginal change will occur even under those who stand for change. Of course real change in the intensity of illusions is quite OK and very much a plus. However, the illusions had better be continually renewed or fade away slowly rather than be shattered or there might be some unrest.
<http://www.blackcommentator.com/ 263/263_represent_our_resistance_activist_obama.html>Community Activist, Obama and theFew Bad Apples on the Night ShiftRepresent Our ResistanceBy Dr. Lenore J. Daniels, PhDBC Editorial Board[...]Senator Barack Obama seems to have thrived during the Reagan years. As I read of his “community organizing” and “community activism” in Chicago, I am remembering those Reagan years well. The Black communities in Chicago were undergoing change - not good change. Guns and drugs were pouring into the communities and people were paid to burn as many buildings as possible to make room, first for desolation and the flight of the middle-class Blacks, but ultimately for progress - called gentrification. Whites came back into the city. Middle-classed Blacks purchased buildings and become landlords. Some remained in Southside neighborhoods like Bronzeville or Chatham while others moved to suburbs. If, as a Black American, some of us opted to remain focused on the conditions of Black Americans, the poor, and working class, we were treated with utter distain by whites and Black bourgeois alike. The latter capitulated to the materialism of the Reagan era and submitted to the re- education process. They talked about the price of their clothes and the purchase of rehabbed homes in the Black community. At the time, the façade of “upward mobility” for the Black bourgeois in Chicago was pretty much the "in" thing.I came across a Chicago Reader article entitled, “What Makes Obama Run,” written in 1995, and I am left with many questions. What did Obama do in the Roseland and Altgeld Gardens neighborhoods in Chicago? What kind of rebel was he? Was his perspective an issue with those in authority? Was Obama considered by them to be a troublemaker or confrontational? Was he, as Mumia Abu-Jamal writes of Bill Clinton, someone whose lifetime “coincided with the rise and emergence of the Civil Rights Movement,” but who stood to gain by exploiting Black people?Mike Papantonio, host of Air America’s Ring of Fire, is furious with Obama because the latter does not “get mad.” Papantonio argues that Obama has this “get along” attitude with the “criminals” in political power instead of pursuing accountability! Why won’t Obama SHOUT to the rooftop against these criminals?Well, Mike, they’d have him in prison; Obama is not mad! He knows what happens to Blacks in America - the land of the free and the home of the brave! A Black American rebel, a radical, would hold criminals accountable for the deaths of over one million Iraqis and nearly four thousand (at this writing) U.S. soldiers. A Black American rebel, allowed to be and to speak on behalf of the suffering Black Americans in New Orleans or those losing homes because of sub prime predatory lending, would SHOUT. But that AIN’T Obama, Mike! He can’t be a likable African American man and “get mad” about Black life in America too!Let’s-make-friends-Obama came back to Chicago in 1991 and he didn’t “get mad.” In his memoir, Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance, he presented an image of 1990s Chicago that offered little hope for Black Americans because everywhere he looked, it was desolate. But he didn’t “get mad.” Did he roll up his shelves and get to work in some grassroots organization, advocating for better education and educating to transgress? No, Obama purchased a lakefront condo in Hyde Park, I said, in Hyde Park! Then he worked his way through foundations - (the Woods Fund and the Joyce Foundation)! The climber was rewarded with a position as executive director at the Annenberg Challenge Grant Foundation. Wow! I missed this version of “community organizing” in Chicago.So, how does a twenty-something Black man on Chicago’s Southside leave behind “community work” in Roseland and in Altgeld Gardens neighborhoods and enter Harvard’s Law program in the 1980s? Where was the money coming from? Did he earn a scholarship or fellowship? How does a twenty-something come back to Chicago in 1991, purchase a condo on the lakefront in Hyde Park? How does work with established foundations connect to lip service about “organizing ordinary citizens into bottom-up democracies that create their own strategies, programs, and campaigns and that forge alliances with disaffected Americans”? - as if Black Americans don’t possess grassroots organizing and alliance skills running in our veins!No, Mike, you and Black America shouldn’t expect Senator Barack Obama to change! Rather than working in the trenches with the people themselves and making the city of Chicago accountable for the conditions Black Americans have to endure, Obama has always invested his efforts with the authorities, whether it was with the Daley Machine or with the moneyed foundations. He made a conscious decision to climb the ladder to civic leadership and perhaps his decisions benefited him and his family but it did little to help the Blacks he found in dire straights on his return to Chicago in 1991. To use Mumia Abu-Jamal’s words, “with a ‘brutha’” like Obama who needs enemies?And no, Mike Papantonio, all Baby Boomers didn’t leave the streets and grassroots organization or activism to acquire high salaries on Wall Street or on Rodeo Drive. People like Obama thrived in the 1980s and beyond. While some Black American residents nearly froze in apartments with no heat in the winter of 1997, Obama received a financial donation from Antoin Rezko, landlord of these buildings in the Englewood Black community in Chicago where Rezko supposedly couldn’t afford to pay the heating bills! (“Obama Surfaces in Rezko’s Federal Corruption Case,” Chicago Sun-Times, January 20, 2008). It’s also alleged that Obama worked for a firm that gave some forty-three million dollars to Rezmar Corporation, Rezko’s business. There’s more “community activism” of this nature. Check it out.[...]
<http://www.blackcommentator.com/ 263/263_represent_our_resistance_activist_obama.html>Community Activist, Obama and theFew Bad Apples on the Night ShiftRepresent Our ResistanceBy Dr. Lenore J. Daniels, PhDBC Editorial Board[...]Senator Barack Obama seems to have thrived during the Reagan years. As I read of his “community organizing” and “community activism” in Chicago, I am remembering those Reagan years well. The Black communities in Chicago were undergoing change - not good change. Guns and drugs were pouring into the communities and people were paid to burn as many buildings as possible to make room, first for desolation and the flight of the middle-class Blacks, but ultimately for progress - called gentrification. Whites came back into the city. Middle-classed Blacks purchased buildings and become landlords. Some remained in Southside neighborhoods like Bronzeville or Chatham while others moved to suburbs. If, as a Black American, some of us opted to remain focused on the conditions of Black Americans, the poor, and working class, we were treated with utter distain by whites and Black bourgeois alike. The latter capitulated to the materialism of the Reagan era and submitted to the re- education process. They talked about the price of their clothes and the purchase of rehabbed homes in the Black community. At the time, the façade of “upward mobility” for the Black bourgeois in Chicago was pretty much the "in" thing.I came across a Chicago Reader article entitled, “What Makes Obama Run,” written in 1995, and I am left with many questions. What did Obama do in the Roseland and Altgeld Gardens neighborhoods in Chicago? What kind of rebel was he? Was his perspective an issue with those in authority? Was Obama considered by them to be a troublemaker or confrontational? Was he, as Mumia Abu-Jamal writes of Bill Clinton, someone whose lifetime “coincided with the rise and emergence of the Civil Rights Movement,” but who stood to gain by exploiting Black people?Mike Papantonio, host of Air America’s Ring of Fire, is furious with Obama because the latter does not “get mad.” Papantonio argues that Obama has this “get along” attitude with the “criminals” in political power instead of pursuing accountability! Why won’t Obama SHOUT to the rooftop against these criminals?Well, Mike, they’d have him in prison; Obama is not mad! He knows what happens to Blacks in America - the land of the free and the home of the brave! A Black American rebel, a radical, would hold criminals accountable for the deaths of over one million Iraqis and nearly four thousand (at this writing) U.S. soldiers. A Black American rebel, allowed to be and to speak on behalf of the suffering Black Americans in New Orleans or those losing homes because of sub prime predatory lending, would SHOUT. But that AIN’T Obama, Mike! He can’t be a likable African American man and “get mad” about Black life in America too!Let’s-make-friends-Obama came back to Chicago in 1991 and he didn’t “get mad.” In his memoir, Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance, he presented an image of 1990s Chicago that offered little hope for Black Americans because everywhere he looked, it was desolate. But he didn’t “get mad.” Did he roll up his shelves and get to work in some grassroots organization, advocating for better education and educating to transgress? No, Obama purchased a lakefront condo in Hyde Park, I said, in Hyde Park! Then he worked his way through foundations - (the Woods Fund and the Joyce Foundation)! The climber was rewarded with a position as executive director at the Annenberg Challenge Grant Foundation. Wow! I missed this version of “community organizing” in Chicago.So, how does a twenty-something Black man on Chicago’s Southside leave behind “community work” in Roseland and in Altgeld Gardens neighborhoods and enter Harvard’s Law program in the 1980s? Where was the money coming from? Did he earn a scholarship or fellowship? How does a twenty-something come back to Chicago in 1991, purchase a condo on the lakefront in Hyde Park? How does work with established foundations connect to lip service about “organizing ordinary citizens into bottom-up democracies that create their own strategies, programs, and campaigns and that forge alliances with disaffected Americans”? - as if Black Americans don’t possess grassroots organizing and alliance skills running in our veins!No, Mike, you and Black America shouldn’t expect Senator Barack Obama to change! Rather than working in the trenches with the people themselves and making the city of Chicago accountable for the conditions Black Americans have to endure, Obama has always invested his efforts with the authorities, whether it was with the Daley Machine or with the moneyed foundations. He made a conscious decision to climb the ladder to civic leadership and perhaps his decisions benefited him and his family but it did little to help the Blacks he found in dire straights on his return to Chicago in 1991. To use Mumia Abu-Jamal’s words, “with a ‘brutha’” like Obama who needs enemies?And no, Mike Papantonio, all Baby Boomers didn’t leave the streets and grassroots organization or activism to acquire high salaries on Wall Street or on Rodeo Drive. People like Obama thrived in the 1980s and beyond. While some Black American residents nearly froze in apartments with no heat in the winter of 1997, Obama received a financial donation from Antoin Rezko, landlord of these buildings in the Englewood Black community in Chicago where Rezko supposedly couldn’t afford to pay the heating bills! (“Obama Surfaces in Rezko’s Federal Corruption Case,” Chicago Sun-Times, January 20, 2008). It’s also alleged that Obama worked for a firm that gave some forty-three million dollars to Rezmar Corporation, Rezko’s business. There’s more “community activism” of this nature. Check it out.[...]
Philippines: Corruption in National Broadband Network contract.
This is from the Daily Tribune. This is a typical case where the government tries to put gag orders on officials and to prevent others from testifying. The
Arroyo government manages to survive many scandals of this order.
Truth out
EDITORIAL
02/09/2008
From the testimony of resigned Philippine Forest Corp. chief Rodolfo Noel Lozada. Jr., the crucial witness to the ZTE National Broadband Network (NBN) project that is being probed by the Senate, it is clear that Malacañang and its aides are into abductions, coercion, suborning perjury, issuing death threats, wiretapping, lying, massive graft and corruption, getting billions of pesos in kickbacks for projects and other criminal activities, along with covering up for the crimes the Palace committed.
All agencies in government are into these criminal activities, which are big-time and which continue to this day.
And for what reason are the whistle-blowers being prevented from testifying to the truth, and at the Senate, which appears to most as the defender of the people in their search for truth?
According to the testimony of Lozada yesterday, it was Energy Secretary Lito Atienza who had told him that if he spills the beans on the ZTE-NBN project, he will just succeed in delivering the government to the opposition.
Even former Secretary Romulo Neri, now chairman of the Commission on Higher Education, who earlier tried to project himself as an “honorable” government official who was ready to tell the truth, but was being stopped from doing so through Gloria Arroyo’s executive privilege, has been found to be no different from his criminal masters, even telling Lozada to get him to “moderate their greed,” as if $100 million was “moderate” enough for the greedy in Malacañang and its aides.
Neri, it will be recalled, was also said to have claimed to the media, which he later denied, that he didn’t want to testify as it would bring about another Edsa people power. And he tries to be a hero, but only to the extent of smearing Benjamin Abalos Sr., as though it was only Abalos who was into the kickbacks, while protecting Big Mike and Gloria, and himself.
What then is this Malacañang-mandated silence imposed on all those linked all about, if not to ensure the survival of this criminal government of Gloria and to ensure that the government does not fall into the hands of the opposition?
So one is made to lie and cheat, just to absolve Gloria and her spouse, First Gentleman Jose Miguel “Mike” Arroyo, and their “mafia members” of their criminal acts and ensure their survival.
Everyone now knows just how this criminal Arroyo government operates, and yet top-ranking officials in all departments and all bureaus continue to participate in these criminal activities.
There is the Philippine National Police (PNP) that is into abductions, obeying illegal orders from Gloria and her minions, then lying about their ways of abducting witnesses.
There are Lozada’s superiors, who tell him not to testify, for him to leave the country, to antedate all the travel papers and get the PNP to kidnap Lozada, make him sign a prepared affidavit absolving them from any criminal act.
There is Neri, calling Lozada to make his wife calm down as she was making too much noise in the media.
Yet this spineless jellyfish has the chutzpah to even claim that he can’t speak, because he is bound by executive privilege and that he has said all he wants to say to the Senate, when Neri himself is part of the criminal activity and even tells Lozada to calm his wife, so the criminal act of abduction, of committing perjury, or coercion, of signing all those documents against Lozada’s will and of subjecting him to mental torture would all be covered up and they will all be saved from a people’s wrath. What a hypocrite!
And there was, as always, Gloria’s prime operator and trouble shooter, Mike Defensor, getting into the act again, telling Lozada, after he had signed the affidavits they wanted, to hold a press conference, safe in the thought that Lozada would no longer state anything against his principals, since Lozada had already cleared them of any criminal act.
And then all hell broke loose, as Lozada decided to spill the NBN beans, as well as his abduction.
One must ask the Catholic bishops: Is this, too, just rumor and gossip being peddled by the media that, it should be pointed out, helped a man be freed from the clutches of this criminal government.
Arroyo government manages to survive many scandals of this order.
Truth out
EDITORIAL
02/09/2008
From the testimony of resigned Philippine Forest Corp. chief Rodolfo Noel Lozada. Jr., the crucial witness to the ZTE National Broadband Network (NBN) project that is being probed by the Senate, it is clear that Malacañang and its aides are into abductions, coercion, suborning perjury, issuing death threats, wiretapping, lying, massive graft and corruption, getting billions of pesos in kickbacks for projects and other criminal activities, along with covering up for the crimes the Palace committed.
All agencies in government are into these criminal activities, which are big-time and which continue to this day.
And for what reason are the whistle-blowers being prevented from testifying to the truth, and at the Senate, which appears to most as the defender of the people in their search for truth?
According to the testimony of Lozada yesterday, it was Energy Secretary Lito Atienza who had told him that if he spills the beans on the ZTE-NBN project, he will just succeed in delivering the government to the opposition.
Even former Secretary Romulo Neri, now chairman of the Commission on Higher Education, who earlier tried to project himself as an “honorable” government official who was ready to tell the truth, but was being stopped from doing so through Gloria Arroyo’s executive privilege, has been found to be no different from his criminal masters, even telling Lozada to get him to “moderate their greed,” as if $100 million was “moderate” enough for the greedy in Malacañang and its aides.
Neri, it will be recalled, was also said to have claimed to the media, which he later denied, that he didn’t want to testify as it would bring about another Edsa people power. And he tries to be a hero, but only to the extent of smearing Benjamin Abalos Sr., as though it was only Abalos who was into the kickbacks, while protecting Big Mike and Gloria, and himself.
What then is this Malacañang-mandated silence imposed on all those linked all about, if not to ensure the survival of this criminal government of Gloria and to ensure that the government does not fall into the hands of the opposition?
So one is made to lie and cheat, just to absolve Gloria and her spouse, First Gentleman Jose Miguel “Mike” Arroyo, and their “mafia members” of their criminal acts and ensure their survival.
Everyone now knows just how this criminal Arroyo government operates, and yet top-ranking officials in all departments and all bureaus continue to participate in these criminal activities.
There is the Philippine National Police (PNP) that is into abductions, obeying illegal orders from Gloria and her minions, then lying about their ways of abducting witnesses.
There are Lozada’s superiors, who tell him not to testify, for him to leave the country, to antedate all the travel papers and get the PNP to kidnap Lozada, make him sign a prepared affidavit absolving them from any criminal act.
There is Neri, calling Lozada to make his wife calm down as she was making too much noise in the media.
Yet this spineless jellyfish has the chutzpah to even claim that he can’t speak, because he is bound by executive privilege and that he has said all he wants to say to the Senate, when Neri himself is part of the criminal activity and even tells Lozada to calm his wife, so the criminal act of abduction, of committing perjury, or coercion, of signing all those documents against Lozada’s will and of subjecting him to mental torture would all be covered up and they will all be saved from a people’s wrath. What a hypocrite!
And there was, as always, Gloria’s prime operator and trouble shooter, Mike Defensor, getting into the act again, telling Lozada, after he had signed the affidavits they wanted, to hold a press conference, safe in the thought that Lozada would no longer state anything against his principals, since Lozada had already cleared them of any criminal act.
And then all hell broke loose, as Lozada decided to spill the NBN beans, as well as his abduction.
One must ask the Catholic bishops: Is this, too, just rumor and gossip being peddled by the media that, it should be pointed out, helped a man be freed from the clutches of this criminal government.
The Legacy of Bush : Scheer
There seems to be almost no discussion of military and security expenditures during the campaign. There will be an astronomical debt when military expenditures, stimulus packages, and repairs to infrastructure and the health system are made. Social programs will probably be cut.
The Legacy of Bush IIhttp://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20080205_the_legacy_of_bush_ii/Posted on Feb 5, 2008By Robert ScheerCurb your enthusiasm. Even if your favored candidate did well on SuperTuesday, ask yourself if he or she will seriously challenge thebloated military budget that President Bush has proposed for 2009. Ifnot, military spending will rise to a level exceeding any other yearsince the end of World War II, and there will be precious little leftover to improve education and medical research, fight poverty, protectthe environment or do anything else a decent person might care about.You cannot spend well over $700 billion on "national security,"running what the White House predicts will be more than $400 billionin annual deficits for the next two years, and yet find the money toimprove the quality of life on the home front.The conventional wisdom espoused by the mass media is that Bush'sbudget is a lame-duck DOA contrivance, but that assumption is wrong.The 9/11 attacks have been shamefully exploited by themilitary-industrial complex with bipartisan support to ramp upmilitary expenditures beyond Cold War levels. This irrational spendingspree, which accounts for more than half of all federal discretionaryspending, is not likely to end with Bush's departure. Which one of thelikely winners from either party would lead the battle to cut themilitary budget, and where would the winner find support in Congress?Both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have treated the military budgetas sacrosanct with their Senate votes and their campaign rhetoric.Clinton is particularly clear on the record as favoring spending more,not less, on the military.John McCain, who previously distinguished himself as a deficit hawkand was almost in a class by himself in taking on the rapaciousdefense contractors, has thrown in the towel with his inane supportfor staying in Iraq till "victory," even if it should take a century.It is simply illogical to call for fiscal restraint while committingto an open-ended war in Iraq that has already cost upward of $700billion. Bush's request for $515.4 billion for the Defense Departmentdoesn't even include the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,which accounted for nearly $200 billion over the last budget year andwhich will cost at least $140 billion in 2009. Add to those numbers$17.1 billion for the Department of Energy's weapons program and over$40 billion for the Department of Homeland Security and other nationalsecurity initiatives spread throughout the federal government, andyou'll see that my $700-billion figure underestimates thehemorrhaging.McCain knows, and has frequently stated as a Senate watchdog, thatmuch of the military spending is wastefully superfluous for combatingterrorists who lack any but the most rudimentary weapons. Bush totallybetrayed his campaign 2000 promise to reshape the post-Cold War U.S.military when he seized upon the 9/11 attack as an opportunity toreverse the "peace dividend" that his father had begun to return totaxpayers. Instead, Bush II ushered in the most profligateunderwriting of weapons systems that are grotesquely irrelevant forcombating terrorism.The U.S. already spends more than the rest of the world combined onits military, without a sophisticated enemy in sight. The Bush budgetcuts not a single weapons system, including the most expensive ones,those designed to combat a Soviet military that no longer exists.Those sophisticated weapons have nothing to do with combatingterrorism and everything to do with jobs and profits that motivateboth Democrats and Republicans in Congress. It is not known whetherOsama bin Laden even possesses a rowboat in his naval arsenal, butthat won't stop Joe Lieberman from pushing, as is his habit, for anincrease in the defense budget to double the funding for the$3.4-billion submarines built in his home state of Connecticut. Nordoes the collapse of the old Soviet Union—and with it the need forenormously expensive stealth aircraft to evade radar systems theSoviets never built—dissuade congressional supporters of those planesfrom pushing for more, not less, than Bush is requesting. Nor doeswasting an additional $8.9 billion on ICBM missile defense haveanything to do with stopping terrorists from smuggling a suitcase nukeinto this country.The centerpiece of the Bush legacy is a "war on terror" based on avast disconnect between military expenditures and actual nationalsecurity requirements that the presidential candidates all fullyunderstand. The question is whether the voters and media will forcethem to face that contradiction or whether we're in for more of thesame—no matter how much the candidates go on about change.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------A Progressive Journal of News and Opinion. Editor, Robert Scheer.Publisher, Zuade Kaufman.Copyright (c) 2007 Truthdig, L.L.C. All rights reserved.Web site development by Hop Studios Hosted by NEXCESS.NET
The Legacy of Bush IIhttp://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20080205_the_legacy_of_bush_ii/Posted on Feb 5, 2008By Robert ScheerCurb your enthusiasm. Even if your favored candidate did well on SuperTuesday, ask yourself if he or she will seriously challenge thebloated military budget that President Bush has proposed for 2009. Ifnot, military spending will rise to a level exceeding any other yearsince the end of World War II, and there will be precious little leftover to improve education and medical research, fight poverty, protectthe environment or do anything else a decent person might care about.You cannot spend well over $700 billion on "national security,"running what the White House predicts will be more than $400 billionin annual deficits for the next two years, and yet find the money toimprove the quality of life on the home front.The conventional wisdom espoused by the mass media is that Bush'sbudget is a lame-duck DOA contrivance, but that assumption is wrong.The 9/11 attacks have been shamefully exploited by themilitary-industrial complex with bipartisan support to ramp upmilitary expenditures beyond Cold War levels. This irrational spendingspree, which accounts for more than half of all federal discretionaryspending, is not likely to end with Bush's departure. Which one of thelikely winners from either party would lead the battle to cut themilitary budget, and where would the winner find support in Congress?Both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have treated the military budgetas sacrosanct with their Senate votes and their campaign rhetoric.Clinton is particularly clear on the record as favoring spending more,not less, on the military.John McCain, who previously distinguished himself as a deficit hawkand was almost in a class by himself in taking on the rapaciousdefense contractors, has thrown in the towel with his inane supportfor staying in Iraq till "victory," even if it should take a century.It is simply illogical to call for fiscal restraint while committingto an open-ended war in Iraq that has already cost upward of $700billion. Bush's request for $515.4 billion for the Defense Departmentdoesn't even include the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,which accounted for nearly $200 billion over the last budget year andwhich will cost at least $140 billion in 2009. Add to those numbers$17.1 billion for the Department of Energy's weapons program and over$40 billion for the Department of Homeland Security and other nationalsecurity initiatives spread throughout the federal government, andyou'll see that my $700-billion figure underestimates thehemorrhaging.McCain knows, and has frequently stated as a Senate watchdog, thatmuch of the military spending is wastefully superfluous for combatingterrorists who lack any but the most rudimentary weapons. Bush totallybetrayed his campaign 2000 promise to reshape the post-Cold War U.S.military when he seized upon the 9/11 attack as an opportunity toreverse the "peace dividend" that his father had begun to return totaxpayers. Instead, Bush II ushered in the most profligateunderwriting of weapons systems that are grotesquely irrelevant forcombating terrorism.The U.S. already spends more than the rest of the world combined onits military, without a sophisticated enemy in sight. The Bush budgetcuts not a single weapons system, including the most expensive ones,those designed to combat a Soviet military that no longer exists.Those sophisticated weapons have nothing to do with combatingterrorism and everything to do with jobs and profits that motivateboth Democrats and Republicans in Congress. It is not known whetherOsama bin Laden even possesses a rowboat in his naval arsenal, butthat won't stop Joe Lieberman from pushing, as is his habit, for anincrease in the defense budget to double the funding for the$3.4-billion submarines built in his home state of Connecticut. Nordoes the collapse of the old Soviet Union—and with it the need forenormously expensive stealth aircraft to evade radar systems theSoviets never built—dissuade congressional supporters of those planesfrom pushing for more, not less, than Bush is requesting. Nor doeswasting an additional $8.9 billion on ICBM missile defense haveanything to do with stopping terrorists from smuggling a suitcase nukeinto this country.The centerpiece of the Bush legacy is a "war on terror" based on avast disconnect between military expenditures and actual nationalsecurity requirements that the presidential candidates all fullyunderstand. The question is whether the voters and media will forcethem to face that contradiction or whether we're in for more of thesame—no matter how much the candidates go on about change.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------A Progressive Journal of News and Opinion. Editor, Robert Scheer.Publisher, Zuade Kaufman.Copyright (c) 2007 Truthdig, L.L.C. All rights reserved.Web site development by Hop Studios Hosted by NEXCESS.NET
Thursday, February 7, 2008
Sexual Assault Suit vs Halliburton forced into Arbitration
I really cannot fathom this. I should think that an employee would have a choice to take this before the court. After all this is a criminal matter. I wonder if the arbitration fails if the matter can be taken before the courts?
Sex Assault Suit Vs. Halliburton Killed
Alleged Sexual Assault Victim's Case Forced Into Secretive Arbitration
By MADDY SAUER and JUSTIN ROOD
Feb. 6, 2008—
A mother of five who says she was sexually harassed and assaulted while working for Halliburton/KBR in Iraq is headed for a secretive arbitration process rather than being able to present her case in open court.
A judge in Texas has ruled that Tracy Barker's case will be heard in arbitration, according to the terms of her initial employment contract.
Barker says that while in Iraq she was constantly propositioned by her superior, threatened and isolated after she reported an incident of sexual assault.
Barker's attorneys had argued that Halliburton/KBR had created a "boys will be boys" atmosphere at their camps and that sort of condition is not the type of dispute that she could have expected to be within the scope of an arbitration provision.
District Judge Gray Miller, however, wrote in his order that "whether it is wise to send this type of claim to arbitration is not a question for this court to decide."
"Sadly," wrote Judge Miller, "sexual harassment, up to and including sexual assault, is a reality in today's workplace."
Barker says it was a reality at Halliburton/KBR. From the moment she arrived at the Halliburton/KBR camp in Basra, Iraq, she says she was treated like a sex object.
"When I arrived in Basra, there were about five men that worked on the camp for the company I worked for and they were waiting for me," Barker told ABC News in an exclusive interview that aired last December.
"I was told they wanted to see what I look like," she said, "to make sure I was decent looking before they approved my transfer."
Tracy says her KBR boss in Basra repeatedly propositioned her and threatened her.
"The manager of the camp kept making gestures of how if I wanted my safety to exist on the camp, that I needed to sleep with him, and that's all he kept saying to me," said Barker.
Tracy says her co-workers were not much better. She says when she first arrived at her new office, it looked more like a fraternity house than a place of business.
"On my way into the office, there was pictures of prostitutes and animals having sex pasted in the hallway," she said. "Our office was just wallpapered with pornography. There was not one space of wall at all."
Tracy says she inquired from her male co-worker where her workplace was located.
"My co-worker told me that 'you can either sit at the end of my desk or on the floor because that's where the women sit that work with me,'" Barker said.
When Tracy tried to report the co-worker to her manager, she says the manager's gestures toward her only got worse.
"If I don't feel safe, I can come to his room and get a backrub or sleep with him," Barker says she was told.
Barker's case had also involved a claim of sexual assault against a State Department employee. Those claims have been severed from her case against Halliburton/KBR and transferred to the Eastern District of Virginia.
As in similar cases, KBR had moved for Tracy's claim to be heard in private arbitration, instead of a public courtroom, as provided under the terms of her original employment contract.
In arbitration, there is no public record or transcript of the proceedings, meaning that Tracy's claims will not be heard before a judge and jury.
Halliburton which has since divested itself of KBR referred calls for comment to KBR.
KBR issued a statement late yesterday saying, "As part of her employment contract with KBR, Ms. Barker agreed to arbitrate all claims in the event a conflict arose. The court's decision enforcing her agreement is consistent with rulings from other courts in the upholding arbitration agreements between employers and employees. Arbitration is the last step of KBR's Dispute Resolution Program. The vast majority of employment disputes at KBR, approximately 96%, are resolved through this program without resort to arbitration. KBR remains committed to ensuring the arbitration process is fair to all employees."
Halliburton and KBR had also sought to have Barker pay for their costs of defending their right to arbitrate. That request was denied.
.
Copyright © 2008 ABC News Internet Ventures
Shia call on Mehdi Army to take up arms again.
The decision of Al Sadr to observe a ceasefire has been one of the reasons there has been less violence in Iraq especially in places such as the Baghdad slum of Sadr City. What violence there has been there has often been the result of splinter groups not under Sadr's control.
I have always considered Sadr not so much a radical as an opportunist. Unless he thinks it is to his advantage to break it he will continue with the ceasefire.
Shia call on Mehdi Army to take up arms again in Iraq
By Patrick Cockburn in BaghdadThursday, 7 February 2008
In the alleys of the ancient district of al-Salaikh in Baghdad, a Shia family fought a fierce gun battle with Sunni militiamen who tried to stop them reoccupying their house from which they had been forced to flee months earlier.
The Shia family got the worst of the fighting and, after suffering seven dead, sent a desperate message asking for help to the Mehdi Army, the powerful Shia militia of the Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr that once would have rushed to defend them. On this occasion, however, the local Mehdi Army commander turned them down, saying: "We can do nothing because we are under orders not to break the ceasefire."
It is this six-month ceasefire, declared on 29 August last year by Mr Sadr, which American commanders say is responsible for cutting much of the violence in Iraq. But the ceasefire will expire in the next few weeks and political and military leaders loyal to Mr Sadr are advising him not to renew it.
They complain that state security organs, in effect controlled by their Shia rivals in the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI), are using the truce to attack them, particularly in and around the southern city of Diwaniya from which 300 Sadrist families have been expelled. The Sadrists also complain that US troops and the Iraqi army are targeting Mehdi Army leaders and al-Qa'ida has once again started bombing Shia civilians as they did last Friday when two bird markets in Shia districts were attacked, killing 99 people.
Salah al-Ubaidi, the spokesman for Mr Sadr, said a committee of Sadrist legislators said: "They don't want the ceasefire to remain. They want it lifted because of oppressive acts by security forces in Diwaniya".
Mohammed, the head of a Sadrist district office in Baghdad, said that in Diwaniya the security forces "have started arresting the wives and daughters of our men who have fled. There is low morale there as we do not help them because of the ceasefire".
The Sadrist movement is the only real mass movement in Iraq and is the voice of the poor Shia, who make up much of the Iraqi population. It was created by Mr Sadr's revered father, Mohammed Sadiq al-Sadr – assassinated with two of his sons on the orders of Saddam Hussein in 1999 – and revived by Muqtada in 2003.
Mr Sadr surprised his followers by calling a total ceasefire in August last year after clashes with ISCI-backed security forces in Kerbala. He said he wanted to purge his movement of criminal gangs and anti-Sunni death squads. "Muqtada wanted the Mehdi Army to have a good reputation," said Mohammed. "We vet people now in a way we didn't before. Police come to us and say, 'this criminal says he works for you' and sometimes we say 'yes' and sometimes 'no'."
The Sadrist ability to enforce the ceasefire is impressive given the movement's previous reputation for being so decentralised that it was out of control. "Sadr's followers are strong, patient and stick to their work," said Mohammed. "But we are militarily weak because of the freeze on action."
This claim of weakness is a little exaggerated. The Sadrists probably still control about half of Baghdad and 80 per cent of Shia areas. Often they can get what they want because nobody wants them as an enemy. When 12 Mehdi Army men with weapons, and without papers giving them the right to carry them, were arrested by Interior Ministry officials in Palestine Street, the local Sadrist leader Sheikh Abbas Rubaie called the ministry and said: "Release them by six or you know what we will do." Minutes later they were back on the streets.
Nobody knows what Mr Sadr will decide. One Sadrist said: "Even people close to Muqtada do not know what is happening in his mind." Safar, with close links to the Mehdi Army, said its leaders "informed the marji'iyyah [the senior Shia clerics] to tell [the Prime Minister] Nouri al-Maliki that if his government does not stop arresting their leaders they will end the ceasefire".
One person who believes the truce will continue is the Iraqi politician Ahmad Chalabi, who has always had good relations with Mr Sadr. He said: "Muqtada and the Sadrists have benefited from the ceasefire. Despite what people say, it has done them good because it makes them look reasonable – something they badly needed."
Though they have closed their military offices, the Sadrists have a dense network of social and cultural activities and often provide the only assistance for poor families. Their help wins them strong support because a recent report by aid agencies said 43 per cent of Iraqis live in "absolute poverty".
The Iraqi government claimed at the end of last year that many of the 2.2 million Iraqis who have fled abroad are returning because of improved security. But a report by the UN High Commission for Refugees says that, on Iraq's border with Syria, where 1.5 million Iraqis live, only 700 Iraqis travel to Iraq every day and 1,200 go to Syria.
I have always considered Sadr not so much a radical as an opportunist. Unless he thinks it is to his advantage to break it he will continue with the ceasefire.
Shia call on Mehdi Army to take up arms again in Iraq
By Patrick Cockburn in BaghdadThursday, 7 February 2008
In the alleys of the ancient district of al-Salaikh in Baghdad, a Shia family fought a fierce gun battle with Sunni militiamen who tried to stop them reoccupying their house from which they had been forced to flee months earlier.
The Shia family got the worst of the fighting and, after suffering seven dead, sent a desperate message asking for help to the Mehdi Army, the powerful Shia militia of the Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr that once would have rushed to defend them. On this occasion, however, the local Mehdi Army commander turned them down, saying: "We can do nothing because we are under orders not to break the ceasefire."
It is this six-month ceasefire, declared on 29 August last year by Mr Sadr, which American commanders say is responsible for cutting much of the violence in Iraq. But the ceasefire will expire in the next few weeks and political and military leaders loyal to Mr Sadr are advising him not to renew it.
They complain that state security organs, in effect controlled by their Shia rivals in the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI), are using the truce to attack them, particularly in and around the southern city of Diwaniya from which 300 Sadrist families have been expelled. The Sadrists also complain that US troops and the Iraqi army are targeting Mehdi Army leaders and al-Qa'ida has once again started bombing Shia civilians as they did last Friday when two bird markets in Shia districts were attacked, killing 99 people.
Salah al-Ubaidi, the spokesman for Mr Sadr, said a committee of Sadrist legislators said: "They don't want the ceasefire to remain. They want it lifted because of oppressive acts by security forces in Diwaniya".
Mohammed, the head of a Sadrist district office in Baghdad, said that in Diwaniya the security forces "have started arresting the wives and daughters of our men who have fled. There is low morale there as we do not help them because of the ceasefire".
The Sadrist movement is the only real mass movement in Iraq and is the voice of the poor Shia, who make up much of the Iraqi population. It was created by Mr Sadr's revered father, Mohammed Sadiq al-Sadr – assassinated with two of his sons on the orders of Saddam Hussein in 1999 – and revived by Muqtada in 2003.
Mr Sadr surprised his followers by calling a total ceasefire in August last year after clashes with ISCI-backed security forces in Kerbala. He said he wanted to purge his movement of criminal gangs and anti-Sunni death squads. "Muqtada wanted the Mehdi Army to have a good reputation," said Mohammed. "We vet people now in a way we didn't before. Police come to us and say, 'this criminal says he works for you' and sometimes we say 'yes' and sometimes 'no'."
The Sadrist ability to enforce the ceasefire is impressive given the movement's previous reputation for being so decentralised that it was out of control. "Sadr's followers are strong, patient and stick to their work," said Mohammed. "But we are militarily weak because of the freeze on action."
This claim of weakness is a little exaggerated. The Sadrists probably still control about half of Baghdad and 80 per cent of Shia areas. Often they can get what they want because nobody wants them as an enemy. When 12 Mehdi Army men with weapons, and without papers giving them the right to carry them, were arrested by Interior Ministry officials in Palestine Street, the local Sadrist leader Sheikh Abbas Rubaie called the ministry and said: "Release them by six or you know what we will do." Minutes later they were back on the streets.
Nobody knows what Mr Sadr will decide. One Sadrist said: "Even people close to Muqtada do not know what is happening in his mind." Safar, with close links to the Mehdi Army, said its leaders "informed the marji'iyyah [the senior Shia clerics] to tell [the Prime Minister] Nouri al-Maliki that if his government does not stop arresting their leaders they will end the ceasefire".
One person who believes the truce will continue is the Iraqi politician Ahmad Chalabi, who has always had good relations with Mr Sadr. He said: "Muqtada and the Sadrists have benefited from the ceasefire. Despite what people say, it has done them good because it makes them look reasonable – something they badly needed."
Though they have closed their military offices, the Sadrists have a dense network of social and cultural activities and often provide the only assistance for poor families. Their help wins them strong support because a recent report by aid agencies said 43 per cent of Iraqis live in "absolute poverty".
The Iraqi government claimed at the end of last year that many of the 2.2 million Iraqis who have fled abroad are returning because of improved security. But a report by the UN High Commission for Refugees says that, on Iraq's border with Syria, where 1.5 million Iraqis live, only 700 Iraqis travel to Iraq every day and 1,200 go to Syria.
Bush won't ban Permanent Bases: Pushes for Iraq Oil Law
Whether there are permanent bases or not is a rather academic matter since the current bases are likely to be there indefinitely. Some are obviously set up in such a fashion as to be there for quite some while. The huge U.S. embassy complex is not about to be closed unless there is a violent overthrow of the U.S. backed government.
The Oil Law has been languishing in parliament for a year now pending some agreement between the Kurds and other parties. The Kurds have gone off on their own signing their own agreements with third parties much to the annoyance of the central government.
Bush Won't Ban Permanent Bases : Pushes For Iraqi Oil Law
by Aaron Glantz
Global Research, February 2, 2008
IPS - 2008-01-29
SAN FRANCISCO, Jan 29 (IPS) - President George W. Bush signed a 696-billion-dollar Pentagon spending bill immediately before his State of the Union address Monday night, which funds all Defence Department programmes not directly tied to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, expands health care for injured veterans and gives U.S. soldiers a pay raise.The bill is a mixed bag for peace activists, since Bush added a so-called "signing statement" saying he would ignore provisions that ban permanent military bases in Iraq and forbid the use of U.S. troops to exercise United States control of Iraq's oil resources. Congress tucked many contentious policies into the spending bill, knowing President Bush would have to sign it to keep the military from grinding to a halt. Among them is a Wounded Warrior bill designed to improve the quality of medical care for U.S. veterans. Washington's answer to the scandal surrounding poor care at the Walter Reed Army Medical Centre, it was championed by politicians and presidential hopefuls across the political spectrum from Democrat Barack Obama to Republican John McCain. "This is a tremendous victory for veterans, so that we do not leave any more behind to fall through the cracks," said Paul Sullivan, director of the group Veterans for Common Sense. The Pentagon reports more than 68,000 U.S. soldiers have been wounded, injured, or stricken ill in Iraq and Afghanistan. In addition, Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) hospitals and clinics have treated over 260,000 patients from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. On top of that, the VA has reported nearly 250,000 disability claims from veterans of the two wars. Studies show as many as half of the 1.6 million soldiers sent to fight in Iraq will return with post-traumatic stress disorder and a fifth are returning with traumatic brain injury, physical brain damage often caused by roadside bombs. Sullivan says the most important aspect of the legislation President Bush signed Monday is a provision guaranteeing every veteran free VA health care for five years after returning from Iraq or Afghanistan. "Right now, veterans only receive two years of free health care from the Department of Veterans Affairs, and due to the long delays at the VA, those two years often expire before the veteran can receive treatment from a doctor," he told IPS. "In some cases, when a veteran has traumatic brain injury or a psychological condition related to the war, it may be six months or two or even three years until the condition gets serious enough for the veteran to even want to go to the VA for health care. Now, with this five years of free health care from the VA, our Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans can rest a little more assured that when they show up at the VA they will be treated right away with high quality VA doctors," he said. President Bush didn't approve the entire bill, though -- he used a signing statement to say he wouldn't follow four provisions of the act, which he said "could inhibit the president's ability to carry out his constitutional obligations." Those provisions would have mandated increased Congressional oversight of military contractors, banned construction of permanent military bases in Iraq and forbade the use of U.S. troops to exercise United States control of Iraq's oil resources. Antonia Juhasz of the group Oil Change International told IPS the issues of oil and permanent military bases are related. "We've got the Bush administration pushing aggressively for an (Iraqi) law that would give oil companies 20- to 25-year contracts for oil in Iraq and if they were to be at work for an extended length of time, they would need security," she said. "If the U.S. military is going to stay in Iraq for 20 or 35 years, they're going to need bases," she added. Juhasz said President Bush's signing statements show the futility of the Democrat's main approach to the war issue -- which is to continue approving funds for the war while simultaneously trying to extract concessions from the administration. A Congressional Budget Office report released last week showed the Democratic Congress appropriated more money for the Iraq war in 2007 than Republican Congresses did in years past. "The bottom line has to be in the willingness to give the money," she said. "The budget for the war this year has reached 170 billion dollars for just the next year. That is an astounding amount of money. The increase in spending on the war is largely caused by the surge and of course the power of the purse is the only power that the Democrats have." Some observers are looking forward to January 2009, when George Bush's eight years in office will come to an end. But James Paul of the Global Policy Forum says there's plenty the Democrats can do this year to slow or stop the conflict. "If this is something that counts, then surely they have a pretty strong mandate," he said. "I suspect there are problems that will go beyond January 2009 and this issue is not going to go away any time soon -- even if George Bush is out of office," he added.
Global Research Articles by Aaron Glantz
The Oil Law has been languishing in parliament for a year now pending some agreement between the Kurds and other parties. The Kurds have gone off on their own signing their own agreements with third parties much to the annoyance of the central government.
Bush Won't Ban Permanent Bases : Pushes For Iraqi Oil Law
by Aaron Glantz
Global Research, February 2, 2008
IPS - 2008-01-29
SAN FRANCISCO, Jan 29 (IPS) - President George W. Bush signed a 696-billion-dollar Pentagon spending bill immediately before his State of the Union address Monday night, which funds all Defence Department programmes not directly tied to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, expands health care for injured veterans and gives U.S. soldiers a pay raise.The bill is a mixed bag for peace activists, since Bush added a so-called "signing statement" saying he would ignore provisions that ban permanent military bases in Iraq and forbid the use of U.S. troops to exercise United States control of Iraq's oil resources. Congress tucked many contentious policies into the spending bill, knowing President Bush would have to sign it to keep the military from grinding to a halt. Among them is a Wounded Warrior bill designed to improve the quality of medical care for U.S. veterans. Washington's answer to the scandal surrounding poor care at the Walter Reed Army Medical Centre, it was championed by politicians and presidential hopefuls across the political spectrum from Democrat Barack Obama to Republican John McCain. "This is a tremendous victory for veterans, so that we do not leave any more behind to fall through the cracks," said Paul Sullivan, director of the group Veterans for Common Sense. The Pentagon reports more than 68,000 U.S. soldiers have been wounded, injured, or stricken ill in Iraq and Afghanistan. In addition, Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) hospitals and clinics have treated over 260,000 patients from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. On top of that, the VA has reported nearly 250,000 disability claims from veterans of the two wars. Studies show as many as half of the 1.6 million soldiers sent to fight in Iraq will return with post-traumatic stress disorder and a fifth are returning with traumatic brain injury, physical brain damage often caused by roadside bombs. Sullivan says the most important aspect of the legislation President Bush signed Monday is a provision guaranteeing every veteran free VA health care for five years after returning from Iraq or Afghanistan. "Right now, veterans only receive two years of free health care from the Department of Veterans Affairs, and due to the long delays at the VA, those two years often expire before the veteran can receive treatment from a doctor," he told IPS. "In some cases, when a veteran has traumatic brain injury or a psychological condition related to the war, it may be six months or two or even three years until the condition gets serious enough for the veteran to even want to go to the VA for health care. Now, with this five years of free health care from the VA, our Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans can rest a little more assured that when they show up at the VA they will be treated right away with high quality VA doctors," he said. President Bush didn't approve the entire bill, though -- he used a signing statement to say he wouldn't follow four provisions of the act, which he said "could inhibit the president's ability to carry out his constitutional obligations." Those provisions would have mandated increased Congressional oversight of military contractors, banned construction of permanent military bases in Iraq and forbade the use of U.S. troops to exercise United States control of Iraq's oil resources. Antonia Juhasz of the group Oil Change International told IPS the issues of oil and permanent military bases are related. "We've got the Bush administration pushing aggressively for an (Iraqi) law that would give oil companies 20- to 25-year contracts for oil in Iraq and if they were to be at work for an extended length of time, they would need security," she said. "If the U.S. military is going to stay in Iraq for 20 or 35 years, they're going to need bases," she added. Juhasz said President Bush's signing statements show the futility of the Democrat's main approach to the war issue -- which is to continue approving funds for the war while simultaneously trying to extract concessions from the administration. A Congressional Budget Office report released last week showed the Democratic Congress appropriated more money for the Iraq war in 2007 than Republican Congresses did in years past. "The bottom line has to be in the willingness to give the money," she said. "The budget for the war this year has reached 170 billion dollars for just the next year. That is an astounding amount of money. The increase in spending on the war is largely caused by the surge and of course the power of the purse is the only power that the Democrats have." Some observers are looking forward to January 2009, when George Bush's eight years in office will come to an end. But James Paul of the Global Policy Forum says there's plenty the Democrats can do this year to slow or stop the conflict. "If this is something that counts, then surely they have a pretty strong mandate," he said. "I suspect there are problems that will go beyond January 2009 and this issue is not going to go away any time soon -- even if George Bush is out of office," he added.
Global Research Articles by Aaron Glantz
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Philippines needs to tackle constraints to growth, poverty reduction.
This is from forextv.com. It is not clear how the Philippines will be able to reduce poverty. There is no mention of high population growth at least versus job growth. When I was in the Philippines I noticed that there just seemed to be many more people than jobs. The social safety net as mentioned is very much lacking. Families send members overseas because of lack of jobs in the Philippines and to help support families at home. Ageism is rampant in employment. A notice for a clerk in a mall in Legazpi stipulated that the applicant should not be above the age of thirty!
Most Filipinos seem to think that they can succeed as entrepreneurs either that or are forced to be so because there are no jobs. As a result there are little convenience stores (sari-sari stores) in every block. Also, the bus system in many areas consists of privately owned jeepneys. Most of these businesses are marginal or even losing propositions.
Surplus labor power makes the Philippines a place where labor costs will be cheap. The education system produces many students who have the skills for work in the Global economy. If poverty is much reduced then labor might be more expensive and the powers that be might not be too happy about that.
The powers that be will crow about growth and the problem of poverty can be left to the Church.
Philippines needs to tackle constraints to growth, poverty reduction - ADB
02/05/08 10:27 am (EST)
MUMBAI (Thomson Financial) - The Asian Development Bank (ADB) said Philippines needs to identify the most critical factors that constrain growth and poverty reduction in order to sustain the current pace of growth or even accelerate it.The bank said critical constraints to growth include tight fiscal situation, inadequate infrastructure, weak investor confidence due to governance concerns, in particular, corruption and political instability, and the inability to address market failures leading to a small and narrow industrial base.Critical constraints to poverty reduction include lack and slow growth of productive employment opportunities, inequitable access to development opportunities, especially education, health, infrastructure, and productive assets and inadequate social protection and social safety nets.Removing these three constraints will result in increased private investments from domestic and foreign sources, the agency said. The government will also need to address the market failures in order to encourage investments in diversifying and expanding the manufacturing sector and exports, and in upgrading the level of technology, the ADB added.TFN.newsdesk@thomson.com
Most Filipinos seem to think that they can succeed as entrepreneurs either that or are forced to be so because there are no jobs. As a result there are little convenience stores (sari-sari stores) in every block. Also, the bus system in many areas consists of privately owned jeepneys. Most of these businesses are marginal or even losing propositions.
Surplus labor power makes the Philippines a place where labor costs will be cheap. The education system produces many students who have the skills for work in the Global economy. If poverty is much reduced then labor might be more expensive and the powers that be might not be too happy about that.
The powers that be will crow about growth and the problem of poverty can be left to the Church.
Philippines needs to tackle constraints to growth, poverty reduction - ADB
02/05/08 10:27 am (EST)
MUMBAI (Thomson Financial) - The Asian Development Bank (ADB) said Philippines needs to identify the most critical factors that constrain growth and poverty reduction in order to sustain the current pace of growth or even accelerate it.The bank said critical constraints to growth include tight fiscal situation, inadequate infrastructure, weak investor confidence due to governance concerns, in particular, corruption and political instability, and the inability to address market failures leading to a small and narrow industrial base.Critical constraints to poverty reduction include lack and slow growth of productive employment opportunities, inequitable access to development opportunities, especially education, health, infrastructure, and productive assets and inadequate social protection and social safety nets.Removing these three constraints will result in increased private investments from domestic and foreign sources, the agency said. The government will also need to address the market failures in order to encourage investments in diversifying and expanding the manufacturing sector and exports, and in upgrading the level of technology, the ADB added.TFN.newsdesk@thomson.com
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Ignore the Obituaries, U.S. Reign Will Endure
Over the medium term at least Hassett is probably correct but more and more problems are facing the U.S. The horrendous piling up of debt is one issue. The response is to pile on more debt and increase military spending. U.S. consumers too are addicted to debt beyond their means. Unlike the government however consumers for the most part are having to face up to their situation losing homes and cars and facing bankruptcy.
While the U.S. retains huge supremacy militarily this might still does not give the U.S. easy control of global events. The dollar is falling and countries such as China and India have larger populations and much stronger growth rates than the U.S. In the longer term there could be bitter battles over access to and control over natural resources needed to fuel national economies.
Ignore the Obituaries, U.S. Reign Will Endure Kevin HassettFeb. 4 (Bloomberg) -- The negative employment report on Feb. 1 was another sign the U.S. economy is on the ropes. Increasingly, this downswing is being portrayed as more than just a cyclical phenomenon. The U.S. used to be the envy of the world, the story goes, and soon it will be just another nation.The question no longer seems to be whether the U.S. will recede into the pack, but rather, who is to blame. The New York Times recently explored that question with a provocative cover piece in its Sunday magazine by Parag Khanna, entitled ``Waving Goodbye to Hegemony.''But has the U.S.'s position in the world really changed?In terms of gross domestic product, the U.S. has been an economic colossus for a long time, and continues to be so.Economist Angus Maddison writes in his book, ``The World Economy: a Millennial Perspective,'' that America's share of world GDP peaked at almost 28 percent in 1951, up from 1.8 percent in 1820, 8.8 percent in 1870 and 18.9 percent in 1913.The U.S. share of world income then declined consistently until 1975, when it accounted for 21 percent of world GDP. It has been roughly the same since. Maddison, who has compiled global national-income data for the world from 1 A.D. to 2001, estimates the U.S. share of world GDP was 21.4 percent in 2001.Since then, growth outside the U.S. has picked up, while the expansion inside the U.S. has slowed. According to the International Monetary Fund, which offers more recent statistics, the U.S. accounted for 21.0 percent of world income in 2001 (which is close enough to Maddison's estimate to allow one to draw on both); it declined to 20.0 percent in 2005.Not Cover MaterialSuch a minor deterioration may just be cyclical, and is hardly magazine-cover material.The U.S. economy continues to be positively awe-inspiring compared with the competition. The value of U.S. imports in 2006 was roughly the same as the entire GDP of France. The U.S. is the world's largest exporter; indeed, if all U.S. exporters banded together and seceded from the country, they would have the eighth-largest GDP in the world.The economy of Brazil is about the size of the economy of Texas. The economy of India is about the size of the economy of America's Plains states. The economy of Venezuela is about the size of the economy of Alabama.The U.S. share of the value of global-equity trading is more than 40 percent. The total value of trading on the New York Stock Exchange in 2006 was greater than all of Europe's combined. While the Sarbanes-Oxley corporate-governance law may have made the U.S. a less-attractive locale for new issues, the NYSE was still the world leader in total new capital raised in 2006.Foreign Capital MagnetThe U.S. is still the place that foreign capital wants to be and is the largest receiver of foreign direct investment. Nine of the top 50 transnational financial corporations are American, including the top two (Citigroup Inc. and General Electric Capital Corp.). Thirteen of the top 50 non-financial transnational corporations are American, including four of the top eight: General Electric, General Motors Corp., Exxon Mobil Corp. and Ford Motor Co.Looking ahead, the U.S. has relatively high immigration and fertility, something that should help it avoid the demographic nightmares awaiting many of its trading partners.Big FootprintMy colleague at the American Enterprise Institute, Nicholas Eberstadt summed up the conventional wisdom on the importance of demographic trends as follows: ``In 2005, Europeans outnumbered Americans in virtually every age group, exceeding Americans by 37 percent among people of prime working age, between 35 and 49 years old. By 2030, however, there will be nearly as many Americans as Western Europeans in the 35-to-49-year-old category and many more Americans under the age of 30.'' With regard to Europe, the footprint of the U.S. will inevitably increase.While China's growth has been impressive lately, a recent study found that it may well be at least 50 years before it catches up to the U.S.The U.S. stands out in another way. Among developed nations, it is by far the most committed to a strong national defense. U.S. national defense spending in 2006 was greater than the combined national incomes of Saudi Arabia, Iran and Qatar.The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute keeps a database of world military spending that goes back to the late 1980s. According to the institute, U.S. defense spending as a share of world defense spending peaked at 44 percent in 1992, and then declined until 2001, when it fell below 39 percent of the world total.Iraq, TerrorSince 2001, however, the U.S. military has grown considerably, largely because of the war in Iraq and the war on terror, and the U.S. constituted 45.7 percent of global defense spending in 2006.Given the relative size of the U.S. armed forces, there is little doubt the U.S. will have to take a leading role going forward in assuring world security.Looking both at the economic and the military facts, one can only conclude that the U.S. is a singular nation, and will likely be so for a long, long time.To contact the writer of this column: Kevin Hassett at khassett@aei.org___________________________________
While the U.S. retains huge supremacy militarily this might still does not give the U.S. easy control of global events. The dollar is falling and countries such as China and India have larger populations and much stronger growth rates than the U.S. In the longer term there could be bitter battles over access to and control over natural resources needed to fuel national economies.
Ignore the Obituaries, U.S. Reign Will Endure Kevin HassettFeb. 4 (Bloomberg) -- The negative employment report on Feb. 1 was another sign the U.S. economy is on the ropes. Increasingly, this downswing is being portrayed as more than just a cyclical phenomenon. The U.S. used to be the envy of the world, the story goes, and soon it will be just another nation.The question no longer seems to be whether the U.S. will recede into the pack, but rather, who is to blame. The New York Times recently explored that question with a provocative cover piece in its Sunday magazine by Parag Khanna, entitled ``Waving Goodbye to Hegemony.''But has the U.S.'s position in the world really changed?In terms of gross domestic product, the U.S. has been an economic colossus for a long time, and continues to be so.Economist Angus Maddison writes in his book, ``The World Economy: a Millennial Perspective,'' that America's share of world GDP peaked at almost 28 percent in 1951, up from 1.8 percent in 1820, 8.8 percent in 1870 and 18.9 percent in 1913.The U.S. share of world income then declined consistently until 1975, when it accounted for 21 percent of world GDP. It has been roughly the same since. Maddison, who has compiled global national-income data for the world from 1 A.D. to 2001, estimates the U.S. share of world GDP was 21.4 percent in 2001.Since then, growth outside the U.S. has picked up, while the expansion inside the U.S. has slowed. According to the International Monetary Fund, which offers more recent statistics, the U.S. accounted for 21.0 percent of world income in 2001 (which is close enough to Maddison's estimate to allow one to draw on both); it declined to 20.0 percent in 2005.Not Cover MaterialSuch a minor deterioration may just be cyclical, and is hardly magazine-cover material.The U.S. economy continues to be positively awe-inspiring compared with the competition. The value of U.S. imports in 2006 was roughly the same as the entire GDP of France. The U.S. is the world's largest exporter; indeed, if all U.S. exporters banded together and seceded from the country, they would have the eighth-largest GDP in the world.The economy of Brazil is about the size of the economy of Texas. The economy of India is about the size of the economy of America's Plains states. The economy of Venezuela is about the size of the economy of Alabama.The U.S. share of the value of global-equity trading is more than 40 percent. The total value of trading on the New York Stock Exchange in 2006 was greater than all of Europe's combined. While the Sarbanes-Oxley corporate-governance law may have made the U.S. a less-attractive locale for new issues, the NYSE was still the world leader in total new capital raised in 2006.Foreign Capital MagnetThe U.S. is still the place that foreign capital wants to be and is the largest receiver of foreign direct investment. Nine of the top 50 transnational financial corporations are American, including the top two (Citigroup Inc. and General Electric Capital Corp.). Thirteen of the top 50 non-financial transnational corporations are American, including four of the top eight: General Electric, General Motors Corp., Exxon Mobil Corp. and Ford Motor Co.Looking ahead, the U.S. has relatively high immigration and fertility, something that should help it avoid the demographic nightmares awaiting many of its trading partners.Big FootprintMy colleague at the American Enterprise Institute, Nicholas Eberstadt summed up the conventional wisdom on the importance of demographic trends as follows: ``In 2005, Europeans outnumbered Americans in virtually every age group, exceeding Americans by 37 percent among people of prime working age, between 35 and 49 years old. By 2030, however, there will be nearly as many Americans as Western Europeans in the 35-to-49-year-old category and many more Americans under the age of 30.'' With regard to Europe, the footprint of the U.S. will inevitably increase.While China's growth has been impressive lately, a recent study found that it may well be at least 50 years before it catches up to the U.S.The U.S. stands out in another way. Among developed nations, it is by far the most committed to a strong national defense. U.S. national defense spending in 2006 was greater than the combined national incomes of Saudi Arabia, Iran and Qatar.The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute keeps a database of world military spending that goes back to the late 1980s. According to the institute, U.S. defense spending as a share of world defense spending peaked at 44 percent in 1992, and then declined until 2001, when it fell below 39 percent of the world total.Iraq, TerrorSince 2001, however, the U.S. military has grown considerably, largely because of the war in Iraq and the war on terror, and the U.S. constituted 45.7 percent of global defense spending in 2006.Given the relative size of the U.S. armed forces, there is little doubt the U.S. will have to take a leading role going forward in assuring world security.Looking both at the economic and the military facts, one can only conclude that the U.S. is a singular nation, and will likely be so for a long, long time.To contact the writer of this column: Kevin Hassett at khassett@aei.org___________________________________
Monday, February 4, 2008
Why Karzai is angry at the Brits!
This is from the Independent. This is the sort of thing that Karzai himself might have done as well. I guess he didn't approve of the Brits doing it on their own. The policy has a family resemblance to that of the US in Anbar in Iraq where Sunni insurgents were recruited to fight Al Qaeda.
Revealed: British plan to build training camp for Taliban fighters in Afghanistan
AP
The Afghan government says that Britain had a secret plan to train 2,000 Taliban fighters
By Jerome Starkey in KabulMonday, 4 February 2008
Britain planned to build a Taliban training camp for 2,000 fighters in southern Afghanistan, as part of a top-secret deal to make them swap sides, intelligence sources in Kabul have revealed. The plans were discovered on a memory stick seized by Afghan secret police in December.
The Afghan government claims they prove British agents were talking to the Taliban without permission from the Afghan President, Hamid Karzai, despite Gordon Brown's pledge that Britain will not negotiate. The Prime Minister told Parliament on 12 December: "Our objective is to defeat the insurgency by isolating and eliminating their leaders. We will not enter into any negotiations with these people."
The British insist President Karzai's office knew what was going on. But Mr Karzai has expelled two top diplomats amid accusations they were part of a plot to buy-off the insurgents.
The row was the first in a series of spectacular diplomatic spats which has seen Anglo-Afghan relations sink to a new low. Since December, President Karzai has blocked the appointment of Paddy Ashdown to the top UN job in Kabul and he has blamed British troops for losing control of Helmand.
It has also soured relations between Kabul and Washington, where State Department officials were instrumental in pushing Lord Ashdown for the UN role.
President Karzai's political mentor, Sibghatullah Mojaddedi, endorsed a death sentence for blasphemy on the student journalist Sayed Pervez Kambaksh last week, and two British contractors have been arrested in Kabul on, it is claimed, trumped up weapons charges. The developments are seen as a deliberate defiance of the British.
An Afghan government source said the training camp was part of a British plan to use bands of reconciled Taliban, called Community Defence Volunteers, to fight the remaining insurgents. "The camp would provide military training for 1,800 ordinary Taliban fighters and 200 low-level commanders," he said.
The computer memory stick at the centre of the row was impounded by officers from Afghanistan's KGB-trained National Directorate of Security after they moved against a party of international diplomats who were visiting Helmand.
A ministry insider said: "When they were arrested, the British said the Ministry of the Interior and the National Security Council knew about it, but no one knew anything. That's why the President was so angry."
Details of how much President Karzai was told remain murky. Some analysts believe Afghan officials were briefed about the plan, but that it later evolved.
The camp was due to be built outside Musa Qala, in Helmand. It was part of a package of reconstruction and development incentives designed to win trust and support in the aftermath of the British-led battle to retake the stronghold last year.
But the Afghans feared the British were training a militia with no loyalty to the central government. Intercepted Taliban communications suggested they thought the British were trying to help them, the Afghan official said.
The Western delegates, Michael Semple and Mervyn Patterson, were given 48 hours to leave the country. Their Afghan colleagues, including a former army general, were jailed. The expulsions coincided with a row within the Taliban's ranks which saw a senior commander, Mansoor Dadullah, sacked for talking to British spies. One official claimed the camp was planned for Mansoor and his men.
The computer stick contained a three-stage plan, called the European Union Peace Building Programme. The third stage covered military training.
Curiously, the European Union says the programme did not exist and there were no EU funds to run it.
Afghan government officials insist it was bankrolled by the British. UK diplomats, the UN, Western officials and senior Afghan officials have all confirmed the outline of the plan, which they agree is entirely British-led, but all refused to talk about it on the record. President Karzai's office claimed it was "a matter of national security".
The memory stick revealed that $125,000 (£64,000) had been spent on preparing the camp and a further $200,000 was earmarked to run it in 2008, an Afghan official said. The figures sparked allegations that British agents were paying the Taliban.
President Karzai's spokesman, Humayun Hamidzada, accused Mr Semple and Mr Patterson of being "involved in some activities that were not their jobs."
The camp would also have provided vocational training, including farming and irrigation techniques, to offer people a viable alternative to growing opium. But the Afghan government took issue with plans to provide military training, to turn the insurgents into a defence force.
Afghan government staff also claimed the "EU peace-builders" had handed over mobile phones, laptops and airtime credit to insurgents. They said the memory stick revealed plans to train the Taliban to use secure satellite phones, so they could communicate directly with UK officials.
Mr Patterson, a Briton, was the third-ranking UN diplomat when he was held. Mr Semple, an Irishman, was the acting head of the EU mission. Officially, the British embassy remains tight-lipped, fuelling speculation that the plan may have been part of a wider clandestine operation.
A spokesman repeated the line used since Christmas: "The EU and UN have responded to inquiries on this. We have nothing further to add."
But privately, the UN maintains it had no role in setting up the camp. Meanwhile, Mr Semple's EU boss, Francesc Vendrell, admitted he had very little idea what was going on.
Yet the British ambassador, Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, cut short his Christmas holiday to meet President Karzai and "spell out the Foreign Office paper-trail" which diplomats claim proves his government had agreed. They met twice, but it was not enough to stop Mr Semple and Mr Patterson being forced to leave.
Gordon Brown has also said Britain would increase its support for "community defence initiatives, where local volunteers are recruited to defend homes and families modelled on traditional Afghan arbakai".
Background to the proposal
* December 11
British and Afghan troops take Musa Qala, a Taliban stronghold in Helmand, after President Hamid Karzai reveals that a senior Taliban commander swapped sides.
* December 23-24
The acting head of the EU mission, Michael Semple, and the third-ranking UN diplomat in Afghanistan, Mervyn Patterson, hold talks with local dignitaries and Taliban sympathisers in Helmand. Afghan secret police arrest their colleague, General Stanikzai, and seize a memory stick containing plans for training camps.
* December 25
Semple and Patterson are given 48 hours in which to leave Kabul.
* December 27
The two diplomats fly out of the Afghan capital, despite international appeals to let them stay.
Interesting? Click here to explore further
Revealed: British plan to build training camp for Taliban fighters in Afghanistan
AP
The Afghan government says that Britain had a secret plan to train 2,000 Taliban fighters
By Jerome Starkey in KabulMonday, 4 February 2008
Britain planned to build a Taliban training camp for 2,000 fighters in southern Afghanistan, as part of a top-secret deal to make them swap sides, intelligence sources in Kabul have revealed. The plans were discovered on a memory stick seized by Afghan secret police in December.
The Afghan government claims they prove British agents were talking to the Taliban without permission from the Afghan President, Hamid Karzai, despite Gordon Brown's pledge that Britain will not negotiate. The Prime Minister told Parliament on 12 December: "Our objective is to defeat the insurgency by isolating and eliminating their leaders. We will not enter into any negotiations with these people."
The British insist President Karzai's office knew what was going on. But Mr Karzai has expelled two top diplomats amid accusations they were part of a plot to buy-off the insurgents.
The row was the first in a series of spectacular diplomatic spats which has seen Anglo-Afghan relations sink to a new low. Since December, President Karzai has blocked the appointment of Paddy Ashdown to the top UN job in Kabul and he has blamed British troops for losing control of Helmand.
It has also soured relations between Kabul and Washington, where State Department officials were instrumental in pushing Lord Ashdown for the UN role.
President Karzai's political mentor, Sibghatullah Mojaddedi, endorsed a death sentence for blasphemy on the student journalist Sayed Pervez Kambaksh last week, and two British contractors have been arrested in Kabul on, it is claimed, trumped up weapons charges. The developments are seen as a deliberate defiance of the British.
An Afghan government source said the training camp was part of a British plan to use bands of reconciled Taliban, called Community Defence Volunteers, to fight the remaining insurgents. "The camp would provide military training for 1,800 ordinary Taliban fighters and 200 low-level commanders," he said.
The computer memory stick at the centre of the row was impounded by officers from Afghanistan's KGB-trained National Directorate of Security after they moved against a party of international diplomats who were visiting Helmand.
A ministry insider said: "When they were arrested, the British said the Ministry of the Interior and the National Security Council knew about it, but no one knew anything. That's why the President was so angry."
Details of how much President Karzai was told remain murky. Some analysts believe Afghan officials were briefed about the plan, but that it later evolved.
The camp was due to be built outside Musa Qala, in Helmand. It was part of a package of reconstruction and development incentives designed to win trust and support in the aftermath of the British-led battle to retake the stronghold last year.
But the Afghans feared the British were training a militia with no loyalty to the central government. Intercepted Taliban communications suggested they thought the British were trying to help them, the Afghan official said.
The Western delegates, Michael Semple and Mervyn Patterson, were given 48 hours to leave the country. Their Afghan colleagues, including a former army general, were jailed. The expulsions coincided with a row within the Taliban's ranks which saw a senior commander, Mansoor Dadullah, sacked for talking to British spies. One official claimed the camp was planned for Mansoor and his men.
The computer stick contained a three-stage plan, called the European Union Peace Building Programme. The third stage covered military training.
Curiously, the European Union says the programme did not exist and there were no EU funds to run it.
Afghan government officials insist it was bankrolled by the British. UK diplomats, the UN, Western officials and senior Afghan officials have all confirmed the outline of the plan, which they agree is entirely British-led, but all refused to talk about it on the record. President Karzai's office claimed it was "a matter of national security".
The memory stick revealed that $125,000 (£64,000) had been spent on preparing the camp and a further $200,000 was earmarked to run it in 2008, an Afghan official said. The figures sparked allegations that British agents were paying the Taliban.
President Karzai's spokesman, Humayun Hamidzada, accused Mr Semple and Mr Patterson of being "involved in some activities that were not their jobs."
The camp would also have provided vocational training, including farming and irrigation techniques, to offer people a viable alternative to growing opium. But the Afghan government took issue with plans to provide military training, to turn the insurgents into a defence force.
Afghan government staff also claimed the "EU peace-builders" had handed over mobile phones, laptops and airtime credit to insurgents. They said the memory stick revealed plans to train the Taliban to use secure satellite phones, so they could communicate directly with UK officials.
Mr Patterson, a Briton, was the third-ranking UN diplomat when he was held. Mr Semple, an Irishman, was the acting head of the EU mission. Officially, the British embassy remains tight-lipped, fuelling speculation that the plan may have been part of a wider clandestine operation.
A spokesman repeated the line used since Christmas: "The EU and UN have responded to inquiries on this. We have nothing further to add."
But privately, the UN maintains it had no role in setting up the camp. Meanwhile, Mr Semple's EU boss, Francesc Vendrell, admitted he had very little idea what was going on.
Yet the British ambassador, Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, cut short his Christmas holiday to meet President Karzai and "spell out the Foreign Office paper-trail" which diplomats claim proves his government had agreed. They met twice, but it was not enough to stop Mr Semple and Mr Patterson being forced to leave.
Gordon Brown has also said Britain would increase its support for "community defence initiatives, where local volunteers are recruited to defend homes and families modelled on traditional Afghan arbakai".
Background to the proposal
* December 11
British and Afghan troops take Musa Qala, a Taliban stronghold in Helmand, after President Hamid Karzai reveals that a senior Taliban commander swapped sides.
* December 23-24
The acting head of the EU mission, Michael Semple, and the third-ranking UN diplomat in Afghanistan, Mervyn Patterson, hold talks with local dignitaries and Taliban sympathisers in Helmand. Afghan secret police arrest their colleague, General Stanikzai, and seize a memory stick containing plans for training camps.
* December 25
Semple and Patterson are given 48 hours in which to leave Kabul.
* December 27
The two diplomats fly out of the Afghan capital, despite international appeals to let them stay.
Interesting? Click here to explore further
Rising Cost of Iraq War May Reignite Public Debate
Reignite? I was not aware that there is much US debate over defence spending. However with the primaries going on the Democrats may begin to make noises about defence spending versus social spending. Nevertheless the Democrats certainly never denied Bush any funds. Doing so would be described as letting down the troops or being soft on terrorism.
Al Qaeda is winning the war on terror insofar as the main spending in the US is on the military and homeland security. Social spending will be cut where possible. The quality of life in the U.S. will probably decline for the middle class. The response of the political system is to market hope--but also fear-- and this is hyped by talking heads.
By YOCHI J. DREAZEN and JOHN D. MCKINNONWall Street JournalFebruary 4, 2008; Page A1WASHINGTON -- The cost of U.S. military operations in Iraq is risingrapidly, and could reignite the national debate about the war, which hastaken a back seat to the economy as an issue for most voters this electionyear.Today, the White House will propose a federal budget that for the first timetops $3 trillion. The plan is expected to include a record sum for thePentagon and an additional $70 billion in funding for the wars in Iraq andAfghanistan, while essentially freezing discretionary spending in areasother than national security, including most domestic programs.The sharp contrast between President Bush's defense and domestic-spendinggoals could give Democrats a potent political weapon as the economycontinues to deteriorate. But with the Democratic-controlled Congress likelyto scrap most of Mr. Bush's spending plans, his funding proposal for Iraqmay be one of the budget's most enduring elements.Mr. Bush's budget calls for about $515 billion to be allocated to theDefense Department for the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1, according topeople familiar with the matter. If passed by Congress, that would be thelargest military budget -- adjusted for inflation -- since World War II.Pending RequestsThe budget also includes a separate request of $70 billion for Iraq andAfghanistan for the first quarter of fiscal 2009 alone. For this fiscalyear, Congress has yet to approve additional spending of about $102 billionthe White House has requested for the two conflicts.Boosted in part by rising fuel prices and the expense of repairing orreplacing vehicles worn down by the long war, U.S. spending on Iraq hasdoubled in the past three years.Last year's buildup of U.S. troops -- known as the "surge" -- and themilitary's growing use of expensive heavy munitions to roust Iraqiinsurgents also have contributed to the cost increase. According to a recentCongressional Research Service report, the average monthly cost of theconflict -- by CRS's measure -- hit $10.3 billion in the year ended Sept.30, 2007, up from $4.4 billion in fiscal 2004.$1 Trillion MarkWith Congress having already approved $691 billion in war spending since2001, the cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars combined could rise to justunder $900 billion by next spring and could near the $1 trillion mark by theend of 2009.Pentagon officials acknowledge that war costs have risen sharply, but theysay the added spending is justified not only by higher fuel and food pricesbut also by the need to provide better protective gear and other equipmentto U.S. troops. They also note that the U.S. has begun spending tens ofmillions of dollars a year on salaries for what the Pentagon calls"Concerned Local Citizens," the mainly Sunni fighters who now function asneighborhood-watch organizations in many parts of Iraq.On the domestic front, the president's new budget is expected to keep atight lid on costs that aren't security-related. One big target for savingswould be Medicare, the health-care program for the elderly. But the budgetfor homeland security is expected to rise sharply again, with much of themoney going to increasing immigration enforcement and border security.Today's announcement is also expected to project deficits in the range of$400 billion for both 2008 and 2009, thanks to a big economic-stimulus planCongress is expected to approve. If war costs were fully included, the 2009deficit would be even higher.Congress has been unable to limit war funding in the past. Last year,several measures aimed at changing administration policy failed to make itthrough both chambers, damping calls for change. The progress the U.S. troopsurge has made in tamping down violence in parts of Iraq also has helped todislodge the war from the top of the political agenda.But the issue of war costs is gaining traction. Democrats believe they havea stronger hand now amid fears of a recession. Polling and focus groupscommissioned by several unions and activist groups last year suggested thatDemocrats should focus on the war's impact on domestic needs as they girdfor a budget battle with Mr. Bush. According to a memo describing theresults, the best way for the Democrats to frame their message would be tocriticize Mr. Bush for vetoing "important priorities at home after spendinghalf a trillion dollars in Iraq."A big test of this approach could come as soon as this spring, when Congressbegins debating the additional Iraq war funding the Bush administration hasrequested for this year.Democrats' MessageKansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius sought to make those points last Monday in theDemocrats' official response to President Bush's State of the Union address.She complained that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan "have cost us dearly --in lives lost; in thousands of wounded warriors whose futures may never bethe same; [and] in challenges not met here at home because our resourceswere committed elsewhere."On the campaign trail, Democrats have hit that message harder, arguing thaturgent domestic needs -- from children's health care to expanded spending onhighways and other infrastructure -- are going unmet because of the highcosts of the two conflicts."We are spending $9 billion to $10 billion every month," Democraticpresidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama said late last month during a debatein South Carolina. "That's money that could be going right here in SouthCarolina to lay broadband lines in rural communities, to put kids back toschool."Several progressive groups and labor unions joined forces last fall to runTV ads targeting lawmakers for voting against a Democratic-led effort toexpand health insurance for children. One ad sponsored by USAction said"health care for 1.7 million kids costs the same as just one week in Iraq.But Republicans in Congress" helped President Bush to block the program'sexpansion.White House officials believe they weathered Democrats' attacks over Mr.Bush's veto of the expansion. Many voters, the White House believes, agreedthat the initiative represented an ill-advised, big-government-styleresponse to the country's health-care problems. They plan to maintain thatdefense as Democrats broaden their arguments for more spending to includeinfrastructure and social spending.Senior military officials, meanwhile, want to see the Defense Department'sbudget grow beyond what Mr. Bush has requested so far. Adm. Michael Mullen,the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, says that total defensespending -- for the Defense Department itself and the wars in Iraq andAfghanistan -- should rise to 4% of gross domestic product a year. That'sequivalent to about $700 billion a year.Replacing EquipmentSenior Pentagon officials say they need the extra money to pay for thecontinuing costs of expanding the nation's active-duty military by tens ofthousands of troops and repairing or replacing the planes, helicopters,tanks and armored vehicles consumed by the two wars.Speaking to reporters Friday, Gen. James Conway, the commandant of theMarine Corps, argued that a wartime defense budget of 4% of GDP would besmall compared with the ratios in previous conflicts. "We're fighting a waron less than 4%," he said. "It was 9 during Korea, 13 for Vietnam, 35, 38for World War II. We're making do with it, but...we do see some needs on thehorizon."The 30,000 additional U.S. troops sent to Iraq last year as part of thesurge are expected to return to the U.S. by the end of the summer, bringingthe total U.S. troop presence back down to about 130,000.Defense Secretary Robert Gates has talked in the past about trying towithdraw an additional 30,000 troops by the end of the year to reduce thestrains on the military. Mr. Bush said this week that he may hold off on anyfurther troop reductions for fear of jeopardizing recent security gains inIraq.
Al Qaeda is winning the war on terror insofar as the main spending in the US is on the military and homeland security. Social spending will be cut where possible. The quality of life in the U.S. will probably decline for the middle class. The response of the political system is to market hope--but also fear-- and this is hyped by talking heads.
By YOCHI J. DREAZEN and JOHN D. MCKINNONWall Street JournalFebruary 4, 2008; Page A1WASHINGTON -- The cost of U.S. military operations in Iraq is risingrapidly, and could reignite the national debate about the war, which hastaken a back seat to the economy as an issue for most voters this electionyear.Today, the White House will propose a federal budget that for the first timetops $3 trillion. The plan is expected to include a record sum for thePentagon and an additional $70 billion in funding for the wars in Iraq andAfghanistan, while essentially freezing discretionary spending in areasother than national security, including most domestic programs.The sharp contrast between President Bush's defense and domestic-spendinggoals could give Democrats a potent political weapon as the economycontinues to deteriorate. But with the Democratic-controlled Congress likelyto scrap most of Mr. Bush's spending plans, his funding proposal for Iraqmay be one of the budget's most enduring elements.Mr. Bush's budget calls for about $515 billion to be allocated to theDefense Department for the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1, according topeople familiar with the matter. If passed by Congress, that would be thelargest military budget -- adjusted for inflation -- since World War II.Pending RequestsThe budget also includes a separate request of $70 billion for Iraq andAfghanistan for the first quarter of fiscal 2009 alone. For this fiscalyear, Congress has yet to approve additional spending of about $102 billionthe White House has requested for the two conflicts.Boosted in part by rising fuel prices and the expense of repairing orreplacing vehicles worn down by the long war, U.S. spending on Iraq hasdoubled in the past three years.Last year's buildup of U.S. troops -- known as the "surge" -- and themilitary's growing use of expensive heavy munitions to roust Iraqiinsurgents also have contributed to the cost increase. According to a recentCongressional Research Service report, the average monthly cost of theconflict -- by CRS's measure -- hit $10.3 billion in the year ended Sept.30, 2007, up from $4.4 billion in fiscal 2004.$1 Trillion MarkWith Congress having already approved $691 billion in war spending since2001, the cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars combined could rise to justunder $900 billion by next spring and could near the $1 trillion mark by theend of 2009.Pentagon officials acknowledge that war costs have risen sharply, but theysay the added spending is justified not only by higher fuel and food pricesbut also by the need to provide better protective gear and other equipmentto U.S. troops. They also note that the U.S. has begun spending tens ofmillions of dollars a year on salaries for what the Pentagon calls"Concerned Local Citizens," the mainly Sunni fighters who now function asneighborhood-watch organizations in many parts of Iraq.On the domestic front, the president's new budget is expected to keep atight lid on costs that aren't security-related. One big target for savingswould be Medicare, the health-care program for the elderly. But the budgetfor homeland security is expected to rise sharply again, with much of themoney going to increasing immigration enforcement and border security.Today's announcement is also expected to project deficits in the range of$400 billion for both 2008 and 2009, thanks to a big economic-stimulus planCongress is expected to approve. If war costs were fully included, the 2009deficit would be even higher.Congress has been unable to limit war funding in the past. Last year,several measures aimed at changing administration policy failed to make itthrough both chambers, damping calls for change. The progress the U.S. troopsurge has made in tamping down violence in parts of Iraq also has helped todislodge the war from the top of the political agenda.But the issue of war costs is gaining traction. Democrats believe they havea stronger hand now amid fears of a recession. Polling and focus groupscommissioned by several unions and activist groups last year suggested thatDemocrats should focus on the war's impact on domestic needs as they girdfor a budget battle with Mr. Bush. According to a memo describing theresults, the best way for the Democrats to frame their message would be tocriticize Mr. Bush for vetoing "important priorities at home after spendinghalf a trillion dollars in Iraq."A big test of this approach could come as soon as this spring, when Congressbegins debating the additional Iraq war funding the Bush administration hasrequested for this year.Democrats' MessageKansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius sought to make those points last Monday in theDemocrats' official response to President Bush's State of the Union address.She complained that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan "have cost us dearly --in lives lost; in thousands of wounded warriors whose futures may never bethe same; [and] in challenges not met here at home because our resourceswere committed elsewhere."On the campaign trail, Democrats have hit that message harder, arguing thaturgent domestic needs -- from children's health care to expanded spending onhighways and other infrastructure -- are going unmet because of the highcosts of the two conflicts."We are spending $9 billion to $10 billion every month," Democraticpresidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama said late last month during a debatein South Carolina. "That's money that could be going right here in SouthCarolina to lay broadband lines in rural communities, to put kids back toschool."Several progressive groups and labor unions joined forces last fall to runTV ads targeting lawmakers for voting against a Democratic-led effort toexpand health insurance for children. One ad sponsored by USAction said"health care for 1.7 million kids costs the same as just one week in Iraq.But Republicans in Congress" helped President Bush to block the program'sexpansion.White House officials believe they weathered Democrats' attacks over Mr.Bush's veto of the expansion. Many voters, the White House believes, agreedthat the initiative represented an ill-advised, big-government-styleresponse to the country's health-care problems. They plan to maintain thatdefense as Democrats broaden their arguments for more spending to includeinfrastructure and social spending.Senior military officials, meanwhile, want to see the Defense Department'sbudget grow beyond what Mr. Bush has requested so far. Adm. Michael Mullen,the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, says that total defensespending -- for the Defense Department itself and the wars in Iraq andAfghanistan -- should rise to 4% of gross domestic product a year. That'sequivalent to about $700 billion a year.Replacing EquipmentSenior Pentagon officials say they need the extra money to pay for thecontinuing costs of expanding the nation's active-duty military by tens ofthousands of troops and repairing or replacing the planes, helicopters,tanks and armored vehicles consumed by the two wars.Speaking to reporters Friday, Gen. James Conway, the commandant of theMarine Corps, argued that a wartime defense budget of 4% of GDP would besmall compared with the ratios in previous conflicts. "We're fighting a waron less than 4%," he said. "It was 9 during Korea, 13 for Vietnam, 35, 38for World War II. We're making do with it, but...we do see some needs on thehorizon."The 30,000 additional U.S. troops sent to Iraq last year as part of thesurge are expected to return to the U.S. by the end of the summer, bringingthe total U.S. troop presence back down to about 130,000.Defense Secretary Robert Gates has talked in the past about trying towithdraw an additional 30,000 troops by the end of the year to reduce thestrains on the military. Mr. Bush said this week that he may hold off on anyfurther troop reductions for fear of jeopardizing recent security gains inIraq.
Philippines: Palawan governor moves to stop mining case to Manila.
Somehow I get the idea that some politicians might be exploring the terrain to possibly do some mining for political donations or else some votes.This is from the Daily Tribune.
Palawan gov’s move to stop transfer of case vs mining firms to Manila slammed
02/04/2008
Local mining firms yesterday cried foul over Palawan Gov. Joel Reyes’ move to block Department of Justice (DoJ) Secretary Raul Gonzalez’s order to immediately transfer the preliminary investigation into a case lodged against Citinickel Mines and Development Corp. and Oriental Peninsula Resources Group to Manila.
In a letter to Gonzalez, Ferdinand Pallera, vice president of Citinickel, said Reyes’ effort to stop the transfer of the case is highly deplorable as it is illegal since the governor is already intervening in the DoJ’s purely prosecutorial affairs, particularly in the disposition of the case against against the mining firms.
Pallera, who is opposing the return of the case to Palawan, is asking why Reyes is showing “unusual interest” in Citinickel’s case, saying the latter even informed Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita of the matter.
“Why is the governor meddling in this case? Why can’t he allow DoJ’s national prosecution service to do its job without pressure or interference?” he asked.
Reyes and a member of the Palawan Provincial Mining Regulatory Board (PMRB) asked Gonzalez to recall his Jan. 10 order, which they claimed effectively stripped the Palawan provincial prosecutor office of jurisdiction over the case.
Gonzalez had ordered the transfer of the case to a state prosecutor in Manila following complaints by respondents Citinickel and Oriental Peninsula of alleged harassment and intimidation in Palawan.
The DoJ chief justified his order, stressing that the situation in Palawan relative to the mining dispute is “tense” and could lead to possible violence.
Gonzalez issued the directive after giving due course to a letter-complaint of Pallera, who claimed that death threats and the hostile conditions in Palawan would make it difficult, if not impossible, for the Manila-based respondents to safely travel to and from the province to attend the preliminary investigation.
The case stemmed from alleged violations of Section 103 of RA 7942 (Theft of Minerals), filed by PMRB member Mark Concepcion against company officials for alleged illegal quarrying relative to the construction of roads leading to a pier in the
town of Sofronio Espanola.
The two firms denied the charges.
Describing the PMRB complaint as a mere harassment suit, Pallera said Citinickel and Oriental Peninsula could not expect impartial justice in Palawan.
In justifying his desire to have the case moved back to Palawan, Reyes said the grounds upon which the transfer was made was predicated on “imagined threats, conjectures and false assumptions” regarding physical harm or violence against the respondents. Claiming that he can assure the safety and protection of people, visitors and investors in Palawan, the governor asked Gonzalez to transfer the case back to Palawan.
“There are influential people who are trying to influence the outcome of the case to the detriment of our business operations in the province,” Pallera stressed.
Reyes is currently facing graft and corruption charges for allegedly assisting and supporting Platinum Group Metals Corp., a small-scale mining firm, in extracting 282,729.35 metric tons of mineral ore in excess of the 50,000 metric ton limit allowed by the Small Scale Mining Law.
Worth more than P565 million, the nickel ore extracted by PGMC in two years is almost three times its allowed production for the period.
The Department of Environment and Natural Resources revoked PGMC’s small scale mining permits in 2007.
Benjamin B. Pulta with PNA
Palawan gov’s move to stop transfer of case vs mining firms to Manila slammed
02/04/2008
Local mining firms yesterday cried foul over Palawan Gov. Joel Reyes’ move to block Department of Justice (DoJ) Secretary Raul Gonzalez’s order to immediately transfer the preliminary investigation into a case lodged against Citinickel Mines and Development Corp. and Oriental Peninsula Resources Group to Manila.
In a letter to Gonzalez, Ferdinand Pallera, vice president of Citinickel, said Reyes’ effort to stop the transfer of the case is highly deplorable as it is illegal since the governor is already intervening in the DoJ’s purely prosecutorial affairs, particularly in the disposition of the case against against the mining firms.
Pallera, who is opposing the return of the case to Palawan, is asking why Reyes is showing “unusual interest” in Citinickel’s case, saying the latter even informed Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita of the matter.
“Why is the governor meddling in this case? Why can’t he allow DoJ’s national prosecution service to do its job without pressure or interference?” he asked.
Reyes and a member of the Palawan Provincial Mining Regulatory Board (PMRB) asked Gonzalez to recall his Jan. 10 order, which they claimed effectively stripped the Palawan provincial prosecutor office of jurisdiction over the case.
Gonzalez had ordered the transfer of the case to a state prosecutor in Manila following complaints by respondents Citinickel and Oriental Peninsula of alleged harassment and intimidation in Palawan.
The DoJ chief justified his order, stressing that the situation in Palawan relative to the mining dispute is “tense” and could lead to possible violence.
Gonzalez issued the directive after giving due course to a letter-complaint of Pallera, who claimed that death threats and the hostile conditions in Palawan would make it difficult, if not impossible, for the Manila-based respondents to safely travel to and from the province to attend the preliminary investigation.
The case stemmed from alleged violations of Section 103 of RA 7942 (Theft of Minerals), filed by PMRB member Mark Concepcion against company officials for alleged illegal quarrying relative to the construction of roads leading to a pier in the
town of Sofronio Espanola.
The two firms denied the charges.
Describing the PMRB complaint as a mere harassment suit, Pallera said Citinickel and Oriental Peninsula could not expect impartial justice in Palawan.
In justifying his desire to have the case moved back to Palawan, Reyes said the grounds upon which the transfer was made was predicated on “imagined threats, conjectures and false assumptions” regarding physical harm or violence against the respondents. Claiming that he can assure the safety and protection of people, visitors and investors in Palawan, the governor asked Gonzalez to transfer the case back to Palawan.
“There are influential people who are trying to influence the outcome of the case to the detriment of our business operations in the province,” Pallera stressed.
Reyes is currently facing graft and corruption charges for allegedly assisting and supporting Platinum Group Metals Corp., a small-scale mining firm, in extracting 282,729.35 metric tons of mineral ore in excess of the 50,000 metric ton limit allowed by the Small Scale Mining Law.
Worth more than P565 million, the nickel ore extracted by PGMC in two years is almost three times its allowed production for the period.
The Department of Environment and Natural Resources revoked PGMC’s small scale mining permits in 2007.
Benjamin B. Pulta with PNA
Sunday, February 3, 2008
Obama's sub-prime crisis solution.
This article comparing and contrasting the solutions of Obama, Clinton, and Edwards to the crisis illustrates the influence of the conservative economists that advise Obama. However, it is possible that within some Democratic circles Obama's solutions will be regarded as "more responsible" than those of Clinton or Edwards. I can see some sense in not rescuing even poor people with poor grasp of their debt situation when they are suckered into buying into the American dream by greedy lenders but surely there should be even more emphasis on regulation and making sure that the same people are not gouged again. However, in the U.S. regulation has come to have a bad rap among many even though lack of regulation is one of the prime causes of this debacle.
The Nation - February 11, 2008<http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080211/fraser>
Subprime Obama
by MAX FRASER
Last year, forty-three states reported increased home foreclosure rates. Nevada led the way for eleven consecutive months; in Clark County, which includes Las Vegas, nearly one in twenty homes is in foreclosure. Whole blocks have been foreclosed in Chicago. Nationwide, rates are nearing Depression-era highs--ravaging working- and middle-class neighborhoods that fell prey to the soft sell and outright chicanery of predatory lenders in the heyday of the housing boom. These lenders have targeted the most vulnerable--black and Latino borrowers have been twice as likely to receive subprime loans as whites; female homeowners, 30 percent more likely than male; black women, five times more likely than white men.As the subprime mortgage debacle drives a recession that threatens financial markets around the world, the Democratic presidential candidates are pushing plans to address the crisis. John Edwards and Hillary Clinton are pledging substantial federal resources to stabilize the mortgage market and intervene on behalf of borrowers. Barack Obama's proposal is tepid by comparison, short on aggressive government involvement and infused with conservative rhetoric about fiscal responsibility. As he has done on domestic issues like healthcare, job creation and energy policy, Obama is staking out a position to the right of not only populist Edwards but Clinton as well.Edwards's plan includes a mandatory moratorium on foreclosures, a freeze on rising interest rates for at least seven years, federal subsidies to help homeowners keep up with payments and restructure loans, and explicit measures to rein in predatory lenders and regulate the financial sector. Clinton's plan is weaker--a voluntary moratorium, a shorter freeze, less commitment to new regulations--but she has promised $30 billion in federal aid to help reeling homeowners and communities.Only Obama has not called for a moratorium and interest-rate freeze. Though he has been a proponent of mortgage fraud legislation in the Senate, he has remained silent on further financial regulations. And much like his broader economic stimulus package, Obama's foreclosure plan mostly avoids direct government spending in favor of a tax credit for homeowners, which amounts to about $500 on average, beyond which only certain borrowers would be eligible for help from an additional fund."One advantage to the tax credit is that there's no moral hazard involved," one of Obama's economic advisers explains. "There's no sense in which you're rewarding someone for taking too big a risk. If you lied about your income in order to get a bigger mortgage, then you're not qualified. Do you really want to give a subsi
The Nation - February 11, 2008<http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080211/fraser>
Subprime Obama
by MAX FRASER
Last year, forty-three states reported increased home foreclosure rates. Nevada led the way for eleven consecutive months; in Clark County, which includes Las Vegas, nearly one in twenty homes is in foreclosure. Whole blocks have been foreclosed in Chicago. Nationwide, rates are nearing Depression-era highs--ravaging working- and middle-class neighborhoods that fell prey to the soft sell and outright chicanery of predatory lenders in the heyday of the housing boom. These lenders have targeted the most vulnerable--black and Latino borrowers have been twice as likely to receive subprime loans as whites; female homeowners, 30 percent more likely than male; black women, five times more likely than white men.As the subprime mortgage debacle drives a recession that threatens financial markets around the world, the Democratic presidential candidates are pushing plans to address the crisis. John Edwards and Hillary Clinton are pledging substantial federal resources to stabilize the mortgage market and intervene on behalf of borrowers. Barack Obama's proposal is tepid by comparison, short on aggressive government involvement and infused with conservative rhetoric about fiscal responsibility. As he has done on domestic issues like healthcare, job creation and energy policy, Obama is staking out a position to the right of not only populist Edwards but Clinton as well.Edwards's plan includes a mandatory moratorium on foreclosures, a freeze on rising interest rates for at least seven years, federal subsidies to help homeowners keep up with payments and restructure loans, and explicit measures to rein in predatory lenders and regulate the financial sector. Clinton's plan is weaker--a voluntary moratorium, a shorter freeze, less commitment to new regulations--but she has promised $30 billion in federal aid to help reeling homeowners and communities.Only Obama has not called for a moratorium and interest-rate freeze. Though he has been a proponent of mortgage fraud legislation in the Senate, he has remained silent on further financial regulations. And much like his broader economic stimulus package, Obama's foreclosure plan mostly avoids direct government spending in favor of a tax credit for homeowners, which amounts to about $500 on average, beyond which only certain borrowers would be eligible for help from an additional fund."One advantage to the tax credit is that there's no moral hazard involved," one of Obama's economic advisers explains. "There's no sense in which you're rewarding someone for taking too big a risk. If you lied about your income in order to get a bigger mortgage, then you're not qualified. Do you really want to give a subsi