Issue 103 Table of Contents

Issue 103
Table of Contents

	The Top Censored Stories of 2001 & 2002	by Peter Phillips and Project Censored Washington sex scandals, celebrity exposes, gruesome murders, schoolyard attacks, gangs, crime, corruption, and conspicuous consumption fill the airwaves and newspapers. Media representatives say they need to protect their bottom-line, and that these types of news stories increase ratings. Corporate media seem to have abdicated their First Amendment responsibility to keep the public informed
	The Anthrax Letters: Five deaths, Five grams, Five Clues	by Paul de Armond Now as the anniversary of the attacks approaches, the FBI investigation remains an embarrassing failure. The problems with the investigation lie with the circumstances that made the attack possible, not with the cleverness of the attacker
	Death and Boredom in the Afghan War	by Ron Callari Rall sees Afghanistan as a "clash between Islamic fundamentalism...left-over Soviet totalitarian dictatorships, mixed with its special witches' brew of tribal feuds and a Caspian Sea Oil rush." His 112-page "To Afghanistan and Back" reads like a dispatch from the wartime trenches, but the book's centerpiece is a 50-page graphic depiction that features Rall's unique cartooning style
	America's Top-Secret Prisoners	by Gabrielle Banks During his six months at the Brooklyn Metropolitan Detention Center, Anser Mehmood spent 123 days in a supermax lockdown facility, where guards slammed his face into a wall and threatened to kill him. His crime? Overstaying a tourist visa. Mehmood's is one of hundreds of stories that have prompted concern in the international human rights community about the precipitous round-up of 1200 Muslim and Arab immigrants after the Sept. 11 attacks
	American History Defined by "One Nation Under God" Bias	by Paul Blaum As early as the American Revolutionary War and the War of 1812, Americans, then far more ethnically homogenous, started thinking of themselves as a new, improved version of the English Anglo-Saxons, says Dr. Daniel B. Lee, assistant professor of sociology at Penn State. Since Anglo-Saxon England had allegedly become morally and politically corrupt, its former colonists in America were now poised to take up England's mantle as the superior civilization. Within a few decades, this view resulted in the doctrine of Manifest Destiny
	Welcome to Post-Constitutional America	by Randolph T. Holhut Right after the Sept. 11 attacks, the Justice Department rounded up more than 1,000 people and imprisoned them in secret. Many of them are still behind bars today, even though not one those still jailed have been formally charged with any crimes related to Sept. 11. Few Americans have complained about this. The jailed are immigrants, mostly Arabs and Muslims. The average American doesn't have to fear being jailed without being formally charged without a crime or being held incommunicado indefinitely. But the downward slope can get slippery in a hurry in an age of fear
	Bush Ends UNESCO Boycott Started by Reagan	by Jim Lobe Bush's unexpected announcement Sept. 12 that the United States will rejoin the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) ends an 18-year U.S. boycott of the Paris-based agency that was initiated by his closest spiritual predecessor, former President Ronald Reagan. Opposition to UNESCO still exists, but it is confined primarily to the Christian Right which, although influential in the Republican-led House, is more inclined to save its political ammunition for other foreign-policy debates.
	Where's Ralph?	by Janet Reynolds As one of the most influential persons of the 20th century, a man whom we can thank for many of the safety, health and pubic information privileges we enjoy, the 68-year-old Nader could retire to Winsted to write books and garden, and no one would think less of him. Instead, he continues to criss-cross this country to lecture and exhort people to action at a level that leaves many of his younger staffers exhausted. After the election, Nader founded Democracy Rising, a coalition designed to link local groups together in a civic movement for accountability and action that he hopes will help hold politicians more accountable in coming elections. To spread the word, he organizes and speaks at Super Rallies
	Colombia Paramilitary Splits Into 3 Groups	by Yadira Ferrer The United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), a 10,000-strong paramilitary group classified as a terrorist organization by the United States and blamed by human rights groups for countless massacres of unarmed civilians, has splintered into three groups
	Bush Not Following Rules on Colombia Aid Set by Congress	by Jim Lobe Bush is ignoring conditions that Congress placed last year on $100 million in military aid to Colombia, say three prominent U.S. human rights groups
	Colombia Rebels Kidnap Entire Village	by Yadira Ferrer Colombia's FARC rebels have taken nearly every single resident of a small farming town hostage, civilian and military authorities reported July 31. People's Defender Eduardo Cifuentes confirmed reports of the mass kidnapping, and said the residents of Puerto Alvira, a town of 1,200 people in the northeastern department of Meta, as "human shields"
	House Shoots Down Bush on Cuban Embargo	by Jim Lobe In a striking rejection of President George W. Bush's hard line toward Cuba, the House of Representatives voted decisively last week to ease the 42-year-old U.S. trade embargo against the Caribbean island
	Shallow Media Coverage Widens Gulf Between West and Arabs	by N Janardhan "Many religious authorities in the Muslim countries have condemned bin Laden as an anti-Muslim terrorist, but it had either gone unreported in the West or consigned to a small item in the inside pages of newspapers," complained Shadia Nuiami, an Arab journalist working for a Dubai television company. "There is a need to explain to the West that the roots of terror do not lie in Arab or Muslim societies, but in American and Israeli policies," she added in an interview. Ben Bradlee, former managing editor of The Washington Post, conceded at a Dubai Press Club seminar in May that there are quite different views among Arabs and Americans. "While the Jewish lobby called the 'conscience of the capital' is extremely strong in the United States, the Arab influence on the American media and politicians is too weak," he said
	Israel Complaining About Setbacks in Propaganda War	by Ferry Biedermann Israelis blame more and more what they see as skewed reporting by the foreign media. "The playing field is not level," says Danny Seaman, director of Israel's Government Press Office (GPO). "We play by democratic rules and have open access and freedom of expression, while the other side does not." Seaman is unapologetic about restrictions such as closing Palestinian towns to reporters. The GPO no longer offers accreditation to Palestinian journalists working for the foreign media in the West Bank and the Gaza strip. Foreign journalists often depend on these journalists for translations, contacts and sometimes even for interpretation of events
	Israel Complaining About Setbacks in Propaganda War	by Ferry Biedermann Israelis blame more and more what they see as skewed reporting by the foreign media. "The playing field is not level," says Danny Seaman, director of Israel's Government Press Office (GPO). "We play by democratic rules and have open access and freedom of expression, while the other side does not." Seaman is unapologetic about restrictions such as closing Palestinian towns to reporters. The GPO no longer offers accreditation to Palestinian journalists working for the foreign media in the West Bank and the Gaza strip. Foreign journalists often depend on these journalists for translations, contacts and sometimes even for interpretation of events
	Post-Sept. 11 Military Deals Result in China Encircled	by Rahul Bedi Through a complex web of alliances, ostensibly to fight the scourge of terrorism, backed by economic sops and clever strategic agreements, the world's lone superpower has manoeuvred not only to exploit the Central Asian republics' vast energy resources, but also to encircle China, its potential economic and military rival
	UN Toothless in Mideast Crisis	by N. Janardhan "The United Nations has become an organization which can churn out plenty of resolutions but is helpless in implementing any of them," Koechler told a conference on "Human Rights, Victims of War and International Law" here last week. Criticizing the United Nations for its failure in undertaking an independent investigation of the grave violations of international law by the Israeli occupying forces in Palestine, Koechler says the UN secretary-general's attitude has been one of "defeatism" when confronted with Israeli moves such as its rejection of the visit by the fact-finding team for Jenin
	Indonesia Covering up 1999 Atrocities, UN Says	by Thalif Deen Human rights activists and senior UN officials have faulted an Indonesian tribunal for imposing a lenient sentence on a former governor of East Timor charged with war crimes. On August 15, the tribunal also found that the former regional police commander and five other military, police and government officials were not guilty of similar crimes
	Bush Turns His Back on World Summit	President George W. Bush made the announcement August 19, giving no explanation as to why he will not be attending the summit to join 106 other world leaders on the speaker's podium. Bush has been under pressure from Republican Party and conservative lobbyists not to attend the summit
	Sparks Fly at Hearing on Bush Fire Plan	by Cat Lazaroff Under the Bush plan, most forest thinning and restoration projects performed in the name of fire management would be exempted from the public and environmental reviews now required by federal law. The Bush plan would also authorize long term stewardship contracts, under which logging companies would perform forest thinning and restoration projects in exchange for access to federal timber
	ICC Unlikely to Touch Military Environmental Crime	The International Criminal Court is not likely to prosecute environmental crimes due to military actions, a new report prepared for the U.S. Army Environmental Policy Institute concludes. It examines the possibilities of environmental damage during military action becoming a criminal liability for military personnel and/or their contractors before the newly formed International Criminal Court (ICC)
	Ever-Elusive Usama Becomes Bush Headache	by Tai Moses As bin Laden's trail grew cold and leads dried up, it began to dawn on the Bush Administration that making Osama bin Laden the bellwether for the war on terrorism might have been a mistake. A manhunt that began energetically, ringing with grand if hackneyed rhetoric, dissolved in finger pointing after it became clear that bureaucratic bungling and reliance on flaky tribal chieftains were probably what allowed Osama to abscond during the Tora Bora siege
	Spillover From Corporate Fraud Will Cost Economy Billion$, Report says	by Emad Mekay Besides pummelling the stock markets, the accounting frauds at corporate giants Enron, WorldCom and others will have spillover effects throughout the economy, affecting employment, inflation, and foreign investment in the United States, says the study by the Washington-based Brookings Institution
	Sept. 11 Made Life Harder For Palestinians	by Ferry Biedermann Palestinians widely believe that the government of Ariel Sharon received a 'green light' from the Bush administration to deal firmly with the Palestinians mainly because of the events of September 11. "The U.S. was desperately looking for allies in its fight against terrorism and Israel has always been a strategic ally," says Abu Amr. "Sharon pretty much has a free hand to do as he likes now"
	Bush Ultra-Hawks May Have Overplayed Iraq Bluster	by Jim Lobe The most visible sign that the hawks may have lost momentum came last week when the White House announced that Bush will seek formal Congressional authorization for an invasion of Iraq. The announcement seemed to pull the rug out from under Vice President Dick Cheney, who only a few days before, said Bush saw no need for Congressional action before a military attack
	Barbara Lee Was Right	by Randolph T. Holhut In its haste to be seen as good, red-blooded patriotic Americans, Congress gave President Bush the power to wage a war that has no geographic limits, no clearly defined enemies, no clearly defined goals and no clear beginning or end. But too few people voiced this opinion last September and those who did were effectively drowned out in the flag-waving, hyper-patriotic fervor after the attacks. Eleven months later, Lee now looks like a visionary as the Bush administration plans for a war wider than any sane person would have imagined last fall
	How America's Really Changed Since Sept. 11	by Randolph T. Holhut The nine months before the Sept. 11 attacks were marked by the Bush administration snubbing the world as they rejected or refused to take action on more international agreements than any administration in memory. There was no reexamination of U.S. foreign policy after Sept. 11, starting with considering the reasons why America is so hated and mistrusted by the rest of the world. Or why was so much energy devoted to building an anti-ballistic missile system when 19 guys with box cutters and razor blades turned four jetliners into suicide bombs. Or why we stopped caring about the Mideast peace process until it was too late to avert a bloodbath?
	Pinochet's Feared Covert Squad Reactivated, Rights Groups Say	by Gustavo Gonzalez According to human rights activists, the Comando Conjunto has been revived to help block legal action in the courts against security agents accused of human rights abuses during Pinochet's 1973-90 regime
	Is "Left Behind" Evangelical Book Series a Blueprint for Bush Administration?	by Jim Lobe If you have been curious about why the George W. Bush administration, one of whose most important constituencies is the Christian Right, seems to hate the United Nations, despise peacekeeping, love Ariel Sharon, and want desperately to bomb Baghdad to "kingdom come," you might choose the book that has been number one on the New York Times best-seller list since its release in early July
	Argentina Economic Collapse Leads to "Express Kidnaps"	by Marcela Valente Young, inexperienced thieves in Argentina are taking advantage of people's fear of depositing money in banks, where the savings of millions of people are frozen, by staging brief kidnappings in exchange for cash and jewelry stashed in safes or under mattresses at home
	One Million Russian Children Under 14 Working	by Sergei Blagov Most of these children live on a combination of irregular work, begging and small theft, the ministry says. They clear garbage, they pump gas and wash cars, and other such work. The ILO report says that 10 to 30 percent of these children slip into crime or prostitution
	Pesticides Can Travel Thousands of Miles by Air	by Judith White "Most scientists used to think that organic pollutants were not present as gas in the air," Wade says. "To our surprise, we have learned over the last 30 years that organic pollutants can be in the vapor phase, which means that they can be transported over long distances." For example, high levels of pesticides such as DDT, chlordane and toxaphene are present in beluga whales from the Arctic, where they were not used
	Mexico Awash in Untreated Toxic Waste	by Diego Cevallos Mexico generates at least eight million tons a year of hazardous waste, has no policy for its treatment and disposal, and most of it goes unreported and ends up in open-air pits or buried without the minimum safety procedures
	Microsoft Sets Sights on "E-Mexico"	by Diego Cevallos Mexico is on its way towards becoming part of the developed world, with the tools of digital technology, said President Vicente Fox, who promised that the entire country would be online by the end of his six-year term in 2006. But critics point out that there are much more urgent priorities in a country where half of the population lives below the poverty line, many have no clean water or sewage services, and a large number of people do not even know what a computer is
	Study Finds Some Kinds of Stress Harm Immune System	The results suggest that deadlines and challenges at work could be a good thing. "Even being annoyed about something, particularly if it is for a short time, could help strengthen the body's defenses," Bosch said. Being exposed to violent scenes on television, on the other hand, may suppress the immune system. The continuous replays of the World Trade Center towers' collapse on September 11, Bosch said, were a likely example
	The Boom or Bush Cycle	by Robert Scheer The Bushes are, as a matter of breeding, terminally irresponsible. And while being a loose cannon can sometimes be useful in making war, it is stability and pragmatism that breed prosperity. The Bushes' contempt for government regulation of capitalism has allowed corporate piracy to drive the nation toward financial ruin. The American public now stares in disbelief as our infamous boom-Bush cycle wreaks havoc on its retirement plans and endangers its jobs. Meanwhile, yet another President George seeks to distract us with patriotic-sounding gibberish
	Simplistic Hunt for Evil in a Complex World	by Robert Scheer How depressing for Bush administration militarists that the world is such a complex place. For a few months, it seemed that the invasion of Iraq was the ticket to ride into another four-year term, but then the most respected of GOP elders, Brent Scowcroft and Henry Kissinger, rose up to remind Junior that just such hubris had destroyed his father's presidency
	Dick Cheney's Nightmare of Peace	by Robert Scheer In one fantasy, he leads a victorious U.S. Army to a hero's welcome through the crowded streets of Baghdad, cheered wildly for having been the most outspoken proponent of war against Saddam Hussein. In his nightmares, meanwhile, he is led off in handcuffs, accused of crimes committed while CEO of Halliburton
	Business Is Safe but Baseball Strikes Out	by Robert Scheer Isn't it odd that Bush's statement that he would be "furious" at a baseball strike is far more passionate a response than his smug nonchalance over Enron and other corporations profiteering during the California energy crisis last year?
	Bin Laden: a Known Monster Before Sept. 11	by Robert Scheer Some have suggested that the Bush administration was starting to wake up to the threat of Al Qaeda, but we'll never know now. What we do know is that in the last year the deaths of Sept. 11 have been used over and over again as a rationale for eroding the Constitution, reorganizing the federal government and launching a preemptive, unilateral strike against a nation not implicated in the attacks
	Another Bankrupt Idea From Congress	by Robert Scheer With their customers squeezed by ever-higher interest rates allowed in the small print -- even as the prime rate was shifted far downward -- the profits of banks' credit card operations soared. Now, still making out like bandits, these lenders want the government to strong-arm their debtors
	Saudi - U.S. Relationship Going, Going...	by N. Janardhan A series of recent incidents -- ranging from the reported flight of Saudi capital from the United States to open differences over Iraq -- underline how U.S.-Saudi ties have taken a U-turn since Sept. 11
	Pakistan - U.S. "War on Terror" Alliance Falling Apart	by Mushahid Hussain Musharraf's arrival in the United States was heralded by two public expositions of U.S. concerns: one, an official statement criticizing the military government in Islamabad and the other, reports that al-Qaeda presence is growing in Pakistan
	French Corp Giants Push for Water Takeover	by Julio Godoy Two major French private companies, Vivendi and Suez Lyonnaise des Eaux, are part of the driving force behind the controversial privatization of water worldwide, according to the firms' own figures.
	State Dept. Asked Court to Drop ExxonMobil Human Rights Suit	by Jim Lobe The department's letter caught human rights groups by surprise, especially because it is the first time it has urged the dismissal of a case filed under the Alien Tort Claims Act (ATCA), a law that permits foreigners to sue for damages for serious human rights violations in federal court against defendants who are present in the United States
	One Year After 9/11, Pakistan's Religious Schools Unchanged	by Jim Lobe Reform efforts today have been complicated by western pressure on reforming madrasah due to the view that they encourage militancy. Sensing foreign and western forces behind current reforms, the religious lobby here is digging in
	Stock Market Decline a No Confidence Vote on Bush	by Randolph T. Holhut The Bush administration has been shameless in using the "war" to distract Americans from taking a critical look at how the nation is being led off a cliff by a group of men who have shredded the Constitution and bled our economy dry for the benefit of themselves and their wealthy backers. The folks in Europe seem to be more sensitive to this than most Americans. Ever since the 2000 presidential election was stolen by the Republicans, Europeans have been aghast at the political and economic decision making by the Bush administration
	Bush Ignored Facts to Withhold UN Aid	by Alex Sanger Bush Monday not to approve $34 million in aid for the United Nations Population Fund, which provides voluntary family-planning assistance in more than 140 nations worldwide -- although the President's own fact-finding team came back from China with a report that clears the UN agency of involvement in these activities
	Time to Investigate 9/11	by Randolph T. Holhut The one year anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks is just a few weeks away, and we will be deluged with all sorts of weepy tributes to the dead from that day. I believe the best tribute we can offer the more than 3,000 people who died in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania is the truth
	Bush Signs Corporate Reform Law, Then Undermines It	by Philip E. Daoust Only hours after signing the Accounting Industry Reform Act in a grand East Room ceremony on Tuesday, the White House released a statement that it was narrowly interpreting a number of the bill's provisions, including a section that offers federal protection to corporate whistle-blowers who present Congress with evidence of fraud. Members from both parties of Congress are openly criticizing the President's action, accusing him of endorsing a "watered-down" version of the legislation
	Congress Fights Over Special Bankruptcy Protection For Abortion Clinic Protestors	by Philip E. Daoust A hotly-contested provision that would prohibit anti-abortion protestors from declaring bankruptcy to avoid paying court fines became the central obstacle in getting a final vote on the bill before the Congressional recess
	Bush Team Squabbles With Dad's Crowd Over Iraq War	by Jim Lobe For now, the war is strictly among Republicans -- between the old-line conservatives from the administration of former President George H.W. Bush and the new-line hawkish conservatives among the civilians in the Pentagon and in Vice President Dick Cheney's office. A series of leaks this month from senior military brass, who have grown increasingly distrustful of the warlike tendencies of their civilian bosses, marked the preliminary skirmishes in the conflict
	Brent Scowcroft, Unlikely Peacenik	by Jim Lobe The second-most frustrated man in Washington's foreign-policy establishment these days -- next to Secretary of State Colin Powell -- must be Brent Scowcroft, the courtly and self-effacing retired army general who served as George Bush Sr's national security adviser. The significance of the fact that Scowcroft has gone public with his advice on several occasions over the last three months cannot be exaggerated
	Bush Sneaks Subsidy Cheat Factory Farmer Into USDA	by Jim Hightower As head of a large corporate farm in Iowa, Thomas Dorr was slipperier than an Enron executive. He once made the unfortunate comment that three Iowa counties were enjoying economic progress because of their homogeneity -- meaning white and Christian. Dorr also doesn't like small, as in small farmers. He says that 200,000-acre factory farms fit his vision of what agriculture should be
	No Dissent Welcome at Bush Economic "Summit"	by Jim Hightower At taxpayer expense, Bush flew in Vice President Cheney, seven cabinet members, a gaggle of White House aides and a load of PR flacks to sit around for four hours with fat cat CEOs, a bunch of economists, and a handpicked crowd of partisan cheerleaders -- all to tell him what an excellent job he's doing. Afterwards, Bush's top political operative bragged with a straight face that "There was unanimity that we've taken the right [economic] steps, that we're going in the right direction." Then he scolded critics: "Everyone ought to applaud when the president sits down with ordinary people"
	Holding Dick Cheney "Accountable"	by Arianna Huffington Let's start by looking at the problem of the vice president and Halliburton. During the number two's time as the company's number one, the number of Halliburton subsidiaries registered in tax-friendly locations ballooned from nine in 1995 to 44 in 1999. The result? A dramatic drop in Halliburton's federal taxes, which fell from $302 million in 1998 to less than zero -- to wit, an $85 million rebate -- in 1999. At the same time they were hard at work stiffing U.S. taxpayers, Cheney and Halliburton were happily feasting at the public trough
	Harvey Pitt's Job Insurance: Protecting Bush	by Jim Hightower Because he's been such a toy poodle for corporations that now are proving to be systemically corrupt, Harvey's been taking heat, including bipartisan demands that he resign. But he says he won't quit because he has the "full support" of Bush. Why would the president keep such a weak regulator when the White House is trying to look tough on corporate crime? Because Harvey recently turned into Pitt the Ferocious Bulldog on another agency matter: Keeping the media and We the People away from SEC File No. MHO-3180
	Bush Woes Mount at Home and Abroad	by Jim Lobe By the end of the week, members of Bush's party were deserting the ranks to join Democratic proposals to toughen regulations on accounting and other corporate practices to restore confidence in U.S. business. At the United Nations, Washington's closest allies were not shy about publicly expressing their fury over the administration's threats to veto peacekeeping operations if it did not get blanket immunity from the newly created International Criminal Court
	Ashcroft, Death Penalty Zealot	by Bruce Shapiro Ashcroft is such an aggressive death-penalty zealot that he is frequently overruling his own prosecutors to demand capital charges. In fact Ashcroft has overruled U.S. attorneys 12 times. And he has approved death-penalty prosecutions in nearly half of all federal cases where capital charges might apply -- compare that to California, where fewer than 13 percent of death-penalty-eligible defendants actually face capital charges. And there's evidently a racial dimension: According to the study, Ashcroft is three times more likely to seek the death penalty for black defendants for killing whites than black defendants who kill African-Americans
	Will the Feds Prosecute Corporate Evildoers?	by Arianna Huffington So when it comes to rooting out corrupt corporate kingpins, will the president's new "financial crimes SWAT team" have the stomach for the fight? Can we expect to see undercover "narc-accountants" infiltrating what's left of the Big Five accounting firms? Middle of the night no-knock raids on companies that restate their earnings by billions of dollars? Confiscation of an executive's entire assets simply on the suspicion of fraud? Will corporate cops get to emulate their drug fighting counterparts and be allowed to keep a percentage of the money they confiscate?
	Hawks Unhappy Over Improved Beijing Ties	by Jim Lobe Despite President George W. Bush's efforts to embrace Taiwan ever tighter, Vice President Dick Cheney and influential right-wingers close to key policymakers at the Pentagon complain the administration has become too complacent about what they call a growing threat from China
	Repubs Lose Only Congressional Black Conservative	by Earl Ofari Hutchinson Republican leadership used J.C. Watts. He was a good mouthpiece for conservative causes and a visible symbol of their supposed commitment to racial inclusion. But how much real power did he really have within his own party? And that is the ultimate dilemma of Watts and black conservatives. They make useful symbols but not much else
	Crime And The President's Restatement of Yearnings	by Arianna Huffington You can tell the president's heart isn't really in his new tough rhetoric. Take his recent call on corporate executives not to "fudge the numbers." Given the daily revelations of corporate criminality and its devastating impact -- on jobs, savings, and faith in our economy -- admonishing crooked CEOs not to "fudge the numbers" is like suggesting that suicide bombers not "spoil the day" of their intended victim
	Prescription Drug Bill Written by Big Pill Industry	by Jim Hightower At issue is a fight in the U.S. House on a Bush-backed, industry-written prescription drug bill that would provide limited drug coverage to some seniors, but also would require us taxpayers to provide billions of dollars to subsidize the unlimited rip-off prices that the corporations want to keep charging for these medicines. It's a sham bill to protect the excess profits of the pharmaceutical industry, rather than to meet the critical health needs of seniors. The Democrats' bill is better, covering all seniors, but it, too, fails to control the corporate price-gouging, soaking taxpayers to enrich the avaricious companies
	Why is Congress Ignoring Ashcroft�s Failures?	by Joe Conason Those who are now demanding the head of Mr. Mueller should go back and reread The New York Times' stunning Feb. 28 story about Mr. Ashcroft's first budget, which was submitted to the White House the day before the Twin Towers fell. (At that point, the FBI director had been in office for less than a week.) As of Sept. 10, 2001, the Attorney General's final budget request for the coming fiscal year asked to increase spending on 68 programs, "none of which directly involved counterterrorism." He had rejected the FBI's request for funding to hire hundreds of new field agents, translators and intelligence analysts to improve the bureau's capacity to detect foreign terror threats. Moreover, among his proposed cuts was a reduction of $65 million in a Clinton program that made grants to state and local authorities for radios, decontamination garb and other counterterror preparedness measures
	Senator Proposes Civil Liberties Director for FBI	by David Corn Under the new guidelines, the PI can go on for one year without an okay from Washington. So FBI agents on their own are now able to use intrusive techniques to track Americans for a long period of time, without any clearance from HQ. This does raise civil liberties questions. If HQ is not monitoring these investigations, the potential for abuse exists
	Bush Distorts History to Claim Reagan Legacy	by William D. Hartung It's true that Ronald Reagan rode into Washington like the ultimate nuclear cowboy, joking that "the bombing will start in five minutes." But by his second term, it was clear that he was committed to the abolition of nuclear weapons. Indeed, if he wasn't so taken with the notion of an impenetrable missile shield, Reagan might have overruled his top aides and agreed to a plan presented by Mikhail Gorbachev at the 1986 Reykjavik summit to eliminate all U.S. and Soviet nuclear weapons
	As U.S. Attention Turns to Iraq, Afghanistan Slides Toward Chaos	by Jim Lobe The foiled assassination attempt Sept. 5 against Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai and blasts in the capital Kabul that reportedly killed at least 10 people give weight to critics of Bush's apparent determination to go to war against Baghdad who say Washington should consolidate its victory over the Taliban in Afghanistan before moving on to other military adventures
	U.S. Corporate Misconduct Even Worse in Third World	by Emad Mekay While the United States and its northern neighbors have focused on the impact of such scandals on investor trust in wealthy nations, the anti-globalization movement cautions that the corruption scourge could be several times more harmful to the economies of developing countries. They argue that many global companies operate freely in poor nations, protected by conditions dictated by international financial institutions, such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, and the political might of Northern governments
	Young Afghan Women Setting Themselves Ablaze	by Fariba Nawa Young women feeling trapped in family conflicts are setting themselves ablaze in an age-old suicide method for women in the region. In Herat, a prosperous city on the Iranian border in Southwestern Afghanistan, no one died of self-immolation last year during the reign of the Taliban, but four women have killed themselves so far this year, including a 14-year-old girl whose family had married her off to a 60-year-old man, hospital records show
	Little Remains of Russia's Pristine Forests	by Danielle Knight Only 14 percent, or 32 million hectares, of forest remain in relatively undisturbed large blocks of at least 50,000 hectares each. Only sufficiently large blocks of forests like these are capable of conserving natural, undisturbed populations of large animals while at the same time letting natural processes such as storms and fires run their course, said the researchers. What little is left of the forest is at risk, since the most attractive forest areas are unprotected against logging by federal or local laws
	Xerox Caught in India Accounting Fraud	by Ranjit Devraj Searches carried out by the Income Tax Department at more than 20 locations in the national capital and the eastern metropolis of Calcutta resulted in the recovery of unaccountable cash worth more than $200,000 and tax evasion in excess of $5 million over the past five years. Xerox Corp., which holds 68 percent stakes in XML, declined comment on the raids, which followed the parent companies' admissions to the Securities and Exchange Commission earlier this month that "improper payments" had indeed been paid to secure government contracts. In April, the SEC alleged that Xerox Corp. had resorted to accounting improprieties to increase its pre-tax profits by $1.5 billion over a three-year period from 1997 through 2000
	CIA Was In On Operation Condor Conspiracy, Memo Shows	by Lucy Komisar In the days after the 1976 assassination in Washington of two opponents of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, the Central Intelligence Agency learned that a conspiracy to murder leftist political opponents around the world by six Latin American governments was planning a Paris operation. If Washington knew about a specific operation, rather than Operation Condor's general outlines, it has more comprehensive information about the network's activities than it has made public. That evidence is wanted in Europe and Latin America by victims' families and by judges investigating charges of murder and crimes against humanity
	India Faces Economic Collapse as Worst-Ever Drought Looms	by Aman Singh This year is set to break all previous records as India reels again under a drought that could leave an already sluggish economy even slower and inflation driving prices at the market out of reach. Millions of families in India's northern and central states could go hungry as the nation faces its worst drought since 1987
	No Fed Funding for Church-Centered Chastity Programs, Judge Rules	by Asjylyn Loder Some groups funded by the Louisiana program used the money to sponsor religious revivals, radio messages and school skits and clubs that preached abstinence in a Christian context, Porteous wrote. A fact sheet distributed to Louisiana high school students by the governor's program asked why sexually transmitted diseases had spread over the last 30 years. "The answer is moral relativism," the fact sheet stated. "We removed God from the classroom." Another fact sheet read, "It's time to restore our Judeo-Christian heritage in America"
	Ethics Showdown Over GM Seed Focus on Africa	by Anthony Stoppard Most African governments have resisted accepting genetically modified crops -- including those that are facing widespread famine. There are also a number of non-governmental organizations at the summit who are campaigning hard against the use of genetically modified organisms. BioWatch South Africa -- a non-governmental organization -- warns that the use of genetically modified crops will make small African farmers dependent on expensive seeds and chemicals developed by large international companiesvc
	Oregon Protesters Slam Bush Timber Plans	by Cat Lazaroff Conservation groups say they do not oppose forest thinning projects aimed at protecting homes and communities, and in fact, few such projects are challenged by environmental appeals or lawsuits. But under the Bush proposal, thinning projects could be undertaken across thousands of acres of forest, far from human habitation -- and the projects would not be limited to clearing brush and small trees
	One Jackbooted Step Towards a Police State	by Ted Rall After cynically using the Sept. 11 attacks as a pretext to eradicate one civil liberty after another, the Bush Administration has finally taken away the single most essential freedom of an American citizen: the right to due process before a jury of his peers. Classifying 31-year-old Chicagoan Jose Padilla as an al-Qaeda associate and enemy combatant, Attorney General John Ashcroft authorized his transfer from a federal courthouse in New York City -- where he had been held as a "material witness" on a customs violation since May 8 -- to indefinite military detention
	Is The Inglewood Beating Really Another Rodney King?	by Arianna Huffington Jackson was pummeled by a white Inglewood police officer after he appeared to have stopped resisting, while a legion of officers stood around and did nothing. The Jackson beating has ignited rallies and protests, and demands for a Justice Department probe. But that's where the similarity between the two ends
	Countries Used Sept. 11 as Excuse to Censor Internet	by Julio Godoy In Germany the argument of a "terrorist threat" has been used by the government of Gerhard Schroeder to pass "security laws" that go beyond the country's needs and restrict the freedom of electronic exchange of information, the report says. Other European countries such as Spain, Denmark, France and Italy have also adopted exaggerated security measures that restrict freedom of communication and information through the Internet, the report says
	Authors Slam Amazon.Com for Pushing Used Books Over New	by Walter M. Brasch In a strong letter to Jeff Bezos, Amazon's founder and chief executive officer, Nick Taylor argued: "We're not against Amazon's selling used books, or used book sales generally. We're against Amazon's selling 'used' (frequently new copies sent out for review) books on the same page as new ones. Neither authors, who frequently devote years of hard work to their books, nor publishers, who invest faith and money in bringing books to print, receive credit for books sold in this way. Only the seller, who often paid nothing in the first place, and of course Amazon, turns a profit"
	U.S. Calls Zimbabwe Election "Fraudulent," Won't Recognize Government	by Lewis Machipisa President Mugabe, who is seizing white-owned farms to resettle black Zimbabweans, said: �'They (western countries) don't want us to be economically independent. They want us to be beggars ... coming to them everyday with a bowl asking for help. No ... we have our resources here. They belong to us and we are taking and giving them to our people"
	As Half of Zimbabwe Near Starvation, White Farmers Fight Land Reform	by Lewis Machipisa At the height of production, commercial agriculture provided the bulk of the country's food supplies of wheat, meat and dairy products. In a normal year, they used to produce some 30 percent of annual maize output, the bulk of it coming from communal farmers. But the government says it is correcting a skewed colonial land policy where some 4,500 white commercial farmers owned more than 70 percent of the country's prime farmland
	Future Looks Rosy, Oil Industry Says	by Mario Osava Demand for petroleum will grow an average of 1.9 percent annually until 2020, when this fuel will still make up 40 percent of the global energy matrix. These projections appear to confirm the lost ground of environmentalists who have been pushing for renewable energy over the use of fossil fuels. Efforts to obtain timetables for reducing dependency on oil were soundly defeated at the World Summit on Sustainable Development, which closed yesterday in the South African city of Johannesburg
	Insider Deals Catch Up with Bush	by David Corn Al Gore may be thinking, "hey, it's a little late for this." But Bush's record as a private businessman -- a subject few journalists bothered to explore during the 2000 campaign -- is now deemed relevant, as Corporate America (Bush's home district) turns ugly
	Bush Plays the Old Shell Game	by Molly Ivins Nothing like a lot of distracting saber-rattling to get you to take your eyes off the shell with the pea under it
	Bankrupcy Bill Reveals a Corrupt Congress	by Molly Ivins Congress is on the verge of taking a final vote on the bankruptcy bill, the product of a five-year effort by credit-card companies to stack the law in their favor and against average citizens. But you will be relieved to learn that our lawmakers have thoughtfully included a loophole that leaves six states, including Florida and Texas, free to continue providing extraordinary advantages to rich citizens from all over the country who need to shelter their gelt from bankruptcy proceedings. The millionaire protection amendment
	What People Power Looks Like	by Molly Ivins If you've forgotten what people power looks like, go to an IAF rally. Democracy only works if people work at it, and these folks do. It's actually a grand thing to see politicians forced to answer questions specifically -- no ducking, dodging or bull. Do you support us on this issue, yes or no? Will you work with us on it, yes or no?
	Cheney's Scam	by Molly Ivins So if Saddam is "the world's worst leader," how come Cheney sold him the equipment to get his dilapidated oil fields up and running so he to could afford to build weapons of mass destruction?
	Public Relations on a Grand Scale	by Molly Ivins As the U.S. distinguishes itself by being by being all-but-absent from the Earth Summit in Johannesburg, Africa, --- we sent a "low-level" delegation --- of course we are reminded of the words of our peerless leader on the subject of global warming: "We'll get used to it," said Bush
	Media Snoozed, Bush Jogged	by Molly Ivins The media have achieved such a perfect he-said/she-said knot of confusion on the story of Bush and Harken energy, it would be a wonder if the public ever gets any of it straight. Even though the Center for Public Integrity has posted the relevant documents from Harken on its Web site, the news has been buried under a scrum of pundits shouting, "It's old news" or "Is not, it's new news." All I can say is, if Slick Willie Clinton had ever eeled out from under information like this, Rush Limbaugh would've had a heart attack
	Bush 's Folly: Plans for Fighting a War Without Allies	by Molly Ivins Anti-Americanism thrives on the perception that we don't give a rat's behind how the rest of the world feels about anything. That's the famous "arrogance" for which we get criticized. On that count, a war with Iraq could play right into terrorist hands. It's apparent that our ally Saudi Arabia has a far stronger connection to Sept. 11 than our enemy Saddam Hussein, so attacking Hussein makes us look like hypocrites willing to sell out our foreign policy for oil
	CEOs and Ashcroft's Selective Prosecution	by Molly Ivins Attorney General John Ashcroft makes five guys do a perp walk and thinks we're dumb enough to assume that's the end of corporate fraud. It is notoriously difficult to prove fraud and I, for one, am cynical enough to believe that there is a class of people in the country called Too Rich to Go to Prison
	Bush Economic Summit Shows Repubs Just Don't Get It	by Molly Ivins The president dropped in on the assorted gabfests, repeating the same fatuous remarks. "I want a self-regulating (financial) industry," "I want to see a self-policing industry." There was a lot of this self-congratulatory gush about, "We have the world's best whatever." I haven't seen any polls on the state of envy in the rest of the world, but I do know what they think of President Bush
	Class Warfare by any Other Name	by Molly Ivins Some days, you have to believe right-wing ideologues have lost touch with reality completely. Their latest proposal to prevent future Enrons is -- ta-da! -- cut the capital gains tax. And exactly what does that do to prevent future Enrons? Nothing. Except Ken Lay won't have to pay taxes on the stock he sold while his company cratered and his employees watched their life savings disappear
	Guilty as (Not) Charged	by Molly Ivins Now is not the time to dismiss concerns over civil liberties as alarmist. "O pshaw," is not a helpful response to violations of the Constitution. Worse than the dismissive pooh-poohing of concern is the implication that those who speak up on behalf of those caught up in the post-Sept. 11 sweep who have still not been charged with anything are themselves somehow unpatriotic. Boy, is that standing the world on its head. Seems to me every sentient patriot should be concerned
	The Joy of Texas Mudslinging	by Molly Ivins This is the summer of our discontent -- the stock market is dropping like a rock, the corporate world is riddled with crooks, the Washington politicians are hand-in-glove with the crooks, terrorists threaten, John Ashcroft is in charge of civil liberty, a baseball strike looms and, except for the miners, there's nothing but gloom in Mudville. Except here in the Lone Star, where it's back-scratching time at the old corral
	Three Little Horrors Behind Enron Economics	by Molly Ivins The Sarbanes bill, which would never have seen the light of day had the stock market not tanked, fixes one of the Three Little Horrors that set up Enron Economics. Good on Sen. Sarbanes and all who toiled with him to pass it. Lord knows, many years at the Texas Legislature have taught me how hard it is to pass a bill supported by no special interest, but only in the public interest
	Wall St. Scams and Born Again Populists	by Molly Ivins We are now treated to the edifying sight of innumerable politicians scrambling to get right with Jesus, or at least with the voters. Witnessing this land-rush toward civic virtue requires a cast-iron stomach
	The Bad Lessons of the Telecom Bill	by Molly Ivins The Telecommunications Deregulation Act of 1996 was actually written by industry lobbyists, each of the several components of telecom snarling at one another like wolves over a piece of meat as they ripped up 70 years worth of regulatory experience. The wolves united once the bill hit the floor to push it through. We few, we happy few, who raised hell about it at the time had it condescendingly explained to us that the magic of the marketplace would take care of all our doubts
	Widget World vs. Enron Economics	by Molly Ivins As many economic poohbahs have been at pains to explain to us lately, out there in Widget World, where people produce actual goods and provide useful services, things are going along quite nicely. It's the financial sector that's the disaster, the part where they play fancy games with other people's money for a living. That's Enron Economics, the land of stock options, commodities futures, derivatives, swaps, financializing markets and offshore partnerships
	What If We Didn't Need Labor Day?	by Norman Solomon If media outlets can keep us so closely informed about stock prices every day, they could also keep us posted on exactly which industrial workplaces are killing and injuring America's workers. Much of the toll is less than obvious: Researchers have found that for each American killed by a workplace injury, nearly 10 job-related deaths occur due to disease
	Bush "Wagging the Puppy," Using Iraq Rumors to Distract Public	by Norman Solomon The more that Iraq dominates front pages, magazine covers, news broadcasts and cable channels, the less space there is for such matters as the intensifying retirement worries of many Americans, the Wall Street scandals, and specific stories about entanglements that link Bush or Dick Cheney with malodorous corporate firms like Enron, Harken and Halliburton
	If a Media CEO Were to File an Honest Report	by Norman Solomon After buying several hundred radio stations across the country since enactment of the bipartisan telecommunications law in 1996, we're able to clone our sound with just enough trickery to make most people think they're listening to a station with a local staff. For those who don't care for our daily offerings of Rush Limbaugh, Dr. Laura and various imitators, we provide the free-market choice of insipid oldies and present-day pop to help listeners wile away their pitiful consumptive lives
	Don't Mistake Colin Powell for Peacenik	by Norman Solomon Powell's "moderate" approach is in sync with the outlook of Fareed Zakaria, former managing editor of the elite periodical Foreign Affairs, who shares Powell's interest in urging the return of UN weapons inspectors to Iraq -- a good PR step in the quest for a confrontation leading to war
	The Politics of Solitary Confinement for Life	by Anita Roddick I met a man last month who has spent more than 30 years in solitary confinement. When I returned home to tell of my visit to Angola, friends and colleagues shook their heads sternly, muttering about African nations torn apart by civil war and chaos. They reminded me how hard it is for Westerners to grasp the traditions and political realities of the Third World. Thank God, they added, for Amnesty International. But, I said, I wasn't in Africa. I wasn't in the Third World. I was in Louisiana, at Angola prison
	Bush Forest Plan: Log it All	by Alexander Cockburn In the name of fire prevention, Bush wants to OK the timber industry to log off more than 2.5 million acres of federal forest over the next 10 years. He wants it done quickly and without any interference from pesky statutes such as the Endangered Species Act. Bush called his plan "the Healthy Forests Initiative." But it's nothing more than a giveaway to big timber that comes at a high price to the taxpayer and forest ecosystems
	A Year of the War on Terror	by Alexander Cockburn The terrorists in those planes a year ago nourished specific grievances, all available for study in the speeches and messages of Osama bin Laden. They wanted U.S. troops out of Saudi Arabia. They saw the United States as Israel's prime backer and financier in the oppression of Palestinians. They railed against the sanctions grinding down upon the civilian population of Iraq
	The Stock Option Hog Wallow	by Alexander Cockburn There are villains in this story, an entire piranha-elite. And there are victims, the people whose pension funds were pumped dry to flood the hog wallow with loot. One great battleground of the next decade across much of the world will revolve around pensions and issues of asset-based welfare for the swelling ranks of older folk
	Pro-Israeli Money Defeats Pro-Palestine Candidates	by Alexander Cockburn Suppose someone started looking at names in the pro-Israel groups funding Majette, who by mid-August had raised twice as much money as McKinney. Aren't they supporting and helping fund terror that has U.S.-made F-16s machine-gunning kids in Gaza? What's the game here? It's the reiteration of the same message delivered to politicians down the years, as when Senator Charles Percy went down. Put your head over the parapet on the topic of Israel and the Palestinians, and we'll blow it off
	The Most Dangerous Man in Washington	by Alexander Cockburn The Defense Secretary is currently trying to get the Pentagon greater authority to carry out covert ops. He also wants Congress to agree to have a new undersecretary of defense, responsible for all intelligence matters. A defense undersecretary may soon be able to target YOU, (or the anti-war couple in the apartment next door), bug your phone and computer, burglarize the place, grab you, stick you in prison and let you rot. All legally. That's what we call military government
	Supreme Court Voucher Decision Divides Blacks	by Earl Ofari Hutchinson The massive chasm among blacks on public education is yet another example of how mainstream black leaders often march to a far different tune than poor and working class blacks. These leaders are mostly liberal, middle-class business and professionals. Their kids are safely nestled in private schools and escape the ravages of bad public schools. Poor and working class blacks have no such luxury
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