NY Times editorial shifts the agenda

admin /30 September, 2006

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/28/opinion/28thu1.html?_r=3&oref=slogin&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

Rushing Off a Cliff

Here’s what happens when this irresponsible Congress railroads a profoundly important bill to serve the mindless politics of a midterm election: The Bush administration uses Republicans’ fear of losing their majority to push through ghastly ideas about antiterrorism that will make American troops less safe and do lasting damage to our 217-year-old nation of laws ­ while actually doing nothing to protect the nation from terrorists. Democrats betray their principles to avoid last-minute attack ads. Our democracy is the big loser.

Republicans say Congress must act right now to create procedures for charging and trying terrorists ­ because the men accused of plotting the 9/11 attacks are available for trial. That’s pure propaganda. Those men could have been tried and convicted long ago, but President Bush chose not to. He held them in illegal detention, had them questioned in ways that will make real trials very hard, and invented a transparently illegal system of kangaroo courts to convict them.

Mini-gulags, hired guns and lobbyists

admin /30 September, 2006

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HI28Ak01.html

By Tom Engelhardt

Last month a site of shame, shared by Saddam Hussein and George W Bush, was emptied.

Abu Ghraib prison is the place where Saddam’s functionaries tortured (and sometimes killed) many enemies of his regime, and where Bush’s functionaries, as a series of notorious digital photos revealed, committed what the US press still likes to refer to as "prisoner abuse". Now, there are no prisoners to abuse and the prison itself is to be turned over to the Iraqi government, perhaps to become a museum, perhaps to remain a jail for another regime whose handling of prisoners is grim indeed. The emptying was
clearly meant as a redemptive moment or, as Nancy A Youssef of the McClatchy Newspapers put it, "a milestone" for the huge structure. After all the bad media and the hit US "prestige" took around the world, Abu Ghraib was finally over.

Of course its prisoners, who remained generally uncharged and without access to Iraqi courts, weren’t just released to the winds. Quite the opposite: more than 3,000 of them were redistributed to two other US prisons, Camp Bucca in Iraq’s south and Camp Cropper at the huge US base adjoining Baghdad International Airport, once dedicated to the holding of such "high-value" detainees as Saddam Hussein and top officials of his regime.

The Torturer-in-Chief

admin /30 September, 2006

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-brooks22sep22,0,7815275.column?coll=la-home-commentary

Rosa Brooks

WE DON’T torture detainees, President Bush has repeatedly insisted; we just make use of lawful "alternative procedures" of interrogation.

But if everything we’ve done is lawful, why is the White House suddenly so desperate to get a deal with Congress that would "clarify" Common Article 3 of the Geneva Convention and amend the War Crimes Act, which criminalizes violations of the article?

Until Bush took office, the U.S. had no problem defining what is cruel and inhuman.
 

US patriots question 9/11

admin /30 September, 2006

A PERSONAL NOTE ABOUT THIS WEBSITE

I believed the official explanation of 9/11 for four and one-half years. I remember, during that time, becoming angry at news stories about people who challenged that explanation. However, in the Spring of 2006, I saw the documentary, Loose Change, on the Internet. Although not an entirely objective documentary, it raised many serious and disturbing questions about the events of 9/11 that I had previously simply accepted without much critical thought.

And so I began a several month period of researching the events of 9/11. I found a great deal of material challenging the 9/11 Commission Report on web sites like 911truth.org, physics911.net, st911.org and many others. I attended a lecture by David Ray Griffin. I learned much about what has become known as the 9/11 Truth Movement.

Much of the information and most of the rather limited media coverage about the 9/11 Truth Movement focuses on college professors, such as: David Ray Griffin, Steven Jones, James Fetzer, Kee Dewdney, and others. In August of 2006, I began searching for statements about 9/11 by members of the intelligence services, military and government. Because of their experience in these areas, I felt their opinions about 9/11 would be an additional valuable source of information. I was surprised by the amount of criticism of 9/11 from this group that I found scattered around the Internet. I had learned of virtually none of this criticism through newspapers, television, or radio news sources.

I feel this information is very important and that it has been seriously under-reported. This web site is an effort to collect and summarize these public statements and make them easily accessible.

If you are aware of any similar statements made by senior members of the intelligence services, military or government, I would greatly appreciate knowing about them. Please email me at alan.miller@PatriotsQuestion911.com. Additionally, if you find any errors in this material, please let me know.

I don’t claim to know what really happened on 9/11.  I cannot examine the facts of the matter first hand.  And I don’t have the experience to know what’s possible and what is unlikely regarding terrorist activities or military operations.  For that analysis, I need to rely on experts. I greatly value these individuals’ statements because most of them have spent large portions of their careers studying espionage, terrorism, and military operations throughout the world and personally planned and carried out United States’ military and intelligence activities.  In other words, they’re experienced professionals, whom I trust.

My objective, at this point, is to have our government launch a new, extremely thorough and impartial re-examination of the terrible acts of 9/11 and the events leading up to them. In my opinion, and in the opinion of the above listed experienced individuals, the current 9/11 Commission Report is seriously inadequate in explaining what really happened.

I also want to acknowledge that none of the information on this web site is the result of any original investigation on my part. I have merely researched and compiled public information available on the Internet. I want to thank those in the 9/11 Truth Movement for their efforts over the last five years for conducting a great deal of research and for keeping the Movement alive in the face of both ridicule and indifference.

For the sake of those who died on 9/11, their families, the American people, and for the sake of peace in the world, please continue to seek the truth about 9/11.

Sincerely,

Alan Miller
September 2006
Email: alan.miller@PatriotsQuestion911.com

Citizen Hope

admin /28 September, 2006

Sustainability visionaries see room for hope in our worry-filled world

By John Elkington and Mark Lee

Who’s afraid of the big, bad future? Al Gore, clearly — and pretty much anyone who has seen An Inconvenient Truth. While Gore’s dissenters may argue that he cries wolf too often, no one who knows and understands the statistics used in the film can doubt that the Big Bad Wolf of climate change is at the door. The question is whether our economies are best built of straw, sticks, or bricks.

These days there can be few Grist-folk who haven’t seen — or at least heard of — the YouTube short Al Gore’s Penguin Army, in which he is depicted lecturing an army of slumbering birds. Those stoking the engines of climate change clearly have a vested interest in crying penguin and pouring ridicule on inconvenient assertions about their roles and responsibilities. And then there was the South Park episode this spring in which Gore cried "ManBearPig" as a ploy to attract attention and overcome the real problem — that he didn’t have any friends. South Park may be a national treasure, but bear in mind how the Nazis and their favorite cartoonists portrayed the Jews and others during the 1930s. Lampoons can mask darker intent.

Africa to lose two thirds of its arable land by 2025

admin /28 September, 2006

Noting that Africa lost 65 per cent of its arable land between 1950-1990 and can expect to lose up to two thirds by 2025 due to land degradation, Issa Aboubacar from the Sahara and Sahel Observatory (OSS), spoke recently at a UNFCCC workshop about OSS’s work generating information to support decision making through 30 observatories Continue Reading →