If Arafat had been aborted, there would've been a Palestinian state

If Yasser Arafat had died at birth a Palestinian state would today likely be living side by side with a Jewish state, in peace. The Palestinian state would be called Jordan, which claimed and governed with West Bank from the end of the first Arab-Israeli war of 1948 to the Six Day War of 1967.

After that, Arafat took over the Palestine Liberation Organization and quickly began attacking noncombatants. In an era of shattered pride born of humiliating military setback, hijacking airplanes and murdering children in their schools suddenly seemed a worthy national enterprise. By 1974 an Arab League summit proclaimed the PLO "the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people."

From then on, the Palestinian community bore at least some of the characteristics of nationhood This was the sole political accomplishment Arafat could reasonably attribute to terrorism. Both before and after this "achievement" terrorism hurt the Palestinian cause, blinded its adherents to reality and, in the end, doomed its mentor to irrelevance. Drafters of "land for peace" plans, roadmaps, election schemes and political reforms all knew nothing could happen with Arafat in control. So they spent their time in frivolity, waiting for him to die.


posted by Frodgie at 1:17 PM

 

Middle East "Scholars" Unleash a New Brand of Bias

This evening, the participants in the annual Middle East Studies Association (MESA) conference in San Francisco will assemble in plenary session, to hear an address by MESA's president, Laurie Brand. The title: "Scholarship in the Shadow of Empire." (Presumably that's the American empire, not the Abbasid.)

When Brand delivers her address, she'll be preaching to the choir--the very people who elected her two years ago. MESA's members show a marked propensity for electing political activists to lead them. Indeed, MESA elections have become a kind of referendum, by which members express their political views indirectly. Brand's election is a case in point. She has all the credentials of an activist academic: a Columbia Ph.D. (Edward Said on the dissertation committee), published work dealing largely with the Palestinians, and a five-year stint at the Institute of Palestine Studies before her hire by the University of Southern California. Her election in late 2002 was MESA's way of endorsing the Palestinian cause in the midst of the intifada.

That said, Brand didn't have a reputation as an over-the-top propagandist--until the lead-up to the Iraq war. In the spring of 2003, Brand was in Beirut on sabbatical leave. As Operation Iraqi Freedom got underway, she penned an anti-war letter addressed to Secretary of State Colin Powell, on behalf of "Americans living in Lebanon." The letter cited various far-out predictions (e.g., over a million Iraqis might die because of damage to Iraq's water supply), added that "'regime change' imposed from outside is itself completely undemocratic," and ended in these words: "We refuse to stand by watching passively as the US pursues aggressive and racist policies toward the people around us. We reject your claim to be taking these actions on our behalf. Not in our name." Seventy Americans signed it.

posted by Frodgie at 12:12 PM

 

CIA report cites N. Korean proliferation threat

North Korea threatened in secret talks to export nuclear weapons and to conduct a test blast, according to a CIA report made public this week.
"In late April 2003 during the Six-Party Talks in Beijing, North Korea privately threatened to 'transfer' or 'demonstrate' its nuclear weapons," the semiannual report on arms proliferation to Congress stated.
"North Korea repeated these threats at the Six-Party Talks in August 2003."
The CIA's description was the first official confirmation that the official North Korean statements were a threat. The disclosure also contradicted public comments on the matter by Bush administration spokesmen.
The North Korean threat to export nuclear arms and to test a nuclear device was first reported by The Washington Times of May 7, 2003.
The danger of North Korean nuclear transfers to other nations or entities is being taken seriously by the commander of U.S. military forces in South Korea, Army Gen. Leon J. LaPorte.
posted by Frodgie at 11:20 AM

 

Why Bush Won

It was an outcome that took even the President's closest advisers by surprise. George W. Bush emerged from the election with fifty-one percent of the popular vote -- the first outright majority for any presidential candidate since his father in 1988, and the first president since Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1936 to be re-elected while gaining seats in both the House and the Senate. To get away from the battle of the ideological elites and make sense of the election, ROLLING STONE met with Ruy Teixeira and Peter Hart -- two analysts deeply grounded in public-opinion research -- and David Gergen, a man we consider one of the most dispassionate observers of modern political history.
Teixeira, a joint fellow at the Center for American Progress and the Century Foundation, is co-author of The Emerging Democratic Majority, selected as one of the best books of 2002 by The Economist. Hart, known for his nonpartisan poll for NBC and the Wall Street Journal, has conducted public-opinion research for thirty governors and forty U.S. senators, from Hubert Humphrey to Jay Rockefeller. Gergen, director of the Center for Public Leadership in the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, has served in the White House as an adviser to presidents Nixon, Ford, Reagan and Clinton.

Let's start with the major factors in Bush's victory.

RUY TEIXEIRA: If you want to look at ground zero of how Bush expanded his coalition, the key change from 2000 was that he did a lot better among white voters. His margin of victory among whites widened from twelve to seventeen points -- and almost all of that was among white working-class women.

DAVID GERGEN: The decrease in the gender gap alone was enough to give him the victory. But he also increased his margin among Hispanics. And I don't think there's any doubt that in some key states, such as Ohio, he rallied his base through a strong organization and symbolic politics -- especially the ban on gay marriage.

PETER HART: The other thing that's really important to understand is the Mississippi River: Since 1912, whoever has won a plurality of states along the Mississippi has won the presidency. This year, a sense of Republicanism crept up the river. The president won Missouri -- which was always a toss-up state -- by more than seven percent. Iowa flipped in his direction, and in Minnesota and Wisconsin, we waited all night to find out that Kerry had just barely carried each of those states. In state legislatures, the story is even more dramatic: going from huge Democratic majorities in the Seventies to watching the GOP dominate in Missouri and Wisconsin. Only Illinois remains solidly in Democratic hands.


posted by Frodgie at 11:17 AM

 

Allawi: Determined to Hold Elections on Time

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Prime Minister Ayad Allawi's (search) spokesman said Saturday that the government is determined to hold the Jan. 30 elections on time despite calls by Sunni Muslim (search) politicians to delay the balloting for six months because of deteriorating security.

About 17 Sunni Muslim politicians urged the government Friday to postpone the elections, in part to convince Sunni clerics to abandon their call for a boycott and to enable the authorities to secure polling stations.

However, the interim constitution and the U.N. Security Council have mandated a ballot by the end of January to meet demands by religious leaders of the majority Shiite community, which has been insisting on elections since the early months of the U.S. military presence.

"The Iraqi government is determined, as I told you before, to hold elections on time," Allawi's spokesman Thair al-Naqeeb told reporters. "The Iraqi government led by the prime minister is calling for all spectra of the Iraqi people to participate in the elections, and to contribute in the elections to build a strong democratic country."


posted by Frodgie at 11:09 AM

 

Bush: World watching Ukraine 'very carefully'

CRAWFORD, Texas (CNN) -- As officials meet in Ukraine to hammer out a solution to what opposition leaders say was a fraudulent election, the "world is "watching very carefully," President Bush said Friday.

Bush spoke to reporters on subjects including Ukraine outside The Coffee Station, a restaurant in Crawford, near his ranch.

"There's just a lot of allegations of vote fraud that place their elections, the validity of their elections, in doubt," Bush said. "The international community is watching very carefully. People are paying very close attention to this, and hopefully it'll be resolved in a way that brings credit and confidence to the Ukrainian government."

The two Ukraine candidates, Viktor Yanukovych and Viktor Yushchenko opened talks Friday with Russian and European mediators to try to end a crisis that has prompted more than six days of mass street protests.

The roundtable discussion was the first face-to-face meeting between the two men since the votes were cast.

An election commission said last week that Yanukovych won the election with 49.46 percent of the vote to Yushchenko's 46.61 percent. But four of the panel's 15 members voted against the final report in a raucous meeting that was broadcast live on Ukrainian television.

In Crawford, about two dozen demonstrators backing liberal opposition candidate Yushchenko were among those gathered outside the restaurant where Bush had lunch with his family.


posted by Frodgie at 11:07 AM

 

Pope Concerned About U.S. Priest Shortage

VATICAN CITY -- Pope John Paul II expressed concern Friday over the decline in priestly vocations in the United States, telling visiting American bishops that the drop presents a "stark challenge" that cannot be ignored.

He also suggested, in an apparent reference to the clergy sex abuse scandal, that seminary training needs to be tightened to instill a commitment to "holiness and spiritual wisdom."

The pope has raised the sex abuse scandal and other problems facing the U.S. church as American bishops have been making a periodic visit to the Vatican throughout the year.

In Friday's address to bishops from Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska and Missouri, the pope outlined how bishops must provide for the future of the church.

"No one can deny that the decline in priestly vocations represents a stark challenge for the church in the United States, and one that cannot be ignored or put off," the pope said.

He urged a program of vocational promotion and a national day of prayer for priestly vocations.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops says nearly 500 new priests were ordained in 2003, down about half from 1965.

The pope's reference to seminaries comes amid plans for a Vatican-sponsored investigation of U.S. seminaries, a project stemming from the abuse crisis. The outgoing president of the U.S. Catholic bishops, Bishop Wilton D. Gregory, has said onsite visits should start within a year.
posted by Frodgie at 11:01 AM

 

Euro Rises Above $1.33 As Dollar Slides

BERLIN (AP) - The U.S. dollar's slide against the euro kept up its momentum Friday, with the European currency rising above US$1.33 for the first time.

It was the fourth day in a row on which the dollar hit a new all-time low against the euro, which rose to US$1.3329 in early trading before dipping back under US$1.33. On Thursday, the euro topped US$1.32 for the first time, trading at US$1.3248.

The current dollar slide, driven primarily by concerns over the U.S. trade and budget deficits, has taken the euro from around US$1.20 about two months ago - prompting European leaders to begin worrying openly that it might damage their export-driven economic recovery.

However, although the European Central Bank's president recently called the rapid increase "brutal," there has been little sign of concerted action to stem the tide. The ECB and other central banks have yet to intervene on markets to halt the dollar's slide.


posted by Frodgie at 8:05 AM

 

A Blessed Thanksgiving to You and Your Family!!

posted by Frodgie at 8:34 AM

 

posted by Frodgie at 8:20 AM

 

posted by Frodgie at 7:15 AM

 

posted by Frodgie at 6:16 AM

 

Insanity has Finally Taken Over.....Is this the Beginning of the End?

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A California teacher has been barred by his school from giving students documents from American history that refer to God -- including the Declaration of Independence.

Steven Williams, a fifth-grade teacher at Stevens Creek School in the San Francisco Bay area suburb of Cupertino, sued for discrimination on Monday, claiming he had been singled out for censorship by principal Patricia Vidmar because he is a Christian.

"It's a fact of American history that our founders were religious men, and to hide this fact from young fifth-graders in the name of political correctness is outrageous and shameful," said Williams' attorney, Terry Thompson.

"Williams wants to teach his students the true history of our country," he said. "There is nothing in the Establishment Clause (of the U.S. Constitution) that prohibits a teacher from showing students the Declaration of Independence."

Vidmar could not be reached for comment on the lawsuit, which was filed on Monday in U.S. District Court in San Jose and claims violations of Williams rights to free speech under the First Amendment.

Phyllis Vogel, assistant superintendent for Cupertino Unified School District, said the lawsuit had been forwarded to a staff attorney. She declined to comment further.

Williams asserts in the lawsuit that since May he has been required to submit all of his lesson plans and supplemental handouts to Vidmar for approval, and that the principal will not permit him to use any that contain references to God or Christianity.

Among the materials she has rejected, according to Williams, are excerpts from the Declaration of Independence, George Washington's journal, John Adams' diary, Samuel Adams' "The Rights of the Colonists" and William Penn's "The Frame of Government of Pennsylvania."

"He hands out a lot of material and perhaps 5 to 10 percent refers to God and Christianity because that's what the founders wrote," said Thompson, a lawyer for the Alliance Defense Fund, which advocates for religious freedom. "The principal seems to be systematically censoring material that refers to Christianity and it is pure discrimination."

In June, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the case of a California atheist who wanted the words "under God" struck from the Pledge of Allegiance as recited by school children. The appeals court in California had found that the phrase amounted to a violation of church and state separation.

posted by Frodgie at 6:49 PM

 

Spain Battles Illegal Muslim Immigration

TANGIER, Morocco — The bodies are anonymous, rotting in the shallows of the Straits of Gibraltar (search). The fortunate ones are dragged out for a hasty burial. They are Africans trying to make it to Europe, betting their lives on a nine-mile ride, thousands losing that bet each year.

Spain used to be an open door for illegal immigrants. An estimated one-quarter of all smuggled immigrants into Europe came through the Southern coast of Spain, most setting off from Morocco (search).

The sticks and stones of frustrated border guards had little effect against a rising tide of human traffic.

But all that changed on March 11. Most of the terrorists who killed 190 people on commuter trains in Madrid were Moroccan. Suddenly, the immigrant problem was a security problem.

Under pressure at home and from other European nations, rubber batons at the border were replaced by speedboats but success, so far, is limited.

"The numbers are down here by 50 percent," said Lt. David Oliva of the Spanish Border Guard. "But the smugglers are just moving to other parts of the coast."

Although only nine miles separate Africa from Europe, that stretch contains some of the most dangerous currents in the world. Now, some people in Africa are so desperate, they are ready to pay $1,000 a head just to get across, and they'll take their chances on anything that floats.

Seventy-five people from the Moroccan village of Tangier drowned trying to cross the waters last month. When FOX News approached families of the victims, they started to cry. One man lost 21 relatives.

With no electricity, jobs, education, or running water, there is nothing to do but wait for someone to get them out of the area. "These people are so desperate they are ready to die," said Khalil Jemmah, a Moroccan aid worker. "It's just a question of who gets here first, the smugglers or the terrorists."

More often than not, it's the terrorists who are getting there first.


posted by Frodgie at 5:40 PM

 

Immigration enforcement grows weaker

Stage 1

Stage 2

Immigration enforcement efforts actually have become more lax since the September 11 attacks and have had "no meaningful impact" on the growing number of immigrants now in the United States — which has reached a record high of 34 million, according to a report released yesterday.
A 13 percent increase of U.S. immigrants, more than 4 million, since 2000 included more than 2 million illegal aliens, who now total about 10 million or 30 percent of the immigrant population, the Washington-based Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), said in its report, based on as-yet-unpublished U.S. Census Bureau data.
The report said that while visa applicants from some parts of the world may have to wait longer for approval and a "tiny number of illegal aliens from selected countries" may have been detained, enforcement efforts did not constitute any major change in U.S. immigration policy.
The fact that immigration has remained so high, the report said, also showed that immigration totals are not tied to the nation's economy, as some immigration proponents and others have suggested.
"The idea that immigration is a self-regulating process that rises and falls in close step with the economy is simply wrong," said Steven Camarota, CIS director of research and the report's author. "Today, the primary sending countries are so much poorer than the United States, even being unemployed in America is still sometimes better than staying in one's home country."
Mr. Camarota said the countries primarily represented among the nation's immigrant population are much poorer than the primary sending countries in the past. The United States' much higher standard of living, he said, exists even during recessions, noting that people come to the United States to join family, to avoid social or legal obligations, to take advantage of the United States' social services, and to enjoy greater personal and political freedom.
"Even a prolonged economic downturn is unlikely to have a large impact on immigration levels. If we want lower immigration levels it would require enforcement of immigration laws and changes to the legal immigration system," he said.
Maryland was among the eight states with the largest increases in immigrant population, along with Texas, Georgia, North Carolina, New Jersey, Washington, Arizona and Pennsylvania.
The report comes just two days after President Bush assured Mexico he would expend "political capital" earned in his re-election to push hard to grant temporary guest-worker status to millions of illegal immigrants now in the United States.
Mr. Bush has tried since the first month of his presidency in 2001 to push an immigration-reform bill through Congress that would allow illegal aliens to remain in this country indefinitely, and others to cross the border from Mexico, if they registered for "temporary worker cards."
CIS, a private research organization that seeks better immigration enforcement, said in the report that the 34.24 million immigrants, both legal and illegal, now in the United States is the highest number ever recorded in American history. It said about half, or 2 million, of the 4.3 million increase since 2000 is estimated to be illegal aliens.

posted by Frodgie at 8:26 AM

 

Bush Mulls Improvements to War on Terror

WASHINGTON — While lawmakers haggle over passing a new intelligence bill, President Bush is making an aggressive effort in the War on Terror (search), insisting on changes at the Pentagon in response to recommendations made by the Sept. 11 commission (search).

He also has directed the CIA and FBI to implement the commission's recommendations

Late Tuesday, the White House released memos dated Nov. 18 that have Bush ordering an interagency group from the State, Justice and Defense departments and the CIA to devise a plan that could expand the Pentagon's role in covert operations (search) — a function the CIA traditionally performs.

"Lead responsibility for directing and executing paramilitary operations, whether clandestine or covert, should shift to the Defense Department. There it should be consolidated with the capabilities for training, direction, and execution of such operations already being developed in the Special Operation Command," the president wrote in a memorandum to the affected Cabinet secretaries and director of intelligence.

The president also set a 90-day deadline for review of any matters relating to this decision and "whether and to what extent implementation of the recommendation is in the interest of the United States and what changes to law, executive orders, other presidential guidance, or policies would be necessary to implement such advice."


posted by Frodgie at 8:24 AM

 

A little rebellion in the House

Since his 51 percent victory on Nov. 2, President Bush has been acting like an imperial president in the FDR tradition.

He has retired six Cabinet officers, replaced three with White House staffers, effected the recapture of Fallujah, begun cleaning out State and the CIA, and let Mexican President Fox know that his guest-worker/amnesty plan to legalize Mexican illegal aliens will be pushed and passed in Congress in the new year.


But Saturday night, as he was in Chile telling the world that China, Russia, South Korea and Japan were on board to pressure North Korea back to talks on its nuclear program, a rebellion erupted back home. Bush was handed a stinging defeat by his own House Republicans.

At issue was the bill to create a national intelligence czar. Leading the rebels were Duncan Hunter of California, who chairs armed services, and Jim Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin, chair of judiciary. Hunter, an ex-Green Beret, objects to giving the czar power to intrude in intel transfers from the Pentagon to troops in the field, saying this could "leave a state of confusion which is deadly on the battlefield."

Sensenbrenner's was the voice of Tom Tancredo's Immigration Caucus. He refused to back a bill on homeland security that failed to create federal standards for driver's licenses. Some of the 9-11 terrorists carried valid state driver's licenses, which are the primary means of identification for boarding U.S. airliners. As Arizona Rep. J.D. Hayworth succinctly put it, "Border security is homeland security."

Faced with a rebellion led by committee chairmen and backed by his rank-and-file, Speaker Dennis Hastert pulled the bill. Absent a special session in December, the bill is now probably dead until the 109th Congress meets in January.

The Beltway is in shock. Not only were Bush, Cheney and the Senate Republicans all supportive, so too were the 9-11 commission and Democratic establishment. An independent group, 9-11 Families for a Secure America, however, praised Republicans for holding the line to secure America's borders.

Bush and Cheney both phoned in to save the bill and were deeply embarrassed by its defeat. But this wake-up call for the White House is overdue. Karl Rove needs to reread the exit polls from Nov. 2 and review what happened in Arizona.

In those exit polls, Bush swept the nation among voters who had the war on terror, taxes and moral values first in mind. He has a mandate here: Make the tax cuts permanent, fight for conservative judges and justices, hunt down bin Laden and finish al-Qaida.


posted by Frodgie at 8:23 AM

 

House leaders make deal to keep tax returns private

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Lawmakers have reached an agreement on how to remove a provision in a giant spending bill that would allow two committee chairmen to review individual tax returns, a spokesman for Rep. Nancy Pelosi said Tuesday.

The agreement, the spokesman said, is that the House minority leader will allow an extension of a continuing resolution to fund the government until December 8. The House will reconvene December 6 to vote on removing the language from the omnibus spending bill.

That means the House and Senate will meet before Thanksgiving for what will likely be minimalist sessions to pass an extended continuing resolution.

The actions are necessary because the omnibus bill is being kept in the Senate and not sent to the president for his signature until the offending language is removed. The Senate approved a resolution to remove the offending language Saturday night after the House had left.

The provision would bypass other laws that govern "the disclosure of income tax returns or return information" -- and that impose steep penalties and fines on such disclosure -- to allow the chairmen of the House and Senate appropriations committees or their agents "access to Internal Revenue Service facilities and any tax returns or return information contained therein."

In discussions over how to remove the tax-returns provision, Pelosi had objected to regular GOP use of a parliamentary technique -- called "martial law" or a "same day" rule -- that expedites final votes on bills, often before lawmakers have time to read them.


posted by Frodgie at 8:20 AM

 

Dollar Sinks to New Low Against Euro

LONDON (AP) - The U.S. dollar sank to another record low against the euro in European trading Wednesday morning. Gold prices rose.

The euro hit a record high of $1.3167 in morning trading, then eased to $1.3150, up from $1.3085 late Tuesday. The 12-nation European currency's previous peak was $1.3105 reached Tuesday.

The recent rally has taken the euro from $1.20 about two months ago, driven primarily by concerns over the U.S. trade and budget deficits.

The latest surge comes after a weekend meeting of the finance officials from the Group of 20 industrial and developing countries failed to deliver any signal of concerted action to boost the dollar.

Other dollar rates compared with late Tuesday included: 102.96 Japanese yen, up from 103.41; 1.1514 Swiss francs, down from 1.1572, and 1.1804 Canadian dollars, up from 1.1882.

The British pound was quoted at $1.8780 up from $1.8695.

Gold dealers in London fixed a recommended price of $448.65 at midmorning, up from $448.40 late Tuesday. In Zurich, the bid was $448.63, up from $448.33. Gold rose $1.90 in Hong Kong to $448.35.

Silver opened in London at $7.54 bid per troy ounce, up from $7.52.
© Copyright The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained In this news report may not be published, broadcast or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.

posted by Frodgie at 8:11 AM

 

Dan Rather to Step Down as CBS Anchor....I am going to say that he was DEMOTED! He should be taken to court for libel now!

NEW YORK — Veteran CBS news anchor Dan Rather (search) announced Tuesday that he will vacate his chair at "CBS Evening News" (search) in March, the 24th anniversary of his taking over the job from Walter Cronkite (search).

The move comes just months after Rather, 73, was taken to task for going to air with a controversial "60 Minutes II" story that questioned President Bush's service in the National Guard, a piece that turned out to be based on allegedly forged documents.

Rather said he will continue to work for CBS News as a correspondent for both editions of "60 Minutes."

"I have always been and remain a 'hard news' investigative reporter at heart," he said. "I now look forward to pouring my heart into that kind of reporting full time."

Rather made no mention of the National Guard story in announcing the change, saying he had agreed with CBS executives last summer that the right time to leave would be after the Nov. 2 election.

David Blum, author of this year's "Tick... Tick... Tick...: The Long Life & Turbulent Times of '60 Minutes,'" told FOX News that CBS had wanted Rather to step out of the anchor chair for some time.


"CBS always wanted, at least in recent years, to move Rather out, bring in a successor and shore up the ratings. They've been in the third position for a while now. Nothing really happened that wasn't anticipated," he said.

CBS did not mention a potential successor for Rather, who has been at CBS for more than four decades and made his name as a reporter covering the Nixon White House.

"He has been an eyewitness to the most important events for more than 40 years and played a crucial role in keeping the American public informed about those events and their larger significance," CBS Chairman Leslie Moonves said.

A report on what went wrong with the National Guard story, from a two-man independent investigative panel, is due imminently. Rather anchored the story and initially defended it when it was criticized.


posted by Frodgie at 1:43 PM

 

Angry senators have 'poisoned' intelligence bill

Senators have made it much harder to reach a new agreement on the intelligence overhaul bill after their harsh comments during the weekend about the Republicans who blocked the measure, one key House negotiator said yesterday.
"An already poisoned well got poisoned even more badly," said Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., Wisconsin Republican and House Judiciary Committee chairman.
He and House Armed Services Committee Chairman Duncan Hunter think that the compromise bill that House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert wanted to bring to a vote on Saturday went too far in constricting the power of the military to use real-time intelligence and didn't go far enough in clamping down on immigration security loopholes.
In a frank closed-door Republican meeting on Saturday afternoon, they led their fellow House members in opposing the bill to implement the recommendations of the September 11 commission and forced Mr. Hastert to postpone a vote.
Now, Mr. Sensenbrenner said, senators' apparent strategy to ignore the immigration issue and try to assuage Mr. Hunter's concerns over intelligence won't pass muster with most House Republicans.
In a telephone interview yesterday with The Washington Times, Mr. Sensenbrenner said it's a mistake for others to think that they can "divide and conquer."
"Mr. Hunter and I have been working together right from the get-go," Mr. Sensenbrenner said. "The thought that one of us can get peeled off is very, very unlikely."
Mr. Sensenbrenner said the "personal invective of people who were on the talking-head shows" on Sunday means that Congress probably won't reach an agreement before a new Dec. 6 deadline imposed by Mr. Hastert. Negotiators have not scheduled any meetings to work on the bill, and Congress is out of session for Thanksgiving break.

posted by Frodgie at 8:29 AM

 

President Bush needs a new press team for his second term.

As President Bush plans his second term, he should take a bold internal step: Fire the White House press office.

It is hard to argue with success. The president was reelected more comfortably than even his supporters expected. Still, he suffered enormous headaches all year and surely will endure more migraines if he keeps the media team that has so ill-served him.

Bush's press officers surely are diligent patriots who do the very best they can. That's the problem. It is hard to identify a recent chief executive who struggled so hard to communicate. True, Bush is no Ronald Reagan. But that does not excuse his press operation. It lacks creativity, responds leisurely to most criticism, and lets muddled perceptions linger rather than correct them by relentlessly deploying facts and comments.

"This media team has no vision, no guts, and no instincts," complains one Bush insider. "This election should have been a blowout of Reaganesque proportions. Instead, it was a nail biter. There's only one place to point the finger: at the press staff."

"If George Bush's press office were a public-relations agency, the people who work there would be on the streets right now with signs reading, 'Will write for food,'" says Matthew Schwartz, editor of New York-based PR News, which covers corporate communications.

Consider:

Though controversial since proposed, the press office could have promoted Operation Iraqi Freedom by energetically denouncing Saddam Hussein's mass graves. Good news occurs regularly in Iraq, yet is rarely highlighted. Hussein had extensive ties to Islamofascists, including al Qaeda (see HUSSEINandTERROR.com). Bush's publicists overlooked these themes, causing their boss a yearlong beating.

John Kerry belittled this country's partners in Iraq, most recently pledging to build a "real alliance" if elected, as if the 33-member, American-led Coalition included fake allies. The press office downplayed the participation of other nations in this effort, beyond the frequent and appropriate praise lavished on Tony Blair and his British troops.

The president's media team (surely with U.S. diplomats in the driver's seat) sowed the seeds for their troubles at the Azores Summit, Bush's March 16, 2003, meeting with Blair and Spain's Jose Maria Aznar. What a perfect way to illustrate the critics' argument that Bush hurtled unilaterally into Iraq: fly the president onto a windswept mid-Atlantic rock with two friends.

Instead, Bush should have asked Coalition stalwart Silvio Berlusconi of Italy to host a summit of all 46 nations that supported America as the Iraq war loomed. At NATO's Aviano Air Base, each country's chief of state should have stood in front of his respective flag on a stage flanked by a Stealth bomber and an M-1 tank. After the other leaders had spent one minute each dedicating themselves to Operation Iraqi Freedom, Bush should have approached the microphone and said, "Saddam Hussein, you have heard from all of us, the leaders of the Coalition of the Willing. You have 72 hours to comply with United Nations Resolution 1441. Come clean, disarm, or we will liberate the Iraqi people from beneath your boots."


posted by Frodgie at 8:26 AM

 

Abbas Urges 'Right of Return' for Palestinians

RAMALLAH, West Bank — Interim Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas (search) told parliament on Tuesday that he would follow in Yasser Arafat's (search) footsteps and demand that Israel recognize the "right of return" of Palestinian refugees.

Abbas spoke a day after a small group of leaders of the ruling Fatah movement chose him as its candidate in Jan. 9 elections for Palestinian Authority (search) president, despite demands by Fatah's young guard that a primary be held.

The speech marked the first time since Arafat's death Nov. 11 that Abbas outlined his views on the conflict with Israel. Abbas appeared to be sending a message to Fatah's young guard that he would stand tough in future talks with Israel, despite his pragmatism and opposition to violence.

Abbas' ideas about a peace deal with Israel have always been close to those of Arafat: a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip (search), with east Jerusalem as a capital, and Israeli recognition of the "right of return" of some four million refugees and their descendants.


posted by Frodgie at 8:20 AM

 

When hatred is necessary

Is hatred of others always a sin? Are we obliged to love every human being, even those who do great evil or behave with unspeakable cruelty? Must we believe, as one reader wrote to me last week, that "G-d loves even the bad people" — even the very worst people — and that we must strive to do the same?

My correspondent was commenting on a recent column about the death of archterrorist and mass-murderer Yasser Arafat — and specifically on my criticism of President Bush for having said, on first hearing of Arafat's death, "G-d bless his soul."

"G-d bless his soul? What a grotesque idea!" I wrote. "G-d, I am quite sure, will damn him for eternity."

But many readers defended Bush's reaction. One of them was Pat Buchanan, who replied to my column in one of his own.

He began with a jab at the presumption of "columnists who know the mind of G-d." Then he wrote: "In defense of President Bush, if that was his first reaction to Arafat's death, it bespeaks a Christian heart. As a boy in World War II, I was taught by Catholic nuns that while permissible to pray for the death of Hitler or Tojo, it was impermissible to pray for their damnation. That was hatred, and hatred is a sin."

Of course, if hatred — even hatred of a Hitler or an Arafat — is a sin, then love — even love of such a monster — must be a moral duty. And that is indeed what many Christians believe. "I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you," Jesus is quoted in Matthew, "so that you may be children of your Father in heaven." Catholics who pray the rosary implore G-d to "lead all souls to heaven, especially those most in need of thy mercy" — especially, in other words, the most wicked. As another e-mailer assured me last week, "Any Christian would pray that the Lord would have mercy on someone's soul, even if he was a mass murderer. To do less would be contrary to Bush's faith."

I have great respect for that faith and a deep appreciation for the good that Christians and Christianity have accomplished in the world. But my faith, Judaism, teaches a fundamentally different lesson about evil and how to respond to it.

Jewish tradition holds, with Ecclesiastes, that there is a time to love and a time to hate. The Hebrew Bible enjoins us to love our neighbor (Leviticus 19:18) and to love the stranger (Deuteronomy 10:19), but that love has its limits. We are not expected to love savage thugs or to ask G-d's mercy on them. On the contrary, we loathe the unrepentantly cruel because we believe G-d loathes them too.


posted by Frodgie at 8:17 AM

 

Second Sunni Cleric Gunned Down in Iraq

BAQOUBA, Iraq — Masked gunmen on Tuesday assassinated a Sunni cleric north of Baghdad, police said — the second such killing in as many days.

Sheik Ghalib Ali al-Zuhairi (search) was a member of the Association of Muslim Scholars, an influential Sunni clerics group that has spoken out against nationwide elections to be held Jan. 30.

Al-Zuhairi was shot as he was leaving Thiyaba Mosque in the town of Muqdadiyah after dawn prayers, said Col. Raisan Hussein. He was taken to Muqdadiya Hospital where he later died, Hussein said. Muqdadiyah is about 60 miles north of Baghdad.

A day earlier, unknown gunmen assassinated another prominent Sunni cleric in the northern city of Mosul — Sheik Faidh Mohamed Amin al-Faidhi, who was the brother of the group's spokesman.

It was unclear whether there was any connection between the two murders.

The Association of Muslim Scholars (search), considered one of the most influential Sunni groups in Iraq, has loudly opposed the U.S. assault against the rebel stronghold of Fallujah (search) and promised to boycott national elections.


posted by Frodgie at 8:15 AM

 

Half of adults with HIV are women

LONDON, England (Reuters) -- Women make up nearly half of the 37.2 million adults living with HIV and in sub-Saharan Africa the proportion rises to almost 60 percent, according to a UN report released on Tuesday.

"Increasingly the face of AIDS is young and female," said Dr Kathleen Cravero, deputy executive director of the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS).

In every region of the globe, the number of women infected with the deadly virus has risen during the past two years. East Asia had the highest jump with 56 percent, followed by Eastern Europe and Central Asia with 48 percent.

In sub-Saharan Africa, three-quarters of all 15-24 year olds living with HIV are female.

"Young women are almost an endangered species in southern Africa from AIDS for several reasons," Cravero told Reuters.

Many women have no access to education or jobs. They are often economically dependent on men and may not have the power to resist sex or ask their husband or partner to use a condom.

"In some places, the main HIV risk factor for a woman is the fact that she is faithful to a husband with previous or current sex partners," the report said.

Teenage girls are acquiring the virus at a younger age and from older men. Violence against women also makes them more vulnerable to infection.


posted by Frodgie at 8:13 AM

 

'Security services foil 9/11 attack in UK'

ITV News understands that the security services have thwarted four or five September 11-style attacks on targets including Canary Wharf and Heathrow Airport.

One plot is said to have involved pilots being trained to fly into target buildings, including London's famous financial centre and the world's busiest airport.

It is one of a number of attacks planned by al-Qaeda since 9/11 that have come to nothing after the authorities intervened.

The disclosure comes as the Government prepares to unveil a series of tough law-and-order Bills in this morning's Queen's Speech, setting out the legislative programme for what is expected to be the final session of the current Parliament.


posted by Frodgie at 8:08 AM

 

Iraqi officials set elections for Jan. 30

BAGHDAD — Iraqi authorities set Jan. 30 as the date for the nation's first election since the collapse of Saddam Hussein's dictatorship and pledged that voting would take place throughout the country despite rising violence and calls by Sunni clerics for a boycott.
Farid Ayar, spokesman of the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq, said voting would push ahead even in areas still racked by violence, including Fallujah, Mosul and other parts of the volatile Sunni Triangle.
The vote for the 275-member national assembly is seen as a major step toward building democracy after decades of Saddam's tyranny.
But the violence, which has escalated this month with the U.S.-led offensive against Fallujah, has raised fears that voting will be nearly impossible in insurgency-torn regions — or that Sunni Arabs, angry at the U.S.-Iraqi crackdown, will reject the election.
Mr. Ayar insisted, "No Iraqi province will be excluded because the law considers Iraq as one constituency, and therefore, it is not legal to exclude any province."
To bolster Iraq's democracy, 19 creditor nations agreed yesterday to write off 80 percent of the $42 billion that Iraq owes them.
President Bush congratulated the Iraqi interim government and the group of creditor nations for the agreement to dramatically reduce Iraq's international debt.
"The Paris Club agreement represents a major international contribution to Iraq's continued political and economic reconstruction. I encourage non-Paris Club creditor nations to agree to comparable debt reduction for Iraq," he said.
The Paris Club is a group of 19 creditor nations that includes the United States, Japan, Russia and European nations.
U.S. and Iraqi troops have been clearing the last of the resistance from Fallujah, the main rebel bastion stormed Nov. 8 in hopes of breaking the back of the insurgency before the election.
posted by Frodgie at 9:20 AM

 

Bush Signs Stopgap Spending Bill

SANTIAGO, Chile — President Bush (search) on Sunday signed a stopgap spending bill (search) that keeps the government running while Congress sorts out remaining issues related to a more permanent federal spending package.

Congress on Saturday approved the temporary legislation, which finances almost every domestic federal department and agency plus foreign aid until Dec. 3. The last such short-term spending measure expired at midnight Saturday; the new one was flown here overnight by military plane so Bush could sign it as soon as possible.

Bush was in Chile over the weekend, attending an economic summit of Asia-Pacific leaders and a state visit with Chilean President Ricardo Lagos (search).

White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan said there had been no disruption in government functioning or services, despite the gap between the two measures.

Also Saturday, Congress approved the $388 billion spending bill financing the same programs through the rest of the fiscal year that began Oct. 1. But one line in the bill would have given two committee chairmen and their assistants access to people's income tax returns, so leaders agreed not to send the bill to Bush for his signature until that issue is fixed in separate legislation.

The Senate has approved a resolution nullifying that measure and House leaders promised to do so Wednesday.

Meanwhile, the temporary measure gives the White House nearly three weeks to mull over the larger package's provisions. But Bush has already said he would sign that one too.

"This legislation is in keeping with my goal to further strengthen the economy by cutting the budget deficit in half over five years," he said in a statement issued late Saturday night. "With resources already provided to continue to fight the war on terror and to protect the homeland, we have held to the fiscally responsible limits Congress and I agreed to and still adequately funded our domestic priorities like education, health care and veterans programs."

posted by Frodgie at 9:15 AM

 

Iran Suspends Uranium Enrichment

TEHRAN, Iran — Iran (search) has suspended uranium enrichment and all related activities, state-run radio reported Monday, honoring an agreement with Europe designed to head off possible U.N. sanctions.

"To build confidence and in line with implementing the Paris Agreement (search), Iran suspended uranium enrichment (and related activities) as of today," said the brief radio announcement.

In Vienna, the head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency, said the suspension appeared confirmed.

"I think pretty much everything has come to a halt," Mohamed ElBaradei (search), the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, told reporters.

ElBaradei said he expected to have a definitive ruling by Thursday on whether Iran has honored its pledge made earlier this month and frozen the activities, which can be used to make nuclear weapons.


posted by Frodgie at 9:12 AM

 

Five hunters gunned down in Wisconsin woods

(CNN) -- Sheriff's deputies are investigating the killings of five hunters Sunday in northwest Wisconsin -- bloodshed apparently sparked by a dispute over a hunting spot. A suspect has been arrested.

"This is completely nuts," said Chief Deputy Tim Zeigle of the Sawyer County Sheriff's Department. "Why? I mean, five people dead because somebody was trespassing on property. It makes no sense."

Three others were wounded, said Julie Veness, an emergency medical technician in Exeland, Wisconsin.

Saturday marked the opening of the nine-day deer season, and Veness said the shootings appeared to stem from a dispute over a deer stand -- an elevated position from which hunters can target deer.

"Apparently, the person was asked to leave and get out of his deer stand, and he didn't take it very well and he fired away at them," she said.

The suspect apparently got lost in the woods after the rampage. He was led out by a pair of hunters who were not aware of the shootings, according to Zeigle.

posted by Frodgie at 9:08 AM

 

Is a Bush-neocon clash ahead?

Vietnam was liberalism's war, the war into which America was led by the best and the brightest of Kennedy's New Frontier.

When Eisenhower left Washington in 1961, there were 600 U.S. advisers in Vietnam. When Nixon returned as president in 1969, there were 535,000 U.S. troops there. Unable to win or end the war, liberalism was defeated and Nixon elected to extricate the country.


In four years, he succeeded. By early 1973, he had withdrawn all U.S. ground troops and negotiated the return of our POWs. Yet today, Vietnam is known, in John Kerry's phrase, as "Nixon's war."

How did this happen? Quite simple. The media that cheered JFK and LBJ as they marched us into Vietnam rounded on Nixon, the politician they hated most, and defected to the anti-war movement once Nixon was president. By 1974, the party that had marched us into Vietnam was sabotaging Nixon every step of the way out. It finally effected America's defeat by breaking Nixon. The myth of the 1960s is that liberals were far-seeing opponents of Vietnam.

Out of power, however, they escaped being held accountable for the disaster they wrought in Southeast Asia.

The neoconservatives, however, who were plotting war on Iraq years before 9-11, will not now be able to escape accountability. They will not be able to blame a President Kerry for losing Iraq.

That much is certain with Bush's re-election, the departure of Colin Powell from State and George Tenet from the CIA, and White House orders to their successors to "clean house."

What is happening in Washington today is that those who were skeptical of the Iraq war and warned the White House against going in are being purged. And those who assured President Bush it would be a cakewalk, that we would be welcomed with flowers and not suicide bombers, that democracy would take root in Iraq and spread through the region, that he would be the Churchill of his generation are being promoted. Those who were wrong are being advanced, and those who were right are being dismissed.

This appears politically unjust, but it is in a way healthy. For, should Iraq turn out to be a triumph, the war party will have been proven right – and deserve whatever credit there is. But should Iraq collapse in chaos and civil war, and be judged to have been an act of imperial hubris and historic folly, they will now be held fully accountable.

posted by Frodgie at 9:03 AM

 

Bush Pulls Top Bodyguard From Scuffle

SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) - President Bush stepped into the middle of a confrontation and pulled his lead Secret Service agent away from Chilean security officials who barred his bodyguards from entering an elegant dinner for 21 world leaders Saturday night.

Several Chilean and American agents got into a pushing and shoving match outside the cultural center where the dinner was held. The incident happened after Bush and his wife, Laura, had just posed for pictures on a red carpet with the host of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, Chilean President Ricardo Lagos and his wife, Luisa Duran.

As Bush stepped inside, Chilean agents closed ranks at the door, blocking the president's agents from following. Stopping for more pictures, Bush noticed the fracas and turned back. He reached through the dispute and pulled his agent from the scrum and into the building.

The president, looking irritated, straightened his shirt cuffs as he went into the dinner. The incident was shown on APEC television.

"Chilean security tried to stop the president's Secret Service from accompanying him," said White House deputy press secretary Claire Buchan. "He told them they were with him and the issue was resolved."


posted by Frodgie at 1:08 PM