Thursday, May 13, 2004
Dismemberment: The New Terror Campaign
By Ariel Natan Pasko
FrontPageMagazine.com | May 13, 2004
The Arabic Satellite TV station al-Jazeera shows footage of two Islamic Jihad leaders sitting at a table, speaking about the recent Israeli operation in Gaza against the terrorist infrastructure there, with the head of an Israeli soldier sitting in front of them on the table.
Later, a video appears on an al-Qaeda-linked website showing the beheading of an American civilian in Iraq. In a grisly gesture, the executioners hold up the man's head for the camera. The decapitation recalled the kidnapping and videotaped beheading of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in 2002 in Pakistan. Then, al-Jazeera re-broadcasts this beheading scene, like the earlier scene of an Israeli soldier's head sitting on a table, throughout the Arab world.
What's going on here?
The executioner in Iraq, claimed his killing of a random American civilian, was revenge for the mis-treatment of Iraqi prisoners in the Abu Ghraib prison. The photos and reports of degrading behavior toward the Iraqi prisoners need to be investigated, and properly punished.
But was "revenge" against an innocent American civilian justified?
As the American President, George Bush stated, "There will be a full accounting for the cruel and disgraceful abuse of the Iraqi detainees. The conduct that has come to light is an insult to the Iraqi people and an affront to the most basic standards of morality and decency. One basic difference between democracies and dictatorships is that free countries confront such abuses openly and directly...Today several formal investigations, led by senior military officials are underway...Some soldiers have already been charged, and those involved will answer for their conduct in an orderly and transparent process."
What we all know is that the behavior of a few American soldiers in Iraq, does not represent the values of America, or the West in general.
Every once in a great while, an Israeli soldier is disciplined for abuses toward the enemy also. But that's the point; it's not very often and they're being disciplined, in Israel and in America. These stressed-out behaviors by men and women put by their governments into very difficult situations aren't tolerated, and they are held accountable for their behavior.
Contrast this with the outrages perpetrated at the end of March in Fallujah, Iraq. The bodies of four murdered American security contractors are mutilated, then burned and displayed in public. Crowds gathered around to joyously view the dead Americans.
In Gaza they also celebrated the mutilation of the Americans...
And now this; the Israeli Army entered Zeitoun in Gaza recently, to destroy "Palestinian" weapons factories. In the operation, the soldiers blew up some 20 workshops that were used by terror groups to make weapons. The operation encountered resistance from hundreds of "Palestinian" fighters, but the Israeli troops suffered no casualties. After dawn, as the operation was being wrapped up, the soldiers began to withdraw from Zeitoun, when a bomb containing approximately 100 kilograms (220 pounds) of explosives was detonated against an Israeli armored personnel carrier carrying six members of the Givati Brigade's engineering corps. The vehicle was carrying explosives for use in demolishing the weapons manufactories, which intensified the effects of the blast. Pieces of the APC and of the soldiers' bodies were scattered for hundreds of meters roundabout, even landing on the rooftops of neighboring buildings.
Soon after the blast, Hamas terrorists excitedly displayed and played with the body parts in front of cameras. Gazan Arabs were seen dancing in the streets with pieces of the destroyed Israeli APC and pieces of dead Israeli soldiers. In another scene, shown on Israel's Channel Two TV, a Hamas gunman on a motorcycle held a bloodied burlap bag with body parts. An armed Hamas barbarian bragged how he had human remains from the APC blast, he proceeded to pull a finger out of the bag and shouted, "This is for Sheikh Yassin, and for the rest you'll pay in liberated prisoners." Fatah - Arafat's group - Hamas, and Islamic Jihad all competed to claim responsibility for the attack. It seemed like everyone in the neighborhood had a piece of metal they claimed came from the APC, or a piece of human remains that they said belonged to the Israeli soldiers.
And then, this macabre scene on al-Jazeera TV, hooded Islamic Jihad spokesmen, sitting and talking on camera, with a human head from a dead Israeli soldier sitting in front of them on the table, as if nothing strange was happening. It was like a scene right out of a Hollywood horror flick, with the demented evil ones right before our eyes, except this was real...
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, participating in a Knesset ceremony commemorating the 59th anniversary since the end of World War II, responded to the APC blast by describing Israel's enemy as "cruel and inhumane."
Sharon told the Knesset that "We are fighting a ruthless enemy, without human feelings," and that Israel would strike back hard. "We will not stop fighting [the enemy] and hitting him, wherever he operates and hides," Sharon said, he added that Israel must continue striking out until the enemy is defeated.
In a quickly convened security cabinet meeting, it was reported that Finance Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said the families of the slain soldiers should be asked for permission to distribute abroad the grisly footage of the "Palestinians" desecrating the bodies, so that the world will have a clear picture of the "monsters we are dealing with."
Even funerals, and memorial services apparently are no longer sacred....
Recently, a pregnant Israeli mother and her four young daughters were shot to death in their car on a Gazan road. First the terrorist barbarians shot at the car, then as it veered off the road, and came to a stop, they ran over to the car and at point-blank range, shot each of the occupants to death: Tali, the 8-month pregnant mother, Hila, 11, Hadar, 9, Roni, 7, and two-year-old Meirav. The murderers then continued to fire dozens of more bullets into their bodies.
When mourners came to the site of the murder, for a memorial service a week later, the terrorist barbarians, one of them apparently dressed as a woman, opened fire at the hundreds of Jews who came to participate. "Bullets whistled past our ears, and between our legs, and miraculously, no one was hurt," said the Gazan Jewish Community spokesman Eran Sternberg. IDF soldiers managed to kill two of the attackers.
"It was a humiliating experience for Jews who come to remember a slaughtered family to have to crouch and lie down while terrorists shoot wildly around," said David Hatuel - husband and father of those murdered - after the attack.
But these are the "New Barbarians"....
Even the Palestinian Authority understood that it wouldn't look good for them. They called on the terror groups and residents of the Gaza Strip who hold remains of the IDF soldiers to return the parts. In the statement, released after a meeting of PA officials in Ramallah, the Palestinian leadership called on the groups to treat the bodies "according to Islamic law, and not to hurt Islamic values." The PA condemned the "criminal" IDF operation, but called on the groups not to "tarnish the image and values of the Palestinians."
My question is, since mutilation of the enemy, and the degrading display of body parts is so widespread in the Arab world, is it really "against" Islamic values to do? What about the fact that Arafat's own group Fatah vied for claiming responsibility? And what about suicidal-genocidal bombing of innocent civilians, which certainly seems to have the go ahead of Islamic clerics?
Then along comes Prof. Yonah Alexander, a leading expert on terrorism and director of the Inter-Universities Center for Terrorism Studies, who in an interview recently said he believes it is only a matter of time before groups like al-Qaeda will use non-conventional weapons to propagate their Jihadist ideology and undermine Western Society. Alexander feels that al-Qaeda's next theater of operations will be Europe, where they have established an extensive network.
What he doesn't say is that besides the terror network they've set up, Muslims have been converting Europeans in droves to Islam.
In the United Kingdom, according to the first authoritative study of the phenomenon, carried by the Sunday Times on February 22, some of Britain's top landowners, celebrities, and the offspring of senior establishment figures, have embraced Islam after being disillusioned with Western values. For example, Jonathan Birt, the son of Lord Birt, former director-general of the BBC, and Emma Clark, the granddaughter of former liberal Prime Minister Herbert Asquith, are only two of 14,000 mostly-elite white Britons who have converted to Islam recently, according to the Sunday Times. Emma Clark said, "We’re all the rage, I hope it’s not a passing fashion."
Islam has even received formal acceptance at the heart of the British Establishment. The Queen recently approved new arrangements to allow Muslim staff at Buckingham Palace time off to attend Friday prayers at a mosque. A member of staff in the finance department was the first to take advantage of it.
Many converts have been inspired by the pro-Islamic writings of Charles Le Gai Eaton, a former Foreign Office diplomat. "I have received letters from people who are put off by the wishy-washy standards of contemporary Christianity and they are looking for a religion which does not compromise too much with the modern world," said Eaton, who is author of Islam and the Destiny of Man.
There have been several cases in the last couple of years, of coverts to Islam helping in the terror effort, for example the British "shoe bomber," and a British covert that planned on carrying out a Hizbollah attack in Israel. At least, both were captured before they could carry out their operations.
Alexander continued, "We can expect to see an escalation in terrorism on a global scale with a continuation of conventional acts of terror, such as suicide bombings and shooting, as well as mega-terror like September 11 in the US and March 11 in Spain. There will also be a move towards the use of non-conventional weapons: biological, chemical, nuclear as in dirty bombs, and cyber-terrorism, whereby perpetrators will try to disrupt power supplies and air traffic, for example, at the touch of a button."
He cited the examples of the anthrax attacks in the US after September 11, 2001, reports that al-Qaeda was trying to produce ricin, and the unsuccessful attempt to blow up the Pi Glilot fuel and gas storage depot in Israel as an indication toward the future. "According to the studies we have conducted, we can expect a continuation of bus bombings like the ones that have occurred in Israel, as well as attempts to strike at chemical plants and infrastructure targets and super-terrorism with non-conventional weapons," said Alexander.
Beheadings, disgusting abuse of human remains, suicide bombings, and now mass genocidal terror?
In predicting that international terrorism will expand and intensify, Alexander referred to numerous disputes throughout the world, such as those in Chechnya, Kashmir, Afghanistan, the Middle East, and South America. He forgot to mention the Philippines and South Asia.
Notice most of these places include Muslims on one side of the conflict....
But, I feel Alexander is mistaken when he said, "Islam has been hijacked and taken hostage by extremists who are using it to serve their own interests." Suicide bombings against Israelis regularly garner 50-80% support amongst "Palestinians."
This is the same line of reasoning that George Bush and others have been using to divide the Arab/Islamic world into friends and foes. I don't agree. I believe the Jihadists speak for real Islam, as originally set out by Mohammed and his barbarian hordes. Islam started out as an Arab Imperialist movement, and has only put a "thin veneer" of "religion" over it. Notice, they started in Arabia and ended up ruling everything throughout the Middle East and North Africa, up to Spain and Southern France by the 700s. The Jihadists openly state that they want to introduce a worldwide caliphate, i.e. global Islamic conquest. But this has always been "traditional" Islam's ultimate goal too.
"What concerns many is the expansion of international networks as seen after the Madrid bombings, when links were discovered between Spanish citizens and people in North Africa, Asia, and with various other groups like Hamas," Alexander explained.
Because they draw from Muslim communities throughout the world; every Muslim is a potential Jihadist.
Alexander asked whether nations should give in to terrorism and whether civilization would survive in the event of the use of non-conventional weapons. He answered that submission only further motivates the terrorists and their leaders, while survival would depend on nations taking all necessary steps to reduce the risks. "Dealing with terrorism requires a broad range of responses, starting with clear and coherent policies. It is necessary to have quality intelligence, as well as law enforcement, the military, and the means to counter technological and cyber-terrorism.
"To this end some innocent civilians might be harmed but, make no mistake, this is war and to fight it nations have to pool their resources. No nation can deal with the problem unilaterally. In the past, terrorism was regarded as a tactical rather than a strategic threat but it has become a permanent fixture and a challenge to the strategic interests of nations. In fact," said Alexander, "it represents the most threatening challenge to civilization in the 21st century. The question of survival will depend to a great extent on how civilized society tackles this threat."
There you have it, the ultimate question, "How will civilized society tackle this threat?"
The Islamic barbarians are at the gates of Jerusalem, the gates of Europe, and have attacked the towers of America...
Will we let them in?
Wednesday, May 12, 2004
The Beheading of an Innocent
WARNING! Graphic Images at the link posted!
Images of an Execution
By Walid Phares
FrontPageMagazine.com | May 12, 2004
The slaughtering of Nick Berg is one small step for terrorists and a major leap for the West’s encounter with Jihadism. The videotape, posted on the Ansar website, is one of many horrifying acts perpetrated by the followers of Osama bin Laden. It has also become a shameful benchmark in the West’s liberal media reporting.
The Abu Ghraib disaster, the behavior of few bad apples within the U.S. armed forces, triggered this major development that will influence the way citizens look at al-Qaeda's war on Americans. September 11 brought Mohammad Atta into the collective memory of this country and the international community, but May 11 will keep Abu Musab al Zarqawi in that same memory as one of the most cruel enemies of innocent civilians anywhere. The terrorist fugitive’s name is the title of the horrendous video showing Berg’s beheading.
Nick Berg's life was simple. Out of Philadelphia, he sought a job in a liberated Iraq, or so he thought. He trusted his government, and trusted the politicians of his country. He traveled to help Iraqis and establish a personal link with Iraq's civil society. But he was obstructing the spread of Jihad. He became a lonely Kafir (infidel), and found himself on the wrong side of dar el Harb (the war zone as conceived by the Islamists). And as such, he was slaughtered by the long sword of al Zarqawi. The pictures of his murder will circle the world – and they deserve to overshadow the Abu Ghraib photos.
In the American detention center that grabbed world attention and ignited a self-whipping crusade in the U.S., men were shown naked, piled up and humiliated. But because American is a free and democratic society, such acts of humiliation and abuse are abhorrent to American people everywhere and come to be quickly judged and condemned. This is because Americans value life and live in an open society which exposes its own injustices. The rights of detainees are sacred in America, even if these detainees are terrorists and have taken innocent lives.
At the Abu Ghraib of jihad, however, innocents are slaughtered at will at the discretion of unholy warriors. In the al Zarqawi "detention centers," there are no laws, there are no codes, and there is no humanity; only a cult of death exists that demands the slaughter of innocents and perpetuates itself without justice or reflection.
Unfortunately, some among us may have fuelled the blood fiesta that was shown on the website. While Abu Ghraib has now become another way in which terrorists can legitimize killing innocent people, liberal and anti-American voices from this end of the world re-perpetrate this horrid logic, excessively assessing the so-called impact of the Iraqi soldiers abuse by their guards and declaring that the "reactions will be violent and bloody." In other words, they morally legitimized these bloody acts by seeing them as mere responses, not actions that are in line with a culture of death and hatred. So when the slaughter of Berg took place and was posted online, these same voices rushed to establish a moral equality between Abu Ghraib and the savage beheading of an innocent young man. But no such equality exists.
To start with, the assessment that all people in the Middle East misunderstood America and despised its image as result of the photos was wrong. At a media summit at the State Department last Friday, and while Secretary Rumsfeld was under heavy shelling in Congress, U.S. officials learned from two dozen Arab and Mideast media people that "many opinions in many segments had different concerns in the region."
Those who are anti-American - including al-Qaeda sympathizers - will take the pictures to the zenith of exploiting hatred. One Mideast participant told the Foreign policy officers "if you tell those radicals that the Arab world will react violently, the Jihadists will react on behalf of Arabs and Muslims, but without their consent." Many participants, from different religious and ethnic background, warned U.S. officials not to give the terrorists meat for their diet.
In reality, many people in the Middle East understand that American values vanished in the Abu Ghraib detention center, but that this does not reflect the U.S. initiative in the greater Middle East. Apart from al Jazeera and the Jihadi web sites, the people of Iraq generally felt embarrassed for the US.
For Kurds, mainstream Shiites and democratic Sunnis, it remained clear: the weakening of the U.S. role would be a catalyst for the return of Baathism and the surge of Wahhabism. For them, Abu Ghraib is a passage in a much wider chapter: the transition to sovereignty. Iraqis understood that, but the carriers of petite politics on these shores did not and refuse to. By developing a crisis of so-called immorality in the American military, leftists try to make the American public believe in a widespread systemic problem that is being responded to by Jihadists.
But the beheading of Nick Berg cannot be understood as something that America caused. Abu Musab al Zarqawi ordered the kidnappings of Americans and others months ago. Before and after Fallujah’s last episode, the terrorists resorted to "collect" the victims. On one of their audio websites, they called them "assembled sheep" (Tajmeeh al khawareef) who were to be "sacrificed" at will.
Thus, whether Abu Ghraib happened or not, al-Qaeda was building its human ammunition depot. Berg's ordeal was not a direct result of Abu Ghraib. Al-Qaeda does not care when prisoners are mistreated. For them, the big picture is to weaken and humiliate the U.S. and to prevent the rise of an Arab democracy. This is why al Zarqawi stops at nothing to create chaos and fear in the region so as to undermine American efforts. But the Western Left ignores this dynamic and, as a result, steps into al-Qaeda's trap - and helps to cause additional bloodshed in Iraq.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Walid Phares is a Professor of Middle East Studies and Religious Conflict and a Terrorism expert with MSNBC.
Images of an Execution
By Walid Phares
FrontPageMagazine.com | May 12, 2004
The slaughtering of Nick Berg is one small step for terrorists and a major leap for the West’s encounter with Jihadism. The videotape, posted on the Ansar website, is one of many horrifying acts perpetrated by the followers of Osama bin Laden. It has also become a shameful benchmark in the West’s liberal media reporting.
The Abu Ghraib disaster, the behavior of few bad apples within the U.S. armed forces, triggered this major development that will influence the way citizens look at al-Qaeda's war on Americans. September 11 brought Mohammad Atta into the collective memory of this country and the international community, but May 11 will keep Abu Musab al Zarqawi in that same memory as one of the most cruel enemies of innocent civilians anywhere. The terrorist fugitive’s name is the title of the horrendous video showing Berg’s beheading.
Nick Berg's life was simple. Out of Philadelphia, he sought a job in a liberated Iraq, or so he thought. He trusted his government, and trusted the politicians of his country. He traveled to help Iraqis and establish a personal link with Iraq's civil society. But he was obstructing the spread of Jihad. He became a lonely Kafir (infidel), and found himself on the wrong side of dar el Harb (the war zone as conceived by the Islamists). And as such, he was slaughtered by the long sword of al Zarqawi. The pictures of his murder will circle the world – and they deserve to overshadow the Abu Ghraib photos.
In the American detention center that grabbed world attention and ignited a self-whipping crusade in the U.S., men were shown naked, piled up and humiliated. But because American is a free and democratic society, such acts of humiliation and abuse are abhorrent to American people everywhere and come to be quickly judged and condemned. This is because Americans value life and live in an open society which exposes its own injustices. The rights of detainees are sacred in America, even if these detainees are terrorists and have taken innocent lives.
At the Abu Ghraib of jihad, however, innocents are slaughtered at will at the discretion of unholy warriors. In the al Zarqawi "detention centers," there are no laws, there are no codes, and there is no humanity; only a cult of death exists that demands the slaughter of innocents and perpetuates itself without justice or reflection.
Unfortunately, some among us may have fuelled the blood fiesta that was shown on the website. While Abu Ghraib has now become another way in which terrorists can legitimize killing innocent people, liberal and anti-American voices from this end of the world re-perpetrate this horrid logic, excessively assessing the so-called impact of the Iraqi soldiers abuse by their guards and declaring that the "reactions will be violent and bloody." In other words, they morally legitimized these bloody acts by seeing them as mere responses, not actions that are in line with a culture of death and hatred. So when the slaughter of Berg took place and was posted online, these same voices rushed to establish a moral equality between Abu Ghraib and the savage beheading of an innocent young man. But no such equality exists.
To start with, the assessment that all people in the Middle East misunderstood America and despised its image as result of the photos was wrong. At a media summit at the State Department last Friday, and while Secretary Rumsfeld was under heavy shelling in Congress, U.S. officials learned from two dozen Arab and Mideast media people that "many opinions in many segments had different concerns in the region."
Those who are anti-American - including al-Qaeda sympathizers - will take the pictures to the zenith of exploiting hatred. One Mideast participant told the Foreign policy officers "if you tell those radicals that the Arab world will react violently, the Jihadists will react on behalf of Arabs and Muslims, but without their consent." Many participants, from different religious and ethnic background, warned U.S. officials not to give the terrorists meat for their diet.
In reality, many people in the Middle East understand that American values vanished in the Abu Ghraib detention center, but that this does not reflect the U.S. initiative in the greater Middle East. Apart from al Jazeera and the Jihadi web sites, the people of Iraq generally felt embarrassed for the US.
For Kurds, mainstream Shiites and democratic Sunnis, it remained clear: the weakening of the U.S. role would be a catalyst for the return of Baathism and the surge of Wahhabism. For them, Abu Ghraib is a passage in a much wider chapter: the transition to sovereignty. Iraqis understood that, but the carriers of petite politics on these shores did not and refuse to. By developing a crisis of so-called immorality in the American military, leftists try to make the American public believe in a widespread systemic problem that is being responded to by Jihadists.
But the beheading of Nick Berg cannot be understood as something that America caused. Abu Musab al Zarqawi ordered the kidnappings of Americans and others months ago. Before and after Fallujah’s last episode, the terrorists resorted to "collect" the victims. On one of their audio websites, they called them "assembled sheep" (Tajmeeh al khawareef) who were to be "sacrificed" at will.
Thus, whether Abu Ghraib happened or not, al-Qaeda was building its human ammunition depot. Berg's ordeal was not a direct result of Abu Ghraib. Al-Qaeda does not care when prisoners are mistreated. For them, the big picture is to weaken and humiliate the U.S. and to prevent the rise of an Arab democracy. This is why al Zarqawi stops at nothing to create chaos and fear in the region so as to undermine American efforts. But the Western Left ignores this dynamic and, as a result, steps into al-Qaeda's trap - and helps to cause additional bloodshed in Iraq.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Walid Phares is a Professor of Middle East Studies and Religious Conflict and a Terrorism expert with MSNBC.
Tuesday, May 11, 2004
Vietnam War 'fixation' endures
By Bill Sammon
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
This is the second of three reports based on the new book "Misunderestimated: The President Battles Terrorism, John Kerry and the Bush Haters" (Regan Books) by Bill Sammon, senior White House correspondent for The Washington Times.
President Bush's top advisers think Democratic opponents and the press have an unhealthy obsession with the Vietnam War that threatens to dominate the re-election campaign against Sen. John Kerry.
White House political strategist Karl Rove said the Massachusetts Democrat and Vietnam veteran is trying to use his service to negate the president's national-security credentials.
"He's blatant about it," Mr. Rove said of Mr. Kerry in a lengthy interview with The Washington Times. "He says: 'Our Democratic Party has appeared weak on defense, and I can deal with that by demonstrating that I was a war hero in Vietnam.' Which he was. I mean, the guy served with honor."
But, the president's most trusted political adviser added, "This is a guy who opposed every major weapons system we used to win the war on terror. This is a guy who, after we were struck in '93 at the World Trade Center bombing, said: 'Let's cut the intel budget.'
"This is a guy who says the war on terror is primarily a law-enforcement and intelligence matter. It ain't. It's a war."
The press, meanwhile, raced to brand that war — first in Afghanistan and then in Iraq — a Vietnam "quagmire." This mentality exasperated Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, a two-tour veteran of Vietnam.
"The press is fixated on Vietnam," Mr. Powell said in an interview. "Everybody says, 'Powell and all those generals still suffer from Vietnam Syndrome.' No, I don't."
The Vietnam comparison by the press is "an incorrect characterization of the thinking within the U.S. military," the secretary of state said. "I think the press is more sycophantic with respect to Vietnam than any general I've ever served with."
White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr., another military veteran, has his own observations on the phenomenon.
"I don't think the press learned as much by what happened in Vietnam as the government did," he said. "The people who are governing learned from what wasn't done well in Vietnam — starting with political leadership making tactical decisions of war."
Mr. Card added: "The media, in my opinion, kind of wants to relive the Vietnam experience."
'Unreconciled'
No one in the White House understands this predilection of the media better than National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, former provost of Stanford University. She is convinced that most Americans do not share the media's view of Vietnam as some mystical "open wound."
"I don't think there's an open wound for the country," Miss Rice said. "I think the country has moved on."
The left, on the other hand, seems stuck in place, she added.
"I come out of the university. And look, for the intelligentsia, there's still an open wound about Vietnam. It's a huge deal, and it's like it's unresolved still. I see it in my colleagues at Stanford. I see it in the press. It's just unreconciled."
To liberals, Miss Rice said, Vietnam symbolizes more than just an unsuccessful military venture.
"For people of that generation," she said, "it became the lodestar for the questioning of authority. And authority was never to be trusted again.
"And so whenever people say 'Vietnam,' what they mean is 'Authority is not to be trusted. Because the government had lied about the Gulf of Tonkin, they must be lying about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq' — despite the fact that every reasonable person who knew anything about Iraq said there were weapons of mass destruction there."
In 1992, Mr. Kerry defended presidential candidate Bill Clinton on the Senate floor against draft-dodging accusations leveled by a Democratic rival, Sen. Bob Kerrey of Nebraska, himself a Vietnam veteran.
"I am saddened by the fact that Vietnam has yet again been inserted into the campaign," Mr. Kerry said at the time. "Leadership requires that one help heal the wounds of Vietnam, not reopen them."
He added: "We do not need to divide America over who served and how."
But in his campaign for president this year, Mr. Kerry repeatedly has criticized not just Mr. Bush, but also Vice President Dick Cheney and Mr. Rove, for not serving in Vietnam. He even challenged the president to a debate on Vietnam.
'Different perspective'
In February, Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe accused Mr. Bush of having been "AWOL," or absent without official leave, from his duties in the Air National Guard more than 30 years ago. When Republicans countered that Mr. Bush received an honorable discharge, Mr. Kerry was not impressed.
"Was he present and active on duty in Alabama at the times he was supposed to be?" the Democratic challenger demanded. "Just because you get an honorable discharge does not, in fact, answer that question."
But Mr. Kerry soon abandoned that line of attack, at least temporarily.
"He backpedaled from the AWOL thing," Mr. Rove said earlier this year. "He began to distance himself from that because at some level he realized, or the people around him realized: 'Hey, this is backfiring.' "
Mr. Kerry renewed his challenges to the president to "prove" his service after new questions arose in April about whether the Democratic candidate threw away his own "medals" or "ribbons" during a war protest in 1971.
Mr. Bush shrugs off the media's fascination with Vietnam.
"That's an inevitable part of this culture we're in, which is there's a lot of writers that remembered Vietnam and were legitimately concerned that the nation would get bogged down in another Vietnam," Mr. Bush said in an interview with The Times. "On the other hand, I've got a different perspective."
The president vowed never to repeat the central blunder of Vietnam-era politicians — trying to micromanage military operations. In the liberation of Iraq, for example, he allowed the use of decisive force.
"I want 'decisive,' " said Mr. Powell, a retired Army general. "Why wouldn't you want 'decisive'? You want to go in with indecisive force? If you can gang up on somebody, don't you gang up on somebody? Why do we buy all this stuff?"
'Aware of the facts'
The media's questionable Vietnam analogies are just one reason Mr. Bush does not pay much attention to press coverage of his administration.
"I don't watch the nightly newscasts on TV, nor do I watch the endless hours of people giving their opinion about things," the president said. "I don't read the editorial pages; I don't read the columnists."
Yet Mr. Bush regularly monitors the news pages of a select few daily publications.
"I get the newspapers — the New York Times, The Washington Times, The Washington Post and USA Today — those are the four papers delivered," he said. "I can scan a front page, and if there is a particular story of interest, I'll skim it."
The president prides himself on his ability to detect bias in ostensibly objective news stories.
"My antennae are finely attuned," he said. "I can figure out what so-called 'news' pieces are going to be full of opinion, as opposed to news. So I'm keenly aware of what's in the papers, kind of the issue du jour. But I'm also aware of the facts."
Those facts are extracted from news stories each day and presented to the president by a half-dozen aides, Mr. Card among them.
"Since I'm the first one to see him in the morning, I usually give him a quick overview and get a little reaction from him," Mr. Card explained. "Frequently, I find that his reaction kind of reflects [first lady] Laura Bush's take."
Indeed, the president often cites articles that Mrs. Bush flags for greater scrutiny, even when he has not personally slogged through those stories. Mrs. Bush routinely delves more deeply into the news pages than her husband, who prefers other sections.
"He does not dwell on the newspaper, but he reads the sports page every day," Mr. Card said with a chuckle.
'A clear outlook'
Mr. Bush thinks that immersing himself in voluminous, mostly liberal-leaning news coverage might cloud his thinking and even hinder his efforts to remain an optimistic leader.
"I like to have a clear outlook," he said. "It can be a frustrating experience to pay attention to somebody's false opinion or somebody's characterization, which simply isn't true."
Although the president is not steeped in the minutiae of individual news articles, he is mindful of the press' collective power as a political force. So he makes it his business to keep track of broad news trends, even if he doesn't plow through all the details.
"I'm aware if there is yet another story about X, Y, Z in the newspaper," Mr. Bush said. "I'm aware if there is seven straight days of a certain news story being run. I'm aware if there is three days of something."
The president regularly strategizes with his spokesmen, including communications director Dan Bartlett and press secretary Scott McClellan, about how to best manage the news.
"I'm in constant touch with Dan and Scott about how to handle a particular story," Mr. Bush said. "I help fashion responses — 'Are you comfortable with us saying this about that?' — on a regular basis."
Mr. Rove is particularly wary of the press because it frequently caricatures the political strategist as the Svengali of the White House, a diabolical genius who pulls the strings of a puppet president. And yet he acknowledges a certain political utility in this characterization, because it allows him to function as Mr. Bush's lightning rod.
"The president has what he calls the better-you-than-me theory," Mr. Rove explained. "Look, this town runs on myths. It's a convenient myth."
'A stereotype'
Mr. Powell, by contrast, is something of a media darling because he is less conservative than Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney, Miss Rice and Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld.
In fact, the secretary of state is almost liberal when compared with his own undersecretary, John Bolton, or Rumsfeld deputy Douglas Feith.
"I'm not as conservative as some of my other colleagues in the administration," Mr. Powell said. "If you looked at all the things I believed in, from the social side of the ledger to the economic and military side of the ledger, and if you put, say, Cheney up around 90, and Don and Condi and company between 80 and 90, and you put Bolton and Feith at about 98, then I'd be somewhere around 60, 65."
This disparity fuels countless press portraits of Mr. Powell as the lonely voice of reason in an administration teeming with right-wing extremists. He routinely is portrayed as a dove struggling mightily against hawks such as Mr. Rumsfeld and Mr. Cheney.
"The media, from the very first day I took the job, used this difference to create a stereotype," Mr. Powell said. "It's a stereotype that I fought for two and a half, three years.
"And now I just say: That's the way it is, and here I am. You know, I'm 67, and I can't be sent back to Vietnam for a third tour."
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
This is the second of three reports based on the new book "Misunderestimated: The President Battles Terrorism, John Kerry and the Bush Haters" (Regan Books) by Bill Sammon, senior White House correspondent for The Washington Times.
President Bush's top advisers think Democratic opponents and the press have an unhealthy obsession with the Vietnam War that threatens to dominate the re-election campaign against Sen. John Kerry.
White House political strategist Karl Rove said the Massachusetts Democrat and Vietnam veteran is trying to use his service to negate the president's national-security credentials.
"He's blatant about it," Mr. Rove said of Mr. Kerry in a lengthy interview with The Washington Times. "He says: 'Our Democratic Party has appeared weak on defense, and I can deal with that by demonstrating that I was a war hero in Vietnam.' Which he was. I mean, the guy served with honor."
But, the president's most trusted political adviser added, "This is a guy who opposed every major weapons system we used to win the war on terror. This is a guy who, after we were struck in '93 at the World Trade Center bombing, said: 'Let's cut the intel budget.'
"This is a guy who says the war on terror is primarily a law-enforcement and intelligence matter. It ain't. It's a war."
The press, meanwhile, raced to brand that war — first in Afghanistan and then in Iraq — a Vietnam "quagmire." This mentality exasperated Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, a two-tour veteran of Vietnam.
"The press is fixated on Vietnam," Mr. Powell said in an interview. "Everybody says, 'Powell and all those generals still suffer from Vietnam Syndrome.' No, I don't."
The Vietnam comparison by the press is "an incorrect characterization of the thinking within the U.S. military," the secretary of state said. "I think the press is more sycophantic with respect to Vietnam than any general I've ever served with."
White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr., another military veteran, has his own observations on the phenomenon.
"I don't think the press learned as much by what happened in Vietnam as the government did," he said. "The people who are governing learned from what wasn't done well in Vietnam — starting with political leadership making tactical decisions of war."
Mr. Card added: "The media, in my opinion, kind of wants to relive the Vietnam experience."
'Unreconciled'
No one in the White House understands this predilection of the media better than National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, former provost of Stanford University. She is convinced that most Americans do not share the media's view of Vietnam as some mystical "open wound."
"I don't think there's an open wound for the country," Miss Rice said. "I think the country has moved on."
The left, on the other hand, seems stuck in place, she added.
"I come out of the university. And look, for the intelligentsia, there's still an open wound about Vietnam. It's a huge deal, and it's like it's unresolved still. I see it in my colleagues at Stanford. I see it in the press. It's just unreconciled."
To liberals, Miss Rice said, Vietnam symbolizes more than just an unsuccessful military venture.
"For people of that generation," she said, "it became the lodestar for the questioning of authority. And authority was never to be trusted again.
"And so whenever people say 'Vietnam,' what they mean is 'Authority is not to be trusted. Because the government had lied about the Gulf of Tonkin, they must be lying about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq' — despite the fact that every reasonable person who knew anything about Iraq said there were weapons of mass destruction there."
In 1992, Mr. Kerry defended presidential candidate Bill Clinton on the Senate floor against draft-dodging accusations leveled by a Democratic rival, Sen. Bob Kerrey of Nebraska, himself a Vietnam veteran.
"I am saddened by the fact that Vietnam has yet again been inserted into the campaign," Mr. Kerry said at the time. "Leadership requires that one help heal the wounds of Vietnam, not reopen them."
He added: "We do not need to divide America over who served and how."
But in his campaign for president this year, Mr. Kerry repeatedly has criticized not just Mr. Bush, but also Vice President Dick Cheney and Mr. Rove, for not serving in Vietnam. He even challenged the president to a debate on Vietnam.
'Different perspective'
In February, Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe accused Mr. Bush of having been "AWOL," or absent without official leave, from his duties in the Air National Guard more than 30 years ago. When Republicans countered that Mr. Bush received an honorable discharge, Mr. Kerry was not impressed.
"Was he present and active on duty in Alabama at the times he was supposed to be?" the Democratic challenger demanded. "Just because you get an honorable discharge does not, in fact, answer that question."
But Mr. Kerry soon abandoned that line of attack, at least temporarily.
"He backpedaled from the AWOL thing," Mr. Rove said earlier this year. "He began to distance himself from that because at some level he realized, or the people around him realized: 'Hey, this is backfiring.' "
Mr. Kerry renewed his challenges to the president to "prove" his service after new questions arose in April about whether the Democratic candidate threw away his own "medals" or "ribbons" during a war protest in 1971.
Mr. Bush shrugs off the media's fascination with Vietnam.
"That's an inevitable part of this culture we're in, which is there's a lot of writers that remembered Vietnam and were legitimately concerned that the nation would get bogged down in another Vietnam," Mr. Bush said in an interview with The Times. "On the other hand, I've got a different perspective."
The president vowed never to repeat the central blunder of Vietnam-era politicians — trying to micromanage military operations. In the liberation of Iraq, for example, he allowed the use of decisive force.
"I want 'decisive,' " said Mr. Powell, a retired Army general. "Why wouldn't you want 'decisive'? You want to go in with indecisive force? If you can gang up on somebody, don't you gang up on somebody? Why do we buy all this stuff?"
'Aware of the facts'
The media's questionable Vietnam analogies are just one reason Mr. Bush does not pay much attention to press coverage of his administration.
"I don't watch the nightly newscasts on TV, nor do I watch the endless hours of people giving their opinion about things," the president said. "I don't read the editorial pages; I don't read the columnists."
Yet Mr. Bush regularly monitors the news pages of a select few daily publications.
"I get the newspapers — the New York Times, The Washington Times, The Washington Post and USA Today — those are the four papers delivered," he said. "I can scan a front page, and if there is a particular story of interest, I'll skim it."
The president prides himself on his ability to detect bias in ostensibly objective news stories.
"My antennae are finely attuned," he said. "I can figure out what so-called 'news' pieces are going to be full of opinion, as opposed to news. So I'm keenly aware of what's in the papers, kind of the issue du jour. But I'm also aware of the facts."
Those facts are extracted from news stories each day and presented to the president by a half-dozen aides, Mr. Card among them.
"Since I'm the first one to see him in the morning, I usually give him a quick overview and get a little reaction from him," Mr. Card explained. "Frequently, I find that his reaction kind of reflects [first lady] Laura Bush's take."
Indeed, the president often cites articles that Mrs. Bush flags for greater scrutiny, even when he has not personally slogged through those stories. Mrs. Bush routinely delves more deeply into the news pages than her husband, who prefers other sections.
"He does not dwell on the newspaper, but he reads the sports page every day," Mr. Card said with a chuckle.
'A clear outlook'
Mr. Bush thinks that immersing himself in voluminous, mostly liberal-leaning news coverage might cloud his thinking and even hinder his efforts to remain an optimistic leader.
"I like to have a clear outlook," he said. "It can be a frustrating experience to pay attention to somebody's false opinion or somebody's characterization, which simply isn't true."
Although the president is not steeped in the minutiae of individual news articles, he is mindful of the press' collective power as a political force. So he makes it his business to keep track of broad news trends, even if he doesn't plow through all the details.
"I'm aware if there is yet another story about X, Y, Z in the newspaper," Mr. Bush said. "I'm aware if there is seven straight days of a certain news story being run. I'm aware if there is three days of something."
The president regularly strategizes with his spokesmen, including communications director Dan Bartlett and press secretary Scott McClellan, about how to best manage the news.
"I'm in constant touch with Dan and Scott about how to handle a particular story," Mr. Bush said. "I help fashion responses — 'Are you comfortable with us saying this about that?' — on a regular basis."
Mr. Rove is particularly wary of the press because it frequently caricatures the political strategist as the Svengali of the White House, a diabolical genius who pulls the strings of a puppet president. And yet he acknowledges a certain political utility in this characterization, because it allows him to function as Mr. Bush's lightning rod.
"The president has what he calls the better-you-than-me theory," Mr. Rove explained. "Look, this town runs on myths. It's a convenient myth."
'A stereotype'
Mr. Powell, by contrast, is something of a media darling because he is less conservative than Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney, Miss Rice and Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld.
In fact, the secretary of state is almost liberal when compared with his own undersecretary, John Bolton, or Rumsfeld deputy Douglas Feith.
"I'm not as conservative as some of my other colleagues in the administration," Mr. Powell said. "If you looked at all the things I believed in, from the social side of the ledger to the economic and military side of the ledger, and if you put, say, Cheney up around 90, and Don and Condi and company between 80 and 90, and you put Bolton and Feith at about 98, then I'd be somewhere around 60, 65."
This disparity fuels countless press portraits of Mr. Powell as the lonely voice of reason in an administration teeming with right-wing extremists. He routinely is portrayed as a dove struggling mightily against hawks such as Mr. Rumsfeld and Mr. Cheney.
"The media, from the very first day I took the job, used this difference to create a stereotype," Mr. Powell said. "It's a stereotype that I fought for two and a half, three years.
"And now I just say: That's the way it is, and here I am. You know, I'm 67, and I can't be sent back to Vietnam for a third tour."
Killers: Beheading Avenges Prison Abuse
May 11, 8:38 PM (ET)
By ROBERT H. REID
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - A video posted Tuesday on an al-Qaida-linked Web site showed the beheading of an American civilian in Iraq and said the execution was carried out to avenge abuses of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison.
In a grisly gesture, the executioners held up the man's head for the camera.
The American identified himself on the video as Nick Berg, a 26-year-old Philadelphia native. His body was found near a highway overpass in Baghdad on Saturday, the same day he was beheaded, a U.S. official said.
The video bore the title "Abu Musab al-Zarqawi shown slaughtering an American." It was unclear whether al-Zarqawi - an associate of Osama bin Laden believed behind the wave of suicide bombings in Iraq - was shown in the video or simply ordered the execution. Al-Zarqawi also is sought in the assassination of a U.S. diplomat in Jordan in 2002.
The Bush administration said those who beheaded Berg would be hunted down and brought to justice.
"Our thoughts and prayers are with his family," White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan said. "It shows the true nature of the enemies of freedom. They have no regard for the lives of innocent men, women and children."
Berg was a small-business owner who went to Iraq independent of any organization to help rebuild communication antennas, his family said Tuesday. Friends and family said he was a "free spirit" who wanted to help others - working in Ghana, in one example - and that his going to Iraq fit with that ideology. They said he supported the Iraqi war and the Bush administration.
U.S. officials had feared the shocking photographs of U.S. soldiers abusing and humiliating Iraqis at Abu Ghraib prison west of Baghdad would endanger the lives of American troops and civilians.
Also, Berg's killing happened amid a climate of intense anti-Western sentiment, which flared in Iraq after last month's crackdown on Shiite extremists and the three-week Marine siege of Fallujah west of Baghdad. Anger at the United States swelled with the publication of the Abu Ghraib photographs, which continue to stir rage throughout the Arab world.
In the video, five men wearing headscarves and black ski masks stand over a bound man in an orange jumpsuit similar to prison uniforms.
"My name is Nick Berg. My father's name is Michael. My mother's name is Suzanne," the man, seated in a chair, says. "I have a brother and sister, David and Sara. I live in ... Philadelphia."
The video then cuts to Berg sitting on the floor, his hands tied behind his back, flanked by the masked men, as a statement is read in Arabic. Berg sits still during the statement, facing the camera, occasionally raising his shoulders.
After the statement, one assailant takes a large knife from under his clothing while another pulls Berg onto his side. The tape shows assailants thrusting the knife through his neck. A scream sounds before the men cut Berg's head off, repeatedly shouting "Allahu Akbar!" - or "God is great."
They then hold the head out before the camera.
The video is of poor quality, and its time stamp seems to show an 11-hour lapse between when the assailants finish their statement and push Berg down, to when they behead him. That suggests a delay between those two portions of tape posted on the Web site.
The FBI is analyzing the Internet video, said an official speaking on condition of anonymity, adding that it was too early to draw any conclusions.
The Bergs, who live in the Philadelphia suburb of West Chester, Pa., last heard from their son April 9, the same day insurgents attacked a U.S. convoy west of the capital.
Berg attended Cornell University, Drexel University, the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Oklahoma, where he got involved in rigging electronics equipment while working for the maintenance department, his father said. He helped set up equipment at the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia in 2000.
While at Cornell, he traveled to Ghana to teach villagers how to make bricks out of minimal material. His father said Berg returned from Ghana with only the clothes on his back and emaciated because he gave away most of his food.
Michael Berg said his son saw his trip to Iraq as an adventure in line with his desire to help others.
"I would say he was a free spirit, very intelligent," said Nick Fillioe, a sports director at the West Chester YMCA. "He was a real smart guy. He knew a little bit about everything."
Berg's family said they were informed by the State Department on Monday that he was found dead.
When told about the Web site, Berg's father, brother and sister grasped one another and slowly dropped to the ground in their front yard, where they wept quietly while holding each other.
"I knew he was decapitated before," Michael Berg said. "That manner is preferable to a long and torturous death. But I didn't want it to become public."
The decapitation recalled the kidnapping and videotaped beheading of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in 2002 in Pakistan. Four Islamic militants have been convicted of kidnapping Pearl, but seven suspects - including those who allegedly slit his throat - remain at large.
Last month, Iraqi militants videotaped the killing of Italian hostage Fabrizio Quattrocchi, but the Arab TV network Al-Jazeera refused to air it because it was too graphic.
In the video of Berg, the executioners said they had tried to trade him for prisoners at Abu Ghraib.
"For the mothers and wives of American soldiers, we tell you that we offered the U.S. administration to exchange this hostage for some of the detainees in Abu Ghraib and they refused," one of the men read from a statement.
"So we tell you that the dignity of the Muslim men and women in Abu Ghraib and others is not redeemed except by blood and souls. You will not receive anything from us but coffins after coffins ... slaughtered in this way."
Seven soldiers from the 372nd Military Police Company face charges in the mistreatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib in a scandal that has sparked worldwide outrage. One of those soldiers faces a court-martial in Baghdad next week, the first to go to trial.
The American administrator of Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, said Tuesday that the soldiers accused of abuses would be brought to justice.
"I find the behavior of these American soldiers completely unacceptable and outrageous," Bremer told Associated Press Television News. "I share the outrage of the Iraqi people and the people of the world as to what these guys did."
April 9, when Berg last made contact with his family, also was the day that seven American contractors working for a subsidiary of Halliburton Corp. and two military men disappeared after their supply convoy was attacked on the outskirts of Baghdad.
Four of the Halliburton workers and one of the military men have since been confirmed dead. Halliburton worker Thomas Hamill escaped his captors May 2 and returned home to Mississippi on Saturday. The two other Halliburton workers and the other soldier remain missing.
Two soldiers also vanished April 9. One was later found dead and the other, Pfc. Keith M. Maupin of Batavia, Ohio, was taken captive and remains missing.
---
Associated Press reporter Jason Straziuso contributed to this story from West Chester, Pa.
By ROBERT H. REID
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - A video posted Tuesday on an al-Qaida-linked Web site showed the beheading of an American civilian in Iraq and said the execution was carried out to avenge abuses of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison.
In a grisly gesture, the executioners held up the man's head for the camera.
The American identified himself on the video as Nick Berg, a 26-year-old Philadelphia native. His body was found near a highway overpass in Baghdad on Saturday, the same day he was beheaded, a U.S. official said.
The video bore the title "Abu Musab al-Zarqawi shown slaughtering an American." It was unclear whether al-Zarqawi - an associate of Osama bin Laden believed behind the wave of suicide bombings in Iraq - was shown in the video or simply ordered the execution. Al-Zarqawi also is sought in the assassination of a U.S. diplomat in Jordan in 2002.
The Bush administration said those who beheaded Berg would be hunted down and brought to justice.
"Our thoughts and prayers are with his family," White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan said. "It shows the true nature of the enemies of freedom. They have no regard for the lives of innocent men, women and children."
Berg was a small-business owner who went to Iraq independent of any organization to help rebuild communication antennas, his family said Tuesday. Friends and family said he was a "free spirit" who wanted to help others - working in Ghana, in one example - and that his going to Iraq fit with that ideology. They said he supported the Iraqi war and the Bush administration.
U.S. officials had feared the shocking photographs of U.S. soldiers abusing and humiliating Iraqis at Abu Ghraib prison west of Baghdad would endanger the lives of American troops and civilians.
Also, Berg's killing happened amid a climate of intense anti-Western sentiment, which flared in Iraq after last month's crackdown on Shiite extremists and the three-week Marine siege of Fallujah west of Baghdad. Anger at the United States swelled with the publication of the Abu Ghraib photographs, which continue to stir rage throughout the Arab world.
In the video, five men wearing headscarves and black ski masks stand over a bound man in an orange jumpsuit similar to prison uniforms.
"My name is Nick Berg. My father's name is Michael. My mother's name is Suzanne," the man, seated in a chair, says. "I have a brother and sister, David and Sara. I live in ... Philadelphia."
The video then cuts to Berg sitting on the floor, his hands tied behind his back, flanked by the masked men, as a statement is read in Arabic. Berg sits still during the statement, facing the camera, occasionally raising his shoulders.
After the statement, one assailant takes a large knife from under his clothing while another pulls Berg onto his side. The tape shows assailants thrusting the knife through his neck. A scream sounds before the men cut Berg's head off, repeatedly shouting "Allahu Akbar!" - or "God is great."
They then hold the head out before the camera.
The video is of poor quality, and its time stamp seems to show an 11-hour lapse between when the assailants finish their statement and push Berg down, to when they behead him. That suggests a delay between those two portions of tape posted on the Web site.
The FBI is analyzing the Internet video, said an official speaking on condition of anonymity, adding that it was too early to draw any conclusions.
The Bergs, who live in the Philadelphia suburb of West Chester, Pa., last heard from their son April 9, the same day insurgents attacked a U.S. convoy west of the capital.
Berg attended Cornell University, Drexel University, the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Oklahoma, where he got involved in rigging electronics equipment while working for the maintenance department, his father said. He helped set up equipment at the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia in 2000.
While at Cornell, he traveled to Ghana to teach villagers how to make bricks out of minimal material. His father said Berg returned from Ghana with only the clothes on his back and emaciated because he gave away most of his food.
Michael Berg said his son saw his trip to Iraq as an adventure in line with his desire to help others.
"I would say he was a free spirit, very intelligent," said Nick Fillioe, a sports director at the West Chester YMCA. "He was a real smart guy. He knew a little bit about everything."
Berg's family said they were informed by the State Department on Monday that he was found dead.
When told about the Web site, Berg's father, brother and sister grasped one another and slowly dropped to the ground in their front yard, where they wept quietly while holding each other.
"I knew he was decapitated before," Michael Berg said. "That manner is preferable to a long and torturous death. But I didn't want it to become public."
The decapitation recalled the kidnapping and videotaped beheading of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in 2002 in Pakistan. Four Islamic militants have been convicted of kidnapping Pearl, but seven suspects - including those who allegedly slit his throat - remain at large.
Last month, Iraqi militants videotaped the killing of Italian hostage Fabrizio Quattrocchi, but the Arab TV network Al-Jazeera refused to air it because it was too graphic.
In the video of Berg, the executioners said they had tried to trade him for prisoners at Abu Ghraib.
"For the mothers and wives of American soldiers, we tell you that we offered the U.S. administration to exchange this hostage for some of the detainees in Abu Ghraib and they refused," one of the men read from a statement.
"So we tell you that the dignity of the Muslim men and women in Abu Ghraib and others is not redeemed except by blood and souls. You will not receive anything from us but coffins after coffins ... slaughtered in this way."
Seven soldiers from the 372nd Military Police Company face charges in the mistreatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib in a scandal that has sparked worldwide outrage. One of those soldiers faces a court-martial in Baghdad next week, the first to go to trial.
The American administrator of Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, said Tuesday that the soldiers accused of abuses would be brought to justice.
"I find the behavior of these American soldiers completely unacceptable and outrageous," Bremer told Associated Press Television News. "I share the outrage of the Iraqi people and the people of the world as to what these guys did."
April 9, when Berg last made contact with his family, also was the day that seven American contractors working for a subsidiary of Halliburton Corp. and two military men disappeared after their supply convoy was attacked on the outskirts of Baghdad.
Four of the Halliburton workers and one of the military men have since been confirmed dead. Halliburton worker Thomas Hamill escaped his captors May 2 and returned home to Mississippi on Saturday. The two other Halliburton workers and the other soldier remain missing.
Two soldiers also vanished April 9. One was later found dead and the other, Pfc. Keith M. Maupin of Batavia, Ohio, was taken captive and remains missing.
---
Associated Press reporter Jason Straziuso contributed to this story from West Chester, Pa.
Monday, May 10, 2004
Bush aims to avoid father's mistakes
By Bill Sammon
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
This is the first of three reports based on the new book "Misunderestimated: The President Battles Terrorism, John Kerry and the Bush Haters" (Regan Books) by Bill Sammon, senior White House correspondent for The Washington Times.
President Bush is resolved not to repeat what he thinks were the two fundamental blunders of his father's one-term presidency: abandoning Iraq and failing to vanquish the Democrats.
In one of several exclusive interviews with The Washington Times, Mr. Bush said his father had "cut and run early" from Iraq in 1991.
Mr. Bush also said Sen. John Kerry would "regret" disparaging the U.S.-led coalition that liberated Iraq, promising to use the Massachusetts Democrat's words against him in the election campaign.
The president, while acknowledging that "the rebuilding of Iraq is a difficult period," is optimistic about nurturing a democratic government there.
"Freedom will prevail, so long as the United States and allies don't give the people of Iraq mixed signals, so long as we don't cower in the face of suiciders, or do what many Iraqis still suspect might happen, and that is cut and run early, like what happened in '91," Mr. Bush said.
It was a blunt reference to the first President Bush's decision to stop short of toppling Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein at the end of the Persian Gulf war, even when Saddam crushed postwar rebellions encouraged by the president.
White House political strategist Karl Rove, in one of the lengthy interviews with The Times granted by senior administration officials, also detailed how the Bush campaign intends to paint Mr. Kerry as a condescending elitist, who is pro-tax, weak on defense and on the wrong side in the culture wars.
White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. described Mr. Kerry as a John F. Kennedy "wannabe," who lacks the mettle to be president. Mr. Card, who also worked for the first President Bush, said when it comes to running for re-election, the son is much more engaged and far less complacent than the father.
National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell predicted disaster for anyone who "misunderestimates" the president.
Miss Rice said she and other senior advisers still laugh over that quintessential "Bushism," which their boss famously coined on the eve of the election that made him president.
"They misunderestimated me," Mr. Bush remarked Nov. 6, 2000, the final day of his first presidential campaign.
The malapropism crystallized the mistakes of his detractors, who long have misunderstood George W. Bush's appeal to the American public and underestimated his considerable political skills. The president hopes those mistakes will be repeated by Mr. Kerry and the "Bush haters."
"I'd like to keep expectations low," Mr. Bush said during one of several interviews in the Oval Office. "It's better for people to be surprised rather than disappointed."
'Handling tough times'
Mr. Bush bristled when reminded that Mr. Kerry called the nations that toppled Saddam — including Great Britain, Australia and Poland — "some trumped-up, so-called coalition of the bribed, the coerced, the bought and the extorted."
"Yes, well, sometimes people say some things they regret," the president said. "In the course of a campaign, there will be great scrutiny of people's words."
He added: "I'm sure that is the kind of quote that will eventually be in the public arena. We'll let the American people decide whether or not it has any merit."
The president was comfortable explaining why he thinks voters should reject the Massachusetts liberal and re-elect the self-proclaimed "compassionate conservative."
"I deserve a second term because, first, I've showed the American people I'm capable of handling tough times," Mr. Bush said. "The thing about the presidency is you never know what's going to be around the corner, and you'd better have a president who is capable of making decisions when times do get tough.
"And secondly, we're changing the world," he added. "Let me rephrase that: The world is changing, and we're helping to change it. And there's still a lot of unresolved issues regarding the security of the United States and peace of the world: North Korea, Iran."
A "big difference of opinion" separates him and Mr. Kerry on domestic issues, Mr. Bush said.
For example, Mr. Kerry "will raise taxes in order to feed the appetite of the federal government," the president said. "I think we need to make the tax cuts I passed permanent."
Mr. Bush also said Mr. Kerry thinks "that the federal government will solve the medical issues facing small businesses and large businesses and the unemployed."
"I don't," he said. "I think that the federal government needs to pass policies that will enable private-sector solutions to emerge, such as medical-liability reform, associated health care plans, expansion of health-savings accounts."
'Fundamentally different'
The strategy to beat Mr. Kerry is relatively straightforward, Mr. Rove said.
"You make it about big issues," he said. "The president is right on the war on terror; Kerry is fundamentally wrong. The president is right on what's necessary to keep the economy gaining strength and creating jobs; Kerry's wrong. The president's right on where the country is with regard to values; Kerry's fundamentally wrong."
Mr. Rove said he expects to portray the candidates as "two men who have a fundamentally different attitude." This entails framing Mr. Bush as a rugged individualist and Mr. Kerry as a condescending elitist.
"One guy who comes from Midland, Texas. You know: 'The sky's the limit. I trust you, not the government. I respect the individual,' "Mr. Rove said. "And another guy who says: 'Hey, I'm better than you. I know better than you. The government knows better than you.' "
Perhaps no one in the Bush White House knows Mr. Kerry better than Mr. Card, a native of Massachusetts who served in the state legislature.
"Senator Kerry is someone who has aspired to be in politics and to run for president, I believe, ever since he was at St. Paul's in Concord, New Hampshire," Mr. Card said, referring to the elite prep school.
The word among Mr. Kerry's contemporaries, even in those days, was that "he wants to be JFK," Mr. Card said. "So I guess I'm not surprised that he is kind of in the wannabe mode."
Nor was Mr. Card impressed by Mr. Kerry's political accomplishments.
"He's not as successful as some of the other politicians that I know from Massachusetts. He didn't always have as much stick-to-itiveness in some of his missions as others did.
"He took advantage of political opportunities; I don't fault anyone for doing that," Mr. Card said. "He was lieutenant governor and abandoned that to be able to run for the Senate.
"He's got a record that reflects very liberal-leaning Massachusetts tendencies. And I don't think that is what most people across the country want as the direction the country should be headed in."
'Street smarts'
Mr. Bush's vow not to "cut and run early" from Iraq sums up an important difference in approaches between him and his father.
After the Gulf war ended in 1991, the first President Bush urged Iraq's Kurds and Shi'ites to, in his words, "take matters into their own hands and force Saddam Hussein, the dictator, to step aside." The elder Bush then stayed on the sidelines when Saddam crushed their uprisings, fearful that further meddling might lead to a takeover by Islamic radicals.
"I happen to think they were the right presidents for their times," Mr. Card observed of father and son. "They came to office with the same moral character, but with different perspectives of America's problems.
"Forty-one was an extremely important president for the time, managing without bravado or braggadocio — even though there was great temptation. He was trained as a diplomat," Mr. Card said, referring to the father, whom he served as deputy chief of staff, by the number of his presidency.
"He was there to help manage the extremely challenging change in the world, when the [Berlin] Wall came down and diplomacy had to be practiced in a different way than it has to be practiced today.
"But this president came from West Texas," Mr. Card said of the younger Bush, contrasting the two resumes. "And West Texas was his home for a lot longer than it was for the former president.
"He was the governor of Texas. He wasn't the first envoy to China or the U.N. ambassador or the CIA director. His training was dealing with problems on the streets of Laredo or Dallas or Houston or Midland or Austin. This president came with a kind of street smarts and recognition of the importance of the resolve of America."
That resolve has been crucial to the president's success, Miss Rice said.
"I think that anybody who misunderestimates this president is going to have egg on their face in a few years," she said. "People ought to go back and look at Harry Truman, because that's another president who was misunderestimated."
'I know I can'
Mr. Bush's detractors make a costly mistake by dismissing him as a lightweight, Mr. Powell said.
"I'd advise them to get smart," the secretary of state said. "They keep grinding their teeth over his syntax or his not spending enough time on this or that. But he prevails. And they ought to look at his track record, as opposed to these secondary features and characteristics, which don't reflect the man."
The president's penchant for encouraging low expectations "shows how wise he is," Mr. Powell said. "Because if you have something that people consider a weakness, you can use that weakness to your advantage — if it isn't really a weakness."
Mr. Bush acknowledges that he encourages such misjudgments by detractors.
"People tend to discount my ability to get things done, and that's exactly what I want," the president said in an interview. "I want people to underestimate.
"I don't know why people do that. Maybe it's because of the philosophy I believe in, and maybe it's where I'm from. It doesn't bother me in this world that people would say that 'He can't get things done,' because I know I can."
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
This is the first of three reports based on the new book "Misunderestimated: The President Battles Terrorism, John Kerry and the Bush Haters" (Regan Books) by Bill Sammon, senior White House correspondent for The Washington Times.
President Bush is resolved not to repeat what he thinks were the two fundamental blunders of his father's one-term presidency: abandoning Iraq and failing to vanquish the Democrats.
In one of several exclusive interviews with The Washington Times, Mr. Bush said his father had "cut and run early" from Iraq in 1991.
Mr. Bush also said Sen. John Kerry would "regret" disparaging the U.S.-led coalition that liberated Iraq, promising to use the Massachusetts Democrat's words against him in the election campaign.
The president, while acknowledging that "the rebuilding of Iraq is a difficult period," is optimistic about nurturing a democratic government there.
"Freedom will prevail, so long as the United States and allies don't give the people of Iraq mixed signals, so long as we don't cower in the face of suiciders, or do what many Iraqis still suspect might happen, and that is cut and run early, like what happened in '91," Mr. Bush said.
It was a blunt reference to the first President Bush's decision to stop short of toppling Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein at the end of the Persian Gulf war, even when Saddam crushed postwar rebellions encouraged by the president.
White House political strategist Karl Rove, in one of the lengthy interviews with The Times granted by senior administration officials, also detailed how the Bush campaign intends to paint Mr. Kerry as a condescending elitist, who is pro-tax, weak on defense and on the wrong side in the culture wars.
White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. described Mr. Kerry as a John F. Kennedy "wannabe," who lacks the mettle to be president. Mr. Card, who also worked for the first President Bush, said when it comes to running for re-election, the son is much more engaged and far less complacent than the father.
National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell predicted disaster for anyone who "misunderestimates" the president.
Miss Rice said she and other senior advisers still laugh over that quintessential "Bushism," which their boss famously coined on the eve of the election that made him president.
"They misunderestimated me," Mr. Bush remarked Nov. 6, 2000, the final day of his first presidential campaign.
The malapropism crystallized the mistakes of his detractors, who long have misunderstood George W. Bush's appeal to the American public and underestimated his considerable political skills. The president hopes those mistakes will be repeated by Mr. Kerry and the "Bush haters."
"I'd like to keep expectations low," Mr. Bush said during one of several interviews in the Oval Office. "It's better for people to be surprised rather than disappointed."
'Handling tough times'
Mr. Bush bristled when reminded that Mr. Kerry called the nations that toppled Saddam — including Great Britain, Australia and Poland — "some trumped-up, so-called coalition of the bribed, the coerced, the bought and the extorted."
"Yes, well, sometimes people say some things they regret," the president said. "In the course of a campaign, there will be great scrutiny of people's words."
He added: "I'm sure that is the kind of quote that will eventually be in the public arena. We'll let the American people decide whether or not it has any merit."
The president was comfortable explaining why he thinks voters should reject the Massachusetts liberal and re-elect the self-proclaimed "compassionate conservative."
"I deserve a second term because, first, I've showed the American people I'm capable of handling tough times," Mr. Bush said. "The thing about the presidency is you never know what's going to be around the corner, and you'd better have a president who is capable of making decisions when times do get tough.
"And secondly, we're changing the world," he added. "Let me rephrase that: The world is changing, and we're helping to change it. And there's still a lot of unresolved issues regarding the security of the United States and peace of the world: North Korea, Iran."
A "big difference of opinion" separates him and Mr. Kerry on domestic issues, Mr. Bush said.
For example, Mr. Kerry "will raise taxes in order to feed the appetite of the federal government," the president said. "I think we need to make the tax cuts I passed permanent."
Mr. Bush also said Mr. Kerry thinks "that the federal government will solve the medical issues facing small businesses and large businesses and the unemployed."
"I don't," he said. "I think that the federal government needs to pass policies that will enable private-sector solutions to emerge, such as medical-liability reform, associated health care plans, expansion of health-savings accounts."
'Fundamentally different'
The strategy to beat Mr. Kerry is relatively straightforward, Mr. Rove said.
"You make it about big issues," he said. "The president is right on the war on terror; Kerry is fundamentally wrong. The president is right on what's necessary to keep the economy gaining strength and creating jobs; Kerry's wrong. The president's right on where the country is with regard to values; Kerry's fundamentally wrong."
Mr. Rove said he expects to portray the candidates as "two men who have a fundamentally different attitude." This entails framing Mr. Bush as a rugged individualist and Mr. Kerry as a condescending elitist.
"One guy who comes from Midland, Texas. You know: 'The sky's the limit. I trust you, not the government. I respect the individual,' "Mr. Rove said. "And another guy who says: 'Hey, I'm better than you. I know better than you. The government knows better than you.' "
Perhaps no one in the Bush White House knows Mr. Kerry better than Mr. Card, a native of Massachusetts who served in the state legislature.
"Senator Kerry is someone who has aspired to be in politics and to run for president, I believe, ever since he was at St. Paul's in Concord, New Hampshire," Mr. Card said, referring to the elite prep school.
The word among Mr. Kerry's contemporaries, even in those days, was that "he wants to be JFK," Mr. Card said. "So I guess I'm not surprised that he is kind of in the wannabe mode."
Nor was Mr. Card impressed by Mr. Kerry's political accomplishments.
"He's not as successful as some of the other politicians that I know from Massachusetts. He didn't always have as much stick-to-itiveness in some of his missions as others did.
"He took advantage of political opportunities; I don't fault anyone for doing that," Mr. Card said. "He was lieutenant governor and abandoned that to be able to run for the Senate.
"He's got a record that reflects very liberal-leaning Massachusetts tendencies. And I don't think that is what most people across the country want as the direction the country should be headed in."
'Street smarts'
Mr. Bush's vow not to "cut and run early" from Iraq sums up an important difference in approaches between him and his father.
After the Gulf war ended in 1991, the first President Bush urged Iraq's Kurds and Shi'ites to, in his words, "take matters into their own hands and force Saddam Hussein, the dictator, to step aside." The elder Bush then stayed on the sidelines when Saddam crushed their uprisings, fearful that further meddling might lead to a takeover by Islamic radicals.
"I happen to think they were the right presidents for their times," Mr. Card observed of father and son. "They came to office with the same moral character, but with different perspectives of America's problems.
"Forty-one was an extremely important president for the time, managing without bravado or braggadocio — even though there was great temptation. He was trained as a diplomat," Mr. Card said, referring to the father, whom he served as deputy chief of staff, by the number of his presidency.
"He was there to help manage the extremely challenging change in the world, when the [Berlin] Wall came down and diplomacy had to be practiced in a different way than it has to be practiced today.
"But this president came from West Texas," Mr. Card said of the younger Bush, contrasting the two resumes. "And West Texas was his home for a lot longer than it was for the former president.
"He was the governor of Texas. He wasn't the first envoy to China or the U.N. ambassador or the CIA director. His training was dealing with problems on the streets of Laredo or Dallas or Houston or Midland or Austin. This president came with a kind of street smarts and recognition of the importance of the resolve of America."
That resolve has been crucial to the president's success, Miss Rice said.
"I think that anybody who misunderestimates this president is going to have egg on their face in a few years," she said. "People ought to go back and look at Harry Truman, because that's another president who was misunderestimated."
'I know I can'
Mr. Bush's detractors make a costly mistake by dismissing him as a lightweight, Mr. Powell said.
"I'd advise them to get smart," the secretary of state said. "They keep grinding their teeth over his syntax or his not spending enough time on this or that. But he prevails. And they ought to look at his track record, as opposed to these secondary features and characteristics, which don't reflect the man."
The president's penchant for encouraging low expectations "shows how wise he is," Mr. Powell said. "Because if you have something that people consider a weakness, you can use that weakness to your advantage — if it isn't really a weakness."
Mr. Bush acknowledges that he encourages such misjudgments by detractors.
"People tend to discount my ability to get things done, and that's exactly what I want," the president said in an interview. "I want people to underestimate.
"I don't know why people do that. Maybe it's because of the philosophy I believe in, and maybe it's where I'm from. It doesn't bother me in this world that people would say that 'He can't get things done,' because I know I can."
Sunday, May 09, 2004
First Quarter GDP: Above Average Again
by Rea S. Hederman, Jr., and William Beach
WebMemo #493
Heritage Foundation
April 29, 2004
The U.S. economy grew at an inflation-adjusted annual rate of 4.2 percent in the first quarter of 2004, according to Bureau of Economic Analysis numbers released today. The report shows that the economy heated up slightly from 4.1 percent growth in the fourth quarter of 2003. Personal consumption, defense spending, and business investment—mostly on equipment and software—contributed heavily to the quarter’s strong growth. Today’s numbers may well presage strong employment growth in coming months, and they are just the latest evidence of the power of the President’s tax cuts, which will begin to expire soon without action from Congress.
Expansion Continues
Today’s GDP numbers show that the U.S. economy is in a period of sustained growth. This is the third quarter in a row that GDP growth exceeded the historical average of the past 20 years. (Annualized growth was 8.2, 4.1, and 4.2 percent, respectively, in Q3, Q4, and Q1)While the economy may not reach heights like the 8.2 percent that it did in the third quarter of 2003, the current GDP growth rate is heartening. It shows that the economic expansion, boosted by the 2003 tax cuts, continues unabated. Recent employment growth reflects the economy’s above-trend performance, and today’s advance report on the first quarter’s economic activity promises strong employment growth over the next several months.
The contribution of business investment to today’s numbers is significant. Flat business investment was a major reason of why economic growth was so anemic, or even negative, from the summer of 2000 to third quarter of 2003[1]. Business investment had declined for nine straight quarters from 2001 to 2003. The 2003 tax bill helped spark economic growth by decreasing the tax on capital used by businesses and by allowing companies to immediately write-off a larger proportion of their expenses. As a result, business investment has increased by 7 percent or more in each of the last four quarters. Now business investment adds to GDP growth instead of subtracting. For the first quarter of 2004, business investment added .73 percent to GDP; compared that to the first quarter of 2003, when business investment reduced GDP by .06 percent.
The benefits of stronger business investment are evident in healthy personal income growth. Inflation-adjusted personal income rose by 5.6 percent in the first quarter of 2004, compared to 4.7 percent growth in the fourth quarter of last year. After-tax income increased dramatically, as well. Disposable personal income rose by $155.4 billion in the first quarter, compared to $31.6 billion in the fourth quarter. These improvements reflect a stronger labor market, lower personal taxes, and larger refund checks.
Robust Trends
When assessing the current state of the economy, it is important to look at the trend as well as the most recent numbers. Today, both signal a robust economy. The substantial growth in business investment has placed new and better equipment in the hands of workers who, in turn, have significantly increased their productivity. Consumers sense the promise of stronger, more productive economic activity and continue to make important long-term purchases, such as homes and automobiles. In short, the key economic indicators, from durable goods to manufacturing output, remain strong. While some analysts may hope for splashier numbers, the fundamentals of the U.S. economy are solid. The first quarter GDP numbers point to a strong year for the U.S. economy and, quite possibly, the strongest real GDP growth since 1999.
Rea Hederman, Jr., is Senior Policy Analyst in, and William Beach is Director of, the Center for Data Analysis at The Heritage Foundation.
WebMemo #493
Heritage Foundation
April 29, 2004
The U.S. economy grew at an inflation-adjusted annual rate of 4.2 percent in the first quarter of 2004, according to Bureau of Economic Analysis numbers released today. The report shows that the economy heated up slightly from 4.1 percent growth in the fourth quarter of 2003. Personal consumption, defense spending, and business investment—mostly on equipment and software—contributed heavily to the quarter’s strong growth. Today’s numbers may well presage strong employment growth in coming months, and they are just the latest evidence of the power of the President’s tax cuts, which will begin to expire soon without action from Congress.
Expansion Continues
Today’s GDP numbers show that the U.S. economy is in a period of sustained growth. This is the third quarter in a row that GDP growth exceeded the historical average of the past 20 years. (Annualized growth was 8.2, 4.1, and 4.2 percent, respectively, in Q3, Q4, and Q1)While the economy may not reach heights like the 8.2 percent that it did in the third quarter of 2003, the current GDP growth rate is heartening. It shows that the economic expansion, boosted by the 2003 tax cuts, continues unabated. Recent employment growth reflects the economy’s above-trend performance, and today’s advance report on the first quarter’s economic activity promises strong employment growth over the next several months.
The contribution of business investment to today’s numbers is significant. Flat business investment was a major reason of why economic growth was so anemic, or even negative, from the summer of 2000 to third quarter of 2003[1]. Business investment had declined for nine straight quarters from 2001 to 2003. The 2003 tax bill helped spark economic growth by decreasing the tax on capital used by businesses and by allowing companies to immediately write-off a larger proportion of their expenses. As a result, business investment has increased by 7 percent or more in each of the last four quarters. Now business investment adds to GDP growth instead of subtracting. For the first quarter of 2004, business investment added .73 percent to GDP; compared that to the first quarter of 2003, when business investment reduced GDP by .06 percent.
The benefits of stronger business investment are evident in healthy personal income growth. Inflation-adjusted personal income rose by 5.6 percent in the first quarter of 2004, compared to 4.7 percent growth in the fourth quarter of last year. After-tax income increased dramatically, as well. Disposable personal income rose by $155.4 billion in the first quarter, compared to $31.6 billion in the fourth quarter. These improvements reflect a stronger labor market, lower personal taxes, and larger refund checks.
Robust Trends
When assessing the current state of the economy, it is important to look at the trend as well as the most recent numbers. Today, both signal a robust economy. The substantial growth in business investment has placed new and better equipment in the hands of workers who, in turn, have significantly increased their productivity. Consumers sense the promise of stronger, more productive economic activity and continue to make important long-term purchases, such as homes and automobiles. In short, the key economic indicators, from durable goods to manufacturing output, remain strong. While some analysts may hope for splashier numbers, the fundamentals of the U.S. economy are solid. The first quarter GDP numbers point to a strong year for the U.S. economy and, quite possibly, the strongest real GDP growth since 1999.
Rea Hederman, Jr., is Senior Policy Analyst in, and William Beach is Director of, the Center for Data Analysis at The Heritage Foundation.
April Jobs Report: It’s All Good
by Tim Kane, Rea Hederman, and Alison Fraser
WebMemo #499
May 7, 2004
Heritage Foundation
On its face, the April jobs report released today by the Labor Department looks good, but the details look even better. Job growth was far above expectations in both the payroll and the household surveys, the rate of unemployment dropped to 5.6 percent, hourly earnings grew by 0.3 percent, and, best of all, the number of people suffering long-duration unemployment declined by hundreds of thousands. This is the first time in years that the labor markets show universally positive gains in every area—job growth, wages, and hours—in almost all sectors and across all demographics. The U.S. economy is moving from recovery into a self-sustaining expansion.
Payroll employment jumped by 288,000 workers in April, the second straight month of strong employment gains. The data also show that the number of working Americans is at an all-time high of 138.57 million, according to the household survey.
Key points
The unemployment rate inched down to 5.6 percent, essentially unchanged since January. This is below the average unemployment rates of the 1980s and 1990s.
Job growth was widespread across all sectors for the second month in a row.
Manufacturing posted jobs gains for the first time in 45 months, adding 21,000 workers in April and, with revised numbers, 9,000 in March.
The standout sector is in “Professional and business services” with 123,000 more jobs in April. This is the one sector to watch for the evolution of domestic outsourcing employment, where small companies provide services to big companies that were previously done internally, like security, accounting, and general consulting.
Construction employment continued its rise by adding 18,000 workers in April, or 213,000 since March 2003. This is the highest level of construction employment since March 2001. Commercial construction indicates and presages economic expansion for the workers who will eventually fill up the new buildings.
Critics argue that the unemployment rate would be much higher if we accounted for people who have left the job market due to discouragement over their job prospects. Yet alternative measures of unemployment turn out to reveal positive trends as well. The unemployment rate that includes discouraged workers declined by 0.4 percent over the last year to 5.9 percent. Another alternative unemployment rate, which includes all marginally attached persons, declined from 6.7 percent in March to 6.5 percent in April, and is also down 0.4 percent over the last year.
The final key point that merits special attention comes from Table A-9 of the report, which shows a completely unexpected reduction in the median duration of unemployment spells, from 10.3 weeks previously to 9.5 weeks this month. This strongly bolsters the case against extending unemployment insurance.
Myths of Weakness
The April report should be used to dispel the cynical myths of U.S. economic weakness.It shows, for example, that neither outsourcing nor productivity is a threat to job growth (quite the contrary), that the workforce is not discouraged, and that real wages are not declining. For once, the monthly report is positive across the board, confirming positive long-term trends.
Those with a vested interest in negativity will try to shift the debate away from jobs into a critique of the quality of new jobs, but there is no fact-based story along those lines.
The lesson for Congress and the States is that meddling with labor markets is unnecessary. For example, now is not the time to coerce employers to pay a higher minimum wage, because real wages are rising anyway and have been for years. Government coercion will only depress hiring. On the other hand, reform of outdated labor regulations is always in order. Moreover, if policymakers really want to strengthen the economy and promote job creation, they should permanently lower taxes, spend less, and then spend even less.
Tim Kane, Ph.D., is Research Fellow in Macroeconomics, and Rea Hederman is a Senior Policy Analyst, in the Center for Data Analysis at The Heritage Foundation. Alison Fraser is Director of the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation.
WebMemo #499
May 7, 2004
Heritage Foundation
On its face, the April jobs report released today by the Labor Department looks good, but the details look even better. Job growth was far above expectations in both the payroll and the household surveys, the rate of unemployment dropped to 5.6 percent, hourly earnings grew by 0.3 percent, and, best of all, the number of people suffering long-duration unemployment declined by hundreds of thousands. This is the first time in years that the labor markets show universally positive gains in every area—job growth, wages, and hours—in almost all sectors and across all demographics. The U.S. economy is moving from recovery into a self-sustaining expansion.
Payroll employment jumped by 288,000 workers in April, the second straight month of strong employment gains. The data also show that the number of working Americans is at an all-time high of 138.57 million, according to the household survey.
Key points
The unemployment rate inched down to 5.6 percent, essentially unchanged since January. This is below the average unemployment rates of the 1980s and 1990s.
Job growth was widespread across all sectors for the second month in a row.
Manufacturing posted jobs gains for the first time in 45 months, adding 21,000 workers in April and, with revised numbers, 9,000 in March.
The standout sector is in “Professional and business services” with 123,000 more jobs in April. This is the one sector to watch for the evolution of domestic outsourcing employment, where small companies provide services to big companies that were previously done internally, like security, accounting, and general consulting.
Construction employment continued its rise by adding 18,000 workers in April, or 213,000 since March 2003. This is the highest level of construction employment since March 2001. Commercial construction indicates and presages economic expansion for the workers who will eventually fill up the new buildings.
Critics argue that the unemployment rate would be much higher if we accounted for people who have left the job market due to discouragement over their job prospects. Yet alternative measures of unemployment turn out to reveal positive trends as well. The unemployment rate that includes discouraged workers declined by 0.4 percent over the last year to 5.9 percent. Another alternative unemployment rate, which includes all marginally attached persons, declined from 6.7 percent in March to 6.5 percent in April, and is also down 0.4 percent over the last year.
The final key point that merits special attention comes from Table A-9 of the report, which shows a completely unexpected reduction in the median duration of unemployment spells, from 10.3 weeks previously to 9.5 weeks this month. This strongly bolsters the case against extending unemployment insurance.
Myths of Weakness
The April report should be used to dispel the cynical myths of U.S. economic weakness.It shows, for example, that neither outsourcing nor productivity is a threat to job growth (quite the contrary), that the workforce is not discouraged, and that real wages are not declining. For once, the monthly report is positive across the board, confirming positive long-term trends.
Those with a vested interest in negativity will try to shift the debate away from jobs into a critique of the quality of new jobs, but there is no fact-based story along those lines.
The lesson for Congress and the States is that meddling with labor markets is unnecessary. For example, now is not the time to coerce employers to pay a higher minimum wage, because real wages are rising anyway and have been for years. Government coercion will only depress hiring. On the other hand, reform of outdated labor regulations is always in order. Moreover, if policymakers really want to strengthen the economy and promote job creation, they should permanently lower taxes, spend less, and then spend even less.
Tim Kane, Ph.D., is Research Fellow in Macroeconomics, and Rea Hederman is a Senior Policy Analyst, in the Center for Data Analysis at The Heritage Foundation. Alison Fraser is Director of the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation.
Wednesday, May 05, 2004
SWIFT BOAT VETERANS FOR TRUTH FORMS ORGANIZATION
SWIFT BOAT VETERANS FOR TRUTH
Goals are to restore honor of Vietnam vets; Rebut John Kerry’s unanswered lies; Bring the truth about Kerry’s service to the public
(May 4-Washington, D.C.) Today, a group of Swift Boat veterans from the unit in which Senator John Kerry served announced the formation of an organization, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. The organization has been formed in order to bring the truth about Kerry to the American people. The organization intends to discuss Kerry’s war crimes charges, Kerry’s record and to request that Kerry authorize the Department of Defense to release the originals and the complete files relating to his military service and medical military records.
The group released a historic letter expressing the overwhelming opposition of those who served with Kerry or in his unit to his misrepresentation of his record and the unit’s record. The letter is signed by Swift Boat veterans at all levels and from the entire political spectrum; the entire chain of command during the period Kerry served in Vietnam; veterans who participated in the engagements resulting in his medals; and the majority of officers who served with him in Coastal Division 11, the unit in which he spent most of his four month tour of duty. Public circulation of the letter began one week ago and collected hundreds of signatures. The signers already make up a majority of the Swift Vets whose addresses can be found. The complete record of signers and comments will be posted on Swiftvets.com.
Rear Admiral Roy Hoffmann, USN (retired), Commander of Coastal Surveillance Force Vietnam (Commander Task Force 115) and chair of the group said, “I signed this letter because I do not believe John Kerry is fit to be the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of the United States. This is not a political issue. It is a matter of his judgment, truthfulness, reliability, loyalty and trust - all absolute tenets of command.”
“We don’t understand why Kerry would make the centerpiece of his campaign an exaggerated account of his four month service in Vietnam 33 years ago, but since he is, we believe the American public is entitled to the truth about his service and about his charges about war crimes and atrocities,” explained John O’Neill, a Swift Boat veteran who took charge of Kerry’s boat a few months after Kerry’s departure and who debated Kerry in 1971.
The Swift Boat Vets for Truth include the entire chain of command above Kerry: Lt. Commander Grant Hibbard, Lt. Commander Elliott, Captain Charles Plumly, Captain Adrian Lonsdale USCG (retired) and Rear Admiral Hoffmann (retired), as well as enlisted men, officers, men who served with Mr. Kerry, men who served in the same group of Swift boats and men intimately familiar with the operations and conduct of Swift boat operations during the war. The group also includes James Zumwalt, Lt. Colonel, U.S.M.C. (retired), representing his father, Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, and brother, Lt. Elmo Zumwalt III, both deceased.
Swift Boat Veterans for Truth is a Special Purpose Political Action Committee.
Chairman, Rear Admiral Roy Hoffmann (retired)
Treasurer, Weymouth “Wey” Symmes
PO Box 26184
Alexandria, VA 22313
Swift Vets Link
WHAT IS A SWIFT BOAT?
A Swift Boat is a 22-ton heavily armed, 50-foot, shallow draft aluminum patrol craft similar to the utility boats servicing oil platforms and other offshore facilities in the Gulf of Mexico. These boats are known also by the U. S. Navy designation as PCF or Patrol Craft-Fast.
First introduced into the war in Vietnam in 1966, they are driven by two powerful diesel engines. The boat was armed with paired 50-caliber, aircraft type, ring-mounted machineguns forward over the pilothouse, another 50-caliber machinegun mounted in piggyback fashion over an 81-millimeter mortar that is fixed to the afterdeck, and an M-60 light machinegun most often mounted on the sampson post at the bow in front of the pilothouse. The post has a mounting plate, which can also accommodate a Mark 19 forty-millimeter, rapid-fire grenade launcher.
These boats also carried an assortment of other lethal weapons. Fragmentation hand grenades were not permitted on the boats. Concussion grenades were plentiful as a deterrent to swimmers who might try to attack a boat.
The crew usually consisted of five enlisted personnel led by one officer-in-charge. This officer was normally an Ensign or a Lieutenant Junior Grade, 23 to 27 years old. All were volunteers and almost all of them developed a fierce love for their boats.
For all of its deadly weaponry and ordinance, Swift Boats were not armored except around the small magazine located on the centerline under the deck of the main cabin. The skin of a Swift could easily be penetrated by small arms fire and the enemy version of the rocket-propelled grenade could blow out the insides of any Swift Boat while killing or maiming its crew.
SwiftVets.com is a tax exempt non-partisan public advocacy “527”organization consisting of, and limited to, former military officers and enlisted men who served in Vietnam on U.S. Navy “Swift Boats.” or in affiliated commands.
While swiftvets.com is separate and distinct from the Swift Boat Sailors’ Association, there are many individuals who are members of both. Swiftvets.com essentially serves as an informational clearing-house and internet repository of information related to the swiftvets.com mission.
Goals are to restore honor of Vietnam vets; Rebut John Kerry’s unanswered lies; Bring the truth about Kerry’s service to the public
(May 4-Washington, D.C.) Today, a group of Swift Boat veterans from the unit in which Senator John Kerry served announced the formation of an organization, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. The organization has been formed in order to bring the truth about Kerry to the American people. The organization intends to discuss Kerry’s war crimes charges, Kerry’s record and to request that Kerry authorize the Department of Defense to release the originals and the complete files relating to his military service and medical military records.
The group released a historic letter expressing the overwhelming opposition of those who served with Kerry or in his unit to his misrepresentation of his record and the unit’s record. The letter is signed by Swift Boat veterans at all levels and from the entire political spectrum; the entire chain of command during the period Kerry served in Vietnam; veterans who participated in the engagements resulting in his medals; and the majority of officers who served with him in Coastal Division 11, the unit in which he spent most of his four month tour of duty. Public circulation of the letter began one week ago and collected hundreds of signatures. The signers already make up a majority of the Swift Vets whose addresses can be found. The complete record of signers and comments will be posted on Swiftvets.com.
Rear Admiral Roy Hoffmann, USN (retired), Commander of Coastal Surveillance Force Vietnam (Commander Task Force 115) and chair of the group said, “I signed this letter because I do not believe John Kerry is fit to be the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of the United States. This is not a political issue. It is a matter of his judgment, truthfulness, reliability, loyalty and trust - all absolute tenets of command.”
“We don’t understand why Kerry would make the centerpiece of his campaign an exaggerated account of his four month service in Vietnam 33 years ago, but since he is, we believe the American public is entitled to the truth about his service and about his charges about war crimes and atrocities,” explained John O’Neill, a Swift Boat veteran who took charge of Kerry’s boat a few months after Kerry’s departure and who debated Kerry in 1971.
The Swift Boat Vets for Truth include the entire chain of command above Kerry: Lt. Commander Grant Hibbard, Lt. Commander Elliott, Captain Charles Plumly, Captain Adrian Lonsdale USCG (retired) and Rear Admiral Hoffmann (retired), as well as enlisted men, officers, men who served with Mr. Kerry, men who served in the same group of Swift boats and men intimately familiar with the operations and conduct of Swift boat operations during the war. The group also includes James Zumwalt, Lt. Colonel, U.S.M.C. (retired), representing his father, Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, and brother, Lt. Elmo Zumwalt III, both deceased.
Swift Boat Veterans for Truth is a Special Purpose Political Action Committee.
Chairman, Rear Admiral Roy Hoffmann (retired)
Treasurer, Weymouth “Wey” Symmes
PO Box 26184
Alexandria, VA 22313
Swift Vets Link
WHAT IS A SWIFT BOAT?
A Swift Boat is a 22-ton heavily armed, 50-foot, shallow draft aluminum patrol craft similar to the utility boats servicing oil platforms and other offshore facilities in the Gulf of Mexico. These boats are known also by the U. S. Navy designation as PCF or Patrol Craft-Fast.
First introduced into the war in Vietnam in 1966, they are driven by two powerful diesel engines. The boat was armed with paired 50-caliber, aircraft type, ring-mounted machineguns forward over the pilothouse, another 50-caliber machinegun mounted in piggyback fashion over an 81-millimeter mortar that is fixed to the afterdeck, and an M-60 light machinegun most often mounted on the sampson post at the bow in front of the pilothouse. The post has a mounting plate, which can also accommodate a Mark 19 forty-millimeter, rapid-fire grenade launcher.
These boats also carried an assortment of other lethal weapons. Fragmentation hand grenades were not permitted on the boats. Concussion grenades were plentiful as a deterrent to swimmers who might try to attack a boat.
The crew usually consisted of five enlisted personnel led by one officer-in-charge. This officer was normally an Ensign or a Lieutenant Junior Grade, 23 to 27 years old. All were volunteers and almost all of them developed a fierce love for their boats.
For all of its deadly weaponry and ordinance, Swift Boats were not armored except around the small magazine located on the centerline under the deck of the main cabin. The skin of a Swift could easily be penetrated by small arms fire and the enemy version of the rocket-propelled grenade could blow out the insides of any Swift Boat while killing or maiming its crew.
SwiftVets.com is a tax exempt non-partisan public advocacy “527”organization consisting of, and limited to, former military officers and enlisted men who served in Vietnam on U.S. Navy “Swift Boats.” or in affiliated commands.
While swiftvets.com is separate and distinct from the Swift Boat Sailors’ Association, there are many individuals who are members of both. Swiftvets.com essentially serves as an informational clearing-house and internet repository of information related to the swiftvets.com mission.
Tuesday, May 04, 2004
Kerry's vision thing
By Michael O'Hanlon
Washington Times
How can it be? After a month in which his administration's policies were pummeled from the September 11 commission hearings to the streets of Fallujah, President George W. Bush has overtaken John Kerry in the latest polls. The swing is significant, totaling almost 10 points and leaving Mr. Bush 4 to 5 points ahead of his presumed opponent.
The Kerry camp's standard explanation of this swing is that the Bush campaign has been tapping into its deep war chest to fund early attack ads on the Massachusetts Democrat. This argument is partly right. But the Bush campaign's ads have not had nearly the airtime of Richard Clarke or the war in Iraq, so it is hard to see how they could so affect voters' thinking unless something else was at work.
In fact, many Americans seem willing to forgive President Bush for not doing everything in his power to stop the September 11, 2001, attacks or properly plan the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. Whatever his past mistakes, they tend to see Mr. Bush as committed to enhancing the country's security today. Indeed, the latest troubles in Iraq seem to be causing Americans to rally around the flag and their wartime president, even as they also wonder if Mr. Bush's strategy for handling the Iraqi insurgency is as promising as they once believed.
Under these circumstances, Mr. Kerry needs to avoid the temptation simply to criticize the president's unilateralism, however justified his critique may be. Nor can he realistically spell out a detailed Iraq policy alternative week by week (though his proposed larger standing Army makes eminent sense). Instead, Mr. Kerry must offer a broad foreign policy vision to the American people. He needs to get beyond immediate issues to address the historic challenge of the day — which is, not to mince words, the clash of civilizations between the Islamic and Western worlds.
The United States needs a grand strategy for winning the war on terror. As Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld observed last fall, even if we prevail in Iraq and Afghanistan, new terrorists may be created and trained faster than we can suppress them. We need a broader, deeper strategy than we now have.
Thankfully, a few of the right pieces are already in place. They include offensive military and law enforcement operations, crackdowns on terrorist financing, better homeland security efforts, and admonitions to allies in the Islamic world to carry out political reform.
But the Bush administration has left much undone as well. For example, it has not established the reality or the perception of a vigorous and even-handed role in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Most of all, however, the United States does not yet have a clear grand strategy for winning the war on terror that would rival George Kennan's articulation of containment doctrine in 1947. By failing to think of our efforts as an integrated effort, we are overusing some tools of foreign policy while neglecting others.
A large part of the grand strategy must focus on improving our dialogue and diplomacy with the Islamic world. Former President Bill Clinton helped show the way in his speech in Doha, Qatar, in January 2004. He expressed admiration for Islam's culture and history — and displayed some real knowledge of each. He noted its common theological roots with Christianity and Judaism. He acknowledged and apologized for the West's tendency to be ignorant of the Islamic world.
Having set the right tone of dialogue and humility, he also challenged Muslims in the audience, directly countering the common misperception in the Islamic world that the U.S. is indifferent to the suffering of Muslim peoples and unwilling to come to their military defense when they are threatened.
Mr. Kerry should give a similar address, and then repeat some of its key themes in his frequent stump speeches. He should also promise to hold a postelection brainstorming conference on relations with the Islamic world, similar to what Bill Clinton convened on the economy in 1992. And once inaugurated, he should make multinational summits with Islamic leaders, scholars, clerics, journalists and opposition politicians at least as frequent and important as U.S.-Soviet summits of the Cold War or G8 meetings today.
Robust grass-roots information efforts are also essential. The Bush administration got some of this right, with creation of Radio Sawa and similar initiatives. But we need to do much more. For example, as suggested in a recent Brookings Saban Center study by Hady Amr, the United States should create USIA-sponsored Internet cafes throughout the cities of the Arab world. It should also follow former CIA Director Robert Gates' suggestion to do whatever is needed to increase the numbers of Islamic students studying in the United States.
A much more serious push for educational reform in the Islamic world also is imperative. Jawboning countries like Pakistan to clean up their hate-spewing madrassas is not enough; we need to lead a multilateral initiative to provide resources for education in the Islamic world that rivals the president's HIV/AIDS and Millennium Challenge Account efforts in size and scale. Pakistan, Yemen, Indonesia and other poorer Islamic countries could benefit greatly from more aid for such efforts.
Trade is a critical tool as well. The goal should be to extend the Clinton administration's U.S.-Jordan free trade model to many other Islamic countries. As much as pumping up GDP, the goal should be to broaden employment opportunities throughout the Muslim world.
Angry, unemployed, bored and hopeless young men are among our greatest worry in addressing the chasm between the West and Islam. For this reason, the recent proposal by Sens. Joe Lieberman, Connecticut Democrat and Chuck Hagel, Nebraska Republican, to promote enterprise and entrepreneurship in the Islamic world, and similar thinking by Sen. Richard Lugar, Indiana Republican, merit support in the Congress and the administration.
But the details of this grand strategy proposal matter less, in the end, than its boldness and its spirit and the priority with which an American administration pursues it. The great presidents of history ran and governed on big ideas, and today's challenges require the same.
In our democracy, it is the natural and necessary role of those seeking to unseat incumbents to spell out such big visions. Mr. Kerry has shown competence and reasonableness in his foreign policy thinking, but he should aim much bigger and higher.
Michael O'Hanlon is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.
Washington Times
How can it be? After a month in which his administration's policies were pummeled from the September 11 commission hearings to the streets of Fallujah, President George W. Bush has overtaken John Kerry in the latest polls. The swing is significant, totaling almost 10 points and leaving Mr. Bush 4 to 5 points ahead of his presumed opponent.
The Kerry camp's standard explanation of this swing is that the Bush campaign has been tapping into its deep war chest to fund early attack ads on the Massachusetts Democrat. This argument is partly right. But the Bush campaign's ads have not had nearly the airtime of Richard Clarke or the war in Iraq, so it is hard to see how they could so affect voters' thinking unless something else was at work.
In fact, many Americans seem willing to forgive President Bush for not doing everything in his power to stop the September 11, 2001, attacks or properly plan the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. Whatever his past mistakes, they tend to see Mr. Bush as committed to enhancing the country's security today. Indeed, the latest troubles in Iraq seem to be causing Americans to rally around the flag and their wartime president, even as they also wonder if Mr. Bush's strategy for handling the Iraqi insurgency is as promising as they once believed.
Under these circumstances, Mr. Kerry needs to avoid the temptation simply to criticize the president's unilateralism, however justified his critique may be. Nor can he realistically spell out a detailed Iraq policy alternative week by week (though his proposed larger standing Army makes eminent sense). Instead, Mr. Kerry must offer a broad foreign policy vision to the American people. He needs to get beyond immediate issues to address the historic challenge of the day — which is, not to mince words, the clash of civilizations between the Islamic and Western worlds.
The United States needs a grand strategy for winning the war on terror. As Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld observed last fall, even if we prevail in Iraq and Afghanistan, new terrorists may be created and trained faster than we can suppress them. We need a broader, deeper strategy than we now have.
Thankfully, a few of the right pieces are already in place. They include offensive military and law enforcement operations, crackdowns on terrorist financing, better homeland security efforts, and admonitions to allies in the Islamic world to carry out political reform.
But the Bush administration has left much undone as well. For example, it has not established the reality or the perception of a vigorous and even-handed role in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Most of all, however, the United States does not yet have a clear grand strategy for winning the war on terror that would rival George Kennan's articulation of containment doctrine in 1947. By failing to think of our efforts as an integrated effort, we are overusing some tools of foreign policy while neglecting others.
A large part of the grand strategy must focus on improving our dialogue and diplomacy with the Islamic world. Former President Bill Clinton helped show the way in his speech in Doha, Qatar, in January 2004. He expressed admiration for Islam's culture and history — and displayed some real knowledge of each. He noted its common theological roots with Christianity and Judaism. He acknowledged and apologized for the West's tendency to be ignorant of the Islamic world.
Having set the right tone of dialogue and humility, he also challenged Muslims in the audience, directly countering the common misperception in the Islamic world that the U.S. is indifferent to the suffering of Muslim peoples and unwilling to come to their military defense when they are threatened.
Mr. Kerry should give a similar address, and then repeat some of its key themes in his frequent stump speeches. He should also promise to hold a postelection brainstorming conference on relations with the Islamic world, similar to what Bill Clinton convened on the economy in 1992. And once inaugurated, he should make multinational summits with Islamic leaders, scholars, clerics, journalists and opposition politicians at least as frequent and important as U.S.-Soviet summits of the Cold War or G8 meetings today.
Robust grass-roots information efforts are also essential. The Bush administration got some of this right, with creation of Radio Sawa and similar initiatives. But we need to do much more. For example, as suggested in a recent Brookings Saban Center study by Hady Amr, the United States should create USIA-sponsored Internet cafes throughout the cities of the Arab world. It should also follow former CIA Director Robert Gates' suggestion to do whatever is needed to increase the numbers of Islamic students studying in the United States.
A much more serious push for educational reform in the Islamic world also is imperative. Jawboning countries like Pakistan to clean up their hate-spewing madrassas is not enough; we need to lead a multilateral initiative to provide resources for education in the Islamic world that rivals the president's HIV/AIDS and Millennium Challenge Account efforts in size and scale. Pakistan, Yemen, Indonesia and other poorer Islamic countries could benefit greatly from more aid for such efforts.
Trade is a critical tool as well. The goal should be to extend the Clinton administration's U.S.-Jordan free trade model to many other Islamic countries. As much as pumping up GDP, the goal should be to broaden employment opportunities throughout the Muslim world.
Angry, unemployed, bored and hopeless young men are among our greatest worry in addressing the chasm between the West and Islam. For this reason, the recent proposal by Sens. Joe Lieberman, Connecticut Democrat and Chuck Hagel, Nebraska Republican, to promote enterprise and entrepreneurship in the Islamic world, and similar thinking by Sen. Richard Lugar, Indiana Republican, merit support in the Congress and the administration.
But the details of this grand strategy proposal matter less, in the end, than its boldness and its spirit and the priority with which an American administration pursues it. The great presidents of history ran and governed on big ideas, and today's challenges require the same.
In our democracy, it is the natural and necessary role of those seeking to unseat incumbents to spell out such big visions. Mr. Kerry has shown competence and reasonableness in his foreign policy thinking, but he should aim much bigger and higher.
Michael O'Hanlon is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.
L.A.-Dulles flight seen as terror target
By Audrey Hudson
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Federal officials have pinpointed an airline flight from Los Angeles to Washington as a potential terrorist target in the past two weeks and have begun scrutinizing the flight crew's luggage and using security agents to follow pilots preparing for the flight.
Bomb-sniffing dogs are also being stationed in the gate area as passengers of United Airlines Flight 200 from Los Angeles International Airport to Dulles International Airport undergo more intense security checks.
The flight, which departs Los Angeles at 6:55 p.m. Eastern (3:55 local time) and arrives in Dulles at 11:46 p.m. Eastern, has been "sanitized" before takeoff, said one flight crew member who spoke on condition of anonymity.
"They absolutely tear everything apart inside the flight bag, every piece of professional literature, flight manuals, head sets, they empty the overnight bag. It's being scrutinized at a level I have never seen in over 25 years of flying," the crew member said.
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has designated it as a "flight of interest," according to a memo from the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) obtained by The Washington Times.
Pilots and flight attendants "are receiving a thorough second security screening by the TSA, which includes flight bags and all personal belongings. In addition, the pilot conducting the preflight is being shadowed," the memo said.
"Shadowed," refers to a policy of preventing pilots from entering the aircraft for preflight inspections until a security escort arrives to follow their movements, said the crew member. A TSA official then observes the pilots from the terminal window.
Neither pilots nor air marshals are receiving an explanation for the intense searches, and neither is the airline nor the pilot unions, according to the memo and the crew member.
The TSA and United Airlines did not return calls seeking comment.
Capt. David Mackett, president of the Airline Pilots Security Alliance, said the TSA is wasting valuable resources by searching flight attendants and pilots.
"Every single crew member assigned to a flight has their identification verified before boarding," Mr. Mackett said. "It should also be obvious a weapon is superfluous to a pilot getting control of an airplane, since he is given control as his primary job."
"What is especially disconcerting is that the TSA refuses to even tell the captain of the flight what the threat is, and the captain is charged by law with ensuring the flight's safety," Mr. Mackett said.
International flight crews underwent similar security measures during the Christmas and New Year holidays and again in February, as TSA worked to prevent a repeat of the September 11 attacks, in which terrorists hijacked planes and crashed them into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
This is the first time that such security measures, including having pilots empty their pockets and scanning them with hand-held metal detectors, have been employed on domestic flights in the United States.
All four of the planes hijacked on September 11 were cross-country domestic flights, three of which were headed for Los Angeles International Airport, including American Airlines Flight 77 which originated at Dulles and was used to attack the Pentagon.
"The worst part about it is we are not being given information, and we can't make decisions to protect the aircraft," said the flight crew member.
The ALPA memo urged pilots, who also have been asked by federal officials to file reports with the union on screening methods and "unusual events during the flight," to maintain a professional demeanor and comply with all reasonable requests.
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Federal officials have pinpointed an airline flight from Los Angeles to Washington as a potential terrorist target in the past two weeks and have begun scrutinizing the flight crew's luggage and using security agents to follow pilots preparing for the flight.
Bomb-sniffing dogs are also being stationed in the gate area as passengers of United Airlines Flight 200 from Los Angeles International Airport to Dulles International Airport undergo more intense security checks.
The flight, which departs Los Angeles at 6:55 p.m. Eastern (3:55 local time) and arrives in Dulles at 11:46 p.m. Eastern, has been "sanitized" before takeoff, said one flight crew member who spoke on condition of anonymity.
"They absolutely tear everything apart inside the flight bag, every piece of professional literature, flight manuals, head sets, they empty the overnight bag. It's being scrutinized at a level I have never seen in over 25 years of flying," the crew member said.
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has designated it as a "flight of interest," according to a memo from the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) obtained by The Washington Times.
Pilots and flight attendants "are receiving a thorough second security screening by the TSA, which includes flight bags and all personal belongings. In addition, the pilot conducting the preflight is being shadowed," the memo said.
"Shadowed," refers to a policy of preventing pilots from entering the aircraft for preflight inspections until a security escort arrives to follow their movements, said the crew member. A TSA official then observes the pilots from the terminal window.
Neither pilots nor air marshals are receiving an explanation for the intense searches, and neither is the airline nor the pilot unions, according to the memo and the crew member.
The TSA and United Airlines did not return calls seeking comment.
Capt. David Mackett, president of the Airline Pilots Security Alliance, said the TSA is wasting valuable resources by searching flight attendants and pilots.
"Every single crew member assigned to a flight has their identification verified before boarding," Mr. Mackett said. "It should also be obvious a weapon is superfluous to a pilot getting control of an airplane, since he is given control as his primary job."
"What is especially disconcerting is that the TSA refuses to even tell the captain of the flight what the threat is, and the captain is charged by law with ensuring the flight's safety," Mr. Mackett said.
International flight crews underwent similar security measures during the Christmas and New Year holidays and again in February, as TSA worked to prevent a repeat of the September 11 attacks, in which terrorists hijacked planes and crashed them into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
This is the first time that such security measures, including having pilots empty their pockets and scanning them with hand-held metal detectors, have been employed on domestic flights in the United States.
All four of the planes hijacked on September 11 were cross-country domestic flights, three of which were headed for Los Angeles International Airport, including American Airlines Flight 77 which originated at Dulles and was used to attack the Pentagon.
"The worst part about it is we are not being given information, and we can't make decisions to protect the aircraft," said the flight crew member.
The ALPA memo urged pilots, who also have been asked by federal officials to file reports with the union on screening methods and "unusual events during the flight," to maintain a professional demeanor and comply with all reasonable requests.
Sunday, May 02, 2004
Kerry on Kerry
Washington Times Editoral
In the midst of an international war on terrorists who have already claimed 3,000 lives on the home front, can America afford the potentially disastrous consequences of four years of on-the-job training for John Kerry? Despite repeatedly asserting throughout his presidential campaign that he brings to the race "35 years of experience in national security, foreign affairs and military affairs," Mr. Kerry has in fact compiled an abysmal record replete with poor judgments and deeply flawed policy recommendations.
Mr. Kerry first emerged on the national scene in April 1971, when, testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he issued a blanket indictment against U.S. soldiers serving in Vietnam for "war crimes committed in Southeast Asia — not isolated incidents — but [war] crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command."
Running as a candidate for the House of Representatives in 1972, Mr. Kerry declared in an interview with the Harvard Crimson: "I'm an internationalist. I would like to see our troops disperse through the world only at the directive of the United Nations." Recently confronted with those remarks by Tim Russert on "Meet the Press," Mr. Kerry disavowed them, claiming they were "one of those stupid things a 27-year-old kid says." At the time, Mr. Kerry was a Yale-educated Vietnam veteran whose earlier testimony in the Senate had established him as a national leader and spokesman for Vietnam Veterans Against the War.
Mr. Kerry ran for the Senate in 1984. That spring was at the height of the Cold War — less than six months after the United States deployed 108 nuclear-tipped Pershing 2 ballistic missiles in West Germany and nearly 500 ground-launched Tomahawk nuclear cruise missiles across Western Europe. Mr. Kerry, who at the time was Massachusetts lieutenant governor serving under Michael Dukakis, recommended chopping more than $50 billion, or nearly 20 percent, from the 1985 defense budget proposed by President Reagan and $200 billion over four years. Mr. Kerry's plan would have unilaterally canceled long-overdue upgrades in all three legs of the strategic nuclear triad, including the land-based MX missile; the Trident submarine and Trident missile system; and the B-1 bomber and B-2 stealth bomber. He would have canceled more than 20 other weapons systems, including the Patriot air-defense system, the Pershing 2 missile, the Aegis air-defense cruiser, the Navy's top-of-the-line F-14 fighter aircraft, the Air Force's premier F-15 fighter aircraft and the AH-64 Apache helicopter. His plan would have reduced 18 other systems, including the versatile Tomahawk cruise missile (which could be deployed as a conventional or nuclear weapon in air-, sea- and ground-launched modes); the Bradley Fighter Vehicle; the M1 Abrams tank; and the F-16 fighter aircraft. It is worth noting that virtually all of these conventional systems —Aegis, sea-launched cruise missiles (from both submarines and surface ships), F-14, F-15, F-16, Abrams, Bradley, Apache and Patriot — played critical roles in Afghanistan and/or Iraq (both in 1991 and today). The B-1 and B-2 strategic intercontinental bombers played vital roles flying conventional missions.
In 1984, Mr. Kerry also would have unilaterally canceled Mr. Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). No less than former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev has attested to the fact that it was Mr. Reagan's refusal to bargain away SDI at the 1986 Reykjavik summit that precipitated the Soviet Union's eventual collapse five years later, having bankrupted itself attempting to compete with American technology.
In a candid interview last year with the Boston Globe, Mr. Kerry belatedly acknowledged that some of his 1984 positions (and subsequent Senate votes) were "ill-advised, and I think some of them are stupid in the context of the world we find ourselves in right now and the things that I've learned since then." Fortunately, his views rarely prevailed. But now he wants to be commander in chief.
Moreover, notwithstanding Mr. Gorbachev's telling judgment about SDI, Mr. Kerry still insisted to the Globe that his pledge to try to unilaterally cancel SDI was sound. As recently as 1995, he voted to freeze defense spending for seven years. (His judgment was rejected on a bipartisan 71-28 vote.) And in October 2003, he voted to deny $87 billion to fund military operations andreconstructionin Afghanistan and Iraq; only a month earlier, he had declared: "I don't think any United States senator is going to abandon our troops and recklessly leave Iraq to whatever follows as a result of simply cutting and running. That's irresponsible." Yes, it is. And that's John Kerry. This time Mr. Kerry was on the losing side of an 87-12 vote.
Regarding what history has shown (and Mr. Kerry himself has explicitly acknowledged) to have been horrendous judgments in 1984 on a wide array of national-security-related issues, Mr. Kerry offers a by-now-familiar lame excuse. "I'm not ashamed of that," he told the Globe last year. "I was [40] years old, running for the United States Senate for the first time."
How many free passes does the Boston Brahmin feel he is entitled to receive? How much longer must Mr. Kerry insist on having it both ways? Despite his repeated claim to have "35 years of experience in national security, foreign affairs and military affairs," he demands the right to disassociate himself from his irresponsible views from 1972 and 1984 as if they were the idle musings of a confused child. Today, he wants to be commander in chief. His "35 years of experience" disqualify him.
I think this editorial says it all. - Mark
In the midst of an international war on terrorists who have already claimed 3,000 lives on the home front, can America afford the potentially disastrous consequences of four years of on-the-job training for John Kerry? Despite repeatedly asserting throughout his presidential campaign that he brings to the race "35 years of experience in national security, foreign affairs and military affairs," Mr. Kerry has in fact compiled an abysmal record replete with poor judgments and deeply flawed policy recommendations.
Mr. Kerry first emerged on the national scene in April 1971, when, testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he issued a blanket indictment against U.S. soldiers serving in Vietnam for "war crimes committed in Southeast Asia — not isolated incidents — but [war] crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command."
Running as a candidate for the House of Representatives in 1972, Mr. Kerry declared in an interview with the Harvard Crimson: "I'm an internationalist. I would like to see our troops disperse through the world only at the directive of the United Nations." Recently confronted with those remarks by Tim Russert on "Meet the Press," Mr. Kerry disavowed them, claiming they were "one of those stupid things a 27-year-old kid says." At the time, Mr. Kerry was a Yale-educated Vietnam veteran whose earlier testimony in the Senate had established him as a national leader and spokesman for Vietnam Veterans Against the War.
Mr. Kerry ran for the Senate in 1984. That spring was at the height of the Cold War — less than six months after the United States deployed 108 nuclear-tipped Pershing 2 ballistic missiles in West Germany and nearly 500 ground-launched Tomahawk nuclear cruise missiles across Western Europe. Mr. Kerry, who at the time was Massachusetts lieutenant governor serving under Michael Dukakis, recommended chopping more than $50 billion, or nearly 20 percent, from the 1985 defense budget proposed by President Reagan and $200 billion over four years. Mr. Kerry's plan would have unilaterally canceled long-overdue upgrades in all three legs of the strategic nuclear triad, including the land-based MX missile; the Trident submarine and Trident missile system; and the B-1 bomber and B-2 stealth bomber. He would have canceled more than 20 other weapons systems, including the Patriot air-defense system, the Pershing 2 missile, the Aegis air-defense cruiser, the Navy's top-of-the-line F-14 fighter aircraft, the Air Force's premier F-15 fighter aircraft and the AH-64 Apache helicopter. His plan would have reduced 18 other systems, including the versatile Tomahawk cruise missile (which could be deployed as a conventional or nuclear weapon in air-, sea- and ground-launched modes); the Bradley Fighter Vehicle; the M1 Abrams tank; and the F-16 fighter aircraft. It is worth noting that virtually all of these conventional systems —Aegis, sea-launched cruise missiles (from both submarines and surface ships), F-14, F-15, F-16, Abrams, Bradley, Apache and Patriot — played critical roles in Afghanistan and/or Iraq (both in 1991 and today). The B-1 and B-2 strategic intercontinental bombers played vital roles flying conventional missions.
In 1984, Mr. Kerry also would have unilaterally canceled Mr. Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). No less than former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev has attested to the fact that it was Mr. Reagan's refusal to bargain away SDI at the 1986 Reykjavik summit that precipitated the Soviet Union's eventual collapse five years later, having bankrupted itself attempting to compete with American technology.
In a candid interview last year with the Boston Globe, Mr. Kerry belatedly acknowledged that some of his 1984 positions (and subsequent Senate votes) were "ill-advised, and I think some of them are stupid in the context of the world we find ourselves in right now and the things that I've learned since then." Fortunately, his views rarely prevailed. But now he wants to be commander in chief.
Moreover, notwithstanding Mr. Gorbachev's telling judgment about SDI, Mr. Kerry still insisted to the Globe that his pledge to try to unilaterally cancel SDI was sound. As recently as 1995, he voted to freeze defense spending for seven years. (His judgment was rejected on a bipartisan 71-28 vote.) And in October 2003, he voted to deny $87 billion to fund military operations andreconstructionin Afghanistan and Iraq; only a month earlier, he had declared: "I don't think any United States senator is going to abandon our troops and recklessly leave Iraq to whatever follows as a result of simply cutting and running. That's irresponsible." Yes, it is. And that's John Kerry. This time Mr. Kerry was on the losing side of an 87-12 vote.
Regarding what history has shown (and Mr. Kerry himself has explicitly acknowledged) to have been horrendous judgments in 1984 on a wide array of national-security-related issues, Mr. Kerry offers a by-now-familiar lame excuse. "I'm not ashamed of that," he told the Globe last year. "I was [40] years old, running for the United States Senate for the first time."
How many free passes does the Boston Brahmin feel he is entitled to receive? How much longer must Mr. Kerry insist on having it both ways? Despite his repeated claim to have "35 years of experience in national security, foreign affairs and military affairs," he demands the right to disassociate himself from his irresponsible views from 1972 and 1984 as if they were the idle musings of a confused child. Today, he wants to be commander in chief. His "35 years of experience" disqualify him.
I think this editorial says it all. - Mark
Gen. Giap Thanks Kerry & Co. for Anti-war Protests
Saturday, May 1, 2004 10:57 a.m. EDT
NewsMax.com
Celebrating the 29th anniversary of the fall of Saigon, the North Vietnamese general who led his forces to victory said Friday he was grateful to leaders of the U.S. anti-war movement, one of whom was presidential candidate John Kerry.
"I would like to thank them," said Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap, now 93, without mentioning Kerry by name. "Any forces that wish to impose their will on other nations will surely fail," he added.
Reuters, which first reported Giap's comments, suggested that the former enemy general was mindful of Kerry's role in leading some of the highest-profile anti-war protests of the entire Vietnam War.
Before the British wire service quoted Gen. Giap, it noted:
"The Vietnam War, known in Vietnam as the American War, has become a hot issue in the U.S. presidential race with Democrat John Kerry drawing attention to his service and President Bush's Republicans disparaging Kerry's later anti-war stand."
North Vietnamese Col. Bui Tin, who served under Gen. Giap on the general staff of the North Vietnamese army, received South Vietnam's unconditional surrender on April 30, 1975.
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal after his retirement, Col. Tin explicitly credited leaders of the U.S. anti-war movement, saying they were "essential to our strategy."
"Every day our leadership would listen to world news over the radio at 9AM to follow the growth of the antiwar movement," Col. Tin told the Journal.
Visits to Hanoi by Kerry anti-war allies Jane Fonda and former Attorney General Ramsey Clark and others, he said, "gave us confidence that we should hold on in the face of battlefield reverses."
"We were elated when Jane Fonda, wearing a red Vietnamese dress, said at a press conference that she was ashamed of American actions in the war," the North Vietnamese military man explained.
Kerry did much the same thing in widely covered speeches such as the one he delivered to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in April 1971.
"Through dissent and protest [America] lost the ability to mobilize a will to win," Col. Tin concluded.
NewsMax.com
Celebrating the 29th anniversary of the fall of Saigon, the North Vietnamese general who led his forces to victory said Friday he was grateful to leaders of the U.S. anti-war movement, one of whom was presidential candidate John Kerry.
"I would like to thank them," said Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap, now 93, without mentioning Kerry by name. "Any forces that wish to impose their will on other nations will surely fail," he added.
Reuters, which first reported Giap's comments, suggested that the former enemy general was mindful of Kerry's role in leading some of the highest-profile anti-war protests of the entire Vietnam War.
Before the British wire service quoted Gen. Giap, it noted:
"The Vietnam War, known in Vietnam as the American War, has become a hot issue in the U.S. presidential race with Democrat John Kerry drawing attention to his service and President Bush's Republicans disparaging Kerry's later anti-war stand."
North Vietnamese Col. Bui Tin, who served under Gen. Giap on the general staff of the North Vietnamese army, received South Vietnam's unconditional surrender on April 30, 1975.
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal after his retirement, Col. Tin explicitly credited leaders of the U.S. anti-war movement, saying they were "essential to our strategy."
"Every day our leadership would listen to world news over the radio at 9AM to follow the growth of the antiwar movement," Col. Tin told the Journal.
Visits to Hanoi by Kerry anti-war allies Jane Fonda and former Attorney General Ramsey Clark and others, he said, "gave us confidence that we should hold on in the face of battlefield reverses."
"We were elated when Jane Fonda, wearing a red Vietnamese dress, said at a press conference that she was ashamed of American actions in the war," the North Vietnamese military man explained.
Kerry did much the same thing in widely covered speeches such as the one he delivered to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in April 1971.
"Through dissent and protest [America] lost the ability to mobilize a will to win," Col. Tin concluded.
New Book Details U.N. Incompetence, Scandal
Stewart Stogel
Monday, May 03, 2004
NewsMax.com
UNITED NATIONS - As U.N. officials scurry to stop publication of "Emergency Sex and Other Desperate Matters" (Miramax Books) by Kenneth Cain, Heidi Postlewait and Andrew Thomson the book’s galleys have already hit the street.
NewsMax recently reviewed the galleys.
While the book centers on the "interpersonal" relationships of the three U.N. peacekeeping employees as they traverse from one hot spot where U.N. peacekeeping operations were underway, the trio details exactly how U.N. operations work.
The picture is not a flattering one.
The book starts with the 1993 United Nations in Cambodia.
There, U.N. personnel are sent to help supervise "open" elections in the embattled nation. However, it seems more than "electioneering" was going on.
Ken Cain, a Harvard law graduate, working legal affairs for the U.N., says the world body's election personnel "looks like the international jet set on vacation."
Cain describes the U.N. personnel working in Cambodia as "young and immortal and together and drunk and stupid."
Speaking of vacations, the writers tell of sex parties in "a villa" in the capital, Phnom Penh "well known for its Friday night parties," supported by U.N. field personnel where alcohol and drugs were commonly used.
A favorite drink, called the "Space Shuttle" was made. Here’s how: "by distilling a pound of marijuana over a six-week period with increasingly good quality spirits. It is a work of love and the final product is an amber-colored liquid that tastes like Cognac. We drink it with rounds of coke."
All of this was done in the open, with senior U.N. personnel doing nothing to stop it.
Another problem in Cambodia centered around the peacekeepers themselves. It is alleged that "peacekeeping troops" sent by Bulgaria were not really military personnel at all.
The authors claim the Bulgarian government, starved for hard currency after the collapse of the Soviet Union, actually cut a deal with a score of prison inmates.
The U.N. has a policy of offering monetary compensation when a member state offers troops to peacekeeping operations. Some of the poorer nations see the U.N. policy as means to generate badly needed foreign aid.
Hence, troops become a cash crop.
In Bulgaria's case, the book alleges that prison convicts were promised "pardons" if they accepted the U.N. assignment.
"The Bulgarian government wanted the money, but didn't want to send their best trained troops. So, the story goes, they offered inmates in the prisons and psychiatric wards a deal: put on a uniform and go to Cambodia for six months, you're free on return."
Scores of criminals took the offer, given military uniforms and sent to become U.N. Blue Helmets.
Ken Cain claims the Bulgarian Blue Helmets were "hated" by everyone in Cambodia. He continues by describing them as: "A battalion of criminal lunatics (who) arrive in a lawless land. They're drunk as sailors, rape vulnerable Cambodian women and crash their U.N. Land Cruisers with remarkable frequency."
Officially, the U.N. was in Cambodia to supervise the first "open and free" elections.
Unofficially, the authors contend that the U.N. was doing all it could to make sure the existing governing power, a Vietnamese installed puppet regime, did not maintain its grip on the nation.
Andy Thomson, the medical doctor among the U.N. trio, speaks about going into a Cambodian prison in the capital with orders to get the sick inmates up and going as quick as possible.
Was this a concerted effort to stop some plague, to nurse the sick back to health? Nope. Thomson says it was simply to get the sick on their feet long enough to vote in the Cambodian election.
"U.N. lawyers have decided that inmates will be permitted to vote in the election, but an outbreak of a disease no one seems to be able to identify (later found to be Beri Beri) is wiping them out."
Thomson speaks about the sick leaving the prison proudly carrying their "voter registration cards."
Somalia and Haiti
It is mid-1993 and the intrepid U.N. trio have split for assignments in Somalia and Haiti.
Somalia, a decrepit east-African nation is in the midst of a multi- factional civil war.
Haiti is disintegrating.
In 1990, Jean-Bertrand Aristide became the county's first elected president. A year later, Arisitide is overthrown in a coup by a military-junta.
The embattled president then takes up exile in the United States where, with the help of the Clinton administration, he plans his eventual return.
In Somalia, the U.N. is called upon to provide "humanitarian relief," while in Haiti, the world body sends in a "human rights observer mission" to document "torture and execution of pro-Aristide civilians, in order to pressure General Cedras (the coup leader) from power."
The Somali effort ends in collapse.
Roller-coaster Ride
In Haiti, it is a roller-coaster ride, culminating in a massive U.S. military invasion (1994), which returned Aristide to power at gun point.
Arriving in Somalia, Ken Cain talks about meeting a "U.S. special forces guy" at Mogadishu (Somalia's capital) airport who explains:
"If you liked Beirut, you'll love Mogadishu."
The U.N.'s efforts in Somalia have been widely viewed by historians as a low point in the organization's history.
Former Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright often referred to the east African state as perfect example of a "failed nation-state."
At the U.N., its Somali efforts are often remembered by a spectacular robbery from its Mogadishu center.
In broad daylight, a safe containing more than $3.5 mil. in cash (to finance local operations) disappeared without a trace. Despite an intensive investigation by the U.N., with the assistance of Scotland Yard, the robbers were never found.
For the U.S., the Somali campaign is best remembered by the Black Hawk down incident. U.S. Special Forces lost 18 men in attempt to hunt down the infamous warlord Mohammed Farah Aidid. Several of the murdered U.S. soldiers had their body's beaten and dragged through the streets of Mogadishu.
Meanwhile, Cain, who is later joined by Postlewait, find themselves in the center of an active war zone, which they both express regrets of signing up for.
The U.N. effort is often portrayed as disorganized and corrupt.
It is no better in Haiti:
Andy Thomson, is sent by the U.N. to investigate human rights violations under the military junta of Genl Raoul Cedras.
"Here, beneath the routine bustle, something is dangerous and disconcerting. Something I can't put my finger on."
Only after a month in the country, Thomson complains, "I'm already enraged, not by the work, but being unable to work. My patients are all either headless and rotting or alive and rotting, out of reach behind prison walls."
The doctor continues, "The macoutes (gangsters) torture and we write reports and nothing changes. We're very busy and very useless."
In order to gain access to a notorious Haitian prison, where numerous prisoners are believed to be wasting away, Thomson says he decided to move on his own:
"Whatever it takes to get inside is fine with me. Condoms for the Colonel (the prison warden), antibiotics for his men-we all have our price. At least its healthier than the cigarettes we used to toss out the window to get through checkpoints in Cambodia."
When questioned about the criticisms levelled against the United Nations by the authors, David Wimhusrt, a spokesman for peacekeeping operations explained:
"The book is not an analysis of peacekeeping operations. Most of the allegations are old news and not supported by any evidence. As such, we have no comment."
Speaking of old news, the record will show that a familiar personality directed U.N. peacekeeping operations during several of the years sited in the book, Kofi Annan.
One diplomat on the Security Council concerned about the authors' allegations, confided, "I will read the book and I will be sure to ask questions."
Monday, May 03, 2004
NewsMax.com
UNITED NATIONS - As U.N. officials scurry to stop publication of "Emergency Sex and Other Desperate Matters" (Miramax Books) by Kenneth Cain, Heidi Postlewait and Andrew Thomson the book’s galleys have already hit the street.
NewsMax recently reviewed the galleys.
While the book centers on the "interpersonal" relationships of the three U.N. peacekeeping employees as they traverse from one hot spot where U.N. peacekeeping operations were underway, the trio details exactly how U.N. operations work.
The picture is not a flattering one.
The book starts with the 1993 United Nations in Cambodia.
There, U.N. personnel are sent to help supervise "open" elections in the embattled nation. However, it seems more than "electioneering" was going on.
Ken Cain, a Harvard law graduate, working legal affairs for the U.N., says the world body's election personnel "looks like the international jet set on vacation."
Cain describes the U.N. personnel working in Cambodia as "young and immortal and together and drunk and stupid."
Speaking of vacations, the writers tell of sex parties in "a villa" in the capital, Phnom Penh "well known for its Friday night parties," supported by U.N. field personnel where alcohol and drugs were commonly used.
A favorite drink, called the "Space Shuttle" was made. Here’s how: "by distilling a pound of marijuana over a six-week period with increasingly good quality spirits. It is a work of love and the final product is an amber-colored liquid that tastes like Cognac. We drink it with rounds of coke."
All of this was done in the open, with senior U.N. personnel doing nothing to stop it.
Another problem in Cambodia centered around the peacekeepers themselves. It is alleged that "peacekeeping troops" sent by Bulgaria were not really military personnel at all.
The authors claim the Bulgarian government, starved for hard currency after the collapse of the Soviet Union, actually cut a deal with a score of prison inmates.
The U.N. has a policy of offering monetary compensation when a member state offers troops to peacekeeping operations. Some of the poorer nations see the U.N. policy as means to generate badly needed foreign aid.
Hence, troops become a cash crop.
In Bulgaria's case, the book alleges that prison convicts were promised "pardons" if they accepted the U.N. assignment.
"The Bulgarian government wanted the money, but didn't want to send their best trained troops. So, the story goes, they offered inmates in the prisons and psychiatric wards a deal: put on a uniform and go to Cambodia for six months, you're free on return."
Scores of criminals took the offer, given military uniforms and sent to become U.N. Blue Helmets.
Ken Cain claims the Bulgarian Blue Helmets were "hated" by everyone in Cambodia. He continues by describing them as: "A battalion of criminal lunatics (who) arrive in a lawless land. They're drunk as sailors, rape vulnerable Cambodian women and crash their U.N. Land Cruisers with remarkable frequency."
Officially, the U.N. was in Cambodia to supervise the first "open and free" elections.
Unofficially, the authors contend that the U.N. was doing all it could to make sure the existing governing power, a Vietnamese installed puppet regime, did not maintain its grip on the nation.
Andy Thomson, the medical doctor among the U.N. trio, speaks about going into a Cambodian prison in the capital with orders to get the sick inmates up and going as quick as possible.
Was this a concerted effort to stop some plague, to nurse the sick back to health? Nope. Thomson says it was simply to get the sick on their feet long enough to vote in the Cambodian election.
"U.N. lawyers have decided that inmates will be permitted to vote in the election, but an outbreak of a disease no one seems to be able to identify (later found to be Beri Beri) is wiping them out."
Thomson speaks about the sick leaving the prison proudly carrying their "voter registration cards."
Somalia and Haiti
It is mid-1993 and the intrepid U.N. trio have split for assignments in Somalia and Haiti.
Somalia, a decrepit east-African nation is in the midst of a multi- factional civil war.
Haiti is disintegrating.
In 1990, Jean-Bertrand Aristide became the county's first elected president. A year later, Arisitide is overthrown in a coup by a military-junta.
The embattled president then takes up exile in the United States where, with the help of the Clinton administration, he plans his eventual return.
In Somalia, the U.N. is called upon to provide "humanitarian relief," while in Haiti, the world body sends in a "human rights observer mission" to document "torture and execution of pro-Aristide civilians, in order to pressure General Cedras (the coup leader) from power."
The Somali effort ends in collapse.
Roller-coaster Ride
In Haiti, it is a roller-coaster ride, culminating in a massive U.S. military invasion (1994), which returned Aristide to power at gun point.
Arriving in Somalia, Ken Cain talks about meeting a "U.S. special forces guy" at Mogadishu (Somalia's capital) airport who explains:
"If you liked Beirut, you'll love Mogadishu."
The U.N.'s efforts in Somalia have been widely viewed by historians as a low point in the organization's history.
Former Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright often referred to the east African state as perfect example of a "failed nation-state."
At the U.N., its Somali efforts are often remembered by a spectacular robbery from its Mogadishu center.
In broad daylight, a safe containing more than $3.5 mil. in cash (to finance local operations) disappeared without a trace. Despite an intensive investigation by the U.N., with the assistance of Scotland Yard, the robbers were never found.
For the U.S., the Somali campaign is best remembered by the Black Hawk down incident. U.S. Special Forces lost 18 men in attempt to hunt down the infamous warlord Mohammed Farah Aidid. Several of the murdered U.S. soldiers had their body's beaten and dragged through the streets of Mogadishu.
Meanwhile, Cain, who is later joined by Postlewait, find themselves in the center of an active war zone, which they both express regrets of signing up for.
The U.N. effort is often portrayed as disorganized and corrupt.
It is no better in Haiti:
Andy Thomson, is sent by the U.N. to investigate human rights violations under the military junta of Genl Raoul Cedras.
"Here, beneath the routine bustle, something is dangerous and disconcerting. Something I can't put my finger on."
Only after a month in the country, Thomson complains, "I'm already enraged, not by the work, but being unable to work. My patients are all either headless and rotting or alive and rotting, out of reach behind prison walls."
The doctor continues, "The macoutes (gangsters) torture and we write reports and nothing changes. We're very busy and very useless."
In order to gain access to a notorious Haitian prison, where numerous prisoners are believed to be wasting away, Thomson says he decided to move on his own:
"Whatever it takes to get inside is fine with me. Condoms for the Colonel (the prison warden), antibiotics for his men-we all have our price. At least its healthier than the cigarettes we used to toss out the window to get through checkpoints in Cambodia."
When questioned about the criticisms levelled against the United Nations by the authors, David Wimhusrt, a spokesman for peacekeeping operations explained:
"The book is not an analysis of peacekeeping operations. Most of the allegations are old news and not supported by any evidence. As such, we have no comment."
Speaking of old news, the record will show that a familiar personality directed U.N. peacekeeping operations during several of the years sited in the book, Kofi Annan.
One diplomat on the Security Council concerned about the authors' allegations, confided, "I will read the book and I will be sure to ask questions."
Saturday, May 01, 2004
Happy Birthday, Glenn Ford!
Saturday, May 1, 2004 12:08 p.m. EDT
NewsMax.com
Happy Birthday, Glenn Ford!
Today marks the 88th birthday of one of the silver screen's legendary actors – and a great American.
Glenn Ford was a rising star, one of a small group of actors who would become film immortals, but he cast it aside to answer his country’s call.
In 1942, at the age of 26, Glenn Ford, already headed for superstardom, left the glamour and big money of Hollywood behind and joined the U.S. Marine Corps as a private.
Thirty-five years – and three wars – later, he would retire as a highly decorated Navy captain.
And Ford would go on to superstardom, making over 100 films, some of them blockbusters, and costarring with filmdom’s greatest immortals.
On this day in 1916, Gwyllyn Samuel Newton Ford was born in the province of Quebec, Canada.
He got an early start as an actor, first appearing on stage at age 4 in a community production of "Tom Thumb's Wedding."
In 1924, when he was 8, his family moved to Santa Monica, Calif., where he was active in high school theatricals and community theater.
He landed his first professional theater job as a stage manager in 1934, and within a year he was acting in the West Coast company production of Lillian Hellman's "The Children's Hour."
He made his film debut in the quickie movie "Heaven with a Barbed Wire Fence" (1939) and was later signed by Columbia Pictures.
After appearing in such "B" pictures as "Blondie Plays Cupid" (1940), Ford was promoted to Columbia's "A" list.
At Columbia’s urging he changed his name to Glenn Ford, taking the name from the Canadian town Glenford.
Among his films were the blockbusters "Gilda," "The Big Heat" and "The Blackboard Jungle" and the lesser-known but equally fine movies "Ransom," "Convicted," "So Ends Our Night," "The Green Glove," "Lust for Gold," "3:10 to Yuma," "The Rounders," "Don't Go Near the Water," "The Courtship of Eddie's Father" "and Love Is a Ball."
As a Marine in World War II, Ford helped build safe houses in France for those hiding from the Nazis and was among the first Americans to enter the infamous Dachau concentration camp at war’s end.
He also served two tours of duty in Vietnam, often under enemy fire, and is the only actor to have served with both the Green Berets and the French Foreign Legion.
Among his numerous medals and commendations are the Medal of Honor, presented by the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the French Legion of Honor Medal for his service in World War II, two commendation medals from the U.S. Navy and the Vietnamese Legion of Merit.
In 1943, while in the Marines, he married the beautiful and famed dancer/actress Eleanor Powell. They had a son, Peter Newton Ford, in 1945 and were divorced in 1959.
Peter and his wife Lynda have three children: Aubrey, Ryan and Eleanor.
Glenn also was married to Kathryn Hays and Cynthia Hayward.
Peter Ford also revealed to NewsMax that his Dad had a years-long romance with his costar in six films, Rita Hayworth, his next-door neighbor.
Today Glenn is retired and, according to Peter Ford, who with his wife and family live with him in his home in Beverly Hills, keeps up with current events and is helping Peter and co-author Christopher Nickens put the final touches on their forthcoming book, "Glenn Ford: A Life in Film," due out later this year.
Son Peter is a former Los Angeles radio host who keeps active in politics and civic affairs in Southern California. And Glenn Ford's political interests will be carried on by Peter's son Ryan, who plans to eventually run for office in California.
"Dad is fine," Peter Ford told NewsMax.com, "Considering that he’s going to be 88, he’s doing well. His doctor said he’s got the constitution of a 50-year-old. He’s in remarkably good health. The writing of the book has been a collaboration between Chris Nickens, myself and Dad. Chris will come over and we show Dad’s movies and Dad will make comments. He’s certainly inputting his opinions and we’re running everything through him, so it’s almost his autobiography."
Peter told NewsMax.com that his dad keeps a close eye on the news, and that his favorite source is Sean Hannity, who he greatly admires.
According to his son, "There are only three male stars from the 1930s who are still alive – Dad, Ronald Reagan and Mickey Rooney, who started in the '20s. All the other great stars – Van Johnson, Kirk Douglas and the others – date back to the '40s."
In 1976, Glenn costarred with such film greats as Henry Fonda, Robert Mitchum, James Coburn, Eddie Albert and Hal Holbrook in the film classic "Midway," which told the story of one of history’s greatest naval victories.
Ford played Adm. Raymond Spruance, who led the U.S. naval forces in a battle that spelled the beginning of the end for Japan’s naval air power.
It was a fitting role for Glenn Ford, a fierce patriot who his son describes as "one of those Ronald Reagan, true-blue American types."
As America faces the tough fight against terrorism, Glenn the patriot had this advice for his fellow Americans: "Let's never forget that to remain free we must always be strong. That's an important lesson I learned in my Navy career in World War II. National defense must be the top priority for our country. If you are strong, you are safe. Now is the time for every American to be proud. This is the land of the free and the home of the brave. If we are not brave, we will not be free."
Happy Birthday, Glenn Ford – patriot, superstar and American giant.
SEMPER FI!
NewsMax.com
Happy Birthday, Glenn Ford!
Today marks the 88th birthday of one of the silver screen's legendary actors – and a great American.
Glenn Ford was a rising star, one of a small group of actors who would become film immortals, but he cast it aside to answer his country’s call.
In 1942, at the age of 26, Glenn Ford, already headed for superstardom, left the glamour and big money of Hollywood behind and joined the U.S. Marine Corps as a private.
Thirty-five years – and three wars – later, he would retire as a highly decorated Navy captain.
And Ford would go on to superstardom, making over 100 films, some of them blockbusters, and costarring with filmdom’s greatest immortals.
On this day in 1916, Gwyllyn Samuel Newton Ford was born in the province of Quebec, Canada.
He got an early start as an actor, first appearing on stage at age 4 in a community production of "Tom Thumb's Wedding."
In 1924, when he was 8, his family moved to Santa Monica, Calif., where he was active in high school theatricals and community theater.
He landed his first professional theater job as a stage manager in 1934, and within a year he was acting in the West Coast company production of Lillian Hellman's "The Children's Hour."
He made his film debut in the quickie movie "Heaven with a Barbed Wire Fence" (1939) and was later signed by Columbia Pictures.
After appearing in such "B" pictures as "Blondie Plays Cupid" (1940), Ford was promoted to Columbia's "A" list.
At Columbia’s urging he changed his name to Glenn Ford, taking the name from the Canadian town Glenford.
Among his films were the blockbusters "Gilda," "The Big Heat" and "The Blackboard Jungle" and the lesser-known but equally fine movies "Ransom," "Convicted," "So Ends Our Night," "The Green Glove," "Lust for Gold," "3:10 to Yuma," "The Rounders," "Don't Go Near the Water," "The Courtship of Eddie's Father" "and Love Is a Ball."
As a Marine in World War II, Ford helped build safe houses in France for those hiding from the Nazis and was among the first Americans to enter the infamous Dachau concentration camp at war’s end.
He also served two tours of duty in Vietnam, often under enemy fire, and is the only actor to have served with both the Green Berets and the French Foreign Legion.
Among his numerous medals and commendations are the Medal of Honor, presented by the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the French Legion of Honor Medal for his service in World War II, two commendation medals from the U.S. Navy and the Vietnamese Legion of Merit.
In 1943, while in the Marines, he married the beautiful and famed dancer/actress Eleanor Powell. They had a son, Peter Newton Ford, in 1945 and were divorced in 1959.
Peter and his wife Lynda have three children: Aubrey, Ryan and Eleanor.
Glenn also was married to Kathryn Hays and Cynthia Hayward.
Peter Ford also revealed to NewsMax that his Dad had a years-long romance with his costar in six films, Rita Hayworth, his next-door neighbor.
Today Glenn is retired and, according to Peter Ford, who with his wife and family live with him in his home in Beverly Hills, keeps up with current events and is helping Peter and co-author Christopher Nickens put the final touches on their forthcoming book, "Glenn Ford: A Life in Film," due out later this year.
Son Peter is a former Los Angeles radio host who keeps active in politics and civic affairs in Southern California. And Glenn Ford's political interests will be carried on by Peter's son Ryan, who plans to eventually run for office in California.
"Dad is fine," Peter Ford told NewsMax.com, "Considering that he’s going to be 88, he’s doing well. His doctor said he’s got the constitution of a 50-year-old. He’s in remarkably good health. The writing of the book has been a collaboration between Chris Nickens, myself and Dad. Chris will come over and we show Dad’s movies and Dad will make comments. He’s certainly inputting his opinions and we’re running everything through him, so it’s almost his autobiography."
Peter told NewsMax.com that his dad keeps a close eye on the news, and that his favorite source is Sean Hannity, who he greatly admires.
According to his son, "There are only three male stars from the 1930s who are still alive – Dad, Ronald Reagan and Mickey Rooney, who started in the '20s. All the other great stars – Van Johnson, Kirk Douglas and the others – date back to the '40s."
In 1976, Glenn costarred with such film greats as Henry Fonda, Robert Mitchum, James Coburn, Eddie Albert and Hal Holbrook in the film classic "Midway," which told the story of one of history’s greatest naval victories.
Ford played Adm. Raymond Spruance, who led the U.S. naval forces in a battle that spelled the beginning of the end for Japan’s naval air power.
It was a fitting role for Glenn Ford, a fierce patriot who his son describes as "one of those Ronald Reagan, true-blue American types."
As America faces the tough fight against terrorism, Glenn the patriot had this advice for his fellow Americans: "Let's never forget that to remain free we must always be strong. That's an important lesson I learned in my Navy career in World War II. National defense must be the top priority for our country. If you are strong, you are safe. Now is the time for every American to be proud. This is the land of the free and the home of the brave. If we are not brave, we will not be free."
Happy Birthday, Glenn Ford – patriot, superstar and American giant.
SEMPER FI!
Bob Woodward refutes the claim that Bush "lied" about Iraq.
REVIEW & OUTLOOK
'A Slam-Dunk Case'
Bob Woodward refutes the claim that Bush "lied" about Iraq.
OpinionJournal.com
Saturday, May 1, 2004 12:01 a.m. EDT
A funny thing has happened to the accusation that President Bush "lied" or "misled" Americans about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Bob Woodward's new book, "Plan of Attack," blows the charge away, not that you've read about that in many other places.
Instead, we've all heard mostly about the book's report that Colin Powell wasn't keen on going to war. This we already knew. The real news is what Mr. Woodward tells us about the President's state of mind concerning Iraq's weapons when he ordered American troops into battle: His Director of Central Intelligence had assured him that the WMD case was a "slam dunk."
Mr. Woodward describes a December 2002 Oval Office meeting in which CIA Director George Tenet and a deputy brief the President, Vice President, National Security Adviser and White House Chief of Staff on the status of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. According to the Woodward account, so far undisputed, Mr. Bush responded to the presentation by calling it a "nice try" but "not something that Joe Public would understand or would gain a lot of confidence from."
The President continued, "I've been told all this intelligence about having WMD and this is the best we've got?" At which point Mr. Tenet is said to have thrown his hands in the air and remarked, "It's a slam-dunk case!" Mr. Bush pressed again, "George, how confident are you?" Mr. Tenet: "Don't worry, it's a slam dunk!"
It isn't a shock, of course, that the CIA believed Iraq possessed stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction. The Clinton Administration bombed Iraq for four days in December 1998 based on that assessment. Every other major intelligence agency in the world believed the same. What is new in the Woodward account is the extent to which Mr. Bush appears to have been a thoughtful and critical consumer of such intelligence. The President reportedly told Mr. Tenet several times, "Make sure no one stretches to make our case."
All of which puts the "Bush lied" crowd in a rather awkward spot. "He misled every one of us," John Kerry has said. "He lied to me personally." Ted Kennedy: "Week after week after week after week, we were told lie after lie after lie after lie."
The fact that the Massachusetts Senators didn't have the benefit of Mr. Woodward's account when making such serious allegations isn't much of an excuse for these false claims, since as Hillary Rodham Clinton has recently attested, "The consensus was the same, from the Clinton Administration to the Bush Administration." New York's Junior Senator may owe Mr. Bush a little apology herself for suggesting he wasn't "intellectually curious" enough on this matter to seek out "contrary points of view."
We suppose Mr. Bush can be faulted for his continuing loyalty to Mr. Tenet in the face of faulty U.S. intelligence, but that's a subject for another day. The bottom line is that Mr. Woodward has revealed the campaign to accuse Mr. Bush of lying about Iraq to be false. Let's be generous and say Messrs. Kennedy and Kerry and their media friends were themselves only "misleading" Americans about their accusation based on faulty information. But if they make the charge again we'll know that they are the ones who are lying.
Seems no amount of facts will ever keep the left from wailing on how the President lied about WMDs. Of course, there is the possibility that WMDs will be found, but can any of these left wing fanatics tell anyone what exactly 6.9 tons of ricin looks like? - Mark
'A Slam-Dunk Case'
Bob Woodward refutes the claim that Bush "lied" about Iraq.
OpinionJournal.com
Saturday, May 1, 2004 12:01 a.m. EDT
A funny thing has happened to the accusation that President Bush "lied" or "misled" Americans about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Bob Woodward's new book, "Plan of Attack," blows the charge away, not that you've read about that in many other places.
Instead, we've all heard mostly about the book's report that Colin Powell wasn't keen on going to war. This we already knew. The real news is what Mr. Woodward tells us about the President's state of mind concerning Iraq's weapons when he ordered American troops into battle: His Director of Central Intelligence had assured him that the WMD case was a "slam dunk."
Mr. Woodward describes a December 2002 Oval Office meeting in which CIA Director George Tenet and a deputy brief the President, Vice President, National Security Adviser and White House Chief of Staff on the status of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. According to the Woodward account, so far undisputed, Mr. Bush responded to the presentation by calling it a "nice try" but "not something that Joe Public would understand or would gain a lot of confidence from."
The President continued, "I've been told all this intelligence about having WMD and this is the best we've got?" At which point Mr. Tenet is said to have thrown his hands in the air and remarked, "It's a slam-dunk case!" Mr. Bush pressed again, "George, how confident are you?" Mr. Tenet: "Don't worry, it's a slam dunk!"
It isn't a shock, of course, that the CIA believed Iraq possessed stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction. The Clinton Administration bombed Iraq for four days in December 1998 based on that assessment. Every other major intelligence agency in the world believed the same. What is new in the Woodward account is the extent to which Mr. Bush appears to have been a thoughtful and critical consumer of such intelligence. The President reportedly told Mr. Tenet several times, "Make sure no one stretches to make our case."
All of which puts the "Bush lied" crowd in a rather awkward spot. "He misled every one of us," John Kerry has said. "He lied to me personally." Ted Kennedy: "Week after week after week after week, we were told lie after lie after lie after lie."
The fact that the Massachusetts Senators didn't have the benefit of Mr. Woodward's account when making such serious allegations isn't much of an excuse for these false claims, since as Hillary Rodham Clinton has recently attested, "The consensus was the same, from the Clinton Administration to the Bush Administration." New York's Junior Senator may owe Mr. Bush a little apology herself for suggesting he wasn't "intellectually curious" enough on this matter to seek out "contrary points of view."
We suppose Mr. Bush can be faulted for his continuing loyalty to Mr. Tenet in the face of faulty U.S. intelligence, but that's a subject for another day. The bottom line is that Mr. Woodward has revealed the campaign to accuse Mr. Bush of lying about Iraq to be false. Let's be generous and say Messrs. Kennedy and Kerry and their media friends were themselves only "misleading" Americans about their accusation based on faulty information. But if they make the charge again we'll know that they are the ones who are lying.
Seems no amount of facts will ever keep the left from wailing on how the President lied about WMDs. Of course, there is the possibility that WMDs will be found, but can any of these left wing fanatics tell anyone what exactly 6.9 tons of ricin looks like? - Mark
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