Life in OUR America, Volume 2, The Livyjr Files Options

[Livyjr]

And this is an up-date on the supplemental "war budget" that George W. Bush is about to submit to OUR Congress so that he can keep his HOLY WAR going to some as-of-yet undefined conclusion that he euphemistically calls OUR troop's "mission", whatever in the end that might actually be, beyond dying for the continued glory of Mr. George W. Bush, and his pack of NEW CONS who are the advocates of this present-day HOLY WAR that we are embroiled in over in Iraq, right now as I write these words in here!

And please take special note of the last sentence in this following article; it is quite revealing, indeed:
 
Top Stories - Chicago Tribune

"War budget request loaded with extras"

Tue Feb 15, 9:40 AM ET   

By Stephen J. Hedges Washington Bureau

The Bush administration asked Congress on Monday to provide $82 billion to cover unbudgeted costs in the global war on terrorism, but the request includes funds for a long-planned military reorganization and for activities such as tsunami aid that are seemingly unrelated to terrorism.

Several military analysts have noted that more outside spending is creeping into the supplemental military requests, and more still may be added by Congress.

"It seems as though they're using the supplemental as a standard part of the budgeting process and it is becoming institutionalized," said Loren Thompson, who directs the Lexington Institute, a Washington-area think tank.

"It's partly because the administration isn't eager to admit that it's spending half a trillion a year on defense."

"But it's also because it has discovered that it will meet no resistance on Capitol Hill if it's spending that is characterized as being for the troops."

And while George W. Bush is emptying OUR national tresury to pay for HIS HOLY WAR, what exactly are we getting for OUR money?

And how about more ineptness from this Bush Co. crowd?

Let's look and see:

Top Stories - washingtonpost.com

"Top Iraq Rebels Elude Intensified U.S. Raids"

Tue Feb 15, 9:08 AM ET

By Bradley Graham, Washington Post Staff Writer

BAGHDAD, Feb. 14 -- Intensified military raids in Iraq over the past few months have significantly battered the ranks of mid-level insurgents but have scored few gains against the 30 or so most wanted rebels, according to senior U.S. military officers here.

As much as a third of this group is thought to move in and out of Iraq with some frequency, the officers said.

Many have eluded U.S. and Iraqi forces by a combination of moving constantly, avoiding use of telephones and receiving protection from family or tribal connections.

"Are we having success rolling up some of the top-tier leaders?"

"Not at this time," said Brig. Gen. John DeFreitas, the highest-ranking Army intelligence officer in Iraq.

"But we're successfully working the second- and third-tier leaders to put pressure on the top tier."

After a lull in the days after the Jan. 30 elections, insurgents have resumed bombings, suicide attacks and assassinations, an increasing share of them directed against Iraqi civilians and security forces.

There are now an average of about 60 attacks each day, close to the rate before the elections, according to U.S. military tallies, and most remain concentrated in Sunni Muslim-populated provinces of central and northwestern Iraq.

U.S. officers classify nearly half of the insurgency's leaders as "former regime members" -- people who were operatives of the ruling Baath Party, aides to deposed president Saddam Hussein or officers in his military and security services.

Another eight are described as associates of Abu Musab Zarqawi, the Jordanian-born insurgent leader.

Most of the rest are characterized as foreign terrorists.

Intelligence analysts continue to view the insurgency as heavily fragmented and largely the work of small guerrilla cells that lack a central command.

But the men on the military's wanted list are suspected of making important contributions in money or tactical coordination.

To better manage military and civilian intelligence efforts aimed at the insurgency's upper ranks, U.S. authorities established a special task force late last year.

The Iraqi government issued arrest warrants for 29 figures on the most-wanted list last month to enable foreign governments to seize any who surface abroad.

More recently, Lt. Gen. John Vines, commander of the 18th Airborne Corps who took over last week as the senior U.S. operational commander in Iraq, has ordered a more focused approach to tracking high-priority insurgents.

He calls it the "unblinking eye."

Predator drones, manned reconnaissance aircraft and agents on the ground are massed against a particular target to ensure round-the-clock surveillance.

Previously, commanders typically had use of these for only limited periods of time.

"Rather than spreading those assets over an entire battlefield and getting only partial views, it's much more useful to mass them on a particular target," said Col. Rich Ellis, the senior military intelligence officer for the 18th Airborne Corps.

In a world of finite assets, this approach will require commanders to set more specific target priorities and gamble on pursuing them while leaving others for later.

But military leaders here appear eager to try new methods, acknowledging that past efforts have fallen short.

In the U.S. view, the insurgency remains driven largely by Hussein loyalists bent on restoring themselves to power and preserving the dominance of the Sunni minority that existed in the Hussein years.

These people are described as operating at times in loose associations with Zarqawi's network and with other underground Islamic groups that have been blamed for some of the more spectacular suicide bombings.

U.S. claims that insurgent operations below the top level have been badly disrupted stem from stepped-up pressure that started last summer with an assault in Najaf against the Mahdi Army militia of a radical Shiite cleric, Moqtada Sadr.

That was followed by offensives against insurgents in Samarra, Fallujah, Mosul, northern Babil province and elsewhere.

The operations killed several thousand suspected insurgents and swelled the number of detainees to more than 8,000, according to U.S. figures.

U.S. and Iraqi forces seized enormous amounts of weapons as well as documents, computer files and other records said to contain intelligence leads.

U.S. commanders said that one of the biggest signs that these offensives worked was the insurgents' inability to disrupt the Jan. 30 elections.

Still, several senior officers here with access to intelligence reports said the long-term damage done to the insurgency remains difficult to gauge.

They said that the elections, which drew 58 percent of 14.6 million eligible voters, have offered a clear political alternative to the insurgents' rejection of a democratic model and have fortified resistance to violent efforts at intimidation.

Maj. Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli, commander of the 1st Cavalry Division, which patrols Baghdad, reported a surge in tips from Iraqis about local insurgent activity.

"My unblinking eye is 7 million people in Baghdad," Chiarelli said.

"That's why we keep talking about our tips line that people can call."

At the same time, officers said, the strong showings by Shiite and Kurdish parties in the voting could breathe new life into the insurgency by making Sunnis feel further excluded from power.

U.S. commanders worry that insurgents, in an attempt to foment sectarian strife, will intensify attacks on Shiite targets.

Under the circumstances, military leaders here say, political compromise and power-sharing that emerge in coming months are likely to have as much to do with shaping the security environment as in shaping a new government and constitution.

"The political outreach will have more impact on the insurgency than our military operations," one U.S. general said.

Also key, according to U.S. commanders, will be the level of cooperation from Iraq's neighbor, Syria.

Iraqi Baath Party loyalists are said to be using Syria as a base for financing and supplying the insurgents.

So the Bush administration has sought Syrian help to stop the movement of fighters and equipment across the border into Iraq and crack down on insurgent leaders in Syria.

While Syria has taken some action on the border, it has not been as aggressive against Iraqi operatives inside the country, several U.S. officers said.

Iraq authorities recently stirred speculation of a major breakthrough in the hunt for top insurgents by reporting instances in which they claimed that Zarqawi was nearly caught.

A senior U.S. commander here in a position to know, however, said he was unaware of any such case.

Having been burned in the past by grossly underestimating the size of the insurgency, military intelligence experts here now shy away from providing new estimates, at least in public.

In private they report that they are looking hard at possible new methods for assessing the size and capabilities of the armed opposition.

Ultimately, given the cultural barriers involved, the best prospects for penetrating the insurgency may come not from greater U.S. efforts but from Iraqi efforts, U.S. officers said.

As part of a renewed U.S. effort this year to beef up Iraq's security forces, a U.S. advisory team will be assigned full time to Iraq's intelligence service, and intelligence assistance teams will operate in the field with Iraqi military units, officers said.

The number of counterinsurgency raids also will rise, Vines predicted.

"But they will be by Iraqi soldiers and police," he said.

end quotes

Doesn't this sound so much like Viet Nam, that you would think that they were using that same, tired-out old playbook for press conferences on that misbegotten war for their press conferences on this Bush Co. HOLY WAR?

[rosstex]

[FONT=Times][SIZE=1]

And here is some further "development" on this important story as well, from the perspective of the Kurds:

Top Stories - The Christian Science Monitor

"Kurds emerge as power brokers"

Tue Feb 15,10:44 AM ET 

At Iraq's polls, once persecuted Kurds won prominence in new assembly.

By Dan Murphy

BAGHDAD - There was no part of Iraq more joyous than Kurdistan on Sunday.

Election results confirmed the Kurds as the second most powerful, and probably most cohesive, faction in the new assembly that will shape Iraq's future.

The rise of the Kurds, who suffered under Saddam Hussein, not only makes them important power brokers in the new Iraq but is likely to add to the strains on Iraqi unity as the country's experiment in democracy rolls forward.

In the short term, their political position could secure the presidency for Jalal Talabani, leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), and should provide a secular counterbalance to the Shiite groups that will form the largest bloc in parliament.

But as Iraq's political debate evolves, particularly over the writing of the constitution, there are also many stumbling blocks.

Senior Kurdish leaders say they're committed to remaining part of Iraq.

"Independence is impractical,'' Mr. Talabani, leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, who fought for independence for much of the last 20 years, told Reuters on Sunday.

But the independence yearnings of his followers, and the demands they are making for expanded territory and more of Iraq's oil revenues, could bring them into conflict with the demands of the country's now dominant Arab Shiites and minority Sunni Arabs, particularly over the flashpoint city of Kirkuk.

That was brought home by the celebrations in the cities of autonomous Kurdistan and in the oil-rich city of Kirkuk on Sunday, where Kurds poured into the streets and waved not Iraq's flag but their own, a symbol of an 80-year struggle for independence.

The Kurdish rise also emphasizes the weak position of Iraq's Sunni Arab minority, who ruled the country since its creation in the 1920s, and who mostly boycotted the election.

Sunni Arab fighters have been at the heart of Iraq's raging war, and their exclusion from government means it's unlikely they'll stop fighting any time soon.

"I think most Sunnis are extremely frustrated and I think there's a lot of support among them for the insurgency,'' says Kenneth Katzman, an expert on Iraq and Iran for the Congressional Research Service in Washington.

"Not only are they no longer No. 1 in Iraq, they're not even No. 2."

Mr. Katzman says the Kurdish rise, given their overt independence sentiments and desire to incorporate Kirkuk into their autonomous region, could end up opening another front in Iraq's war.

"I think it's very problematic,'' he says, adding that a Kurdish push for Kirkuk is probably "just a matter of time."

"And that could draw in other communities and could be a spark that sets this whole thing off."

The Kurdish position could also build an essential weakness into Iraq's interim arrangements, since it establishes a group that has traditionally been hostile to the Iraqi state as major player in shaping that state's new order.

The Kurds' 75 seats in the 275-member national assembly leaves them second only to the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA), a coalition of mostly Islamist Shiite parties that won 140 seats.

Since rules for forming a government require a two-thirds majority, this points to a natural alliance between the Kurds and the Shiites.

The two groups' views differ vastly on everything from Islam (the Shiites hope it will form the principal basis for Iraq's laws while the Kurds want a secular state), to the status of Kirkuk (Shiites say giving up the city is unacceptable, while the Kurds say they want it to be the capital of their homeland).

But some Shiite and Kurdish politicians expect a short-term alliance to be possible.

Hamid al-Bayati, a top political adviser for the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), one of the two main Shiite parties in the UIA, says a federal system that allows broad control over local laws could be the answer.

He says that any three provinces that want to form a federation could be allowed to do so, and that in practice, Shiite areas in the south that want sharia (Islamic law) would be allowed to do so while the Kurds, who currently control three provinces, would be free to hew to a more secular line.

"Some people are worried about federalism, but we think this will unite the country and not divide it."

But Kirkuk, he says, is not up for discussion.

The Kurds are a sprawling and diverse ethnic group with communities in northern Iran, southern Turkey, and Syria, and are mostly defined by similarities in their languages.

Kurds in all places have periodically fought central power, most frequently in Iraq and Turkey.

Iraq's Kurds were hammered by Mr. Hussein's army in the 1980s and 1990s for their independence sentiments, with villages destroyed and poison gas used against the population.

That has left them with an abiding distrust of the Iraqi state and with two strong militia groups of their own that have gained in influence since the fall of Hussein.

"Look at the election - there wasn't a single Kurdish poster to be found in Baghdad,'' says Ghassan Attiya, a political scientist and secular politician.

"The Kurds want nothing to do with Arabs."

One area in which the Kurds and the Shiites do have similar backgrounds is relations with Iran.

This is something that could complicate the US involvement here as time goes on.

"This is a big issue."

"We know that many of the parties in the new government are supported by the Iranians,'' says Iyad al-Sammarai, spokesman for the Iraqi Islamic Party, a religious Sunni Arab group that boycotted the election.

Both SCIRI and the Dawa Party - the other major religious Shiite party - were sponsored by Iran in the 1980s and 1990s and thousands of the groups followers came home from exile there after the fall of Hussein.

"For SCIRI the ties are very deep."

"They won't necessarily take orders from Iran, but the relationship can be meaningful in many ways,'' says Katzman.

"The new government may stand up for Iran in international bodies when it takes heat on nuclear issues and other matters."

[rosstex]

It would seem that we will have a problem on the Iraq/Turkey border as the Kurds decide to have their own country developing.

This post has been edited by rosstex: Feb 16 2005, 01:24 AM

[jeffmoskin]

It would seem that we will have a problem on the Iraq/Turkey border as the Kurds decide to have their own country developing.

Turkey will never allow it. "Kurdistan" was promised by the Brits at the end of WW I, but when the maps were redrawn, somehow it got left out, mainly because the Brits owed the Hashemite family big time.

The result was that they gave them Iraq and TransJordan, leaving nothing for the Kurds.

My guess is that the Kurds will be happy to keep autonomy in northern Iraq, a very attainable goal. And they have a major oil well there.

The Shi'is have oil in Mosul.

The Sunnis have nothing. That is why theyy sat out the elections; that is why they will not go quietly after living high on the hog fot 80 years.

They are not willing to be the burger flippers in the "New Iraq."

[Livyjr]

It would seem that we will have a problem on the Iraq/Turkey border as the Kurds decide to have their own country developing.

And that is going to be an interesting thing to watch develop, indeed!

I believe I tend to agree with you that the Kurds would like to unite their own country, but as jeffmoskin points out, the Turks will be very much against that, which will then make life quite interesting for the Bush Co.'s, or whoever else might be in there by the time that effort becomes more overt, if in fact it is going to.

So, that IS one of the issues that I intend to monitor in here, for the reasons that you state - i.e., the problems that will arise, and what neighboring nations will try and do to squelch that move.

And jeffmoskin's point about them, the Kurds, remaining in Iraq, but becoming as autonomous as possible, especially if Iraq forms a federal government, might be an attractive alternative to the Kurds seeking complete and total independence, so, we shall wait and see!

But I myself am not accepting any arguments from Washington, D.C. that any kind of peace over there in the Middle East is waiting right around the corner, elections in Iraq, notwithstanding.

I think something has been started over there now, much more than anything has been ended, and it just might prove quite interesting for all of us here in OUR America, especially if Bush Co. ends up having solidified opposition to America in that part of the world by his actions in the Middle East to date, including the abu Ghraib business, which is now under the rug, but far from over, as well, I think, in terms of its overall negative impact to the image of what America is viewed as by the rest of the candid world, who, like us, are watching and waiting to see what will happen next in this world of OURS, thanks to the Bush Co.'s.

SO!

Thank you for the post, and welcome!

[Livyjr]

But I myself am not accepting any arguments from Washington, D.C. that any kind of peace over there in the Middle East is waiting right around the corner, elections in Iraq, notwithstanding.

I think something has been started over there now, much more than anything has been ended, and it just might prove quite interesting for all of us here in OUR America, especially if Bush Co. ends up having solidified opposition to America in that part of the world by his actions in the Middle East to date, including the abu Ghraib business, which is now under the rug, but far from over, as well, I think, in terms of its overall negative impact to the image of what America is viewed as by the rest of the candid world, who, like us, are watching and waiting to see what will happen next in this world of OURS, thanks to the Bush Co.'s. 

SO!

Thank you for the post, and welcome!

And speaking of things having been "set loose" over there in the Middle East, thanks to the image of OUR America that the Bush Co.'s are now projecting out there in the world, we have this following, which makes life in OUR America these days just a touch more interesting:

Top Stories - AP

"Iran, Syria to Form 'United Front'"

2 hours, 45 minutes ago

TEHRAN, Iran - Iran and Syria, who both are facing pressure from the United States, said Wednesday they will form a "united front" to confront possible threats against them, state-run television reported.

"In view of the special conditions faced by Syria, Iran will transfer its experience, especially concerning sanctions, to Syria," Mohammad Reza Aref, Iran's first vice president, was quoted as saying after meeting Syrian Prime Minister Mohammad Naji Otari.

"At this sensitive point, the two countries require a united front due to numerous challenges."

Otari concurred, saying, "The challenges we face in Syria and Iran require us to be in one front to confront all the challenges imposed (on us) by others."

The report did not specifically mention the challenges, but both countries are under U.S. economic sanctions and the targets of intense American pressure.

Iran, which President Bush had labeled an "axis of evil" with North Korea and prewar Iraq, was named an "outpost of tyranny" last month by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

The United States has accused Iran of seeking to produce nuclear weapons, while relations with Syria have deteriorated, especially since Monday's assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

Many Lebanese blamed Monday's car bombing in Beirut on Syria, but the Syrian government has denied responsibility.

Washington is recalling its ambassador from Syria in apparent response to Hariri's killing.

Washington also accuses Syria of aiding anti-Israeli militants and supporting insurgents in Iraq.

Tehran and Damascus have been strategic allies for years.

Syria was the only Arab country that continued its warm relations with Iran during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war.

[Livyjr]

And speaking of things having been "set loose" over there in the Middle East, thanks to the image of OUR America that the Bush Co.'s are now projecting out there in the world, we have this following, which makes life in OUR America these days just a touch more interesting:

Top Stories - AP

"Iran, Syria to Form 'United Front'"

TEHRAN, Iran - Iran and Syria, who both are facing pressure from the United States, said Wednesday they will form a "united front" to confront possible threats against them, state-run television reported.

"In view of the special conditions faced by Syria, Iran will transfer its experience, especially concerning sanctions, to Syria," Mohammad Reza Aref, Iran's first vice president, was quoted as saying after meeting Syrian Prime Minister Mohammad Naji Otari.

"At this sensitive point, the two countries require a united front due to numerous challenges."

Otari concurred, saying, "The challenges we face in Syria and Iran require us to be in one front to confront all the challenges imposed (on us) by others."

The report did not specifically mention the challenges, but both countries are under U.S. economic sanctions and the targets of intense American pressure.

And here is a necessary companion story to this one directly above, as well as the continuing story of OUR involvement in this Holy War of the Bush Co's in Iraq, with its attendent emptying of OUR national treasury, for reasons which follow:

Top Stories - AP

"U.S. Spending More Per Soldier Than Ever"

2 hours, 42 minutes ago

By JOHN J. LUMPKIN, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - With military costs since Sept. 11, 2001, now expected to exceed $300 billion, the Pentagon is spending more per soldier to fight in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere than it did during earlier conflicts.

High technology, the costs of paying and protecting a modern soldier, and the worldwide nature of the war on terrorism are all possible reasons, experts say.

"Every facet of military expenditure has skyrocketed since the Gulf War," said Loren B. Thompson, a military expert with the Lexington Institute.

"The biggest reason why is because the military is more and more a microcosm of the broader economy."

The all-volunteer force, put in place by President Nixon in 1973 to replace the draft, has forced the military to compete with the private sector for soldiers, and offer better pay and benefits, he said.

Sending those soldiers to war costs still more.

"The bottom-line problem with the all-volunteer force is you have to convince middle-class people to risk their lives for middle-class pay, so of course the price for each soldier keeps going up," he said.

According to government figures, the war in Iraq costs about $4.3 billion a month, and the war in Afghanistan runs another $800 million.

That money goes for a variety of things, including fuel, ammunition, hazard pay for the soldiers and repair and replacement of weapons and vehicles.

On average, the government spent a similar amount monthly on the Vietnam War between 1965 and 1975, according to figures, adjusted for inflation, from the Congressional Research Service.

However, that figure is somewhat skewed, as the Vietnam War was far more costly at its height early in the war, from 1967 to 1970, than it was in the later years, when the U.S. presence was reduced.

The Bush administration similarly hopes it can reduce the U.S. troop presence in Iraq in the coming year or two, if Iraqi security forces become more able to handle the insurgency.

The United States spent $623 billion on the Vietnam conflict, according to the service, using figures adjusted for inflation.

If President Bush's new $81.9 billion emergency request is implemented, U.S. war costs since the Sept. 11 attacks will approach half that.

Still, the United States has 170,000 troops deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, but that will drop to 155,000 or fewer in the coming weeks due to a small postelection drawdown in Iraq.

During the height of the Vietnam War, more than half a million U.S. soldiers were stationed in Southeast Asia.

Experts offered several reasons why post-Sept. 11 warfare has provided much more expensive per soldier than earlier conflicts:

_The U.S. military is more professional and capable than it was 30 years ago, when a significant portion of the soldiers in Vietnam were draftees.

Now, it includes far more highly trained technicians running expensive computers and other gear.

They are better paid, better trained, better equipped than their predecessors.

"We have a much better military than we had back then."

"We spend more on some kinds of support functions than we did back then," said Steven M. Kosiak at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

_The military is relying much more on Guard and Reserves than it has in the past during extended conflicts.

Their pay comes from the emergency war spending measures, rather than the regular defense budget.

_The desert conditions of Iraq are wearing on vehicles at a much greater rate than expected, forcing more spending on repairs and replacements.

_Combat deaths are down compared to previous conflicts, owing to better training, better body and vehicle armor and quick access to emergency medical care, all of which are expensive investments.

The U.S. military is also using automated systems in dangerous jobs that people once performed.

_The global war on terror and the war in Iraq — lumped together by the Bush administration but not by those who opposed the Iraqi invasion — are far-flung ventures that involve protracted deployments to many countries, requiring lots of transport, logistics and communications to many places.

U.S. troops have also been sent in smaller numbers to Georgia, Djibouti and the Philippines, among others, to oppose Islamic extremist groups.

The Bush administration has been financing the wars through a series of emergency spending measures, all paid for with borrowed money.

Including reconstruction spending, those have totaled $228 billion in approved spending.

The latest emergency proposal, $81.9 billion, includes $74.9 billion for the Defense Department.

It includes some $12 billion that was requested to replace or repair worn-out and damaged equipment, including $3.3 billion for extra armor for trucks and other protective gear — underscoring a sensitivity to earlier complaints by troops.

The total request exceeds the annual defense budget of every other country in the world, according to figures supplied by the Center for Defense Information.

The organization says Russia, with the second-largest military budget, spends $65 billion a year.

[jeffmoskin]

...having solidified opposition to America in that part of the world by his actions in the Middle East to date, including the abu Ghraib business, which is now under the rug, but far from over, as well, I think, in terms of its overall negative impact to the image of what America is viewed as by the rest of the candid world, who, like us, are watching and waiting to see what will happen next in this world of OURS, thanks to the Bush Co.'s...\

Abu Ghraib, while missing from American Corporate Propaganda Media, airs 24/7 on Al Jazeera and Al Arabya.

TEHRAN, Iran - Iran and Syria, who both are facing pressure from the United States, said Wednesday they will form a "united front" to confront possible threats against them, state-run television reported.

"In view of the special conditions faced by Syria, Iran will transfer its experience, especially concerning sanctions, to Syria," Mohammad Reza Aref, Iran's first vice president, was quoted as saying after meeting Syrian Prime Minister Mohammad Naji Otari.

"At this sensitive point, the two countries require a united front due to numerous challenges."

Otari concurred, saying, "The challenges we face in Syria and Iran require us to be in one front to confront all the challenges imposed (on us) by others."

The report did not specifically mention the challenges, but both countries are under U.S. economic sanctions and the targets of intense American pressure.

Iran, which President Bush had labeled an "axis of evil" with North Korea and prewar Iraq, was named an "outpost of tyranny" last month by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

The United States has accused Iran of seeking to produce nuclear weapons, while relations with Syria have deteriorated, especially since Monday's assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

Many Lebanese blamed Monday's car bombing in Beirut on Syria, but the Syrian government has denied responsibility.

Washington is recalling its ambassador from Syria in apparent response to Hariri's killing.

Washington also accuses Syria of aiding anti-Israeli militants and supporting insurgents in Iraq.

Tehran and Damascus have been strategic allies for years.

Syria was the only Arab country that continued its warm relations with Iran during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war.

Old middle eastern saying, "The enemy of my enemy is my friend."

See, George W Bush really IS a uniter, not a divider. He is uniting Syria and Iran...

AGAINST US.

[Abu Beacon]

Abu Ghraib, while missing from American Corporate Propaganda Media, airs 24/7 on Al Jazeera and Al Arabya.

Old middle eastern saying, "The enemy of my enemy is my friend."

See, George W Bush really IS a uniter, not a divider. He is uniting Syria and Iran...

AGAINST US.

Jeff Moskin -----

Yoi have a gift in defining in just a few words what the point of the discussion is all about. It makes me realize just how long winded I am most of the time.

Also, I get a lot of chuckles in reading your comments.

And that's a good thing!

A.B.

[Livyjr]

And here is a necessary companion story to this one directly above, as well as the continuing story of OUR involvement in this Holy War of the Bush Co's in Iraq, with its attendent emptying of OUR national treasury, for reasons which follow:

Top Stories - AP

"U.S. Spending More Per Soldier Than Ever"

By JOHN J. LUMPKIN, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - With military costs since Sept. 11, 2001, now expected to exceed $300 billion, the Pentagon is spending more per soldier to fight in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere than it did during earlier conflicts.

High technology, the costs of paying and protecting a modern soldier, and the worldwide nature of the war on terrorism are all possible reasons, experts say.

"Every facet of military expenditure has skyrocketed since the Gulf War," said Loren B. Thompson, a military expert with the Lexington Institute.

"The biggest reason why is because the military is more and more a microcosm of the broader economy."

The all-volunteer force, put in place by President Nixon in 1973 to replace the draft, has forced the military to compete with the private sector for soldiers, and offer better pay and benefits, he said.

Sending those soldiers to war costs still more.

"The bottom-line problem with the all-volunteer force is you have to convince middle-class people to risk their lives for middle-class pay, so of course the price for each soldier keeps going up," he said.

According to government figures, the war in Iraq costs about $4.3 billion a month, and the war in Afghanistan runs another $800 million.

And while we are spending BILLIONS OF DOLLARS A MONTH on Bush Co.'s HOLY WAR, how are we really doing in the Bush Co.'s alleged "WAR on TAY-RAH"?

Or doesn't anyone in this Bush Co. regime really know?

White House - AP Cabinet & State

"Officials Warn of Future Terror Attacks"

29 minutes ago

By KATHERINE SHRADER, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - Speaking with one voice, President Bush's top intelligence and military officials said Wednesday that terrorists are regrouping for possible new strikes against the United States.

They said the best defense was for Congress to approve the president's military and anti-terror budget.

But some in Congress, including prominent Republicans, were questioning some of that spending.

Offering few specifics on terror threats, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld told a House hearing that the government could reasonably predict attacks would come from terrorism, weapons of mass destruction and other means.

Meanwhile, new CIA Director Porter Goss told the Senate Intelligence Committee the Iraq war was giving terrorists experience and contacts for future attacks, and FBI Director Robert Mueller expressed worry that a sleeper operative in the U.S. may have been in place for years, awaiting orders for an attack.

"I remain very concerned about what we are not seeing," Mueller said in remarks he submitted to the senators.

Rumsfeld told the House Armed Services Committee that the proposed $419 billion defense package for 2006 would set an ambitious course to "continue prosecuting the war and to attack its ideological underpinnings."

Yet the Republican-controlled Congress may exercise its considerable authority over federal spending and reject White House requests to simply sign the checks.

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and Rep. Jerry Lewis, R-Calif., the new chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, said lawmakers were questioning billions in foreign aid and State Department spending that Bush requested in an emergency bill this week.

DeLay, R-Texas, said some of Bush's foreign aid proposals "probably do not qualify" for the expedited treatment he's seeking.

The current congressional debate over how to allocate billions of dollars on initiatives aimed at spreading peace and ensuring security follows three years of massive spending in response to the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Senior administration officials appearing at a series of congressional hearings Wednesday described a Muslim extremist threat that's become more diffuse, encompassing al-Qaida and like-minded associates.

Goss said al-Qaida remains intent on circumventing U.S. security measures and attacking the United States.

"It may be only a matter of time before al-Qaida or other groups attempt to use chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear weapons," Goss said at the Senate Intelligence Committee's annual hearing on threats.

In his first testimony as CIA chief, Goss said the Iraq conflict has become a cause for extremists.

"Those jihadists who survive will leave Iraq experienced in and focused on acts of urban terrorism."

"They represent a potential pool of contacts to build transnational terrorist cells, groups and networks," Goss said.

Even as terrorism remained at the forefront, senior diplomatic and intelligence officials outlined a number of countries that pose conventional diplomatic, military and intelligence problems to the United States.

Goss said North Korea continues to "develop, produce, deploy and sell ballistic missiles of increasing range and sophistication."

He said the secretive regime could "at any time" resume flight testing of a long-range missile capable of reaching the United States with a nuclear payload.

Iran, too, is further improving its Shahab-3 long-range ballistic missile, which has a range of more than 800 miles, Goss said.

In written testimony, Vice Adm. Lowell Jacoby, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, said he believes Iran will continue its support for terrorism and aid for insurgents in Iraq.

"Iran's long-term goal is to see the U.S. leave Iraq and the region," he said.

Speaking to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice blamed Syria for having undermined stability in neighboring Lebanon.

On Monday, a massive car bomb explosion in downtown Beirut killed former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

"The Syrians (have) a special responsibility for the kind of destabilization that happened there, that this sort of thing could happen," said Rice, who also blamed Syria for contributing to the insurgency in Iraq and endangering U.S. forces.

Rice laid out a menu of spending initiatives, including $658 million for a new embassy compound in Baghdad, $1.2 billion for U.S. obligations to international organizations and $5.8 billion in assistance to U.S. partners in the war on terror.

Grim at times, the appraisals on threats to the United States indicated the second Bush term would remain fraught with warnings but often short on specifics shared with the public.

During the presidential campaign last year, the Bush-Cheney team often warned vaguely of terror threats.

Still, officials attempted to balance alarm with caution Wednesday.

Rumsfeld noted U.S. successes in building a 90-nation anti-terror coalition, putting a squeeze on terror financing and eliminating two-thirds of al-Qaida's leadership.

But "it isn't over."

"It's going to take a while," Rumsfeld said.

"It is a very serious business we're in."

end quotes

And yes, it is, there, Donald!

And when exactly did that lesson come home to you?

Yesterday?

[Livyjr]

Jeff Moskin -----

You have a gift in defining in just a few words what the point of the discussion is all about.

Also, I get a lot of chuckles in reading your comments.

And that's a good thing!

A.B.

EXPOSITION:

a) a setting forth of the meaning or purpose;

a discourse, or an example of it designed to convey information or explain what is difficult to understand!

EXPOSITOR: one who expounds or explains!

jeffmoskin is an expositor, and a good one, at that, and I too, A.B., am glad that he is in here with us, making his posts in counter-point to my own, as jeffmoskin does have a knack to see into the heart of many matters in here, and with just a few words, he sure can separate wheat from chaff, and thereby get the meat of an issue right up on the table where it belongs!

And, yes, I too often get a chuckle from jeffmoskin's writings, and yes, that is a good thing, indeed!

This post has been edited by Livyjr: Feb 16 2005, 06:16 PM

[Livyjr]

Abu Ghraib, while missing from American Corporate Propaganda Media, airs 24/7 on Al Jazeera and Al Arabya.

Old middle eastern saying, "The enemy of my enemy is my friend."

See, George W Bush really IS a uniter, not a divider.

He is uniting Syria and Iran...

AGAINST US.

And here IS the heart of the matter!

[Livyjr]

And while that is going on, we have:

White House - AP

"Bush Pushes Computerized Medical Records"

By TOM RAUM, Associated Press Writer

CLEVELAND - President Bush returned to the state that helped seal his re-election victory to pitch his second-term health agenda, urging greater use of computerized medical records and electronic prescriptions.

He said medical record-keeping, where most prescriptions and many medical documents are still handwritten, lags that of other industries.

"Most industries in America have used information technology to make their businesses more cost effective, more efficient and more productive — and the truth of the matter is health care hasn't," Bush said.

Bush also said ways must be found to safeguard medical records to protect against "people prying into them."

end quotes

What on earth is it with this guy?

He's got a million messes all over the place already that he is not attending to, and now, he's out there looking to create even more!

Bush also said ways must be found to safeguard medical records to protect against "people prying into them."

SIMPLE, George, don't put them on computers!

I don't want my medical records on some computer system.

My medical records are kept just fine, already!

SO!

Keep your clumsy hands off them; and likely they'll stay that way!

Thank you very much!

And here I am just returning from Volume I of "Life in OUR America", where I just retrieved this story above, on the Bush Co.'s plan to computerize even more of OUR personal data, thus making it available and accessible to identity thieves, as this next chilling story shows can be, and in fact, is the case, with data about us that is presently stored on computers, and sold, or traded as a kind of "commodity", out there in the real world:

Spam, Scams & Viruses

"ChoicePoint urged to make wider disclosure - More victims surface in data theft case; suspect arrested"

By Bob Sullivan, Technology correspondent
MSNBC

Updated: 4:29 p.m. ET Feb. 16, 2005

NEW YORK - A New York state legislator is calling on database giant ChoicePoint to reveal a wider list of consumers impacted by a recent data theft at the firm involving thousands of consumers.

Atlanta-based ChoicePoint maintains and sells background files on virtually every adult American, culled from millions of public and private records.

Last week, the firm sent some 35,000 letters to California residents telling them their personal data may have been stolen by criminals who set up fake companies and downloaded information from ChoicePoint.

The incident was first revealed by MSNBC.com on Monday.

So far, only California residents have been told their information may have been stolen, but experts believe the fraud likely involved consumers around the country.

California state law requires disclosure of such data leaks, but it is the only state in the country to do so.

Similar laws have been proposed in several other states, including New York.

James Brennan (D-Brooklyn), sponsor of New York's disclosure law, says ChoicePoint should inform New York state residents if their personal information was exposed during the incident.

"California law requires that identity theft victims be given a chance to limit their losses by prompt notification."

"New York has no such law."

"I’m calling on ChoicePoint to tell us now if there was exposure for New York residents," Brennan said.

Brennan also called for New York state government offices to suspend existing contracts with ChoicePoint -- including an $800,000 deal with the state's Office for General Services -- until the firm agrees to notify New York residents.

ChoicePoint did not immediately respond to requests for reaction to Brennan's statements.

750 victims surface

Criminals tricked ChoicePoint by posing as legitimate businesses to gain access to the various ChoicePoint database, which contains a treasure trove of consumer data, including names, addresses, Social Security numbers, credit reports and other information.

At least 50 suspicious accounts had been opened in the name of nonexistent debt collectors, insurance agencies and other companies, according to the company.

Experts said the scope of the crime is almost certainly nationwide.

“I’ve never heard of a hacker doing something just to make a company comply with a state statute — that’s ridiculous,” Nick Akerman, partner and co-chair of the computer fraud division of law firm Dorsey & Whitney, told the Associated Press.

“It’d be like robbing a bank that wasn’t FDIC insured so the robber wouldn’t have to be prosecuted by the FBI.”

Already, a number of data-leak victims have discovered they have been hit by identity theft.

A report Wednesday in the Los Angeles Times said authorities have identified 750 people whose personal information was stolen and used to buy jewelry, consumer electronics and computers.

After ChoicePoint discovered in October that unidentified persons had created sham companies to access its databases, sheriff’s investigators set up a sting operation that resulted in the arrest of a Nigerian man who had been living in Southern California, the report said.

ChoicePoint spokesman James Lee acknowledged Monday that the company last week notified between 30,000 and 35,000 consumers in California that their personal data may have been accessed by "unauthorized third parties."

But in the Times article, Lee was quoted as saying the number of victims nationwide could total 100,000, though the thieves are believed to have obtained fewer than 10,000 full credit reports.

‘This is extraordinarily serious’

“This is the worst in our seven years,” the Times quoted him as saying.

“This is extraordinarily serious.”

The Times said that Los Angeles County sheriff’s investigators caught one suspect after ChoicePoint received a suspicious application for an account faxed from a Kinko’s in Southern California.

The company sent a responding fax requesting a new signature, and deputies who had staked out the store arrested Olatunji Oluwatosin, 41, when he arrived to pick up the fax, the newspaper said.

Oluwatosin, who is originally from Nigeria but had been living in North Hollywood, according to the Times, has been charged with six felony identity theft counts and is being held in lieu of $2 million bail.

The suspect told investigators he was not involved in any identity theft scam and was only picking up the fax for someone else, it said.

Oluwatosin is scheduled to appear in Los Angeles County Court on Thursday.

California consumers who received the letter from ChoicePoint expressed frustration; many had never heard of the firm before receiving the alarming letter.

"How dare they even try to make money using my Social Security Number in the first place," wrote one in an e-mail to MSNBC.com.

He requested anonymity.

"Where did they get it from?"

"I certainly didn't give it to them; I never heard of them before receiving the letter."

"In fact, I almost threw it out unopened, because I thought it was going to be a credit card solicitation or a reduced rate mortgage scam."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

[jeffmoskin]

"ChoicePoint urged to make wider disclosure - More victims surface in data theft case; suspect arrested"

Ahhh, ChoicePoint!

A name from the past.

A name that shall live in infamy.

Not having an honest press here in OUR America, from accross the Pond comes Greg Palast, reporter for the UK Guardian, author of "The best Government Money Can Buy:"

Here's is how the Bush family stole Florida from Al Gore:




Florida's flawed "voter-cleansing" program - Salon.com's politics story of the year
www.Salon.com
Monday, December 4, 2000
If Vice President Al Gore is wondering where his Florida votes went, rather than sift through a pile of chad, he might want to look at a "scrub list" of 173,000 names targeted to be knocked off the Florida voter registry by a division of the office of Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris. A close examination suggests thousands of voters may have lost their right to vote based on a flaw-ridden list that included purported "felons" provided by a private firm with tight Republican ties.

Early in the year, the company, ChoicePoint, gave Florida officials a list with the names of 8,000 ex-felons to "scrub" from their list of voters.

But it turns out none on the list were guilty of felonies, only misdemeanors. The company acknowledged the error, and blamed it on the original source of the list -- the state of Texas.

Florida officials moved to put those falsely accused by Texas back on voter rolls before the election. Nevertheless, the large number of errors uncovered in individual counties suggests that thousands of eligible voters may have been turned away at the polls.

Florida is the only state that pays a private company that promises to "cleanse" voter rolls.The state signed in 1998 a $4 million contract with DBT Online, since merged into ChoicePoint, of Atlanta. The creation of the scrub list, called the central voter file, was mandated by a 1998 state voter fraud law, which followed a tumultuous year that saw Miami's mayor removed after voter fraud in the election, with dead people discovered to have cast ballots. The voter fraud law required all 67 counties to purge voter registries of duplicate registrations, deceased voters and felons, many of whom, but not all, are barred from voting in Florida.

In the process, however, the list invariably targets a minority population in Florida, where 31 percent of all black men cannot vote because of a ban on felons. In compiling a list by looking at felons from other states, Florida could, in the process, single out citizens who committed felons in other states but, after serving their time or successfully petitioning the courts, had their voting rights returned to them. According to Florida law, felons can vote once their voting rights have been reinstated.

And if this unfairly singled out minorities, it unfairly handicapped Gore: In Florida, 93 percent of African-Americans voted for the vice president.

In the 10 counties contacted by Salon, use of the central voter file seemed to vary wildly. Some found the list too unreliable and didn't use it at all. But most counties appear to have used the file as a resource to purge names from their voter rolls, with some counties making little -- or no -- effort at all to alert the "purged" voters. Counties that did their best to vet the file discovered a high level of errors, with as many as 15 percent of names incorrectly identified as felons.

News coverage has focused on some maverick Florida counties that decided not to use the central voter file, essentially breaking the law and possibly letting some ineligible felons vote.

On Friday, the Miami Herald reported that after researching voter records in 12 Florida counties -- but primarily in Palm Beach and Duval counties, which didn't use the file -- it found that more than 445 felons had apparently cast ballots in the presidential election.

But Palm Beach and Duval weren't the only counties to dump the list after questioning its accuracy. Madison County's elections supervisor, Linda Howell, had a peculiarly personal reason for distrusting the central voter file: She had received a letter saying that since she had committed a felony, she would not be allowed to vote.

Howell, who said she has never committed a felony, said the letter she received in March shook her faith in the process. "It really is a mess," she said.

"I was very upset," Howell said. "I know I'm not a felon." Though the mistake did get corrected and law enforcement officials were quite apologetic, Howell decided not to use the state list anymore because its "information is so flawed." She's unsure of the number of warning letters that were sent out to county residents when she first received the list in 1999, but she recalls that there were many problems. "One day we would send a letter to have someone taken off the rolls, and the next day, we would send one to put them back on again," Howell said. "It makes you look like you must be a dummy."

Dixie and Washington counties also refused to use the scrub lists. Starlet Cannon, Dixie's deputy assistant supervisor of elections, said, "I'm scared to work with it because of lot of the information they have on there is not accurate."

Carol Griffin, supervisor of elections for Washington, said, "It hasn't been accurate in the past, so we had no reason to suspect it was accurate this year."

But if some counties refused to use the list altogether, others seemed to embrace it all too enthusiastically. Etta Rosado, spokeswoman for the Volusia County Department of Elections, said the county essentially accepted the file at face value, did nothing to confirm the accuracy of it and doesn't inform citizens ahead of time that they have been dropped from the voter rolls.

"When we get the con felon list, we automatically start going through our rolls on the computer. If there's a name that says John Smith was convicted of a felony, then we enter a notation on our computer that says convicted felon -- we mark an "f" for felon -- and the date that we received it," Rosado said. "They're still on our computer, but they're on purge status," meaning they have been marked ineligible to vote.

"I don't think that it's up to us to tell them they're a convicted felon," Rosado said. "If he's on our rolls, we make a notation on there. If they show up at a polling place, we'll say, 'Wait a minute, you're a convicted felon, you can't vote. Nine out of 10 times when we repeat that to the person, they say 'Thank you' and walk away.

They don't put up arguments." Rosado doesn't know how many people in Volusia were dropped from the list as a result of being identified as felons.

Hillsborough County's elections supervisor, Pam Iorio, tried to make sure that that the bugs in the system didn't keep anyone from voting. All 3,258 county residents who were identified as possible felons on the central voter file sent by the state in June were sent a certified letter informing them that their voting rights were in jeopardy. Of that number, 551 appealed their status, and 245 of those appeals were successful.

Some had been convicted of a misdemeanor and not a felony, others were felons who had had their rights restored and others were simply cases of mistaken identity.

An additional 279 were not close matches with names on the county's own voter rolls and were not notified. Of the 3,258 names on the original list, therefore, the county concluded that more than 15 percent were in error. If that ratio held statewide, no fewer than 7,000 voters were incorrectly targeted for removal from voting rosters.

Iorio says local officials did not get adequate preparation for purging felons from their rolls. "We're not used to dealing with issues of criminal justice or ascertaining who has a felony conviction," she said. Though the central voter file was supposed to facilitate the process, it was often more troublesome than the monthly circuit court lists that she had previously used to clear her rolls of duplicate registrations, the deceased and convicted felons. "The database from the state level is not always accurate," Iorio said. As a consequence, her county did its best to notify citizens who were on the list about their felony status. "We sent those individuals a certified letter, we put an ad in a local newspaper and we held a public hearing. For those who didn't respond to that, we sent out another letter by regular mail," Iorio said. "That process lasted several months."

"We did run some number stats and the number of blacks [on the list] was higher than expected for our population," says Chuck Smith, a statistician for the county. Iorio acknowledged that African-Americans made up 54 percent of the people on the original felons list, though they constitute only 11.6 percent of Hillsborough's voting population.

Smith added that the DBT computer program automatically transformed various forms of a single name. In one case, a voter named "Christine" was identified as a felon based on the conviction of a "Christopher" with the same last name. Smith says ChoicePoint would not respond to queries about its proprietary methods.

Nor would the company provide additional verification data to back its fingering certain individuals in the registry purge. One supposed felon on the ChoicePoint list is a local judge.

While there was much about the lists that bothered Iorio, she felt she didn't have a choice but to use them. And she's right. Section 98.0975 of the Florida Constitution states: "Upon receiving the list from the division, the supervisor must attempt to verify the information provided. If the supervisor does not determine that the information provided by the division is incorrect, the supervisor must remove from the registration books by the next subsequent election the name of any person who is deceased, convicted of a felony or adjudicated mentally incapacitated with respect to voting."

But the counties have interpreted that law in different ways. Leon County used the central voter file sent in January 2000 to clean up its voter rolls, but set aside the one it received in July. According to Thomas James, the information systems officer in the county election office, the list came too late for the information to be processed.

According to Leon election supervisor Ion Sancho, "there have been some problems" with the file. Using the information received in January, Sancho sent 200 letters to county voters, by regular mail, telling them they had been identified by the state as having committed a felony and would not be allowed to vote. They were given 30 days to respond if there was an error. "They had the burden of proof," he says.

He says 20 people proved that they did not belong on the list, and a handful of angry phone calls followed on Election Day. "Some people threatened to sue us," he said, "but we haven't had any lawyers calling yet."

In Orange County, officials also sent letters to those identified as felons by the state, but they appear to have taken little care in their handling of the list. "I have no idea," said June Condrun, Orange's deputy supervisor of elections, when asked how many letters were sent out to voters. After a bit more thought, Condrun responded that "several hundred" of the letters were sent, but said she doesn't know how many people complained. Those who did call, she said, were given the phone number of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement so that they could appeal directly to it.

Many Orange County voters never got the chance to appeal in any form. Condrun noted that about one-third of the letters, which the county sent out by regular mail, were returned to the office marked undeliverable. She attributed the high rate of incorrect addresses to the age of the information sent by DBT, some of which was close to 20 years old, she said.

Miami-Dade County officials may have had similar trouble. Milton Collins, assistant supervisor of elections, said he isn't comfortable estimating how many accused felons were identified by the central voter file in his county. He said he knows that about 6,000 were notified, by regular mail, about an early list in 1999. Exactly how many were purged from the list? "I honestly couldn't tell you," he said. According to Collins, the most recent list he received from the state was one sent in January 2000, and the county applied a "two-pass system": If the information on the state list seemed accurate enough when comparing names with those on county voter lists, people were classified as felons and were then sent warning letters. Those who seemed to have only a partial match with the state data were granted "temporary inactive status." Both groups of people were given 90 days to respond or have their names struck from the rolls.

But Collins said the county has no figures for how many voters were able to successfully appeal their designation as felons.

ChoicePoint spokesman Martin Fagan concedes his company's error in passing on the bogus list from Texas. ("I guess that's a little bit embarrassing in light of the election," he says.) He defends the company's overall performance, however, dismissing the errors in 8,000 names as "a minor glitch -- less than one-tenth of 1 percent of the electorate" (though the total equals 15 times Gov. George W. Bush's claimed lead over Gore).

But he added that ChoicePoint is responsible only for turning over its raw list, which is then up to Florida officials to test and correct.

Last year, DBT Online, with which ChoicePoint would soon merge, received the unprecedented contract from the state of Florida to "cleanse" registration lists of ineligible voters -- using information gathering and matching criteria it has refused to disclose, even to local election officials in Florida.

Atlanta's ChoicePoint, a highflying dot-com specializing in sales of personal information gleaned from its database of 4 billion public and not-so-public records, has come under fire for misuse of private data from government computers.

In January, the state of Pennsylvania terminated
a contract with ChoicePoint after discovering the firm had sold citizens' personal profiles to unauthorized individuals.

Fagan says many errors could have been eliminated by matching the Social Security numbers of ex-felons on DBT lists to the Social Security numbers on voter registries. However, Florida's counties have Social Security numbers on only a fraction of their voter records. So with those two problems -- Social Security numbers missing in both the DBT's records and the counties' records -- that fail-safe check simply did not exist.

In its defense, the company proudly points to an award it received from Voter Integrity Inc. on April 1 for "innovative excellence [in] cleansing" Florida voter rolls. The conservative, nonprofit advocacy organization has campaigned in parallel with the Republican Party against the 1993 motor voter law that resulted in a nationwide increase in voter registration of 7 million, much of it among minority voters. DBT Online partnered with Voter Integrity Inc. three days later, setting up a program to let small counties "scrub" their voting lists, too.

Florida is the only state in the nation to contract the first stage of removal of voting rights to a private company. And ChoicePoint has big plans. "Given the outcome of our work in Florida," says Fagan, "and with a new president in place, we think our services will expand across the country."

Especially if that president is named "Bush." ChoicePoint's board and executive roster are packed with Republican stars, including billionaire Ken Langone, a company director who was chairman of the fund-raising committee for New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani's aborted run against Hillary Rodham Clinton. Langone is joined at ChoicePoint by another Giuliani associate, former New York Police Commissioner Howard Safir.

And Republican power lobbyist and former congressman Vin Weber lobbies for ChoicePoint in Washington. Just before his death in 1998, Rick Rozar, president of a Choicepoint company, CDB Infotek, donated $100,000 to the Republican Party.

(Alicia Montgomery, Daryl Lindsey and Anthony York contributed to this story.)

GregoryPalast@Guardian.co.uk


Gregory Palast's other investigative reports can be found at www.GregoryPalast.Com where you can also subscribe to Palast's column.

Gregory Palast's column "Inside Corporate America" appears fortnightly in the
Observer's Business section. Nominated Business Writer of the Year (UK Press
Association - 2000), Investigative Story of the Year (Industrial. Society - 1999), Financial Times David Thomas Prize (1998).

http://www.salon.com/politics/feature/2000...file/index.html

[rosstex]

Turkey will never allow it. "Kurdistan" was promised by the Brits at the end of WW I, but when the maps were redrawn, somehow it got left out, mainly because the Brits owed the Hashemite family big time.

The result was that they gave them Iraq and TransJordan, leaving nothing for the Kurds.

My guess is that the Kurds will be happy to keep autonomy in northern Iraq, a very attainable goal. And they have a major oil well there.

The Shi'is have oil in Mosul.

The Sunnis have nothing. That is why theyy sat out the elections; that is why they will not go quietly after living high on the hog fot 80 years.

They are not willing to be the burger flippers in the "New Iraq."

[rosstex]

Jeffmoskin, you are very correct in all that you write but the Kurds in Turkey, who share the border with the Kurds in Iraq, do want a country much like their own. That is a large part of why the Turks did not want the US to use their country as a launching pad for this war in Iraq. The Turks were afraid that their Kurds would be emboldened in their quest by the US presence.

[jeffmoskin]

Jeffmoskin, you are very correct in all that you write but the Kurds in Turkey, who share the border with the Kurds in Iraq, do want a country much like their own.  That is a large part of why the Turks did not want the US to use their country as a launching pad for this war in Iraq.  The Turks were afraid that their Kurds would be emboldened in their quest by the US presence.

So do the Kurds in Iran.

But they will never get it.

At least the Kurds in Iraq have a shot at an autonomous region.

[Livyjr]

Ahhh, ChoicePoint!

A name from the past.

A name that shall live in infamy.

Not having an honest press here in OUR America, from accross the Pond comes Greg Palast, reporter for the UK Guardian, author of "The best Government Money Can Buy:"

"Atlanta's ChoicePoint, a highflying dot-com specializing in sales of personal information gleaned from its database of 4 billion public and not-so-public records, has come under fire for misuse of private data from government computers."

In January, the state of Pennsylvania terminated a contract with ChoicePoint after discovering the firm had sold citizens' personal profiles to unauthorized individuals.

And ChoicePoint has big plans.

"Given the outcome of our work in Florida," says Fagan, "and with a new president in place, we think our services will expand across the country."

Especially if that president is named "Bush."

ChoicePoint's board and executive roster are packed with Republican stars, including billionaire Ken Langone, a company director who was chairman of the fund-raising committee for New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani's aborted run against Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Langone is joined at ChoicePoint by another Giuliani associate, former New York Police Commissioner Howard Safir.

And Republican power lobbyist and former congressman Vin Weber lobbies for ChoicePoint in Washington.

Just before his death in 1998, Rick Rozar, president of a Choicepoint company, CDB Infotek, donated $100,000 to the Republican Party.

(Alicia Montgomery, Daryl Lindsey and Anthony York contributed to this story.)

GregoryPalast@Guardian.co.uk

Gregory Palast's other investigative reports can be found at www.GregoryPalast.Com where you can also subscribe to Palast's column.

Gregory Palast's column "Inside Corporate America" appears fortnightly in the Observer's Business section. Nominated Business Writer of the Year (UK Press Association - 2000), Investigative Story of the Year (Industrial. Society - 1999), Financial Times David Thomas Prize (1998).

http://www.salon.com/politics/feature/2000...file/index.html

And a real good catch on this one, jeffmoskin, as this follow-up story clearly demonstrates:

Spam, Scams & Viruses

"Data theft affects 145,000 nationwide - ChoicePoint says it will notify all potential victims"

By Bob Sullivan, Technology correspondent
MSNBC

Updated: 10:37 p.m. ET Feb. 16, 2005

NEW YORK - Database giant ChoicePoint said late Wednesday that 145,000 consumers nationwide were placed at risk by a recent data theft at the company.

Previously, the company had suggested the theft only affected California residents.

ChoicePoint pledged to notify all of the potential victims.

Spokesman James Lee said the company was informing consumers as a precaution, suggesting they keep an eye out for signs of identity theft.

Atlanta-based ChoicePoint maintains and sells background files on virtually every adult American, culled from millions of public and private records.

Last week, the firm sent some 35,000 letters to California residents telling them their personal data may have been stolen by criminals who set up fake companies and downloaded information from ChoicePoint.

California is the only state that by law requires disclosure of such data leaks, and ChoicePoint initially suggested the theft of information might be limited to that state.

Lee said ChoicePoint decided to widen the notification after meeting with law enforcement officials on Wednesday.

An additional 110,000 letters will be mailed in the coming days, he said.

Criminals tricked the company by posing as legitimate businesses to gain access to the various ChoicePoint databases, which contain a treasure trove of consumer data, including names, addresses, Social Security numbers, credit reports and other information.

At least 50 suspicious accounts had been opened in the name of nonexistent debt collectors, insurance agencies and other companies, according to the company.

The incident was first revealed by MSNBC.com on Monday.

ChoicePoint pledged late Wednesday to notify all the consumers affected by the theft.

Earlier in the day, New York state legislator James Brennan had urged the state to suspend existing contracts with the database giant -- including an $800,000 deal with the state's Office for General Services -- until the firm agreed to notify New York residents.

New York is one of several states considering passing disclosure laws similar to California's.

750 victims surface; arrest made

Already, a number of data-leak victims have discovered they have been hit by identity theft.

A report Wednesday in the Los Angeles Times said authorities have identified 750 people whose personal information was stolen and used to buy jewelry, consumer electronics and computers.

After ChoicePoint discovered in October that unidentified persons had created sham companies to access its databases, sheriff’s investigators set up a sting operation that resulted in the arrest of a Nigerian man who had been living in Southern California, the report said.

After ChoicePoint received a suspicious application for an account faxed from a Kinko’s in Southern California, the company sent a responding fax requesting a new signature.

Deputies who had staked out the store arrested Olatunji Oluwatosin, 41, when he arrived to pick up the fax, the Times said.

Oluwatosin, who is originally from Nigeria but had been living in North Hollywood, according to the Times, has been charged with six felony identity theft counts and is being held in lieu of $2 million bail.

The suspect told investigators he was not involved in any identity theft scam and was only picking up the fax for someone else, it said.

Oluwatosin is scheduled to appear in Los Angeles County Court on Thursday.

California consumers who received the letter from ChoicePoint expressed frustration; many had never heard of the firm before receiving the alarming letter.

"How dare they even try to make money using my Social Security Number in the first place," wrote one in an e-mail to MSNBC.com.

He requested anonymity.

"Where did they get it from?"

"I certainly didn't give it to them; I never heard of them before receiving the letter."

"In fact, I almost threw it out unopened, because I thought it was going to be a credit card solicitation or a reduced rate mortgage scam."

Bob Sullivan is the author of Your Evil Twin: Behind the Identity Theft Epidemic.

[Livyjr]

Ahhh, ChoicePoint!

A name from the past.

A name that shall live in infamy.

Not having an honest press here in OUR America, from accross the Pond comes Greg Palast, reporter for the UK Guardian, author of "The best Government Money Can Buy:"

Atlanta's ChoicePoint, a highflying dot-com specializing in sales of personal information gleaned from its database of 4 billion public and not-so-public records, has come under fire for misuse of private data from government computers.

In January, the state of Pennsylvania terminated a contract with ChoicePoint after discovering the firm had sold citizens' personal profiles to unauthorized individuals.

It is interesting that yesterday afternoon, just before I caught the original story on this Choicepoint "data sale" of information ON US, and about us, to the criminals with whom it does business, a friend told me about a doctor who she works for who had ten thousand dollars lifted in the last couple of days from his bank savings account by someone who had gotten access to his social security number.

Right after she told me that, I came across that Choicepoint story, and it sure did make me wonder!

This particular doctor is down in Florida, on vacation, and so, he had quite a chore before him yesterday, apparently, trying to stem his own losses by long-distance telephone calls to people up here for aid and assistance.

And who would ever expect such a thing could even happen, although in reality, in this day and age, it is getting to be the norm, more than the exception, it seems, to have your identity stolen from you, for ill purposes.

And when I read stories like this one, and especially that side of it that jeffmoskin has provided us with, it makes me wonder about our own "humanity", and how it is viewed by large corporate entities such as this one, that makes its money by stripping us of OUR privacy, and by then selling access to OUR privacy to whomever has the money to buy that access.

And George W. Bush wants to increase that access to OUR privacy, NOT PROTECT IT!

That is how his fat-cat buddies make their "geetus", after all, and if George W. Bush is for anyone at all, outside of himself, and his wallet, it is his fat-cat buddies, AND THEIR WALLETS!

That is who and what feeds his wallet after all, and this present incumbent IS FOR THE MONEY, so, OUR privacy must be stripped from us to keep the commerce rolling along.

Which would seem to reduce us somewhat to the level of cows out there on a feedlot in Kansas or Nebraska, somewhere - a herd kept around for investment purposes only!

Life in OUR America, in these days of the Bush Co.!

Mooooooo!

[Livyjr]

Ahhh, ChoicePoint!

A name from the past.

A name that shall live in infamy.

Not having an honest press here in OUR America, from accross the Pond comes Greg Palast, reporter for the UK Guardian, author of "The best Government Money Can Buy:"

Atlanta's ChoicePoint, a highflying dot-com specializing in sales of personal information gleaned from its database of 4 billion public and not-so-public records, has come under fire for misuse of private data from government computers.

In January, the state of Pennsylvania terminated a contract with ChoicePoint after discovering the firm had sold citizens' personal profiles to unauthorized individuals.

"Given the outcome of our work in Florida," says Fagan, "and with a new president in place, we think our services will expand across the country."

Especially if that president is named "Bush."

ChoicePoint's board and executive roster are packed with Republican stars, including billionaire Ken Langone, a company director who was chairman of the fund-raising committee for New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani's aborted run against Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Langone is joined at ChoicePoint by another Giuliani associate, former New York Police Commissioner Howard Safir.

The "Gilded Age" returns it seems, and in spades; and who is surprised, when you look at the "cast" of "supporting characters" such as Rudy Giuliani's "fund-raising" committee chairman?

After all, these people who raise the "geetus" and "moolah" for the REPUBLICAN BIG BOYS and FAST MOVERS and GO-GETTERS like former federal prosecutor Giuliani have to have some source for that money, and what better pockets to tap for that money than those of the ones who are stealing from us?

How can they say no, especially when they are allowed to do their stealing from us by the reciprocal service done back to them by those in positions of authority in such places as the corrupt State of New York who have learned to strategically "turn their backs" on the stealing, SO THAT IT CAN OCCUR, to enrich those who then use that money to buy themselves even more protection, FROM OUR OWN GOVERNMENT, that allows them to steal even more from us in a never-ending spiral that is reducing us to a level equal to that of feed-lot cattle, HERE IN OUR OWN NATION, where we, the citizens, are supposed to be the sovereigns, and not the victims, of OUR government.

AFTER ALL, WHY ON EARTH WOULD THEY BE CALLED "SPECIAL INTERESTS", DOES ANYONE THINK, IF THEY WERE NOT IN FACT "SPECIAL"?

"Gilded Age"

"What is the chief end of man?--to get rich."

"In what way?--dishonestly if we can; honestly if we must."

-- Mark Twain-1871
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During the "Gilded Age," every man was a potential Andrew Carnegie, and Americans who achieved wealth celebrated it as never before.

In New York, the opera, the theatre, and lavish parties consumed the ruling class' leisure hours.

Sherry's Restaurant hosted formal horseback dinners for the New York Riding Club.

Mrs. Stuyvesant Fish once threw a dinner party to honor her dog who arrived sporting a $15,000 diamond collar.

While the rich wore diamonds, many wore rags.

In 1890, 11 million of the nation's 12 million families earned less than $1200 per year; of this group, the average annual income was $380, well below the poverty line.

Rural Americans and new immigrants crowded into urban areas.

Tenements spread across city landscapes, teeming with crime and filth.

Americans had sewing machines, phonographs, skyscrapers, and even electric lights, yet most people labored in the shadow of poverty.

To those who worked in Carnegie's mills and in the nation's factories and sweatshops, the lives of the millionaires seemed immodest indeed.

An economist in 1879 noted "a widespread feeling of unrest and brooding revolution."

Violent strikes and riots wracked the nation through the turn of the century.

The middle class whispered fearfully of "carnivals of revenge."

For immediate relief, the urban poor often turned to political machines.

During the first years of the Gilded Age, Boss Tweed's Tammany Hall provided more services to the poor than any city government before it, although far more money went into Tweed's own pocket.

Corruption extended to the highest levels of government.

During Ulysses S. Grant's presidency, the president and his cabinet were implicated in the Credit Mobilier, the Gold Conspiracy, the Whiskey Ring, and the notorious Salary Grab.

Europeans were aghast.

America may have had money and factories, they felt, but it lacked sophistication.

When French prime minister Georges Clemenceau visited, he said the nation had gone from a stage of barbarism to one of decadence -- without achieving any civilization between the two.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/carnegie/gildedage.html