Indeed, the Phoenicians were an amazing people, Mr. A.B.

I have a long post on Phoenicia and Lebanon over in Volume I of this thread, and in there, as I recall, the Phoenicians could brag of having the world's first democracy!

According to some wags, George W. Bush threatened to use nuclear weapons on them if they did not democratize in a time frame set for them, BY HIM!

Carthage, which figures prominently in Rome's Punic Wars, was a Phoenician city-state, and Hannibal, the scourge of Rome along with his war elephants, was from Carthage, which would make him a Phoenician!

At one time, Carthage, which would be in modern-day Libya, I believe, on the southern shore of the Mediteranean Sea, controlled a vast sweep of territory that included a good chunk of Spain along the north shore of the Mediteranean Sea.

Their navies figure in to Greek tales, as well, as the Phoenicians were masters of the sea who were sought out by the Greeks to aid them in their own intrigues and conquests.

A lot of history in that land of Lebanon, indeed!

I wonder if George W. Bush can spell Lebanon!

And here is something that I find quite refreshing, actually!

Is the FREE RIDE for these CONGRESSBOYS about to be over?

Are the American people about to wake up and say, "HEY!"

"WAIT A DAMN MINUTE HERE!"

"JUST WHOSE POCKETS DO YOU BOYS THINK YOU ARE PICKING HERE, ANYWAY?"

"YOU BOYS THINK WE ARE ALL STUPID, OR WHAT?"

Top Stories - USATODAY.com

"Congress' approval rating on the slide"

Tue Mar 15, 8:01 AM ET

By Andrea Stone, USA TODAY

Fewer Americans approve of the way Congress is handling its job than at any time since shortly after Republicans impeached President Clinton, a Gallup Poll finds.

Only 37% of Americans gave Congress a high approval rating, down from 45% last month, the poll taken last week showed.

A total of 53% disapproved, up from 48% in February.

It was the worst showing for Congress since September 1999, the year after the Republican-controlled House of Representatives impeached Clinton.

Even then, Congress had an identical 37% approval rating.

It hasn't been lower since October 1997.

Meanwhile, President Bush's approval rating remained fairly steady at 52%.

The number of those who disapproved of Bush's handling of his job was at 44%.

The decline in Congress' approval from last month was about the same among Democrats and Republicans, whose party controls both the Senate and House of Representatives.

That may be because Congress faces several controversial issues and not because of a specific one, analyst David Moore wrote on the Gallup Organization Web site.

"Democrats are even unhappier with the Republican Congress than before," Brookings Institution political analyst Thomas Mann said.

"And many Republicans don't like what they are hearing about Social Security and the budget."

The drop in approval for Congress was larger than that found in other measures of public satisfaction, Gallup Editor in Chief Frank Newport noted.

General satisfaction with the way things are going in the country also slipped, but by only 3 percentage points, from 45% to 42%.

"We're in a period of some bickering now because of Social Security, but also other issues where people see senators and congressmen arguing" on TV and in the House and Senate, Newport said.

American Enterprise Institute congressional expert Norm Ornstein said the poll could spell trouble eventually for Republicans, whose House majority leader, Tom DeLay of Texas, faces mounting ethics questions.

"When people are down on Congress, they don't make distinctions between party," Ornstein said.

"But ultimately, if you've got a low rating and you're in the majority, you better be nervous."

QUESTION: HOW DO THE REPUBLICANS DEAL WITH ETHICS PROBLEMS?

ANSWER: THEY DO AWAY WITH THE ETHICS RULES, AND THEN THEY SAY "WHAT ETHICS VIOLATIONS CAN YOU POSSIBLY BE TALKING ABOUT?"

I went back out in the woods on snowshoes today, for a couple of more hours, to get away from here, and thinking about what is going on out there in America these days, which seems to threaten everything I hold dear as an American, starting with LIBERTY, JUSTICE, and INTEGRITY OF GOVERNMENT!

HAS GEORGE W. BUSH EVER TOLD US THE TRUTH ABOUT ANYTHING?

And I don't ask that lightly or friviously, either, as having an American president who seems to tell nothing but an endless stream of lies is no joking matter, and not by a long shot!

In a post above, jeffmoskin commented on Millhouse "Tricky Dick" Nixxon getting impeached, and I have my own thoughts on that as well, and I don't believe that you can compare the impeachment of "Tricky Dick" Nixxon with that of Bill Clinton, FOR TO ME, THEY ARE APPLES AND ORANGES!

There is what one does AS president, and there is what one does WHILE president, and to me, they just are not the same thing at all!

For example, WHILE president, Bill Clinton apparently fiddled around some with some women who might not exactly have been his lawful wedded wife, and so, there was some domestic hub-bub and in the course of all of that, "ole BUBBA", as Bill Clinton was affectionately known by America; "ole BUBBA" told a whole pack of lies, and for shame, Bill!

Do I admire Bill Clinton for fiddling with these women, or having them fiddle with him, however it actually went down?

No way, Jose!

STUPID, STUPID, STUPID!

BUT ....

I consider who was getting inside of Bill Clinton's pants beside Bill Clinton to be none of my business, and it is something that I am not really interested in knowing about, to be truthful.

At best, it is tawdry, or titillating, or "NASTY", or whatever, and it is kind of low stuff for me to spend any mental energy whatsoever on.

BY ALLEGEDLY LETTING SOMEONE ELSE INSIDE OF HIS PANTS AT THE SAME TIME THAT HE WAS WEARING THEM, DID BILL CLINTON BRING DOWN THE AMERICAN PRESIDENCY?

Who knows!

BY ALLEGEDLY LYING ABOUT WHO ELSE WAS INSIDE BILL CLINTON'S PANTS WHEN HE WAS IN THERE TOO, DID BILL CLINTON BRING DOWN AMERICA?

Again, who knows, but outside of making himself look kind of foolish, or stupid, Bill Clinton brought no harm to me that I could ever discern!

Unless of course, Osama bin Laden decided to attack America because too many people were in Bill Clinton's pants, besides Bill Clinton, in which case, I would have to reconsider my own position here.

But outside of that possibility, which the Bush Co.'s just might grasp onto as EXCUSE NUMBER 533 as to why we just had to invade Iraq, Bill Clinton's alleged illicit activities with women not his wife WHILE President really did nothing to harm me, personally!

Just makes him one more on a long list of American men who might be considered PIGS for the manner in which they treat women!

And Bill Clinton has essentially admitted that, with respect to Monica Lewinsky, so that my CHRISTIAN side would have to say, "well, forgive and forget and move along!"

Not so, "TRICKY DICK" Nixxon, however.

AS American president, Millhouse "Tricky Dick" Nixxon allegedly tried to have the CIA corrupt a governmental investigation!

As American president, Millhouse "Tricky Dick" Nixxon is alleged to have actively used his office, the OFFICE of OUR president, to OBSTRUCT JUSTICE, here in OUR AMERICA!

Not WHILE president; AS president!

Apples and oranges, as I see it!

The other thought that came to me, of course, is how under this Bush Co., WE, AMERICA, are having what I would call a PARASITIC CLASS thrust or imposed upon us, BY BUSH CO., and his various minions, at least up here in the corrupt Empire State of New York under the IRON RULE of Bush Co. minion George Pataki!

PLACEMEN!

Just like the British were sending over here in the days before the American Revolution to eat us out of house and home!

Parasites, sponsored by the government, itself!

The Avalon Project at Yale Law School

Charleston Non-Importation Agreement; July 22, 1769

We, his Majesty's dutiful and loving subjects, the inhabitants of South Carolina, being sensibly affected with the great prejudice done to Great Britain, and the abject and wretched condition to which the British colonies are reduced by several Acts of Parliament lately passed; by some of which the moneys that the colonists usually and cheerfully spent in the purchase of all sorts of goods imported from Great Britain, are now, to their great grievance, wrung from them, without their consent, or even their being represented, and applied by the ministry, in prejudice of, and without regard to, the real interest of Great Britain, or the manufactures thereof, almost totally, to the support of new-created commissioners of customs, placemen, parasitical and novel ministerial officers; and by others of which Acts we are not only deprived of those invaluable rights, trial by our peers and the common law, but are also made subject to the arbitrary and oppressive proceedings of the civil law, justly abhorred and rejected by our ancestors, the freemen of England; and finding that the most dutiful and loyal petitions from the colonies alone, for redress of those grievances, have been rejected with contempt so that no relief can be expected from that method of proceedings; and being fully convinced of the absolute necessity of stimulating our fellow subjects and sufferers in Great Britain to aid us in this our distress, and of joining the rest of the colonies in some other loyal and vigorous methods that may most probably procure such relief, which we believe may be most effectually promoted by strict economy, and by encouraging the manufactures of America in general, and of this province in particular: we therefore, whose names are underwritten, do solemnly promise, and agree to and with each other, that, until the colonies be restored to their former freedom by the repeal of the said Acts, we will most strictly abide by the following:

RESOLUTIONS

I That we will encourage and promote the use of North American manufactures in general, and those of this province in particular And any of us who are vendors thereof, do engage to sell and dispose of them at the same rates as heretofore

II That we will upon no pretence whatsoever, either upon our own account or on commission, import into this province any of the manufactures of Great Britain, or any other European or East India goods, either from Great Britain, Holland, or any other place ........

Source:
Colonial Society of Massachusetts Publication.

http://www.yale.edu/.../amerrev/amerdocs/c...tation_1769.htm

And actually, it was jeffmoskin back in VOLUME I of "Life in OUR America" who got this thought of PLACEMEN running through my head, and that was some time ago now, where jeffmoskin did a kind of tally of the amount of commissions that Bush Co. would be jamming down the pockets of HIS PLACEMEN IF he managed to get HIS changes made to OUR social security system.

And as ususal, WE HAVE NO DETAILS WHATSOEVER FROM BUSH CO. as to what HIS plan for OUR children's future would COST THEM, SO AS TO ENRICH A WHOLE NEW GENERATION OF PARASITIC PLACEMEN that Bush Co. would create in OUR America with HIS social security plan!

"TRUST ME WITH YOUR CHILDREN'S FUTURE", says Bush Co., and I say, "NO WAY IN HELL, George, BECAUSE WE NEVER HEAR THE TRUTH FROM YOU, ABOUT ANYTHING!"

YOU'RE UNTRUSTWORTHY, GEORGE!

NO DEAL!

And is there a COST to us for all the lies this administration has told to date concerning Iraq?

What about this following?

Top Stories - AP

"Nations Leaving Iraq Amid Anti-War Gains"

1 hour, 40 minutes ago

By WILLIAM J. KOLE, Associated Press Writer

ROME - Italy said Tuesday it will start drawing down its 3,000-strong contingent in Iraq in September, putting a fresh crack in President Bush's crumbling coalition.

Bulgaria also called for a partial withdrawal, and Ukraine welcomed home its first wave of returning troops.

The moves come on top of the withdrawal of more than a dozen countries over the last year and could complicate efforts to keep the peace while Iraq's new government builds up police and military units capable of taking over from foreign forces.

Two years after the U.S.-led invasion toppled Saddam Hussein, the coalition is unraveling amid mounting casualties and kidnappings that have stoked anti-war sentiment and sapped leaders' resolve to keep troops in harm's way.

Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi, who confirmed he will seek re-election next year, alluded to the rising public discontent, saying:

"I've spoken about it with (British Prime Minister) Tony Blair, and it's the public opinion of our countries that expects this decision."

"In September, we will begin a progressive reduction of the number of our soldiers in Iraq," the ANSA news agency quoted Berlusconi as saying during the taping of a TV talk show.

But, he added, the withdrawal is tied to the Iraqis being able to secure the country.

Italy's government, a staunch U.S. ally, had vowed to stay despite suffering 21 casualties and enduring fierce public opposition that escalated this month after U.S. soldiers in Baghdad fatally shot an Italian intelligence agent escorting a newly freed hostage.

Thirty-eight countries have provided troops in Iraq at one point or another.

But 14 nations have permanently withdrawn since the March 2003 invasion, and today's coalition stands at 24.

Excluding U.S. forces, there are 22,750 foreign soldiers still in Iraq.

The scramble to get out has taken the multinational force from a high of about 300,000 soldiers in the region early in 2003 to 172,750 and falling.

About 150,000 U.S. troops shoulder the bulk of the responsibility and suffer the most casualties.

A Pentagon spokesman, Lt. Col. Barry Venable, said the decisions by some nations to reduce or end their presence in Iraq was not a threat to security.

"The coalition is strong," he said.

Venable said the reductions are part of the natural process of turning security over to Iraq's government.

"The plan is to have the Iraqis fill in everywhere," he said.

"That process will continue and indeed accelerate."

The United States also is drawing down its troop levels.

After bolstering the U.S. force to about 155,000 during Iraq's recent elections, the Pentagon is bringing some units home and expects to be down to 138,000 soldiers in a few months.

Some 137 Ukrainian servicemen returned home Tuesday, part of a gradual pullout of a 1,650-strong contingent to be completed in October.

Ukraine has lost 18 soldiers in Iraq, and its people overwhelmingly oppose the deployment.

The Netherlands formally ended its mission March 7, and the bulk of its 1,400 troops return home this month.

The U.S. and British governments urged Dutch leaders to extend the mission, but they refused, saying they had met their commitments.

Poland, which has command responsibility for a large swath of central Iraq, plans to withdraw several hundred of its 1,700 soldiers in July and hopes to pull out completely by year's end or early in 2006.

Among the nations that withdrew last year were Spain, which pulled out 1,300 soldiers; Tonga, 44; New Zealand, 60; Thailand, 423; the Philippines, 51; Honduras, 370; the Dominican Republic, 302; Singapore, 160; Nicaragua, 115; and Hungary, 300.

Norway withdrew 150 troops but left 16 liaison officers.

Last month, Portugal withdrew its 127 soldiers, and Moldova pulled out its 12.

The Associated Press tally is based on queries to military officials in the various coalition nations.

The trend isn't closely tracked on Web sites maintained by the Defense Department or the U.S. Central Command, which offer dated information.

Ferocious insurgent attacks, coalition casualties and a spate of civilian abductions and beheadings have rattled ordinary citizens in many countries.

"If we continue to keep our troops in Iraq, Koreans — not only here but also abroad — will be subject to terrorist attacks.

It only puts our security in danger," said Ryu Jae-yoon, a 22-year-old office worker in Seoul.

Anti-war sentiment boiled over there last June when a South Korean military contract worker was beheaded by militants after the Seoul government refused a demand to withdraw its forces.

In Bulgaria, which has 460 troops in Iraq, the deaths of eight soldiers have heightened public calls to bring them home.

On Tuesday, President Georgi Parvanov urged a partial withdrawal, a proposal that parliament must now decide.

To be sure, America's top two allies in Iraq — Britain, with about 8,000 soldiers, and South Korea with 3,600 — are standing firm.

Australia, Albania and Georgia are boosting their presence, and NATO is expanding its training mission in Baghdad.

Yet surveys suggest opposition is running at roughly two-thirds in most coalition countries.

In Albania, a staunch U.S. ally that plans to enlarge its 71-member contingent to 121 in April, there are fears the troops could end up paying with their lives.

"Our men should be back, alive, as soon as possible," said Qerime Haxhia, a 54-year-old woman selling vegetables in downtown Tirana.

"Can our small group help big America's army keep Iraq calm?"

"I doubt that."
___

Associated Press writers Bo-Mi Lim in Seoul, South Korea; Veselin Toshkov in Sofia, Bulgaria; and Llazar Semini in Tirana, Albania; and researcher Jennifer Farrar in New York contributed to this story.

SO!

Of course, as always, right now, this is all quite inconclusive, BECAUSE .....

Because we don't know what might have happened had George W. Bush and Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld and Condo Rice ever told us and the candid world the TRUTH about anything, even one thing!

This all looks like what it is, on the part of the Bush Co., and that is ONE MAJOR COCK-UP!

A MAJOR BOTCH-JOB from the word "GO TAKE THE OILFIELDS, AND DAMN THE CONSEQUENCES!"

And while all of this happening, WHAT IS THE BUSH CO. UP TO?

INCITING MORE TROUBLE IN THE WORLD, WHEN HE CANNOT EVEN HANDLE WHAT HE HAS LEFT OVER FROM HIS FIRST FOUR YEARS?

Politics - Reuters

"Bush Calls on Hizbollah to Lay Down Arms"

12 minutes ago

By Steve Holland

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush held out the prospect of legitimacy for the Lebanese guerrilla group Hizbollah on Tuesday by saying it can prove it is not a terrorist organization by laying down its arms.

U.S. officials have said they could accept a political role for Hizbollah in Lebanon if it disarmed.

The group has been blamed for launching attacks against Israel from southern Lebanon.

But the organization is also a political party, with deputies in the Lebanese parliament, and last week it showed its power by drawing hundreds of thousands of people to central Beirut for a pro-Syria rally.

The rally appeared aimed at deflating a U.S.-led drive to pressure Syria to pull out troops from Lebanon.

"We view Hizbollah as a terrorist organization and I would hope that Hizbollah would prove that they're not by laying down arms and not threatening peace," Bush told reporters with Jordan's King Abdullah at his side.

He said a major concern, discussed by him and Abdullah, was that Hizbollah may try to derail the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians.

But in a possible olive branch to the group, Bush pointedly noted that "Hizbollah has been declared a terrorist organization by the United States because of terrorist activities in the past."

White House spokesman Scott McClellan later said, "It would change the dynamic if they disarmed and renounced terrorism."

"This isn't about Hizbollah."

"This is about supporting the Lebanese people."

"The president believes that the future of Lebanon is in the hands of the Lebanese people," he said.

He said Syria's first phase of a troop withdrawal from Lebanon was encouraging but that all the troops and intelligence personnel need to be gone as soon as possible to allow Lebanon to have parliamentary elections in May free of outside interference.

1983 BEIRUT ATTACK

New York Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer was skeptical about forgiving Hizbollah.

The group killed more than 200 U.S. servicemen in a suicide attack on a Marine headquarters in Beirut in 1983.

"Hizbollah has the blood of Americans on its hands and it is awfully difficult to forgive them so quickly, especially when they have not denounced terrorism," Schumer said.

Bush, who is using the early months of his second term to push for democratic reforms across the Middle East, was gentle on the subject with Abdullah, a close U.S. ally.

Jordan is a constitutional monarchy in which citizens have limited political rights.

The king appoints the prime minister, cabinet and a 55-member Senate, while a 110-member lower house is elected.

Bush said a recent U.S.-Jordan free trade agreement would help make Jordan more prosperous.

"It's much easier to reform when there's prosperity, when people are able to see his majesty's vision about a prosperous future," Bush said.

The two leaders also discussed the Middle East peace process.

Bush said each side needed to make sacrifices in the quest for peace, and raised some eyebrows by saying "Israel must withdraw from the settlements."

McClellan said there was no change in policy, that Bush was referring to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's overall withdrawal plan.

The United States is calling for a freeze in Jewish settlement activity.

(Additional reporting by Adam Entous)

Does anyone besides me ever wonder if this BUSH CO. presidency is scripted by MEL BROOKS as some kind of PARODY?

OR IS THIS REAL?

CAN IT BE REAL?

First we have the WHITEHOUSESPOKESBOY Scottie "BOY" McClellan saying that:

"This isn't about Hizbollah."

"This is about supporting the Lebanese people."

"The president believes that the future of Lebanon is in the hands of the Lebanese people!"

To which I say, "OKAY!"

I think I understand here what Scottie "BOY" is trying to say, which is that the Lebanese people should be in charge of their own internal affairs in Lebanon!

AND I AM FOR THAT, TOO, AS I THINK ANY SANE AND RATIONAL, FREEDOM-LOVING PERSON WOULD BE!

SO?

What's this next business, then, with the Bush Co., where IT says that U.S. officials have said they could accept a political role for Hizbollah in Lebanon if it disarmed.

As the news article above makes quite clear, Hizbollah IS ALREADY a political party WITH A POLITICAL ROLE IN LEBANON, with deputies in the Lebanese parliament, BY THE WILL OF THE LEBANESE PEOPLE, AND SO .....

IF this is about supporting the Lebanese people, as WHITE HOUSE SPOKES BOY Scottie "BOY" McClellan says above, wouldn't we just keep our mouths shut, here?

Just curious?

And before I must go for today, here is one more story that serves to restore some faith in OUR American system of justice!

AND WHEN YOU READ THIS, KEEP IN MIND THAT THIS WORLDCOM SCAM IS WHAT GEORGE W. BUSH IS PROMOTING AS "HIS" CURE FOR SOCIAL SECURITY:

Business - AP

"Former WorldCom CEO Guilty on All Counts"

1 hour, 13 minutes ago

By ERIN McCLAM, Associated Press Writer

NEW YORK - Bernard Ebbers, the once-swaggering CEO of WorldCom, was convicted Tuesday of engineering the largest corporate fraud in U.S. history — an $11 billion accounting scandal that capsized the big telecom company three years ago.

The verdict marked a colossal fall for Ebbers, who had turned a humble Mississippi long-distance provider into a global telecommunications power, swallowing up companies along the way and earning the nickname "Telecom Cowboy."

A federal jury in Manhattan returned guilty verdicts on all nine counts, including securities fraud, conspiracy and lying to regulators — a decision that could send Ebbers, 63, to prison for the rest of his life.

Sentencing was set for June 13.

The former chief executive reddened deeply when the jury announced its verdict after eight days of deliberations, and his wife, Kristie, burst into tears in the courtroom's front row.

Later, as his lawyer spoke outside, promising an appeal, Ebbers and his wife — nearly toppled by the enormous crew of cameras and reporters camped outside the federal courthouse — made their way to a nearby street, hailed a cab and drove away.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales called the conviction a "triumph of our legal system."

He said the jury had recognized that the fraud "extended from the middle management levels of this company all the way to its top executive."

In a six-week trial, prosecutors painted Ebbers as obsessed with keeping WorldCom stock high, and panicked about pressure he was getting over $400 million in personal loans that were backed by his own WorldCom shares.

From late 2000 to mid-2002, the government claimed, Ebbers intimidated chief financial officer Scott Sullivan into covering up billions of dollars in out-of-control expenses and recognizing improper revenue.

"He was WorldCom, and WorldCom was Ebbers," prosecutor William Johnson told jurors.

"He built the company."

"He ran it."

"Of course he directed this fraud."

The defense claimed all along that the fraud was masterminded by Sullivan, who testified as the star government witness that Ebbers instructed him quarter after quarter to "hit our numbers" — meet Wall Street expectations.

Ebbers himself took the witness stand at trial's end and flatly denied any role in the fraud.

He said he viewed his role at the company as a visionary and cheerleader, was uncomfortable with accounting and left it to Sullivan.

"He's never told me he made an (accounting) entry that wasn't right," Ebbers said of Sullivan.

"If he had, we wouldn't be here today."

The largely blue-collar jury of seven women and five men considered the case for eight days, an uncommonly long deliberation for white-collar cases, but never showed signs of discord.

The jurors were ushered away from the courthouse without speaking to the media, and Judge Barbara Jones instructed reporters not to badger them.

Outside court, top defense lawyer Reid Weingarten said he was "devastated" but predicted Ebbers "will ultimately be vindicated" on appeal.

He said he had no regrets about calling Ebbers to testify.

"I did not think Mr. Ebbers ever acted with criminal intent," he said.

"Obviously we're disappointed by the result, but the fight will continue."

Legal experts said the appeal would be difficult.

Weingarten said part of the case would center on prosecutors' refusal to grant immunity to three former WorldCom executives the defense wanted to call as witnesses.

The nine criminal counts against Ebbers — securities fraud, conspiracy and seven counts of making false filings to the Securities and Exchange Commission — carry up to 85 years in prison.

He will be free on bail until sentencing.

The conviction comes more than two years after an internal auditor began asking questions about curious accounting at WorldCom, touching off a scandal that eventually unearthed $11 billion in cooked books.

With the entire telecom industry suffering a dot-com hangover, the fraud was driven by soaring "line costs" — the fees WorldCom paid to smaller local telephone carriers to use their networks.

Besides Sullivan, three former WorldCom accounting officials who have pleaded guilty in the case testified they were pressured to cover up the expenses.

Only Sullivan directly implicated Ebbers.

Ebbers still faces civil litigation, including from the company, which backed up his $400 million in personal loans when Bank of America demanded more and more collateral as the stock price fell.

The company struck a $750 million settlement with federal regulators to repay aggrieved investors, a small sum compared to the tens of billions of dollars of market capitalization that evaporated in the scandal.

WorldCom, which was based in Clinton, Miss., since re-emerged as MCI Inc., based in Ashburn, Va.

Twelve former directors of the company, plus some investment banks that underwrote WorldCom securities and auditing firm Arthur Andersen, also face a civil trial brought by angry investors.

That trial is scheduled to get under way later this month.

In winning a conviction against Ebbers, federal prosecutors in Manhattan rang up another victory in a remarkable string of white-collar prosecutions that began in the summer of 2002.

Martha Stewart, Adelphia Communications founder John Rigas and former dot-com banking star Frank Quattrone were all found guilty during that stretch — with the same prosecutor, David Anders, handling both Quattrone and Ebbers.

The prosecutors have also wrung guilty pleas from countless other executives, including ImClone Systems Inc. founder Sam Waksal and five other former WorldCom officials who agreed to cooperate against Ebbers.

Sullivan and the three former WorldCom executives who have pleaded guilty in the case still face sentencing.

They hope to win lighter prison terms — or none at all — by cooperating with the government against Ebbers.

And, for what it's worth, the name "PHOENICIANS" comes from that dye:


The name Phoenicians (phoinikes) was given to these people by the ancient Greeks and was related to the word for the red-purple color of the dye for which they were famous. This royal purple dye was produced by removing, soaking and heating the glands of mollusks belonging to the genus Murex.

Five'll get you ten he skips town.

I hear he has a lot of money in the Cayman Islands.

If you make that five will get me one hundred, I might risk a small bet.

Maybe he, Kenny Boy, and Scrushy will start a new colony there?

A.B.

To show solidarity and brotherhood with the American people, what George W. Bush ought to do is send Ebbers over to Syria where George sends other alleged "ENEMIES OF AMERICA", and let the Syrians have their way with "ole" Bernie.

Or maybe send him to abu Ghraib, where Donald Rumsfeld's perverted HARD BOYS could take a turn or two with him!

In the meantime, I think I am with jeffmoskin on this, the "skipping" part that is.

Or Bush Co. will give him a presidential pardon, 'cause they buddies, don't you know, just like DUBYA and Kenny "BOY" Lay.

And that, folks, brings us to today!

A nice sunny day up here in the somewhat cold country of America, where I presently am.

Only about 25 degrees Fahrenheit this morning, so little by little, the cold is losing its grip!

Hooray!

Birds are starting to sing, although to be truthful, some have been around for a while now, singing out their little hearts, like the Phoebes, who were out there on some of those days way below zero Fahrenhiet.

SO?

Where are we heading?

Hard to tell!

Stay tuned!

Live!

Late-breaking!

Life, in OUR America.

This morning, on the radio, I heard an interview with a man from an organization of people in America who are now starting to get together to look into the reverses to environmental legislation that has occurred primarily under this Bush Co., or perhaps has escalated under Bush Co., because up my way, outside of "tokenism", there really has not been much guts or teeth in "environmental" regulation since the mid-1980's, BY DESIGN.

Over the years of studying GUMMINT here in the corrupt EMPIRE state of New York, I have come to notice, or learn, perhaps, that laws are really a kind of TOLL GATE that the political parties, and here the REPUBLICANS probably have the edge over the DEMOCRATS, can exploit for THEIR FINANCIAL WELL-BEING, at the expense of the citizens whom the laws or regulations were ostensibly put in effect to protect.

And for their part, the citizens allow this to happen, BECAUSE citizens don't know the law!

And getting to court up here to have the law enforced is not for the timid, or those without a big boodle of cash, and so, the game goes on, as it has for quite some time now.

For those of you who are interested, there is an excellent book on the life of Theodore Roosevelt when he was a member of the New York State Assembly entitled "He Rose Like A Rocket" by Paul Grondahl which details some of the "EXTORTION" schemes that members of the New York State Assembly would cook up in the form of "legislation" that would allegedly forces businesses to have to pay them to take a piece of punitive legislation back off the books.

The book is well-researched, and contains a long list of references, and Grondahl himself has quite a bit of experience covering the shenanigans of the New York State Legislature, so, if you are interested in fighting GUMMINT CORRUPTION, and you want to know how to recognize the "BEAST", try that book for a starter.

It is informative.

And that brings me to an interview that I heard on another radio station yesterday with a man in Egypt, who stated that he was 45 years old, and except for a brief period, HE HAS LIVED HIS ENTIRE LIFE OVER THERE UNDER MARTIAL LAW!

His dream was to live a part of his life under what he was calling civil law, and listening to him really made me think about the brink that we are poised on, right now, here in OUR America, where the REPUBLICANS would have us all living under a form of martial law, FOREVER!

OUR LIBERTY is as much a threat to the REPUBLICANS here in OUR America as LIBERTY in Egypt is a threat to that Mubarrak character that they have in power over there.

It just is a thing with TYRANTS, it seems, that they simply cannot stand the thought of LIBERTY for others, as it somehow serves to diminish their MANHOODS or something wierd like that.

And that brings me to the second of what were called "CATO's LETTERS", that I have posted below here.

One thing that I am doing in here, in keeping with the spirit of this forum as it is embodied in the words of Thomas Paine above, is exploring the roots of this thing we call LIBERTY, and for us, as Americans, those roots are partly in CATO's LETTERS, so, without further ado, and as you read this, KEEP IN MIND THAT THIS LETTER WAS WRITTEN IN 1720, 56 years before OUR Declaration of Independence and the words of Mr. Thomas Paine above here:

No. 16 The Leaders of Parties, their usual Views. - Advice to all Parties to be no longer misled

SIR, ....

A very great Authority has told us, that 'Tis worth no Man's Time to serve a Party, unless he can now and then get good Jobbs by it.

This, I can safely say, has been the constant Principle and Practice of every leading Patriot, ever since I have been capable of observing publick Transactions; the primum Mobile, the Alpha and Omega of all their Actions: They all professed to have in View only the Publick Good; yet every one shewed he only meant his own; and all the while the great as well as little Mob, ..., contended as fiercely for their Leaders, as if their Happiness or Misery depended upon the Face, the Cloaths, or Title of the Persons who robbed and betrayed them.

Thus the Highwayman said to the Traveller, Pray, Sir, leave your Watch and Money in my Hands; or else, by G__, you will be robbed.

Pound a Fool in a Mortar, and he comes out never the wiser; no Experience will make the Bulk of Mankind so, or put them upon their Guard; they will be caught over and over again by the same Baits and Stale Stratagems:

No sooner is a Party betrayed by one Head, but they rail at him, and set up another;

and when this has served them in the same Manner, they choose a Third; and put full Confidence in every one of them successively, though they all make the same Use of their Credulity;

that is, put a Price upon their Calves Heads, and sell them; which, however, they have the less Reason to complain of, because they would have all done the same.

I assure you, Sir, that I have not the least Hopes in this Letter to make Men honester, but I would gladly teach them a little more Wit; that is, I would advise any one who is contented to be sold, that he receive the Money himself, and take good Care of One, whatever becomes of his Neighbours; as some discreet Persons have lately done.

Whatever Bargains are struck up amongst the Betrayers of their Country, we must find the Money, and pay both Sides.

How wise and advantageous would it then be for us, not to interest ourselves in the Agreements or Squabbles of ambitious Men, who are building their Fortunes upon our Ruin?

Once upon a Time, a French Ambassador desired an Audience of the Grand Vizier, and in pompous French Fustian notified to him, that his Master had won a great Victory over the Germans; to which that wise Minister answered laconically, What is it to me, if the whole Herd of Unbelievers, like Dogs, mutually wary one another, so that my Master's Head be safe?

This Letter of Advice is not intended for those who share already in the publick Spoils, or who, like Jackalls, hunt down the Lion's Prey, that they may have the picking of the Bones, when their Masters are glutted.

But I would persuade the poor, the injured, the distressed People, to be no longer the Dupes and Property of Hypocrites and Traytors.

But very few can share in the Wages of Iniquity, and all the rest must suffer; the People's Interest is the publick Interest; it signifies the same Thing:

Whatever these Betrayers of their country get, the People must lose; and, what is worse, must lose a great deal more than the others can get; for such Conspiracies and Extortions cannot be successfully carried on, without destroying or injuring Trade, perverting Justice, corrupting the Guardians of the publick Liberty, and the almost total Dissolution of the Principles of Government.

Few can receive the Advantages arising from publick Misfortunes; and therefore methinks few should desire them.

Indeed, I can easily see how Men of desperate Circumstances, or Men guilty of desperate Crimes, can find their Account in a general Confusion of all Things.

I can see how those Priests, who aim at Tyranny, can find their Interest in the Loss of publick Liberty, in the Restraint of the Press, and in introducing a Religion which destroys Christianity:

There are Reasons too at hand, why ambitious Men should, ..., grasp at the Possession of immense Wealth, high Honours, and exorbitant Power:

But that the Gentry, the Body of the People in a free Nation, should become the Tools and Instruments of Knaves and Pick-pockets; should list themselves in their Quarrels, and fight their Battles; and this too, often at the Expence, and by the Violation of good Neighbourhood, near Relation, private friendship That Men of great Estates and Quality, for small and trifling Considerations, and sometimes none at all, should promote wild, villainous Projects, to the Ruin of themselves and Country, by making precarious their own Titles to their Lives, Estates, and Liberties, is something so stupendous, that it must be thought impossible, if daily Experience did not convince us that it is more than possible.

I have often seen honest Tories foolishly defending knavish Tories; and untainted Whigs protecting corrupt Whigs, even in Instances where they acted against the Principles of all Whigs; and by that Means depreciated Whiggism itself, and gave the stupid Herd Occasion to believe that they had no Principles at all, but were only a factious Combination for Preferment and Power.

It is high Time, at last, for the Bubbles of all parties, for Whigs and Tories, for High Church and Low Church, to come to an Eclaircissement, and no longer suffer themselves to be bought and sold by their Drivers:

Let them cease to be Calves and Sheep, and they will not be used like Calves and Sheep.

If they can be persuaded now and then to confer Notes, they will find, that for the most part the Differences between them are not material; that they take only different Measures to attain the same Ends; that they have but one common Interest, which is the Interest of their Country; and that is, to be freed from Oppression, and to punish their Oppressors: Whose Practice, on the contrary, will always be to form Parties, and blow up Factions to mutual Animosities, that they may find Protection in those Animosities.

Let us not therefore, for the Time to come, suffer ourselves to be engaged in empty and pernicious Contentions; which can only tend to make us the Property and Harvest of Pickpockets:

Let us learn to value an honest Man of another Party, more than a Knave of our own:

Let the only Contention be, who shall be most ready to spew out their own Rogues; and I will be answerable that all other Differences will soon be at an End.

Indeed, there had been no such Thing as Party now in England, if we had not been betrayed by those whom we trusted.

Through the Villainy and knavish Designs of Leaders, this Nation has lost several glorious Opportunities of rescuing the Constitution, and settling it upon a firm and solid basis:

Let us not therefore, by the like Practices, lost the present favourable Offer:

Let us make Earnings of our Misfortunes, and accept our Calamities as an Opportunity thrown into our Laps by indulgent Providence, to save ourselves; and not again foolishly and ungratefully reject and spurn at the Intimations and Invitations of Heaven, to preserve our Prince and Country.

Machiavelli tells us, that no Government can long subsist, but by recurring often to its first Principles, but this can never be done while Men live at Ease and in Luxury; for then they cannot be persuaded to see distant Dangers, of which they feel no Part.

The Conjunctures proper for such Reformations, are when Men are awakened by Misfortunes, and frighted with the Approach and near View of present Evils; then they will wish for Remedies, and their Minds are prepared to receive them, to hear Reasons, and to fall into Measures proposed by wise Men for their Security.

The great Authority just quoted informs us what Measures and Expedients are necessary to save a State under such Exigencies:

He tells us, that as a Tyranny cannot be established but by destroying Brutus; so a free Government is not to be preserved but by destroying Brutus's Sons.

Let us therefore put on a Resolution equal to the mighty Occasion:

Let us exert a Spirit worthy of Britons, worthy of Freemen who deserve Liberty.

Let us take advantage of the Opportunity, while Men's Resentments boil high, whilst lesser Animosities seem to be laid aside, and most Men are sick of Party and Party-Leaders; and let us, by all proper Methods, exemplarily punish the Parricides, and avowed Enemies of all Mankind.

Let neither private Acquaintance, personal Alliance, or Party Combination, stand between us and our Duty to our Country:

Let all those who have a common Interest in public Safety, join in common Measures to defend the publick Safety:

Let us pursue to Disgrace, Destruction, and even Death, those who have brought this Ruin upon us, let them be ever so great, or ever so many:

Let us stamp and deep engrave, in Characters legible to all Europe at present, and to all Posterity hereafter, what Vengeance is due to crimes, which have no less Objects in View than the Ruin of Nations, and the Destruction of Millions:

They have made many bold, desperate, and wicked Attempts to destroy us; let us strike one honest and bold Stroke to destroy them.

Though the Designs of the Conspirators should be laid as deep as the Center, though they should raise Hell itself in their Quarrel, and should fetch Legions of Votaries from thence to avow their Proceedings, yet let us not leave the pursuit, till we have their Skins and Estates:

We know, by past Experience, that there are those amongst us, who will be glad to quit the Chase, when our Villains, like Beavers, drop what they are usually hunted for; but the Nation is now too much provoked and too much injured, to suffer themselves to be again so betrayed.

We have Heaven to direct us, a glorious King to lead us, and a wise and faithful Parliament to assist and protect us:

Whilst we have such a King, and such a Parliament, every worthy Briton cries out aloud,

Manus haec inimica Tyrannis Ense petit placidam, sub libertate quietem.

February 11, 1720

We have Heaven to direct us, a glorious King to lead us, and a wise and faithful Government to assist and protect us:

Whilst we have such a King, and such a Government, every worthy American cries out aloud,

Manus haec inimica Tyrannis Ense petit placidam, sub libertate quietem.


March 16, 2005

PARRICIDE: The crime of killing one's father; also a person guilty of killing his father!

- Black's Law Dictionary

It is indeed interesting, jeffmoskin, that I was thinking on these exact same words today, after I made that post of Cato's Letter Number 16 that you quote from above!

Except I may see it more metaphorically than you do, as I see George W. Bush and his crowd AS THE PARRICIDES mentioned in this sentence of Cato No. 16, to wit:

"Let us take advantage of the Opportunity, while Men's Resentments boil high, whilst lesser Animosities seem to be laid aside, and most Men are sick of Party and Party-Leaders; and let us, by all proper Methods, exemplarily punish the Parricides, and avowed Enemies of all Mankind!"

George W. Bush and HIS CROWD ARE NOT the"glorious King to lead us, and a wise and faithful Government to assist and protect us", and not at all!

To the contrary, George W. Bush and HIS crowd, including Richard "Halliburton Dick" Cheney, are the direct antithesis of the "glorious King to lead us, and a wise and faithful Government to assist and protect us"; and so, are the avowed Enemies of ALL MANKIND, the PARRICIDES mentioned in Cato No. 16!

In OUR hearts and minds as LIBERTY-loving human beings, we have an "image" of the "GLORIOUS KING" as OUR Leader, and that most sertainly IS NOT GEORGE W. BUSH!

Not by a long shot!

In OUR hearts and minds as LIBERTY-loving human beings, we similarly have an "image" of the "WISE AND FAITHFUL GOVERNMENT TO ASSIST AND PROTECT US", and here is where George W. Bush and HIS fall way short of the mark, in my estimation, BECAUSE THEY ARE NOT "WISE", THEY CERTAINLY ARE NOT "FAITHFUL", AT LEAST TO US, AND THEY ARE INEPT AND SEEMINGLY GROSSLY INCOMPETENT, WHICH LEAVES THEM TOTALLY INADEQUATE WITH REGARD TO EITHER ASSISTING US IN ANY MEANINGFUL WAY, OR ESPECIALLY PROTECTING US, FROM ANYTHING!

We wish for a glorious King to lead us, and a wise and faithful Government to assist and protect us, and we have George W. Bush and his, instead!

And so, BECAUSE OF THIS, every worthy American cries out aloud,

Manus haec inimica Tyrannis Ense petit placidam, sub libertate quietem.

March 16, 2005

AMEN!

Over in Mr. A.B.'s "Religion and Politics" thread, I just made a post where I compared George W. Bush to the Biblical character Nimrod, who was himself quite a "CONQUERER" in the mold of George W. Bush.

In that post, "GOD" is said to have directly INTERVENED in Nimrod's plans to "TAKE OVER THE EARTH", THWARTING THOSE PLANS, and in that post, where this is said, in parenthesis, I put in the parallel to today, where George W. Bush's apparent plans to seemingly take over the earth are similarly being thwarted by what appears to be the HAND OF GOD acting to break up George W. Bush's "COALITION" in Iraq!

And now, we have George W. Bush himself saying, "IT IS NOT SO!"

Apparently to him, at least, "GOD" is still on his side!

SO!

We will see, I guess!

Politics - Reuters

"Bush Insists Iraq Coalition Not Crumbling"

44 minutes ago

By Steve Holland

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush insisted on Wednesday the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq was not crumbling and he shrugged off Italy's decision to begin pulling troops from Iraq by September.

"Quite to the contrary," Bush said when asked if the coalition was falling apart.

"I think the coalition has been buoyed by the courage of the Iraqi people."

Nearly two years after the Iraq war began, Bush hailed the first meeting of Iraq's national assembly as a "bright moment" and said Iraq's elections, a potential Syrian pullout from Lebanon, and Israel and the Palestinians talking peace could produce change elsewhere in the Middle East.

"I believe those examples will serve as examples for others over time," he told a White House news conference.

"And that will lead to more peace, and that's what we want."

The decision by Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, a close Bush ally, to start withdrawing Italy's 3,000 troops from Iraq was a blow to the U.S.-led coalition.

It came after U.S. troops killed an Italian secret service agent and wounded an Italian journalist in what Washington has called a tragic accident that remains under investigation.

Bush said he spoke to Berlusconi and the prime minister told him "any withdrawals would be done in consultation with allies and would be done depending upon the ability of Iraqis to defend themselves."

Bush acknowledged countries with troops in Iraq were anxious to bring them home once Iraqi forces are trained and able to defend themselves against an insurgency that has launched suicide bombings and attacks against coalition forces and the fledgling Iraqi government.

He offered no timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops, saying "Our troops will come home when Iraq is capable of defending herself."

Bush appeared in the White House briefing room almost two years after launching a war with the aim of toppling Saddam Hussein for not giving up weapons of mass destruction.

The weapons were never found and more than 1,500 Americans have been killed in a conflict against an insurgency that critics say has grown because of the U.S. presence.

'WHOLESOME PROCESS'

Bush now sees Iraq as a place where democracy can take root in the Middle East.

To that end, he said he was not worried about whether Iraq's parliament will be able to form a new government, which rival political blocs are squabbling over.

"It's a wholesome process and it's being done in a transparent way."

"I mean, you've got the press corps all over them, watching every move, which is a positive example for others in the region, and that's important," he said.

Bush repeated Syria must withdraw all troops and expressed particular concern about Syrian intelligence personnel.

He said they are "embedded in a lot of government functions in Lebanon, and there needs to be a complete withdrawal of those services in order for there to be a free election."

State Department spokesman Adam Ereli questioned whether the Syrian intelligence agents were actually leaving Lebanon, saying it was unclear where they were going.

Bush met with Cardinal Nasrallah Boutros Sfeir, spiritual leader of Maronite Catholics in Lebanon, and they discussed their desire for Lebanon to be free of Syrian influence.

"Lebanese of all convictions are alarmed by the continued migration of Christian and Muslim youths due to the lack of job opportunities and the suffocating political conditions at home," the patriarch said.

Bush sought to clarify a comment he made on Tuesday in which he appeared to leave the door open to the Hizbollah guerrilla group having a political role in Lebanon if it disarmed.

Democrats had pointed out Hizbollah was responsible for a bombing that killed more than 200 U.S. servicemen in Beirut in 1983.

"Hizbollah is on the terrorist list for a reason, and remain on the terrorist list for a reason."

"Our position's not changed on Hizbollah," he said.

(Additional reporting by Arshad Mohammed)

1983!

What is that now, 25 years ago?

The barracks bombing in Lebanon!

Killed off a whole lot of Marines!

Also made a lot of people over here wonder at how a whole barracks-full of Marines could have been caught sleeping as they were, to have been killed in such a fashion as they were, 25 years ago, in Lebanon!

And then, like all things, we got over that "tragedy", as the PRESS would probably call it, or "cock-up" as some veterans would call it, a reflection upon the Commander-in-Chief at that time, and his failure to provide proper leadership in that situation.

TWENTY-FIVE YEARS!

And still the DEMOCRATS ARE SEETHING, apparently, or at least CHARLIE "Chuck" SCHUMER IS, which is interesting, as what is Charlie "Chuck's" angle in all of this, I wonder?

What exactly is Charlie "Chuck" proposing here?

Some kind of new American "HATE CAMPAIGN" against other peoples of the world, BUT THIS ONE CLEARLY INITIATED BY the Democrats, so as to prove them as vitriolic a bunch of haters as the REPUBLICANS are?

OR IS IT JUST EMPTY POSTURING BY CHARLIE "Chuck"?

And to what point?

And in typical Bush Co. fashion, we have as follows, NO SPECIFICS!

Isn't OUR government supposed to be one based upon OUR "INFORMED CONSENT"?

Without being informed, WHY should we give OUR consent to anything that this Bush Co. proposes?

With his track record of lies, half-truths, evasions and deceptions that always seem to come back to bite us in the ***, wouldn't we be outright fools to agree to anything this Bush Co. proposes without him giving us all the specifics as to what he wants OUR approval on?

Politics - Reuters

"Bush Says Won't Offer Specifics on Social Security"

1 hour, 5 minutes ago

By Caren Bohan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush said on Wednesday he would not send Congress a specific plan to change Social Security because it would be "dead on arrival" and admitted his idea of personal accounts would not fix the retirement system.

Overhauling Social Security is Bush's top domestic priority but polls show a lack of public enthusiasm even after he spent weeks traveling the country to promote the notion.

"The first bill on the Hill always is dead on arrival," Bush said.

"I have not laid out a plan yet, intentionally."

"I'm interested in coming up with a permanent solution."

"I'm not interested in playing political games," he added.

The centerpiece of Bush's Social Security plan is the idea that younger workers should be able shift part of their payroll taxes into stock and bond accounts.

Bush said he was "not going to go away" on his drive to restructure Social Security and said he thought it was important for Congress to discuss the personal accounts idea.

But he added, "Personal accounts do not permanently fix the solution."

Congressional Democrats have vowed to block any plan to overhaul Social Security that includes such accounts, arguing they will they drive up the national debt by requiring trillions of dollars in new borrowing.

Democrats and the AARP, the seniors' lobby group, plan to hold forums during the two-week congressional Easter recess to rally opposition to Bush's plan.

Bush plans events of his own, starting with a trip to Florida on Friday and to western states next week.

Democrats said they wanted to work with the president to shore up Social Security's finances, but they want him to take private accounts off the table first.

They argue that diverting Social Security taxes into the accounts would worsen the program's cash flow problems.

"If he were to take privatization off the table he would be setting up a circumstance where we could work together," said Sen. Max Baucus of Montana, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee .

A recent New York Times poll showed that 30 percent of Americans approved of Bush's handling of the Social Security issue, while 57 percent disapproved.

The Times poll, conducted from last Wednesday to Monday, contrasted with a Jan. 7-9 poll that showed 41 percent approved of Bush's handling of Social Security and 52 percent disapproved.

Skepticism about Bush's plan is strongest among older Americans, who wield a lot of political clout because they vote in large numbers.

That has emboldened Democrats and left many Republicans reticent as they look ahead to the 2006 mid-term elections.

Bush suggested that laying out his own proposal on Social Security would be counterproductive to trying to hammer out a bill that would attract Democrats as well as Republicans.

"We're open for ideas," Bush said.

"And look, I can understand why people say, "Make -- force the president to either negotiate with himself or lay out his own bill."

"I want to work with members of both political parties," Bush said.

A largely symbolic vote on Tuesday in the Senate showed Bush would have a difficult time winning a majority to get approval for private accounts.

Five Republicans joined 44 Democrats and one independent to back a nonbinding resolution saying Congress should reject any Social Security plan that would require deep benefit cuts or a massive increase in debt.

Even though the measure failed, the fact that it garnered 50 of the 100 U.S. senators was significant, backers of the resolution said.

(Additional reporting by Donna Smith)

Over in Mr. A.B.'s "Religion and Politics" thread, he wonders, as I do in here, exactly what is it with this George W. Bush, AND WHAT IS IT, INDEED?

Over here, where the thread is secular in nature, I wonder at George W. Bush's mental capacity, actually, especially in light of news stories like this one above, where George W. Bush says he wants to come up with a permanent solution to what HE SAYS are problems with Social Security, and then, HE OFFERS US EXACTLY NOTHING!

"Bush suggested that laying out his own proposal on Social Security would be counterproductive to trying to hammer out a bill that would attract Democrats as well as Republicans?"

IF you say that you want to WORK together with people to solve something, ISN'T IT FIRST NECESSARY TO LAY OUT FOR PEOPLE WHAT YOU THINK IS BROKEN?

Where does George W. Bush ever do that with respect to Social Security?

Where, oh where is there any leadership at all coming from this man?

He says he does not want to play "political games", EVEN AS HE IS PLAYING POLITICAL GAMES by not sending Congress, as worthless as it might prove to be in the end, ANY SPECIFICS ON WHAT HE IS PROPOSING AS HIS FIX TO WHAT HE ALLEGES IS WRONG WITH SOCIAL SECURITY, WHICH IS STILL A TOP-SECRET, apparently, as Bush Co. won't say a word about it!

"Bush said he was "not going to go away" on his drive to restructure Social Security and said he thought it was important for Congress to discuss the personal accounts idea, BUT he added, "Personal accounts do not permanently fix the solution."

"Personal accounts do not fix the solution!"

AND THERE IS THE PROBLEM, GEORGE!

They just jam OUR children's money down YOUR FRIENDS' POCKETS, and that, George, IS A GREAT BIG POLITICAL GAME THAT YOU ARE PLAYING HERE, ON US!

And it is very interesting to get the facts on just why were our marines there in the first place?

A.B.

And I agree, Mr. A.B., especially with that part about "FACTS"!

Why are we always getting a bunch of "emotional manipulation" from the likes of this Charlie "Chuck" Schumer, and the others of his ilk down there in Washington, D.C., INSTEAD OF FACTS?

Why are we always being taught "HATE"?

Besides those who make money off of "HATE", who benefits from us being always taught to "HATE", BY WHAT IS ALLEGED TO BE "OUR" GOVERNMENT?

Any answers, Charlie "Chuck"?

CUI BONO, Charlie "Chuck"?

And speaking of the teaching and spreading of GOVERNMENTALLY SPONSORED AND SANCTIONED HATRED around this world of OURS, what is this?

The valiant and glorious C&IofA being questioned, and by mere mortals, to boot?

How very patriotic!

washingtonpost.com Highlights

"CIA challenged on suspects’ torture overseas - Allegations: System to assure legal treatment ineffective"

By Dana Priest

Updated: 10:53 p.m. ET March 16, 2005

The system the CIA relies on to ensure that the suspected terrorists it transfers to other countries will not be tortured has been ineffective and virtually impossible to monitor, according to current and former intelligence officers and lawyers, as well as counterterrorism officials who have participated in or reviewed the practice.

To comply with anti-torture laws that bar sending people to countries where they are likely to be tortured, the CIA's office of general counsel requires a verbal assurance from each nation that detainees will be treated humanely, according to several recently retired CIA officials familiar with such transfers, known as renditions.

But the effectiveness of the assurances and the legality of the rendition practice are increasingly being questioned by rights groups and others, as freed detainees have alleged that they were mistreated by interrogators after the CIA secretly delivered them to countries with well-documented records of abuse.

President Bush weighed in on the matter for the first time yesterday, defending renditions as vital to the nation's defense.

In "the post-9/11 world, the United States must make sure we protect our people and our friends from attack," he said at a news conference.

"And one way to do so is to arrest people and send them back to their country of origin with the promise that they won't be tortured."

"That's the promise we receive."

"This country does not believe in torture."

"We do believe in protecting ourselves."

One CIA officer involved with renditions, however, called the assurances from other countries "a farce."

Another U.S. government official who visited several foreign prisons where suspects were rendered by the CIA after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, said:

"It's beyond that."

"It's widely understood that interrogation practices that would be illegal in the U.S. are being used."

The CIA inspector general recently launched a review of the rendition system, and some members of Congress are demanding a thorough probe.

Canada, Sweden, Germany and Italy have started investigations into the participation of their security services in CIA renditions.

The House voted 420 to 2 yesterday to prohibit the use of supplemental appropriations to support actions that contravene anti-torture statutes.

The measure's co-author, Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), singled out renditions, saying "diplomatic assurances not to torture are not credible, and the administration knows it."

Rendition, a form of covert action that is supposed to be shrouded in the deepest secrecy, was first authorized by President Ronald Reagan in 1986 and was used by the Clinton administration to transfer drug lords and terrorists to the United States or other countries for military or criminal trials.

After the 2001 attacks, Bush broadened the CIA's authority and, as a result, the agency has rendered more than 100 people from one country to another without legal proceedings and without providing access to the International Committee of the Red Cross, a right afforded all prisoners held by the U.S. military.

The CIA general counsel's office requires the station chief in a given country to obtain a verbal assurance from that country's security service.

The assurance must be cabled back to CIA headquarters before a rendition takes place.

‘There’s only so much we can do’

CIA Director Porter J. Goss told Congress a month ago that the CIA has "an accountability program" to monitor rendered prisoners."

But he acknowledged that "of course, once they're out of our control, there's only so much we can do."

Asked to explain Goss's statement, an intelligence official said:

"There are accountability procedures in place."

"For example, in some cases, the U.S. government is allowed access and can verify treatment of detainees."

The official declined to elaborate.

Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales said in an interview last week that, once a transfer occurs, "we can't fully control what that country might do."

"We obviously expect a country to whom we have rendered a detainee to comply with their representations to us."

"If you're asking me 'Does a country always comply?,' I don't have an answer to that."

In practice, though, the CIA has little control over prisoners once they leave CIA custody, said three recently retired CIA officials and other intelligence officials who have dealt with foreign intelligence services on detainee matters.

"These are sovereign countries," said Michael Scheuer, a recently retired CIA officer who favors the use of renditions to disrupt terrorist networks.

"They are not going to let you into their prisons."

"Once they are in the jurisdiction of another country, we have no rights to follow up," said Edward S. Walker Jr., a former assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs and now president of the Middle East Institute.

The U.S. official who visited foreign detention sites said the issue "goes far beyond" the assurance:

"They say they are not abusing them, and that satisfies the legal requirement, but we all know they do."

For a country offering assurances, following up could imply the United States does not trust its leaders.

"We wouldn't accept the premise that we would make a promise and violate it," said the Egyptian ambassador to the United States, Nabil Fahmy, whose country has accepted rendered terrorism suspects.

He denied that Egyptian officers employ torture in interrogations.

"I don't accept the premise that if you want to torture someone, you send them to Jordan or Egypt."

"That would be the exception to the rule."

Egypt, he added, "is becoming more and more rigorous" in prosecuting officers who use excessive force.

Australian alleges torture in Egypt

But Mamdouh Habib, an Australian citizen, has alleged he was tortured in Egypt for six months after U.S. officials sent him there.

Habib had been detained in Pakistan in October 2001 as a suspected al Qaeda trainer.

In Egypt, he alleges, he was hung by his arms from hooks, shocked, nearly drowned and brutally beaten.

He was then sent to the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and was released in February.

Another Arab diplomat, whose country is actively engaged in counterterrorism operations and shares intelligence with the CIA, said it is unrealistic to believe the CIA really wants to follow up on the assurances.

"It would be stupid to keep track of them because then you would know what's going on," he said.

"It's really more like 'Don't ask, don't tell.'"

Questions about assurances have stalled the release of prisoners from Guantanamo.

Guarantees of humane treatment by Yemen notwithstanding, a federal court in the District of Columbia prohibited on Saturday the transfer of 13 Yemeni prisoners from Guantanamo to Yemen until a hearing is held on their attorneys' assertion that they could be tortured if returned there.

And despite assurances by China, State Department officials have been unwilling to send 22 Chinese Muslims from Guantanamo to China for fear they would be tortured.

Researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.

end quotes

GEORGE W. BUSH HAS NO CREDIBILITY!

WHATSOEVER!

There's something happening here!

What it is becomes increasingly clear!

George W. Bush is standing over there,

With a lot of guns all around him;

AND because of HIM, I got to beware!

He just might BURN DOWN the whole earth

In his passing!

HHHhhhmmmm.

Does anyone see it?

Does anyone see what Bush Co. and Condo Rice are doing here?

Is it not obvious?

IS IT NOT QUITE OBVIOUS THAT GEORGE W. BUSH AND CONDO RICE ARE ACCUSING LEBANON OF HAVING A GOVERNMENT THAT HARBORS TERRORISTS?

REMEMBER WHAT GEORGE W. BUSH SAID WOULD HAPPEN TO ANY GOVERNMENT THAT HE ACCUSED OF HARBORING TERRORISTS?

WILL AN INVASION OF LEBANON TO DISARM HIZBOLLAH BE NEXT ON BUSH CO.'s AGENDA, when these troops leave Iraq?

Stay tuned!

Developments as they happen!

LIVE, LATE-BREAKING!

Top Stories - Reuters

"U.S. Likely to Soon Cut Troops in Iraq - Army General"

1 hour, 41 minutes ago

By Charles Aldinger

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Army expects to begin cutting troop levels in Iraq later this year, a move that would reduce the level of American forces there to below 138,000, an Army general said on Thursday.

"I think for the next force rotation, we'll start seeing that (the) force rotation coming in will be smaller than the force that's in there," said Gen. Richard Cody, the Army's vice chief of staff.

"I know you're all waiting for a number here, and I'm not going to give you one because I don't know," Cody added in an interview with defense reporters.

The general said the next annual U.S. force rotation for Iraq would begin this summer and that the number of soldiers sent into the rotation later in the year is likely to be smaller than those coming out.

Another defense official, who asked not to be identified, told Reuters on Thursday that the number of U.S. Marines in Iraq also was likely to decline in the new rotation.

There are 150,000 American troops in Iraq -- most of them Army soldiers -- but the number will go down to 138,000 before the end of this month.

The force was increased by 12,000 in December to provide security for the Iraqi elections in January.

But U.S. defense officials have said the number will likely begin falling below 138,000 as the Iraqi army and security forces are trained to take over security in the country.

Cody's comments came as Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was accused in his country on Thursday of bowing to pressure from the United States after he apparently backtracked on an announcement that Italian troops would start withdrawing from Iraq in September.

Berlusconi said on a television talk show this week that he wanted to begin reducing Italy's 3,000-strong contingent in September, but he later said he had never set a fixed date for any pullout.

Italy has the fourth-largest foreign contingent in Iraq after the U.S., British and South Korean forces and any eventual withdrawal before other main partners would leave a hole in Iraq's international security network.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair said on Wednesday he would not set any timetable for withdrawal of British troops.

And I suppose for the sake of "POLITICAL CORRECTNESS" that I should have had my declaration above here that George W. Bush has no credibility with me, read more exactly, to make it incandescently clear that that is what I was saying!

And here is a part of the reason why that just may be:

Politics - AP

"Government: Nuke Waste Papers May Be False"

Thu Mar 17, 6:39 AM ET

By ERICA WERNER, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - The government disclosed that scientists on the Yucca Mountain project may have falsified documents, dealing the latest blow to plans to bury the nation's nuclear waste in Nevada.

Supporters of the nuclear waste dump insisted the development wouldn't derail it.

Yucca Mountain has suffered so many setbacks that a top Energy Department official couldn't tell lawmakers a projected completion date Wednesday.

The disclosure about the documents could jeopardize the government's ability to get a federal license to open the dump or delay the license even more.

At the least, it hands Nevada one more weapon as it fights to kill the dump.

"This strikes at the very heart of the technical dispute between the state of Nevada and the Energy Department," said Joe Egan, Nevada's attorney in the dump fight.

"That's what we're preparing to litigate."

A statement Wednesday from Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said that during preparation for a license application to nuclear regulators, the department found e-mails from May 1998 through March 2000 in which an employee of the U.S. Geological Survey "indicated that he had fabricated documentation of his work."

The development "proves once again that DOE must cheat and lie in order to make Yucca Mountain look safe," Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said in a statement.

The documents involved computer modeling for water infiltration and climate at the Yucca site 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Nevada officials say water movement is critical in determining the possible spread of radiation from the proposed waste repository.

Bodman said the department was investigating what kind of information was falsified and whether it would affect the scientific underpinnings of the project.

"If in the course of that review any work is found to be deficient, it will be replaced or supplemented with analysis and documentation that meets appropriate quality assurance standards," said Bodman.

He said he was "greatly disturbed" by the development.

At a House hearing Wednesday, the official who recently took over the Yucca program in the Energy Department said the department remained "100 percent committed" to creating the permanent repository.

"I assure you we will not proceed until we have rectified these problems," Theodore Garrish told Rep. David Hobson, R-Ohio, chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee that controls the dollars for Yucca Mountain.

Garrish was not asked to elaborate.

After the hearing, he refused to answer reporters' questions.

Statements from Bodman and Chip Groat, director of the Geological Survey, indicated that multiple scientists were involved but not how many.

It wasn't clear what the workers' roles were or how they've been dealt with.

Hobson said the problem did not appear too serious and shouldn't hurt Yucca Mountain.

"As I understand it this is not a major impediment and can be corrected very easily," Hobson told reporters.

"Some people just don't want to do their job right, so they'll slip it through rather than doing their job."

"We don't have any evidence that somebody directed anybody to do this."

The documents were part of the papers required by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to verify the accuracy of earlier work in the project.

The department has delayed filing its license application to the NRC and now acknowledges that completing the facility by 2010 no longer is possible.

Garrish couldn't provide a new completion date Wednesday.
___

Associated Press writers H. Josef Hebert in Washington and Ken Ritter in Las Vegas contributed to this report.
___

On the Net:

Yucca Mountain background: http://www.ocrwm.doe.gov/ymp/index.shtml

Does it seem to anyone besides me that what is purported to be OUR government is actually a bit on what might be called the "SLIMY" side?

SO?

Is it OURS, then?

Are WE SLIMY, so that OUR government reflects us?

OR are we merely trusting fools?

Editorial: Some watchdog/The FDA lets industry trump the public interest

Monday, March 07, 2005

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

It seemed odd at the time.

An advisory committee of the federal Food and Drug Administration voted last month for continued marketing of three popular painkillers despite plenty of evidence that Vioxx, Celebrex and Bextra create an undue risk of heart attacks and strokes.

Now The New York Times reports why the FDA's drug safety panel decided as it did.

It turns out that at least 10 of the 32 committee members have financial ties to the pharmaceutical manufacturers.

If those 10 had been forced to recuse themselves, the panel's deciding votes would have gone the other way, the Times reported.

The conflicts, involving previous consulting work for Merck, which makes Vioxx, and Pfizer, which makes Bextra and Celebrex, were documented in medical journals and public records.

The FDA's tactic has been to read a statement at the beginning of its advisory panel meetings acknowledging the members may have conflicts but absolving them since no products were being approved.

Several of the scientists responded feebly that it would be difficult to find advisers with no ties to drug makers.

Science policy experts say such conflicts are common at the FDA, which during the Bush administration has served [u]not as a consumer watchdog but as a rubber stamp for the latest pharmaceutical ventures.

Health and safety have become secondary to industry profits.

At the same time, the administration is pressing Congress to pass legislation limiting the right of individuals and groups to sue businesses over defective and dangerous products -- like drugs.

It doesn't take a conspiracy theorist to see a disturbing pattern in which the industry's agenda is being advanced at the expense of the public interest.

And NO, it does not, does it, take a "CONSPIRACY THEORIST" to see this disturbing trend under this Bush Co. REGIME in which the industry's agenda, right across the board, it seems, IS BEING ADVANCED at the expense of the public interest!

All you need is eyes, and a bit of a brain, and it is right there in plain sight, and easy to see!

AND WE DO NOT COUNT, those of us in OUR America who comprise the serf and peasant class, which is the one here in OUR America without rights, THANKS TO BUSH CO.!

And why don't we have rights?

Because we don't know how to buy them, or we don't have the money to buy them, or we just don't care!

Those are largely the reasons, as I see them.

Having rights is a lot of hard work, for one thing, because you have to know about them, and the law, and how the law is supposed to work on OUR behalf as the POLICE POWER of OUR "state", and then, IF the law is not working as it is supposed to, then we as individuals are faced with the burden, and burden it is, make no mistake about it, the burden of taking on what is supposed to be OUR government to have OUR own laws enforced as they are supposed to be, TO PROTECT US!

And as if ALL of that were not already difficult enough, the Bush Co. is doing his damndest ON BEHALF OF BID-NESS to make sure that we will be all but foreclosed from ever having access to JUSTICE IN OUR OWN REPUBLIC, by his attempts to close off OUR COURTS, TO US!

Politics - Reuters

"Texas Study Casts Doubt on Need for Tort Reform

Thu Mar 10, 1:59 AM ET

HOUSTON (Reuters) - A study released on Thursday cast doubt on whether recent "tort reform" in Texas that limited payouts in medical malpractice lawsuits and is similar to what President Bush wants nationally was really needed.

The study looked at Texas Department of Insurance records dating back to 1988 and found claims that medical costs were soaring because of too many malpractice lawsuits, the supposed reason for the reform, were not true.

"We find no evidence of the medical malpractice crisis that produced headlines over the last several years and led to legal reform in Texas and other states," said the study, conducted by law professors at the University of Texas, University of Illinois and Columbia University law schools.

Only a few states have comprehensive insurance databases like that of Texas, said David Hyman, one of the study authors, but similar studies elsewhere have found nothing to indicate a link between litigation and rising medical costs.

"Everyone who is collecting data is finding more or less the same thing -- there is no evidence of a tort crisis," he told Reuters.

"The clear implication is that 'runaway medical malpractice litigation' makes a poor poster child for the cause of tort reform," said the study, which was released at the Texas law school in Austin.

In 2003, in response to the alleged litigation crisis, Texas passed a law placing a $250,000 cap on certain damages in medical malpractice lawsuits.

But the study found that insurance payouts, jury awards in malpractice lawsuits and costs of legal defense had changed little between 1988 and 2002

The only thing that jumped, they said, was the cost of malpractice insurance, which rose 135 percent from 1999 to 2003 likely because of financial pressures that had nothing to do with litigation.

Bush, who backed tort reform when he was governor of Texas, is now calling for a federal law imposing the same $250,000 cap in malpractice lawsuits.

Without a cap "excessive jury awards will continue to drive up insurance costs," he said in a recent speech.

QUOTE(Abu Beacon @ Mar 16 2005, 07:17 PM)

And it is very interesting to get the facts on just why were our Marines there in the first place?

A.B.

And I agree, Mr. A.B., especially with that part about "FACTS"!

Livyjr ----You may find this interesting.

A.B.


The United States in Lebanon: April 3, 1984
A Case for Disengagement
by Sheldon L. Richman

Sheldon L. Richman is an editor of Inquiry magazine and an associate policy analyst of the Cato Institute.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Executive Summary

With the recent failure of Lebanon's feuding leaders to agree to a national reconciliation, or to achieve even a durable cease-fire, it should not be forgotten that American ships float offshore carrying large guns and over 1000 Marines. That continued presence is especially noteworthy in light of the incessant fighting in Beirut and the kidnapping of American diplomat William Buckley in the capital's Moslem sector. Despite President Reagan's decision to "redeploy" the Marines from Beirut International Airport to the safety of the ships, and the hiatus in active diplomatic efforts, it would be premature to say the United States is out of the picture.

Paradoxically, the redeployment was both an implicit admission by Reagan that his Lebanese policy was misguided from the beginning and a wrong-headed attempt to stick to the general policy aims. While the president has decided to remove the Marines from the proximity of the fighting that threatens to reduce Lebanon to a smoldering battlefield, bringing down what is left of the government of President Amin Gemayel, Reagan's decision to loosen the restrictions on the gunboats and bombers could mean that deeper American military involvement lies ahead. Indeed, with the Marines out of the way, at least temporarily,[1] the 16-inch guns of the battleship New Jersey and the American bombers may even rain further destruction on Lebanese Moslems and Druze. Civilians are sure to be among the victims of the American strikes on the hills outside Beirut.

Once again, we must witness the sad spectacle of Americans scurrying from violence in a foreign country. The tragedy is not that they flee, but that the government puts them in such a position in the first place. Those in this country who have called for the withdrawal of the Marines all along had hoped to avoid this spectacle.

President Reagan sought to put the best light on his decision to move the Marines offshore, but this was a formidable task, indeed. The decision was combined with measures that "will strengthen our ability to do the job we set out to do and sustain our efforts over the long term." The measures include naval and air bombardment of Moslem and Druze areas from which fire on Beirut originates and stepped-up training and equipping of the fading Gemayel government. In other words, the removal of the Marines indicates little change in the basic Reagan policy of backing President Gemayel. But since Gemayel has done little or nothing to solve the problems his presidency created for Lebanon, Reagan continues to commit the United States to a dangerously unwise policy.

The sudden decision to move the Marines (Reagan only days before had characterized Democratic calls for such action as "surrender") vindicated the Pentagon's Long Commission, which investigated the October 1983 truck bombing of the Marine compound that killed 241 members of the contingent. The commission, arguably going beyond its charge, looked at the mission itself. It didn't like what it saw.

It concluded: "U.S. decisions regarding Lebanon taken over the past 15 months have been to a large degree characterized by an emphasis on military options and the expansion of the U.S. military role, notwithstanding the fact that the conditions upon which the security of the [Marines was] based continues to deteriorate as progress toward a diplomatic solution slowed."

The release of the report, though delayed by the administration in an attempt to blunt its impact, unleased a flood of criticism that had been pent up for some time. Congressional Democrats and Republicans, many of whom held their criticism when Congress and the president struck a War Powers agreement giving the Marines 18 months in Lebanon, again began questioning the mission. Seventy representatives, Democrats and Republicans, demanded a review of the War Powers agreement, while Senator Charles Mathias (R-Md.) offered an amendment to cut the length of the mission to six months.

As the president's policy came in for renewed critical examination, signals from Beirut, Damascus, and Washington occasionally gave hope that withdrawal was not far off. Statements by President Reagan or special envoy Rumsfeld, especially those following the Syrian release of Navy Lt. Robert Goodman, indicated that some modus vivendi would be struck with Syria that could lead to an agreement among the contending parties and the withdrawal of the Marines. But in each case, the conciliatory tones were followed by tough American language about the intentions of Syrian president Hafez Assad, his Soviet backers, and his Moslem and Druze allies. Hope of progress toward a U.S. disengagement soon faded.

And each time this happened, President Reagan responded that American credibility was at stake and that a withdrawal would not only leave Lebanon in a bad way, but would undermine the U.S. claim to being a reliable ally. President Reagan continued to espouse this line even after the decision to remove the Marines was made. On February 2 he told the Wall Street Journal, "If we get out, it also means the end of any ability on our part to bring about an overall peace in the Middle East and I would have to say it means a pretty disastrous result for us worldwide."

But the resignation of Prime Minister Wazzan, a Sunni Moslem, and the rest of President Gemayel's cabinet, the outbreak of fierce fighting in Beirut, and major defections from the Lebanese army underscored the hopelessness of American policy in Lebanon.

President Reagan appears to have put the United States in an impossible and trying situation. Lebanon is beset by old and complex internal and external problems that virtually preclude social cohesiveness and tranquility, yet such cohesiveness and tranquility are made the pre-conditions of an American disengagement. Moreover, the American presence further aggravates the Lebanese problems, making the conditions for disengagement even less likely. The Marines were never peacekeepers; they were partisans. The Reagan policy, then, is caught in a deadly net: by its very nature, success is unlikely.

President Reagan's defense of his policy goes beyond Lebanon and any direct link it may or may not have to American security. He has made Lebanon a matter of U.S. credibility, saying, "We cannot simply withdraw unilaterally without raising questions about the U.S. commitment to moderation and negotiations in the Middle East."[2] To leave, he argues, is to diminish America's standing in the world. He has said disengagement would be a disaster for U.S. foreign policy.

The argument from credibility, rather than being persuasive, actually-calls into question the prudence of the United States' postwar foreign policy. By adopting a policy which holds that events anywhere in the world necessarily affect its interests, the United States has made virtually any development a test of its credibility. This is no exaggeration of the administration's position. The president said in October, "The struggle for peace is indivisible. We cannot pick and choose where we will support freedom. We can only determine how. If it's lost in one place, all of us lose."[3] Secretary of State George Shultz amplified Reagan's point when he speculated on whether there might be other "Lebanons" in America's future. Shultz said, "I think we are going to be presented around the world with a lot of situations that fall...between...massive deterrence on the one hand, and the neat, doable, Grenada-type operation on the other. Maybe...there aren't any circumstances between the extremes to which U.S. forces should be committed. If so, there are going to be a lot of U.S. interests that will be forgone around the world."[4]

What the administration ignores is that if one announces that something is a test of one's credibility, it becomes so. In the name of credibility, errors are prolonged, and anyone is invited to name the time and place of the next credibility test.

Critics of Reagan's policy may say that the credibility argument is a good reason not to get involved in situations such as Lebanon's. But this is not fundamental criticism. Reagan could easily have argued, before the Marines entered Lebanon, that to refrain from intervening would itself undermine U.S. credibility. It is part of Henry Kissinger's world view, for example, that avoiding opportunities to exert U.S. influence emboldens America's adversaries. So the credibility argument must be uprooted, not just pruned. The roots lie in America's bipartisan foreign policy. By forswearing the role of global policeman defending farflung "interests," and adopting instead a noninterventionist foreign policy, we would define most changes in the world out of the category of tests of our credibility.

The specific problems that make America's mission in Lebanon so poorly chosen are both external and internal, though there is considerable overlap between the two.

And let us not forget who STARTED THAT CIVIL WAR...

Yep.

Yassir Arafat.

Arafat, especially in later years did a great disservice to the Palestinian cause.

There is no question in my mind about that.

However, the civil war in Lebanon , its causes, its roots, excesses and inhumanity by ALL the players, including those from other countries, was far bigger than Yassir Arafat.

If you are willing, jeffmoskin to have a dialogue on this, I would be willing to exchange thoughts with you.

Arafat's influence in the Middle East encompassed more than his role in Lebanon's politics and his part in that awful civil war.

Aside from the main players, that is the Lebanese leaders, there were others who " aided and abetted " the continuation of this conflict.

Two of the outsiders whose part in this bloody conflict contributed to the inhumanity of this civil war were Yassir Arafat and Ariel Sharon.

Both of them have bloody hands.

There were others of course, including the incredible stupidity of the Americans, led by Ronald Reagan.

I value your input, jeffmoskin.

If you would rather not get into a discussion of this, I understand.

A.B.

And once again, GOOD MORNING, America, and the world!

And once again, we are at it in here, all over again!

And here, I see the lingering topic is Yassir Arafat and whatever role he may have played in the Lebanese Civil War, which was quite a conflict for a while, that really tore aprart what I understand was quite a beautiful city, that being Beirut, Lebanon.

In fact, the term "Beirut" has come to stand as a euphemism for any place that is strongly divided and on the verge of violence, or actually into violence, as in "Beirut all over again!"

And why has this topic come up in here?

Well, hard to say, actually, since to me, Yassir Arafat is just a complete and total "non-starter" in here, which is to say that he is an irrelevency, especially now that he is dead and gone.

jeffmoskin, one of our valued "expositers" in here, holds out a belief that Yassir Arafat was responsible for the Lebanese Civil War, and I just don't accept that big a role for Yassir Arafat, to be truthful, that one man like him could have started that whole civil war over there.

He certainly might be a factor in that civil war, or a bit player, here or there, seen coming in from stage left or stage right from time to time carrying a tray of coffee and sweets, perhaps, BUT .....

Being responsible for the whole civil war?

It gives him way to much credit, as I see it, having studied the history of Lebanon from its roots in Phoenicia, and then coming forward to modern times, WHERE George W. Bush IS NOW THREATENING AND ACCUSING THE GOVERNMENT OF LEBANON OF GIVING SAFE REFUGE TO "TAY-RISTS", which can be interpreted as George W. Bush getting ready for another WAR OF AGGRESSION on another Middle Eastern country, especially as George W. Bush and Condo Rice have started up the LITANY again of "DISARM, OR WE'LL COME IN AND SMASH YOUR COUNTRY FLAT!"

And that is why we are talking about Lebanon in here, speculating as to whether this will be the next nation on the face of this green earth to face the WRATH OF GOD, as George W. Bush is lovingly known by those who cleave to his RELIGIOUS BANNER as KING OF KINGS, and LORD OF LORDS, everywhere on earth and in the heavens, to boot.

We are talking about the Lebanese Civil War as an off-shoot right now to some comments made in the news recently by New York State Senator Charlie "Chuck" Schumer, where he is apparently trying to whip up some emotions in America by blaming the Lebanese government for bombing the barracks in Lebanon in 1983 that caused extensive deaths among the U.S. Marines who were caught sleeping in that attack.

Those war-mongering comments by Senator Charlie "Chuck" Schumer then caused Mr. A.B. to amplify on the attack on the Marine barracks in 1983, which then caused jeffmoskin to come back and give credit for all of what happened over there, including the death of the Marines, if I have that right, to Yassir Arafat!

And so, to bring things in here right up to this present moment, that is where we are in here, and since I am just arriving, I guess I'll have to think on all of this for a moment, since it is our habit in here to get into history to flesh out OUR understanding of where we are in the world today, because of the manner in which the "PAST" can and does influence the "PRESENT" and the "FUTURE"!

In that regard, Mr. A.B. above makes reference to OUR stupid policies, and that is really what I like to focus on in here, as opposed to the stupid policies of someone like Ariel Sharon, or Yassir Arafat, who are to me like the head and tail on one single coin, a donkey on one side, and perhaps a "jack-ass" on the other.

"BE GLAD THAT THEY ARE NOT OURS", is my thought on that, although in a lot of senses, Sharon actually is, and that is what we talk about in here, WHO IS AMERICA IN BED WITH TODAY, AND WHY?

WHY, for example, was Ronald Raygun in bed with this Gemayel of Lebanon, back then, which is what caused the Marines who were killed in the barracks bombing to be in Lebanon so that they could in fact be killed!

Why was America IN BED WITH SADDAM HUSSEIN?

Why was America IN BED WITH the Shah of Iran?

Questions for OUR times, here, in OUR America.

SO!

Stay tuned.

JINGOISM: Extreme chauvinism or nationalism MARKED ESPECIALLY by a belligerent foreign policy!

Understanding OUR world, AS IT IS TODAY, is a complicated business, and make no mistakes about that, whatsoever.

In fact, these days, especially if you live in a place like the corrupt Empire State of New York, just keeping up with, and understanding what is going on right down the block can be a quite time-consuming endeavor, and so, it comes as no suprise that people in America would likely be ignorant about what was really going on in Lebanon, back in 1983, when those Marines were caught sleeping, and so were killed for their carelessness.

And because of OUR national ignorance, alleged Jingoists and demagogues like Charlie "Chuck" Schumer can then attempt to once more work their "INFLAMMATORY ARTS" on us, to whip up OUR emotions and keep us off-balance, generally so that we will turn over the keys to the NATIONAL TREASURY to THEM and THEIRS, for some further looting, just in case there may be a few nickels or dimes left in there that they did not get the last time, since WAR IS BIG BUSINESS, and it is about as big as business can get!

PEACE DOES NOT PAY DIVIDENDS TO A WAR-MONGER!

To the JINGOISTS, this is the FIRST AND LAST COMMANDMENT of their blood-seeking religion, AND, we are supposed to be their willing slaves, especially today, where George W. Bush is said to have been sent directly by GOD to rule over not only this earth and Charlie "Chuck" Schumer and Joseph "BIG JOE" Lieberman, BUT the sun, moon and stars as well!

(Ed. note: For further clarification and understanding of how these JINGOISTS "derive" their "earthly" power over so many in OUR America today, SEE, 1 Timothy 6:1, for the "COMMAND" that they have allegedly sent out to the "masses" through the alleged agency of the "SPEER", or "ARCHITECT" of the REPUBLICAN PARTY, Karl Rove, and HIS "Office of Strategic Initiatives", which is alleged to be buried somewhere down deep in the very bowels of George W. Bush's BIG WHITE HOUSE down there in Washington, D$C$:

"ALL under the yoke of slavery MUST REGARD THEIR MASTERS as worthy of full respect, OTHERWISE, the name of GOD [GWB] and the church's teaching suffer abuse!")

And with that said, as it must be, let us go back in time to Lebanon, and see who is doing what to whom, on the day or two or three BEFORE the Marines, sleeping soundly in their beds as they were in 1983, were blown clean away in their sleep, so that WE may all better appreciate who Charlie "Chuck" Schumer is today, with his apparent joining of the JINGOISTIC JIHADIS of KARL ROVE and the AMERICAN REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE in Washington, D$C$!

PIERRE GEMAYEL

http:www.falangist.com/pierre.htm

Pierre Gemayel was a Lebanese statesman.

He is remembered as the founder of the Kataeb Party (also known as the Phalange Party), as a parliamentary powerbroker, and as the father of Bashir Gemayel and Amine Gemayel, both of whom were elected President of the Republic in his lifetime.

Gemayel was known for his opposition to foreign domination of Lebanon, whether by the Ottomans, France, or any other power, for his belief in the coexistence of Christians and Moslems in a single state, and for his abhorrence of Lebanon being used as a proxy battleground in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

A controversial politician, he survived several assassination attempts.

Pierre Gemayel was born in Bifkaya, Lebanon, on 6 November 1905.

A Maronite Catholic, he was educated at Jesuit schools, and went on to study Pharmacology at the French Faculty of Medicine in Beirut, where he later opened a pharmacy.

It was often said of Gemayel that politics was in his blood.

His family was one of the traditional leading families of the Maronite Community, and had played a prominent role in the town of Bifkaya since 1540.

Pierre Gemayel himself got his first taste of politics at an early age, when his father and uncle, who had opposed Ottoman control of Lebanon, were sentenced to death in 1914 and were forced to flee into exile in Egypt.

The family returned to Lebanon at the end of World War I, and Gemayel's uncle became a delegate to the Paris Peace Conference, which led to the Treaty of Versailles and the establishment of the League of Nations.

In 1935, Gemayel was appointed to lead Lebanon's Olympic team at the Olympic Games in Berlin.

There he had a chance to study the organization of Germany's Nazi Party.

Gemayel strongly opposed Nazi ideology, but admired their formidable and efficient organization, and concluded that to have any hope of success, any Lebanese nationalist movement would have to be structured similarly.

Accordingly, on his return to Lebanon in 1936, he founded the Kataeb Party together with four colleagues, one of whom was Charles Helou, who later served as Lebanon's President from 1964 to 1970.

By the end of 1936, membership of the Kataeb Party had grown to three hundred.

Alarmed by the rapid growth of what they saw as a seditious movement, French authorities ordered Gemayel to disband the party in 1937.

He refused, and Kataeb members had their first skirmish with Senegalese French colonial police near Gemayel's Pharmacy in Beirut.

Gemayel was arrested, but was soon released.

The party continued to grow, and by 1943 its membership reached 35,000.

In that year, the National Assembly declared Lebanon independent of France.

Free French forces, who followed General Charles de Gaulle, responded by arresting Bishara Khoury, who had been proclaimed President of the new republic, along with other prominent figures.

Gemayel helped to organize a national uprising which forced the Free French, who were still fighting to regain control of their own country from the Vichy regime, to realize that holding Lebanon was a lost cause.

In the early years following Lebanon's independence, Gemayel's influence and that of the Kataeb Party was limited.

In the Civil War of 1958, however, he emerged as the leader of the Christian opposition to radical Nasserist elements trying to overthrow the government of President Camille Chamoun, and in the aftermath of the war was appointed a cabinet minister in the four-member Unity government.

Two years later, Gemayel was elected to the National Assembly, from a Beirut constituency, a seat he was to hold for the rest of his life.

By the ending of the 1960s, the Kataeb Party held 9 seats in the National Assembly, making it one of the largest groupings in Lebanon's notoriously fractured parliament.

Gemayel continued to hold cabinet posts intermittently throughout the remaining quarter-century of his life.

In 1969, Lebanon was forced by the Arab League to allow Palestinian guerillas to set up bases on Lebanese soil, from which to carry out raids against Israel.

Despite his misgivings, Gemayel believed that Lebanon really had no choice, and resolved to negotiate the best deal he could.

The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) never observed the terms of the agreement, and Gemayel regretted not having stood up more firmly against the Palestinian intrusion.

In the 1970s, the Kataeb was to build a private army, which came to be commanded by Gemayel's son Bashir, to oppose the armed Palestinian presence in Lebanon.

This private army was secretly helped by Israel.

It is one of the many ironies of Lebanese politics that a party that initially drew inspiration from the virulently anti-Semitic Nazi movement in Germany (although it never stood for Nazi ideology), was later to become a close collaborator with the Jewish state.

In the Lebanese Civil War (1975-1990), Gemayel initially welcomed Syrian intervention, believing that the Syrian army alone was capable of disarming the Palestinian guerrillas, whom he had come to regard as terrorists.

It soon became clear, however, that Syria was occupying Lebanon for reasons of its own, and intended to use Lebanon as a proxy front for wars against Israel.

In 1976, he joined other mainly Christian leaders, including former president Camille Chamoun, the diplomat Charles Malik, and the radical Guardians of the Cedars Party leader Etienne Saqr, in forming the Lebanese Front to oppose the Syrian occupation.

In 1978, the Lebanese Front joined the Lebanese regular army in an unsuccessful 100-day war against the Syrian army.

On October 11, Gemayel bitterly denounced the Syrian military presence in Lebanon.

Gemayel saw his younger son, Bashir Gemayel, elected President of Lebanon on August 23, 1982.

Bashir was assassinated by pro-Syrian terrorists on September 14, nine days before his scheduled inauguration.

Bashir's older brother, Amine Gemayel was elected to replace him.

Pierre Gemayel himself initially stayed out of his son's government, but in early 1984, after participating in two conferences in Lausanne, Switzerland, aimed at ending the civil war and the occupation of the country by Syrian and Israeli troops (which had invaded the country in 1982), he agreed to served once more in a Cabinet of National Unity.

He was still in office when he died in Bifkaya, on 29 August 1984, at the age 78.

And so ........

ROOTS!

Roots of conflict!

Seeds planted very deeply!

And by whom?

And for what?

Besides MONEY, and POWER, that is?

And where is Yassir Arafat in any of this?

A bit player, at best!

BUT ......

Stay tuned!

For as always, THINGS ARE NEVER OVER, either in here, or OUT THERE, and why?

Well, for starters, there is OUR NATIONAL TREASURY, and there still might be a few nickels or dimes that the LOOTERS did not get the last time through, and so ......

Live, late-breaking!

Of course, we don't do weather on the hour, or on the "nines", in here, as OUR America is just too big for a "one size fits all weather report", and so you will have to tune into your favorite TV weather channel for that, BUT ....

As for the rest, DEVELOPMENTS AS THEY HAPPEN!

And speaking of "SIGNS OF THE TIMES" that we are in these days, under the earthly REIGN of the "GOD-appointed and annointed Bush Co.", we have this following from the EARTHLY PARADISE of "GUBER-NATOR" and REPUBLICAN "STRONGMAN" AH-NOLD, the "George W. Bush" MAN out there in jeffmoskin's "sunny" California!

Tell us, jeffmoskin, IS THIS another sign of the "END TIMES" out there in PARADISE?

U.S. National - AP

"Dead Squid Wash Up in California Again"

2 hours, 57 minutes ago

DANA POINT, Calif. - Dead jumbo squid are again mysteriously washing up along Orange County's coastline, baffling scientists who are trying to find out why.

The Ocean Institute in Dana Point has conducted some of the research, shipping specimens to the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History and Stanford University for further study.

Scientists at the institute this week dissected a 5-foot-long, 15-pound female Humboldt squid that was filled with parasites and sand.

More than a 100 squid have been spotted since Sunday between Dana Point and San Clemente.

Still, there are no answers.

"We still don't know what's killing them," said Linda Blanchard, lab director of the Ocean Institute who has dissected about a dozen squid since they first washed up ashore in January.

"All we have right now are theories."

Scientists believe the squid are swimming north from Mexico to follow food sources, forcing them to come closer to the surface and shore.

Squid normally live and hunt 3,000 feet below the water's surface.

Eric Hochberg, curator of invertebrate zoology with the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, said an active fishing industry in Mexico may be depleting the squid's diet, causing them to migrate into Southern California.

He said the squid possibly are discombobulated by sand churned up by tides.

Meanwhile, William Gilly, a biologist at Stanford's Hopkins Marine Station in Pacific Grove, is studying their stomach contents to determine whether the squid are being poisoned.

Even if scientists cannot discover why the squid are washing up ashore, they hope to learn about the mollusks' diet, where they spawn and the biology of their beaks.

"Before the squid were found dead on the beaches in the quantities that they have, we weren't studying them as hard as we are now," Blanchard said.

In January, about 1,500 Humboldt squid washed up on the Orange County coastline about a week after an oil spill from an undetermined source coated more than 1,000 seabirds off the Southern California coast.

The squid were found on the sands of Laguna Beach, Newport Beach and Crystal Cove State Park.

Some were spotted in northern San Diego County, at San Onofre State Beach.
___

Information from: Los Angeles Times, http://www.latimes.com

end quotes

Or could it be that the squid, like many others on this earth, just cannot stand the agonizing thought of another FOUR YEARS of George W. Bush, and so, they are simply packing it in, and giving up the ghost here?

WHO GAVE OUT THE KOOL-AID TO THE SQUID?

A question for OUR times, here in OUR America, especially if you like to go to the beach in sunny California, THE LAND OF AH-NOLD, and, oh, yeah, PARADISE, of course, and well, yes, Millhouse "Tricky Dick" Nixxon and Ronald Raygun, too!

I would be delighted to discuss this with you, Mr A.B. Correct me if I am wrong, but you are of Lebanese descent and therefore I presume come to the thread with some good information.


First, Livyjr, while I cannot give Arafat "credit" for singlehandedly causing the Lebanese civil war, I must caution you never to underestimate the power of a single individual to do EVIL.

One need only look to 1600 Pennsyvania Avenue for proof of my statement.

There have always been "factions" in "Lebanon" and I put its name in quotes because it, too, was a bogus creation of the western powers after WW I, notably the French. And since it's constitution was based upon the fundamental assumption (which was fundamentally WRONG) that the number of Muslims was equal to the number of Christians, the government structure which split power between the two was doomed to failure. I believe the last official census was taken in 1938 or 39.

Arafat was always a troublemaker. A divider, not a uniter. Hmmm. I know someone else like that.

By funneling money (=weapons) into the various hostile factions, he was able to create a hot war which served to benefit HIMSELF, for he was the warrior in the soldier suit (even though he never was a real soldier).

But I digress.

"Why was America IN BED WITH SADDAM HUSSEIN?

Why was America IN BED WITH the Shah of Iran?"

A one-word answer:

OIL.

That is the reason for all the problems in the Middle East.

If their main resource was strawberries, do you think we would be having this conversation?

jeffmoskin, when provoked, you can rise to quite high levels of eloquence, and that is not only good and healthy for this thread, it is stimulating and challenging in return, and always very educational!

And your point is made, jeffmoskin, about Arafat!

A strange man, to me, anyway!

I think I heard that he was an engineer, which may have had something to do with it.

I think a point that has to be made here, jeffmoskin, IS THAT IN MANY WAYS, you are point/counterpoint to me, and that is vital for balance in here.

I, AM A WARRIOR!

Not a fighter, a WARRIOR, which is a different thing.

And so I see Yassir Arafat in that light.

Was he a formidable enemy?

I truly don't know, and I never find any real evidence that he was!

His name is well known, BUT NOT HIS DEEDS!

With me, for whatever reasons, and they would be God's, as far as I am concerned, Yassir Arafat just comes across as a small man who was propelled by fate, apparently, into being this MONSTER who was fifteen feet tall!

PROPAGANDA!

You want to be the MEAN MAN on the block, then you need an enemy fifteen tall, and so, Arafat was "CREATED" to fit the "needs of the times"!

A "PUBLIC RELATIONS" success story in action!

But enough about Arafat!

Your point about the EVIL that just one man can do IN OUR WORLD is the point!

Indeed, Arafat is a stark and vivid example of that, as you point out, but as an example of what George W. Bush might be by comparison is going to be lost on people, is my point.

And jeffmoskin, thank you again as always for your "moxie" here, in framing your reply, AS ALWAYS, IT KEEPS THE ROUND-TABLE ROUND!

Well, that is true, but since so are you and I, we can't use that as an excuse for his evil ways.





I don't. I see a warrior as having a code of honor. I see none of that with Arafat.



You too, Livyjr. And Mr. A.B.

And to all of you out there in the blogosphere.

And jeffmoskin, if I had to say why I tuned in to "Life in OUR America" each day, it most definitely would be so that I could be a part of this very conversation that is happening in here, right now, where your words hang shimmering in the "AIR" right above here in the little "view window", for all the candid world to see.

And here I talk about your words on Lebanon!

And the French!

If one looks carefully at the piece on Gemayel, one notes that his family has been "influential" in that place since 1540!

In 1540, THERE WAS NO AMERICA, as we know it today, and yet, THERE WAS A LEBANON!

AND THEN .........

And that is what you are providing us with here, jeffmoskin, and so, WE LEARN!

We see through, maybe just a little bit further, thanks to you and your diligence, and so, we collectively grow!

What a thing that is!

To HELL with Arafat!

He is the past!

OUR SIGHT is on the future!

And that starts right about NOW!

Down in my town tonight, they open up Town Hall to some local people who sing, and who are musicians, and they have a kind of "session" the way that they do in County Clare in Ireland, and tonight, I think that I will go on down there, and maybe play a few tunes, myself.

Of course, you can just sit there if you wish, and I have done that too.

The music passes in a circle, and if you want to be a part of the circle, then you just take a chair.

When you are "next", well, you either do something, or nothing, and if you elect to do nothing, that is all right, and it just goes on to the next person, and that is that!

And it is not about being "good", or "bad"!

If you trouble about stuff like that, then that is stress, and this is not.

I'll probably play, "My Country Tis of Thee", but maybe not, and who ever knows until you put your wind into the flute what is going to come out the other end, where ever that in fact may be!

And so!

And I see I have "mis-spoke" myself here, jeffmoskin!

I don't see Yassir Arafat as a WARRIOR at all!

What I meant is that I assess Yassir Arafat as a WARRIOR makes such an assessment of another, like Arafat, in this case, and my conclusion is AS YOURS - WHAT CODE DID HE LIVE BY?

It was never apparent to me, and so, I could never hold out Arafat to another as an example of what a true warrior would be, which is a man or woman of HIS or HER people, WHO IS PREPARED TO ENDURE HARDSHIP ON THEIR BEHALF, and for their betterment!

Arafat simply does not pass the test, as I see it, and so, jeffmoskin, on that, we arrive at the same conclusion from however we both started, in order to have both gotten there to where we both did!

And I need to articulate myself better!

Thank you for pointing that out!

And before I must go for the evening, let's update the "IRAQ SCENARIO"!

What is going on in George W. Bush's CLIENT STATE of Iraq?

Let us go and see:

Middle East - AP

"Iraq Split 2 Years After U.S.-Led Invasion"

1 hour, 20 minutes ago

By RAWYA RAGEH, Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD, Iraq - When U.S.-led forces invaded Iraq two years ago, Adnan al-Eiby was thrilled.

He thought that once Saddam Hussein was toppled, Iraq would become a flourishing Western-style democracy.

"But now, I walk down the street and all I see is death — innocent people blown up by terrorists and others shot by the Americans," said the 32-year-old chauffeur.

"I'm fed up with life."

"We pinned our hopes on the Americans but they let us down."

A different take on the new Iraq comes from Hamid Balasim, a 34-year-old nuclear energy engineer once favored by Saddam's regime.

He says freedom matters even more than reconstructing Iraq or getting rich.

"Things are one million times better than Saddam's days," Balasim said.

"Freedom is the essence of life."

Two years after the U.S.-led invasion, Iraqis are split between hope and despair.

They have experienced the act of casting a vote in the first free and fair elections in Iraq's modern history.

But lawlessness prevails and Iraq remains mired in acts of ferocity.

Although the United States last June transferred sovereignty to an Iraqi interim government led by Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, insurgents have carried on a relentless campaign of suicide bombings, kidnappings and beheadings.

Hundreds more have died in such attacks since the Jan. 30 elections that will soon bring a Shiite-led government to power.

Rampant crime, power outages, unemployment at over 50 percent and a fuel crisis in one of the world's prime oil-exporting countries have added to the despondency.

"What has the interim government done, anyway?" al-Eiby asked, squatting in his one-room apartment in Sadr City, a Shiite Muslim slum in Baghdad, as raw sewage lapped at his doorstep.

"Many people are struggling to find jobs and our conditions have become more pathetic than that of the Afghans and the Palestinians," he complained.

Al-Eiby specializes in driving people from Baghdad to Basra, a once well-paying occupation now hit hard by looters and insurgents who have turned Iraq's highways and streets into death traps.

Although he lives in a slum, financial hard times led his landlord to increase his rent from 40,000 dinars ($27) to 100,000 dinars ($70) — a fortune for Sadr City.

Like al-Eiby, Balasim was also hit hard.

When the United States dismantled Iraq's nuclear program after the invasion, he was given a lowly desk job at the Science and Technology Ministry and his salary was cut from about $200 to $135.

But he says he only cares "about the big picture."

"We voted in a free election, we read newspapers that openly criticize government officials, we can say what we want out loud — things that do not happen in other Arab countries with no security issues, things that were the stuff of movies for us," he said.

More than 8 million Iraqis voted to elect a 275-National Assembly that is widely considered to be a first step on Iraq's path to self-rule — and at the same time brought closer the day when Iraqis finally see the Americans leave.

Al-Eiby complained the elections may have given Iraqis a taste of democracy, but have "not provided my family with bread and butter, nor do I feel safer now."

His complaint is felt by hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, who remember stabler times under Saddam.

Then, an ordinary Iraqi steering clear of politics could walk the streets without fear.

Kidnap and murder were a tool to oppress Saddam's perceived foes, and abduction for ransom and beheadings were almost unheard of.

Now, nobody feels immune.

But a report issued last September by the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, based on wide-ranging interviews and polls, found that Iraqis have remained optimistic, "despite failures in security, services, economic opportunity."

The report warned that the challenge faced by both Iraqi and American officials was to "harness and capitalize on Iraqis' optimism" because "there is a real potential it could swing the other way if events in Iraq continue to trend negatively."

Balasim, for one, was unconcerned.

"It is a matter of time," he said, "like a sick person who's recuperating: it just needs more time and we'll be better."

end quotes

And the SQUID?

What about them?

They couldn't wait no more for peace?

from Free Biographies:

http://www.freeessay.com/biographies/Gemayel,_Pierre.html


Pierre Gemayel (last name also spelt Jumail or Jumayyil) was a Lebanese political leader. He is remembered as the founder of the Kataeb Party (also known as the Phalangist Party, as a parliamentary powerbroker, and as the father of Bachir Gemayel and Amine Gemayel, both of whom were elected to the Presidency of the Republic in his lifetime. He opposed the French Mandate over Lebanon in the late 1930s and early 1940s, and advocated an independent state, free from foreign control. He was known for his deft political manoeuvring, which led him to take positions which were seen by supporters as pragmatic, but by opponents as contradictory, or even hypocritical. Although publicly sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, for example, he privately cultivated relations with Israeli agents. A controversial politician, he survived several assassination attempts.


Early Life

Pierre Gemayel was born on 6 November 1905, in the village of Bifkaya, Lebanon, where his family had played a prominent role since 1540. His father and uncle were forced to flee to Egypt after being sentenced to death in 1914 for opposing Ottoman rule, returning to Lebanon only at the end of World War I.

Gemayel, a Maronite Catholic, was educated at Jesuit schools. He went on to study Pharmacology at the French Faculty of Medicine in Beirut, where he later opened a pharmacy. He also took an interest in sport, and led Lebanon's team at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin, where he observed the organization of Germany's Nazi Party. Although he rejected Nazi ideology, he admired the formidable and efficient organization, and on his return to Lebanon later that year, he founded the Kataeb Party and organized it with a similar structure.

Charles Hélou, who later served as Lebanon's President from 1964 to 1970, worked with Pierre Gemayel in the early organization of the party. By the time of his presidency, however, Hélou was no longer a party member, and Gemayel unsuccessfully opposed him in the presidential election of 1964.


Independence Leader

In the years before and after Lebanon's independence, Gemayel's influence and that of the Kataeb Party was limited. It survived a French attempt to forcibly dissolve it in 1937 and took part in an uprising against the French Mandate in 1943, but despite its membership of 35,000, it operated on the fringes of Lebanese politics. It was not until the Civil War of 1958, that Gemayel emerged as a leader of a right-wing (mainly Christian) movement that opposed a Nasserist-inspired attempt to overthrow the government of president Camille Chamoun. In the aftermath of the war, Gemayel was appointed a cabinet minister in a four-member Unity government. Two years later, Gemayel was elected to the National Assembly, from a Beirut constituency, a seat he held for the rest of his life. By the end of the 1960s, the Kataeb Party held 9 seats in the National Assembly, making it one of the largest groupings in Lebanon's notoriously fractured parliament. Although his bids for the presidency in 1964 and 1970 were unsuccessful, Gemayel continued to hold cabinet posts intermittently throughout the remaining quarter-century of his life.

Lebanon has long been a proxy battleground in the Israeli-Arab conflict, and Gemayel's positions often shifted. His supporters viewed this as a sign of flexibility, while his detractors saw it as incoherent. Gemayel signed the Cairo Accords of 1969, which allowed Palestinian guerillas to set up bases on Lebanese soil, from which to carry out raids against Israel. He later defended his actions, saying that Lebanon really had no choice. In the 1970s, he came to oppose the armed Palestinian presence in Lebanon. The Kataeb built a private army, which came to be commanded by Gemayel's son Bachir, and was secretly armed, trained, and funded by Israel. It is one of the many ironies of Lebanese politics that a party that initially drew inspiration from the virulently anti-semitic Nazi movement in Germany was later to become a close collaborator with the Jewish state.

Gemayel was also to reverse his position on The Syrian intervention in the Lebanese Civil War of 1975 to 1990. He initially welcomed Syrian intervention, believing that the Syrian army alone was capable of disarming the Palestinian guerrillas, whom he now called terrorists, despite his earlier support for them. He soon became convinced, however, that Syria was occupying Lebanon for reasons of its own, and in 1976, he joined other mainly Christian leaders, including former president Camille Chamoun, the diplomat Charles Malik, and the radical Guardians of the Cedars Party leader Etienne Saqr, in forming the Lebanese Front to oppose the Syrian occupation. On October 11, 1978, Gemayel bitterly denounced the Syrian military presence , and the Lebanese Front joined the Lebanese regular army in an unsuccessful 100-day war against the Syrian army.

Legacy

Gemayel saw his younger son, Bachir Gemayel, elected President of Lebanon on August 23, 1982, only to be assassinated on September 14, nine days before his scheduled inauguration. No conclusive evidence has ever come to light, at least publicly, as the identity of the assassins. Bachir's older brother, Amine Gemayel was elected to replace him. Pierre Gemayel himself initially stayed out of his son's government, but in early 1984, after participating in two conferences in Lausanne, Switzerland, aimed at ending the civil war and the occupation of the country by Syrian and Israeli troops (which had invaded the country in 1982), he agreed to served once more in a Cabinet of National Unity. He was still in office when he died in Bifkaya, on 29 August 1984, aged 78 years.

It now appears as though the Taif Accord will finally be realized.

Perhaps the physical presence of Syria in Lebanon will be terminated.

We can only hope.

A big test will come in May when elections are to take place in Lebanon.
The Lebanese president, Emile Lahoud, had been given the green light by Syria to extend his term of office for another three years, contrary to the Lebanese constitution. It is common knowledge that Lahoud is nothing more than a puppet to Syria. If the people of Lebanon can get a true reform government elected, which is one tall order, it will be a gigantic step for them. There is a feeling in Lebanon now that this may be their time.

I have no desire to turn this thread into a history of Lebanon or its struggles since they were officially declared an independent country back in 1943.

I mention all of the above only to tie up some loose ends which may have developed since the original question of Yassir Arafat came up.

I would, however like to bring up some of the mistakes made during the Reagan years in its foreign policy toward Lebanon. Many of these mistakes seemed to have been early signs of how deeply the United States misjudges and misunderstands the people of the Middle East. We continue to make the same type of blunders over and over again. By confining the discussions to this approach, the charachter of this thread " Life in Our America " will not be radically changed. As a matter of fact, Livyjr would have every right to ask that this discussion be moved to another thread.

So, I appreciate the fact that he graciously has not made that request.

I will not go much further into this tonight.

For the past few days I have been unusually pressed for time which has prevented me from continuing on with this discussion.

Let me say that the knowledge displayed by both jeffmoskin and Livyjr has been very much on the mark.

To make one final comment on Yassir Arafat.

He had many negatives. My relatives in Lebanon have told me how much he was despised by the Lebanese people.

However, he did accomplish one thing very well, and will probably be remembered by the Palestinians in a very favorable way for a long, long time.

What he did well was to keep alive the hopes and aspirations of the Palestinian people for a state of their own for years when events could have discouraged them from ever dreaming there would be a nation called Palestine. He almost willed them into refusing to give up that dream. Nobody else came close to doing that.

And I give him full credit for that.

In that sense, I will have to disagree with my two compatriots on this thread and say that, yes, Yassir Arafat was a warrior. He NEVER gave up, which, to me, is a highly desirable trait.

He fell victim to his own ego, and proved once again that -----

Power corrupts.

To answer your question, jeffmoskin, yes I am of Lebanese descent. I was born in the U.S. My parents both emigrated to America in the early 1900's.

Frankly, this does not make me in the least an expert on Middle East affairs.

Much of my spare time is spent reading about the Middle East, especially Lebanon, and many of my ideas and thoughts about America's mistakes in that region are shaped by that research.

Livyjr --- hope your flute playing went well. You keep coming up with new talents.

A.B.

I believe what he did was to keep alive the FALSE hopes and aspirations of a FEW Palestinians that they were going to get back the land known as Israel. That is why he said "No" to Clinton's deal, instead of "No, but I have a counter-proposal." He simply walked away and started a second intefada. He was never interested in a peace deal.

And, yes, he kept these false hopes alive for his own ego. Power indeed does corrupt.

I pray for peace. But in order for there to be a two-state solution, the fanatics on each side must give up their hopes for the total annihilation of the other.

And as Mr. A.B. says, there are a lot of topics that I go out of my way to leave out of here, because they are complex issues, and they are occurring in other parts of the world between OTHER peoples, who are not Americans, and so, just might have their own value systems; and I want this thread to really concentrate on LIFE in OUR America.

And one of those issues that I have largely avoided has been the state of affairs between Isreal and the Palestineans.

However, that subject is a real subject, and when it impacts on us, then it impacts on us.

And when that happens, then I guess it happens!

And here I cannot agree strongly enough with jeffmoskin about fanatics on ALL sides, and here, I must include Washington, D$C$ in that equation, and that means George W. Bush and Condo Rice!

And for any of this to make sense to any of us, WE DO NEED TO UNDERSTAND HISTORY!

The problem of course, as always, with history, is that it can overwhelm, and so, we must continue to be judicious in OUR use of it to illustrate points and to flesh out arguments, AND THAT NEEDS TO BE DONE AS WELL, illustrating points, that is, along with fleshing out arguments!

Especially with respect to Lebanon, about which we are now hearing a BIG NOISE down there in WashingtonD$C$ starting up from Bush Co. and Condo Rice.

If Ronald Raygun, who was much more a president than this one will ever be made mistakes over there DUE TO A COMPLETE AND TOTAL MISSAPPREHENSION of facts about the culture and people and history of that area, IMAGINE what this one is likely to do!

And so, Mr. A.B., jeffmoskin, as always, our task is before us!

In which case, we continue to endeavor to persevere, and carry on!

Ah Mr. A.B., if only simply "bulling ahead" without thought for consequences were all that it took to make a "warrior", why, even George W. Bush would be one, and that would be something, now, wouldn't it?

And here, Mr. A.B., I will not argue with your perspective on Yassir Arafat and his impact on the Palestinean peoples, because he was theirs, and they were his, and so it should remain!

I am not a Palestinean, nor do I have Middle Eastern roots, AND SO, I am neither his judge, nor theirs, that being the Palestinean people, for whom I bear no enmity towards in any way.

Yassir Arafat was not a hero of mine, but that is as it is.

Many are not, and George W. Bush would probably top out that list, so there we are with that!

I have no need to bear Yassir Arafat enmity, and I do not.

I am just largely silent about him, and spoke because I thought he was being made bigger, or "larger", than I perceive him to have been in life!

If I were in the position that the Palestinean people are in, being almost considered to be "sub-human animals" that can be killed at will as they are, woman or child, AT ANY TIME, I am not sure exactly how much "compassion" I could have for my oppressors, and I think it would be not much at all!

To judge a man, it is considered wise among some cultures to first walk a mile in his shoes!

And so, Mr. A.B., there we are, with all of that!

And so there we are with that, indeed!

Stopped by to get gas today, and regular was $2.18 per gallon, THANKS TO GEORGE W. BUSH!

OH, that's right!

Yes, Dick Cheney, too!

He does deserve as much credit for that as George W. Bush, and maybe more!

The rape of America begins!

Business - Reuters

"IMF Chief: Oil Prices High for 2 Years"

Sat Mar 19, 9:10 AM ET

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - The world will have to live with lofty oil prices for at least the next two years due to a combination of strong demand and supply constraints, Rodrigo Rato, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, said on Saturday.

World oil prices have climbed almost 50 percent in the past year and scaled record nominal highs on Thursday.

They closed the week within a dollar of those peaks, with U.S. light crude oil changing hands at $56.72 a barrel.

"We have to be aware that probably oil prices will stay high, although probably not at this level, in the next two years at least because of demand pressures -- there is certainly very strong demand in the world for oil -- and also because of certain supply constraints," Rato told reporters in the Indian capital.

The world economy enjoyed its strongest growth in 30 years in 2004 despite the spike in oil prices and Rato said he expected growth of more than 4 percent again this year.

But he said growth could be hit if oil stayed at current levels or climbed even higher and urged oil-producing countries to be more receptive to private-sector investment.

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) on Wednesday announced an immediate 500,000 barrel per day (bpd) increase in output, with another half a million bpd to come should prices fail to ease.

Top producer Saudi Arabia said the extra oil was meant to ward off an end-2005 supply crunch.

But with output already near a 25-year high, the group is stretched to meet demand growth.

Other major exporters Russia and Norway also cannot add significantly to this year's supply.

Rato said, though, the supply bottlenecks forcing prices higher also reflected a lack of refining capacity, where the major responsibility lay with oil-consuming countries.

Stricter environmental concerns, along with decades of low margins caused by overcapacity, have made major oil companies reluctant to invest in new refineries in the United States and Western Europe.

Consumers needed to be aware of the real cost of oil, while governments needed to diversify their sources of energy, he said.

"It's clear that at this level of prices -- even if they're reduced little bit in the medium term -- governments of all consuming countries have to have a very clear energy policy both in terms of demand and pricing," Rato, on the last leg of a five-day trip to China and India, said.