Friday, August 15, 2003
How hard can it be to set up a democracy??
US intelligence officials cautioned the National Security Council before the Iraq war that the American plan to build democracy on the ashes of Saddam Hussein's regime -- as a model for the rest of the region -- was so audacious that, in the words of one CIA report in March, it could ultimately prove "impossible."
That assessment ran counter to what the Bush administration was saying at the time as it sought to build support for the war. President Bush said a democratic Iraq would lead to more liberalized, representative governments, where terrorists would find less popular support, and the Muslim world would be friendlier to the United States. "A new regime in Iraq would serve as an inspiring example of freedom for other nations in the region," he said on Feb. 26.
The question of how quickly, and easily, the United States could establish democracy in Iraq was the key to a larger concern about how long US troops would be required to stay there, and how many would be needed to maintain security. The administration offered few assessments of its own but dismissed predictions by the army chief of staff of a lengthy occupation by hundreds of thousands of troops.
Okay, so it's harder than we thought.
posted by chris at 4:16 PM
Well, they just look evil!
Despite US insistance that every single person held in Guantanamo Bay is a "dangerous terrorist",
The US government said today it had neither an exact count nor all the names of hundreds of people captured in Afghanistan over a year ago and now detained at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba.
US government lawyers made the disclosure during a court hearing in a case on behalf of Falen Gherebi, a Libyan national believed to be in US custody in Cuba.
And why? "They said that translating the names from Arabic to English had created further problems with spelling."
posted by chris at 4:12 PM
------------------
Thursday, August 14, 2003
More, er, less to the story
Administration officials are leaving out key facts and exaggerating the significance of the alleged plot to smuggle a shoulder-launched missile into the United States, law enforcement officials told ABCNEWS. They say there's a lot less than meets the eye.
-clip-
The missile shipped into the New York area last month was not a real missile — just a mockup — also arranged entirely by the government. The government also arranged the meetings at a New Jersey hotel and elsewhere, where Lakhani allegedly told undercover agents posing as al Qaeda terrorists about his support of bin Laden.
"One would have to ask yourself, would this have occurred at all without the government?" said Gerald Lefcourt, a criminal defense attorney.
"I would have hoped the United States is thwarting real terrorism and not something manufactured because here all they're doing is stopping something they created," said Lefcourt.
More, I mean, less.
posted by chris at 2:40 PM
The evil that is Monsanto
Biotechnology giant Monsanto Co. has sued Oakhurst Dairy of Portland, saying Oakhurst's claim that its milk doesn't contain any artificial growth hormones is essentially misleading.
Monsanto, based in Missouri, claims there is no scientific proof that the milk is any different from that produced by cows that have been treated with the hormones.
-clip-
Although the Food and Drug Administration approved the bovine growth hormone, or BGH, Canada and the European Union have banned it. Some organizations and consumers who oppose use of artificial growth hormones claim they are linked to breast cancer and premature puberty in children.
Monsanto is the nation's largest producer of the synthetically produced hormone, which enhances milk production. Five years ago, Oakhurst began to make sure all of its milk comes from farms that pledge in writing every six months with a notarized affidavit that they won't use the hormones on their herds, said Stanley T. Bennett II, president of the dairy.
Mooooooore.
And now Ralph Nader has stepped into the fray.
posted by chris at 11:46 AM
------------------
Wednesday, August 13, 2003
Universal Health Care Endorsed
Thousands of US physicians have endorsed a broad proposal that would abolish for-profit hospitals and insurers and transfer all Americans into an expanded and improved Medicare program for all ages, reigniting the debate over universal health care a decade after President Clinton's failed plan.
While the four physicians who wrote the plan -- three of whom are affiliated with Harvard Medical School -- are members of a nonprofit organization that has long pushed for universal health coverage, the new proposal is important for two reasons: It was published today in one of the country's most prestigious and its most widely circulated medical journal, the Journal of the American Medical Association, and because of the large number of doctors -- nearly 8,000, including two former surgeons general -- who endorsed it.
-clip-
The physicians' plan is more radical and more encompassing, including coverage for the 41 million uninsured Americans as well as incorporating ways to control costs by setting a national budget, providing a set amount of money to hospitals for day-to-day operations and major expansions, paying for nursing home and home care for the elderly, and developing a national list of drugs the program would pay for.
The government would pay for health care through an expanded version of traditional Medicare, the federal health insurance program for the elderly. Most hospitals and clinics would remain privately owned and operated, and the national health insurance program would pay them a monthly budget for operating costs. Investor-owned facilities would be converted to nonprofit status. Private insurance companies would be virtually eliminated. The plan is endorsed by former surgeons general Dr. David Satcher, who served under Clinton, and Dr. Julius Richmond, appointed by Jimmy Carter.
One of the doctors' arguments is that for-profit companies and multiple insurers are diverting money from clinical care for the demands of business. The physicians estimate that the country would save $200 billion annually by eliminating profits of investor-owned hospitals and insurance companies and by reducing administrative costs for hospitals and doctors who must bill dozens of different insurance companies. Private health insurers now consume 12 percent of premiums for overhead, while Medicare and the Canadian national health insurance system have overhead costs below 3.2 percent, the doctors reported.
Taxes, the doctors said, would increase. But except for the very wealthy, higher taxes would be offset by the elimination of insurance premiums and out-of-pocket copayments and deductibles, they argued.
Story here.
posted by chris at 11:17 AM
WHO urges end of antibiotics
The World Health Organization will recommend today that nations phase out the widespread and controversial use of antibiotic growth promoters in animal feed, saying the move will help preserve the effectiveness of antibiotics for medicine and can be done without significant expense or health consequences to farm animals.
Based on a study of Denmark's experience following a 1998 voluntary ban on antibiotic growth promoters, WHO concluded that under similar conditions the use of low-dosage antibiotics "for the sole purpose of growth promotion can be discontinued."
WHO's findings and recommendation do not require nations to act. But they will add to the growing movement to stop routine use of antibiotics on farms, and to the kind of public pressure that led the McDonald's fast-food chain to recently tell suppliers to cut back on antibiotic growth promoters. WHO officials say that about half of the antibiotics used by livestock growers worldwide are low-dose growth promoters, the type that public health experts say are most likely to promote the growth of bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics.
More.
posted by chris at 10:59 AM
Ashcroft: The Victory Tour
Get your protest signs ready:
Faced with growing public questioning of his department's anti-terrorism policies, Attorney General John D. Ashcroft plans to kick off a cross-country tour next week focused on defending the USA Patriot Act and other legislation as vital tools in the fight against terrorism.
Justice Department officials said the series of appearances at more than a dozen stops from Philadelphia to Salt Lake City will be aimed at countering criticism from civil liberties groups and some lawmakers that authorities have gone too far in wielding anti-terrorism powers granted by Congress after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Coming to a town near you.
posted by chris at 10:56 AM
------------------
Tuesday, August 12, 2003
So, what are you saying?
The former UN inspector hired by the Bush administration to find evidence that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction will claim in a report next month that Iraqi forces were ordered to fire chemical shells at invading coalition troops, according to US reports.
But David Kay, who heads the 1,400-strong Iraq Survey Group, has admitted he has found no trace of the weapons themselves, and cannot explain why they were never used.
Remember that second paragraph when Team Bush tries to use the first paragraph as proof of their righteousness in attacking Iraq.
posted by chris at 10:06 AM
------------------
Monday, August 11, 2003
Getting ahead of themselves
The new information indicates a pattern in which President Bush, Vice President Cheney and their subordinates -- in public and behind the scenes -- made allegations depicting Iraq's nuclear weapons program as more active, more certain and more imminent in its threat than the data they had would support. On occasion administration advocates withheld evidence that did not conform to their views. The White House seldom corrected misstatements or acknowledged loss of confidence in information upon which it had previously relied:
• Bush and others often alleged that President Hussein held numerous meetings with Iraqi nuclear scientists, but did not disclose that the known work of the scientists was largely benign. Iraq's three top gas centrifuge experts, for example, ran a copper factory, an operation to extract graphite from oil and a mechanical engineering design center at Rashidiya.
• The National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) of October 2002 cited new construction at facilities once associated with Iraq's nuclear program, but analysts had no reliable information at the time about what was happening under the roofs. By February, a month before the war, U.S. government specialists on the ground in Iraq had seen for themselves that there were no forbidden activities at the sites.
• Gas centrifuge experts consulted by the U.S. government said repeatedly for more than a year that the aluminum tubes were not suitable or intended for uranium enrichment. By December 2002, the experts said new evidence had further undermined the government's assertion. The Bush administration portrayed the scientists as a minority and emphasized that the experts did not describe the centrifuge theory as impossible.
Etc.
posted by chris at 4:52 PM
------------------
|
