Check out this lovely little piece on Halliburton Oil, The Vice President's former company and how it deals with foreign governments.
I'm pretty sure its illegal for US firms to pay bribes to foreign powers, but that's just me.
Its great to know we have people of such high moral standards running our great nation.
Cheney's old company continues to break laws while profiting from terror
By Jason Leopold
Online Journal Assistant Editor
May 12, 2003—Halliburton Corp., the second largest oil services company in world, is the poster child for corporate greed and terror. And it seems that nothing will stop Vice President Dick Cheney's old company from repeatedly breaking the law to save and earn mountains of cash.
In a Securities and Exchange Commission filing last week, Kellogg Brown & Root, the Halliburton unit that won a controversial no-bid contract to extinguish Iraqi oil well fires, disclosed that it paid $2.4 million in bribes to a Nigerian tax official to obtain favorable tax treatment in the country where it's building a natural gas plant and an offshore oil and gas facility.
The bribes were paid between 2001 and 2002 to "an entity owned by a Nigerian national who held himself out as a tax consultant, when in fact he was an employee of a local tax authority," the company said in the SEC filing, which was discovered during an internal audit.
That was also the time frame in which some of Nigeria's worst human rights abuses took place. KBR has been scrutinized by human rights organizations for doing business in countries like Nigeria, where human rights are routinely violated.
In 1997, while Cheney was chief executive of Halliburton, KBR was alleged by Environmental Rights Action to have collaborated with Nigeria's Mobile Police unit that shot and killed a protestor, playing a similar role to Shell and Chevron in the mobilization of this 'kill and go" unit to protect company property, Wayne Madsen reported in The Progressive in 2000.
When it comes to corruption, Nigeria routinely scores near the bottom on surveys of world business leaders.
In last year's Corruption Perceptions Index, published by Berlin-based Transparency International, Nigeria ranked 101 out of 102, beating out only Bangladesh.
In March, Halliburton launched an investigation, involving U.S. and Nigerian government officials, over theft of a radioactive device used at its Nigerian operations that officials feared could be used to make a "dirty bomb," an explosive device designed to scatter radioactivity in a densely populated area. The theft occurred between the Nigerian towns of Wari and Port Harcourt in the Niger Delta, in the heart of the West African country's oil producing region.
According to one expert, if the device's radioactive material were combined with a pound of TNT and exploded, an area covering 60 city blocks would be contaminated with a radiation dose in excess of safety guidelines of the Environmental Protection Agency.
The tax scheme is just the latest development in a long list of laws the company broke over the past decade—including skirting U.S. sanctions imposed on countries such as Syria, Libya, Iran and Iraq—in an effort to boost its stock price and enrich the company's shareholders.
A Halliburton spokeswoman said the tax scheme did not involve any of the company's senior officials, but several employees of the company involved in the scam were fired after the discovery.
Halliburton officials said KBR may have to pay as much as $5 million in additional taxes to Nigeria, according to the SEC filing.
This week, Congressman Henry Waxman, D-California, disclosed in a letter sent to him by the Army Corps of Engineers, that KBR has gone from fixing Iraq's oil wells to running them, turning the no-bid contract to extinguish oil well fires into a multimillion dollar deal to supply Iraq's emergency energy needs.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers last Wednesday disclosed the wider role for KBR in response to an inquiry from Waxman, who accused the company of conducting business in countries that sponsored terrorism.
News of KBR's expanded role in Iraq prompted criticism from some congressional critics who were under the impression that the company's job would be limited to putting out fires and repairing damage to Iraq's rich petroleum fields.
The Army Corps of Engineers said KBR actually had been authorized under the original contract to operate and distribute oil produced in Iraq, but the Corps of Engineers played down that aspect of the deal in its initial communications with Congress and the media.
For pumping oil from Iraq's oil fields and importing gasoline and propane from Turkey and other countries, Halliburton will receive $24 million, raising to $76.8 million the amount it will have received since being awarded the contract in March, said Scott Saunders, a spokesman for the Corps of Engineers.
Saunders said the Halliburton subsidiary now is pumping 125,000 barrels of oil a day, far short of the demand that is expected to reach 400,000 barrels.
Meanwhile, while KBR is skirting U.S. laws and profiting from rebuilding Iraq's oil fields, the SEC is still investigating the company for alleged accounting fraud. The SEC is examining how Halliburton booked and disclosed cost overruns on construction contracts beginning in 1998, when Cheney was chief executive officer. The SEC, according to a lawyer familiar with the matter, has not contacted Cheney. Cheney's office confirmed he hasn't been questioned, Reuters reported.
The company said Thursday it turned over about 300,000 documents to the SEC, a process that "is essentially complete," according to a regulatory filing. The company said it is continuing to make people available to testify under subpoenas.
Jason Leopold spent two years covering California's electricity crisis as bureau chief of Dow Jones Newswires. He has written more than 2,000 news stories on the issue and was the first journalist to report that energy companies were engaged in manipulative practices in California's newly deregulated electricity market. Most recently, Mr. Leopold has reported on Enron. He was the first journalist to interview former Enron President Jeffrey Skilling following Enron's bankruptcy filing in December 2001. Mr. Leopold has broken numerous stories on the financial machinations Enron engaged in and his investigative pieces on the company have been published in The Nation, Salon, The Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, The San Francisco Chronicle, CBS Marketwatch, Time magazine, The New York Times, Forbes, Entrepreneur and numerous other national publications. Mr. Leopold is also a regular contributor to CNBC and National Public Radio and has been the keynote speaker at more than two-dozen energy industry conferences around the country. Mr. Leopold left Dow Jones last April to write a book about California's electricity crisis.
I've been asked several times why Americans don't see many of the things I point uot to them on the evening news. My typical response is generally points out the corporate nature of media and the general backing of the Republican party by big business, combined with the was that conservatives attack media outlets any time a view contrary to theirs is on the air.
Recently, I've been trying to point out the attempts by the Bush Administration to control acccess to information and to control the media more generally.
Today, I saw this Online Journal article that illustrates the government's control of the coverage of the most recent war in the desert.
Media cheerleaders
By Mike Hersh
Online Journal Contributing Writer
May 12, 2003—Thomas Jefferson said, "Dissent is the highest form of patriotism," but the right-wing media joined the right-wing politicians attacking the patriotism of Bush's critics. This after a decade of lambasting President Clinton with endless groundless accusations.
When the BBC's director general and editor-in-chief, Greg Dyke, says "Personally, I was shocked while in the United States by how unquestioning the broadcast news media was during this war," he is far too kind.
How Strictly Does the White House Control TV "News"?
Examine this shocking report from Walter Storch of TBRnews. A self-identified "mid-level executive with a major American television network" contacted TBRnews with proof the "corporate headquarters in New York City [directed] the head of the network's television news department" to suppress or play up news stories. This to aggrandize Bush and support right wing positions on the war, oil, corporate crimes, unemployment, and other issues.
According to TBRnews, "This individual claimed he was developing serious doubts about the strict control of media events and decided that he would pass this material along to someone who might make use of it. There was the question of his job security. If someone published his name, it would be certain he was not only fired but blackballed throughout his profession."
Examples of pro-right wing edicts predicted by this anonymous source which found their way onto the television "news" include:
(Jan 21, 2002) . . . in any article on Enron collapse, it is not considered advisable to discuss role of K. Lay. Charges against lesser Enron executives to be stressed. Lay's extensive gifts to President to be limited to "small campaign contributions" and shift emphasis to large gifts to Ashcroft for his presidential campaign. Mention A's recusal from Enron investigations. . . .
(Feb 10) . . . It is not permitted at this point to use or refer to any film clips, stills or articles emanating from any French source whatsoever.
(Feb 26) It is expected that coverage of the forthcoming Iraqi campaign will be identical with the coverage used during Desert Storm. Shots of GIs must show a mixed racial combination . . . any interviews must reflect the youthful and idealistic, not the cynical point of view . . .
(March 2) further references to the religious views of the President are to be deleted. . . .
(March 15) photo opportunities of the President and members of his cabinet, especially Secretary Rumsfeld, with enthusiastic GIs . . .
(March 10) . . . pro-Government rallies are to be given the fullest coverage . . . if anti-Government demonstrations are shown, it is desired to stress either a very small number of "eccentrics" or shots of social misfits; i.e., with beards, tattoos, physical deformities, etc. Pro-Government supporters should be seen as clean cut with as many well-groomed subjects as possible . . .
(March 30) Friction between Secretary Rumsfeld and senior military field commanders in Iraq are to be strictly minimalized and used only when impossible to avoid . . .
(April 4) . . . sharply rising unemployment numbers, this should be countered with official interviews stressing that the unemployment situation is now stabilizing and expected to fall soon.
(April 5) . . . comments appearing in the left-wing British Guardian about the occupation and administration of a conquered Iraq by American military personnel are to be ignored. Pacification, liberation, freedom and gratitude towards US forces, and the President are to be stressed.
(March 29) The President's goal, to achieve oil autarchy by the United States, is suggested as a future series. Congressional denial of drilling in various environmentally "sensitive" areas may be derided as foolish misunderstanding of America's vital oil needs. The interdiction of oil shipments to the United States from Venezuela and Nigeria are not to be commented upon. The attitude of Chavez towards the United States is also considered a non-topic. He was removed from power once and it can happen a second time. File footage of large crowds of distressed and unhappy Venezuelans should be prepared against the time he is removed from power again. . . .
(April 4) If possible, pictures of the President with a book or, better, actually reading, are suggested. Commentary about his extensive reading habits . . . stress important historical and economic works. . . .
(April 7) Please arrange for photo ops of President visiting wounded GIs. . . . Use photogenic subjects w/good racial mix. Also try for pix of First Lady handing wounded subject a gift . . .
(April 7) . . . no shots of GIs looting in Baghdad. Iraqi looters should be described as "joyful" at being liberated by US. Looting to be described as a "deprived people getting food for families" . . .
(April 4) Alliance casualties to be played down. The massive Iraqi civilian casualties also played down. Use the phrase, "most civilian casualties caused by vindictive Saddam supporters." Again, no pixs of dead women and children.
(April 6) Artillery targeting of several mosques to be deleted. . . .
(April 8) . . . develop possible linkage between Iraqi mobs and US need to police the country for a "brief time" to prevent any attempt to stifle emerging democracy. Do not mention probability of continued large US military presence. Stress the words "restoring law and order" and "helping to make the transition to true democracy."
(April 9) . . . in coverage of rebuilding of Iraq's infrastructure, mention that American firms have expressed willingness to "assist Iraq people to build a new, democratic nation." No mention, by name, of Halliburton or Bechtel.
There are dozens of similar examples of strict control, verified by TBRnews. As Storch explained: "It was both shocking and gratifying to note that this proved to be the case in a preponderance of cases and so we began to put these up, either in toto or, more often, in excerpt and watch as ordained news was created before our eyes."
So what happened when "TBRnews put up the first two pages?" Storch noted, "there were two basic forms of public response. One was to thank us for exposing something many people believed; that the American media was controlled and not free."
We knew that already, as Storch explains: "That much can easily be ascertained by reading the websites of various reputable foreign publications such as the Swiss NZZ, the British Guardian, the Canadian Toronto Globe and Mail, Reuters News Service and the Jerusalem Post. What any viewer can see on these sites is certainly not reflected in the American media."
Storch concludes, "The establishment does not worry about the lone man with a website that, as in our case, reaches perhaps 100,000 people at a time when they have control over NBC, CBS, ABC and CNN that can, and do, reach millions a day."
Verifying the thesis of this media bias series, Storch reports, "It is fairly obvious that the average Americans get their news either from TV, mostly, or from the print media. If someone in East Peoria, Illinois sees something on CNN, the Voice of the White House, they have no reason to question it. And don't." (See Controlling the News, Parts 1, 2, 3 & 4, In-House Memos on Television News Presentations)
Coverage of Bush's Iraq War
The media coverage of Bush's Iraq war reminds any objective observer of a pom-pom squad cheering for their team. The corporate media claim—and therefore many Americans think—this war was not about oil or revenge or geopolitical power games.
At various times, Bush and his hired liars told us, and the media parroted to us that this was about protecting us from al Qaeda, although there are no 9/11 links to Iraq. This was about weapons of mass destruction, although none were found. This was about freedom and democracy in Iraq, although Bush hates both here.
These and various other excuses to attack a weak and helpless nation came and went without the slightest critical corporate media examination. The most clever of all the rationales seems to be: This was about removing a brutal dictator who killed and tortured people. If so, then why this dictator and why this destructive, violent way? And why now?
There are many such dictators. Why depose this one by invasion when sanctions had already crushed Saddam's military capacity? Why when the inspections were working to mop up the rest of Iraq's degraded weaponry? Why after Reagan, Bush I, and Rumsfeld sent American weapons and billions of tax dollars to Iraq? Why after Cheney did business with this "brutal dictator" as recently as 1999?
Why war? Why after the top Republicans supported this "brutal dictator?" We should demand Bush's pom-pom squad answer those questions before letting them cheer.
Against this mindless support for Bush, the media continue their baseless, mean-spirited attacks against Democrats. The biased note by ABC's "The Note" claimed, "In any event, it's pretty clear that a Democratic Party, which still is trying to figure out what it does well with its current array of personnel, is exercising the same muscles that allowed it to score point after point in driving Trent Lott from the leadership."
By reducing Democratic defense of equal and civil rights against Republican hate and bigotry to a game, the Note's writers expose their own right-wing bias. This bias pervades the "Simonized" media.
Encouraged by the right-wing media, and specifically citing "The Note," a right-wing emailer crowed to our editors: "The Democratic Party doesn't have a prayer unless things go to hell in this country and people turn to them, simply because there's nowhere else to go. They do not have one person or one idea that will make people turn to them for positive reasons."
I could not disagree more. Democrats won nationwide in 1992, 1996, and 2000 because most Americans know Democrats are better on the issues
So why don't we read or hear much about Republican foreign policy failures and economic catastrophes? Because William Simon made his vision reality. The media is under the thumb of the corporations.
We cannot rely on the corporate media for anything other than right-wing cheerleading. On matters as grave as war and peace, life and death, jobs and health they repeat the right-wing press releases and turn to right-wing "think tanks" for perspective. Sound and balanced reporting is extinct.
What can we do about it? As Ted Turner explained, a few corporations—mostly run by right-wingers - dominate everything you see and hear. The corporate media won't do their job, so we must do it for them. MikeHersh.com and its partners are raising funds to buy ads exposing Bush's failures and crimes.
Copyright © 2002–2003 by MikeHersh.com
Evidently the infantile egomaniacs running things in Washington somehow thought they could threaten other countries (read: France and Germany) with economic retaliation, and not feel any backlash. As if other inductrialized nations were falling over themselves to do business with American companies, or that American companies are the only ones available.
Take the example of Airbus and Pratt & Whitney. Pratt & Whitney had the lowest bid to supply Airbus with engines for military aircraft. Instead Airbus went with a European consortium. Why? Because Colin Powell threatened France with economic war.
"Jean-Francois Boittin, commercial counselor at the French embassy in Washington, says the rift over Iraq was not decisive for Airbus but might have contributed to the decision.
''It's part of the picture. It's part of reality. You can't say on one side, 'Let's punish France,' and hope that American companies that compete on contracts of that sort are going to be looked at very favorably'' in France." -- Jean-Francois Boittin, commercial counselor at the French embassy in Washington.
And it gets worse.
The Bush Administration is filing suit at the WTO to force the EU to allow imports of genetically odified foods, despite the wishes of the European electorate. Mostly because it thinks US companies should be allowed to force unlabelled ranken-food on people who don't want it. I don't want to eat that garbage myself.
This from the same people who had a hissy, when Canadian companioes were able to sue the US under NAFTA for saying we had certain environmental restrictions.
This is about national sovereignty. The right to live under laws of our own choosing is fundamental, and being the sole Superpower doesn't give us the right to tell people what to eat, any more than they can tell us not to insist on fuel additives.
At this rate, the United States willbe forcibly returned to isolationist past. But then, maybe that's what the Bushes want.
Sorry, boys and girls, but it's not just the French and Russians that sell bad things to bad people. U.S. companies are at it too, including those with ties to the President and Vice President of the United States.
Considering that the President's Grandfather did business with the Nazis (and was fined for it), it shouldn't be surprising, but Republicans have done a remarkable job of keeping U.S. connections to Iraq appear as thought they were all in the past.
Get Real.
The fact is, that most media outlets are owned by big corporations that have ties, either direct, or through business links to those who sell to outlaw states.
Check here, or below if the link doesn't work.
Trading with the enemy
Commentary: U.S. companies risk only a wrist slap
By Rex Nutting, CBS.MarketWatch.com
Last Update: 3:14 PM ET April 15, 2003
WASHINGTON (CBS.MW) -- When individual Americans are accused of helping terrorists, they're thrown in jail and their names are dragged through the mud.
But when major U.S. corporations are caught trading with the enemy, they get just a slap on the wrist from the government.
In the past two weeks, the government has revealed that 57 companies and organizations have been fined for doing business with terrorists, despots and tyrants.
However, neither the government nor the companies are forthcoming with the public about the details of the illicit trade with rogue governments like Iraq, Cuba, North Korea, Iran and Sudan. Read about the laws.
The fact that the New York Yankees and ESPN have been caught doing business with Fidel Castro won't be on any highlight film. ChevronTexaco hasn't bragged about breaking the sanctions against Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Citigroup hasn't issued a press release extolling how it helped finance terrorist groups.
With a few exceptions, it is against the law for U.S. companies and individuals to have commercial or financial dealings with several countries as well as dozens of terrorist or drug organizations. Read the list.
Each year, the government investigates thousands of cases of U.S. individuals or companies for alleged violations of the Trading with the Enemy Act and other statutes and executive orders that restrict free trade. Each year, the government imposes millions of dollars in civil penalties and prosecutes 10 or so criminal cases.
We know why the companies are silent about what they've done. No one wants to be associated in the public mind with torturers, thugs and murderers, even if it's profitable to be associated with them in private. The companies' explanations, when available, show that even the most enthusiastic supporter of sanctions can run afoul of the law through no malice on their part.
But why are the government's cops so reluctant to tell us about the crooks they've captured? Who ever heard of a shy prosecutor, especially one who can show success in the war against terrorism?
Double standard
When deranged American citizens are accused of working with terrorist groups like al-Qaida, Attorney General John Ashcroft holds a press conference and the FBI puts a new name and face on its Top 10 Most Wanted List, even though the allegations have not been proved in court.
The suspects can languish in jail for months without any formal charges.
And when a Muslim charity is suspected of laundering funds for alleged terror groups, the Treasury Department shuts it down and freezes its assets.
But when multinational corporations like Wal-Mart, Dow Chemical (DOW: news, chart, profile), ExxonMobil and Amazon.com (AMZN: news, chart, profile) agree with government prosecutors that they have violated laws that prohibit doing business with enemy states, the news is buried on an obscure government Web site.
57 companies fined
In the past two weeks, the Treasury's Office of Foreign Asset Control has revealed that 57 companies and organizations have been fined more than $1.35 million for civil violations of the sanctions laws.
For the first time, the government will provide weekly updates on the status of its civil cases. But the information provided by the government about these violations is paltry, and unless you've memorized the law, you'll never understand that "EO13121 FT" means an illegal funds transfer to the former Yugoslavia.
The government has provided almost no information about the civil cases except what country the company traded with and what the penalty was. No dates, no details, no way of knowing if the violations were egregious or inadvertent. No way of knowing if the companies sold brass knuckles to the secret police or baby formula to an orphanage.
"The Treasury is giving in to corporate pressure," said Russell Mokhiber, editor of the Corporate Crime Reporter, who sued the government under the Freedom of Information Act to learn the details of earlier violations of the trade sanctions laws.
"To deter future corporate wrongdoing, [the Treasury] must stop protecting major American companies from the glare of adverse publicity," Mokhiber said Monday at a press conference.
"This is the maximum information that we can make available consistent with legal concerns," said a Treasury Department spokesman who would not even provide his name for publication.
Largest case
The largest penalty levied among the 59 public cases was $250,000 against Zim American Israeli Shipping Co. of Norfolk, Va., for trade with Cuba. Zim, which is about half owned by the Israeli government, is one of the largest shipping companies in the world.
Nobody at the Norfolk office of Zim knew anything concrete about the penalty. "I think it happened a long time ago," said one official.
But they do know about terrorism. The company relocated from the 16th floor of the World Trade Center just a week before the Sept. 11 attack, sparking speculation in the conspiracy press that the Israeli Mossad had tipped off the company ahead of time.
As for the Cubans, "I think they are very poor," the Zim official said.
The next largest penalty was imposed on IGI Inc. (IG: news, chart, profile) of Buena, N.J., which makes cosmetics and which recently sold its pet food and veterinary products units. The government said they exported something prohibited to Iran. The company said it would look into the matter and get back to us.
Norwegian-owned shipping company Stolt-Nielsen Transportation Group (SNSA: news, chart, profile) of Greenwich, Conn., was fined $95,000 for an illegal fund transfer to Sudan.
Yankees and Cubans
The New York Yankees were fined $75,000 for signing a contract in which the Cuban government had an interest. Newsday reported Tuesday that the contracts involved pitcher Orlando "El Duque" Hernandez and three other unnamed Cuban players.
Hernandez has always maintained that he escaped from Cuba to the Bahamas in a wooden fishing boat in late 1997 after being banned from baseball in his homeland following the defection of his brother, Livan, who was the World Series star for the Florida Marlins that fall. It is not clear how his subsequent signing by the Yankees would have involved a payment to the Cuban government.
The Yankees' contract with Jose Contreras is not in violation of the law, Yankee president Randy Levine told the paper.
Wal-Mart (WMT: news, chart, profile) was fined $50,000 for dealings with Cuba. A Wal-Mart spokesman said some pajamas sold to its Canadian operations "might have originated in Cuba." The company paid the fine "voluntarily" after lengthy discussions with government lawyers and there was "never any determination of a violation," he said.
Blue chips caught red handed
The other big fines:
ExxonMobil (XOM: news, chart, profile) was fined $50,000 for exports to Sudan.
ChevronTexaco (CVX: news, chart, profile) was fined a total of $14,071.07 for deals with Cuba and Iraq. A company spokesman told the Corporate Crime Reporter that the company bought oil from Iraq under the U.N. Oil for Food program and that a payment was inadvertently paid to an Iraqi government port official.
Axon Corp. of Raleigh, N.C., was fined $45,000 for exports to Iran. The company makes packaging equipment.
Fleet Bank (FBF: news, chart, profile) was fined $41,000 for financial dealings with Cuba and Iran.
ESPN was fined $39,000 for a contract with Cuba. A spokesman at the sports cable network said the network's South American unit had paid some travel expenses for the Cuban team at a major international volleyball tournament held in Argentina in 1998 and televised by the ESPN Sur network. The company is owned by Disney (DIS: news, chart, profile) and privately held Hearst.
Royal Crown was fined $38,000 for exports to Sudan. The soft-drink company is now owned by Snapple, which in turn is owned by Cadbury Schweppes (CSG: news, chart, profile).
And a couple of minor but intriguing infractions:
Citigroup (C: news, chart, profile) was fined $2,925 for violating laws against financing terrorism. A spokesman for the financial services giant did not return a phone call seeking comment. It was the only penalty on the government's list for violation of the anti-terrorism financing law.
The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry in Research Triangle Park, N.C., was fined $500 for violating laws against the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. A spokesman for the group did not return a phone call. It was the only penalty on the government's list for violations of nonproliferation laws.
Rex Nutting is Washington bureau chief of CBS.MarketWatch.com.
Think having the rest of the world mad at us is no big deal? I bet this is just the beginning...
The building world boycott of the US
Eminent physicist refuses to review American colleagues' papers
Reprinted April 25, 2003
Dr. Daniel Amit: "What we are watching today, I believe, is a culmination of 10–15 years of mounting barbarism of the American culture the world over, crowned by the achievements of science and technology as a major weapon of mass destruction."
Sent: Friday, March 21, 2003 6:11 AM
Subject: Review_request AMIT EA8932
Dr. Daniel Amit
Univ. di Roma
La Sapienza
Ple Aldo Moro 2
00185 Roma, ITALY
Electronic URL-Download Referral from Physical Review E
Code: EA8932
Title: Transitions in oscillatory dynamics of two connected neurons with excitatory synapses
Received 08 January 2003
Dear Dr. Amit:
We would appreciate your review of this manuscript, which has been submitted to Physical Review E. This message is the COMPLETE REFERRAL. No hardcopy will be sent unless requested.
——————————————————————————————
From: "Daniel Amit"
To: "Physical Review E"
Sent: Friday, March 21, 2003 6:11 PM
Subject: Re: Review_request AMIT EA8932 Roudi
I will not at this point correspond with any american institution.
Some of us have lived through 1939.
——————————————————————————————
From: "martin blume"
To:
Subject: your email to the American Physical Society
Date: Tuesday, April 08, 2003 10:31 PM
Dear Dr. Amit,
We have received your email with your decision not to review a paper for us in light of American actions in the middle east. We recognize that reviewing manuscripts is a voluntary activity, one that you perform as a service to the physics community, and we thank you for your efforts.
Given the voluntary nature of your participation we of course respect your decision to cease, and have made an indication in our database so that no further papers will be sent to you for review until you inform us otherwise.
We ask, however, that you consider the following in hopes that in the not too distant future you will decide to review for us again. We regard science as an international enterprise and we do our best to put aside political disagreements in the interest of furthering the pursuit of scientific matters.
We have never used other than scientific criteria in judging the acceptability of a paper for publication, without regard to the country of origin of the author. We have done this even in cases where some of us have disagreed strongly with the policies of that country, and we will continue this practice. We believe it is essential that all parties involved make every effort to separate social and political differences from their participation in scientific research and publication. The pursuit of scientific knowledge needs to transcend such issues.
Sincerely,
Martin Blume
Editor-in-Chief
——————————————————————————————
Dear Dr Blume, Editor in Chief
American Physical Society
09.04.2003
Thank you for you letter of April 8. I would have liked to be able to share the honorable sentiments you express in your letter as well as your optimism in the future role of science and the scientific community. To be frank, and with much sadness and pain, after 40 years of activity and collaboration, I find very little reason for such optimism. What we are watching today, I believe, is a culmination of 10–15 years of mounting barbarism of the American culture the world over, crowned by the achievements of science and technology as a major weapon of mass destruction.
We are witnessing man hunt and wanton killing of the type and scale not seen since the raids on American Indian populations, by a superior technological power of inferior culture and values. We see no corrective force to restore the insanity, the self-righteousness and the lack of respect for human life (civilian and military) of another race.
Science cannot stay neutral, especially after it has been so cynically used in the hands of the inspectors to disarm a country and prepare it for decimation by laser guided cluster bombs. No, science of the American variety has no recourse. I, personally, cannot see myself anymore sharing a common human community with American science. Unfortunately, I also belong to a culture of a similar spiritual deviation (Israel), and which seems to be equally incorrigible.
In desperation I cannot but turn my attention to other tragic periods in which major societies, some with claims to fundamental contributions to culture and science, have deviated so far as to be relegated to ostracism and quarantine. At this point I think American society should be considered in this category. I have no illusions of power, as to the scope and prospect of my attitude. But, the minor role of my act and statement is a simple way of affirming that in the face of a growing enormity which I consider intolerable, I will exercise my own tiny act of disobedience to be able to look straight into the eyes of my grandchildren and my students and say that I did know.
With regard
Daniel Amit
PS I intend to distribute our exchange as much as possible. I authorize and pray that you do the same.
You'd think that the government and the populace of the United States would be dying to know the who, what, and how of the attacks on the World Trade Center, especially after the whistleblowing at the FBI. Alas, even Congress isn't able to get past the smokescreens at the White House.
Don't take my word for it. Read this.
The Secrets of September 11
The White House is battling to keep a report on the terror attacks secret. Does the 2004 election have anything to do with it?
NEWSWEEK WEB EXCLUSIVE
April 30 — Even as White House political aides plot a 2004 campaign plan designed to capitalize on the emotions and issues raised by the September 11 terror attacks, administration officials are waging a behind-the-scenes battle to restrict public disclosure of key events relating to the attacks.
AT THE CENTER of the dispute is a more-than-800-page secret report prepared by a joint congressional inquiry detailing the intelligence and law-enforcement failures that preceded the attacks—including provocative, if unheeded warnings, given President Bush and his top advisers during the summer of 2001.
The report was completed last December; only a bare-bones list of “findings” with virtually no details was made public. But nearly six months later, a “working group” of Bush administration intelligence officials assigned to review the document has taken a hard line against further public disclosure. By refusing to declassify many of its most significant conclusions, the administration has essentially thwarted congressional plans to release the report by the end of this month, congressional and administration sources tell NEWSWEEK. In some cases, these sources say, the administration has even sought to “reclassify” some material that was already discussed in public testimony—a move one Senate staffer described as “ludicrous.” The administration’s stand has infuriated the two members of Congress who oversaw the report—Democratic Sen. Bob Graham and Republican Rep. Porter Goss. The two are now preparing a letter of complaint to Vice President Dick Cheney.
Graham is “increasingly frustrated” by the administration’s “unwillingness to release what he regards as important information the public should have about 9-11,” a spokesman said. In Graham’s view, the Bush administration isn’t protecting legitimate issues of national security but information that could be a political “embarrassment,” the aide said. Graham, who last year served as Senate Intelligence Committee chairman, recently told NEWSWEEK: “There has been a cover-up of this.”
Graham’s stand may not be terribly surprising, given that the Florida Democrat is running for president and is seeking to use the issue himself politically. But he has found a strong ally in House Intelligence Committee Chairman Goss, a staunch Republican (and former CIA officer) who in the past has consistently defended the administration’s handling of 9-11 issues and is considered especially close to Cheney.
“I find this process horrendously frustrating,” Goss said in an interview. He was particularly piqued that the administration was refusing to declassify material that top intelligence officials had already testified about. “Senior intelligence officials said things in public hearings that they [administration officials] don’t want us to put in the report,” said Goss. “That’s not something I can rationally accept without further public explanation.”
Unlike Graham, Goss insists there are no political “gotchas” in the report, only a large volume of important information about the performance and shortcomings of U.S. intelligence and law-enforcement agencies prior to September 11.
And even congressional staffers close to the process say it is unclear whether the administration’s resistance to public disclosure reflects fear of political damage or simply an ingrained “culture of secrecy” that permeates the intelligence community—and has strong proponents at the highest levels of the White House.
The mammoth report reflects nearly 10 months of investigative work by a special staff hired jointly by the House and Senate Intelligence Committees and overseen by Eleanor Hill, a former federal prosecutor and Pentagon inspector general. Hill’s team got access to hundreds of thousands of pages of classified documents from the CIA, FBI, National Security Agency and other executive-branch agencies. The staff also conducted scores of interviews with senior officials, field agents and intelligence officers. (They were not, however, given access to some top White House aides, such as national-security adviser Condoleezza Rice or other principals like Secretary of State Colin Powell or Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.) The team’s report was approved by the two intelligence committees last Dec. 10. But because the document relied so heavily on secret material, the administration “working group,” overseen by CIA director George Tenet, had to first “scrub” the document and determine which portions could be declassified.
More than two months later, the working group came back with its decisions—and some members were flabbergasted. Entire portions remained classified. Some of the report—including some dealing with matters that had been extensively aired in public, such as the now famous FBI “Phoenix memo” of July 2001 reporting that Middle Eastern nationals might be enrolling in U.S. flight schools—were “reclassified.” Hill has since submitted proposed changes to the working group, pointing out the illogic of trying to pull back material that was already in the public domain. But officials have indicated the “review” process is likely to drag on for months—with no guarantees that the “working group” will be any more amenable to public disclosure.
A U.S. intelligence official cited international distractions as at least one reason for the delays. “In case you hadn’t noticed, there have been two wars going on,” the official said. The official added: “We’re working this [report] to try to get it out without putting lives at risk and without endangering sources and methods.” Asked why the working group was refusing to permit disclosure of material that had already been made public, the official said: “Just because something had been inadvertently released, doesn’t make it unclassified.”
The administration’s tough stand, some sources say, doesn’t augur well for the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks—which is conducting its own investigation into the events of 9-11. Already, flaps have developed on that front, as well. When one commissioner, former congressman Tim Roemer, last week sought to review transcripts of some of the joint inquiry’s closed-door hearings, he was denied access—because the commission staff had agreed to a White House request to allow its lawyers to first review the material to determine if the president wants to invoke executive privilege to keep the material out of the panel’s hands.
“I think it’s outrageous,” says Roemer, who plans to raise the matter at a commission hearing this week. But a commission staffer says he expected the White House review to be finished by the end of the week, and it was unclear whether the president’s lawyers would try to invoke executive privilege—a stand that would almost certainly provoke a major legal battle with the panel.
The tensions over the release of 9-11 related material seems especially relevant—if not ironic—in light of recent reports that the president’s political advisers have devised an unusual re-election strategy that essentially uses the story of September 11 as the liftoff for his campaign. The White House is delaying the Republican nominating convention, scheduled for New York City, until the first week in September 2004—the latest in the party’s history. That would allow Bush’s acceptance speech, now slated for Sept. 2, to meld seamlessly into 9-11 commemoration events due to take place in the city the next week.
Some sources who have read the still-secret congressional report say some sections would not play quite so neatly into White House plans. One portion deals extensively with the stream of U.S. intelligence-agency reports in the summer of 2001 suggesting that Al Qaeda was planning an upcoming attack against the United States—and implicitly raises questions about how Bush and his top aides responded. One such CIA briefing, in July 2001, was particularly chilling and prophetic. It predicted that Osama bin Laden was about to launch a terrorist strike “in the coming weeks,” the congressional investigators found. The intelligence briefing went on to say: “The attack will be spectacular and designed to inflict mass casualties against U.S. facilities or interests. Attack preparations have been made. Attack will occur with little or no warning.”
The substance of that intelligence report was first disclosed at a public hearing last September by staff director Hill. But at the last minute, Hill was blocked from saying precisely who within the Bush White House got the briefing when CIA director Tenet classified the names of the recipients. (One source says the recipients of the briefing included Bush himself.) As a result, Hill was only able to say the briefing was given to “senior government officials.”
That issue is now being refought in the context over the full report. The report names names, gives dates and provides a body of new information about the handling of many other crucial intelligence briefings—including one in early August 2001 given to national-security adviser Rice that discussed Al Qaeda operations within the United States and the possibility that the group’s members might seek to hijack airplanes. The administration “working group” is still refusing to declassify information about the briefings, sources said, and has even expressed regret that some of the material was ever provided to congressional investigators in the first place.
A NEW HAND IN HOMELAND SECURITY
The White House is once again shuffling the deck in the staffing of top terrorism jobs, NEWSWEEK has learned. Gen. John A. Gordon—who has wielded broad if largely unseen powers as deputy national-security advisor in charge of combating terrorism—is moving up to become White House homeland-security adviser, a post formerly held by Tom Ridge. The new job is expected to give the brusque and secretive Gordon even more power as a “principal” with direct access to Bush. (Ridge is now secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.) Sources say Gordon beat out ex-FBI official James Kallstrom—an old ally of former FBI director Louis Freeh—for the key post.
The elevation of Gordon is the latest sign of the increasing prominence of intelligence-community veterans throughout the upper reaches of the government under Bush. (FBI director Robert Mueller, for example, recently reached outside the ranks of his law-enforcement agents to select Maureen A. Baginski, a former National Security Agency deputy director, to oversee FBI intelligence efforts.) For his part, Gordon was a former deputy CIA director with a reputation as a “a results-oriented guy” who has little patience for bureaucratic procedures, according to one former government official who has worked with him.
Gordon’s departure, however, leaves vacancies at the two top White House counterterrorism jobs: Gordon’s old post and that of his former deputy, Rand Beers, who resigned the week the war in Iraq began. On the surface, the vacancies seem conspicuous in an administration that has made combating terrorism the centerpiece of its policies. But sources say a vigorous search has been underway and replacements are likely to be named shortly.
© 2003 Newsweek, Inc.
There have been frequent warning by some, warnings that are almost never picked up by the big media conglomerates that the USA Patriot Act had embarked us on a slippery slope.
Those few warnings that have made the press are either ridiculed by the Republicans, or studiosly ignored by most of us. Here's another warning
First, They Came for the Immigrants...
By Richard L. Clinton, AlterNet
April 29, 2003
Two old friends of mine – a Jewish couple in their 80s, both retired university professors who fled Nazi Germany in the late 1930s and eventually became U.S. citizens – made a stunning remark to me a few months ago: "You know, all our lives we have blamed our parents and our parents' generation for allowing Hitler to gain control. Now we're beginning to see how powerless they must have felt to stop what was happening all around them."
My friends' melancholy comment came back to me and a palpable chill ran down my spine when I read about the Gestapo-style arrest of U.S. citizen Maher "Mike" Hawash. Two weeks ago, police took the 38-year-old Intel software contractor from his Hillsboro home and put him in solitary confinement (according to his wife) in a federal prison. No charges have been filed against him, and his attorneys reportedly are forbidden to discuss the case. What is happening to our country?
I already had heard on National Public Radio a New Jersey attorney's account of having been appointed as counsel for Jose Padilla, the U.S. citizen arrested in Chicago nearly a year ago for supposedly planning to concoct a "dirty bomb" – radioactive materials packed around a conventional explosive. After only one or two brief meetings, she was abruptly denied access to her client, who was transferred to a brig somewhere in South Carolina, where he remains in solitary confinement to this day, unindicted for any crime and unable to see or speak with his lawyer. Can this really be happening in the United States?
A few weeks ago a professor in the University of Idaho School of Law reported that FBI agents staged a predawn raid – in full SWAT team regalia – on the apartment of a Saudi doctoral candidate in computer science, dragging him away from his terrified wife and children and astonished neighbors.
The Washington Post has reported that around the country "at least 44 people" were being held, like Mike Hawash, under the same distorted and unprecedented interpretation of the "material witness" law, designed for grand jury participants. This is clearly an outright suspension of habeas corpus, the 700-year-old cornerstone of individual civil rights in Western jurisprudence, which protects us from arbitrary arrest and imprisonment.
The "war on terrorism" – the surrogate for the Cold War so desperately needed by the military-industrial complex to justify its hugely disproportionate bite out of the federal budget – has, of course, served as the oh-so-convenient excuse for the erosion of our freedoms. And the contemptible timidity of our elected representatives, who rushed to pass the ill-named and patently unconstitutional U.S. Patriot Act unread and undebated, helped to provide a fig leaf of legality for this abridgement of our civil liberties.
Never has the plaintive confession of Pastor Martin Niemoeller sounded so relevant: "They came first for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. . . . Then they came for me, and by that time, nobody was left to speak up."
Richard L. Clinton is a political science professor at Oregon State University.
And people still don't believe there's a problem for some reason...
How many rights do we lose before we say "enough"?
Friday, May 2, 2003
War on Terrorism: Democrats reject expanded CIA powers
GOP proposal would allow subpoenas of domestic records
By ERIC LICHTBLAU AND JAMES RISEN
THE NEW YORK TIMES
WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration and leading Senate Republicans sought yesterday to give the Central Intelligence Agency and the Pentagon far-reaching new powers to demand personal and financial records on people in the United States as part of foreign intelligence and terrorism operations, officials said.
The proposal would give the CIA and the military the authority to issue administrative subpoenas -- known as "national security letters" -- requiring Internet providers, credit card companies, libraries and a variety of other groups to produce such things as phone records, bank transactions and e-mail logs. That authority now rests largely with the FBI, and the subpoenas do not require court approval.
The surprise proposal was tucked into a broader intelligence authorization bill pending before Congress.
It set off fierce debate yesterday in a closed-door meeting of the Senate Intelligence Committee, officials said. Democrats on the panel said they were stunned by the proposal because it appeared to mark a significant expansion of the role of the CIA and the Pentagon in conducting domestic operations despite a long history of tight restrictions, officials said.
After raising objections, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and other Democrats succeeded in getting the motion pulled from the authorization bill, at least temporarily, congressional officials said.
In a closed vote, the committee passed the bill unanimously without the proposal. But Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., who is chairman of the intelligence committee, indicated to panel members that he wanted to hold further hearings on the idea and bring it back up, officials said.
There was some disagreement over how the motion originated. Several Senate aides active in the debate said that Roberts had included the motion in the authorization bill, but a senior congressional official said it was the Bush administration that initiated the proposal and Roberts did not object.
A CIA spokesman said the provision had come from the Bush administration, after the White House's Office of Management and Budget had signed off on it.
The official said that congressional leaders had asked the Bush administration whether there were any additional powers that were needed to help in combating terrorism.
The administration had responded to that inquiry with the proposal to allow the CIA and military the right to use the national security letters, the official said. Another congressional official said the move came at the urging of the CIA.
Because the FBI now has primary responsibility for domestic intelligence operations, the CIA and the military must currently go to the FBI to request that it issue a national security letter to get access to financial and electronic records.
A senior congressional official said the Bush administration believes that giving the CIA and the military direct authority to demand the records would cut down on the lag time in the process, and give those organizations more flexibility to combat terrorism.
Administration officials downplayed the significance of the proposal, maintaining that it would not give the CIA or the military access to any information that they cannot already get through the FBI.
But Democrats and civil liberties advocates said they were alarmed by the idea that the CIA and the military could begin prying into Americans' personal and financial records as part of intelligence and terrorism operations.
They said that while the FBI is subject to guidelines controlling what agents are allowed to do in the course of an investigation, the CIA and the military would appear to have much freer reign to conduct intelligence operations in the United States and demand access to personal records.
The FBI also faces additional scrutiny if it attempts to use such records in a court case, but officials said the proposal could give the CIA and the military the power to gather such material without ever being subjected to judicial oversight.
Timothy Edgar, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, called the proposal "dangerous and un-American."
Edgar said that "even in the most frigid periods of the Cold War, we never gave the CIA such sweeping and secret policing powers over American citizens," he said.
A congressional Democratic aide said the measure appeared to go well beyond even hotly debated anti-terrorism measures that the Justice Department has been considering in past months.
"This is a very odd and very far-reaching idea that came out of nowhere," said the aide. "It raises a whole series of questions about what the CIA's mission has really become."
Since the Sept. 11 attacks, the CIA and the military have assumed greater authority overseas over what were once law-enforcement terrorism investigations, and the traditional lines between domestic and overseas operations have become increasingly blurred.
A new terrorism center, led by the CIA, began operation yesterday in an effort to better coordinate the activities of different federal agencies, but civil liberties groups said they are worried that it will give the CIA authority to conduct domestic operations.
The proposal to allow the CIA and the Pentagon authority to demand domestic records appears to reflect another move in that direction, and it comes at a time when both Democrats and Republicans have voiced growing concerns about the government's expanded powers to fight terrorism.
New figures released yesterday also showed that the Justice Department is relying with increasing frequency on secret warrants that allow the department to go to a secret court to get approval for surveillance and bugging warrants in terrorism and espionage investigations without notifying the target.
Attorney General John Ashcroft said in an annual report that the Justice Department used those secret warrants a record number of 1,228 times in 2002 -- an increase of more than 30 percent over the year before.
The court that governs the warrants did not turn down any of the Justice Department's applications, officials said.
Here's a pretty good history of Bush family under-handedness that goes back to Prescott Bush, who was in bed with the Nazis.
Even Ronald Reagan didn't trust the former President...
Evidently the Bush Administration doesn't think they'll actually find anything. If there's no WMDs and no connection to al-Qaeda, where was the "Clear and Present Danger" represented by the former thug of Baghdad?