The Social Security Promise Not Yet Kept:
"SOCIAL Security retirement benefits are going to have to be cut, Alan Greenspan announced last week, because there just is not enough money to pay the promised benefits. President Bush said those already retired or "near retirement age'' should not worry. They will get their promised benefits.…
Since 1983, American workers have been paying more into Social Security than it has paid out in benefits, about $1.8 trillion more so far. This year Americans will pay about 50 percent more in Social Security taxes than the government will pay out in benefits.
Those taxes were imposed at the urging of Mr. Greenspan, who was chairman of a bipartisan commission that in 1983 said that one way to make sure Social Security remains solvent once the baby boomers reached retirement age was to tax them in advance."
On Mr. Greenspan's recommendation Social Security was converted from a pay-as-you-go system to one in which taxes are collected in advance. After Congress adopted the plan, Mr. Greenspan rose to become chairman of the Federal Reserve.
This year someone making $50,000 will pay $6,200 in Social Security taxes, half deducted from their paycheck and half paid by their employer. That total is about $2,000 more than the government needs in order to pay benefits to retirees, widows, orphans and the disabled, government budget documents show.
So what has happened to that $1.8 trillion?
The advance payments have all been spent.
Congress did not lock away the Social Security surplus, as many Americans believe. Instead, it borrowed the surplus, replacing the cash with Treasury notes, and spent the loan proceeds paying the ordinary expenses of running the federal government.
Only twice, in 1999 and 2000, did Congress balance the federal budget without borrowing from the surplus.
Both parties have treated the surplus Social Security taxes as "cash flow to the government," which has been allowable since the Johnson administration started counting Social Security as part of the federal budget, not as a separate budget, said C. Eugene Steuerle, a tax policy advisor to President Reagan.
He said that voters were promised in 1983 that the federal debt would be paid off with the surplus Social Security taxes. The fact that this has not happened and the debt has soared shows that "government usually can only deal with one objective at a time,'' Mr. Steuerle said. Back then, he added, the prime objective was to settle on a Social Security tax rate that would back the system and not have to be tinkered with for decades - not how the surplus would be handled.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/29/weekinreview/29john.html
Sunday, February 29, 2004
Op-Ed Contributor: A Wall as a Weapon:
"Few would question Israel's right to protect its citizens from terrorist attacks like the one yesterday, even to build a security wall if that were an appropriate means. It is also clear where such a wall would be built if security were the guiding concern: inside Israel, within the internationally recognized border, the Green Line established after the 1948-49 war. The wall could then be as forbidding as the authorities chose: patrolled by the army on both sides, heavily mined, impenetrable. Such a wall would maximize security, and there would be no international protest or violation of international law.
This observation is well understood. While Britain supports America's opposition to the Hague hearings, its foreign minister, Jack Straw, has written that the wall is 'unlawful.' Another ministry official, who inspected the 'security fence,' said it should be on the Green Line or 'indeed on the Israeli side of the line.' A British parliamentary investigative commission also called for the wall to be built on Israeli land, condemning the barrier as part of a 'deliberate' Israeli 'strategy of bringing the population to heel.'
What this wall is really doing is taking Palestinian lands. It is also — as the Israeli sociologist Baruch Kimmerling has described Israel's war of "politicide" against the Palestinians — helping turn Palestinian communities into dungeons, next to which the bantustans of South Africa look like symbols of freedom, sovereignty and self-determination."
Even before construction of the barrier was under way, the United Nations estimated that Israeli barriers, infrastructure projects and settlements had created 50 disconnected Palestinian pockets in the West Bank. As the design of the wall was coming into view, the World Bank estimated that it might isolate 250,000 to 300,000 Palestinians, more than 10 percent of the population, and that it might effectively annex up to 10 percent of West Bank land. And when the government of Ariel Sharon finally published its proposed map, it became clear the the wall would cut the West Bank into 16 isolated enclaves, confined to just 42 percent of the West Bank land that Mr. Sharon had previously said could be ceded to a Palestinian state.
The wall has already claimed some of the most fertile lands of the West Bank. And, crucially, it extends Israel's control of critical water resources, which Israel and its settlers can appropriate as they choose, while the indigenous population often lacks water for drinking.
Palestinians in the seam between the wall and the Green Line will be permitted to apply for the right to live in their own homes; Israelis automatically have the right to use these lands. "Hiding behind security rationales and the seemingly neutral bureaucratic language of military orders is the gateway for expulsion," the Israeli journalist Amira Hass wrote in the daily Haaretz. "Drop by drop, unseen, not so many that it would be noticed internationally and shock public opinion." The same is true of the regular killings, terror and daily brutality and humiliation of the past 35 years of harsh occupation, while land and resources have been taken for settlers enticed by ample subsidies.
It is misleading to call these Israeli policies. They are American-Israeli policies — made possible by unremitting United States military, economic and diplomatic support of Israel. This has been true since 1971 when, with American support, Israel rejected a full peace offer from Egypt, preferring expansion to security. In 1976, the United States vetoed a Security Council resolution calling for a two-state settlement in accord with an overwhelming international consensus. The two-state proposal has the support of a majority of Americans today, and could be enacted immediately if Washington wanted to do so.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/23/opinion/23CHOM.html
"Few would question Israel's right to protect its citizens from terrorist attacks like the one yesterday, even to build a security wall if that were an appropriate means. It is also clear where such a wall would be built if security were the guiding concern: inside Israel, within the internationally recognized border, the Green Line established after the 1948-49 war. The wall could then be as forbidding as the authorities chose: patrolled by the army on both sides, heavily mined, impenetrable. Such a wall would maximize security, and there would be no international protest or violation of international law.
This observation is well understood. While Britain supports America's opposition to the Hague hearings, its foreign minister, Jack Straw, has written that the wall is 'unlawful.' Another ministry official, who inspected the 'security fence,' said it should be on the Green Line or 'indeed on the Israeli side of the line.' A British parliamentary investigative commission also called for the wall to be built on Israeli land, condemning the barrier as part of a 'deliberate' Israeli 'strategy of bringing the population to heel.'
What this wall is really doing is taking Palestinian lands. It is also — as the Israeli sociologist Baruch Kimmerling has described Israel's war of "politicide" against the Palestinians — helping turn Palestinian communities into dungeons, next to which the bantustans of South Africa look like symbols of freedom, sovereignty and self-determination."
Even before construction of the barrier was under way, the United Nations estimated that Israeli barriers, infrastructure projects and settlements had created 50 disconnected Palestinian pockets in the West Bank. As the design of the wall was coming into view, the World Bank estimated that it might isolate 250,000 to 300,000 Palestinians, more than 10 percent of the population, and that it might effectively annex up to 10 percent of West Bank land. And when the government of Ariel Sharon finally published its proposed map, it became clear the the wall would cut the West Bank into 16 isolated enclaves, confined to just 42 percent of the West Bank land that Mr. Sharon had previously said could be ceded to a Palestinian state.
The wall has already claimed some of the most fertile lands of the West Bank. And, crucially, it extends Israel's control of critical water resources, which Israel and its settlers can appropriate as they choose, while the indigenous population often lacks water for drinking.
Palestinians in the seam between the wall and the Green Line will be permitted to apply for the right to live in their own homes; Israelis automatically have the right to use these lands. "Hiding behind security rationales and the seemingly neutral bureaucratic language of military orders is the gateway for expulsion," the Israeli journalist Amira Hass wrote in the daily Haaretz. "Drop by drop, unseen, not so many that it would be noticed internationally and shock public opinion." The same is true of the regular killings, terror and daily brutality and humiliation of the past 35 years of harsh occupation, while land and resources have been taken for settlers enticed by ample subsidies.
It is misleading to call these Israeli policies. They are American-Israeli policies — made possible by unremitting United States military, economic and diplomatic support of Israel. This has been true since 1971 when, with American support, Israel rejected a full peace offer from Egypt, preferring expansion to security. In 1976, the United States vetoed a Security Council resolution calling for a two-state settlement in accord with an overwhelming international consensus. The two-state proposal has the support of a majority of Americans today, and could be enacted immediately if Washington wanted to do so.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/23/opinion/23CHOM.html
Saturday, February 28, 2004
A Day of Israeli-Palestinian Violence; Civil Disorder in Nablus:
"In Nablus, on the West Bank, the long-serving mayor, Ghassan W. Shakah, abruptly announced his resignation in protest against what he said was Palestinian leaders' failure to stop his city's slide into chaos.
In Nablus, the Palestinians' commercial center and home of their stock exchange, armed men presenting themselves as freedom fighters are establishing control as the governing Palestinian Authority crumbles. They have taken to seizing hostages for ransom and extorting money from local businessmen.
Last fall, gunmen killed the brother of Mr. Shakah, who once said in an interview that he had dreamed, before this conflict began more than three years ago, that his city would rank with Paris, London, or Washington. Nablus is ancient, built by Romans near the remains of a Canaanite city."
"I see my city collapsing, and I don't want to stand idly by and watch this collapse," Mr. Shakah told The Associated Press on Friday. He was also quoted as referring to the Israelis, saying, "I don't deny the role of the occupation in destroying the city through the frequent invasions, but we as an Authority and as citizens are doing nothing to protect the city."
For most of the last two years, Israeli forces have prevented armed, uniformed Palestinian policemen from working in cities like Nablus, saying they often proved to be terrorists.
Mr. Shakah is a senior member of Yasir Arafat's Fatah movement and has been a close ally of Mr. Arafat in the past. He said he would remain in his job until May 1 to finish several projects, including a shopping mall.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/28/international/middleeast/28MIDE.html
"In Nablus, on the West Bank, the long-serving mayor, Ghassan W. Shakah, abruptly announced his resignation in protest against what he said was Palestinian leaders' failure to stop his city's slide into chaos.
In Nablus, the Palestinians' commercial center and home of their stock exchange, armed men presenting themselves as freedom fighters are establishing control as the governing Palestinian Authority crumbles. They have taken to seizing hostages for ransom and extorting money from local businessmen.
Last fall, gunmen killed the brother of Mr. Shakah, who once said in an interview that he had dreamed, before this conflict began more than three years ago, that his city would rank with Paris, London, or Washington. Nablus is ancient, built by Romans near the remains of a Canaanite city."
"I see my city collapsing, and I don't want to stand idly by and watch this collapse," Mr. Shakah told The Associated Press on Friday. He was also quoted as referring to the Israelis, saying, "I don't deny the role of the occupation in destroying the city through the frequent invasions, but we as an Authority and as citizens are doing nothing to protect the city."
For most of the last two years, Israeli forces have prevented armed, uniformed Palestinian policemen from working in cities like Nablus, saying they often proved to be terrorists.
Mr. Shakah is a senior member of Yasir Arafat's Fatah movement and has been a close ally of Mr. Arafat in the past. He said he would remain in his job until May 1 to finish several projects, including a shopping mall.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/28/international/middleeast/28MIDE.html
Treasury Department Is Warning Publishers of the Perils of Criminal Editing of the Enemy:
"Writers often grumble about the criminal things editors do to their prose. The federal government has recently weighed in on the same issue — literally.
It has warned publishers they may face grave legal consequences for editing manuscripts from Iran and other disfavored nations, on the ground that such tinkering amounts to trading with the enemy.
Anyone who publishes material from a country under a trade embargo is forbidden to reorder paragraphs or sentences, correct syntax or grammar, or replace "inappropriate words," according to several advisory letters from the Treasury Department in recent months.
Adding illustrations is prohibited, too. To the baffled dismay of publishers, editors and translators who have been briefed about the policy, only publication of "camera-ready copies of manuscripts" is allowed.
The Treasury letters concerned Iran. But the logic, experts said, would seem to extend to Cuba, Libya, North Korea and other nations with which most trade is banned without a government license.
Laws and regulations prohibiting trade with various nations have been enforced for decades, generally applied to items like oil, wheat, nuclear reactors and, sometimes, tourism. Applying them to grammar, spelling and punctuation is an infuriating interpretation, several people in the publishing industry said.
"It is against the principles of scholarship and freedom of expression, as well as the interests of science, to require publishers to get U.S. government permission to publish the works of scholars and researchers who happen to live in countries with oppressive regimes," said Eric A. Swanson, a senior vice president at John Wiley & Sons, which publishes scientific, technical and medical books and journals.…"
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/28/national/28PUBL.html
"Writers often grumble about the criminal things editors do to their prose. The federal government has recently weighed in on the same issue — literally.
It has warned publishers they may face grave legal consequences for editing manuscripts from Iran and other disfavored nations, on the ground that such tinkering amounts to trading with the enemy.
Anyone who publishes material from a country under a trade embargo is forbidden to reorder paragraphs or sentences, correct syntax or grammar, or replace "inappropriate words," according to several advisory letters from the Treasury Department in recent months.
Adding illustrations is prohibited, too. To the baffled dismay of publishers, editors and translators who have been briefed about the policy, only publication of "camera-ready copies of manuscripts" is allowed.
The Treasury letters concerned Iran. But the logic, experts said, would seem to extend to Cuba, Libya, North Korea and other nations with which most trade is banned without a government license.
Laws and regulations prohibiting trade with various nations have been enforced for decades, generally applied to items like oil, wheat, nuclear reactors and, sometimes, tourism. Applying them to grammar, spelling and punctuation is an infuriating interpretation, several people in the publishing industry said.
"It is against the principles of scholarship and freedom of expression, as well as the interests of science, to require publishers to get U.S. government permission to publish the works of scholars and researchers who happen to live in countries with oppressive regimes," said Eric A. Swanson, a senior vice president at John Wiley & Sons, which publishes scientific, technical and medical books and journals.…"
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/28/national/28PUBL.html
Friday, February 27, 2004
Fed Chief Urges Cut In Social Security (washingtonpost.com):
"Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan warned Congress yesterday that the federal government has promised more retirement benefits than it can pay for and must consider scaling back those commitments soon to avoid damaging the economy in the future.
"I am just basically saying that we are overcommitted at this stage," Greenspan told members of the House Budget Committee as they discussed the future costs of the Social Security and Medicare systems.
Greenspan, who supported President Bush's 2001 tax cuts, again endorsed Bush's proposal to make the cuts permanent. However, he said in response to questions that raising taxes would inevitably be part of any successful effort to reduce the growing federal budget deficit. He stressed that he prefers cutting government spending as much as possible before increasing taxes.…"
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A7099-2004Feb25.html
"Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan warned Congress yesterday that the federal government has promised more retirement benefits than it can pay for and must consider scaling back those commitments soon to avoid damaging the economy in the future.
"I am just basically saying that we are overcommitted at this stage," Greenspan told members of the House Budget Committee as they discussed the future costs of the Social Security and Medicare systems.
Greenspan, who supported President Bush's 2001 tax cuts, again endorsed Bush's proposal to make the cuts permanent. However, he said in response to questions that raising taxes would inevitably be part of any successful effort to reduce the growing federal budget deficit. He stressed that he prefers cutting government spending as much as possible before increasing taxes.…"
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A7099-2004Feb25.html
Social Security: Red Flags:
"Lack of Realism?
Many experts would argue that the public's views on Social Security are unrealistic. Unlike most experts, the public attributes the program's problems more to waste and mismanagement than to demographics. Half of Americans mistakenly believe poverty among the elderly has increased. While few think the government now spends too much on Social Security, only about one in five know how much of the federal budget is devoted to Social Security. "
http://www.publicagenda.org/issues/red_flags.cfm?issue_type=ss
"Lack of Realism?
Many experts would argue that the public's views on Social Security are unrealistic. Unlike most experts, the public attributes the program's problems more to waste and mismanagement than to demographics. Half of Americans mistakenly believe poverty among the elderly has increased. While few think the government now spends too much on Social Security, only about one in five know how much of the federal budget is devoted to Social Security. "
http://www.publicagenda.org/issues/red_flags.cfm?issue_type=ss
Wednesday, February 25, 2004
Chicago Tribune | Here's why there is no `White History Month':
"Black History Month was never intended to make people uncomfortable--unless maybe they ought to be.
Nevertheless, despite the best of intentions, a misunderstanding of what the month is all about can lead sometimes to a whopper of an embarrassment.
That's sort of what happened recently at Connecticut's Suffield High School when a group of sociology students decided to hang posters around the school to promote April as 'White History Month.'"
…The students had been assigned to "explore the effect of rumors." They decided the posters would be a real nifty way to do that. Needless to say, their experiment triggered a lot of rumors, especially in the school's small but understandably alarmed black student population.
The principal scolded the white students for their insensitivity and turned them over to a teacher who reportedly specializes in civil rights and cultural sensitivity issues. In this way, the school at large was able to turn the incident into what one school board official called a "teachable moment," an opportunity to educate both offenders and the offended about differences in how the world looks through each other's eyes.
Good for them. No long-term harm done, I hope. This particular high school poster flap is the most embarrassing incident related to Black History Month that I can recall since early 2001. That was when then-Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore revoked a proclamation declaring May to be "European Heritage and History Month." The governor had learned to his deep dismay that the request for the commemoration had come from a white separatist group headed by former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke. Such an embarrassment.
…"Why don't we have a White History Month?" I've heard that question quite a few times over the years. So have other black people I know. Some of us have come up with a list of appropriate responses to it, such as:
1."Because every month is white history month."
2."Because white history has not been lost, stolen or suppressed over the years as much as black history has."
3."Yo' mama!"
4."History is taught so poorly in our schools these days that maybe we should have a white history month."
5."That's right. I said, `Yo' mama'!!!"
Now, now. We should all try to manage our anger at such moments. Such encounters reveal precisely what Black History Month was intended to remedy: an ignorance about history--black and otherwise. That's why I oppose so-called "political correctness." We need more dialogue, not less.
For example, when someone asks "Why is there a Black Entertainment Television network? Wouldn't all hell break loose if somebody started a White Entertainment Television?," simply respond, "There is. It is called ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox ..."
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-0402250120feb25,1,5901589.column
"Black History Month was never intended to make people uncomfortable--unless maybe they ought to be.
Nevertheless, despite the best of intentions, a misunderstanding of what the month is all about can lead sometimes to a whopper of an embarrassment.
That's sort of what happened recently at Connecticut's Suffield High School when a group of sociology students decided to hang posters around the school to promote April as 'White History Month.'"
…The students had been assigned to "explore the effect of rumors." They decided the posters would be a real nifty way to do that. Needless to say, their experiment triggered a lot of rumors, especially in the school's small but understandably alarmed black student population.
The principal scolded the white students for their insensitivity and turned them over to a teacher who reportedly specializes in civil rights and cultural sensitivity issues. In this way, the school at large was able to turn the incident into what one school board official called a "teachable moment," an opportunity to educate both offenders and the offended about differences in how the world looks through each other's eyes.
Good for them. No long-term harm done, I hope. This particular high school poster flap is the most embarrassing incident related to Black History Month that I can recall since early 2001. That was when then-Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore revoked a proclamation declaring May to be "European Heritage and History Month." The governor had learned to his deep dismay that the request for the commemoration had come from a white separatist group headed by former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke. Such an embarrassment.
…"Why don't we have a White History Month?" I've heard that question quite a few times over the years. So have other black people I know. Some of us have come up with a list of appropriate responses to it, such as:
1."Because every month is white history month."
2."Because white history has not been lost, stolen or suppressed over the years as much as black history has."
3."Yo' mama!"
4."History is taught so poorly in our schools these days that maybe we should have a white history month."
5."That's right. I said, `Yo' mama'!!!"
Now, now. We should all try to manage our anger at such moments. Such encounters reveal precisely what Black History Month was intended to remedy: an ignorance about history--black and otherwise. That's why I oppose so-called "political correctness." We need more dialogue, not less.
For example, when someone asks "Why is there a Black Entertainment Television network? Wouldn't all hell break loose if somebody started a White Entertainment Television?," simply respond, "There is. It is called ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox ..."
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-0402250120feb25,1,5901589.column
Monday, February 23, 2004
In Hague, Israeli Barrier Proves Divisive Issue:
"The Israelis sent grieving parents and the singed shell of a bombed bus. The Palestinians sent farmers cut off from their land.
They have come for an International Court of Justice hearing that started today on a planned 450-mile barrier of ditches, watch posts and concrete walls that Israel is erecting in and around the West Bank. The hearing, expected to last three days, was requested by the United Nations General Assembly, which sought an advisory opinion on the legal consequences of the barrier.
The Israeli government calls the barrier a defense against suicide bombers, an argument it repeated on Sunday when a Palestinian suicide bomber attacked a bus in Jerusalem, killing at least eight other passengers. The Palestinian Authority calls it a deceptive land grab, a violation of international law and a new form of apartheid that further oppresses Palestinians on the West Bank.… "
"This wall, if completed, will leave the Palestinian people with only half of the West Bank within isolated, non-contiguous, walled enclaves," Nasser al-Kidwa, the Palestinians' permanent observer to the United Nations, told the 15-judge panel today, according to Reuters.
Officially, Israel contends that the court has no jurisdiction. But symbolically, the hearing has become an important variable that could complicate the stalled Middle East peace talks. A ruling that the barrier is illegal, while nonbinding, could be a public relations disaster for Israel.
The Israeli delegation at The Hague said that the Palestinians were using the court to attack Israel for building a fence that could have saved the lives of those killed in the bombing on Sunday.…
The United States and the European Union have criticized the barrier's planned path, which includes the protection of some Jewish settlements. But they prefer to see a diplomatic rather than a legal solution, a position that is closer to the Israeli view of the hearing.
"This is not the place to solve the conflict," said Gideon Meir, leader of the Israeli delegation in The Hague.
Palestinian representatives disagree. "They have no case," said Mr. Kidwa.…
"This is an attempt to de facto annex big areas of the Palestinian territory," Mr. Kidwa said. "This is something that, if allowed to continue, will create a walled-in Palestinian population in two or three enclaves or ghettos."
Israel has challenged the court's jurisdiction in a written submission but has decided not to appear at the hearing. Israel says its only concern is the safety of Israeli citizens.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/perspective/chi-0402220390feb22,1,5556747.story?coll=chi-newsopinionperspective-hed
Qalqilya is on what is known as the green line, the border between what became Israeli in 1948 and the Palestinian territory Israel occupied in 1967.…
a rare oasis of co-existence where Israelis came to buy our fruit, eat in our restaurants and visit our zoo. More than 40 Palestinian-Israeli business ventures…
Then came Sharon's wall--a wall of concrete coupled with a regime of razor wire, sniper towers, trenches and electric fences.
Israel allows very few people to enter Qalqilya, thereby cutting us off from family and friends in 32 neighboring villages and devastating our local businesses. More than 75 percent of our citizens are unemployed and our tax revenues are a mere trickle.
Meanwhile, the Israel Electric Co., which provides our electricity, has threatened to cut off electric power to Qalqilya if I cannot come up with $1.5 million to pay our municipal electric bill.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/23/international/europe/23CND-COUR.html
"The Israelis sent grieving parents and the singed shell of a bombed bus. The Palestinians sent farmers cut off from their land.
They have come for an International Court of Justice hearing that started today on a planned 450-mile barrier of ditches, watch posts and concrete walls that Israel is erecting in and around the West Bank. The hearing, expected to last three days, was requested by the United Nations General Assembly, which sought an advisory opinion on the legal consequences of the barrier.
The Israeli government calls the barrier a defense against suicide bombers, an argument it repeated on Sunday when a Palestinian suicide bomber attacked a bus in Jerusalem, killing at least eight other passengers. The Palestinian Authority calls it a deceptive land grab, a violation of international law and a new form of apartheid that further oppresses Palestinians on the West Bank.… "
"This wall, if completed, will leave the Palestinian people with only half of the West Bank within isolated, non-contiguous, walled enclaves," Nasser al-Kidwa, the Palestinians' permanent observer to the United Nations, told the 15-judge panel today, according to Reuters.
Officially, Israel contends that the court has no jurisdiction. But symbolically, the hearing has become an important variable that could complicate the stalled Middle East peace talks. A ruling that the barrier is illegal, while nonbinding, could be a public relations disaster for Israel.
The Israeli delegation at The Hague said that the Palestinians were using the court to attack Israel for building a fence that could have saved the lives of those killed in the bombing on Sunday.…
The United States and the European Union have criticized the barrier's planned path, which includes the protection of some Jewish settlements. But they prefer to see a diplomatic rather than a legal solution, a position that is closer to the Israeli view of the hearing.
"This is not the place to solve the conflict," said Gideon Meir, leader of the Israeli delegation in The Hague.
Palestinian representatives disagree. "They have no case," said Mr. Kidwa.…
"This is an attempt to de facto annex big areas of the Palestinian territory," Mr. Kidwa said. "This is something that, if allowed to continue, will create a walled-in Palestinian population in two or three enclaves or ghettos."
Israel has challenged the court's jurisdiction in a written submission but has decided not to appear at the hearing. Israel says its only concern is the safety of Israeli citizens.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/perspective/chi-0402220390feb22,1,5556747.story?coll=chi-newsopinionperspective-hed
Qalqilya is on what is known as the green line, the border between what became Israeli in 1948 and the Palestinian territory Israel occupied in 1967.…
a rare oasis of co-existence where Israelis came to buy our fruit, eat in our restaurants and visit our zoo. More than 40 Palestinian-Israeli business ventures…
Then came Sharon's wall--a wall of concrete coupled with a regime of razor wire, sniper towers, trenches and electric fences.
Israel allows very few people to enter Qalqilya, thereby cutting us off from family and friends in 32 neighboring villages and devastating our local businesses. More than 75 percent of our citizens are unemployed and our tax revenues are a mere trickle.
Meanwhile, the Israel Electric Co., which provides our electricity, has threatened to cut off electric power to Qalqilya if I cannot come up with $1.5 million to pay our municipal electric bill.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/23/international/europe/23CND-COUR.html
Sunday, February 22, 2004
Taking Spin Out of Report That Made Bad Into Good Health:
"The original version of the report included these statements, which were dropped from the final version:
¶'We aspire to equality of opportunities for all our citizens. Persistent disparities in health care are inconsistent with our core values.'
¶'Disparities come at a personal and societal price.'
¶'Compared with whites, blacks experience longer waits in emergency departments and are more likely to leave without being seen.'"
The Bush administration says it improperly altered a report documenting large racial and ethnic disparities in health care, but it will soon publish the full, unexpurgated document.
"There was a mistake made," Tommy G. Thompson, the secretary of health and human services, told Congress last week. "It's going to be rectified."
Mr. Thompson said that "some individuals took it upon themselves" to make the report sound more positive than was justified by the data.
The reversal comes in response to concerns of Democrats and the Senate majority leader, Bill Frist, Republican of Tennessee. They are pushing separate bills to improve care for members of minorities.
"African-Americans and Native Americans die younger than any other racial or ethnic group," Dr. Frist said. "African-Americans, Native Americans and Hispanic Americans are at least twice as likely to suffer from diabetes and experience serious complications. These gaps are unacceptable."
President Bush's budget would cut spending for the training of health professionals and would eliminate a $34 million program that recruits blacks and Hispanics for careers as doctors, nurses and pharmacists.
On Wednesday, more than 60 influential scientists, including 20 Nobel laureates, issued a statement criticizing what they described as the misuse of science by the administration to bolster its policies on the environment, arms control and public health.
Representative Henry A. Waxman, Democrat of California, said the changes in the report on health disparities were "another example of the administration's manipulation of science to fit its political goals."
…The report, the first of its kind, was prepared under a 1999 law that requires officials to issue such reports every year.
The theme of the original report was that members of minorities "tend to be in poorer health than other Americans" and that "disparities are pervasive in our health care system," contributing to higher rates of disease and disability.
By contrast, the final report has an upbeat tone, beginning, "The overall health of Americans has improved dramatically over the last century."…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/22/politics/22HEAL.html
"The original version of the report included these statements, which were dropped from the final version:
¶'We aspire to equality of opportunities for all our citizens. Persistent disparities in health care are inconsistent with our core values.'
¶'Disparities come at a personal and societal price.'
¶'Compared with whites, blacks experience longer waits in emergency departments and are more likely to leave without being seen.'"
The Bush administration says it improperly altered a report documenting large racial and ethnic disparities in health care, but it will soon publish the full, unexpurgated document.
"There was a mistake made," Tommy G. Thompson, the secretary of health and human services, told Congress last week. "It's going to be rectified."
Mr. Thompson said that "some individuals took it upon themselves" to make the report sound more positive than was justified by the data.
The reversal comes in response to concerns of Democrats and the Senate majority leader, Bill Frist, Republican of Tennessee. They are pushing separate bills to improve care for members of minorities.
"African-Americans and Native Americans die younger than any other racial or ethnic group," Dr. Frist said. "African-Americans, Native Americans and Hispanic Americans are at least twice as likely to suffer from diabetes and experience serious complications. These gaps are unacceptable."
President Bush's budget would cut spending for the training of health professionals and would eliminate a $34 million program that recruits blacks and Hispanics for careers as doctors, nurses and pharmacists.
On Wednesday, more than 60 influential scientists, including 20 Nobel laureates, issued a statement criticizing what they described as the misuse of science by the administration to bolster its policies on the environment, arms control and public health.
Representative Henry A. Waxman, Democrat of California, said the changes in the report on health disparities were "another example of the administration's manipulation of science to fit its political goals."
…The report, the first of its kind, was prepared under a 1999 law that requires officials to issue such reports every year.
The theme of the original report was that members of minorities "tend to be in poorer health than other Americans" and that "disparities are pervasive in our health care system," contributing to higher rates of disease and disability.
By contrast, the final report has an upbeat tone, beginning, "The overall health of Americans has improved dramatically over the last century."…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/22/politics/22HEAL.html
Op-Ed Columnist: Meet the Zippies:
"Taking all this in, two things strike me about this outsourcing issue: One, economists are surely right: the biggest factor eliminating old jobs and churning new ones is technological change — the phone mail system that eliminated your secretary. As for the zippies who soak up certain U.S. or European jobs, they will become consumers, the global pie will grow, and ultimately we will all be better off. As long as America maintains its ability to do cutting-edge innovation, the long run should be fine. Saving money by outsourcing basic jobs to zippies, so we can invest in more high-end innovation, makes sense.
But here's what I also feel: this particular short run could be a real bear — and politically explosive. The potential speed and scale of this outsourcing phenomenon make its potential impact enormous and unpredictable. As we enter a world where the price of digitizing information — converting it into little packets of ones and zeros and then transmitting it over high-speed data networks — falls to near zero, it means the vaunted "death of distance" is really here. And that means that many jobs you can now do from your house — whether data processing, reading an X-ray, or basic accounting or lawyering — can now also be done from a zippie's house in India or China."
And as education levels in these overseas homes rise to U.S. levels, the barriers to shipping white-collar jobs abroad fall and the incentives rise. At a minimum, some very educated Americans used to high salaries — people who vote and know how to write op-ed pieces — will either lose their jobs, or have to accept lower pay or become part-timers without health insurance.
"The fundamental question we have to ask as a society is, what do we do about it?" notes Robert Reich, the former labor secretary and now Brandeis University professor. "For starters, we're going to have to get serious about some of the things we just gab about — job training, life-long learning, wage insurance. And perhaps we need to welcome more unionization in the personal services area — retail, hotel, restaurant and hospital jobs which cannot be moved overseas — in order to stabilize their wages and health care benefits." Maybe, as a transition measure, adds Mr. Reich, companies shouldn't be allowed to deduct the full cost of outsourcing, creating a small tax that could be used to help people adjust.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/22/opinion/22FRIE.html
"Taking all this in, two things strike me about this outsourcing issue: One, economists are surely right: the biggest factor eliminating old jobs and churning new ones is technological change — the phone mail system that eliminated your secretary. As for the zippies who soak up certain U.S. or European jobs, they will become consumers, the global pie will grow, and ultimately we will all be better off. As long as America maintains its ability to do cutting-edge innovation, the long run should be fine. Saving money by outsourcing basic jobs to zippies, so we can invest in more high-end innovation, makes sense.
But here's what I also feel: this particular short run could be a real bear — and politically explosive. The potential speed and scale of this outsourcing phenomenon make its potential impact enormous and unpredictable. As we enter a world where the price of digitizing information — converting it into little packets of ones and zeros and then transmitting it over high-speed data networks — falls to near zero, it means the vaunted "death of distance" is really here. And that means that many jobs you can now do from your house — whether data processing, reading an X-ray, or basic accounting or lawyering — can now also be done from a zippie's house in India or China."
And as education levels in these overseas homes rise to U.S. levels, the barriers to shipping white-collar jobs abroad fall and the incentives rise. At a minimum, some very educated Americans used to high salaries — people who vote and know how to write op-ed pieces — will either lose their jobs, or have to accept lower pay or become part-timers without health insurance.
"The fundamental question we have to ask as a society is, what do we do about it?" notes Robert Reich, the former labor secretary and now Brandeis University professor. "For starters, we're going to have to get serious about some of the things we just gab about — job training, life-long learning, wage insurance. And perhaps we need to welcome more unionization in the personal services area — retail, hotel, restaurant and hospital jobs which cannot be moved overseas — in order to stabilize their wages and health care benefits." Maybe, as a transition measure, adds Mr. Reich, companies shouldn't be allowed to deduct the full cost of outsourcing, creating a small tax that could be used to help people adjust.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/22/opinion/22FRIE.html
Saturday, February 21, 2004
C.I.A. Admits It Didn't Give Weapon Data to the U.N.:
"The Central Intelligence Agency has acknowledged that it did not provide the United Nations with information about 21 of the 105 sites in Iraq singled out by American intelligence before the war as the most highly suspected of housing illicit weapons.
The acknowledgment, in a Jan. 20 letter to Senator Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan, contradicts public statements before the war by top Bush administration officials. "
Both George J. Tenet, the director of central intelligence, and Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, said the United States had briefed United Nations inspectors on all of the sites identified as "high value and moderate value" in the weapons hunt.
The contradiction is significant because Congressional opponents of the war were arguing a year ago that the United Nations inspectors should be given more time to complete their search before the United States and its allies began the invasion. The White House, bolstered by Mr. Tenet, insisted that it was fully cooperating with the inspectors, and at daily briefings the White House issued assurances that the administration was providing the inspectors with the best information possible.
In a telephone interview on Friday, Senator Levin said he now believed that Mr. Tenet had misled Congress, which he described as "totally unacceptable."
Senior administration officials said Friday night that Ms. Rice had relied on information provided by intelligence agencies when she assured Senator Levin, in a letter on March 6, 2003, that "United Nations inspectors have been briefed on every high or medium priority weapons of mass destruction, missile and U.A.V.-related site the U.S. intelligence community has identified." Mr. Tenet said much the same thing in testimony on Feb. 12, 2003.
U.A.V.'s are unmanned aerial vehicles, commonly called drones.
Asked about the contradiction between the C.I.A.'s current account and Ms. Rice's letter, the spokesman for the national security council, Sean McCormack, said, "Dr. Rice provided a good-faith answer to Senator Levin based on the best information that was made available to her."
This is not the first time the White House and the C.I.A. have engaged in finger-pointing about the quality of the intelligence that formed the basis of administration statements.
Last summer, Dr. Rice noted that Mr. Tenet had not read over the State of the Union address in which Mr. Bush said Saddam Hussein had attempted to buy uranium from Africa, a statement the White House later acknowledged was based on faulty intelligence. That began a prolonged period of tension between the agency and the White House that has never fully abated, and may be inflamed by the C.I.A.'s acknowledgment to Senator Levin.
The letter to Senator Levin, from Stanley M. Moskowitz, the agency's director of Congressional affairs, disclosed that the agency had shared information on only 84 of the 105 suspected priority weapons sites.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/21/politics/21WEAP.html
"The Central Intelligence Agency has acknowledged that it did not provide the United Nations with information about 21 of the 105 sites in Iraq singled out by American intelligence before the war as the most highly suspected of housing illicit weapons.
The acknowledgment, in a Jan. 20 letter to Senator Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan, contradicts public statements before the war by top Bush administration officials. "
Both George J. Tenet, the director of central intelligence, and Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, said the United States had briefed United Nations inspectors on all of the sites identified as "high value and moderate value" in the weapons hunt.
The contradiction is significant because Congressional opponents of the war were arguing a year ago that the United Nations inspectors should be given more time to complete their search before the United States and its allies began the invasion. The White House, bolstered by Mr. Tenet, insisted that it was fully cooperating with the inspectors, and at daily briefings the White House issued assurances that the administration was providing the inspectors with the best information possible.
In a telephone interview on Friday, Senator Levin said he now believed that Mr. Tenet had misled Congress, which he described as "totally unacceptable."
Senior administration officials said Friday night that Ms. Rice had relied on information provided by intelligence agencies when she assured Senator Levin, in a letter on March 6, 2003, that "United Nations inspectors have been briefed on every high or medium priority weapons of mass destruction, missile and U.A.V.-related site the U.S. intelligence community has identified." Mr. Tenet said much the same thing in testimony on Feb. 12, 2003.
U.A.V.'s are unmanned aerial vehicles, commonly called drones.
Asked about the contradiction between the C.I.A.'s current account and Ms. Rice's letter, the spokesman for the national security council, Sean McCormack, said, "Dr. Rice provided a good-faith answer to Senator Levin based on the best information that was made available to her."
This is not the first time the White House and the C.I.A. have engaged in finger-pointing about the quality of the intelligence that formed the basis of administration statements.
Last summer, Dr. Rice noted that Mr. Tenet had not read over the State of the Union address in which Mr. Bush said Saddam Hussein had attempted to buy uranium from Africa, a statement the White House later acknowledged was based on faulty intelligence. That began a prolonged period of tension between the agency and the White House that has never fully abated, and may be inflamed by the C.I.A.'s acknowledgment to Senator Levin.
The letter to Senator Levin, from Stanley M. Moskowitz, the agency's director of Congressional affairs, disclosed that the agency had shared information on only 84 of the 105 suspected priority weapons sites.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/21/politics/21WEAP.html
Friday, February 20, 2004
Schneier.com: Crypto-Gram: February 15, 2004:
"Identification and Security
In recent years there has been an increased use of identification checks as a security measure. Airlines always demand photo IDs, and hotels increasingly do so. They're often required for admittance into government buildings, and sometimes even hospitals. Everywhere, it seems, someone is checking IDs. The ostensible reason is that ID checks make us all safer, but that's just not so. In most cases, identification has very little to do with security.
Let's debunk the myths one by one. First, verifying that someone has a photo ID is a completely useless security measure. All the 9/11 terrorists had photo IDs. Some of the IDs were real. Some were fake. Some were real IDs in fake names, bought from a crooked DMV employee in Virginia for $1,000 each. Fake driver's licenses for all fifty states, good enough to fool anyone who isn't paying close attention, are available on the Internet. Or if you don't want to buy IDs online, just ask any teenager where to get a fake ID.
Harder-to-forge IDs only help marginally, because the problem is not making sure the ID is valid. This is the second myth of ID checks: that identification combined with profiling can be an indicator of intention.… "
Profiling has two very dangerous failure modes. The first one is obvious. The intent of profiling is to divide people into two categories: people who may be evildoers and need to be screened more carefully, and people who are less likely to be evildoers and can be screened less carefully. But any such system will create a third, and very dangerous, category: evildoers who don't fit the profile.
Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, DC sniper John Allen Muhammed, and many of the 9/11 terrorists had no previous links to terrorism. The Unabomber taught mathematics at Berkeley. The Palestinians have demonstrated that they can recruit suicide bombers with no previous record of anti-Israeli activities. Even the 9/11 hijackers went out of their way to establish a normal-looking profile; frequent-flier numbers, a history of first-class travel, etc. Evildoers can also engage in identity theft, and steal the identity-and profile-of an honest person. Profiling can actually result in less security by giving certain people an easy way to skirt security.
There's another, even more dangerous, failure mode for these systems: honest people who fit the evildoer profile. Because actual evildoers are so rare, almost everyone who fits the profile will turn out to be a false alarm. This not only wastes investigative resources that might be better spent elsewhere, but it causes grave harm to those innocents who fit the profile. Whether it's something as simple as "driving while black" or "flying while Arab," or something more complicated like taking scuba lessons or protesting the current administration, profiling harms society because it causes us all to live in fear...not from the evildoers, but from the police.…
http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram-0402.html#6
"Identification and Security
In recent years there has been an increased use of identification checks as a security measure. Airlines always demand photo IDs, and hotels increasingly do so. They're often required for admittance into government buildings, and sometimes even hospitals. Everywhere, it seems, someone is checking IDs. The ostensible reason is that ID checks make us all safer, but that's just not so. In most cases, identification has very little to do with security.
Let's debunk the myths one by one. First, verifying that someone has a photo ID is a completely useless security measure. All the 9/11 terrorists had photo IDs. Some of the IDs were real. Some were fake. Some were real IDs in fake names, bought from a crooked DMV employee in Virginia for $1,000 each. Fake driver's licenses for all fifty states, good enough to fool anyone who isn't paying close attention, are available on the Internet. Or if you don't want to buy IDs online, just ask any teenager where to get a fake ID.
Harder-to-forge IDs only help marginally, because the problem is not making sure the ID is valid. This is the second myth of ID checks: that identification combined with profiling can be an indicator of intention.… "
Profiling has two very dangerous failure modes. The first one is obvious. The intent of profiling is to divide people into two categories: people who may be evildoers and need to be screened more carefully, and people who are less likely to be evildoers and can be screened less carefully. But any such system will create a third, and very dangerous, category: evildoers who don't fit the profile.
Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, DC sniper John Allen Muhammed, and many of the 9/11 terrorists had no previous links to terrorism. The Unabomber taught mathematics at Berkeley. The Palestinians have demonstrated that they can recruit suicide bombers with no previous record of anti-Israeli activities. Even the 9/11 hijackers went out of their way to establish a normal-looking profile; frequent-flier numbers, a history of first-class travel, etc. Evildoers can also engage in identity theft, and steal the identity-and profile-of an honest person. Profiling can actually result in less security by giving certain people an easy way to skirt security.
There's another, even more dangerous, failure mode for these systems: honest people who fit the evildoer profile. Because actual evildoers are so rare, almost everyone who fits the profile will turn out to be a false alarm. This not only wastes investigative resources that might be better spent elsewhere, but it causes grave harm to those innocents who fit the profile. Whether it's something as simple as "driving while black" or "flying while Arab," or something more complicated like taking scuba lessons or protesting the current administration, profiling harms society because it causes us all to live in fear...not from the evildoers, but from the police.…
http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram-0402.html#6
Schneier.com: Crypto-Gram: February 15, 2004:
"The Politicization of Security
Since 9/11, security has become an important political issue. The Bush administration has seized on terrorism as a means to justify its policies. Bush is running for re-election on a 'strong on security' platform. The Democrats are attacking the administration's record on security. Congress has voted on, and will continue to vote on, security countermeasures. And the FBI and the Justice Department are implementing others, even without Congressional approval. "
…the Bush administration is using the fear of terrorism as a political tool. That being said, I'm not sure a Democrat would do anything different in Bush's place. Fear is a powerful motivator, and it takes strong ethics to resist the temptation to abuse it. I believe the real problem with America's national security policy is that the police are in charge; that's far more important than which party is in office.
Some of the Democratic presidential candidates for president have been more rational about security, but none have discussed security in terms of trade-offs. On the Republican side, I've read some criticisms of Bush's heavy-handed security policies. Certainly the traditional Republican ideals of personal liberty and less government intervention are in line with smart security. And have the people who accuse me of hating Republicans forgotten that the Clipper Chip initiative was spearheaded by the Clinton administration?
The Republicans don't have a monopoly on reducing civil liberties in the United States.
Rational security is not the sole purview of any political party. Fighting stupid security does not have to be partisan. Bush's White House has done more to damage American national security than they have done to improve it. That's not an indictment of the entire Republican party; it's a statement about the current President, his Attorney General, and the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. It's a statement about the current political climate, where the police -- and I use this term to encompass the FBI, the Justice Department, the military, and everyone else involved in enforcing order -- and their interests are put ahead of the interests of the people.…
http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram-0402.html#2
"The Politicization of Security
Since 9/11, security has become an important political issue. The Bush administration has seized on terrorism as a means to justify its policies. Bush is running for re-election on a 'strong on security' platform. The Democrats are attacking the administration's record on security. Congress has voted on, and will continue to vote on, security countermeasures. And the FBI and the Justice Department are implementing others, even without Congressional approval. "
…the Bush administration is using the fear of terrorism as a political tool. That being said, I'm not sure a Democrat would do anything different in Bush's place. Fear is a powerful motivator, and it takes strong ethics to resist the temptation to abuse it. I believe the real problem with America's national security policy is that the police are in charge; that's far more important than which party is in office.
Some of the Democratic presidential candidates for president have been more rational about security, but none have discussed security in terms of trade-offs. On the Republican side, I've read some criticisms of Bush's heavy-handed security policies. Certainly the traditional Republican ideals of personal liberty and less government intervention are in line with smart security. And have the people who accuse me of hating Republicans forgotten that the Clipper Chip initiative was spearheaded by the Clinton administration?
The Republicans don't have a monopoly on reducing civil liberties in the United States.
Rational security is not the sole purview of any political party. Fighting stupid security does not have to be partisan. Bush's White House has done more to damage American national security than they have done to improve it. That's not an indictment of the entire Republican party; it's a statement about the current President, his Attorney General, and the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. It's a statement about the current political climate, where the police -- and I use this term to encompass the FBI, the Justice Department, the military, and everyone else involved in enforcing order -- and their interests are put ahead of the interests of the people.…
http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram-0402.html#2
Wednesday, February 18, 2004
VoIP: It's not so easy to listen in - News - ZDNet:
"Jeff Pulver, founder of Free World Dialup, said Friday that if law enforcement officials asked him to wiretap one of his subscribers' Internet phone calls he would need a 'few months science project' to see if it could be done.
Meanwhile, Niklas Zennstrom, founder of Skype, also a free Internet phone service, said that even if his company could tackle the arduous task of pulling a Skype call from the Internet, police would 'only hear gibberish' because the data bits are encrypted."
The two providers are prime examples of a problem the Federal Communications Commission now faces after voting Thursday to investigate whether Internet phone providers should rewire their networks to government specifications to provide police with guaranteed access for wiretaps.
While many voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) providers are more than willing to hand over whatever information they can about subscribers, they can't reliably, if at all, get what police really want: the content of the calls they make. Difficulties lie in gathering the millions of bits of information that represent a voice call as well as the fact that there is no standardized way for distinguishing voice calls from the terabits of other data on the Internet.
The issue affects a broad range of VoIP providers, including FWD and Skype, and commercial services such as Vonage and 8x8 that offer calls to traditional phone lines. Many of these commercial services say a sizable percentage of their calls never touch the traditional phone network and, as a result, cannot be tapped.…
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1103_2-5159159.html
"Jeff Pulver, founder of Free World Dialup, said Friday that if law enforcement officials asked him to wiretap one of his subscribers' Internet phone calls he would need a 'few months science project' to see if it could be done.
Meanwhile, Niklas Zennstrom, founder of Skype, also a free Internet phone service, said that even if his company could tackle the arduous task of pulling a Skype call from the Internet, police would 'only hear gibberish' because the data bits are encrypted."
The two providers are prime examples of a problem the Federal Communications Commission now faces after voting Thursday to investigate whether Internet phone providers should rewire their networks to government specifications to provide police with guaranteed access for wiretaps.
While many voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) providers are more than willing to hand over whatever information they can about subscribers, they can't reliably, if at all, get what police really want: the content of the calls they make. Difficulties lie in gathering the millions of bits of information that represent a voice call as well as the fact that there is no standardized way for distinguishing voice calls from the terabits of other data on the Internet.
The issue affects a broad range of VoIP providers, including FWD and Skype, and commercial services such as Vonage and 8x8 that offer calls to traditional phone lines. Many of these commercial services say a sizable percentage of their calls never touch the traditional phone network and, as a result, cannot be tapped.…
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1103_2-5159159.html
Sunday, February 15, 2004
In Haze of Guard Records, a Bit of Clarity:
"Until this month, the Republican defense of Mr. Bush's military record, sticking to the bare essentials, had successfully neutralized a succession of newspaper articles that raised questions about Mr. Bush's service. But now, with Iraq casualties mounting, with angry Democrats coalescing behind a decorated Vietnam veteran and with credibility questions dogging Mr. Bush, the broad-brush defense has been abandoned.
Still, even through the fog of political combat it is possible from an examination of Mr. Bush's military records to get a firm fix on several important points along the path of his National Guard service. It is also possible to identify the areas that remain in dispute and the questions that have yet to be fully answered.… "
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/15/politics/campaign/15GUAR.html?pagewanted=all&position=
"Until this month, the Republican defense of Mr. Bush's military record, sticking to the bare essentials, had successfully neutralized a succession of newspaper articles that raised questions about Mr. Bush's service. But now, with Iraq casualties mounting, with angry Democrats coalescing behind a decorated Vietnam veteran and with credibility questions dogging Mr. Bush, the broad-brush defense has been abandoned.
Still, even through the fog of political combat it is possible from an examination of Mr. Bush's military records to get a firm fix on several important points along the path of his National Guard service. It is also possible to identify the areas that remain in dispute and the questions that have yet to be fully answered.… "
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/15/politics/campaign/15GUAR.html?pagewanted=all&position=
How America Doesn't Vote:
"One outcome of this year's presidential election is already certain: people will show up to vote and find they have been wrongly taken off the rolls. The lists of eligible voters kept by localities around the country are the gateway to democracy, and they are also a national scandal. In 2000, the American public saw, in Katherine Harris's massive purge of eligible voters in Florida, how easy it is for registered voters to lose their rights by bureaucratic fiat. Missouri's voting-list problems received far less attention, but may have disenfranchised more eligible voters."
It's hard to judge where voting lists are being mishandled, since the procedures by which they are kept and corrected are shrouded in secrecy. That's the beginning of the problem. The public has a right to know that the rolls are being properly maintained — and to know it before the election. As became clear in 2000, after the fact is too late.
Federal law provides some general guidelines about keeping voting rolls, but the basic decisions about who is eligible to vote are largely left to local officials. City and county election offices are responsible for adding new registrants to the voting rolls, and purging voters who die, move away or are convicted of felonies. If election offices had adequate resources and precise rules, voting lists might accurately reflect who is entitled to vote. But the reality is far more chaotic, and errors abound.
Ms. Harris's 2000 purge in Florida is a classic case. Before it began, Ms. Harris cast a cloud of suspicion over the process by signing on as co-chairwoman of the Florida Bush campaign while she also served as the state's top election official. The purge itself required sensitive judgment calls, notably when to regard a name on a list of convicted felons as a valid match with a name on the voting rolls. According to post-election testimony before the United States Commission on Civil Rights, Ms. Harris's office overruled the advice of the private firm that compiled the felon list and called for removing not just names that were an exact match, but ones that were highly inexact. Thousands of Florida voters ended up being wrongly purged.
After a federal lawsuit that followed the infamous 2000 election, Florida restored some voters to the rolls, and agreed to start using more precise identification methods. But there is still no reliable system, and Florida voting rights advocates are bracing for a rerun of the mistakes of 2000.…
The sad state of voting rolls may be due to underfunding and mismanagement, but it can create an appearance of ulterior motives. The voters wrongly removed by Ms. Harris's purge were disproportionately black — African-Americans make up one of the strongest Democratic voting groups in the state — as were the voters on the St. Louis inactive voters list. For years, partisan "ballot security" programs in the South singled out tens of thousands of black voters for removal from the voting rolls. Just this month, civil rights groups sued a Texas district attorney who threatened, in violation of the law, to prosecute students at Prairie View A&M University, a predominantly black school, if they register using their school addresses.
Election officials have a duty to remove voters from the rolls when they have become ineligible, and to guard against voter fraud. But it must be done in a manner that takes great care to avoid preventing eligible voters from casting a ballot. Officials cannot allow vague rumors or reckless allegations about voter fraud to stampede them into overkill. In Missouri, elected officials have charged for years that large numbers of St. Louis residents were casting votes from vacant lots. A study conducted by The Post-Dispatch in 2001 found that in the vast majority of cases, the voters lived in homes that had been wrongly classified by the city.
The Help America Vote Act, passed after the 2000 election, will eventually computerize voting rolls at the state level. Most of the decisions about who is eligible to vote, however, will still be made by the officials who are making them now. The new law also requires that when there is a dispute about whether someone is eligible to vote, he or she must be given a "provisional" ballot, whose status will be determined later. But the ultimate decision about whether to count the ballot will remain with local election officials.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/15/opinion/15SUN1.html?pagewanted=all&position=
"One outcome of this year's presidential election is already certain: people will show up to vote and find they have been wrongly taken off the rolls. The lists of eligible voters kept by localities around the country are the gateway to democracy, and they are also a national scandal. In 2000, the American public saw, in Katherine Harris's massive purge of eligible voters in Florida, how easy it is for registered voters to lose their rights by bureaucratic fiat. Missouri's voting-list problems received far less attention, but may have disenfranchised more eligible voters."
It's hard to judge where voting lists are being mishandled, since the procedures by which they are kept and corrected are shrouded in secrecy. That's the beginning of the problem. The public has a right to know that the rolls are being properly maintained — and to know it before the election. As became clear in 2000, after the fact is too late.
Federal law provides some general guidelines about keeping voting rolls, but the basic decisions about who is eligible to vote are largely left to local officials. City and county election offices are responsible for adding new registrants to the voting rolls, and purging voters who die, move away or are convicted of felonies. If election offices had adequate resources and precise rules, voting lists might accurately reflect who is entitled to vote. But the reality is far more chaotic, and errors abound.
Ms. Harris's 2000 purge in Florida is a classic case. Before it began, Ms. Harris cast a cloud of suspicion over the process by signing on as co-chairwoman of the Florida Bush campaign while she also served as the state's top election official. The purge itself required sensitive judgment calls, notably when to regard a name on a list of convicted felons as a valid match with a name on the voting rolls. According to post-election testimony before the United States Commission on Civil Rights, Ms. Harris's office overruled the advice of the private firm that compiled the felon list and called for removing not just names that were an exact match, but ones that were highly inexact. Thousands of Florida voters ended up being wrongly purged.
After a federal lawsuit that followed the infamous 2000 election, Florida restored some voters to the rolls, and agreed to start using more precise identification methods. But there is still no reliable system, and Florida voting rights advocates are bracing for a rerun of the mistakes of 2000.…
The sad state of voting rolls may be due to underfunding and mismanagement, but it can create an appearance of ulterior motives. The voters wrongly removed by Ms. Harris's purge were disproportionately black — African-Americans make up one of the strongest Democratic voting groups in the state — as were the voters on the St. Louis inactive voters list. For years, partisan "ballot security" programs in the South singled out tens of thousands of black voters for removal from the voting rolls. Just this month, civil rights groups sued a Texas district attorney who threatened, in violation of the law, to prosecute students at Prairie View A&M University, a predominantly black school, if they register using their school addresses.
Election officials have a duty to remove voters from the rolls when they have become ineligible, and to guard against voter fraud. But it must be done in a manner that takes great care to avoid preventing eligible voters from casting a ballot. Officials cannot allow vague rumors or reckless allegations about voter fraud to stampede them into overkill. In Missouri, elected officials have charged for years that large numbers of St. Louis residents were casting votes from vacant lots. A study conducted by The Post-Dispatch in 2001 found that in the vast majority of cases, the voters lived in homes that had been wrongly classified by the city.
The Help America Vote Act, passed after the 2000 election, will eventually computerize voting rolls at the state level. Most of the decisions about who is eligible to vote, however, will still be made by the officials who are making them now. The new law also requires that when there is a dispute about whether someone is eligible to vote, he or she must be given a "provisional" ballot, whose status will be determined later. But the ultimate decision about whether to count the ballot will remain with local election officials.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/15/opinion/15SUN1.html?pagewanted=all&position=
Friday, February 13, 2004
Stung by Exiles' Role, C.I.A. Orders a Shift in Procedures:
"American intelligence officials who before the war were sifting through claims that Iraq had illicit weapons were generally not told that much of the information came from defectors linked to exile organizations that were promoting an American invasion, according to senior United States intelligence officials.
The claims, which have largely proved to be unsubstantiated, included those from a defector who was identified as early as May 2002 as a fabricator by the Defense Intelligence Agency. Nevertheless, reports based on his debriefings arranged by the Iraqi National Congress found their way into documents and speeches used by the Bush administration to justify the war.
The nondisclosure of the source's connection to an exile organization was 'standard practice' under the procedures in place at the time, intelligence officials said on Thursday. But that episode and others have prompted the Central Intelligence Agency to order a major change in its procedures. Operations officers will now be required to tell analysts more about sources' identities and possible motivations.…"
So deeply held was the view that Iraq possessed illicit weapons — within the intelligence community and beyond — that it took American interrogators several months to concede that Iraqi prisoners who repeatedly said Iraq did not have such arsenals might be telling the truth, current and former intelligence officials said in recent interviews.
"They denied that there were weapons, and so we polygraphed them," a senior intelligence official said. "And even when they passed, our first response was to say, wow, they really are good at deception."
As early as May of last year, the month that major combat operations ceased, senior Iraqi officials and scientists in American custody were uniformly denying knowledge of any chemical or biological weapons production or reconstituted nuclear program, senior intelligence officials said. But the administration gave its first public hint that the suspected weapons stockpiles might not exist only in October, in an interim report by David A. Kay.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/13/politics/13INTE.html?pagewanted=all&position=
"American intelligence officials who before the war were sifting through claims that Iraq had illicit weapons were generally not told that much of the information came from defectors linked to exile organizations that were promoting an American invasion, according to senior United States intelligence officials.
The claims, which have largely proved to be unsubstantiated, included those from a defector who was identified as early as May 2002 as a fabricator by the Defense Intelligence Agency. Nevertheless, reports based on his debriefings arranged by the Iraqi National Congress found their way into documents and speeches used by the Bush administration to justify the war.
The nondisclosure of the source's connection to an exile organization was 'standard practice' under the procedures in place at the time, intelligence officials said on Thursday. But that episode and others have prompted the Central Intelligence Agency to order a major change in its procedures. Operations officers will now be required to tell analysts more about sources' identities and possible motivations.…"
So deeply held was the view that Iraq possessed illicit weapons — within the intelligence community and beyond — that it took American interrogators several months to concede that Iraqi prisoners who repeatedly said Iraq did not have such arsenals might be telling the truth, current and former intelligence officials said in recent interviews.
"They denied that there were weapons, and so we polygraphed them," a senior intelligence official said. "And even when they passed, our first response was to say, wow, they really are good at deception."
As early as May of last year, the month that major combat operations ceased, senior Iraqi officials and scientists in American custody were uniformly denying knowledge of any chemical or biological weapons production or reconstituted nuclear program, senior intelligence officials said. But the administration gave its first public hint that the suspected weapons stockpiles might not exist only in October, in an interim report by David A. Kay.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/13/politics/13INTE.html?pagewanted=all&position=
Bush's Duty, and Privilege:
"Mr. Bush has been nothing if not consistent. He has always been about the privileged few. And that's an attitude that flies in the face of the basic precepts of an egalitarian society. It's an attitude that fosters, that celebrates, unfairness and injustice.
More than 58,000 Americans died in Vietnam, another war of choice that was marketed deceitfully to the American people.
Mr. Bush's experience in the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam years is especially relevant today because it throws a brighter spotlight on who he really is. He has walked a charmed road, with others paying the price of his journey, every step of the way."
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/13/opinion/13HERB.html
"Mr. Bush has been nothing if not consistent. He has always been about the privileged few. And that's an attitude that flies in the face of the basic precepts of an egalitarian society. It's an attitude that fosters, that celebrates, unfairness and injustice.
More than 58,000 Americans died in Vietnam, another war of choice that was marketed deceitfully to the American people.
Mr. Bush's experience in the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam years is especially relevant today because it throws a brighter spotlight on who he really is. He has walked a charmed road, with others paying the price of his journey, every step of the way."
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/13/opinion/13HERB.html
Op-Ed Columnist: The Real Man:
"To understand why questions about George Bush's time in the National Guard are legitimate, all you have to do is look at the federal budget published last week. No, not the lies, damned lies and statistics — the pictures.
By my count, this year's budget contains 27 glossy photos of Mr. Bush. We see the president in front of a giant American flag, in front of the Washington Monument, comforting an elderly woman in a wheelchair, helping a small child with his reading assignment, building a trail through the wilderness and, of course, eating turkey with the troops in Iraq. Somehow the art director neglected to include a photo of the president swimming across the Yangtze River."
It was not ever thus. Bill Clinton's budgets were illustrated with tables and charts, not with worshipful photos of the president being presidential.
The issue here goes beyond using the Government Printing Office to publish campaign brochures. In this budget, as in almost everything it does, the Bush administration tries to blur the line between reverence for the office of president and reverence for the person who currently holds that office.
Operation Flight Suit was only slightly more over the top than other Bush photo-ops, like the carefully staged picture that placed Mr. Bush's head in line with the stone faces on Mount Rushmore. The goal is to suggest that it's unpatriotic to criticize the president, and to use his heroic image to block any substantive discussion of his policies.
In fact, those 27 photos grace one of the four most dishonest budgets in the nation's history — the other three are the budgets released in 2001, 2002 and 2003. Just to give you a taste: remember how last year's budget contained no money for postwar Iraq — and how administration officials waited until after the tax cut had been passed to mention the small matter of $87 billion in extra costs? Well, they've done it again: earlier this week the Army's chief of staff testified that the Iraq funds in the budget would cover expenses only through September.
But when administration officials are challenged about the blatant deceptions in their budgets — or, for that matter, about the use of prewar intelligence — their response, almost always, is to fall back on the president's character. How dare you question Mr. Bush's honesty, they ask, when he is a man of such unimpeachable integrity? And that leaves critics with no choice: they must point out that the man inside the flight suit bears little resemblance to the official image.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/13/opinion/13KRUG.html
"To understand why questions about George Bush's time in the National Guard are legitimate, all you have to do is look at the federal budget published last week. No, not the lies, damned lies and statistics — the pictures.
By my count, this year's budget contains 27 glossy photos of Mr. Bush. We see the president in front of a giant American flag, in front of the Washington Monument, comforting an elderly woman in a wheelchair, helping a small child with his reading assignment, building a trail through the wilderness and, of course, eating turkey with the troops in Iraq. Somehow the art director neglected to include a photo of the president swimming across the Yangtze River."
It was not ever thus. Bill Clinton's budgets were illustrated with tables and charts, not with worshipful photos of the president being presidential.
The issue here goes beyond using the Government Printing Office to publish campaign brochures. In this budget, as in almost everything it does, the Bush administration tries to blur the line between reverence for the office of president and reverence for the person who currently holds that office.
Operation Flight Suit was only slightly more over the top than other Bush photo-ops, like the carefully staged picture that placed Mr. Bush's head in line with the stone faces on Mount Rushmore. The goal is to suggest that it's unpatriotic to criticize the president, and to use his heroic image to block any substantive discussion of his policies.
In fact, those 27 photos grace one of the four most dishonest budgets in the nation's history — the other three are the budgets released in 2001, 2002 and 2003. Just to give you a taste: remember how last year's budget contained no money for postwar Iraq — and how administration officials waited until after the tax cut had been passed to mention the small matter of $87 billion in extra costs? Well, they've done it again: earlier this week the Army's chief of staff testified that the Iraq funds in the budget would cover expenses only through September.
But when administration officials are challenged about the blatant deceptions in their budgets — or, for that matter, about the use of prewar intelligence — their response, almost always, is to fall back on the president's character. How dare you question Mr. Bush's honesty, they ask, when he is a man of such unimpeachable integrity? And that leaves critics with no choice: they must point out that the man inside the flight suit bears little resemblance to the official image.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/13/opinion/13KRUG.html
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