Thursday, August 31, 2006

CITIZEN ALERT v1.35
RED ALERT

We have our first CITIZEN RED ALERT! When you see a red alert it means you're going to be be called to participate in your own government. Imagine that! If you refer back to CITIZEN ALERT v1.5 you will see the ground rules for participating in my little experiment and what it takes to BE A CITIZEN.

One of the rules for BEING A CITIZEN means that you have both your Senators and your representatives phone numbers programmed into your cell phone. Now is the time to call your Senators.

Call them up, you'll end up talking to a staff member for like 30 seconds. Tell them you're one of the Senators constituents and you want them to vote FOR S. 2590 The Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006. Tell them you think it's a wonderful idea and you personally want a searchable data base, you've wanted one for a long time, and you'll use it everyday.

This will be a Google like website where all of Congress will be held accountable for the pork they tag on to different legislation. No more hiding anymore. You'll be able to look up and see exactly you wants $65 million for their state so their friend can build a duck pond or some idiotic thing like that. All the pork will be searchable with their names right there beside it.

What is pork?

pork Informal. appropriations, appointments, etc., made by the government for political reasons rather than for public benefit, as for public buildings or river improvements.

S. 2590
The Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006

S. 2590 would direct the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to oversee the creation of a single comprehensive searchable Web site that would include information on all federal grants, contracts, and other funding awarded to public and private organizations.


UPDATE 8/31/06 5:11pm PST

Today I called both my Senators here in California and found out that neither of them, Boxer or Feinstein, has officially taken a position on the S. 2590. I informed their staff that I had taken a position on it and that they should consider agreeing with me. All Citizen Alert Readers, now is the time to call them up and get them to make a public statement in support of transparency in our government.

In further news on this bill, all the scuttlebut around the blogs has been who has been holding up the bill from the floor. Some Senator put a "secret hold" on the bill and hadn't revealed himself. How this is even possible, I don't know. Bloggers everywhere were contacting their Senators and asking them point blank if they were indeed the "Secret senator" that was holding up S. 2590.

This afternoon I received a newsletter from Republican Majority Leader Bill Frist throwing his support behind the bloggers and urged Republicans and Democrats to fess up if they put a hold on the bill. What I didn't approve of was the way he went about it in his newsletter. I've subscribed to his updates for sometime and he LOOVES to throw the word obstruction around when he talks about the Democratic Party.

Frist wrote:

Unfortunately, when I attempted to bring this legislation to a vote before the August recess, it was blocked. It is deeply ironic that bipartisan legislation dedicated to transparency in government has been obstructed by the least transparent possible means.

Now, if you didn't know any better, you'd think he's just talking about Democrats. Then back on August 29th he wrote:

I am calling on all members, when asked by the blog community, to instruct their staff to answer whether or not they have a hold, honestly and transparently, so I can pass this bill. And I encourage Minority Leader Reid to do the same.

Well, today the secret is over. The "secret senator" holding up the bill was in fact Sen. Ted Stevens a REPUBLICAN from Alaska! The same Ted Stevens who last year proposed a $223 million "bridge to nowhere" connecting Alaska's Gravina Island - population 50 - to the mainland.

Now, if my time line is correct in how I received this news, then Bill Frist's update on the bill being obstructed came AFTER CNN announced that the "secret senator" was Stevens meaning Frist just left that little tidbit of info out and led you to believe it was the Democrats.


On a side bar note: You will see in my sidebar that I have started TEXT ADVERTISING for Citizen Alert. If you'd like to be a CITIZEN ALERT Sponsor, click on the link and you will see that the rates are very cheap.

I'm looking for publishers of political books, music artists, record labels, non-profits, animal rescues and other things I think are cool and people should know about.

Click the link and advertise! If you're a friend of mine, you don't even have to go by the published rates just put in a cheap bid and I'll put you up to get the ball rolling.

Wednesday, August 30, 2006

CITIZEN ALERT v1.34
COURAGE?

The Bush administration has come out in force defending their invasion of Iraq, and the conditions that worsen everyday.

From MSNBC, Bush declared he would not let Americans’ frustration with the war deter him from finishing the job in Iraq (very democractic of him) and that “If we lose our nerve and leave the Middle East before the job is finished, the world will be much worse off."

Rumsfeld also has come out punching as more and more people blame him for how bad everything is on the ground for our troops. He told an audience Tuesday that critics of the war were lacking the courage to fight back.

It sickens me that the chickenhawks in the Bush administration are going to lecture us on what nerve and courage are. It doesn't take an ounce of courage to stand in your air conditioned office and send a bunch of 20 year olds across the world into a desert of 125 degree heat everyday waiting to be blown up by the next IED.

They are no more courageous than the theocrats of Iran who sent suicide brigades into battle with Iraq, or Osma Bin Laden and the Taliban leaders telling their followers to martyr themselves while they fled to Pakistan, or the Lord's Resistance Army of Uganda marching into gunfire behind a line of 10 year old children.

Tuesday, August 29, 2006

CITIZEN ALERT! v1.33
CDF BOOK DRIVE

With Katrina all over the news this week the Children's Defense Fund as put forth a book drive to help replenish what the schools in New Orleans lost during the hurricane.

Only 18% of New Orleans children had returned by the end of the last school year, according to the New York Times. The CDF Freedom Schools Katrina Project is currently requesting aid in the form of donated books.

The Children's Defense Fund (CDF) Freedom Schools Katrina Project partners with community based organizations, service agencies and universities in the Cleveland, Columbia and Jackson, MS areas to provide after-school programming each day public schools are in session for children in families affected by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.


Book donations may be sent to:

Cathy Drane
CDF Freedom Schools Site Coordinator
1452 N. Broad St.
New Orleans, LA 70119

For more information, please visit the CDF Katrina Project website.

CITIZEN ALERT v1.32
WORD OF THE DAY

meritocracy n. 1. an elite group of people whose progress is based on ability and talent rather than on class, privilege or wealth.

Monday, August 28, 2006

CITIZEN ALERT v1.31
AFRICAN SEX FOR FOOD SCANDAL

This is a story I stumbled across this morning while reading through H.R. 5522, the Foreign Operations, Export Financing, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 2007. I will be looking into it more this week research wise.

Apparently, UN Peace Keepers and workers from the World Food Programme, as reported by the BBC, are exchanging aid and food to Liberians for sex with girls as young as 8 years old. Even teachers have been exchanging sex for good grades!

The story I first read was from May of this year, but another article, also from the BBC, had reports of sexual abuse by UN workers dating back as far as 2002, and now H.R. 5522 reads while alloting $92,698,000 in aid to Liberia it asks that the "Government of Liberia, in coordination with the United Nations, the diplomatic community, and international aid agencies to arrest, prosecute, and appropriately punish U.N. peacekeeping personnel, aid workers and others allegedly involved in the sexual exploitation of girls and women in Liberia".

This doesn't sound like the problem is being addressed and the aid workers fully investigated to me if we're still asking for arrest 4 years later.

More to come on this as Liberia is not the only country involved.

ARTICLE FROM THE BBC

Sunday, August 27, 2006

CITIZEN ALERT v1.30
UGANDA CEASE FIRE

A cease fire for Uganda is supposed to start on Tuesday. We can only hope that it will go into effect and last as so many children have been massacred through one of Africa's longest running wars. The only downside on this is that it looks like the Ugandan government is offering Joseph Kony, the leader of the Lord's Resistance Army, freaking amnesty for the cease fire. This guy should be under a jail for the rest of his life.


ARTICLE LINK

Saturday, August 26, 2006

CITIZEN ALERT v1.29
THANK YOU!

Having had dinner the other night with a young 21 year old just back from 7 months in Iraq, I appreciate what our soldiers are doing overseas given the unfortunate circumstances that our government has put them in. I not only say thank you to the heroes over there fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan but the heroes here at home who had the courage to say enough is enough.

From CITIZENALERT! reader Jason:


Lt. Watada's Mother Asks For Your Support
By Carolyn Ho
t r u t h o u t Letter
Tuesday 15 August 2006

Dear Fellow Americans and Citizens of the International Community,

I am the mother of Lt. Ehren Watada, an officer stationed at Ft. Lewis. He was part of a Stryker brigade unit that deployed to Iraq on June 22nd. On that fateful day, he quietly defied the movement order and chose not to board the plane with his men. Despite unrelenting pressure to conform from the day he submitted his request for discharge (in January 2006) to the day of deployment, he remained true to his conviction. He believed that he could support his men best by not leading them into an illegal war and occupation that had already claimed countless Iraqi and American lives. He believed that he could serve them by taking a stand against the war rather than an being an accomplice in a policy that uses our troops for immoral, unethical purposes.

Through rigorous scrutiny of the facts, gleaned through research and consultation with experts, inside and outside of the military and the structures of government, he concluded that he could no longer be silent while atrocities were committed in the name of democracy. He could no longer be a tool of an administration that used nothing but deception and lies to make the case for pre-emptive war. He realized that he had not relinquished the freedom to choose what is right and that the freedom to choose what is right transcends the allegiance to man and institutions.

As an officer, his duty is to support and defend the US Constitution, against enemies foreign and domestic, and to obey only lawful orders. In refusing to deploy to Iraq, Lt. Watada fulfilled his duty. In response, the military charged him with missing movement, contemptuous remarks against the president and behavior unbecoming to an officer. Taken together, these charges amount to 7 years in a military prison.

As a mother, I have taken the first step in "a journey of a thousand miles." My son's decision raised to my awareness the disconnect between what I had taught him and what I was really willing to have him do. Initially, the moment of truth stared me down, and I honestly could not find words to justify that self-centered, protective response that whispered, "Not my son. Let someone else's son be a hero." Needless to say, this experience became a life-changing event. I have nothing but admiration and respect for the course my son has chosen. He has my unconditional support. I invite you to affirm your support of Lt. Ehren Watada now, during his pre-trial hearing on Aug 17th and 18th, and into the future. Whether or not he is permitted to submit evidence supporting his refusal to deploy and his first amendment rights remains to be seen. Nevertheless, the military must know that the world is watching and that justice must be served.

On August 16th, National Day of Education, groups nationally and internationally are asked to conduct teach-ins to address the illegality and immorality of the Iraq war and occupation and the message Lt. Watada conveys. Instruction and dialog can be conducted in schools, homes, churches, community centers, etc. In addition, rallies, bannering, vigils, etc. will be held at Ft. Lewis and throughout the US and abroad. This is an opportunity to raise consciousness, to empower and to inspire the masses to action.

Join us in laying the groundwork for mass mobilization and civil disobedience during the court-martial.

For updates on news and actions regarding Lt. Watada, for a downloadable tool kit to assist you in conducting a teach-in on August 16th, National Day of Education, for posters, leaflets, T-shirts and instructions for making a donation toward the Lt. Watada's legal defense fund, please refer to the official web site: www.thankyoult.org .

Peace and Gratitude,
Carolyn Ho, (Ehren's Mom)

Friday, August 25, 2006

CITIZEN ALERT! v1.28
LYNCH HAVING BABY

So, I've been missing Air America and Ed Schultz for the past day or so, and I'm wondering how long it will take progressive talk show hosts to start ribbing the Republicans that their favorite manufactured hero from the Iraq war Jessica Lynch is having a baby.......with her boyfriend! Not husband - boyfriend! Ha! Too funny.

Didn't they know they were supposed to wait until they were married like Ann Coulter does?!

Thursday, August 24, 2006

CITIZEN ALERT v1.27
DEMO-CRA-TIC!

Could we please stop it with the "Democrat" Party nonsense?! Republicans have decided that to further lower themselves to even more childish antics, they must now rewrite the grammar rules of the English language by sticking two nouns together as to deny the DEMOCRACTIC party their rightful adjective. It's like watching a bunch of 60 year old 1st graders.

Of course while flipping through the news channels it does make spotting the neo-cons in the news media as easy as picking out the people with SS pins on their lapels during WWII! Democrat Party. Democratic Party. Very easy.

On the Iran front, with the Middle East now earning bragging rights with Hezbollah holding off Israel, and Iran spinning their wheels while trying to simultaneously hold on to their nuclear program and split the UNSC before their August 31st deadline, all we need is China and Russia to fight us on the sanctions against Iran to strip away the last bit of credibility this administration has in the world.

Geez! It's like watching Revenge of the Nerds only we're the obnoxious frat guys.



Wednesday, August 23, 2006

CITIZEN ALERT v1.26
MUSICAL CHAIRS - WHO'S PLAYING?

Everyone seems to be REPOSITIONING themselves as of late. Hillary caught looking a little too hawkish let Rumsfeld have it on her "failed policy" approach to jumping back closer to the left. Then you have McCain out today who was a big supporter of the war in Iraq, now criticizing Bush on misleading the public into thinking it would be "some kind of day at the beach." Leiberman has turned "Independent", and here in California, Gov. Schwarzenegger has teamed up with the Democrats in the state congress to raise the state's minimum wage to $8, the highest in the nation.

So, let me get this straight. When election time starts approaching the smart move is to give money to the lower class and start your own anti-war parade. WHY DOES THIS ONLY COUNT AT ELECTION TIME!?? It's like the holidays where people are nicer only around Christmas then after New Years go back to flipping each other off on the freeway. Apparently being a progressive is fairly fashionable around even numbered years.

But why only around the election, don't they think the country would catch on? Don't they think the rest of the country would be smart enough not to let that sleight of hand get past them? Let's look at some numbers from the lastest Gallup.

Do you approve or disapprove of the way George W. Bush is handling the following?


Terrorism approve 55% disapprove 43%

Overall job approval approve 42% disapprove 54 %

Foreign affairs approve 39% disapprove 55%

situation in the Middle East approve 39% disapprove 56%

The economy approve 39% disapprove 57%

Hurricane Katrina approve 37% disapprove 56%

The situation in Iraq approve 36% disapprove 61%

Energy policy approve 30% disapprove 60%


They approve of how Bush is handling the war on terror but disapprove of how he is handling everything else, half of which effect the war on terror and make it worse! The war in Iraq and Bush's policy in the middle east has created more terrorists. So, you disapprove of the war but approve of how Bush handles what it produces?

No, America has not caught on, they are standing in the middle of the musical chairs dazed and confused.

Tuesday, August 22, 2006

CITIZEN ALERT v1.25
THE NEXT GENERATION

Sorry I've had a crazy weekend. I missed Sunday and then last night was too much of a nightmare to post late at night so here we are...

The Republicans seem to carry on a theme from time to time and that is protecting the next generation. President Bush brought it up a couple times in his press conference Monday at the White House.

I believe we owe it to our children and grandchildren to stay engaged and to help spread liberty, and to help reformers.

Nobody wants to turn on their TV on a daily basis and see havoc wrought by terrorists. And our question is, do we have the capacity and the desire to spread peace by confronting these terrorists, and supporting those who want to live in liberty? That's the question. And my answer to that question is, we must. We owe it to future generations to do so.

Looking out for future generations. It's kind of a double talk. If he really was looking out for future generations then why are we spending like there's no tomorrow and borrowing money from foreign countries so that our future generations will be indebted to them as soon as they're born?

Why are we not in the forefront on the fight against global warming if we are so commited to our grandchildrens' lives?

And speaking of no tomorrow, if his evangelical base really believes, as so many people are writing about, that these are truly the end times and the battles in the middle east are a sign of the end of the world, then why would they care so much about a future generation that's not going to exist?

These are the same kind of double talk/double speeches that brought propaganda like our military leaders are going to be the ones to dictate what happens in Iraq not politicians, but when the military leaders told them up front they'd need many more troops than what they were planning or Iraq would collapse into sectarian violence - they didn't so much want to listen to the military leaders anymore.

Monday, August 21, 2006

CITIZEN ALERT v1.24
Non-Lethal Weapons

ADS


What you are looking at is ACTIVE DENIAL TECHNOLOGY or an ACTIVE DENIAL SYSTEM (ADS) as it's known. This is what the DOD is experimenting with in hopes of cutting down on civilian deaths during wartime. I am a big proponent of non-lethal weapons (NLW) for use in our military as well as the UN which I'll discuss at length some other time.

I am also a big supporter of furthering research and funding along these lines. What bothers me about this big humvee with the dish on top is what the DOD's first priority is with it: Crowd control.

ADT is a non-lethal direct energy weapon that uses a beam of millimeter waves to heat an adversary's skin to 131 degrees, causing intense pain without damage (supposedly). ADT does not burn and does not cause prolonged or unnecessary suffering, permanent damage, or long-term effects (supposedly). An individual that comes into the path of the beam will immediately retreat from it until the pain goes away.

Now, one of the first examples that I read about was a scenario in Somalia where our troops would come in contact with crowds of thousands throwing stones at them. While you don't want stones being thrown at you, you also don't want to disperse the crowd with lethal force. So, ADT seems the perfect weapon for the job.

I've been interested in NLW for sometime and having read up on it for awhile now, what I'm not seeing is consideration for its uses in combat zones. Imagine the Israel-Hezbollah conflict and how it would turn out if the UN were able to intervene with a technology to neutralize both sides, detain and arrest subdued individuals and return peace to a region and their governments back to a diplomacy policy. Imagine an invading army being stopped in their tracks by a line of UN ADS trucks or more in the future from an orbiting UN ADS satellite, stunned into submission, then disarmed by ground forces, arrested and marched back across the border. War could be in effect outlawed. Sounds like a silly Star Trek episode, but remember where we got the idea for cell phones from.

With all these possiblities, what is the military mainly looking into when it comes to active denial technology? Civilian crowd control. Instead of soldiers running into one of these on the battlefield, I believe we will most likely encounter it first in front of our local federal buildings at some anti-war protest.

Saturday, August 19, 2006

CITIZEN ALERT v1.23
REPUBLICAN PARTY GETTING NERVOUS

This in from the GOP chairman, Ken Mehlman .

Yesterday, a Democrat-appointed judge in Detroit sided with the ACLU and ordered an immediate halt to the terrorist surveillance program. This decision is a reminder of what is at stake in 2006. Will we use every tool in our arsenal to respond to emerging threats, or embrace the Democrat-ACLU position that just made it harder for our intelligence agencies to detect terrorist plots inside the United States?

Geez, when will it stop! They go on to say:

Republicans have increased homeland security funding by 300% over the Clinton Administration, and increased funding for border control and border security by 66% over the Clinton Administration.

From what I remember Bush didn't even want the Homeland Security department. Now, of course, it was their idea.

Thursday, August 17, 2006

CITIZEN ALERT v1.22
IRANIAN POLL

Stats from a Reader's Digest Poll of Iranians:


67 percent of people surveyed in Iran agree with the statement that "the state of Israel is illegitimate and should not exist,"

46 percent agree that the United States "is a dangerous country that seeks confrontation and control."

37 percent, however, said America was a model country for its values and freedoms.

36 percent said they would like Iran to become more religious and conservative

31 percent want it to turn more secular and liberal

15 percent like it the way it is.

48 percent of Iranians said it was most important to increase rights for women

Asked what should be the most important long-term goal for their country:

41 percent said reforming the economy to make it more efficient

27 percent said developing nuclear weapons for defense

23 percent said expanding citizens' freedoms.

Published in the latest issue of Reader's Digest, the poll had a margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points.

I was a little surprised by the 37 percent that thought America was a model country. If you take that as an approval rating then I guess Bush's approval rating is higher in Iran than his own country.

CITIZEN ALERT v1.21
WIRETAPS ILLEGAL

Bad news for Bush just in from the AP.

Judge nixes warrantless surveillance
By SARAH KARUSH,
Associated Press Writer


A federal judge ruled Thursday that the government's warrantless wiretapping program is unconstitutional and ordered an immediate halt to it.

U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor in Detroit became the first judge to strike down the National Security Agency's program, which she says violates the rights to free speech and privacy as well as the separation of powers enshrined in the Constitution.

"Plaintiffs have prevailed, and the public interest is clear, in this matter. It is the upholding of our Constitution," Taylor wrote in her 43-page opinion.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed the lawsuit on behalf of journalists, scholars and lawyers who say the program has made it difficult for them to do their jobs. They believe many of their overseas contacts are likely targets of the program, which involves secretly listening to conversations between people in the U.S. and people in other countries.

The government argued that the program is well within the president's authority, but said proving that would require revealing state secrets.

The ACLU said the state-secrets argument was irrelevant because the Bush administration had already publicly revealed enough information about the program for Taylor to rule on the case.

"By holding that even the president is not above the law, the court has done its duty," said Ann Beeson, the ACLU's associate legal director and the lead attorney for the plaintiffs.

The NSA had no immediate comment on the ruling.

Taylor dismissed a separate claim by the ACLU over data-mining of phone records by the NSA. She said not enough had been publicly revealed about that program to support the claim and further litigation could jeopardize state secrets.

Beeson predicted the government would appeal the ruling and request that the order to halt the program be postponed while the case makes its way through the system. She said the ACLU had not yet decided whether it would oppose such a postponement

CITIZEN ALERT v1.20
PEPPER'S FAVORITE QUOTES

Every now and again I'll post one of my favorite quotes from a historical figure or current personality. This one's in my top ten:

"Your Honor, years ago I recognized my kinship with all living beings, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on earth. I said then, and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free."

Eugene Debs

Wednesday, August 16, 2006

CITIZEN ALERT v1.19
TO THE MOON ALICE!

With talk of expanding our solar sytem to 12 planets in the headlines today, it reminded me of a story I was researching a few years ago that is still way too far under the radar in the mainstream media.

I have been a space nut since I was kid, going back to when I was 8 or 9 writing letters to NASA and ordering moon maps and mission reports. I've always followed America's space program and for years the plan for America to make it to Mars was to launch first to the moon, build a base there, then launch from there to Mars. Because of the moon's low gravity it would require less energy to get to Mars making the trip cheaper. NASA likes cheaper.

Well, this was the plan until one scientist finished his study and showed that a straight shot from Earth to Mars was the much more economical way to go. NASA likes cheaper. So, the plan changed to the straight shot method and it stayed that way for a couple of years if I remember right.

Then, one day President George W. Bush shows up at, of all places, NASA and makes a speech declaring America is headed to Mars...by building a moon base and launching from there to the Red Planet. Whoa! Hold on a minute! I knew scientists had ditched those plans awhile back so I thought something sounded fishy.

Knowing George and his cronies, I immediately jumped on Google and typed in Moon and Fuel. Voila! Helium 3. Tons of it. A million tons of it. Enough for the entire Earth for a 1000 years. Now, who is lining up ready to strip mine the moon and sell us our own fuel. Who knows, but I bet you can take a really good guess, and you can also bet they'll have no-bid contracts tucked away in their space suits.

The problem with mining the moon by use of a corporation is that it will surely violate The Outer Space Treaty. What? Didn't know we had one of those? Well, you should check in more often with the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs. What? You never heard of such an office? Next you're going to tell me you've never heard of our Declaration of Legal Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space which states that "the exploration and use of outer space shall be carried on for the benefit and in the interests of all mankind".

We have enough problems down here on Earth with religions, fuel, and food sources that cause conflict after conflict. Here's a good chance to get rid of one of them. That's all I'm asking. Let's get rid of one of our problems - just one. Bring the fuel down here, subsidized internationally and then we can have cheap fuel for everyone. People will still get to make money. It has to be transported and set up with fueling stations I'm sure - keep your shirts on.

The only way to peace is to provide internationally. For those that are thinking we'd never get enough countries to agree on what their contributions would be to the fund in relation to what they get back, keep in mind, I don't think the scientist even know how to turn this Helium 3 into a fuel quite yet. They just know they can. So, we've got plenty of time.

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

CITIZEN ALERT v1.18
SOAW

This in today from The School of the Americas Watch

The decisions made by the Uruguayan and Argentinean governments earlier this year, and by the Venezuelan government in 2004, to cut all ties with the SOA and to publicly denounce the school’s legacy of terror and violence are expressions of grassroots power within those countries.

Through relentless organizing work, popular movements have gained the strength to determine the directions of their countries. Other Latin American nations may soon follow suit and also reject SOA training as SOA Watch continues its strategy of building closer relationships with Latin American social movements and engaging with government leaders throughout the Western Hemisphere. From August 13 to September 3, 2006, Salvadoran torture survivor Carlos Mauricio, human rights activist Lisa Sullivan-Rodriguez, photographer and SOA Watch NE member Linda Panetta, and SOA Watch founder Fr. Roy Bourgeois will travel to Ecuador, Chile and Peru, where they will meet with human rights groups and government officials, building on the experience of their March delegation to Bolivia, Argentina and Uruguay.

While civil society in Latin America never doubted it, there are now also a number of Latin American presidents like Chile's Michelle Bachelet and Evo Morales from Bolivia, for whom the SOA stands synonymous with torture and the repressive military regimes that killed their loved ones.

We will be keeping you up to date on the progress of the trip through our website so check in regularly!

www.soaw.org

Monday, August 14, 2006

KXLU 88.9FM SEPTEMBER 11th

Pepper will be appearing on KXLU 88.9fm on September 11th to talk about the anniversary of 9/11. For those out of state go to kxlu.com for a stream. 11pm PST.

CITIZEN ALERT v1.17
CENTER FOR GLOBAL DEVELOPMENT

The most powerful country in the world ranks 13th when it comes to overall aiding the poorer countries says the Center for Global Development who issued their Commitment to Development Index (CDI). Countries like the Netherlands (1st) and Denmark (2nd) put us to shame over aid, environment and trade. Norway even beats us on security. How does NORWAY beat the United States on security!

The CDI rates 21 rich countries on how much they help poor countries build prosperity, good government, and security.

The United States ranks 13th overall in 2006. U.S. barriers against developing country agricultural exports are lower than those of most CDI countries, and some U.S. policies promote healthy investment in poor countries. But the United States finishes near the bottom of the rankings in both the foreign aid and environment components. U.S. foreign aid is small as a share of its income and it “ties” a large share of this aid to the purchase of U.S. goods and services. The United States also has the lowest gas taxes and among the highest greenhouse gas emission rates per person. Along with Australia, it is one of only two CDI countries that have not signed the Kyoto Protocol.


www.cgdev.org/section/initiatives/_active/_cdi2006

Sunday, August 13, 2006

CITIZEN ALERT v1.16
TRUCE OR NO TRUCE?

Israel is continuing to work its way further into Southern Lebanon as quickly as possibly to get its last licks in before the cease fire. Who thinks the cease fire will hold? Heck, who thinks the cease fire will actually begin? If they have to withdraw over that much ground, will Hezbollah actually stand down and let them just quietly leave without taking a few potshots at them. And wouldn't that be just what Israel was waiting for to continue the fight.

Tonight Wallace interviews Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Should be interesting.

Saturday, August 12, 2006

CITIZEN ALERT v1.15
BUSH'S SPIRAL DOWNWARD

I liked how Bush the other day was taking credit for the UK's MI5 Security Service's detective work of foiling a terrorist plot to blow up airplanes flying from the UK to the US. He needs all the good news he can get I suppose. Friday he was back in Texas raising all kinds of cash while his approval ratings, according to the AP, spiraled downward yet again. 33% is where the Bush approval rating stands now and more importantly the poll shows that a growing percentage of Americans who were one-time voters for Bush in the last election are voting Democrat this time around.

It reminded me of something Thomas Paine wrote in "Common Sense":

"Time makes more converts than reason".

 

Friday, August 11, 2006

CITIZEN ALERT v1.14
1-800-SUICIDE

WASHINGTON, Aug. 11, 1-800-SUICIDE, the nation's best known, private and confidential suicide prevention hotline network, will be shut off at midnight tonight unless action is taken. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration (SAMHSA), a division of HHS, has decided to end all funding for Kristin Brooks Hope Center (KBHC) while continuing to owe them $266,000 from over 2 years ago. Instead of sending the funds that were already allocated, SAMHSA has gone on to create their own competing crisis hotline -- which gives them access to callers' private information through phone records. 1-800-SUICIDE does not disclose its phone records to the federal government.

A grassroots effort called "Save 1-800-SUICIDE www.save1800suicide.org" was created to enlist supporters' help in asking the federal government to make good on their commitment. This online effort sent over 2500 emails to SAMHSA and raised over $7,000 in the past ten days -- but fell short the $60,512 in over due phone bills to keep the line connected. ( see http://www.save1800suicide.org/shutoffnotice)

In response to this campaign, according to KBHC, SAMHSA issued a misleading press release disavowing any responsibility for the bills owed to 1-800-SUICIDE. However, the lawyers for 1-800- SUICIDE clarified and reiterated SAMHSA's responsibility, and even made several additional attempts to talk with SAMHSA yesterday. Unfortunately for KBHC -- and the thousand-plus callers a day that use the hotline -- they were unable to come to an agreement. To read the legal response visit: http://www.save1800suicide.org/samhsa.html

KBHC network covers more than 200 crisis centers with 20 different distinct peer support hotlines such as the Youth America Hotline, veterans hotlines, postnatal depression moms hotline, etc... 1-800-SUICIDE stands firm in its commitment to provide the best hotline support network with complete confidentiality of the caller's identity.

"I created this hotline in honor and memory of my wife and wanted it to have the utmost in integrity to the caller and to their family. It is unfair that SAMHSA is simply not paying the bills from 2004. They punish not only me for not giving them access to the data -- but the calls that need help, will not get answered" stated Reese Butler, founder of KBHC.

1-800-SUICIDE's annual budget is approximately $360,000. KBHC already has several benefits and annual fundraising events in the works for 2007, which will cover their budget. Nonetheless, they are still $260,000 in debt to their telephone service providers and vendors because of the federal government's un-kept promise of direct support. "SAMHSA simply needs to accept or reject our claim. Instead they are salivating at the opportunity to take over this hotline," said Butler. (see www.save1800suicide.org/hostiletakeover)

Kristin Brooks Hope Center is a registered 501c3 not-for profit. It operates the National Hopeline Network that Reese Butler started building in 1998 in honor and memory of his wife Kristin who died by suicide.

Thursday, August 10, 2006

CITIZEN ALERT v1.13
STRING AND HAMMER

A report from the San Francisco Chronicle surfaced a couple of weeks ago that Israel had planned the attack on Hezbollah with the United States over a year in advance.

From the SF Chronicle:

More than a year ago, a senior Israeli army officer began giving PowerPoint presentations, on an off-the-record basis, to U.S. and other diplomats, journalists and think tanks, setting out the plan for the current operation in revealing detail.

If this report is true, it leads me to a couple of disturbing realizations. 1) it would explain the Bush administration's lagging on a cease fire resolution. Before all this started with Israel and Hezbollah, we were entangled with Iran and their nuclear program. With Iraq's "nuclear program" (scoff scoff) we had an immediate plan for war. The American people are not about to let Cheney and Rumsfeld pull that one again, so what better way to entice Iran and possibly Syria into a fight than to set Israel loose on Hezzbollah and Southern Lebanon. In football, I believe they called this manuveur the stringer and the hammer.

2) If this report is true, then those remarks over heard at the summit of Bush talking to Blair about Hezbollah would mean he is unaware or completely out of the loop on the middle east and Americas plans for its future.

THE ARTICLE BELOW




Israel set war plan more than a year ago
Strategy was put in motion as Hezbollah began increasing its military strength
Matthew Kalman, Chronicle Foreign Service
Friday, July 21, 2006


Israel's military response by air, land and sea to what it considered a provocation last week by Hezbollah militants is unfolding according to a plan finalized more than a year ago.
In the years since Israel ended its military occupation of southern Lebanon, it watched warily as Hezbollah built up its military presence in the region. When Hezbollah militants kidnapped two Israeli soldiers last week, the Israeli military was ready to react almost instantly.

"Of all of Israel's wars since 1948, this was the one for which Israel was most prepared," said Gerald Steinberg, professor of political science at Bar-Ilan University. "In a sense, the preparation began in May 2000, immediately after the Israeli withdrawal, when it became clear the international community was not going to prevent Hezbollah from stockpiling missiles and attacking Israel. By 2004, the military campaign scheduled to last about three weeks that we're seeing now had already been blocked out and, in the last year or two, it's been simulated and rehearsed across the board."

More than a year ago, a senior Israeli army officer began giving PowerPoint presentations, on an off-the-record basis, to U.S. and other diplomats, journalists and think tanks, setting out the plan for the current operation in revealing detail. Under the ground rules of the briefings, the officer could not be identified.

In his talks, the officer described a three-week campaign: The first week concentrated on destroying Hezbollah's heavier long-range missiles, bombing its command-and-control centers, and disrupting transportation and communication arteries. In the second week, the focus shifted to attacks on individual sites of rocket launchers or weapons stores. In the third week, ground forces in large numbers would be introduced, but only in order to knock out targets discovered during reconnaissance missions as the campaign unfolded. There was no plan, according to this scenario, to reoccupy southern Lebanon on a long-term basis.

Israeli officials say their pinpoint commando raids should not be confused with a ground invasion. Nor, they say, do they herald another occupation of southern Lebanon, which Israel maintained from 1982 to 2000 -- in order, it said, to thwart Hezbollah attacks on Israel. Planners anticipated the likelihood of civilian deaths on both sides. Israel says Hezbollah intentionally bases some of its operations in residential areas. And Hezbollah's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, has bragged publicly that the group's arsenal included rockets capable of bombing Haifa, as occurred last week.

Like all plans, the one now unfolding also has been shaped by changing circumstances, said Eran Lerman, a former colonel in Israeli military intelligence who is now director of the Jerusalem office of the American Jewish Committee.

"There are two radical views of how to deal with this challenge, a serious professional debate within the military community over which way to go," said Lerman. "One is the air power school of thought, the other is the land-borne option. They create different dynamics and different timetables. The crucial factor is that the air force concept is very methodical and almost by definition is slower to get results. A ground invasion that sweeps Hezbollah in front of you is quicker, but at a much higher cost in human life and requiring the creation of a presence on the ground."

The advance scenario is now in its second week, and its success or failure is still unfolding. Whether Israel's aerial strikes will be enough to achieve the threefold aim of the campaign -- to remove the Hezbollah military threat; to evict Hezbollah from the border area, allowing the deployment of Lebanese government troops; and to ensure the safe return of the two Israeli soldiers abducted last week -- remains an open question. Israelis are opposed to the thought of reoccupying Lebanon.

"I have the feeling that the end is not clear here. I have no idea how this movie is going to end," said Daniel Ben-Simon, a military analyst for the daily Haaretz newspaper.
Thursday's clashes in southern Lebanon occurred near an outpost abandoned more than six years ago by the retreating Israeli army. The place was identified using satellite photographs of a Hezbollah bunker, but only from the ground was Israel able to discover that it served as the entrance to a previously unknown underground network of caves and bunkers stuffed with missiles aimed at northern Israel, said Israeli army spokesman Miri Regev.

"We knew about the network, but it was fully revealed (Wednesday) by the ground operation of our forces," said Regev. "This is one of the purposes of the pinpoint ground operations -- to locate and try to destroy the terrorist infrastructure from where they can fire at Israeli citizens."

Israeli military officials say as much as 50 percent of Hezbollah's missile capability has been destroyed, mainly by aerial attacks on targets identified from intelligence reports. But missiles continue to be fired at towns and cities across northern Israel.

"We were not surprised that the firing has continued," said Tzachi Hanegbi, chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. "Hezbollah separated its leadership command-and-control system from its field organization. It created a network of tiny cells in each village that had no operational mission except to wait for the moment when they should activate the Katyusha rocket launchers hidden in local houses, using coordinates programmed long ago to hit Nahariya or Kiryat Shemona, or the kibbutzim and villages."

"From the start of this operation, we have also been active on the ground across the width of Lebanon," said Brig. Gen. Ron Friedman, head of Northern Command headquarters. "These missions are designed to support our current actions. Unfortunately, one of the many missions which we have carried out in recent days met with slightly fiercer resistance."

Israel didn't need sophisticated intelligence to discover the huge buildup of Iranian weapons supplies to Hezbollah by way of Syria, because Hezbollah's patrons boasted about it openly in the pages of the Arabic press. As recently as June 16, less than four weeks before the Hezbollah border raid that sparked the current crisis, the Syrian defense minister publicly announced the extension of existing agreements allowing the passage of trucks shipping Iranian weapons into Lebanon.

But to destroy them, Israel needed to map the location of each missile.

"We need a lot of patience," said Hanegbi. "The (Israeli Defense Forces) action at the moment is incapable of finding the very last Katyusha, or the last rocket launcher primed for use hidden inside a house in some village."

Moshe Marzuk, a former head of the Lebanon desk for Israeli Military Intelligence who now is a researcher at the Institute for Counter-Terrorism in Herzliya, said Israel had learned from past conflicts in Lebanon, the West Bank and Gaza -- as well as the recent U.S. experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq -- that a traditional military campaign would be countereffective.

"A big invasion is not suitable here," said Marzuk. "We are not fighting an army, but guerrillas. It would be a mistake to enter and expose ourselves to fighters who will hide, fire off a missile and run away. If we are to be on the ground at all, we need to use commandos and special forces."

Since fighting started

-- Israeli air strikes on Lebanon have hit more than 1,255 targets, including 200 rocket-launching sites.
-- Hezbollah launched more than 900 rockets and missiles into northern Israel.
-- At least 317 Lebanese have been killed, including 20 soldiers and three Hezbollah guerrillas. Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora says 1,100 have been wounded; the police put the number at 657.
-- 31 Israelis have been killed, among them 16 soldiers, according to Israeli authorities. At least nine soldiers and 344 civilians have been wounded.
-- Foreign deaths include eight Canadians, two Kuwaiti nationals, one Iraqi, one Sri Lankan and one Jordanian.

Wednesday, August 09, 2006

CITIZEN ALERT v1.12
ENDORSEMENTS

Lieberman LOOOOSES! Yep. Did you get THAT message Joe? And what does Mr. Democratically DIS-elected have to say in response to the voters who ousted him?

"I cannot and will not let that result stand."

Yeah, Joe, I don't think Castro couldn't have said it better himself. Way to be American!

Now, even I have Senators I like that support the war in Iraq, but there are ways of supporting it intelligently rather than just caving into the party line. Hillary Clinton is finding that out I believe as the Presidential election draws closer. She seems to be focusing on a "failed policy" approach to her whole critique on the war nowadays leading some pundits to calling it "repositioning". Eh, I guess I gotta give them that one. And frankly, even though I enjoy irking my family by supporting Hillary, I have to yank my support for Hillary in 2008 as a Presidential nominee. Before you scream at me, here's why: It would remove the war issue from the debate during the election.

During the run up to 2004 election I was a Dean man. He was on top of the issues and most importantly, he was a governor with no congressional voting record running against an ex-governor. He would have smoked George. Instead, we heard about "waffling" and "he voted for the war before he voted against it" nonsense. Instead of removing the voting record issue, we gave it them. This election, we want to do the opposite of what we should have done last election by doing what we actually did do last election: Don't remove it, give it to them.

We must have the war issue in the next election at the top of the list and to be honest it wouldn't hurt to have a candidate who voted for the war. The DEMS will not win the war debate with Hillary because she supports the war and is now seen has "repositioning herself on it". They're going to tear her apart because I haven't heard a plan from her on what to do next other than the usual condemnation of unilateral foreign policies and asking Rummy to resign.

Joe Biden on the other hand....now, here's a guy who knows, and I mean knows what's going on in the middle east. Not only that, HE CAN EXPLAIN IT TO YOU! Nation Journal just released a survey naming Senator Biden "the most trusted Democrat when it comes to issues concerning foreign policy and national security" - beating out even Bill "Elvis" Clinton.

If you've ever heard Biden talk, you'd know he's clear headed, to the point, and puts it in terms that even Ben Affleck can understand. He's been in the game since 1972 (not a big fan of that, but), and he's the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee. We can debate the war issue with Biden as our guy. He voted for it, so they can't come at him with their weak Democrat angle, he voted for it intelligently so he can still come at them over their failures.

That is why CITIZEN ALERT is, at this time, endorsing Senator Biden in 2008 for President, and to further irk my family, I would enjoy a Biden/Clinton ticket because I do think Hillary would make a great Vice President and a great President one day. I think VP is her best shot at the White House though. Sorry Hill, you gotta wait til 2016.

Tuesday, August 08, 2006

CITIZEN ALERT v1.11
YOUR TAX DOLLARS

Today all eyes will on Connecticut to see if first timer Ned Lamont can take the primary from the war-supporting, Bush-kissing Joe Lieberman. I won't miss this guy. I'd like to see the Dems get rid of Feinstein as well, but judging from this past primary and the "candidates" she was up against, I think she's locked in for a while.

In more Citizen Alert style under the radar news: Where's your tax money being spent? On education? Social programs? Housing the homeless? Or perhaps space radars, 76 millimeter machine guns and ad campaigns aimed at getting more Latino-Americans to join up in the Global War on the Evil Axis of the Terror Empire...oh geez.

Check out the DOD's APPROPRIATIONS BILL, 2007

Monday, August 07, 2006

CITIZEN ALERT v1.10
BP SPRINGS LEAK

We were nearing the winter months when gas prices are supposed to go down a little but when they go up in the coming weeks blame these idiots!

www.bp.com

Not only was BP having safety valve issues back in 2001, but they are under criminal investigation for a 200,000 gallon oil leak back in March of this year. Now, on Sunday morning they discovered yet another leak and have shutdown an entire oil field spiking oil prices up $2.

While your government decides whether to tap into our reserve oil (it took a month for BP to bring that pipeline back on line last time) take this time to call your congressman and remind him we could lower the gas prices some by reducing the gas tax!

Sunday, August 06, 2006

CITIZEN ALERT v1.9
THE BOLD AND THE IGNORANT

Today marking the anniversary of the U.S. dropping its atomic bomb on Hiroshima, I found this article on WMDs most frustrating. 50% of Americans still believe Iraq had weapons of mass destruction! HALF!!! Did any of these people watch any real news besides FAUX NEWS?!



Half of U.S. still believes Iraq had WMD
By CHARLES J. HANLEY,

AP Special Correspondent

Do you believe in Iraqi "WMD"? Did Saddam Hussein's government have weapons of mass destruction in 2003?

Half of America apparently still thinks so, a new poll finds, and experts see a raft of reasons why: a drumbeat of voices from talk radio to die-hard bloggers to the Oval Office, a surprise headline here or there, a rallying around a partisan flag, and a growing need for people, in their own minds, to justify the war in Iraq.

People tend to become "independent of reality" in these circumstances, says opinion analyst Steven Kull.

The reality in this case is that after a 16-month, $900-million-plus investigation, the U.S. weapons hunters known as the Iraq Survey Group declared that Iraq had dismantled its chemical, biological and nuclear arms programs in 1991 under U.N. oversight. That finding in 2004 reaffirmed the work of U.N. inspectors who in 2002-03 found no trace of banned arsenals in Iraq.

Despite this, a Harris Poll released July 21 found that a full 50 percent of U.S. respondents — up from 36 percent last year — said they believe Iraq did have the forbidden arms when U.S. troops invaded in March 2003, an attack whose stated purpose was elimination of supposed WMD. Other polls also have found an enduring American faith in the WMD story.

"I'm flabbergasted," said Michael Massing, a media critic whose writings dissected the largely unquestioning U.S. news reporting on the Bush administration's shaky WMD claims in 2002-03.
"This finding just has to cause despair among those of us who hope for an informed public able to draw reasonable conclusions based on evidence," Massing said.

Timing may explain some of the poll result. Two weeks before the survey, two Republican lawmakers, Pennsylvania's Sen. Rick Santorum and Michigan's Rep. Peter Hoekstra, released an intelligence report in Washington saying 500 chemical munitions had been collected in Iraq since the 2003 invasion.

"I think the Harris Poll was measuring people's surprise at hearing this after being told for so long there were no WMD in the country," said Hoekstra spokesman Jamal Ware.

But the Pentagon and outside experts stressed that these abandoned shells, many found in ones and twos, were 15 years old or more, their chemical contents were degraded, and they were unusable as artillery ordnance. Since the 1990s, such "orphan" munitions, from among 160,000 made by Iraq and destroyed, have turned up on old battlefields and elsewhere in Iraq, ex-inspectors say. In other words, this was no surprise.

"These are not stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction," said Scott Ritter, the ex-Marine who was a U.N. inspector in the 1990s. "They weren't deliberately withheld from inspectors by the Iraqis."

Conservative commentator Deroy Murdock, who trumpeted Hoekstra's announcement in his syndicated column, complained in an interview that the press "didn't give the story the play it deserved." But in some quarters it was headlined.

"Our top story tonight, the nation abuzz today ..." was how Fox News led its report on the old, stray shells. Talk-radio hosts and their callers seized on it. Feedback to blogs grew intense. "Americans are waking up from a distorted reality," read one posting.

Other claims about supposed WMD had preceded this, especially speculation since 2003 that Iraq had secretly shipped WMD abroad. A former Iraqi general's book — at best uncorroborated hearsay — claimed "56 flights" by jetliners had borne such material to Syria.

But Kull, Massing and others see an influence on opinion that's more sustained than the odd headline.

"I think the Santorum-Hoekstra thing is the latest 'factoid,' but the basic dynamic is the insistent repetition by the Bush administration of the original argument," said John Prados, author of the 2004 book "Hoodwinked: The Documents That Reveal How Bush Sold Us a War."
Administration statements still describe Saddam's Iraq as a threat. Despite the official findings, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has allowed only that "perhaps" WMD weren't in Iraq. And Bush himself, since 2003, has repeatedly insisted on one plainly false point: that Saddam rebuffed the U.N. inspectors in 2002, that "he wouldn't let them in," as he said in 2003, and "he chose to deny inspectors," as he said this March.

The facts are that Iraq — after a four-year hiatus in cooperating with inspections — acceded to the U.N. Security Council's demand and allowed scores of experts to conduct more than 700 inspections of potential weapons sites from Nov. 27, 2002, to March 16, 2003. The inspectors said they could wrap up their work within months. Instead, the U.S. invasion aborted that work.

As recently as May 27, Bush told West Point graduates, "When the United Nations Security Council gave him one final chance to disclose and disarm, or face serious consequences, he refused to take that final opportunity."

"Which isn't true," observed Kathleen Hall Jamieson, a scholar of presidential rhetoric at the University of Pennsylvania. But "it doesn't surprise me when presidents reconstruct reality to make their policies defensible." This president may even have convinced himself it's true, she said.

Americans have heard it. A poll by Kull's WorldPublicOpinion.org found that seven in 10 Americans perceive the administration as still saying Iraq had a WMD program. Combine that rhetoric with simplistic headlines about WMD "finds," and people "assume the issue is still in play," Kull said.

"For some it almost becomes independent of reality and becomes very partisan." The WMD believers are heavily Republican, polls show.

Beyond partisanship, however, people may also feel a need to believe in WMD, the analysts say.
"As perception grows of worsening conditions in Iraq, it may be that Americans are just hoping for more of a solid basis for being in Iraq to begin with," said the Harris Poll's David Krane.
Charles Duelfer, the lead U.S. inspector who announced the negative WMD findings two years ago, has watched uncertainly as TV sound bites, bloggers and politicians try to chip away at "the best factual account," his group's densely detailed, 1,000-page final report.

"It is easy to see what is accepted as truth rapidly morph from one representation to another," he said in an e-mail. "It would be a shame if one effect of the power of the Internet was to undermine any commonly agreed set of facts."

The creative "morphing" goes on.

As Israeli troops and Hezbollah guerrillas battled in Lebanon on July 21, a Fox News segment suggested, with no evidence, yet another destination for the supposed doomsday arms.

"ARE SADDAM HUSSEIN'S WMDS NOW IN HEZBOLLAH'S HANDS?" asked the headline, lingering for long minutes on TV screens in a million American homes.

Saturday, August 05, 2006

CITIZEN ALERT v1.8
HIROSHIMA DAY TOMORROW

August 6th began in a bright, clear, summer morning. About seven o'clock, there was an air raid alarm which we had heard almost every day and a few planes appeared over the city. No one paid any attention and at about eight o'clock, the all-clear was sounded.

Suddenly--the time is approximately 8:14--the whole valley is filled by a garish light which resembles the magnesium light used in photography, and I am conscious of a wave of heat. I jump to the window to find out the cause of this remarkable phenomenon, but I see nothing more than that brilliant yellow light. ..

This is how Father John A. Siemes describes the morning of August 6th, 1945 in Hiroshima, Japan. The United States of America has just dropped an atomic bomb. Sunday will mark the 61st anniversary of Hiroshima and several protests are planned around the Bay Area, Los Angeles, and Los Alamos with quite a few aimed at the Bechtel Corp. one of America's top war profiteers.

Nuclear weapons have drawn a lot of attention in the past several weeks between missile launches in North Korea to the on going problems with Iran wanting to further their own nuclear programs. Our government and other nations do not feel safe with N. Korea and Iran having nuclear weapons but how safe is the rest of the world from us.

The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons was supposed to keep the smaller countries from acquiring nuclear weapons if the bigger countries reduced their arsenals. So far, this has not been working out. Even though Russia has 58% fewer ICBMS, the US arsenal is still some where around a staggering 8000-10,000 nuclear weapons. Rumsfeld, as reported by the FAS, is a BIG BIG fan of the low yield nuclear weapons known as bunker busters which the Bush administration would like to see added to our arsenal. On top of that, there are two labs vying for the contract to rearm our nuclear arsenal with up to date warheads with next-generation delivery systems. Does this sound like we're getting ready to dismantle our nuclear arsenal to you?

During the Cold War the fact that both the Soviets and America had such huge arsenals gave the world peace through stalemate. Mutual assured destruction (MAD) kept the world intact. No one had first strike capability. Now, with Russia’s arsenal in decline, and their submarine patrols down to 2 a year from 60 in 1990, they are no longer a major threat. We turn to China.

Reports have China’s arsenal consisting of 18-20 nuclear missiles standing in silos with the warheads stored off site. Because the fuel corrodes the missiles after 24 hours they stand empty and need a two hour window for fueling. Nothing first strike about that. Keir Lieber and Daryl Press in the March/April issue of Foreign Affairs write that the odds are slim “that Beijing will acquire a survivable nuclear deterrent in the next decade”.

The U.S. has upgraded the missiles on its submarine fleet in the Pacific knowing the low radar capability in east Asia leaves Russia and China with a blindspot. They wouldn’t know what hit them until they saw the mushroom cloud. Quietly, the United States has unbalanced the stalemate in the nuclear stand off. The only country to use an atomic bomb during wartime now has acquired first strike capabilities. And you wonder why everyone’s nervous.

What do you do if you’re Russia and China? Your economies are such that you can not catch up with the U.S. so the next best thing is a distraction. Iran, N. Korea, and this today from the AP:

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration has imposed sanctions against seven companies from India, Russia, North Korea, and Cuba after accusing them of business dealings with Iran involving sensitive technology, the government said yesterday.

The seven businesses were found to be in violation of the Iran Nonproliferation Act of 2000.

This is the political landscape Bush has created for himself to preside over. The world feels it must literally hold a gun to our heads in order for us to listen.

So, on Sunday let's try to remember that the world is as violent as the violence that you contribute to it. In order for America to feel safe, we must make sure that the rest of the world feels as safe. That's what everyone really wants anyway, not our so called freedom, or our so called democracy, but our assurance.

Friday, August 04, 2006

CITIZEN ALERT v1.7
FAS

The Federation of American Scientist have launched their own emergency preparedness website at reallyready.org after finding "numerous inadequacies" and "incorrect information" in Homeland Security Department's Ready.gov.

Thursday, August 03, 2006

CITIZEN ALERT v1.6
IRAQ OR AFGHANISTAN

As I sat this morning watching Generals Pace and Abizaid along with Rumsfeld answer questions at the Senate Armed Services Committee, it frustrates me still that no one in the media left, right or otherwise as ever asked the question to any military person involved in the decision making process about the theater of operations this administration has chosen to fight their war on terror in.

The terrorist go where the opportunity presents itself. Training camps were in Afghanistan, so they went there. I believe the majority of Americans were behind the idea of going after the terrorist in Afghanistan - it made sense to everyone. When the theater of operations changed to Iraq - before our "objectives" (see below) were completed in Afghanistan - that is when public opinion started to waiver.

There were no terrorist in Iraq. There ARE now. I would think that before Bush's War on Terror (WOT) began U.S. service men and women must have seemed like mythological creatures to your average person in the middle east. They were just these distant ideas flying over head in their advanced technology or the explosion of a missile sent from over the horizon unseen and unreachable. How bizarre it must have been to finally see these Americans up close and in person for the first time in their lives (for some) after hearing about them for so long.

Iraq and Afghanistan. Two theaters of operation. We could have sent our troops to Saudi Arabia, Somalia, even Yemen and the terrorists would have followed. But Iraq? We know, and by we I mean, the informed, the intellectuals, we know why this administration went into Iraq, but I still see it as a sort of smoking gun for the rest of the country.

According to articles I have read, we were doing a great job in Afghanistan. Some of the terrorist were packing it in and heading home to fight another day. Omar and Bin Laden were running for their lives while telling their followers they should try blowing themselves up. The terrain was difficult, weather bad, networks of caves everywhere but we had the technology to fight that battle. There wasn't a fleeing Republican Guard leaving ammo and ordinace laying around hidden for terrorist and angry civilians to find later to use against us. The battle field in Afghanistan seemed more out in the open than Iraq, away from civilians more often than not and safer for our troops.

I've watched the countless videos from our troops in the middle east. Snipers in Iraq are in buildings, in alleys, hidden here and there; snipers in Afghanistan were sitting on mountain tops easily targeted. When we killed Al-Qaida leaders in Iraq we targeted whole buildings killing innocent civilians along with and sometimes instead of our targets. In Afghanistan, we followed Taliban and Al-Qaida leaders in their cars out of the city by drone Predators and then blew them up away from civilians. You blow up a building, someone has to pay for that. You blow up the desert - mmmm, not so much.

I think moving the main battlefield from Afghanistan to Iraq shows not only incompetence and greed on the part of the Bush administration, but a general disregard for our U.S. Troops and those of our allies. Someone, anyone, the next time you have a General or anyone from the military on your program ASK THEM THE QUESTION! What battle would you rather have fought, Afghanistan or Iraq?


"Objectives" - in truth I think Bush's real objective was accomplished in Afghanistan which was the removal of the Taliban and the clearing of the way for the CENTGAS pipeline. Once that was achieved the neo-cons lost interest and turned their eyes toward Iraq and its oil.

CITIZEN ALERT v1.5
BE A CITIZEN

Okay, let's lay the ground rules.

What it takes to BE A CITIZEN:

1) a CITIZEN votes

If 18, you must be registered to vote and vote in all elections

2) a CITIZEN participates in their government

You must keep your 2 Senators and Representatives phone numbers on your cell phone. These can be found at www.vote-smart.org. Call them regularly to give them your feedback on votes they make that you feel are important. Positive or negative, doesn't matter.

3) a CITIZEN volunteers

You must volunteer 2 hours of your week to helping others whether on your own or through a non-profit or charity type service.





Wednesday, August 02, 2006

CITIZEN ALERT v1.4
CALEB CARR

If you've ever been to my house you'd see a stack of CALEB CARR books on the book shelf. He's one of the very few fiction authors that I read, and I like him because his stories are set in historical settings. So, you learn a little something while you're at it.

When Carr is not writing books he is a visiting professor of military studies at Bard College. Writes a lot for military type magazines as well.

This past Sunday he wrote this article for the LA TIMES which I found an interesting read. As much as Carr knows about military history, you have to pay attention to his insights.

Why Good Countries Fight Dirty Wars
Think democracies wage clean wars? Think again.
By Caleb Carr

Caleb Carr is visiting professor of military studies at Bard College. He is the author of "The Lessons of Terror: A History of Warfare Against Civilians."

July 30, 2006



THE DISCOVERY of an alleged mass murder of Iraqi civilians by U.S. Marines in Haditha in November and the more recent rape-murder case in Mahmoudiya that led to charges against five men of the 101st Airborne Division stand in stark contrast to the traditional portrait of the behavior of U.S. armed forces abroad.

Since the time of our own revolution, we have been taught to expect such savage behavior from the inheritors of Attila and Tamerlane, be they Barbary pirates or Nazi Germans but not from the armies of democratic nations, the philosophical descendants of ancient Greece and Rome.

The citizen-soldiers sent into the field by the United States or any other Western popular government are expected, by virtue of not so long ago having been free civilians themselves, to be more empathetic with the plight of the noncombatants with whom they come into contact. Certainly, brutal incidents like the My Lai massacre or the Abu Ghraib scandal occur from time to time, but they are widely viewed as cultural aberrations.

This interpretation, however, is as simplistic as it is misleading. All too often the armies of modern democracies have tolerated and even initiated outrages against civilians, in manners uneasily close to those of their totalitarian and terrorist enemies. Israeli troops are currently demonstrating this fact in their response to the Hezbollah rocket offensive a response most of the world community, according to recent polls, believes is taking an unacceptably disproportionate toll on Lebanese civilians. And there have been times when democratic leaders have been even more open about their brutal intentions: Speaking of the Allied bombing campaign during World War II that culminated in that consummate act of state terrorism, the firebombing of Dresden, Germany, Winston Churchill flatly stated that the objective was "to make the enemy burn and bleed in every way."

Any examination of why this record of behavior on the part of democracies exists and why it has been so carefully distorted requires a look back over thousands of years of military history, as well as a willingness to dispense with long-cherished but false historical narratives.

Many of the ancient cultures that provided the philosophical inspiration for the modern West in general, and especially for our founders the Roman republic most particularly believed in allowing their troops to enslave, rape and impoverish enemy civilians as a matter of reward and routine.

The romantic narrative of chivalric medieval knights, in which noble warriors supposedly rallied their followers to champion the helpless against exploitation, is similarly mythical, created late in the medieval game to conceal the ruthlessness with which those knights and their troops preyed upon merchants and peasants a situation that became so ugly and anarchic that, late in the 11th century, Pope Urban II was forced to devise the ingeniously enduring scheme of dispatching murderous, plundering European nobles and their followers to the Holy Land to defend Jerusalem against Islam.

When we hear of such conflicts as the "Peasants' Revolt" in Europe during the early 16th century, we don't tend to think of hideous massacres of civilians by their formerly oppressed equals, but such in fact occurred. And the phrase "wars of religious liberation" does not suggest that those seeking the right to worship as they pleased would commit the same sins as did the often-brutal Catholic Church from which they wished to separate, yet they did.

All this confusion and bloodshed meant that by the early to mid-17th century, Europe was one massive battlefield, with few if any leaders who could really claim to have the interests of noncombatants at heart.

Systematic relief for civilians from such ravages finally began to take shape near the end of the Thirty Years' War in the mid-1600s; but it was not budding democracy that supplied it, nor lofty philosophers seeking to define what constituted "just war." When real reform occurred, it came from some of the most reactionary leaders and rulers of the era.

During the English Civil War (1642-49), for instance, Puritan rebel officers led by that country's future and only military dictator, Oliver Cromwell, discovered that keeping an army under control vis-a-vis civilians had a pragmatic as well as a moral side: It tended to gain the local population's loyalty far faster and more effectively than either threats or long philosophical and political harangues.

Through such simple steps as the strict use of distinctive uniforms (to discourage soldiers from the popular practice of deserting once armed and creating civil mayhem) and the institution of public and severe punishment for anyone caught molesting noncombatants in any way, Cromwell's "New Model Army" solidified popular support more than any other military unit in the war.

At about the same time, perceptive continental monarchs and generals also began to turn toward the reform of war and the disciplining of troops as a pragmatic, rather than moral, consideration. The greatest of these, ultimately, was Frederick the Great, king of Prussia, who became notorious for imposing disciplinary regulations on his soldiers that were almost inhuman but that turned his minor kingdom into one of the most consistently victorious and, finally, powerful nations on the continent and himself into one of the most popular monarchs of the 18th century.

By the end of Frederick's reign, the way forward to the real and generally accepted reform of war's negative effect on civilians seemed clear and feasible: "limited war," in which professional armies distinctly uniformed, highly disciplined and tightly controlled fought each other according to strict rules of engagement.

But this enlightened progress was soon slowed and then stopped by a pesky new philosophical and political movement: liberal democracy.

Why should democracy, which gave common people a voice in the conduct of their nation's affairs, interfere with military developments that were increasingly offering protection to those same common people? Precisely because democracy called for the involvement of all citizens in every aspect of national life including war. This was an idea diametrically opposed to the notion of highly trained professional armies deciding the fates of nations without heavily affecting civilian populations.

The result was "popular war" the concept that we in the U.S. quickly came to associate with noble backwoods civilians setting aside their plows and taking up their long rifles to battle wicked British professional soldiers. In truth, it was almost indistinguishable from what we now call "total war": conflicts in which all citizens, whether uniformed or civilian, are considered to be involved in the fight.

During the American Revolution, for instance, rebel forces committed plunder, murder and other outrages against civilians even suspected of being loyal to the British homeland, particularly in the Hudson Valley and the Southern states. And even if some such crimes were reprisals against similar British acts, they demonstrated the true and escalating nature of total war.

They also demonstrated that the romantic narrative of the revolution, in which rebel citizen-soldiers "cleanly" baffled and defeated British professionals, was developed in no small part out of the need to cover the many ugly truths of the conflict, which were perhaps best summed up, so far as the colonial side, went, by the rebels' finest battlefield commander, Nathanael Greene: "Nothing has been more destructive to the true interest of this country, than the mode adopted for its defence."

The French Revolution, even more than the American Revolution, dealt the effective death blow to the cause of limited war. When France's revolutionaries found themselves surrounded by autocratic enemies who were determined to stamp out the spreading fire of liberal democracy in Europe, they stretched the notion of popular war to its very limits.

The famous Article One of the French National Convention's conscription order in 1793 specifically detailed the role to be played in the national war machine by every French civilian, including children and the elderly. The French labeled this true, universal patriotism, but it really amounted to a return to wholly indiscriminate combat.

From that time on, all hope of limiting war according to the pragmatic rules worked out during the 17th and 18th centuries faded. Certain aspects of limited war, such as basic training and uniforms, remained, but the severest forms of punishment for abusing civilians gradually disappeared. Victory through any means became identified with success, and whole populations were targeted along with their armed forces in the majority of wars from the Napoleonic wars through World War II.

Not so ironically, only the reactionary Germans tried to adapt limited war to the Industrial Age, through such means as blitzkrieg, which relied for success on panicking enemy armies through swift maneuver, thus making mass bombardment of noncombatants unnecessary and reducing the probability of civilian resistance.

The U.S. would revive the concept of blitzkrieg, with slight variations, during the opening stages of both the Afghan and the Iraqi campaigns, and those demonstrations should remind us that the military forces of democratic nations retain at least the capacity for limited, discriminatory warfare. The U.S. Army still does have officers who have decried such nondiscriminatory notions as "overwhelming force" and "shock and awe."

But what happens when a democratic army faces an opponent whose command-and-control structure, as well as its fighting units, is intimately woven into the fabric of civilian society? Is there any solution to the problem of such insurgencies? There is, but it involves the same kind of thinking that pragmatic commanders throughout the modern age have turned to: increased and innovative discipline.

Right now, there are senior U.S. commanders in Iraq (notably Army Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli) who are urging new and strict training to teach American troops the cultural, political and military methods necessary to fight this kind of war, steps that could be as revolutionary in reforming how the U.S. projects its power as the more primitive but equally critical reforms instituted by Cromwell and Frederick the Great were for their nations.

If support for such steps among top Pentagon and White House leaders continues to be as halfhearted as it has proved to date, however, the beast inside America's armed forces will remain alive, and America's own noncombatants will suffer for it along with the nation's soldiers, as an active desire for revenge on the part of increasing numbers of foreign civilians steadily mounts.

CITIZEN ALERT v1.3
SCHOOL OF THE AMERICAS



SCHOOL OF THE AMERICAS

Earlier this month, Judge Santiago Pedraz of the Spanish National Courts issued arrest warrants for 8 former Guatemalan high officials for crimes of genocide committed against the Guatemalan people from 1978-1984. Among the accused are notorious School of the Americas graduates José Efraín Rios Montt and Romeo Lucas García. In June, the Guatemalan Constitutional Court blocked Judge Pedrazs attempt to lead an Investigative Commission that would have gathered evidence and defendant testimony. Upon returning to Spain the judge filed international warrants calling for their arrests and the freezing of all financial assets.

Nobel Peace Price Laureate Rigoberta Menchu originated the case of the Guatemalan dictators in the Spanish Courts in 1999 in grievance to the 1980 bombing of the Spanish Embassy that claimed the life of her father and thirty-eight others. SOA violence continues. Resurging violence in El Salvador and Guatemala and the ongoing war in Colombia are grave reminders that we need to increase our efforts to put an end to the cycle of violence. Demand accountability, an end to the failed approach of "solving" any problems with military means, and the closure of the School of the Americas/Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (SOA/WHINSEC).

www.SOAW.org

CITIZEN ALERT v1.2
SIGNING STATEMENTS


PRESIDENTIAL SIGNING STATEMENT: an official document in which a president lays out his interpretation of a new law.




EXAMPLE OF SIGNING STATEMENT:President's Statement on H.R. 199, the "USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act of 2005" Today, I have signed into law H.R. 3199, the "USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act of 2005," and then S. 2271, the "USA PATRIOT Act Additional Reauthorizing Amendments Act of 2006." The bills will help us continue to fight terrorism effectively and to combat the use of the illegal drug methamphetamine that is ruining too many lives. The executive branch shall construe the provisions of H.R. 3199 that call for furnishing information to entities outside the executive branch, such as sections 106A and 119, in a manner consistent with the President's constitutional authority to supervise the unitary executive branch and to withhold information the disclosure of which could impair foreign relations, national security, the deliberative processes of the Executive, or the performance of the Executive's constitutional duties. The executive branch shall construe section 756(e)(2) of H.R. 3199, which calls for an executive branch official to submit to the Congress recommendations for legislative action, in a manner consistent with the President's constitutional authority to supervise the unitary executive branch and to recommend for the consideration of the Congress such measures as he judges necessary and expedient.

GEORGE W. BUSH

THE WHITE HOUSE, March 9, 2006.

DEFINITION OF UNITARY: unitary - characterized by or constituting a form of government in which power is held by one central authority; "a unitary as opposed to a federal form of government"



Number of Constituional Signing Statements by Presidents:

Reagan: 71

Bush I: 146

Clinton: 105

Bush II: 750-800 and counting


Sen. Specter prepping bill to sue Bush
By LAURIE KELLMAN,
Associated Press Writer

A powerful Republican committee chairman who has led the fight against President Bush's signing statements said Monday he would have a bill ready by the end of the week allowing Congress to sue him in federal court." We will submit legislation to the United States Senate which will...authorize the Congress to undertake judicial review of those signing statements with the view to having the president's acts declared unconstitutional," Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said on the Senate floor.

Specter's announcement came the same day that an American Bar Association task force concluded that by attaching conditions to legislation, the president has sidestepped his constitutional duty to either sign a bill, veto it, or take no action. Bush has issued at least 750 signing statements during his presidency, reserving the right to revise, interpret or disregard laws on national security and constitutional grounds." That non-veto hamstrings Congress because Congress cannot respond to a signing statement," said ABA president Michael Greco. The practice, he added "is harming the separation of powers."

Bush has challenged about 750 statutes passed by Congress, according to numbers compiled by Specter's committee. The ABA estimated Bush has issued signing statements on more than 800 statutes, more than all other presidents combined.Signing statements have been used by presidents, typically for such purposes as instructing agencies how to execute new laws.But many of Bush's signing statements serve notice that he believes parts of bills he is signing are unconstitutional or might violate national security. Still, the White House said signing statements are not intended to allow the administration to ignore the law.

"A great many of those signing statements may have little statements about questions about constitutionality," said White House spokesman Tony Snow. " It never says, 'We're not going to enact the law.'" Specter's announcement intensifies his challenge of the administration's use of executive power on a number of policy matters. Of particular interest to him are two signing statements challenging the provisions of the USA Patriot Act renewal, which he wrote, and legislation banning the use of torture on detainees.

Bush is not without congressional allies on the matter. Sen. John Cornyn (news, bio, voting record), R-Texas, a former judge, has said that signing statements are nothing more than expressions of presidential opinion that carry no legal weight because federal courts are unlikely to consider them when deciding cases that challenge the same laws.

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