Britain to Restrict Workers From Bulgaria and Romania

By SARAH LYALL

LONDON, Oct. 24 — Britain plans to severely restrict the ability of people from Bulgaria and Romania to work here after those two countries join the European Union in January, the government said Tuesday.

The new policy represents an enormous change for Britain, which has been one of Europe’s main champions of expansion and openness in the European job market. In 2004, Britain, Ireland and Sweden were the only three European countries that granted unfettered access to their job markets to immigrants from the eight Eastern European countries, as well as Cyprus and Malta, that joined the European Union that year.

Ireland made a similar announcement on Tuesday, saying that it, too, would offer only limited jobs to Bulgarians and Romanians.

After the new members were admitted to the European Union in 2004, Britain was shocked by the number of people from Eastern European countries, particularly Poland, who poured across the borders, looking for jobs.

The government had predicted that no more than 13,000 arrivals would come each year, but in the past two years, about 500,000 Eastern Europeans have registered as workers here, the government said. Migration experts say that tens of thousands more found off-the-books jobs, or remained unemployed.

Employers and the government say the new arrivals have benefited the British economy, mostly by filling the need for lower-skilled workers. But immigrants are viewed with suspicion by many Britons, and the populist newspapers dwell on stories about how the new arrivals have strained resources at hospitals and schools.

“This is essentially a political decision, because there’s massive public hostility to immigration in the U.K.,” said Nick Pearce, director of the Institute for Public Policy Research, a left-leaning think tank. “If it came down to diplomatic considerations, the result would have been different.”

Mr. Pearce said during an interview that it was unlikely that immigrants from Romania and Bulgaria, which have far lower unemployment rates than, for example, Poland, would rush to Britain once their countries joined the European Union.

Under the new system, Romanian and Bulgarian immigrants will be allowed to work in Britain only if they meet strict criteria, the home secretary, John Reid, told Parliament. Some unskilled laborers will be able to take seasonal agricultural jobs or work in the food-processing industry under a plan that allows 19,750 such jobs to be filled by foreigners a year. Starting next year, Mr. Reid said, that program will be open only to Romanians and Bulgarians.

In addition, highly skilled workers from the two countries will be allowed to take jobs here, as will workers who obtain permits after their employers demonstrate that their jobs cannot be filled by British citizens. Under European regulations, self-employed immigrants will be allowed to work in Britain, provided they prove that they are supporting themselves and not secretly working for someone else.

Students from Bulgaria and Romania will be able to work part time if they are enrolled in college.

“We look forward to welcoming Romanian and Bulgarian workers here, provided that they comply with our rules and obey the law,” Mr. Reid said.

The British government has long argued for openness in the European job market, and has said that the economy can benefit only if workers are willing to take lower-paying jobs, as many of the Eastern European immigrants have.

Mr. Reid said studies of the new workers showed that they had had a positive impact on the economy. But, he said, the influx of people has put a strain on housing and schools in some communities where many immigrants, particularly Poles, had settled.

Sir Andrew Green, chairman of Migrationwatch, a group that argues that Britain is already overcrowded and should limit new arrivals, said in an interview that the government’s announcement was “a step in the right direction.” He added, “This is the first time that the government has made even a half-serious effort to reduce immigration.”

But Sir Andrew said the policy was rife with loopholes and criticized the government for not doing enough to enforce regulations. Under the new plan, employees working illegally and employers who hire illegal workers will be subject to on-the-spot fines.

At the same time, Keith Vaz, a former minister for Europe under Prime Minister Tony Blair’s Labor government, criticized the new policy as a step backward for European openness.

“These restrictions will be unworkable, undesirable and unnecessary, and of lasting damage to the reputation of the U.K. as a champion of the enlargement,” he told the Press Association, the domestic news agency.

The government of Niger has ordered around 150,000 Arabs who live in the east of the country to leave.

Most of the Arabs, known as Mahamid, are nomads who have fled conflict in Chad. A BBC correspondent says many have lived in Niger for decades.

The governor of Diffa State, where most of the Mahamid live, told them it was "high time" to pack and return to Chad.

No reason for the order has been given, but government officials are meeting local elders in the capital, Niamey.

The BBC Idy Baraou in Niamey says many Mahamid are citizens of Niger and hold senior positions in the army, government and business.

Others look after camels and donkeys around Lake Chad.

But other communities in Niger often accuse the Mahamid of theft and rape.

Our correspondent says police have rounded up several hundred Mahamid at Kabalewa village, 75 km east of Diffa.

$6300 a Second

by Meteor Blades

Tue Oct 24, 2006 at 03:02:53 AM PDT

I'm only a sometimes fan of Nicholas Kristof, and today's number, like many of his columns, is only a partial winner. It's behind the NYT firewall:

Iraq and Your Wallet

For every additional second we stay in Iraq, we taxpayers will end up paying an additional $6,300.

So aside from the rising body counts and all the other good reasons to adopt a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq, here's another: We are spending vast sums there that would be better spent rescuing the American health care system, developing alternative forms of energy and making a serious effort to reduce global poverty.

In the run-up to the Iraq war, Donald Rumsfeld estimated that the overall cost would be under $50 billion. Paul Wolfowitz argued that Iraq could use its oil to "finance its own reconstruction."

But now several careful studies have attempted to tote up various costs, and they suggest that the tab will be more than $1 trillion -- perhaps more than $2 trillion. The higher sum would amount to $6,600 per American man, woman and child.

{snip}

Just to put that $2 trillion in perspective, it is four times the additional cost needed to provide health insurance for all uninsured Americans for the next decade. It is 1,600 times Mr. Bush's financing for his vaunted hydrogen energy project. ....

Kristof notes that there are other hidden costs not included in that per capita figure:

* $600,000 to $5 million over the lifetime of the 3,000 U.S. Iraq War veterans (so far) with severe head injuries
* Disability payments for the next 50 years for an unknown - but large - number of Iraq War veterans
* Re-enlistment bonuses, some as high as $150,000
* Replacing armor, aircraft, et cetera
* Interest costs of the war being paid for by borrowing from China, et al., estimated at $264 billion to $308 billion
* Higher oil costs, possibly a half-trillion-dollar drag on the economy

The bottom line is that not only have we squandered 2,800 American lives and considerable American prestige in Iraq, but we're also paying $18,000 per household to do so. ...

We're spending $380,000 for every extra minute we stay in Iraq, and we can find better ways to spend that money.

Unsurprisingly, not every agrees with all the underlying assumptions that go into those numbers. You can read The Economic Costs of the Iraq War, the oft-cited study put together 10 months ago by Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes, which Kristof references. And you can adjust the assumptions on your own (up to a point) at this site.

Looking at the cost of this concocted war solely in terms dollars and American blood, as Kristof does, misses one obvious factor: the cost to Iraqis, hundreds of thousands of whom have been displaced, maimed and killed, and had their economy crunched for probably two decades into the future.

As George McGovern and William R. Polk cogently argue in the October issue of Harper's (subscription only), a withdrawal of troops (to be completed at the end of 2007) would not only save American lives but tens of billions of dollars. A hefty chunk of that savings, they say, should be spent on compensating those Iraqis who were tortured or lost family in the war, rebuilding the public health system, de-mining and cleaning up depleted uranium from artillery shells, and rebuilding pieces of the infrastructure using Iraqi contractors. They suggest this might be done for $17.25 billion. That sounds a tad light. I'd call it double that. But what they propose is the right thing to do. Which is something the Bush Regime hasn't managed in Iraq since it dropped the first bomb 43 months ago.

Monday, October 23, 2006

Guerrillas Kill 5 GIs
Bombings, Attacks, Kill 44 Iraqis
UN: Nearly 1 Million Displaced since US Invasion

5 US GIs were killed or announced killed on Sunday in Iraq and guerrillas killed some 44 persons in political violence.

83 US military personnel have been killed by guerrillas in Iraq since October 1.

AP's intrepid Hamza Hendawi reports on how the violence has ruined the Festival of the Breaking of the Fast (Id al-Fitr) for most Iraqi Muslims.

*Guerrillas near Baquba northeast of Baghdad ambushed a bus full of police recruits, killing 15 and wounding 25.

*Several bombers targeted Shurjah Market in Baghdad, killing 9 persons and injuring dozens. It was crowded with shoppers picking up gifts and food for the holy day.

Al-Sharq al-Awsat reports [Ar.] in southeast Baghdad, clashes broke out between a Shiite clan and a Sunni Arab clan that left 9 persons dead.

AP adds:

' Sunday's killings raised to at least 950 the number of Iraqis who have died in war-related violence this month, an average of more than 40 a day. The toll is on course to make October the deadliest month for Iraqis since April 2005, when the AP began tracking the deaths. Until this month, the daily average had been about 27. The AP count includes civilians, government officials and police and security forces, and is considered a minimum based on AP reporting. The actual number is likely higher, as many killings go unreported. '

Al-Sharq al-Awsat reports that [Ar.] Salih al-Maliki, and adviser to the Ministry of Defense, has laid the blame for the failure of the current Battle of Baghdad on fifth columnists inside the Iraqi security forces.

He seems to be arguing that guerrillas and militiamen are getting tipped off when the sweep will come to their neighborhood. Also, he said, the security forces are still very badly equipped.

CBS news is reporting that corrupt arms deals cost Iraq $800 million. Nearly a billion dollars worth of embezzlement is a lot of fraud. Hat tip to The Democratic Underground.

The United Nations High Commission on Refugees estimates that 3 million Iraqis have been displaced from their homes during the past 36 years.

About 1 million have been displaced since the US invasion a little over 3 years ago.

*1.5 million have been internally displaced to other parts of Iraq. About half of these have been forced from their homes since the US invasion in 2003.

*1.6 million have been displaced abroad, mainly to Jordan and Syria. Of these:

*About 800,000 are in Syria
*About 700,000 are in Jordan (over 10% of the population!)
*100,000 are elsewhere in the region.

Some of those forced abroad have been there for years.

But the proportion of recent arrivals is rising quickly. Another 40,000 Iraqis arrive in Syria every month! That is half a million a year.

Syria only has 19 million people, so 800,000 is nearly 5 percent! Jordan, with 700,000, is over 10 percent Iraqi now. Iraqis are to Jordan as the Latino wave of immigration has been to the US. One problem: The US is an advanced economy and is growing. Jordan and Syria are both economically messes and there is no way they can absorb such a big influx economically without help. But the budget of the UNHCR for Iraqi refugees has actually been falling rapidly in the past 2 years.

AP reports on the Iraqis in Syria.

John Amato at "Crooks and Liars" points out that Bush actually peddled to George Stephanopolous the line that "we've never been 'stay the course'"!

posted by Juan

Spend 8-min to watch this video on Iraq by a photographer from the UK. Pretty depressing, to me I can not see an end in site without withdrawl of the troops.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/video/page/0,,1927660,00.html

Eastern Europe in Political Disarray

Email this Story

Oct 22, 12:58 PM (ET)

By VANESSA GERA

WARSAW, Poland (AP) - Anti-government rallies rock the Hungarian capital. Political intrigue in Poland holds up new roads and housing. Populists take power in Slovakia, vowing to undo economic reforms. And the Czech Republic goes without a functioning government for months.

Political life has fallen into disarray in Eastern Europe, and many are asking what has gone wrong in the 2 1/2 years since these former communist countries joined the European Union, expecting to reap the fruits of democracy and open markets.

Many experts say people are simply exhausted after years of economic sacrifices made to join the EU and NATO. They now lack the clear goals that drove them toward the West after the fall of communism in 1989.

And their discontent is mounting as the instant riches many believed would come from EU membership have failed to materialize.

"The common phenomenon in all these countries is transition fatigue," said Gergely Hudecz, a political analyst with the DZ Bank in Budapest. "The electorate has had enough of reforms."

Gone is the strong external pressure that pushed governments in Warsaw, Budapest, Prague and Bratislava to shutter unproductive factories and sell off state companies, in the face of opposition from newly unemployed workers hurt by rising costs.

All four countries have replaced the leaders who took them into the bloc, and some have opted for parties pledging to restore the welfare benefits that were slashed to qualify for membership.

The greatest disruption has been in Hungary, where Socialist Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany outraged the country by saying in a recording leaked last month that the government had "lied morning, evening and night" about the economy. That sparked weeks of daily anti-government protests, including two nights of riots.

To the north in Poland, twin brothers with prickly nationalist views - President Lech Kaczynski and Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski - lead a country bogged down in frequent Cabinet reshuffles and convoluted political maneuverings.

The bickering has slowed down construction to ease a housing shortage, and modernization of the dilapidated road system.

In the latest twist, the prime minister brought back into his Cabinet Andrzej Lepper, a fiery populist known for organizing anti-EU protests, less than a month after booting him out for demanding more spending.

In Prague, politics have been stalemated since a June election delivered a lower house of parliament divided evenly between left and right.

And in neighboring Slovakia, Prime Minister Robert Fico took power this summer on pledges to undo many of the economic reforms that have made his nation the darling of foreign investors.

More at: http://rawstory.com/showoutarticle.php?src=http%3A%2F%2Fapnews.myway.com%2Farticle%2F20061022%2FD8KTQ6K00.html

Iraq Is Coming Apart at the Seams

By Joshua Holland, AlterNet. Posted October 21, 2006.

As Iraq falls apart, rumors are flying that there will be a Bush-backed coup, an open three-sided civil war and a host of other nightmarish outcomes.

Iraq is splintering along a dozen fault lines, and the prospects for a political solution are slim. Experts in conflict negotiation -- veterans of civil strife in places like Northern Ireland and Cambodia -- talk about the need for a clash to "ripen," to come to a point when combatants are exhausted with the violence and see that whatever they might gain from continued fighting is outweighed by the costs. Before they get to that place, a political settlement is all but impossible.

Iraq's armed factions, sadly, aren't close to that point. The stakes are too high -- Shiites are fighting for the majority rule that has long eluded them, Sunnis are fighting to hang on to some political influence and retain a piece of the country's oil wealth and the Kurds are fighting for some degree of independence. Iraqis are fighting against occupation by foreign troops, and they're fighting to keep their country together. Neither government troops nor coalition forces have been able to protect civilians; they're being cut down by death squads and plagued by rampant criminality. Iraqis are battling for their homes and for their lives.

This week saw the first signs of open civil war, as Shiite and Sunni militias battled it out in Balad, a city north of Baghdad, as well as a sharp spike in violence in the Iraqi capital. In the south, Shiites battled Shiites in Amarah, while Sunni militias held military parades in Haqlaniyah and Haditha. There are at least 23 independent militias operating in Baghdad alone.

It's hard to imagine what policy makers here or in Iraq can do to change the risk-benefit calculations to a degree that would lead dozens of armed factions to lay down their weapons and trust their futures to a political process. In Washington, those tasked with trying to come up with the right policy are hobbled by a stunning degree of ignorance about the region -- essentially viewing the Middle East as roiled in a conflict between "good" and "bad" Arabs. The New York Times' Jeff Stein found that most policy makers overseeing the U.S. effort don't even know which countries in the region -- or which armed groups in Iraq -- have Shiite or Sunni majorities.

Today the government elected last December is hanging by a thread. Iraqi lawmakers reached by phone earlier this week reported that Baghdad is awash in rumors of an impending coup. There's widespread anticipation that a "government of national salvation" -- a junta -- will seize power and dissolve Iraq's Parliament at any time. Those rumors are being echoed in Washington.

More at: http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/43278/

Google's New PAC Skews Republican

San Jose Mercury News | Posted Saturday October 21, 2006 at 08:40 PM

Looks like Google's been watching Fox News — its new Google NetPAC, launched last month, made contributions to three Republicans congressional candidates, according to the San Jose Mercury News. The Merc's Frank Davies reports $1,000 contributions to each of Reps. Heather Wilson of New Mexico, Deborah Pryce of Ohio, and James Sensenbrenner, head of the House Judiciary Committee and sometime gavel-wielding control freak. At least two of the candidates, Wilson and Sensenbrenner, have porfolios that implicate the use and regulation of the Internet.

Three of Google's new lobbyists were drawn from Republican rankss: Jamie Brown, former legislative liaison in the Bush administration, and former GOP senators Connie Mack and Dan Coats (Davies does not mention what proportion of Google's lobbying staff that comprises). According to Davies, in the past Google executives have donated "overwhelmingly to Democrats and liberal groups" (he also notes that Google employees skew Democratic). Google lobbyist Alan Davidson says PAC donations are intended for the building of "long-term relationships with policy-makers" supported "across party lines." To that end, Google also donated $1,000 each to two Democrats candidates, Rep. Anna Eshoo* of Palo Alto (where Google HQ is located) and Sen. Debbie Stabenow of Michigan. More here.

Microbe discovery that may be more precious than gold

David Brown in Washington
October 21, 2006

THEY are the microbes from hell, or at least hell's postcode.

A team of scientists has found bacteria living almost three kilometres underground, dining on sulfur in a world of steaming water and radioactive rock - completely independent of the sun.

The organisms, which have been there for millions of years, will probably survive as long as the planet does, drawing energy from the stygian world around them.

Found in water spilling out of a fissure in a South African goldmine in 2003, they are among the most primitive life forms described, researchers reported in yesterday's issue of the journal Science.

What is unusual is that their underground home contains no nutrients traceable to photosynthesis, the sunlight-harnessing process that fuels all life on earth's surface. Such a community is an oddity on this planet - and is of interest to people looking for life on other ones.

"There is an organism that dominates that environment by feeding off an essentially inexhaustible source of energy, radiation," said Tullis Onstott, a geoscientist at Princeton University who led the team.

"The bottom line is: water plus rocks plus radiation is enough to sustain life for millennia."

The research was mainly done by Li-Hung Lin, of National Taiwan University.

Professor Li-Hung descended three times to the fissure in East Driefontein Gold Mine, south-west of Johannesburg, to get samples. It was 2.7 kilometres underground, and the temperature of the rock was 50 degrees.

MOre at http://www.smh.com.au/news/science/microbe-discovery-that-may-be-more-precious-than-gold/2006/10/20/1160851142263.html

Shawn Stuart (Montana)

Office sought: State House of Representatives

How does a Republican candidate for the Montana House of Representatives get his own party to disown him and back the Democrat, even before a Democrat has been nominated? Ask Shawn Stuart. The 24-year-old Iraq veteran from Butte neglected to mention his involvement in the neo-Nazi National Socialist Movement during his interview with local Republican leaders. When reports of Stuart's extremist activities surfaced in the March 25 issue of the Montana Standard, it was too late for his affiliation to be changed; he and the state Republican Party were stuck with each other. On April 10, the Montana GOP announced it would back the Democratic candidate in District 76, which contains around 3,000 registered voters.

Chuck Butler, a state Republican spokesman, told the Missoula News that had the party known about Stuart's extremist ties, it would not have welcomed him.

Stuart's activities were not that deep a secret. In the first weeks of 2006, two months before he announced his candidacy to applause at a Republican event, Stuart was openly listed as the contact for the newly established Montana chapter of the NSM, the nation's largest neo-Nazi organization. Stuart had by then also posted numerous articles on extremist websites and appeared as a guest on "The Hal Turner Show," a violently neo-Nazi shortwave program beamed out of New Jersey.

More Racists on the ballat at............ http://www.alternet.org/rights/43227/

Why has Bush bought 150 square miles in northern Paraguay? (Hellie)

Paraguay is a landlocked country in South America, with a population of 6 million. It's one of the least densely populated countries, and has a super-high Gini index. Back in the day, its economy was dominated by a small number of landlords, with big loads of the population squatting on the fringes of their huge estates. The Gini index (the standard measure of income inequality) is predictably high -- 56, by comparison the US is at 45, France at 32, Brazil at 59.

Sounds like a great place for disgraced dictators to hide out.

Apparently also the US has been planning to put up an air base near the Bolivian gas fields, near to Mariscal Estigarribia, close to the Brazilian and Bolivian borders.

Which of these facts best explains this intriguing news item?

An Argentine official regarded the intention of the George W. Bush family to settle on the Acuifero Guarani (Paraguay) as surprising, besides being a bad signal for the governments of the region.

Luis D Elia, undersecretary for the Social Habitat in the Argentine Federal Planning Ministry, issued a memo partially reproduced by digital INFOBAE.com, in which he spoke of the purchase by Bush of a 98,842-acre farm in northern Paraguay, between Brazil and Bolivia.

The news circulated Thursday in non-official sources in Asuncion, Paraguay.

D Elia considered this Bush step counterproductive for the regional power expressed by Presidents Nestor Kirchner, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Evo Morales, Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro.

He said that "it is a bad signal that the Bush family is doing business with natural resources linked to the future of MERCOSUR."

The official pointed out that this situation could cause a hypothetical conflict of all the armies in the region, and called attention to the Bush family habit of associating business and politics.

Posted by Benj Hellie on October 18, 2006 at 07:19 PM in Blog Posts by Hellie or Wilson | Permalink

As for me,

Well since my last personal post, I do not think to much has changed. The weather is gradually getting colder and you can feel winter peaking around the corner. I try and stay busy via hiking, fishing, biking and the large amount of reading that comes with Grad School. Last Friday I went to a party that was mostly parents (because it was homecoming and that is a big deal here) at first untill later in the night when the parents left. I had brought my backpack because I had tequilla and a extra jacket and my numerous accesseries for my bike. So the party went on and at about one a.m. or so we left to go downtown to get a night cap! I then realized that someone had stolen my backpack....the interesting thing however...was they removed all by biking stuff...I guess friendly theives. So it was not a big deal because it was a old bag. I wake up early the next morning and realize that my flash drive (memory disk) with two finsihed projects was in the bag. This led to my wonderful weekend of redoing my 14 page paper and GIS project all day Saturday.
On Tuesday playing in my soccer game, I thought I hurt my knee bad. I woke up yesterday, called the school doctor and a friend to give me a ride. Luckily, because I could not imagine a winter with no skiing, it looks like I just twisted or sprained my knee. No swealing but annoying enough I had to use a crutch yesterday. Hopefully it heals fast because the intermural tournament starts next week, if it has not healed I will just have to go and chear.
Besides those two exciting stories life is still the same. Hiking, Biking and Fishing!!!
The world is very crazy right now and hopefully we can make a difference and change this coming election. I will say, I am glad that my vote will be in Montana because it seems democrats in Texas will never have a chance at the national offices, for the most part. If only Kinky could really pull it off!!! Well thats all for now, enjoy the different political and new post to come!!

Peace, Love and Courage
TY

Check out today's and yesterday's post from Juan Cole's blog. Defenitly very good and informative about Iraq.

http://www.juancole.com/

Editorial
A Dangerous New Order
Once President Bush signed the new law on military tribunals, administration officials and Republican leaders in Congress wasted no time giving Americans a taste of the new order created by this unconstitutional act.

Within hours, Justice Department lawyers notified the federal courts that they no longer had the authority to hear pending lawsuits filed by attorneys on behalf of inmates of the penal camp at Guantánamo Bay. They cited passages in the bill that suspend the fundamental principle of habeas corpus, making Mr. Bush the first president since the Civil War to take that undemocratic step.

Not satisfied with having won the vote, Dennis Hastert, the speaker of the House, quickly issued a statement accusing Democrats who opposed the Military Commissions Act of 2006 of putting “their liberal agenda ahead of the security of America.” He said the Democrats “would gingerly pamper the terrorists who plan to destroy innocent Americans’ lives” and create “new rights for terrorists.”

This nonsense is part of the Republicans’ scare-America-first strategy for the elections. No Democrat advocated pampering terrorists — gingerly or otherwise — or giving them new rights. Democratic amendments to the bill sought to protect everyone’s right to a fair trial while providing a legal way to convict terrorists.

Americans will hear more of this ahead of the election. They also will hear Mr. Bush say that he finally has the power to bring to justice a handful of men behind the 9/11 attacks. The truth is that Mr. Bush could have done that long ago, but chose to detain them illegally at hidden C.I.A. camps to extract information. He sent them to Guantánamo only to stampede Congress into passing the new law.

The 60 or so men at Guantánamo who are now facing tribunals — out of about 450 inmates — also could have been tried years ago if Mr. Bush had not rebuffed efforts by Congress to create suitable courts. He imposed a system of kangaroo courts that was more about expanding his power than about combating terrorism.

While the Republicans pretend that this bill will make America safer, let’s be clear about its real dangers. It sets up a separate system of justice for any foreigner whom Mr. Bush chooses to designate as an “illegal enemy combatant.” It raises insurmountable obstacles for prisoners to challenge their detentions. It does not require the government to release prisoners who are not being charged, or a prisoner who is exonerated by the tribunals.

The law does not apply to American citizens, but it does apply to other legal United States residents. And it chips away at the foundations of the judicial system in ways that all Americans should find threatening. It further damages the nation’s reputation and, by repudiating key protections of the Geneva Conventions, it needlessly increases the danger to any American soldier captured in battle.

In the short run, voters should see through the fog created by the Republican campaign machine. It will be up to the courts to repair the harm this law has done to the Constitution.

Via the New York Times Editorial

Texan Friend of Bush
Rips Iraq War

by Paul Sperry

A former Department of Homeland Security official who also worked for George W. Bush in Texas says his old friend exaggerated the threat from Saddam Hussein and only made America less safe by attacking Iraq.

Before serving as Bush's first Homeland Security inspector general, Clark Kent Ervin worked for the former governor in Texas as assistant secretary of state and deputy attorney general. He also was an aide in Bush Sr.'s White House last decade.

Ervin says it was the "thrill of a lifetime" to return to Washington to work for "a man I counted as a friend." He was a Bush loyalist, to be sure.

But then his old pal invaded Iraq in the middle of a war on Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda, and Ervin feared the worst. He saw special forces, intelligence assets, and other resources diverted to an unnecessary war, buying time for bin Laden to regroup on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. At the same time, he worried the unjustified Iraq war would inspire more anti-American jihadists and enlarge the recruiting pool for bin Laden.

His fears were recently confirmed by the U.S. intelligence community in a partially declassified report on Iraq, which concludes the U.S. occupation there is the "cause célèbre" among jihadists around the world.

"The war in Iraq has actually increased the pool of violently anti-American Islamic fundamentalists from whom al-Qaeda and like-minded groups can recruit jihadists to strike our homeland," laments Ervin, author of Open Target: Where America Is Vulnerable to Attack.

He says bin Laden might be in custody today if Bush had stayed focused on al-Qaeda and not sent troops to a false front in Iraq, where al-Qaeda wannabes are now getting on-the-job training in how to kill Americans.

"Had we stayed on the hunt in Afghanistan and not diverted time, attention, and resources to an exaggerated threat in Iraq, Osama bin Laden might be dead or in custody today," Ervin says. "And Iraq might not have become a terrorist training camp and recruiting ground."

He asserts that al-Qaeda is, and always has been, the real threat to America; Saddam and his Ba'athist bullies had been declawed in the first Iraq war.

Finished at http://www.antiwar.com/sperry/?articleid=9886

Bush Accepts Iraq-Vietnam Comparison
George Stephanopoulos Interviews President Bush on Iraq, the Midterms and His Legacy

By ED O'KEEFE

WASHINGTON, Oct. 18, 2006 — President Bush said in a one-on-one interview with ABC News' George Stephanopoulos that a newspaper column comparing the current fighting in Iraq to the 1968 Tet offensive in Vietnam, which was widely seen as the turning point in that war, might be accurate.

Stephanopoulos asked whether the president agreed with the opinion of columnist Tom Friedman, who wrote in The New York Times today that the situation in Iraq may be equivalent to the Tet offensive in Vietnam almost 40 years ago.

"He could be right," the president said, before adding, "There's certainly a stepped-up level of violence, and we're heading into an election."

"George, my gut tells me that they have all along been trying to inflict enough damage that we'd leave," Bush said. "And the leaders of al Qaeda have made that very clear. Look, here's how I view it. First of all, al Qaeda is still very active in Iraq. They are dangerous. They are lethal. They are trying to not only kill American troops, but they're trying to foment sectarian violence. They believe that if they can create enough chaos, the American people will grow sick and tired of the Iraqi effort and will cause government to withdraw."

Bush said he could not imagine any circumstances under which all U.S. troops would be withdrawn from Iraq before the end of his presidency.

"You mean every single troop out? No," he told Stephanopoulos.

Bush also had some tough words for Democrats, saying that pulling troops from Iraq would be the equivalent of surrender.

"If we were to leave before the job is done, in my judgment, the al Qaeda would find a safe haven from which to attack. This is exactly what they said," Bush said. The president insisted he was not disparaging his opponents.

"It's not questioning their patriotism. I think it's questioning their judgment," he said....

More at http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=2583579

Wal-Mart's Rapidly Shrinking Benefits

By Cindy Zeldin, TomPaine.com. Posted October 17, 2006.

The mega-store is sinking to a new low by further limiting health insurance options for its lowest-paid employees.
In what seems to be an emerging annual ritual, an internal Wal-Mart memo detailing employee benefit cuts recently surfaced. According to news reports, Wal-Mart plans to limit its 2007 health insurance options for new hires to two choices, both high deductible plans, in an effort to squeeze benefit costs.

While it isn't news that Wal-Mart's benefits are skimpy -- and Wal-Mart certainly isn't the only employer looking to trim its health care costs -- the mega-retailer's abandonment of traditional health insurance in favor of high-deductible health insurance takes the benefits squeeze to a whole new level: it puts a dagger through the heart of the very concept of insurance.

Wal-Mart's health insurance options for 2007, dubbed the "value plan" and the "freedom plan," feature deductibles reaching as high as $6,000 for family coverage under the "freedom plan" -- meaning that a Wal-Mart employee selecting that plan would have to fork over $6,000 before insurance started covering their family's medical bills. That's a lot of money for a cashier earning Wal-Mart wages, and it begs some serious questions about how a deductible that high can be met without going into debt.

According to an analysis by Wake-Up Wal-Mart, which supplied the internal corporate memo to the media, a full-time Wal-Mart worker could spend as much as 60 percent of his or her income on family health expenses before reaching the out-of-pocket maximum. Of course, most workers will be relatively healthy most of the time and won't incur health expenses quite so high in any given year. As a result, while serious financial hardship will occur among some Wal-Mart workers who become ill, it won't be the norm. And for Wal-Mart, that fact is the key to their cost-cutting benefits strategy.

In a backdoor way, Wal-Mart's strategy is to do what many insurers have always done: get into the game of cherry-picking. Insurance companies have long been aware that one of the best ways to turn a profit is to enroll people with low health risk. Large nationwide employers, however, have never really been in the game of hiring workers based on health status. Typically, ability to perform the job in question is the deciding factor, making Wal-Mart's entry into the cherry-picking game revolutionary. And as the nation's largest private employer, Wal-Mart's employee benefit decisions will reverberate throughout the economy.

Full Article At: http://www.alternet.org/story/43094/

Forced evacuations point to lawless state

By Fatih Abdulsalam

Azzaman, October 15, 2006

The failure to halt the forced evacuation of people on sectarian grounds in Baghdad is yet another indication that the situation in the country is out of control.

It points to the fact that the centers of power in Baghdad are isolated from their surroundings and that their only trappings of power are their futile statements and political rhetoric.

Nearly four years after the U.S.-led occupation, Baghdad is a wild city. Government and U.S. troops have failed to develop a civilized system of government.

The troops, both Iraqi and American, heavily rely on military operations and raids, which they conduct day and night, in their policing of Baghdad.

Despite the overwhelming evidence of the failure of these techniques, both sides are apparently adamant to proceed with them.

Therefore, instead of turning Baghdad into a success story for the rest of the country to follow, the city has become one of the most violent places in the world.

We believe that without government implication, forced evacuations on this large-scale will be impossible to take place amid the presence of tens of thousands of Iraqi soldiers and U.S. Marines.

We cannot accept claims by the authorities that the troops are not strong enough to have Baghdad under control and put an end to the current carnage.

Many Iraqis now believe both the government and the occupiers have hidden agendas and conditions on the ground are the best proof, they say.

Those wanting to create a new, civil and democratic Iraq must have first set their eyes closely to have Baghdad secured by turning it into an example of social justice and security.

Instead, they have divided Baghdad into ‘terrorist’ quarters and ‘loyal’ districts and began implementing a murderous and bloody liquidation under official or semi-official policies.

The result has been massive displacement of people in Baghdad to the extent that certain quarters have been emptied of their original inhabitants.

These policies are doomed to failure and even the most of tyrannical regimes in the world have found them futile.

It is Baghdad, stupid. So long as Baghdad does not enjoy peace, the rest of Iraq will not have it. Baghdad has always been Iraq’s mirror of failure or success.

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

130 Killed in Wave of Sectarian Attacks

Bush called Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki on Monday to reassure him that it was not true that the US planned to dump him if he had not produced better results in two months.

Bush hasn't dumped Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who has not produced better results for 3 years, so al-Maliki need not have worried.

Shiite militia reprisal killings against Sunni Arabs in the largely Shiite town of Balad north of Baghdad continued on Monday. 91 Sunnis have been randomly killed by Shiite death squads since Saturday. Other Sunni families have been ethnically cleansed and forced to take refuge in Dhuluiyyah. The rampage was provoked by the murder of 17 Shiite laborers at nearby Dhuluiyah on Friday. What is amazing is that Iraqi police and military forces seem to just be standing aside and letting the bloodletting and attacks go on. Either they are collaborating or afraid, and either way they are not doing their jobs. As long as they don't, the bloodletting in Iraq, which is killing 200,000 a year, will go on.

In addition to the further killings in Balad, of some 20 or 30 persons, Reuters reports another 50 deaths from political violence throughout the country, including 20 (some reports say 30) dead from two major bombings in the capital. Also, police found 63 bodies in the capital on Monday. Some 40 of them were found in the Sunni Arab districts and were presumably Shiites, while about 20 were found in Shiite districts and were probably Sunni Arabs. Monday's war of the corpses in the capital appears to be a response to the murders of Sunnis by Shiite death squads at Balad.

A transcript of my appearance on the Lehrer News Hour Monday evening is here. I called for a phased withdrawal of US troops because I despair of getting Shiites and Kurds to compromise with Sunni Arabs in any other way. I realize that they still might not compromise, but at least there is a chance they would come to their senses if they couldn't have the Marines keep their enemies down for them.

Iraq at home:

Iraq vet Tammy Duckworth has a fighting chance of occupying Henry Hyde's seat in Congress.

Michigan media ignored Jim Marcinkowski, the Democratic candidate for congress facing Republican Congressman Mike Rogers. Marcinkowski, a career intelligence officer with a background in law, is passionate about what the Bush administration has done to the US Constitution. But he could not get a hearing unless he bought one. But that is a chicken and an egg proposition; if he had a hearing, he could have perhaps raised more money. The lazy US media, most often owned by Republicans or lacking in public spirit, shouldn't be permitted just to ignore a whole congressional race to the benefit of a well-heeled incumbent.

posted by Juan .... www.juancole.com