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September 15: A showdown march from the White House to Congress in Washington DC

North/Central California "End the War Now" March
Saturday, October 27, 2007, 11am, San Francisco Civic Center Plaza

I encourage anyone who can devote some time to contact the ANSWER office and sign up for one of the committees to build Oct. 27—two of the most important, of course, are outreach and fundraising.

Funds are urgently needed for all the material—posters, flyers, stickers and buttons, etc.—to get the word out! Make your tax-deductible donation to:

Progress Unity Fund/Oct. 27

and mail to:

A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition
2489 Mission St. Rm. 24
San Francisco, CA 94110

Please sign up to pass out flyers and to volunteer your time and energy to making this one of the truest expressions of the sentiment of we, the people this October 27.

In solidarity,

Bonnie Weinstein

To get more information on meeting times or distribution dates call or drop into the ANSWER office at the above address.

Act Now to Stop War & End Racism
http://www.ANSWERcoalition.org http://www.actionsf.org
sf@internationalanswer.org
415-821-6545
(Call to check meeting and event schedules.)

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Waste Management Inc. Campaign: Support Workers Locked Out & Honoring Picket Lines

SOLIDARITY BREAKFAST -- 8:30AM, MONDAY, JULY 30

at ILWU Local 6
99 Hegenberger Rd, Oakland, CA

Bay Area Trade Unionists and Supporters,

The Teamsters Union Local 70, the Machinists Lodge 1546 and International Longshoremen Local 6 are all impacted by a lockout by Waste Management Incorporated.

Waste Management Incorporated locked out 500 Oakland area workers despite a public pledge by IBT Local 70 to not strike and to continue good faith negotiations after the contract expired on June 30, 2007. 80 Machinists have been locked out as well. Nearly 300 members of ILWU Local 6 were told they "had the right" to cross the picket line in the event of a strike or lockout. However, we all know that solidarity is our only choice to survive in these situations. Teamster members are entitled to unemployment benefits due to their locked out status. Machinists are hoping for these benefits as well. However, many of the lower paid workers -- the recycling, clerical and landfill workers in ILWU Local 6, respecting the picket line, will not qualify for unemployment and are not eligible for strike funds.

We are asking you to help in this critical fight. Nearly 1,000 workers overall are involved in this fight. Nearly 300 ILWU members are holding up their end without a safety net to catch their fall.

Please send in your pledges and contributions today to the Alameda Labor Council Hardship Fund. This fund is available to all union members impacted by the Waste Management lockout. However, we are especially mindful of the situation of our 300 ILWU brothers and sisters who are holding the line against a company that shows no regard for the lives of any of its workers.

Come join our Solidarity Breakfast on Monday, July 30 at 8:30 am, 99 Hegenberger Road, Oakland. BRING YOUR CHECK BOOK!!

$350 will replace one week?s take home pay for one worker
$1,000 will help pay rent or a mortgage for one month
$4,500 will pay our grocery bill this week
$7,500 will make you a hero

Please make your contributions to:

Alameda Labor Council Hardship Fund, 100 Hegenberger Rd., Suite 150, Oakland CA 94621

In unity,
Sharon Cornu, Executive Secretary -Treasurer Tim Paulson, Executive Director
Central Labor Council of Alameda County San Francisco Labor Council

Shelley Kessler, Executive Secretary-Treasurer Pam Aguilar, Executive Secretary -Treasurer
San Mateo Central Labor Council Contra Costa Central Labor Council

OPEIU 3 AFL-CIO 11

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YouTube clip of Che before the UN in 1964
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtATT8GXkWg&mode=related&search

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The Wealthiest Americans Ever
NYT Interactive chart
JULY 15, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/ref/business/20070715_GILDED_GRAPHIC.html

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New Orleans After the Flood -- A Photo Gallery
http://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/?article=795
This email was sent to you as a service, by Roland Sheppard.
Visit my website at: http://web.mac.com/rolandgarret

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ARTICLES IN FULL:

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1) The Politics of Fear
NYT Editorial
July 18, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/18/opinion/18wed1.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

2) Mass Graves Dug to Deal With Death Toll
Inter Press Service
By Ahmed Ali*
BAQUBA, Jul 17 (IPS)
http://DahrJamailIraq.com

3) When Wars Backfire
By Mumia Abu-Jamal
July 12, 2007
prisonradio.org
Howard Keylor
howardkeylor@comcast.net

4) Sheriff's department buys armored vehicle
By Ryan Huff
Contra Costa Times
Article Launched:07/18/2007 03:01:47 AM PDT
http://www.contracostatimes.com/newsnewsletter/ci_6402748

5) Retirees’ Health Costs Loom Over U.A.W. Talks
By MICHELINE MAYNARD
July 19, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/19/business/19uaw.html?_r=1&hp=&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1184854333-CVNZaQRaQ9/EOPSe2v3stQ

6) All the President’s Enablers
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Op-Ed Columnist
July 20, 2007
http://select.nytimes.com/2007/07/20/opinion/20krugman.html?hp

7) Israel Frees More Than 250 Prisoners
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 9:40 a.m. ET
July 20, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Israel-Palestinians.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

8) U.S. Generals Request Delay in Judging Iraq
By THOM SHANKER and DAVID S. CLOUD
July 20, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/20/washington/20policy.html?hp

9) Judge Stops Newark Redevelopment Project
By ANDREW JACOBS
July 20, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/20/nyregion/20domain.html?ref=nyregion

10) Chrysler and Union Open Contract Talks
By NICK BUNKLEY
July 20, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/20/business/20cnd-auto.html?ref=business

11)Executive Order: Blocking Property of Certain Persons Who Threaten Stabilization Efforts in Iraq
White House News
Fact sheet Message to the Congress of the United States Regarding International Emergency Economic Powers Act
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
July 17, 2007
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/07/20070717-3.html

12) Message to the Congress of the United States Regarding International Emergency Economic Powers Act
White House News
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
July 17, 2007
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/07/20070717-4.html

13) Bush Outlaws All War Protest In United States
By: Sorcha Faal, and as reported to her Western Subscribers
July 19, 2007
CurEvents.com - A Global Current Events Discussion Forum
In a message dated 7/20/07 12:44:35 AM, grok@resist.ca writes:
On the topic of Bush outlawing war protest in the US & seizure of property
(Recording Thom Hartman Show Air American Radio)
http://www.apfn.net/pogo17/A007I070719-655G.MP3

14) CROSS BURNING 100 MILES FROM CHICAGO, IN BENTON HARBOR
Jul 8, 2007 3:35 PM
From: Rolandgarret@aol.com
The Racists have been enbolden by the recent Supreme Court decision. The writer of this email seems to be oblivious to that fact.
In a message dated 7/8/07 10:21:39 AM, lvpsf@igc.org writes:
Wed, 4 Jul 2007 22:40:32 -0400
From: "Gordon Matthews"
gormatthews@gmail.com

15) Court Tells U.S. to Reveal Data on Detainees at Guantánamo
By WILLIAM GLABERSON
July 21, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/21/us/21gitmo.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

16) Rules Lay Out C.I.A.’s Tactics in Questioning
By MARK MAZZETTI
July 21, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/21/washington/21intel.html?hp=&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1185035513-y05xVW8B73rxMo6kSPS5rw

17) The Iraq War Debate: The Great Denier
NYT Editorial
July 21, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/21/opinion/21sat1.html?hp

18) Sober North Dakotans Hope to Legalize Hemp
By MONICA DAVEY
July 21, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/21/us/21hemp.html?hp

19) No Time in Prison for Marine Convicted of Kidnapping Iraqi
By PAUL von ZIELBAUER
July 21, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/21/world/middleeast/21marine.html

20) 3 Executives Spared Prison in OxyContin Case
By BARRY MEIER
July 21, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/21/business/21pharma.html?ref=business

21) Police Attack Oaxaca’s Alternative Guelaguetza
One Person Confirmed Dead, 62 Detained, Disappearances
http://elenemigocomun.net/1008

22) The Fall of Faith-Based Foreign Policy
By Mumia Abu-Jamal
Howard Keylor
howardkeylor@comcast.net

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1) The Politics of Fear
NYT Editorial
July 18, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/18/opinion/18wed1.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

It had to happen. President Bush’s bungling of the war in Iraq has been the talk of the summer. On Capitol Hill, some of the more reliable Republicans are writing proposals to force Mr. Bush to change course. A showdown vote is looming in the Senate.

Enter, stage right, the fear of terrorism.

Yesterday, the director of national intelligence released a report with the politically helpful title of “The Terrorist Threat to the U.S. Homeland,” and Fran Townsend, the president’s homeland security adviser, held a news conference to trumpet its findings. The message, as always: Be very afraid. And don’t question the president.

Certainly, the report’s conclusions are disturbing. Nearly six years after 9/11, terrorism remains a huge threat. Al Qaeda has replaced leaders killed or captured by the United States, regrouped in its former home base in the tribal lands on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border and is trying to use affiliated terrorists in Iraq “to raise resources and to recruit and indoctrinate operatives.”

If the report is given an honest reading, it is a powerful rebuke to Mr. Bush’s approach to the war on terror. It vindicates those who say that the Iraq war is a distraction from the real fight against terrorism — a fight that is not going at all well.

The administration, however, seized on the report and, through bald political timing, tried to use it to dampen calls for an end to Mr. Bush’s catastrophic war. That required some particularly twisted logic. Ms. Townsend, for example, dismissed a reporter who asked whether the fact that Al Qaeda has regrouped in the area from which it planned the 9/11 attacks suggested that it was a mistake to divert American forces to Iraq. She said Al Qaeda headed by Osama bin Laden and the terrorists in Iraq that use the name Al Qaeda are the same.

In fact, we’ve seen no evidence of that, and none was in the intelligence report, at least the page and a half of conclusions released to the public.

Was there a link before the war between Osama bin Laden and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the terrorist leader in Iraq? Ms. Townsend refused to answer. “This is ground long covered,” she snapped.

Indeed it is. The answer is, “No.” In fact, Mr. Bush’s bungled invasion spawned a new terrorist army and gave it a home base. Now, the report said, those terrorists are the only ones affiliated with Al Qaeda that are “known to have expressed a desire to attack the” United States.

The White House denied that the report was timed to the Senate debate. But the administration controls the timing of such releases and the truth is that fear of terrorism is the only shard remaining of Mr. Bush’s justification for invading Iraq.

This administration has never hesitated to play on fear for political gain, starting with the first homeland security secretary, Tom Ridge, and his Popsicle-coded threat charts. It is a breathtakingly cynical ploy, but in the past it has worked to cow Democrats into silence, if not always submission, and herd Republicans back onto the party line.

That must not happen this time. By now, Congress surely can see through the president’s fear-mongering and show Mr. Bush the exit from Iraq that he refuses to find for himself.

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2) Mass Graves Dug to Deal With Death Toll
Inter Press Service
By Ahmed Ali*
BAQUBA, Jul 17 (IPS)
http://DahrJamailIraq.com

The largest morgue in Diyala province is overflowing daily. Officials told IPS they have had to dig mass graves to dispose of bodies.

More and more bodies of victims of the ongoing violence are being found every day in Baquba, capital city of the province, 50km northeast of Baghdad.

"The morgue receives an average of four or five bodies everyday," Nima Jima'a, a morgue official, told IPS. "Many more are dropped in rivers and farms -- or it is sometimes the case they are buried by their killers for other reasons. The number we record here is only a fraction of those killed."

Ambulances, now able to move again after weeks of restrictions, have been removing bodies of victims from the current fighting. But they have also found skulls and bones, evidence of other killings long ago.

Dealing with these remains is becoming difficult. Like the rest of the city, the morgue suffers from continuing lack of electricity. Over the last two weeks, two of its refrigerators have been shut down. The smell of decomposing bodies hits visitors 100 metres away.

Morgue officials told IPS that a local U.S. military commander recently ordered them to bury all bodies within three days.

"We got 30 bodies out of the refrigerator on Sunday, put a number on each, and put them in plastic bags provided by U.S. troops," morgue official Kareem al-Rubaee told IPS. "We asked families to have a look at the bodies. Then, they were buried collectively."

There is expected to be a need now to bury bodies collectively every 15-20 days in order keep the capacity of the refrigerator intact, al-Rubaee said.

Families are often unable to identify and collect the bodies, morgue officials say. It is still extremely dangerous to travel around the city. Also, most bodies are never brought to the morgue at all to be identified or counted.

Many victims of U.S. air strikes have been buried under the rubble of their homes for days, sometimes weeks, residents say. The military operation has been launched to target al-Qaeda, amid local reports that the operation began after the al-Qaeda suspects had fled town.

People in the town feel targeted by killings from all sides. Foreign terror groups, like those who claim to be following the model of al-Qaeda, have kidnapped many people who are never heard from again.

Groups believed to be al-Qaeda have been known to kill and then drop the body in selected places that they call "the execution zone." This is intended to show people the power of al-Qaeda.

Police vehicles and ambulances have been moving bodies mainly from such spots to the morgue.

Baquba, never anticipating such a death toll, has only a small morgue, and limited means to carry out necessary procedures.

"When a number of bodies are brought to the morgue, we take at least two photos from different angles," Mohammed Abid, another official at the morgue told IPS. "Generally, the bodies are brought without identity cards. This is a problem for the families for whom the photographs are not enough -- faces are often deformed due to torture or shooting."

The refrigerators at the morgue are packed beyond capacity, and workers narrate grisly accounts of attempts to access the bodies for identification.

"My brother's photo is in the computer, but we couldn't get the body because it was taken by another family," 52-year-old primary schoolteacher Naser Sattar told IPS. "They thought him their son because the body was deformed."

The schoolteacher added, "I went to that family and got my brother's body and then buried it."

(*Ahmed, our correspondent in Iraq's Diyala province, works in close collaboration with Dahr Jamail, our U.S.-based specialist writer on Iraq who travels extensively in the region)

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3) When Wars Backfire
By Mumia Abu-Jamal
July 12, 2007
prisonradio.org
Howard Keylor
howardkeylor@comcast.net

For most Americans, the Iraq War is a wrap.

Polls taken today overwhelmingly reveal the deeply held belief that the Iraq War was an error of epic proportions, and barely a third of those polled now claim to support the policies of the incumbent president, George W. Bush.

With the exception of a few true believers, most folks want to push that era blithely into the past, to be forgotten, if not forgiven.

That deeply held belief is now echoed by all segments of society, even among elites who were previously silent, or even supported the war.

The “stay the course” crowd has been whittled down nearly to the bone. Witness the presidential ambitions of Sen. John McCain. His joined-at-the-hip support of the Bush administration has cost him dearly, as his poll numbers surge downwards.

Recently, British newspaper and TV journalist, Jonathan Freedland, gave some sense of the breadth of opposition to the administration in a June 2007 essay in the New York Review of Books. Freedman wrote:

“One of the few foreign policy achievements of the Bush Administration has been the creation of a near consensus among those who study International affairs, a shared view that stretches, however improbably, from Noam Chomsky to Brent Scowcroft, from the antiwar protestors on the streets of San Francisco to the well-upholstered office of former secretary of state James Baker. This new consensus holds that the 2003 invasion of Iraq was a calamity, that the presidency of George W. Bush has reduced America's standing in the world and made the United States less, not more, secure, leaving its enemies emboldened and its friends alienated. Paid-up members of the nation's foreign policy establishment, those who have held some of the most senior offices in the land, speak in a language once confined to the T-shirts of placard-wielding demonstrators. They rail against deception and dishonesty, imperialism and corruption. The only dispute between them is over the size and depth of the hole into which Bush has led the country he pledged to serve.” (From: Freedland, J., Bush's Amazing Achievement, NYROB, June 14, 2007, p. 16)

His words had an almost eerie quality to them when the news recently reported that Al-Qaeda is stronger now, especially with the influx of recruits, than at any time since 9/11.

If, after 4 1/2 years of war, your enemy is stronger, then to claim to be "winning in Iraq" (as some Bushites do), is a kind of madness, if not profound self-delusion.
Wars either weaken combatants, or strengthen them.

As journalist Larry Everest has reported in his 2004 book, Oil, Power & Empire: Iraq and the U.S. Global Agenda (Monroe, Me.: Common Courage Press, 2004), the highest levels of government sought to use any lie to tie the Hussein regime with Al-Qaeda, including sending then CIA head, James Woolsey, to London with fake “evidence” to get the Brits on board. As Everest wrote:

“Woolsey then began raising various charges against Iraq: that Iraqi agents met with Mohammed Atta, the alleged ‘ringleader’ of the September 11 attacks: that Iraq provided fake passports for all 19 hijackers; that Al Qaeda members traveled to Baghdad in 1998 to celebrate Saddam Hussein's birthday; that Iraq trained Al Qaeda members; and that Iraq was linked to anthrax mailed to U.S. Senators in October 2001. There was no real proof for any of these charges...in fact it later turned out that the most likely source for the anthrax letters was someone associated with the U.S. military. Yet these charges were widely reported in the mainstream U.S. media nonetheless.” (p.12)

And now, with the U.S. Army recruiting down, Al Qaeda is flourishing, mostly in the country that the U.S. claims as “ally”, Pakistan.

Amazing.

If this is winning, what does failure look like?

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4) Sheriff's department buys armored vehicle
By Ryan Huff
Contra Costa Times
Article Launched:07/18/2007 03:01:47 AM PDT
http://www.contracostatimes.com/newsnewsletter/ci_6402748

The Contra Costa Sheriff's Department is thrilled to soon get an armored vehicle that can rescue hostages and withstand snipers' bullets, but some police experts see the quarter-million-dollar machine as just a fancy toy.

The Lenco BearCat -- purchased with a federal Homeland Security grant -- can detect poisonous gases, travels as fast as 85 mph and has gunports for 10 rifles. The intent of the BearCat purchase is to better prepare deputies for a terrorist attack response, but the vehicle probably will be used more for protecting hostages, driving through gunfire and raiding drug houses.

"This will provide a better level of protection for the officers who are putting their lives on the line," said sheriff's emergency services Lt. Eric Christensen. "It's basically a big, boxy patrol car. It's not a tank with tracks on it rolling down someone's neighborhood. It shouldn't be scary."

Others aren't so sure and say such vehicles can make police officers appear more like military soldiers.

"This isn't exactly enhancing community policing when you send a tank into a neighborhood and officers are wearing military fatigues," said former San Jose police Chief Joseph McNamara, a criminal justice expert at Stanford's Hoover Institution. "But at the same time, giving the police the necessary tools to respond to a terrorist threat is important."

Urban police departments such as those in Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Jose have had armored vehicles for decades. Now, smaller law enforcement agencies -- such as San Mateo County, Fresno and Modesto -- have recently acquired them.

When Contra Costa's BearCat comes off a Massachusetts assembly line in about a year, it will be shared by the county's law enforcement agencies, which don't have an armored vehicle.

If you stripped the steel plates off the BearCat, you would see a Ford F-550 truck chassis. In fact, the dashboard looks the same as a pickup, with an automatic transmission, cup holders and a CD player. But it also comes equipped with blast-resistant floors, joysticks to operate spotlights, a sensor that beeps when approaching toxic gases and a PA system that can be used by hostage negotiators.

Still, the manufacturers couldn't enhance the fuel economy of this 8-ton beast -- at best it gets 10 miles per gallon.

San Francisco's police use their armored car about five times a year for drug raids and responding to shootings, said Officer Richard Lee.

The San Jose Police Department replaced its old armored vehicle with a BearCat in October that the SWAT team uses about every other month, officials said.

"It's like an insurance policy -- it's there if you need it," said Officer Jaime Jimenez.

For example, officers recently used the BearCat to raid the apartments of two suspected narcotics dealers and make arrests without incident. Rolling up in one vehicle -- especially one that's bulletproof -- instead of a caravan of cars improves safety, said San Jose police Officer Julio Morales.

"It increases your speed and surprise," he said. "You don't want the bad guys to have any time to prepare and arm themselves."

Contra Costa sheriff's officials agreed. They would have liked to have had a BearCat in January, when four masked gunmen held hostages at a Pinole Safeway and shot an employee in the leg.

The sheriff's SWAT team approached the building hiding behind bulletproof shields and had to escort hostages away from the store using the protective gear.

With a BearCat, they could have driven up to the Safeway, loaded about 10 people in the back and gotten away much safer, said Christensen, the sheriff's lieutenant. "These are the types of situations where we need this vehicle. I'm not worried about it getting dusty."

Although the federal government will pay the vehicle's $243,000 tab, the Sheriff's Department will maintain it. Christensen estimated those costs at less than $2,000 a year.

Armored vehicles aren't freebies -- taxpayers still are funding them, and local governments need to spend money on diesel, maintenance and training, said McNamara.

"When the funny money comes in from the federal government, it's presented in a way that a sheriff would be anti-patriotic not to take it," he said. "If we were talking about getting this armored car versus after-school programs for kids, the armored car wouldn't compete well."

Civil liberties experts said they have not formulated an opinion on whether the BearCat is a necessary law enforcement tool. But Mark Schlosberg, police-practices policy director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, said it should not be used to intimidate high-crime neighborhoods.

"If you are using it for general patrol, that sends a message to the neighborhood that is the exact opposite of the community policing message," he said.

Christensen said that won't be the case.

"It's not designed to come crashing through people's windows," he said. "We'll use it solely for the protection of the officers."

Ryan Huff covers Contra Costa County government. Reach him at 925-977-8471 or rhuff@cctimes.com.

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5) Retirees’ Health Costs Loom Over U.A.W. Talks
By MICHELINE MAYNARD
July 19, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/19/business/19uaw.html?_r=1&hp=&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1184854333-CVNZaQRaQ9/EOPSe2v3stQ

DETROIT, July 18 — For the first time in its 72-year history, the United Automobile Workers union is entering national contract talks with more retirees than active workers in its ranks.

That shift has the greatest impact on medical costs. Detroit automakers cover the health care expenses of both current and former union members — more than 1.1 million of them combined — and their dependents. That adds up to an annual bill of about $12 billion.

So even as the struggling car companies try to restructure, announcing plans in the last two years to shed more than 80,000 workers, their health care bill continues to rise as those people age.

The car companies’ ability, or willingness, to continue paying those generous benefits, including negligible co-payments for drugs and doctor visits, will be a crucial sticking point when pivotal negotiations begin Friday between the U.A.W. and the auto companies.

It may also be a touchy issue for active U.A.W. members and retirees, who must grapple with whether one group should bear the brunt of any cuts more than the other.

The stakes are enormous for both sides in talks that General Motors calls “the most important in a generation.”

The union is trying to protect a signature feature of the middle-class lifestyle that its blue-collar members have enjoyed. The retirees, roughly 600,000 of them, risk seeing an erosion of benefits that they had assumed would be secure when their working days ended.

“This is what we were promised,” said Jim Ziomek, who retired in 2002 from a Ford Motor parts distribution center in Livonia, Mich., after working for the company for 34 years. “You’re going to have a pension, you’re going to have health care. Well, now all of a sudden things have changed and they want to take it away.” G.M., Ford Motor and the Chrysler Group say these so-called legacy costs have hampered their fight against surging foreign competitors. Health care and pension benefits cost them $1,000 for each vehicle they sell, they say, compared with a few hundred dollars for companies like Toyota, Honda and Nissan.

The carmakers have long sought to lower these costs, but the status quo has remained largely in place after previous contracts, the most recent being signed in 2003. At that time, the companies were relatively healthy; they also feared a strike if they challenged the union.

The U.A.W.’s president, Ron Gettelfinger, has insisted publicly that neither the change in demographics nor the auto companies’ decline alters the union’s philosophy of fighting to keep previous contract gains. In fact, he recently said, workers have compromised enough on health care. The union has declined to say what will be discussed in negotiations.

But the union’s stance has changed since the current labor agreement was signed.

Mr. Gettelfinger, for example, put up little resistance to plant closings at G.M., Ford and Chrysler; he cut deals for lower wages with bankrupt parts suppliers like Delphi and Dana; and most important, he agreed to arrangements at G.M. and Ford that eroded the fully paid health care coverage that was one of the union’s most cherished achievements.

David Cole, chairman of the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Mich., said the two sides have no choice but to find a health care solution.

“You probably have to do this now; there is no delaying,” Mr. Cole said. “If you put it off, the companies are going to be weaker, and the bargaining position may be less favorable” for the union.

In the last two years, G.M., Ford and Chrysler have collectively lost more than $30 billion, prompting them to announce plans to shut more than two dozen plants, and put a variety of operations up for sale, including Chrysler itself, which has been bought from DaimlerChrysler by a private equity group.

Talks begin Friday at Chrysler, and move to Ford and G.M. on Monday. The current contract expires Sept. 14.

In recent months, one unusual solution has come up in pre-negotiations between auto executives and the union, according to people with knowledge of the deliberations.

The automakers and the U.A.W. could create a health care trust, called a Voluntary Employee Beneficiary Association, that could take over the responsibility for worker and retiree benefits.

That would allow the three companies to get their combined long-term health care liability, about $100 billion, off their books, and would give the U.A.W. a more direct say in the benefits that its workers would receive.

But the solution carries an enormous price tag: the trust, known as a V.E.B.A., must be funded with cash upfront, with most of the liability accounted for.

The U.A.W. recently agreed to such an arrangement at Dana. It called for the company to pay upfront about 71 cents on the dollar for workers’ estimated health care expenses, or about $800 million.

In the U.A.W.’s case, the car companies would need to come up with far more money, probably in the range of $60 billion to $65 billion, experts say. The more money that is put in the trust, the less risk exists for the union.

But that presents a quandary for the automakers, who would have to fund it. The car companies have tens of billions of dollars in cash on hand, but need that money to run their operations, given that their debt ratings are in junk status, making it expensive for them to borrow money.

And Ford’s assets are already mortgaged to fund its turnaround plan, although it could use whatever it gets from selling its European luxury brands for its part of a trust.

Yet, the concept still gives both sides pause. The companies’ poor credit ratings mean they would pay high interest rates on the money they borrowed to start the trust. Given that, they might be better off leaving things as they are, and try to cut medical costs, some analysts say.

Moreover, the union, not the companies, would be in charge of administering the huge fund, and would have to face tough choices if health care costs climb precipitously.

The chances of creating such a trust stand at about 50-50 now, people with knowledge of the discussions said this week.

Without any progress on health care, G.M.’s bill could rise by 40 percent over the next decade and Ford’s by 16 percent, Jonathan Steinmetz, an analyst with Morgan Stanley, said in a research report.

If auto sales slide further, and the car companies cannot make progress on their turnaround plans, Mr. Steinmetz said fears would grow that one or more of the auto companies could face bankruptcy.

He does not believe the situation can be fully addressed during the upcoming talks, but predicts the two sides at least will get started on the issue.

Whether or not a health care trust is created, the companies are likely to push the union to give up some medical coverage.

“It’s a horrible circumstance,” said Kevin Boyle, professor of history at Ohio State University who has written extensively about the U.A.W. He likened the health care issue to the national debate over Social Security: “It’s a system set up so a larger number of workers could support a smaller number of retirees. Now what do you do? Do you knock that down? On the other hand, if you knock that down, do you end up supporting Mom and Dad?”

There are tens of thousands of new retirees, most with more than 30 years on the job, who accepted incentives of $35,000 apiece over the past two years to leave with full benefits. (Workers with less time on the job were offered buyout deals of up to $140,000, which included a pension but no health care.)

These retired workers are unable to vote on the next union contract, but they can cast ballots in elections for local union officials, who will be charged with the task of selling whatever deal the union comes up with to workers still on the job.

Guy Barger, president of U.A.W. Local 685 in Kokomo, Ind., said the union needs to look out for its active members but cannot make a deal that neglects retirees.

“The retirees paved the way for us, they got us to where we are today,” said Mr. Barger, whose union local represents 5,500 workers at three Chrysler transmission plants.

Despite concessions, the health care coverage remains comprehensive. Union members, for example, pay $10 for office visits to their doctors, a benefit that used to be free.

Prescriptions, once $2 apiece, are $5 for generic drugs and $10 for name brands. Emergency room visits are still free if a patient is admitted, but $50 if they are sent home.

“Our main concern is health care,” said Mr. Ziomek, the Ford retiree, who says his out-of-pocket medical costs have climbed to $1,500, from about $400, in one year. “If more of it’s taken away, there’s no way we can afford to go to the doctor.”

Jim Stoufer, president of U.A.W. Local 249 in Pleasant Valley, Mo., said retirees need not be concerned. “They’re going to come after us with guns blazing,” Mr. Stoufer said of the auto companies. “But the U.A.W.’s not going to fold up.”

Nollie Dixon, 84, of Detroit isn’t so sure. “I just feel like, now that I’m old, they don’t care, I ain’t nothing to them,” said Mr. Dixon, who retired from Chrysler in 1976 after 31 years. “Right now, I’m doing good, but how much longer is that going to last?”

Mary M. Chapman and Nick Bunkley contributed reporting.

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6) All the President’s Enablers
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Op-Ed Columnist
July 20, 2007
http://select.nytimes.com/2007/07/20/opinion/20krugman.html?hp

In a coordinated public relations offensive, the White House is using reliably friendly pundits — amazingly, they still exist — to put out the word that President Bush is as upbeat and confident as ever. It might even be true.

What I don’t understand is why we’re supposed to consider Mr. Bush’s continuing confidence a good thing.

Remember, Mr. Bush was confident six years ago when he promised to bring in Osama, dead or alive. He was confident four years ago, when he told the insurgents to bring it on. He was confident two years ago, when he told Brownie that he was doing a heckuva job.

Now Iraq is a bloody quagmire, Afghanistan is deteriorating and the Bush administration’s own National Intelligence Estimate admits, in effect, that thanks to Mr. Bush’s poor leadership America is losing the struggle with Al Qaeda. Yet Mr. Bush remains confident.

Sorry, but that’s not reassuring; it’s terrifying. It doesn’t demonstrate Mr. Bush’s strength of character; it shows that he has lost touch with reality.

Actually, it’s not clear that he ever was in touch with reality. I wrote about the Bush administration’s “infallibility complex,” its inability to admit mistakes or face up to real problems it didn’t want to deal with, in June 2002. Around the same time Ron Suskind, the investigative journalist, had a conversation with a senior Bush adviser who mocked the “reality-based community,” asserting that “when we act, we create our own reality.”

People who worried that the administration was living in a fantasy world used to be dismissed as victims of “Bush derangement syndrome,” liberals driven mad by Mr. Bush’s success. Now, however, it’s a syndrome that has spread even to former loyal Bushies.

Yet while Mr. Bush no longer has many true believers, he still has plenty of enablers — people who understand the folly of his actions, but refuse to do anything to stop him.

This week’s prime example is Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana, who made headlines a few weeks ago with a speech declaring that “our course in Iraq has lost contact with our vital national security interests.” Mr. Lugar is a smart, sensible man. He once acted courageously to head off another foreign policy disaster, persuading a reluctant Ronald Reagan to stop supporting Ferdinand Marcos, the corrupt leader of the Philippines, after a stolen election.

Yet that political courage was nowhere in evidence when Senate Democrats tried to get a vote on a measure that would have forced a course change in Iraq, and Republicans responded by threatening a filibuster. Mr. Lugar, along with several other Republicans who have expressed doubts about the war, voted against cutting off debate, thereby helping ensure that the folly he described so accurately in his Iraq speech will go on.

Thanks to that vote, nothing will happen until Gen. David Petraeus, the top commander in Iraq, delivers his report in September. But don’t expect too much even then. I hope he proves me wrong, but the general’s history suggests that he’s another smart, sensible enabler.

I don’t know why the op-ed article that General Petraeus published in The Washington Post on Sept. 26, 2004, hasn’t gotten more attention. After all, it puts to rest any notion that the general stands above politics: I don’t think it’s standard practice for serving military officers to publish opinion pieces that are strikingly helpful to an incumbent, six weeks before a national election.

In the article, General Petraeus told us that “Iraqi leaders are stepping forward, leading their country and their security forces courageously.” And those security forces were doing just fine: their leaders “are displaying courage and resilience” and “momentum has gathered in recent months.”

In other words, General Petraeus, without saying anything falsifiable, conveyed the totally misleading impression, highly convenient for his political masters, that victory was just around the corner. And the best guess has to be that he’ll do the same thing three years later.

You know, at this point I think we need to stop blaming Mr. Bush for the mess we’re in. He is what he always was, and everyone except a hard core of equally delusional loyalists knows it.

Yet Mr. Bush keeps doing damage because many people who understand how his folly is endangering the nation’s security still refuse, out of political caution and careerism, to do anything about it.

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7) Israel Frees More Than 250 Prisoners
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 9:40 a.m. ET
July 20, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Israel-Palestinians.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) -- Israel released more than 250 Palestinian prisoners Friday, aiming to bolster embattled President Mahmoud Abbas in his power struggle with the Islamic militants of Hamas, which took control of Gaza by force last month.

Several thousand chanting, clapping Palestinians greeted the prisoners as their buses rolled into Abbas' headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah. Prisoners -- almost all from Abbas' Fatah movement -- were hoisted onto the shoulders of dancing supporters, before they performed noon prayers in a large, open-sided tent.

''This is the beginning,'' said Abbas, wearing a black-and-white checkered scarf, a symbol of Palestinian nationalism. ''Efforts must continue. Our work must continue until every prisoner returns to the his home.''

Hamas belittled the release. ''This step has no real value because most of the prisoners are from one faction, and most were about to be released,'' said Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri.

Israeli and officials of Abbas' government said they hoped the release marked a new chapter in relations, following seven years of bloody fighting.

''All the suffering, all the pain is gone,'' said released prisoner Iyad Milhem, 30, as he rode on one of the buses. ''But we still hope for the release of all the other prisoners.''

Prominent among those freed was 61-year-old Abdel Rahim Malouh, second-in-command in a small PLO faction, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which assassinated an Israeli Cabinet minister in 2001.

Friday's release began shortly after daybreak when the shackled prisoners left the Ketziot prison camp in southern Israel and boarded buses with darkened windows that took them to the West Bank. At an Israeli military checkpoint in the West Bank, the prisoners got off the buses, some kissing the ground, and boarded Palestinian buses that took them to Ramallah.

Israel had agreed to release 256 prisoners, but one was held back for further security checks, said Eli Gadizon, of the Israel Prisons' Service. All the inmates were required to sign an undertaking not to engage in anti-Israel violence.

Amjad Namura, 24, of Hebron, who was freed after serving half of a four-year sentence, said he was happy to comply with any agreement signed off by Abbas.

''We are with the decisions of the president no matter what. Whatever Fatah tells me to do I will do it,'' he said.

Israel holds about 9,200 Palestinian prisoners, most of whom were arrested during the past seven years of Israeli-Palestinian fighting. Almost every Palestinian family has had a member in Israeli jails at some point, and the fate of the prisoners is one of the most emotionally charged issues of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

However, Israel refuses to free inmates serving time for wounding or killing Israelis. None of the prisoners being freed Friday was directly involved in attacks on Israelis, according to Israeli officials.

Earlier this week, families of victims of Palestinian attacks tried to stop the release with a Supreme Court appeal, but the court backed the government.

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said the prisoner release is part of a package of goodwill gestures to give new momentum to stalled peace efforts.

''We're hopeful that the combined steps by the Israeli government and the Palestinian government can bring about a new period of cooperation and dialogue, that we have turned the corner on the negative dynamic,'' Regev said.

However, Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said Israel needs to do more to improve the atmosphere. ''Your policy is a policy of small change. You do a little here, a little there,'' he told the Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot in an interview published Friday.

''Israel is a large, strong country. Israel can allow itself to be more bold,'' he said.

The releases came a day after a top PLO body, the Central Council, endorsed Abbas' call for early presidential and legislative elections.

Abbas hopes to sideline Hamas with new elections, but his high-stakes gamble is also bound to set off new confrontations with the Islamic militants and cement the West Bank-Gaza divide.

Hamas, which won parliament elections last year, immediately threatened to derail a new vote.

Abbas and Hamas have been wrangling over political legitimacy since the Gaza takeover. Elected separately in 2005 as Palestinian Authority president, Abbas has fired the Hamas-led government and installed a West Bank-based caretaker Cabinet of moderates -- measures denounced by Hamas as unconstitutional.

Associated Press Writer Ben Hubbard contributed to this report from the Beituniya checkpoint in the West Bank.

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8) U.S. Generals Request Delay in Judging Iraq
By THOM SHANKER and DAVID S. CLOUD
July 20, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/20/washington/20policy.html?hp

WASHINGTON, July 19 — The top commanders in Iraq and the American ambassador to Baghdad appealed for more time beyond their mid-September assessment to more fully judge if the new strategy was making gains.

Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, the No. 2 commander in Iraq, told Pentagon reporters that while he would provide the mid-September assessment of the new military strategy that Congress has required, it would take “at least until November” to judge with confidence whether the strategy was working.

But their appeals, in three videoconferences on Capitol Hill and at the Pentagon, were met by stern rebukes from lawmakers of both parties.

The sessions appeared aimed in part at conveying that the administration was not planning a major strategy shift in September that would begin reducing the American troop presence, even if benchmarks set by Congress to measure Iraq’s progress were not achieved.

Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker told lawmakers in a closed-door video session at the Pentagon that it was increasingly likely that Iraq’s government would not achieve all of the political benchmarks by September, according to a senior Defense Department official.

But in the briefings that included lawmakers, senior Republicans and Democrats told the generals and the ambassador that time was running out, both for Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki to reach accommodation with warring religious factions inside the country, and for what remained of Congressional support for the heightened troop levels that President Bush ordered in January.

The jockeying came a day after Senate Democrats halted debate on American strategy in Iraq after being thwarted yet again by Republicans who blocked a plan to impose a timetable for an American withdrawal. The move is expected to defer any Congressional action until at least Sept. 15, when Gen. David H. Petraeus, the senior American officer in Iraq, and Ambassador Crocker are to submit a major progress report.

In their comments on Thursday, the American generals and Mr. Crocker seemed to portray the coming report as no more than a snapshot, much as they did in seeking to minimize the significance of an early, mixed progress report submitted last week. At the same time, however, senior lawmakers of both parties signaled that they regarded September as a hard deadline for deciding the future of the American commitment to Iraq.

“There’s got to be some real evidence that action’s taking place there, and everything you can do to convey to Mr. Maliki and his executive committee, to the other players in the region, that the American people’s patience is running out,” Senator George V. Voinovich, Republican of Ohio, said to the video image of Ambassador Crocker.

“We’re not staying,” said Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., the Delaware Democrat who is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, during a Capitol Hill session with Mr. Crocker. “You don’t have much time.”

General Odierno said there had been “significant success” in rooting out insurgents, both within Baghdad and in towns surrounding the capital. But in an implicit argument for more time, he said it would not be possible to know by September whether these were “just a blip.”

Earlier in the day, his superior, General Petraeus, appeared with Ambassador Crocker by video hookup in a classified question-and-answer session with dozens of members of the House and Senate, who had come to the Pentagon.

Representative Mark Kirk, a Republican from Illinois, asked General Petraeus what fallout there would be in Iraq if he was ordered later this year to begin withdrawing one Army brigade a month, according to a Pentagon official. General Petraeus responded that Iraqis would become more fearful about their future, politicians would be less likely to proceed with reconciliation, and sectarian violence would increase, the official said.

The video sessions appeared to be an attempt by the administration, at a critical juncture in the Iraq debate, to put forward generals and diplomats who are viewed by members of Congress as having greater credibility even than some White House officials.

Senator Richard G. Lugar of Indiana, the ranking Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, quizzed Mr. Crocker about the ambassador’s role in any planning under way at the National Security Council, State Department or Pentagon for the revised strategy in Iraq once the troop increase had run its course.

The ambassador said his efforts were devoted solely to carrying out the current strategy. “I am not aware of these efforts and my whole focus is involved in the implementation of Plan A,” Mr. Crocker said.

And the ambassador warned that any decrease of American forces in Iraq not based on improved conditions would invite increased terrorist violence and risk countrywide chaos.

“If there is one word I would use to sum up the atmosphere in Iraq — on the streets, in the countryside, in the neighborhoods and at the national level — that word would be fear,” said Mr. Crocker, who has served twice previously in Iraq and is one of the State Department’s experts on Middle Eastern affairs.

The unusual testimony by Mr. Crocker to the Foreign Relations Committee was shown on four large flat-screen televisions pointed at senators and the gallery. But the session was plagued by repeated technical difficulties that disrupted both the image and the sound.

“Baghdad, can you hear the U.S. Senate?” Mr. Biden said into his microphone at one point when the communications with Mr. Crocker went silent.

An activist for the Code Pink antiwar movement shouted from the gallery, “Senate, can you hear the American people?”

Ambassador Crocker cautioned the lawmakers that the series of 18 benchmarks set by Congress to define his assessment due Sept. 15 might not be the best measures of success in Iraq. And he strongly hinted that those specific goals may not be reached by the September deadline, anyway.

“The longer I am here, the more I am persuaded that progress in Iraq cannot be analyzed solely in terms of these discrete, precisely defined benchmarks because, in many cases, these benchmarks do not serve as reliable measures of everything that is important — Iraqi attitudes toward each other and their willingness to work toward political reconciliation,” Mr. Crocker said.

Senator John W. Warner, a Virginia Republican, said the series of briefings he received at the Pentagon and privately in his office on Thursday did little to alleviate his concerns about the progress being made by the Iraqi government.

“The facts are pretty much in the public domain,” Mr. Warner said. “Our concerns are about their inability to come together and reconcile things.”

Jeff Zeleny contributed reporting.

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9) Judge Stops Newark Redevelopment Project
By ANDREW JACOBS
July 20, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/20/nyregion/20domain.html?ref=nyregion

A New Jersey judge effectively killed an ambitious downtown redevelopment project in Newark yesterday, ruling that the city’s decision to condemn 14 acres of property on behalf of a private developer was ill-conceived and wrong. The project, the Mulberry Street Redevelopment Project, a proposed collection of 2,000 market-rate apartments and stores in the shadow of the city’s new hockey arena, would have been the largest development initiative here in decades.

In her decision, Judge Marie P. Simonelli of Superior Court said the administration of Mayor Sharpe James misused the state’s rules on condemnation when it declared 62 parcels “an area in need of redevelopment.” She said the row houses, mechanics’ shops and parking lots, while somewhat tattered, were not “blighted” and suggested that the decision to condemn the property was politically motivated.

In her decision, Judge Simonelli mentioned the close links between the developers and the James administration, adding that large contributions had been made to the former mayor and the Municipal Council, whose approval was needed for the area’s condemnation.

The decision comes after a landmark State Supreme Court ruling last month that restricted the ability of towns and cities to use eminent domain as a way to seize property they deem could be put to better use. “It clearly shows that the teaching of the Supreme Court is having an effect,” said Ronald Chen, the New Jersey public advocate. “If they want to declare land blighted, municipalities are just going to have to work a little bit harder to make their case.”

In her decision, Judge Simonelli cited documents from 2002 in which the developers essentially dictated the terms and scope of the project, including tax incentives. She observed that there was evidence that the project was “a done deal, a fait accompli, before the required statutory redevelopment process began.”

John H. Buonocore, a lawyer for the residents and business owners facing eviction, said he was pleased with the judge’s decision, which contradicted the city’s contention that the neighborhood was beyond repair. “The court, to the contrary, found that the Mulberry Street area is structurally sound, fully occupied, tax generating and well-maintained,” he said. “We’re delighted that the court saw through this prearranged land grab on behalf of politically favored developers.”

Bruce J. Wishnia, one of the principals behind the $550 million project, criticized the decision, saying, “If it is not reversed, it will effectively shut the door on urban redevelopment in New Jersey.” He declined to answer questions about allegations that the company’s connections and contributions to City Hall were factors in the company’s selection as the area’s sole developer.

Although they blame Mr. James for condemning their neighborhood in the first place, residents and merchants said they were disappointed that Mayor Cory A. Booker upheld the city’s use of eminent domain, despite having promised during his campaign that he would not. Mr. Booker was on vacation yesterday and city officials declined to comment, saying they were studying the decision and had not yet decided whether to appeal the ruling.

George Mytrowitz, whose auto body shop would have been torn down for the project, said he was relieved by the ruling. “Now I can get on with my life and not spend every waking moment worrying where I’m going to be tomorrow,” said Mr. Mytrowitz, whose great-grandfather started the business in 1913 as a blacksmith shop. “I have the best location in Newark, and I’m glad I’m going to stay here.”

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10) Chrysler and Union Open Contract Talks
By NICK BUNKLEY
July 20, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/20/business/20cnd-auto.html?ref=business

AUBURN HILLS, Mich., July 20 — The United Automobile Workers union today formally began what is expected to be an intense season of contract negotiations, with a handshake between the union’s president and Chrysler’s chief executive.

Despite the gravity that these talks carry, the two spent a moment trading jokes before the Chrysler chief, Thomas W. LaSorda, said simply, “We want a settlement,” according to photographers that Chrysler allowed to witness the ceremony. Reporters were barred from attending.

The union leader, Ron Gettelfinger, will take part in similar rituals Monday with the leaders of General Motors and Ford. The union’s current contract with Detroit’s automakers, signed in 2003, expires Sept. 14.

When negotiators actually sit down to discuss business, health care is certain to take up much of their attention. Medical expenses cost the automakers $12 billion annually — about $1,500 for every vehicle sold.

Much of that money goes toward the carmakers’ retirees, who outnumber active workers for the first time ever, after widespread buyout programs dramatically thinned the company’s payrolls in the last year.

The car companies’ ability, or willingness, to continue paying generous benefits, including negligible co-payments for drugs and doctor visits, will be a crucial sticking point.

But the union made clear that it is not willing to give up much ground in a booklet distributed to reporters this morning. “Can the problem of rising health care costs be solved at the bargaining table?” it asked. “No. America’s health care crisis is a national problem that requires a national solution. It cannot be resolved with any one industry or employer through labor negotiations.”

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11)Executive Order: Blocking Property of Certain Persons Who Threaten Stabilization Efforts in Iraq
White House News
Fact sheet Message to the Congress of the United States Regarding International Emergency Economic Powers Act
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
July 17, 2007
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/07/20070717-3.html

Fact sheet Message to the Congress of the United States Regarding International Emergency Economic Powers Act

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, as amended (50 U.S.C. 1701 et seq.)(IEEPA), the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1601 et seq.)(NEA), and section 301 of title 3, United States Code,

I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, find that, due to the unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States posed by acts of violence threatening the peace and stability of Iraq and undermining efforts to promote economic reconstruction and political reform in Iraq and to provide humanitarian assistance to the Iraqi people, it is in the interests of the United States to take additional steps with respect to the national emergency declared in Executive Order 13303 of May 22, 2003, and expanded in Executive Order 13315 of August 28, 2003, and relied upon for additional steps taken in Executive Order 13350 of July 29, 2004, and Executive Order 13364 of November 29, 2004. I hereby order:

Section 1. (a) Except to the extent provided in section 203(b)(1), (3), and (4) of IEEPA (50 U.S.C. 1702(b)(1), (3), and (4)), or in regulations, orders, directives, or licenses that may be issued pursuant to this order, and notwithstanding any contract entered into or any license or permit granted prior to the date of this order, all property and interests in property of the following persons, that are in the United States, that hereafter come within the United States, or that are or hereafter come within the possession or control of United States persons, are blocked and may not be transferred, paid, exported, withdrawn, or otherwise dealt in: any person determined by the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense,

(i) to have committed, or to pose a significant risk of committing, an act or acts of violence that have the purpose or effect of:

(A) threatening the peace or stability of Iraq or the Government of Iraq; or

(B) undermining efforts to promote economic reconstruction and political reform in Iraq or to provide humanitarian assistance to the Iraqi people;

(ii) to have materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, logistical, or technical support for, or goods or services in support of, such an act or acts of violence or any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order; or

(iii) to be owned or controlled by, or to have acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order.

(b) The prohibitions in subsection (a) of this section include, but are not limited to, (i) the making of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services by, to, or for the benefit of any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order, and (ii) the receipt of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services from any such person.

Sec. 2. (a) Any transaction by a United States person or within the United States that evades or avoids, has the purpose of evading or avoiding, or attempts to violate any of the prohibitions set forth in this order is prohibited.

(b) Any conspiracy formed to violate any of the prohibitions set forth in this order is prohibited.

Sec. 3. For purposes of this order:

(a) the term "person" means an individual or entity;

(b) the term "entity" means a partnership, association, trust, joint venture, corporation, group, subgroup, or other organization; and

(c) the term "United States person" means any United States citizen, permanent resident alien, entity organized under the laws of the United States or any jurisdiction within the United States (including foreign branches), or any person in the United States.

Sec. 4. I hereby determine that the making of donations of the type specified in section 203(b)(2) of IEEPA (50 U.S.C. 1702(b)(2)) by, to, or for the benefit of, any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order would seriously impair my ability to deal with the national emergency declared in Executive Order 13303 and expanded in Executive Order 13315, and I hereby prohibit such donations as provided by section 1 of this order.

Sec. 5. For those persons whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order who might have a constitutional presence in the United States, I find that, because of the ability to transfer funds or other assets instantaneously, prior notice to such persons of measures to be taken pursuant to this order would render these measures ineffectual. I therefore determine that for these measures to be effective in addressing the national emergency declared in Executive Order 13303 and expanded in Executive Order 13315, there need be no prior notice of a listing or determination made pursuant to section 1(a) of this order.

Sec. 6. The Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense, is hereby authorized to take such actions, including the promulgation of rules and regulations, and to employ all powers granted to the President by IEEPA as may be necessary to carry out the purposes of this order. The Secretary of the Treasury may redelegate any of these functions to other officers and agencies of the United States Government, consistent with applicable law. All agencies of the United States Government are hereby directed to take all appropriate measures within their authority to carry out the provisions of this order and, where appropriate, to advise the Secretary of the Treasury in a timely manner of the measures taken.

Sec. 7. Nothing in this order is intended to affect the continued effectiveness of any rules, regulations, orders, licenses, or other forms of administrative action issued, taken, or continued in effect heretofore or hereafter under 31 C.F.R. chapter V, except as expressly terminated, modified, or suspended by or pursuant to this order.

Sec. 8. This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right, benefit, or privilege, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, instrumentalities, or entities, its officers or employees, or any other person.

GEORGE W. BUSH

THE WHITE HOUSE,

July 17, 2007.

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12) Message to the Congress of the United States Regarding International Emergency Economic Powers Act
White House News
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
July 17, 2007
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/07/20070717-4.html

Fact sheet Executive Order: Blocking Property of Certain Persons Who Threaten Stabilization Efforts in Iraq

Pursuant to the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, as amended (50 U.S.C. 1701 et seq.)(IEEPA), I hereby report that I have issued an Executive Order blocking property of persons determined to have committed, or to pose a significant risk of committing, an act or acts of violence that have the purpose or effect of threatening the peace or stability of Iraq or the Government of Iraq or undermining efforts to promote economic reconstruction and political reform in Iraq or to provide humanitarian assistance to the Iraqi people. I issued this order to take additional steps with respect to the national emergency declared in Executive Order 13303 of May 22, 2003, and expanded in Executive Order 13315 of August 28, 2003, and relied upon for additional steps taken in Executive Order 13350 of July 29, 2004, and Executive Order 13364 of November 29, 2004. In these previous Executive Orders, I ordered various measures to address the unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States posed by obstacles to the orderly reconstruction of Iraq, the restoration and maintenance of peace and security in that country, and the development of political, administrative, and economic institutions in Iraq.

My new order takes additional steps with respect to the national emergency declared in Executive Order 13303 and expanded in Executive Order 13315 by blocking the property and interests in property of persons determined by the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense, to have committed, or to pose a significant risk of committing, an act or acts of violence that have the purpose or effect of threatening the peace or stability of Iraq or the Government of Iraq or undermining efforts to promote economic reconstruction and political reform in Iraq or to provide humanitarian assistance to the Iraqi people. The order further authorizes the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense, to designate for blocking those persons determined to have materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, logistical, or technical support for, or goods or services in support of, such an act or acts of violence or any person designated pursuant to this order, or to be owned or controlled by, or to have acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order.

I delegated to the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense, the authority to take such actions, including the promulgation of rules and regulations, and to employ all powers granted to the President by IEEPA as may be necessary to carry out the purposes of my order. I am enclosing a copy of the Executive Order I have issued.

GEORGE W. BUSH

The White House,

July 17, 2007.

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13) Bush Outlaws All War Protest In United States
By: Sorcha Faal, and as reported to her Western Subscribers
July 19, 2007
CurEvents.com - A Global Current Events Discussion Forum
In a message dated 7/20/07 12:44:35 AM, grok@resist.ca writes:
On the topic of Bush outlawing war protest in the US & seizure of property
(Recording Thom Hartman Show Air American Radio)
http://www.apfn.net/pogo17/A007I070719-655G.MP3

In one of his most chilling moves to date against his own citizens, the American War Leader has issued a sweeping order this week outlawing all forms of protest against the Iraq war.

President Bush enacted into US law an ‘Executive Order’ on July 17th titled "Blocking Property of Certain Persons Who Threaten Stabilization Efforts in Iraq", http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/07/20070717-3.html and which says:

"By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, as amended (50 U.S.C. 1701 et seq.)(IEEPA), the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1601 et seq.)(NEA), and section 301 of title 3, United States Code,

I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, find that, due to the unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States posed by acts of violence threatening the peace and stability of Iraq and undermining efforts to promote economic reconstruction and political reform in Iraq and to provide humanitarian assistance to the Iraqi people, it is in the interests of the United States to take additional steps with respect to the national emergency declared in Executive Order 13303 of May 22, 2003, and expanded in Executive Order 13315 of August 28, 2003, and relied upon for additional steps taken in Executive Order 13350 of July 29, 2004, and Executive Order 13364 of November 29, 2004."

According to Russian legal experts, the greatest concern to the American people are the underlying provisions of this new law, and which, they state, are written ‘so broadly’ as to outlaw all forms of protest against the war. These provisions state:

"(ii) to have materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, logistical, or technical support for, or goods or services in support of, such an act or acts of violence or any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order; or

(b) The prohibitions in subsection (a) of this section include, but are not limited to, (i) the making of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services by, to, or for the benefit of any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order, and (ii) the receipt of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services from any such person.

(c) the term "United States person" means any United States citizen, permanent resident alien, entity organized under the laws of the United States or any jurisdiction within the United States (including foreign branches), or any person in the United States.

All agencies of the United States Government are hereby directed to take all appropriate measures within their authority to carry out the provisions of this order and, where appropriate, to advise the Secretary of the Treasury in a timely manner of the measures taken."

To the subsection of this new US law, according to these legal experts, that says "...the making of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services by, to, or for the benefit...", the insertion of the word ‘services’ has broad, and catastrophic, consequences for the American people in that any act deemed by their government to be against the Iraqi war is, in fact, supporting the ‘enemy’ and therefore threatens the ‘stabilization of Iraq’.

In an even greater affront to the American people are the provisions of a law called The Patriot Act, and that should they run afoul of this new law they are forbidden to allow anyone to know about it, and as we can read as reported by the Seattle Times News Service:

"The [Patriot] act also expands the use of National Security Letters, which are a kind of warrant that the Justice Department writes for itself, authorizing its agents to seize such things as records of money movements, telephone calls and Internet visits. Recipients of a National Security Letter are not allowed to tell anyone about them, and so cannot contest them."

It is interesting to note, too, that this is not the first time that the United States has unleashed the brutal power of their government against its citizens to further their war aims and stifle domestic dissent, as during the European conflict of World War I they enacted a law called The Sedition Act of 1918 and which "...forbade Americans to use "disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language" about the United States government, flag, or armed forces during war."

It is curious to note that after the enactment of this new law there has been no protest by any of the other political leaders in the United States, with the exception of the only Muslim member of the United States Congress, Minnesota Democrat Keith Ellison, and who compared President Bush to the Nazi War Leader Adolph Hitler by stating the attacks upon the World Trade Center could be likened to the burning of the Reichstag.

Today, as the United States faces an imminent economic collapse, while at the same time its war bill has reached the staggering amount of $648 billion, one of the last freedoms the American people have had to protest their leaders actions against them, and other peoples in the World, has now been taken away from them, the freedom to speak and write in opposition to what is being done to them.

"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.", said the great British writer George Orwell, but, and sadly, liberty has been lost to the once free people of the United States who are no longer allowed to tell their leaders, or each other, what they don’t want to hear.

With this being so, the American people should, likewise, contemplate their ‘new’ future, and as, also, stated best by George Orwell, "If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever."

© July 19, 2007 EU and US all rights reserved.

[Ed. Note: The United States government actively seeks to find, and silence, any and all opinions about the United States except those coming from authorized government and/or affiliated sources, of which we are not one. No interviews are granted and very little personal information is given about our contributors, or their sources, to protect their safety.]

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14) CROSS BURNING 100 MILES FROM CHICAGO, IN BENTON HARBOR
Jul 8, 2007 3:35 PM
From: Rolandgarret@aol.com
The Racists have been enbolden by the recent Supreme Court decision. The writer of this email seems to be oblivious to that fact.
In a message dated 7/8/07 10:21:39 AM, lvpsf@igc.org writes:
Wed, 4 Jul 2007 22:40:32 -0400
From: "Gordon Matthews"
gormatthews@gmail.com

This could be the strangest story to emerge from the Berrien County courthouse in a long time. It's getting almost impossible to believe that our governor or the DOJ doesn't intervene.

Addie Kyle, a forty year BH resident was sitting at a table outside the courthouse, taking a break as court observer last week. A juror, also on break, walked by and had a friendly conversation with Ms. Kyle. She commented to him that the courthouse is racist and Black people need to stick together more.

The next day two police officers showed up at her door wanting to know what she said to the juror, so she told the truth. They immediately issued a warrant for her arrest.

Ms. Kyle hired an attorney who went to the courthouse asking judge LaSata to recuse himself from the case since the attorney may have to call him as a witness. The judge said, "If you say another word I will send you to jail." A back-and-forth ensued with the atty. asking repeatedly if he was being threatened, and the judge yelling, "shut up."

Addie Kyle's hearing was this past Monday, July 2, in the morning.

A few hours before her hearing a cross was burned in her front yard at 4am. In court, the juror she spoke to last week defended her by saying she did not talk about the trial she was observing, he was in no way intimidated by her, and she was not "jury tampering." The judge and prosecutor became angry (because the juror didn't lie), and Judge LaSata pronounced Ms. Kyle guilty of jury tampering. He sentenced her to 60 days in jail, 1 year's probation, and she may not enter the courthouse ever again. She will be tried in October and could be sentenced for up to 10 years on a felony charge.

It seems that the intelligent men of law who run the courthouse have figured out recently that "jury tampering" may just be an easy way to jail more BH residents: about two weeks ago a woman was laughing in the courthouse parking lot when the bailiff called her into the building and escorted her into a courtroom where she was charged with jury tampering. For laughing in the parking lot. After she hired an out-of-county attorney, the charge was dropped.

Part of the success of the Berrien County thugs is that they have operated in isolation for years.

Is this the worst courthouse in the US? It sure seems like a distinct possiblility.

As for cross burning --

The Supreme court ruled in April 2003 to uphold a state law banning cross burning carried out with the intent to intimidate. Cross burning is an instrument of terror and not a form of expression protected by the first amendment.

Cross burning in the United States is inextricably intertwined with the history of the KKK which, following its formation in 1866, imposed a reign of terror throughout the South, whipping, threatening, and murdering blacks.

DEATH THREAT

Wilson Chandler's household was a good place to enjoy yourself on Thursday, June 28, 2007. Shortly before 10pm Wilson Chandler was selected in the first round of the NBA draft by the New York Knicks. Wilson Chandler went to New York for the draft and is a 2005 graduate of Benton Harbor High School. That year he was selected as Mr. Basketball in Michigan. Chandler is the first player from Benton Harbor to be selected in the first round of the NBA.

What was Berrien County's response? Several people called him with death threats, i.e., "Mr. N-----, you will never sign that million dollar contract."

When will the people of Berrien County admit to the worst racism since earlier last century in the South?

LEGAL FEE DONATIONS
BANCO
1940 Union St.
Benton Harbor, MI 49022

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15) Court Tells U.S. to Reveal Data on Detainees at Guantánamo
By WILLIAM GLABERSON
July 21, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/21/us/21gitmo.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

A federal appeals court ordered the government yesterday to turn over virtually all its information on Guantánamo detainees who are challenging their detention, rejecting an effort by the Justice Department to limit disclosures and setting the stage for new legal battles over the government’s reasons for holding the men indefinitely.

The ruling, which came in one of the main court cases dealing with the fate of the detainees, effectively set the ground rules for scores of cases by detainees challenging the actions of Pentagon tribunals that decide whether terror suspects should be held as enemy combatants.

It was the latest of a series of stinging legal challenges to the administration’s detention policies that have amplified pressure on the Bush administration to find some alternative to Guantánamo, where about 360 men are now being held.

A three-judge panel of the federal appeals court in Washington unanimously rejected a government effort to limit the information it must turn over to the court and lawyers for the detainees.

The court said meaningful review of the military tribunals would not be possible “without seeing all the evidence, any more than one can tell whether a fraction is more or less than half by looking only at the numerator and not the denominator.”

Advocates for detainees have criticized the tribunals since they were instituted in 2004 because the terror suspects held at Guantánamo have not been permitted lawyers during the proceedings and have not been allowed to see much of the evidence against them.

P. Sabin Willett, a Boston lawyer who argued the case for detainees, called the ruling “a resounding rejection of the government’s effort to hide the truth.”

A department spokesman, Erik Ablin, declined to comment on the decision, saying the department was “reviewing the decision’s implications and evaluating our options.”

The ruling came in the first case under a 2005 law that provides for limited appeals court review of the military’s Guantánamo hearings, known as combatant status review tribunals.

One of the legal challenges facing the administration is that the Pentagon efforts to try a small number of detainees for war crimes have been stalled since early June, when two military judges ruled there were defects in the procedures that had been followed in declaring the men to be enemy combatants.

Then, later last month, the Supreme Court agreed to hear an appeal from detainees claiming a right to challenge their detentions in federal courts through habeas corpus cases, a contention the administration has fought with some success in the courts and Congress.

The cases in the appeals court and the Supreme Court are both efforts by lawyers for the detainees to challenge the military’s decisions to hold the men.

The lawyers are pursuing habeas corpus rights because such cases would give federal judges far more power to review Pentagon decisions than the appeals court has to review the military tribunal actions. The lawyers have argued that in a 2005 law, Congress so limited the review permitted by the federal appeals court that the detainees need access to federal courts through habeas cases to get a fair review of their detentions.

When the Supreme Court said it would hear the Guantánamo case last month, its order made clear the justices would be carefully watching the appeals court decision as they consider broader Guantánamo issues. In an unusual comment, the Supreme Court’s order in June said, “it would be of material assistance” for the justices to receive arguments from the lawyers that take into account the appeals court ruling setting the rules for the review process.

The case in which the decision came yesterday involved requests by eight detainees for review of decisions by military tribunals.

The ruling also included significant victories for the government, including a decision allowing the Pentagon to limit the subjects that the lawyers can discuss with detainees and authorizing special Pentagon teams to read the lawyers’ mail and remove unauthorized comments.

The decision noted that Congress said the appeals court’s review of the combatant status hearings was limited to determining whether the Pentagon followed its own procedures, and whether an enemy-combatant finding was supported by a preponderance of the evidence.

But it rejected the Justice Department assertion that the court should be able to examine only the information included in the combatant status hearing, not the more expansive information the government might have collected on a detainee.

The ruling was written by Douglas H. Ginsburg, the chief judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit..

“In order to review compliance with those procedures,” Judge Ginsburg wrote, “the court must be able to view the government information.”

Detainees’ lawyers have argued that the military officials running the hearings may not have collected information that might support the detainees’ cases. But detainees’ lawyers also said the ruling created the likelihood of fresh legal battles over what information in the government’s vast intelligence files was covered, and whether the government in fact produces all its information dealing with specific detainees.

The decision allowed the government to file its information with the court for review if the government argues the contents are too sensitive to be released. It also defined government information as including only that which is “reasonably available.”

Throughout the legal battles over Guantánamo, detainees’ lawyers have argued that the government has used such rules to limit their effectiveness by maintaining control over information.

Wells Dixon, a lawyer at the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York who represents detainees, said that pattern was likely to be repeated. “Once again,” Mr. Dixon said, “we are left to rely on the government to produce all of the information that it says exists.”

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16) Rules Lay Out C.I.A.’s Tactics in Questioning
By MARK MAZZETTI
July 21, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/21/washington/21intel.html?hp=&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1185035513-y05xVW8B73rxMo6kSPS5rw

WASHINGTON, July 20 — The White House said Friday that it had given the Central Intelligence Agency approval to resume its use of some severe interrogation methods for questioning terrorism suspects in secret prisons overseas.

With the new authority, administration officials said the C.I.A. could proceed with an interrogation program that had been in limbo since the Supreme Court ruled last year that all prisoners in American captivity be treated in accordance with Geneva Convention prohibitions against humiliating and degrading treatment.

A new executive order signed by President Bush does not authorize the full set of harsh interrogation methods used by the C.I.A. since the program began in 2002. But government officials said the rules would still allow some techniques more severe than those used in interrogations by military personnel in places like the detention center in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

Several officials said the permitted techniques did not include some of the most controversial past techniques, among them “waterboarding,” which induces a feeling of drowning, and exposure to extremes of heat and cold.

The basic outcome had been expected, but it was preceded by months of intense disagreement within the administration about where to draw the line on C.I.A. interrogations. The new list of techniques has been approved by the Justice Department as not violating the Geneva strictures, a step that Congress insisted on last October when it passed the Military Commissions Act, which formally authorized the C.I.A. program.

The White House order brought condemnation on Friday from human rights groups, which argued that it helped systematize a program of indefinite, incommunicado detention and used methods that violated international law. But in a message to agency employees on Friday, Gen. Michael V. Hayden, the C.I.A. director, defended the program as having been “irreplaceable,” though he said extraordinary techniques had been used on fewer than half of about 100 terrorism suspects.

General Hayden said the White House order would allow the agency to “focus on our vital work, confident that our mission and authorities are clearly defined.” The C.I.A. said it had suspended its use of harsh interrogation procedures during the debate over the new rules, even as the White House argued that the agency should be given extra latitude to carry out effective interrogations of terrorism suspects.

Senator John D. Rockefeller IV of West Virginia, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said he would wait to review the Justice Department’s legal reasoning before he passed judgment. General Hayden briefed the intelligence committees earlier in the year about the agency’s own review.

The specific interrogation methods now approved for C.I.A. use remain classified, but several officials said they did not include waterboarding, which human rights organizations and some members of Congress have said are equal to torture. The C.I.A. acted on its own beginning in 2004 to prohibit some of these measures after their use became publicly known.

In a conference call with reporters on Friday, a senior administration official indicated that another technique now forbidden would be exposure to temperature extremes, and the executive order itself states that detainees must be protected “from extremes of heat and cold.” It is unclear whether sleep deprivation, another technique used in past C.I.A. interrogations, is authorized.

The order uses a definition of “humiliating and degrading treatment” that conforms to standards set by international case law, a victory for State Department officials.

According to the senior administration official, the C.I.A. will bar the International Committee of the Red Cross from visiting detainees in agency hands, a prohibition it has enforced in the past.

Earlier this year, State Department officials rejected a draft of the executive order because they believed that the language was too permissive and could open the Bush administration to challenges from American allies that the White House was legalizing methods that approach torture. Some Bush administration officials, including members of Vice President Dick Cheney’s staff, pushed for a more expansive interpretation of Geneva Convention language and for interrogation methods that the C.I.A. had not even requested.

According to one senior intelligence official, nearly half of the source material used in the recent National Intelligence Estimate on the terrorism threat to the United States came from C.I.A. interrogations of detainees.

Some human rights groups said they feared that the Bush administration was using creative legal reasoning to justify practices that close American allies have banned.

“This is an administration that won’t even publicly denounce waterboarding,” said John Sifton, a lawyer at Human Rights Watch. “It’s hard to believe that they will be interpreting these standards in a way that is true to the spirit of the Military Commissions Act.”

But other critics of the harsh C.I.A. interrogation practices of the past, including former top Bush administration officials, said that the executive order was a step in the right direction. “The U.S. government is continuing to move toward an approach to this vital area of human intelligence collection that is more sustainable — morally, politically, and legally,” said Philip D. Zelikow, who served as counselor to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice until last year and who delivered a blistering lecture earlier this year denouncing the C.I.A.’s interrogation program as it was used in the past.

The executive order applies only to detainees in C.I.A. hands, not to those in military custody. Last September, all 14 prisoners in C.I.A. custody were transferred to the island prison and put under Pentagon control, including two senior operatives of Al Qaeda, Abu Zubaydah and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who has confessed to being the mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks. It is unclear how many suspects have passed through the program since then, or if the C.I.A has anyone in its prisons. The only prisoner that the C.I.A. has acknowledged holding since last fall is Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi, an Iraqi Kurd who is believed to have been one of Osama bin Laden’s closest advisers.

C.I.A. officials said that Mr. Iraqi produced valuable intelligence, despite the fact that C.I.A. interrogators at the time were only authorized to use the techniques approved for Pentagon interrogators.

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17) The Iraq War Debate: The Great Denier
NYT Editorial
July 21, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/21/opinion/21sat1.html?hp

If ever there were a moment for serious discussion about the Iraq war, this is it. Americans want President Bush to explain how he will extract the troops and contain the bloodletting and chaos the war has unleashed. Washington’s dwindling band of allies and Iraq’s neighbors are also waiting to hear. Pretty much everyone in the world wants answers except the president.

With the White House refusing to lead, lawmakers in both parties have begun to talk about the best way to end the war. But instead of seizing the opening, Mr. Bush and his team continue to spout disinformation and vacuous slogans about victory and, of course, more character assassination.

This time, the hit man was Eric Edelman, the under secretary of defense for policy, and the target was Senator Hillary Clinton.

In May, Mrs. Clinton wrote Defense Secretary Robert Gates with a reasonable question: Had the Pentagon done any planning for withdrawal from Iraq? What she got back was a belligerent brush-off. Mr. Edelman, who said he represented Mr. Gates, wrote that “premature and public discussion of the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq reinforces enemy propaganda that the United States will abandon its allies in Iraq.”

Using such an insulting tone with a senator would surely lead to dismissal by any president who respected the Constitutional system of government. But so far, not this one. As for premature, most of the world thinks this pointless war has dragged on far too long. Public? We thought open debate — especially about such life-and-death issues — was a pillar of democracy. And as for the charge of reinforcing “enemy propaganda,” this is sadly business as usual for a member of the Bush administration.

The president, Vice President Dick Cheney and former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld make it a habit of accusing their critics of lending comfort to “the enemy.” Mr. Bush relied heavily on that notion to get re-elected in 2004. More recently, the official who was supervising detention policies for Mr. Rumsfeld publicly urged corporations to boycott law firms that had the effrontery of providing the bare-bones representation permitted to the inmates of the detention camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

The aim of these attacks is to avoid truly engaging criticism of Mr. Bush’s Iraq policy. So it was particularly galling to hear Mr. Bush accuse Congress of denying support to the troops because the initial Pentagon budget bill got snared in the Senate’s debate over Iraq this week and was not passed.

It is Mr. Bush who has denied the military what it needs, first by shortchanging the Pentagon on troops and armor and then by stranding American forces in a civil war with no achievable military goal and evaporating political support. Mr. Bush denied Americans a serious debate about starting this war. It’s far past time for a serious and honest debate about how to end it.

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18) Sober North Dakotans Hope to Legalize Hemp
By MONICA DAVEY
July 21, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/21/us/21hemp.html?hp

OSNABROCK, N.D. — David C. Monson seems an improbable soul to find at the leading edge of a national movement to legalize growing hemp, a plant that shares a species name, a genus type and, in many circles, a reputation, with marijuana.

As Mr. Monson rolls past his wheat, barley and shimmering yellow fields of canola, he listens to Rush Limbaugh in his tractor. When he is not farming, he is the high school principal in nearby Edinburg, population 252. When he is not teaching, he is a Republican representative in Bismarck, the state capital, where his party dominates both houses of the legislature and the governor is a Republican.

“Look at me — do I look shady?” Mr. Monson, 56, asked, as he stood in work boots and a ball cap in the rocky, black dirt that spans mile after mile of North Dakota’s nearly empty northern edge. “This is not any subversive thing like trying to legalize marijuana or whatever. This is just practical agriculture. We’re desperate for something that can make us some money.”

The rocks, the dirt, the cool, wet climate and a devastating crop fungus known as scab are part of what has landed North Dakota, of all states, at the forefront of a political battle more likely to have emerged somewhere “a little more rebellious,” as one farmer here put it, like California or Massachusetts.

Though federal authorities ban the growing of hemp, saying it contains tetrahydrocannabinol, the psychoactive substance better known as THC in marijuana, six states this year considered legislation to allow farmers to grow industrial hemp, and Representative Ron Paul, Republican of Texas, introduced a bill in Washington that would let states allow such crops. In state legislatures, the advocates of hemp note that it contains mere traces of THC, and that hemp (grown in other countries) is already found here in clothes, lotions, snack bars, car door panels, insulation and more.

But no place has challenged the government as fiercely as North Dakota. Its legislature has passed a bill allowing farmers to grow industrial hemp and created an official licensing process to fingerprint such farmers and a global positioning system to track their fields. This year, Mr. Monson and another North Dakota farmer, with the support of the state’s agriculture commissioner, applied to the Drug Enforcement Administration for permission to plant fields of hemp immediately.

“North Dakota is really pushing the envelope on this one,” said Doug Farquhar, the program director for agriculture and rural development at the National Conference of State Legislatures. Legislatures in Maine, Montana, West Virginia and other states have passed bills allowing farmers to grow industrial hemp, said Alexis Baden-Mayer, the director of government relations for Vote Hemp, a group that presses for legalization, but those laws have not been carried out given federal drug law.

The Controlled Substances Act, federal authorities say, is unambiguous. “Basically hemp is considered the same as marijuana,” said Steve Robertson, a special agent for the D.E.A. at its Washington headquarters. “We’re an enforcement agency. We’re sworn to uphold the law.”

In the wide-open spaces of this state, an independent streak often runs through the politics, especially when it comes to federal mandates. But the fight over hemp is not political or philosophical, people here say. It lacks any counterculture wink, any hint of the fear some hemp opponents express that those trying to legalize hemp secretly hope to open the door to the plant’s more potent cousin.

This battle is decidedly, and Midwesternly, pragmatic. In 1993, scab, a fungus also known as Fusarium head blight, tore through this region, wiping out thousands of acres of wheat, a prized crop in North Dakota, where agriculture remains the largest element of the economy. Hard rains left water pooling in fields, giving scab an opening. The fungus has turned up in varying degrees ever since, even as farmers searched for a cure. On a recent afternoon, as rain pounded his 710 acres, Mr. Monson gloomily yanked the head off a stalk of his wheat, revealing for a visitor whitish, shriveled seeds — the telltale signs of scab.

When Mr. Monson began his efforts in the late 1990s, some here balked. He remembered John Dorso, a former Republican leader, rolling his eyes and asking Mr. Monson if he knew what he was getting mixed up in.

But hemp, Mr. Monson argued, offered an alternative for North Dakota’s crop rotation. Its tall stalks survive similarly cool and wet conditions in Canada, just 25 miles north of here, where it is legal. And it suits the rocky soil left behind here by glaciers, soil that threatens to tear up farm equipment for anyone who dares to plant crops like beets or potatoes beneath ground.

Years and studies and hearings later, few here have much to say against hemp — a reflection, it seems, of the state’s urgent wish to improve its economy. Recent hemp votes have passed the legislature with ease, though some questions linger. How big a market would there really be for hemp? What about the worries of drug enforcement officials, who say someone might sneak into a farmer’s field of harmless hemp and plant a batch of (similar-looking) marijuana?

Such fears, Mr. Monson insisted, are silly in North Dakota, which is the third least-populous state, with fewer than 640,000 people. This is the only state where voter registration is not required. (Everyone would know, the logic goes, if someone who did not belong tried to vote.) “You can’t go down to get the mail around here without someone knowing,” Mr. Monson said.

But Blair Thoreson, a Republican state representative who has voted against hemp measures, is less sure. “Everyone here knows everyone,” Mr. Thoreson said, “and yet we’ve had a huge problem here with homegrown methamphetamine labs, too.”

Roger Johnson, the state’s agriculture commissioner, said hemp fields would be the worst places to hide marijuana. Under state rules, Mr. Johnson said, such fields must be accessible for unannounced searches, day or night, and crops would be tested by the state. Also, he said, a field of hemp and marijuana would cross-pollinate, leaving the drug less potent.

“We’re not wide-eyed liberals,” Mr. Johnson said. “The D.E.A., th