Free Internet Press Newsletter - Monday March 19 2007 - (813)

Monday March 19 2007 edition
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U.S. Military Is Ill-Prepared For Other Conflicts 2007-03-19 01:15:24 Four years after the invasion of Iraq, the high and growing demand for U.S. troops there and in Afghanistan has left ground forces in the United States short of the training, personnel and equipment that would be vital to fight a major ground conflict elsewhere, senior U.S. military and government officials acknowledge. More troubling, the officials say, is that it will take years for the Army and Marine Corps to recover from what some officials privately have called a "death spiral," in which the ever more rapid pace of war-zone rotations has consumed 40 percent of their total gear, wearied troops and left no time to train to fight anything other than the insurgencies now at hand. The risk to the nation is serious and deepening, senior officers warn, because the U.S. military now lacks a large strategic reserve of ground troops ready to respond quickly and decisively to potential foreign crises, whether the internal collapse of Pakistan, a conflict with Iran or an outbreak of war on the Korean Peninsula. Air and naval power can only go so far in compensating for infantry, artillery and other land forces, they said. An immediate concern is that critical Army overseas equipment stocks for use in another conflict have been depleted by the recent troop increases in Iraq, they said. "We have a strategy right now that is outstripping the means to execute it," Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, Army chief of staff, testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday. Read The Full Story Plague Of Beetles Raises Climate Change Fears For America's Natural Beauty 2007-03-19 01:14:31 Colorado's distinctive lodgepole pine trees are under attack from a beetle infestation described by scientists as a "perfect storm" which could destroy 90% of the western American state's pine forests. The bark beetle outbreak was responsible for the death of 4.8 million lodgepole pines in Colorado last year, up from 1 million in 2005. The infestation has spread across 1,000 square miles of forest - nearly half the total in the state. Forty three per cent of the state's lodgepole pines have died as a result of the infestation. But it is not limited to Colorado: the beetles have munched their way through the western U.S. and Canada, affecting 36,000 square miles of forest. "I knew we would have an infestation," says Jan Burke, a silviculturist for Colorado's White River national forest, "but I never remotely imagined this. Nobody predicted this." She looks up at the mountains behind the ski resort of Vail, sweeping hillsides of pine pockmarked with the orange stain of dead trees and the delicate feathery grey of aspens. "I guess we're the lucky ones because in our lifetime we got to see these forests. Our children won't. For many that's a bitter pill to swallow." Read The Full Story Prosecutor's Firing Was Urged During Probe Of Republican Bribery Scandal 2007-03-19 01:13:44 The U.S. attorney in San Diego, California, notified the Justice Department of search warrants in a Republican bribery scandal last May 10, one day before the attorney general's chief of staff warned the White House of "a real problem" with her, a Democratic senator said Sunday. The prosecutor, Carol S. Lam, was dismissed seven months later as part of an effort by the Justice Department and White House to fire eight U.S. attorneys. A Justice spokesman said there was no connection between Lam's firing and her public corruption investigations, and pointed to criticisms of Lam for her record on prosecuting immigration cases. Read The Full Story NewsBlog: It's STILL The Oil - Secret Condi Meeting On Oil Before Invasion 2007-03-19 01:12:30 Intellpuke: The following newsblog was written by Greg Palast, author of the New York Times bestseller, "Armed Madhouse: From Baghdad to New Orleans - Sordid Secrets and Strange Tales of a White House Gone Wild". Mr. Palast writes that the invasion of Iraq was not so much about oil, as about getting oil prices to rise so the big oil companies could make a bundle. Mr. Palast's newsblog follows: Four years ago this week, the tanks rolled for what President Bush originally called, “Operation Iraqi Liberation”  O.I.L. I kid you not. And it was four years ago that, from the White House, George Bush, declaring war, said, “I want to talk to the Iraqi people.” That Dick Cheney didn’t tell Bush that Iraqis speak Arabic … well, never mind. I expected the President to say something like, “Our troops are coming to liberate you, so don’t shoot them.” Instead, Mr. Bush told, the Iraqis, “Do not destroy oil wells.“ Read The Full Story Mugabe Opponent Beaten Again While Trying To Leave For E.U. Conference 2007-03-19 01:10:25 A Zimbabwean opposition spokesman and national parliament member, Nelson Chamisa, was beaten unconscious Sunday at Harare airport as he was about to fly to Brussels, Belgium, according to his party, the Movement for Democratic Change. The attack followed the arrest of three other opposition leaders at the airport at the weekend and the snatching by government agents of the body of activist Gift Tandare, shot dead by police, to prevent a public funeral. About 50 people including Morgan Tsvangirai, the opposition leader, were beaten and arrested while trying to attend a prayer rally eight days ago. Zimbabwe's president, Robert Mugabe, threatened more violence over the weekend, while Tsvangirai pledged further resistance. Read The Full Story GOP Anger In Swing State Eased U.S. Attorney's Dismissal 2007-03-18 13:15:43 The first whiff of something suspicious came when a 15-year-old boy received a voter registration card in the mail. Soon a second one arrived. Then his 13-year-old neighbor got one, too. Neither boy had applied for the cards, and it looked as if their signatures and birthdates had been forged. It was August 2004, and the local authorities quickly traced the problems to a canvasser for a liberal group that had signed up tens of thousands of voters for the presidential election in this swing state. State Republican leaders demanded a criminal investigation. And with the television cameras rolling, the United States attorney, David C. Iglesias, a boyish-looking Republican, promised a thorough one. “It appears that mischief is afoot,” said Iglesias, “and questions are lurking in the shadows.” The inquiry he began, however, never resulted in charges, so frustrating Republican officials here that they began an extraordinary campaign to get rid of him that reached all the way to President Bush. Read The Full Story Despite Concerns, FBI Used Flawed Procedures To Obtain Phone Records 2007-03-18 01:56:23 FBI counterterrorism officials continued to use flawed procedures to obtain thousands of U.S. telephone records during a two-year period when bureau lawyers and managers were expressing escalating concerns about the practice, according to senior FBI and Justice Department officials and documents. FBI lawyers raised the concerns beginning in late October 2004 but did not closely scrutinize the practice until last year, FBI officials acknowledged. They also did not understand the scope of the problem until the Justice Department launched an investigation, said FBI officials. Under pressure to provide a stronger legal footing, counterterrorism agents last year wrote new letters to phone companies demanding the information the bureau already possessed. At least one senior FBI headquarters official - whom the bureau declined to name - signed these "national security letters" without including the required proof that the letters were linked to FBI counterterrorism or espionage investigations, said an FBI official. Read The Full Story Hagel, McCain - Different Paths From Vietnam To Iraq 2007-03-18 01:55:48 U.S. Senator Chuck Hagel spent 13 months as a lowly grunt in the Mekong Delta in the deadliest period of the Vietnam War. He saw the horror of war from the bottom up - men sheared in half by explosives, half-decapitated by sniper fire, bleeding to death in the gloomy swelter of the jungle. Thirty years later, he came to believe he had been used. Senator John McCain was shot down 3,500 feet above Hanoi on a bombing run one month into his tour. He spent five and a half years as a prisoner of war; he was held in solitary confinement, tortured, beaten until he could not stand. An admiral’s son and a Navy pilot, he came to believe, like many pilots, that the war had been winnable, if only it had been fought right. Memories of Vietnam haunt the public debate on the war in Iraq. They also lurk in the private thoughts of a generation in Congress - men like Senators Hagel and McCain, who lived through the earlier war, vote on the current one and, despite their shared past, now disagree profoundly on what the United States should do next. Read The Full Story Reports Detail State Of Press Freedom 2007-03-18 01:52:37 Some leftist governments in Latin America have become increasingly intolerant of criticism, while journalists in the United States have come under growing pressure to identify their sources, delegates at a regional newspaper industry meeting said Saturday. The Miami-based Inter American Press Association received reports on press freedoms from members across the Western Hemisphere at the start of a four-day meeting in the Colombian city of Cartagena. IAPA represents more than 1,300 newspapers in the region. The U.S. report called for a federal "shield" law barring judges and prosecutors from obliging reporters to reveal sources they have pledged to protect. More than 30 U.S. states have such laws. "Today perhaps more than ever there is pressure for journalists to identify the people who talk with them - including when the information discussed in those conversations wasn't even published," Milton Coleman, deputy managing editor of the Washington Post, told the gathering. Read The Full Story 3 Children Killed In Thailand School Attack 2007-03-18 01:51:52 Three Muslim schoolchildren were killed and seven injured in an attack by suspected insurgents at an Islamic school in restive southern Thailand, police said Sunday. The attack occurred late Saturday evening at the Bamrungsart Pohnor school, a Muslim boarding school in Songkhla province, said police Col. Thammasak Wasaksiri. Attackers hurled explosives onto the school grounds and opened fire with assault rifles into the sleeping quarters of the school, said Thammasak. Read The Full Story	180 Towns Put Climate On The Agenda In New Hampshire 2007-03-19 01:14:45 As they do every March at the town meeting here in Bartlett, New Hampshire, residents debated and voted Thursday on items most local: whether to outfit the town fire truck with a new hose, buy a police cruiser and put a new drainpipe in the town garage. But here and in schools and town halls throughout New Hampshire, between discussions about school boards and budgets, residents are also considering a state referendum on a global issue: climate change. Of the 234 incorporated cities and towns in New Hampshire, 180 are voting on whether to support a resolution asking the federal government to address climate change and to develop research initiatives to create “innovative energy technologies.” The measure also calls for state residents to approve local solutions for combating climate change and for town selectmen to consider forming energy committees. Read The Full Story Senator Leahy Insists Bush Aides Testify Publicly On Prosecutors' Dismissals 2007-03-19 01:14:16 The Democratic senator leading the inquiry into the dismissal of federal prosecutors insisted Sunday that Karl Rove and other top aides to President Bush must testify publicly and under oath, setting up a confrontation between Congress and the White House, which has said it is unlikely to agree to such a demand. Some Republicans have suggested that Rove testify privately, if only to tamp down the political uproar over the inquiry, which centers on whether the White House allowed politics to interfere with law enforcement. Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, seemed to rule out such a move on Sunday. He said his committee would vote Thursday on whether to issue subpoenas for Rove as well as Harriet E. Miers, the former White House counsel, and William K. Kelley, the deputy White House counsel. “I do not believe in this ‘We’ll have a private briefing for you where we’ll tell you everything,’ and they don’t,”  Leahy said on “This Week” on ABC, adding: “I want testimony under oath. I am sick and tired of getting half-truths on this.” Read The Full Story Egypt Shuts Door On Dissent As U.S. Officials Back Off On Promoting Democracy 2007-03-19 01:12:59 On June 20, 2005, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice stepped onto the arabesque campus of the American University in Cairo, Egypt, built around a former pasha's palace, and delivered a call to action that overturned decades of American policy in the Arab world. "For 60 years," she said, "my country, the United States, pursued stability at the expense of democracy in this region, here in the Middle East, and we achieved neither. Now we are taking a different course. We are supporting the democratic aspirations of all people." For five paragraphs of her speech, diplomatic niceties made way for a series of declarative "musts" directed at Egypt's government: It must give its citizens the freedom to choose, Egyptian elections must be free, opposition groups must be free to assemble and participate. The Egyptian government, said Rice, "must put its faith in its own people." The language was black-and-white, but America's relationship with Egypt - with President Hosni Mubarak and with the reform movement - never is. Read The Full Story Oil Prices Nudge Up From Six-Week Low 2007-03-19 01:12:09 Oil prices edged higher amid gains in major Asian financial markets Monday but remained near six-week lows on continued worries over the U.S. and global economy following a global equities sell-off last week. ''There are concerns that the global equities sell-off may not be over and that may impact economic growth and thus oil demand,'' said Victor Shum of Purvin & Gertz in Singapore. ''These concerns and worries about the state of the U.S. economy have taken some momentum out of the oil market.'' Light, sweet crude for April delivery rose 14 cents to $57.25 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchangemidmorning in Singapore. Read The Full Story 4 Years After Invasion, Man Who Helped Bring Down Saddam's Statue Says Iraq Worse Off 2007-03-19 01:10:13 His hands were bleeding and his eyes filled with tears as, four years ago, he slammed a sledgehammer into the tiled plinth that held a 20-foot bronze statue of Saddam Hussein. Then Kadhim al-Jubouri spoke of his joy at being the leader of the crowd that toppled the statue in Baghdad's Firdous Square. Now, he is filled with nothing but regret. The moment became symbolic across the world as it signalled the fall of the dictator. Wearing a black vest,  al-Jubouri, an Iraqi weightlifting champion, pounded through the concrete in an attempt to smash the statue and all it meant to him. Now, on the fourth anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, he says: "I really regret bringing down the statue. The Americans are worse than the dictatorship. Every day is worse than the previous day." The weightlifter had also been a mechanic and had felt the full weight of Saddam's regime when he was sent to Abu Ghraib prison by the Iraqi leader's son, Uday, after complaining that he had not been paid for fixing his motorcycle. "There were lots of people from my tribe who were also put in prison or hanged," he explained. "It became my dream ever since I saw them building that statue to one day topple it." Read The Full Story Free Speech Case Divides Bush And Religious Right 2007-03-18 13:15:27 A Supreme Court case about the free-speech rights of high school students, to be argued on Monday, has opened an unexpected fissure between the Bush administration and its usual allies on the religious right. As a result, an appeal that asks the justices to decide whether school officials can squelch or punish student advocacy of illegal drugs has taken on an added dimension as a window on an active front in the culture wars, one that has escaped the notice of most people outside the fray. And as the stakes have grown higher, a case that once looked like an easy victory for the government side may prove to be a much closer call. On the surface, Joseph Frederick’s dispute with his principal, Deborah Morse, at the Juneau-Douglas High School in Alaska five years ago appeared to have little if anything to do with religion - or, perhaps, with much of anything beyond a bored senior’s attitude and a harried administrator’s impatience. As the Olympic torch was carried through the streets of Juneau on its way to the 2002 winter games in Salt Lake City, students were allowed to leave the school grounds to watch. The school band and cheerleaders performed. With television cameras focused on the scene, Frederick and some friends unfurled a 14-foot-long banner with the inscription: “Bong Hits 4 Jesus.” Read The Full Story U.S. Animal Owners Panic Over Pet Food Recall 2007-03-18 01:56:00 Pet owners were worried Saturday that the pet food in their cupboards could be deadly after millions of containers of dog and cat food sold at major retailers across North America were recalled. Menu Foods, the Ontario-based company that produced the pet food, said Saturday it was recalling dog food sold under 48 brands and cat food sold under 40 brands including Iams, Nutro and Eukanuba. The food was distributed throughout the United States, Canada and Mexico by major retailers such as Wal-Mart, Kroger and Safeway. An unknown number of cats and dogs had suffered kidney failure and about 10 died after eating the affected pet food, the company said. Meanwhile, two other companies - Nestle Purina PetCare Co. and Hill's Pet Nutrition Inc. - announced Saturday night that as a precaution they were voluntarily recalling some products made by Menu Foods. Read The Full Story Commentary: Why Pakistan Is Crucial To The World's Stability 2007-03-18 01:55:34 Intellpuke: The following commentary is written by Denis Macshane, and appears in The Observer edition for Sunday, March 18, 2007. A Labor Party member of the British Parliament, representing Rotherham, Macshane  served as a minister at Britain's Foreign Office until 2005. Mr. Macshane's commentary follows: Anyone who wants political power in Pakistan, so say the street pundits, must hold three aces - America, the army and Allah. As Pakistan plans its 60th birthday celebrations this year, it may hope for a future less in thrall to its military, to its mullahs and to Washington. President Pervez Musharraf, who took power in a bloody 1999 coup, is facing a crisis. Far from being NATO's calm eastern ally, a new front in the fight against terrorism, Islamabad's streets feel shaky, divided and waiting for the worst. Pakistan is neither dictatorship nor democracy. Its newspapers are louder in criticism of their President than the anti-Blair or anti-Bush press in the West. Its intellectuals roam the world, trashing their country. Opposition politician, Cambridge-educated billionaire, Benazir Bhutto, is free to return home when she wants. But General Musharraf and his army are in charge. The house arrest of Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, after he refused Musharraf's demand to resign, has caused outrage. In a nation that reveres high office, the manhandling of the judge shocked even the most cynical of Pakistani politicians. Pakistan urgently needs a return to democratic civilian rule even if its elected leaders in the Nineties became bywords for corruption, encouraging the Taliban and the madrassas, as well as the long-bearded, turban-wearing politicians who insist the law should be subordinate to theocracy. Democracy requires compromise between the military and the politicians. Instead there may be a slow drift towards increased authoritarianism under Musharraf, further alienating Pakistan. Read The Full Story Gang Mayhem Grips Los Angeles 2007-03-18 01:52:14 Intellpuke: A bloody conflict between Hispanics and black gangs is spreading across Los Angeles, California. Hungreds are dying as whole districts face the threat of ethnic cleansing, writes The Observer's correspondent Paul Harris from the epicenter of America's new urban warfare. Mr. Harris' article follows: Father Greg Boyle keeps a grim count of the young gang members he has buried. Number 151 was Jonathan Hurtado, 18 - fresh out of jail. Now the kindly, bearded Jesuit mourns him. "The day he got out I found him a job. He never missed a day. He was doing really well," says Boyle. But Hurtado made a mistake: he went back to his old neighborhood in east Los Angeles. While sitting in a park, Hurtado was approached by a man on a bike who said to him: "Hey, homie, what's up?" He then shot Hurtado four times. "You can't come back. Not even for a visit," says Boyle, who has worked for two decades against L.A.'s gang culture. Father Boyle's Los Angeles, where daily slaughter is a grim reality, is a world away from the glamorous Hollywood hills, Malibu beaches and Sunset Strip - the celebrity-drenched city that David Beckham and Posh Spice will soon make their home. Read The Full Story 2 Earthquakes Rattle Indonesia 2007-03-18 01:51:26 Two earthquakes hit eastern Indonesian regions on Sunday, but there were no reports of casualties or damage, said a meteorological official. A moderate earthquake measuring 5.4 on the Richter scale struck Papua province at 11:24 a.m. (0224 GMT), said an official at the National Meteorology and Geophysics Agency. It was centered 147 kilometers (91 miles) northwest of the provincial capital, Jayapura, at a depth of 78 kilometers, said the official. Read The Full Story
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