NP? the War that never ends

[Doug Millison]

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2002/07/13/MN2
41368.DTL
[...] The man President Bush tapped to lead his corporate crime watchdog
team was a director of a San Francisco credit-card firm that just two years
ago paid more than $400 million to settle charges that it cheated
consumers. Larry Thompson, named to lead the Bush administration's
white-collar crime task force, served on the board of directors of
Providian Financial Corp. at the same time regulators found that the firm
systematically charged excessive fees and used deceptive sales tactics to
bolster its bottom line. Thompson sat on Providian's board and served as
chairman of the firm's audit and compliance committee from June 1997 until
his unanimous confirmation by the Senate as deputy attorney general on May
10, 2001. He sold his Providian stock -- said to be worth as much as $4.7
million -- to comply with ethics rules. The sale came just months before
the firm disclosed looming problems with credit card defaults that led to
the collapse of its stock and thousands of layoffs. [...]


http://www.mediawhoresonline.com/
[...] James Doty is a senior partner at Baker Boggs. In the late 1980s, he
was George W. Bush's personal lawyer, who helped arrange Bush's purchase of
part-ownership of the Texas Rangers. Doty was then named Securities and
Exchange Commission General Counsel. Although he recused himself --
something that's become more and more common in the Dubya era, with
conflict of interest running rampant -- Doty was at the SEC when it
investigated the Harken Energy deal and decided to drop its probe. And now,
Doty has joined the White House defense squad, out there trying to claim
that the SEC actually exonerated Bush, an outright lie.

Happily, NPR's Bob Edwards has questioned Doty about all of this -- and
Doty has stayed true to White House form, squirming and dissembling about
Bush, especially when confronted with hard facts.  Doty told Edwards that,
in the Harken deal, Bush "met not only the letter but the spirit of the
law," and that he was and is "a compliant person."

Really, Mr. Doty?  Then why, in a memo dated July 17, 1991, did SEC
investigators complain that Bush and his lawyers were being evasive, hiding
behind attorney-client privilege, and withholding crucial information?

July 17, 1991 SEC Memo
(http://www.public-i.org/dtaweb/report.asp?ReportID=386&L1=10&L2=10&L3=0&L4=0&L5
=0)

When Doty tried to say that the SEC had, in fact, exonerated Bush, Edwards
pressed him, asking if the letter has not in fact explicitly stated that
Bush had not been exonerated -- and Doty collapsed into gibberish.

Doty: "No, it [the SEC letter] simply says the agency reserved the right to
reopen the file..."

Edwards: "Let me find it.  Let me find it." Then he quoted directly from
the SEC letter, about how Bush had not been exonerated.

Doty: "I think the release of the document, er, um, the letter..."

Then Doty tells Edwards that the SEC has kept the case closed for ten
years, which, he would have us believe, means Bush is exonerated and no
reopening of the file or the case is necessary.

Does James Doty really think we are morons?  Or is he just panicking there
at the end of the interview, stunned that an interviewer would actually
cite the facts that explode his falsehoods, coming up with any fake straw
in the wind he can?

You decide.

See:  NPR.org for audio of Bob Edward Interview With James Doty, July 12, 2002


http://www.msnbc.com/news/778598.asp
It was amazing to read the Pentagon's detailed plans for an invasion of
Iraq in the New York Times last week. The general reaction of Americans to
this news was even more amazing: Basically, there was no reaction. We seem
to be distant observers of our own nation's preparation for war, watching
with horror or approval or indifference a process we have nothing to do
with and cannot affect.


http://www.counterpunch.org/whitfield0713.html
[...] We had over 50 people -- black and white, young and old, professional
and laboring and unemployed -- come to march with us behind a large banner
that said "Greensboro Peace Coalition -- Not In Our Name". Along the route
we passed out small flyers with the "Not In Our Name" pledge of resistance
on one side and a statement from the Greensboro Peace Coalition on the
other. The theme of the Parade was "American Heroes". Our delegation
marched with posters of Mark Twain, Albert Einstein, Fredrick Douglas,
Martin Luther King, and other great Americans who have stood for peace and
against militarism and agression. [...]  After the parade, we set up a
table among the groups who participated in the day long "Fun Fourth"
activities. We were in between the table of a businessman running for US
Senate, and a young man selling digital phone service for AT&T. Many people
came by our table to pick up more literature and to talk. So many times
that day we heard how glad people were to see someone with the courage to
express concerns about the nation's direction. [...] There is a real lesson
in this. If you scratch the surface of the poll numbers about Bush's and
Ashcroft's overwhelming support, you get down to a lot of people with a lot
of questions, a lot of concerns and a lot of fears. Some of them are afraid
that they are alone in what they are thinking. [...]


http://www.startribune.com/stories/484/3054297.html
[...] About 300 protesters, many carrying antiwar signs, rallied outside
Target Center in a boisterous demonstration to express their opposition to
President Bush's military policies in Afghanistan.[...] "Put an end to
endless war," a sign read. "Money for housing not war," read another.
Jessica Sundin, a spokeswoman for the Antiwar Committee, a main sponsor of
the protest, said the demonstration was called on two days' notice and
reflected growing dismay with Bush's war efforts and restrictions of civil
liberties at home under Attorney General John Ashcroft. As Bush supporters
left Target Center shortly before 7 p.m., some of them waved small American
flags and screamed at protesters. "I hate them all," said Katie El-Die, 22.
[...]


http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20020712/ap_on_re_as/afghan_us
_military_2
WASHINGTON (AP) - An Afghan plan to rein in American operations in an
effort to avoid further civilian deaths won't change how coalition forces
pursue the war on terrorism, a U.S. military spokesman said Friday. [...]
Afghan officials say 48 civilians - including some at a wedding party -
were killed and more than 100 injured in July 1 strikes by a U.S. AC-130
gunship in several villages of the central Uruzgan province.


 
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,754499,00.html
Belgium exhumes its colonial demons
Historians vow to unearth truth about allegations of genocide in Congo



"Don't forget the real business of the War is buying and selling. The
murdering and the violence are self-policing, and ca be entrusted to
non-professionals. The mass nature of wartime death is useful in many ways.
It serves as spectacle, as diversion from the real movements of the War. It
provides raw material to be recorded into History, so that children may be
taught History as sequences of violence, battle after battle, and be more
prepared for the adult world. Best of all, mass death's a stimulus to just
ordinary folks, little fellows, to try 'n' grab a piece of that Pie while
they're still here to gobble it up. The true war is a celebration of
markets." (GR 105)