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Tuesday, August 26, 2003 |
QUOTE OF THE DAY
"If we believe that war is wrong, as everyone must, then we ought to believe that by proper efforts on our part it may be done away with."
- - Lucretia Mott
KNOW YOUR HISTORY - AUGUST 26th
1967 -- Jimi Hendrix's "Purple Haze" is released.
http://www.jimi-hendrix.com
1970 -- At the Isle of Wight Pop Festival in England, Jimi Hendrix makes his last public appearance.
RHINO HERE:
ECONOMY
"When companies go bankrupt, the CEO takes the blame."
So goes the inspirational quote used by www.rescuecalifornia.com, the folks that brought us the California Recall election. Now, inspired by that effort, a group calling itself the Fair and Balanced PAC has a launched a website called bushrecall.org with the catch phrase, "Tell Bush To Recall Himself." It's based on the idea that if the Republicans really think a head of state should be replaced if under his watch, the budget goes from super surplus to deep deficit, and, if that leader lies to his constituency about the financials , and, if the economy remains in saggy shape, then surely those same fiscally responsible, morally impeccable Repubs must want shrub out of office. Right? Right!
CHECK IT OUT & SIGN THE PETITION AT:
http://www.bushrecall.org/petition/
SECURITY
We Found the Weapons of Mass Destruction - They're In The President's Budget
Another great effort is the 2nd mass ad campaign by Peace Action. They're the folks that ran the ads in major newspapers and on mass transit vehicles across the country with the picture of Secretary of Warmongering, Rummie, shaking hands with Saddam. In the next few days they will launch their new campaign which hammers on a simple message, that in spite of the fact the shrub gang claims they invaded Iraq to stop the spread of weapons of mass destruction, they:
- are preparing to build new nuclear weapons & resume nuclear testing
- want "more usable" nuclear weapons for "certain battlefield situations"
- have threatened non-nuclear countries with nuclear weapons
The effort is the 2nd in a 4 part series, 1 aspect of a larger "Campaign for a New American Foreign Policy" The new ad reads:
"Like never before in our history, our current foreign policy is taking our nation, and the world, in a radical and reckless direction. The Bush administration is turning our country into a global renegade. Building nuclear weapons won't make us safer, but it will encourage other countries to develop their own. Instead of leading the world in producing nuclear weapons, let's lead a global campaign to dismantle them - including our own."
To see the ad, find out more about Peace Action, GO TO:
http://www.californiapeaceaction.org
To contribute to the ad campaign, GO TO:
https://www.californiapeaceaction.org/ad/donate.htm
INTEGRITY
Scott Ritter is a Republican who voted for Bush, a former Marine, a Gulf War I veteran, & a former U.N. weapons inspector in Iraq. His Monday NY Times Op-Ed is today's RHINO'S BOTTOM LINE.
Ritter was a passionate & eloquent critic of shrub's plan to attack Iraq. Below is a link to a September 2002 Time Magazine interview with Ritter, during the buildup to the attack.
Exclusive: Scott Ritter in His Own Words - The former weapons inspector explains his switch from getting up Saddam's nose to picking fights with Bush
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,351165,00.html
Ritter has a new book out entitled, "Frontier Justice: Weapons of Mass Destruction and the Bushwhacking of America." Here's a summary from the publisher:
"Since before September 11, the Bush presidency has been dominated by a single strategy - national security through global domination. Frontier Justice exposes the fraudulent manner in which this scheme of world hegemony has been sold to Congress and the American people, especially through the "Big Lie" about the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. Ritter dissects this myth and reveals how Bush carried out the international equivalent of a west Texas lynch mob, delving out his own brand of frontier justice in the Middle East. Ritter - a Republican who voted for Bush, a former Marine, a Gulf War I veteran, and a former U.N. weapons inspector - attacks the policies of President Bush and begins the process of holding accountable those behind the "Big Lie." No stranger to controversy, Ritter also elaborates on his own role in this story, countering those who question his patriotism and putting into perspective the vicious attacks on his personal character that emerged during his efforts against the war. Frontier Justice is both a scathing indictment of Bush's foreign policy and a call for the American people to rise up in defense of their democratic republic by voting Bush out of office in 2004."
8:30:55 AM 
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A Weapons Cache We'll Never See
By SCOTT RITTER, NY times Op-Ed, August 25, 2003
ELMAR, N.Y. - Some 1,500 American investigators are scouring the Iraqi countryside for evidence of weapons of mass destruction that has so far eluded them. Known as the Iraq Survey Group and operating under the supervision of a former United Nations weapons inspector, David Kay, they are searching mostly for documents that will help them assemble a clear, if somewhat circumstantial, case that Iraq had or intended to have programs to produce prohibited weapons. It is a daunting task. And according to many Iraqi scientists and officials I have spoken to, it is not being done very well.
A logical starting place for such a mission is in the Jadariya district of downtown Baghdad, adjacent to the campus of Baghdad University: the complex that housed the Iraqi National Monitoring Directorate. The directorate was the government agency responsible for coordinating all aspects of the United Nations inspection teams' missions. It was also supposed to monitor Iraq's industrial infrastructure and ensure compliance with the Security Council resolutions regarding disarmament, verification and export-import controls. As such, the directorate was the repository for every Iraqi government record relating to its weapons programs,...
...And it seems that after the coalition troops moved into Baghdad, the records were all there for the taking. According to several senior directorate officials I have spoken to since the war - one a brigadier general who had been a high-ranking administrator at the complex - the entire archive had been consolidated into metal containers before the war and stored at the directorate's Jadariyah headquarters for protection. Yet these eyewitnesses have provided me with a troubling tale. On April 8, they say, the buildings were occupied by soldiers from the Army's Third Infantry Division. For two weeks, the Iraqi scientists and administrators showed up for work but, according to several I have spoken to, no one from the coalition interviewed them or tried to take control of the archive.
Rather, these staff members have told me, after occupying the facility for two weeks, the American soldiers simply withdrew. Soon after, looters entered the facility and ransacked it. Overnight, every computer was stolen, disks and video records were destroyed, and the carefully organized documents were ripped from their binders and either burned or scattered about. According to the former brigadier general, who went back to the building after the mob had gone, some Iraqi scientists did their best to recover and reconstitute what they could, but for the vast majority of the archive the damage was irreversible...
READ IT ALL AT:
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/25/opinion/25RITT.html?th
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7:25:01 AM
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© Copyright 2005 Gary Rhine.
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