Monday, June 02, 2003

Re: Liar, liar pants on fire Dear Friends: The Bush Administration continues to be a house divided against itself, to say nothing of the rest of the country. The long-standing feud between the State Department and the Pentagon is no secret, but top aides deny any hard feelings. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----- New York Times May 31, 2003 What Rift? Top Aides Deny State Dept.-Pentagon Chasm By Steven R. Weisman WASHINGTON, May 30  American presidencies have often been riven by feuds between hard-liners at the Pentagon and diplomats at the State Department. Yet the chasm between the two under President Bush is often so wide that to outsiders it can appear they are conducting two entirely different foreign policies. In recent back-to-back interviews, though, two of the most senior insiders involved in the policy debates discounted that widely held view. Paul D. Wolfowitz, the deputy defense secretary, dismissed it as "sophomoric," and Richard L. Armitage, the deputy secretary of state, called it "utter nonsense." To some extent, tensions are inevitable and healthy. The State Department emphasizes negotiations with allies and an aversion to confrontation, especially military, on trouble spots ranging from Iraq to North Korea, the Middle East and Iran. The Defense Department takes a tougher stance on these same problem areas, even if it alarms close allies. The State and Defense departments are also squabbling over which of the two should be the primary power in the American occupation of postwar Iraq. Because the Pentagon favors a vigorous projection of American power at a time when that power is unrivaled, and because the State Department sees most immediately the price paid for American assertiveness in terms of lost sympathy overseas, the current differences often appear unique in their acuteness. They are certainly the talk of Washington, where Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld are often portrayed as rival jousters in a contest where the Pentagon seems to have the upper hand. Henry A. Kissinger, the former Secretary of State, joked recently to a group of businesspeople in New York that Secretary Powell was viewed abroad as "a small country that occasionally does business with the United States," according to someone in the room. But Mr. Armitage insisted that he had seen worse tensions. He recalled that when he served in the Reagan administration, he attended breakfast meetings between Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger and Secretary of State George P. Shultz. "Now there was a constant battle," he said. "We used to sit there and cringe. I've never seen Powell or Rumsfeld be dismissive or rude to each other." Mr. Wolfowitz asserted that disputes are healthy, not personal, and that they should reassure rather than alarm Americans. "At the risk of offending some people, there's a kind of sophomoric view, even among relatively sophisticated people, that every decision in Washington has to be seen as a victory of one agency or another," Mr. Wolfowitz said. "What people fail to understand," he added, "is that members of this administration are encouraged by the president to debate their views forcefully. When the decision gets made, we all pull together and there is enormous respect for the people you're arguing with." Mr. Armitage, across the Potomac River at the State Department, gave a similar view. "It's utter nonsense," he said of all the talk about animosity. "Paul and I talk every day. Look, we've been colleagues and friends for 20-odd years. Of course we have our differences, but they are not personal. We've got different bureaucracies with different missions." Nonetheless, when Mr. Rumsfeld dismisses France, Germany and others critical of the war in Iraq as "old Europe," Mr. Powell's aides wince. When Mr. Powell extols the virtues of the United Nations, Mr. Rumsfeld's supporters say he is naive. When President Bush spoke recently at the commencement ceremonies of the United States Coast Guard Academy, calling for a global drive against poverty, starvation and disease, an aide to Mr. Powell scored it as a victory. "That was the Bush-Powell agenda the president was talking about," Mr. Armitage said. "This administration stands for more than finding another country to go to war against." But since war  against Afghanistan, Iraq and against Al Qaeda cells around the world  has been at the core of Mr. Bush's foreign policy, many people see Mr. Powell as a marginalized figure. Mr. Armitage said it was absurd to generalize that the Bush administration favors war as the primary means to solve problems. He argued that the highly publicized National Security Strategy of last year devoted only one small section to "pre-emptive" military action attacking in the face of a perceived threat  amid many other pages about diplomacy's value in dealing with threats to the country. "What people remember is that pre-emption doctrine, instead of the umpteen chapters on the need for bilateral and multilateral cooperation," said Mr. Armitage. He said that diplomacy was now the focus of policy on Iran, Syria and North Korea, among other problem areas. Mr. Wolfowitz agreed. "Iraq lent itself much more to use of force than other problems we face," he said. "On North Korea, the key is confronting them with a unified force from Russia, Japan, South Korea and to a lesser extent, China." Iran, Mr. Wolfowitz said, "is more a matter of figuring out how to use the opening provided by the fact that a great many Iranian people are not happy with their government." But other officials have suggested that a push by the Pentagon for the administration to adopt "regime change" as its policy for Iran has caused tensions with the State Department. Asian diplomats say that they have a picture of an administration divided on North Korea, at least. Two diplomats who have dealt with Washington on the issue say they often have trouble telling which approach  diplomacy advocated by the State Department or threats of confrontation advocated by the Pentagon  was Mr. Bush's preference. But Mr. Wolfowitz asserted that for many years he had advocated diplomatic pressure on the North Korean government. "I was writing in early 1994 that the key to the North Korea problem rests on unity of approach among us and our major allies," Mr. Wolfowitz said. Another longstanding point of contention within the Bush administration is the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. Secretary Powell is known to have favored forceful engagement in getting Israel to negotiate with the Palestinians and to make concessions to them. Israeli leaders bridle at what they consider to be pro-Arab sentiments at the State Department, and are said by European diplomats to prefer to deal with the Defense Department or Vice President Dick Cheney. Mr. Wolfowitz, asked about this split, at first said he did not want to talk about it. "I mean, there is an interesting point to be made here," he added. "Let me just say that it is convenient for other people to claim there are splits, because that might serve their own purposes. But I know for a fact that the president is deeply committed to the Middle East peace process and believes there's a heightened need for diplomacy at this moment." Some of President Bush's aides say that, in the weeks following the end of the Iraq war, White House political advisers favored a kind of pause in the talk of war. The public, these aides say, is not prepared for yet another war in the months between now and the next election. Asked if he agreed that the United States was in a season now of diplomacy, not war, Mr. Armitage replied: "To the extent that there's a pause, the pause has been that we've been at war since 9/11, and now it appears we've got a breather from that. We're not at the same urgent fever pitch." But he argued that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have wrongly obscured the administration's diplomatic record the last two years  not simply trying to engage North Korea, Iran, Syria and other nations, but expanding the membership of NATO and reaching arms accords with Russia. "When people talk in shorthand about hawks and doves, unilateralists versus multilateralists, these labels really miss the point," he said. "There's full agreement that this is an unparalleled moment for the United Nations, and we've got to use it for the good of the world." "The question is, what are the most effective tools for us to use?" he added. "Is it diplomacy, force or foreign assistance? Carrots or sticks? That's a useful debate to have, and it's encouraged by this president." Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company ________________________________ In peace, Otoño ________________________________ Read all about it and get the news that matters by receiving the War and Peace Watch. To subscribe, send an e-mail to:  Reikiworks@compuserve.com Thank you for your support, The War and Peace Watch publisher. contact:  Otoño Johnston ============================================================ (In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment  for research and educational purposes only.) ============================================================ 1:49:22 PM

Re: Blair rejects call for inquiry Dear Friends: Will the invasion of Iraq be the downfall of Tony Blair? The prime justification for the war was the presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Every day the questions about their existence grow, even among those who supported this war. Were we all lied to? And why? Question Time in Parliament is this Wednesday. Will it all blow up in Tony Blair's face? _____________________________ BBC News June 2, 2003   Blair Stands '100%' by Weapons Claims Tony Blair has rejected calls for an official inquiry into the government's claims about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. Speaking at the G8 summit in Evian, Mr Blair said he stood "100%" by the evidence shown to the public about Iraq's alleged weapons programmes. "Frankly, the idea that we doctored intelligence reports in order to invent some notion about a 45-minute capability for delivering weapons of mass destruction is completely and totally false," he said. HUNT ON FOR IRAQ'S WEAPONS I stand absolutely 100% behind the evidence based on intelligence that we presented to people --Tony Blair Calls for an inquiry were made after ex-cabinet minister Clare Short said Prime Minister Tony Blair had "duped" the country into going to war. Another former cabinet minister, Robin Cook, who resigned over the war, said the government had clearly sent troops into battle "on the basis of a mistake" and an inquiry should be held. Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman Menzies Campbell said only a special Commons select committee inquiry could end the "rumour and recrimination". And the Conservatives said they were giving "serious consideration" to whether to call for an independent inquiry. 'No secret deal' Asked about the inquiry calls, Mr Blair said: "It is important that if people actually have evidence they produce it. "But it is wrong frankly for people to make allegations on the basis of so-called anonymous sources when the facts are precisely the facts as stated." The prime minister also branded as "completely and totally untrue" Ms Short's claim that he and US President George Bush had secretly agreed a date for invading Iraq last September. He appealed for people to have a "little patience" as an international survey group was this week starting to interview Iraqi scientists and investigate potential arms sites. WHAT DO THE PUBLIC THINK? Iraq had WMD: 51% Claims were simply to justify war: 44% Blair really wanted to remove Saddam: 70% Blair wanted to "keep in" with US: 55% Blair genuinely wanted to get rid of Iraq's WMD: 48% Blair showed sincerity and courage: 68% Source: YouGov internet poll of 2,051 adults in the Daily Telegraph "I stand absolutely 100% behind the evidence based on intelligence that we presented to people," said Mr Blair. UK experts believed two mobile biological weapons facilities had been found, and were part of a whole series of similar units, he added. The weapons rows on both sides of the Atlantic were likely to have been on the agenda when Mr Blair met Mr Bush for private talks on Monday morning. A poll in the Daily Telegraph on Monday suggests the number of people who think Iraq had biological, chemical or nuclear arms before the war has dropped substantially. Just 51% now think Saddam Hussein had such weapons, compared with 71% in February, according to the YouGov internet poll. Despite that, 68% said Mr Blair had shown "sincerity and courage" in his handling of the crisis. 'Doctored'? Shadow chancellor Michael Howard said there was "a good deal of strength" in the argument for an inquiry. He said the Tory leadership had no doubt that Saddam had access to weapons of mass destruction, and that the war had been justified. But he added: "There is a separate question, which is whether the government told the truth in the run-up to the war, whether the government did try to... doctor the intelligence." Much of the row has centred on the claim made in a government dossier published before the war that Iraq had chemical weapons capable of being used within 45 minutes of an order. 'Bigger than Watergate' Ms Short said she believed the claim was made to hurry the public into a war, a date for which had secretly been agreed between Mr Blair and Mr Bush. Mr Cook, who resigned as leader of the Commons over the war, said the government had committed a "monumental blunder". Pressing for an inquiry, Labour backbencher Malcolm Savidge said the charge that the UK was misled into war was more serious than the Watergate affair, which ended Richard Nixon's presidency. He told BBC News 24: "The issue is so vital that we have to something more than simply the prime minister expressing his convictions." Story from BBC NEWS: Published: 2003/06/02 © BBC MMIII ________________________________ In peace, Otoño ________________________________ Read all about it and get the news that matters by receiving the War and Peace Watch. To subscribe, send an e-mail to:  Reikiworks@compuserve.com Thank you for your support, The War and Peace Watch publisher. contact:  Otoño Johnston ============================================================ (In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment  for research and educational purposes only.) ============================================================ 1:47:58 PM

Re: 8 million children left behind Dear Friends: Every time we look at the policies pressed for by the Bush administration, we come back to the basic question of "Who gets what, and why?" The latest example of such egregiousness is his tax cut bill, a dubious venture at best. Putting aside any of the arguments about whether or not it will actually stimulate the economy, one feature is particularly galling. Families earning between $10,500 and $26,625 will not benefit from the child credits accelerated under the new tax law. They will have to wait for their increases until 2005. If it makes sense to help families with children, why shouldn't the aid go to those who need it most? If accelerating the tax credit makes sense for some, why not for everyone? If one goal of the tax bill is to pump money into the economy quickly, why not give it to those most apt to spend it? Some 8 million children live in families who earn below the current threshold. __________________________ Washington Post June 2, 2003 Children Left Behind Post Editorial Even for a debate over taxes, the public discussion taking place right now about child credits in the new tax law is particularly galling, hypocritical and ill-informed. The new law bumps up the credit for each child from $600 to $1,000 (though the benefit phases out for families that earn more than $110,000). This increase, part of the 2001 tax law, was pushed forward to this year under the new law. The 2001 law also allowed some low-income families that don't pay income taxes to benefit from the child tax credit; these families receive money from the government, just as with the Earned Income Tax Credit. Those amounts were set to increase in 2005 -- but that part was not speeded up under the new law. If it had been, it would have cost $3.5 billion, or 1 percent of the supposed cost of the tax bill, and would have helped almost 12 million children whose families make between $10,500 and $26,625. Stiffing these children was not a last-minute oversight or the unfortunate result of an unreasonably tight $350 billion ceiling. "Adjustments had to be made," a spokeswoman for the House Ways and Means Committee said, as if those on her side would have preferred otherwise. In fact, the administration didn't include this provision in its original, $726 billion proposal. The House didn't include it in its $550 billion version. The Senate Finance Committee didn't include it in its original package. Most Republicans wanted relief only for those who pay income tax. As White House spokesman Ari Fleischer framed it, "Does tax relief go to people who pay income taxes . . . or does it go above and beyond the forgiving of all income taxes, and you actually get a check back from the government for more than you ever owed in income taxes?" But it's not as if these workers pay no federal taxes; they shell out 7.65 percent of their earnings in Social Security and Medicare payroll taxes. More fundamentally, if it makes sense to help families with children, why shouldn't the aid go to those who need it most? If speeding up the tax credit makes sense for some, why not for everyone? If one goal of the tax bill is to pump money into the economy quickly, why not give it to those most apt to spend it? Such relief could be paid for by cutting the rates for those in the top brackets (people with taxable incomes of more than about $312,000) just a smidgen less. These folks already get the biggest rate reduction of all, from 38.6 percent to 35 percent; merely edging that up to 35.3 percent would have paid for the extra child credits. If anything, the question lawmakers should consider is why those who make less than $10,500 shouldn't be entitled to some credit as well. The theory has been not to subsidize those who choose to work only part time, but in this economy any number of people are working fewer hours because that is all that is available. Some 8 million children live in families who earn below the current threshold. Indeed, the discussion should be broadened to include the question of why the bill, in a similar fashion, speeded up marriage penalty relief for everyone but the bottom tier, those who qualify for the Earned Income Tax Credit. This is arguably even more unfair than the failure to accelerate the entire child credit: the backwardness of the social policy -- discouraging marriage -- is obvious, and the marriage penalty is particularly steep in this category. For example, two single parents, each with one child and each earning $10,000, would receive about $2,500 through the tax credit; if they married, their tax benefits would drop by more than $1,000. Democrats, who somehow never managed to get traction with an argument about the unfairness of the cuts before the bill was passed, are seizing on the new attention to the child credit. Today Sens. Blanche L. Lincoln (D-Ark.) and Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine) plan to introduce a bill that would accelerate the credit, paid for by curbing corporate tax shelters and imposing some user fees. We're looking forward to the debate. © 2003 The Washington Post Company ________________________________ In peace, Otoño ________________________________ Read all about it and get the news that matters by receiving the War and Peace Watch. To subscribe, send an e-mail to:  Reikiworks@compuserve.com Thank you for your support, The War and Peace Watch publisher. contact:  Otoño Johnston ============================================================ (In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment  for research and educational purposes only.) ============================================================ 1:46:39 PM

Dear Friends: As many of us feared, the FCC has just relaxed the rulings restricting media ownership, permitting companies to purchase additional television stations, and own a newspaper and a broadcast outlet in the same city. Critics say the eased restrictions would likely lead to a wave of mergers landing a few giant media companies in control of even more of what the public sees, hears, and reads. FCC Chairman Michael Powell countered that the lifting of regulations would actually enhance diversity. Democrat Jonathan Adelstein said the changes are likely to damage the media landscape for decades to come. ________________________ The Houston Chronicle June 2, 2003, 10:51AM FCC OKs Changes in Media Ownership Rules Associated Press WASHINGTON -- Federal regulators relaxed decades-old rules restricting media ownership today, permitting companies to buy more television stations and own a newspaper and a broadcast outlet in the same city. The Republican-controlled Federal Communications Commission voted 3-2 -- along party lines -- to adopt a series of changes favored by media companies. These companies argued that existing ownership rules were outmoded on a media landscape that has been substantially altered by cable TV, satellite broadcasts and the Internet. Critics say the eased restrictions would likely lead to a wave of mergers landing a few giant media companies in control of even more of what the public sees, hears and reads. The decision was a victory for FCC Chairman Michael Powell, who has faced growing criticism from diverse interests opposed to his move toward deregulation. "Our actions will advance our goals of diversity and localism," Powell said. He said the old restrictions were too outdated to survive legal challenges and the FCC "wrote rules to match the times." The FCC said a single company can now own TV stations that reach 45 percent of U.S. households instead of 35 percent. The major networks wanted the cap eliminated, while smaller broadcasters said a higher cap would allow the networks to gobble up stations and take away local control of programming. The FCC largely ended a ban on joint ownership of a newspaper and a broadcast station in the same city. The provision lifts all "cross-ownership" restrictions in markets with nine or more TV stations. Smaller markets would face some limits and cross-ownership would be banned in markets with three or fewer TV stations. The agency also eased rules governing local TV ownership so one company can own two television stations in more markets and three stations in the largest cities such as New York and Los Angeles. "The more you dig into this order the worse things get," said Michael Copps, one of the commission's Democrats. He said the changes empowers "a new media elite" to control news and entertainment. Fellow Democrat Jonathan Adelstein said the changes are "likely to damage the media landscape for decades to come." The rule changes are expected to face court challenges from media companies wanting more deregulation and consumer groups seeking stricter restrictions. The FCC also changed how local radio markets are defined to correct a problem that has allowed companies to exceed ownership limits in some areas. The government adopted the ownership rules between 1941 and 1975 to encourage competition and prevent monopoly control of the media. A 1996 law requires the FCC to study ownership rules every two years and repeal or modify regulations determined to be no longer in the public interest. Many previous proposed changes were unfinished or were sent back to the FCC after court challenges. As the vote approached, opposition intensified. Critics bought television and newspaper ads, wrote letters and e-mails, and demonstrated outside television stations owned by major media companies. Some ads took on Rupert Murdoch, whose News Corp. owns Fox News Channel, 20th Century Fox TV and film studios, the New York Post and other media properties. Murdoch told a Senate committee last month he has no plan for a media buying spree after the changes, other than his proposed acquisition of DirecTV, the nation's largest satellite television provider. The critics of eased rules include consumer advocates, civil rights and religious groups, small broadcasters, writers, musicians, academicians and the National Rifle Association. They say most people still get news mainly from television and newspapers, and combining the two is dangerous because those entities will not monitor each other and provide differing opinions. Large newspaper companies such as Tribune Co. and Gannett Inc. wanted the "cross-ownership" ban lifted. "Newspaper-owed television stations program more and better news and public affairs than any other stations," said John Sturm, president of the Newspaper Association of America. News Corp. and Viacom Inc., which owns CBS and UPN, stand to benefit from a higher national TV ownership cap because mergers have left them above the 35 percent level. Those companies, along with NBC, persuaded an appeals court last year to reject that cap and send it back to the FCC for revision. Lawmakers have split mainly along party lines. Democrats demand more public scrutiny of the changes while Republicans support Powell. Some lawmakers critical of the FCC have proposed legislation to counter relaxed regulations. --The Houston Chronicle Associated Press ________________________________ In peace, Otoño ________________________________ Read all about it and get the news that matters by receiving the War and Peace Watch. To subscribe, send an e-mail to:  Reikiworks@compuserve.com Thank you for your support, The War and Peace Watch publisher. contact:  Otoño Johnston ============================================================ (In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment  for research and educational purposes only.) ============================================================ 1:44:42 PM

Re: Robert Scheer on Pvt. Lynch reporting Dear Friends: Military spin doctors take to the warpath to discredit reports that the Private Lynch rescue was staged. What is especially sad about this is story is that the Pentagon had an inspiring tale, but they twisted it to serve their own needs, making the war a morality play between good and evil. They abused their readership, they abused Private Lynch and her family, and they abused the truth. Robert Scheer is a national syndicated columnist. He teaches courses on media and politics at USC's Annenberg School for Communication. _____________________________ Working for Change May 30, 2003 Pentagon Aims Guns at Lynch Reports Robert Scheer - Creators Syndicate It is one thing when the talk-show bullies who shamelessly smeared the last president, even as he attacked the training camps of Al Qaeda, now term it anti-American or even treasonous to dare criticize the Bush administration. When our Pentagon, however -- a $400-billion-a-year juggernaut -- savages individual journalists for questioning its version of events, it is worth noting. Especially if you're that journalist. Last week, this column reported the findings of a British Broadcasting Corp. special report that accused the U.S. military and media of inaccurately and manipulatively hyping the story of U.S. Pvt. Jessica Lynch and her rescue from an Iraq hospital. The column was also informed by similar and independently reported articles and statements in the Toronto Star, The Washington Post and other reputable publications. Expected -- and received -- was a hysterical belch of outrage from the right-wing media, led by Rupert Murdoch's Fox empire, which has already committed a huge book advance to the telling of this mythic tale. A fiery and disingenuous response from the Pentagon, however, was quite a bit more sobering. Calling the column a "tirade," Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs Victoria Clarke wrote in a letter to the Los Angeles Times that "Scheer's claims are outrageous, patently false and unsupported by the facts." "Official spokespeople in Qatar and in Washington, as well as the footage released, reflected the events accurately," the Pentagon letter continued. "To suggest otherwise is an insult and does a grave disservice to the brave men and women involved." Actually, what is a grave disservice is manipulating a gullible media with leaked distortions from unnamed official sources about Lynch's heroics in battle. That aside, it would have been easier to rebut the Pentagon if its spokeswoman had actually questioned any of the facts the BBC or this column reported. In particular, the Pentagon turned down the request by the BBC and other media to view the full, unedited footage of the rescue. Perhaps Clarke is frustrated that in the days since the BBC report, several major publications, such as the Chicago Tribune and the London Daily Mail, have independently verified much of the BBC's disturbing account of what the broadcasting corporation called "one of the most stunning pieces of news management ever conceived." The distortions concerning Lynch began two days after the rescue with a front-page Washington Post story by veteran reporters Susan Schmidt and Vernon Loeb. They cited U.S. officials as the source of their information that Lynch "fought fiercely and shot several enemy soldiers, firing her weapon until she ran out of ammunition" and that she "continued firing after she sustained multiple gunshot wounds." The Post quoted one of the unnamed U.S. officials as saying "she was fighting to the death. She did not want to be taken alive." Despite their current defensiveness, Clarke and other Pentagon honchos had to know that the story attributed to U.S. officials was false because Lynch had at that point already been rescued and examined by U.S. military doctors, who found no evidence of a single gunshot wound, let alone multiple gunshot wounds. Yet they did nothing to challenge the Post story, which was carried worldwide and quickly became the main heroic propaganda myth of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. It was only last week, after the BBC-initiated brouhaha, that the Pentagon finally launched its own investigation of what actually occurred when Lynch was taken prisoner. According to The Washington Times, the investigation came about after top Pentagon officials cast doubt on the Lynch battle-scene account, of which she has no memory. However, the Pentagon investigators were not asked to look into the circumstances surrounding Lynch's subsequent rescue. Much of the BBC's account has now been supported by other media investigations, which confirm that a U.S. attack on an unguarded hospital was spun into the stuff of Hollywood heroics. The Tribune's Monday story, for example, provided new details of how slickly a tale of derring-do was created, and enhanced for television by that five-minute Pentagon-supplied night-vision video. The Tribune also added details supporting the BBC account that hospital staff members had placed Lynch in an ambulance and tried to deliver her to a U.S. checkpoint before being turned back by random American fire. What is particularly sad in all of this is that a wonderfully hopeful story was available to the Pentagon to sell to the eager media: one in which besieged Iraqi doctors and nurses bravely cared for -- and supplied their own blood to -- a similarly brave young American woman in a time of madness and violence. Instead, eager to turn the war into a morality play between good and evil, the military used -- if not abused -- Lynch to put a heroic spin on an otherwise sorry tale of unjustified invasion. The truth hurts, but that's no excuse for trying to shoot the messenger. © 2003 Creators Syndicate ________________________________ In peace, Otoño ________________________________ Read all about it and get the news that matters by receiving the War and Peace Watch. To subscribe, send an e-mail to:  Reikiworks@compuserve.com Thank you for your support, The War and Peace Watch publisher. contact:  Otoño Johnston ============================================================ (In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment  for research and educational purposes only.) ============================================================ 1:42:52 PM

Re: Thomas Friedman on why we're feared         Dear Friends: Thomas Friedman writes on the behemoth that America has become, and why other countries fear us so. ____________________________ The International Herald Tribune June 2, 2003 Why the Rest of the World Hates America  Thomas L. Friedman, NYT After Saddam   WASHINGTON--As President George W. Bush meets other world leaders this weekend, and tries to patch things up between America and the rest of the planet, I find myself looking back and asking: What's been going on here? After Sept. 11, 2001, Americans wondered "Why do they hate us?" speaking of the Muslim world. After the Iraq war debate, the question has grown into "Why does everybody else hate us?" I've sketched out my own answer, which I modestly call "A Brief Theory of Everything." I offer it here, even more briefly, in hopes that people will write in with comments or catcalls so I can continue to refine it, turn it into a quick book and pay my daughter's college tuition. Here goes: During the 1990s, America became exponentially more powerful - economically, militarily and technologically - than any other country in the world, if not in history. Broadly speaking, this was because the collapse of the Soviet empire, and the alternative to free-market capitalism, coincided with the Internet-technology revolution in America. The net effect was that U.S. power, culture and economic ideas about how society should be organized became so dominant (a dominance magnified through globalization) that America began to touch people's lives around the planet - "more than their own governments," as a Pakistani diplomat once said to me. Yes, we Americans began to touch people's lives - directly or indirectly - more than their own governments. As people realized this, they began to organize against it in a very inchoate manner. The first manifestation of that was the 1999 Seattle protest, which triggered a global movement. Seattle had its idiotic side, but what the serious protesters there were saying was: "You, America, are now touching my life more than my own government. You are touching it by how your culture seeps into mine, by how your technologies are speeding up change in all aspects of my life, and by how your economic rules have been 'imposed' on me. I want to have a vote on how your power is exercised, because it's a force now shaping my life." Why didn't nations organize militarily against the United States? Michael Mandelbaum, author of "The Ideas That Conquered the World," answers: "One prominent international relations school - the realists - argues that when a hegemonic power, such as America, emerges in the global system other countries will naturally gang up against it. But because the world basically understands that America is a benign hegemon, the ganging up does not take the shape of warfare. Instead, it is an effort to Gulliverize America, an attempt to tie it down, using the rules of the World Trade Organization or the United Nations - and in so doing demanding a vote on how American power is used." There is another reason for this nonmilitary response. America's emergence as the hyperpower is happening in the age of globalization, when economies have become so intertwined that China, Russia, France or any other rivals cannot hit the United States without wrecking their own economies. The only people who use violence are rogues or nonstate actors with no stakes in the system, like Osama bin Laden. Basically, he is in a civil war with the Saudi ruling family. But, he says to himself: "The Saudi rulers are insignificant. To destroy them, you have to hit the hegemonic power that props them up - America." Hence, Sept. 11. This is where the story really gets interesting. Because suddenly, Puff the Magic Dragon - a benign U.S. hegemon touching everyone economically and culturally - turns into Godzilla, a wounded, angry, raging beast touching people militarily. Now, people become really frightened of America, a mood reinforced by the Bush team's unilateralism. With one swipe of its paw America smashes the Taliban. Then it turns to Iraq. Then the rest of the world says, "Holy cow! Now we really want a vote over how your power is used." That is what the whole Iraq debate was about. People understood Iraq was a war of choice that would affect them, so they wanted to be part of the choosing. America said, sorry, you don't pay, you don't play. "Where we are now," says Nayan Chanda, publications director at the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization (whose Web site yaleglobal.yale.edu is full of valuable nuggets), "is that you have this sullen anger out in the world at America. Because people realize they are not going to get a vote over American power, they cannot do anything about it, but they will be affected by it." Finding a stable way to manage this situation will be critical to managing America's relations with the rest of the globe. Any ideas? Let's hear them. E-mail: thfrie@nytimes.com.                  Copyright © 2003 the International Herald Tribune All Rights Reserved ________________________________ In peace, Otoño ________________________________ Read all about it and get the news that matters by receiving the War and Peace Watch. To subscribe, send an e-mail to:  Reikiworks@compuserve.com Thank you for your support, The War and Peace Watch publisher. contact:  Otoño Johnston ============================================================ (In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment  for research and educational purposes only.) ============================================================ 1:41:08 PM