Global
Let there be light!” said God, and there was light!
“Let there be blood!” says man, and there’s a sea!
English poet, Lord Byron (1788–1824)
As US and NATO forces continues pounding Afghanistan with cruise missiles and smart bombs, people who be acquainted with aftermaths of two previous wars fought by US around the world, fear after Gulf and Balkan war syndrome another Syndrome the ‘Afghan War Syndrome’. A state of vague aliments and carcinomas, linked with usage of Depleted Uranium as part of missiles, projectiles and bombs in battle field. People of Afghanistan , who had been dying in starvation up till now, are likely to savor a modern form of death; death owing to radioactive materials pulverized over barren mountains and harsh plains in modern world’s war on terrorism. And the fear is that Afghan people will not be alone to go through it. People neighboring Afghans are equally at risk. World has attained globalize outline, now, all crop and spoil are equally shared among people.
What Depleted Uranium Is?
“Let there be blood!” says man, and there’s a sea!
English poet, Lord Byron (1788–1824)
As US and NATO forces continues pounding Afghanistan with cruise missiles and smart bombs, people who be acquainted with aftermaths of two previous wars fought by US around the world, fear after Gulf and Balkan war syndrome another Syndrome the ‘Afghan War Syndrome’. A state of vague aliments and carcinomas, linked with usage of Depleted Uranium as part of missiles, projectiles and bombs in battle field. People of Afghanistan , who had been dying in starvation up till now, are likely to savor a modern form of death; death owing to radioactive materials pulverized over barren mountains and harsh plains in modern world’s war on terrorism. And the fear is that Afghan people will not be alone to go through it. People neighboring Afghans are equally at risk. World has attained globalize outline, now, all crop and spoil are equally shared among people.
What Depleted Uranium Is?
AUSTIN, Texas -- I don't see how we can call the House "economic
stimulus" package anything but war-profiteering. The bill is a disgrace, and
the usual suspects from Texas -- Tom Delay and Dick Armey -- hold large
responsibility for it.
What happened here, while we were all being exposed to anthrax-scare 24-7, is that corporate hitchhikers, who got left out of the earlier tax-cut package in favor of rich people, moved right in for the kill in the name of patriotism and economic stimulus.
The bill provides big tax cuts for big, profitable corporations -- IBM, General Motors and General Electric get a total of $3.27 billion in immediate tax rebate checks. A total of $25 billion in immediate tax rebates goes to large, profitable corporations, according to Citizens for Tax Justice. That's twice as much instant rebates to profitable corporations as the House, by two votes, decided to give the 37 million low-income families who didn't qualify for the original tax rebate.
What happened here, while we were all being exposed to anthrax-scare 24-7, is that corporate hitchhikers, who got left out of the earlier tax-cut package in favor of rich people, moved right in for the kill in the name of patriotism and economic stimulus.
The bill provides big tax cuts for big, profitable corporations -- IBM, General Motors and General Electric get a total of $3.27 billion in immediate tax rebate checks. A total of $25 billion in immediate tax rebates goes to large, profitable corporations, according to Citizens for Tax Justice. That's twice as much instant rebates to profitable corporations as the House, by two votes, decided to give the 37 million low-income families who didn't qualify for the original tax rebate.
The World Series provided a heck of a photo-op for George W. Bush
when he threw out the first pitch one night, aiming at a large TV audience.
For the most part, the game that followed was a pleasure to watch -- midway
through a week that combined what's best and worst about major league
baseball in an era of compulsive media spin.
Baseball may not quite be America's favorite sport anymore, but it still has plenty of emotional resonance. For that reason, politicians and corporations alike are eager to graft themselves onto the climactic games of the post-season.
The 2001 World Series attracted an abundance of the commercial hype that we've come to expect from pro sports, plus a gauntlet of patriotic imagery bordering on jingoism. The play-by-play included a steady flood of brand-name plugs -- "Budweiser, the official beer of Major League Baseball," the John Hancock "In Game Box Score," the "Nextel Call to the Bullpen" -- along with frequent overlays of Old Glory.
Baseball may not quite be America's favorite sport anymore, but it still has plenty of emotional resonance. For that reason, politicians and corporations alike are eager to graft themselves onto the climactic games of the post-season.
The 2001 World Series attracted an abundance of the commercial hype that we've come to expect from pro sports, plus a gauntlet of patriotic imagery bordering on jingoism. The play-by-play included a steady flood of brand-name plugs -- "Budweiser, the official beer of Major League Baseball," the John Hancock "In Game Box Score," the "Nextel Call to the Bullpen" -- along with frequent overlays of Old Glory.
No sane nation hands to a wartime enemy atomic
weapons set to go off within
its own homeland, and then lights the fuse.
Yet as the bombs and missiles drop on Afghanistan, the certainty of terror retaliation inside America has turned our 103 nuclear power plants into weapons of apocalyptic destruction, just waiting to be used against us.
One or both planes that crashed into the World Trade Center on September 11, could have easily obliterated the two atomic reactors now operating at Indian Point, about 40 miles up the Hudson.
The catastrophic devastation would have been unfathomable. But those and a hundred other American reactors are still running. Security has been heightened. But all are vulnerable to another sophisticated terror attack aimed at perpetrating the unthinkable.
Yet as the bombs and missiles drop on Afghanistan, the certainty of terror retaliation inside America has turned our 103 nuclear power plants into weapons of apocalyptic destruction, just waiting to be used against us.
One or both planes that crashed into the World Trade Center on September 11, could have easily obliterated the two atomic reactors now operating at Indian Point, about 40 miles up the Hudson.
The catastrophic devastation would have been unfathomable. But those and a hundred other American reactors are still running. Security has been heightened. But all are vulnerable to another sophisticated terror attack aimed at perpetrating the unthinkable.
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- It now looks, with 20-20 hindsight, as though
he should have taken a few more deep breaths before smacking that tar-baby
that is Afghanistan. We're running out of time for three reasons -- winter,
Ramadan and the prospect of millions of people starving to death.
We've run out of time to set up a bridge or coalition government and so, of necessity, are throwing our lot with the Northern Alliance. According to the Afghan women's organization, the Northern Alliance is as bad as the Taliban and, in addition, consists of minority tribes who have always warred with the majority Pushtan.
We seem to have bombed everything bombable, including the Red Cross twice. At this point, it seems to me, we can give it another month and call the war for the season, which is what the Afghans do, and wait 'til next year without any disgrace. What would be worse than disgraceful is causing mass starvation. The humanitarian aid folks are getting frantic about this, and we need to stop and figure out what we can do about it.
We've run out of time to set up a bridge or coalition government and so, of necessity, are throwing our lot with the Northern Alliance. According to the Afghan women's organization, the Northern Alliance is as bad as the Taliban and, in addition, consists of minority tribes who have always warred with the majority Pushtan.
We seem to have bombed everything bombable, including the Red Cross twice. At this point, it seems to me, we can give it another month and call the war for the season, which is what the Afghans do, and wait 'til next year without any disgrace. What would be worse than disgraceful is causing mass starvation. The humanitarian aid folks are getting frantic about this, and we need to stop and figure out what we can do about it.
The left is getting itself tied up in knots about the Just War
and the propriety of bombing Afghanistan. The respected Princeton professor
Richard Falk has outlined in The Nation an intricate guide to "the relevant
frameworks of moral, legal and religious restraint" to be applied to the
lethal business of attacking Afghans.
AUSTIN -- Excuse me if my professionocentrism is showing, but I
believe the American media deserve a good chunk of all the blame that is
going around for Sept. 11 and its aftermath. Here we are trying to figure
out "Why Do They Hate Us?" at this late date. One is tempted to reply,
"Where have you been?"
The American media, notoriously provincial country to begin with, have been getting noticeably worse in recent years, with the amount of time and space devoted to the rest of the world shrinking to an ever smaller percentage of the total, while we go relentlessly full-bore, for months at a time after Monica Lewinsky, Elian Gonzalez and Gary Condit.
The American media, notoriously provincial country to begin with, have been getting noticeably worse in recent years, with the amount of time and space devoted to the rest of the world shrinking to an ever smaller percentage of the total, while we go relentlessly full-bore, for months at a time after Monica Lewinsky, Elian Gonzalez and Gary Condit.
For some people, war is terror, disaster and death. For others,
it's a PR problem.
At the Rendon Group, a public-relations firm with offices in Boston and Washington, pleasant news arrived the other day with a $397,000 contract to help the Pentagon look good while bombing Afghanistan. The four-month deal includes an option to renew through most of 2002.
This is a job for savvy PR pros who know how to sound humanistic. "At the Rendon Group, we believe in people," says the company's mission statement, which expresses "our admiration and respect for cultural diversity" and proclaims a commitment to "helping people win in the global marketplace."
A media officer at the Pentagon explained why Rendon got the contract. "We needed a firm that could provide strategic counsel immediately," Lt. Col. Kenneth McClellan said. "We were interested in someone that we knew could come in quickly and help us orient to the challenge of communicating to a wide range of groups around the world."
At the Rendon Group, a public-relations firm with offices in Boston and Washington, pleasant news arrived the other day with a $397,000 contract to help the Pentagon look good while bombing Afghanistan. The four-month deal includes an option to renew through most of 2002.
This is a job for savvy PR pros who know how to sound humanistic. "At the Rendon Group, we believe in people," says the company's mission statement, which expresses "our admiration and respect for cultural diversity" and proclaims a commitment to "helping people win in the global marketplace."
A media officer at the Pentagon explained why Rendon got the contract. "We needed a firm that could provide strategic counsel immediately," Lt. Col. Kenneth McClellan said. "We were interested in someone that we knew could come in quickly and help us orient to the challenge of communicating to a wide range of groups around the world."
"FBI and Justice Department investigators are increasingly
frustrated by the silence of jailed suspected associates of Osama bin
Laden's al Qaeda network, and some are beginning to that say that
traditional civil liberties may have to be cast aside if they are to extract
information about the Sept. 11 attacks and terrorist plans."
Thus began a piece by Walter Pincus on page 6 of the Washington Post on Sunday, Oct. 21 -- and if you suspect that this is the overture to an argument for torture, you're right. The FBI interrogators have been getting nowhere with four key suspects in the Sept. 11 terror attacks, now held in New York's Metropolitan Correctional Center. None of these men have talked, and Pincus quotes an FBI man involved in the interrogation as saying, "it could get to that spot where we could go to pressure ... where we won't have a choice, and we are probably getting there."
Thus began a piece by Walter Pincus on page 6 of the Washington Post on Sunday, Oct. 21 -- and if you suspect that this is the overture to an argument for torture, you're right. The FBI interrogators have been getting nowhere with four key suspects in the Sept. 11 terror attacks, now held in New York's Metropolitan Correctional Center. None of these men have talked, and Pincus quotes an FBI man involved in the interrogation as saying, "it could get to that spot where we could go to pressure ... where we won't have a choice, and we are probably getting there."