The July Surprise- Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani..Osama in October?

On july 08, we posted this entry.

October Suprise ...July Suprise..or both?

The New Republic has an article July Suprise, posted on it's website. Link The article was written by John B. Judis, Spencer Ackerman & Massoud Ansari. According to the article, sources who work in Pakistans Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) relate that the Bush administration is putting heavy pressure on the Pakistanis to either kill or capture High Value Targets (HVT) by the November elections. High ranking al Qaeda members , including Osama bin Laden and Ayman al Zawahiri are believed to be living inside of Pakistan's borders.

A third source, an official who works under ISI's director, Lieutenant General Ehsan ul-Haq, informed tnr that the Pakistanis "have been told at every level that apprehension or killing of HVTs before [the] election is [an] absolute must." What's more, this source claims that Bush administration officials have told their Pakistani counterparts they have a date in mind for announcing this achievement: "The last ten days of July deadline has been given repeatedly by visitors to Islamabad and during [ul-Haq's] meetings in Washington." Says McCormack: "I'm aware of no such comment." But according to this ISI official, a White House aide told ul-Haq last spring that "it would be best if the arrest or killing of [any] HVT were announced on twenty-six, twenty-seven, or twenty-eight July"--the first three days of the Democratic National Convention in Boston.

The article details some of the recent quid pro quo's between the Bush administration, gives some of the political considerations that would compel the Bushies and Pakistan to orchestrate a "July/October Suprise and expounds on how both would benefit from such a calculated stunt.
None of these scenarios may come to pass, but does anyone familar with the machinations of the Bushies doubt they would actually try to pull this off?

On thursday, hours before John Kerry's Democratic National Convention Speech, and FOUR DAYS AFTER the fact, Pakistan's interior minister, Faisal Saleh Hayyat, announced the capture of one Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani.

This is how the AP article went out.

Pakistan arrests al-Qaeda suspect wanted in 1998 embassy bombings
By Paul Haven
ASSOCIATED PRESS

2:27 p.m. July 29, 2004

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – Pakistan has arrested a Tanzanian al-Qaeda suspect wanted by the United States in the 1998 bombings at U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, the interior minister said Friday. He said the suspect was cooperating and had given authorities "very valuable" information. Advertisement

Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani – who is on the FBI's list of 22 most wanted terrorists, with a reward of up to $25 million on his head – was arrested Sunday in the eastern city of Gujrat along with at least 15 other people, Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayyat told The Associated Press.

Was this all a coincidence? The New Republic article quoted Pakistani intelligence officers who claimed they were being pressured to present a "high value" al Qaeda operative during the Democratic National Convention. Ahmed Ghailani's capture is then announced on the very day of John Kerry's speech. Could it all be eerie timing or unexplained foresight by the staff of the New Republic?Interesting questions to ponder but ones not being asked by many U.S media outfits.

We'll leave it to the World News to speculate.

World News > Washington, July 31 :
Speculation is rife in political and media circles here that Pakistan timed the announcement of the arrest of Al Qaeda suspect, Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani to suit President George Bush.

An article in the New Republic magazine this month claims that a White House aide had told the Director-General of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Lt. General Ehsan-ul-Haq, that Islamabad should capture or kill Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden and other suspects before the US presidential elections in November, reports the Daily Times.

A source close to Haq was further quoted as saying that he (Haq) was told that the best days to announce the killing or capture of any target would be July 26, 27 or 28, the first three days of the Democratic National Convention in Boston.

A further comment posted on a web site said: "If this is what was offered in July, just wait for November, the presidential election month," referring to Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf's statement last Friday that Ghailani was arrested on Sunday (July 25).

The question now being asked is why did the Musharraf regime take another four days to formally announce the arrest full article

Will Osama enter the scene in October?

The FBI defends against a non-existent threat

This past week, we've shared various articles that reported on FBI "visits" to Denver and Kansas activists. They also subpoenaed activists, from Missouri, to appear before a grand jury during the Democratic National Convention so as to keep them from travelling to Boston to protest.

Three young activists in Missouri testified under subpoena before a federal grand jury Thursday, instead of protesting at the Democratic National Convention in Boston as they had planned.

The three men, all in their early 20s, earlier were questioned by members of an FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force, just as some young activists in Colorado have been, according to Denise Lieberman, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Eastern Missouri.

"They are quite terrified by the experience of being targeted by the Joint Terrorism Task Force because of their protest activities," Lieberman said.

The FBI has acknowledged that its agents and members of its Joint Terrorism Task Forces, who include local police officers and deputies, have been questioning people in several states this political season.

..."The use of the JTTF to go after protesters, dissidents - even if they harbor fairly radical views - is inappropriate and, in this case, an inappropriate show of force," Lieberman said full article

There were a total of 5 arrests made in Boston that were classified as "convention related." It could be argued that this was due to the "vigilance" of the FBI. However, what is more likely is that the FBI overstated the "terror threat" in Boston in order to investigate, spy on and utlimately confront activist who had committed no crimes, save for a couple of traffic tickets. This Village Voice article states that the FBI most likely fabricated, that is it made up and lied about, the whole "terror threat" to begin with.

It looks like the FBI's Boston field office faked a threat of domestic terrorism just before the start of the Democratic National Convention by leaking "unconfirmed" reports of white supremacist groups readying an attack against media vehicles in Boston. Fox News, for one, reportedly was wildly trying to disguise its trucks by covering up its logos.

The effect of this probably was to make the press even more suspicious of anti-war demonstrators than it already is—to even view them as possible terrorists, and if not actual terrorists, then a crowd within which terrorists could operate.

All of this is taking place in an atmosphere of fear and tension whipped up by the Bush administration, with its reports of Al Qaeda "sleeping cells" preparing to strike against America in the midst of the presidential campaign. (See my July 16 article on a chilling Election Day scenario.) full article

As the village voice article notes, the threat supposedly emanated from a RIGHT WING organization. If that were the case, then why were activists from the Progressive community targetted by the FBI? This ineptitude, harassment or both may not seem so egregious on the face of it. However, consider this. If another attack, as leading intelligent officials claim, is likely, then why is the FBI wasting time, effort and resources in harassing anarchists when they should be conducting legitimate investigations into legitimate "terrorist threats."

Whether another attack will occur we do not know. If it does, and people want to know what the FBI was doing prior to the attack, the FBI can explain that they were chasing anarchists around Colorado, Kansas and Missouri.

Check out today's column from Kevin Johnson.

Johnson: Scary new era in U.S. history

July 31, 2004

Freedom. How many times in recent years, months and days have we heard this word spoken, mantralike, by our leaders, as if saying it over and over is the great answer to our worst threats and our worst fears?

The president pretty much invokes the word every day. John Kerry sprinkled it through every other acceptance-speech sentence. Or so it seems.

Yet if you read the papers closely enough these days, "freedom" seems to have lost its meaning.

Indeed, I can remember a time not long ago in this country when government agents going to young people's homes to intimidate them out of their First Amendment right of free speech would have sent scores of people into the streets in protest.

These days, stories of such government shenanigans get shuffled to the inside pages of papers and barely mentioned on TV.

You may have heard or read of - maybe not - the three young people in Missouri who were yanked before a federal grand jury. Their suspected crime: Planning to demonstrate at this week's Democratic convention in Boston and, perhaps, doing the same come August when the Republicans convene in New York.

They were only the latest in a long string of young and older Americans, including six in Colorado recently, who have been placed under surveillance by the FBI and members of its Joint Terrorism Task Force. full article

articles july 30

Zapatistas: "The tongue is not made of bone."
Zapatista autonomous governments inspire indigenous delegation
MADRE DE CARACOLES, CHIAPAS
Brenda Norrell, Contributing Writer 7/29/2004
A river runs through this community, the Zapatista stronghold in the Lacandona jungle whose name was changed from La Realidad to Madre de Caracoles, to reflect its new role as the mother of the Zapatista autonomous governments.

A handful of fireflies flicker like lost stars above the hammocks at night, strung across the one-room school, as the rain pounds down like hammers on the tin roof and the river rushes past. In the mornings at the river, children play and laugh while women wash clothes. In the kitchen, women make tortillas over an open fire and place for sale embroidered handbags made by the Zapatista women's cooperative.

Tohono O'odham from the north and Mayo from the southwest coast have crossed Mexico to come here, to support the new Mayan autonomous governments. They traveled through the Sonoran Desert by car without air conditioning in the searing heat, then days and nights by bus across Mexico. Finally, they climbed in the backs of cargo trucks, and were battered for five hours on the rough and steep ride to the Zapatista autonomous villages near the Guatemalan border. full article

Activist aids anti-BIA Crow group

By MIKE STARK
Of The Gazette Staff
HARDIN - Veteran Indian activist Russell Means is lending his support to a group of Crow tribal members pushing to affirm new leadership, nullify the 2001 constitution and govern itself "without interference" from the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
Means said Thursday it's time that the Crow tribe assert its sovereignty and oust the "outlaw" government currently running the tribe.
The BIA has "blatantly assisted and is in collusion with a political coup d'etat," Means said Thursday, adding that the government under the 2001 Crow constitution is spending money without authority. "Every penny they're spending is illegal. As a taxpayer, that angers me as it should every taxpayer."

On Wednesday, the group notified the BIA of an "executive order," saying that the 1948 constitution is in effect, that the Crow tribe is not under the Indian Reorganization Act of 1935 and that it has the right to govern itself. full article

Doctor stands ground against diabetes

ANGELA METTLER
Associated Press

ABERDEEN, S.D. - As a young woman, Dr. Sara K. Dye dreamed of becoming a doctor.

Dye is a member of the SacFox and Shawnee tribes. She started Indian Health Services' first noninvasive vascular laboratory at Carl Albert Hospital in Ada, Okla., in 1984. She directed the lab for 10 years. She is currently chief medical officer at Indian Health Services in Aberdeen. Her main focus is preventing amputations in American Indian diabetic patients.

"I am fanatic and passionate, in my area of diabetes, about getting doctors to examine the patient's feet," she said.

Achieving her goals was a difficult, long process.

Dye was born in 1945 and lived in Tulsa, Okla. Her mother died of alcoholism when Dye was 13. When health professionals visited Dye's high school during career days, she became interested in the health field. But her guidance counselor said her grades weren't good enough to get her into medical school, so Dye decided to become an X-ray technologist.

Little did she know her struggles were just beginning. full article

Report: Indian history ignored at Fort Laramie

By The Associated Press Friday, July 30, 2004

FORT LARAMIE NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE, Wyo. (AP) -- A parks advocacy group says the history of the Plains Indians is not adequately told at Fort Laramie, even though it was one of the first bastions of white America thrust into the heart of Native American lands in the 1800s.

"The whole, difficult story about the U.S. government and American Indians must be told at Fort Laramie, because this is the place where important parts of that story took place," said Patti Borneman,

Northern Rockies Program coordinator for the National Parks Conservation Association.

Established as an outpost for trading furs with tribes in 1834, Fort Laramie was later a refueling stop for emigrants and a military outpost during the Indian Wars.

It was also the site where several tribes signed two treaties, both of which were later breached to allow faster settlement of the West and gold mining on Indian lands. full article

Millions lost from land grants
By Debra Jopson and Gerard Ryle
July 31, 2004

They own real estate worth up to $3 billion, but thousands of NSW Aborigines are missing out as shadowy development deals are made over their land, some involving secret payments.

About 135,000 indigenous people should be sharing wealth from vast holdings, given as compensation for their losses through colonisation. But instead, a Herald investigation has found:
Some developers are exploiting land councils' naivety over the true value of their holdings;
Land councils have signed joint ventures where most of the risk is carried by the council and much of the profit goes to the developer;
Some property-hungry developers even help land councils spot and claim crown land, so they can exploit it together.

The investigation found that one Sydney land council was so mismanaged that it needs to sell a nine-hectare bayside site to pay off debts incurred, and that three of its executive members were paid more than $25,000 by a coalition of powerful developers. full article

Leave No School Behind
by Patrisia Gonzales and Roberto Rodriguez
 
Roosevelt and Garfield High Schools in East Los Angeles have long been rivals. But their legendary cross-town rivalry morphed in the last decade from who had the better football team into which was the nation's largest high school. Both claim more than 5,000 students, ranking No. 1 and No. 2 in the country. Yet if that's all this was about -- cramming thousands of students into schools designed for 1,000 students -- it would merit its own story.

But this story goes beyond educational neglect, abusive and senseless policies, year-round schools and dilapidated buildings. It's the story of war and peace. This is the epicenter of the current war and all U.S.-led wars. The East Side traditionally is fertile recruiting grounds for the U.S. military. Not just this East Side, but all East Sides and South Sides, too. Under the administration's No Child Left Behind Act (the president's crown jewel), the U.S. military is seemingly determined not to leave any school or student behind.

Under the act, prospective college students must sign a consent form that sends their names to the military; otherwise, their records are not sent to the colleges, says Nancy Meza, a senior at Roosevelt and a member of United Students, an organization affiliated with Inner City Struggle and Youth Organizing Communities (YOC) in East L.A. Recently, students themselves (through United Students) have led the charge of improving schools on the East Side. full article

Federal Bureau of Incompetence
The shameful treatment of Sibel Edmonds proves the FBI's urgent need for reform.
By Fred Kaplan
Posted Thursday, July 29, 2004, at 2:55 PM PT

Two news reports today illustrate how far we are from getting real reforms in our methods of spotting and stopping terrorists.

The first story, on the AP wire, notes how gently the 9/11 commission treated the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Yes, the bureau screwed up as badly as any other agency prior to the attacks of Sept. 11, commission chairman Thomas Kean allowed. But the new FBI director, Robert Mueller, is moving in the right direction—"doing exactly the right thing," as Kean put it—so the final report came down lightly on him.

The second story, in the New York Times, notes that the FBI and the Justice Department are keeping a tight seal of secrecy around the case of Sibel Edmonds, despite the inspector general's finding that Edmonds was fired from the FBI at least in part because she'd accused the bureau of incompetence in the war on terror. full article

articles july 28

Activities lead up to Sacred Run

The Apache Spirit of the Mountain runners are proud to announce activities for the Mt. Graham 2004 Sacred Run which began in San Carlos last Sunday (July 25).

The runners would like to thank Cibecue residents and the family of Anthony and Jennifer Hoffman, who did an outstanding job hosting the 2001 and 2002 Sacred Runs as well as the Pasqua Yaqui Tribe and Cati Carmen for coordinating the 2003 run.

"We are grateful because we understand the amount of work and obstacles in sponsoring a run of this magnitude. The past runs were hosted in an effort to unify those who have a spiritual relationship with Mt. Graham and experienced the injustices of being kept away from sacred sites," said organizer of this year's run Wendsler Nosie.

For the past three years, it has been hosted by White Mountain, Apache, Cibecue and Pasqua Yaqui tribes full article

Children's diabetes:
Partnership to include three tribal health sites

By Jim Killackey
The Oklahoman

Disease targeted in Indians Three American Indian health centers in Oklahoma today begin a partnership with the OU Children's Physicians Diabetes Center to address the growing number of children and adolescents who have type 2 diabetes. Diabetes information

Oklahoma has one of the nation's highest rates of type 2 diabetes.

Although the clinical trial is open to every Oklahoma child with type 2 diabetes, American Indian children are especially targeted because of their high rates of the disease. About 120 patients are needed for the study.

Burgeoning problem
As many as 25 percent of Oklahoma's American Indians have diabetes, according to the state Health Department. The Indian Health Service reports a 68 percent increase from 1990 to 1998 in American Indian adolescents between 15 and 19.

The burgeoning health problem is a result of the growing number of children and adolescents who are overweight and don't get enough exercise, according to OU Children's Physicians.

During the study, OU's Dr. Kenneth Copeland will evaluate the effects of diabetes medications with and without intensive lifestyle intervention in patients 10 to 17. full article

Port Angeles: Paddle Journey pauses for song, prayer off graving yard archeological site today
2004-07-28
by BRENDA HANRAHAN

PORT ANGELES -- The Paddle Journey of 21 Native American canoes trekking from Puget Sound to Vancouver Island pauses today to rest, repair some canoes and honor tribal ancestors.

Canoe skippers decided late Tuesday night -- just hours after the canoes landed at Hollywood Beach after a rigorous, five-hour pull from Jamestown -- that they will rest today in Port Angeles, then depart for Canada on Thursday, one day later than planned.

Several of the canoes will enter Port Angeles Harbor this afternoon to the site of the Hood Canal Bridge graving yard, where archeologists and Lower Elwha Klallam tribal members are excavating artifacts and remains from a 1,700-year-old Klallam village.

The land will then be turned into a huge onshore dry dock for the construction of floating-bridge components for the new east half of the Hood Canal Bridge, to be installed in 2007.

The canoeists will sing songs and say prayers for the ancestors, the community and the workers of the graving yard, said Frances G. Charles, Lower Elwha Klallam tribal chairwoman full article

Kickapoo trespassing trial date set for Aug. 13

By Ann Weaver
The Oklahoman
McLOUD - The trial date for three women charged with criminal trespassing for taking over a Kickapoo Tribe of Oklahoma administration building in January will be set Aug. 13.

Auchee Wahpepah, Valentina Jimenez and Glenda Deer were arrested by tribal police Jan. 2, ending their two-week occupation of the building about two miles north of McLoud off State Highway 102.

The women's pretrial hearing for the misdemeanor charge has been scheduled for 11 a.m. Aug. 13. Deer said a tribal judge will set a trial date after the hearing.

Deer said she and the others are prepared for trial. full article

Alcorn Braves logo a thing of the past

Associated Press

LORMAN, Miss. - Alcorn State University has stopped using its old logo featuring a profile of a Native American and may phase out the "Braves" mascot.

The new logo is a letter A with the word "Alcorn" written through it.

"There are national sensitivities toward Native American symbols, and there is a national movement toward this," Alcorn athletic director Robert Raines said. "Our administration felt it would probably a good idea for us to do this."

Raines said the decision came after a nationwide NCAA study on the matter and several years of discussion. Other schools such as Marquette, St. John's and Miami of Ohio have dropped old nicknames with Native American themes in favor of less-offensive generic nicknames and mascots. full article

Dems appeal to Indians: Get out the vote

By DEBORAH BAKER
Associated Press Writer
07/28/2004

BOSTON -- Frank Lamere, chairman of the Democratic National Convention's Native American Caucus, is urging Indians to get out and do what some of his friends call "that white man's thing" -- vote.

With the prospect of a tight presidential race in November, Democrats are courting Indian country with vigor. And that, in itself, is a daunting prospect, given the fact that Indian voters are, literally, few and far between.

For example, the land occupied by the 250,000-member Navajo Nation, the largest tribe in the United States, covers more than 27,000 square miles in New Mexico, Arizona and Utah. Many of the farmers, sheepherders, and others who live scattered across the reservation -- an area larger than West Virginia -- don't have telephones or televisions and rely largely on local Navajo-language radio stations for news.

Some must travel as far as 35 miles over roads that can range from bumpy to bone-jarring in order to vote. full article

Association comes of age for Native American youth

It began with a handful of adults and 25 children, but now the organization serves 600 people and their families
Wednesday, July 28, 2004

From a church gymnasium to its own three-story building in North Portland, the Native American Youth Association has grown as the community has.

World War II work in the shipyards and the 1950s federal termination of tribes brought Native Americans from across the nation to Portland. In time, they realized the public school and social service systems weren't addressing young Native Americans' needs.

The Native American Youth Association started with a handful of adults and about 25 children. Today, it serves about 600 young people and their families with a budget of $1.3 million paid by grants and fund raising.

As the organization reaches its 30th anniversary next year, its name will change to the Native American Youth and Family Center. Nichole Maher, executive director, said the name change represents how the organization has expanded to provide domestic violence counseling for women, support for foster parents of Native American children and a forum to gather community elders. full article

Mallard stakes Treaty position
29 July 2004
By LEAH HAINES

Race Relations Minister Trevor Mallard has declared himself, and other Pakeha, indigenous New Zealanders along with all Maori.

Last night, in an unheralded speech entitled "We are all New Zealanders now", he defended the amount paid out in Treaty settlements and told all New Zealanders to "get over the bad past".

"Maori and Pakeha are both indigenous people to New Zealand now," he told Victoria University's Stout Research Centre for New Zealand Studies in Wellington. "I regard myself as an indigenous New Zealander – I come from Wainuiomata."

The speech is a significant positioning statement from the no-

nonsense Mr Mallard, who has been charged with reviewing Government policies so they are targeted on need, not on race.

It is a clear attempt to paint himself, and Labour, as representing the ordinary Pakeha who might feel their place in New Zealand is undermined – taking ownership of that position back from National.

But not all Maori will accept that Mr Mallard, who was born and bred in Wainuiomata, is indigenous like them. full article

Bone return consultation launched

Scientists fear collections of crucial scientific value will be lost forever

The UK government has launched a consultation document to consider the repatriation of human remains held in Britain to aboriginal groups.

Thousands of ancient human parts - from hair samples to whole skeletons - have been collected by UK museums.

The latest initiative will review the report issued last year by the Working Group on Human Remains.

It recommended scientists should seek out descendants for permission to hold on to body parts up to 500 years old.

Scientists would like to retain materials - some of them thousands of years old - because of what they can reveal about human origins and evolution, and the spread and development of disease.

But to indigenous groups, the collections are an affront to their customs and they claim many of the artefacts were effectively stolen by colonial explorers and hunters. full article

Split is more than skin deep in Bolivia
By TYLER BRIDGES
Miami Herald

SANTA CRUZ, Bolivia - Tall, blonde and thin, Maria René Antelo doesn't look like the stereotypical Bolivian, and perhaps that is why she is one of the country's top models.

Antelo is one of ''Las Magnificas,'' as the 35 similar-looking women of Bolivia's top modeling agency, based in this eastern lowlands city, are called.

But more than beauty, Las Magnificas symbolize the racial and political differences between the lighter-skinned Santa Cruz region and the mostly Indian regions of La Paz in Bolivia's western mountains -- differences that came to the fore in the national referendum 10 days ago on whether to export the country's huge natural gas reserves.

La Paz, the country's political capital, lies in the cold Andean region 12,000 feet above sea level that is home to increasingly restive Aymara and Quechua Indians who believe that the white elite has kept them from enjoying the benefits of Bolivia's natural resources.

Santa Cruz is the business capital, a hot and humid plains state that grew from 100,000 residents in 1950 to 2.1 million today, with entrepreneurs, oil men and large-scale soy farmers being its public face. full article

Iraq War Straining US-Turkey Ties

by Jim Lobe
While the image of the United States has sunk to an all-time low in the Arab world, the Iraq war has also had a devastating impact on U.S. ties to another predominantly Muslim power and one of Washington's closest and most strategically situated Cold War allies, Turkey, say experts just returned from the region.

Ties between Turkey and Israel – countries that have long considered themselves strategic allies against hostile Arab states – have also become deeply strained as a result of recent events, according to former U.S. ambassador in Ankara, Mark Parris, who also served for several years as the number two in the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv.

"There's been lots of news, and most of it is not good," he told a meeting Tuesday at the Nixon Center here, noting that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has repeatedly referred to Israeli actions in Gaza and the West Bank as "state terrorism," an assessment that is now shared by 82 percent of the Turkish population, according to a recent poll cited by Zeyno Baran, director of the international security and energy program at the center. full article

Lalo Delgado walks on

Lalo Delgado, 73, passed away last Friday morning. There are 2 columns that recount some of his accomplishments which we will post excerpts from.

Lalo was an ally of Colorado AIM and stood by our side at our protests, read his poetry at our events and participated in some of our projects. He was always upbeat and positive in his words as well as in his outlook.

You could often find Lalo volunteering at the Escuela Tlatelolco. He had a very loud voice and became animated whenever sharing his poetry in classes that he voluntarily taught. Walking into the school, you always knew what room Lalo was teaching in.

Lalo often got requests from the audience whenever he was attending an event as a spectator. Reluctantly, he would stand up and launch into one of his poems, energizing the event and provoking appreciative rounds of applause from the audience. He always livened up events like that.

He was a friend and an ally and he will be greatly missed.

Funeral Services will be at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, Wednesday 28, at 2 pm.



Poet, activist dead at 73
Delgado's pen gave voice to Chicanos

By Claire Martin
Denver Post Staff Writer

Denver poet, professor and activist Lalo Delgado, who died Friday at age 73, was widely regarded as one of the Chicano movement's premiere authors. His poems and essays were taught, and sometimes banned, internationally.

Services will be held Tuesday and Wednesday.

Through his writing and his work at various human rights organizations, Delgado crusaded for better treatment of immigrants and their families.

"His name was synonymous with the Chicano movement," said longtime friend Ricardo LaFore, director of U.S. Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell's Denver office.

"Lalo's name is a thread that runs through the women's movement, the children's rights movement, through the entire human rights movement."

Abelardo Delgado was born in Boquilla de Chanchos in Chihuahua, Mexico, the son of a U.S.-born Hispanic soldier and a Mexican woman who became a naturalized American citizen when she was 83. full article

Lalo gone but won't be silenced

By Cindy Rodriguez
Denver Post Columnist

Lola Delgado leaned into his chest, gripping his hands. "Don't go yet, Lalo," she pleaded to her husband of 50 years. "I can't live without you. You are my life."

Tears streamed down her face. Lalo couldn't speak. He lay beneath white sheets, his eyes roving a room packed with his children, grandchildren and great- grandchildren.

There, in Room 308 of St. Anthony's Hospital North on Friday, Lola Delgado was losing the only man she's ever loved.

And the world was losing a man who was the fiery voice for Chicanos and Latinos of every stripe, the poet laureate of the mystical Aztlan.

The words penned by Lalo Delgado have been read by children in grade school, recited in high school auditoriums, dissected by grad-school students and translated into a dozen languages.

His most famous poem, "Stupid America," offers an explanation of what happens to a child whose dreams are quashed by oppression and racism. It was written in 1969, when Chicano students attended essentially segregated schools, and remains piercingly relevant today.

Those who got to know Lalo learned that though he spoke with passion and conviction - with his booming voice - he was gentle, playful and quick to smile full article

FBI continues to scour for "terrorists"-now searching Ft Collins CO

When we last left the FBI they were going door to door, in Lawerence Kansas, searching for anarchists. The Lawrence anarchist had caught the attention of the FBI, in their search for "terrorist," by protesting the war on Iraq, protesting a $500 plate dinner at the Dole Institute dedication and protesting the length of a prison sentence given to a guy for burning SUVs in Oregon.

The previous day, hot on the trail of Osama bin laden, 6 agents had paid a visit to a 21 year old intern with the American Friends Service Committe. From there, they donned bullet proof vest and went to another residence where they arrested 2 young men for traffic violation warrants. One of gung-ho agents even put on full SWAT riot gear to make the arrest. One can imagine the guy, glaring into a mirror, smearing his face with black paint, before he goes to serve a warant on someone for driving without a valid license.

The FBI trail seemed to have grown cold when they couldn't locate the anarchist headquarters in Lawrence Kansas, but now it appears they have picked up a scent in that bastion of "terrorist sympathizers"...Ft Collins, Colorado.

The FBI questioned a Fort Collins resident about potential plots to disrupt the nation's political conventions, a day after some Denver residents were quizzed.

The 45-year-old software engineer(Paul Blame) in Fort Collins said he was questioned Friday by the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force.

Said Paul Blame, about his organization, Pagan Cluster""We're a bunch of middle-aged weird people."

The Pagan Cluster, among other things, objects to economic globalization - the merging of world economies as in the North American Free Trade Agreement. Opponents think globalization jeopardizes the environment and workers' rights.

Bame isn't attending the Democratic National Convention under way in Boston, but he plans to attend the Republican National Convention in New York in August. He may protest there or support demonstrators, he said.

"I'm sure if we were to ask the FBI why they're doing this, they would say we have to be real careful about terrorism," Bame said. "The practical effect of this is scaring the crap out of people, which is going to end up scaring people from using their First Amendment rights," he said. full article

Don't be suprised if the "terrorist trail" leads to homeless rights advocates in San Franciso, California.

articles july 27

Young Activists fight for climate justice

Across the country in Bemidji, MN Native American communities realize that as climate change transforms their environment, it endangers their culture, which has developed through interaction with their surrounding environment over thousands of years. "Climate change affects our Indigenous communities in profound ways," points out Sammie Ardito, a Climate Justice Corps member who is working with the Indigenous Environmental Network in Bemidji this summer. "We are already severely impacted by over five hundred years of colonization and destruction. We are intimately tied with the land and as such even the subtlest disturbances will disrupt our ways of life. Climate change will make worse what is already severely distressed. These impacts are akin to genocide."

And as is all too familiar, these communities are habitually excluded from the political process explains Roberto Nutlouis, a Climate Justice Corps member working with the Black Mesa Water Coalition in his home in the Navajo Nation this summer. "It is important to shed light on the unjust politics of climate change. People who contribute the least to greenhouse gas emissions; Indigenous peoples, people of color, and disempowered communities, are the first to be impacted." full article

Homeless in Hawaii:
More land for the military than for Hawaiians

by: Winona LaDuke / Guest Columnist
It’s summer in Hawaii, the state is considering another generous land donation to the military and has made homelessness a crime. Under the cover of the term "Military Transformation" and with the blanket of 9/11, the military is taking a wide berth in land stealing. And, recently enacted Act 50 makes criminals out of people who have been displaced by the military itself, many of them Native Hawaiian.  

"They bombed the houses in the l940s and took over the entire valley," explained Sparky Rodrigues, one of many Makua residents still waiting to move home. "The government moved all of the residents out and said after the war, you can move back - and then they used the houses for target practice. The families tell stories that the military came with guns and said, ‘Here’s $300, thank you,’ and ‘You’ve got to move.’ Those people remain without their houses, and for years, many lived on the beaches in beautiful Makua Valley, watching the bombing of their land.

"Tomorrow morning they’re going to detonate a 1,000 pounder, a 500 pounder and a 100 pound bomb," Rodriques mused. Such detonations are part of the military cleanup of the site before, apparently, any new maneuvers. "We’ve gone in and observed them detonate those bombs," said Rodriques. More than once, live ammunition has washed up on the beaches at Makua full article

Apache Tribe’s ‘Erin Brockovich:' The attorneys
Attorney contracted by the tribe calls for federal investigation

by: Mary Pierpoint / Correspondent / Indian Country Today
ANADARKO, Okla. - Confusion and refusals to communicate with royalty owners from the Apache Bromide Unit by both the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Apache Tribe of Oklahoma’s governing body has caused a jumble of misinformation and endless court hearings. Although the Apache tribal chairman and secretary/treasurer were removed from office by referendum during the annual general council meeting they are still being recognized by the Anadarko BIA Agency as officials of the tribal government.

All of the questions asked by Indian Country Today regarding who exactly is in charge of the Apache Tribe of Oklahoma were referred to BIA offices in Washington, D.C.; neither office would answer the question as to whether or not Emily Saupitty is the tribe’s tax commissioner. Tribal Vice Chairman, Nathan Tselee stated that he would not discuss the matter with "outsiders."

When Emily Saupitty, Millie Tapedo and Sandra Marguin met to discuss both issues with Anadarko Agency Superinten-dent Betty Tippaconnie, any hopes they had for getting even simple answers were dashed. full article

Ancient bones found at construction site

By Niki King, Sun Staff

Johnson Charles knelt before a square gap in the ground that was once a home and played his traditional, yellow cedar flute.

Its solemn, reedy tune lilted up and over, carried wide by the wind, across 22 acres of hot, barren earth crawling with machines and men digging for secrets once left by Charles' ancestors, members of the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe.

He comes every day to play, praying the spirit of the wind will allay his people, the living who toil now at this excavation site and the spirits of the dead buried there.

"People ask me to pray. It's soothing," Charles said.

His people need soothing. The last few months have been trying for them, a tragedy and a blessing all at once. full article

U.N. Set to Designate Second Indigenous Decade

UNITED NATIONS, Jul 26 (IPS) - A second U.N. decade spotlighting indigenous peoples is a step closer after the world body's economic and social council (ECOSOC) recommended another 10-year project after the existing decade expires Dec. 30.

The decision will go before the 191-member U.N. General Assembly (GA) whose annual meeting begins in September.

In their recommendation the members of ECOSOC, one of the U.N.'s five main bodies, said a second decade would have to take its mandate from a review of the first 10 years, and include concrete goals and adequate resources to ensure those aims could be met..

The ongoing International Decade of the World's Indigenous People is aimed at strengthening international cooperation to solve problems faced by indigenous peoples -- also known as aborigines, native, first nations or tribal peoples -- in areas such as human rights, environment, development, education and health. The decade's theme is ”indigenous people: partnership in action full article

The Bedouin Dilemma
Many Call For International Intervention In The Negev

They seem peaceful and majestic in the desert heat, cut into the landscape dotted with shacks for living quarters and tents constructed with burlap and wooden sticks not far from the 52 active military zones in the Negev.  The old men in their khafeyas sit drinking Arabic coffee, stone-faced – as if they’ve seen this all before.  The women are nowhere to be seen.
 
The Bedouin village of Wadi al-Na’am sits under the shadow of a chemical industrial zone.  Following the dusty road off the highway, it emerges from the left, dark and oppressive, an architectural catastrophe. 
 
4,000 people live in the vicinity of Ramat Hovav, Israel’s toxic waste dump – one of 17 chemical plants in the area. Opened in 1975, it has left a trail of wreckage adding to the dire situation:  high infant mortality rates, cancer and numerous other health effects from the effluent, 97% of the village population on national insurance.  The electric power lines run past the village yards away connecting nobody to the grid. full article

Yasukuni Shrine and the Double Genocide of Taiwan's Indigenous Atayal:

 "Do all of you know the history of Taiwan's indigenous people?" asked Chiwas Ari at the post-verdict press conference. "Please look at this book of photographs we brought here today." The title of the book was Valley of Silence. The photograph on the page she opened to sent shock waves through the room. A Japanese soldier wielding a military sword had just beheaded a captured Taiwanese aborigine. "These photographs were taken to show ‘meritorious service' in Japan's army. The beheaded man is one of our Atayal ancestors." She paused in silence for a time, then continued. "From 1911 to 1915 the Japanese colonial rulers in Taiwan carried out a policy of ‘native control,' killing indigenous people, seizing their possessions, and burning their homes if they did not submit to Japanese rule. Their surviving children were indoctrinated in a program of ‘education for native youth' (that is, education to make them Japanese imperial subjects) and, as soon as they were old enough, they were sent to South Pacific battlefields in units called ‘Takasago patriot brigades.' Those who died in the fighting were automatically enshrined at Yasukuni. If you ask me, this is genocide spanning two generations."
 
For most of us at the press conference, knowledge of the indigenous people's history barely extended to the Wushe Incident of October, 1930, their final resistance to Japanese rule. We knew that continuing protests against the Prime Minister's Yasukuni pilgrimages have come from the governments and people in China, South Korea, and elsewhere in Asia, but not from the government or people of Taiwan. Why, we wondered, had the plaintiffs in this case come from Taiwan and filed suit as indigenous people? full article

Bushman says God gave land to him
Posted Tue, 27 Jul 2004

A San Bushman who defied a State order to move out of the Central Kalahari Game Reserve told the Botswana High Court on Tuesday that the land had been given to him by God.

The high court is hearing a case brought by 243 San Bushmen challenging their relocation from the game reserve, one of the world's largest sanctuaries and an area which has been their home for some 20 000 years.

"I don't need any piece of paper to show that land was given to me by God," Amolang Segwetsane testified in court. "It belongs to my forefathers and all my children who were born there." full article

Control Room

Inside Al Jazeera

By MIKE WHITNEY

There's a chilling scene in Jahane Noujaim's new documentary Control Room where an American F-16 is seen slowly turning in the sky over Baghdad. The plane arcs lazily in the blue sky and then quickly noses downward, following a straight line towards the building that houses the Al Jazeera news facility.

In a flash, two laser guided missiles are fired at the building and their impact knocks out the visual.

It all happens in a matter of seconds.

Veteran journalist, Tarik Ayoub was killed instantly in the attack.

Later that same day, fighter pilots would bomb the Abu Dhabi media facility in similar fashion.

The day's events would end on the streets of Baghdad where an Abrams Tank slowly turned its turret towards the Palestine Hotel; the accommodation for all the visiting media in Iraq.

The tank lifted its muzzle towards the 13th floor, and moments later fired...killing a Spanish journalist and wounding three others.

No one who sees this shocking segment will confuse it for anything other than what it was....cold blooded murder, authored and directed by the Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld. (Al Jazeera even provided the US Military with its exact coordinates so they wouldn't be attacked as they were in Kabul) full article

An Excuse-Spouting Bush Is Busted by the 9/11 Report

Busted! Like a teenager whose beer bash is interrupted by his parents' early return home, President Bush's nearly three years of bragging about his "war on terror" credentials has been exposed by the bipartisan 9/11 commission as nothing more than empty posturing.

Without dissent, five prominent Republicans joined an equal number of their Democratic Party peers in stating unequivocally that the Bush Administration got it wrong, both in its lethargic response to an unprecedented level of warnings during what the commission calls the "Summer of Threat," as well as in its inclusion of Iraq in the war on terror. full article

FBI making the rounds to keep you safe

With the 9/11 commission citing intelligence failure as one of the key components that allowed the 9/11 hijackers to carry out their plans, with several intelligence agents and U.S congressment making the rounds to announce that a similar attack will occur not "if" but "when" and with Homeland security officials informing the public that "danger levels" are at their highest since 9/11, the FBI is on the move. Having been publicly embarrassed the past 3 years by accusations of ineptness, poor leadership and ridiculous selection of "targets" the FBI is rising to dispel all doubts about it's effectiveness.

So what "threats to national security" have the FBI been pursuing? One, some interns at the American Friends Service Committee in Denver, and another, a group of anarchists out in Lawrence Kansas.

On thursday, 4 FBI agents and 2 Denver Cops(Joint Terrorism Task Force) visited 2 homes. At the first, they questioned a 21 year old intern, Sarah Baldwell, for the American Friends Service Committe(a pacifist quaker organization). The 6 agents wanted to know 3 things.

1. Are you planning to be involved in any criminal acts at the national conventions?
2. Do you know anybody who is?
3. Are you aware that if you assist or know anybody planning any criminal acts and do not report them, it's a crime?

After receiving declines to answer, and poking around, the 6 man team visited another house. There, with all donning bullet proof vests and at least one in full SWAT gear, they arrested 2 young men on traffic violation warrants. One can imagine these 6 agents triumphantly slapping each other on the back after having put away 2 traffic violaters thus preventing another 9/11 style attack.

said Baldwell

Bardwell said she and her housemates believe they were visited because they have participated in protests in the past - including one the day before against the recent shooting death of a 63-year-old disabled man by a Denver police officer who was looking for someone else and mistook a soda can the man was holding for a gun.

Other causes in which she has been active include protests against Columbus Day as a celebration of oppression of native people, work with an organization that collects food donated by grocery stores for homeless people and anti-war protests, Bardwell said.

She is an intern with the American Friends Service Committee, which won the Nobel Peace Prize in the 1940s for its work against violence. AFSC also advocates for prisoners' rights.

"I think it was an intimidation tactic and it was designed to threaten people who are analyzing our current government and its policies and the system in the United States - an intimidation tactic that is used to crush any form of resistance or dissent or public expression of disapproval," Bardwell said.

She said the visit from law enforcement officers motivated her to learn more about her rights and to be "even more active in my community. full article

The next day, in Lawrence Kansas, FBI agents were going door to door, trying to locate and interview members of a Lawrence based anarchist group.

Meanwhile, nervous anarchists waited at their headquarters on 14th & Massachussets for the FBI agents to arrive.

(Scott)Pinkelman and about a dozen friends spent all day at the Lawrence anarchist headquarters near 14th and Massachusetts streets, a building with red signs outside that say "Solidarity -- Revolutionary Center & Radical Library." Group members smoked cigarettes, ate bagels, talked on cell phones and clutched hand-held cameras to use for documentation in case agents arrived.
  
"Unfortunately, we are kind of scared," said group member Vanessa Hays.

Hays said FBI agents went Friday morning to her mother's home in Topeka asking for her and saying she might know someone who was planning a violent act. Hays said she thought such visits were an attempt to put pressure on protesters by getting family members involved.

"I'm in the phone book," Hays said. "If they wanted to find me, they could find me very easily." full article

Above photo:2 anarchists(along with a reporter and a photographer) patiently wait for the FBI to find and interview them

In the midst of such dire warnings about imminent attacks, what could these Lawrence Anarchists have done so that FBI agents are frantically scouring the city in search of them?

In the past year, anarchists here have protested various issues, including the Iraqi war, a $500-a-plate dinner at the Dole Institute of Politics dedication and the length of the prison sentence given to an Oregon man convicted of setting fire to SUVs.

Members of the group said they thought they were being painted as terrorists even though they were philosophically opposed to violence.
"It's a crime when it's nongovernmental, but it's a war when it is," said David Strano, one of the group members.

Why are there FBI agents going around and the country, door to door, looking for and questioning young people who, and this is to greatly understate it, are not very likely to be planning a 9/11 style attack on the U.S? Mark Silverstein of the Colorado ACLU has an idea.

"It's an abuse of power, designed to intimidate these kids from exercising their constitutional right to protest government policies and associate with others who want to protest government policies," Silverstein said.

There is no word yet, from FBI head Robert Mueller about the possible thwarting of a terrorist attack as a result of the arrest of the 2 young men in Denver for traffic violations. Also, no word from the FBI as to whether or not they eventually found the Lawrence Anarchist headquarters.

The Denver Police fails to turn over complaints to PSRC, suprise, suprise

The Rocky Mountain News is reporting that the Denver Police Department failed to forward 450 citizen complaints, against the Denver Police, to the Public Safety Review Commission, beginning in 2002.

That means the Public Safety Review Commission had no opportunity to follow up with people who lodged those complaints to see if they were satisfied with the department's resolution of the complaints.

It also underscores the frustration expressed by panel members who say they're often overlooked and deprived of tools to provide meaningful oversight.

"This has meant a lot of additional work for us," said Roxane Baca, chairwoman of the commission. "I think the impact is still unknown, but it might be that the public may think we are not being very effective."

It comes as Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper prepares to announce a new, stronger system of citizen oversight for the 1,400-officer department, one of a number of reforms announced in response to a controversial police shooting last year.

Commission members will now send the letters to residents and say they may write a letter of complaint to Hickenlooper about the delay. full article

To Hickenloopers credit, he did apologize to the Lobato Family at last Tuesday's community meeting. City officials also attended Frank Lobato's funeral this weekend which also is a departure from the stonewalling by past city administrations. Whether their compassion as individuals translated into systemic change remains to be seen.

Denver focuses too much of its attention on training young men to kill and not enough on teaching them to preserve life, said Tink Tinker of the Osage Nation.

"That's the systemic hole we need to change," Tinker said. "The political system had better pay attention."

Several city leaders, including Manager of Safety Al LaCabe and Councilwoman Rosemary Rodriguez, attended the service, which was paid for with city funds at Funeraria Latina in west Denver.

"I'm fulfilling my commitment to the family to find out what happened," Rodriquez said after the funeral. full article

Some City Council Members seem to have mustered the resolve to challenge the power of the Police Protective Association(PPA) which is also a welcome change. The PPA has managed to intimidate city officials and influence city policy to the detriment of the Denver citizens. Their control over the city may be slowly eroding with each outrage committed by officers. That so many citizens have lost, and will lose, their lives to bring about a gradual change is a shame.

Making the Denver Police Department accountable is no small feat. In addition to it's entrenched position in determing city policy, they are aided by Denver's so called "liberal media." To get a sense, read this column by the Rocky Mountain News columnist, Tina Griego. She begins with an account of last Tuesday's community meeting, stating

Two community meetings were held last week to protest the police killing of Frank Lobato, known by officers as "the wrong guy," and by nearly everyone else as the invalid holding a soda can.

Anger abounded. At one packed meeting, calls for revolution mixed with pleas for calm. Praise for the mayor competed with curses flung at such volume and force that you could almost see them, like line drives of venom. The American Indian Movement's Glenn Morris raised the specter of "civil unrest" should the police, once again, needlessly shoot and kill a minority. The "5,000 pound elephant in the room," he called it.

"Anytime something like this happens in our community, we are all diminished by it," he said, in what may have been the most eloquent comments I heard on the matter all last week. full article

From here, she goes on to relate her emotions at a protest held the next day in which she was scared away by Leroy Lemos and his characterization of the Denver Police as "domestic terrorists."
According to Griego,shooting people somehow becomes less of an act of terror than what Leroy is doing; that is, describing the level of fear the Denver Cops sow in communities of color. Somehow, Leroy with a megaphone is more of a menace to society than Ranjan Ford with a badge and a 9 millimeter.

Griego goes on to list some of the calls that Denver Police responded to within the range of 3 hours that resulted in no shootings. She notes that some of those calls came from "minority neighborhoods" and then concludes that minority people must not fear the cops if they are calling them. She ends by asking, whom is terrorizing whom?

What she doesn't ask is why no calls from Cherry Hills, Highlands Ranch,(affluent, white citiznes do commit acts of domestic abuse as well) or her Neighborhood ever result in a shooting at the hands of a cop. As we heard at the meeting on last Tuesday, people like Tina Griego don't get it because they know a cop will not be arriving at their house, using a ladder to climb in their windows and shooting them while they are in their own rooms.

articles july 26

California judge rules court has jurisdiction in tribal dispute
Sunday, July 25, 2004

By CHRIS T. NGUYEN
Associated Press Writer

LOS ANGELES -- A Superior Court judge declined to dismiss a lawsuit by ousted members of an American Indian tribe Friday, saying courts have authority over legal matters that arise from tribal disputes.

Eleven former members of the Pechanga Band of Luiseno Mission Indians had sued members of the tribe's enrollment committee, claiming their rights were violated after being thrown out of the tribe in March.

In his ruling, Riverside County Superior Court Judge Charles D. Field cited a federal law stating that California courts "have jurisdiction over civil causes of action between Indians or to which Indians are parties which arise in Indian country." full article

Proposed gold mine threatens river refuge?strong>
Critics say industrial-scale project will permanently scar land

(excerpt from further down in the article)
"I know some of the residents on Canyon Creek are unhappy about earlier restorations, and we'll be looking at that," he said. "I do think it can be done right."

But the Hupa Indians, who live and fish along the Trinity, don't share Mitchell's sanguine view.

In an e-mail to the forest service, Robert Franklin, a fisheries biologist employed by the tribe, argued that the proposed project would lead to irreparable impacts, including water-quality impairment, decreases in stream flows during periods critical to fish and degraded riparian zones. full article

Top court agrees to hear dispute over native rights in famed national park

OTTAWA (CP) - The Supreme Court of Canada has agreed to sort out the question of whether the federal government violated aboriginal treaty rights in authorizing a road through the country's largest national park.

At issue is a long-running dispute in which the Mikisew Cree First Nation claims its hunting and trapping rights were infringed by plans to build a winter road through Wood Buffalo National Park, which straddles the Alberta-Northwest Territories border.

The case raises broader legal issues of whether treaty rights or federal environmental law and regulatory power take precedence in the sprawling, 45,000-square kilometre park, created in 1922 to protect the last herd of wood bison. full article

Indian artifacts near Ohio River could be sign of ancient village
By Alex Davis

Remains of an ancient American Indian settlement have been uncovered along the Ohio River shoreline in Clarksville, Ind.

Archaeologists say the discovery of about two dozen artifacts, from pottery shards to stone tools, is significant because the density of the site suggests a prolonged settlement instead of a temporary camp or hunting ground.

The artifacts, found near a two-lane road that collapsed in January, are believed to be 700 to 900 years old, placing the settlement in what is known as the Mississippian period. full article

Reservation force faces big losses
By Jomay Steen, Journal Staff Writer

The Oglala Sioux Tribe Department of Public Safety on Pine Ridge Indian Reservation has tightened its belt.

But it may not be enough.

When a federal Community Oriented Policing grant expires Sept. 30, 2005, the tribal police force will lose funding for 75 percent of its officers, according to Duane Yellow Hawk, self-determination specialist for the department.

"After September of 2005, we'll lose funding for 57 police officers unless the Department of Justice moves that money into our funding base," Yellow Hawk said. full article

How to Lose the War on Terror

A CIA bin Laden expert’s lament

One of the striking things about the Iraq War is the extent to which American foreign-affairs professionals—intelligence analysts, diplomats, and high-ranking military officers—recognize it is a tragically misguided venture. Among the most recent to speak out is the CIA officer formerly charged with analyzing Osama bin Laden. Known only as “Anonymous,” he is the author of the new book Imperial Hubris —a scathing look at the way the United States has conducted the War on Terror thus far. TAC editors Philip Giraldi (a CIA veteran with extensive Mideast experience), Kara Hopkins, and Scott McConnell recently visited with the author. Here are excerpts of the conversation.

TAC: You’ve said that Iraq was the best Christmas present that Osama bin Laden could have possibly received …

ANON: Have you seen the movie “Christmas Story,” where the boy wants a Red Rider air gun and his mom says no? Then at the end of Christmas day, when he has opened all his presents, he gets the gun and he thinks, “My God, I really got it. I never thought I’d get it.” Iraq was Osama’s Red Rider BB gun. It was something he always wanted, but something he never expected.

Iraq is the second holiest place in Islam. He’s now got the Americans in the two holiest places in Islam, the Arabian Peninsula and Iraq, and he has the Israelis in Jerusalem. All three sanctities are now occupied by infidels, a great reality for him. He also saw the Islamic clerical community, from liberal to the most Wahhabist, issue fatwas that were more vitriolic and more demanding than the fatwas that were issued against the Soviets when they came into Afghanistan. They basically validated all of the theological arguments bin Laden has been making since 1996, that it is incumbent on all Muslims to fight the Americans because they were invading Islamic territory. Until we did that in Iraq, he really had a difficult time making that argument stick, but now there is no question.

It’s also perceived widely in the Muslim world that we attacked Iraq to move along what, at least in Muslims’ minds, is the Israelis’ goal of a greater Israel from the Nile to the Euphrates. While we’re beating the hell out of the Iraqis, Sharon and the Israelis are beating the hell out of the Palestinians every day. So we have an overwhelming media flow into the Muslim world of infidels killing Muslims. It’s a one-sided view, but it’s their perception. And unless you deal with what they think, you’re never going to understand what we’re up against. full article

Rock Musicians Organize Against Injustice
An Interview with Tom Morello and Serj Tankian
By RICHARD MORENO

On a sweltering hot summer's day in Southern California, the Axis of Justice non-profit political organization initiated its very first activist meeting Sunday afternoon on the 25th of July at North Hollywood Park. Despite the blistering heat, a group of roughly 50 people from all ages and backgrounds clustered together under the trees' shade while Co-Director of the Axis of Justice Jake Sexton announced the afternoon's purpose. Within minutes, Tom Morello, former Rage Against the Machine guitarist turned Audio Slave guitar extraordinaire, and Serj Tankian, System of the Down's fiery lead vocalist, arrived with cases of Axis of Justice gear and materials. Soon after, the birth of the first Axis of Justice chapter was proclaimed. full article

articles july 23

Activist roots still thrive in Canada border crossing
Indian Defense League of America

NIAGARA FALLS, N.Y. - Activist movements among modern North American Indians have roots that go back well beyond AIM and the siege at Wounded Knee, and they are still very much alive in the annual Native march across the U.S. - Canada border, held here recently for its 77th continuous year.

This year’s march marked the coming forward of the third generation in the sponsoring Indian Defense League of America, as one long-time leader lay seriously ill in the hospital. Although the passing of the torch was tinged with sorrow, it presaged renewed vitality for what could very well be the oldest continuous Native protest movement in northern America. It is a movement with a clear but still not widely known influence on the more famous upsurge of the early 1970s. full article

Native American tribes continue protest at Scottish Power AGM

Representatives from four native American tribes have been protesting outside Scottish Power's AGM meeting this morning.

They claim dams owned by the company in the US are causing a huge decline in salmon numbers which they depend on for their livelihood.

Leaf Hillman of the Karuk Tribe said: "We came here to send a message to Scottish Power and we're going to send that message. And that message is that we'll travel to the ends of the earth to accomplish our goal to bring the salmon home." full article

Pausing for a moment

By Pam. M. Smith, Staff Writer

A wispy breeze touched the circle of Native American Peace and Dignity runners as they paused in the partial shade of a mesquite tree Thursday morning just inside the west part of the Quechan Indian Nation.

They had been on the run all night from Manzanita, Calif.

Christine Emerson, an elder, blessed the runners through the “curuk," a Quechan sacred ceremony.

"This ceremony is performed for special events," she said. "I was entrusted with the right to do the blessing, as were my mother, Thelma Augerro, and maternal grandmother, Hippah Collins, before me."

The runners listened to a message from Quechan Phil Emerson, an elder for the journey. Emerson, who has made several of the runs, and started this one from Chickaloon, Alaska, will continue on to the Panama Canal. He carried a symbolic staff. full article

Experts say Inuit lawsuit could cost Ottawa, revolutionize aboriginal law

BOB WEBER

EDMONTON (CP) - He has fought battles in the boxing ring, on the football field, in city council chambers, in courtrooms and against cancer. But Kiviaq's latest fight may have the most far-reaching consequences.

The Edmonton Inuk, formerly known as David Ward, filed a lawsuit last week alleging Ottawa discriminates against his people. Legal experts suggest his efforts to win new federal benefits for Canada's 50,000 Inuit deserve serious consideration.

They also say the action could rewrite the relationship between non-status Indians, the Metis, the provinces and the federal government.

"If he were successful, it would be quite a revolution," says Peter Russell, a retired University of Toronto political science professor, who specializes in aboriginal law. full article

Climbers urged to avoid sacred Washoe site

LAKE TAHOE, Nev. - An advocacy group with a lawsuit challenging a U.S. Forest Service ban on recreational climbing at a sacred Washoe site has asked its members to refrain from scaling Cave Rock this summer.

The Access Fund, a Colorado-based group representing more than 1 million climbers nationwide, agreed to the voluntary closure, which was first suggested by the Forest Service, "out of respect to the religious practices of the Washoe." The group put out the memo this spring urging its members not to climb the popular volcanic formation on the lake’s southeast shore during July and August of this year.

Last fall, the Forest Service updated its Cave Rock management plan announcing its intention to permanently ban climbing at the site in an effort to protect Cave Rock’s cultural, historic and archeological resources, which make the site eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places. full article

Black Hills art may be 5,000 years old
Ben Shouse
Argus Leader

CRAVEN CANYON - The markings on these sandstone cliffs are at once a revelation and an unsolvable riddle.

The rock art reveals the undeniable presence of ancient people, who chiseled a menagerie of animals, humans, tools and symbols here starting perhaps 5,000 years ago. And it hints at societies dating back to the last ice age.

"I can't help but be moved. I mean, we're talking 13,000 years ago that humans were here, and as indigenous people, we can't help but see them as our ancestors," said Arthur Amiotte, an Oglala Sioux artist who lives near Custer. full article

Bolivian Guaraní Indians Fight to Keep Oil Company Off Their Land
Gustavo Capdevila
Inter Press Service (IPS)
23 July 2004

GENEVA, Jul 22 (IPS) - The Guaraní community of Tentayapi, in southern Bolivia, one of the last bastions of the indigenous group's traditional way of life, is fighting to keep a foreign oil company out of its ancestral territory.

One of the community's leaders, Saúl Carayury, told the United Nations Working Group on Indigenous Populations, meeting this week in Geneva, that Maxus Energy, a subsidiary of the Spanish-Argentine firm Repsol-YPF based in Spain, intends to explore and drill for hydrocarbons on communally-owned indigenous land in Tentayapi. full article

Forests thrive under control of indigenous people
By Vanessa Houlder in London
Published: July 23 2004 5:00 | Last Updated: July 23 2004 5:00

Developing countries are increasingly relinquishing control of tropical forests to their inhabitants in a trend that is helping to preserve endangered forests, a new report says.

The study was published just before delegates from 59 countries meet in Geneva on Monday to renegotiate the International Tropical Timber Agreement, a United Nations treaty first agreed in 1984 in response to concern about the destruction of tropical forests.

Forest Trends, a Washington-based non-profit group which published the report, criticised the new draft agreement for not mentioning local communities' efforts to protect tropical forests. It called on negotiators to give indigenous people a larger role in policy-making as well as strengthened rights to produce and sell forest products full article

Neocons the Real Present Danger

by Paul Craig Roberts
President Bush's neoconservatives have announced that they are relaunching the Committee on the Present Danger. The new CPD will be totally different from the original.

I was a member of the Committee on the Present Danger. It was a bipartisan private organization consisting largely of former presidential appointees who distrusted naiveté about Soviet intentions. One concern was that the U.S. government, feeling pressured to reduce nuclear arms, would be outmaneuvered by the Soviets, who didn't have similar pressures, with a strategic advantage for the Soviets being the result.

The members were patriots committed to liberty, not warmongers. Some of the neoconservative members talked about "rolling back"Soviet gains, but the majority of the members rejected this as a romantic impulse not worthy of discussion. The committee's main concern was that U.S. capabilities not be rolled back more than, or in advance of, Soviet ones. full article

Outsourcing War Crimes
by Ted Rall

It was late fall 2001, and the U.S. conquest of Afghanistan was nearly complete. A passel of foreign war correspondents milled about the lobby of the Hotel Tajikistan, waiting for the Tajik foreign ministry to issue permission papers we needed to pass the checkpoints between Dushanbe and the Afghan border, so we could go on to cover the siege of Kunduz. I popped into the Soviet-vintage hotel's business center to check my email. That's when I met Jonathan Keith "Jack" Idema, the former Special Forces soldier charged on July 5 along with two other Americans for kidnapping and torturing Afghans as part of an unauthorized, vigilante anti-Taliban operation run out of a private home in Kabul.

"U.S. citizen Jonathan K. Idema has allegedly represented himself as an American government and/or military official," the U.S. military said in a statement. "The public should be aware that Idema does not represent the American government and we do not employ him."

That's their current story, anyway.

Agents of the National Security Directorate, Afghanistan's new intelligence agency, say they found eight starved Afghan detainees--three of them hanging by their feet--in Idema's rented house in central Kabul, along with a few AK-47 rifles and blood-soaked clothes. None of Idema's prisoners were working against the Karzai regime, so the NSD plans to release them. Idema, say officials, was probably hoping to torture his victims into telling him the location of Osama bin Laden so he could collect a $25 million bounty. full article

The hysterical skies
She survived a flight with 14 harmless Syrian musicians -- then spread 3,000 bigoted and paranoid words across the Internet. As a pilot and an American, I'm appalled.
By Patrick Smith

July 21, 2004 | In this space was supposed to be installment No. 6 of my multiweek dissertation on airports and terminals. The topic is being usurped by one of those nagging, Web-borne issues of the moment, in this case a reactionary scare story making the cyber-rounds during the past week.

The piece in question, "Terror in the Skies, Again?" is the work of Annie Jacobsen, a writer for WomensWallStreet.com. Jacobsen shares the account of the emotional meltdown she and her fellow passengers experienced when, aboard a Northwest Airlines flight from Detroit to Los Angeles, a group of Middle Eastern passengers proceeded to act "suspiciously." I'll invite you to experience "Terror" yourself, but be warned it's quite long. It needs to be, I suppose, since ultimately it's a story about nothing, puffed and aggrandized to appear important.

The editors get the drama cooking with some foreboding music: "You are about to read an account of what happened," counsels a 70-word preamble. "The WWS Editorial Team debated long and hard about how to handle this information and ultimately we decided it was something that should be shared ... Here is Annie's story" [insert lower-octave piano chord here].

What follows are six pages of the worst grade-school prose, spring-loaded with mindless hysterics and bigoted provocation. full article

articles july 22

U.S. tribe sues Canadian mine over waste
Superfund cited in case involving Columbia River

SPOKANE, Wash. - In what is believed to be the first case of Americans suing a Canadian company under U.S. Superfund law, a tribe is demanding that the owner of a huge smelter north of the border comply with environmental laws in cleaning up waste dumped for decades in the Columbia River.

In a lawsuit filed Wednesday in federal court in Spokane, the Colville Confederated Tribes asked that Teck Cominco Metals Ltd. be ordered to immediately comply with a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency order to pay for studies of pollution from the smelter in Trail, British Columbia.

The lawsuit contends that for nearly 90 years, the smelter dumped millions of tons of heavy metals into the river, with the pollution washed into the United States. The tribe, whose reservation borders the Columbia, says its members eat fish from the river for subsistence, as well as cultural and spiritual reasons. full article

Devil's Club:
A Medicine Cabinet for Alaska Tribe
Thorny Plant's Popularity May Endanger Its Sacred Role

July 27, 2004 -- In Sitka, Alaska, one of the most revered members of the community is the thorny devil's club. But the plant's popularity as a medicinal may endanger its sacred role in Tlingit culture. NPR's Ketzel Levine reports.

The Tlingit have turned to devil's club for a list of ailments you wouldn't wish on an enemy: from coughs and colds to stomach ulcers, tuberculosis and hypoglycemia. Tribe members steep it into teas, mash it into salves, chew, sip and steam it. It's also used to ward off evil. The plant, dubbed the "Tlingit aspirin" has not been approved for medicinal use by the Food and Drug Administration.

In a report for npr.org, Levine describes the devil's club characteristics and native habitats: full article

Chagos Islanders Lose Final Plea to Go Home

By Mike Taylor, PA News

The exiled Chagos Islanders – victims of one of the most shameful episodes in recent British history – have failed in their final bid to claim damages and the right to return to their homeland.

Three Court of Appeal judges in London today refused a plea by the Indian Ocean islanders and their descendants – more than 5,000 in all at the last count – for permission to challenge a High Court ruling last October striking out their claim against the UK Government.

The exiles say they were left destitute after being moved to Mauritius and the Seychelles in the 1960s and 1970s to make way for the construction of the US military base on one of their islands, Diego Garcia.

Lord Justice Sedley said today the treatment of the islanders was “shameful”. full article

Karenni State: Statement at the WGIP

The Karenni is the smallest state in Burma. There is an indigenous people made up 14 sub-tribes. Kayah is the largest tribes among them. However, the most well known is the Kayan, which outsiders often refere to as long neck or giraffe women tribes, who are being popular for tourism in the northern part of Thailand. The total of the Karenni population is about 300,000. As the theme of this year is indigenous people and conflict resolution, the case of the Karenni is suitable to the theme.

Since, the time of de-colonization after the independence from Britain in 1948, the Karenni people have been in conflict with the Burmese military troops invasion in the Karenni state. The main course of conflict was made by the fact that Burmese government once promised the right of self-determination to the Karenni people according to the 1947 Panglong agreement and broke it.

The Burmese military forces have been carrying out systematically to destroy the Karenni cultures, traditions, language, and the large areas of natural resources. full article

Uncertainty looms over truce pact
Nagaland
Source: The Sangai Express

Dimapur, July 21: For the first time ever in seven years of the Centre - NSCN-IM ceasefire, struck on July 25, 1997, the possibility of another round of extension is under cloud.

Never in its seven-year of life span have the Centre - NSCN-IM ceasefire looked so uncertain and its immune system so vulnerable to breakdown.

Going by the past developments, the buzz here in Nagaland is that there would be another round of extension - so much so that many are even ready to guesstimate that it would be extended for yet another year.

But experts are worried because of a slew of reasons that is going against the spirit of the ceasefire.

This despite, fervent plea from the people here in Nagaland cutting across political divides as well as from the State Government.

Why? Because for one, the ceasefire, which was primarily meant to give breathing space to the NSCN-IM leadership to explore chances of finding a political negotiation to the vexed Naga problem has not yielded any positive, concrete outcome till date. full article

Mob Rule
"The Outfit" Rips the Lid Off America's Pious Myths
By CHRIS FLOYD

Anyone who wants to understand the reality of modern America should pick up Gus Russo's latest book, "The Outfit." With diligent research and relentless candor, Russo strips away the façade of America's pious national myths, showing in great detail how the criminal underworld ­ and the even more criminal "upperworld" of big business and politics ­ have fused in a deadly symbiosis that underlies the nation's power structure.

You could begin unravelling this dirty skein at almost any point in the last century, but let's join the story at a critical juncture: 1960, when Democrats Jack Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson battled for the right to face Republican Richard Nixon in the presidential election. Of course, bribery, corruption, violence and vote-rigging have long been an integral part of America's glorious electoral heritage ­ a shining example to all the world ­ but the 1960 election was the first time that the country's mobsters had intervened so directly, and so decisively, in the national ballot. full article

Democracy and the neocons: a marriage of convenience

By Jim Lobe
Special to The Daily Star
Wednesday, July 21, 2004

Of all the delusions that American neoconservatives perpetrated in their drive to take the US to war in Iraq, the most durable was the notion that they were committed to the spread of Wilsonian democracy. As someone who has watched the neocon movement over the past 30 years or so, I find this hard to accept.

My skepticism is based on several factors, including the obvious selectivity of the neocons. After all, one has only to look at their support for authoritarian regimes in Uzbekistan, Pakistan, Tunisia and Jordan - as opposed to their eagerness to invade Iraq in the name of bringing democratic rule there - to find some glaring inconsistencies. At the same time, it is the neocons who pushed hardest for US President George W. Bush to cease dealing with Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat, though he was elected by a substantial majority of eligible voters in the West Bank and Gaza. Indeed, neocon hard-liners like former Pentagon official Richard Perle believe Palestinians should be denied self-determination altogether. full article

articles july 21

Brazilian Indian Leader Karaja Dies at 40

Associated Press

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil - Idjarruri Karaja, an activist who worked to include Indian rights in Brazil's constitution, died of complications from kidney surgery, an Indian rights group said Tuesday. He was 40.

Karaja died early Sunday in Palmas, 900 miles northwest of Rio de Janeiro.

"It's a big loss for the indigenous movement, of a leader who gave unconditionally to the cause of indigenous peoples," said Jecinaldo Barbosa Cabral, general coordinator of the Indian rights group Coiab. "He's gone, but his example will continue to inspire a new generation of leaders of whom he was a part."

Karaja, who like many Brazilian Indians used his tribe's name as his last, became active in the Indian movement in Brasilia, the nation's capital, at age 17. full article

U.S. Justice Department won't appeal Kennewick Man case

PORTLAND, ORE. - The U.S. Justice Department has joined Northwest tribes in clearing the way for scientists to study the Kennewick Man remains.
Blain Rethmeier, a Justice Department spokesman, told The Oregonian that the agency would not ask the U.S. Supreme Court to review the 8-year-old case. The deadline for an appeal passed Monday.

The Umatilla, Nez Perce, Colville and Yakama tribes decided last week against appealing a ruling that anthropologists could study the 9,300-year-old skeleton.

The Umatilla's board of trustees said they would work with other tribes to strength the federal Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, which had been the focus of the lawsuit. full article

Senators Block Industry Lobbyist from Lifetime Judicial Post

Action Will Protect Environment, Long-Term Interests of All Americans, Says NRDC
WASHINGTON (July 20, 2004) - The American people won a major victory today when Senate Republicans failed to force a vote on the nomination of former industry lobbyist William G. Myers III to a lifetime seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, said NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council).

The Senate voted against a proposal to end debate, denying Myers' supporters the 60 votes needed to bring his nomination to the floor.

The nomination of Myers, who has spent nearly his entire professional life representing the narrow interests of Western mining companies and cattle ranchers, generated strong opposition from a record number of Native American tribes and conservation groups. Ninth Circuit judges review federal cases and regulations pertaining to the American West, Alaska and Hawaii. full article

Tribal Elder co-writes book to help preserve language
NORMAN - At an age when many people are content to rest on past accomplishments, Creek/Seminole elder Linda Alexander, 87, still is working to preserve the language and culture of her ancestors.

Alexander, along with two co-authors, has written "Beginning Creek," a college-level textbook on the language and culture of the Mvskoke-speaking peoples, the Muscogee (Creek) and Seminole Indians.

The book was published earlier this year by the University of Oklahoma press. full article

Children coming along or left behind?

Posted: July 20, 2004 - 11:41am EST
by: Jean Johnson / Correspondent / Indian Country Today

PORTLAND, Ore. - No Child Left Behind? Perhaps for students - if there are truly any - who relate to the values implicit in "See Spot run!" and excited mothers in aprons who say things like "Look, look! See, see!" But for those in Indian country, the jury’s still out.

"If you want to see teachers’ eyes roll," president of the Center for Collaborative Teaching and Learning in Opelika, Ala., Bobby Ann Starnes said, "just suggest that a group of government-selected programs can ensure that no child will be left behind." Starnes thinks that even the politically-catchy name of President Bush’s education reform agenda "is ridiculous" because inevitably kids will fall through the cracks in the system, just as they have historically.

The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 reinforces the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, the main federal law regarding K - 12 education. While the ESEA primarily provided aid to disadvantaged students, NCLB makes funding conditional on performance standards set by the federal government.

Standardization is part of the problem because the process often resorts to "methods and materials that are the exact opposite of those known to be effective with Native American children," Starnes continued in her 2003 Phi Delta Kappan essay. "Sit-and-listen, and sit-and-memorize ... The short right answer is what counts ... Thinking, imagination and creativity are very low priorities, if they are priorities at all." full article

WGIP: Martinez claims a second Indigenous Peoples Decade

I would like to begin sincerely by thanking my colleagues for the proposal to continue to be the chair of the WGIP. It is an honor to me, which I gratefully appreciate. I would also like to express thanks for your presence and the content of your statement. I think you have addressed the very most important issue we have before us. Firstly, the continuation of this body’s work. Mainly this pioneer group in consideration of the situation of indigenous peoples of the world is now in the excellent company of the SR and the UN PFII. What I mean by this is that this is something I was already convinced of last year. We put into practice the cooperation between the groups and consolidating our strength to be effective. The HCHR has also drawn out key points. The continuation of this WGIP is essential to future work. She also spoke about the slow process of the WG DDRIP which we drafted in this WGIP and which was adopted by the Sub-commission ten years ago. full article

Aboriginals of Australia: National Indigenous body essential, committee hears
URGENT ACTION

A Senate select committee has heard that it is essential that a democratically-elected national body be set up to represent Indigenous people.

The point was raised at a public hearing on the abolition of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) in Alice Springs. full article

What chance have they?
Ancestral Domain
Phillipines

Among the poorest in our country are the Lumads or indigenous people. They have always been poor by the civilized standard. But once, they were happy in their poverty by their own standard. Nature gave them enough by which to live and to enjoy life.

Then, the Christian settlers, ranchers and loggers came. Gradually, they were deprived of their hunting and fishing grounds and the forests from where they gathered products for lowland markets.

With the enactment of the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act, the Lumads could legally claim their ancestral domains owned in common by the tribe. And the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples was established to “supervise and rule over issues of ancestral domains and other rights of indigenous peoples.”

Did that improve the lot of the Lumads? Hardly. It would take time for them to get the approval of and titles to their ancestral domain claims. And once given, they did not have enough resources to develop these.

And worse, their ancestral domains were included in mining concessions, appearing that the Lumads own the skin of the earth, but the bowels belong to the miners. Their only consolation is that under the IPRA, the mining companies have to get permission from. full article

American Exceptionalism
A Disease of Conceit
By RON JACOBS

Any person who is honestly opposed to the US presence in Iraq and Afghanistan has got to wonder why the movement that developed against the US war on Iraq before the March 2003 invasion has faltered so badly and now seems to be caught up in the movement to electorally defeat George Bush, even though that means supporting John Kerry-a politician who not only supported the invasion and occupation, but talks openly about widening the war to include the NATO countries and tens of thousands more US troops. One could place the blame on the failure of the movement's politics, always more liberal than anti-imperialist. Or, one could place the blame on the leadership. In both cases, one would find some basis for their argument.

When it comes to the bottom line, though, the underlying cause for the US antiwar movement's current stasis is that most of its adherents believe in one of this country's basic tenets-a tenet that is ultimately religious in nature. For lack of a more descriptive phrase, we'll call this phenomenon American exceptionalism. On a basic political level, this phenomenon is the belief that, for some reason (America's system of democracy, or maybe its economic superiority), the United States system is not subject to the same contradictions and influences as those of the rest of the world. This belief in American superiority finds its foundation in some of our culture's basic religious and cultural constructs. It's there in the first settlers' belief that they were conducting a special errand into the wilderness to construct a city on a hill in the name of their heavenly father and every single president and wannabe always implores this same heavenly father to "bless America" at the end of every one of his speeches. This is no accident.

It is this belief that gave the Pilgrims their heavenly go-ahead to murder Pequot women and children and it was this belief that gave General Custer his approval to kill as many Sioux as he could. full article

Neoconservatives - never apologize, never explain

BY KEVIN HORRIGAN

St. Louis Post-Dispatch

I like a guy who won't quit.

I like the Black Knight in "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," his arm whacked off with a broadsword, saying, "It's just a flesh wound."

I like Wile E. Coyote.

I like Paul Newman in "Cool Hand Luke," letting George Kennedy beat the snot out of him.

I like Roy McAvoy, Kevin Costner's character in "Tin Cup," who only needs to lay up on the 18th hole to win the U.S. Open but decides to drive over the water to the green. And splashes a dozen balls. "Greatness courts failure," says Tin Cup.

And I like William Kristol, the editor of The Weekly Standard, the Rupert Murdoch-owned neoconservative newsweekly. Undaunted by the polls, undaunted by the events of the past year, Kristol forges on in defense of the war in Iraq that he and his neocon pals so desperately wanted. full article

Neocons Revive Cold War Group

by Jim Lobe
A bipartisan group of 41 mainly neoconservative foreign-policy hawks has launched the third Committee on the Present Danger (CPD) whose previous two incarnations mobilized public support for rolling back Soviet-led communism but whose new enemy will be "global terrorism."

The new group, announced at a Capitol Hill press conference Tuesday, said its "single mission" will be to "advocate policies intended to win the war on global terrorism – terrorism carried out by radical Islamists opposed to freedom and democracy."

"The committee intends to remain active until the present danger is no longer a threat, however long that takes," said CPD chairman R. James Woolsey, who served briefly as former President Bill Clinton's Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director and has often referred to the battle against radical Islam as "World War IV." full article