Hard Rain Journal 2-1-07: Climate Crisis Update -- From California to Queensland, the "Inconvenient Truth" has Become Unavoidable

Image: Map of Arctic

People in the Australian state of Queensland will soon have to start drinking water containing recycled sewage, the state premier has warned. Premier Peter Beattie said he had scrapped a referendum on the issue, because there was no longer a choice. He also warned other Australian states might eventually have to do the same because of mounting water shortages. Water is already recycled in places like Singapore and the UK, but the idea is still unpopular in Australia...."These are ugly decisions, but you either drink water or you die. There's no choice. It's liquid gold, it's a matter of life and death," he said. BBC, 1-29-07

Global warming is the greatest environmental threat that humanity has ever faced....The potential consequences for California are dire. At current rates of warming, state researchers project that the sea level will rise as much as three feet by the end of the century, flooding many low-lying areas and tainting important sources of fresh water like the San Joaquin-Sacramento River Delta. Higher temperatures will drastically shrink the Sierra snowpack that stores much of our water. They will increase smog, boost the risk of wildfires and upset California's vital agricultural industries. San Jose Mercury News Editorial, 12-26-06

Hard Rain Journal 2-1-07: Climate Crisis Update -- From California to Queensland, the "Inconvenient Truth" has become Unavoidable

From California to Queensland, the reality of global warming looms ever larger and more immediate.

The planetary scope and profound impact of the climate crisis has evolved from an "inconvenient truth" to an unavoidable one.

And the despicable denial and arguably criminal suppression of this truth by the Bush-Cheney regime (and its enablers in the US mainstream news media and political establishment) are finally being investigated.

Meanwhile, the oil and gas industry, which gorges itself on the misery of human beings (e.g., Nigeria), sees this planetary emergency as an opportunity to get to the fossil fuels under the polar ice.

Here is an update on the greatest story of our time.

A UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report to be released on Friday in Paris "summarizes the scientific basis for climate change," and a subsequent IPCC report to be released in April, "details the consequences of global warming and options for adapting":

Rising temperatures will leave millions more people hungry by 2080 and cause critical water shortages in China and Australia, as well as parts of Europe and the United States, according to a new global climate report.
By the end of the century, climate change will bring water scarcity to between 1.1 and 3.2 billion people as temperatures rise by 2 to 3 Celsius (3.6 to 4.8 Fahrenheit)....an additional 200 million to 600 million people across the world would face food shortages in another 70 years, while coastal flooding would hit another 7 million homes... Reuters, 1-30-07

But according to some leading scientists, the upcoming IPCC report, as dire as it is, may be "the sugarcoated version":

Early and changeable drafts of their upcoming authoritative report on climate change foresee smaller sea level rises than were projected in 2001 in the last report. Many top U.S. scientists reject these rosier numbers. Those calculations don't include the recent, and dramatic, melt-off of big ice sheets in two crucial locations... Associated Press, 1-29-07

Now that the control of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has passed on to Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), the revolutionary nature of the 2006 US mid-term elections is beginning to be felt throughout Beltwayistan:

The new Democratic chairman of a House panel charged today that the Bush administration tried to mislead the public about climate change "by injecting doubt into the science of global warming and minimizing the potential dangers." Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Los Angeles), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said at the start of a hearing on global warming that he and the committee's ranking Republican, Rep. Tom Davis of Virginia, had repeatedly asked the White House last year for documents to show that senior officials were suppressing scientific reports within the administration about the severity of the problem. Los Angeles Times, 1-30-07

A new report presented to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee by the Union of Concerned Scientists and the Government Accountability Project shows 435 instances in which the Bush administration interfered into the global warming work of government scientists over the past five years. Some other findings of the survey :
– 46 percent of government scientists “personally experienced pressure to eliminate the words ‘climate change,’ ‘global warming,’ or other similar terms from a variety of communications.”
– 46 percent “perceived or personally experienced new or unusual administrative requirements that impair climate-related work.”
– 38 percent “perceived or personally experienced the disappearance or unusual delay of websites, reports, or other science-based materials relating to climate.”
– 25 percent “perceived or personally experienced situations in which scientists have actively objected to, resigned from, or removed themselves from a project because of pressure to change scientific findings.” Think Progress, 1-30-07

Rep. Jim Cooper (D-TN) revealed the Bush administration has barred Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte from saying the phrase “global warming.” Cooper said he recently attended a dinner party at which Negroponte was speaking, and “word slipped through the crowd he was not allowed to utter the words ‘global warming,’ at least not in the same sentence. Apparently, he was allowed to say the word ‘global’ in a separate sentence, and ‘warming’ in a separate sentence, but not together.” Think Progress, 1-30-07

I have no doubt that the Neo-cons and their Corporatist sponsors have gamed out global warming and climate changes, and think in their delusion that they like what they see, depopulation in Asia and Africa, economic ruin in Europe, and oh yes, lots of oil and natural gas bubbling to the surface from under the floating carcasses of polar bears and the shattered remnants of indigenous cultures:

Global warming caused by fossil fuel emissions is rapidly melting the Arctic. Sea ice coverage this past March “was the lowest in winter since measurements by satellite began in the early 1970s,” and NASA-funded U.S. scientists believe in 30-50 years, “summer sea ice will have vanished from almost the entire Arctic region,” conditions not seen in the area in a million years.
For energy companies, this catastrophe means a “new era of oil and natural gas exploration in the region ,” Greenwire reports:
The Arctic region contains a quarter of the world’s remaining oil reserves, experts estimate. It also contains massive natural gas fields in the Barents Sea, including Russia’s huge Shtokman field. “By 2040 or 2050, the Arctic Ocean will be navigable and that will mean significant developments very soon,” said ArcticNet research group head Martin Fortier.
European Environment Agency head Jacqueline McGlade warned that “the region’s opening could lead to another rush like the Klondike gold rush, which ‘could potentially destabilize’ the area and its 10 million indigenous inhabitants.” Think Progress, 1-29-07

Want to participate in the effort to mitigate the impact of global warming? Download "Ten Things You Can Do"

There is a powerful magic in personal commitment.

FIVE MOST RECENT RELATED POSTS:

Hard Rain Journal 1-22-07: Climate Crisis Update -- At Five Minutes to Midnight, Europe at Risk

Hard Rain Journal 1-2-07: Climate Crisis Update -- Dire Warnings from the West's Experts and from Chinese Gov; Meanwhile, from the US Gov -- NOTHING

Hard Rain Journal 12-27-06: Climate Crisis Update -- Lohachara is Gone, the Bears in Spain are Not Hibernating, Wall Street Wonders What It All Means

Hard Rain Journal 12-14-06: Climate Crisis Update -- Three Damn Good Reasons for "Carbon Freeze" and Peace is One of Them

Hard Rain Journal 12-6-06: Climate Crisis Update -- Seven Stories To Keep You Awake At Night -- Severe Weather, Famine and the Worst-Case Scenario

Richard Power is the founder of GS(3) Intelligence and Words of Power. His work focuses on the inter-related issues of security, sustainability and spirit, and how to overcome the challenges of terrorism, cyber crime, global warming, health emergencies, natural disasters, etc. You can reach him via e-mail: richardpower@wordsofpower.net. For more information, go to www.wordsofpower.net

Global Warming, Energy Security, Environmental Security, Alternate Energy, Sustainability, Green Power, Renewable Resources, Climate Change, Weather, Al Gore, An Inconvenient Truth, IPCC, Crisis Management,Rep. Henry Waxman, Union of Concerned Scientists, Queensland, California, Chrysler, Australia, Arctic, UN, Richard Power, Words of Power


GS(3) Thunderbolt 1-29-07: Update on the Crisis in Darfur - What Must Be Done Isn't Getting Done

Image: Darfur (Glenn Middleton, BBC)

GS(3) Thunderbolt 1-29-07: Update on the Crisis in Darfur - What Must Be Done Isn't Getting Done

In January, at least 350 more people died, and tens of thousands of more people fled their homes.

No, it isn't getting any better in Darfur. Indeed, it is getting worse.

At least 500 humanitarian aid workers have been pulled out of the area, because they have become targets of violence. Rape, beatings and mock executions of aid workers have taken place.

Meanwhile, the great nations, in particular China and the USA, do as little as possible, and for the worst of reasons.

Lawrence Rossin of Save Darfur sheds some light on the Bush administration's hollow rhetoric:

The forced withdrawal of aid organisations from Darfur could leave more than two million civilians facing catastrophe, vulnerable to militia attacks, starvation and disease, a leading human rights activist has warned. Lawrence Rossin, a former US ambassador now acting as international coordinator of the Save Darfur Coalition, said that even after the deaths of an estimated 400,000 people in the region, most at the hands of the government-backed Janjaweed militia, the situation could still get worse....In his state of the union address on Tuesday, President George Bush said he would "continue to awaken the conscience of the world to save the people of Darfur". But, said Mr Rossin: "We've all raised consciousness about Darfur. That's not the president's job. It's the president's job to do things." Aid chief warns of Sudan catastrophe, Guardian, 1-26-07

And in an open letter to the Chinese government, Human Rights Watch has urged them to do more:

We write regarding your upcoming trip to Sudan. China recently took positive steps to encourage the Government of Sudan to accept a United Nations peacekeeping force in Darfur. Yet consistent with China's international obligations, its aspirations to be seen as a responsible international power, and its claims to be a friend of the Sudanese people, there is a great deal more your government can do on Sudan....
We believe that there are four steps China can take to improve the situation in Sudan.
First, seriously consider the important step of supporting through the UN the imposition of targeted sanctions on key Sudanese officials responsible for Darfur policy....
Second, encourage the Government of Sudan to place a portion of its oil revenues in an internationally administered trust fund for the victims of atrocities...
Third, it is imperative that China establish new mechanisms to monitor the end-use of its weapons....
Fourth, China should examine the connection between Sudanese oil development and human rights abuses....
Finally, we encourage you to issue an overview or white paper on China's policies toward the Sudan over the past decade. Surely you will agree that there is much international confusion regarding China's own actions. It is in everyone's interests, including China's, to have a clear sense of what initiatives China has undertaken.
Undertaking these steps will help demonstrate that China's interest in Sudan is not merely about ensuring its access to oil supplies but also about the welfare of the Sudanese people so devastated by the ongoing conflict. Moreover, it will serve as an important signal to the international community that China takes seriously its obligations to uphold human rights. Letter to China On the Crisis in Darfur, Human Rights Watch, 1-29-07

What the USA and China have not done is worse than a failure of leadership, it is a failure of the inner moral compass upon which leadership is based.

The focus this week is on the African Union summit in Addis Ababa.

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon says he will put pressure on Sudan to find a solution for the humanitarian crisis in the Darfur region...Mr. Ban said the first phase of a three-phase plan was already nearly completed. Under the plan, several U.N. and African Union military and civilian staff would be sent to Darfur, preparing the ground for at least 10,000 peacekeepers.
UN Secretary General puts pressure on Sudan over Darfur, Malaysia Sun, 1-29-07

Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir has again been bypassed in his bid to become chairman of the African Union because of the conflict in Darfur.
Mr Bashir was due to take on the role but it has instead been given to Ghana's President John Kufuor. Chad had threatened to leave the AU if Mr Bashir became its leader, while Amnesty International warned that the body's credibility would be damaged....African snub to Sudan over Darfur, BBC, 1-29-07

Six humanitarian aid agencies, Action Against Hunger, CARE International, Oxfam International, Norwegian Refugee Council, World Vision and Save the Children, admonished the African Union to take responsibility in two decisive ways:

Aid agencies today warned the enormous humanitarian response in Darfur will soon be paralysed unless African and global leaders at the AU Summit take urgent action to end rising violence against civilians and aid workers....
The six agencies warn the Summit will fail unless:
1. African Heads of States led by Chairperson Denis Sassou Ng'uesso and new UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon greatly increase the pressure on all parties to the conflict to ensure attacks on civilians and aid workers end immediately, and ensure that perpetrators of violence are held to account.
2. The African Union Commission does more to end the growing violent attacks. The AU's credibility with the people of Darfur is at an all-time low. AU troops in Darfur must immediately try to regain the civilian population's confidence by implementing the following proactive protection measures: · Regular "firewood patrols" accompanying women who collect essential firewood and animal fodder outside the camps. Although previously in place these have now ceased in most locations in Darfur. · A 24/7 presence inside the main camps and towns to ensure safety of civilians · Making more effective use of the Ceasefire Commission to bring violators to account African leaders, Ban Ki-Moon must take action at AU Summit or it could be too late, Peace Journalism,

But, of course, even if the AU overcomes its own trepidation, who will fund all of this?

Again, the responsibility for what is not happening falls on the shirking shoulders of the great nations.

If you want to help save Darfur, here are some sites that offer suggestions on how to participate:

Save Darfur!
Genocide Intervention Network

Most Recent Related Posts:

Hard Rain Journal 12-10-06: Human Rights Update -- Annan Speaks Out on Darfur, Carter Speaks Out on Palestine -- Have You? Has Your Representative?

GS(3) Thunderbolt 11-27-06: Update on Darfur -- UN Reports Crisis Worsens, HRW Urges AU to Get Tough with Khartoum

GS(3) Thunderbolt 10-23-06: Update on the Crisis in Darfur

Hard Rain Journal 9-17-06: Global Day for Darfur

Richard Power is the founder of GS(3) Intelligence and Words of Power. His work focuses on the inter-related issues of security, sustainability and spirit, and how to overcome the challenges of terrorism, cyber crime, global warming, health emergencies, natural disasters, etc. You can reach him via e-mail: richardpower@wordsofpower.net. For more information, go to www.wordsofpower.net

Omar al-Bashir, China, Bush, USA, UN, AU, Sudan, Darfur, Lawrence Rossin, Ban Ki-moon, Humanitarian Crisis, Refugees, Human Rights

Hard Rain Journal 1-26-07: Should Cheney be the Direct Target of Congressional Investigation?

Image: Sauron


Question: What is the connection between a possible American attack on Iran and the perjury trial of I. Lewis Libby?
Answer: Vice President Dick Cheney.
Wariness over a potential American attack on Iran has been on the rise for months...Though his policy initiatives are greeted with failure after failure, though the poll numbers continue to wither, Cheney and the remaining true-believers continue to slog onward, dragging all of us deeper into the morass. Should the trial of Libby present a definitive threat to the political standing and power of Dick Cheney, all bets may be off regarding Iran. We will be faced with the possibility that an attack may be ordered for no better reason than to redirect attention and change the subject. An attack on Iran would be calamitous on many levels....These days, all the thinking and management is being done by Dick Cheney, and if this Libby trial comes to pose a danger to his standing, all the sober analysis by policy experts may turn to dust. Nothing is more dangerous, after all, than a cornered animal. William Rivers Pitt, A Cornered Animal, Truthout, 1-26-07

Hard Rain Journal 1-26-07: Should Cheney be the Direct Target of Congressional Investigation?

By Richard Power

Like corpses freed from their cement shoes, new revelations about VICE _resident Cheney's abominable behaviour have begun to bob to the surface of the Potomac. (Well, the revelations are new to the US mainstream press, not to the blogosphere or progressive talk radio.)

Did you see Wolf Bluster (no, that's not a typo) interview VICE _resident Cheney?

Ever since I watched the meltdown courtesy of Crooks and Liars and You Tube (I don't own a TV), I have been hearing "All Along the Watchtower" in my head: "So let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late."

In Hard Rain Journal 1-19-07: The Hard Rain Falls Between PNAC and the PATRIOT Act, but the US News Media Sees, Hears, Speaks No Evil, I wrote you concerning Cheney's squashing of a diplomatic opening from the Iranians in 2003; and now, as Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) takes charge of the Senate Intelligence Committee and US DoJ prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald presses his attack in the Libby trial, I am compelled to write you again.

Did Cheney drive the White House conspiracy in the Plame affair and the subsequent coverup, thereby betraying the US government's sacred trust with its secret agents?

Did Cheney drive the White House effort to shutdown Phase II of the Senate Intelligence Committee's inquiry into the lies used to justify the invasion and occupation of Iraq?

The evidence already available as open source is damning.

How much more evidence of Cheney's wrong-doing waits in the secret "Energy Task Force" papers?

And remember, it was Cheney who was in charge on 9/11, while Bush stared off into space, clutching "My Pet Goat."

Remember, too, it was Cheney who threatened Sen. Paul Wellstone (D-MN).

And, of course, there is the Halliburton connection.

Should VICE _resident Cheney should be the direct target of Congressional investigation?

Consider four recent news items:

Vice President Dick Cheney exerted "constant" pressure on the Republican former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee to stall an investigation into the Bush administration's use of flawed intelligence on Iraq, the panel's Democratic chairman charged Thursday....Rockefeller said that it was "not hearsay" that Cheney, a leading proponent of invading Iraq, pushed Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., to drag out the probe of the administration's use of prewar intelligence.
"It was just constant," Rockefeller said of Cheney's alleged interference. He added that he knew that the vice president attended regular policy meetings in which he conveyed White House directions to Republican staffers.
Republicans "just had to go along with the administration," he said....
Rockefeller said it was important to complete the Phase II inquiry.
"The looking backward creates tension, but it's necessary tension because the administration needs to be held accountable and the country . . . needs to know," he said. McClatchy Newspapers, 1-12-07

Memo to Tim Russert: Dick Cheney thinks he controls you.
This delicious morsel about the "Meet the Press" host and the vice president was part of the extensive dish Cathie Martin served up yesterday when the former Cheney communications director took the stand in the perjury trial of former Cheney chief of staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.
Flashed on the courtroom computer screens were her notes from 2004 about how Cheney could respond to allegations that the Bush administration had played fast and loose with evidence of Iraq's nuclear ambitions. Option 1: "MTP-VP," she wrote, then listed the pros and cons of a vice presidential appearance on the Sunday show. Under "pro," she wrote: "control message."
"I suggested we put the vice president on 'Meet the Press,' which was a tactic we often used," Martin testified. "It's our best format."
Dana Millbank, Washington Post, 1-26-07

The motivations for an Iran strike were laid out as far back as 1992. In classified defense planning guidance – written for then-Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney by then-Pentagon staffers I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, World Bank Chief Paul Wolfowitz, and ambassador-nominee to the United Nations Zalmay Khalilzad – Cheney’s aides called for the United States to assume the position of lone superpower and act preemptively to prevent the emergence of even regional competitors. The draft document was leaked to the New York Times and the Washington Post and caused an uproar among Democrats and many in George H. W. Bush’s Administration.
In September 2000, the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) issued a report titled “Rebuilding America's Defenses,” which espoused similar positions to the 1992 draft and became the basis for the Bush-Cheney Administration's foreign policy. Libby and Wolfowitz were among the participants in this new report; Cheney, former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other prominent figures in the Bush administration were PNAC members....
By setting up the Iranian Directorate within the Pentagon and running covert operations through the military rather than the CIA, the administration was able to avoid both Congressional oversight and interference from then-Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte, who has been vocally skeptical about using force against Iran. The White House also successfully stalled the release of a fresh National Intelligence Estimate on Iran, which could reflect the CIA's conclusion that there is no evidence of an Iranian nuclear weapons program.Raw Story, 1-23-07

Vice President Dick Cheney has bullied federal agencies and given absurd advice about the nation's risk and Iraq, Walter Mondale said today, adding that never would have been tolerated when Mondale was vice president.
"I think that Cheney has stepped way over the line," Mondale said at the opening of a three-day conference about former President Jimmy Carter at the University of Georgia.
Mondale, who served under Carter, said Cheney and his assistants pressured federal agencies as they prepared information for President Bush.
"I think Cheney's been at the center of cooking up farcical estimates of national risks, weapons of mass destruction and the 9/11 connection to Iraq," he said.
That does not serve the president, because he needs facts, Mondale said.
"If I had done as vice president what this vice president has done, Carter would have thrown me out of there," Mondale said. "I don't think he could have tolerated a vice president over there pressuring and pushing other agencies, ordering up different 9 than they wanted to send us. I don't think he would have stood for it. (Associated Press, 1-19-07)

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Richard Power is the founder of GS(3) Intelligence and http://www.wordsofpower.net. His work focuses on the inter-related issues of security, sustainability and spirit, and how to overcome the challenges of terrorism, cyber crime, global warming, health emergencies, natural disasters, etc. You can reach him via e-mail: richardpower@wordsofpower.net. For more information, go to www.wordsofpower.net

Iraq, Iran, Sen. Jay Rockefeller, Patrick Fitzgerald, Valerie Plame, Joseph Wilson,Walter Mondale, Phase II, Bush, Cheney, Tim Russert, Walter Mondale, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Richard Power, Words of Power


Human Rights and UN Millennium Goals Update -- The Real Poverty is on Easy Street

Image: UN Millennium Goals

Human Rights and UN Millennium Goals Update -- The Real Poverty is on Easy Street

By Richard Power

I will focus on only one of Bush's many disingenuous statements in the 2007 SOTU.

Think Progress provides both the utterance and its truthful context:

Bush said: “We hear the call to take on the challenges of hunger, poverty, and disease - and that is precisely what America is doing....I ask that you fund the Millennium Challenge Account, so that American aid reaches the people who need it, in nations where democracy is on the rise and corruption is in retreat.”
FACT — MILLENNIUM CHALLENGE PROGRAM WILL SOON BE BANKRUPT: “President Bush’s signature foreign-assistance program is likely to run out of money this year, leaving in the lurch several poor countries that have labored to meet its strict eligibility standards, according to aid officials. Mr. Bush introduced the Millennium Challenge program in 2002 as a new approach to fix the perceived failures of overseas-development assistance.” [Wall Street Journal, 1/22/07] Think Progress, 1-23-07

Just as the Bush-Cheney national insecurity team has ignored the planetary struggle to mitigate global warming, it has also ignored the planetary struggle to mitigate poverty, disease and oppression.

The world has lost six years it could not afford to lose.

Nevertheless, the UN Millennium Goals are both vital and achievable (even now).

But, as Jeffrey Sachs says, two elements are essential: "sustained partnerships between governments and civil society and sustained donor resource input," and although there has been "a scaling up of donor investment in the key areas of agriculture, education, the fight against HIV/AIDS and the provision of health services," the money is still moving to slowly into poor countries. Of the recently promised 240 billion dollars (US), only 140 billion has made it into the field.

This challenge demands values, perspective and personal commitment. It demands leadership.

"On New York’s Wall Street Christmas bonuses of 24 billion dollars were paid out in December 2006. Just think how far only a small part of this amount could have gone in projects to keep people alive in poor countries,’’ Sachs pointed out. Stephanie Nieuwoudt, It Is Possible to Meet MDGs: Sachs, One World, 1-23-07

How dire is the plight of women and children in the 21st Century?

Consider these recent news stories:

In Cartagena, Columbia, a community center, operated by the League of Displaced Women (Liga de Mujeres Desplazadas), was destroyed in an arson fire over the weekend. The office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has vowed to fund its reconstruction. The League of Displaced Women receives "frequent threats for its work on behalf of thousands of women and children displaced by violence in Colombia's Atlantic Coast region. The country has one of the largest populations of Internally Displaced People (IDP) in the world -- approximately three million people. (UNHCR, 1-23-07)

Human Rights Watch (HWR) has revealed the Sri Lankan government's "complicity or willful blindness" in the abduction and forced recruitment of hundreds of children in eastern Sri Lanka. According to HRW, Karuna, which split from the Tamil Tigers and cooperates with the Sri Lankan military, is "abducting children in broad daylight in areas firmly under government control."According to HRW, the government is "fully aware of the abductions but allows them to happen because it's eager for an ally against the Tamil Tigers."(Human Rights Watch, 1-24-07)

Married for 16 years to Qasim, Najma Bibi bore him eight children. Three of them died, the last from obstructed labour that called for surgical intervention to repair obstetric fistula. Najma cannot thank her doctors enough, for they saved her marriage....According to United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), nearly two million women -- a vast majority in sub-Saharan Africa and parts of South Asia -- suffer from this devastating injury. A major challenge for health care professionals is that each year that number is increasing by over 50,000 to 100,000. Yet, true prevalence remains underreported and is a stark indication of the low priority given to women's health on national health agendas....
What is tragic, however, is that fistula can be avoided by stopping child marriages, delaying the age of first pregnancy, by cessation of harmful traditional practices, and by timely access to good emergency obstetric care (EmOC).
Zofeen Ebrahim, HEALTH-PAKISTAN: Obstetric Fistula - Grim Reminder of Unmet MDGs, Inter Press Service, 1-17-07

There is so much to be done, but it is do-able.

As Sachs remarked at recent a sustainable development summit in India, the Millennium Goals can sometimes be achieved with simple solutions:

India does not require miracle solutions for meeting its millennium development goals (MDG) of water, sanitation, education and health....the solutions don’t require long-term investment and are really as simple as providing a village with a clinic, a school and a borewell... Simple solutions for social goals: Sachs, Economic Times/India Times, 1-23-07

The Great Lakes Centre for Strategic Studies (GLCSS) report on Sachs' six strategies for the development of Millennium villages in rural Uganda enumerates some of the opportunties and challenges:

Millennium villages and millennium districts form part of an integrated rural investment strategy that Sachs believes can end extreme poverty….He outlined six strategies that have worked in Ruhira village – a pilot project in Mbarara district.
Grow more food: Fertilizers, High-yield seeds, Treadle pumps, Agricultural extension, Landscape management in low scale farms.
Control malaria: Bed nets, Anti-malaria medicines, Rapid diagnostic tests, Ensure clinical health services, Improve clinics (level three), Upgrade hospitals (level four) with improved staffing and salaries for health workers, Training of health outreach workers, Access to family planning services.
Provide safe water points: Boreholes, Protected springs, Rain water, Pumped water if available, and Sanitation.
Ensure schooling for all children: Classrooms, Books and supplies, Teacher training, Mid-day meals (Sachs urged the implementation of school feeding programmes and de-worming every four months and promised to help in accessing free medicine for Uganda.), Computers, Internet connectivity in some schools
Connectivity to break isolation: Cell phone coverage at clinics, schools, Truck transport, Broadband connectivity, Road grading....
It is also worth noting that Sachs’ prescription falls short of addressing corruption as a serious impediment to meeting the MDGs. The GLCSS maintains that MDGs will be met in a sustainable manner by addressing corruption….Ways of ensuring environmental sustainability – another crucial MDG – should equally be addressed....A fast-increasing population, unpredictable weather conditions and security problems in some parts of the country must also be tackled to ensure sustainable growth and development. James Karuhanga, Sachs’ Six Strategies for Uganda to meet MDGs, Great Lakes Centre for Strategic Studies, 1-22-07

The solutions exist. They are reflected in the enlightened minds of those engaged in this and other worthy struggles.

What is lacking is the collective will. Such will flows from awakened hearts.

The real poverty is on Easy Street.

Most Recent Related Posts

Hard Rain Journal 1-13-07: UN Millennium Goals and Sustainability Update -- Does Burkina-Faso Offer a Glimpse into Our Urban Future

Hard Rain Journal 1-8-07: Human Rights and Environmental Security Update from Burma, Cambodia and Mekong River

Hard Rain Journal 12-12-06: UN Millennium Goals Update -- Nobel Prize Winner Yunus Urges World to Fight Poverty to Win Security and Peace

Richard Power is the founder of GS(3) Intelligence and http://www.wordsofpower.net. His work focuses on the inter-related issues of security, sustainability and spirit, and how to overcome the challenges of terrorism, cyber crime, global warming, health emergencies, natural disasters, etc. You can reach him via e-mail: richardpower@wordsofpower.net. For more information, go to www.wordsofpower.net

Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Uganda, India, Columbia, UNHCR, Bush, Cheney, Earth Institute Institute, Jeffrey Sachs, UN Millennium Goals, League of Displaced Women, Global Warming, Water, Poverty, Health, Environmental Security, Climate Change

Hard Rain Journal 1-22-07: Climate Crisis Update -- At Five Minutes to Midnight, Europe at Risk

Image: Bulletin of Atomic Scientists

Climate change stands alongside the use of nuclear weapons as one of the greatest threats posed to the future of the world, the Cambridge cosmologist Stephen Hawking has said.
Professor Hawking said that we stand on the precipice of a second nuclear age and a period of exceptional climate change, both of which could destroy the planet as we know it...
"As we stand at the brink of a second nuclear age and a period of unprecedented climate change, scientists have a special responsibility, once again, to inform the public and to advise leaders about the perils that humanity faces," Professor Hawking said. "As scientists, we understand the dangers of nuclear weapons and their devastating effects, and we are learning how human activities and technologies are affecting climate systems in ways that may forever change life on Earth.
Steve Connor, Hawking Warns: We Must Recognize the Catastrophic Dangers of Climate Change, Independent/UK, 1-18-07

For those last stubborn holdouts still skeptical about the existence of global warming--e.g., CNN's chief corporate fascism advocate Glenn Beck, who broadcast another of his denial tirades last week--and to those who exalt the warmer weather as preferable to a snowy winter, consider the impacts on our fellow creatures. Last April an early spring in Wyoming's Teton Range caused horseflies to arrive early. The young Redtail hawks, who were still unfeathered, were devoured in their nests by the voracious bloodsuckers. Not a single baby Redtail survived to fledge in the Jackson Hole valley….The recent disruptions to animal and plant behavior are evident to anyone except for ideologically blinded right-wing flat-earthers and Exxon/Mobil's political and media toadies like Michael Crichton, Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., For the Last, Stubborn Holdouts on Global Warming, Huffington Post,

Hard Rain Journal 1-22-07: Climate Crisis Update -- At Five Minutes to Midnight on the "Doomsday Clock," Europe is at Risk

By Richard Power

According to the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists' "Doomsday Clock," it is five minutes to Midnight:

The world is nudging closer to nuclear or environmental apocalypse, a group of prominent scientists warned Wednesday as it pushed the hand of its symbolic Doomsday Clock closer to midnight. 

The clock, which was set two minutes forward to 11:55, represents the likelihood of a global cataclysm. Its ticks have given the clock's keepers a chance to speak out on the dangers they see threatening Earth. 

It was the fourth time since the Soviet collapse in 1991 that the clock ticked forward amid fears over what the scientists describe as "a second nuclear age" prompted largely by standoffs with Iran and North Korea. But urgent warnings of climate change also played a role. 

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which sets the clock, was founded in 1945 as a newsletter distributed among nuclear physicists concerned about nuclear war, and midnight originally symbolized a widespread nuclear conflict. The bulletin has grown into an organization focused more generally on manmade threats to human civilization. 

"The dangers posed by climate change are nearly as dire as those posed by nuclear weapons," said Kennette Benedict, director of the bulletin. RAPHAEL G. SATTER, Doomsday Clock Moves Closer to Midnight, Associated Press, 1-17-07

Hopefully, this adjustment of the "Doomsday Clock" cancels out the obscenely (and willfully) ignorant remarks of Chrysler "chief economist" Van Jolissaint:

Chrysler's chief economist Van Jolissaint has launched a fierce attack on "quasi-hysterical Europeans" and their "Chicken Little" attitudes to global warming....Mr Jolissaint was speaking at a private breakfast where the chief economists of the "Big Three" US car firms presented their forecasts for auto industry sales this year. Most of the audience - which was mainly made up of parts suppliers - seemed to nod in agreement with Mr Jolissaint. Neither Ford's chief economist Ellen Hughes-Cromwick, nor General Motors' chief economist Mustafa Mohatarem, who were on the panel with Mr Jolissaint, questioned his assertion.
Steve Schifferes, Chrysler questions climate change, BBC,

But the question remains, how can Jolissaint, and those like him, sleep at night?

This Climate Crisis Update is organized into two parts.

First, three stories that highlight Europe at risk; second, three stories on Big Picture Developments:

Europe at Risk

Will Europe be sundered into a Nordic paradise and a Mediterranean wasteland?

Although much well-deserved attention is given to global warming's direct, devastating and imminent impact on Africa, evidence of the danger to Europe is increasing.

The stakes are very high -- for all of us.

Europe is not only one of the world's economic engines, at this point in human history, flawed as it is, it is also the guardian of humanity's conscience.

Receding Alpine glaciers are appearing a sure telltale of global warming. In Switzerland, 84 out of 85 glaciers under observation became shorter in 2006.
The hot summers and the lack of precipitation in recent years will accelerate the melting process even more, scientists say….
Glacier retreat can lead to the formation of lakes, typically in the recently de-glaciated area in front of a glacier. Such lakes are often dammed by large moraines consisting of loose glacial sediments. The potential instability of moraine dams makes the lakes prone to water outbursts, with potentially devastating effects on the steep yet densely populated Alpine valleys.
Scientists of the Laboratory of Hydraulics, Hydrology and Glacioloy of the ETH Zürich have compiled a list of 82 glaciers which in the past have inflicted damage on persons or property. Fifty-one of these are expected to cause new damage within the next 10 to 20 years....
Research using satellite images by the University of Zürich indicates that Switzerland's glaciers lost 18 percent of their surface between 1985 and 2000, at a rate seven times faster than between 1850 and 1973. Mattias Creffier, Alps Glaciers Melting Rapidly, Inter Press Service, 1-19-07

Sandwiched between temperate Europe and African heat, Italy is on the front line of climate change and is witnessing a rise in tropical diseases such as malaria and tick-borne encephalitis, a new report says.
Italy was declared free of malaria in 1970, but it is making a comeback, said the Italian environmental organisation Legambiente. Tick-borne encephalitis, a virus which attacks the nerve system, is also on the way back. While only 18 cases had been reported before 1993, 100 have been since, mostly around Venice.
"Illnesses are arriving from Africa, while tropical animals and plants are attacking our biodiversity, droughts and flooding are on the rise, and semi-desert areas are appearing," said Legambiente's director general, Francesco Ferrante. Tom Kington, Climate change brings malaria back to Italy, Guardian, 1-6-07

Chilly northern Europe could reap big benefits from global warming, while the Mediterranean faces crippling shortages of both water and tourists by the middle of the century, according to the first comprehensive study of its effects on the continent.
Fewer in the north would die of cold, crops there would boom and the North Sea coast could become the new Riviera, an analysis to be approved by the European Commission next week shows. But the annual migration of rich northern Europeans to the south could stop – with dramatic consequences for the economies of Spain, Greece and Italy.
A sixth of the world’s tourists – 100m people annually – head south within Europe for their holidays, spreading €100bn ($130bn) of largesse with them. “The more tourists stay home or go to other destinations, the larger the distributional impact in Europe will be,” says the paper, a copy of which has been obtained by the Financial Times.
While fewer people will perish of cold in the north, tens of thousands more will die of heat in the south. As many as 87,000 extra deaths a year would occur annually by 2071, assuming a three degree centigrade temperature rise. If efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions limit the rise to 2.2 degrees, additional mortalities would be 36,000 a year.
These numbers are dwarfed by predicted deaths and economic chaos in the developing world. Andrew Bounds, Europe to suffer as the world warms up, Financial Times, 1-5-07

Big Picture Developments

A major new United Nations report shows global scientists are more convinced than ever that human activity is causing climate change, the Toronto Star has learned.
The rate of warming between now and 2030 is likely to be twice that of the previous century, it says.
And it concludes that most of the global warming since the middle of the last century has been caused by man-made greenhouse gases.
The report, to be released in Paris Feb. 2, should all but end any debate on climate change and compel governments and industries to take urgent measures to deal with it, scientists say. Peter Gorrie, Landmark UN Study Backs Climate Theory, 2,000 scientists all but end the debate: Human activity causes global warming, Toronto Star, 1-19-07

Carbon dioxide is accumulating in the atmosphere much faster than scientists expected, raising fears that humankind may have less time to tackle climate change than previously thought.
New figures from dozens of measuring stations across the world reveal that concentrations of CO2, the main greenhouse gas, rose at record levels during 2006 - the fourth year in the last five to show a sharp increase. Experts are puzzled because the spike, which follows decades of more modest annual rises, does not appear to match the pattern of steady increases in human emissions.
At its most far reaching, the finding could indicate that global temperatures are making forests, soils and oceans less able to absorb carbon dioxide - a shift that would make it harder to tackle global warming. Such a shift would worsen even the gloomy predictions of the Stern Review which warned that we had little over a decade to tackle rising emissions to avoid the worst effects of climate change. David Adam, Surge in Carbon Levels Raises Fears of Runaway Warming, 1-19-07

They burn like fire hurricanes on fronts stretching sometimes thousands of kilometres and with a ferocity that explodes trees and makes them impossible to extinguish short of rain or divine intervention.
Bushfires like those that had raged through Australia's southeast for two months and struck Europe, Canada and the western US in 2003 were a new type of "megafire" not seen until recently, a top Australian fire expert said today….
"They basically burn until there is a substantial break in the weather, or they hit a coastline," Kevin O'Loughlin, chief executive of Australia's government-backed Bushfire Cooperative Research Centre, said.
"These fires can't be controlled by any suppression resources that we have available anywhere in the world." Rob Taylor, World Faces Megafire Threat – Expert, Reuters, 1-19-07

Want to participate in the effort to mitigate the impact of global warming? Download "Ten Things You Can Do"

There is a powerful magic in personal commitment.

FIVE MOST RECENT RELATED POSTS:

Hard Rain Journal 1-2-07: Climate Crisis Update -- Dire Warnings from the West's Experts and from Chinese Gov; Meanwhile, from the US Gov -- NOTHING

Hard Rain Journal 12-27-06: Climate Crisis Update -- Lohachara is Gone, the Bears in Spain are Not Hibernating, Wall Street Wonders What It All Means

Hard Rain Journal 12-14-06: Climate Crisis Update -- Three Damn Good Reasons for "Carbon Freeze" and Peace is One of Them

Hard Rain Journal 12-6-06: Climate Crisis Update -- Seven Stories To Keep You Awake At Night -- Severe Weather, Famine and the Worst-Case Scenario

Hard Rain Journal 11-26-06: Climate Crisis Update -- NSTA and State of Texas Exhibit Wanton Disregard for the Public Good

Richard Power is the founder of GS(3) Intelligence and http://www.wordsofpower.net. His work focuses on the inter-related issues of security, sustainability and spirit, and how to overcome the challenges of terrorism, cyber crime, global warming, health emergencies, natural disasters, etc. You can reach him via e-mail: richardpower@wordsofpower.net. For more information, go to www.wordsofpower.net

Global Warming, Energy Security, Environmental Security, Alternate Energy, Sustainability, Green Power, Renewable Resources, Climate Change, Weather, Al Gore, An Inconvenient Truth, Doomsday Clock, Crisis Management,Stephen Hawkins, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Alps, Italy, Chrysler, Europe, Malaria, UN, Richard Power, Words of Power


Hard Rain Journal 1-19-07: The Hard Rain Falls Between PNAC and the PATRIOT Act, but the US News Media Sees, Hears, Speaks No Evil

Image: Z, Costa Gavras 1969

Hard Rain Journal 1-19-07: The Hard Rain Falls Between PNAC and the PATRIOT Act, but the US News Media Sees, Hears, Speaks No Evil

By Richard Power

There are significant stories related to Darfur, Global Warming, the UN Millennium Goals, etc. that cry out for coverage, and I will return to writing about these profound challenges next week, but first...

Like the three blind mice, ABC, CBS and NBC continue to look away from the truth. Four blind mice counting CNN, and arguably five counting PBS. (Of course, Faux News is not one of the mice. It is a big, vicious sewer rat.)

At the recent 2007 National Conference of Media Reform in Memphis, Bill Moyers, one of the heroes of this detour into national denial and despair, said: “It is clear what we have to do. We have to tell the story ourselves.”

Here is another compelling example of why.

Consider these three stories:

The Haaretz report of secret negotiations between Israel and Syria from 2004 to 2006.

The BBC report that according to another hero of this dark period, Lt. Col. Lawrence Wilkerson (US Army, retired), Vice-President Dick Cheney deep-sixed a potential peace agreement with the Iranians in 2003.

Paul Krugman's NYT op-ed piece on the Bush-Cheney regime's purge of US DoJ prosecutors.

Just prior to posting, I reviewed the CBS, NBC, ABC and CNN web sites, and none of these three stories were anywhere to be seen.

These three stories are developing, and in a healthy democratic society with an independent news media, they would be blockbuster stories:

Did the Bush-Cheney national insecurity team, and its neo-con allies in the Israeli right-wing, spurn regional peace for the sake of their PNAC wet dream of hegemony?

Is the Bush-Cheney regime's unprecedented purge of US DoJ prosecutors (enabled by an obscure provision in the so-called PATRIOT Act) the most ruthless, blatant and sweeping obstruction of justice in US history?

Here are brief excerpts with links to the full texts:

Iran offered the US a package of concessions in 2003, but it was rejected, a senior former US official has told the BBC's Newsnight programme.
Tehran proposed ending support for Lebanese and Palestinian militant groups and helping to stabilise Iraq following the US-led invasion.
Offers, including making its nuclear programme more transparent, were conditional on the US ending hostility.
But Vice-President Dick Cheney's office rejected the plan, the official said.
The offers came in a letter, seen by Newsnight, which was unsigned but which the US state department apparently believed to have been approved by the highest authorities.
In return for its concessions, Tehran asked Washington to end its hostility, to end sanctions, and to disband the Iranian rebel group the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq and repatriate its members....
One of the then Secretary of State Colin Powell's top aides told the BBC the state department was keen on the plan - but was over-ruled.
"We thought it was a very propitious moment to do that," Lawrence Wilkerson told Newsnight.
"But as soon as it got to the White House, and as soon as it got to the Vice-President's office, the old mantra of 'We don't talk to evil'... reasserted itself."
BBC, Washington 'snubbed Iran offer,' 1-18-07

In a series of secret meetings in Europe between September 2004 and July 2006, Syrians and Israelis formulated understandings for a peace agreement between Israel and Syria. 

The main points of the understandings are as follows: 

An agreement of principles will be signed between the two countries, and following the fulfillment of all commitments, a peace agreement will be signed. 

As part of the agreement on principles, Israel will withdraw from the Golan Heights to the lines of 4 June, 1967. The timetable for the withdrawal remained open: Syria demanded the pullout be carried out over a five-year period, while Israel asked for the withdrawal to be spread out over 15 years. 

At the buffer zone, along Lake Kinneret, a park will be set up for joint use by Israelis and Syrians. The park will cover a significant portion of the Golan Heights. Israelis will be free to access the park and their presence will not be dependent on Syrian approval. 

Israel will retain control over the use of the waters of the Jordan River and Lake Kinneret. 

The border area will be demilitarized along a 1:4 ratio (in terms of territory) in Israel's favor. 

According to the terms, Syria will also agree to end its support for Hezbollah and Hamas and will distance itself from Iran.
...Akiva Eldar, Israeli, Syrian representatives reach secret understandings, 1-16-07

In Senate testimony yesterday, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales refused to say how many other attorneys have been asked to resign, calling it a “personnel matter.”
In case you’re wondering, such a wholesale firing of prosecutors midway through an administration isn’t normal. U.S. attorneys, The Wall Street Journal recently pointed out, “typically are appointed at the beginning of a new president’s term, and serve throughout that term.” Why, then, are prosecutors that the Bush administration itself appointed suddenly being pushed out?
The likely answer is that for the first time the administration is really worried about where corruption investigations might lead....
Now, however, the investigations are closing in on the Oval Office. The latest news is that J. Steven Griles, the former deputy secretary of the Interior Department and the poster child for the administration’s systematic policy of putting foxes in charge of henhouses, is finally facing possible indictment.
And the purge of U.S. attorneys looks like a pre-emptive strike against the gathering forces of justice....
The broader context is this: defeat in the midterm elections hasn’t led the Bush administration to scale back its imperial view of presidential power.
On the contrary, now that President Bush can no longer count on Congress to do his bidding, he’s more determined than ever to claim essentially unlimited authority....
The next two years, in other words, are going to be a rolling constitutional crisis. PAUL KRUGMAN: Surging and Purging, New York Times, 1-19-07 via Pottersville

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Hard Rain Journal 1-17-07: They are Purging US DoJ, Privatizing US Intel, and Preparing for War with Iran -- Dreaming about 2008 is Irresponsible

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GS(3) Thunderbolt 1-11-07: Do You Understand What He Really Said Last Night? These People Opened the Gates of Hell, Now They Want to Drag Everyone In

Hard Rain Journal 1-4-06: Roll-Call for the Reality-Based Community

Words of Power #31: Ghosts of Christmas Past (Katrina) and Future (Iran)

Richard Power is the founder of GS(3) Intelligence and http://www.wordsofpower.net. His work focuses on the inter-related issues of security, sustainability and spirit, and how to overcome the challenges of terrorism, cyber crime, global warming, health emergencies, natural disasters, etc. You can reach him via e-mail: richardpower@wordsofpower.net. For more information, go to www.wordsofpower.net

Iraq, Iran, Lawrence+Wilkerson, Paul Krugman, Syria, Bush, Cheney, Bill Moyers, US Constitution, Richard Power, Words of Power


Hard Rain Journal 1-17-07: They are Purging US DoJ, Privatizing US Intel, and Preparing for War with Iran -- Dreaming about 2008 is Irresponsible

Image: US Constitution


Hard Rain Journal 1-17-07: They are Purging US DoJ, Privatizing US Intel, and Preparing for War with Iran -- Dreaming about 2008 is Irresponsible

By Richard Power

Fellow citizens,

Obama cannot save you.

Even if he delivered on the greatest issues of our time (a big if), and survived the race (another big if) -- 2008 would be too late.

The struggle is here and now. The showdown is imminent.

Look around you.

The Bush-Cheney regime is purging US DoJ, privatizing (and militarizing) US intelligence, and preparing for war with Iran.

Meanwhile, misled and abused by a delusional "Commander-in-Chief," 1,000 men and women of the US military, including 50 officers, have submitted an "Appeal for Redress" to Congress.

Dreaming about 2008 is irresponsible. The challenge is to re-assert the checks and balances in the US system of federal government, and bring the Bush-Cheney national insecurity team to accountability for its wrong-doings.

The USA can't wait two years for a change (especially one that is predicated on false premises). The world can't wait.

The US body politic is heading for a Constitutional crisis of unprecedented scope. And that is the best case scenario -- if we find ourselves in such a predicament in the next few months, it will be because men and women of conscience and common sense, on both sides of the aisle, refused to shirk their responsibilities.

I hear that Obama is going to position himself as a Lincoln. We don't need a Lincoln, we need a Congress that will exercise the powers that the Founders imbued it with.

If the Bush-Cheney regime is not stopped in its tracks in the next few weeks, and compelled to submit to the US Constitution, you will not recognize your country by 2008.

Here is some background on the current situation.

US Justice Department prosecutors across the country are being purged, we are told that they "serve at the pleasure of the President," and being replaced with political operatives:

The head of the FBI's San Diego office and several former federal prosecutors are publicly questioning the politics behind the Bush administration's effort to force Carole Lam to resign as U.S. Attorney for San Diego.
Lam focused her office's efforts on public corruption, including the sprawling Duke Cunningham scandal. That investigation has touched several Republican lawmakers, leading some to speculate that Lam brought political heat down on herself with that probe, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune.
The top FBI official for San Diego said that Lam's dismissal would jeopardize several ongoing investigations. "I guarantee politics is involved," special agent in charge Dan Dzwilewski told the paper. (TPM Muckraker, 1-13-07)

The administration is replacing U.S. Attorneys throughout the country. How'd they get that power?
It was an obscure provision in the USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act, and it didn't take them very long to use it. The president signed it into law in March of last year -- by June, they were already moving to replace unwanted prosecutors.
Former Arkansas USA Bud Cummins told the Wall Street Journal that "a top Justice official asked for his resignation in June, saying the White House wanted to give another person the opportunity to serve." Cummins was finally forced out in December, replaced with Timothy Griffin, formerly the research director of the Republican National Committee. (TPM Muckraker, 1-16-07)

US intelligence services are being privatized and militarized, and a Booz Allen Hamilton executive is now in charge:

Mike McConnell, the man President Bush tapped to replace John Negroponte as National Intelligence Director, has been a leading figure in outsourcing U.S. intelligence operations to private industry. McConnell is a former director of the National Security Agency and the current director of defense programs at Booz Allen. We take a look at McConnell and the privatization of intelligence with journalist Tim Shorrock....
JUAN GONZALEZ: And what are the expectations, in terms of what McConnell will do in the position differently?
TIM SHORROCK: ...most of my sources are people inside the industry, inside the corporations -- and they basically tell me he's a Yes man. He’s somebody who’s -- they got him in because basically they want him to push their own programs.
But I think it's very important for your listeners to know and to understand that when talking about the intelligence office, 85% of the intelligence budget is controlled by the Pentagon. So we’re talking about a military program here. Everything -- the NSA is under the Pentagon. The National Geospacial-Intelligence Agency, which does mapping and imagery, they’re under the Pentagon. The National Reconnaissance Office, which launches satellites, they’re under the Pentagon. And when the budget -- when the Intelligence Reform Act passed, you might remember, there was a big fight. You know, the 9/11 Commission wanted to have these national agencies put under the DNI and taken out of the Pentagon, but there was a fight led by people in Congress, who basically represented the contractors, who didn't want to be taken out of the Pentagon. (Democracy Now, 1-12-07)

Misled and abused by a delusional "Commander-in-Chief," 1,000 men and women of the US military, including 50 officers, have submitted an "Appeal for Redress" to Congress:

A letter from about 1,000 active-duty, Guard and reserve members calling for Congress to end the war in Iraq was delivered to Capitol Hill...
The letter contains just three sentences: "As a patriotic American proud to serve the nation in uniform, I respectfully urge my political leaders in Congress to support the prompt withdrawal of all American military forces and bases from Iraq. Staying in Iraq will not work and is not worth the price. It is time for U.S. troops to come home." (Army Times, 1-16-07)

A European bank has warned its investors of a possible attack on Iran, and the Kuwaiti press concurs:

Warning that investors might be "in for a shock," a major investment bank has told the financial community that a preemptive strike by Israel with American backing could hit Iran's nuclear program....The banking division of ING Group released a memo on Jan. 9 entitled "Attacking Iran: The market impact of a surprise Israeli strike on its nuclear facilities."(Raw Story, 1-15-07)

The Kuwaiti press says it will happen sometime before April: U.S. might launch a military strike on Iran before April 2007, Kuwait-based daily Arab Times released on Sunday said in a report. The report, written by Arab Times' Editor-in-chief Ahmed al-Jarallah citing a reliable source, said that the attack would be launched from the sea, while Patriot missiles would guard all Arab countries in the Gulf. (Xinhua, 1-14-07)

RECENT RELATED POSTS

Words of Power #32: MLK Day 2007 -- A Call to Conscience in the Corridors of State and Media Power

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Hard Rain Journal 1-4-06: Roll-Call for the Reality-Based Community

Words of Power #31: Ghosts of Christmas Past (Katrina) and Future (Iran)

Richard Power is the founder of GS(3) Intelligence and http://www.wordsofpower.net. His work focuses on the inter-related issues of security, sustainability and spirit, and how to overcome the challenges of terrorism, cyber crime, global warming, health emergencies, natural disasters, etc. You can reach him via e-mail: richardpower@wordsofpower.net. For more information, go to www.wordsofpower.net

Iraq, Iran, TPM Muckraker, Tim Shorrock, Mike McConnel, Appeal for Redress, Carole Lam, Bush, Cheney, ING,Arab Times, Bud Cummins, Timothy Griffin, Barack Obama, US Constitution, Richard Power, Words of Power


Words of Power #32: MLK Day 2007 -- A Call to Conscience in the Corridors of State and Media Power

Image: The balcony of the Lorraine Motel (Memphis, TN), just moments after the assasination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (April 1968)


If Dr. King could speak today he would tell us to stop this madness and bring our troops home. He would say that war is an obsolete, ineffective tool of our foreign policy. He would say that we must struggle against injustice, we must stand up for what we believe, but if peace is our goal, then peaceful ends can only be secured by peaceful means. He would say as a nation and as a people we can do better; we must do better. We must find a way to live together as brothers and sisters or we will perish as fools. In Commemoration of Martin Luther King, Jr., Rep. John Lewis (D-GA), Huffington Post, 1-14-07

Forty years ago, almost to the month, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. stood at this pulpit, in this house of God, and with the full force of his conscience, his principles and his love of peace, denounced the war in Vietnam, calling it a tragedy that threatened to drag our nation down to dust....If you’re in Congress and you know this war is going in the wrong direction, it is no longer enough to study your options and keep your own counsel. Silence is betrayal. Speak out, and stop this escalation now. You have the power to prohibit the president from spending any money to escalate the war – use it. And to all of you here today – and the millions like us around the country who know this escalation is wrong – your job is to reject the easy way of apathy and choose instead the hard course of action. Silence is betrayal. Speak out. Tell your elected leaders to block this misguided plan that is destined to cost more lives and further damage America’s ability to lead. And tell them also, that the reward of courage...is trust. Former Senator John Edwards (D-NC), "Realizing the Dream," Riverside Church, Harlem, January 14, 2007

When King began in 1967 to express outspoken opposition to the war in Vietnam....The Washington Post went so far as to declare that, with his opposition to the war, "King has diminished his usefulness to his cause, his country, his people." Similarly, King's attempts to advance an economic justice agenda –- the work of his final days as he came to Memphis to march with striking garbage collectors –- was dismissed as a both futile and dangerous.
Things have only grown worse as media consolidation has led to a dumbing down of our mass communications....the relatively serious examinations of fundamental questions of war and peace that were seen during the Vietnam War have been replaced by the embedded – or, as Pultizer Prize winning author Studs Terkel refers to it: "in bed with the administration" -- coverage of the Iraq quagmire. John Nichols, Dr. King and the Media, The Nation

Words of Power #32: MLK Day 2007 -- A Call to Conscience in the Corridors of State and Media Power

By Richard Power

No public personality had a stronger influence on my life than the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. As a child, I clutched my portable, transistor radio, listening to his historic speeches (such speeches were broadcast then), and as I listened, I wept -- not out of sorrow, but out of joy, a profound spiritual joy for the truth and beauty that reverberated in his voice and were reflected in his vision.

MLK Jr.'s influence on the USA was a shamanic one, and those of us whose lives he truly touched, also exercise that shamanic power (and responsibility) -- even today.

It is poignant and encouraging that the 2007 Conference for Media Reform was held in Memphis over the weekend, and that Jesse Jackson (whose shirt was soaked in MLK's blood on the day of the assassination) and Bill Moyers (who rose to prominence in that era when the US mainstream media did, however haltingly, live up to its responsibilities) were among its leaders.

This year in particular, MLK Day has extraordinary and immediate meaning: the Democrats in the US Congress are close to achieving their bold agenda for their first 100 Hours in power. The Bush-Cheney national insecurity team's neo-con wet dream ("I Rock and I Ran Amok") has shoved the Middle East to the brink of regional chaos, and plunged the USA into a moral, economic and geopolitical abyss. Soon, congressional investigations will commence, which will in turn lead to a Constitutional Crisis of unprecedented scope and danger.

Over the next few weeks, as the nation hurtles towards the coming confrontation, there are two terrible mistakes that the Democratic leadership must not make:

First, they must not be anything less than fierce and relentless in their investigations of the Bush-Cheney regime. In regard to 9/11 and Katrina, the Bush-Cheney regime is likely guilty of criminal negligence (at best). In regard to Iraq, etc., the Bush-Cheney regime is likely guilty of crimes against humanity. They have violated federal law, in particular the US Constitution; they have violated international law, in particular the UN Charter and the Geneva Accords.

Second, the Democratic Party leadership must NOT look for objectivity or independence from the US mainstream news media. The corporatist overlords of the media monopolies have been worse than complicit, they have been full partners in the abomination of the last six years. And they are going to go down with the ship. The Democratic Party leadership should cultivate and protect the alternate media, i.e., progressive talk radio, the blogosphere, etc.

The mainstream news media's preparations for these looming showdowns in Beltwayistan and the Persian Gulf are epitomized by ABC's hiring of Glenn Beck (I posted several months ago about the outrage of CNN cutting him a paycheck, now he is getting one from ABC too):

...Glenn Beck will soon join Good Morning America as a "regular commentator." "Glenn is a leading cultural commentator with a distinct voice," GMA senior executive producer Jim Murphy told the AP. "At times, he is the perfect guest for many of the talk topics we cover on morning news programs." But as Media Matters for America has extensively documented, what often distinguishes Beck's "voice" are his inflammatory and controversial comments regarding Muslims, Arabs, Mexicans, and other minorities....Beck has not reserved his vitriol for Arabs and Muslims alone, however....
Beck referred to "those who were left in New Orleans [during Hurricane Katrina], or who decided to stay" as "scumbags."
Beck called antiwar activist Cindy Sheehan "a pretty big prostitute." He later described her as a "tragedy pimp."
...After airing a clip from the documentary film An Inconvenient Truth in which former Vice President Al Gore states that global warming could cause many highly populated coastal areas to be submerged by seawater -- including the entire city of Shanghai -- Beck responded: "This is what would happen to Shanghai. Does anybody really care? I mean, come on. Shanghai is under water. Oh, no! Who's gonna make those little umbrellas for those tropical drinks?" Good Morning America turns blind eye to Beck's smears, hires him as regular commentator, Media Matters

MLK Day 2007 is dominated by two overriding moral imperatives:

1) To develop a winning, real-world strategy for peace and stability in the Middle East (which includes ending the US occupation of Iraq)

2) To liberate the US tax-payers' air-waves from corporatist control

How to Develop a Winning Strategy for Peace and Stability in the Middle East

Although you wouldn't know it from the framing of the US mainstream news media, Democratic military strategists and geopolitical experts have aggressively analyzed and articulated the failures of the Bush-Cheney National Insecurity team, and they have also offered several viable alternative paths.

Notably, Brezinki, Murtha and Clark (none of them "doves") have made compelling statements in the last few days.

The speech reflects a profound misunderstanding of our era. America is acting like a colonial power in Iraq. But the age of colonialism is over. Waging a colonial war in the post-colonial age is self-defeating. That is the fatal flaw of Bush's policy. Zbigniew Brzezinski, Five Flaws in the President's Plan, Washington Post, 1-22-06

Five months ago, we put an additional 10,000 troops in Baghdad. Attacks increased and a record number of Americans and Iraqis were killed. I see no difference between this and the President's plan to "stay the course."...A year ago, I called for a redeployment of our forces and predicted that this "stay the course" policy would adversely affect our military readiness. The Defense Subcommittee will begin holding extensive hearings on January 17th to determine how we can best restore the readiness and strategic reserve of our military.
Rep. John Murtha (D-PA), A Surge in American Forces is Unacceptable, Huffington Post, 1-11-07

Gen. Wesley Clark caricaturizes the Bush Splurge as "Stay the course, more."

It is a tactical tweak but the strategy is wrong...The Neo-Con strategy failed. The Neo-Con strategy was hey let's go into Iraq, let's kick 'em in the teeth, let's get rid of Saddam, make it a democracy, and then we will move our divisions into Syria, get rid of that guy Assad and then that will give us control of Lebanon, and then we can sweep back around and put real pressure n Tehran, and try to get regime change there. It was a great vision, but it was a fantasy and it misunderstood how nations and societies are organized. Gen. Wesley Clark (US Army retired), former Supreme Allied Commander, Politically Direct, Air America Radio, 1-11-07

Emphasizing that Iraq is the fault line between the Sunni and the Shia, Clark stresses real-world diplomacy:

This is the absolute frontline of a 700 year struggle for power between two rival sects of Islam...If you go over to Iran and say "Look, I need your help." They would say "Just leave, leave right now." Diplomacy is about trying to create a different vision for the region. Do people in this region always have to fight? Does every issue have to be settled by force? Do people have to hate each other all their lives and pass that hate on to their children? Do people have to live in fear? There has to be a better way. That sounds idealistic, but it can be implemented step by step...Not that you can ask Iran for help, you can help Iran. We have things they want. They want to be admitted into the world community. They would like to have their assets unfrozen. They would like to get new technology for their oil fields. They would like to be recognized as an important power in the region....We are the key to unlocking all of these things for them. We could do that for them if they do what needs to be done for us."

How to Liberate US Tax-Payers' Air-Waves from Corporatist Control

Two rebel FCC commissioners exhorted the 3K plus crowd at the 2007 Conference for Media Reform in Memphis.

Here are brief excerpts from their remarks, with links to the full text and YouTube videos:

On Friday Night FCC Commissioner Michael J. Copps challenged thousands of media reformers to set a bold new agenda for America’s media system and “get rid of the bad old rules that got us into this mess in the first place.”
Speaking at the National Conference for Media Reform in Memphis, Commissioner Copps released the “New America Media Contract” to, as he put it, “guarantee that our airwaves serve their masters — we, the people.”
Copps then urged Free Press and the other activists and organizers present at the event to “shift from the defense to the offense” and mobilize millions of Americans to make corporate media sign on to the Contract:
“We, the American people have given broadcasters free use of the nation’s most valuable spectrum, and we expect something in return. We expect this.
First, a right to media that strengthens our democracy;
Second, a right to local stations that are actually local;
Third, a right to media that looks and sounds like America;
Fourth, a right to news that isn’t canned and radio playlists that aren’t for sale; and
Fifth, a right to programming that isn’t so damned bad so damned often”
Copps Unveils New America Media Contract, www.freepress.com

FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein on Friday told thousands of people gathered at the National Conference for Media Reform to bury “six feet deep” any attempts by the FCC to roll back media ownership rules.
Adelstein called for a congressional veto procedure known as a “resolution of disapproval,” which was originally designed to allow a Republican Congress to quickly repeal regulations by then President Clinton.
“But the winds of change have now swept through Washington,” he said. “This time, in 2007, if the FCC passes an Order to increase media consolidation, there’s nothing to stop Congress from vetoing it. If it comes to a vote on the Hill, we’ll seeb ipartisan support that’s been bottled up come pouring out.”
Adelstein said:
“If a bad Order comes out of the FCC, let’s not just bury it. Let’s bury it six feet deep! When the FCC goes too far in rolling back media ownership limits, if you demand it, Congress can send it right to the dumpster of history where it belongs!
“Even better, let’s keep bad rules from coming out in the first place. We have a new Commission, one that has seen the damage you can do to policies that neglect the people we’re supposed to serve. You need to send the message loud and clear: if the FCC dramatically rolls back the media ownership protections, it will get vetoed by Congress. So don’t even bother trying.” Adelstein Calls on Congress to Deep Six Consolidation, www.freepress.com

There is no better example of the role of alternative media than Buzzflash, and so, in conclusion, here is an excerpt from a Buzzflash editorial posted from Memphis:

The mainstream media is part of the hierarchical public relations machine that sees news as being White House PR announcements about the news, not the news itself....
It is amazing that Americans have turned so hard against the Iraq War when they are being spoon-fed Politburo style lies and euphemistic propaganda slogans by the corporate press, when the actual context of news is denied the consumer and when writers are not allowed to stray far from the White House script.
The corporate media is guilty of malfeasance. It really isn’t in the business of news anymore; it is the business of entertainment and fattening its bottom line. It is in the business of siding with any politician that will give it tax breaks, regulatory favors, and contracts for companies owned by parent corporations.
If you harbor any doubts about this, two days at the Media Reform Conference would surely dispel them.
If you still are skeptical, let us ask a question BuzzFlash has asked before.
Would any of the major corporate media conglomerates – given his record as President – hire George W. Bush as the CEO of their companies?
Please raise your hand, if the answer is yes.
How come we don’t see any hands go up?
Now, do you understand what hypocrites the owners of the corporate media are?
It’s really quite simple to understand: they’ll inflict a malicious, psychiatrically-impaired, chronically failing frat boy on America and the world, as long as their bottom lines are protected.
Now, that’s a news story.
Corporate Media Malfeasance: A BuzzFlash Update from the Memphis Media Reform Conference -- Part II, Buzzflash, 1-14-07

Richard Power is the founder of GS(3) Intelligence and http://www.wordsofpower.net. His work focuses on the inter-related issues of security, sustainability and spirit, and how to overcome the challenges of terrorism, cyber crime, global warming, health emergencies, natural disasters, etc. You can reach him via e-mail: richardpower@wordsofpower.net. For more information, go to www.wordsofpower.net

Iraq, Wesley Clark, Martin Luther King, Jr., Bill Moyers, Jesse Jackson, 2007 Conference for Media Reform, Bush, Cheney, Buzzflash,FCC, Glenn Beck, John Edwards, Rep. John Lewis, John Murtha, Zbigniew Brezinksi, Michael Copps, Jonathan Adelstein Richard Power, Words of Power