the war journal

Public Citizen, on behalf of several civil liberties and historic organizations, has filed a lawsuit against the Bush administration, charging that the president's executive order severely restricting public access to presidential records violates federal law. "We will not stand by while the administration tramples on the people's right to find out about their own government," said Public Citizen President Joan Claybrook. "The president should not have the ability to arbitrarily withhold public information to hide wrongdoing or avoid embarrassment." Bush's order would also allow former presidents to block access to their administrations' records, according to a Public Citizen press release. Prior to Bush's order, the Presidential Records Act provided that all but the most sensitive presidential records be made accessible to the public 12 years after the president leaves office. Public Citizen won a similar suit against the Reagan administration in 1988, overturning a Justice Department directive requiring the National Archives to refuse any requests if a former president invoked privilege for any reason.

"Of all the enemies of true liberty, war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people. The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war, and in the degeneracy of manner and of morals, engendered in both. No nation can preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare."

- James Madison

I must admit I'm a tad confused too. How come the Congress has not declared war? It just seems like it's not supposed to work this way. But I guess the election wasn't supposed to work that way either.

A keynote research paper showing that Middle Eastern Jews and Palestinians are genetically almost identical has been pulled from a leading journal.

"It is not clear that Osama has been involved in crimes but it is a hard fact that Rushdie committed a crime against Islam. Why are people taking care of him in your country?" Haqqani said.

Saudi Arabia has no elections, women are treated only slightly better than their Afghan sisters, religious police harass the population, and defendants have no right to a lawyer. Transvestites are lashed and sentenced to five-year prison terms, thieves get their hands sawed off, and convicted sodomites are beheaded on Fridays.

Remember those good ole days when a protest was a woman driving a car...

What does it serve to explain why bin Laden's cultists hate us; it does not justify Sept. 11. It is intellectually, morally, and, yes, journalistically lazy to think that "balance" means reporting their hatred along with their crimes; it makes a connection that is illegitimate and even dangerous.

This is bullshit!

The majority of the bomb-making instructions were easy to understand and used domestic items, including Alka Seltzer tubes, condoms, wax, mousetraps and cigarettes as contact switches to initiate charges.

Slav Macedonian nationalists insist that they face their own Osama bin Laden in an Albanian Macedonian guerrilla leader called Ali Ahmeti.[1 ]Yet, they say, the United States and NATO have been making deals with this terrorist, and pressing the Macedonian government to grant him amnesty. Of course, nationalist regimes around the world have always played this semantic card—Russia denounces Chechen "terrorists"; Israel, Palestinian "terrorists"; China, Tibetan "terrorists"; and so on—with widely varying degrees of justification. In this case, however, it is not just the local nationalists who have taken a dim view of Mr. Ali Ahmeti.

The Sept. 11 hijackers, using readily accessible tools like box cutters, the Internet and Boeing flight manuals, hatched a plot too brazen for many to fathom. It forced authorities to consider whether a range of public sites and sensitive facilities was much more vulnerable than they had realized--and whether public records could provide a playbook for targeting them.

Your words do much to abate the fire that
writhes inside
It is hard
But that I had done a bit more...
Had the towers stood up for just one
minute longer...
It is hard.

- Leslie E. Robertson

The National Museum of American Jewish Military History, under the auspices of the Jewish War Veterans of the U.S.A., documents and preserves the contributions of Jewish Americans to the peace and freedom of the United States, educates the public concerning the courage, heroism and sacrifices made by Jewish Americans who served in the armed forces, and works to combat anti-Semitism.

I got the following message today...I'm very sorry you feel that way. Go back to your native home land if you don't like being an American By Birth................there must be a pinko liberal in every crowd. Only an insecure person would feel the way you do! Sorry for the offense!

- James Lileks

This is of course nonsense. Some folks are so angry. I'm just amazed at the anger.

World War II Posters: Powers of Persuasion

Bush's Tribunals Under Fire

"Who is the leader you most admire?" Sharpton asked.

"Mao Tse-tung," Arafat replied briskly.

"Why Mao?" "Because Mao Tse-tung is the only leader who fought four occupying forces, and beat them all-at a time when so many of his people were addicted to opium," Arafat explained.

"He got them off opium and freed them from occupation.
He was a phenomenal leader." The discussion about Arafat's hero clearly energized him.

As Al Sharpton sped along a dusty road in the Gaza Strip to a historic meeting with Palestinian Authority leader Yasir Arafat last week, he and a top aide, riding in the backseat of a black Mercedes Benz, imagined the look on Jesse Jackson's face.

It would be one of disbelief, they conjectured, as Jackson watched his rival dodge the crossfire of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and become the premier black statesman on the world stage-brokering peace through shuttle diplomacy.

Since the Taliban embarrassed Jackson-by denying he had an agreement with them to negotiate the handover of Osama bin Laden and the release of eight Christian aid workers detained in Afghanistan-Sharpton, 46, has been maneuvering through the ranks of the civil rights movement, vowing to lessen Jackson's political influence abroad.

- Peter Noel

As I understand it the rules are pretty well laid out. Implementing them, and whether or not they are effective, is another question entirely. Supposedly, laid over this is a series of random checks which come as directed from the checking agents computer screens. Of course then there are discretionary searches as well. I believe anal probes are most likely delivered in the B terminal. But that is at the direction of the searcher.

As I see it whether the Green Party USA Coordinator was dealt with as a function of her political affiliation or as one cog in a machine lurching fitfully into being the salient point is the way in which she has used her overly loud voice to express outrage. This is happening all over the country at every airport. I have seen it and others I know have. It seems spurious and callous and mean no doubt but I honestly find the Green Party USA Coordinator's story to be simply hilarious. I can just see this lady protesting her ruthless delay. Her eyes flashing indignately as she yells "But, I'm the Green Party USA Official Coordinator and I simply must make my flight!"

I was involved in the creation of the Greens in New Mexico many many years ago. Oh how far the party has come. Where once we were concerned with local politics no bigger than the local bio-region; today we can send blustering blowhards into the gale force of cross country airline travel.

The whole story just made me laugh out loud.

Whatever the case may be I have no intention of flying until they figure this thing out. My political thoughts will no doubt get me in trouble as I always travel with 'Desert Solitaire' and that document is of course is the core of revolution.

abc as a merchant of flags

the tour diary of jenny toomey

Uncle Sam and Aunt Samantha - this is so so so true. I'm going to write my congressional reps about this.