US citizens NOT required to pay taxes!

Proof:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1656880303867390173

I know what your thinking...

Just watch and witness the biggest enslavement in history.

I congratulate you on your excellent post MrGray. Someday the time will come.

Would you sentence a man like the one in the documentary to 13 years in jail? I wouldn't, regardless of instructions to.

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Thanks, A/C,

I believe we may already be too late.

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"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." - Dr. Seuss

Thanks, A/C,

I believe we may already be too late.

The more information people get about all the things that are being done the better. Eventually people will wake up.

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An execution to bolster capitalism

JIM HOAGLAND
THE WASHINGTON POST

July 16, 2007

China's Communists always have been quick to execute political dissidents as a warning to follow the party's ideological line. Now the regime summarily executes people for being bad at capitalism.

Zheng Xiaoyu was put to death the other day not only for multitudinous sins but also to reassure foreign markets that China's manufacturing industry will no longer mindlessly poison some of its customers. With Zheng's execution, Mao Zedong's revolution has reached the stage of becoming a focused exercise in marketing – skillfully gathering profits abroad to make the party rich and powerful at home.

Mao promised socialism with Chinese characteristics. His political heirs have delivered a fierce capitalism with Chinese characteristics. The party struggles to rein in the free-enterprise monster it has created through its quasi-ideological emphasis on wealth and consumption. To counter emerging threats to global market share, the government produced – what else? – a five-year plan to eliminate health hazards from its food and medical exports. It reinforced the message by executing the unfortunate Zheng.

Zheng, 62, rose through party ranks to become the head of the State Food and Drug Administration. According to prosecutors, he also became inordinately rich from the bribes he took as his agency approved untested medicines and adopted procedures that eventually allowed the export of toothpaste, pet food and cough syrup that contained poisonous industrial solvents.

The official Xinhua news agency did not say how Zheng – sentenced on May 29 – was killed on July 10. So we do not know if he was shot in the back of the head, as is customary. Nor do we know if his family was then presented with a bill for the cost of the bullet that killed him. This cruel twist has long been standard practice for dissidents in China, which carries out more court-ordered executions than the rest of the world combined, according to human rights groups.

Mao proclaimed the victory of his revolution in 1949 by saying that “the Chinese people have stood up.” Nearly three decades ago Deng Xiaoping ordered the Chinese people to sit down and get to work in factories. They obeyed with breathtaking determination and skill.

President Hu Jintao now concentrates on protecting China's reach into foreign markets that buy more than $1 billion worth of the nation's exports every day. Hu must respond to the freedom of choice possessed by the world's consumers, who are on notice about health hazards in a tiny fraction of China's exports.

The dramatic change in the national mindset produced by Deng's admonitions to get rich was apparent throughout a recent visit to China. A senior military official interrupted a conversation on world politics to marvel that “when China's stock market went down sharply in February, markets around the world went down and everybody reacted.” I had never heard a national stock-market plunge described with pride before.

What is not talked about freely is the corrupt interaction between the new entrepreneurs and the party officials whose permission is needed for almost every phase of commercial and industrial activity in China – the kind of transactions that finally caught up with the recently departed Zheng.

A leading real estate developer talked breezily over lunch about the system of bank loans, mortgages and market research that fuels China's economic boom. When I asked about the party's involvement in granting permits and setting land prices in urban areas, the response was brief, evasive and a change of the subject.

But the government's own concern makes clear that corruption is rampant enough to become the Achilles' heel of the party's monopoly rule.

“In Mao's time it was disgraceful to talk about money,” recalled a former senior party official who disagrees with Hu's marketplace approach to politics. “Mao believed money would destroy the revolution. Now money is the new ideology. If you want to get rich, you only have to walk along with the Communist Party and obey it.”

Despite predictions by President Bush and others that economic engagement would inevitably bring democratic reforms to China, free-market conditions have not forced political liberalization there. The party feeds on the boom it has helped create. Leaders reward their children and other relatives with choice jobs and investment opportunities.

It is the boom's side effects – primarily official corruption – that can come to pose a threat to Communist rule. Flagrant abuses of power discredit the party with a people who value morality and decency in public life. One well-publicized execution may reassure markets abroad, but it is unlikely to defuse China's own internal tensions.

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me@rescam.org

It takes time to bury a bad word

CLARENCE PAGE
THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE

July 16, 2007

Julian Bond ought to have a word with Don Imus.

The word is “thanks.”

Bond, the national board chairman of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said almost as much when he alluded to the embattled radio showman during opening ceremonies of the 98-year-old organization's annual convention last week.

“While we are happy to have sent a certain radio cowboy back to his ranch, we ought to hold ourselves to the same standard,” Bond said to enthusiastic applause. “If he can't refer to our women as 'hos,' then we shouldn't, either.”

As much of planet Earth knows by now, Imus lost his nationally distributed morning radio show in the uproar over his referring to the women of the Rutgers University basketball team as “nappy-headed hos.”

Before his exit, an apologetic Imus played the hip-hop card. He didn't realize at the time that his words would be so offensive, he said, because he has heard black rappers use the same language.

That wasn't much of an excuse. Imus has been around long enough to know today's racial etiquette. Nevertheless, his explanation made just enough of a point to have a sting. As annoying as it was to hear Imus play the hip-hop card, it was aggravating for many of us African-Americans to know that the card was right there on the table, bold as an ace of spades, waiting to be played.

That stings because it raises a burning question for rap artists and everyone else to answer: How are you going to earn the respect of others, if you don't respect yourself?

That nagging question has given new life to old efforts to clean up hip-hop. Imus' incendiary words have sparked a resurgence of public outrage by clergy, civil rights activists and black-oriented media such as Ebony and Essence magazines against the self-hatred for which “the N-word” has become a leading symbol.

In that spirit, the NAACP held a mock funeral to “bury the N-word” at its convention. As a publicity stunt for an organization that has been struggling to attract a new generation, it worked like a charm. A march by delegates through downtown Detroit with a horse-drawn coffin is tailor-made for television and the YouTube generation.

But how much substance, we must ask, will follow the symbolism?

After all, this is not the first time that the NAACP has held a symbolic burial in Detroit. In 1944 the organization held a funeral for “Jim Crow,” the evil system of laws and practices that segregated the races and denied equal access to jobs, housing and public accommodations shortly after the Civil War.

Alas, as someone observed, Jim Crow was buried alive. Twenty more years passed before Jim Crow was outlawed by the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In the years in between, there was relentless struggle, heartache and sacrifice, including deaths. Finally there was triumph. The law was turned from a legal barrier to equal opportunity to a legal protection.

But the burial of the N-word raises a tougher question: How do you change a culture? While you'll never stop everyone from using a particular word, how do you at least make the word unacceptable, not only for the old and conservative but also for the young and irreverent?

History tells us that social change takes time, as it did with Jim Crow. It also takes a lot of effort and sacrifice.

Unlike Jim Crow, changing a law won't work against objectionable words. Besides First Amendment concerns, it's hard to keep up with what's offensive – or to whom.

Imus knows. Back in 1974, he followed up Richard Pryor's breakthrough comedy album “That Nigger's Crazy” with his own comedy album, “This Honky's Nuts.” It didn't go far, mainly because it wasn't all that funny. Nevertheless, neither title would have an easy time getting radio play these days.

If the NAACP has its way, the N-word in hits like Chicagoan Kanye West's Grammy-winning “Gold Digger” will be taboo. But the word already is bleeped out on most radio and TV stations anyway, which only arouses young appetites for the uncensored version.

That's the paradox of dealing with the culture of the young. The more you forbid something, the more they want to indulge in it. Still, respect is a highly valued prize among the young. We parents need to be as relentless as the civil rights movement was in teaching our children the difference between the language of self-respect and the words of self-defeat.

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me@rescam.org

Did Milford Flat Fire Stir Up Nuclear Fallout?

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me@rescam.org

Tillman case reflects horribly on president

Union-Tribune editorial

July 18, 2007

Does President George Bush revere the honorable traditions of our armed forces and respect the brave men and women who have volunteered for duty? Or does he see the military as just another cog in the White House political machine, something to manipulate in unsavory fashion for convenience's sake?

For all the Bush White House's attempts to drape itself in the flag, two recent developments point firmly to the latter view.

First it was unrefuted reporting by The Washington Post and The New Yorker showing that rank-and-file soldiers at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq were set up to be fall guys in the prisoner abuse scandal by an administration which pushed from the top for brutal new interrogation tactics but ducked the blame when things predictably went wrong.

Now comes the appalling attempts by the White House to keep hidden who ordered the official cover-up of the friendly-fire death in Afghanistan of Pat Tillman, the football star who enlisted in the Army and became a Ranger after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

When Tillman was killed on April 22, 2004, his death was initially said to have occurred in a firefight with the Taliban. But five days later, Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal wrote Gen. John Abizaid, commander of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, an urgent cable in which he related the actual likely manner of Tillman's death. McChrystal urged that President Bush be told “to preclude any unknowing statements by our country's leaders which might cause public embarrassment.” Instead, the official fiction about Tillman was repeated for another month.

As outrageous as this was, it has been compounded by a new outrage: an utterly cynical attempt by the White House to hamper a congressional investigation of the cover-up by withholding pertinent documents and e-mails with bizarre claims of “executive branch confidentiality interests.”

Just whom is the White House trying to shield? Given that Tillman was by a wide margin the most famous American soldier, and that his death was front-page news, it is reasonable to assume that from President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on down, every senior official would want to be kept updated on the details of his death. Here's what is far-fetched: The idea that Abizaid on his own would unilaterally withhold the real story about Tillman for a month.

Thankfully, the ranking majority and minority members of the House Oversight Committee – Reps. Henry Waxman, D-Los Angeles, and Tom Davis, R-Va. – are working together to end this cover-up. Besides continuing to seek suppressed documents and e-mails, they have asked Rumsfeld, Abizaid and four other generals to testify at an Aug. 1 hearing.

If these six men are patriots, they will finally reveal who decided to keep the truth about Tillman from the public. If they are political lackeys more interested in protecting the president from fallout than honoring military traditions of duty and honor, they will abet the cover-up. For the good of a nation, we hope they rise to the occasion.

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me@rescam.org

Leaving Iraq before the job is done

RUBEN NAVARRETTE JR.
THE UNION-TRIBUNE

July 18, 2007

A recent appearance on a nationally televised news program forced me to confront an issue I usually try to avoid: Iraq.

It could be the ambivalence. Even as an original supporter of the war, I have no trouble admitting that the Bush administration mismanaged the effort and that it has cost us dearly. The loss of more than 3,000 American lives – with the likelihood of more to come – should not be taken lightly. Yet I'm just as certain that Congress doesn't have the foggiest idea about how to improve the situation. Members, especially the Democrats, don't seem as interested in making things better as they do in making President Bush pay a political price.

Or it could be the futility. With just about every other challenge we face as a nation – from improving public schools, to fixing a broken immigration system, to protecting the environment, to giving more Americans access to health care – there is a road map of what needs to be done if only our leaders are courageous enough to do it. But in Iraq, the map only plots a series of options, all of them bad. All we're doing now is trying to find the least bad option in the bunch.

Think the president's critics have the answers? Not likely. The best they can come up with is a revote or a retreat. A pair of respected Republicans, Sen. John Warner and Sen. Richard Lugar, want another vote on whether to reauthorize the war, and suggest that we need a redeployment of troops in Iraq. Meanwhile, Senate Democrats planned an all-nighter to debate something that has already been approved by the House – a measure calling for the withdrawal of U.S. troops by spring 2008.

What the Democrats really need to do is to sort through some of the major contradictions in their thinking. On the one hand, they agree with our intelligence agencies that the presence of U.S. troops in Iraq serves as a magnet for drawing terrorists from all over the world. And yet on the other, they're insisting we pull out the troops rather than leave them in Iraq to seek out and destroy the terrorists before those bad guys get another chance to kill Americans here at home, as we witnessed on Sept. 11, 2001. If the Democrats think that Iraq is a terrorist breeding ground now, just wait until we withdraw U.S. forces. Their whole strategy for dealing with this problem seems to be that if we leave these evildoers alone, they'll leave us alone.

Swell. It makes you glad that Democrats don't control the presidency – at least not yet. They have a steep learning curve on national security issues. And even if a Democrat wins the White House in 2008, you had better believe there would continue to be some U.S. troops in Iraq for many years to come – no matter what the candidates are saying now in the hopes of appealing to the base.

It was against this backdrop that producers for PBS' “The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer” rounded up columnists from around the country to ask if public support for the war is waning.

My first thought was: “What? Where have they been?” For several months, polls have shown that a majority of Americans think that the war is a mistake. Perhaps the new development is that, according to the most recent polls, a majority of Americans would now go so far as to support the withdrawal of U.S. troops. Either way, even if Washington is only now figuring it out, actual public support for the war waned some time ago.

It could drop even further now that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has barged into the debate. Fed up with U.S. doubts of his government's progress and capability, al-Maliki boastfully said that U.S. troops could leave “anytime they want.”

If only it were that easy. It isn't. Folks realize that here in San Diego, in this city with a strong naval presence, long known to be conservative and pro-military. As I shared with the other columnists on the “NewsHour,” if you listen to what's being said on the street, what you hear often is that, of course, folks want the troops to come home. But there is an additional worry – about having to return in five years or 10, and that what this generation of soldiers and Marines started, another will have to finish.

Like it or not, it's time to confront that.

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me@rescam.org

You're innocent, and you're scheduled to die

LEONARD PITTS JR.
THE MIAMI HERALD

July 18, 2007

You don't know what it's like and neither do I. But we can imagine.

I've always thought it must feel like being buried alive. Lungs starving, lying in blackness, pounding on the coffin lid with dirt showering down, no one hearing your cries.

Or maybe it's like locked-in syndrome, a condition where you lose muscle control – can't move a finger, turn your head, speak. Your body entombs you. You scream within, but no one hears.

Something like that, I think. Something where you're trapped, claustrophobic, unable to believe what is happening, unable to make anyone hear you. That's how it must feel to be an innocent person on death row as execution day draws close.

Tuesday was Troy Anthony Davis' scheduled execution day, though I have no idea if he is an innocent person. I do know that he was convicted of the 1989 killing of a police officer, Mark Allen MacPhail, in Savannah, Ga. And I know that he was on the scene, a Burger King parking lot, that fateful night.

But I also know that Davis has always maintained his innocence. And that no physical evidence – no gun, no fingerprint, no DNA – ever tied him to the crime. And that he was convicted on the testimony of nine key witnesses. And that seven of them have now recanted.

They lied, they say. They were scared, they were bullied and threatened, and they said what the cops wanted to hear. Of the two witnesses who have not recanted, one is a fellow named Sylvester “Red” Coles; some witnesses claim he's the one who actually shot MacPhail when the officer tried to break up a parking lot altercation.

Monday, one day before Davis was scheduled to die, the state parole board issued a 90-day stay of execution.

You and I have no idea how that must feel, either, but we can imagine. The buried man gets a sip of air. The paralyzed man moves his toe.

And then back down into the coffin, back down into the tomb of your own skin, back in line to die.

Surely Davis' lawyers have explained to him the 1996 federal law, signed by President Clinton, that is throwing roadblocks in his way. Designed to streamline capital cases, it restricts the introduction of exculpatory evidence once the state appeals process is done. But just as surely Davis, if he is innocent, must wonder how he could have presented evidence he didn't yet have. And he must wonder, too, how there can be a time limit on truth – especially when a human life is at stake. How can you execute a man when there remain serious questions about his guilt?

That's barbarism, not justice.

What's fascinating is that, though 67 percent of those polled by Gallup pollsters approve of capital punishment in murder cases (and 51 percent say it's not imposed often enough), 64 percent admit it does not deter murder and 63 percent believe an innocent person has probably been executed since 2001.

In other words, the system doesn't work, we “know” it doesn't work, yet we want it to continue – and indeed, expand. What kind of madness is that? It's an intellectual disconnect, a refusal to follow logic to its logical end.

It is, of course, easier to countenance that madness, ignore that refusal, when the issue is abstract, when death row is distant, theoretical and does not involve you.

But what must it feel like when it is not abstract, when it is “you” sitting there in the cell watching the calendar move inexorably toward the day the state will kill you for something you absolutely did not do? Is there a suspension of belief? Do you tell yourself that surely people will come to their senses any minute now? Does the air close on you like a coffin lid? Does darkness sit on your chest like a weight?

You and I can only imagine. Some men have no need to try.

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me@rescam.org

You're innocent, and you're scheduled to die

LEONARD PITTS JR.
THE MIAMI HERALD

July 18, 2007
<snip>

The old question pro or contra death penalty.
Actually the only problem I have with this actual case is:

that no physical evidence – no gun, no fingerprint, no DNA – ever tied him to the crime. And that he was convicted on the testimony of nine key witnesses. And that seven of them have now recanted.

They lied, they say. They were scared, they were bullied and threatened, and they said what the cops wanted to hear. Of the two witnesses who have not recanted, one is a fellow named Sylvester “Red” Coles; some witnesses claim he's the one who actually shot MacPhail when the officer tried to break up a parking lot altercation.

In my opinion, death penalty should only be chosen instead of a life imprisonment when ALL POSSIBLE EVIDENCES TOGETHER prove guilty 100% without even a tiny piece of a doubt: one of all the evidences missing, or one evidence allowing doubts (= <100%): no death penalty...

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Account frozen...

Yes, its about time for a subject change...

For an alternate subject to discuss, I offer the following for your consideration.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/05/31/ap/politics/main2872899.shtml

Rice: Russian Attitudes Locked In Past
Rice Says Russia Should Drop Cold War Mentality, Puzzled By Dispute Over Missiles

POTSDAM, Germany, May. 31, 2007
(AP) Russian attitudes are locked in the past, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Thursday, adding that the United States is perplexed by the current fracas with Russia over a planned U.S. missile system in Europe.

"We want a 21st Century partnership with Russia, but at times, Russia seems to think and act in the zero-sum terms of another era," Rice said, referring to the suspicions and territorial ambitions of the Cold War.

The top U.S. diplomat spoke as U.S. relations with its old Cold War foe have hit a modern low. The United States is at odds with Moscow over matters inside and outside Russia's borders. The missile dispute pushed the simmering problems and resentments into a hot zone this spring, with Russian President Vladimir Putin seeming to liken President Bush's foreign policy to that of Germany's Third Reich and generals and diplomats talking darkly of a new Cold War.

Rice had a brittle exchange with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov over the missile plan on Wednesday, but sought Thursday to put the dispute in a more academic, historical context.

The West wants a strong Russia, but strong by modern democratic measures, Rice said in an address accepting an award for promoting better U.S.-German relations. The award, and the setting in the city where Josef Stalin met Harry Truman in 1945, evoked both the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Rice's remarks referred to a laundry list of U.S. complaints about post-Soviet Russia, including democratic retrenchment under Putin.

"Democratic institutions and an open society are not a source of weakness," Rice said. "Nor is freedom of speech and freedom of the press just a nuisance."

She said the United States will respect Russia and air differences honorably.

"In this regard we find Russia's recent missile diplomacy difficult to understand," Rice said.

Putin said Thursday that tests of new Russian missiles were a response to the planned deployment of U.S. missile defense installations and other forces in Europe.

In a clear reference to the United States, he harshly criticized "imperialism" in global affairs and warned that Russia will strengthen its military potential to maintain a global strategic balance.

"It wasn't us who initiated a new round of arms race," Putin said when asked about Russia's missile tests at a news conference after talks in the Kremlin with Greek President Karolos Papoulias.

Putin and other Russian officials have repeatedly rejected U.S. assurances that the planned missile defense installations in Poland and the Czech Republic are meant to counter a potential threat from nations such as Iran and pose no danger to Russia.

Putin described Tuesday's tests of a new ballistic missile capable of carrying multiple nuclear warheads and a new cruise missile as part of the Russian response to the planned deployment of new U.S. military bases and missile defense sites in ex-Soviet satellites in Central and Eastern Europe.

Earlier Thursday, Rice held the hard U.S. line against concessions to Iran over its nuclear program and renewed a conditional offer to talk to the clerical regime on any subject.

Asked if it is time to change tactics in the world's nuclear standoff with Iran, Rice ruled out the idea of dropping a key precondition.

"I think it's time for Iran to change its tactics," Rice said.

Iran also refused to budge as talks began Thursday between Iran's chief international negotiator and the European Union's senior foreign policy official.

There is increasing sentiment in Europe that world powers trying to engage Iran should drop the demand that Iran halt, or suspend in diplomatic parlance, disputed nuclear activities before bargaining on a package of incentives could begin.

"The international community is united on what Iran should do, which is to suspend; to demonstrate that it is in fact not seeking a nuclear weapon under cover of civilian nuclear power," Rice said.

She spoke during a press conference with Austria's foreign minister, a year to the day after she made a dramatic outreach to longtime adversary Iran. The offer to talk "anytime, any place," was intended to inject new life into an ebbing European diplomatic effort to turn back Iran's advancing nuclear program.

"I think the question isn't why won't we talk to Tehran," she said. "The question is why doesn't Tehran want to talk to us."

Thoughts? Ideas? Opinions?

Yep. I have one thought. Why is it that this administration, in all of their fear-mongering glory, even WANT to try to tell other countries how to run THEIR country? Why would we place WMD's on Russia's doorstep without realizing that they would respond in kind? Why is it that this administration, inclusive of Ms. Rice, seem to be stabbing at peace, and calling it "nothing to worry about?" Personally, I applaud Mr. Putin for his insight into this most evil of American administrations, and his reply to bush and all of the other "evildoers" that is the republican party. It is a shame that this country is viewed as a sham, a ghost of Nazi Germany, a literal fanthom of it's former self by the world; and we can thank (again) this administration and it's need for global domination for that.

Just one man's opinion; yours may vary.

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Yep. I have one thought. Why is it that this administration, in all of their fear-mongering glory, even WANT to try to tell other countries how to run THEIR country?

What about "Why do other countries want to tell the USA how to run itself?" One reason. National interest.

Why would we place WMD's on Russia's doorstep without realizing that they would respond in kind?

These weapons being discussed are not 'nuclear missiles or warheads', but missles designed to shoot down other missiles. To the best of my knowledge, they do NOT use nuclear/WMD, but are only conventional. Russia and Putin didn't 'get angry' because we were threatening them with WMDs. Russia got angry because our missile defense system could be seen as lessening the potiential effectiveness of Russia's nuclear WMDs.

Why is it that this administration, inclusive of Ms. Rice, seem to be stabbing at peace, and calling it "nothing to worry about?" Personally, I applaud Mr. Putin for his insight into this most evil of American administrations, and his reply to bush and all of the other "evildoers" that is the republican party. It is a shame that this country is viewed as a sham, a ghost of Nazi Germany, a literal fanthom of it's former self by the world; and we can thank (again) this administration and it's need for global domination for that.

Just one man's opinion; yours may vary.

Your concept of 'evildoers' is not confined to just the US Republican party. The US Democrat party has its share, as well. As do political parties and Governments in a GREAT many other nations.

The decline in the USA's reputation around the world did not start with Dubya, nor even with Bush the Elder. It has been going on for decades. Now, Dubya hasn't exactly helped matters, that much is certain. But, it is not fair to blame the entire mess on just him and his administration. As I recall, Anti-American sentiment worldwide was rather noticeable under President Carter's administration, and has not markedly improved at any time since, but has only gotten worse over the course of time.

Lastly, thank you for invoking Godwin's Law on this thread.

Your concept of 'evildoers' is not confined to just the US Republican party.

I can agree with that assessment, however, the republican party was the first and only party to place the term 'evildoers' upon others... Specifically, all those who oppose them...

Lastly, thank you for invoking Godwin's Law on this thread.

I do it all the time, yet you've never thanked me for it... ;)

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It may not be 1984 but George Orwell sure did see the future . . .

unsafe imports

America's treaty

By George V. Galdorisi and Scott C. Truver

July 19, 2007

In the coming weeks and months, the U.S. Senate will have the opportunity to provide its “advice and consent” on a treaty of vital importance to America. The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, with 153 parties, represents the outcome of the most comprehensive international negotiation ever undertaken – a negotiating process that the United States helped spearhead beginning in the mid-1960s. But it also represents a failure of Washington to take the high ground on something that clearly is in our collective interests: the good order and security of the oceans and seas worldwide.

Far more than just another treaty, the convention was a watershed event that signaled the commitment of the nations of the world to be governed by the rule of law in conducting their affairs on the 70 percent of the globe covered by water. For the majority of countries, the Convention on the Law of the Sea became more than a treaty: it represented a common sense approach for collaboration rather than confrontation on the seas.

When the convention was opened for signature in 1982, the United States objected to just one part of the treaty, the provisions governing deep seabed mining and was one of only four nations to vote against the accord. By December of that year, 119 governments had signed the treaty. In 1994, the United States was successful in reaching an agreement that fundamentally changed the seabed mining part with which the United States and several other industrialized countries disagreed. That same year, the treaty was submitted to the Senate for its approval.

The convention languished in the Senate, specifically the Foreign Relations Committee, for a decade until a new committee chairman, Richard Lugar, R-Ind., held hearings in the winter of 2003/2004. These hearings resulted in a unanimous vote – 19-0 – to send the treaty to the full Senate for approval. Inexplicably, the convention never made it onto the Senate's agenda for floor action.

Now, Sen. Joseph Biden's Senate Foreign Relations Committee has an opportunity to consider the treaty again – but this time with the extra impetus of a strong statement by the president urging accession to the convention. On May 15, President Bush said, “Joining the convention will serve the national security interests of the United States, including the maritime mobility of our armed forces worldwide. It will secure U.S. sovereign rights over extensive marine areas, including the valuable natural resources they contain.”

Predictably, this strong presidential statement, coupled with a Senate leadership inclined to bring the treaty to a floor vote, has mobilized the opposition. During the past several weeks, numerous law-of-the-sear “experts” have expounded visceral, shrill arguments against the convention in the media and on Internet blogs in a last-ditch effort to stop the long-awaited U.S. accession – accession that has been supported by every administration for the past two decades and one that in mid-2007 has every major department of the executive branch firmly urging accession.

It would be a tragic misfortune for the United States if the Senate does not move forward on this convention at a time when America's national security postures – and especially the National Strategy for Maritime Security and the Navy's emerging Maritime Strategy – are critically dependent upon international cooperation and coalitions. Such support will become increasingly difficult for the United States unless it agrees to abide by international norms, such as those embodied in the convention.

Indeed, vital and immediate U.S. equities hang in the balance. Core U.S. strategic interests hinge on the free access to, and unhampered use of, the world's oceans. No nation's economy is more dependent on the almost 4 billion tons of trade that moves on the sea each year. U.S. naval and maritime strategy, operations and tactics are crucially dependent on the navigation rights, flexibility and mobility conferred by the convention – both in forward deployed operations and in defense of the U.S. homeland. For one, U.S. Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Thad Allen has commented that important efforts to put in place international regimes and systems governance to safeguard critical maritime security interests stand to be frustrated by Washington's continued failure to embrace this treaty.

Previous U.S. objections to the Law of the Sea Convention have been more than resolved by the 1994 agreement amending this treaty with the result that it has now become “America's Treaty.” If the United States is to retain its credibility as a nation that promotes the rule of law in the international community, Senate leaders must place accession to the convention high on their legislative agenda, move the treaty quickly through the Foreign Relations Committee and on to the floor for a vote, and provide the needed advice and consent for this crucial international accord.

Galdorisi, a Coronado resident, is a retired U.S. naval aviator with extensive Law of the Sea experience, including government-to-government negotiation, research and writing. Truver has also written on Law of the Sea issues and concerns since his first book on the subject, “The Strait of Gibraltar and the Mediterranean” (Sijthoff and Noordhoff, 1980).

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me@rescam.org

Yep. I have one thought. Why is it that this administration, in all of their fear-mongering glory, even WANT to try to tell other countries how to run THEIR country?

Ummmm, the same reason they WANT to try to tell us how to run OUR country? Because they do exactly as the U.S. does: makes decisions in what they feel is in their own best interests.

Why would we place WMD's on Russia's doorstep without realizing that they would respond in kind?

Really, what WMD's would you be referring to? Jupiters?

Though the name has changed over the years, Star Wars is alive and well and don't use WMD warheads. Not to mention, U.S. nuclear warheads are probably not forward deployed any longer. I say probably but that's another discussion.

Why is it that this administration, inclusive of Ms. Rice, seem to be stabbing at peace, and calling it "nothing to worry about?" Personally, I applaud Mr. Putin for his insight into this most evil of American administrations, and his reply to bush and all of the other "evildoers" that is the republican party. It is a shame that this country is viewed as a sham, a ghost of Nazi Germany, a literal fanthom of it's former self by the world; and we can thank (again) this administration and it's need for global domination for that.

Pffft. This is all just partisan rhetoric. Why the hell do you care what anyone thinks of the U.S. when they line up to send their money here? I mean, the English have been hatin' the French since 1066, most of Asia hates the Japanese after their little foray into the area in WWII, and that list goes on and on and on and on and on. It's just empty rhetoric because it's easy to "hate" some abstract idea like a country, but it really has no meaning unless someone starts to hate individual Americans, personally. But if they do that, they're likely pretty nuts. Which is again reason to discount them and you need not care.

Edit: crap. I need to read down further first. D'oh!

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Cordially,
Rush

elrushbo2@theobviousgmail.com
Remove the obvious...

Edit: crap. I need to read down further first. D'oh!

All that work . . .
Well, if it makes you feel any better, I agree with you (and Major Kong too).

Interesting that there are nationalists/chauvinists even here on this board. I wonder if there are any racist users too...

Such people must really feel insulted when they have to read that all nations, all "races", all people are supposed to be equal; that there is no #1 people, no #1 race, no #1 nation.

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Account frozen...

Interesting that there are nationalists/chauvinists even here on this board. I wonder if there are any racist users too...

Such people must really feel insulted when they have to read that all nations, all "races", all people are supposed to be equal; that there is no #1 people, no #1 race, no #1 nation.

Of course there are nationalists here. After all, many of us are proud of whatever nation we live in, and naturally think it is the best. Nothing wrong with polite, non-abusive discussion about why each of us think that our nations are 'better' than others. It gives each of us a glimpse into the nature and culture of other nations.

By, 'chauvinists' do you mean gender prejudice? I take a dim view of that.

I take an even dimmer view of racial prejudice.

While there undoubtedly are people around here that hold gender and racial prejudices, I respectfully request them to keep it to themselves.

Voters unhappy with Bush; Congress: Reuters poll

Voters unhappy with Bush; Congress: Reuters poll

By John Whitesides, Political Correspondent
Reuters
Wednesday, July 18, 2007; 8:13 AM

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Most U.S. voters think the country is on the wrong track and remain deeply unhappy with President George W. Bush and Congress, but still feel good about their finances and optimistic about the future, according to a Reuters/Zogby poll released on Wednesday.

Eighteen months before Bush leaves the White House, nearly two-thirds of Americans say the country is headed in the wrong direction and give the president negative marks for his job performance.

An even bigger majority, 83 percent, say the Democratic-controlled Congress is doing only a fair or poor job -- the worst mark for Congress in a Zogby poll.

But despite their dim views of government, majorities of Americans remain upbeat about their personal finances and security, and nearly two-thirds are very or fairly confident their children will have a better life than they do.

Pollster John Zogby said the split between voters' views of government and of their personal well-being has grown in recent years, particularly after the failed federal response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

"Americans feel their government is not accomplishing the people's business," Zogby said. "They feel the system is seriously broken."

In the national survey of 1,012 likely voters, taken July 12 through July 14, about 66 percent said Bush had done only a fair or poor job as president, with 34 percent ranking his performance as excellent or good.

That is up slightly from his low of 30 percent in early March and in line with other national polls showing Bush's approval ratings lingering at or near historically low levels amid continued chaos and bloodshed in Iraq.

But the marks for Congress, mired in gridlock over a series of partisan political battles after Democrats took power in the 2006 elections, continued to drop.

While 83 percent said Congress was doing a fair or poor job, just 14 percent rated it excellent or good. Last October, in its final days, the Republican-led Congress earned ratings of excellent or good from 23 percent of voters.

"There is a growing sense that people voted for change in 2006 and they aren't getting it," Zogby said.

The poll showed only 26 percent of Americans thought the United States was on the right track and 64 percent thought it was on the wrong track.

Americans also have little confidence in U.S. foreign and economic policy. Two-thirds of those surveyed, 66 percent, said the direction of economic policy was fair or poor, and 76 percent said U.S. foreign policy was headed in a fair or poor direction.

But on a personal level, Americans feel relatively secure and comfortable with their own finances and safety. Nearly 82 percent of Americans said they feel very or fairly safe from "threats from abroad," and nearly 70 percent feel very or fairly secure in their jobs.

While 14 percent rated their personal financial situation as excellent and 10 percent as poor, the vast majority found themselves in the middle. About 43 percent rated their finances as good, and 43 percent as fair.

"Americans have made a serious adjustment. Their expectations have been tempered," Zogby said. "With little faith in government, you feel you are pretty much on your own."

Several years of headlines about possible torture of U.S. detainees, treatment of prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay detention center and international anger over the Iraq war has not dented the pride of Americans.

About two-thirds of the likely voters surveyed said they were "very" proud of the United States, with 22 percent saying they were "fairly" proud and 8 percent saying they were not very proud of their country.

The national telephone survey has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

Hmm..

Bush gets 34% 'excellent or good'.
The Democrat-controlled Congress gets only 14% 'excellent or good' (down from 23% in the final days of the previous Republican-controlled Congress in 2006).

Looks like more people hate Congress than hate Dubya.

This does not bode well for all of the liberal lefties.