UNITED STATES AND CANADA NEWS DIGEST
Bush Administration Wants Wider Domestic Role for U.S. Military
The July 21 New York Times reports that the Bush Administration has asked the Justice and Defense Departments to review existing law pertaining to domestic use of the military.
In fact, buried in "The National Strategy for Homeland Security" released on July 16 by the White House, was a call for review of the Posse Comitatus law, which prohibits military involvement in domestic law enforcement. The relevant passage reads:
"Review authority for military assistance in domestic security. Federal law prohibits military personnel from enforcing the law within the United States except as expressly authorized by the Constitution or an Act of Congress. The threat of catastrophic terrorism requires a thorough review of the laws permitting the military to act within the United States in order to determine whether domestic preparedness and response efforts would benefit from greater involvement of military personnel and, if so, how."
These developments confirm the warning issued by Lyndon LaRouche on May 17, in his "Northern Command & Rubicon" statement, in which he warned that the NorthCom proposal was a preparation for dragging the Pentagon across the Potomac to create a military dictatorship and rendering the President at best a figurehead.
Both Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld were rather more cautious than the White House overall appears to be, with respect to revision of the Posse Comitatus law. On Fox-TV, on Sunday, July 21, Ridge said that he thinks it is very unlikely that we would give arrest power to the military, but that, if there's talk about using the military, then there should be a discussion about Posse Comitatus. A few hours later, on CNN, Ridge was more definite, saying that the idea of giving arrest power to the military "has not been discussed," and even if it is discussed, this doesn't mean it would be done; he added that it "that goes against our instincts as a country to empower the military with the power to arrest."
In contrast, Sen. Joseph Biden, also appearing on Fox, said "it is time to revisit" the question of the military exercising police powers.
At the Pentagon briefing on July 22, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld told reporters, "If the President or the National Security Council or the Homeland Security Council feel it's appropriate to review something, why, it would get reviewed, and then we'd all participate ... but I don't think anyone should hold their breath waiting for changes in Posse Comitatus."
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Richard Myers said he agreed with Gen. Ralph Eberhart, the nominee to head Northern Command, that "we ought to look at all the regulations and laws to govern the way we protect American citizens, but at the end of the day ... it's not clear to me that there's any need to change Posse Comitatus. It's not been pointed out what the advantages to doing that would be."
Say Rumsfeld May Take Top Homeland Security Post
"Rumsfeld may quit the Pentagon to take on top homeland post," is the headline of an unsigned article on the "Open Secrets of the Hill" page of The Hill newspaper of July 24. The piece reports that White House insiders think Bush may ask Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to take command of Homeland Security. Rumsfeld would combine "deep managerial skills, with an insider's knowledge of the bureaucracy. He would also be quickly confirmed." Under this scenario, they say Rumsfeld's Pentagon post would go to Paul Wolfowitz. "Bush leans toward asking Ridge to stay on as a top Presidential adviser," while Rumsfeld whips together a cluster of disparate agencies. Ridge would focus on keeping the FBI and the CIA, which will not be under Rumsfeld's wing, in the tent, and would be the counterpart on the domestic security front to Condoleezza Rice.
An EIR source brought this possibility up independently, as something he had heard from one of his own sources.
House Votes To Create Commission To Study Sept. 11
The House of Representatives voted July 25 to create an independent commission to study the Sept. 11 hijackings. The commission was approved 219-188 as part of a bill authorizing intelligence spending increases. All but four Democrats supported the concept, joined by 25 Republicans. Chief sponsor is Rep. Tim Roemer (D-Ind), a member of the House Select Intelligence Committee, which is already investigating the attack. Roemer had sought a sweeping review of events surrounding the attacks, but because the commission appeared in the form of an amendment to the intelligence bill, its scope will be limited to intelligence issues.
A 10-member panel would be appointed by Congressional leaders, and would include two relatives of the victims. Grandstanding Senator Joe Lieberman is the sponsor of a Senate counterpart. "This obviously gives his bill momentum," a spokesman said.
As Lyndon LaRouche has pointed out, the very premises of such a commission are flawed; LaRouche scored the attempt to pin on the Administration blame for Sept. 11 events which were not, in fact, terrorist attacks by Osama bin Laden, but rather part of a coup attempt against the Bush Administration by Utopian elements within it and within and around the U.S. government and military.
New York Post Hails Sharon's Murders of Gaza Innocents
Sir Rupert Murdoch's New York Post on July 24 celebrated Ariel Sharon's Nazi tactic of dropping one-ton bombs on crowded housing projects in the middle of the nightthe attack on Gaza that claimed the lives of many innocents, including at least nine children.
"The War on Terror scored a huge victory early yesterday" with the killing of Hamas leader Salah Shehada whom Sharon was targetting, the Post's lead editorial proclaimed. "Yes, some 14 civilians also died in the attack, which is a shame," but the world should be praising Israel, not attacking it. The Post chided President George W. Bush for criticizing the hit as "heavy-handed": "America should be so heavy-handed with its terror targets.... So, hats off to Israel for its good aim. Meanwhile, there is a lesson here: As Washington and Jerusalmen prosecute the war against those who attack innocents, everyone else better get out of the way."
An accompanying op-ed by neo-conservative proto-Nazi John Podhoretz went to elaborate lengths to argue that the Israelis who ordered this atrocity cannot be tried for war crimes, and insisted that the only person with any responsibility for the killing of civilians, was Salah Shehada. He's responsible, because he chose to live in an apartment house in Gaza City with his family and hundreds of others around him, as human shields. "May he rot in Hell," wrote Podhoretz.
Pentagon and State Department Teams Head Out To 'Sell' BMD Program
According to the Washington Times July 24, two teams of Pentagon and State Department officials are going to start a tour of 12 countries to "sell" President Bush's Ballistic Missile Defense program, and the end of the ABM Treaty. Visits to Canada, Japan, and South Korea are also planned for later in the summer. The Washington Times does not specify who is going, but it's the first such diplomatic initiative since the U.S. formally announced the end of its participation in the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, and purportedly the other nations are going to be briefed more specifically on U.S. BMD plans. One team will go to London, Oslo, Copenhagen, Berlin, Prague, and Brussels; the second to Paris, Madrid, Rome, Warsaw, Budapest, and Ankara. A spokesman for the Arms Control Association (which opposes BMD) says the Administration is "feverishly" trying to sell BMD, but claims that this "energetic effort" will make it difficult to dissuade countries such as India which are also interested in missile defense. Israel's potential sale of the Arrow Weapon System to India requires U.S. approval.
New York Times Items Feature a Certain Drift...
Three allied items in the July 25 issue of the New York Times feature a certain political drift. Namely, a lengthy front-page tribute to Colin Powell, entitled, "Embattled, Scrutinized, Powell Soldiers On"arguing that Powell will not give up his fight or his outlook, that he is the only member of this Administration with a world reputation; that he outshines his President and the other Cabinet members; that he is worshipped by everyone at State, etc. The article gives the clear impression that Powell may well turn out to be the last one left standing, in the current factional brawl.
A p. 3 article quotes State Department spokesman Richard Boucher as saying the U.S. is watching and monitoring Israeli actions involving use of U.S. weapons, for possible violations of the Arms Export Control Act, when they are used not in self-defense, but to kill civilians.
Finally, a lengthy op-ed by Brookings senior fellows Michael E. O'Hanlon and Philip H. Gordon, is entitled, "Is Fighting Iraq Worth the Risks?" Such a war would be the most momentous use of U.S. force since Vietnam, and would dominate the remainder of Bush's term. Experience suggests Iraq can be contained without war, they argue. Advocates of such a war minimize the risk, comparing it to Afghanistan, but in fact, it will probably be urban warfare, with substantial cost in Iraqi and American lives. "American military casualties could number into the thousands." We might have to occupy Iraq for a decade or more. "There is a case to be made that these costs are worth sustaining. But if so, we need Mr. Bush to make it. He has not yet done so."
Congressional Opposition to Iraq War
Eighty members of the House, so far, have signed a letter demanding Congressional debate and vote, before any attack on Iraq. The letter is bipartisan.
Meantime, on Sunday, July 21, amidst a continuing big push by the neo-cons for the Iraq war, Senators Joseph Biden (D-Del), and Carl Levin (D-Mich) opposed the war, and said Bush has neither the strategic intelligence necessary, nor the authority under the Congressional "war on terrorism" resolution, to carry out the war.
Levin, appearing on the CNN "Late Edition" show of Wolf Blitzer, said that "before's there's any kind of an attack, there's got to be a reason for it, which is either that he [Saddam Hussein] participated in 9/11 or that he is on the verge of using a weapon of mass destruction." Levin said that in terms of WMDs, "As a matter of fact, the intelligence community ... thinks he would not initiate it [a WMD attack]" and actually, a U.S. attack might trigger Saddam to make an attack that he would not have done otherwise. Levin also denounced "the President's rhetoric" as simplistic, saying, "There are a lot of real problems here, and the first ones to recognize that, the problems that an invasion would cause, are the uniformed military leaders, who are very cautious, much more cautious than the President's rhetoric about this issue."
House Backs Bush on Issue of Civil Service Protections
The House of Representatives July 26 voted to give President Bush the authority to waive civil service protections for employees of the Department of Homeland Security. The vote of 229 to 201 came on an amendment sponsored by Rep. Chris Shays (R-Conn) that allows Federal employees to keep their union representation, unless the President "determines that application would have a substantial adverse impact on the Department's ability to protect homeland security."
The House vote came on the heels of repeated threats by President Bush to veto the Homeland Security bill if it didn't include this feature. "I'm not going to accept legislation that limits or weakens the President's well-established authorities to exempt parts of the government from Federal labor management relations statutes, when it serves our national interest," Shays declared.
On the Senate side, the Governmental Affairs Committee, chaired by Joe Lieberman (D-Conn) approved its bill by a vote of 12 to 5. The Committee brushed aside Bush's veto threat, and sent the bill to the Senate floor with full civil service protections for employees of the new department.
Lieberman said "There are differences" with the White House, "but I would say that are at the margins. This bill gives the President about 90% of what he asked for."
Pope Tells Youth How To Achieve True Happiness
During his address July 25 in Toronto, at the welcoming ceremony for World Youth Day, Pope John Paul II, seeming restored in health, and in good spirits, addressed 400,000 young people from around the world.
"I have felt the deep longing that beats within your hearts: you want to be happy!" said the Pope. "Many and enticing are the voices that call out to you from all sides: Many of these voices speak to you of a joy that can be had with money, with success, with power. Mostly they propose a joy that comes with the superficial and fleeting pleasure of the senses."
"People are made for happiness," continued the Pope. "Rightly, then you thirst for happiness.... True joy is a victory, something which cannot be obtained without a long and difficult struggle. Christ holds the secret of this victory."
"The Sermon on the Mount marks out the map of this journey," said the Pope.
"God became manthe Fathers of the Church tell usso that men and women could become God. This is the decisive turning-point, brought about in human history by the Incarnation."
Referring to Sept. 11, 2001, the Pope said: "With your gaze set firmly on Him, you will discover the path of forgiveness and reconciliation in a world often laid waste by violence and terror. Last year, we saw with dramatic clarity the tragic face of human malice.... But today, Jesus's voice resounds in the midst of our gathering. His is a voice of life, of hope, of forgiveness, a voice of justice and peace."
LaRouche: 'Hoover II' Has Happened!
Presidential candidate and economist Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr. on July 21 issued a conference theme and invitation to a Labor Day conference, under the title "'Hoover II' Has Happened! The Global Financial Crash of 2002."
Wrote LaRouche, "You are cordially invited to attend what will prove to be one of the truly historic events of the 21st Century, the two-day, Labor Day weekend conference, to be convened in Northern Virginia during August 31-September 1.
"Many will consider it ironical that although this meeting is not being convened in Wall Street, or at the White House, it is being held within the financially doomed 'Silicon Valley East,' the Washington, D.C. to Dulles Airport beltway.
"There are four leading issues to be addressed in the keynote address to be delivered at the opening of this conference.
"First, that the biggest U.S. financial crash in a century came as no surprise to those literate adults in Europe, the Americas, and in nations whose head of state is the Queen of England, among whom my long-range forecasts have circulated, and have been hotly debated increasingly over more than thirty years, and, in more recent decades, among politically literate circles of Asia and Africa as well.
"Second, what was the cause of the mass-media-led mass hysteria which caused people to continue to invest their savings in a system even after they had been warned it would crash as it is doing now?
"Third, since the only model for getting out of a new 'Hoover Depression' is a new 'Franklin Roosevelt Recovery,' why are leading people, and others who also ought to know better, still refusing to move into a revival of the Franklin Roosevelt-led methods by which the Americas and postwar Western Europe were rebuilt, out of the previous world depression and war, over the course of the 1933-1964, pre-Indochina War period?
"Fourth, since this crisis must be addressed immediately, under the present Presidency, what can and must be done to reorganize the U.S. political-party system to overturn those political habits of recent decades which have misled the U.S.A., step by step, election after election, down the road to the present catastrophe?
"This new 'Hoover Crash' brings us, this momentous Labor Day weekend, to a fork in the road of world history. What do you do, when, all around us, political and other sorts of 'business as usual,' is bankrupt?
"There is a nominal fee of $50 for conference registration, and pre-registration is required. Please contact your LaRouche movement representative to pre-register."
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