Thursday, April 24th, 2003
QUOTE OF THE DAY:
” It is a general popular error to imagine that the loudest complainers for the public to be the most anxious for their welfare “
-Edmund Burke
Archive for April, 2003
Thursday, April 24th, 2003
UNDERMINING THE BILL OF RIGHTS WHILE TRANSFERRING SOVEREIGNTY TO FOREIGN SOCIALISTS
A timely example of how the transnational class of academics and activists work behind the scenes to erect an international structure designed to usurp the Constitutional authority of the U.S. government and impose socialistic programs by fiat – go here
Thursday, April 24th, 2003
” A SLAP IN THE FACE FOR EUROPEAN DEMOCRACY “ is how observers are describing the proposed constitutional reforms of the EU. Rather than remediate the EU’s current ” democratic deficit ” the reforms instead auger a move toward further ” Transfer of Sovereignty ” to an unaccountable class of transnational elite bureaucrats and political string-pullers. Americans should watch closely because this is the direction that NGO activists, International Law theorists, political Progressives and left-wing Democrats are attempting to take the United States.
The link seems not to be functioning so here’s the full article:
Brussels rejects Giscard’s blueprint for EU
By David Haworth in Brussels
(Filed: 24/04/2003)
The attempt to draw up a new European Union constitution suffered a serious setback yesterday when Brussels rejected the blueprint drawn up by the former French president, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing.
The European Commission said plans by M Giscard’s 105-member Convention on the Future of Europe failed to give any clear answer to the question of “who does what?” Using language that in diplomatic terms was scathing, a commission statement said it was “disappointed” with the way the convention’s proposals had been presented.
It added that they were “unlikely to foster the development of a consensus on these difficult institutional issues”.
M Giscard’s proposals, due to be presented to EU leaders in June, threaten to dilute the commission’s power and its attack sets the stage for a brutal struggle before agreement is reached.
At present the plans include the appointment of a powerful EU president, with a deputy and executive office, to replace the current rotating presidency which shifts between member states every six months.
They also foresee the slimming-down of the commission, reducing its current 20 members to 13, and creation of a seven-member “bureau’ within the Council of Ministers to co-ordinate the EU’s work.
“Increasing the number of presidents and vice-presidents, setting up a bureau, can only bring confusion. Duplication of bureaucracies goes against common sense and against indications coming from all sides,” the commission added.
Opponents see the scheme as concentrating power among the EU’s larger members. At present the union has 15 members but is due to take in 10 more, mostly in eastern Europe, next year.
“This would undermine the checks and balances in place between the EU institutions,” said a commission spokesman. “It could lead to unequal treatment of member states and this would jeopardise trust between them. In short, it would damage the community method, firmly based on an equilibrium between council, commission and parliament, which has been at the heart of the success of 50 years of European integration.”
European leaders failed to agree at a summit in Athens last week whether the EU should have a permanent chairman or president.
Tony Blair is backing the creation of such a post, which is also supported by France and Spain. The smaller EU members are highly suspicious of the idea, as are the governments of the 10 incoming states.
Although the role of such a “president of Europe” would supposedly be confined to coordination, his or her existence would be seen as a threat to the primacy of the commission within EU decision-making.
The convention has also proposed that EU foreign policy decisions should be taken by majority voting once the EU is enlarged in 2004. But Peter Hain, the Welsh Secretary and the senior British representative on the Convention, has already rejected that out of hand.
MEPs also condemned the proposals. Elmar Brok, a senior Christian Democrat, described them as “autistic”. He explained: “This is purely about reducing the powers of smaller EU countries, the commission and the European Parliament.”
Monica Frassoni, co-president of the Greens group in the European Parliament, said M Giscard’s proposals were “a slap in the face for European democracy”.
Thursday, April 24th, 2003
IRAQI SPYMASTERS CAPTURED
We may possibly find out what sort of activities Iraqi intelligence carried out inside the United States and if there are any American political figures or celebrities like the British Labor Party MP Galloway who is alleged to have been a paid agent of influence of Saddam’s regime. From the AP:
” Gen. Zuhayr Talib Abd al-Sattar al-Naqib, the former head of the Directorate of Military Intelligence, surrendered to U.S. troops Wednesday, a senior Pentagon official said.
The directorate monitored the loyalty of Iraq’s regular army, provided security at Iraqi military facilities and collected intelligence on military forces opposing Iraq. The Pentagon official said Naqib’s American equivalent would be the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency.
Naqib was No. 21 on the 55 most wanted list and was the seven of hearts in the deck of cards produced by the U.S. military with pictures of Saddam’s associates.
Naqib was a professional soldier who rose through the ranks of the Iraqi army, U.S. officials said. The military intelligence directorate he headed was separate from the Iraqi Mukhabarat, which gathered strategic intelligence and conducted covert operations aimed at maintaining government authority.
The 56-year-old Naqib told The Los Angeles Times in an interview before his surrender that he had no apologies for his involvement in Saddam’s government. He also made it clear that he had not always agreed with the Iraqi leader. However, he had shared Saddam’s Pan-Arabist ideas and had hope that Iraq and its military could be the force for creating an Arab nation, the Times report said.
Also captured Wednesday was Muhammad Mahdi al-Salih, the former Iraqi trade minister and No. 48 on the most wanted list. He was the six of hearts in the military’s deck.
Also Wednesday, allied special operations troops captured a Mukhabarat officer formerly in charge of American operations, a senior U.S. official said.
Jim Wilkinson, director of strategic communications for U.S. Central Command, identified the prisoner as Salim Said Khalaf al-Jumayli. He was not among the 55 most wanted.
Al-Jumayli is suspected of having knowledge of Iraqi intelligence activities in the United States, including names of people spying for Iraq, Wilkinson said in a statement from Doha, Qatar.
He offered no details about how the Iraqi was captured but said there was one Iraqi casualty during the operation.
Thursday, April 24th, 2003
HITCHENS ON THE ANTI-WAR FOLKS go here.
Here’s a milder excerpt:
“But unless the anti-war forces believe Saddam’s fires should be allowed to burn out of control indefinitely, they must presumably have an idea of which outfit should have got the contract instead of Boots and Coots. I think we can be sure that the contract would not have gone to some windmill-power concern run by Naomi Klein or the anti-Starbucks Seattle coalition, in the hope of just blowing out the flames or of extinguishing them with Buddhist mantras. The number of companies able to deliver such expertise is very limited. The chief one is American and was personified for years by “Red” Adair—the movie version of his exploits (played by John Wayne himself!) was titled Hellfighters. The other main potential bidder, according to a recent letter in the London Times, is French. But would it not also be “blood for oil” to award the contract in that direction? After all, didn’t the French habitually put profits in Iraq ahead of human rights and human life? More to the point, don’t they still? “
