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ROBERT SCHEER
An Excuse-Spouting Bush Is Busted by 9/11 Report
Robert Scheer

July 27, 2004

Busted! Like a teenager whose beer bash is interrupted by his parents’ early return home, President Bush’s nearly three years of bragging about his “war on terror” credentials has been exposed by the bipartisan 9/11 commission as nothing more than empty posturing.

Without dissent, five prominent Republicans joined an equal number of their Democratic Party peers in stating unequivocally that the Bush administration got it wrong, both in its lethargic response to an unprecedented level of warnings during what the commission calls the “Summer of Threat,” as well as in its inclusion of Iraq in the war on terror.

Although the language of the commission’s report was carefully couched to obtain a bipartisan consensus, the indictment of this administration surfaces on almost every page.

Bush was not the first U.S. president to play footsie with Muslim extremists in Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, nor was the Clinton administration without fault in its fitful and ineffective response to the Al Qaeda threat. But there was simply no excuse for the near-total indifference of the new president and his top Cabinet officials to strenuous warnings from the outgoing Clinton administration and the government’s counter-terrorism experts that something terrible was coming, fast and hard, from Al Qaeda. Osama bin Laden’s gang, they said repeatedly, was planning “near-term attacks,” which Al Qaeda operatives expected “to have dramatic consequences of catastrophic proportions.”

As early as May 2001, the FBI was receiving tips that Bin Laden supporters were planning attacks in the U.S., possibly including the hijacking of planes. On May 29, White House counter-terrorism chief Richard Clarke wrote national security advisor Condoleezza Rice that “when these attacks [on Israeli or U.S. facilities] occur, as they likely will, we will wonder what more we could have done to stop them.” At the end of June, the commission wrote, “the intelligence reporting consistently described the upcoming attacks as occurring on a calamitous level.” In early July, Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft was told “that preparations for multiple attacks [by Al Qaeda] were in late stages or already complete and that little additional warning could be expected.” By month’s end, “the system was blinking red” and could not “get any worse,” then-CIA Director George Tenet told the 9/11 commission.

It was at this point, of course, that George W. Bush began the longest presidential vacation in 32 years. On the very first day of his visit to his Texas ranch, Aug. 6, Bush received the now-infamous two-page intelligence alert titled, “Bin Laden Determined to Attack in the United States.” Yet instead of returning to the capital to mobilize an energetic defensive posture, he spent an additional 27 days away as the government languished in summer mode, in deep denial.

“In sum,” said the 9/11 commission report, “the domestic agencies never mobilized in response to the threat. They did not have the direction, and did not have a plan to institute. The borders were not hardened. Transportation systems were not fortified. Electronic surveillance was not targeted against a domestic threat. State and local law enforcement were not marshaled to augment the FBI’s efforts. The public was not warned.”

In her public testimony to the commission, Rice argued that the Aug. 6 briefing concerned vague “historical information based on old reporting,” adding that “there was no new threat information.” When the commission forced the White House to release the document, however, this was exposed as a lie: The document included explicit FBI warnings of “suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York.” Furthermore, this briefing was only one of 40 on the threat of Bin Laden that the president received between Jan. 20 and Sept. 11, 2001.

Bush, the commission report also makes clear, compounded U.S. vulnerability by totally misleading Americans about the need to invade Iraq as a part of the “war on terror.”

For those, like Vice President Dick Cheney, who continue to insist that the jury is still out on whether Al Qaeda and Iraq were collaborators, the commission’s report should be the final word, finding after an exhaustive review that there is no evidence that any of the alleged contacts between Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein “ever developed into a collaborative operational relationship. Nor have we seen evidence indicating that Iraq cooperated with Al Qaeda in developing or carrying out any attacks against the United States.”

So, before 9/11, incompetence and sloth. And after? Much worse: a war without end on the wrong battlefield.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-scheer27jul27.story

The Metrosexual Superpower

By Parag Khanna

July/August 2004
The stylish European Union struts past the bumbling United States on the catwalk of global diplomacy.

According to Michael Flocker’s 2003 bestseller, The Metrosexual Guide to Style: A Handbook for the Modern Man, the trendsetting male icons of the 21st century must combine the coercive strengths of Mars and the seductive wiles of Venus. Put simply, metrosexual men are muscular but suave, confident yet image-conscious, assertive yet clearly in touch with their feminine sides. Just consider British soccer star David Beckham. He is married to former Spice Girl Victoria “Posh” Adams, but his combination of athleticism and cross-dressing make him a sex symbol to both women and men worldwide, not to mention the inspiration for the 2002 hit movie Bend It Like Beckham. Substance, Beckham shows, is nothing without style.

Geopolitics is much the same. American neoconservatives such as Robert Kagan look down upon feminine, Venus-like Europeans, gibing their narcissistic obsession with building a postmodern, bureaucratic paradise. The United States, by contrast, supposedly carries the mantle of masculine Mars, boldly imposing freedom in the world’s nastiest neighborhoods. But by cleverly deploying both its hard power and its sensitive side, the European Union (EU) has become more effective—and more attractive—than the United States on the catwalk of diplomatic clout. Meet the real New Europe: the world’s first metrosexual superpower.

Metrosexuals always know how to dress for the occasion (or mission). Spreading peace across Eurasia serves U.S. interests, but it’s best done by donning Armani pinstripes rather than U.S. Army fatigues. After the fall of Soviet communism, conservative U.S. thinkers feared a united Germany vying with Russia for hegemony in Central Europe. Yet, by brandishing only a slick portfolio of economic incentives, the EU has incorporated many of the former Soviet republics and satellites in the Baltics and Eastern Europe. Even Turkey is freshening up with eau d’Europe. Ankara resisted Washington’s pressure to provide base rights for the invasion of Iraq in 2003. But to get backstage in Brussels, it has had to smooth out its more unseemly blemishes—abolishing the death penalty, taking steps to resolve the Cyprus dispute, and introducing laws to protect its Kurdish minority.

Metrosexuals may spend a long time standing in front of the mirror, but they never shop alone. Stripping off stale national sovereignty (that’s so last century), Europeans now parade their “pooled power,” the new look for this geopolitical season. As a political, economic, and military union with some 450 million citizens, a $9 trillion economy, and armies surpassing 1.6 million soldiers, Europe is now a whole greater than the sum of its parts.

Indeed, Europe actually contributes more to U.S. foreign policy goals than the U.S. government—and does so far more fashionably. Robert Cooper, one of Britain’s former defense gurus now shaping Europe’s common foreign policy, argues that Europe’s “magnetic allure” compels countries to rewrite their laws and constitutions to meet European standards. The United States conceives of power primarily in military terms, thus confusing presence with influence. By contrast, Europeans understand power as overall leverage. As a result, the EU is the world’s largest bilateral aid donor, providing more than twice as much aid to poor countries as the United States, and it is also the largest importer of agricultural goods from the developing world, enhancing its influence in key regions of instability. Through massive deployments of “soft power” (such as economic clout and cultural appeal) Europe has made hard power less necessary. After expanding to 25 members, the EU accounts for nearly half of the world’s outward foreign direct investment and exerts greater leverage than the United States over pivotal countries such as Brazil and Russia. As more oil-producing nations consider trading in euros, Europe will gain greater influence in the international marketplace. Even rogue states swoon over Europe’s allure; just recall how Libya’s Colonel Muammar el-Qaddafi greeted British Prime Minister Tony Blair during a recent meeting in Tripoli. “You are looking good,” gushed Libya’s strongman. “You are still young.”

Brand Europe is taking over. From environmental sustainability and international law to economic development and social welfare, European views are more congenial to international tastes and more easily exported than their U.S. variants. Even the Bush administration’s new strategy toward the “Greater Middle East” is based on the Helsinki model, which was Europe’s way of integrating human rights standards into collective security institutions. Furthermore, regional organizations such as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, Mercosur, and the African Union are redesigning their institutions to look more like the EU. Europe’s flashy new symbol of power, the Airbus 380, will soon strut on runways all over Asia. And the euro is accepted even where they don’t take American Express.

But don’t be deceived by the metrosexual superpower’s pleatless pants—Europe hasn’t lost touch with its hard assets. Even without a centralized military command structure, the EU has recently led military operations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Macedonia, and it will increase troop deployments to support German and British forces in stabilizing Afghanistan. European countries already provide 10 times more peacekeepers to U.N. operations than the United States. In late 2004, the EU will take over all peacekeeping and policing operations in Bosnia and Herzegovina from NATO, and Europe’s 60,000-troop Rapid Reaction Force will soon be ready to deploy around the world.

In the fight against terrorism, Europe also displays the right ensemble of strengths. Europeans excel at human intelligence, which requires expert linguists and cultural awareness. French espionage agencies have reportedly infiltrated al Qaeda cells, and German and Spanish law enforcement efforts have led to the capture of numerous al Qaeda operatives. After the March 2004 terrorist attack in Madrid, Spain’s incoming prime minister immediately declared his country would “return to Europe,” signaling his opposition to the Bush administration’s war on terror. Indeed, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s “New Europe” is already passé, shorter lived than the bellbottom revival.

To some observers, the EU may always be little more than a cheap superpower knockoff with little substance to show but a common multilingual passport. But after 60 years of dressing up, Europe has revealed its true 21st-century orientation. Just as metrosexuals are redefining masculinity, Europe is redefining old notions of power and influence. Expect Bend It Like Brussels to play soon in capital cities worldwide.

Parag Khanna is a fellow in global governance at the Brookings Institution.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/files/story2583.php

>> Pourquoi ne pas proposer un véritable forum de discussion (organisé), où le débat et l’échange entre lecteurs pourait avoir lieu ?
Merci
François ;o)  >>

quand on regarde la tenue des textes sur le forum du monde ou psyops & spinmeisters professionels sont plus que presents pour aliener les conversations, je n aimerais pas que cela se produise ici aussi..
les redacteurs ont autre chose a faire..
ici l air est frais, pas besoin de l empester avec ce genre d oportunistes..

a moins que quelqu un a une soluce pour faire le tri avec ce genre de trolls.

Europe must take itself seriously, says top Brussels envoy

29.07.2004 - 17:33 CET |
By Honor Mahony EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS -

The European Union has to learn to take itself seriously before it can expect the United States to treat it as an equal, the outgoing EU ambassador to the US has warned.

Speaking before the Foreign Affairs Committee in the European Parliament on Thursday (29 July), Günter Burghardt said that getting Washington to treat the 25-nation bloc as a partner “depends on how seriously we take ourselves” adding “that is something only we can manage”.

The German diplomat said that while there is an overall general will by the EU to “enter into a partnership of equals” it is undermined by the fact that some member states continue to accord bilateral interests more importance.

Refusing to comment on whether George W. Bush will be re-elected in November and what it would mean for transatlantic relations, Mr Burghardt said that, in 2005, the ties should be renewed anyway.

Renewing the ties
He said that the transatlantic agenda has not been updated since 1995 although since then the European Union has undergone its biggest enlargement ever and agreed a new Constitution.

He says the Constitution will allow Europe to be taken more seriously as now the EU is represented by the head of the EU Presidency, the European Commission President and three foreign ministers - from the EU presidency at the time, Chris Patten (external relations commissioner) and Javier Solana (EU High Representative).

Under the new Constitution, Europe’s foreign policy will be the domain of the new EU foreign minister.

Extreme neo-cons out?
The ambassador, who is expected to be replaced later this year by former Irish prime minister John Bruton, does not deny that there are, and will continue to be, fundamental differences between the two sides.

One of them is the two different attitudes to the “notion of sovereignty”. The US sees its sovereignty as “unlimited” he said and this will not change whereas the EU is more about “joint sovereignty” and “multilateralism”.

The vast majority of the questions Mr Burghardt received from MEPs centred around the idea that Washington and the US President do not take Europe seriously and whether the ordinary American had any interest in Europe.

By way of reply, he said there is still a huge amount of “good will” among Americans towards Europe.

He added that the “extreme” neo-conservatives “are no longer setting the agenda” and that those people who spoke about new and old Europe (famously US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld) have “suddenly dried up”.

http://euobserver.com/?aid=17028&rk=1

“If they were to do real investigations we would see several significant high level criminal prosecutions in this country. And that is something that they are not going to let out. And, believe me; they will do everything to cover this up.”

-Sibel Edmonds, former FBI translator

interview ici..
http://baltimorechronicle.com/050704SibelEdmonds.shtml

une femme a suivre..

THE CONFLICT IN IRAQ
NATO Training Unit OKd Amid U.S.-France Spat
By Sebastian Rotella
Times Staff Writer

July 31, 2004

PARIS — NATO ambassadors agreed Friday to dispatch a small military contingent to Iraq to train Iraqi security forces, but a dispute over the command structure of the force remained unresolved.

Officials with the defense alliance announced in Brussels that a 40-member advance team would depart within days for Baghdad to prepare Iraqi staff for a NATO operation there. The alliance will begin training Iraqi forces outside the country in August.

“Through this assistance, the alliance is contributing substantially to the goal shared by the entire international community: to help Iraq provide for its own peace and security,” NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said.

Alliance leaders still must work out the delicate question of the command structure for the Baghdad training force, an issue that has caused more tension between the United States and France.

Washington wants a commander of the U.S.-led coalition forces in Iraq to have authority over the NATO trainers. Paris has insisted that the force answer to the NATO hierarchy. Its position has had the support of Germany, Belgium and Spain.

The advance team will report by Sept. 15 to Brussels — where the 26-nation North Atlantic Treaty Organization has its headquarters — with recommendations for structuring the relationship between the NATO training unit and U.S.-led multinational forces in Iraq.

“NATO will not be absorbed by the coalition,” a French diplomat said this week during negotiations in Brussels. The government of French President Jacques Chirac wants to avoid any scenario in which the alliance could be drawn into combat in Iraq.

France led international opposition to the war in Iraq. Last year, French representatives in Brussels resisted efforts to have NATO play even a symbolic role in the war.

French diplomats have not wavered from their view that the war was a mistake, citing the bloodshed and chaos in Iraq and the failure of the United States to find weapons of mass destruction. France has made it clear that it will not send troops to join the U.S.-led forces on the ground.

Nonetheless, France has tried to smooth relations with the United States, especially after Iraq was granted sovereignty late last month.

The impasse in Brussels was resolved Friday, sources said, when France offered to set aside the disagreement over command structure to let the first phase of the training mission get underway.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-nato31jul31.story

Dans The American Spectator, derrière le prétexte d’une note pour les visas sur un panneau du consulat français de New York,les habituels poncifs francophobes de l’américanosphèr(Napoléon, French impertinence and hauteur, French geopolitical ambitions etc); derrière la diatribe une crainte, celle de voir la France ouvrir la voie à une Europe-puissance capable de pendre en main son destin face aux Etats-Unis, voilà de quoi il s’agit:

Marchons, Marchons
By R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. 
Published 7/22/2004 12:06:46 AM

WASHINGTON—Just when things were going swimmingly for the presumptive Democratic presidential ticket a cloud appears on the horizon. The French Consulate in New York has tacked onto its front door an announcement reminding Americans once again of French haughtiness…and of French geopolitical ambitions. In sum and in fine, Paris’s ambitions for Europe are not unlike Napoleon’s. If the French have their way, all Europe will be under the suzerainty of the French croissant, the flaky buttery croissant. Yet, modern France will conquer not with Napoleon’s legions but in the modern way with bureaucrats.

The message discovered on the front door of the ornate French Consulate and reported very thoughtfully by the enlightened Washington Times huffs: “Visas for France are not a right. Persons applying for visas are requested to show due respect for Consular personnel. Failure to do so will result in the denial of the application and denied entry into any of the EU [European Union] countries.”

Apparently the French government believes that it now, through its role in the European Union, can exert authority throughout Europe. Legal experts doubt the French interpretation of its role, but that is not the point. This little note reveals the grandiose role France sees for herself in the world. It also reveals French impertinence and hauteur. The controversy cannot help the campaign of Senator Jean-François Kerry, the Democrats’ touchy Francophile presidential candidate, whose odd behavior is so luminously reflected in this note.

What supposed rudeness drove the prima donnas in the Consulate to issue their message? Did some eye-catching milk-fed maiden from the American Midwest laugh out loud when one of the Consulate’s young boulevardiers burst into tears while esteeming her beauty? Did some no-nonsense American business type become impatient when a fop from the “Consular personnel” filled out his visa document with a government-issued quill? I have never applied for a French visa, finding as I do a two-week stay in France sufficient to admire the ruins; and frankly I cannot imagine many of my fellow Americans wanting to stay in France long enough the necessitate a visa.

I know that Jean-François boasts of the long summer vacations he has spent in the land of popinjays and poseurs with cousins and nannies, but this message only serves to remind us of how alien French neurosis is to laid-back America. Kerry in his humorlessness and pretense would be a better candidate for mayor of Paris than President of the United States. I do not mean to suggest that Kerry is corrupt in the manner of the usual French politician. I cannot imagine his filching funds from the U.N.‘s food for oil scam. Nor can I imagine his receiving campaign donations from Saddam Hussein as President Jacques Chirac allegedly did. Yet, it is increasingly apparent that Senator Kerry has more in common with a Frenchman than with an American.

This can be seen in his proud dilettantism and his vain concern for his hair and his chin. Just the other day he dragged poor Senator John Edwards, his running mate, into his hair conceit, bellowing to a crowd of supporters that the two have “better hair” than their Republican opponents. Reports of his visits to plastic surgeons continue to circulate, one of the first being a report that he sought the perfect chin from a facial sculptor known to be a plastic surgeon to the stars. More recently it has been reported by the authoritative Drudge Report that the Senator’s wrinkles are again on the rise. Such concerns have never been manifest by presidential candidates of the genuine American sort, say, Richard Nixon or Lyndon Johnson. They let the wrinkles come and the hair depart. Their concern was the national interest…and a few perks.

One of the fascinating aspects of French haughtiness is how easily it renders itself to horselaughs. That note tacked on the door of the New York consulate was meant as a gesture of seriousness about proper deportment and the result was hilaritas. Senator Kerry’s stentorian pronouncements about his policies and his noble character are meant to give us goose bumps but all we get is a tickling of our funny bones. The French nation may not be the great nation it once was, but it certainly is an amusing nation. Vive la France, the comic nation. If it causes Senator Kerry’s campaign problems let him take his complaints to Federal Election Commission.

R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. is editor in chief of The American Spectator, a contributing editor to the New York Sun, and an adjunct fellow at the Hudson Institute. His Madame Hillary: The Dark Road to the White House came out this spring.
 

question: pourquoi personne ne compare-t-il le délire sécuritaire des JO et l’euro de football du mois dernier ...

l’angleterre et l’italie ont-t-elles du protéger leurs joueurs avec des gardes armés ? ... le portugal, allié des US ne DEVAIT-il pas etre victime d’un attentat à l’image de son voisin espagnol ? ... pourquoi n’y a-t-il pas eu d’intervention OTAN avec patriots, awacs, porte-avions et forces spéciales ???

Athens installs Patriot missiles

Patriot missile launchers are at three sites around Athens
Dozens of Patriot missiles have been put in place around Athens as the Greek capital began rolling out its security operation for next month’s Olympics.
Anti-aircraft missiles are in place at three Athens sites, including Tatoi airfield near the athletes’ village, and elsewhere around Greece.

It is part of a 1.2bn-euro security plan ($1.bn), the most costly in the history of the games.

Hundreds of surveillance cameras are also being installed around Athens.

The Greek authorities said the US-made Patriot missiles were progressively installed from 1 July, and would remain in place until after the games end on 29 August.

Zeppelin airship

Three police helicopters and a Zeppelin airship, also equipped with surveillance cameras, will operate almost around the clock during the Olympics, a police source told Reuters news agency.

Patriot missiles and other anti-aircraft devices will also positioned at other cities in Greece.

Russian-made S 300 anti-aircraft missiles are protecting the city of Heraklion on the southern island of Crete, Greek Air Force spokesman Constantinos Prionas told AFP news agency.

The Associated Press said Patriot missile sites were also being installed in the northern city of Thessaloniki and one on the Aegean Sea island of Skyros.

Le 18 juin 2004, la chaîne de télévision publique France 2 diffusait un film documentaire de William Karel intitulé Le Monde selon Bush. Ce documentaire présente une image convenue pour un public français de la consternante équipe qui préside actuellement aux destinées des États-Unis d’Amérique: l’administration Bush serait dirigée par un ramassis d’illuminés chrétiens et de brigands avides de pétrole, d’argent et de pouvoir.

Le film de William Karel commence par nous montrer l’incroyable cohorte de chrétiens fondamentalistes et de chrétiens sionistes entourant le président Bush. Parmi ceux-ci, le fameux général Boykin qui avait fait parler de lui en Colombie où il a organisé l’assassinat du trafiquant de drogue Pablo Escobar. Boykin se présente comme un chrétien fondamentaliste qui prêche dans des temples que l’Amérique est un État chrétien assailli par Satan et que l’Islam est une religion démoniaque.

Imposteur ou illuminé benêt manipulé par ses employeurs? Impossible de le dire. Il n’en demeure pas moins que le discours tenu en anglais par Boykin dans l’extrait qui nous est montré est un discours chrétien et non occultiste.

Or c’est précisément à ce chrétien, fût-il borné ou fût-il feint, que le documentaire de Karel prête une énormité sataniste!

Jugez-en vous-même! À la douzième minute du film, Boykin nous est montré prononçant un discours où il explique que le véritable ennemi n’est pas Ben Laden, mais les puissances invisibles du mal, qui se meuvent en un royaume spirituel. Cela, c’est ce qu’il dit en anglais et que l’on peut entendre sur la piste audio. Mais les sous-titres français lui font dire bien autre chose: le véritable ennemi n’est pas Ben Laden, il se trouve au Royaume des Cieux. Oui, vous avez bien lu, le véritable ennemi est au Royaume des Cieux!

Toutes les preuves à
http://eclipsenews.free.fr/docs/20040618_France2_Imposture_MondeSelonBush3.html

Merci de faire circuler largement cette information autour de vous.

Cordialement.

Le webmestre du site Dernières nouvelles de l’éclipse
http://eclipsenews.free.fr

Dernières nouvelles de l’éclipse (ou DNE, pour les intimes) est un tout nouveau site, encore en cours de préparation, qui se propose de rassembler un certain nombre de nouvelles d’actualités, noyées dans la masse des informations qui nous submergent quotidiennement, lesquelles nouvelles illustrent les progrès du Nouvel Ordre mondial et de l’apostasie généralisée de l’humanité.

L’armée américaine souffre d’une pénurie de balles
LE MONDE | 27.07.04 | 14h01

Pour être informé avant tout le monde, recevez nos alertes par e-mail. Abonnez-vous au Monde.fr, 5€ par mois

New york de notre correspondant

Le Pentagone consacre des dizaines de milliards de dollars à développer les armes du futur, mais doit faire face aujourd’hui à une pénurie de balles. L’armée américaine compte se doter dans les prochaines années d’un système de communication de tous les acteurs du champ de bataille, d’un uniforme intelligent capable de changer de couleur, de soigner le soldat et de réagir immédiatement en cas d’attaque chimique ou biologique.

En attendant, les GI en Irak et en Afghanistan risquent de se trouver à court de munitions de petit calibre pour leurs fusils M16. A tel point que le Pentagone a dû importer d’urgence des cartouches de Grande-Bretagne et d’Israël.

Cette situation est la conséquence à la fois de combats qui se prolongent en Irak au-delà des prévisions et de la fermeture de la plupart des usines qui produisaient ces munitions pour l’armée. Une seule entreprise, à Salt Lake City (Utah), fabrique aujourd’hui les balles de petit calibre de 5,56 mm pour les troupes américaines. Il y en avait cinq pendant la guerre du Vietnam. L’usine a investi pour moderniser ses machines, a triplé ses effectifs, les faisant passer de 650 personnes à 1 950 au cours des dernières années, et continue à embaucher. Mais elle n’arrive pas à satisfaire les besoins. Les troupes américaines en Afghanistan, en Irak - et pour l’entraînement à balles réelles, qui a été considérablement renforcé - consommeront cette année 1,5 milliard de cartouches. L’usine de Salt Lake City n’est pas capable d’en produire plus de 1,2 milliard. Ne voulant pas toucher à sa réserve stratégique d’un milliard de balles, le Pentagone a dû trouver une solution d’urgence pour combler le déficit. L’armée anglaise lui a cédé en juin 130 millions de cartouches provenant de ses stocks et, à la fin de l’année 2003, Israeli Military Industries a reçu une commande pour en produire 70 millions.

Cela fait grincer des dents au Congrès. Des parlementaires trouvent scandaleux que l’armée américaine dépende de fournisseurs étrangers pour quelque chose d’aussi essentiel que les balles de ses fusils. Ils craignent aussi que les producteurs étrangers en profitent pour augmenter les prix. Pour résoudre son problème, le Pentagone doit lancer un appel d’offres afin de trouver un deuxième fournisseur aux Etats-Unis-mêmes. Mais il ne sera pas capable de produire des munitions avant l’année prochaine au plus tôt.

Eric Leser

• ARTICLE PARU DANS L’EDITION DU 28.07.04

Bonjour,
effectivement, certaines personnes ont pu écrire que ce que faisaient les britanniques est génial. Cependant, peut-être que ça l’est d’un point de vue économique pour un économiste. Cependant, je vous conseille de lire l’article suivant http://www.lefigaro.fr/international/20040727.FIG0056.html où l’on parle du fait que “l’armée britannique serait aux yeux de certains experts en train de devenir une force annexe, intégrée à l’occasion dans la stratégie des Etats-Unis”.

Cordialement

Un truc marrant : la langue de travail officielle chez Airbus est l’anglais, et uniquement l’anglais. Ils n’ont pas de site en français, pas même une présentation, et n’ont même pas pris la peine d’enregistrer les domaines airbus.fr ou airbus.de…

L’irresponsabilité écologique du gouvernement fédéral US n’empêche heureusement pas certains Etats de tenter de combattre quelques uns des responsables principaux du réchauffement. On est vraiment encore loin du compte, mais enfin, c’est sans doute mieux que rien…

Dépêche du New Scientist relayée par Yahoo !

Thursday July 22, 01:30 PM
 

US states sue over global warming

By Maggie McKee

Eight US states and New York City filed a lawsuit against five US power companies for their contribution to global warming, in a historic action on Wednesday.

The states - citing resistance from the federal government - are banding together to force the utility companies to cut their carbon dioxide emissions by at least 3 per cent per year for 10 years.

“If we do not act soon, the steps we will need to take to prevent global warming will be much greater and much harder,” says New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer.

He says the companies - American Electric Power Company, the Southern Company, Tennessee Valley Authority, Xcel Energy Inc, and Cinergy Corporation - were chosen because they are the five largest carbon dioxide emitters in the US, operating 174 power plants in 20 states.

“These companies together emit 650 million tons of carbon dioxide each year - 10 percent of the country’s carbon dioxide and more than all of the UK,” he adds.

The plaintiffs - which also include California, Connecticut, Iowa, New Jersey, New York state, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Wisconsin - say the federal government has failed to take action on the problem.

Public nuisance

Carbon dioxide, unlike acid rain-producing sulphur dioxide, for example, is not listed as a “criteria” pollutant regulated by the federal Clean Air Act. Despite appeals to add it to the law, the current administration has refused.

“We’re here because the federal government has abdicated its responsibility - as it did with tobacco - and the states are filling the breach,” says Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, referring to a multi-billion-dollar settlement paid to states by tobacco companies.

The states are invoking a long-held “public nuisance” law aimed at protecting property owners from the actions of their neighbours. “Carbon dioxide doesn’t respect state boundaries - we receive all of the pollution and none of the power” from out-of-state plants, Blumenthal says.

“It’s the problem being attacked and the use of nuisance law that I think is remarkable here,” Dan Esty, director of the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy in New Haven, Connecticut, told New Scientist . The law applies only in the absence of a comprehensive federal regulatory law, so Esty says the case will likely hinge on whether or not the Clean Air Act comprehensively accounts for greenhouse gases.

Piecemeal litigation

The suit is seeking no monetary damages - simply a steady reduction in carbon dioxide emissions over a decade. Spitzer said increasing the plants’ efficiency, switching to cleaner-burning fuels, and using wind or solar power were among the “technologically and economically feasible” fixes his team had studied.

But power companies remain sceptical. “I would like to see their data on that,” says Pat Hemlepp, spokesman for American Electric Power (AEP), the country’s largest electricity generator. Switching from coal to natural gas, for example, would drive the price of natural gas even higher than it is, raising energy costs for consumers, he told New Scientist .

Outside observers believe the suit could start a trend. “If the states win the lawsuit, this would open up the door for other actions,” says Nathan Alley, former editor of the New York University Environmental Law Journal . “Maybe Congress and the Environmental Protection Agency would decide that, rather than allowing this piecemeal litigation, they should include carbon dioxide in the Clean Air Act.”

Bonjour,
Pourquoi vos articles ne sont jamais signé et il y a le nom d’aucun collaborateur ou journaliste (a part monsieur Grasset)? Cela nous parait un peu bizzare, en parlant entre amis lecteur de ce site…
Bien a vous,
Ali

Désolé ...

New Yorker
July 26, 2004

Talk Of The Town

All That You Can Be

There has been a great deal of speculation recently that the government
might reinstate the draft at some point, in order to replenish the nation’s
armed forces. Military and government officials have, for the most part,
dismissed such talk. As Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said in an
interview the other day, “We’re perfectly capable of increasing the
incentives and the inducements to attract people into the armed services.”
For years, the military has offered its recruits free tuition, specialized
training, and a host of other benefits to compensate for the tremendous
sacrifices they are called upon to make. Lately, many of them have been
taking advantage of another perk: free cosmetic surgery.

“Anyone wearing a uniform is eligible,” Dr. Bob Lyons, the chief of plastic
surgery at Brooke Army Medical Center, said recently, in his office in San
Antonio. It is true: personnel in all four branches of the military and
members of their immediate families can get face-lifts, nose jobs, breast
enlargements, liposuction, or any other kind of elective cosmetic
alteration, at taxpayer expense. (For breast enlargements, patients must
supply their own implants.) There is no limit on the number of cosmetic
surgeries one soldier can have, although, Lyons said, “we don’t do extreme
makeovers in the military.” The commanding officer has to approve the time
off for any soldier who is having surgery. For most procedures, there’s at
least a ten-day recovery period, and while soldiers are recuperating they’re
on paid medical leave rather than vacation.

A Defense Department spokeswoman confirmed the existence of the
plastic-surgery benefit. According to the Army, between 2000 and 2003 its
doctors performed four hundred and ninety-six breast enlargements and a
thousand three hundred and sixty-one liposuction surgeries on soldiers and
their dependents. In the first three months of 2004, it performed sixty
breast enhancements and two hundred and thirty-one liposuctions.

Mario Moncada, an Army private who was recently treated for losing the
vision in one eye in Iraq, said that he knows several female soldiers who
have received free breast enlargements: “We’re out there risking our lives.
We deserve benefits like that.”

Janis Garcia, a former lieutenant commander and jag attorney in the Navy,
who is married to a retired Navy fighter pilot, says she grew up hating the
way she looked. “I wouldn’t even smile in my own wedding pictures.” She
checked in to the Naval Medical Center in San Diego for a nose job, a chin
realignment, and a jaw reconstruction, free of charge. She also had her
teeth straightened. “It changed my appearance drastically, and I became a
more confident person,” she said. “It literally changed the direction of my
life.” The doctors told her the work she had done would have cost her nearly
a hundred thousand dollars.

It is hard to begrudge young servicemen and women access to free medical
care or quick self-improvement, considering the acts of heroism they perform
every day. Nonetheless, some taxpayers and members of the armed forces may
feel that there are better uses for the nation’s resources.

“I’m appalled the military would support liposuction,” Bill Fay, a captain
in the Arizona Army National Guard, who is now serving in Nasiriyah, wrote
in an e-mail. “This is a purely functional organization that does not exist
for their livelihood or enjoyment.”

The Army’s rationale is that, as a spokeswoman said, “the surgeons have to
have someone to practice on.” “The benefit of offering elective cosmetic
surgery to soldiers is more for the surgeon than for the patient,” Lyons
said. “If there’s a happy soldier or sailor at the end of that operation,
that’s an added benefit, but that’s not the reason we do it. We do it to
maintain our skills”­skills that are critical, he added, when it comes to
doing reconstructive surgery on soldiers who have been wounded.

Some plastic surgeons question this logic. Dr. Shaun Parson, a prominent
cosmetic surgeon in Arizona, says that cosmetic surgery and reconstructive
surgery are two separate specialties. “If the Army is doing breast
augmentations, it’s doing it to practice breast augmentations, period.”

There has been talk lately among soldiers that this benefit is indeed being
used as a recruiting tool, but there is no mention of it in any of the
recruiting literature. “The Army does not offer elective cosmetic surgery to
entice anyone,” Dr. Lyons said. “I would be disappointed with the maturity
of the young women in this country if they’re joining the service with the
thought of getting breast augmentations.”

­ Karen Schaler