Friday, December 15, 2006

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Friday, December 15th, 2006

Volume 5, No. 21

6 Articles

(Editor's note: Everybody sees a difficulty in the question of relations between Arabs and Jews. But not everybody sees that there is no solution to the question. No solution! There is a gulf and nothing can fill this gulf. It is possible to resolve the conflict between Jewish and Arab interests [only] by sophistry. I do not know what Arab will agree that Palestine should belong to the Jews. … We, as a nation, want this country to be ours; the Arabs, as a nation, want this country to be theirs. David Ben-Gurion, 1918)

(Editor's note 2: The United States government was proud that, although perhaps 100,000 Iraqis were killed in the 1990-91 First Gulf War, there were only 148 American battle casualties. What it has concealed from the public is that 206,000 veterans of that war have filed claims with the Veterans Administration (VA) for injuries and illnesses. Since the war, 8,300 veterans have died, and 160,000 claims for disability have been recognized by the VA.

And those [veterans] who come back alive [from the Second Gulf War], but blind or without arms or legs, find that the Bush administration is cutting funds for veterans. Bush's second State of the Union address, while going through the usual motions of thanking those serving in Iraq, continued his policy of ignoring the thousands who have come back wounded, in a war that is becoming increasingly unpopular. Howard Zinn,)

1. Cola linked to weak bones

2. Mystery of Israel's Secret Uranium Bomb

3. Open Letter to Nancy Pelosi and John Conyers

4. Cracking up: Ice Turning to Water, Glaciers on the Move—and a Planet in Peril

5. "Americans Can't Handle Another Impeachment," is the Republican Propaganda.

6. Their View of The World Is Through A Bombsight

1. COLA LINKED TO WEAK BONES

(Author(s) Unknown)

Cola consumption is linked to weak bones in women, a new study says.

According to the study, in which more than 2500 adults were examined by Dr Katherine L Tucker and colleagues of Tufts University in Boston, it was found that women who consumed cola daily had lower bone mineral density [BMD] in their hips than those who drank less than one serving of cola a month.

The authors of the report wrote in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition: "Because BMD is strongly linked with fracture risk, and because cola is a popular beverage, this is of considerable public health importance."

Studies in teen girls have tied heavy soft drink consumption to fractures and lower BMD, the researchers note, but it is not clear if this is because they're drinking less milk, or if it is due to any harmful effects of soda itself.

To investigate this question in adults, the researchers measured BMD in the spine and at three points on the hips in 1,413 women and 1,125 men participating in a study of the bone-thinning disease osteoporosis.

Less calcium

While there was no association between soft drinks in general and BMD, the researchers found that women who drank the most cola had significantly less dense bones in their hips.

Cola consumption had no effect on BMD in men.

Women who drank more cola did not drink less milk, but they did consume less calcium and had higher intakes of phosphorus in relation to calcium.

Cola contains phosphoric acid, the researchers note, which impairs calcium absorption and increases excretion of the mineral. Caffeine has also been linked to osteoporosis, they add.

The report said: "No evidence exists that occasional use of carbonated beverages, including cola, is detrimental to bone.
However, unless additional evidence rules out an effect, women who are concerned about osteoporosis may want to avoid the regular use of cola beverages."

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2. MYSTERY OF ISRAEL'S SECRET URANIUM BOMB

(Alarm over radioactive legacy left by attack on Lebanon)

BY

ROBERT FISK


We know that the Israelis used American "bunker-buster" bombs on Hizbollah's Beirut headquarters. We know that they drenched southern Lebanon with cluster bombs in the last 72 hours of the war, leaving tens of thousands of bomblets which are still killing Lebanese civilians every week. And we now know - after it first categorically denied using such munitions - that the Israeli army also used phosphorous bombs, weapons which are supposed to be restricted under the third protocol of the Geneva Conventions, which neither Israel nor the United States have signed.

But scientific evidence gathered from at least two bomb craters in Khiam and At-Tiri, the scene of fierce fighting between Hizbollah guerrillas and Israeli troops last July and August, suggests that uranium-based munitions may now also be included in Israel's weapons inventory - and were used against targets in Lebanon. According to Dr Chris Busby, the British Scientific Secretary of the European Committee on Radiation Risk, two soil samples thrown up by Israeli heavy or guided bombs showed "elevated radiation signatures". Both have been forwarded for further examination to the Harwell laboratory in Oxfordshire for mass spectrometry - used by the Ministry of Defence - which has confirmed the concentration of uranium isotopes in the samples.

Dr Busby's initial report states that there are two possible reasons for the contamination. "The first is that the weapon was some novel small experimental nuclear fission device or other experimental weapon (eg, a thermobaric weapon) based on the high temperature of a uranium oxidation flash ... The second is that the weapon was a bunker-busting conventional uranium penetrator weapon employing enriched uranium rather than depleted uranium." A photograph of the explosion of the first bomb shows large clouds of black smoke that might result from burning uranium.

Enriched uranium is produced from natural uranium ore and is used as fuel for nuclear reactors. A waste product of the enrichment process is depleted uranium, it is an extremely hard metal used in anti-tank missiles for penetrating armour. Depleted uranium is less radioactive than natural uranium, which is less radioactive than enriched uranium.

Israel has a poor reputation for telling the truth about its use of weapons in Lebanon. In 1982, it denied using phosphorous munitions on civilian areas - until journalists discovered dying and dead civilians whose wounds caught fire when exposed to air.

I saw two dead babies who, when taken from a mortuary drawer in West Beirut during the Israeli siege of the city, suddenly burst back into flames. Israel officially denied using phosphorous again in Lebanon during the summer - except for "marking" targets - even after civilians were photographed in Lebanese hospitals with burn wounds consistent with phosphorous munitions.

Then on Sunday, Israel suddenly admitted that it had not been telling the truth. Jacob Edery, the Israeli minister in charge of government-parliament relations, confirmed that phosphorous shells were used in direct attacks against Hizbollah, adding that "according to international law, the use of phosphorous munitions is authorised and the (Israeli) army keeps to the rules of international norms".

Asked by The Independent if the Israeli army had been using uranium-based munitions in Lebanon this summer, Mark Regev, the Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman, said: "Israel does not use any weaponry which is not authorised by international law or international conventions." This, however, begs more questions than it answers. Much international law does not cover modern uranium weapons because they were not invented when humanitarian rules such as the Geneva Conventions were drawn up and because Western governments still refuse to believe that their use can cause long-term damage to the health of thousands of civilians living in the area of the explosions.

American and British forces used hundreds of tons of depleted uranium (DU) shells in Iraq in 1991 - their hardened penetrator warheads manufactured from the waste products of the nuclear industry - and five years later, a plague of cancers emerged across the south of Iraq.

Initial US military assessments warned of grave consequences for public health if such weapons were used against armoured vehicles. But the US administration and the British government later went out of their way to belittle these claims. Yet the cancers continued to spread amid reports that civilians in Bosnia - where DU was also used by Nato aircraft - were suffering new forms of cancer. DU shells were again used in the 2003 Anglo-American invasion of Iraq but it is too early to register any health effects.

"When a uranium penetrator hits a hard target, the particles of the explosion are very long-lived in the environment," Dr Busby said yesterday. "They spread over long distances. They can be inhaled into the lungs. The military really seem to believe that this stuff is not as dangerous as it is." Yet why would Israel use such a weapon when its targets - in the case of Khiam, for example - were only two miles from the Israeli border? The dust ignited by DU munitions can be blown across international borders, just as the chlorine gas used in attacks by both sides in the First World War often blew back on its perpetrators.

Chris Bellamy, the professor of military science and doctrine at Cranfield University, who has reviewed the Busby report, said: "At worst it's some sort of experimental weapon with an enriched uranium component the purpose of which we don't yet know. At best - if you can say that - it shows a remarkably cavalier attitude to the use of nuclear waste products."

The soil sample from Khiam - site of a notorious torture prison when Israel occupied southern Lebanon between 1978 and 2000, and a frontline Hizbollah stronghold in the summer war - was a piece of impacted red earth from an explosion; the isotope ratio was 108, indicative of the presence of enriched uranium. "The health effects on local civilian populations following the use of large uranium penetrators and the large amounts of respirable uranium oxide particles in the atmosphere," the Busby report says, "are likely to be significant ... we recommend that the area is examined for further traces of these weapons with a view to clean up."

This summer's Lebanon war began after Hizbollah guerrillas crossed the Lebanese frontier into Israel, captured two Israeli soldiers and killed three others, prompting Israel to unleash a massive bombardment of Lebanon's villages, cities, bridges and civilian infrastructure. Human rights groups have said that Israel committed war crimes when it attacked civilians, but that Hizbollah was also guilty of such crimes because it fired missiles into Israel which were also filled with ball-bearings, turning their rockets into primitive one-time-only cluster bombs.

Many Lebanese, however, long ago concluded that the latest Lebanon war was a weapons testing ground for the Americans and Iranians, who respectively supply Israel and Hizbollah with munitions. Just as Israel used hitherto-unproven US missiles in its attacks, so the Iranians were able to test-fire a rocket which hit an Israeli corvette off the Lebanese coast, killing four Israeli sailors and almost sinking the vessel after it suffered a 15-hour on-board fire.

What the weapons manufacturers make of the latest scientific findings of potential uranium weapons use in southern Lebanon is not yet known. Nor is their effect on civilians.

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3. OPEN LETTER TO NANCY PELOSI AND JOHN CONYERS
BY

CINDY SHEEHAN

Dear Ms. Pelosi and Mr. Conyers,

I am writing this open letter to you both on the day after Veteran's Day. A day that has so much more meaning to me since my son Casey was KIA in Iraq for absolutely no reason but to line the pockets of the war machine. I cried in front of his symbolic tombstone at Arlington Northeast in Philadelphia and I dreamed of him before I awakened. Casey's "tombstone" was planted in the ground directly across from Liberty Hall which was the birth place of our Republic. How tragic it was to see 2842 tombstones of our brave young people who have been killed by people who are trampling all over our Constitution and making a mockery out of the separations of power and the original intent of that document. 2842 citizens who were willing to volunteer for service and were killed by people who lied to the world to send them to invade and occupy a country in a war of aggression that has killed almost a million Iraqi citizens. How tragic it is that you both, our newly elected Democratic leadership are already talking about abrogating their Constitutional responsibilities, again.

We the people are shocked that you two are already stridently saying over and over again that impeachment is "off the table." Since the historic Nov. 7th elections, I have talked to a boat-load of Americans who want impeachment on the table. We activists worked hard to make these elections about national issues, like the illegal and immoral occupation of Iraq, and the culture of corruption that, especially you, Ms. Pelosi have been railing against for months now. And you, Mr. Conyers, have already written a brilliant and detailed indictment of BushCo. We the people are definitely puzzled by your rhetoric.

We the people put the Democrats back into power because we want to see a change in this country and a rejection of politics as usual. We want politics as unusual. We want to see the issue of impeachment and a speedy and safe withdrawal of our troops from Iraq de-politicized and brought into the realm of "right and wrong" where these issues belong, not "right and left."

We the people are here to tell you that we are the ones that are going to be setting the table, now. For too many years, we have allowed you people, who are just like us and elected by us and from us, to tell us what the agenda will be. Like I told George in a recent letter to him (no response yet, hmm), a sleeping giant has been awakened in this country and we are not falling asleep again just because the Democrats, only with grassroots involvement and commitment, are back in power in Congress.

It turns our stomachs when you talk about "working" with the Republicans. First of all, these people have allowed BushCo free rein in committing their high crimes and misdemeanors and crimes against humanity. Why would you want to work with murderers, liars, and crooks? When one works with criminals, one becomes complicit and culpable for those crimes. We elected you all to be different, not more of the same.

Secondly, and more importantly, BushCo have openly committed egregious crimes which they have all admitted to. The question really isn't: should they be impeached, but why haven't they been impeached, removed from office and criminally charged and tried for these crimes, yet? I believe that when Congressional Representatives and Senators are sworn into office they take an oath to protect the constitution, not to protect, aid, and abet criminals. The investigation and eventual rubber stamp to begin impeachment proceedings against Nixon was a bi-partisan effort and Nixon wasn't even investigated for the level of crimes that BushCo should be investigated for.

We realize that you have a tremendous and daunting task before you both. We know for six years that your governmental body has been busy giving its power away to a maniac who has abused and misused that power so incompetently and tragically. However, to say that impeachment can't be one of the issues that Congress begins immediate work on is not giving you all enough credit. We know that you can do it! We have confidence in your abilities. Impeachment has been done before in our country and it has never before been so urgent.

How many times has George said that the troops aren't coming home while he is president? How many times has BushCo lied to us and admitted those lies? Or been caught in those lies? How many people have they killed for greed of money and power and how many lives have been destroyed by them? How many laws have BushCo broken and admitted to breaking? How many people have they physically and mentally wounded by torture and by sending our brave young people wrongly to Iraq and not supporting them when they get there? How much longer will you allow them to violate and desecrate everything that we hold dear as Americans and human beings?

We the people demand that you do your duties as officers and protectors of our Constitution and we demand that you do your duties as members of humanity to call a halt to the crimes against humanity of the Bush regime.

When the 110th Congress is seated on January 3rd, we the people, who also have a duty to our Constitution (We the People is the first line) and a duty to humanity will be walking the halls of your offices to tell you what our agenda is and what we want on the table.

I admire and respect both of you and I know you will do the right thing, but you better heed the will of we the people, or we will find other people who will. I hope you do believe that we want you to represent us and not the special interests of the war machine.

We the people are serious about true change this time and we are willing to walk, work, sit, stand, write, travel, sweat, freeze, be arrested, and scream for these changes.

Impeachment and removal from office are not for the squeamish or faint of heart, but we are neither of those things. We are all brave and (p)(m)atriotic Americans who realize that healing of the political divide that has characterized the Bush regime will only begin when our young people and the people of Iraq see justice for all of the death and misery that they have afflicted humanity with. Our children who have been sent to early graves or have to live the rest of their lives with PTSD or missing limbs, and the people of Iraq (not to mention the victims of Katrina) are crying out for this justice. Justice is meted out everyday in our world and if BushCo are not brought to justice then justice loses its meaning and effectiveness.

Do it for Casey, do it for his buddies, do it for the people of Iraq, do it for the people who were devastated by Katrina, do it to bring legitimacy back to Congress and our Constitution, do it to raise our reputation in the international community, do it just because it is the right thing to do.

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4. CRACKING UP: ICE TURNING TO WATER, GLACIERS ON THE MOVE-AND A PLANET IN PERIL

BY

GEOFFREY LEAN

(A new study proves it was global warming that sent an Antarctic ice shelf larger than Luxembourg crashing into the ocean.)

Nothing else quite like it has happened at any time in the past 10,000 years. In just over a month an entire Antarctic ice shelf, bigger than a small country, disintegrated and disappeared, altering world atlases for ever.

A new study shows that the catastrophic collapse of the Larsen B shelf, four and a half years ago, was man-made, not an "act of God". It is thought to have been the first time that a major disaster has been proved to have been caused by global warming.

Research at the blue-chip British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge, published last week, has identified the causes of "dramatic warming" of the eastern side of the Antarctic peninsula, where the vast, 3,250 sq km expanse of ice used to be. Gareth Marshall, the lead author of the study, says it marks "the first time that anyone has been able to demonstrate a physical process directly linking the break-up of the Larsen ice shelf to human activity".

The research has also linked the collapse to the hole in the Earth's protective ozone layer that opens up over the Antarctic every southern spring. Nasa scientists reported last week that this year's hole, at a massive 10.6m square miles, is bigger than ever.

It was in March 2002 that the ice shelf - thought to have been stable for thousands of years - suddenly gave way. In just over 30 days an unimaginable 500bn tonnes of ice shattered into tens of thousands of icebergs, drifting in the Weddell Sea. This one event dumped more ice into the Southern Ocean that surrounds Antarctica than all the icebergs of the past 50 years combined.

"This is staggering", said the British Antarctic Survey's Dr David Vaughan at the time. "It fell over like a wall and has broken as if into hundreds of thousands of bricks."

But he added that though man-made climate change was "one of the best candidates" for causing the abrupt break-up of the shelf - some 200 metres thick, and larger than Luxembourg - "I can't, with my hand on my heart, link it to global warming."

And a leading sceptic, Professor Philip Stott, emeritus professor of biogeography at the University of London, insisted that the collapse was "only to be expected", adding that "simplistic, apocalyptic statements about 'global warming' have more to do with myth than reality."

Last year, however, American research showed that no other collapse of this size has taken place in the past 10,000 years, and it is becoming ever clearer that the Antarctic peninsula, which juts some 800km from the frozen continent towards the tip of Latin America, is heating up faster than anywhere on Earth.

The new study reports that it has warmed by a relatively large 2.94C since 1951, six times higher than the global average.

The scientists say that the main cause of the exceptional rise in temperature has been a strengthening in warm westerly winds blowing on to the peninsula.

This warmth melted ice on the surface, forming pools. This water then trickled down through the ice, widening crevasses as it went, thus fracturing the shelf and setting it up to shatter.

The collapse of Larsen B, and less dramatic disintegration of smaller shelves on the peninsula over the past decade, has led to some ominous knock-on effects. Glaciers which had been held back by them have begun moving up to eight times more rapidly towards the sea.

Scientists report that this is happening to some 200 glaciers on the peninsula, 87 per cent of the total.

Melting glaciers have much greater consequences than disintegrating shelves. Since the shelves float on the sea, they do not raise its level when they disappear, any more than a melting ice-cube increases the level of water in a glass. But the ice from glaciers does, because it comes off the land.

Worse, the British Antarctic Survey has found that the same thing is beginning to happen to the vast west Antarctic ice sheet, which scientists had thought would not be affected for 1,000 years. Some 250 cubic kilometres of it is disappearing every year; Professor Chris Rapley, the survey's director, calls it "an awakened giant".

Already the frozen continent's melting ice is helping to raise sea levels around the world by some 2 millimetres a year, but this is expected to get far, far worse. If the entire west Antarctic sheet were to disintegrate, the waters would rise by six metres around the globe, submerging the world's coastal cities, including much of London.

It is much the same story in the north. The Arctic ice sheet (there are few ice shelves there since these protrude from land, and the North Pole is covered by sea) is shrinking alarmingly.

By last month, it dwindled by an area the size of Turkey over usual September levels, the fifth successive year that it has melted far more than normal. It reached its second- lowest extent ever, after 2005, and scientists believe that it would easily have set a new record if it had not been for an abnormally cool August.

Even so, a giant patch of open water the size of Indiana opened up in the supposedly permanent ice cover north of Alaska. And at one stage the ice north of Spitzebergen fragmented so much that, for the first time, a ship could have sailed unhindered all the way from there to the North Pole.

In all, the United Nations Environment Programme says, the extent of Arctic summer ice has shrunk by a quarter in the past half-century, and has lost almost half its thickness.

The rate of loss is accelerating rapidly. Since 1979 the ice has been diminishing by about 0.15 per cent a year. But in the past two summers this has jumped to 6 per cent.

Some scientists believe we are approaching the point of no return, where the process feeds upon itself. For as the white ice - which reflects heat - melts, it will be replaced by dark water, and this absorbs heat. So the ocean will get even warmer, causing even greater melting, until all the ice is gone.

At the same time, as The Independent on Sunday exclusively reported last year, glaciers in Greenland are melting even faster than in Antarctica.

In the past two years alone, the rate of loss has grown by 250 per cent.

Scientists fear that this too may soon become irreversible, causing the whole Greenland ice cap to disappear, raising sea levels by another seven metres.

The melting ice also sends more fresh water into the North Atlantic, disrupting the huge but delicate system of currents that brings the Gulf Stream to warm Britain and Northern Europe, in winter. Research last year showed that the current, which prevents these places from having the same cold climate as Labrador, has already slowed by 30 per cent.

Nothing else quite like it has happened at any time in the past 10,000 years. In just over a month an entire Antarctic ice shelf, bigger than a small country, disintegrated and disappeared, altering world atlases for ever.

A new study shows that the catastrophic collapse of the Larsen B shelf, four and a half years ago, was man-made, not an "act of God". It is thought to have been the first time that a major disaster has been proved to have been caused by global warming.

Research at the blue-chip British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge, published last week, has identified the causes of "dramatic warming" of the eastern side of the Antarctic peninsula, where the vast, 3,250 sq km expanse of ice used to be. Gareth Marshall, the lead author of the study, says it marks "the first time that anyone has been able to demonstrate a physical process directly linking the break-up of the Larsen ice shelf to human activity".

The research has also linked the collapse to the hole in the Earth's protective ozone layer that opens up over the Antarctic every southern spring. Nasa scientists reported last week that this year's hole, at a massive 10.6m square miles, is bigger than ever.

It was in March 2002 that the ice shelf - thought to have been stable for thousands of years - suddenly gave way. In just over 30 days an unimaginable 500bn tonnes of ice shattered into tens of thousands of icebergs, drifting in the Weddell Sea. This one event dumped more ice into the Southern Ocean that surrounds Antarctica than all the icebergs of the past 50 years combined.

"This is staggering", said the British Antarctic Survey's Dr David Vaughan at the time. "It fell over like a wall and has broken as if into hundreds of thousands of bricks."

But he added that though man-made climate change was "one of the best candidates" for causing the abrupt break-up of the shelf - some 200 metres thick, and larger than Luxembourg - "I can't, with my hand on my heart, link it to global warming."

And a leading sceptic, Professor Philip Stott, emeritus professor of biogeography at the University of London, insisted that the collapse was "only to be expected", adding that "simplistic, apocalyptic statements about 'global warming' have more to do with myth than reality."

Last year, however, American research showed that no other collapse of this size has taken place in the past 10,000 years, and it is becoming ever clearer that the Antarctic peninsula, which juts some 800km from the frozen continent towards the tip of Latin America, is heating up faster than anywhere on Earth.

The new study reports that it has warmed by a relatively large 2.94C since 1951, six times higher than the global average.

The scientists say that the main cause of the exceptional rise in temperature has been a strengthening in warm westerly winds blowing on to the peninsula.

This warmth melted ice on the surface, forming pools. This water then trickled down through the ice, widening crevasses as it went, thus fracturing the shelf and setting it up to shatter.

The collapse of Larsen B, and less dramatic disintegration of smaller shelves on the peninsula over the past decade, has led to some ominous knock-on effects. Glaciers which had been held back by them have begun moving up to eight times more rapidly towards the sea.

Scientists report that this is happening to some 200 glaciers on the peninsula, 87 per cent of the total.

Melting glaciers have much greater consequences than disintegrating shelves. Since the shelves float on the sea, they do not raise its level when they disappear, any more than a melting ice-cube increases the level of water in a glass. But the ice from glaciers does, because it comes off the land.

Worse, the British Antarctic Survey has found that the same thing is beginning to happen to the vast west Antarctic ice sheet, which scientists had thought would not be affected for 1,000 years. Some 250 cubic kilometres of it is disappearing every year; Professor Chris Rapley, the survey's director, calls it "an awakened giant".

Already the frozen continent's melting ice is helping to raise sea levels around the world by some 2 millimetres a year, but this is expected to get far, far worse. If the entire west Antarctic sheet were to disintegrate, the waters would rise by six metres around the globe, submerging the world's coastal cities, including much of London.

It is much the same story in the north. The Arctic ice sheet (there are few ice shelves there since these protrude from land, and the North Pole is covered by sea) is shrinking alarmingly.

By last month, it dwindled by an area the size of Turkey over usual September levels, the fifth successive year that it has melted far more than normal. It reached its second- lowest extent ever, after 2005, and scientists believe that it would easily have set a new record if it had not been for an abnormally cool August.

Even so, a giant patch of open water the size of Indiana opened up in the supposedly permanent ice cover north of Alaska. And at one stage the ice north of Spitzebergen fragmented so much that, for the first time, a ship could have sailed unhindered all the way from there to the North Pole.

In all, the United Nations Environment Programme says, the extent of Arctic summer ice has shrunk by a quarter in the past half-century, and has lost almost half its thickness.

The rate of loss is accelerating rapidly. Since 1979 the ice has been diminishing by about 0.15 per cent a year. But in the past two summers this has jumped to 6 per cent.

Some scientists believe we are approaching the point of no return, where the process feeds upon itself. For as the white ice - which reflects heat - melts, it will be replaced by dark water, and this absorbs heat. So the ocean will get even warmer, causing even greater melting, until all the ice is gone.

At the same time, as The Independent on Sunday exclusively reported last year, glaciers in Greenland are melting even faster than in Antarctica.

In the past two years alone, the rate of loss has grown by 250 per cent.

Scientists fear that this too may soon become irreversible, causing the whole Greenland ice cap to disappear, raising sea levels by another seven metres.

The melting ice also sends more fresh water into the North Atlantic, disrupting the huge but delicate system of currents that brings the Gulf Stream to warm Britain and Northern Europe, in winter. Research last year showed that the current, which prevents these places from having the same cold climate as Labrador, has already slowed by 30 per cent.

Back to Top

5. "AMERICANS CAN'T HANDLE ANOTHER IMPEACHMENT," IS THE REPUBLICAN PROPAGANDA.

BY

LINDA MILAZZO

"Americans can't handle another impeachment." So say the supporters of George W. Bush in their anti-impeachment propaganda.

The truth is Americans CAN handle another impeachment. They CAN handle the truth. In fact, if Americans don't bring Bush and Cheney to justice after the atrocities they've committed, this nation will never reclaim its moral authority. And the people of this nation will be despised for unleashing these dangerous men on the world.

"Americans can't handle another impeachment" isn't a truth. It's a device. Like 'weapons of mass destruction.' 'A mushroom cloud.' 'Gassed his own people.' 'Sought significant quantities of uranium from A-f-r-i-c-a.' These are the sound bytes, the parroted propaganda, which brought us to war. Each is a proven lie, told time and again by well-rehearsed pundits. Verbatim delivery. Robotic form. Repeated ad nauseam by grown-up children of the damned. It sounded good for Nicholson in "A Few Good Men," but rings pretty hollow here. Americans CAN handle and probe for the truth.

As soon as the midterm elections were settled and Democrats took back control, the Republican parrots flew onto the scene. The first to land was smooth talking Connecticut Congressman Christopher Shays, who perched on cspan the morning of November 9th. Within minutes Shays proclaimed the pitfalls of impeachment, responding to an oped by former Republican House Majority Leader, Dick Armey. In his article, Armey advised Republicans to "demonstrate an ability to be good stewards of the taxpayers' hard-earned money. If Republicans do these things, they will also restore the public's faith in our standards of personal conduct."

Shays' conditioned response: "He's totally right, but we didn't lose that [the public's faith] in the last week or two or month. We lost it when we decided to go after the President [Clinton] and impeach him. The moment we did that Republicans thought this is how we gain the absolute majority. The irony is after trying to impeach the President in the sixth year of President Clinton's term in office we should have picked up seats. We lost seats. You would have thought right then and there that we would have woken up. We never got back to our agenda after impeachment."

Observe Shays' specific reference to the sixth year of the President's term. The message from Shays to Democrats: Impeaching George Bush will cost you in 2008.

The message from Democrats to Shays: We won't succumb to your sound bytes. We won't listen to your lies.

An analysis by John Nichols, written that same day in The Capital Times, proves historically that impeachment is not a political liability. Nichols says, "There have been nine attempts since the founding of the republic to move articles of impeachment against a sitting president. In the cases in which impeachment was proposed by members of an opposition party, that party either maintained or improved its position in Congress at the next general election. In seven instances the party that proposed impeachment secured the presidency in the next election."

Thus quashing Shays' Republican propaganda.

If America and Americans are to be resurrected in the eyes of the world, proper investigation of the Bush administration is a Democratic mandate. If, as I believe, incontrovertible evidence of Bush and Cheney's high crimes and misdemeanors is uncovered, impeachment proceedings should go forth. Already, prior to any Congressional investigations taking place, volumes have been written delineating the impeachable crimes of Bush and Cheney. High level symposiums have been held. Dozens of Constitutional scholars have spoken, all convinced of their guilt.

Conversely, prior to Bill Clinton's impeachment, just one principal volume detailing his "crime" was prepared. A scandalous and shameful project, salaciously compiled by Special Prosecutor Ken Starr in a political witch hunt that was obvious to the world. The impeachment of Bill Clinton was an international embarrassment. To most of the world, Clinton was a beloved and respected leader, guilty of a personal indiscretion. Not of high crimes and misdemeanors. Not of lying the nation into war. Not of bypassing and ignoring the Constitution. Not of reversing a Constitutionally prescribed centuries old law.

What shocked the world most about Bill Clinton's impeachment was that he was ever impeached at all. It made a farce of our political system, and our values. Americans appeared petty and juvenile. Unable to distinguish between what was crucial to good governance and what was not. Impeaching Bill Clinton was a black mark on our history. Not against him. Against us.

But impeaching George W. Bush will be constructive for America and Americans. It will be educational. Americans will watch the proceedings and learn about the Constitution. They'll receive a long overdo lesson on the Constitutional responsibilities of their President, the balance of powers, and gain a clearer understanding of their own rights and freedoms. Americans will acquire an insight into proper governance to make them better stewards of their democracy.

America, the nation, will regain some of the moral authority diminished by Bush and Cheney. The rest of the world will know that America can distinguish between insignificant and substantial. Clinton was impeached for matters insignificant to his leadership of the nation. Bush will be impeached for matters so substantial that they caused the deaths of thousands and endangered the whole world.

Americans needn't worry that Impeachment proceedings and investigative hearings will detract from Congress' time to attend to its legislative responsibilities. I have the utmost confidence in the organizational skills of Speaker Pelosi. I'm certain she will institute a process which permits Congress to fulfill its legislative duties while addressing the Executive's dereliction of duty. Unlike prior Speaker Hastert, Speaker Pelosi has made clear her edict to put an end to the House as a part-time Institution and return it to a full-time, fully functioning place of governance. We will hold her to that promise.

Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid were voted a mandate to probe for the truth. Though Pelosi contends "Impeachment is off the table," we patriots contend that it is not. When Pelosi says "Democrats don't get even," we say, Madame Speaker, we're not impeaching to get even. We're impeaching to make even... the Branches of government that have gotten out of line.

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6. THEIR VIEW OF THE WORLD IS THROUGH A BOMBSIGHT
(American support for Israel's unwinnable aim of destroying Hizbullah only boosts its support in Lebanon and beyond)

BY

NOAM CHOMSKY

In Lebanon, a little-honored truce remains in effect - yet another in a decades-long series of ceasefires between Israel and its adversaries in a cycle that, as if inevitably, returns to warfare, carnage and human misery. Let's describe the current crisis for what it is: a US-Israeli invasion of Lebanon, with only a cynical pretense to legitimacy. Amid all the charges and counter-charges, the most immediate factor behind the assault is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

This is hardly the first time that Israel has invaded Lebanon to eliminate an alleged threat. The most important of the US-backed Israeli invasions of Lebanon, in 1982, was widely described in Israel as a war for the West Bank. It was undertaken to end the Palestinian Liberation Organisation's annoying calls for a diplomatic settlement. Despite many different circumstances, the July invasion falls into the same pattern.

What would break the cycle? The basic outlines of a solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict have been supported by a broad international consensus for 30 years: a two-state settlement on the international border, perhaps with minor and mutual adjustments.

The Arab states formally accepted this proposal in 2002, as the Palestinians had long before. Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has made it clear that though this solution is not Hizbullah's preference, they will not disrupt it. Iran's "supreme leader" Ayatollah Khamenei recently reaffirmed that Iran too supports this settlement. Hamas has indicated clearly that it is prepared to negotiate for a settlement in these terms as well.

The US and Israel continue to block this political settlement, as they have done for 30 years, with brief and inconsequential exceptions. Denial may be preferred at home, but the victims do not enjoy that luxury.

US-Israeli rejectionism is not only in words but, more importantly, in actions. With decisive US backing, Israel has been formalizing its program of annexation, dismemberment of shrinking Palestinian territories and imprisonment of what remains by taking over the Jordan valley - the "convergence" program that is, astonishingly, called "courageous withdrawal" in the US.

In consequence, the Palestinians are facing national destruction. The most meaningful support for Palestine is from Hizbullah, which was formed in reaction to the 1982 invasion. It won considerable prestige by leading the effort to force Israel to withdraw from Lebanon in 2000. Also, like other Islamic movements including Hamas, Hizbullah has gained popular support by providing social services to the poor.

To US and Israeli planners it therefore follows that Hizbullah must be severely weakened or destroyed, just as the PLO had to be evicted from Lebanon in 1982. But Hizbullah is so deeply embedded in society that it cannot be eradicated without destroying much of Lebanon as well. Hence the scale of the attack on the country's population and infrastructure.

In keeping with a familiar pattern, the aggression is sharply increasing the support for Hizbullah, not only in the Arab and Muslim worlds beyond, but also in Lebanon itself. Late last month, polls revealed that 87% of Lebanese support Hizbullah's resistance against the invasion, including 80% of Christians and Druze. Even the Maronite Catholic patriarch, the spiritual leader of the most pro-western sector in Lebanon, joined Sunni and Shia religious leaders in a statement condemning the "aggression" and hailing "the resistance, mainly led by Hizbullah". The poll also found that 90% of Lebanese regard the US as "complicit in Israel's war crimes against the Lebanese people".

Amal Saad-Ghorayeb, Lebanon's leading academic scholar on Hizbullah, observes that "these findings are all the more significant when compared to the results of a similar survey conducted just five months ago, which showed that only 58% of all Lebanese believed Hizbullah had the right to remain armed, and hence continue its resistance activity".

The dynamics are familiar. Rami Khouri, an editor of Lebanon's Daily Star, writes that "the Lebanese and Palestinians have responded to Israel's persistent and increasingly savage attacks against entire civilian populations by creating parallel or alternative leaderships that can protect them and deliver essential services".

Such popular forces will only gain in power and become more extremist if the US and Israel persist in demolishing any hope of Palestinian national rights, and in destroying Lebanon.

Even King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, Washington's oldest ally in the region, was compelled to say: "If the peace option is rejected due to the Israeli arrogance, then only the war option remains, and no one knows the repercussions befalling the region, including wars and conflict that will spare no one, including those whose military power is now tempting them to play with fire."

It is no secret that Israel has helped to destroy secular Arab nationalism and to create Hizbullah and Hamas, just as US violence has expedited the rise of extremist Islamic fundamentalism and jihadi terror. The latest adventure is likely to create new generations of bitter and angry jihadis, just as the invasion of Iraq did.

Israeli writer Uri Avnery observed that the Israeli chief of staff Dan Halutz, a former air force commander, "views the world below through a bombsight". Much the same is true of Rumsfeld, Cheney, Rice and other top Bush administration planners. As history reveals, that view of the world is not uncommon among those who wield most of the means of violence.

Saad-Ghorayeb describes the current violence in "apocalyptic terms", warning that possibly "all hell would be let loose" if the outcome of the US-Israel campaign leaves a situation in which "the Shia community is seething with resentment at Israel, the US and the government that it perceives as its betrayer".

The core issue - the Israel-Palestine conflict - can be settled by diplomacy, if the US and Israel abandon their rejectionist commitments. Other outstanding problems in the region are also susceptible to negotiation and diplomacy. Their success can never be guaranteed. But we can be reasonably confident that viewing the world through a bombsight will bring further misery and suffering, perhaps even in "apocalyptic terms".

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