Sun News Page 4 A Wednesday

Left column is Sun News Page 4 A Editorial Wednesday, Jan. 1, 2003	Right Column is Peace Responsorial by David Boje, Ph.D. www.PeaceAware.com
Looking for Unity in 2003 On this first day of the New Year, we face both known and as-yet unidentified dangers and challenges from abroad. Iraq and North Korea, nations led by criminal cliques, have demonstrated both a fondness for dangerous weapons of mass destruction and mad recklessness that could result in their use.	Looking For Disunity in 2003 On the first day of the New Year, attended Peace Vigil from 4 to 6 PM, on Church Street, in front of the Federal Building. We believe the identifiable danger is the Bush/Cheney administration reinvention of the Cold War. Militarism of the US industrial complex has the most weapons of mass destruction and a mad recklessness to use them.
Tens of thousands of terrorists remain at loose, dedicated to our destruction. Many of them are hosted in nations like Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, which remain nominally our allies.	Conservative press uses fear tactics with unsupported references to tens of thousands of terrorists. Two more nations added by conservative press to axis of evil. Is this objective reporting?
Others survive in sleeper cells hidden within this and other countries.	Cold war media propaganda sees sleeper cell hidden under every Bush.
The third member of the so-named "Axis of Evil," Iran, struggles to suppress a student-led democratic movement even as it, too, strives to obtain dangerous weapons. It joins quasi-terrorist states such as Syria in financing, protecting and equipping many of the anti-Western killer gangs.	Conservatist media is setting Iran up as the post-Iraq War candidate for destruction, using the premise that War can bring about democratic movement. US CIA and military trained the terrorists, selling nations weapons and wonders why there is war.
Yet there are reasons for hope on the international front. President Bush, perhaps more belatedly than we would have preferred, has put together an international coalition, which might yet achieve a regime change in Iraq, thereby reducing the danger posed by that nation by employing means short of war.	The regime change we need is to impeach Bush Jr. and Cheney so that leadership which can build an international peace coalition can be elected.
President Bush has displayed shrewd leadership in identifying those abroad that threaten American lives and interests before moving methodically against them.	Bush's shrewd leadership is to follow the example of his father -- go to war, rally the people to fear, in order to cover over a recession economy at home.
He does so with the knowledge that history's finest and most powerful military stands capably behind his threats. This military is made up of incredibly committed, skilled and patriotic young American men and women.	US military during Vietnam War fragged over 1,000 commissioned and noncom officers (Hellinger & Judd, 1991:214). Since fiscal year 1986, US spends $1.8 billion a year ($5,400 per recruit). Ads alone cost $216 billion. 2003 budget is $400 billion.
We can only hope that the world's knowledge of our military capabilities, coupled with an understanding of our willingness to use them, might prevent rather than necessitate the shedding of young American blood.	US used its military power in Vietnam, Granada, Panama, Iraq I, Afghanistan, Iraq II. The war machine sheds young American blood.
The freedom movement in Iran shows remarkable resistance to the pressures of the Mad Mullahs and their colleagues in suppression. A democratically elected government in Iran, although devoid of actual power, demonstrates the eternal appeal of democracy and freedom.	US CIA deposed Iran government to install the Shah. Fact: 1994 Senate subcommittee hearing, found US corporations were key suppliers of toxins and spores Iraq used to build up its chemical and biological arsenal it then used against Iran (Boje, 2002a).
This "will to be free" is one of the most hopeful signs greeting the New Year. The women of Afghanistan, the people of Iran, and the resistance movement in Iraq, all follow a long-line of freedom wishers who in recent years have overthrown tyrannical and repressive governments throughout Eastern Europe and Asia.	US media propaganda is that it spreads democracy. Actually. Actually US props up what every tyrannical and repressive government gives the empire economic advantage.
When freedom and democracy spread throughout the Middle East, it will be the terrorists, and not the Americans, who find themselves alone.	The reason the US is alone is because it trained the terrorists who trained more terrorists, who turned against them. Since 1946, School of the Americas "has trained more than 60,000 Latin American soldiers and policemen. Among its graduates are many of the continent's most notorious torturers, mass murderers, dictators and state terrorists" (Monbiot, 2002) .
Perhaps the most troubling of developments recently in the United States is one that leaves us less prepared to face the dangers from abroad.	The most troubling development is the Bush/Cheney administration war machine used to expand US empire.
That is the vanishing consensus, which has heretofore largely united the American people and its government behind most domestic and international strategies employed in our defense against the terrorist campaign.	There was no consensus to vanish. Most Americans prefer peace to war, and do not support perpetual series of wars. War is terror.
While a certain "politically correct" and morally incorrect contempt for American and Western values is behind some of the fracturing of the American consensus, some actions by the administration have also served to fray our unity.	One action that frays unity is growing gap between the rich and the poor, growing unemployment rate, and a weak economy -- stores were not doing a booming business this holiday season. "Overuse of flags and slogans is a sure sign of a totalitarian system" (Ahmed, 2002: 337).
At a time when Americans are being asked to curtail some of our traditional privileges, it would be comforting to have an attorney general who displays more of a commitment to our constitutional rights.	Agree, our constitutional rights are being curtailed as Homeland Security gobbles them up.
Baseless accusations that the president of the United States would start a war risking tens of thousands of American lives to enrich his "oil buddies" are beyond the pale and are deserving of contempt. (Note: Font size in the published version, sets this out as main quote of the article).	Iraq is an oil war benefiting the oil oligarchy that will obtain $1.1 trillion in oil contracts after US installs the already selected regime. Bush and Cheney are oil men; the plan to grab oil in the Middle East and in Alaska Natural Wildlife Refuge was set in place before 9-11, in fact before Bush & Cheney took office. Try Boje (2002b) Oil and Empire: Say No to the Oil War. 2000 Bush Jr., Cheney, & oil corporations planned Iraq invasion before the election (Cheney Energy Report).“Wag the dog is, of course, the name of a famous film in which an American president invents a fictitious war in order to divert attention away from a scandal at home” (Branson, 2002: 1). The idea of an American president plunging the country into war and foreign affairs to escape scandal or economic woes is nothing new. Nixon dove into foreign affairs with China to escape Watergate. Reagan worked a deal to prolong the hostage crisis till after the election against Carter. Clinton did it on the eve of the Monicagate hearings with Operation Dessert Fox. Bush Sr. temporarily diverted attention from a failing economy with Dessert Storm. Bush Sr. in 1992 after winning a military war, lost an economic and ultimately political one. Bush Jr. seeing the enormous jumps in popularity of Bush Sr. after the victory of the Gulf War, did not waste any time in pursuing the Afghanistan and Iraq wars (with North Korea & Iran assigned next war status).
There are also many good, some perhaps naive, Americans who are dissuaded of the correctness of our government's course. They do not oppose America.	The only thing naive and dissuaded is the media propaganda of the Sun News editorial. Where's the facts of the "correctness" of unilateral preemptive war on Iraq?
The government would be wise to spend more time and effort in friendly persuasion. In the bigger interest of building national unity to face the dangers from abroad, the president might find it wise to appoint a new attorney general, someone like John McCain for example, who would better inspire confidence from the American people as a whole.	Government friendly persuasion is the corporate owned News Media Group chain of papers (owner of Sun News) is biased to the conservatism agenda of militarism and empire. In 1993 10 corporations controlled 40% of daily circulation (Greider, 1993: 40). The political slant is far right political view that replaced Red Menace with the Islam Menace, in the new Cold War, media propaganda machine.
At best, it is distracting to the defense of our freedoms from attack by international terrorists when we also have to be concerned by attempts to undermine them at home by our own John Ashcroft.	True, Ashcroft has nothing but contempt for the civil liberties granted to us by the constitution. Sign the Las Cruces Peace and Freedom Resolution; pending resolutions in Albuquerque, Socorro, and Taos. Santa Fe's resolution already passed.
The year 2003 is one in which we will face many dangers.	2003 is the year Bush and Cheney plan to invade Iraq.
During the American Revolution, it was said, "We had better hang together or they will hang us each separately."	The new American revolution grows when we give others hope by dumping Star Wars initiative and Iraq sanctions that has killed 500,000 children.
A key component of the war against terrorism must increasingly include the building and maintenance of national unity.	Political discourse in the media could be about a multitude of voices in a press free of conservativism and militarism bias.
This will require an effort on the part of our political leaders to avoid petty partisanship and greater efforts to speak and listen respectfully to each other by all Americans.	Elections of both parties are privatized, with candidates from both parties an extension of corporate PAC monies. Campaign finance reform will de-facade democracy.
Our fate is ultimately in our own hands.	Think alternative media.
No References Listed.	References Ahmed, Nafeez Mosaddeq (2002). The War on Freedom: How and Why America was Attacked September 11, 2001. Joshua Tree, CA: Tree of Life Publications. Boje, D. M. (2002a). Postmodern Oil War II: Empire Strikes Back Sequel - FACTS versus PROPAGANDA. October 16, 2002 Boje, D. M. (2002b). Oil and Empire: Say No to the Oil War. October 28, 2002. Branson, Louise (2002). Will Bush wag the dog in wake of Enrongate? The Straits Times (Singapore). January 19, Pg. 1. Greider, William (1993). Who Will Tell the People: The Betrayal of American Democracy. NY Simon & Schuster. Hellinger, Daniel & Judd, Dennis R. (1991) The democratic facade. Pacific Grove, CA: Brooke/Cole Publishing Company. Las Cruces Peace and Freedom Resolution - see www.PeaceAware.com Monbiot, George (2001). Backyard terrorism: The US has been training terrorists at a camp in Georgia for years - and it's still at it Tuesday October 30, 2001 The Guardian.

Looking for Unity in 2003

Looking For Disunity in 2003

Baseless accusations that the president of the United States would start a war risking tens of thousands of American lives to enrich his "oil buddies" are beyond the pale and are deserving of contempt. (Note: Font size in the published version, sets this out as main quote of the article).