------- Index of Articles
NUCLEAR
World's governments watching U.S. presidential election
Rio Tinto pursuing mining in Unesco world heritage site
India, Pak. urged to exercise restraint
Rajasthan power project goes critical
Kim finds credibility comes cheap
North Korea And U.S. End Missile Talks
Alarm at radioactive rivers in Siberia
Really observe Veterans Day
Mitch Albom: How times change; just check daisies
Ticking 'Legacies'
MILITARY
Drug traffickers exploit the weak
Wargames: Air Force Space Command's Battle Plans
-------- NUCLEAR
World's governments watching U.S. presidential election
CNN
November 4, 2000
http://www.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/europe/11/04/president.foreignview.ap/index.html
LONDON, England (AP) -- It's diplomatically incorrect to take sides in the U.S. presidential election, but the world's governments have a deep interest in the outcome.
http://www.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/europe/11/04/president.foreignview.ap/map.london.jpg
China worries about George W. Bush's enthusiasm for a missile shield; Al Gore alarmed many Arabs by choosing a Jewish running mate; Indian analysts say a Bush presidency would spare their country from signing the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
http://www.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/europe/11/04/president.foreignview.ap/link.george.bush.jpg
http://www.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/europe/11/04/president.foreignview.ap/link.al.gore.jpg
Cuban president Fidel Castro, meanwhile, has taken a pugnaciously neutral position. "Neither of them interests me in the least," he has said. "We are ready to fight whoever it is."
http://www.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/europe/11/04/president.foreignview.ap/link.castro.jpg
One of the few indications that some Chinese officials lean toward Gore came in an article last month in the Beijing Review, a state-run magazine. Two researchers at the National Defense University suggested a Bush victory could set back China-U.S. relations, saying he views China as a rival, would bolster Taiwan and build the missile defense system Beijing finds threatening and that his China policy "would produce grave results if he won."
http://www.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/europe/11/04/president.foreignview.ap/map.china.beijing.jpg
The official line, laid out Thursday by Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhu Bangzao, is that the election is an internal U.S. affair and "we will not interfere." Zhu did, however, reiterate China's opposition to the missile shield.
http://www.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/europe/11/04/president.foreignview.ap/link.zhu.bangzao.jpg
China, Russia, Britain, France, Germany and Canada all expressed relief when U.S. President Bill Clinton announced in September that he would postpone a decision on the missile defense system, handing the issue to his successor. Clinton said he was not convinced the system would work, given present technology.
http://www.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/europe/11/04/president.foreignview.ap/link.clinton.jpg
Bush supports rapid deployment of the system; Gore has been noncommittal.
In Hong Kong, the business sector is thought to lean toward Gore, based on calculations of the impact of Bush's proposed tax cuts. It is believed that lower taxes would boost U.S. imports from Taiwan and South Korea, to Hong Kong's disadvantage; and that tax cuts could lead to higher U.S. interest rates -- which would lead to higher rates in Hong Kong as well because its currency is linked to the dollar.
http://www.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/europe/11/04/president.foreignview.ap/map.hong.kong.gif
http://www.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/europe/11/04/president.foreignview.ap/map.south.korea.lg.jpg
Russia has enjoyed a close relationship with Gore's Democratic Party in recent years because of Clinton's friendship with former president Boris Yeltsin and Gore's own involvement in diplomatic relations.
http://www.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/europe/11/04/president.foreignview.ap/link.yeltsin.cnn.jpg
President Vladimir Putin's government has wooed the Republicans too, and Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov met Bush in April. Those overtures were soured by Bush's charge during a debate that former prime minister Viktor Chernomyrdin misappropriated loans from the International Monetary Fund. Chernomyrdin demanded an apology and threatened to sue.
http://www.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/europe/11/04/president.foreignview.ap/link.vladimir.putin.jpg
http://www.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/europe/11/04/president.foreignview.ap/link.igor.ivanov.jpg
http://www.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/europe/11/04/president.foreignview.ap/link.viktor.chernomyrdin.jpg
India has been careful not to take sides, but political analyst Praful Bidwai says the government is comfortable with Bush's opposition to the Test Ban Treaty.
Gore has said one of his first acts as president would be to resubmit the treaty to the Senate for confirmation. India, which conducted nuclear tests in 1998, has refused to sign it but would be under more pressure to do so if the United States ratified it.
No Israeli political leader has declared for a candidate, but history suggests Gore would be the choice. Clinton was a much more popular president in Israel than Bush's father, former President George Bush.
D. Hisham Ahmad, a Palestinian political analyst, says the election will make "very little difference" to U.S. policy in the Middle East, in part because Congress has great influence.
"It is almost always the case that presidential candidates, senatorial candidates, congressional candidates compete with each other as who wants to prove his loyalty or her loyalty to Israel," Ahmad said.
Egyptian media, even those which support the government, strongly attacked Gore's choice of Joseph Lieberman as his running mate.
http://www.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/europe/11/04/president.foreignview.ap/link.lieberman.jpg
"With this decision, he has unveiled his ugly face to continue the chain of surrender that started by Clinton when he handed over all the important strategic posts to American Jews who mostly worked in pro-Israel research centers," Galal Dwaidarin, editor of the state-owned newspaper al-Akhbar, wrote in August.
Raymond Chretien, Canada's former ambassador to the United States, stirred a controversy in June by describing Gore as "a friend of Canada."
http://www.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/europe/11/04/president.foreignview.ap/link.jean.chretien.jpg
"Governor Bush, on the other hand, doesn't know us as much. Seems to have forgotten the name of our prime minister," said Chretien, nephew of Prime Minister Jean Chretien. The ambassador has since been moved from Washington to Paris.
http://www.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/europe/11/04/president.foreignview.ap/map.france.paris.jpg
Across the United States' southern border, Delal Baer, a Mexico-based analyst for the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said she detects a preference for Bush in some circles because he has shown more interest in Mexico.
http://www.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/europe/11/04/president.foreignview.ap/map.mexico.city.jpg
President-elect Vicente Fox has met both candidates but refused to declare a preference. "They say I stick my foot in my mouth a lot, but this time I'm not going to," he said.
http://www.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/europe/11/04/president.foreignview.ap/link.fox.mexico.ap.jpg
-------- australia
Rio Tinto pursuing mining in Unesco world heritage site
Earth Times News Service
11/04/00
By MARK SCHULMAN
http://www.earthtimes.org/nov/environmentriotintoprusingnov4_00.htm
DARWIN, Australia--Environmental groups in Australia are urging mining-giant Rio Tinto to abandon a proposed uranium mine in the Kakadu National Park.
Kakadu is listed as one of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (Unesco) World Heritage site. The call comes shortly after the international natural resource company acquired Australian mining company North Limited, and in effect, its Jabiluka mining lease.
"We know that they're [Rio Tinto] conducting a review of all of North's operations and their working out which of those operations they want to maintain and which of the ones they want to sell off, so as yet they haven't made any public announcements about the future of Jabiluka,"Mark Wakeham of the Northern Territory Environment Centre said in a recent interview on Australian radio.
Located 240 miles east of Darwin, the capital of Australia's Northern Territory, Jabiluka is one of the world's highest-grade uranium deposits, with the potential to yield more than 90,400 tons of the valuable, energy producing mineral over 28 years.
Australia has more than 25 percent of the world's low cost uranium reserves. Although it does not generate its own nuclear power, the mining of such minerals as uranium continues to be one of the country's most important export industries. According to statistics published by the Australian Bureau of Agriculture and Resource Economics, the value of Australian exports of uranium is forecasted to rise by $39.5 million in 2000-01 to $232.5 million.
The United States, Japan and the European Union (EU) are the three largest importers of Australian uranium ore. Full-scale mining has yet to commence at Jabiluka, but some infrastructure has already been built, including a portal, retention pond and access road. There are proposals to start low-level production by 2001.
Many local environmental organizations and Aboriginal groups believe that the proposed mining project threatens the natural and cultural values of the region, especially considering it lies within the borders of Kakadu National Park.
Of the 630 World Heritage sites around the world, Kakadu is one of the few that has been listed for both its natural and cultural heritage. Not only was the 8,000 square mile park created to protect the habitats of hundreds of animal and plant species, many endemic to the region, but it also protects one of the most extensive collections of Aboriginal rock paintings in the world, dating back some 50,000 thousand years.
The Great Barrier Reef and Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park (Ayer's Rock) are also listed as Unesco World Heritage sites. Under a 1976 Land Rights Act, Aboriginal people have control over their traditional lands within Kakadu, including the area of several mining sites. Under an agreement with the government, the Park is co managed by its Aboriginal traditional owners with the Australian National Parks and Wildlife. The government, however, still maintains ultimate political sovereignty and ownership of mineral resources in their pre-extractive state.
The Mirrar people, one of the legal title holders to the area surrounding and including the Jabiluka mineral lease, oppose the uranium mine. They say that mining and its associated social, economic and political impacts are the single greatest impact on their living tradition, and that an additional mine will push their culture past the point of cultural exhaustion to genocidal decay.
"We say no to uranium mining now and for the future," says Jacqui Katona of the Mirrar clan. "Our right to say no comes from our ancestors, our heritage, our law and culture, our Native title."
There are over 200 sacred sites within the leased area, including burial sites and rock art that could be under threat from mining activities. There are also serious environment concerns to consider, especially given the poor environmental record of the nearby Ranger mine, which according to the Australian Wilderness Society has breached some 96 environmental safeguards and practices during its 16 years of operation. Environmentalists fear that the long-term effects associated with radioactive waste and leaching from the mine could disrupt the park's fragile ecosystem.
In July 1999, the Unesco Heritage Committee heard pleas from environmental groups and Aboriginal leaders to list Kakadu National Park "in danger" due to the development of the Jabiluka uranium mine. After a highly publicized campaign, the Committee came out in favor of the Australian government saying that it was their responsibility to regulate the activities of private companies at Jabiluka to ensure the protection of the World Heritage values of Kakadu.
The World Heritage Committee said, though, that it would continue to monitor the effect of uranium mining on the park and its traditional Aboriginal owners, and called on the Australian government to provide progress reports on the safety of its mining activities within the park.
"Kakadu is well protected and the Jabiluka mine will have no adverse impact on world heritage values," Australian Environment Minister Robert Hill said in a recent statement.
"Work at Jabiluka will progress in accordance with stringent environmental conditions imposed by the Australian and Northern Territories governments," he added. "All operations will be consistent with commitments given by Australia to the World Heritage Committee at last year's meeting."
Responding to the Minister's comments and the government's overall involvement in the case, Mark Wakeham said that the Australian government can't be entrusted with World Heritage values. "The government made a whole range of promises last year to the World Heritage Committee and we believe they delivered on very few of those promises."
The Australian government was asked to formulate a detailed mapping of scared sites on the Jabiluka mineral lease, a cultural heritage management plan and a comprehensive package of social and welfare benefits for all the Aboriginal communities of Kakadu.
The next World Heritage Committee will meet in Cairns, Australia in December to re-consider Kakadu's status as an endangered site and to see whether or not the Australian government has lived up to its commitments.
The upcoming meeting, coupled with the Rio Tinto take-over of the disputed mining area, will give Australia an opportunity to take a fresh look at Jabiluka debate.
-------- india / pakistan
India, Pak. urged to exercise restraint
The Hindu - PTI
Saturday, November 04, 2000
http://www.indiaserver.com/thehindu/2000/11/04/stories/0104000b.htm
WASHINGTON, NOV. 3. The U.S. today admitted that neither India nor Pakistan were ``going to give up their nuclear weapons'' unless some underlying issues were resolved but appealed for restraint on both sides, even as it ruled out its mediation over the Kashmir issue.
The U.S. Assistant Secretary of State, Mr. Karl Inderfurth, also dismissed the apprehension in some quarters that India and Pakistan were ``on the brink of nuclear war'' over the Kashmir issue but said ``concern about their nuclear missile production is one that we share''.
``There is an expression about the Kashmir issue that India cannot lose it, Pakistan cannot win it and the Kashmiris themselves cannot survive it. It must be addressed and I hope the U.S. can continue to play a useful role there,'' Mr. Inderfurth said in a panel discussion on American University Radio.
``I believe it is possible for India and Pakistan to resolve this (Kashmir issue). I don't think it is beyond the grasp of the two countries. With political will and courage, it could be addressed. The U.S. should do everything we can to support that process,'' he added.
To a question on U.S. mediation on Kashmir, he said ``we cannot mediate the Kashmir issue as we have said publicly over and over again. (But) I do believe we should do more. We can demonstrate our concern, and that is something President Clinton has done during his time in office, and I believe the next President will take up that same concern''.
The U.S. wanted China, another nuclear neighbour of India, also to exercise restraint, Mr. Inderfurth said when a questioner pointed out that New Delhi had to keep Beijing's nuclear arsenal in mind in regard to its own security.
He said for a very long time South Asian affairs in the U.S. had been on the backburner. ``We have been able to put it much higher in terms of the United States' priorities during the last two years. I do think that more attention should be paid.'' The great concern for the U.S. - and that is what President Clinton stressed when he was in New Delhi and Islamabad - is that India and Pakistan need to resume dialogue, he said.
There was a great deal of solid optimism that finally India and Pakistan were beginning to talk in a serious fashion when the Prime Minister, Mr. Atal Behari Vajpayee, undertook his ``bus diplomacy'' and had a summit in Lahore with the then Prime Minister, Mr. Nawaz Sharif, last year, he said.
--------
Rajasthan power project goes critical
The Hindu - PTI
Saturday, November 04, 2000
http://www.indiaserver.com/thehindu/2000/11/04/stories/01040004.htm
MUMBAI, NOV 3.The unit-4 of the Rajasthan Atomic Power Project (RAPP) of the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) achieved criticality early today after obtaining regulatory clearance from the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB).
Rapp-4 is a 220 Mw pressurised heavy water Reactor (PHWR) which will be synchronised to the northern grid soon, and with this the total number of operating nuclear reactors will go upto 14 with a total installed nuclear power capacity of 2720 Mw, NPCIL sources said.
With RAPP-4 going operational, NPCIL has commissioned four nuclear reactors-Kaiga-1, Kaiga-2, Rajasthan-3 and Rajasthan-4- with a cumulative capacity of 800 Mw in one year. The Corporation plans to increase its total installed nuclear power capacity to 20,000 Mw by 2020. Rapp-3 had attained criticality in December 1999 and was synchronised to the grid in March 2000. The RAPP, situated at Rawatbhata is the largest nuclear park in the country.
-------- korea
Kim finds credibility comes cheap
Sydney Morning Herald
11/04/2000
By MICHAEL MILLETT, Herald Correspondent in Seoul
http://www.smh.com.au/news/0011/04/text/world12.html
http://www.theage.com.au/news/20001104/A25093-2000Nov3.html
Kim Jong-il's greatest skill is his ability to confound the outside world.
The North Korean despot first did it by defying predictions that his desperately poor nation would collapse under the weight of its Stalinist ideology.
He did it again by striding into the international spotlight in mid-June, shattering his image as a paranoid recluse with his historic deal with his southern counterpart, Kim Dae-jung, for a new spirit of co-operation.
Now the diminutive dictator with the unique fashion sense threatens to do it again.
The enigmatic "Dear Leader" appears to be using his emerging diplomatic talents to outmanoeuvre vastly bigger, richer and more experienced rivals.
Last week, Kim received the United States Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, the first Cabinet-ranked American official to visit the country.
Now he is within reach of the biggest diplomatic coup of all, a presidential visit to Pyongyang. Bill Clinton, in the dying days of his second term and anxious for a last diplomatic flourish, is believed to be very keen.
While in Pyongyang, Albright appears to have extracted a commitment from Kim to abandon ballistic missile tests - a longtime Washington objective. A Clinton visit now hinges on the ability of US and North Korean officials to negotiate a more detailed non-missile pact during talks that ended in Kuala Lumpur yesterday.
Critics in Washington and Seoul have dismissed the possible trip as the act of a lame-duck White House administration.
But that does not worry Kim. Getting the leader of the free world to Pyongyang for a picture opportunity is priceless public relations for the regime - a huge stride in its campaign for international respectability.
And at what cost? The fear being voiced by many of the policy elite in the US, Japan and South Korea is that for Pyongyang the downside is negligible.
It feeds into an even wider concern: that despite constant assurances that all three countries are working in sync on North Korean policy, things are already starting to fragment.
Pyongyang has proved adept in the past at exploiting bickering between the various peninsula "stakeholders".
"There is every indication that Kim is doing exactly that now," says Robert Dujarric, a research fellow with a Washington-based think tank, the Hudson Institute.
Dujarric argues the Clinton Administration is maintaining Washington's traditional obsession with Pyongyang's still unproved nuclear capabilities. This works to Kim's advantage.
"He has already agreed to freeze missile testing, so he loses nothing ... the US should be pressuring the North to take more concrete steps to lessen the military threat it poses. That means moving its mobile rocket launchers and heavy artillery from the [South Korean border]."
Kim's conciliatory noises towards Washington are motivated by fears that if the Republicans triumph in next week's election he will face a considerably more hostile White House.
But South Korean academics say even George W. Bush will have to temper his approach. An expert on North Korea, Lee Chung-min, of Yonsei University, argues that "the Americans will have to stake a claim in the reunification process" simply to avoid being wedged out by the Chinese.
Being "wedged out" is also a preoccupation for the Japanese.
While Washington is seeking curbs on Pyongyang's Taepodong missile program, which can lob warheads onto the US's doorstep, for Japan and Korea the threat comes from the Rodong missile, Scud-B and C and more than 10,000 units of artillery deployed north of the 38th parallel.
South Korea is backing the US engagement. Senior officials say a Clinton trip would sustain the post-summit momentum and give a boost to the government of Kim Dae-jung, which is battling a new financial crisis and opposition claims that it is getting nothing from the North in return for its financial assistance.
Progress on a number of fronts has been agonisingly slow. Pyongyang continues to resist Seoul's calls for an escalated family reunion program, enabling aging Koreans to meet relatives across the border before they die.
The Asia Foundation's Scott Snyder points out that at the present rate it would take 100 years to complete the reunion program.
Lee says it is a classic example of Kim's ability to play a multi-level game, keeping his country alive while preserving his power base.
"You negotiate at one level, extract whatever benefits you can and then shift to the next level. But it can't go on forever. Sooner or later Kim has to decide whether he is going to commit to reunification."
---
North Korea And U.S. End Missile Talks
International Herald Tribune
Paris, Saturday, November 4, 2000
The Associated Press
http://www.iht.com/IHT/TODAY/SAT/IN/kor.2.html
KUALA LUMPUR - The United States and North Korea ended three days of talks Friday without arriving at a formula to curb the Communist country's missile program, according to U.S. and North Korean officials.
Although progress had been made during the discussions, ''significant issues remain to be explored and resolved,'' said Robert Einhorn, the chief U.S. negotiator.
The missile issue has been the chief obstacle to a possible trip to Pyongyang by President Bill Clinton. No date was fixed for a new round and the next step in the process will be decided by Washington, Mr. Einhorn, assistant secretary of state for nonproliferation, said in a statement.
''The discussions this week in Kuala Lumpur sought to further clarify areas explored'' by Secretary of State Madeleine Albright during her visit to Pyongyang last week, the statement said.
Mr. Einhorn did not meet reporters and a scheduled news conference was canceled by the U.S. Embassy.
The North Korean delegates, who had promised to brief reporters, limited themselves to a brief remark.
''During these talks, the atmosphere was very constructive and serious,'' said Jung Sung Il, secretary-general of the North Korean Foreign Ministry. ''I can't really talk about what we really spoke about.''
When the talks began Wednesday, Mr. Einhorn indicated that the discussions between Mrs. Albright and the North Korean leader, Kim Jong Il, had created a positive atmosphere for a possible deal on curbing Pyongyang's missile program.
Since then, both sides have refused to talk to reporters about the details of the dialogue.
The reticence underlines the sensitivity of the meetings, which are seen as the key that could encourage Mr. Clinton to make a historic visit to North Korea, which Washington has long counted among its most dangerous enemies.
A deadlock could set back the process of detente, which has warmed since a summit between the leaders of North and South Korea in June.
A new U.S. administration would be left to redefine relations in Northeast Asia.
-------- russia
Alarm at radioactive rivers in Siberia
The Age - GUARDIAN
Saturday 4 November 2000
By IAN TRAYNOR MOSCOW
http://www.theage.com.au/news/20001104/A25520-2000Nov3.html
Radioactive contamination of rivers around a secret Russian nuclear weapons complex in western Siberia has reached "staggering" levels, a team of Russian and American monitors said yesterday.
The team said it found alarming levels of radioactivity in tributaries of the River Ob, a major Siberian waterway, during an expedition in July and August to the closed plutonium complex at Seversk, near Tomsk.
"It's the worst contamination we've found," said Sergei Pashchenko, a pollution expert on the joint investigation by Siberian Scientists for Global Responsibility and the Government Accountability Project.
The scientists found levels of caesium and strontium-90 greatly exceeding safe levels in the Tom and Romashka rivers near the sprawling facility, which was established in the 1950s to make plutonium for warheads. Mr Pashchenko said plants in the rivers contained high levels of phosphorus-32, which decays within a couple of weeks, meaning the pollution was still happening.
The closed nuclear town of Seversk is effectively a suburb of Tomsk, a city with a population of half-a-million. Seversk was born in 1949, at the start of the nuclear arms race, and was one of the Soviet Union's top three plutonium and uranium enrichment sites throughout the Cold War.
The plutonium was made in five nuclear reactors commissioned between 1955 and 1967. The three oldest reactors were closed between 1990 and 1992, and, under a 1992 agreement between Moscow and Washington, all five should have been closed down by this year.
But two reactors are still operating, providing electricity to Tomsk. "They are very old reactors and very unsafe," said Igor Forofontov, a Greenpeace radiation specialist. "The authorities have no intention of closing them."
An explosion at the plant in 1993 emitted large amounts of radioactivity. Mr Forofontov also said lethal amounts of radioactivity were leaking into the soil and the water because waste from the reactors was disposed of by pumping it under the ground.
-------- u.s. nuc weapons
Really observe Veterans Day
Your Turn: Too many have given too much to be disregarded.
Spokane Spokesman-Review
Saturday, November 4, 2000
COMMENTARY
Francis H. Potter - Special to The Spokesman-Review
http://www.spokesmanreview.com/news-story.asp?date=110400&ID=s874641
Spokane _ Nov. 11 falls on a Saturday this year. If it were a weekday we would have no mail delivery and the banks, schools and all federal and state offices would be closed.
But since this Veterans Day is a Saturday, it will get even less media attention than usual. There will be a short local memorial service but few will attend.
To some Americans, however, it is a day to fly the flag and reflect on the achievements and suffering of the veterans whose sacrifices bought and still ensure the freedoms we take for granted.
Nov. 11 was set aside in 1919 as a day to honor our World War I veterans. The date was chosen because it was at 11 a.m. on Nov. 11, in a rail car in France that the treaty was signed ending the war.
The day was known as Armistice Day until 1954, when President Dwight D. Eisenhower changed the name to Veterans Day, a day to honor all veterans who have defended our country and as a day dedicated to world peace.
I am proud to be one of those veterans.
I remember hearing President Franklin D. Roosevelt, on a cloudy Dec. 8, 1941, speak the words that Pearl Harbor had been bombed and that the day would "live in infamy."
From our population of 132 million there were no protests, no action against the military or the government, no question that we might not be right and absolutely no thought, ever, that we did not have to win!
Losing this war, or signing a peace without complete victory, were never options. So in December 1941, at war with both Japan and Germany, our nation was unified, with only one goal.
Can we ever be again?
Since that date, I served 27 years, proudly wearing the uniform of our country, helping to preserve our way of life -- from seeing the end of World War II, to flying on the Berlin airlift, to standing alert during the Cuban missile crisis (which brought the world perilously close to nuclear war), to many, many days away from home in other campaigns and exercises our leaders felt necessary.
So, I ask you to show your pride in this, the first year of the new century. Display your flag next Saturday. Tell the vets you know and others now in uniform that their work was and is appreciated.
Make this a day to honor them. May none of us ever be called upon to make such a sacrifice again.
Your Turn is a feature of the Saturday Opinion page. To submit a Your Turn column for consideration, contact Doug Floyd at 459-5466 or e-mail dougf@spokesman.com or write Doug Floyd/Your Turn, The Spokesman-Review, P.O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210-1615.
-------- us nuc politics
Mitch Albom: How times change; just check daisies
Detroit Free Press
November 5, 2000
http://www.freep.com/sports/albom/mitch5_20001105.htm
The TV commercial featured a little girl, standing in a field, picking a daisy. She began to count the petals, "1 ...2 ...3 . . ."
Then, as little girls sometimes do, she got confused by the numbers. As she mixed them up, a new voice rose in the background. It was a man's voice, counting down a nuclear missile launch. "10 ...9 ...8 . . ."
Boom! An explosion.
Then a mushroom cloud.
Then another voice, quoting a poem.
Then an appeal to vote for Lyndon Johnson.
Believe it or not, this commercial was considered so controversial back in 1964 it only ran once. Once! Yet it became the most famous political ad ever. Commonly referred to as "Daisy," it has been studied in political science classes and is revered by pundits for its one-punch impact.
A few weeks ago -- 36 years after the original Daisy -- a pro-Republican group made a new version. It also used a little girl, counting petals. It also ended with a nuclear bomb.
But unlike the original, this ad mentioned the enemy. The enemy was Al Gore. The message was that Gore and President Bill Clinton sold nuclear technology to "Red China" that would enable the Chinese to "threaten our homes."
Therefore, vote Republican.
If the first Daisy ad created an uproar -- after only airing once -- you would figure this one, slated to air many times, would do the same, right?
Wrong.
What shocks us today?
The fact is, few people even noticed the new Daisy ad. It was a one-day story in the media. Little outrage. Little fear. In the end, it was pulled.
Still, it got me wondering: What has changed since 1964? How could something that once had to be yanked from view -- because it was so chilling -- now be so lazily dismissed?
Little girl, bomb, future in doubt -- which part no longer shocked us?
Was it the children and violence thing? Have we grown so inured to true-life horror stories that we can't get worked up over a theatrical one?
After all, with Columbine High School, with 11-year-old killers, with the recent report that a group of men and boys had molested a 13-year-old, mentally disabled girl, perhaps the clash of childish innocence with mankind's brutality no longer startles us.
Is that our Daisy difference?
Or was it the part about nuclear weapons? Maybe we've seen so many "simulated" explosions we can't get bugged by real ones? After all, the film "Independence Day" forever embedded the picture of the White House, symbol of our government, being blown to bits. The Gulf War showed us real people dying on TV -- while we sat at home, eating potato chips. Movies and TV shows unabashedly feature footage of nuclear explosions. Maybe the mushroom cloud ain't what it used to be.
Or maybe it's the part about Red China. In the global economy, are people numb to communism? We've seen Russia crumble, and East Germany erased from the map. In 1964, the Cold War raged. Now the cold is in our haughty ignorance of foreign affairs.
Is that our Daisy difference?
Who lowered the bar?
Or perhaps it is something else. Perhaps politicians have dropped our standards so low, nothing shocks us.
Remember, back in 1964, what really jolted people was the image of kids and bombs being used for political gain. To win a vote? Why, it just wasn't done! It was so ...inappropriate.
Now? What is inappropriate? George W. Bush and Al Gore seem ready to do anything to shave a point. And the people behind their parties are even more desperate.
I called Tony Schwartz, who created the original Daisy spot in 1964. Now an older man, he noted, with pride, that his ad never mentioned the opponent.
"There are two types of ads, those that show what you do right, and those that simply attack," he said. "And this new one simply attacks. They stole our idea and produced a piece of junk."
They also failed to steal the one thing that truly made Daisy No. 1 unique. Remember I mentioned that it closed with a poem?
Well, the poem was from W.H. Auden. And the quote was this: "We must either love each other or we must die."
"We must either love each other or we must die."
How many of us believed that in '64?
How many of us believe it now?
If you ask me, that's the real difference between Daisies old and new.
Contact MITCH ALBOM at 313-223-4581 or albom@freepress.com.
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Ticking 'Legacies'
Washington Post
Sunday, November 5, 2000; Page B07
By Robert Kagan
http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A12290-2000Nov4.html
We judge our presidents by what happens on their watch, from inaugural day to the final farewell. But that's not entirely fair. When someone new steps into the Oval Office, at least part of his legacy has already been determined for him by the person who just stepped out. And as the winner of Tuesday's presidential election will soon discover, some presidents have a sneaky way of leaving serious foreign unresolved policy problems and some hidden disasters that conveniently erupt after they leave the scene.
The master of leaving bombs to blow up in his successor's face was Dwight D. Eisenhower. His gifts to John Kennedy? Fidel Castro, the Bay of Pigs operation and a pledge to defend Ngo Dinh Diem's South Vietnam against the Communists in the North. Kennedy took the fall for Ike in Cuba; Lyndon Johnson took the fall for both Eisenhower and Kennedy in Vietnam. And today Ike is revered by Republicans and even by many historians as a superior statesman.
The problems the elder George Bush left behind practically defined the Clinton presidency in foreign affairs, and not in a good way. Republicans have spent the past few years attacking Clinton for his handling of Iraq, the Balkans, Haiti and Somalia. Yet every one of these was an unexploded Bush bomblet. Bush left Saddam Hussein in power at the end of the Gulf War. He let Slobodan Milosevic loose on his Balkan rampage. In Haiti, after rightly demanding the restoration of the toppled president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Bush left a stalemate from which the next American president either had to escalate or back down in humiliation. He sent American troops into Somalia--the original "humanitarian" mission--and left Clinton the task of finding the way out. Today Bush is known as the quintessential "foreign policy president," and Bill Clinton is a chump.
Sometimes, though rarely, a president actually does his successor a favor. This is a mistake. Ronald Reagan won the Cold War, but the final victory came on George Bush's watch. Reagan's gift helped make Bush's reputation as a foreign policy wizard, but his thanks for giving Bush the ball as they crossed the goal line was a quiet campaign by the Bush team to portray the old man as an amiable goof. In order to get a full share of the credit for the Cold War triumph, Bush and his team had to diminish Reagan's role and magnify their own. For presidents seeking a legacy, the lesson is obvious: Never leave the place in better shape than you found it.
That's why people who think Bill Clinton will go down in history as a poor foreign policy president are wrong. In the tradition of Eisenhower and Bush, he has left ticking time bombs all over the place, any or all of which are likely to go off within the next four years. This will do wonders for his own reputation and provide an escape from chumphood.
There is, of course, Iraq, where the international sanctions regime is collapsing, Saddam is making a fortune on oil sales and weapons systems blossom. During the next administration, Iraq will get a missile and mount something deadly on it, which will have a cataclysmic effect on an already unstable Middle East. But it won't be Clinton's problem--by design. Anonymous Clinton officials admit that their policy for more than a year has been to keep Iraq off the front pages, kick the can down the road and pray nothing happens before Election Day.
In the Middle East peace process, Clinton's supreme egotism forced Israel and the Palestinians toward a deal that at least one of them was not even remotely ready to consummate. But from the standpoint of Clinton's legacy, this was a smart move. If against all odds he had succeeded, Clinton would be toting around his Nobel Prize right now. But his failure will do Clinton no damage, not even in the short run. Reporters for this and every other major American newspaper will always give him credit for having tried, because it's never wrong to try for peace. Meanwhile, the poor stooge who wins on Tuesday will be left to deal with all the dreadful consequences of Clinton's ego trip, including a new wave of anti-American terrorism. When the next president mishandles the inevitable next crisis, as he inevitably will, the Middle East will become his albatross and his alone. Clinton will be remembered simply as the man who tried.
One could go on. There is the growing nuclear confrontation between India and Pakistan, and the increasing chances of a war between China and Taiwan. There is Clinton's masterful bungling of the missile defense issue, which leaves the next president without a workable program but with plenty of anger and resentment from America's European allies. There is the depletion of the American military, which, if it does confront wars in the Taiwan Strait and the Persian Gulf, will have to give one of them a pass. All these problems, and others, could make the next president's term in office a misery.
And for Clinton, that works out fine. Apres moi le deluge. Compared to what probably comes next, the Clinton years could be remembered as a time of relative calm and unprecedented prosperity--just like the Eisenhower years. It will be the next guy who has to navigate through the turmoil that Clinton leaves behind.
There will be a certain historical irony if that person happens to be George W. Bush. Clinton's recent Middle East peace moves, after all, are only the culmination of the process begun under Papa Bush in Madrid in 1992, as former Bush officials until very recently liked to point out. Dennis Ross, the mastermind behind Clinton's Middle East policy, was also the mastermind behind Bush's Middle East policy. As for Iraq, Bush the father gave Saddam Hussein to Clinton; now maybe Clinton can regift Saddam right back to Bush the son. Dick Cheney to this day insists that leaving Saddam in power at the end of the Gulf War was the right thing to do. Well, great. If W. is elected, Cheney and the gang can enjoy their decision all over again. Sometimes history delivers a kind of perverse justice.
But maybe Al Gore will be the lucky guy who gets saddled with the accumulated mess of the Bush-Clinton years. If Iraq goes south (literally), if Taiwan or South Asia or the Middle East explodes, Gore gets to play Lyndon Johnson. Some future Oliver Stone will make a movie portraying Clinton as the Prince of Camelot and the evil or incompetent or simply tragic Gore as the handmaiden of the disaster that followed.
Thank you very much, Mr. President. My pleasure, Mr. President.
The writer, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, writes a monthly column for The Post.
-------- MILITARY
-------- drug war
Drug traffickers exploit the weak
Date: Sat, 04 Nov 2000 20:16:25 -0800
RadTimes # 91 November, 2000
Bangkok Post - Oct 31. 2000. Editorial
Congratulations are due to the anti-drug officers involved in last week's huge haul of heroin in Fiji. They seized more than 300 kilogrammes of the drug, most of it bound for Australia where it had a street value of around US$150 million. The shipment had been tracked by authorities of four nations. It originated in Burma, and two ethnic Chinese couriers were arrested when the drug payload was seized in Suva on Saturday.
The seizure itself is a success for the men and women who put their lives on the line against international drug traffickers. Laboratory testing appears to bear out the claim that the seizure is one of the largest of the year. The arrests of the two men may yield other agents and smuggling facts back up the drug line. Justice Minister Amanda Vanstone said the Australian agents who have been stationed in Burma for the past 10 months were vital to tracking and seizing the drugs.
But while the drug bust is a commendable accomplishment, it shows once again the major, uphill struggle faced by civilised nations. The fame of the Burmese heroin operation has been eclipsed by the methamphetamine traffickers in recent months.
Reliable sources in the anti-narcotics police have said for more than a year that Chinese triads have moved into the Burma-based operations. Gang chiefs have moved some of their operations to Thailand to be close to the action.
The triads now have become part of the heroin operation once controlled more exclusively by Khun Sa. The heroin warlord is a welcome guest of the Burmese government. They have made no move to investigate him, arrest him, extradite him, or close down his opium and heroin operations.
Much of the day to day heroin business inside Burma has been assumed by the United Wa State Army, which also fully controls the methamphetamine trade. For the past year, the Wa leaders have been moving their own people into former Shan areas. They have begun cultivating the vast opium fields of northern Burma, which yield more drugs per year than in any other country but Afghanistan.
The Fiji seizure also demonstrates that the drugs trade, too, has become globalised. Fiji has been a diplomatic basket case since a racist coup overthrew the democratic government in May. The government is weak, the nation is unstable and justice is arbitrary.
Drug traffickers saw an opportunity to exploit the weakness and moved against Fiji. It was their bad luck that they had, in fact, alerted authorities earlier.
Burma continues to acquiesce in a drug trade which threatens its neighbours and troubles the world. The military junta's recent claims to have a secret, 15-year plan to eliminate drugs in Burma are not credible.
Also troubling are other weak links in the hoped-for chain of international responsibility. Officials involved in Saturday's seizure said it was clear that Fiji was used as a transit point because of the weakness of its government and police.
Several world leaders have been outspoken in their opinions about Fiji. Helen Clark, prime minister of New Zealand-Fiji's closest neighbour-has refused to sit at the same dining table with the new head of the racist government.
New Zealand was one of the countries involved in the successful effort of the 300kg heroin shipment, along with the US, Canada and Australia. Other countries, including Thailand, are both willing and able to help. It is clear that a major international effort is needed in order to fight the traffickers. It is sobering to realise that on average, only 10% of smuggled drugs are intercepted.
Against the likes of Fiji and Burma, only better co-operation across borders can make that record better.
-------- space
Wargames: Air Force Space Command's Battle Plans
Sat, 04 Nov 2000 20:16:25 -0800
RadTimes # 91 November, 2000
By Frank Sietzen, Jr. Playing Games in Space
http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/space_battlelabs_001003.html
WASHINGTON Sept. 29 - It all began January 21, the day after the presidential inauguration. The political pressures had been building for months, although few knew about the crisis. Now, around a table in a secured room, sat the president of the United States, the vice president, secretary of defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Behind them sat their staffs and aides. The crisis had quickly escalated.
The first attack had rendered silent America's constellation of Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites. The GPS control center in Colorado Springs reported it had lost contact with the constellation, first by signal degradation - then completely.
Within hours of that crisis, the president received notice of another space disaster. Several commercial communication satellites used by the military to route communications and pagers to ships at sea had been disabled; how was not yet clear. At Cape Canaveral, terrorists had contaminated the fuel storage facility for the space shuttle fleet.
Without firing a shot, the nation's winged ships were grounded.
And now came the most threatening news of all: NASA Johnson Space Center was reporting that the International Space Station had been damaged by a wave of small objects let loose from a ballistic missile.
The president and his staff now faced the most serious decision ever made by a U.S. chief of state: Did the attack on U.S. space assets constitute a first strike against the nation? High up in silent space, had World War 3 begun?
If this sounds threatening and frightening, that is the whole idea. For these scenarios will be facing not the real U.S. president and his Cabinet but a simulation. Stand-ins for the president, vice president, secretary of defense and the whole U.S. military leadership will take their places around a table on January 21, 2001 - the day after the next real U.S. president takes office.
The simulation, the Air Force's first all-space war game, will test how well U.S. space assets would withstand an attack. The answers might well shape how the military and civil space programs evolve in the years ahead.
"This will be the first Air Force level space war game," said Rob Hegstrom, game director for the Schriever 2001 space war game. The weeklong simulation of an air and space attack will be held at the Schriever Air Base in Colorado Springs next winter, the first of an annual series.
The goal? "We need to learn how to better protect our space assets," Hegstrom said. "In this way will we be better able to develop our future plans," he added.
Space war games are not a new exercise. The U.S. Army, as part of its "Army After Next" effort has held three such simulations. Each produced surprising results and, according to some, disturbing questions that have yet to be answered by U.S. national policy.
Questions such as the depth and level of the responsibility of the U.S. military to commercial space industry when its systems are used for national defensive purposes. "We pose questions such as how will these results shape the baseline [military] force in development," Hegstrom said.
For the week, two separate teams will portray U.S. leaders facing a gradually escalating crisis. One new scenario will be added each day, and the president and his staff must plan responses in real-time just as if the simulated events are happening.
Since the day-to-day game is classified, specific plans are not detailed. But the scenarios all focus on a U.S. space capability as projected in 2015, with the rise of a geopolitical 'peer competitor' to the U.S. that has developed a major space program.
While Hegstrom said that no specific war game plan can be discussed, it was reasonable to assume that, with a permanent U.S. orbital outpost in 2015, "terrorist threats to the space station could easily be assumed as a valid possibility," he said. Other assumptions about the state of the space program in 15 years include advanced navigation satellites, military spaceplanes, advanced launch vehicles, space stations and a capability the Pentagon calls "Launch on Demand" - the ability to rapidly launch boosters and piloted craft within hours of an order. Today such a launch takes months and years to prepare.
"Once military leaders 'hot wash' the results from the weeklong play," Hegstrom said that 'gold nuggets' - major lessons learned from the exercise - will be passed up the chain of command for consideration.
"The Air Force will be addressing long-range issues, such as denial of access to space, terrorist attacks on space installations and jamming of space communications," Hegstrom suggested, so that programs can be developed now to counter any potential future threat.
And the final condition of the U.S. space program after the crisis? How will it evolve in the game? "This is a free-play war game," he said. "Anything can happen when a world crisis arises."
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