U.S. - COLUMBIA TRADE PROMOTION AGREEMENT - CONGRESS GETS SOME GUTS

Finally, Congress exhibited its long absent intestinal fortitude - guts - to stand up to the administration’s incessant scare tactics surrounding free trade agreements, notably the U.S. - Columbia Trade Promotion Agreement. Congress or should I say the Democrats - with a few exceptions - took action to delay the implementation of yet another lopsided and unfair free trade agreement.

H. Res. 1092 passed this week in Congress states as follows:

Resolved, That section 151(e)(1) and section 151(f)(1) of the Trade Act of 1974 shall not apply in the case of the bill (H.R. 5724) to implement the United States-Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement.

The sections mentioned detail time constraints under which free trade agreements are to be considered by Congress under the Free Trade Agreement Act of 1974. That Act required that Congress take up consideration of trade agreements 90 days after they are received from the White House. The recently-passed Resolution removes that timetable and allows delay in consideration of the Agreement.

The Indiana house congressional delegation voted on an expected partisan line with Visclosky, Donnelly, Carson, and Ellsworth voting to delay consideration and Souder, Burton, Pence, and Hill voting to take up the bill immediately. Buyer did not vote, and Hill was the lone Indiana Democrat to jump ship and side with the Republicans.

The Administration continues to use statements such as “helping an important ally in South America is in the political and security interests of the United States.” Absent from Bush’s yammering on security and political interests is any hint of how, once again, American workers will be benefited rather than hurt by another free trade agreement.

Free trade agreements are nothing more than corporate gifts from the administration. And, while many administrations have entered into these agreements over the past, the effect has now become painfully obvious. The agreements require few, if any, reciprocal efforts in the areas of environmental protection or human rights violations. Corporate powers-that-be are the beneficiaries of the following policy that can be found at the government’s export website:

Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) can help your company to enter and compete more easily in the global marketplace. Trade agreements help level the international playing field and encourage foreign governments to adopt open and transparent rulemaking procedures, as well as non-discriminatory laws and regulations. FTAs help strengthen business climates by eliminating or reducing tariff rates, improving intellectual property regulations, opening government procurement opportunities, easing investment rules, and much more.

The informational description contains no reference to how FTAs help American workers. The reason? FTAs do not help our workers. When the statement says “trade agreements help level the international playing field, what actually occurs is that American job losses increase through outsourcing.

As a final note, the new agreement is called a “trade promotion” agreement rather than a “free trade” agreement. The change in terminology is simply an exercise in semantics. A rose is a rose is a rose, and a trade agreement is a trade agreement no matter how you disguise it.

VA TO VETERANS - WE WON’T HELP YOU REGISTER TO VOTE

In what has to be one of the most illogical, unreasonable, hypocritical, and downright disrespectful decisions made by the new VA Secretary James Peake, the VA will not allow voter registration assistance in VA facilities. The National Voter Registration Act was passed in 1993 and imposes an obligation - indeed, a duty - on federal, state, and local governments to promote the exercise of the citizens’ fundamental right to vote.

VA Secretary Peake has a different take on promoting the right to vote, especially when those citizens are veterans. Peake’s position is that:

“the VA remains opposed to becoming a voter registration agency pursuant to the National Voter Registration Act, as this designation would divert substantial resources from our primary mission.”

Diverting of substantial resources? Voter registration forms can be downloaded from the internet and copied in a matter of minutes. I have helped at several different events where we registered voters, and helping with the form must take a whole 2 or 3 minutes. If VA personnel are asked to spend a few extra minutes with VA patients, I bet they would gladly do it. To think otherwise is to dishonor those who have served our country and those who serve our veterans.

Peake also insists helping veterans to register to vote is “partisan.” Voter registration does not require that the registrant declare a party. Obviously, he does not know the definition of partisan which means allegiance to a party or cause.

An interesting twist in the whole debacle is that armed forces recruitment offices are mandated to develop and implement procedures to ensure that those registering at the recruitment offices have the opportunity to register. The following is a section from the National Voter Registration Act of 1993:

ARMED FORCES RECRUITMENT OFFICES- (1) Each State and the Secretary of Defense shall jointly develop and implement procedures for persons to apply to register to vote at recruitment offices of the Armed Forces of the United States.

(2) A recruitment office of the Armed Forces of the United States shall be considered to be a voter registration agency designated under subsection (a)(2) for all purposes of this Act.

Since the passage mandates recruitment office voter registration assistance, I decided to call one of the local Army recruitment offices to see if they provided voter registration assistance, and, yep, they do. I spoke to a recruiter and asked one simple question, “Do you have voter registration forms?” His reply? “We sure do.”

The hypocrisy is staggering. The Bush Administration sends our military to fight and die in needless wars. Volunteers are provided the opportunity to register at the front end as they enlist. But at the back end, as our wounded return to lives filled with adjustments and frustrations and physical and emotional therapy and missing limbs and suffering from post traumatic stress syndrome, the Veterans Administration denies help with one of the very basic rights that our veterans fight to protect - the right to vote.

Could it be that after service in wars, our veterans are more likely than not to vote against those who sent them? Keeping faith with our veterans requires more than laudatory speeches - it requires matching those speeches with actions.

Photo Credit: About.com

A young soldier in DaNang, Vietnam - August 3, 1965

THE CAYMANS - TAX SHELTER FOR TOP AMERICAN CONTRACTOR IN IRAQ

The nation’s top Iraq war contractor, and until last year, a Halliburton subsidiary, provides a shining example of how to avoid a fair share of its taxes and garner the benefits of political nepotism. Kellogg, Brown & Root (KBR) has avoided paying hundreds of millions of dollars in federal Medicare and Social Security taxes by hiring workers through shell companies based in the well-known tropical tax haven.

About half the 21,000 workers hired by KBR are American workers - workers who should fall under the requirement to pay into Medicare and Social Security along with the requisite contribution by the employer, KBR. The Defense Department has known since 2004 that KBR was avoiding taxes by declaring the American workers as employees of the shell companies. And the reason this is acceptable? The maneuvering offshore allowed the corporation to perform work more cheaply. The practice is unusual enough that only one other major contractor in Iraq does the same thing.

KBR is the largest contractor in Iraq with eight times the work of its nearest competitor. The corporation was the beneficiary of a no-bid, lopsided contract awarded in 2002 when the Bush, Chaney crowd decided to favor those with ties to Halliburton. KBR has an estimated $16 billion in contracts - a nice hefty bonus for being part of Chenay’s Halliburton circle. Although Congress has consistently attacked the practice used to avoid paying taxes, it has failed to act with any authority.

Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, a Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, recently has introduced legislation to close loopholes for companies registering overseas. Let’s hope it passes although I would almost bet that the legislation will not get far. Corporations seem to have a lot more pull in Congress than we average taxpayers do.

KBR not only avoids federal taxes but also avoids paying unemployment taxes in Texas, its location of registration. Since it doesn’t pay into the unemployment pool, it is not responsible for claims of unemployment compensation filed by workers who return to the United States after they complete their work in Iraq.

Photo Credit: KBR website

_____________________________________________________________________________

What a sweet deal, and many of the workers don’t even realize that they have been employed by a foreign company until they reach their destination in Iraq and are told by their foremen. And KBR’s competitors in Iraq have not gone to the same length to avoid paying their fair share of taxes. The likes of Bechtel, Parsons, Washington Group International, L-3 Communications, Perini, and Fluor - all corporations receiving contracts in Iraq - pay Social Security and Medicare taxes for their American Workers.

Over the past five years of the Iraqi occupation, KBR has avoided more than $500 million in tax liabilities. What an “in your face” assault on the average American taxpayer. While we struggle to pay ever-increasing tax burdens, the power of corporations in our “free-market” system once again proves that there is no free-market - that power is king and enough power buys a tax haven in a tropical paradise.

SOMETIMES YOU FEEL LIKE A NUT - BUT NOT IN THE WHITEHOUSE

John McCain makes no secret of the fact that he will keep us mired in the Middle East for decades to come if he assumes the office of the presidency.  While many have talked about the similarities between Vietnam and Iraq, one major difference exists - oil.  Anyone who thinks this foray into nation-building isn’t about oil hasn’t been paying attention to our history with the oil producing countries. 

With oil rising at an almost unbelievable rate, what better course to take than to occupy our own private oil fields in Iraq?  The Bush administration has built the world’s largest embassy in Iraq in order to maintain a presence for an undetermined number of years.  In addition, Bush and Maliki are in the process of negotiating the terms of an agreement which will keep U.S. forces entrenched in Iraq until …. freezes over.  

McCain will simply continue a misguided and disastrous course of action a la George Bush.  Should McCain be elected, Bush will no doubt be smiling broadly as he exits the White House in January 2009.  George Bush, along with his neo-con cohorts, manipulated an American crisis into an invasion of a country which had no connection to 9/11.  But John McCain has no intention of manipulating anything - he blatantly and arrogantly says he will keep us there.

Photo Credit: Getty Images

______________________________________________________________________________

We have had close to eight years of a president who is out of touch with reality and who has never let sanity and logic interfere with his quest to conquer Iraq.  The last thing that is needed is another tunnel-visioned president who sees Iraq and Afghanistan as nothing more than future American bases.

THOUGHTS ON TURNING 60

Last month, I turned 60 years old. I am still mulling over in my mind where some of the famous, “Gee, it’s great to get old” expressions come from.

One of my favorites uses the ever-brilliant word “gold” as in the “Golden Years.” I am not sure where this comes from, but some suggest it arises from the gold watches that retirees receive as a parting gift when they retire. Others say it is in reference to the golden environment of wiling away time in sunny Florida. I have no intention of wiling away hours anywhere other than here in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

Seriously, I think 60 is a smack in the face about your own mortality. Not that I think I am immortal, but the notion of only 5 years until 65, is fairly disconcerting. The only thing I can do now is get really old. But I do not intend to retire unless I have to - I would be bored to death. I love my home, and I would like more time to work on it, but I know after a couple of weeks I would be bouncing off the walls.

I have picked up the annoying habit of looking at the daily obituaries. As I scan the announcements, I look at the age groups. Sometimes I swear I am on the verge of hyperventilating when I see people who have died in their 40s, 50s, and 60s. The first thing I do is look at the memorial designation. If it is to an organization for some disease or illness, I breathe a sigh of relief. That means something untoward happened, and the reason for death wasn’t just age.

I remember back to my high school days in South Whitley when our class president, Mick Bishop, was killed at the age of 17 - a month shy of his 18th birthday. He was a popular person: he was our class president, he was in sports, he was cute, he was smart, and he had so much to look forward to in life. But, on his way home from Peru, Indiana, with a couple of friends, the car went out of control and hit a tree. My understanding was that he was lying down in the back seat asleep, and his side hit the tree. He died of a broken neck.

Most of us in our class were between 17 and 18 at the time he died. We couldn’t fathom a random death such as Mick’s. We could understand those who had lived a full life and then passed away. And our concept of a full life was someone who had made it to their 30s or 40s.

It is funny how over the years my idea of “old” has changed. When I hit a milestone such as each decade, I just add 25 or 30 years to it and that is my new definition of old. My co-workers, being ever so kind, kept telling me my “60 is the new 40.” Yep, sure hope that means my body feels that way too.

One of my favorite gifts was a t-shirt with “I’m 60 and still not ready to make nice.” Of course the slogan is from the Dixie Chicks hit album, Taking the Long Way. You all probably recall that Natalie Maines made a comment about King George that didn’t sit too well with all those patriotic, flag-waving Americans. Scores of anti-free speech people - carefully wrapping themselves in the flag - destroyed the Chicks CDs. “Taking the Long Way” was a comeback success for the Chicks, and one of my favorite songs was “Not Ready to Make Nice.”

Three of my friends and I spent the day in Indy to celebrate my big 6-0!

_____________________________________________________________________

I think one of the hardest things to absorb is how fast time has flown. It seems like yesterday that I was going to sock hops, learning to drive our ‘58 Chevy Biscayne, working at our family grocery store, singing “I Want to Hold Your Hand” and “She Loves You, Yeh, Yeh, Yeh” as loud as we could on the bus traveling to away basketball games, and raising my boys. Gosh, so many memories!

I do know one thing though, when my heart skips a beat or I get those little butterflies in my stomach - it is no longer love; it is an arrhythmia and indigestion.

I suppose I had better brace myself for my journey toward my 70th birthday because I am sure the upcoming 10 years will seem to go even faster. But, just think, at 70 I will have to get a new t-shirt that says “I’m 70 and still not ready to make nice.” Lookin’ forward to it!!

KING GEORGE - “WE DON’T NEED A CONSTITUTION AS LONG AS I AM KING”

Apparently Bush has decided, along with his “War Czar” General Douglas Lute, that permanent bases in Iraq don’t require the approval of either house of Congress. Lute said the White House intends to conclude negotiations on an enduring security guarantee with the Maliki government in July. Permanent military bases and residual troop levels will be specified in the final accord.

The following is Lute’s high-minded view of permanency in Iraq:

Q General, will the White House seek any congressional input on this?

GENERAL LUTE: In the course of negotiations like this, it’s not — it is typical that there will be a dialogue between congressional leaders at the negotiating table, which will be run out of the Department of State. We don’t anticipate now that these negotiations will lead to the status of a formal treaty which would then bring us to formal negotiations or formal inputs from the Congress.

Q Is the purpose of avoiding the treaty avoiding congressional input?

GENERAL LUTE: No, as I said, we have about a hundred agreements similar to the one envisioned for the U.S. and Iraq already in place, and the vast majority of those are below the level of a treaty.

Below the level of a treaty? I doubt that the Founding Fathers even had something “below the level of a treaty” in mind when they wrote the Constitution. After all, we were a fledging nation with no real Army or Navy and with little military might. There would have been no reason to even think of agreements with other nations as anything other than treaties.

But never one to be deterred by the Constitution, Bush has again decided to ignore the checks and balances carefully crafted by the Founding Fathers by using semantics. The Bush administration announced the Declaration of Principles for a Long-term Relationship of Cooperation and Friendship with Iraq, an agreement to start formal negotiations with Iraq about a long-term security pact between the United States and Iraq.

The Declaration sets a goal of concluding this final agreement by July 31, 2008. The “agreement” will not be called a treaty - as he so imperiously reminds critics that many other agreements do not bear the label “treaty.” His logic is, of course, that if it isn’t called a treaty then there is no need for Congressional input as required by the Constitution. Here’s what the Constitution and the Founding Fathers said about treaties:

Article II, Section 2, Clause 2.

He shall have the Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two-thirds of the Senators present concur….

In order to enter into formal agreements called treaties, the president must get advice and consent from the Senate. If something is not termed a treaty, then the Senate can be bypassed and thus prevented from providing input as the Founding Fathers mandated.

The issue was raised long ago by the New York Times. On April 20, 2003, The New York Times ran a story citing unnamed sources indicating the U.S. military was planning as many as four permanent military bases in Iraq. The next day, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld dismissed the story as “inaccurate and unfortunate.”

The national media, mesmerized and enamored by the “shock and awe” tactics of the recently initiated occupation and not willing to criticize a war only a month old, dropped the story after Rumsfeld’s disclaimer. Later that same year, the November 19, 2003, edition of the Jordanian daily al-Arab al-Yawm reported that the U.S. government had plans for six bases. The sources revealed the names of these bases and the planned positions for permanent deployment. They were:

• Al-Habbaniyah Airbase [already an RAF airbase for much of the last century] near the city of al-Fallujah, 65km west of Baghdad;
• Ash-Sha’biyah Airbase in Basra, 600km south of Baghdad;
• ‘Ali ibn Abi Taleb Airbase on the outskirts of the city of an-Nasiriyah, 400km south of Baghdad;
• al-Walid Airbase about 330km north west of Baghdad;
• al-Ghazlani Camp in the city of Mosul, 400km north of Baghdad;
• A permanent deployment of forces in the east of Iraq in what is known as the Hamrin mountain range that extends from Diyala Provice, 60km east of Baghdad, and borders on Iran and extends to the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, 260km north of Baghdad.

Five years later, it looks like the story was accurate. Bush and his neocon supporters had a plan all along to go into Iraq and stay. The American public, so hungry for revenge after 9/11, gave the “King” a blank check. His plans are made, and he has utter disdain for our Constitution and its checks and balances. By calling this an informal agreement and not a treaty, he hopes to circumvent Constitutional protections that were structured to guard against just such a dictatorial frame of mind.

However, in an attempt to thwart King George’s most recent power grab, Rep. Barbara Lee recently introduced a bill to prevent Bush from signing any agreement emerging from the Declaration of Principles without consulting Congress. A parallel bill was introduced in the Senate by Sen. Hillary Clinton.

Photo Credit: Hillary for President

____________________________________________________________

Since November 2007, attacks on the Bush-Maliki agreement’s constitutionality have mounted. Bill Delahunt, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on International Organizations, Human Rights and Oversight, has held a series of hearings on the legality of the Declaration of Principles. During the most recent Delahunt hearing, experts almost universally concluded that the agreement violates the Constitution, since Congress was not consulted in the process of its approval.

Throughout his seven years in office, Bush has undertaken an onslaught against liberties and rights as well as undermined the Constitution.   No matter how much power a president usurps, his reign always comes to an end.  King George’s term is about at an end. With its end, perhaps we can get back to a government based on our Constitution and its checks and balances - a government of the people, for the people, and by the people.

Photo credit: Wikipedia

WHAT GOES UP MUST COME DOWN - NAVY TO SHOOT DOWN SATELLITE

The Navy has been ordered to shoot down a spy satellite hurtling toward Earth with a 1,000 pounds of deadly hydrazine onboard. The satellite spun out of control after being launched in December 2006. The exercise gives the Pentagon a chance to show off decades of controversial research into space weapons - and raises new concerns that it could cause an escalation of military competition in outer space.

_____________________________________________________

But shooting down the satellite is particularly sensitive now because of the controversy surrounding China’s anti-satellite test last year, when Beijing shot down one of its defunct weather satellites. The action drew immediate criticism from the U.S. and other countries.

A key concern at that time was the debris created by Chinese satellite’s destruction—and that will also be a focus now, as the U.S. determines exactly when and under what circumstances to shoot down its errant satellite. So we protest China’s actions and then turn around and prepare to do the same thing - now that is hypocrisy. It also sounds like the old familiar “one-upsmanship” that permeated so much of the Cold War era.

However, the action not only raises the specter of increasing “spy-in-the-sky” games but also raises the issue of environmental damage that may be done to the area of the Pacific Ocean where the satellite will splash down, spewing out its toxic content. But Bush has never had much concern for the environment - why start now?

After all what’s a little environmental damage and a little “step over this line” diplomacy when Bush decides to put on his cowboy persona and once again flex his “my guns are bigger than yours” attitude.

WHERE ARE OUR YOUNGINS? IS ACTIVISM TIED TO THE DRAFT?

Conscription is a system to provide manpower to be used in the armed forces. In the United States, conscription was introduced in the Union Army during the American Civil War. The 1863 Enrollment Act permitted draftees to hire paid substitutes to fight in their place. In the United States during more recent times, conscription has simply been called the “draft.”

During the Civil War and again during World War I the draft mechanism was dissolved at the end of hostilities. In 1940, prior to U.S. entry into World War II, the first peacetime draft in our nation’s history was enacted in response to increased world tension with the result that the system was able to fill wartime manpower needs smoothly and rapidly after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

At the end of the war, the draft law was allowed to expire, but it was reenacted less than two years later to maintain necessary military manpower levels as a result of the Cold War. From 1948 until 1973, during both peacetime and periods of conflict, men were drafted to fill vacancies in the armed forces which could not be filled through voluntary means.

Induction authority expired in 1973, but the Selective Service System remained in existence in a “standby” posture to support the all-volunteer force in case an emergency should make it necessary for Congress to authorize a resumption of inductions.

Vietnam War draft

Opposition to U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War began slowly and in small numbers in 1964 on various college campuses in the United States. This happened during a time of unprecedented student activism reinforced in numbers by the demographically significant baby boomers, but grew to include a wide and varied cross-section of Americans from all walks of life.

Much of the protest movement was fueled by a system of conscription that provided exemptions and deferments more easily claimed by middle and upper class registrants - and thus inducted disproportionate numbers of poor, working-class, and minority registrants. By the end of 1967, as U.S. troop casualties mounted and the war ground on with no end in sight, public opinion polls showed a majority of Americans were opposed to the war and wanted it to end. In 1967, the continued operation of a seemingly unfair draft system then calling as many as 40,000 men for induction each month fueled a burgeoning draft resistance movement.

But where is that resistance from the youth of today? An undeclared war is being waged in a foreign land, thousands of military personnel are being sent to fight, thousands are dying, and thousands more are being maimed for life.

Yet, the youth of today are strangely silent. Could it be that the primary reason so many college age and young people are not participating is because they do not have a “vested” interest in this war? The Selective Service is still in place for males, but the draft is not. But it is folly to ignore the authority to reinstate the draft at any given moment.

The sole purpose of the Selective Service is to keep track of the number of available young males in case the draft needs to be reinstated. And, as the youth of today sit back comfortably assuming that they are “safe” from forced service to this country, the reality is that our military is stretched thin by our ongoing and misguided efforts in Iraq.

Of course, you will see some younger protesters at the rallies and marches, but take a closer look as you drive by. When I stand on the sidewalk along the Clinton street side of our Courthouse, I look up and down the row of protesters, and I see older individuals - many in their 40s, 50s, 60s, and, yes, even in their 70s.

Many of us protesting and rallying are from the Vietnam War era - we remember those days, and we are willing to stand on sidewalks and street corners in blistering hot weather as well as zero degree temperatures to protest a war that is not only unjust but also one of the greatest blunders ever made by a president.

So our youth, for the most part, turn their heads away from the horrors of Iraq, comfortable in their false sense of security and the notion that they are safe from being snatched into service. They are not yet affected; they are not the ones fighting and dying in an unjust war.

But those thoughts are misguided; the Selective Service hovers in the background with the power to rip complacent bodies into forced military service. A vested interest in this war and any other wars may very well arise only when the individual has the most to lose - his or her own life. What a shame that it takes extrinsic motivation to force the youth to do something that should arise from intrinsic values - caring about their fellow human beings.

Photo Credit: Mike Keefe - InToon.com

 

THE NAFTA SUPERHIGHWAY - THE ROAD TO A NORTH AMERICAN UNION

On January 15, 2008, the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) formally began a massive public reeducation and public relations effort in an aggressive and expensive attempt to stem the chorus of objections voiced thus far over the Trans Texas Corridor (TTC).

The Trans-Texas Corridor (TTC) is a multi-lane highway system that would include toll roads for automobiles and rail lines and would run parallel to the eastern side of Interstate Highway 35 in Texas. Two corridors are being proposed, one parallel to I-35, named TTC 35, and another that will run from Northeast Texas down to Mexico, referred to as TTC 69.

 

Photo Credit: Texas Department of Transportation

______________________________________________________________

The Trans-Texas Corridor is the first leg of a new superhighway which will extend from Mexico to Canada so that the North American Free Trade Agreement, better known as NAFTA, can function even more “smoothly” to remove American jobs as if NAFTA hasn’t done enough already. The highway will take about half a million acres of Texas out of agricultural production – and according to opponents hasten the advent of a North American Union.

How does anything like the Trans-Texas Corridor impact us here in good, old Indiana? Think Interstate 69 from Indy to Evansville. The route is an extension of the Interstate which already runs through northeast Indiana. The website of the U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration has the following description of plans for the I-69 corridor:

Corridor from Sarnia, Ontario, Canada, through Port Huron, Michigan, southwesterly along Interstate Route 69 through Indianapolis, Indiana, through Evansville, Indiana, Memphis, Tennessee, Mississippi, Arkansas, Shreveport / Bossier Louisiana, to Houston, Texas, and to the Lower Rio Grande Valley at the border between the United States and Mexico, as follows:

1. 1. In Michigan, the corridor shall be from Sarnia, Ontario, Canada, southwesterly along Interstate Route 94 to the Ambassador Bridge interchange in Detroit, Michigan.
   2. In Michigan and Illinois, the corridor shall be from Windsor, Ontario, Canada, through Detroit, Michigan, westerly along Interstate Route 94 to Chicago, Illinois.
   3. In Tennessee, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Louisiana, the Corridor shall–
      1. follow the alignment generally identified in the Corridor 18 Special Issues Study Final Report; and
      2. include a connection between the Corridor east of Wilmar, Arkansas, and west of Monticello, Arkansas, to Pine Bluff, Arkansas
   4. In the Lower Rio Grande Valley, the Corridor shall-
      1. include United States Route 77 from the Rio Grande River to Interstate Route 37 at Corpus Christi, Texas, and then to Victoria, Texas, via United States Route 77; [I-69 East]
      2. include United States Route 281 from the Rio Grande River to Interstate Route 37 and then to Victoria, Texas, via United States Route 59; [I-69 Central] and
      3. include the Corpus Christi North-side Highway and Rail Corridor from the existing intersection of United States Route 77 and Interstate Route 37 to United States Route 181, including FM511 from United States Route 77 to the Port of Brownsville.

 

Photo Credit: Smokescreendesign.com

___________________________________________________________________

Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP):

The SPP is a Bush White House-led initiative among the United States and the two nations it borders - Canada and Mexico. The “goals” are to increase security and to enhance prosperity among the three countries through greater cooperation. The SPP is based on the principle that our prosperity is dependent on our security and recognizes that our three great nations share a belief in freedom, economic opportunity, and strong democratic institutions.

The SPP outlines a comprehensive agenda for cooperation among our three countries while respecting the sovereignty and unique cultural heritage of each nation. The SPP provides a vehicle by which the United States, Canada, and Mexico can identify and resolve unnecessary obstacles to trade, and it provides a means to improve our response to emergencies and increase security, thus benefiting and protecting Americans.

The SPP is short for dumping on the American people again by the Bush Administration. Unnecessary obstacles to trade can be read to mean more profit for the large corporations as they whiz the jobs out of the United States via the superhighway. And, you can almost hear the hum of the truck traffic from Mexico bringing in cheap goods produced in a country ridden by poverty and lax on environmental standards as well as worker standards.

The only ones who will benefit from this NAFTA Superhighway are the corporate powers that have their hands in Bush’s pocket and their cash in Bush’s wallet.

 

LINE DRAWN IN THE SAND - U.S NOT WELCOME TO FIGHT AL-QAIDA IN PAKISTAN

Pakistan’s beleaguered president, Pervez Musharraf, has made it clear that the U.S. is not welcome in the Pakastani tribal regions to continue the fight against Al-Qaida. Bush had been considering expanding the authority of the CIA and U.S. military to launch aggressive covert operations in tribal regions along the Pakistan-Afghan border which has long been considered a hiding place for Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden. The regions are also home to Taliban militants planning attacks on coalition forces in Afghanistan.

Photo Credit: CNN

Musharraf said every tribe in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) has its own armory, and they don’t like intrusions into their privacy at all. The FATA is an area encompassing about 10, 700 square miles where the Pakistan government controls only nominally by working through a combination of effective Political Agents and tribal elders.

The Tribes are governed by the Frontier Crimes Regulation introduced under the British Raj and are represented both in Pakistan’s lower house and in its upper house of parliament. Years of isolation coupled with high illiteracy rates, scarcity of water, no banking system, and little health care have left the area lagging behind socially and economically.

Photo Credit: Fata.gov