10-13-05, 8:23 am
Recent media reports indicate that few Iraqis are perfectly satisfied with the new Constitution that will come up for vote this weekend. Nevertheless, most Iraqis are expected to vote in favor of the Constitution to preserve a united Iraq and to keep in motion the process for the end of the US occupation.
According to British paper The Independent, voters in the southern city of Basra, an economically developed area that relies on oil production and shipping, do not want to see the occupation continue and will support the new Constitution in order to see it end. They also are fearful that political infighting and violence related to squabbles over Iraq's future will not end unless the Constitution is adopted.
The constitution keeps Iraq intact by creating a federal system with regional autonomy for ethnic groups. It is expected that the Shia will maintain control of Central and Southern Iraq, while the Kurds control northern regions.
Sunni political leaders have expressed reservations about the Constitution primarily because it would institutionalize their fall from power. When Saddam ruled, Sunni groups were at the top of the power grid. The new Constitution would limit their authority to western regions of Iraq with little economic or productive base.
A last minute deal with some Sunni leaders may have gained support for the Constitution. By agreeing to allow a post election amendment process to renegotiate some parts of the Constitution after the new National Assembly is formed, some Sunni political parties may sign onto agreeing to participate in Saturday's poll.
On a related matter, new polls show that the overwhelming majority of Iraqis across ethnic lines favor US troop withdrawal as the best means for maintaining a peaceful political process.
According to its press release, a new group has organized the nation's leading scientists, Constitutional scholars and clergy to lead an online grassroots movement 'combat the threat posed by the religious right to American democracy, public education and scientific leadership.'
The Campaign to Defend the Constitution has organized leading scientists and clergy to write jointly to the nation's governors asking them to protect science education and to oppose inclusion of intelligent design in science curricula.
This letter was signed by over 100 clergy, led by Rev. James Forbes of the Riverside Church in New York and Rev. Welton Gaddy of the Interfaith Alliance. Nearly 100 scientists joined them, including a half-dozen Nobel laureates – Peter Agre, M.D., Paul Berg, Mike Bishop, M.D., Gunter Blobel, M.D., J. Robert Horvitz, and Harold Varmus, M.D.
The Campaign, whose website is , also released its first 'DefCon Alert' – on the top ten 'Islands of Ignorance' around the country where science education is under attack – and launched a petition drive to the nation's governors to defend the teaching of evolution.
With a significant online advertising program and plans to run TV and print ads against anti-science efforts by the religious right, the Campaign is taking up the struggle to curb the growing political influence of leaders of the religious right from Tony Perkins to James Dobson and Pat Robertson.
Ira Glasser, former Executive Director of the American Civil Liberties Union said, 'We want religious liberty free from interference from the government and a free government that does not become an instrument for imposing religious beliefs on people who do not share them.'
Rev. James Forbes, of the Riverside Church in New York, commenting on the letter to governors on evolution, noted, 'The battle over intelligent design is not between those who believe in God and those who believe in science but over what is best for the education of our children. Our children should learn established science in science class and take other opportunities in the school day to discuss the meaning, origins and wonder of life.'
According to an Associated Press report, the Bush administration is spending close to $6 billion per month to continue the occupation of Iraq, 19 percent higher than last year.
Those expenses are growing even as huge recovery costs from hurricanes Katrina and Rita and record federal deficits are intensifying pressure on the Bush administration and Congress to find ways to raise revenue.
Since 2001, the administration has allocated about $361 billion for military operations, reconstruction and other programs in Iraq and Afghanistan, including $50 billion for 2006 in legislation working its way through Congress.
According to AP, the bi-partisan Congressional Research Service (CRS), which published a report on the costs of war, also pointed out that the Pentagon has failed to account for up to $14 billion in funds used for the war. Some of the money may have been inappropriately transferred from peacetime accounts to cover rising costs of occupation.
CRS also suggested that the Pentagon won't be able to sustain war and occupation operations, cover equipment shortfalls, or provide pay and benefits at current spending levels.
Is Bush's war literally bankrupting America?
In news related to the federal government's fiscal crisis, a Bush-appointed committee impaneled to find ways to reduce the deficit may recommend raising taxes for homeowners and by eliminating health care-related tax deductions.
Early media reports say that the panel will recommend eliminating the 'alternative minimum tax,' an income tax option aimed mainly at higher income earners, and replacing it with caps on how much of a tax exemption homeowners paying on their mortgages could claim. The panel also may recommend taxing employer-based health care benefits.
Hard data on who these recommendations would affect most isn't yet available, but just from descriptions of the recommendations it appears that people paying mortgages and working people with benefits are going to be targeted. My guess is that raising these kinds of taxes would affect working families much more than Paris Hilton or Dick Cheney.
What do you think?
Some New York City law enforcement organizations are questioning whether or not last week's New York City subway bomb scare, now discovered to have been a hoax, was Mayor Bloomberg's attempt to distract the public from bad publicity he got for refusing to participate in a mayoral debate scheduled to be held in Harlem.
NYPD Capt. Eric Adams of the group 100 Blacks In Law Enforcement was quoted by New York local television station NY1 as asking, 'Why did we wait until Thursday, an hour and a half before a boycotted debate that he was receiving pressure for, to make an announcement in the heart of rush hour?'
According to the news channel, the FBI had warned Bloomberg prior to his publicizing the scare and implementation of heightening security that the threat wasn't credible.
Other New York media outlets admitted that they and the mayor knew of the hoax at least three days before Bloomberg announced it. Bloomberg’s announcement also coincidentally came the same day that a federal prosecutor asked Karl Rove to return to a grand jury without a promise of immunity from an indictment.
Did Bloomberg take a page from Bush’s terror-as-campaign playbook?
In August, a three-judge panel on the Atlanta Court of Appeals overturned the guilty verdict for five Cuban men accused of conspiracy by the federal government. The Atlanta appeals court accepted the defense case that the five Cubans did not receive a fair and impartial trial in Miami.
The five men were in Miami since 1998 infiltrating anti-Cuban government groups that openly claim to have participated in terrorist activities targeting Cuban civilians and others. When the five men approached the FBI with evidence about the activities of the groups they had infiltrated, they were promptly arrested for 'spying' and charged with conspiracy.
They were accused of spying, but conspiracy charges require a much lower burden of proof. The five men were summarily tried in Miami, notorious for strong anti-Cuban government sentiments, and found guilty. They were given sentences from 15 years to life.
Instead of accepting the decision to overturn the guilty verdicts, the Miami federal prosecutor, Alexander Acosta, is demanding the court reconsider its decision.
We are wondering why the five men are still in prison. You can ask Prosecutor Acosta the same thing by writing: U.S. Department of Justice, R. Alexander Acosta, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, 99 N.E. 4th Street, Miami, FL 33132.
--Do you have any news that the people must know? Share it with us at pa-letters@politicalaffairs.net.
