World-News

Mother Jones
by Chet Richards

05/01/06

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has approved plans that designate the elite Special Operations Command, or SOCOM, as the Department of Defense’s lead element for the 'war on terror.' Instead of creating wars with half trillion-dollar price tags and endless streams of roadside bombings and mortar attacks, Green Berets and SEALS will slide in, grab the bad guys, and fly off into the night. Is there any reason to doubt that we have found the key to the 'Long War' on terror? If 'terror' were a military problem that could be solved with military methods, the answer would be: 'no'...

http://tinyurl.com/rk66f


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Green+Berets
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Is this scary, or what? I guess Bush won't have to call on the Pentagon to move on Americans when he makes his final thrust... It really seems that he has put America "up for sale."

The New York Times story, published yesterday, is below. The Washington Post had the news back on March 2, but I sure didn't see it. The Washington Post story is at http://tinyurl.com/e8wdf


© Virginia Metze


Bush Set to Approve Takeover of 9 Military Plants by Dubai

By JIM RUTENBERG and DAVID E. SANGER
Published: April 28, 2006

WASHINGTON, April 27 — President Bush is expected on Friday to announce his approval of a deal under which a Dubai-owned company would take control of nine plants in the United States that manufacture parts for American military vehicles and aircraft, say two administration officials familiar with the terms of the deal.

The officials, who were granted anonymity so they could speak freely about something the president had not yet announced, said that the final details had not yet been set and that Mr. Bush might put conditions on the transaction to keep military technology in the United States.

But his action is almost certain to attract scrutiny in Congress, because of the political furor that erupted over the administration's approval of a deal earlier this spring that would have given another Dubai-owned company, Dubai Ports World, leases to operate several American port terminals through its acquisition of a British company, the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company.

Dubai Ports agreed to drop the port deal after it became clear that Republicans were abandoning Mr. Bush and opposing the takeover.

See the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/28/washington/28dubai.html

Raw Story had excerpts from the Times story Thursday evening.



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=David+E.+Sanger
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In These Times
by Susan J. Douglas

04/20/06

The crowning achievement of the Bush administration s first term was public relations, spin and salesmanship. So how can it be that now, in addition to everything else it has bungled or destroyed, the administration has discredited public relations itself? Ivy Lee (a.k.a 'Poison Ivy'), the 'father' of public relations in the early 20th century, pioneered what was then a revolutionary PR strategy: Tell the truth, appear open and thus sympathetic, and move on. ... He insisted that honesty and directness were better PR tools than deception. That way, of course, as corporations have found ever since, companies could also better manage the flow of information about themselves and more subtly craft their images. But the Bush 'CEO presidency' has used every PR trick in the book -- and then some -- not to try to put a more favorable spin on events and policies, but to spin flat-out lies into facts...

http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/2614/


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp



http://www.sharenews-blog.com:8090/helma/twoday/sharenews/search?q=Bush+legacy
http://www.sharenews-blog.com:8090/helma/twoday/sharenews/search?q=Susan+J.+Douglas
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Susan+J.+Douglas
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