Item 1: Fear-Mongering. The Bush Administration has put school districts in six states on alert that a computer disk containing

photos, floor plans and other information about [American] schools ... downloaded data the U.S. military found in July — all publicly available on the Internet — [and] an Education Department report guiding schools on how to prepare and respond to a crisis, one official said Thursday, speaking on condition of anonymity.

So says an Associated Press report today that is remarkable in its vagueness. Where was this "data" found? In whose custody? "The officials said it was unclear who downloaded the information and stressed they had no evidence of any specific threats involving the schools." Was it found in an Iraqi government office, such as an education-ministry department concerned with building new schools and preparing for emergencies, which are much more likely to occur in Iraq than here? If so, then the find is worse than meaningless: it is absolutely the opposite of worrisome, but shows that Iraqis want to learn from U.S. architects and emergency-preparedness experts how to maximize safety for children and staff in public schools. If that is in fact the case, then this Bush Administration source who would speak only "on condition of anonymity" has betrayed his public trust.
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Indeed, for all we know from the AP story, the disk belonged to an American army reservist who in ordinary life is a teacher — and a Republican Party organizer! We need much more information to know what importance to assign this alarmist report, a report issued less than four weeks before the election even tho the "data" was found in July — three months ago! The report itself starts out "Education officials in six states were put on notice last month". Hmm. So we are seeing, 3½ weeks before the election, a report practically calculated to worry people about possible terrorist attacks upon American schools, that relates to a warning to school districts last month about data found two months before that! Double-hmm.
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Was this "data" found in a collection of similar materials, focusing on school design, architecture, and urban planning? or in a collection of plainly terrorism-related materials, such as instructions for building a bomb from readily available components, forging documents (and deciding what kinds of documents are most appropriate for a given action), surveillance and planning, avoiding suspicion, finding uniforms in order to pose as a security guard, utility worker, cable guy, or substitute teacher? Context is important. None was given in the article. Was any given to the local education authorities?
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Two school districts in my state, New Jersey, were among those alerted, one in South Jersey (Franklinville, near Vineland) and one in Central Jersey, Rumson (where Bruce Springsteen once had an estate). Vineland is a depressed community that has not fared well under the Bush Administration's handling of the economy, so might be inclined to vote Democratic, absent worry about terrorism in their neighborhood that, they are assured, only Republicans can prevent. (Mind you, the Republicans didn't do a very good job of preventing the World Trade Center attacks, now did they?) Rumson is rich, so is probably inclined to vote Republican anyway, tho the Congressman from that district is a Democrat — and a five-time winner on the game show Jeopardy!
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(In trying to find out what Congressman represents Rumson, I discovered truly shocking, exceedingly bizarre boundaries to New Jersey's congressional districts. They look like something a drunk might have drawn in his twelfth straight hour of drinking. We need to impose computer-aided design in drawing districts that are as compact and geometrically regular as possible — allowing for inclusion of entire municipalities when possible but striving for simple compactness, without regard to any other consideration. Start in one corner of a state and draw a district as close to square as possible; then create the next square and the next and the next out in all directions until every square inch is in one compact district or another. Boundaries like those for New Jersey's 4th, 12th, and 6th Congressional Districts (which adjoin, despite their discontinuous numbers) should be forbidden, on pain of flogging.)
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Of the six states in which these alerted school districts are located (California, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, New Jersey, and Oregon), half (50%) are among the 21 "swing states" (42% of the Nation) as calculated by the online magazine Intervention. One of the states implicitly 'targeted for terror' is also one of swingthestate.org's five most critical states, Florida.
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In trying to find out which are expected to be "blue" states (voting Democratic) and which "red" (Republican) in the coming election, I found the interesting assertion that "Red States Feed at Federal Trough, Blue States Supply the Feed". That is, there is a transfer of wealth in this country from states that tend to vote Democratic to states that vote Republican. Very interesting.
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In any case, two of the states 'targeted for terrorism' are solidly democratic (California and my own, New Jersey) and one is solidly Republican (Georgia). Why the people in a state as poor as Georgia would vote for Richpublicans is beyond my comprehension. New Jerseyans are half again as well off as Georgians, but we know better than to vote Republican. When will poor Southerners wake to the fact that Republicans are willfully and maliciously keeping them poor?
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Returning to the base question here, whether the discovery of a single computer disk in Iraq that contains information about a few American schools has any terroristic significance at all, I do not doubt for a minute that there are terrorists who would love to carry out attacks upon U.S. schools — but also upon government buildings, office buildings, bridges, tunnels, and every other kind of structure in this country. But we must bear ever in mind that the mere desire to attack us does not equate with either the ability or a working plan to do so.
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The two worst terrorist attacks upon the United States were both upon the high-visibility New York City target the World Trade Center. They were 8½ years apart. The Bush Administration keeps trying to worry us, in the expectation that Americans will somehow trust Republicans to do a better job of preventing attacks than will Democrats. Vice President Cheney, Slimeball in Chief, so much as said so, repeatedly, in campaign remarks. But the World Trade Center came tumbling down on George Bush's watch, not John Kerry's. So why on Earth would we feel safe under the 'watchful eye' of the very team that allowed the World Trade Center attacks to come off so brilliantly? The brilliant execution of that horrible attack contrasts vividly with the utter, bumbling incompetence of the Bush Administration in preventing it.
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Now, we are to believe, the Republicans have learned their lesson, and it is only because they are so brilliantly defending us that there hasn't been another successful terrorist attack since 2001. But the last successful attack before that was 8½ years earlier, in 1993, and only 6 people died in that attack, under Democrats. Doesn't that mean that Democrats protected us perfectly well for 8 years, until they had to leave office and turn over the keys to the White House to George W. Bush?
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There is no basis whatsoever to believe that Republicans are doing a better job than Democrats in preventing terrorist attacks.
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Item 2: Taking Orders from International Organizations. The Bush Administration has endlessly declaimed that when it comes to national security, they will never take orders from the United Nations nor clear anything they do with any foreign country. But when it comes to the Nation's economic security, they gladly take orders from the World Trade Organization AND European Union!
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The Associated Press reported today that the House of Representatives has passed a corporate-welfare bill (a reform of the corporate tax law) that hands $136 billion in tax breaks to corporations but

would repeal a $5 billion annual tax break provided to American exporters that was ruled illegal by the World Trade Organization. Ending the tax break is needed to lift retaliatory tariffs that have been imposed on U.S. exports to Europe. * * *
Opponents also objected to $42.6 billion in tax relief for multinational corporations, which they contended would increase the movement of U.S. jobs overseas.

Astounding. Bush and his Republican Party have cravenly ceded control of the U.S. economy to the WTO and EU. Decisions affecting the economic security of Americans are being made by foreigners, and that passes for 'defending America' among Republicans. It seems a "global test" on 'fair trade' is fine with the Bush Administration, and if foreigners in Geneva and Brussels don't approve of elements of our tax code, the Bushbabies will rush thru a change in the law to French-kiss WTO and EU ass.
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Let's hope that if Kerry and Edwards bounce Bush and his free-trading scumbags out of the White House, we will leave the WTO or demand it alter its arrogant behavior; tell the European Union to go fuck itself — if it wants trade war, it can have trade war, and it will lose badly, because we don't need ANYTHING from Europe; not anything at all —; and pursue policies in international trade that serve Americans' best interests, not just in preventing the export of jobs but also in improving wages, working conditions, and benefits for decent working people all across the world, thus to promote peace thru economic progress.
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The Bushies have placed us in a race to the bottom, using the poorest people on the planet to undercut American wages and benefits, make Americans insecure, and bully American workers into accepting cuts in wages and benefits just to keep their jobs.
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There are two ways to improve American "competitiveness" in the "global economy". One is to cut Americans' compensation and the costs of doing business here by slashing worker protections, safety regulations, etc. The other is to raise wages, increase benefits, improve worker protections, and promote more stringent safety regulations, etc., abroad.
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Bush and other Republican plutocrats favor the first, because they're not the ones who will be hurt by offshoring American jobs. U.S. voters, however, should choose the second.
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A vote for Bush or for Republicans in either house of Congress is a vote to impoverish the United States and lower the whole planet to the lowest common denominator of worker misery. We cannot want that.
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 1:17 PM