Ashcroft said after the ruling that his Justice Department will ''spare no effort to preserve the rights of all our citizens to pledge allegiance to the American flag''--a misrepresentation so blatant that it functions as a lie. The pledge remains intact and unchallenged. The court said nothing about pledging allegiance to the flag. It spoke only of the words ''under God''--which amounted, the court said, to an endorsement of religion.

Original PGOAT entry with link to pic.

While threats of terrorist actions startle Americans as the nation rumbles forward toward war with Iraq, a crucial question surfaces: are Western security interests now threatened by militant Islam or, indeed, by Islam itself? Is the terrorism now threatening the West just headed by Muslim extremists, or is there something within Islam itself that spawns and nurtures an impending “clash of civilizations”? The debate continues to rage: is it possible for Islam to liberalize itself and live at peace with, and within, the democratic and modern world?

Globalization’s “ozone hole” may have been out of sight and out of mind prior to September 11, 2001, but it has been hard to miss ever since. And measuring the reach of globalization is not an academic exercise to an eighteen-year-old marine sinking tent poles on its far side. So where do we schedule the U.S. military’s next round of away games? The pattern that has emerged since the end of the cold war suggests a simple answer: in the Gap.
The reason I support going to war in Iraq is not simply that Saddam is a cutthroat Stalinist willing to kill anyone to stay in power, nor because that regime has clearly supported terrorist networks over the years. The real reason I support a war like this is that the resulting long-term military commitment will finally force America to deal with the entire Gap as a strategic threat environment.

However, a number of well-placed sources in Whitehall insisted there was no intelligence suggesting such a link. "While we have said there may possibly be individuals in the country [Iraq] we have never said anything to suggest specific links between al-Qaida and Saddam Hussein," said one.

The question is whether Saddam Hussein's regime knew who he was and whether it offered him any assistance. "Yes, we have him telling his family I'm here in Baghdad in hospital, but he's not saying: 'And by the way, I'm getting all this help from Saddam'," a well-informed source in Washington said.

Those who say that oil lies at the root of it are right up to a point, but it is not simply a matter of grabbing Iraqi oil. The neo-conservatives see Iraqi oil as a political weapon which can be used to undermine Saudi Arabia's influence and thus promote their grand design for reshaping the entire Middle East. Whether they will succeed in achieving their broader plans, even after an invasion of Iraq, is doubtful. But there is no doubting the damage that will be done to the US in the meantime.

The only disagreement I have with Roberts is that there is nothing "secret" about the neocon strategy. The administration has always insisted that Iraq threatens its neighbors, but the nations of the Middle East are united in their opposition to war – with the exception of Israel. The War Party has its sights set not only on Iraq, but also on Hamas and Hezbollah in Lebanon, as well as Syria. That Israel is the one and only possible beneficiary of this mad rush to war has been clear from the start.

Three years before the Sept. 11 attacks, Germany's domestic intelligence service was tracking prominent members of the Hamburg terrorist cell that planned and executed the aircraft hijackings, according to newly obtained documents.

I have no problem with a war for oil — if we accompany it with a real program for energy conservation. But when we tell the world that we couldn't care less about climate change, that we feel entitled to drive whatever big cars we feel like, that we feel entitled to consume however much oil we like, the message we send is that a war for oil in the gulf is not a war to protect the world's right to economic survival — but our right to indulge. Now that will be seen as immoral.

Hollywood's new strategy is likely to affect everyone from computer-adept users of online music services to the average couch potato. The digital future, hailed as more convenient and of higher quality than the scratchy, fuzzy analog past, is coming with multiple strings attached.

Asked what might have triggered the initial FBI allegation about the five Middle Eastern men entering the U.S. from Canada, the Mountie replied caustically: "It was a slow week at the White House. They needed something to stir the pot because nothing was happening in Iraq."

Security Council Resolution 687, paragraph 14, calls for removing all WMDs from the Mideast. The U.S. has never volunteered to enforce that clause.

The decision to continue the deployment of the mammoth carrier and its battle group of ships means that up to four US aircraft carriers will be available in case war breaks out.