**IF YOU CAN'T ACCESS THE FULL ARTICLE, CONTACT US AT
rays.list@comcast.net and we'll be happy to send the full article.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
http://www.sacbee.com/110/story/43167.html
Editorial: Torturers' apprentice
After victimizing an innocent Canadian, U.S. adds insult by refusing to admit error
-
Published 12:00 am PDT Sunday, October 22, 2006
A month after a Canadian government commission determined that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police had given U.S. authorities incorrect information about a Syrian-born Canadian's alleged ties to terrorists, the Bush administration has done nothing to rectify matters. It has not removed Maher Arrar's name from a terrorist watch list and has denied him permission to enter this country to accept a human rights award. Indeed, so far U.S. officials have not even responded to Canada's exoneration of Arrar except to complain about Ottawa going public with the matter.
Arrar, a software engineer, arrived at JFK Airport four years ago to catch a connecting flight home to Canada. But when U.S. officials saw his name on the watch list, his life was brutally interrupted for nearly a year.Arrar was interrogated, denied access to a lawyer, put on a plane to Jordan and then transferred to Syria. He spent 10 months in a tiny cell there and was tortured repeatedly before being released after Syrian officials found no evidence of his connection to terrorism.
Canadian authorities had given the U.S. government information suggesting Arrar was an Islamist extremist. But when they discovered their error, they say they informed Washington while Arrar was still in U.S. custody. But he was sent to Syria anyway, even though he was traveling with a Canadian passport and U.S. authorities knew Syria practices torture. The explanation that Syrian officials assured them Arrar would not be mistreated is cynical at best.
=
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/21/AR2006102100852_pf.html
The Washington Post
Rove Road-Tests Tougher Attack on Democrats
By Michael Abramowitz and Zachary A. Goldfarb
Sunday, October 22, 2006; A05
BUFFALO, Oct. 21 -- Republicans have been promising they would ratchet upthe rhetoric against Democrats in the final two weeks of the fall campaign,and the man President Bush called "The Architect" of his political campaignsoffered a preview of what they have in mind on Friday night.
Appearing in support of embattled GOP Rep. Thomas M. Reynolds (R-N.Y.), KarlRove offered biting jibes against House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi(Calif.), took a shot at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) andasserted that Democratic policies would leave the country weaker.
"You can't say I want to win the war but not be willing to fight the war,"said Rove, Bush's top political adviser. "And if leading Democrats havetheir way, our nation will be weaker and the enemies of our nation will bestronger. And that's a stark fact, and it's the reason that this fallelection will turn very heavily on national security."
=
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/22/AR2006102200714_pf.html
Reason and Faith at Harvard
By John I. Jenkins and Thomas Burish
Monday, October 23, 2006; A21
What should a properly educated college graduate of the early 21st century know?
A Harvard curriculum committee proposed an answer to that question thismonth, stating that, among other things, such a graduate should know "therole of religion in contemporary, historical, or future events -- personal,cultural, national, or international."
To that end, the committee recommended that every Harvard student berequired, as part of his or her general education, to take one course in anarea that the committee styled "Reason and Faith."
Whether that becomes policy remains to be seen, but the significance of therecommendation should not be understated. Harvard is the drum major ofAmerican higher education: Where it leads, others follow. And ifHarvard says taking a course in religion is necessary to be an educatedperson, it's a good bet that many other colleges and universities will soonmake the same discovery. We hope they will.
=
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2006/10/23/muslim_could_be_a_1st_in_congress?mode=PF
Muslim could be a 1st in Congress
Groups pin hope on Minnesotan
By Joseph Williams, Globe Staff | October 23, 2006
MINNEAPOLIS -- While there is no such thing as a sure thing in politics,congressional candidate Keith Ellison is a good bet to join the freshmanclass of 2006 in the US House of Representatives.
If he does, Ellison, who is the Democratic nominee in an overwhelminglyDemocratic district, will take the oath of office with his hand on the Koranand not the Bible -- the first Muslim in American history to be elected toCongress.
Though he publicly downplays his faith, it helped boost Ellison past twolocal party heavyweights to capture the nomination. In the primary, hiscampaign triggered a record turnout among Minneapolis's largely MuslimSomali community.
=
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/living/columnists/leonard_pitts/15825352.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp
IN MY OPINION
Democrats need a liberal dose of 'word magic'
BY LEONARD PITTS JR.
lpitts@MiamiHerald.com
The first time I was called a member of the ''media elite,'' I was driving a10-year-old minivan with close to 200,000 miles on it. I was many things.Elite wasn't one of them.
That episode, many years back, was one of my earliest lessons in theRepublican Party's preternatural brilliance in the use of politicallanguage. From ''family values'' to ''culture of life,'' to ''death tax'' to''Patriot Act'' to ''No Child Left Behind,'' the party has demonstrated aphraseological agility that jargon-boundDemocrats can only envy. ''Social Security lockbox,'' anyone?
Some might argue that what the GOP has really mastered is the language ofobfuscation and misdirection, a willingness to unmoor words from theirmeanings -- as in its shameless attempts in recent years to co-opt thelanguage of the civil rights movement as a weapon against affirmativeaction. Good point. But the truth of the language is not what I'm here totalk about. Its efficacy is.
=
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/10/23/ap/politics/mainD8KU8BUG1.shtml
GOP Losses Could Spark Partisan Warfare
White House bracing for GOP congressional losses that could cripple the president's agenda
WASHINGTON, Oct. 23, 2006
By TOM RAUM Associated Press Writer
(AP) The White House is bracing for guerrilla warfare on the homefrontpolitically if Republicans lose control of the House, the Senate or both _ and with it, the president's ability to shape and dominate the nationalagenda.
Republicans are battling to keep control of Congress. But polls and analystsin both parties increasingly suggest Democrats will capture the House andpossibly the Senate on Election Day Nov. 7.
Democrats need a 15-seat pickup to regain the House and a gain of six seatsto claim the Senate.
=
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/23/opinion/23mon3.html?pagewanted=print
Editorial
Brown University's Debt to Slavery
A long-awaited report on Brown University's 18th-century links to slaveryshould dispel any lingering smugness among Northerners that slavery wasessentially a Southern problem.
The report establishes that Brown did indeed benefit in its early years frommoney generated by the slave trade and by industries dependent on slavery.It did so in an era when slavery permeated the social and economic life ofRhode Island. Slaves accounted for 10 percent of the state's population inthe mid-18th century, when Brown was founded, and Rhode Island served as anorthern hub of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, mounting at least 1,000voyages that carried more than 100,000 Africans into slavery over the courseof a century.
The Brown report is the latest revelation that Northern businesses andinstitutions benefited from slavery. Countless other institutions might besurprised, and ashamed, if they dug deeply into their pasts as Brown hasover the past three years.
=
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/living/education/15825419.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp
EDUCATION
Federal grants reward teachers
The Bush administration has begun giving grants that reward teachers'performance in Ohio, a state where the GOP is in a tight election contestwith the Democratic Party.
BY BEN FELLER
Associated Press
WASHINGTON - In the closing weeks of the fall campaign, the Bushadministration is handing out money for teachers who raise student testscores, the first federal effort to reward classroom performance withbonuses.
The 16 grants total $42 million and cover many states. The government hasannounced only the first grants, $5.5 million for Ohio, where EducationSecretary Margaret Spellings was making the presentation today.
=
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/23/AR2006102300024_pf.html
GOP Shuns Immigration Hardliner in Ariz.
By JENNIFER TALHELM and ARTHUR H. ROTSTEIN
The Associated Press
Monday, October 23, 2006; 1:03 AM
TUCSON, Ariz. -- Randy Graf is a tough-on-immigration Republican in adistrict that is fed up with people pouring illegally across the border andhasn't elected a Democrat to the House in two decades.
Yet Graf's national party is turning its back on him, the retiringRepublican congressman he wants to succeed has disavowed his candidacy andhe's finding trouble getting traction beyond the most secure GOP voters _ and a border militia that's backing him.
Voters such as Sue Malusa, a mother of four from Tucson, think Graf and hissupporters go too far. Graf is backed by the Minutemen, self-appointedborder-watchers. Malusa will vote for a candidate who supports "a humane andfair way of controlling the border," she said. "That's important."
=
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/23/us/politics/23obama.html?pagewanted=print
Crowd-Pleaser From Illinois Considers White House Run
By ADAM NAGOURNEY and JEFF ZELENY
WASHINGTON, Oct. 22 - Senator Barack Obama, the first-term Illinois Democratwho has emerged this year as one of the most popular figures in his party,said Sunday that he was considering a run for the White House in 2008, ashift in position that he said had come in response to many Democrats'pressing him to join the field.
"I don't want to be coy about this: given the responses that I've beengetting over the last several months, I have thought about the possibility,but I have not thought about it with the seriousness and depth that I thinkis required," Mr. Obama said. "My main focus right now is in '06 and makingsure that we retake the Congress. After Nov. 7, I'll sit down and considerit."
The remarks by Mr. Obama sent ripples through Democratic circles and werethe latest indication of how wide open the 2008 presidential field is - andhow confident Democrats are that they are on the ascendancy. Should he run,Democrats said, his decision would pose a major complication to SenatorHillary Rodham Clinton of New York, who is widely viewed as the dominantfigure in the field of potential candidates.
=
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/22/AR2006102200716_pf.html
A Nadir of U.S. Power
By Sebastian Mallaby
Monday, October 23, 2006; A21
It's not exactly morning in America.
In Iraq, things get ever uglier, and the old remedy of extra troops nowseems tragically futile. The Bush team has recently tried putting thousandsof additional soldiers into Baghdad, and the result after two months is thatviolence there has increased.
Iraq is often seen as a special Rumsfeldian screw-up. But in Afghanistan,the Bush team quickly handed off to a model pro-Western leader backed by abroad NATO coalition. And what are the results there? The government iswobbling, warlords run drugs and the pro-al-Qaeda Taliban have 4,000 to5,000 active fighters in the country.
It's not just military efforts that are faltering. Five years ago, PresidentBush launched an experiment in tough-talk diplomacy, warning foreign leadersthat they must be with us or against us in the war on terrorism. At firstthis yielded at least one achievement: Pakistan sent troops for the firsttime into its wild border regions to root out Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters.But that success has now gone into reverse.
=
http://cgi.jacksonville.com/cgi-bin/printit.cgi?story=ZZNOSTORYZZ
GOP's modest case is buried
Many months before it became common media fare, I wrote here that pollsshowed political winds shifting to the Democrats. That's been thanks largelyto the Republicans' unwillingness to take on immigration and other issuesimportant to Americans. Now their majority power is in peril.
The question is why. Why should voters allow the Democrats to take controlof the U.S. House of Representatives, and possibly even the Senate?
Let's look at the issues. First, Iraq. Support for the war is low. Lessreported is that surveys indicate a general unwillingness by Americans tostrike our tents in Iraq and just go home.
When and how do Democrats believe we should leave? They know civil war andincreased regional stability would result if the United States simply quits.It's far-fetched to try to persuade anyone that the supposedly morecompassionate Democrats would, in essence, sign the death warrant of theentire Iraqi nation.
#####
