I have the honor of chairing the committee that will choose the recipient of the American Accounting Association’s 2007 AAA Innovation Accounting Education Award.

This award is doubly significant because of a $5,000 prize, courtesy of the Ernst & Young Foundation, and improved chances of publication in Issues in Accounting Education.

We encourage you to send in submissions via instructions now available at http://aaahq.org/awards/award6.htm

Tidbits on September 19, 2006
Bob Jensen

Foliage in New Hampshire's White Mountains --- http://www.nhliving.com/foliage/index.shtml
Fall Foliage --- http://gonewengland.about.com/cs/fallfoliage/l/blfoliagecentrl.htm
Foliage Pictures --- http://photo.net/travel/us/ne/foliage

For earlier editions of Tidbits go to http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TidbitsDirectory.htm
For earlier editions of New Bookmarks go to http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookurl.htm 

Click here to search Bob Jensen's web site if you have key words to enter --- Search Site.
For example if you want to know what Jensen documents have the term "Enron" enter the phrase Jensen AND Enron. Another search engine that covers Trinity and other universities is at http://www.searchedu.com/.

Bob Jensen's past presentations and lectures --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/resume.htm#Presentations   
 

Click here to search this Website if you have key words to enter --- Search Site.
For example if you want to know what Jensen documents have the term "Enron" enter the phrase Jensen AND Enron. Another search engine that covers Trinity and other universities is at http://www.searchedu.com/.

Bob Jensen's Home Page is at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/

Online Video, Slide Shows, and Audio
In the past I've provided links to various types of music and video available free on the Web. 
I created a page that summarizes those various links --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/music.htm

Crisis in Darfur --- http://www.guardian.co.uk/flash/0,,1870659,00.html
Clooney warns UN of Darfur genocide --- http://www.guardian.co.uk/sudan/story/0,,1873127,00.html
Darfur death toll may be 400,000 --- http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14840118/site/newsweek/
Clooney's video link is at http://www.cnn.com/2006/SHOWBIZ/Movies/09/14/wiesel.clooney.ap/index.html

A Energized Drug Cartel That Won't Go Away:  Return of the Taliban Video --- Click Here

The Sonic Memorial Project (to 9/11) --- http://www.sonicmemorial.org/sonic/public/index.html

Slave Narratives --- http://moadsf.org/salon/exhibits/slave_narratives/flash.php

From the University of Wisconsin:  South African Voices --- http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/SouAfrVc/

Stories on Stage --- http://www.chicagopublicradio.org/programs/specials/sos/stories.asp 

Evolution of Man and Woman (humor) --- http://walter.no.sapo.pt/humor/2001-06-28/humor-044.gif

High speed car flies over 200 feet into the second story of a home --- http://wcbstv.com/topstories/local_story_255120049.html
(Hit the play button and wait for the commercial to end.)

Free music downloads --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/music.htm

In the past I've provided links to various types of music and video available free on the Web. 
I created a page that summarizes those various links --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/music.htm

The Centre for Swedish Folk Music and Jazz Research --- http://www.visarkiv.se/en/index.htm

The Weepies: Beautiful Music Together --- http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6041220

From Sufjan to Solo, a Star Turn --- http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6040468

Dan Reeder: Making Music from Scratch --- http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6044111

Afrobeat at Its Deceptively Simple Essence --- http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6056730

Starting today (September 14), there's a way to get access to Rhapsody's 2.5 million digital tunes, in any room in your house, straight from the Internet -- without even turning on your computer. This new system is a time/money tradeoff. It saves you time (and what some folks consider a big hassle) in exchange for money: $999 for the basic hardware, plus $10 a month for the music service . . . There are some drawbacks. Because of complex music-industry policies, a small percentage of songs can't be streamed, yet they still show up in Rhapsody's menus, which leads to frustration. And Sonos hasn't been able to implement a search feature yet, which leaves you doing a lot of scrolling through menus.
Walter S. Mossberg, "Rhapsody Uses Sonos For a PC-Free Entry Into a Trove of Music," The Wall Street Journal, September 14, 2006; Page B1 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/personal_technology.html

Photographs and Art

Online Books, Poems, References, and Other Literature
In the past I've provided links to various types electronic literature available free on the Web. 
I created a page that summarizes those various links --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm

A Wonderland Miscellany by Lewis Carroll (1832-1898) --- Click Here

The Adventure Of The Bruce-Partington Plans by Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930) --- Click Here

A Descent Into The Maelstrom by Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) --- Click Here

Eleonora by Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) --- Click Here

Wisdom Quotes --- http://www.wisdomquotes.com/

Since 2001, the health-care industry has added 1.7 million jobs. The rest of the private sector? None! But the very real problems with the health-care system mask a simple fact: Without it the nation's labor market would be in a deep coma. Since 2001, 1.7 million new jobs have been added in the health-care sector, which includes related industries such as pharmaceuticals and health insurance. Meanwhile, the number of private-sector jobs outside of health care is no higher than it was five years ago.
"What's Really Propping Up The Economy," Business Week Cover Story, September 25, 2006 --- Click Here

In postings on a Web site called VampireFreaks.com, blogs in Gill's name show more than 50 photos depicting the young man in various poses holding a rifle and donning a long black trench coat and combat boots. One photo has a tombstone with his name printed on it - below it the phrase: "Lived fast died young. Left a mangled corpse." The last of six journal entries Wednesday was posted at 10:41 a.m, about two hours before the gunmen was shot to death after the college shooting. He said on the site that he liked to play "Super Columbine Massacre," an Internet-based computer game that simulated the April 20, 1999, shootings at the Colorado high school where two students gunned down 12 classmates and a teacher.
Phil Couvrette, "'Columbine' Game Was Gunman's Favorite," Myway, September 14, 2006 --- http://apnews.myway.com/article/20060914/D8K4LEAG0.html

The difference between a democracy and a dictatorship is that in a democracy you vote first and take orders later; in a dictatorship you don't have to waste your time voting.
Charles Bukowski (1920-1994) --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Bukowski

The purpose of a writer is to keep civilization from destroying itself.
Albert Camus --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Camus

The test of literature is, I suppose, whether we ourselves live more intensely for the reading of it.
Elizabeth Drew --- Click Here

Everywhere I go I'm asked if I think the university stifles writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them. There's many a best-seller that could have been prevented by a good teacher.
Flannery O'Connor --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O%27Connor%2C_Flannery

Women do not always have to write about women, or gay men about gay men. Indeed, something good and new might happen if they did not.
Kathryne Hughes

Works well under constant supervision and cornered like a rat in a trap.
Readers Digest, October 2003, Page 60 (from actual employee evaluation form, but it could apply to some students.)

His men would follow him anywhere, but only out of morbid curiosity.
Readers Digest, October 2003, Page 60 (from actual employee evaluation form, but it could apply to some teachers.)

If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn't brood. I'd type a little faster.
Isaac Asimov --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Asimov

If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn't brood. I'd search the Web a little faster.
Bob Jensen --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/resume.htm

My doctor gave me only six minutes to live. I said, “Gosh, Doc, I won’t be able to pay you because I don’t get paid for two weeks.” So he gave me two weeks.
Ed Scribner

Pope Stirs Up Poop
Dilbert Blog, September 19, 2006  --- http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2006/09/pope_stirs_up_p.html

Don't Call Us Violent or We'll Blow You Up
KHALED ABU TOAMEH --- Click Here

"There is such a thing as a medium-security prisoner," Adm. Harris says. "I believe there is no such thing as a medium-security terrorist." You might call Rear Adm. Harry Harris a jailer. As commander of Joint Task Force Guantanamo, a job he has held for six months, he is in charge of one of the world's best-known detention facilities. But if you call this place a prison, he will correct you. "Prisons are about rehabilitation and punishment," Adm. Harris told me in a phone conversation last week, reiterating a point he had made a few days earlier in a briefing for visiting journalists here. "What we are about is keeping enemy combatants off the battlefield.
"War Inside the Wire," by James Taranto, The Wall Street Journal, September 16, 2006; Page A8 --- Click Here
Admiral Harris describes terror incidents inside the compound that make the Guantanamo detainees extremely dangerous to secure except for the 315 out of 770 that have been sent home.

It was to be "The Mother of All Raids" (ghazvat al-gha zavat) that would bring down "The House of the Spider" as promised by the sheik in his mountain hideout. The "raid" would terrify the "infidel" and hasten his demise just as the armies of Islam had destroyed the Persian and Byzantine empires with a series of ghazavat 14 centuries ago. This time, the empire that would crumble under the weight of Islam's attack was the American "Great Satan," which had been running away from its enemies for decades. It had run away from Saigon, Tehran, Beirut, Mogadishu, Kohbar and Aden. Even when attacked in the heart of New York, its real capital city, it had done little more than nurse its chagrin with petulance. History, however, is never written in advance. And this time the "cowardly infidel," far from running away, decided to return and hit back. And hit back hard. A war that was to see several sobriquets, the latest being "the war against Islamofascism," had begun. Within weeks, the sheik's hideout in Afghanistan had been invaded and its rulers sent scurrying in all directions. IT was to be "The Mother of All Raids" (ghazvat al-gha zavat) that would bring down "The House of the Spider" as promised by the sheik in his mountain hideout. The "raid" would terrify the "infidel" and hasten his demise just as the armies of Islam had destroyed the Persian and Byzantine empires with a series of ghazavat 14 centuries ago. This time, the empire that would crumble under the weight of Islam's attack was the American "Great Satan," which had been running away from its enemies for decades. It had run away from Saigon, Tehran,...
Amir Taheri, "Osama's Error," The New York Post, September 11, 2006 --- Click Here

Increasing al-Qaida Threat to France is "high" and "permanent"
Current and former French officials specializing in terrorism said Thursday that an al-Qaida alliance with the Salafist Group for Call and Combat, known by its French initials GSPC, was cause for concern. "We take these threats very seriously," Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy said, adding in an interview on France-2 television that the threat to France was "high" and "permanent," and that "absolute vigilance" was required. Al-Qaida's No. 2, Ayman al-Zawahri, announced the "blessed union" in a video posted this week on the Internet to mark the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States.
John Leicester and Omar Sinan, "Al-Qaida joins Algerians against France," Yahoo News, September 14, 2006 ---
Click Here

Links to Conspiracy Theories That 9/11 Terror Was Orchestrated by the Bush Administration
Is Osama bin Laden merely a figment of the U.S. Satan's imagination?
The spiritual leader of Norway's Muslims told readers of Aftenposten Monday he doubts Muslims were responsible for the 2001 terror attacks on the United States. Imam Zulqarnain Sakandar Madni answered questions from the newspaper's readers. "There's some good evidence that (U.S. President George) Bush and company were behind this," he said. "See the film that's called 'Loose Change.' An American film!" He also said he doubts that al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden exist.
"Norwegian imam: Muslims not behind 9/11," UPI, September 11, 2006 ---
http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?StoryID=20060912-121220-8649r

I wonder if Imam Zulqarnain Sakandar Madni and his radical friends did "a lot of research for themselves?"
In response to some of these Korey Rowe, the producer of the "Second Edition of Loose Change", claimed in an interview, “We know there are errors in the documentary, and we’ve actually left them in there so that people discredit us and do the research for themselves.
Loose Change --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loose_Change_(video) 
Jensen Comment
Unlike Michael Moore, Korey Rowe admits to his fabrications and distortions. However, Rowe just won't tell you where they are in his work.

“The hypothesis (that Bush is behind 9/11 terror) that is gaining strength ... is that it was the same U.S. imperial power that planned and carried out this terrible terrorist attack or act against its own people and against citizens of all over the world,” Chavez said. “Why? To justify the aggressions that immediately were unleashed on Afghanistan, on Iraq.” Chavez has said the U.S. launched those wars to ensure its political and economic power.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, "Chavez says U.S. may have orchestrated 9/11, MSNBC, September 12, 2006 --- http://msnbc.msn.com/id/13401534/ 

Bush is Worse Than Bin Laden
Mark Finkelstein in the Boston Globe, September 11, 2006 --- http://newsbusters.org/node/7532

Robert Scheer agrees that Bush is worse than Bin Laden and provides a set of references that expound that it was President Bush rather than Bin Laden who intentionally instigated the 9/11 terror incidents.
"9/11 Conspiracy Theory Links," by Robert Scheer, The Nation, September 11, 2006 --- http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060925/gaping_holes  

Washington Post article on the theorists
 

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's conspiracy roundup
 

Wikipedia's 9/11 Conspiracy Wiki
 

911truth.org's top 40 reasons to doubt the official September 11th story
 

National Institute of Standards and Technology's response to conspiracy theories
 

TVNewsLies' "All the Proof You Need"
 (a relatively compact conspiracy site)
 

Loose Change
 (the most popular conspiracy theory movie in circulation)
 

911Research.com
  (a multi-dimensional collection of conspiracy articles)
 

Let's Roll 9/11
 (conspiracy blog)
 

Defective Yeti's satirical conspiracy theories
 ("very funny" or so says Robert Scheer)

No, no, no, that's not a conspiracy theory. That's a fact.
Al Franken on CNN --- http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0308/25/cf.00.html

Want to come up with your own conspiracy theory about Bush? Don't let Al Franken, Michael Moore, and MoveOn.org have all the fun! Use this handy George W. Bush Conspiracy Theory Generator to come up with your own conspiracy theory! --- http://www.buttafly.com/bush/index.php

The Sonic Memorial Project (to 9/11) --- http://www.sonicmemorial.org/sonic/public/index.html

I don't think the Plan B five years later was in the jihad "master plan" but a dangerous Plan B evolved
"THE MASTER PLAN For the new theorists of jihad, Al Qaeda is just the beginning," by Lawrence Wright, The New Yorker, September 11, 2006 --- http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/060911fa_fact3

[Plan A]
Even as members of Al Qaeda watched in exultation while the Twin Towers fell and the Pentagon burned on September 11, 2001, they realized that the pendulum of catastrophe was swinging in their direction. Osama bin Laden later boasted that he was the only one in the group’s upper hierarchy who had anticipated the magnitude of the wound that Al Qaeda inflicted on America, but he also admitted that he was surprised by the towers’ collapse. His goal, for at least five years, had been to goad America into invading Afghanistan, an ambition that had caused him to continually raise the stakes—the simultaneous bombings of the United States Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, in August, 1998, followed by the attack on an American warship in the harbor of Aden, Yemen, in October, 2000. Neither of those actions had led the United States to send troops to Afghanistan. After the attacks on New York and Washington, however, it was clear that there would be an overwhelming response. Al Qaeda members began sending their families home and preparing for war.

Two months later, the Taliban government in Afghanistan, which had given sanctuary to bin Laden, was routed, and the Al Qaeda fighters in Tora Bora were pummelled. Although bin Laden and his chief lieutenants escaped death or capture, nearly eighty per cent of Al Qaeda’s members in Afghanistan were killed. Worse, Al Qaeda’s cause was repudiated throughout the world, even in Muslim countries, where the indiscriminate murder of civilians and the use of suicide operatives were denounced as being contrary to Islam. The remnants of the organization scattered and were on the run. Al Qaeda was essentially dead.

From hiding places in Iran, Yemen, Iraq, and the tribal areas of western Pakistan, Al Qaeda’s survivors lamented their failed strategy. Abu al-Walid al-Masri, a senior leader of Al Qaeda’s inner council, later wrote that Al Qaeda’s experience in Afghanistan was “a tragic example of an Islamic movement managed in an alarmingly meaningless way.” He went on, “Everyone knew that their leader was leading them to the abyss and even leading the entire country to utter destruction, but they continued to carry out his orders faithfully and with bitterness.”

In June, 2002, bin Laden’s son Hamzah posted a message on an Al Qaeda Web site: “Oh, Father! Where is the escape and when will we have a home? Oh, Father! I see spheres of danger everywhere I look. . . . Tell me, Father, something useful about what I see.”

“Oh, son!” bin Laden replied. “Suffice to say that I am full of grief and sighs. . . . I can only see a very steep path ahead. A decade has gone by in vagrancy and travel, and here we are in our tragedy. Security has gone, but danger remains.”

In the view of Abu Musab al-Suri, a Syrian who had been a member of Al Qaeda’s inner council, and who is a theorist of jihad, the greatest loss was not the destruction of the terrorist organization but the downfall of the Taliban, which meant that Al Qaeda no longer had a place to train, organize, and recruit. The expulsion from Afghanistan, Suri later wrote, was followed by “three meager years which we spent as fugitives,” dodging the international dragnet by “moving between safe houses and hideouts.” In 2002, he fled to eastern Iran, where bin Laden’s son Saad and Al Qaeda’s security chief, Saif al-Adl, had also taken refuge. There was a five-million-dollar bounty on his head. In this moment of exile and defeat, he began to conceive the future of jihad.

. . .

[Plan B]
In Suri’s view, the underground terrorist movement—that is, Al Qaeda and its sleeper cells—is defunct. This approach was “a failure on all fronts,” because of its inability to achieve military victory or to rally the Muslim people to its cause. He proposes that the next stage of jihad will be characterized by terrorism created by individuals or small autonomous groups (what he terms “leaderless resistance”), which will wear down the enemy and prepare the ground for the far more ambitious aim of waging war on “open fronts”—an outright struggle for territory. He explains, “Without confrontation in the field and seizing control of the land, we cannot establish a state, which is the strategic goal of the resistance.”

Continued in article

Jensen Comment
Bush bashers loudly rant that our defeating al Qaeda's Plan A created the more dangerous randomized-terror Plan B, but Bush bashers fail to give fair evaluation of the scenario that would've evolved if Plan A had succeeded with bin Laden's repeated and unimpeded successes against "The Great (Impotent?) Satan." 

Bush bashers rant about no nukes in Iraq ad nauseam without ever mentioning where the real nuke threat existed if the U.S. did not  retaliate after 9/11.  In short time after September 11, 2001, a victorious bin Laden could've had control (in partnership with internal Pakistan fundamentalists) over all Pakistan's nukes. Bush bashers like Mark Finkelstein, Robert Scheer, David Korn, David Cameron, Michael Moore, and many Bush-bashing professors never mention bin Laden's nuke-takeover possibility under Plan A! The likely scenario, if the U.S. refrained from military 9/11 retaliation, could've been a relatively sudden nuke-armed bin Laden takeover of the Middle East and Africa. Most certainly Plan A success would've been much, much faster than the long and uncoordinated Plan B. 

The major obstacles to bin Laden's Plan A, if the U.S. military had stayed home, would've been the nuke-armed Israel and Russia. If the U.S. failed to provide military backup to Israel would Israel have fled the Middle East in terrified surrender or would nuclear winter have cooled the hot sands of the Middle East? Would Russia have allowed the Russia-hating bin Laden to point Pakistan's missiles toward the Motherland? I doubt it!

Our worry then and now is that turmoil in Pakistan will give fanatics control of the red buttons in slower Plan B lunacy. 

It's absolutely necessary to resourcefully help Pakistan keep the nukes out of the hands of its own internal Islamic fundamentalists. This is a far more dangerous scenario at the moment than Iran's enrichment program, because there are many Islamic fundamentalists in the present army of Pakistan.

I think it was a mistake to wasting so much money to bring so much power down on Saddam so soon. He stood in the way of Iran's Persian goal of taking over the Middle East at a time when more effort should've been brought to bear on preventing the spread of nukes, which Pakistan was actually doing at the time by leaking nuclear bomb technology to other Islamic nations like Iran.

Then again maybe it was just a mistake of naively assuming that the people of Iraq would all pitch, once they were free of Saddam, together to make their nation a proud nation of tribes whose national pride in the Iraq as a whole surpassed secular  heritage (as in the case of the early immigrants of the United States who learned English and proudly pledged an allegiance to their new nation).

"Osama bin Laden calls Iraq the 'epicenter' of this war"
And if you think we're winning against the main al Qaeda territory (al-Anbar Province) in Iraq, a top secret marine report says that we've never sent enough troops to do the job and probably never will. Once again its the problem of an underground enemy that hides behind innocent human shields. This entrenched al Qaeda enemy can only be defeated by a force that's willing to take out the shields as well.

"Iraq’s Anbar province a lost cause?" by Jim Miklaszewski, MSNBC, September 12, 2006 ---  http://msnbc.msn.com/id/14805515

A new military intelligence report offers up the most pessimistic assessment yet of military prospects for al-Anbar province, the vast no-man's land in western Iraq that has seen some of the fiercest fighting of the war — from hard-hit Fallujah to the provincial capital Ramadi, which the U.S. military has never controlled.

A top secret report by a Marine Corps intelligence officer says there's no chance the U.S. military can end insurgent violence in al-Anbar, and no viable government institutions or chance for political progress anytime soon.

Even more ominous, military officials say al-Qaida in Iraq has rushed to fill that political vacuum. Military officials tell NBC News al-Qaida's also recruiting increasing numbers of Iraqi Sunnis into the terrorist group.

The Marine intelligence report says there were never enough American troops in al-Anbar from the beginning. In fact, one senior military official tells NBC News it would take 50,000-60,000 more U.S. ground forces to secure al-Anbar, and that's not going to happen.

Real time meter of the U.S. cost of the war in Iraq --- http://www.costofwar.com/ 

Compact for Iraq
Ministers from around the world will meet today to discuss the International Compact for Iraq, an Iraqi government-led initiative to transform Iraq's economy and achieve financial independence within five years. If the Iraqis map out a credible and promising plan, the international community will support it, investing in Iraq's future. Additional assistance will be expressly conditional on Iraq achieving the benchmarks it has set out . . . In spite of the challenges faced by the Iraqi government, there are good reasons to believe this initiative will succeed. First, it's the economic component of a strategy that also includes the Iraqi government's security and political initiatives, including national reconciliation. Second, though inflation and budget execution are continuing concerns, the Iraqi economy has made consistent progress, with strong foreign-currency reserves, growing revenues, a recently enacted fuel-import liberalization law, and an investment law to be passed this month. Third, the Iraqis have already taken difficult steps, including reducing fuel subsidies, maintaining fiscal discipline and an extensive audit of the Central Bank, as part of their standby arrangement with the IMF. The Compact will add a strong oversight mechanism. All of this should further compel us to remain steadfast in our support of an initiative that deserves the urgent support of the entire international community.
Robert M. Kimmitt, "Compact for Iraq," The Wall Street Journal, September 18, 2006; Page A18 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB115853520087165818.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep

An Energized Drug Cartel That Won't Go Away:  Return of the Taliban Video --- Click Here

Jacob Sullum, "The Latest Dope:  Drug warriors are playing into the Taliban’s hands,"  Reason Magazine, September 15, 2006 --- http://www.reason.com/sullum/091306.shtml

After years of hard work by drug warriors in Afghanistan, the country no longer produces 87 percent of the world's illicit opium. Now it produces 92 percent, according to the latest suspiciously precise estimate from the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

On Tuesday, citing ties between opium trafficking and the Taliban insurgency, UNODC Executive Director Antonio Maria Costa called upon NATO forces in Afghanistan to get more involved in efforts to stamp out the opium trade. This is exactly the right strategy to pursue if the aim is to alienate the Afghan people, undermine their government, and strengthen the insurgency.

The Taliban-opium connection goes back at least a decade. After they took control of Afghanistan in 1996, they encouraged opium poppy cultivation and took a cut from the trade, using the money to buy weapons and put up their buddies in Al Qaeda. In 1999, per the UNODC, Afghanistan had a record opium harvest of 4,565 tons.

The following year, the Taliban suddenly announced that growing poppies was contrary to Islam. The UNODC says the ban, enforced by the threat of summary execution, nearly eliminated cultivation, resulting in a 2001 opium harvest of less than 200 tons.

But the Taliban's reading of Islamic law conveniently did not require the destruction of opium stockpiles, much of which they controlled. The opium ban therefore looked like an attempt to profit from price increases while getting credit from the West for a firm anti-drug stance.

In any case, since losing power after the U.S. invasion in 2001, the Taliban seem to have forgotten their religious objections to opium, production of which hit an all-time high of more than 6,000 tons this year, up about 50 percent from 2005. "We are seeing a very strong connection between the increase in the [Taliban] insurgency on the one hand and the increase in cultivation on the other hand," the UNODC's Costa told The New York Times.

What is the nature of this connection? Poppy farmers welcome the Taliban because the Taliban offer them "protection." Protection from whom? From their own government, which is trying to destroy their livelihood under pressure from the U.S. and the U.K.

Afghanistan is one of the world's poorest countries, and the UNODC estimates that opium accounted for more than 50 percent of its GDP in 2005. By his own account, then, Costa is demanding that the Afghan government wipe out half of the country's economy, with conspicuous assistance from U.S. and British forces. Does that sound like a recipe for peace and stability?

It's no mystery why barely subsisting Afghanis choose to grow opium poppies instead of legal crops, contrary to the wishes of foreign governments. According to the UNODC, a hectare of poppies earned farmers some $5,400 last year, about 10 times what they could get by growing wheat.

Continued in article

A bomber attacked Canadian troops who were distributing gifts to children Monday in southern Afghanistan, an Afghan official said. A NATO spokesman said four of its soldiers were killed, but declined to provide their nationalities. The attack happened in the Kandahar province district of Panjwaii, the scene of a two-week anti-Taliban operation conducted by NATO that ended Sunday. An Afghan official said the bomber targeted Canadian troops handing out candy and other gifts to children. Reports said the explosive device was attached to a bicycle.
"Canadian troops targeted by bomber," Canada.com, September 18, 2006 --- Click Here

Afghanistan's Catch-22
Gen. Eikenberry understands the root of the problem. And it's a big one. In 2005, Afghanistan earned $2.7 billion in opium exports, or 52% of its GDP -- plenty of cash to support an insurgency. That fighting has, in turn, basically halted all of the infrastructure build-out that was meant to provide Afghan farmers and other rural residents alternatives to growing poppy. "In traveling around the country, the top concern of Afghans is unemployment, education and irrigation," Gen. Eikenberry confirms. But to address these issues -- and here's the catch-22 -- violence in rural Afghanistan must first be quelled. If it isn't, the infrastructure that will facilitate trade cannot be built.
Dana White, "Afghanistan's Catch-22, The Wall Street Journal, September 16, 2006; Page A8 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB115836499497165106.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep

Afghanistan is also a lost cause according to John Kerry
Democratic Sen. John Kerry, the party's 2004 presidential nominee, accused the Bush administration of pursuing a "cut and run" strategy in Afghanistan that has emboldened terrorists and made the United States less safe. "The administration's Afghanistan policy defines cut and run," Kerry said in remarks prepared for delivery at Howard University on Thursday. "Cut and run while the Taliban-led insurgency is running amok across entire regions of the country. Cut and run while Osama bin Laden and his henchmen hide and plot in a lawless no-man's land."
"Kerry: Bush Will 'Cut and Run' in Afghanistan," NewsMax, September 14, 2006 --- http://newsmax.com/archives/ic/2006/9/14/141147.shtml?s=ic

"Why we're losing," by Jonathan Kay, National Post via Canada.com, September 19, 2006 --- http://www.canada.com/components/print.aspx?id=2ca9307f-4aaa-4c5e-9029-62aae81b979e

We can lecture the Muslim world till we're blue in the face about freedom of speech and pluralism. But why should they listen? At the end of the day, war and politics are both about mobilization. A couple of blunt words from the Pope or some cartoons published in an obscure European newspaper are apparently enough to get mobs of angry Islamists into the street. But here in the West, we can't even come up with the few thousand extra troops needed to finish off a war we thought we'd already won. We're fat and lazy. The enemy is mean and hungry.

Afghanistan is just Exhibit A. In Lebanon, the West could have helped Israel snatch victory from the jaws of defeat by sending the 15,000 peacemakers called for in the original UN ceasefire blueprint -- along with a robust mandate to seek and destroy Hezbollah's weapons caches. But France threatened to scuttle the mission unless Hezbollah guaranteed a combat-free deployment. And so the job has been delegated to the Lebanese army, which can reliably be expected to look the other way while Tehran's proxy rearms itself in preparation for the next war -- preferably one waged under an Iranian nuclear umbrella.

Like Afghanistan, Iran is a problem the West thought it had already fixed. Two years ago, Tehran agreed to suspend uranium enrichment under a deal signed with the European Union. But Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ripped that paper up when it became obvious the West didn't have the stomach for a confrontation. NATO can't even scratch a small expeditionary force together to stop a genocide in Darfur. The idea of attacking Iran -- a real country with a real army -- is out-and-out unthinkable.

But nowhere is the West's trepidation more blatantly on display than in Iraq, where 150,000 U.S. troops have been trying to win a war that, from the very beginning, called for double or triple that number. As many journalists and ex-generals have written, the U.S. war effort in Iraq has resembled a real-life game of whack-a-mole, in which an overstretched military chases jihadis from one town to the next, with the bad guys melting into the landscape and then reconstituting themselves in some distant, ungarrisoned outpost. The shame of the Iraq war isn't that George W. Bush started it; but that, throughout it all, he and Donald Rumsfeld have been too stubborn to admit they'd made war on the cheap.

This conflict won't be decided by the jihadis or the United States acting alone: In this kind of asymmetric war, no single player can land a knockout blow. Instead, we can expect that the balance of power will ultimately be tipped according to each side's ability to win over powerful fence-sitters such as Russia, Pakistan, Syria and China.

In this regard, should we be surprised that Moscow and Beijing are refusing to impose sanctions on Iran? That Pervez Musharraf is cutting deals with terrorists on the Afghan border? That Syria is in bed with Hezbollah? These are amoral actors that have little historic or emotional connection to the West and its idealistic projects. They're merely looking to back a winner. And which side looks like a winner right now? The one with a million maniacs in the street ... or the one issuing the frenzied mea culpas?

Things will tip back in our favour eventually. Someday, the terrorists will go too far -- by attacking Russia or China with WMDs, for instance -- and turn fair-weather friends into enemies. And over time, political Islam itself will collapse under the weight of the economic failure produced in every place (Afghanistan, Iran, Sudan, Gaza) it's been imposed. But in the meantime, the ululating fanatics are teaching us a humbling lesson about how soft we've all become. Iraq, Sudan, Afghanistan and Lebanon are broken, bleeding countries that the West could help fix. But we'd rather hand them over to the jihadis than sacrifice blood and treasure. That's why we're losing.

How could a readiness for war in time of peace be safely prohibited, unless we could could prohibit, in like manner, the preparations and establishments of every hostile nation?
James Madison (Federalist No. 41, 1788) Reference: The Federalist --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Madison

"A Force for Good," by Donald H. Rumsfeld, The Wall Street Journal, September 11, 2006; Page A14 ---
Click Here

We remember where we were that day.

At 9:38 a.m., the entire Pentagon shook. I went outside and saw the horrific face of war in the 21st century. Those present could feel the heat of the flames and smell the burning jet fuel -- all that remained of American Airlines flight 77.

Destruction surrounded us: smoldering rubble, twisted steel, victims in agony.

Last week, President Bush greeted the families of September 11 victims in the East Room of the White House and told them about the efforts to bring to justice those who attacked our nation -- and those who supported them. He said, "The families of those murdered that day have waited patiently for justice. . . . They should have to wait no longer." He announced that 14 high-level terrorists, including the man referred to as the mastermind of the attacks, have been transferred to the Department of Defense and incarcerated at Guantanamo Bay. There they will be treated humanely -- though their victims were not -- and, if and when the necessary legislation is passed by the Congress, prosecuted for their crimes, in accordance with law.

President Bush has reminded us that this enemy is still seeking new ways to attack us. He told us about captured terrorists who provided key information about planned attacks on buildings here in the U.S., and about al Qaeda's efforts to obtain biological weapons. Information the interrogators received from these terrorists has led to the capture of other terrorists, who have in turn led us to still more.

Yet, even with these victories in the war, President Bush reminded us that it is important to understand the nature of this enemy, and what it is seeking to do. The extremist movement that threatens us is not a reactionary force -- it actively looks for opportunities to acquire new and deadlier weapons, to destabilize governments, and to create discord among our allies and within our own country.

This enemy has made its immediate strategy clear in public announcements and in captured documents: to undermine the Coalition effort in Iraq, drive our forces out, and then use that nation as a base from which to destabilize the surrounding nations. They seek to extend a hoped-for victory in Iraq to a broad part of the Middle East and even parts of Europe and Asia -- to restore an ancient caliphate.

Iraq is the linchpin in their effort. Osama bin Laden calls Iraq the "epicenter" of this war, and he believes that "America is prepared to wage easy wars but not prepared to fight long and bitter wars." When Gen. Abizaid, commander of Central Command, was asked what effect pulling out of Iraq would have, he said the extremists would become "emboldened, empowered, more aggressive." They will turn whatever part of Iraq they can control into a safe haven for terrorists, just as Afghanistan was before September 11. They likely will attract still more recruits, inspired by their "victory" over the West.

To stop them in Iraq, our country has sent our finest young people -- all volunteers -- to help the Iraqis defeat the terrorists seeking to control the region. And while our military tactics, techniques and procedures have adapted as the enemy has changed its tactics, the guiding principle of the overall military strategy remains constant -- namely, to empower the Iraqi people to defend, govern and rebuild their own country. Extremists know that war and anarchy are their friends -- peace and order their enemies.

There are many challenges ahead in this young century: Among others, Iran's nuclear aspirations, North Korea and the proliferation of dangerous weapons, and the need to build on recent progress in missile defense.

All this while fighting a war in the media on a global stage. As I recently mentioned in remarks to the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars, everyone is watching: the enemies, their supporters, their potential supporters, our allies and our potential allies. In this very public battle for hearts and minds, we must be as confident in the rightness of our cause as the enemy is in its evil purpose. We cannot allow the world to forget that America, though imperfect, is a force for good in the world.

Mr. Rumsfeld is Secretary of Defense.

U.S. military intelligence has determined that a video released by the Iranian government purporting to show a test of a new submarine missile is bogus, three Pentagon officials confirmed. The Iranians released the video Aug. 27, one of a series of steps the Tehran government has taken in recent months to display its military potency in the midst of a confrontation with the United States and other Western nations over its nuclear ambitions.
Los Angeles Times, September 10, 2006 --- http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1699191/posts

An agreement between President Bush and King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia is resulting in thousands of additional students from Saudi Arabia enrolling at colleges in the United States, all with full scholarships paid by the Saudi government, according to the AP. The generous aid packages — for which some 15,000 students will have been enrolled by January — have led many American universities to recruit the Saudis.
Inside Higher Ed, September 11, 2006 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/09/11/qt
Jensen Comment
I did not add the above tidbit to imply that having these students in the U.S. is a bad thing at this point in time when we need Saudi Arabia on our side as much as possible.

Review of Building Red America by The Washington Post's Thomas B. Edsall
For that matter, neither party is likely to be happy with the findings of this provocative though in many ways familiar book. Mr. Edsall, who covered national politics for The Washington Post from 1981 to 2006, accuses the Republicans of using their closely contested victories to advance a conservative agenda that “does not have the decisive support of the people,” of further polarizing the electorate and cynically forcing it “to pick between extremes,” and of using “the slimmest of political margins” to try “to remake America — as well as America’s role in the world.” As for Democrats, he depicts them as hapless, unfocused and reeling from self-inflicted wounds. He contends that “the social-issue left overwhelmingly sets the agenda of the Democratic Party,” often to the detriment of its candidates in general elections. He takes the party to task for its “lack of credible policies” in the areas of globalization and education. (He curiously has little to say about its internal schisms over foreign policy and national security.)
Michiko Kakutani, "The Republican Collapse May Not Be So Imminent," The New York Times, September 12, 2006 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/12/books/12kaku.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

The Nation is a socialist magazine that diligently and incessantly attempts to undermine capitalist economics, the U.S. Military-Industrial Complex, the GOP, and the Bush-Cheney response to 9/11. It's important to study all sides to important issues. Here's the extreme left's take on things on the fifth anniversary on 9/11.
"A Just Response," by Katrina vanden Heuvel, The Nation, September 11, 2006 --- http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060925/just_response

"On Tuesday morning, a piece was torn out of our world. A patch of blue sky that should not have been there opened up in the New York skyline.... the heavens were raining human beings. Our city was changed forever. Our country was changed forever. Our world was changed forever." So wrote Jonathan Schell in the first issue of The Nation following September 11, 2001.

At The Nation's office, in the aftermath of the attacks on the World Trade Center towers, like everyone else in America we watched television--horrified, saddened, angry. People wept, and at the same time took notes and got on the phones. For we had an issue closing the next day. We quickly learned that our communications links to the outer world were severed--our phone lines had run under World Trade Center 7. So, in those first days, we had no incoming calls and the office computer links to the Internet were down. The facts were sketchy and causes of the attack shrouded in a pall of uncertainty thick as the smog rising from the demolished World Trade Center.

The issue that we assembled and put to bed the next day struck a tone and purpose that the magazine has striven to maintain in the past five years. Paying respect to the human reactions of anger, hurt and grief, our editorials in that first week, and in the ones that followed, have made the case for an effective and just response to the horrific terrorist acts. We argued that such a response may include discriminate use of military force but that the most promising and effective way to halt terrorism lies in bringing those responsible to justice through nonmilitary actions in cooperation with the global community and within a framework of domestic and international law. As Richard Falk warned in his indispensable "A Just Response," the "justice of the cause" would be "negated by the injustice of improper means and excessive ends."

As the US military response unfolded in the ensuing days, there seemed to be more questions than answers. Who is Osama bin Laden? What is the involvement of the Taliban? What are we doing in Afghanistan anyway? Did US foreign policy create historic resentments and injustices abroad that spawned the terrible attacks? What is the best way for this country to address the root causes of terrorism? What are the aims of the war on it? What are its limits? What is the potential political and human fallout? Who are our allies? What role should the United Nations play? How to limit civilian casualties and provide humanitarian relief? As autumn in New York merged into Ramadan and Afghanistan's winter, these questions only deepened. It is striking how the essential themes laid out in The Nation in those initial weeks, far from being outrun by events, have gained in resonance.

One of my roles as editor has been to figure out the bridge from personal to political. How do you balance individual grief and anger at the attacks with proportionality, justice and wisdom in response? How do we reconcile legitimate fear of future attacks with protection of civil liberties, and carry on a political debate that doesn't ignore concerns of economic and social justice?

To deal with those complex issues, I was fortunate in being able to call on some of the most respected figures on the progressive left. They responded with a series of thoughtful, informed and provocative essays that have appeared in our pages. Among them: the late scholar-philosopher-activist Edward Said demolishing the clash of civilizations argument; Mary Kaldor on the new wars and civil society's role in halting terrorism; Michael T. Klare on Saudi-US relations and the geopolitics of oil; Ellen Willis on homefront conformity; Chalmers Johnson on blowback and the role of US foreign policy; William Greider on war profiteering; Bill Moyers on Americans' restored faith in government; John le Carré on why this war can't be won. Our regular columnists weighed in with their independent takes. And peace and disarmament editor Jonathan Schell filed a weekly "Letter From Ground Zero"--lucid, illuminating, frightening, humane essays that advanced the case for sensible and moral nonmilitary actions.

The Nation has a long tradition of providing a forum for a broad spectrum of left/progressive views, which sometimes erupted in spirited debates in those weeks after 9/11. Christopher Hitchens's column, "Against Rationalization," which castigated those on the left who drew a causal relationship between US foreign policy in the Middle East and the terrorist acts, provoked a heated exchange with Noam Chomsky. This exchange ran on our website and drew a raft of comments, with readers almost equally divided. Richard Falk's article "Defining a Just War" also provoked numerous letters pro and con.

As a fog of national security enveloped official Washington and the war front and the mainstream media enlisted in the Administration's war--flag logos flying--the need for an independent, critical press seemed never more urgent. The speedy passage of the repressive PATRIOT Act, with scarcely a murmur of dissent in Congress, the secret detentions of more than 1,000 people and the establishment of military tribunals were troubling signs that a wartime crackdown on civil liberties was under way and called for vigorous opposition. Criticizing government policy in wartime is not a path to popularity. Our independent stand on the war and criticism of what we called "policy profiteering" by conservative Republicans in Congress (who sought to use the war as a pretext to push through their own agenda) drew virulent attacks by the pundits and publications of the right, who questioned our patriotism and trotted out the old chestnut of the left's "anti-Americanism."

Such attacks are nothing new. The Nation has always marched to a different drummer, opposing US involvement in the Spanish-American War and World War I and the Vietnam War, while giving all-out support to the US effort in World War II. Former Nation editor Ernest Gruening of Alaska was one of only two senators to vote against the Gulf of Tonkin resolution that led to the Vietnam morass. As Eric Foner wrote in the days after the attacks, "At times of crisis the most patriotic act of all is the unyielding defense of civil liberties, the right to dissent." Also in times of crisis, the enduring concerns of this magazine and progressives take on new relevance: the dangers of American unilateralism, corrosion of civil liberties, authoritarianism in any nation, dependence on Big Oil, military quagmire and the urgent necessity of international law and institutions.

The commentary this magazine has published in the five years since the 9/11 attacks was designed to inform honest debate in this country on key questions that confront us and to enable us to ask hard questions of policy-makers and the media. It is my hope that the ideas expressed here will guide and enrich the policies that will--and must--come.

Jensen Comment
I recommend one of the more thoughtful pieces mentioned above, the one the the "new kind of war" entitled "Wanted: Global Politics," by Mary Kaldor, The Nation, October 18, 2001 --- http://www.thenation.com/doc/20011105/kaldor

Four weeks on and it feels as though we are living in a black hole. The "new war on terrorism" has invaded our lives and sucked in all our usual activities. Even before the start of military action, television, newspapers, e-mail and everyday conversation had all been overwhelmed not just by grief and mourning but by the new global coalition, troop deployments, intelligence efforts, the Afghan crisis and on and on. Normal debates about issues like education and health, climate change and biodiversity, corporate responsibility and debt reduction, not to mention the Balkans or Central America, have been suspended--unless, that is, these issues can somehow be related to September 11. The crime against humanity that took place on September 11 was so horrific and so shocking that this reaction is perhaps understandable (although the world did not shut down after the genocide in Rwanda or the fall of Srebrenica). Nevertheless, it is the wrong reaction. Normal debate is exactly what is needed. If we are to confront what Michael Ignatieff has described as "apocalyptic nihilism" in a serious, sustained way, then we need politics, especially global politics. Not as a substitute for catching the perpetrators and bringing them to justice, but as a central part of the strategy for eliminating their activities.

In the past decade, since the end of the cold war, we have witnessed the emergence of something that could be called global politics. The cold war can be regarded as the last great global clash between states; it marked the end of an era when the ultimate threat of war between states determined international relations and when the idea of war disciplined and polarized domestic politics. Indeed, this may explain why we became conscious of the phenomenon known as globalization only after the end of the cold war. Nowadays, as September 11 demonstrated only too graphically, we live in an interdependent world, where we cannot maintain security merely through the protection of borders; where states no longer control what happens within their borders; and where old-fashioned war between states has become anachronistic. Today states are still important, but they function in a world shaped less by military power than by complex political processes involving international institutions, multinational corporations, citizens' groups and, indeed, fundamentalists and terrorists--in short, global politics.

The end of old-fashioned war between states does not mean the end of violence. Instead, we are witnessing the rise of new types of violence, justified in the name of fundamentalism of one variety or another and perpetrated against civilians. President Bush is perhaps right to call what happened a "new kind of war." But this is not the first "new war," although it is more spectacular and more global than ever before and, for the first time, involves large-scale loss of American lives. Wars of this type have taken place in Africa, the Middle East, the Balkans and Central Asia, especially in the past decade. And there are lessons to be learned that are relevant to the new "new war."

These new wars have to be understood in the context of globalization. They involve transnational networks, based on political claims in the name of religion or ethnicity, through which ideas, money, arms and mercenaries are organized. These networks flourish in those areas of the world where states have imploded as a consequence of the impact of globalization on formerly closed, authoritarian systems, and they involve private groups and warlords as well as remnants of the state apparatus. In the new wars, the goal is not military victory; it is political mobilization. Whereas in old-fashioned wars, people were mobilized to participate in the war effort, in the new wars, mobilizing people is the aim of the war effort, to expand the networks of extremism. In the new wars, battles are rare and violence is directed against civilians. The strategy is to gain political power through sowing fear and hatred, to create a climate of terror, to eliminate moderate voices and to defeat tolerance. And the goal is to obtain economic power as well. These networks flourish in states where systems of taxation have collapsed, where little new wealth is being created. They raise money through looting and plunder, through illegal trading in drugs, illegal immigrants, cigarettes and alcohol, through "taxing" humanitarian assistance, through support from sympathetic states and through remittances from members of the networks.

These wars are very difficult to contain and very difficult to end. They spread through refugees and displaced persons, through criminal networks, through the extremist viruses they germinate. We can observe growing clusters of warfare in Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia and the Caucasus. They represent a defeat for democratic politics, and each bout of warfare strengthens those with a vested political and economic interest in continued violence. The areas where conflicts have lasted longest have generated cultures of violence, as in the jihad culture taught in religious schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan or among the Tamils of Sri Lanka, where young children are taught to be martyrs and where killing is understood as an offering to God. In the instructions found in the car of the hijackers in Boston's Logan Airport, it is written: "If God grants any one of you a slaughter, you should perform it as an offering on behalf of your father and mother, for they are owed by you.... If you slaughter, you should plunder those you slaughter, for that is a sanctioned custom of the Prophet's."

What we have learned about this kind of war is that the only possible exit route is political. There has to be a strategy of winning hearts and minds to counter the strategy of fear and hate. There has to be an alternative politics based on tolerance and inclusiveness, which is capable of defeating the politics of intolerance and exclusion and capable of preserving the space for democratic politics. In the case of the current new war, what is needed is an appeal for global--not American--justice and legitimacy, aimed at establishing the rule of law in place of war and at fostering understanding between communities in place of terror. There needs to be a much stronger role for the United Nations and serious consideration paid to ways in which legitimate political authority can be re-established in Afghanistan. Thinking through how this should be done needs to be the responsibility of the new United Nations Special Representative to Afghanistan, Lakhdar Brahimi, in consultation with neighboring states and a range of relevant political and civic actors. There also needs to be a clear demonstration of evenhandedness in places like the Middle East, and real support for democratic and moderate political groupings--in other words, an alternative network involving international institutions as well as civil society groups committed to similar goals. What this entails in concrete terms has to be discussed and debated. In this crisis, there has been much handwringing about the need for better human intelligence. An excellent source of human intelligence and guide to evenhanded policy-making are pro-democracy, human rights and liberal Islamic groups in the Middle East and among exile communities.

Political action has to be combined with serious attention to overcoming social injustice. Of particular importance is the creation of legitimate methods of making a living. In many of the areas where war takes place and where extreme networks pick up new recruits, becoming a criminal or joining a paramilitary group is literally the only available opportunity for unemployed young men lacking formal education. Where some progress has been made, as in Northern Ireland and the Balkans (and it is always slow and tortuous, since these wars are so much harder to end than to begin), what has made a difference has been the provision of security, including the capture of criminals, support for civil society and for democrats, and efforts at economic reconstruction.

Such a political strategy is not an alternative to military action. Indeed, military action may be needed in support of alternative politics. But in these wars there is no such thing as military victory; the task of military action is to create conditions for an alternative politics. Thus military action is needed to catch war criminals and protect civilians--to establish areas where individuals and families feel safe and do not depend on extremist networks for protection and livelihood. Devices like safe havens or humanitarian corridors, effectively defended, help protect and support civilians and establish an international presence on the ground.

After first accusing Israel of war crimes, Amnesty International castigates Hizbullah
Hizbullah militants broke international humanitarian law during the recent conflict with Israel, an Amnesty International report concluded today. The report said Hizbullah had violated law by firing thousands of rockets into Israel and killing dozens of civilians during the fighting. The human rights group called for a UN investigation into violations committed by both sides during the 34-day conflict, but the report published today focused on the actions of the Lebanese militant organisation.
"Amnesty report accuses Hizbullah of war crimes," Guardian, September 14, 2006 ---
http://www.guardian.co.uk/syria/story/0,,1872108,00.html

Hizbullah's Version of Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts:  Training to Become Suicide Bombers
Hezbollah leads a youth movement that instructs tens of thousands of children and teenagers in military tactics and indoctrinates them with radical Shia Islam beliefs – including the waging of a final, apocalyptic world battle against "evil," according to materials found by Israel during last month's war in Lebanon.
"Hezbollah youth scouts' train in terrorism:  Thousands of children, teens prepare for apocalyptic battle against 'evil'," WorldNet Daily, September 14, 2006 --- http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=51968

Germany Gives Up Terrorist Murderer in Ransom Deal
Hizballah terrorist Mohammed Ali Hamadi, convicted in Germany of murdering US Navy diver Robert Dean Stethem aboard a hijacked airplane but freed last December in a probable ransom exchange for German hostage Susanne Osthoff (Germany denies this, of course), has rejoined Hizballah.
"Hizballah Recidivism," Little Green Footballs, September 13, 2006 --- Click Here

Russian Mayor's Proposed Strategy for Deterring Terrorism
A Russian mayor has called for prostitution to be made legal in a bid to wipe out a rising tide of extremism. Igor Shpektor, mayor of Vorkuta, said it would give men another way to spend their time rather than getting involved in racist attacks, Ananova reports.
Mosnews, Defence Talk, September 14, 2006 --- Click Here

"Cartoons mocking Holocaust prove a flop with Iranians," The Independent, September 14, 2006 --- http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article1578720.ece

“The world is beginning to doubt the moral basis of our fight against terrorism. To redefine Common Article 3 [of the Geneva conventions] would add to those doubts. Furthermore, it would put our own troops at risk,” Mr Powell wrote in a letter to Mr McCain released yesterday.
Demetri Sevastopulo, Caroline Daniel and Holly Yeager, "McCain stands his ground on CIA jails," Financial Times, September 14, 2006 --- Click Here

The argument (by Senator McCain and Retired General Colin Powell)  that unless we interpret the Geneva Convention as providing maximal protections to terrorists, our enemies will mistreat U.S. soldiers in their captivity. Assume for the sake of argument that this is true. If the restrictions on interrogations that Powell and McCain advocate result in another 9/11, then they will have sacrificed the lives of women and children in order to protect soldiers. Isn't it supposed to be the other way around?
Carol Muller, Opinion Journal, September 16, 2006

Question
If there are massive terrorist explosions in the United States, who should we probably blame first?

Answer
The U.S. Farm Lobby

The Farm Lobby has successfully blocked all proposed legislation to identify buyers of ammonium nitrate. Recently CBS investigators purchased enough ammonium nitrate to blow up the White House in a simple truck bomb. It was easily purchased in fertilizer stores that did not even ask for buyer identification and had no record whatsoever of (CBS) strangers who purchased a truckload of this explosive. CBS then rented a storage place within a mile of the White House without having to identify the explosive material moved into the storage place. And the reason all of this is possible is that the U.S. Farm Lobby has vigorously resisted even requiring buyer identification of ammonium nitrate.

Of course identification alone will not stop the threat since six terrorists with photo IDs could separately buy enough ammonium nitrate to level Times Square thanks to the Farm Lobby.

The al Qaeda website, according to CBS, shows in great detail how to make an ammonium nitrate bomb big enough to blow up the White House or punch a hole in a New Orleans levee or blow up the New York Stock Exchange.

I'm almost certain I was watching CBS when this story aired on television. But I've not been able to find the item at the CBS Website.

Brigham Young University has placed a physics professor on paid leave, taking away the two courses he had just started teaching, because of his statements that explosives, not planes, led to the collapse of the World Trade Center’s two towers.
"Frays on Academic Freedom," Inside Higher Ed, September 11, 2006 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/09/11/disputes

Scholars who endorse dissenting views about 9/11 have been creating numerous controversies in recent weeks. Both the University of Wisconsin at Madison and the University of New Hampshire have resisted calls that they remove from their classrooms scholars who believe that the United States set off the events of 9/11. In both of those cases, numerous politicians said that the instructors involved were not fit to teach, but the universities said that removing them for their views would violate principles of academic freedom.

At Brigham Young, however, the university has placed Steven E. Jones on paid leave, and assigned other professors to teach the two physics courses he started this semester. A statement from the university said, in its entirety: “Physics professor Steven Jones has made numerous statements about the collapse of the World Trade Center. BYU has repeatedly said that it does not endorse assertions made by individual faculty. We are, however, concerned about the increasingly speculative and accusatory nature of these statements by Dr. Jones. Furthermore, BYU remains concerned that Dr. Jones’ work on this topic has not been published in appropriate scientific venues. Owing to these issues, as well as others, the university has placed Dr. Jones on leave while we continue to review these matters.”

Continued in article

Bob Jensen's threads on controversies over limits of academic freedom --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#AcademicFreedom

Peer Review in Which Reviewer Comments are Shared With the World

Questions
Is this the beginning of the end for the traditional refereeing process of academic journals?
Could this be the death knell of the huge SSRN commercial business that blocks sharing of academic working papers unless readers and libraries pay?

"Nature editors start online peer review," PhysOrg, September 14, 2006 --- http://physorg.com/news77452540.html

Editors of the prestigious scientific journal Nature have reportedly embarked on an experiment of their own: adding an online peer review process.

Articles currently submitted for publication in the journal are subjected to review by several experts in a specific field, The Wall Street Journal reported. But now editors at the 136-year-old Nature have proposed a new system for authors who agree to participate: posting the paper online and inviting scientists in the field to submit comments approving or criticizing it.

Although lay readers can also view the submitted articles, the site says postings are only for scientists in the discipline, who must list their names and institutional e-mail addresses.

The journal -- published by the Nature Publishing Group, a division of Macmillan Publishers Ltd., of London -- said it will discard any comments found to be irrelevant, intemperate or otherwise inappropriate.

Nature's editors said they will take both sets of comments -- the traditional peer-review opinions and the online remarks -- into consideration when deciding whether to publish a study, The Journal reported.

BioMed Central has launched Biology Direct, a new online open access journal with a novel system of peer review. The journal will operate completely open peer review, with named peer reviewers' reports published alongside each article. The author's rebuttals to the reviewers comments are also published. The journal also takes the innovative step of requiring that the author approach Biology Direct Editorial Board members directly to obtain their agreement to review the manuscript or to nominate alternative reviewers. [Largely taken from a BioMed Central press report.]

Biology Direct launches with publications in the fields of Systems Biology, Computational Biology, and Evolutionary Biology, with an Immunology section to follow soon. The journal considers original research articles, hypotheses, and reviews and will eventually cover the full spectrum of biology.

Biology Direct is led by Editors-in-Chief David J Lipman, Director of the National Center Biotechnology Information (NCBI), a division of the National Library of Medicine (NLM) at NIH, USA; Eugene V Koonin, Senior Investigator at NCBI; and Laura Landweber, Associate Professor at Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA.

For more information about the journal or about how to submit a manuscript to the journal, visit the Biology Direct website --- http://www.biology-direct.com/

Bob Jensen's threads on peer review controversies are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#PeerReview

Bob Jensen's threads on assessment are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/assess.htm

September 15, 2006 reply from Alexander Robin A [alexande.robi@UWLAX.EDU]

Even if reviewers are assigned as they are now, having their comments and the paper on line might be beneficial in reducing "poor quality" on inappropriate reviews. As probably most of you have, I had one run in with a poor review. I had a paper on a study I did using Monte Carlo simulation. The editor of the journal sent the paper to someone who didn't accept simulation as a legitimate research methodology. No surprise that he voted to reject.

Robin Alexander

Is it ethical to charge students for recordings of your lectures?
North Carolina State University is reviewing a communication professor’s policy of making digital recordings of his lectures — and making them available online to his students for a fee, NBC 17 reported. The professor, Robert Schrag, told the network that he set up the system to help students whose schedules make it impossible to attend class and that he’s only trying to cover his costs, not make a profit.
Inside Higher Ed, September 15, 2006 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/09/15/qt
Jensen Comment
I'd be more inclined to investigate the number of absences and what proportion of the students excused from were varsity football and basketball players. If the course becomes totally online for athletes without approval it becomes tantamount to what got an Auburn sociology professor in deep trouble.

The Dark Side of Blackboard's Broad Patent
Desire2Learn, which produces course-management systems, has fired back against Blackboard, which sued it for patent infringement last month. Desire2Learn last week filed papers charging that the patent isn’t valid and that Blackboard has no right to bring the suit. The case is being closely watched by many — especially open source advocates who fear that Blackboard’s patent is too broad and that the company could use it to squash their efforts. Blackboard has said that it has no plans to go after open source services.
Inside Higher Ed, September 18, 2006 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/09/18/qt

Bob Jensen's threads on the history of course management software are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/290wp/290wp.htm

Hypocrisy of in academe --- "Condoleezza holds a watermelon . . . " 
Think of the liberal Faculty Union's response if Reverend Jesse Jackson
or Oprah had been ("accidentally?") holding that watermelon for students

"College Flunks Professor Over Test," by Scott Jaschik, Inside Higher Ed, September 14, 2006 ---

The background for three questions that angered many at Bellevue Community College started like this: “Condoleezza holds a watermelon just over the edge of roof of the 300-foot Federal Building, and tosses it up with a velocity of 20 feet per second....”

Forget velocity — the question set off protests at the college, which is near Seattle, and infuriated civil rights groups. While no last name was given, people took the question as a reference to the secretary of state, and combining her name with watermelon was viewed as racist. The professor who wrote the question apologized, and the college’s president and board apologized. But now the college is trying to suspend the professor for a week without pay, and he is challenging the decision as inappropriate.

Peter Ratener, the professor, has appealed to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education for assistance, and that group is now organizing an outcry in response to the college’s response to the outcry Ratener created.

“Given the reaction of the community and the college, one might think Ratener was guilty of committing a serious crime, rather than writing an accidentally offensive math problem,” said Greg Lukianoff, president of FIRE. He called the suspension — which currently is on hold pending appeals by Ratener and the faculty union — “unfair and a violation of the First Amendment.”

The test question that set off the furor actually was given first in 2004, without incident. This year, another professor used the question on a practice test, and a student’s complaint led to widespread publicity and demands for apologies.

Ratener said that he frequently includes celebrity names on his tests, to relieve student tension, and that he has used Bill Clinton and Madonna, among others, in this way. He originally wrote this question with the name Gallagher, a comedian known for smashing watermelons. But when he realized that many of his students wouldn’t know Gallagher, he substituted Condoleezza. He said that name is “a fascinating name to me,” and that race and politics had nothing to do with his choice.

In an apology he issued — to students, colleagues and Secretary Rice — he said that he still should have realized the potential problem and caught it. “The responsibility is ultimately mine alone,” he wrote. In the apology, he talked at length about his sadness and shame at having upset so many people and embarrassed his colleagues. And he repeatedly talked about his commitment to equity and respect for people of all kinds.

Continued in article

Bob Jensen's threads on hypocrisy in academia and the media are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Hypocrisy.htm

Question
What's it really like to be the president of a university?

"The Puzzle of Leadership," by William M. Chace, Inside Higher Ed, September 11, 2006 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2006/09/11/chace

The university president in the United States is expected to be a friend to the students, a colleague of the faculty, a good fellow with the alumni, a sound administrator with the trustees, a good speaker with the public, an astute bargainer with the foundations and the federal agencies, a politician with the state legislature, a friend of industry, labor and agriculture, a persuasive diplomat with donors, a champion of education generally, a supporter of the professions (particularly law and medicine), a spokesman to the press, a scholar in his own right, a public servant at the state and national levels, a devotee of opera and football generally, a decent human being, a good husband and father, an active member of the church. Above all, he must enjoy traveling in airplanes, eating his meals in public, and attending public ceremonies.

With the exception of those duties the president of a public institution alone would have, Kerr’s droll description fit what I found myself doing.

I knew that people thought my job very difficult, but perhaps blinded by excessive self-regard or limited in imaginative intelligence, I thought it a good one, not an impossible one, and I enjoyed almost all of its aspects. In performing all those duties Kerr described, I was glad to be active, happy to be involved in many committees, and eager to learn more about how the place worked, what made different people tick (or not tick), and what held such a curious thing as a liberal-arts college together. I slept well, exercised a lot, went to work every day with a smile, and thought myself a lucky fellow to be at Wesleyan.

When gloomy days descended, as they now and again did, I consoled myself with little mental games. Thinking about the profusion of advice I continually received from every quarter of the campus, I would say to myself: “Being president must be the easiest job in the world; after all, everybody seems to know how to do it.” Or I would think about how the “leadership” of a campus is so amusingly different from leadership elsewhere. I would recall that George Shultz once said that the biggest difference between his life as a corporate leader and his career as dean of a business school was that, in business, he had to make sure that his orders were precise and exact, given that they would likely be followed. No such danger in academia. In sum, the very peculiarities of the job were its most appealing feature.

Much of the literature on presidential leadership concludes that the job is impossible, but it should also note the obvious: at any given time, about 3,500 men and women do the job. The situation is much like that of the airplane: there is no obvious reason why so large and heavy a piece of metal can fly through the sky, yet it does. Despite the impossibility of their work, thousands of presidents go to the office every day, successfully complete some tasks, and return home.

Robert Birnbaum, one of those scholars who claims that the job is unworkable, argues that the problem of presidential leadership is that the criteria for success and failure are elusive:

…there is no accepted criterion presidents can employ to judge the benefits of one course of action over another, and little assurance that they could implement their preferences even if they could specify them. Presidential authority is limited, complete understanding of the scope and complexity of the enterprise exceeds human cognitive capability, and unforeseen changes in demographic, political, and economic conditions often overwhelm campus plans.

But the “impossibility” of such places can serve as a healthy reminder of what they are not. A university or college is not a business, does not make a profit, cannot declare quarterly earnings, “wins” nothing, hopes to flourish forever, will never be bought out, cannot relocate, is both in and out of the world, studies everything including itself, considers itself a meritocracy while continually worshipping the idea of community, and has as its greatest asset an odd assemblage of self-directed intellectual entrepreneurs who work on the most complicated aspects of their respective disciplines. What a university does is expensive, time-consuming, inefficient, wayward, hard to understand, and yet prestigious. It also helps young people and, more and more each year, looks after them in all sorts of ways. It is exclusive in admissions and appointments, but generous in sharing the fruits of its labor. It stands on ancient ceremonies yet accelerates the workings of democracy. All in all, I thought, a good place to be, even if my job was “impossible.”

William M. Chace is professor of English and president emeritus of Emory University. He is the author of The Political Identities of Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot and Lionel Trilling: Criticism and Politics. Princeton University Press has just published his autobiography, One Hundred Semesters: My Adventures as Student, Professor and University President, and What I Learned Along the Way. This essay is adapted from the autobiography, covering the period that Chase was president of Wesleyan University. The essay is published here with the permission of the Princeton University Press.

Bob Jensen's threads on higher education controversies --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm

The Picture drawn by Bok is an astonishingly dark one

Undergraduate education today bears no resemblance to the instruction masters and tutors gave to the trickle of adolescents entering one of the nine colleges that existed prior to the American Revolution.
Our Underachieving Colleges, by Derek Bok, ISBN: 0691125961 # Pub. Date: January 2006
(You can read free excerpts in the Amazon.com Reader)

The Current President of Harvard Takes a Dark View of the State of Learning and the Future State of Learning
Both Harry Lewis and Derek Bok have entered a devastating judgment on contemporary university leadership

"As Goes Harvard. . . ," by Donald Kagan, Commentary Magazine, September 2006 ---
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/article.asp?aid=12202034_1

Since his first Harvard presidency (1971-1991), Bok has been a kind of self-appointed national troubleshooter, identifying and suggesting solutions for problems social (The State of the Nation), political (The Trouble with Government), and educational (The Shape of the River, written with William G. Bowen, the former president of Princeton, and Universities in the Marketplace). Now, in Our Underachieving Colleges, Bok acts as both diagnostician and healer, wielding social-science statistics and professional studies to trace the etiology of today’s illnesses and to recommend palliative treatments for what he has discovered. In his analyses he is inveterately as polite, restrained, and solicitous as he is gentle and tentative in his proposed treatments. If he betrays moments of truculence, it is only in responding to critics who, unlike him, find the patient to be very sick indeed, or who hold the patient to blame for his own plight, or who recommend painful and intrusive remedies.

Such naysayers, among whom Bok names the late Allan Bloom in The Closing of the American Mind, (1987) have no end of complaints:

As they see it, discourse on campus is seriously inhibited by the orthodoxies of political correctness. Affirmative action has undermined the integrity of faculty hiring. The great canonical masterpieces have been downgraded to make room for lesser works whose principal virtue seems to be that they were authored by women, African Americans, or third-world writers. The very ideals of truth and objectivity, along with conventional judgments of quality, are thought to be endangered by attacks from deconstructionists, feminists, Marxists, and other literary theorists who deny that such goals are even possible.

These would seem to be serious concerns indeed. But they do not worry Bok. In the first place, he writes, the critics are one-sided polemicists who in general see “little that is positive about the work of universities or the professors who teach there.” For another thing, if the critics’ indictments were “anywhere close to correct, prospective students and their families would be up in arms. . . . [and] students would hardly be applying in such large and growing numbers.” Not only is this not the case but, according to surveys, the great majority of recent graduates say they are satisfied with their college experience. Parents, too, do not complain, and alumni demonstrate their contentment by giving increasing gifts to their alma mater.      

_____________________

So if everybody is happy, why the need for this book? As it turns out, the need is great. Even though Bok has scant interest in the issues that preoccupy the most perceptive of the critics—a politicized faculty, threats to freedom of expression, the absence or the actual suppression of a balanced exchange of ideas—when it comes to “how much students are learning,” and “what is actually being accomplished in college classrooms,” he too sees trouble, and plenty of it, in the beautiful groves of academe:

Many seniors graduate without being able to write well enough to satisfy their employers. Many cannot reason clearly or perform competently in analyzing complex, non-technical problems, even though faculties rank critical thinking as the primary goal of a college education. Few undergraduates receiving a degree are able to speak or read a foreign language. Most have never taken a course in quantitative reasoning or acquired the knowledge needed to be a reasonably informed citizen in a democracy. And those are only some of the problems.

It seems, in short, that our colleges are “underachieving” after all—and that even their supposedly happy clients know it. Fewer than half of recent graduates, according to Bok’s ever-ready statistics, think they have made significant progress in learning to write, and some think they have actually regressed. Employers confirm this self-assessment, complaining that the college graduates they hire are inarticulate. As for critical thinking, “The vast majority of graduating students are still naïve relativists who ‘do not show the ability to defensibly critique their own judgments’ in analyzing the kinds of unstructured problems commonly encountered in real life.” In the area of foreign languages, fewer than 10 percent of seniors believe they have substantially improved their skills and fewer than 15 percent have progressed to advanced classes. Nor are the results any better in general education, the great battleground of the critics. According to one study, only about a third of seniors report gains in the understanding or the enjoyment of literature, art, music, or theater. Bok goes so far as to quote Daniel Bell’s judgment of the typical curriculum as “a vast smorgasbord” amounting to “an admission of intellectual defeat.”

Beyond the measurable shortcomings in the intellects of college graduates are deficiencies of character. According to Bok’s findings, recent graduates lack self-discipline. Employers complain that they are habitually tardy, lazy, and unable either to listen carefully or to carry out instructions. Bok blames this, too, on their undergraduate experience: grade inflation has undermined standards and professorial laxity has encouraged negligence. “If undergraduates can receive high marks for sloppy work, routinely get extensions for assignments not completed on time, and escape being penalized for minor misconduct, it is hardly a surprise that employers find them lacking in self-discipline.”

____________________    

The picture drawn by Bok is an astonishingly dark one. What, then, to do? One obvious answer, pressed by many critics of the current campus scene, is to readjust the arrangement that has allowed faculty members to devote more and more time to their research and less and less time to teaching.

When I went to college a half-century ago, my professors taught five courses a semester and met classes for fifteen hours a week. At Penn State, where I began my own career, I taught four courses. When I moved to Cornell in 1960, it was down to three. At Yale we teach two courses a semester, and in the hard sciences only one. The top universities today offer at least one semester off for every seven semesters taught; in my day, it was a semester every seven years. In sum, today’s college faculty meet no more than half as many classes as their predecessors a half-century ago.

Bok, however, has a different view. The problem, he insists, is not how teachers fill their time but their reluctance or refusal to assess what students are actually learning, or to examine their own performance with an eye to improvement. What this calls for, he writes, is a program of reform “quite unlike the ones advanced by either the well-known critics of the universities” or the faculty committees that have plainly not been doing their job. With the aid of empirical research, Bok asserts, professors will learn how to achieve better results.

He gamely offers a number of suggestions. At the prodding of their presidents, for example, colleges could undertake continuing “evaluation, experimentation, and reform.” They could offer professors seed money and released time for trying new and better ways to teach. They could hire better-qualified, full-time instructors instead of the graduate students and academic gypsies who currently teach subjects disdained by the regular faculty (like writing and foreign languages). From the other side, student evaluations could be made more probing. Ph.D. programs could be made to include better preparation for teaching. And so forth.

But would any of this work? Bok himself tacitly admits that the prospect is unlikely. In the end, he writes, it is the “lack of compelling pressures to improve undergraduate education” that helps explain professors’ “casual treatment” of the purposes of undergraduate education, “their neglect of basic courses that develop important skills, their reluctance even to discuss issues of pedagogy, their ignorance of research on student learning, and their unwillingness to pay attention to much of what goes on outside the classroom.” He illustrates the underlying problem with an anecdote from one university where an official slipped a new question into the standard form used by students in general-education classes to evaluate their teachers. The new question asked how much the course had improved the student’s skill in thinking critically and analyzing problems. Fewer than 10 percent reported a significant improvement. Bok comments:

With such a huge majority indicating that the general-education curriculum was failing to achieve its principal objective, one would have thought that the faculty and administration would rouse themselves to review the problem thoroughly. . . . Instead the troublesome question was dropped from the evaluation forms and did not appear again.

But Bok declines to see where this evidence leads. To be sure, he concedes in his best we’re-all-gentlemen-here tone, reformist presidents and deans are likely to meet resistance and even “rebuffs” from their faculty. But “most professors are thoughtful, conscientious people. They will not defend an untenable position indefinitely once the issue has been raised.” In fact, however, what this book convincingly shows is that most faculties lack precisely that requisite sense of professional responsibility, and are instead the major obstacle to improvement. If it were otherwise, the problems Bok identifies would not exist.

It is not as if he is unaware of the real issue, which is much more insidious than his descriptions imply. “The weaknesses of undergraduate education may be real,” he writes at one point, “but they serve important faculty interests” (emphasis added). Just so. What he is getting at are the simple realities of power on college campuses over the last three or four decades. You might think that presidents, provosts, deans, or trustees, with a broader view of the purposes of the institution, could see to it that the faculty became more cooperative. But Bok makes it clear that administrations are largely powerless in this respect, and so are boards. “Ultimate power over instruction and curriculum rests with the faculty,” with administrators and trustees paralyzed by “fear of arousing opposition from the faculty that could attract unfavorable publicity, worry potential donors, and even threaten their jobs.” Nor should we expect many college presidents or deans to take up the good fight. I am not aware that Bok himself ever attempted so daring an effort in the twenty years of his presidency—which may explain why he enjoyed so peaceful a time.

Inaction in the face of declining educational quality is thus guaranteed. There is no upside to reform initiatives, since “success in increasing student learning is seldom rewarded.” There