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When BushCo pulls Osama Bin Forgotten out of its ass this fall, everyone pretend we never saw it coming, ok?

U.S., Pakistan Deny Bin Laden Was Captured

By ALI AKBAR DAREINI, Associated Press Writer

TEHRAN, Iran - Pentagon and Pakistani officials on Saturday denied an Iranian state radio report that Osama bin Laden was captured in Pakistan's border region with Afghanistan (news - web sites) "a long time ago."

The claim came at a time when Pakistan's army was hunting al-Qaida suspects in a remote tribal region along the border with Afghanistan, believed to be a possible hiding place for the al-Qaida leader.

The report was carried by Iran radio's external Pashtun service, which is designed for listeners in Afghanistan and Pakistan where the language is widely spoken.

Iran state radio's main news channel — the Farsi-language service for Iranian listeners — did not carry the bin Laden report. Iran state television also did not carry the report.

The director of Iran radio's Pashtun service, Asheq Hossein, said he had two sources for the report. The radio quoted its reporter as saying bin Laden had been in custody for a period of time, but a U.S. announcement of the capture was being withheld by President Bush (news - web sites) until closer to the November election.

"Osama bin Laden has been arrested a long time ago, but Bush is intending to use it for propaganda maneuvering in the presidential election," he said.

There have been reports that military forces believed they had identified bin Laden's general location and had him encircled, but Pakistani officials have denied any specific knowledge of bin Laden's whereabouts.

The state radio report, quoting an unnamed source, said U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's visit to the region this week was in connection with the arrest.

Larry Di Rita, the chief Pentagon spokesman who traveled with Rumsfeld this week to Afghanistan, denied the report. "I don't have any reason to think it's true," he said Saturday.

Lt. Col. Bryan Hilferty, a spokesman for the U.S. military in Afghanistan, also said he had no information to suggest bin Laden had been caught.

"Things are going well, and we believe we will eventually catch all the leaders of al-Qaida, but I know nothing of that report," he said.

Pakistani Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed denied the reported capture, saying it was "baseless news."

"We have neither arrested Osama nor we have any information about him," Ahmed told The Associated Press.

Pakistani Army spokesman Gen. Shaukat Sultan also told The Associated Press that the report was not true. "That information is wrong," he said.

A Pakistani official said previously that members of al-Qaida are being sought in the border region, although bin laden was not a specific target.

Speaking to the AP in Tehran, Hossein identified one of the sources for the bin Laden report as Shamim Shahed, editor of the English-language Pakistani newspaper The Nation in Peshawar. Hossein said Shahed told him Friday night that bin Laden was arrested "a long time ago."

But Shahed, who is The Nation's Peshawar bureau chief and not its editor, denied telling Iranian radio that bin Laden had been captured.

"I never said this," Shahed said in a telephone interview with the AP's Islamabad bureau. "But I have for the last year been saying that he is not far away. He is within their (the Americans') reach, and they can declare him arrested any time."

"I have been misquoted. On this matter, we never talked, the last two months. I'm angry, because they've misquoted me," Shahed said in a separate interview with AP Radio.

Hossein said he had a second source for his report that bin Laden had been captured, but he declined to identify him except to say he was "a man with close links to intelligence services and Afghan tribal leaders."

The report was carried by Iran radio's external Pashtun service, which is designed for listeners in Afghanistan and Pakistan where the language is widely spoken.

Iran state radio's main news channel — the Farsi-language service for Iranian listeners — did not carry the bin Laden report. Iran state television also did not carry the report.

Separately, Pakistani forces killed 11 people in an exchange of fire Saturday after a minibus failed to stop at a roadblock in a tribal region where the ongoing anti-terrorism operations have been taking place, an army spokesman told the AP. The shooting occurred a day after armed men and soldiers exchanged fire at a military compound in the region.

The Iranian news agency IRNA was first to report the capture of ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein (news - web sites). IRNA also carried the state radio report about bin Laden's capture and said it had contacted a radio announcer at the Pashtun service who confirmed the news.

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On a different note, The US has allowed the Red Cross to visit Saddam Hussein, who, it is reported, is not doing so well in captivity. Ok, when the guy dies before he can be brought to trial, everyone act real surprised, ok?

While walking down the street one day, George Bush drops dead of a massive coronary. His soul arrives in heaven and he is met by St. Peter at the Pearly Gate. "Welcome to Heaven," says St. Peter. "Before you settle in, it seems there is a problem: We seldom know what to do with a Republican in these parts, and this goes double for you."

"No problem - just let me in. I'm a believer," says Dubya.

"I'd like to just let you in, but I have orders from the Man Himself: He says you have to spend one day in Hell and one day in Heaven. Then you can choose where you'll live for eternity."

"But, I've already made up my mind; I want to be in Heaven."

"I'm sorry, but we have our rules."

And with that Peter escorts George to an elevator and he goes down, down, down, all the way to Hell. The doors open and he finds himself in the middle of a lush golf course. The sun is shining in a cloudless sky, and the temperature is a perfect 72 degrees. In the distance is a beautiful clubhouse. Standing in front of it is his dad, and thousands of other Republicans who had helped him out over the years... Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, en Lay, Jerry Falwell.... the whole of the "Right" was there... everyone laughing... happy... casually but expensively dressed. They run to greet him, hug him, and reminisce about the good times they had getting rich at the expense of the "suckers and peasants". They play a friendly game of golf and then dine on lobster and caviar. The Devil himself comes up to Bush with a frosty drink, "Have a Margarita and relax, George!"

"Uh, no, I can't drink any more, I took the pledge," says Junior dejectedly.

"This is Hell, son: you can drink and eat all you want and not worry, and it just gets better from there!"

Dubya takes the drink and finds himself liking the Devil, who he thinks is a really very friendly guy who tells funny jokes and pulls hilarious nasty pranks, kind of like a Yale Skull and Bones brother but with real horns. They are having such a great time that, before he realizes it, it's time to go. Everyone gives him a big hug and waves as Georgie steps on the elevator and heads upward.

When the elevator door reopens, he is again at the Pearly Gate and St. Peter is waiting for him. "Now it's time to visit Heaven," the old man says, opening the gate So for 24 hours George Bush is made to hang out with a bunch of honest, good-natured people who enjoy each other's company, talk about things other than money, and treat each other decently. Not a nasty prank or frat-boy joke among them; no fancy country clubs and, while the food tastes great, it's not caviar or lobster. And these people aren't super-rich, he doesn't see anybody he knows, and he isn't even treated like someone special. Worst of all, to Dubya, Jesus turns out to be some kind of Jewish hippie with his endless "peace" and "do unto others" jive. "Whoa," he says uncomfortably to himself, "Billy Graham never prepared me for this!"

The day done, St. Peter returns and says, "Well, then, you've spent a day in Hell and a day in Heaven. Now you must choose where you want to live for eternity." With the 'Jeopardy' theme playing softly in the background, Dubya reflects for a minute, then answers: "Well, I would never have thought I'd say this - I mean, Heaven has been delightful and all, but I really think I belong in Hell with my friends."

So Saint Peter escorts him to the elevator and he goes down, down, down, all the way to Hell. The doors of the elevator open and he is in the middle of a barren scorched earth covered with garbage and toxic industrial waste...kind of like Houston. He is horrified to see all of his friends, dressed in rags and chained together, picking up the trash and putting it in black bags. They are groaning and moaning in pain, faces and hands black with grime. The Devil come over and puts an arm around Bush's shoulder.

"I don't understand," stammers a shocked Dubya, "yesterday I was here, and there was a golf course and a clubhouse and we drank and ate caviar. I drank booze. We screwed around and had a great time. Now there's just a wasteland full of garbage and everybody looks miserable!"

By Ciro Scotti, BusinessWeekly

Poor Howard Dean. The Icarus of the Democratic Party is back in Vermont now with what drippings are left of his wax-winged candidacy. But, to torture this allegory further, one question remains: Did Dean fly too close to the sun -- or just too close to the power source of the Democratic Party? The pundits of the Media Establishment and the jokesters of late-night TV would have us believe that Dr. Fury imploded, that he got so mad that he stamped himself into a political grave. Dean wasn't temperamentally suited to be President, they said, his message wasn't sunny, he was a loose canon, he wasn't electable, and the electorate sensed that. Yada, yada, yada. But was any of that true?

Yes, some of it. Dean blew into the race for the Democratic Presidential nomination as The New Yorker dream candidate -- socially liberal, fiscally prudent, disarmingly candid, and personally charming in a smarty-pants, prep-school-boy sort of way. By all accounts, he had been a good governor of Vermont. He was a country doctor, not a Washington lawyer/politician. He respected women enough not to drag his physician wife out on the road with him. He wore cheap suits and never had his tie exactly straight.

NICKELED AND DIMED. In another year, Dean would have been a respectable candidate with a sensible, eat-your-spinach message. And then along came Iraq. He spoke forcefully against the American invasion -- and stuck to his guns. More dangerously, he talked about taking back the Democratic Party.

Meantime, Joe Trippi, architect of the Dean insurgency, went mining on the Internet and tapped into a mother lode of youthful discontent. Dean meetups spread across the country, much as be-ins and sit-ins had in other eras -- only the meetups were a lot nerdier. And Web-driven contributions poured in. Kids and little people frightened by the Bush Administration sent in their nickels and dimes, and Howard flew higher.

As Mission Accomplished in Baghdad gave way to Mission Impossible and Mission Unnecessary and finally Mission Totally Fabricated, Dean soared. In the background, the Democratic powerbrokers shivered and quivered, and huddled together -- much like the Republicans in 1992, when the Buchanan Brigade momentarily threatened the GOP status quo. The man had to be stopped.

If party stalwarts like Dick Gephardt and John Kerry couldn't do it, then by God they'd send for reinforcements. And so in rode General Wesley Clark on a makeshift horse that looked suspiciously like Bill and Hillary Clinton with a sheet thrown over them.

AGAINST THE MACHINE. The big-media press, like the big-time pols they pal around with, didn't like Dean all that much [never got the genuflection thing right], but they liked the story and the excitement. A coronation ensued. In all the front-runner giddiness, Dean began to believe the dispatches. His message got sloppy. The gaffes piled up. And all the while the guru Trippi was spending campaign donations like Joan Rivers at a cosmetics counter -- and taking his big fat cut of media buys.

For a while, Dean was able to shake off the flubs, but he was peaking too soon. Left alone, he likely would have cracked from the sheer weight of his unconventional and badly managed campaign. That was too chancy, though. No upstart from the woods of New England was going to seize the self-fulfilling, self-aggrandizing, self-lubricating power machine of special interests, corporate lobbyists, New Democrats, fat-cat law firms, think-tank theoreticians, union pooh-bahs, foreign policy blowhards, and coddled Washington pols. So the Democratic Party savaged one of its own.

As The Washington Post reported on Feb. 11, a group called Americans for Jobs & Healthcare spent $500,000 on ads attacking Dean in the run-up to the primaries. The Post said the group was headed by David Jones, a longtime adviser to Gephardt. It said the group's spokesman was Robert Gibbs, who had previously been working for the Kerry campaign. And where did the money come from? According to the Post, disgraced former Senator Robert Torricelli of New Jersey, a Kerry supporter, gave $50,000.

REASON TO SCREAM. Other money, according to the Post, came from Alan Patricof, a Clark fund-raiser, and Bernard Schwartz, chairman of Loral Corp. Schwartz is a longtime moneybag for the Democratic Establishment who had close ties to the Clinton Administration. One ad the group ran questioned Dean's foreign policy expertise and used an image of Osama bin Laden.

By the time the Iowa caucuses arrived, the attacks and the spendthrift Mr. Trippi had taken their toll. And then came The Scream -- which wasn't really a scream but just a weary man in a noisy room trying to rally his troops. In one wild night, Dean had been stopped. He hadn't been allowed to try to take back the country. And, more important, he hadn't taken back the Democratic Party. It remained safe in the soft, manicured hands of the Teddy Kennedys, Bill Clintons, Terry McAuliffes, John Sweeneys, and, yes, John Kerrys of the political world. And Howard Dean became Howard the Duck.

A thoughtful take on what marriage means in America:

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Okay, I've spent some time today reading through some descriptions of marriage, holy matrimony, the sacrament of marriage, natural law, the 14th Amendment and other related issues. Here is what I've come up with so far.

The most all inclusive reason I have come across for the necessity of marriage is:

Marriage helps to overcome self-absorption, egoism, pursuit of one's own pleasure, and to open oneself to the other, to mutual aid and to self-giving.

Marriage in this country is not recognized solely as a union between a man an a woman, it is commonly recognized as a union between a man an a woman that imparts special rights and privileges to the participating contractors. The difference between these two statements lies in the difference between a sacramental manifestation of God's law and the legal activation of a civil contract. Although most priests and clerical representatives in the United States will not conduct a marriage ceremony without a marriage license, that license is not a necessary part of the sacrament. The marriage sacrament is a covenant between God and the participating Man and Woman that ensures that the Man and Woman will cleave to each other in acceptance of God's plan, attempt to be fruitful and multiply, and raise any children of the union in the worship of God - in return they will receive greater understanding of, as well as the blessing and approval of God. The priest is there as witness, to determine consent of both parties - without which the marriage is invalid, and to bestow the acknowledgement of the church. The marriage ceremony is considered the ecclesiastical acknowledgement of a man and woman's agreement to join their lives. The marriage sacrament is, or bestows, or entreats (depending on your definition of 'sacrament') God's blessing on the union and is administered by the participating couple with their public declaration of intent. A sacrament is a religious reality that can only be governed by God; it is God's will, plan, and law that marriage is defined as the union of a Man and Woman. Neither the Congress, the president or any state has any authority to assert or enforce God's law.

China has a law that states if a couple agree to have only one child they will be entitled to various forms of significant financial and other aid. If, however, the woman gets pregnant with a second child, and refuses an abortion, that couple could be required to recompense the government for any aid previously received and will not get any for the birth or care of the second child. Couples are not legally barred from having multiple children, it is just so financially - and socially - restricting that many do not. This may be seen as a possible solution to our problem with marriage. Allow same-sex or multiple marriages - simply restrict them from accruing the same privileges from said union that can be gained by a marriage of one man and one woman. But that doesn't work on any level. As stated above, Marriage in this country is commonly recognized as a union that imparts special rights and privileges to the participating contractors. It is those special rights and privileges more than any sacramental blessings that have come to be defined as a marriage in this country.

No state has the right to limit special rights, liberties, and privileges to a specific section of citizens based on nothing more legally definable than "natural law". According to the 14th Amendment "No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.." Marriage as a legal activation of a civil contract, requiring a marriage license, authorizes the contractors of the marriage certain privileges that affect life, liberty and property - to include the right of inheritance, right of the spouse to act as the closest family member in instances of life decisions, right of a person to claim their spouse as a dependant for monetary gain, and the freedom of any citizen to determine independently the identity of the co-contractor in a marriage, with that co-contractor's mutual consent. As long, if the marriage amendment is passed, if you choose a person of the opposite sex and only one person. Right now that limitation is based mostly on custom. No where in the constitution is the federal government restricted from abridging the rights of it's citizens, except as regards to freedom of religion, speech, press, etc - the 14th Amendment specifically limits the only the states' rights to do so. So Congress does have the right to pass such an amendment; but that doesn't mean that they should, or that it will withstand future convening Congress' better judgment.

You'll Never Walk Alone

By DAVID BROOKS, Op-Ed, New York Times

Published: February 21, 2004

You are running for president, which means you have sentenced yourself to social confinement. It's the opposite of solitary confinement. From now until Election Day, you will never be alone, and you will never shut up.

You rush into great halls and begin talking; you work the rope lines and keep talking; you get into the van with the reporters, and you are talking still. You become a mouth that shakes hands, but it's not really conversation you're having because the people you talk to are all interchangeable.

In normal conversation, people's ideas evolve as they learn new things. But in the game you are in, evolution is taken by the pundits as opportunism, inconsistency as hypocrisy, and ambiguity as weakness. Changing your mind or admitting error is a political sin, and will lead to a week of negative coverage.

So when somebody asks you a question, your brain begins searching its internal hard drive for the appropriate 450-word speechlet-response, which you have already repeated 200 times before. You don't dare utter an unrehearsed thought; you don't dare veer toward candor. If you are smart, you will train yourself not to think at all, and you will fill every monologue with enough caveats so you can claim consistency no matter what happens later on.

Remember, you are no longer a human being. You are a freak. You must manufacture certitude and omniscience to prove you're a real leader.

You dominate every room you enter, and it is all about you. The rallies are about you. The ads are about you. The strategy sessions are about you. The you-ness of you becomes overwhelming, except that it's not really you. It's the meta-you. The vast complexity of your life is reduced to a handful of endlessly recycled moments and clichés: war hero, man of faith, experienced, leader in a time of crisis.

You begin to notice that as the image of you is magnified, the actual you becomes lost. But there's nothing you can do about it because the hopes of a party, of half the nation, rest on you, so you have to go on with your queen bee life. You have to surrender yourself to your handlers' schemes. You have to boast about your own character in a way that would be repulsive in any other context. Every day you are scheduled to do a series of "events," which are not really events, just speeches. You enter cavernous halls, always to the same music, the same waves of applause, the same introductory jokes, and you pretend it is all happening for the first time.

You are there to say things people in the audience already agree with so they can applaud their own ideas, but there comes a weird moment when their adulation ceases to thrill. It becomes part of the routine. It is bestowed on the person who happens to look like a winner at that moment, and it can be withdrawn in an instant. It's not clear whether people are applauding your many fine qualities or whether they are applauding the meta-you, which they see as the idealized extension of themselves.

After the speech, the disposable cameras come out. Some people just want their pictures taken with you; politics falls away and sheer celebrity takes over. Other people come up to flatter, and sometimes they say the most amazing, heartfelt things — that they would trust you with a son's life. And your procession out of the room is a series of five-second bursts of intimacy. Some encounters would be genuinely moving if you had time to stop and actually meet the person.

After each rally you are back in the bubble of your co-conspirators, the whispering aides who tell you where to go next. These days there are little video cameras everywhere, because no moment should go untelevised. There are donors who think that because they've given you money, they own you like a racehorse. Their advice is either hopelessly vague ("You need to get a strong message") or ridiculously parochial ("If you'd just pick up on cement industry reform, this whole race would turn around").

A couple of posts from the blogforamerica.com website:

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What I want to know is -

How can Howard Dean lie down and surrender to the very people and power structure that he so energetically attacked just days ago?

What I want to know is - How can Howard Dean say we've got to take back this party but then fall right into line with it?

What I want to know is- How am I supposed to go out and canvas for a candidate who will not leave his house and come out and campaign WITH ME?

What I want to know is- How can the Rebuked Torricelli raising money for Osama attack ads be so easily forgotten? so easily forgiven???

What I want to know is- Isn't this exactly the Cr*p that Ralph Nader has predicted and railed against for decades?

What I want to know is- If "we have the power" then why do "we" have to be told who to vote for?

What I want to know - Where the h*ll did the Spine go?

Fact- I will never vote for John Kerry nor George W. Bush.

Fact- Howard Dean is Missing in Action.

Posted by dc at February 23, 2004 07:51 PM

***

My thoughts tonight, on February 23, 2004:

I request that Governor Howard Dean, M.D. actively restart his campaign for the Democratic Party nomination. His absence from the campaign leaves Democrats throughout the country without a real voice for change. As our candidate stated, more or less, you cannot win if you are not in the race.

I will offer my vote/my voice on March 9, 2004, for Howard Dean. This being said, I realize that my vote/voice will be insufficient for bringing about a win for the nomination, or for change in this country.

A reactivation of this campaign would not require major campaign expenditures. The other candidates are broke, and are more relying upon free media to deliver their "broken" message.

The reality of today, February 23, 2004, is that we have John Kerry calling upon George W. Bush to debate the Vietnam War. We have John Edwards calling upon John Kerry to debate, hoping his pretty face and populist message that he never delivered in his short term as Senator, will sway voters to his cause.

Where is our candidate? The one real voice and vote for change. If the power to change this country rests in our hands, how can we empower the one true candidate for change when he refuses to actively lead our cause?

Martin Luther King never said, I am no longer actively campaigning for civil rights. Patrick Henry never said, ok...never mind I am actively giving up my thought of give me liberty or give me death and just let me wait until the next election. Thomas Paine didn't say, well ok Common Sense should be set aside and wait for another day. Abraham Lincoln never said that voting for a "party" nominee was better for America or promoted democracy, freedom and liberty.

A real leader for change would never just up and quit, leaving his or her supporters and fellow activists to fend for themselves. Yes, the power to change America, to restore America rests in our hands; yet, what is obvious throughout history is that a cause requires a strong leader, otherwise supporters find themselves adrift.

Can America really wait until 2008, 2012, 2016...? I want Howard Dean back. I only have the small power of my vote, my voice, but it is being screamed down by those much more powerful than I. I cannot do this alone, nor is our collective voice sufficient at this most critical time of sheeple mentality.

If Howard Dean wishes us to be empowered, then let him stand proudly and bravely with those of us who wish to be empowered.

This man believes, he truly believes:

The Patriot Act Is Your Friend

By Kim Zetter, Wired News

02:00 AM Feb. 24, 2004 PT

Viet Dinh has been called a "political pit bull" and "a foot soldier" for Attorney General John Ashcroft. But the 36-year-old author of the Patriot Act prefers to be called an "attendant of freedom."

In May 2001, the professor of law at Georgetown University was tapped by the Justice Department to work for two years as an assistant attorney general, working primarily on judicial nominations for the department. But three months later the World Trade Center towers collapsed, and Dinh was drafted to work on the USA Patriot Act, a bill that would give the government some of its most controversial surveillance powers. The bill, coupled with the government's subsequent treatment of immigrants and native-born citizens, prompted critics to charge the administration with overthrowing "800 years of democratic tradition."

Ironically, Dinh is an immigrant himself. The youngest of seven children born in Vietnam, he was 7 years old when communists took over the country and imprisoned his father, a city councilman, for "reeducation." Three years later, Dinh's mother escaped with him and five of his siblings to the United States. His father arrived eight years later.

Dinh graduated from Harvard Law School and clerked for Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. He has had a hand in many high-profile issues, including the Whitewater investigation and the impeachment trial of former President Clinton. In 2000, he also wrote a friend-of-the-court brief for the Supreme Court on behalf of Florida voters who favored George W. Bush's win in the contested presidential election.

He once said that he was drawn to study the government because he "had seen government that did not work," and he was drawn to the Republican Party because of his hatred for communism.

Wired News spoke to Dinh about the Patriot Act and its effect on the liberties of American citizens.

Wired News: The Patriot Act was drafted and passed quite hastily in response to the crisis of 9/11. Do we still need it?

Viet Dinh: There is no question that the last 28 months of peace in America, where not another life has been lost on American soil to terrorism, would have been much more difficult without the USA Patriot Act. I do think we still need it. The terrorists are out there trying to reinvent themselves. It behooves us all to think about how we (could) better do our job to close the barn door for the next horse, not just for the last one, and to be proactive about ways to combat terrorism.

WN: An estimated 5,000 people have been subjected to detention since 9/11. Of those, only five -- three noncitizens and two citizens -- were charged with terrorism-related crimes and one was convicted. How do we justify such broad-sweeping legislation that has resulted in very few terrorist-related convictions?

Dinh: I've heard the 5,000 number. The official numbers released from the Department of Justice indicate approximately 500 persons have been charged with immigration violations and have been deported who have been of interest to the 9/11 investigation. Also, approximately 300 individuals have been criminally charged who are of interest to the 9/11 investigation. Of the persons criminally charged, approximately half have either pled guilty or been convicted after trial.

It may well be that a number of citizens were not charged with terrorism-related crimes, but they need not be. Where the department has suspected people of terrorism it will prosecute those persons for other violations of law, rather than wait for a terrorist conspiracy to fully develop and risk the potential that that conspiracy will be missed and thereby sacrificing innocent American lives in the process.

WN: In his recent State of the Union address President Bush pushed to have parts of the Patriot Act, such as section 215, renewed when their sunset clause kicks in next year. Did you intend for these sweeping laws and other powers granted in the Patriot Act to be remedial measures or long-standing legislation?

Dinh: I did not intend any of these provisions, nor did Congress intend the provisions, to be having such wide-sweeping effect that your characterization would make it out to be. I think that is a fundamental mischaracterization of both the meaning, the effect and the operation of the law and the interpretation of the law.

Section 215 only follows the long-standing practice of (allowing) criminal investigators to be able to seek business records that are relevant to criminal investigations. Section 215 gives the same power to national security investigators in order to seek the same records with very important safeguards. First, a judge has to approve such orders, not simply a clerk of the court, as in ordinary criminal investigations. Second, the Department of Justice is under a statutory obligation in section 215 to report to Congress once every six months on the manner and the number of times it has used that section. And third, it calls for special protection by requiring that the FBI not target an investigation based solely on First Amendment activities.

There has been a lot of hue and cry regarding specific provisions with USA Patriot Act that is predicated upon a misunderstanding. Once we engage in this national conversation that the president has called for, all the facts will come out, and we will see that the fears are unfounded.

WN: Hasn't a national conversation been lacking until now? The act was passed very quickly. There hasn't really been any national debate or any willingness by the government to debate this issue.

Dinh: The USA Patriot Act was passed after six weeks of deliberation by Congress. That is a very quick process in the normal legislative agenda, but then again the six weeks following Sept. 11 was a very unique time in our national history and also in the legislative process. For those six weeks, key members of Congress, including the members of the Senate and House judiciary committees, sat down and rolled up their sleeves. And while the process was very quick, it was also the most deliberate process that I have seen in Washington, D.C.

With respect to the ongoing national conversation, I think it should be noted that the administration and the Department of Justice has, within the last six months to a year, given incredible amounts of information to Congress regarding how the USA Patriot Act has been implemented, to provide to Congress the information that Congress needs in order to do the proper oversight and debate for the next level -- that is, the reauthorization debate in 2005.

WN: In October 2002 you told The Washington Post that civil liberties were not being compromised. Do you still feel that way even after the Jose Padilla case?

Dinh: I do feel that way. I think right now at this time and this place the greatest threat to American liberty comes from al-Qaida and their sympathizers rather than from the men and women of law enforcement and national security who seek to defend America and her people against that threat. That doesn't mean that each and every single one of us agrees with everything that is done in the name of the fight against terror. While I would do things somewhat differently in minor aspects in the war on terror, I do recognize that our Defense Department officials have an awesome responsibility to play in not only prosecuting the war in Afghanistan and Iraq but also continuing to protect the American homeland.

WN: Is there anything that you would change about the Patriot Act in light of how it's been implemented?

Dinh: I think the overall answer is generally no. I do, however, recognize that the act has been mischaracterized and misunderstood and has engendered a lot of well-meaning and genuine fear, even if that fear is unfounded. The issue is not one of substance but one of perception. But perception is also very important because we do not want the people, however many of them, to fear the government when that fear is unfounded.

WN: But the government has mischaracterized how the Patriot Act can be interpreted. For instance, the government has told the American people that in many cases these laws cannot be applied to citizens and in fact some of them have been applied to U.S. citizens.

Dinh: There are a number of provisions within the USA Patriot Act that have a tremendous effect on our war against terror. However, they are tools that can be used in general criminal investigations as well. At no time do I think that anybody intentionally sought to elide the difference between the two. The reason why you need tools of general applicability is that terrorists do not go around wearing an "I am a terrorist" T-shirt, and these normal investigative tools are the ones that allow us not only to deter terrorism but also to investigate crimes.

WN: Some critics have called you the purveyor of the most sweeping curtailment of freedom since the McCarthy era. Is that an exaggeration?

Dinh: I think it is very easy to employ sweeping rhetoric and personal denunciations. I think it is much harder to back it up with facts and concrete examples. I seek to engage in this conversation by giving as much facts as I can and letting the efforts of the Department of Justice, the administration and my own to be judged by the people, by history and by eternity. Where I err, I obviously am not hesitant in recognizing my mistakes. I wish people who criticize me would just pick up the phone and ask me specific questions, like we are engaging right now, so that we can isolate the issues of difference, so that we can engage in a constructive dialogue rather than a destructive dialogue.

WN: Some Asian Americans have accused you of dishonoring your own struggle and background as a refugee and immigrant. What do you say to charges that the law you wrote is hostile to immigrants and noncitizens?

Dinh: I come to this country having known government that does not work, either through the chaos of war or through the repression of totalitarian communism. In each and every thing that I do in my life -- in the law and as my life as a public official -- I ask myself how can I better serve the cause of freedom and the cause of good government. And while some may disagree with the decisions I make, just as some may disagree with the overall strategy on terror, I hope that people will recognize that there is no dishonor, there is no disconnect, there is no irony -- just an honest effort of a person trying to serve his country at her time of greatest need according to his best ability, however limited that may be.

WN: You once wrote that the rule of government was to maximize the zone of liberty around each person. You said, "Security without liberty -- it's not an America I would want to live in."

Dinh: I firmly believe that liberty should not be traded off for some sense of security. I think the harder task is to determine our best tools we can have in order to protect our security, while at the same time ascertain the safeguards that will be necessary in order to protect against abuse of that tool and misuse of it at the expense of privacy or liberty.

WN: So what do you say to Americans who feel that the Patriot Act has shrunk their zone of liberty?

Dinh: If indeed that is your fear or that is your perception then engage in the democratic process. Back up your argument, back up your belief with facts, marshal evidence in order to convince those who are engaged in the process of governance.

We're not conspiracy nuts, or doomsday aficionados, and the only thing lining our hats is breathable gore-tex. But when someone like the Penatgon's own national defense Yoda, Andrew Marshall, says that abrupt climate change is a much bigger threat than international terrorism, and that we damned well better be thinking about how we are going to cope with it, we here in the office sit up and pay attention. Here some useful info sites on climate change:

Climate Changes Information Web Sites

- Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change - technical papers and working group information from the United Nations Environment Program.

- Pew Center on Global Climate Change - educates the public and key policy makers about the causes and potential consequences of climate change, and encourages the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.

- Climate Change - information with a focus on market-based, profitable measures to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. From the Rocky Mountain Institute.

- EPA Global Warming Site - with information on climate, emissions, uncertainties and EPA reports.

- globalchange.gov - federal multi-agency site for Global Change-related data, policy, research, and news.

- IUCN World Conservation Union: Climate Change Initiative - explains why global warming must be addressed, why it's important for biodiversity, and what it means for conservation.

- Linkages: Climate Conference - features photos, daily reports, and coverage of past climate change COP conferences.

- NCPA Publications: Global Warming - archive of studies and analyses discussing the causes and consequences of global warming. From the National Center for Policy Analysis.

- NOAA: Greenhouse Warming - information from the

National Oceanic & Atmospheric

Administration.

- NRDC: Global Warming - provides factsheets and in-depth analysis of global warming and related policy.

- U.S. Department of State, Office of International Information Programs: Climate Change - fact sheets, articles, and statements regarding U.S. participation at COP climate change conferences.

1997 Kyoto Conference

- Online NewsHour Forum: Analyzing the Kyoto Global Warming Conference - questions about the 1997 Kyoto global warming conference answered by various experts.

- Full Text of the Kyoto Protocol - from CNN.

- Report on Kyoto Conference - summary report of the recent meeting. From the Earth Negotiations Bulletin.

- Linkages: UN Framework Convention for Climate Change, COP-3 - daily reports in English, French, and Japanese, documents, pictures, and live webcast.

Looks like the US media is very reluctantly quasi-reporting the news story that is making waves elsewhere around the globe. Notice the strong soft-pedaling of the likelihood of a catastrophic scenario coming to pass - musn't stampede the sheeple:

Posted on Mon, Feb. 23, 2004

SETH BORENSTEIN / KRT

Global warming has caused the Columbia Glacier to retreat 7 miles in the last 20 years, leaving calves of ice in Prince William Sound.

Dramatic climate change could become global security nightmare

By Seth Borenstein

Knight Ridder Newspapers

WASHINGTON - A dramatic climate change could suddenly become a global security nightmare, warns a worst-case scenario assembled by professional futurists at the behest of the Pentagon.

In a report released to Knight Ridder on Monday, they write that while a drastic climate change is unlikely, it "would challenge United States national security in ways that should be considered immediately." The "plausible" consequences include famine in Europe and nuclear showdowns over who controls what's left of the world's water, the futurists concluded.

The report, commissioned by the Department of Defense's Office of Net Assessment, its internal think-tank, reflects the Pentagon's policy of planning for the worst, said author and long-time Pentagon consultant Peter Schwartz.

Schwartz said in a Knight Ridder interview that while the climate change envisioned is drastic, it's as worthy of advance planning as several other "high impact scenarios" that came true, such as planning in 1983 for the end of the Soviet Union or in 1995 for the possibility that terrorists might crash planes into the World Trade Center.

While the Bush administration generally has not considered global warming much of an immediate threat, "I did not write an impossible scenario," Schwartz said. It could play out, he said, in the next five to 15 years.

Unlike most climate change studies, which examine global warming over more than a century, the Pentagon study is based on an "abrupt climate change" that scientists say has happened in the past and could happen again soon.

In a climate scenario that Schwartz and fellow futurist Doug Randall call "The Weather Report: 2010-2020," average annual temperatures drop by 5 degrees Fahrenheit in North America and Asia and by 6 degrees in Europe, while temperatures rise by 4 degrees in the southern hemisphere.

The sudden combination of cooling and warming would occur if there were major changes in the ocean's temperature, current and salinity. One of the driving forces of climate is a kind of global ocean conveyor belt that transfers ocean warmth and cooling throughout the world based on how salty the water is.

In the past, sudden melting of glaciers flooded oceans with fresh water and shut down the conveyor belt, which depends on the sinking of salt water to pull warm water from the tropics to higher latitudes. This last happened 8,200 years ago. A 2002 National Academy of Sciences report warned that if it happens again, it would "increase the possibility of large, abrupt, and unwelcome regional or global climatic events."

The Pentagon-commissioned report, "imagining the unthinkable," as its writers' put it, sketches what could happen next:

"Imagine eastern European countries, struggling to feed their populations with a falling supply of food, water and energy, eyeing Russia, whose population is already in decline, for access to its grains, minerals and energy supply. Or, picture Japan, suffering from flooding along its coastal cities and contamination of its fresh water supply, eyeing Russia's Sakhalin Island oil and gas reserves as an energy source. ... Envision Pakistan, India, and China - all armed with nuclear weapons -skirmishing at their borders over refugees, access to shared rivers, and arable land."

Military showdowns could be fast and furious, the report speculates: In 2015, conflict in Europe over supplies of food and water leads to strained relations. In 2022, France and Germany battle over the Rhine River's water. The U.S. Defense Department seals off America's borders to stanch floods of refugees from Mexico and the Caribbean. In 2025, as energy costs increase in nations struggling to cope with warmer and colder weather, the United States and China square off over access to Saudi Arabian oil.

America would weather the climate changes best, albeit with declining agricultural fertility, according to the report. Europe would be hit hard with food shortages and streams of people leaving. China would be hurt by colder winters and hotter summers triggering widespread famine.

The futurists' grim study began a year ago when Andrew Marshall, the director of the Office of Net Assessment - the Pentagon's chief think-tanker - started taking the National Academy of Sciences report seriously.

Schwartz, the chairman of Global Business Networks of Emeryville, Calif., said Marshall challenged him: "Suppose the abrupt guys are right? What would happen?"

Schwartz had previously done futuristic scenarios for the Pentagon, Royal Dutch Shell and filmmaker Steven Spielberg.

"The Defense Department continuously looks ahead to ensure that we are prepared in the future for any contingency," Marshall said in a prepared statement issued Monday.

Investigating consequences of climate change is worth looking into, said F. Sherwood Rowland, a Nobel Prize-winning earth sciences professor at the University of California-Irvine.

"Pentagon people are not known as wild environmentalists," Rowland said.

Randall, the study's co-author, said the exploration didn't reflect a change in the Bush administration's view of climate change.

"It's an unlikely event, and the Pentagon often thinks the unthinkable and that's all this was," said Randall.

---

For the study "An Abrupt Climate Change Scenario and Its Implications for United States National Security," go to the following Web site: http://www.ems.org/climate/pentagon-climate-change.pdf

For information on the mechanics of abrupt climate change, go to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute Web site at: http://www.whoi.edu/institutes/occi/currenttopics/climatechange-wef.html

For the National Academies of Sciences' 2002 study Abrupt Climate Changes: Inevitable Surprises, go to: http://www.nap.edu/books/0309074347/html/

For Peter Schwartz and Doug Randall at Global Business Networks, go to the GBN Web site at: http://www.gbn.com/

Politics - AFP

Leaked Pentagon report warns climate change may bring famine, war: report

Sun Feb 22, 5:17 PM ET

LONDON (AFP) - A secret report prepared by the Pentagon warns that climate change may lead to global catastrophe costing millions of lives and is a far greater threat than terrorism.

The report was ordered by an influential US Pentagon advisor but was covered up by "US defense chiefs" for four months, until it was "obtained" by the British weekly The Observer.

The leak promises to draw angry attention to US environmental and military policies, following Washington's rejection of the Kyoto Protocol on climate change and President George W. Bush's skepticism about global warning -- a stance that has stunned scientists worldwide.

The Pentagon report, commissioned by Andrew Marshall, predicts that "abrupt climate change could bring the planet to the edge of anarchy as countries develop a nuclear threat to defend and secure dwindling food, water and energy supplies," The Observer reported.

The report, quoted in the paper, concluded: "Disruption and conflict will be endemic features of life.... Once again, warfare would define human life."

Its authors -- Peter Schwartz, a CIA consultant and former head of planning at Royal Dutch/Shell Group, and Doug Randall of Global Business Network based in California -- said climate change should be considered "immediately" as a top political and military issue.

It "should be elevated beyond a scientific debate to a US national security concern", they were quoted as saying.

Some examples given of probable scenarios in the dramatic report include:

-- Britain will have winters similar to those in current-day Siberia as European temperatures drop off radically by 2020.

-- by 2007 violent storms will make large parts of the Netherlands uninhabitable and lead to a breach in the acqueduct system in California that supplies all water to densely populated southern California

-- Europe and the United States become "virtual fortresses" trying to keep out millions of migrants whose homelands have been wiped out by rising sea levels or made unfarmable by drought.

-- "catastrophic" shortages of potable water and energy will lead to widespread war by 2020.

Randall, one of the authors, called his findings "depressing stuff" and warned that it might even be too late to prevent future disasters.

"We don't know exactly where we are in the process. It could start tomorrow and we would not know for another five years," he told the paper.

Experts familiar with the report told the newspaper that the threat to global stability "vastly eclipses that of terrorism".

Taking environmental pollution and climate change into account in political and military strategy is a new, complicated and necessary challenge for leaders, Randall said.

"It is a national security threat that is unique because there is no enemy to point your guns at and we have no control over the threat," he said.

Coming from the Pentagon, normally a bastion of conservative politics, the report is expected to bring environmental issues to the fore in the US presidential race.

Last week the Union of Concerned Scientists, an influential and non-partisan group that includes 20 Nobel laureates, accused the Bush administration of having deliberately distorted scientific fact to serve its policy agenda and having "misled the public".

Its 38-page report, which it said took over a year to prepare and was not time to coincide with the campaign season, details how Washington "systematically" skewed government scientific studies, suppressed others, stacked panels with political and unqualified appointees and often refused to seek independent expertise on issues.

Critics of the report quoted by the New York Times denied there was deliberate misrepresentation and called it politically motivated.

The person behind the leaked Pentagon report, Andrew Marsall, cannot be accused of the same partisan politicking.

Marsall, 82, has been an advisor for the defense department for decades, and was described by The Observer as the author of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's plans for a major transformation of the US military.

Futurists see world coming to awful stew

By Ian Hoffman, Oakland Tribune STAFF WRITER

In a dire look at a hypothetical hothouse world, consultants for the Pentagon see nations warring over water, food and whom to blame for greenhouse warming. (Hint: It's you and your sport utility vehicle.)

"Disruption and conflict will be endemic features of life," two Emeryville-based futurists concluded in a report late last year for the Defense Department's Office of Net Assessment.

Peter Schwartz and Doug Randall were drafted for an unclassified, worst-case look at climate change. But the echo chamber of Internet news and opinion transformed their thought exercise into a top military secret or the ultimate comeuppance for a fossil-fueled executive or a Bush conspiracy to hide the WMDs of the natural world.

As if the report itself wasn't fantastic enough.

Curtain openers for a doomsday climate come as early as next year, it suggested. Storms swamp South Pacific islands, then later topple levees in the Netherlands and Northern California. The Hague becomes Atlantis, and the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, a salty, inland sea unpalatable to Southern Californians.

But worse is to come: Melting of Greenland's ice sheet and freshwater runoff from North America dilute the salinity that is thought to drive North Atlantic currents, shutting down warm water and air for Europe.

By 2020, "Europe's climate is more like Siberia's," suggest Schwartz and Crandall, scenario writers for Global Business Network.

"Envision Pakistan, India and China -- all armed with nuclear weapons -- skirmishing at their borders over refugees, access to shared rivers and aerable land," Schwartz and Crandall wrote.

"Once again," they conclude, "warfare would define human life."

Richer, high-tech nations would weather climate change better than less-advanced, developing countries. The United States would fortress itself against refugees and angry have-nots, who will resent its wealth, its consumption and its emissions of greenhouse gases.

That's enough, the report suggests, to bump climate change from the realm of esoteric science to a "U.S. national security concern."

Left-wing bloggers and conspiracy-minded environmentalists seized on news of the report as a sign that President Bush still is hiding the real threat to America and that Mother Nature must be a Democrat.

"The leak promises to draw angry attention to U.S. environmental and military policies," the Arab news outlet Al-Jazeera reported on its Web site.

In fact, GBN's report bears as much resemblance to probable reality as does the London Observer in describing it as "a secret report" predicting that climate change "could bring the planet to the edge of anarchy." According to unnamed experts quoted by the newspaper, the report concludes that climate change is a "threat to global stability (that) vastly eclipses that of terrorism."

"We were imagining the unthinkable, a worst-case scenario," GBN's Randall said Monday by phone.

The Pentagon's unofficial futurist, Andrew Marshall, commissioned the report. He heads the internal DOD think tank that is responsible for scoping long-range trends and threats. Scenario-based projections are a staple of business and military planning.

The Defense Department released the report last month to a business magazine writer.

"There's nothing secret about it, there's nothing Pentagon about it and there's no prediction in it," Randall said.

It's full of predictions, actually, but all start from a premise of abrupt climate change that is highly uncertain and outside the consensus of mainstream scientists.

Climate is inherently complex, and many climate scientists are dismayed that the Bush administration has sought refuge in that uncertainty rather than grappling with greenhouse-gas emissions from fossil-fuel burning. Yet climate models in general show gradual warming, not abrupt change on a global scale.

GBN's report warns that its scenario is "not the most likely," "not implausible" and "extreme."

"We were playing a little bit with where science ends and speculation begins," Randall said.

Yet most of the report's recommendations are a study in moderation. It calls for improving climate-prediction models, deciding which countries are most vulnerable to climate change, exercising teams for dealing with water or food shortages and identifying "no-regrets" strategies, such as more robust water supplies.

"This report was done not to scare people but to make people think more broadly about the possible consequences of climate change," said Peter Gleick, president of the Oakland-based Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment and Security.

"It may not be a likely scenario, but it's certainly a plausible one. As somebody who buys insurance against really bad things happening, it's something I really think we should pay attention to."

At the same time, it might be a mistake to think the Bush administration will embrace predictions of climate change from the Pentagon more than it has from the EPA, the United Nations, the National Academy of Sciences and the world's major scientific societies.

"If in this case the messenger makes the message more palatable, that would be a good thing," Gleick said. "But this administration has ignored a lot of different messengers in the past, and this one may not be a lot different."

'Fortune' magazine reported on the coming climate crisis in their February 9th, 2004 issue:

CLIMATE COLLAPSE

The Pentagon's Weather Nightmare

The climate could change radically, and fast. That would be the mother of all national security issues.

By David Stipp

Global warming may be bad news for future generations, but let's face it, most of us spend as little time worrying about it as we did about al Qaeda before 9/11. Like the terrorists, though, the seemingly remote climate risk may hit home sooner and harder than we ever imagined. In fact, the prospect has become so real that the Pentagon's strategic planners are grappling with it.

The threat that has riveted their attention is this: Global warming, rather than causing gradual, centuries-spanning change, may be pushing the climate to a tipping point. Growing evidence suggests the ocean-atmosphere system that controls the world's climate can lurch from one state to another in less than a decade—like a canoe that's gradually tilted until suddenly it flips over. Scientists don't know how close the system is to a critical threshold. But abrupt climate change may well occur in the not-too-distant future. If it does, the need to rapidly adapt may overwhelm many societies—thereby upsetting the geopolitical balance of power.

Though triggered by warming, such change would probably cause cooling in the Northern Hemisphere, leading to longer, harsher winters in much of the U.S. and Europe. Worse, it would cause massive droughts, turning farmland to dust bowls and forests to ashes. Picture last fall's California wildfires as a regular thing. Or imagine similar disasters destabilizing nuclear powers such as Pakistan or Russia—it's easy to see why the Pentagon has become interested in abrupt climate change.

Climate researchers began getting seriously concerned about it a decade ago, after studying temperature indicators embedded in ancient layers of Arctic ice. The data show that a number of dramatic shifts in average temperature took place in the past with shocking speed—in some cases, just a few years.

The case for angst was buttressed by a theory regarded as the most likely explanation for the abrupt changes. The eastern U.S. and northern Europe, it seems, are warmed by a huge Atlantic Ocean current that flows north from the tropics—that's why Britain, at Labrador's latitude, is relatively temperate. Pumping out warm, moist air, this "great conveyor" current gets cooler and denser as it moves north. That causes the current to sink in the North Atlantic, where it heads south again in the ocean depths. The sinking process draws more water from the south, keeping the roughly circular current on the go.

But when the climate warms, according to the theory, fresh water from melting Arctic glaciers flows into the North Atlantic, lowering the current's salinity—and its density and tendency to sink. A warmer climate also increases rainfall and runoff into the current, further lowering its saltiness. As a result, the conveyor loses its main motive force and can rapidly collapse, turning off the huge heat pump and altering the climate over much of the Northern Hemisphere.

Scientists aren't sure what caused the warming that triggered such collapses in the remote past. (Clearly it wasn't humans and their factories.) But the data from Arctic ice and other sources suggest the atmospheric changes that preceded earlier collapses were dismayingly similar to today's global warming. As the Ice Age began drawing to a close about 13,000 years ago, for example, temperatures in Greenland rose to levels near those of recent decades. Then they abruptly plunged as the conveyor apparently shut down, ushering in the "Younger Dryas" period, a 1,300-year reversion to ice-age conditions. (A dryas is an Arctic flower that flourished in Europe at the time.)

Though Mother Nature caused past abrupt climate changes, the one that may be shaping up today probably has more to do with us. In 2001 an international panel of climate experts concluded that there is increasingly strong evidence that most of the global warming observed over the past 50 years is attributable to human activities—mainly the burning of fossil fuels such as oil and coal, which release heat-trapping carbon dioxide. Indicators of the warming include shrinking Arctic ice, melting alpine glaciers, and markedly earlier springs at northerly latitudes. A few years ago such changes seemed signs of possible trouble for our kids or grandkids. Today they seem portents of a cataclysm that may not conveniently wait until we're history.

Accordingly, the spotlight in climate research is shifting from gradual to rapid change. In 2002 the National Academy of Sciences issued a report concluding that human activities could trigger abrupt change. Last year the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, included a session at which Robert Gagosian, director of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, urged policymakers to consider the implications of possible abrupt climate change within two decades.

Such jeremiads are beginning to reverberate more widely. Billionaire Gary Comer, founder of Lands' End, has adopted abrupt climate change as a philanthropic cause. Hollywood has also discovered the issue—next summer 20th Century Fox is expected to release The Day After Tomorrow, a big-budget disaster movie starring Dennis Quaid as a scientist trying to save the world from an ice age precipitated by global warming.

Fox's flick will doubtless be apocalyptically edifying. But what would abrupt climate change really be like?

Scientists generally refuse to say much about that, citing a data deficit. But recently, renowned Department of Defense planner Andrew Marshall sponsored a groundbreaking effort to come to grips with the question. A Pentagon legend, Marshall, 82, is known as the Defense Department's "Yoda"—a balding, bespectacled sage whose pronouncements on looming risks have long had an outsized influence on defense policy. Since 1973 he has headed a secretive think tank whose role is to envision future threats to national security. The Department of Defense's push on ballistic-missile defense is known as his brainchild. Three years ago Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld picked him to lead a sweeping review on military "transformation," the shift toward nimble forces and smart weapons.

When scientists' work on abrupt climate change popped onto his radar screen, Marshall tapped another eminent visionary, Peter Schwartz, to write a report on the national-security implications of the threat. Schwartz formerly headed planning at Royal Dutch/Shell Group and has since consulted with organizations ranging from the CIA to DreamWorks—he helped create futuristic scenarios for Steven Spielberg's film Minority Report. Schwartz and co-author Doug Randall at the Monitor Group's Global Business Network, a scenario-planning think tank in Emeryville, Calif., contacted top climate experts and pushed them to talk about what-ifs that they usually shy away from—at least in public.

The result is an unclassified report, completed late last year, that the Pentagon has agreed to share with FORTUNE. It doesn't pretend to be a forecast. Rather, it sketches a dramatic but plausible scenario to help planners think about coping strategies. Here is an abridged version:

A total shutdown of the ocean conveyor might lead to a big chill like the Younger Dryas, when icebergs appeared as far south as the coast of Portugal. Or the conveyor might only temporarily slow down, potentially causing an era like the "Little Ice Age," a time of hard winters, violent storms, and droughts between 1300 and 1850. That period's weather extremes caused horrific famines, but it was mild compared with the Younger Dryas.

For planning purposes, it makes sense to focus on a midrange case of abrupt change. A century of cold, dry, windy weather across the Northern Hemisphere that suddenly came on 8,200 years ago fits the bill—its severity fell between that of the Younger Dryas and the Little Ice Age. The event is thought to have been triggered by a conveyor collapse after a time of rising temperatures not unlike today's global warming. Suppose it recurred, beginning in 2010. Here are some of the things that might happen by 2020:

At first the changes are easily mistaken for normal weather variation—allowing skeptics to dismiss them as a "blip" of little importance and leaving policymakers and the public paralyzed with uncertainty. But by 2020 there is little doubt that something drastic is happening. The average temperature has fallen by up to five degrees Fahrenheit in some regions of North America and Asia and up to six degrees in parts of Europe. (By comparison, the average temperature over the North Atlantic during the last ice age was ten to 15 degrees lower than it is today.) Massive droughts have begun in key agricultural regions. The average annual rainfall has dropped by nearly 30% in northern Europe, and its climate has become more like Siberia's.

Violent storms are increasingly common as the conveyor becomes wobbly on its way to collapse. A particularly severe storm causes the ocean to break through levees in the Netherlands, making coastal cities such as the Hague unlivable. In California the delta island levees in the Sacramento River area are breached, disrupting the aqueduct system transporting water from north to south.

Megadroughts afflict the U.S., especially in the southern states, along with winds that are 15% stronger on average than they are now, causing widespread dust storms and soil loss. The U.S. is better positioned to cope than most nations, however, thanks to its diverse growing climates, wealth, technology, and abundant resources. That has a downside, though: It magnifies the haves-vs.-have-nots gap and fosters bellicose finger-pointing at America.

Turning inward, the U.S. effectively seeks to build a fortress around itself to preserve resources. Borders are strengthened to hold back starving immigrants from Mexico, South America, and the Caribbean islands—waves of boat people pose especially grim problems. Tension between the U.S. and Mexico rises as the U.S. reneges on a 1944 treaty that guarantees water flow from the Colorado River into Mexico. America is forced to meet its rising energy demand with options that are costly both economically and politically, including nuclear power and onerous Middle Eastern contracts. Yet it survives without catastrophic losses.

Europe, hardest hit by its temperature drop, struggles to deal with immigrants from Scandinavia seeking warmer climes to the south. Southern Europe is beleaguered by refugees from hard-hit countries in Africa and elsewhere. But Western Europe's wealth helps buffer it from catastrophe.

Australia's size and resources help it cope, as does its location—the conveyor shutdown mainly affects the Northern Hemisphere. Japan has fewer resources but is able to draw on its social cohesion to cope—its government is able to induce population-wide behavior changes to conserve resources.

China's huge population and food demand make it particularly vulnerable. It is hit by increasingly unpredictable monsoon rains, which cause devastating floods in drought-denuded areas. Other parts of Asia and East Africa are similarly stressed. Much of Bangladesh becomes nearly uninhabitable because of a rising sea level, which contaminates inland water supplies. Countries whose diversity already produces conflict, such as India and Indonesia, are hard-pressed to maintain internal order while coping with the unfolding changes.

As the decade progresses, pressures to act become irresistible—history shows that whenever humans have faced a choice between starving or raiding, they raid. Imagine Eastern European countries, struggling to feed their populations, invading Russia—which is weakened by a population that is already in decline—for access to its minerals and energy supplies. Or picture Japan eyeing nearby Russian oil and gas reserves to power desalination plants and energy-intensive farming. Envision nuclear-armed Pakistan, India, and China skirmishing at their borders over refugees, access to shared rivers, and arable land. Or Spain and Portugal fighting over fishing rights—fisheries are disrupted around the world as water temperatures change, causing fish to migrate to new habitats.

Growing tensions engender novel alliances. Canada joins fortress America in a North American bloc. (Alternatively, Canada may seek to keep its abundant hydropower for itself, straining its ties with the energy-hungry U.S.) North and South Korea align to create a technically savvy, nuclear-armed entity. Europe forms a truly unified bloc to curb its immigration problems and protect against aggressors. Russia, threatened by impoverished neighbors in dire straits, may join the European bloc.

Nuclear arms proliferation is inevitable. Oil supplies are stretched thin as climate cooling drives up demand. Many countries seek to shore up their energy supplies with nuclear energy, accelerating nuclear proliferation. Japan, South Korea, and Germany develop nuclear-weapons capabilities, as do Iran, Egypt, and North Korea. Israel, China, India, and Pakistan also are poised to use the bomb.

The changes relentlessly hammer the world's "carrying capacity"—the natural resources, social organizations, and economic networks that support the population. Technological progress and market forces, which have long helped boost Earth's carrying capacity, can do little to offset the crisis—it is too widespread and unfolds too fast.

As the planet's carrying capacity shrinks, an ancient pattern reemerges: the eruption of desperate, all-out wars over food, water, and energy supplies. As Harvard archeologist Steven LeBlanc has noted, wars over resources were the norm until about three centuries ago. When such conflicts broke out, 25% of a population's adult males usually died. As abrupt climate change hits home, warfare may again come to define human life.

Over the past decade, data have accumulated suggesting that the plausibility of abrupt climate change is higher than most of the scientific community, and perhaps all of the political community, are prepared to accept. In light of such findings, we should be asking when abrupt change will happen, what the impacts will be, and how we can prepare—not whether it will really happen. In fact, the climate record suggests that abrupt change is inevitable at some point, regardless of human activity. Among other things, we should:

• Speed research on the forces that can trigger abrupt climate change, how it unfolds, and how we'll know it's occurring.

• Sponsor studies on the scenarios that might play out, including ecological, social, economic, and political fallout on key food-producing regions.

• Identify "no regrets" strategies to ensure reliable access to food and water and to ensure our national security.

• Form teams to prepare responses to possible massive migration, and food and water shortages.

• Explore ways to offset abrupt cooling—today it appears easier to warm than to cool the climate via human activities, so there may be "geo-engineering" options available to prevent a catastrophic temperature drop.

In sum, the risk of abrupt climate change remains uncertain, and it is quite possibly small. But given its dire consequences, it should be elevated beyond a scientific debate. Action now matters, because we may be able to reduce its likelihood of happening, and we can certainly be better prepared if it does. It is time to recognize it as a national security concern.

The Pentagon's reaction to this sobering report isn't known—in keeping with his reputation for reticence, Andy Marshall declined to be interviewed. But the fact that he's concerned may signal a sea change in the debate about global warming. At least some federal thought leaders may be starting to perceive climate change less as a political annoyance and more as an issue demanding action.

If so, the case for acting now to address climate change, long a hard sell in Washington, may be gaining influential support, if only behind the scenes. Policymakers may even be emboldened to take steps such as tightening fuel-economy standards for new passenger vehicles, a measure that would simultaneously lower emissions of greenhouse gases, reduce America's perilous reliance on OPEC oil, cut its trade deficit, and put money in consumers' pockets. Oh, yes—and give the Pentagon's fretful Yoda a little less to worry about.

Feedback: dstipp@fortunemail.com

Key findings of the Pentagon

Sunday February 22, 2004

The Observer (Guardian UK)

· Future wars will be fought over the issue of survival rather than religion, ideology or national honour.

· By 2007 violent storms smash coastal barriers rendering large parts of the Netherlands inhabitable. Cities like The Hague are abandoned. In California the delta island levees in the Sacramento river area are breached, disrupting the aqueduct system transporting water from north to south.

· Between 2010 and 2020 Europe is hardest hit by climatic change with an average annual temperature drop of 6F. Climate in Britain becomes colder and drier as weather patterns begin to resemble Siberia.

· Deaths from war and famine run into the millions until the planet's population is reduced by such an extent the Earth can cope.

· Riots and internal conflict tear apart India, South Africa and Indonesia.

· Access to water becomes a major battleground. The Nile, Danube and Amazon are all mentioned as being high risk.

· A 'significant drop' in the planet's ability to sustain its present population will become apparent over the next 20 years.

· Rich areas like the US and Europe would become 'virtual fortresses' to prevent millions of migrants from entering after being forced from land drowned by sea-level rise or no longer able to grow crops. Waves of boatpeople pose significant problems.

· Nuclear arms proliferation is inevitable. Japan, South Korea, and Germany develop nuclear-weapons capabilities, as do Iran, Egypt and North Korea. Israel, China, India and Pakistan also are poised to use the bomb.

· By 2010 the US and Europe will experience a third more days with peak temperatures above 90F. Climate becomes an 'economic nuisance' as storms, droughts and hot spells create havoc for farmers.

· More than 400 million people in subtropical regions at grave risk.

· Europe will face huge internal struggles as it copes with massive numbers of migrants washing up on its shores. Immigrants from Scandinavia seek warmer climes to the south. Southern Europe is beleaguered by refugees from hard-hit countries in Africa.

· Mega-droughts affect the world's major breadbaskets, including America's Midwest, where strong winds bring soil loss.

Now the Pentagon tells Bush: climate change will destroy us

· Secret report warns of rioting and nuclear war

· Britain will be 'Siberian' in less than 20 years

· Threat to the world is greater than terrorism

Mark Townsend and Paul Harris in New York

Sunday February 22, 2004

The Observer (Guardian, UK)

Climate change over the next 20 years could result in a global catastrophe costing millions of lives in wars and natural disasters..

A secret report, suppressed by US defence chiefs and obtained by The Observer, warns that major European cities will be sunk beneath rising seas as Britain is plunged into a 'Siberian' climate by 2020. Nuclear conflict, mega-droughts, famine and widespread rioting will erupt across the world.

The document predicts that abrupt climate change could bring the planet to the edge of anarchy as countries develop a nuclear threat to defend and secure dwindling food, water and energy supplies. The threat to global stability vastly eclipses that of terrorism, say the few experts privy to its contents.

'Disruption and conflict will be endemic features of life,' concludes the Pentagon analysis. 'Once again, warfare would define human life.'

The findings will prove humiliating to the Bush administration, which has repeatedly denied that climate change even exists. Experts said that they will also make unsettling reading for a President who has insisted national defence is a priority.

The report was commissioned by influential Pentagon defence adviser Andrew Marshall, who has held considerable sway on US military thinking over the past three decades. He was the man behind a sweeping recent review aimed at transforming the American military under Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

Climate change 'should be elevated beyond a scientific debate to a US national security concern', say the authors, Peter Schwartz, CIA consultant and former head of planning at Royal Dutch/Shell Group, and Doug Randall of the California-based Global Business Network.

An imminent scenario of catastrophic climate change is 'plausible and would challenge United States national security in ways that should be considered immediately', they conclude. As early as next year widespread flooding by a rise in sea levels will create major upheaval for millions.

Last week the Bush administration came under heavy fire from a large body of respected scientists who claimed that it cherry-picked science to suit its policy agenda and suppressed studies that it did not like. Jeremy Symons, a former whistleblower at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), said that suppression of the report for four months was a further example of the White House trying to bury the threat of climate change.

Senior climatologists, however, believe that their verdicts could prove the catalyst in forcing Bush to accept climate change as a real and happening phenomenon. They also hope it will convince the United States to sign up to global treaties to reduce the rate of climatic change.

A group of eminent UK scientists recently visited the White House to voice their fears over global warming, part of an intensifying drive to get the US to treat the issue seriously. Sources have told The Observer that American officials appeared extremely sensitive about the issue when faced with complaints that America's public stance appeared increasingly out of touch.

One even alleged that the White House had written to complain about some of the comments attributed to Professor Sir David King, Tony Blair's chief scientific adviser, after he branded the President's position on the issue as indefensible.

Among those scientists present at the White House talks were Professor John Schellnhuber, former chief environmental adviser to the German government and head of the UK's leading group of climate scientists at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research. He said that the Pentagon's internal fears should prove the 'tipping point' in persuading Bush to accept climatic change.

Sir John Houghton, former chief executive of the Meteorological Office - and the first senior figure to liken the threat of climate change to that of terrorism - said: 'If the Pentagon is sending out that sort of message, then this is an important document indeed.'

Bob Watson, chief scientist for the World Bank and former chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, added that the Pentagon's dire warnings could no longer be ignored.

'Can Bush ignore the Pentagon? It's going be hard to blow off this sort of document. Its hugely embarrassing. After all, Bush's single highest priority is national defence. The Pentagon is no wacko, liberal group, generally speaking it is conservative. If climate change is a threat to national security and the economy, then he has to act. There are two groups the Bush Administration tend to listen to, the oil lobby and the Pentagon,' added Watson.

'You've got a President who says global warming is a hoax, and across the Potomac river you've got a Pentagon preparing for climate wars. It's pretty scary when Bush starts to ignore his own government on this issue,' said Rob Gueterbock of Greenpeace.

Already, according to Randall and Schwartz, the planet is carrying a higher population than it can sustain. By 2020 'catastrophic' shortages of water and energy supply will become increasingly harder to overcome, plunging the planet into war. They warn that 8,200 years ago climatic conditions brought widespread crop failure, famine, disease and mass migration of populations that could soon be repeated.

Randall told The Observer that the potential ramifications of rapid climate change would create global chaos. 'This is depressing stuff,' he said. 'It is a national security threat that is unique because there is no enemy to point your guns at and we have no control over the threat.'

Randall added that it was already possibly too late to prevent a disaster happening. 'We don't know exactly where we are in the process. It could start tomorrow and we would not know for another five years,' he said.

'The consequences for some nations of the climate change are unbelievable. It seems obvious that cutting the use of fossil fuels would be worthwhile.'

So dramatic are the report's scenarios, Watson said, that they may prove vital in the US elections. Democratic frontrunner John Kerry is known to accept climate change as a real problem. Scientists disillusioned with Bush's stance are threatening to make sure Kerry uses the Pentagon report in his campaign.

The fact that Marshall is behind its scathing findings will aid Kerry's cause. Marshall, 82, is a Pentagon legend who heads a secretive think-tank dedicated to weighing risks to national security called the Office of Net Assessment. Dubbed 'Yoda' by Pentagon insiders who respect his vast experience, he is credited with being behind the Department of Defence's push on ballistic-missile defence.

Symons, who left the EPA in protest at political interference, said that the suppression of the report was a further instance of the White House trying to bury evidence of climate change. 'It is yet another example of why this government should stop burying its head in the sand on this issue.'

Symons said the Bush administration's close links to high-powered energy and oil companies was vital in understanding why climate change was received sceptically in the Oval Office. 'This administration is ignoring the evidence in order to placate a handful of large energy and oil companies,' he added.

Special report

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Bjorn Lomborg: Are we doing the right thing?

Useful links

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