US Uncut

While talking about the issue of illegal immigration in US and the illegal war in Iraq, the first thing that needs to be addressed is, illegal aliens are killing more Americans than the Iraq war says a report from Family Security Matters. The second thing in this regard that needs address is, White House plan that would grant illegal immigrants work visas but require them to return home to apply for U.S. residency and pay a $10,000 fine. Now, two things comes to mind – first, the cost of work permits and the green card application – which could total more than $20,000 – are prohibitive for low-wage earners. Secondly, this proposal gives a impression that there is a connection between Iraq war. This is what Francisco Gomez, say, who along with his wife is in US illegally- For my wife and I it would cost about $30,000. Multiply that by all the illegal immigrants here … It’s obvious Bush just wants to fund his Iraq war with our money. Moreover, this proposal is contradictory in nature when American leaders say that our neighbors are our allies. Then why kick your allies out of this country? What do US risk by giving them a path to citizenship? While thousands of people marched through downtown on Saturday, demanding a way for the country’s estimated 12 million illegal immigrants to become citizens and condemning President Bush’s latest proposal, these rallies offer more proof that that the punitive measures that some in Congress propose are completely out of touch with the reality of why US have 12 million undocumented people living within their borders and how they live in their midst. The controversy surrounding this and other policies has made immigration one of the most divisive public policy issues of the decade in US. However, connecting immigration with the Iraq war in the beginning of this post was intentional and in part to offer a solution to immigration problem in US. This solution is inspired from Nashville Soapbox who writes – The solution for these two problems is an all-in-one-shot solution. Send the illegal aliens to fight in Iraq. Liberals are happy because the aliens will have jobs and are doing the jobs (fighting) liberal Americans don’t want Americans doing. Conservatives are happy because the illegals are being deported, and we’re not just leaving Iraq with a cut and run policy. It might sound strange but this to me looks like a good idea as these immigrants are the ones who provide America with a cheap labor in the fields where most of the Americans don’t even like to step. Building a Berlin-like wall between the United States and Mexico is not the solution but taking these people together will help to achieve the ‘American dream.’

President Bush seems loosing on popularity front, at least, if one believes in popular ‘job-approval rating’ polls. In a recent poll in USA Today, Bush managed a rating of 38%. He scored below 40%, for consecutive 7 months. 40% is considered as a critical figure. It’s the borderline that differentiates popular from non-popular. Bush though managed a yearly average of 41%, but since October his rating started declining. He even scored 34% in last poll. Below 40%, present President will get company of only two ex-Presidents – Harry Truman and Richard Nixon. While Truman lost his popularity in final 26 months of his term, Nixon lost in last 13 months following Watergate. Only one President regained popularity after loosing it, was Jimmy Carter. It seems, Bush lost his shine after stalemate in Iraq. Pro-war Americans were in Bush’s favor, but as situation leading no-where and troops are loosing lives, sentiment is getting weak. White House officials agree to the fact, at least unofficially, but they argue, war has its own pace and situation will take, as much time as it needs. Besides, White House spoke person commented on the Poll issue saying, President has lot other serious issues to look after. Any survey has its own shortcomings and limitations. This poll is based on a telephonic survey and carries an error percent of +/- 3. Even sample size is not much big. Despite these facts, such poll results show off attitude of a population segment. And one can’t deny that fully. Republicans are in hope of retaining the White House, but if Bush’s popularity-scene does not improve much, then they will face a tough fight. No doubt people are there already to brush up the brand.

US is suffering from a disease – Yes, a preventable disease that kills thousands every year and the agent of this disease is a consumer product that lacks a broad national monitoring system or regulation by federal safety organization. The disease is ‘Suicide’ and the agent is ‘GUN.’ In a nation where more than half of all suicides are gun suicides and where more than one in three homes have firearms; one cannot talk about suicide without talking about guns. Suicide is the 11th-leading cause of death among Americans, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 2004, more than half of the 32,439 Americans who committed suicide used a firearm. A new study says – suicide rates among people of all ages are higher in states where more homes have guns. Matthew Miller of the Harvard School of Public Health, who led the study said – We found that where there are more guns, there are more suicides. Although household firearm removal is a recommended strategy for preventing suicides but appropriate mechanisms for household firearm disposal have not yet been identified. Firearms continue to be a problem. Public Safety demands a system that ensures gun owners are accountable for their firearms and one that keeps guns out of the hands of people who should not have them. The specter of gun violence looms over the lives of future generations in US as an epidemic and for that reason it needs a right kind of solution. Here are some of the tips by ‘Guns and kids’ about gun storage to prevent any kind of mishap in your own house. Also check how health care professionals help prevent teen suicide, (here by Safe Youth)

The battle-fields of the Middle East, especially Iraq, is just turning into a killing-grounds for the US led Allied forces. The total number of the U.S. troops killed in Iraq since the war began in 2003 has well crossed the 3,000 mark. As the US troops have intensified their efforts to defeat the insurgents in Iraq, after the Congress has set a deadline of March 31, 2008 for the withdrawal of the US troops from Iraq if the Iraqi government fail to mark any progress, the U.S. military has endured a rapid increase in battlefield deaths in the recent past. The past weekend illustrates how the insurgents can meticulously target and kill Americans troops in Iraq. At least, 10 U.S. soldiers were killed in a fresh attack on Saturday and Sunday outside the capital town, Baghdad. According to a fresh Associated Press count as a minimum 3,281 members of the U.S. forces, including seven military civilians have killed in Iraq War that is 14 higher than the Defense Department’s count. Apart from a huge American military loss, the British military has accounted 140 deaths; Italy, 33; Poland, 19; Ukraine, 18; Bulgaria, 13; Spain, 11; Denmark, six; El Salvador, five; Slovakia, four; Latvia, three; Estonia, Netherlands, Thailand, two each; and Australia, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Romania, one loss each. The major concern most of the foreign troops are facing in Iraq is that there is no tangible enemy that it may overpower or defeat. They are battling al-Qaida and Iraqi guerrillas that appears from nowhere, plunder foreign troops and disappear among the civilians, leaving malign scars.

Its official now! US decides to tackle the mess in Iraq and the ‘possible’ mess is Afghanistan with enhanced military policies. The US administration yesterday announced that US troops will now serve up to 15 months in Iraq and Afghanistan instead of the usual 12-month tours under new defence department rules. What does this mean? Basically, in order to adequately support the ongoing missions in both war ravaged nations, US is now having to devise new plans. This is one of them. The new policy apart from anything else, is major evidence that US is feeling the pressure, and has felt the need to change the way it has been dealing with situations till now. Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Democrat Joseph Biden said the decision was an urgent warning that the administration’s Iraq policy cannot be sustained without doing terrible long-term damage to our military America is realising that the current 145,000 troops deployed are not enough given the so called ‘surge’ in Iraq. Defence Secretary Robert Gates has said that I think that what this recognises, though, is that our forces are stretched There is no question about that… What we are trying to do here is to provide some long-term predictability for the soldiers and their families Rotation Goal A major concern with longer deployments remains the rising stress levels which could be experienced among the troops. To tackle this, the administration has decided that soldiers will be allowed a minimum of 12 months at home bases upon return. Mr Gates says that this is because the US is most concerned about the long term well being of its troops and wants to ensure that in the long term, these strains do not "break" the US army. Therefore, by guaranteeing 12-month periods of rest and re-training between tours in Iraq, and by increasing the size of the US army and marines, it seems Mr Gates hopes to avoid much more serious problems a few years down the line. In my view this has bleak chances of working as the troops have already been under extreme pressure, and the news of staying even longer may lessen their morale considerably. Also, it should be noted that although there is a theoretical clause of rotation, the Pentagon has been struggling to meet its own guidelines regarding the time troops get to spend at home. So now what will change? With greater pressure won’t the chances of the troops actually getting the time off also decrease? Above all, the signal that US is ‘feeling’ the pressure and so much as to have acted so drastically upon it is news enough.

It just appears that there is no love lost between President Bush and the Democrat-controlled US Senate, as this is for the second time within a month that the US president has threatened to veto a bill approved by the senate. After vowing to veto the war funding bill few weeks back, President Bush is setting up another confrontation over the stem-cell research issue with the Congress where Democrats are in a clear majority. President Bush had already vetoed a similar sort of draft bill last year. The US Senate yesterday approved a bipartisan resolution with a majority of 63 to 34 votes, only short of the two-thirds necessary to overrule a presidential veto, which relieves sanctions on the federal financing of embryonic stem cell research. While doctors and scientists hope that stem cells will help in curing deleterious diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, diabetes and spinal-cord injuries by utilizing stem cells acquired from frozen human embryos to repair tissue affected by disease, however, conservative people associate the destruction of frozen human embryos to abortion, for human embryos are damaged when the cells are removed. Earlier, when Mr. Bush become president in 2001, he cut back all government funds on stem-cell research. The stem sell research has raised an elongated debate between moderates and conservatives all over the world. Most of the people are supporting stem cells research, which has the capacity to turn into any kind of tissue in the body, whereas, few other conservatives, including President Bush have questioned the justification behind the research on ethical grounds.

According to a new report issued by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), a liberal watchdog group, it is alleged, in possible violation of the federal Presidential Records Act, official White House email traffic for hundreds of days has vanished, over a two year period. As per White House spokeswoman, Dana Perino, it cannot be ruled out that there were a potential ’5 million emails’ lost. She stressed although there was no indication of a deliberate attempt at losing emails, she was alert not to dispute the outside group’s allegations. She continued that nothing is being concluded at this point in time and the matter is being looked into. There are 1,700 people in the Executive Office of the President. Perino told reporters that the e-mails from those accounts should have been saved, but said policy has not kept pace with technology. She said computer experts were trying to retrieve any records that have been deleted. The administration was already facing sharp questions about whether top presidential advisers including Karl Rove improperly used Republican National Committee e-mail that the White House said later disappeared. Rove has always understood from very early on in the Bush administration that RNC and campaign e-mail were being archived Congressional investigators have questioned whether White House aides used e-mail accounts from the Republican Party and President Bush’s re-election campaign for official government business to avoid scrutiny of those dealings. The biggest problem here is really that here is a White House that is deliberately violating an existing statute that requires them to preserve all records

The people of the United States, indeed entire world, haven’t yet come out of the shocking incident of the Virginia Tech University shootings, news of another gunman armed with an AK-47 assault rifle threatening to plan a mass killing even bigger than the Va massacre kept the most of the schools and universities in Yuba City and neighboring Marysville in Northern California deserted and decayed. Police is searching for Jeffery Thomas Carney, 28, who has earlier been arrested numerous occasions for domestic violence and taking stimulants like methamphetamine, as on Wednesday night he threatened to make the Virginia Tech school massacre ‘look mild’ in comparison. The threat by Carney, just three days after 23-year-old South Korean student Cho Seung-Hui killed 32 people at Virginia Tech University, provoked a week of lockdowns and evacuations at schools around the United States after the tragic incident of the Virginia Tech shootings. Sutter County Sheriff Jim Denney said, He had some sort of explosive device and he was going to make the incident at Virginia Tech look mild by comparison. Our main emphasis, and I can’t stress this enough, is to find this suspect. The Virginia Tech University shooting has stunned not only the student community but every person around the world, and sparked a heated debate about students turning killers of fellow students in American schools and colleges, and the related gun control laws of United States. The right to own a weapon is rooted in the American psyche, which miserably is affecting the youth, even the school and college, of the nation. More than 30,000 people die from gunshot wounds in the United States every year and there are more guns in private hands than in any other country. Australian Prime Minister John Howard, a strong ally of President Bush, on Tuesday held the America’s ‘gun culture’, which was a negative force in society, responsible for the Virginia Tech shootings. He told reporters, You can never guarantee these things won’t happen again in our country. We had a terrible incident at Port Arthur, but it is the case that 11 years ago we took action to limit the availability of guns and we showed a national resolve that the gun culture that is such a negative in the United States would never become a negative in our country. British Home Office Minister, Tony McNulty, who obtained a masters degree in political science at Virginia Tech in 1982, asserted, I think if this does prompt a serious and reflective debate on gun issues and gun law in the states then some good may come from this woeful tragedy. The reactions, around the world, over gun law in the US are forceful, but I doubt that it will change the gun culture of a nation where the pro-gun lobby appears to be more stronger with the generous support of lawmakers and in a country where the national constitution gives the right to carry weapons.

People haven’t yet recovered from the tragic Monday attack at Virginia Tech university in which a student sadistically killed 32 people in the nastiest shooting rampage in recent past in the US, another fatal incident at the Johnson Space Center, in which a NASA contract worker carried a handgun inside an office building yesterday and killed a hostage before shooting himself, just uncovered the growing gun culture in the nation that is ruling the great American dream or psyche. The shooter was identified as 60-year-old William Phillips, who has been working for Johnson Space Center for 12 years as a contract worker employed by Pasadena, California-based Jacobs Engineering Group, whereas, the slain hostage was David Beverly, an engineer employed by NASA. Fortunately, a second hostage escaped with minor injuries. Though, no apparent motive for the slaughter has been found, but it is said that there had been ‘some kind of dispute’ between Beverly and Phillips that caused the bloody incident. After blocking himself on the second floor of Building 44 for about three hours, the gunmen (Phillips) also shot himself down, possibly to evade the arrest or shoot out by the police. During the volatile conflict, which occurred about between 1:40 pm and 5 pm, employees were removed from the NASA building and were asked to stay in their offices for several hours. As a precautionary measure an adjacent Space Center Intermediate School was momentarily locked down by the security. The fatal incident at NASA, which is second in just a week in the US, has not only drawn the attention of the people towards the growing gun culture in the United States and sparked a gun control debate around the world, but also exposed the security measures of the biggest and most advance space research centre of the world.

Some prisoners executed by lethal injection in the US may die of suffocation while still conscious and in pain, researchers said. Drugs used to execute prisoners in the U.S. sometimes fail to work, causing slow and painful deaths that probably violate constitutional bans on cruel and unusual punishment, a new medical review of dozens of executions concludes. Even when administered properly, the three-drug lethal injection method appears to have caused some prisoners to suffocate while they were conscious and unable to move, instead of having their hearts stopped while they were sedated, scientists said in a report. Lethal injection is the primary method of execution for 37 US states and the federal government, but 11 states have halted or suspended the procedure because of legal or ethical questions. The drugs used are the anaesthetic thiopental, pancuronium bromide to paralyse the muscles and lungs, and the electrolyte potassium chloride to stop the heart. Since the US Supreme Court upheld the death penalty in 1976, the United States has executed 1070 people, 901 of them by lethal injection, according to the Death Penalty Information Centre. The study, published in the Public Library of Science journal PLoS Medicine.