Bush May Create Largest Marine Reserve in the World (NPR)

[John_B]

rakkis I hope you are right, in a "better late than never" kind of way...

 

[drbill]

Rakkis... I think you may be right, but I always question someone who points to WMD that they know aren't there.

 

[uncleavi]

He should make one here in Alaska as well.
Wait, I forgot, we have Oil up here.

 

[deeper thoughts]

Wow he set up the Hawaiian preserve and his father enacted the Florida Keys Natl Sanctuary. Great job for the enviroment

 

[CZ_Diver]

The act gives the president broad powers to protect areas of scientific or historic importance without the approval of congress.

This is the part that scares me. We wouldn't be at war right now if the President didn't have broad powers without the approval of Congress. The system of "checks and balances" takes another hit.

While I, like everyone here, am glad to see nature preserved, I can see the potential for abuse.

 

[deco_martini]

Rakkis... I think you may be right, but I always question someone who points to WMD that they know aren't there.

Common myth. The most reputable critic of the Iraq war was Scott Ritter who was a former weapons inspector. In his analysis Iraq retained 5-10 percent of its WMD stockpiles. He argued against the war though since he thought those unaccounted for liters of anthrax and other stockpiles were not a threat. He did not argue they did not exist.

As it turned out later, Saddam destroyed these stockpiles without UN inspectors present. He admitted to his FBI interrogator that he wanted the UN to be unable to find the unaccounted for stockpiles until they finally gave up and lifted sanctions. The idea was, he thought America would not attack Iraq and that we were blowing hot air. He did however fear a renewed war with Iran and as long as he could keep them guessing about his WMD munitions, he felt Iraq was safe.

The WMD they pointed at that were not there were a hoax perpetrated by Achmed Chalabi through a source he provided that went by the codename curveball. These are the infamous new WMD programs that Colin Powell presented to the UN. However, saying "he knew they weren't there" is false. In my humble opinion, they did a piss poor job of following up on curveball's stories. They cite a lack of human intel from Iraq for not getting the picture on new WMD programs right. This was a known deficiency in american intelligence gathering that was generally agreed upon by the 911 commission.

Interviews with Iraq scientists later showed that Saddam had hidden centrifuge technology and was waiting until sanctions were ended to rehash his programs. However, he was engaged in no new programs at the time of the resumption of hostilities (technically, Gulf 2 was just the resumption of Gulf 1 since Gulf 1's treaty was never fully complied with).

The point is taken though, this is a big surprise from the Bush administration.

Your Diving Skeptical Inquirer (who has done too much research on too many topics),
Martini

 

[Scubasteve1982]

President Bush do something positive? Sorry all u Bush supporters....if there are any!

 

[Thalassamania]

Whose crafting it? I detect the faint whiff of Sylvia Earle (who is an old friend of Papa Bush and was Chief Scientist of NOAA under him).

 

[vladimir]

Why all the surprise? Bush designated the world's largest marine sanctuary in Hawaii. He should get credit for that, just as he gets blame for his flawed policies. Another such sanctuary should be welcome news to people of all political stripes. Knee-jerk reactions are the sign of a closed mind.

 

[vladimir]

He is thinking of using the Antiquities Act of 1906, as he did with the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. The act gives the president broad powers to protect areas of scientific or historic importance without the approval of congress.

This is the part that scares me. We wouldn't be at war right now if the President didn't have broad powers without the approval of Congress. The system of "checks and balances" takes another hit.

While I, like everyone here, am glad to see nature preserved, I can see the potential for abuse.

I agree that Bush has strained our system of checks and balances to the limit (with a compliant Congress abetting), but if the Antiquities Act of 1906 is the operative law it is hard to see how this could be "another" hit.

What is the potential for abuse? More protected areas of scientific and historic importance? That's not the sort of thing I lose sleep over.