The New American articles from February 2006

The New American archives from February 2006

Calamities seen in the light of sacred scripture.(Letter to the Editor)
February 6, 2006... Dennis Behreandt's article "Why Does God Allow Calamities?" in your December 26, 2005 issue was interesting. But also consider that in Genesis 1:28, God has just created humanity, and He tells them to be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth....

Secularists have no basis to make moral judgments.(Letter to the Editor)
February 6, 2006... While reflecting on Dennis Behreandt's article "Why Does God Allow Calamities," I thought it important to remind fellow readers that Christians aren't alone in facing "the problem of evil." Many Christian apologists have pointed out that...

Article without merit.(Letter to the Editor)
February 6, 2006... Of all the articles I have ever read in THE NEW AMERICAN, the one by Dennis Behreandt on "Why Does God Allow Calamities?" is the only one that has been totally without merit. Mr. Behreandt asks a question and then never answers it. He looks to...

Beijing to bail out on the dollar?(INSIDER REPORT)(foreign exchange reserves)(Brief Article)
February 6, 2006... "China has resolved to shift some of its foreign exchange reserves--now in excess of $800 billion--away from the U.S. dollar and into other world currencies in a move likely to push down the value of the greenback," reported the January 10...

Few limitations on eavesdropping.(INSIDER REPORT)(Russell Tice of National Security Agency)(Brief Article)
February 6, 2006... Russell Tice worked for 20 years inside the National Security Agency, specializing in "special access programs," which are also called "black world" operations. In a January 10 interview with ABC News, Tice claimed that "the technology exists...

A snapshot of CFR dominance.(Constitutional Rights Foundation)
February 6, 2006... The major media widely reported the January 5 meeting President George W. Bush had with current and former secretaries of State and Defense at the White House to discuss the war in Iraq. In fact, President Bush and the other participants posed...

Cyber-corporatism.(INSIDER REPORT)
February 6, 2006... In recent years, the phrase "public-private partnership" has come into vogue as a description of nominally private corporate concerns that work intimately with the federal government. In such an arrangement, which is often described as...

Swiss "Onyx" intercepts evidence of U.S. "black sites".(INSIDER REPORT)(electronic surveillance network detects interrogation centers)(Brief Article)
February 6, 2006... Like most contemporary Western governments, Switzerland has at its disposal a sophisticated electronic surveillance network akin to the National Security Agency's "Echelon" program. Late last year, the Swiss system, known as "Onyx," intercepted...

Take away guns and then get robbed.(INSIDER REPORT)(gun ownership laws)
February 6, 2006... On January 2, Marion Barry, the crack-smoking, tax-evading ex-mayor of Washington, D.C., who was a loud voice during his four terms in office advocating strict gun control measures, reaped what he sowed when two youths held him at gunpoint in...

Bibles in the public classroom.(INSIDER REPORT)(National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools' curricula)(Brief Article)
February 6, 2006... Public schools are, in general, a wasteland when it comes to learning about God and the Bible. However, the National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools (NCBCPS) is working to change that. Founded in 1993, the NCBCPS has developed a...

Cost of Iraq war skyrocketing.(Quick Quotes)(Joseph Stiglitz's opinion on Coalition Occupation of Iraq, 2003-)
February 6, 2006... "We have to borrow money, and we have to pay interest, and we have to pay interest on the interest. When you add up all of those numbers, I think $2 trillion is a conservative figure." In his estimate of the cost of the Iraq War, should the...

College friend expresses sadness about disgraced lobbyist.(Quick Quotes)(Dana Rohrabacher's opoinion about Jack Abramoff)(Brief Article)
February 6, 2006... "Washington can be intoxicating at times, and I think over the years there have been many people who have been seduced into very bad decisions by the lure of power and money, and Jack [Abramoff] obviously made some very bad decisions." ...

He gave Jimmy Carter a campaign theme.(Quick Quotes)(Lloyd Robie remembered)(Brief Article)(Obituary)
February 6, 2006... "Jimmy who?" When he passed away on January 1, Lloyd Robie was remembered as the near-deaf New Hampshire country storeowner who, when introduced to Jimmy Carter during the candidate's 1975 campaign stop in his store, said to the future...

Congressman makes sense, aspires to GOP leadership.(Quick Quotes)(Grand Old Party, Mike Pence)(Brief Article)
February 6, 2006... "Where are the announcements of federal-budget-plant closings in Washington? Taxes are too high and paying taxes is too complicated." Responding to the closing of automotive plants in his state, third-term Congressman Mike Pence (R-Ind.)...

Harsh words for UN Human Rights Commission.(Quick Quotes)(Kenneth Roth of Human Rights Watch)(Brief Article)
February 6, 2006... "The reason highly abusive governments flock to the commission is to prevent condemnation of themselves and their kind. If you're a thug, you want to be on the commission that tries to condemn thugs." Noting that membership over recent...

Columnist labels Bush administration "criminal".(Quick Quotes)(Paul Craig Roberts, George W. Bush)(Brief Article)
February 6, 2006... "The Bush administration's lies, felonies, and illegalities have revealed it to be a criminal administration with a police state mentality and police state methods." When he learned that Bush administration personnel were found to be...

Professor fears rising presidential power.(Quick Quotes)(Noah Feldman of New York University)(Brief Article)
February 6, 2006... "Congress was to make the laws and the president was empowered only to execute them. The framers would no sooner have been governed by a democratically elected president than by a king who got his job through royal succession." Writing in...

Slave labor: made in the U.S.A.: under the influence of disgraced super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff, former House Majority Whip Tom DeLay became an apologist for slave labor camps--on American soil.(CORRUPTION)(Cover Story)
February 6, 2006... Deep in a humid tropical island jungle, in poorly ventilated buildings ringed with barbed wire and patrolled by armed guards, impoverished Asian women--most of them Chinese--toil for 80 hours a week making brand-name apparel for export to the...

Seeing Russia the Abramoff way: a corrupt deal brokered by Jack Abramoff led Tom DeLay to sell a critical foreign-aid vote to the Russian mob.(CORRUPTION)(Cover Story)
February 6, 2006... In 1985, 26-year-old Jack Abramoff, at the time the head of the College Republicans, was approached to run Citizens for America (CFA), a group intended to generate public support for the Reagan administration's policy of arming and funding...

Power brokers: Jack Abramoff brought together corrupt politicians, the criminal underworld, and the global power elite.(CORRUPTION)(leftward migration of current Republican Party)(Cover Story)
February 6, 2006... Jack Abramoff liked to slip into dialogue from 'The Godfather' as he led his lobbying colleagues in planning their next conquest on Capitol Hill," observed a December 29 Washington Post profile of the confessed felon. "The playacting provided a...

Bush circumvents torture ban; within hours of signing a bill banning torture, President Bush issued a bill-signing statement that, in effect, reserved the right to authorize torture regardless of the ban.(ON THE HOME FRONT)
February 6, 2006... Last December, under considerable pressure from Congress, President Bush signed into law the Defense Department Appropriation Act, even though it included guidelines he had earlier opposed prohibiting the use of torture to extract information...

Using a shotgun to hunt mosquitoes: like a stereotypical character shooting at mosquitoes with a shotgun, George Bush's claim to broad surveillance powers is blasting holes in our constitutional protections.(ON THE HOME FRONT)
February 6, 2006... All of us have seen cartoons of the type in which a pesky fly or mosquito is relentlessly bugging Yosemite Sam or some similar character. Instead of closing the open window that has allowed the annoying pest in and then going after the critter...

Who ya' gonna call?(EDUCATION REPORT)(social worker violates Home School Legal Defense Association's law)(Brief Article)
February 6, 2006... You're a home-schooler, and at 9:30 p.m., the police and a social worker show up at your door--surprise! This is exactly what happened to a Nevada home-schooling family in early December. The social worker falsely stated, "We do not need a...

Home schooling among black families on the rise.(EDUCATION REPORT)(Brief Article)
February 6, 2006... According to estimates from the National Home Educators Research Institute, in 2003 blacks made up almost 5 percent of home-schoolers, up from 1 percent in 1999. In four years, the number of home-schooled Children doubled, from 850,000 to 1.7...

Old problem, new solution.(EDUCATION REPORT)(Michael Viscardi's solution for Dirichlet Problem)(Brief Article)
February 6, 2006... Mathematical physics may have just gotten a boost from Michael Viscardi, a home-schooled 16-year-old senior high school student from San Diego who also takes math classes three days a week at UCSD. In the mid-1800s, Lejeune Dirichlet, a famous...

Protecting our freedom of religion: Congress has a golden opportunity to prevent the Supreme Court and all other federal courts from ruling on acknowledgement-of-God issues.(CONSTITUTION CORNER)
February 6, 2006... Recent judicial atrocities have awakened Congress to its long-neglected ability to limit the appellate jurisdiction of the U.S. Supreme Court by using powers granted in Article III, Section 2 of the Constitution. In Lawrence v. Texas, the...

How immigration destroyed Rome. Oxford historian Peter Heather has reexamined the fall of Rome. His new book, The Fall of the Roman Empire, holds many lessons for today.(The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians)(Book Review)
February 6, 2006... The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians, by Peter Heather (New York, New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 572 pages, hardcover. By the time the Roman Empire in the West died in 476 A.D., the empire had...

Sizing them up.(EXERCISING THE RIGHT)(Henry Wooden's case of self defence)(Brief Article)
February 6, 2006... Henry Wooden was working at American R-V Supplies in Chattanooga, Tennessee, on December 31, when a lone stranger armed with a knife entered the store and attempted to rob him, reported WDEF News 12. According to Wooden and other workers in...

Last-minute thoughts.(EXERCISING THE RIGHT)(a case of self defence and robbery)(Brief Article)
February 6, 2006... According to WBNS Channel 10 (Columbus), after showing callous disregard for the feelings of others, a Mifflin Township, Ohio, man tried to contact his mother after being shot by a woman whom he was trying to rob. The wounded man was...

Headed for a fall.(EXERCISING THE RIGHT)(cases of self defence)(Brief Article)
February 6, 2006... On October 31, 2005, a Janesville, Wisconsin, man shot an intruder. The prosecutor said the man's actions were justified because the man believed he had to protect his family. The prosecutor added that it was possible that the criminal could...

Some good, some bad.(EXERCISING THE RIGHT)(experiences with concealed handgun licenses)
February 6, 2006... Ken Hanson is an attorney involved in civil and criminal firearms cases in Ohio. On December 31, the Buckeye Firearms Association posted online his article "2005: A Year in Self-Defense," which summarizes Ohio's first full year as a state that...

Shoes for Iraqi children.(THE GOODNESS OF AMERICA)(Operation Shoe Drop)(Brief Article)
February 6, 2006... While three members of the Missouri National Guard's 735th Main Support Battalion--1st Lt. Nathan Wilde, Sgt. 1st Class Kenny Carder, and Sgt. 1st Class Shannon Wilde--were serving in Iraq, they became saddened by the sight of Iraqi children...

Faith gives families of miners help, hope.(International Coal Group Inc.'s mine accident)
February 6, 2006... It is hard to find anything positive about the Sago Mine disaster, other than the recovery of the tragedy's lone survivor, Randal McCloy, Jr. The families of the 12 miners who perished have faced expected grief, along with additional emotional...

Utah boy keeps cool head during fire.(Jeremiah Calder's brave act)(Brief Article)
February 6, 2006... Nine-year-old Jeremiah Calder was near the outside door to his family's vintage mobile home in Magna, Utah, when his father, 33-year-old Dave Calder, did an inadvisable thing--he poured gasoline on a fire in a wood-burning stove. Not...

Teacher of Liberty: classically trained at his mother's knee, George Wythe would later pass on his knowledge to so many famous Founding Fathers that he came to be called "Teacher of Liberty.".(HISTORY--GREATNESS OF THE FOUNDERS)(American educator)(Biography)
February 6, 2006... Of all the notable patriots of Virginia whose names are subscribed on the Declaration of Independence, George Wythe's name is first. This probably wouldn't seem to be a remarkable honor except that George Wythe wasn't present at the momentous...

Squandering our substance.(Correction Notice)
February 6, 2006... ITEM: Speaking of the new budget approved by Congress, New York Times columnist Bob Herbert commented in a January 2 article entitled "The Machete Budget": "Members of the House and Senate have agreed on legislation that achieves something...

How democracies trample rights.(Correction, Please!)(Brief Article)
February 6, 2006... Comptroller Walker makes a second point: the United States was designed as a "republic," not a "democracy"--which might preclude his ever becoming a columnist for the New York Times. The Founding Fathers probably wouldn't fit in at the Times...

Overall budget growth persists.(Correction, Please!)(Brief Article)
February 6, 2006... Spending has now gone through the roof into the stratosphere. This fiscal year, reports the Tax Foundation, the federal government will spend almost $2.3 trillion--the equivalent of nearly $24,000 per American taxpayer. Apologists for the...

Plenty of places for reductions.(public expenditure)
February 6, 2006... Despite the extravagances, we are repeatedly assured that no significant federal reductions are possible. Last year, then-Speaker Tom DeLay (R-Texas) boasted about how spending had already been pared as far as possible, issuing a challenge to...

Piling on new debt.(Correction, Please!)(national debt)(Brief Article)
February 6, 2006... Yet, the trend is disheartening. As it is, the government spends $1.42 for each dollar it receives in income-tax revenue. Thus, the national debt grows. Paying for the interest on the national debt amounted to about $200 billion in 2004. The...

Anti-war stance is right, not left.(THE LAST WORD)
February 6, 2006... According to the wisdom of the day, the left is against the war in Iraq while the right supports the war. So why do The John Birch Society and its affiliated magazine THE NEW AMERICAN support the withdrawal of our troops from Iraq? Isn't that...

To bring 'em home or not.(LETTERS TO THE EDITOR)(Letter to the editor)
February 20, 2006... Without a doubt, "Bring 'em Home!" (January 9 issue) is one of the best issues of THE New American we have ever read. This issue provided the clarity and the intellect most in the media and out government wish to ignore. In particular,...

Puritan Christmas.(LETTERS TO THE EDITOR)(Letter to the editor)
February 20, 2006... In "Aslan vs. Harry" in the December 26 issue of THE NEW AMERICAN it says: "Throughout the centuries...., the church has redeemed and reinvested ancient ceremonies, holidays, and devices with Christian meaning and content." At the...

President assumes power to sign away laws.(LETTERS TO THE EDITOR)(Letter to the editor)
February 20, 2006... The idea that, via presidential signing letters, the president of the United States can unilaterally nullify whatever bills Congress has passed is outrageous--and completely contrary to the Constitution ("Bush Circumvents Torture Ban," February...

Tunnels show dangers on Porous U.S.-Mexican Border.(INSIDER REPORT)(Brief article)
February 20, 2006... Acting on an anonymous tip, U.S. Border Patrol and Drug Enforcement Agency agents uncovered a major smuggling tunnel originating 100 yards south of the U.S.-Mexico border and comes up inside a modern industrial warehouse nearly half a mile...

Feds keeping border patrol in the dark on border gang threat.(INSIDER REPORT)
February 20, 2006... "Border Patrol agents say few had knowledge of a warning that violent gang members are being paid to target them, and that they are ill-equipped to deal with such a threat," according to a report by Sara A. Carter in the Daily Bulletin of...

Mexican military incursions into U.S.(INSIDER REPORT)(Brief article)
February 20, 2006... On January 15, the Daily Bulletin of Ontario, California, reported that the Border Patrol has recorded 216 incursions by Mexican military and police into the United States since 1996, including incidents of armed confrontation, where U.S....

"Democracy" in the Middle East: switching terrorist teams.(INSIDER REPORT)
February 20, 2006... The January 25 elections in Palestine brought a major upset, with Hamas (the Islamic Resistance Movement) winning 74 seats out of a total of 132 parliamentary seats up for grabs. Thus does Hamas, a radical Islamist military-politico-terrorist...

Beijing cornering strategic minerals.(INSIDE REPORT)
February 20, 2006... China is "cornering the market for an obscure group of minerals that are vital to high-technology industry," reported the January 22 International Herald Tribune. The Asian behemoth now supplies approximately 95 percent of the world's...

It's legal because I say so.(George W. Bush speaks about legality of wiretapping for terrorism prevention)
February 20, 2006... During his January 26 White House press conference, President Bush dealt with several questions about the administration's use of warrantless wiretaps. "Your explanation on the monitoring program seems to say that when the nation is at...

New leader of Bolivia a hardcore marxist.(Evo Morales)(Brief article)
February 20, 2006... "This democratic, cultural fight is part of the fight of our ancestors... it is a continuity of the fight of Che Guevara." As he was sworn in to lead the nation of Bolivia on January 22, Evo Morales raised his fist and saluted the slain...

Challenger victims remembered on 20th anniversary of the tragedy.(Quick Quotes)(Brief article)
February 20, 2006... "If you want perfect safety in flight, you have to sit on the fence and watch the birds." While being interviewed about the loss of her husband and six others who perished aboard the Challenger space vehicle, Jane Scobee Rodgers quoted one of...

A potentially ominous friendship brewing.(between Iran and Venezuela)(Brief article)
February 20, 2006... "With Iranian nuclear aspirations gaining notice, it's worth directing attention to the growing relationship between Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez." Wall Street Journal columnist Mary Anastasia...

Republicans say they aren't alone in scandals.(William J. Jefferson corruption case)(Brief article)
February 20, 2006... "If [House Democratic leader] Nancy Pelosi can't clean up her own caucus, how does she expect voters not to see right through her attempts at political opportunism?" When a corruption case involving Democrat Representative William J. Jefferson...

U.S. ambassador objects to comparing border protection with Berlin Wall.(Quick Quotes)(Brief article)
February 20, 2006... "Some have said that a fence [at the U.S. southern border] violates human rights and have even compared it to the Berlin Wall. [Such comparisons] are not only disingenuous and intellectually dishonest, they are offensive to me." In his...

President provides sharply different views of his top aides.(George W. Bush)(Condoleezza Rice)(Donald H. Rumsfeld)(Brief article)
February 20, 2006... "Condi Rice, when she walks in, she comes in as a close friend but as someone who knows our friendship will be sustained whether she agrees with me or not. Rumsfeld comes in, and he's a crusty old man who's got an opinion, and tells it, and...

Militants driving professionals out of Iraq.(Quick Quotes)(Brief article)
February 20, 2006... "Professors have been threatened. Doctors have been killed in their clinics. Killing has become common. Some people believe this is intentional, to try to empty Iraq of its elite." In the midst of what some are terming a "brain drain," Baghdad...

The real American Cowboy: the real men and women of the Old West were truly as legendary as classic Hollywood cinema and traditional Western fiction have led us to believe.(CULTURE WAR)(Cover Story)
February 20, 2006... When the legend becomes filet, print the legend. So says Maxwell Scott, the newspaper editor in the Western film The Malt Who Shot Liberty Vallance, when Sen. Ransom Stoddard, played by Jimmy Stewart, discloses the truth about the day he...

Homos on the range: a look at how liberal cultural elites gave "blockbuster" stature to a perverse movie--Brokeback Mountain--and what they hoped to accomplish.(CULTURE WAR)
February 20, 2006... John Wayne and Gary Cooper must be spinning in their graves. Liberal as Hollywood is, they never would have thought the industry they loved would put out a movie in which the protagonists are cowboys who give the term "rough riders" a new, blue...

Closing The Book of Daniel.(by National Broadcasting Company Inc.)
February 20, 2006... After airing just four episodes, NBC dropped its new series, The Book of Daniel, amid dismal ratings and growing protests from upset Christians. The network and its commercial sponsors were inundated with mail, telephone calls, and e-mail after...

Advancing on the pro-life front: pro-life marches on the 33rd anniversary of Roe v. Wade underscore the momentum shift that has taken place against abortion.(CULTURE WAR)
February 20, 2006... Hundreds of thousands of pro-life advocates turned out for marches and rallies throughout the country to mark the 33rd anniversary of the infamous Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision that struck down virtually all state restrictions on abortion....

Understanding the wages of sin: the Reverend Steven Craft denounces commonly heard lies used to justify sinful behavior, and explains why accommodating sin is bad for our country as well as for individuals.(CULTURE WAR)
February 20, 2006... The 62-year-old Reverend Steven "Stevie" Craft is a Baptist preacher, a former chaplain at Missouri State Penitentiary, a father of four, and a grandfather of four. He says that he was called to do Christ's work from the womb, but he did not...

From killers to Christians: fifty years ago, five missionaries dated to bring the Gospel to Ecuador's fearsome Auca Indians and helped work a miracle.(CULTURE WAR)
February 20, 2006... Marj Saint had camped out at the shortwave radio for hours, her body coiled in anxiety as she awaited word from her missionary husband Nate. Five days earlier, a yellow Piper Cruiser airplane piloted by Nate and carrying four missionary...

The economics of empire: two books examine how U.S. foreign policy and international money manipulators are placing the United States and myriad other countries on the road to financial disaster.(Empire of Debt: The Rise of an Epic Financial Crisis)(Confessions of an Economic Hit Man)(Brief article)(Book review)
February 20, 2006... Empire of Debt: The Rise of an Epic Financial Crisis, by Bill Bonner and Addison Wiggin, Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, 2006, 370 pages, hardcover, $27.95. Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, by John Perkins, New York: Plume, 2004...

Stem-cell donor fights fires, too.(John Jensen donated stem cells to Brooke Williams)
February 20, 2006... Five years ago, John Jensen, while still in training at the New York City Fire Academy on Randalls Island, signed up to be a bone marrow donor. In September 2003, Jensen received a call from someone at the New York Blood Center, informing him...

Woman honored who lost arm while saving girl.(THE GOODNESS OF AMERICA)
February 20, 2006... In the summer of 2003. Robyn Boggs vacationed with members of her extended family at her father-in-law's house on the Potomac River in Stafford County, Virginia. As other relatives boarded the family boat, Mrs. Boggs and her 11-year-old niece....

High school student saves toddler from drowning.(Joe Carroll)(Logan Hill Ruel )(Brief article)
February 20, 2006... Four-year-old Logan Hill Ruel was among a group of children who recently attended a birthday party held at the YMCA pool in Pineland, Maine. He was enjoying himself with the others until he followed a group of older kids into deep water,...

The story of immigration in America: though it is not often acknowledged today, immigration policy of the past was designed to ensure that immigrants assimilated quickly and became Americanized.(HISTORY--STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM)
February 20, 2006... The story of immigration is deeply embedded in the American psyche. Tales of immigrant efforts to achieve success and assimilation have enlightened and inspired generations of Americans and have served as object lessons in courage and...

Making do in a tough spot.(assault and battery against Edward Cosgrove )(Brief article)
February 20, 2006... Ninety-three-year-old Edward Cosgrove has had a sore shoulder since two young men physically attacked him, but he says "the soreness could just be his arthritis acting up," reported the Times-Leader (Pa.). Cosgrove, who walks and hunts...

Long experience with guns.(Claude Rizk and John Nasr succeeded tp prevent the robbery)(Brief article)
February 20, 2006... On January 10, a man tried to rob Nasr Brothers Jewelry in Garland, Texas, but some not-so-straight shooting sent him on his way. At about 10:20 a.m., the store manager, Claude Rizk, approached a man who was standing at a display when the...

Advocating fear.(against the robberies)
February 20, 2006... Police in Allentown, Pennsylvania, warned people about the dangers of defending themselves against criminals, after several citizens fought back in recent days against the thugs, and one got hurt. Though there has been a months'-long wave...

Border crossers nabbed.(Jose Martinez was one of the victim)
February 20, 2006... Jose Martinez was almost another victim of our loose borders with Mexico, but he arrived home just in time to corral some criminals. At about 11:15 p.m. on January 3, Martinez returned home and found that thieves had broken into his house....

Katrina begets racial and environmental agitators.(Correction, Please!)
February 20, 2006... ITEM: A January 18 article on the Black Entertainment Television website (www.bet.com) reported: "Concerned environmentalists say that unless the United States gets real about the threat of global warning, African Americans and other people of...

Demonizing weapons, not criminals.(international trade)
February 20, 2006... ITEM: The Los Angeles Times for January 8 reported from Nuevo Laredo, Mexico: "The most popular instruments of robbery, torture, homicide and assassination in this violence-racked border city are imported from the United States. 'Warning,'...

"Free trade" impacts sovereignty.(THE LAST WORD)
February 20, 2006... The underlying goal of the drive for so-called free-trade agreements has always been control of national sovereignty. When the world-government advocates couldn't entice nations to give complete control of their governments to the United...