""Made in the USA' a dying phrase?" Newsday asks.

"Made in the USA" a dying phrase? (Newsday.com)

With America's textile industry shrinking, factories must develop new niches to survive" BY LAUREN WEBER, NEWSDAY STAFF CORRESPONDENT

Excerpt: January 31,2005 "CHERAW, S.C. - The spinning frames at the Cheraw Yarn Mills still hum 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The mint-green machines still turn out more than 4 million pounds of thread each month, destined for bras made by Vanity Fair, home furnishings covered with Richloom fabrics and the Soffe-brand cheerleading shorts worn by American girls everywhere.

The mill, in this tiny South Carolina town, is one of the last survivors of a U.S. industry that's been decimated over the past 10 years by apparel makers' quest for cheap materials and cheap labor overseas. Now, at the dawn of 2005, this 87-year-old company faces its greatest challenge yet.

Jan. 1 marked the expiration of the Multi-Fiber Agreement, the 30-year-old trade contract that set up a quota system regulating the flow of imported textiles and clothing into the United States, the world's single largest apparel market. Now that the agreement has expired, a huge additional segment of the apparel industry - from yarn-making to the cutting, sewing and finishing of garments - is expected to stream into China as though drawn by a magnet.

"We're very small. We're in one location, with no debt and a loyal workforce with very little turnover," said Malloy Evans, president of the mills and a descendant of the founder. "But even with all the advantages we have, we've got our backs up against the wall, and we'll be hard-pressed to get through the next five years."

The trade contract's expiration has the domestic textile industry bracing for the fight of its life and crafting alliances with former foes, including UNITE (the Union of Needletrades, Textiles and Industrial Employees), and companies in developing countries that the industry still competes with, from Lesotho and Indonesia to Morocco and Turkey. These parties have banded together to try preserve jobs and profits in their own countries.

The most recent version of the textile contract was brokered in 1994 by the newly formed World Trade Organization. It planned the phase-out of the quotas over 10 years, a process designed to protect the textile industries in the United States, Europe and small developing nations, from an influx of imports made by cheaper but better-positioned nations such as India or South Korea." (Go to article to continue.)

Commentary

A long article describing a "big" problem in this country.

Was browsing yesterday in a Macy's, and every label in the teen and young womens department read "Made in Vietnam, China, India, Yugoslavia, Sri Lanka, etc., and I remember thinking to myself that "Americans wouldn't know good quality fabrics, workmanship or design if they saw it," because we've lived with cheap foreign manufactured clothing and good for so long.

The first piece I pulled off the rack was the "Made in Vietnam" item and I thought of the War and how the guys who died over there in Vietnam would be turning over in their graves if they knew it had come to some shirt that was marked down twice to $12.99. I've long thought that "money talks" and eventually any and all world conflicts involving America will end up in American money paying for the inexpensive goods manufactured by the long ago (twenty-five years tops) enemy.

I guess what really bothered me yesterday was that we are paying our hard earned dollars for product that at best is generic in fabric, style and quality workmanship. Often it is defective in parts or pieces that are suppose to match or fit or be put together. It is frustrating to find that there is "no competition" to buy from, to get the quality one was accustom to or expects.

We are becoming a shoddy living and dressed nation,always looking for the affordable, but having to do with the cheap. I am very thankful and glad that the powers that be in this country are not outsourcing and handing over our military's needs to these "other nations of manufacturers" for then we would then surely be a great nation no more. GFMC

Pentagon's secret unit helps capture Saddam Hussein

www.chinaview.cn 2005-01-25 10:42:42

WASHINGTON, Jan. 24 (Xinhuanet) -- A secret intelligence unit created within the US Defense Department after the Sept. 11 attacks helped capture former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in December 2003, news reports said Monday.

The unit, called the Strategic Support Branch, had a hidden hand in interrogations and identifying clues inside Iraq that narrowed the search for Saddam Hussein and led to his capture, the reports said.

The unit's existence was first revealed by The Washington Post on Sunday.

Quoting interviews with participants and documents it obtained,the Post said the Pentagon has created a previously undisclosed organization, called the Strategic Support Branch, which arose from (Defense Secretary Donald) Rumsfeld's written order to end his "near total dependence on CIA" for what it known as human intelligence.

The unit, which was designed to operate without detection and under the defense secretary's direct control, deploys small teams of case officers, linguists, interrogators and technical specialists alongside newly empowered special operations forces and has been operating in secret for two years, in Iraq, Afghanistan and other places, the report said.

The Pentagon issued a statement on Sunday to dispute the Post report.

"There is no unit that is directly reportable to the secretary of defense for clandestine operations as is described in the Washington Post article of January 23, 2005" and the department "is not attempting to 'bend' statutes to fit desired activities," Pentagon spokesman Lawrence DiRita said in the statement.

DiRita acknowledged that the Pentagon was attempting to improve its human intelligence capability, in the Defense Human Intelligence Service, a component of the Defense Intelligence Agency.

He said that before the Sept. 11 commission issued its final report last year concluding that the country's human intelligence capability must be improved, the Defense Human Intelligence Service had taken steps "to make better human intelligence capability available to assist combatant commanders for specific missions involving regular or special operations forces."


My Thoughts:
"The unit, called the Strategic Support Branch, had a hidden hand in interrogations and identifying clues inside Iraq that narrowed the search for Saddam Hussein and led to his capture, the reports said."

This group is obviously "Military Intelligence" which in the realm of all the wars America has fought, has always existed apart from the CIA.

So Question: Is the Media Elite, who feel they must "out" our men and women who are trying to cut the carnage off now, not later not after one more American soldier, one more Iraqi citizen, is blown up into pieces, or slaughtered, acting in treason? What is their purpose and who are they to point the way to those of us who are living in the "clear and present danger to ending terrorism in Iraq before it ends another American life?

UN and Kofi's claims to help victims and reality

Article: U.N. Secretary-General Annan Announces Plan to Visit Tsunami-Devastated Indonesia

By Leyla Linton Associated Press Writer
Published: Jan 1, 2005, Associated Press via TBO.com

UNITED NATIONS (AP)- United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Saturday he will visit tsunami-devastated Indonesia to work with regional leaders to help coordinate aid and relief efforts on the ground.

Annan said he will attend a regional meeting there Thursday, but it wasn't clear how long he would stay.

"I will go to Jakarta to launch the appeal from there and work with the leaders of the region who are also determined to play a role," Annan said in an interview being aired Sunday on ABC News' "This Week with George Stephanopoulos."

Annan estimated it may take the region five to 10 years to recover and billions of dollars.

"This is the largest disaster we have had to deal with," he said. "People need shelter. They need food. They need health, sanitation, clean water. ... And then, of course, there's the whole reconstruction of not only of houses, but of the infrastructure and schools and all that that has been destroyed. So the international community is going to have to support some of these countries."

U.N. humanitarian chief Jan Egeland told reporters that the $2 billion in international pledges exceeded donations promised for all other humanitarian appeals by the United Nations in 2004 combined.

But Egeland warned that relief efforts were hampered by the destruction of roads, ports and airfields, saying it would take many days before food, water, medicine and other supplies reach affected areas.

"The biggest constraints are the logistical bottlenecks by far," he said. "In Banda Aceh, northern Sumatra, but also in Sri Lanka and the Maldives, we have big logistical problems."

The death toll reported by individual nations has surpassed 123,000 but Egeland has estimated that it will likely reach 150,000.

Thoughts:
Please go to this blogspot link http://www.diplomadic.blogspot.com/
which was posted in another news forum in response to the above article.

This "Johnny come lately" by the UN in this tragedy is another scandal brewing.