In the aftermath of the similar reaction to CBS’s showing of the Janet Jackson-Justin Timberlake flap during the Super Bowl last February, there can be little doubt the ABC ad was not just a blunder.

It was an intentional act of moral subversion.

[snip]

Like the Jackson-Timberlake performance, the Owens-Sheridan ad was interracial and brazenly so—if only morals and taste had been the targets, the producers could easily have found white actresses who are less obviously Nordic than the golden-locked Miss Sheridan, but Nordic is what the ad’s producers no doubt wanted.

For that matter, if you only wanted to take a swipe at morals and taste, you could find a black woman to rip her towel off or replace Mr. Owens with a famous white athlete (there are still a few).

But that wasn’t the point, was it? The point was not just to hurl a pie in the face of morals and good taste but also of white racial and cultural identity. The message of the ad was that white women are eager to have sex with black men, that they should be eager, and that black men should take them up on it.

So far only one voice has mentioned the ad’s racial meaning and denounced its “insensitivity“ (to blacks)—that of black Indianapolis Colts coach Tony Dungy.

Blacks are permitted to notice race. Whites aren’t.

But the ad’s message also was that interracial sex is normal and legitimate, a fairly radical concept for both the dominant media as well as its audience.

Nevertheless, for decades, interracial couples of different sexes have been sneaked into advertising, movies and television series, and almost certainly not because of popular demand from either race. The Owens-Sheridan match is only the most notorious to date.

In the minds of those who produced the ad, race is at least as important as the moral and aesthetic norms their ad subverts.

To them, the race as well as the religion, the morality, and the culture of the host society are all equally hostile and oppressive forces that need to be discredited, debunked and destroyed.

If the destruction can’t happen at the polls or through the courts, they can always use the long march through the culture that control of the mass media allows.

Breaking down the sexual barriers between the races is a major weapon of cultural destruction because it means the dissolution of the cultural boundaries that define breeding and the family and, ultimately, the transmission and survival of the culture itself.

It was filmed the Friday before, and in the aftermath of all the jabber about “moral issues“ in the election, it ought to be transparent that it was intended as an act of political-cultural subversion as well.

In an eyebrow-raising forecast, Gartner Inc. researchers said they believe that as many as 50 percent of the IT operational jobs in the U.S. could disappear over the next two decades because of improvements in data center technologies.

Donna Scott, a Gartner analyst, said IT workers face a situation similar to that in the manufacturing field, which has lost jobs over the past several decades as automation has improved. Similarly, standardization of IT infrastructure, applications and processes will lead to productivity improvements and a major shift in skill needs, she said.

"There will be more room to automate, and that means there will be reduced labor cost," said Scott. "This is a long-term change."

Gartner calls this change "real-time infrastructure," which involves service-oriented architectures, the elimination of communications barriers and dynamic alignment of IT with business priorities. Technologies enabling the shift have less need for human intervention because they are more intelligent and can automatically provision services and self-heal.

IT operations, which encompass areas such as systems administration, incident response and change management, today account for about 55 percent of an IT department's labor cost, said Scott, who spoke at the Stamford, Conn.-based research firm's annual data center conference here in Las Vegas. But as companies improve automation, IT operations become "more like a factory," said Scott. Demand will grow for employees who have IT architecture skills as well as those with business and customer-liaison knowledge. Project management, for instance, will rise in terms of the percentage of IT labor costs, she said.

Police said the Valparaiso High School student accused of slashing five of his classmates told officers God directed him to do it because they were "sinners."

However, the suspect, 15-year-old James Lewerke, wasn't targeting any specific students, but rather put them all in the same category, police said.

[snip]

The suspect said he obtained the weapons -- a machete and a tree saw -- from his family's barn and, after planning for "quite awhile," decided to carry out the act on that particular day, Stone said.

"He kept it quiet," Stone said.

"It was between him and God. ... He said kids were sinners and God had given him direction."

Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean gave an animated, hour-long speech to about 1,700 students at an ASSU Speakers Bureau event at Memorial Auditorium Monday night, where he talked about the future of the Democratic Party, moral values, globalization, public service and that scream.

[snip]

While Dean praised Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry for running a clean campaign, he criticized the Democrats for mimicking the Republican Party.

“We don’t need two Republican Parties in this country,” Dean said. “Truman once said, ‘If you run a Republican against a Democrat who acts like a Republican, the real Republican wins every time.’”

Dean urged the Democratic Party leadership to present “an opposition model, a real difference” to the Republican platform. “If you ever want to win again, then stand for something, stand for what you believe in,” he said.

Democrats are “bad at messaging” their moral values, which Dean said are rooted in “a sense of obligation to each other.” He advocated speaking about charged issues on Democratic terms.

“Instead of fighting about gay marriage, what we ought to be fighting about is that every single American has the same rights as every other American,” he said. “We don’t have to debate on their terms, let’s debate them on our terms.”

Dean also talked about the impact of globalization on the world community.

“Globalization is neither good nor bad, it’s how you do it,” he said. “All we’ve done is globalized the rights of corporations.”

“The role of government in a capitalist society is to make sure we don’t have 12-year-olds working 12-hour days in cotton mills, either in this country or in Malaysia where they’re putting together Nike shoes,” Dean said.

“Let’s globalize worker protections and environmental protections and level the playing field,” he added.

Dean also said that young people have a unique stake in the future of the world due to new information and communication technologies like the Internet.

“Yours is the first generation in America to see the whole world as your community.”

Dean and his former campaign manager Joe Trippi have been credited with revolutionizing political campaigns by using the Internet as a powerful tool for fundraising and organizing supports.

“You really do have the power,” Dean said. “But you get a ‘D’ for voting - it’s the bare minimum for your democracy to thrive.”

Dean encouraged the audience to make change happen by running for office, even if it’s just within their communities. “You can’t win if you don’t run,” he said.

In one of the many humorous moments of the night, Dean poked fun at his impassioned campaign speech after the Iowa primaries almost a year ago, which was replayed by the news media countless times.

“First of all, let me just get this out of the way: YEEAWW!” Dean yelled, inciting a thunderous wave of applause and laughter. “Was that so terrifying?” he asked.

There's this theory going around that President Bush will govern in his second term as a lame duck, with nothing more to gain or lose politically.
But that isn't how Bush is thinking about it. He has Jeb to consider.

Even before this year's election, Jeb Bush was being asked about his aspirations. On Oct. 17, he declared on ABC, "I'm not going to run in 2008. That's not my interest."

But last week, in a meeting with The Washington Times editorial board, Ken Mehlman, the new chairman of the Republican National Committee, put Jeb back in the race.

Responding to a question, Mehlman mentioned eight potential candidates for 2008: Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, Virginia Sen. George Allen, Colorado Gov. Bill Owens, Arizona Sen. John McCain, Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, George Pataki, Rudy Giuliani - and Jeb Bush.

RNC spokesman Brian Jones insists Mehlman was just speculating about politicians who are being discussed in the media. But Mehlman is not a neutral commentator. He works for George Bush. If the President's brother were really out of the running, the RNC chairman would not mention him.

In fact, the Bushes have been thinking about Jeb's candidacy for years.

Kenneth Starr says he never should have led the investigation that resulted in the impeachment of former President Bill Clinton.
The former independent counsel, now dean of the Pepperdine University law school, says "the most fundamental thing that could have been done differently" was for somebody else to have investigated Clinton's statements under oath denying he had an affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

US distributors of the film Merchant of Venice, which premiered in London this week, have asked the director to cut out a background fresco by a Venetian old master so it is fit for American television viewers.

US networks have been embroiled in controversy over naked flesh since Janet Jackson exposed a breast during a half-time performance during the Superbowl. A lesser fuss has blown up about a trailer for the hit television series Desperate Housewives on Monday Night football, in which an actress with her back to the camera drops her towel in a locker room.

Distributors regularly ask for cuts in films so that they can be shown on US tele-vision and by airlines. The request to "paint-box the wallpaper" - cover over the fresco - was contained in a letter from the US distrib-utors, Sony, to Michael Radford.

The director had already anticipated one request by shooting extra scenes for television in which bare-breasted prostitutes are fully clothed.

He was also asked to remove scenes of male kissing, a brief female kissing scene - and simulated slaughtering of goats.

The fifth request was to cut out footage showing meat carcasses.

Finally, according to Mr Radford, there was "a very curious request which said 'Could you please paint-box out the wallpaper?'. I said wallpaper, what wallpaper? This is the 16th century, people didn't have wall-paper."

When he examined the scenes, he realised the letter was referring to frescoes by Paolo Veronese, the acclaimed Venetian 16th-century artist, which, when examined closely, showed a naked cupid.

• Half the gay male teenagers in the United States have tested positive for the AIDS virus


• Touching a person's genitals "can result in pregnancy"


• A 43-day-old fetus is a "thinking person."


• HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, can be spread via sweat and tears.


• Condoms fail to prevent HIV transmission as often as 31 percent of the time in heterosexual intercourse.


• women who have an abortion "are more prone to suicide" and that as many as 10 percent of them become sterile


• Chlamydia is linked to heart disease


• Men need "admiration" and "sexual fulfillment" and women need "financial support", As a result, "Occasional suggestions and assistance may be alright, but too much of it will lessen a man's confidence or even turn him away from his princess."

So to all those who demand absolute proof, I once again state that absolute proof of fraud (or a smoking gun) is not needed at this point in the proceedings. However, for those who still want to hear about some quite definitive fraud, please consider the following:

(1) That when voting officials tell the voting public that they have counted all ballots, when they have in fact tossed huge batches of ballots in the trash canisters, then that is actionable fraud.

(2) That when voting officials tell the voting public that they have counted all ballots, when they have in fact loaded huge batches of ballots in the back of a pickup truck that just happens to have a pro-Bush sticker on it, then that is actionable fraud.

(3) That when voting officials tell the voting public that they have turned over all official voting tallies, when they have in fact tossed some official vote tallies that they said didn't exist into trash containers, then that is actionable fraud.

(4) That when voting officials state that they have turned over all official records pursuant to an appropriate Freedom of Information Request (FOIR), when they have in fact not done so, then that is actionable fraud.

(5) That when voting officials secret or destroy public voting records in order to conceal it from the public, then that is actionable fraud.

(6) That when voting officials dissemble anything of significant import concerning an election, then that is actionable fraud.

(7) That when voting officials intentionally give the voting public wrong information about who can or cannot vote in an election, then that is actionable fraud.

(8) That when voting officials intentionally give the voting public wrong information concerning where a person can or cannot vote, then that is actionable fraud.

(9) That when voting officials intentionally give the voting public wrong information about who can or cannot register to vote in an election, then that is actionable fraud.

(10) That when individuals, under the color of authority, accept voter registrations from members of the voting public and promise to bring them to the Registrar of Voters, but instead tear them up or throw them away, then that is actionable fraud.

(11) That when members of the opposing party give the voting public wrong information about who can or cannot vote in an election, then that is actionable fraud.

(12) That when members of the opposing party give the voting public wrong information about where a person can or cannot vote in an election, then that is actionable fraud.

(13) That when members of the opposing party give the voting public wrong information about when a person can or cannot vote in an election, then that is actionable fraud.

(14) That when members of the opposing party tell the voting public that they will be arrested for overdue parking tickets at the polling site when they vote, then that is actionable fraud.

(15) That when voting officials tell the voting public that they do not have any additional machines to put on site, when they know there are another 87 of them sitting in their warehouse, then that is actionable fraud.

(16) That when Blackwell states in a media interview that there were only a few minor problems during the Ohio election, when he knows the statement to be completely false and untrue, then that is actionable fraud.

(17) That when voting officials tell the voting public that they have enough voting machines on site, when they know that they do not, then that is actionable fraud.

(18) That when voting officials tell the voting public that they have sent out by mail, as per individual request, 50,000 absentee ballots, when in fact they did not, then that is actionable fraud.

(19) That when voting officials hide from the voting public the fact that they have thrown out thousands of provisional ballots, then that is actionable fraud.

(20) When voting machine manufacturers actively hide the fact that their key people who generate the secrets codes for their voting machines and tabulators are convicted embezzlers, hackers and felons, then that is ACTIONABLE FRAUD.

According to the Jerusalem Post, Yossef Bodansky, the Israeli-born former director of the U.S. Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare and author of "Bin Laden: The Man Who Declared War on America," says that an al-Qaida attack on the U.S. with nonconventional weapons is virtually "inevitable," and that the organization is likely "tying up the knots" for such an attack. "All of the warnings we have today indicate that a major strike -- something more horrible than anything we've seen before -- is all but inevitable," he told the Post on Sunday.

After 9/11 and the launch of the U.S. global war on terrorism, a theological debate began within the operational arm of al-Qaida, Bodansky says, over whether the mass killing of innocents using weapons of mass destruction was permissible. Former CIA analyst and bin Laden expert Michael Scheuer asserted in his book "Imperial Hubris" that bin Laden has had the Islamic world's approval to use nuclear weapons against U.S. civilians since May 2003, when a Saudi cleric condoned it in a "lucidly written" treatise citing Islamic law and rebuking U.S. transgressions against Muslims.

Bodansky argues that Bush's reelection has poured fuel on that fire.

"While bin Laden and his associates argued that by virtue of their participation in US democracy, US citizens were enabling their rulers to fight, other Islamic luminaries contended that this does not permit such massive attacks, Bodansky said. The reelection of Bush in November, he said, was viewed by bin Laden and his cohorts as a decisive answer to this deliberation, with Americans now 'choosing' to be the enemies of Islam. In bin Laden's mind-set, he said, the stage was set for a non-conventional attack. While there may still be some vestiges of debate and doubt within Islamic circles, he believes that planning for such an attack is finished. 'They got the kosher stamp from the Islamic world to use nuclear weapons,' he said."

"...during the early part of the year, we began searching for a home to buy. In February we signed the purchase agreement, though we couldn't move into the house till June. In May my mom came into town for Memorial Day weekend and we all spent the weekend with N's parents in [city deleted]. The visit was great and gave the two sides of our family a chance to get to know each other. We spent most of the spring preparing for our move, and the rest of the summer was filled with days of unpacking, organizing, and decorating the house. On the 4th, N. and I had a brief getaway to [place deleted]....The next week we travelled to [Red State name deleted] for a reunion with my family...our whole family stayed with my Aunt V. and Uncle E. and we appreciate them so much for opening up their home to us and giving us time to enjoy each other."

"Truly home is where the heart is, and of course our hearts are with our children and each other. But this year, N. and I learned a new meaning of the word 'home' when we bought our own house. We have experienced an abiding peace and contentment since the first night we tucked our kids into bed in the new house, knowing that we were doing so in the place in which we plan to stay until they are grown. We love the feeling of putting down roots in the community and investing in our future.....This house is a dream come true for our family."

"Throughout the year, my loving partner and our beautiful children have continually shown me who I am, who I want to be, and what I value most."

With the three Cabinet replacements Bush has announced so far for his second term, he kept his circle tight by dispatching White House staff members to take over the State, Justice and Education departments. Aides said many other such moves will be announced, because Bush and senior adviser Karl Rove are determined to "implant their DNA throughout the government," as one official put it.

The Danger of American Fascism
By Henry A. Wallace
The New York Times
From Henry A. Wallace, Democracy Reborn (New York, 1944), edited by Russell Lord, p. 259.

Sunday 09 April 1944

... A fascist is one whose lust for money or power is combined with such an intensity of intolerance toward those of other races, parties, classes, religions, cultures, regions or nations as to make him ruthless in his use of deceit or violence to attain his ends. The supreme god of a fascist, to which his ends are directed, may be money or power; may be a race or a class; may be a military, clique or an economic group; or may be a culture, religion, or a political party.

... The obvious types of American fascists are dealt with on the air and in the press. These demagogues and stooges are fronts for others. Dangerous as these people may be, they are not so significant as thousands of other people who have never been mentioned. The really dangerous American fascists are not those who are hooked up directly or indirectly with the Axis. The FBI has its finger on those. The dangerous American fascist is the man who wants to do in the United States in an American way what Hitler did in Germany in a Prussian way. The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information. With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power.

... They are patriotic in time of war because it is to their interest to be so, but in time of peace they follow power and the dollar wherever they may lead.
...

Still another danger is represented by those who, paying lip service to democracy and the common welfare, in their insatiable greed for money and the power which money gives, do not hesitate surreptitiously to evade the laws designed to safeguard the public from monopolistic extortion. ... The symptoms of fascist thinking are colored by environment and adapted to immediate circumstances. But always and everywhere they can be identified by their appeal to prejudice and by the desire to play upon the fears and vanities of different groups in order to gain power. It is no coincidence that the growth of modern tyrants has in every case been heralded by the growth of prejudice. It may be shocking to some people in this country to realize that, without meaning to do so, they hold views in common with Hitler when they preach discrimination against other religious, racial or economic groups. Likewise, many people whose patriotism is their proudest boast play Hitler's game by retailing distrust of our Allies and by giving currency to snide suspicions without foundation in fact.

The American fascists are most easily recognized by their deliberate perversion of truth and fact. Their newspapers and propaganda carefully cultivate every fissure of disunity, every crack in the common front against fascism. They use every opportunity to impugn democracy. They use isolationism as a slogan to conceal their own selfish imperialism.... They claim to be super-patriots, but they would destroy every liberty guaranteed by the Constitution. They demand free enterprise, but are the spokesmen for monopoly and vested interest. Their final objective toward which all their deceit is directed is to capture political power so that, using the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously, they may keep the common man in eternal subjection.

Several leaders of industry in this country who have gained a new vision of the meaning of opportunity through co-operation with government have warned the public openly that there are some selfish groups in industry who are willing to jeopardize the structure of American liberty to gain some temporary advantage. ... Monopolists who fear competition and who distrust democracy because it stands for equal opportunity would like to secure their position against small and energetic enterprise. In an effort to eliminate the possibility of any rival growing up, some monopolists would sacrifice democracy itself.
...

Democracy to crush fascism internally must demonstrate its capacity to "make the trains run on time." It must develop the ability to keep people fully employed and at the same time balance the budget. It must put human beings first and dollars second. It must appeal to reason and decency and not to violence and deceit. We must not tolerate oppressive government or industrial oligarchy in the form of monopolies and cartels. As long as scientific research and inventive ingenuity outran our ability to devise social mechanisms to raise the living standards of the people, we may expect the liberal potential of the United States to increase. If this liberal potential is properly channeled, we may expect the area of freedom of the United States to increase. The problem is to spend up our rate of social invention in the service of the welfare of all the people.
...
Democracy can win the peace only if it does two things:

Speeds up the rate of political and economic inventions so that both production and, especially, distribution can match in their power and practical effect on the daily life of the common man the immense and growing volume of scientific research, mechanical invention and management technique. Vivifies with the greatest intensity the spiritual processes which are both the foundation and the very essence of democracy.

The moral and spiritual aspects of both personal and international relationships have a practical bearing which so-called practical men deny. This dullness of vision regarding the importance of the general welfare to the individual is the measure of the failure of our schools and churches to teach the spiritual significance of genuine democracy. Until democracy in effective enthusiastic action fills the vacuum created by the power of modern inventions, we may expect the fascists to increase in power after the war both in the United States and in the world.
...

It should also be evident that exhibitions of the native brand of fascism are not confined to any single section, class or religion. Happily, it can be said that as yet fascism has not captured a predominant place in the outlook of any American section, class or religion. It may be encountered in Wall Street, Main Street or Tobacco Road. Some even suspect that they can detect incipient traces of it along the Potomac. It is an infectious disease, and we must all be on our guard against intolerance, bigotry and the pretension of invidious distinction. But if we put our trust in the common sense of common men and "with malice toward none and charity for all" go forward on the great adventure of making political, economic and social democracy a practical reality, we shall not fail.

US President George W. Bush (news - web sites) nominated 51-year-old Carlos Gutierrez, the Cuban-born head of cereals giant Kellogg Co., as his new commerce secretary.

[snip]

said Gutierrez, who began with Kellogg Co. selling cereal out of a van in Mexico City and is now chairman and chief executive of the group, knew the world of business from the first rung of the ladder to the top.

"Carlos's family came to America from Cuba when he was a boy. He learned English from a bellhop in a Miami hotel and later became an American citizen," Bush said at a joint news conference.

"When his family eventually settled in Mexico City, Carlos took his first job for Kellogg as a truck driver, delivering Frosted Flakes to local stores," the US leader said.

"Ten years after he started, he was running the Mexican business. And 15 years after that, he was running the entire company."

The president called on the Senate to confirm the nomination as quickly as possible.

Bush vowed to reform the "outdated" tax code so as to eliminate pointless paperwork while stimulating savings, investment and growth.

He promised to cut the burden of "junk lawsuits" on business.

The administration also would help more Americans, especially minorities and women, start small businesses, he said.

"He knows exactly what it takes to make American businesses grow and create jobs," Bush said.

In a move to cuts costs, Kellogg Company said it is considering the closure of the South Operations portion of its Battle Creek, Mich., cereal plant. The closure would eliminate up to 64 percent of the jobs at the facility.

"Streamlining our operations and avoiding future costs would help keep our North American cereal business cost-competitive going into the 21st century," said Kellogg chief exec Carlos Gutierrez.

Under the proposal being considered, up to 700 of the current 1,100 "hourly and salaried positions at the plant would be eliminated as early as the first quarter of 2000. The news comes seven months after Kellogg cut 525 jobs -- 21 percent of its salaried workforce -- as part of a reorganization of its North American operations.

As marines aboard fast patrol boats roared up the Euphrates on a dawn raid on Sunday, images pressed in of another American war where troops moved up wide rivers on camouflaged boats, with machine-gunners nervously scanning riverbanks for the hidden enemy.

That war is rarely mentioned among the American troops in Iraq, many of whom were not yet born when the last American combat units withdrew from Vietnam more than 30 years ago. A war that America did not win is considered a bad talisman among those men and women, who privately admit to fears that this war could be lost.

But as an orange moon sank below the bulrushes on Sunday morning, thoughts of Vietnam were hard to avoid.

Marines waded ashore through soft silted mud that caused some to sink to their waists, M-16 rifles held skyward as others on solid land held out their rifle barrels as lifelines.

Ashore, sodden and with boots squelching mud, the troops began a five-hour tramp through dense palm groves and across paddies crisscrossed by deep irrigation canals.

There were snatches of dialogue from "Apocalypse Now," and a black joke from one marine about the landscape resembling "a Vietnam theme park."

But behind the joshing lay something more serious: the sense expressed by many of the Americans as they scoured the area that in this war, too, the insurgents might have advantages that could make them a match for highly trained troops, technological gadgetry and multibillion-dollar war budgets.

The 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit conducted the river raid as part of a weeklong offensive billed as a sequel to the battle for Falluja, less than 20 miles upriver from the village where the marines landed Sunday.

The 40-foot river craft they used are called Surcs, for Small Unit Riverine Craft, a high-tech update on the Swift boats used in Vietnam. The craft were flown into Iraq aboard giant C-5 transport aircraft and were first deployed with five-man crews during the battle for Falluja this month, patrolling the stretch of the Euphrates that runs along the city's western edge to prevent attempts by insurgents to escape that way after American troops had thrown a cordon around the city.

Those patrols were judged a success by American commanders. Now they are eager to exploit the potential the patrol boats give them for mounting fast, unexpected attacks along the Tigris and the Euphrates. The rivers run through many of the cities and towns that are rebel strongholds, and the long stretches of verdant riverbank provide ideal hiding places for insurgents and their weapons caches.

U.S. President George W. Bush's nominee for the next Supreme Court vacancy should be willing to uphold the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that guaranteed abortion rights, according to a majority of Americans in an Ipsos-Public Affairs poll for the Associated Press.

Fifty-nine percent said Bush should choose a supporter of Roe v. Wade, while 31 percent said they want a nominee who will try to overturn the decision, according to the poll. Support for Roe v. Wade was seen among both men and women, across most age and income groups, and in urban, suburban and rural areas, AP said.

Bush, whose supporters in the Nov. 2 election included groups that oppose abortion, is expected to get an opportunity to put his stamp on the court during his second term, as a result of departures from the bench caused by retirement or illness. All but one of the nine justices are over 65, including Chief Justice William Rehnquist, 80, who has thyroid cancer.

More than 60 percent of all respondents said a nominee should reveal his or her position on abortion before Senate confirmation, according to the Nov. 19-21 telephone poll of 1,000 adults.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan - The Pakistan army said today it will withdraw hundreds of troops from a tense tribal region near Afghanistan where Osama bin Laden and his top deputy were believed to be hiding.
The withdrawals from the South Waziristan area come after several military operations by thousands of troops against remnants of bin Laden's Al Qaeda organization and its supporters in recent months.

Although the tribal region is considered a possible hiding place for bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, a senior Pakistan general said earlier this month that no sign of bin Laden has been found.

Bin Laden, architect of the Sept. 11 attacks against the United States, has been on the run since U.S. forces invaded Afghanistan in October 2001, routing the Taliban rulers, who harbored Al Qaeda militants.

The army will remove checkpoints in Wana, the main town in South Waziristan, Lt. Gen. Safdar Hussain, the top general in northwestern Pakistan, said after meeting with tribal elders Friday.

He said the moves are "in return for the support of tribesmen in operations against foreign miscreants." Some troops will remain in the area, he said.

"We have been assured by tribal elders that they will not allow miscreants to hide in areas under their control," Hussain said.

Between 7,000 and 8,000 Pakistani forces were deployed in a three-pronged offensive in the eastern reaches of the rugged region this month. U.S. military forces remain largely on the Afghanistan side in hopes of capturing or killing any Al Qaeda operatives crossing the border.