COME TO THE BAUAW MEETING TONIGHT!
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 15TH, 7:00 p.m
BRING YOUR IDEAS ON HOW TO
ACHIEVE UNITY IN THE MOVEMENT:
1380 Valencia Street
(Between 24th & 25th Streets, SF)
BAUAW: 415-824-8730

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Open letter to Bay Area Activists from Bay Area
United Against War (BAUAW):

Dear friends who organized, participated, and/or spoke in the
demonstrations sponsored by Not in Our Name and ANSWER
on Nov. 3 and Nov. 9.

At the concluding rally of the emergency demonstration ANSWER
called to protest the U.S. assault on Fallujah, Jahahara, of AFSC
and N'COBRA, issued a kind of challenge to all the major antiwar
organizations to make a unified response to the U.S. government's
war against Iraq. He called on the national organizations, of which
we are all affiliated to one or more-ANSWER, UFPJ, NION-to unify
in building a massive antiwar movement.

This call is so timely because the war and occupation continue
unabated, the consequences for the Iraqis are devastating (over
100,000 civilians killed by U.S. actions) and over 1,110 U.S. troops
are dead and tens of thousands injured.

Those of us who are old enough to have participated in the
movement against the U.S. war on Vietnam know that the most
effective mass actions against that war that called for bringing
all U.S. troops home now [Out Now!] were unified actions where
people of different ideologies were able to come together for
Out Now despite their divergent opinions on other topics. The mass
movement that was built on the streets of the U.S. created
a supportive environment for
U.S. soldiers to resist the war in multiple ways eventually
becoming an unreliable fighting force for U.S. imperialism.

Now, it is very clear from all who spoke at the last two
demonstrations, that we have wide areas of agreement.
We all spoke about the need for the movement to get back
into the streets to protest the war in massive demonstrations.
We all spoke about the need for unity. We all spoke about the
way to bring peace and end the war was for the U.S.
government to get out of
Iraq.

The next step is for all our organizations to meet together
and concretely plan how this unity will be carried out.

Bay Area United Against War is willing to host such
a meeting, or participate in such a meeting called by
others. Let's make it happen.

Bring the Troops Home Now!
Carole Seligman, Bay Area United Against War (BAUAW)

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ALL OUT IN SUPPORT OF THE LOCAL 2 HOTEL WORKERS!
SOLIDARITY RALLY
Saturday, November 20 at 11 a.m.
Union Square, Downtown San Francisco

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1) Powell to Step Down as Secretary of State
Three Other Cabinet Resignations Are Expected Later Today
By TERENCE NEILAN
November 15, 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/15/politics/15cnd-cabi.html?ei=5094&en=e6d4c2
4b00751519&hp=&ex=1100581200&adxnnl=1&partner=homepage?hp&adxnnlx=1100539688
-75Ax1WBKZ9tnL1ScIwbofg

2) With Capture of Falluja, a Goal Is Met. What's Next?
MILITARY ANALYSIS
By ERIC SCHMITT
WASHINGTON
November 15, 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/15/politics/15military.html?hp&ex=1100581200&
en=4b88f6d5188eaff9&ei=5094&partner=homepage

3) Feed the Billionaire, Starve the Students
OP-ED COLUMNIST
By BOB HERBERT
November 15, 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/15/opinion/15herbert.html?oref=login&hp

4) Demonstrate at the front gate of the
PG&E plant on Monday December 8th, 2004 at 12 Noon.
THE MOTHERS "ACTION PLAN"

5) A Hollow Victory
By Kim Sengupta
Camp Dogwood, Iraq
15 November 2004
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=582921

6) A Community Labor News E-Zine
Courts terminating Labor Contracts:The Bitter Fruits of
"Lessor Evilism"
By Roland Sheppard

7) A City in Ruins, Sky Thick with Smoke:
'Let's Kick Ass ... the American Way'
By Lindsey Hilsum
The Observer U.K.
Sunday 14 November 2004
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1350831,00.html

8) When the Smoke has Cleared Around Fallujah,
What Horrors will Be Revealed?
By Kim Sengupta and Raymond Whitaker
The Independent on Sunday U.K.
Sunday 14 November 2004
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=582722
As the Americans move street by bloody street towards control of the
insurgents' stronghold, aid agencies warn of a humanitarian catastrophe.

9) CHINA ROCKS THE GEOPOLITICAL BOAT
ASIA TIMES / Nov 6, 2004

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1) Powell to Step Down as Secretary of State
Three Other Cabinet Resignations Are Expected Later Today
By TERENCE NEILAN
November 15, 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/15/politics/15cnd-cabi.html?ei=5094&en=e6d4c2
4b00751519&hp=&ex=1100581200&adxnnl=1&partner=homepage?hp&adxnnlx=1100539688
-75Ax1WBKZ9tnL1ScIwbofg

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell has told the Bush administration
that he intends to resign and the administration plans to announce
the move today, White House officials said today.

Three other cabinet members will also step down, the officials said:
Ann M. Veneman, secretary of agriculture; Rod Paige, the education
secretary, and Spencer Abraham, secretary of the energy department.

Mr. Powell, long reported to be at odds with some Bush policies,
will stay in office until a replacement is named, news agencies
reported. The others are also expected to remain until successors
are named.

Mr. Powell has often found himself differing on some key issues,
particularly with Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld.

Mr. Powell led the fight at the United Nations for an attack on Iraq
to oust Saddam Hussein, arguing in an elaborate presentation with
graphics that a threat existed from weapons of mass destruction.

No evidence for the weapons has been found, and Mr. Powell is
said to have been dismayed that he made a case for the
administration based on faulty information.

But Mr. Rumsfeld, in particular, seemed to go out of his way
to upset European countries who opposed the way the United
States sent its troops into Iraq.

In the European view, the United States did not give the United
Nations enough time to reach a full conclusion that Saddam
Hussein did not possess weapons of mass destruction.

Mr. Rumsfeld referred to "old Europe" in his criticism of the
opposition to the war by France and Germany, in particular.

Mr. Powell, on the other hand, while supporting Mr. Bush
on Iraq, managed to maintain generally good relations
around the world.

Mr. Powell, a former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff,
submitted his letter of resignation to Mr. Bush on Friday,
The Associated Press reported.

The secretary was scheduled to meet later today with the
Israeli foreign minister, Silvan Shalom, was to attend
a meeting in Chile on Wednesday, as well as a multinational
conference on Iraq next week.

Copyright 2004 The New York Times

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2) With Capture of Falluja, a Goal Is Met. What's Next?
MILITARY ANALYSIS
By ERIC SCHMITT
WASHINGTON
November 15, 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/15/politics/15military.html?hp&ex=1100581200&
en=4b88f6d5188eaff9&ei=5094&partner=homepage

WASHINGTON, Nov. 14 - American military commanders say
the weeklong assault that has wrested most of Falluja from
insurgent control has achieved nearly all their objectives well
ahead of schedule and with fewer pitfalls than anticipated.

But where do the United States and the government of the
interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi, go from here?

In the coming weeks, the two allies must still combat a resilient
and dangerous insurgency operating in most of Iraq, accelerate
a huge economic reconstruction effort and lay the groundwork
for elections to be held in January.

One goal of the offensive in Falluja was to eliminate a major safe
haven for insurgents in Iraq, a hub for assassinations, car bombings
and ambushes from Ramadi to Baghdad and beyond. Another
was to allow the city's 250,000 residents to take part in elections.

Registration is under way elsewhere in Iraq, so commanders will
face pressure to secure areas to permit Iraqi electoral commission
employees to work. Commanders and American diplomats in Iraq
are hoping that once rid of insurgents, cities in the Sunni heartland
north and west of Baghdad will join the political process, despite
calls by some Sunni groups last week to boycott elections.

But enormous obstacles remain to meeting these military, economic
and political targets. "The Falluja operation will be a military success,
but whether it's the key to political success will remain to be seen,"
said Senator Jack Reed, a Rhode Island Democrat on the Armed
Services Committee who visited Iraq on Friday and Saturday, in
a telephone interview. "The insurgents are working hard to derail
this, and commanders are expecting widespread violence leading
up to the elections in January."

Military commanders point to several accomplishments in Falluja.
A bastion of resistance has been eliminated, with lower than
expected American military and Iraqi civilian casualties. Senior
military officials say up to 1,600 insurgents have been killed and
hundreds more captured, altogether more than half the number
they estimated were in the city when the campaign began.

The offensive also shut down what officers said was a propaganda
weapon for the militants: Falluja General Hospital, with its stream
of reports of civilian casualties.

But American and Iraqi officials still face daunting tasks in the
aftermath of retaking the city.

"Falluja clearly will require a lot of effort even after the final pocket
of insurgents is eliminated in the city," one senior American general
in Iraq said in an e-mail message on Sunday. "Lots of challenges -
infrastructure, basic needs for returnees, security forces, and
governance, not to mention elections. Assume the insurgents will
continue to try to make life tough there as well."

Outside Falluja, the insurgency rages on, amid intelligence reports
that the battle has become a big recruiting draw for young Arab
men in mosques from Syria to Saudi Arabia. American commanders
acknowledge that hundreds of fighters and their commanders,
including Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian militant whose
network has carried out many of the kidnappings, beheadings
and bombings, slipped away before the offensive.

American commanders say they expected that the fight for Falluja,
coinciding with the end of the holy month of Ramadan, would set
off a surge in violence across the country. But the scope and size
of the attacks in Mosul last Thursday stunned American officers
who were scrambling Sunday to regain the initiative.

"Our experience is that, after battles in which they lose many
fighters, the insurgents require some days to gather, treat their
wounded and try to figure out what to do next," Brig. Gen. Carter
Ham, charged with controlling northern Iraq, said Sunday in an
e-mail message. "Our job is to work to not let them rest and to
not allow them time to reset."

In Baghdad, where attacks were increasing even before the Falluja
offensive, Army soldiers said insurgents in at least one part of the
capital had shifted their tactics this week, massing in limited
numbers in their attacks on Americans, instead of shooting
from the shadows and rooftops, or carrying out ambushes with
roadside bombs.

"Overall, yes, the anti-Iraqi forces have been more aggressive
or stupid, depending on one's perspective," Sgt. Rowe Stayton,
an infantry fire-team leader in northern Baghdad, said Sunday in
an e-mail message. He said his troops killed 15 insurgents and
wounded 6 others, without suffering a single casualty.

But commanders say they are baffled over how to combat an
effective intimidation campaign that insurgents are waging against
Iraqis, from political leaders and police chiefs to the women who
do the laundry for troops at American bases.

"People are affected every day by criminality," said Senator Reed,
a former 82nd Airborne Division officer. "The situation has not -
is not - turning around."

American officials boast that about 100,000 Iraqi security forces
have been trained and equipped, and many are fighting side by
side with Americans, including 2,500 Iraqis in Falluja. But many
of those forces have only the most basic training and still lack
critical equipment like body armor, radios and vehicles.

"The good news is that significant numbers of Iraqi security forces
are standing their ground and fighting all over north-central Iraq,"
Maj. Gen. John Batiste, commander of the First Infantry Division
based in Tikrit, said Saturday in an e-mail message. "Our hard
work is paying off."

But not everywhere. Last week, scores of police officers in Mosul
fled their stations under attacks, allowing militants to loot half
a dozen stations and steal police vehicles, uniforms and hundreds
of weapons.

With most international aid organizations having withdrawn from
Iraq because of the conditions, and many contractors skittish about
sending workers into areas still vulnerable to insurgent attacks,
more United States troops will be called on to provide security to
allow reconstruction to move ahead.

The Pentagon has extended the tours of about 6,500 troops to
help with security, and senior commanders say that for now, the
more than 140,000 American forces in Iraq should be enough. But
enough for what, exactly? The experience of Falluja in the next
few weeks may be instructive.

"The operational lesson is that 'taking' cities is comparatively
easy, but that 'holding' them is harder and ultimately decisive,"
said one Army officer who just returned for a year's duty near
Falluja. "And that fight is largely one for Iraqis, not Americans,
to win."

Copyright 2004 The New York Times

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3) Feed the Billionaire, Starve the Students
OP-ED COLUMNIST
By BOB HERBERT
November 15, 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/15/opinion/15herbert.html?oref=login&hp

The juxtaposition of the two articles, one in the news section and the other
in sports, was instructive.

We learned from a page-one story in last Thursday's Times that
pupils at Public School 63 in the South Bronx have to take their
gym classes in the school's lobby. They don't have a gymnasium.
Their teacher, Rose Gelrod, has marked a jogging path on the
lobby's floor. These makeshift classes, as reporter Susan Saulny
informed us, "are regularly interrupted by foot traffic to bathrooms
and deliveries to the cafeteria."

Welcome to the wonderful world of neglect, which is the daily life
of New York City schoolchildren.

Ah, but on the front page of the Sports section of that same paper
comes a different story. It was a profile of the pampered billionaire
owner of the New York Jets, Robert Wood Johnson IV, who is known
as Woody to his close friends and those many public officials who
stumble all over themselves trying to kiss his ring.

The very people who are crying poverty as they deny gyms and
playgrounds to the city's schoolchildren - starting with the billionaire
mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg, and the governor, George
Pataki - are pulling out every stop in an effort to round up and hand
over hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to their friend Woody
so he can have the grandest, most luxurious, most expensive sports
stadium the country has ever seen.

The stadium would sit on some of the most valuable real estate in
the country, prime Manhattan riverfront property, which would also
be handed over for Woody's use. Oh, it's good to be a billionaire.

As for the kids. Well, forget about them. They don't have any money.
For 30 years, at least, they've gotten the back of the hand when it
comes to playgrounds and athletic facilities. Nearly a fifth of the city's
schools lack gymnasiums. Ninety-four percent have no athletic fields.
More than half have no playgrounds.

The politicians will tell you we can't afford to do better than that for
the kids in the public schools. But a billion-and-a-half-dollar
playground for the rich and famous, hard by the Hudson River?
No problem.

In the article about Mr. Johnson, The Times's Duff Wilson said:

"He is one of the biggest Republican fund-raisers in the nation,
and his grateful allies - President Bush, Gov. George E. Pataki and
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg - make up a rare triple play
of powerful support."

When you lavish money on politicians, you expect something
in return. Among the things Mr. Johnson wants is $600 million
in city and state funds (at least) to make up the difference between
the $800 million he is putting up and the estimated $1.4 billion
the stadium will cost.

The state and the city are responsible for financing the city's
grossly underfinanced schools and they fight like gamecocks
over who should pay for what. But they are in the most harmonious
agreement that the estimable Woody should get the hundreds
of millions that he wants for his stadium.

It couldn't be because he's greased so many palms, could it?
I personally think this entire project is a scandal, a wholesale
giveaway of tremendous public assets to an incredibly wealthy
private interest. In the old days somebody would have called the
sheriff. But you don't hear much about bribery or quid-pro-
criminal-quos anymore because the rascals have figured out
how to make it legal.

Woody Johnson is not big on publicity. He goes out of his way
to avoid the spotlight. "He declines interviews for a profile,"
Mr. Wilson wrote. "He tells his closest family members and
longtime business associates not to talk about him, either."

He would like the public to know as little about him as possible.
And yet he has his hand out, palm wide open, ready to seize
as much of the public's money as he can get.

The neglect of New York City's schools goes far beyond the
lack of gymnasiums, athletic fields and playgrounds. Classrooms
are overcrowded and there is a dangerous shortage of qualified
teachers. Bathrooms in some schools aren't even equipped
with toilet paper or hand towels. Parents and teachers are often
forced to buy the most basic supplies.

You might think the powers that be would address those sorts
of things before catering to the wish lists of greedy, grasping
billionaires.

You might think that. But if you did, you'd be wrong.

Copyright 2004 The New York Times

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4) Demonstrate at the front gate of the
PG&E plant on Monday December 8th, 2004 at 12 Noon.
THE MOTHERS "ACTION PLAN"

On Wednesday, November 10th, a group of Moms from
Hunters View, a public housing neighborhood of Bay
View Hunters Point made the arduous journey to Folsom,
California to address the Board of Governors of
California Independent Systems Operator.

Just a few days before they had learned indirectly
through a press release from the Mayor and their
Supervisor, the decision to delay the closure of the
old Hunters Point power plant till 2007 with no
guarantee of closure even then. The Women, who were
not consulted in this so called 'Action Plan,' whose
toddlers need heavy medication for asthma and eczema
because of the cloud of particulate matter belched out
of PG&E's smoke stacks located within yards of their
homes, were angered at yet another broken promise.

They told their stories, once again, of the medical
emergencies and life threatening illnesses that
dominate their children's lives. For several women
this was the fourth time they pleaded their cause
before CAISO in Folsom.

They listened to the Board's deliberations.

What came down was the frightening tale, apparently
created by PG&E, of unacceptable risks of power
outages if the Hunters Point Power plant is dismantled
before a complicated assemblage of additional power
purchases, more fossil fuel burning equipment, new
power lines and other schemes are put securely in
place that will keep a select few of energy companies
assured of profits.

The Market Surveillance Committee gave a report
assuring everyone that the possibility of Energy
Corporationsí gaming the market, as was done in
2000-2001, is now blocked.

Ah ha! this supplied the motive for these ridiculous
projections. The corporations in the energy business
got caught gaming the market, so to keep the money
(schemed, not earned money) flowing into their
pockets, they decided to apply high pressure scare
tactics to a young new Mayor and an eager to please
those in power Supervisor. The intimidations did
succeed with our elected officials and their
unreasonable fears of black outs caused them to
concede (like the spineless Democratic Party) to the
demands of PG&E's with their lies about "unacceptable
risks."

Having followed, through the years, contradictory
declarations of future energy shortages, then proof to
the contrary and then proof that we will in the end
have and excess of energy, the Moms now know for sure
that if anyone will represent their ìunacceptable
risksî i.e. their children's' worsening illnesses, it
will have to be only themselves.

It is obvious they have no representation in City
Hall.

Even the Department of Elections sided against these
most vulnerable of citizenry in the South East
neighborhoods around Bayview Hunters Point.
When all else failed in their efforts to get someone
in City Hall to help them get the right to breathable
cleaner air, they conducted a petition drive to recall
Ms Maxwell.

On the day they delivered 6000 signatures, two hundred
more that required, they were informed that an
ordinance of the City Charter says the Mayor will
appoint the new Supervisor, should their petition be
deemed ìsufficient.î

This surprise came from the same Director Arntz who
had approved the wording ìwe demand election of a
successor in that officeî copied straight from the
handbook on recall rules given to them by the
Department before the people collected one signature.
And the wording spoke the intent. The Citizens wanted
a new and more conscientious Supervisor that of course
was chosen democratically.

Was Director Arntz ignorant of this rule himself when
he approved the original wording, or was he decieving
us? Either way any other neighborhood would demand
that he be fired.

After this bomb shell, it wasnít really much of a
surprise when the Department declared the collected
signature ìinsufficient.î The manager of the signature
collectors reviewed the petitions to learn the reasons
for so many disqualifications. Then she presented a
list of disputed disqualifications to the Election
Commission. Disenfranchisement is what the community
calls the impossible standards applied to most of
signatures, including the application of rules that do
not exist as well as with holding those declared ìnot
registeredî from review. It was sort of like a
literacy test you are not meant to pass. The
conclusion of Director Arntzs is still being disputed.
Even the exercising of the democratic right to recall
to have decent representation in City Government is
denied this community.

The residents of Bayview Hunters Point see that they
will have to take things into their own hands. They
are not as easily frightened as those in power at City
Hall. Their rage is growing and they are tired of
having their and the childrenís health and well being
placed at the bottom of our City's priority list. They
are angry at being so long ignored!

There will be a demonstration at the front gate of the
PG&E plant on Monday December 8th, 2004 at 12 Noon.

The Moms urgently request that all progressives in the
City join them in their revolt against this shameful
injustice.

NOTE: Here are some additional sad facts.

In March 2004 Mr. De Shazo, transmission manager,
announced that CAISO had no Environmental Justice
Policy and, further, he didnít see a reason to have
one. CAISO is a 501c3 non profit and receives special
tax breaks for ignoring the sicknesses caused by their
policies.

On November 2, the Environmental Protection Agency
told Marie Harrison of Green Action in effect that
they cannot deny a permit to continue operating the
Hunters Point Plant because ìinsuring adequate power
generation in San Franciscoî takes precedence over
adverse health effects on the residents.

The annual compensation of PG&E CEO, Mr Smith is
$10,517,611. Weekly, thatís $202,261 and daily it is
$40, 452. This includes salary, bonuses, stock awards,
payouts and "other compensation."

Kevyn Lutton
(415) 822-2744

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5) A Hollow Victory
By Kim Sengupta
Camp Dogwood, Iraq
15 November 2004
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=582921

A hollow victory

The US and Iraqi authorities announced that Fallujah had been
pacified yesterday, saying they had smashed through the last
lines of resistance and killed more than 1,200 fighters.

Donald Rumsfeld, the US Defence Secretary, said allied forces
had "completed the move, for all practical purposes, from the
north of the town to the south". Iraq's interim Prime Minister,
Iyad Allawi, said there had been "a clear-cut win over the
insurgents and the terrorists".

But the pacification of the rebel stronghold could be a hollow
victory. The Americans will leave behind them a shattered city,
having unleashed the full might of the US military against an
estimated 6,000 insurgents.

There was plenty of evidence across Iraq that the war is far
from over, and the devastation of Fallujah is likely to have
fuelled the resistance.

American and Iraqi forces were still "mopping up" pockets
of resistance yesterday and conducting house-to-house
searches. A US commander recognised that the city had
been "occupied but not subdued".

The US military also acknowledged that the Jordanian militant
leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and other prominent members
of the insurgency had escaped from Fallujah. Mr Allawi said:
"Fallujah is no longer a safe haven for terrorists" but he
admitted that it would take "some days" to clear the
remaining nests of resistance.

The six-day air and ground offensive left 38 Americans and
six Iraqi government soldiers dead, according to the US military.
More than 200 US soldiers were wounded. Two hundred of the
insurgents who were killed were foreigners, the Americans said.

After failing in April to wrest Fallujah from the insurgents in
a three-week assault, this time the American military expressed
pride in the speed of the operation, which deployed six times
the number of troops dispatched to the city seven months ago.

But the number of Iraqi civilians killed or wounded in the fighting
was not mentioned. Mr Allawi said on Saturday that no civilian
casualties had been reported.

Mr Rumsfeld confidently asserted last week that civilians had
been given guidance on how to avoid getting injured. He predicted
that there would not be large numbers of civilians killed, and
"certainly not by US forces".

Up to half of the city's 300,000 resi-dents had fled before
or during the military operation aimed at pacifying the city
to enable elections to be held in January. But thousands
remained trapped. Yesterday charred bodies were scattered
in the streets, where rows of buildings lay in ruins.

People in the city said they had no water and no food, and
aid agencies warned that Fallujah and surrounding areas
were facing a humanitarian catastrophe. There have been
outbreaks of typhoid and other diseases. Some people leaving
the city told of rotting corpses being piled up and thousands
of people trapped, many of them wounded without access to
medical aid.

An aid convoy was held up at the city's main hospital in the
western outskirts. Captain Adam Collier of the US Army cited
security reasons as he explained that the seven trucks and
ambulances sent by the Iraqi Red Crescent to Fallujah with
medicine, food, blankets and water purification tablets would
not be allowed through. US Marines Colonel Mike Shupp said:
"There is no need to bring supplies in because we have supplies
of our own for the people. Now the bridge is open, I will bring
out casualties and all aid work can be done here."

Battles raged across Iraq yesterday. American helicopter gunships
attacked Baiji in the north, and tanks moved into the centre of
the city. In the northern city of Mosul, US and Iraqi security forces
struggled to retake a police station that had been overrun by
insurgents. They said the local security forces had lost control
of much of Mosul, Iraq's third-largest city with an estimated
population of 1.8 million Arabs, Kurds, Turkomen and Assyrian
Christians. Also in the Kurdish-dominated region, gunmen
ambushed and killed a senior official of the Iraqi Communist
Party and member of the national assembly, Waddah Hassan
Abdel Amir, on the road to Arbil. There were further gun
attacks in Baghdad.

There was also an ominous political unravelling as a direct
consequence of the Fallujah operation. A senior aide to
Muqtada Sadr, the Shia cleric who has led two uprisings
against the Americans, said he would not take part in the
elections while "Iraqi cities are under attack".

Meanwhile an Islamist group has freed two women related
to Mr Allawi but is still holding his male cousin hostage,
two Arab satellite channels said yesterday. A previously
unknown group seized the interim Prime Minister's
75-year-old cousin Ghazi Allawi along with Mr Ghazi's
wife and their daughter-in-law in Baghdad last Tuesday.

(c) 2004 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd

---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

6) A Community Labor News E-Zine
Courts terminating Labor Contracts:The Bitter Fruits of
"Lessor Evilism"
By Roland Sheppard

On Saturday, 11/13/04, the New York Times,
(www.nytimes.com/2004/11/13/business/13air.html?oref=login)
"US Air Asks Court to End Labor Contracts," by Micheline Maynard,
is very significant. If the bankruptcy courts terminate Labor Contracts,
then all collective bargaining can be null and voided.

It is another bitter fruit of the policy by the Trade Union Bureaucrats
when they decided to join and support the Democratic Party as the
"lessor evil" and to begin to promote their program of a "partnership
with capital." Which, they now openly advocated since the defeat of
the Air Traffic Controllers strike in 1981.

The first bitter fruit from this policy was the "No Strike" Pledge in
support of World War II. This was done while war profiteers made
millions during the war and the rejunivation of United States
capitalism. This led to the labor upsurge after World War II, as
the workers tried to get back what they had lost during the war.
The strength of the American Working Class was demonstrated
and the employers were forced to make concession to the workers.

The second bitter fruit was the Taft-Hartley Act, which was an
amendment to the National Labor Relations Act (NLRB) was passed
by the United States Government in 1947. It was promoted to
control the strength of "big labor" and equalize the "playing field"
for the employers.

This act, commonly know as the "Slave Labor Act," controlled
strikes, prohibited unions from making contributions to political
parties, and demanded that every laborer sign a statement that
he/she was not a Communist. December 12, 1947. Lewis
disaffiliated with the AFL because of disputes over the
Taft-Hartley Act.

At the center of the dispute, was the fact that this bill was
a declaration of war upon the unions by the government --
the AFL declared peace. The AFL wanted to oppose the
act through the court system, John Lewis wanted to take
economic action against it.

The main argument was the myth that the court would
be either "impartial" or pro-labor (Most of the judges had
been appointed by Franklin Roosevelt) and independent of
the government. The truth came to bear when the Supreme
Court upheld the law as constitutional.

Since that time, the employer’s government has systematically
turned the screws of the act a little bit at a time as they
concurantly increased the taxation of workers and decreased
the taxation of corporations and the ruling rich. Such have
been the bitter fruits of working class due to their "labor
leaders" support to the Democratic Party.

This process has continued until today. Now the labor
bureaucracy has used the Taft-Hartely Act to justify the
concept that "you can't win strikes anymore and it has
sought to build a "partnership" with the Boss, in exchange
for union dues. The NLRB has also been able to housebreak
the labor officialdom. In fact, they union officials are beholden
to the NLRB for their undemocratic control of the unions and
allowed to keep collecting dues, as long as they maintain the
"partnership."

If union contracts can now be voided by the court system and
the government, then it is time for the AFL-CIO leadership to
finally break with their "partnership" program and to organize
and call a nationwide strike against the government's action.
If they cannot do that, then they should resign!

The stakes are high, 70 years of collective bargaining is
at stake! Action against the employer's government (the
billion dollar government*) is imperative!

If the courts throw out contracts that were bargained for
by the union and voted by the union, then the "neutrality"
of the court system is exposed. If the unions no longer have
a contract--there should be no work, until the industry is
nationalized under workers control through an elected
tribunal of the airline workers, in particular and by all
workers, if this becomes a generalized practice.

(* The total spent by both Democrats and Republicans in
this year’s election was by the close to two billion dollars
this year.)

Roland Sheppard
Retired Business Reprsentative
Painter Local # 4 San Francisco

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7) A City in Ruins, Sky Thick with Smoke:
'Let's Kick Ass ... the American Way'
By Lindsey Hilsum
The Observer U.K.
Sunday 14 November 2004
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1350831,00.html

Lindsey Hilsum joins the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force as it advances into
Falluja.

In the huge, muddy field which serves as a forward base,
Major-General Richard Natonski prepared his troops for the
battle ahead. 'We're goin' in to raise the Eye-raqi flag above
Falluja - to give it back to the Fallujans,' he shouted, the eyes
of the entire 1st Marine Division on him.

Pausing to remember the marine corps who fought in Vietnam,
Korea and the two world wars, they then stood to attention and
launched into the marine hymn.

'Only two songs send a shiver up my spine,' said one marine,
his face scored with the pockmarks and confidence of youth.
'The marine hymn, and that song by Toby Keith after 9/11 which
says "we're gonna kick you up the ass - that's the American way".'

Then the unit was on its way to war. Twenty-five behemoths -
tanks and amphibious assault vehicles - lumbered through the
desert towards the small, poor, dusty city which has become the
symbol of America's failure in Iraq. The idea that Falluja will one
day rank as a military victory to rival Hue City, Vietnam, may at
present seem ludicrous - but such is the significance the
Americans place on this battle.

They need to wrest back Falluja not simply to quell the
insurgency but also to show the 'hajis' - as they call the
rebels - that they cannot match the mighty US Army.

'After we take Falluja, the terrorists will have no sanctuary,
nowhere to hide,' said Major General Natonski, commander
of the 1st Marine Division.

No soldier can fight unless he hates the enemy - which
makes the message that this is all for the Iraqi people
difficult to absorb.

'I guess there are some good people - it's jus' that we
don' have nothin' to do with them,' mused a marine as he
and his colleagues sorted their kit and cleaned their M16
assault rifles. 'I see the little kids in the cars and I feel sorry
for them, but when they turn 16 they're evil.'


On Sunday night they slept in the desert - infantry under
the skies, trackers in vehicles. By the time they woke on
Monday, other units had seized the hospital and installations
on the west of the Euphrates. But the main assault east of the
river was still to come.

As they advanced on the city's north-western outskirts, black
smoke from earlier artillery and bombing barrages smeared the
horizon. On entering Falluja, marines burst into an apartment
building, evacuating residents. A huddle of women and children
were shepherded away, the women pulling their headscarves
tighter, the children staring wide-eyed at the huge, muddy
green juggernauts standing outside their home.

At a railway, the column came to a halt. The road bridge
beneath could be booby trapped; or there could be an ambush
lying in wait. Explosives were laid across the rails and two holes
were blown in the breach - one as a feint, one for real. Engines
roaring, the huge vehicles then rolled up and over the railway
embankment and into a cemetery, where they parked up until
dawn.

The following day, the real fighting began. Over the week,
the two units I'm accompanying have lost at least two marines
and seen several injured in the push through the Jolan district,
a rebel stronghold. Captain Brian Chontosh says about a dozen
men have been captured and a similar number killed. 'The
resistance is in pockets,' he adds. 'There's nowhere for them
to go now but jail or Allah.'

The resistance is heard but not seen. On the first day, every
time a helicopter gunship flew over, it would meet a barrage of
AK-47 fire as the insurgents took wild pot shots. The fire simply
alerted the Americans to their positions. By the second day,
airpower was scarcely used at all. It was the turn of the foot
soldiers, amphibious vehicles providing covering fire.

Marines went house to house, knocking down doors, searching
for insurgents and arms. Jolan is deserted. It's possible that
insurgents forced people from their houses weeks ago.

One man said they had forced him to keep arms in his house,
threatening to take him to the rebel leader Omar Hadid to have his
throat slit if he refused. He knelt blindfolded against a wall, waiting
for the marines to take him for interrogation by the ominously-
named 'exploitation teams'. Intelligence from prisoners has been
vital in locating arms stores.

The amphibious vehicles push down walls, and street stalls and
cars go up in spectacular explosions. The attitude is that
overwhelming force is necessary.

In one house, marines came across the bodies of five Iraqi men,
shot in the back of the head. Their story will probably never be
known. Much of Falluja is now in ruins. Every day, the marines
open up with mortars, mini grenade launchers, machine guns
and tank rounds, aiming to kill anyone hiding behind a wall or
in a house.

On Friday, in the debris, they found a family: mother, father
and five children. Alive. 'We heard on the radio it would be safer
to stay at home,' said Usil Abdul, nursing her baby. The children
sat on a sofa in a house marines had taken as a base. They
accepted sweets and drinks and chatted to soldiers, seemingly
unfazed by four days of bombing and mortar fire.

Other residents may be less sanguine when they return to
see the wreckage. Marines lounge in the armchairs of Falluja's
elite, blowing smoke rings and eating snacks. One stuck a paper
flower behind his ear and posed for the camera before changing
his mind - 'I don't want people to think I'm gay!'

Walls have been destroyed to clear lines of fire and terraces
are littered with spent cartridge cases, rubble and half-eaten
ready-to-eat meals. While some may blame the insurgents for
bringing this upon the city, many will point to the Americans.

Despite reports of 'heavy fighting', the overwhelming majority
of the firing has been one way. Twenty four US soldiers have died
and more than 200 injured. An unknown number of Iraqi soldiers
have also died. But the resistance in Falluja was sporadic. Insurgent
leaders probably fled several weeks before the onslaught. The
marines will claim this as a major triumph in the war on terror
but if the insurgency merely shifts elsewhere, they may find
Falluja is an empty victory.

Lindsey Hilsum is Channel 4 News's International Editor.

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8) When the Smoke has Cleared Around Fallujah,
What Horrors will Be Revealed?
By Kim Sengupta and Raymond Whitaker
The Independent on Sunday U.K.
Sunday 14 November 2004
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=582722
As the Americans move street by bloody street towards control
of the insurgents' stronghold, aid agencies warn of a humanitarian
catastrophe.

Victory was being declared yesterday in the battle of Fallujah,
with 1,000 rebels reported dead, hundreds more in custody and
spectacular footage from embedded television crews, showing
Marines charging through deserted neighborhoods.

"It's like those pictures from the advance into Baghdad," said
one watcher as the TV showed the view over a tank gunner's
shoulder, with fire pouring down an empty street. But that
comment unconsciously identified the real problem: more
than a year and a half after George Bush declared major
combat operations in Iraq at an end, the US military, backed
by British and Iraqi forces, is having to fight the war all over again.

Yesterday, as American forces embarked on what were described
as "mopping-up" operations in Fallujah - though heavy shelling was
still being reported - relief organizations warned that there could be
a humanitarian disaster in the city. "Conditions in Fallujah are
catastrophic," said Fardous al-Ubaidi of the Iraqi Red Crescent.
The Iraqi Health Minister, Alaa Alwan, said ambulances had begun
transferring "significant numbers" of civilian wounded to Baghdad
hospitals, but did not say how many.

Washington and the Iraqi interim government could argue that
civilians in Fallujah had ample warning of what was to come. More
than 80 per cent of the population of 200,000 to 300,000 were
said to have fled before the assault was launched on Monday. But
enough reports trickled out of the besieged city to show that many
inhabitants still remained, despite their invisibility in the television
footage, and that their plight was severe.

Aamir Haidar Yusouf,a 39-year-old trader, sent his family out
of Fallujah, but stayed behind to look after his home, not just during
the fighting, but the looting which will invariably follow. "The
Americans have been firing at buildings if they see even small
movements," he said. "They are also destroying cars, because
they think every car has a bomb in it. People have moved from
the edges of the city into the center, and they are staying on the
ground floors of buildings.

"There will be nothing left of Fallujah by the time they finish.
They have already destroyed so many homes with their bombings
from the air, and now we are having this from tanks and big guns."

US commanders insist civilian casualties in Fallujah have been
low, but the Pentagon famously claims that it does not keep
figures. Escaping residents described incidents in which non-
combatants, including women and children, were killed by shrapnel
or hit by bombs. In one case earlier in the week, a nine-year-old
boy was hit in the stomach by shrapnel. Unable to reach a hospital,
he died hours later of blood loss.

"Anyone who gets injured is likely to die, because there's
no medicine and they can't get to doctors," said Abdul-Hameed
Salim, a volunteer with the Iraqi Red Crescent. "There are snipers
everywhere. Go outside and you're going to get shot."

Sami al-Jumaili, a doctor at the main Fallujah hospital who
escaped arrest when it was taken, said the city was running out
of medical supplies, and only a few clinics remained open. "There
is not a single surgeon in Fallujah," he said. "We had one ambulance
hit by US fire and a doctor wounded. There are scores of injured
civilians in their homes whom we can't move. A 13-year-old child
just died in my hands."

Around 10,000 people took shelter in Habbaniya, 12 miles to
the west of the city, and many had tragic stories. "There have been
a lot of innocent people killed," said Suleiman Ali Hassan, who lost
his brother. "The Americans say they are just aiming their tanks and
aircraft at the mujaheddin, but I know of at least eight other people
who have died beside my brother."

Samira Sabbah arrived at the refugee center yesterday with her
three children, but her husband stayed behind in Fallujah. "People
have been living like animals," she said. "There has been no electricity,
no food and no water. We were very afraid to move out because there
were so much shooting everywhere. I do not know how we will live now."

Rasoul Ibrahim, a father of three, fled Fallujah on foot with his wife
and children. "There's no water," he said. "People are drinking dirty
water. Children are dying. People are eating flour because there's
no proper food."

Mohammed Younis, a former policeman, said: "The Americans
and Allawi [Iyad Allawi, Iraq's interim Prime Minister] have been
saying that Fallujah is full of foreign fighters. That is not true,
they left a long time ago. You will find them in other places,
in Baghdad."

The truth of his words were confirmed by no less than Mr. Allawi's
national security adviser, Qassem Daoud, who said more than 1,000
"Saddamists and terrorists" had been killed in the battle for Fallujah,
and 200 captured. Of those 200, however, only 14 are believed to
be non-Iraqis, mostly Iranians. What of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi,
Washington's top bogeyman in Iraq, the al-Qa'ida arch-terrorist
whose supposed presence in Fallujah was one of the main
justifications for the assault? "He has escaped," said Mr. Daoud.

This was the first official admission of what virtually everyone
else in Iraq had realized long ago: that Zarqawi, even if he had ever
been in Fallujah, was not going to stay put to await arrest by the
Americans. Every time the interim government demanded of the
city's clerical leadership that they hand him over, they insisted
they did not have the power to hand over foreign extremists,
and did not even know where the Jordanian was.

They repeated this after a final ultimatum last weekend from
Mr. Allawi himself. The assault went ahead anyway, just as
everyone knew it would, even though a senior American officer
said as it was beginning that it was likely that most of the
"foreign fighters" had already melted away. So who were the
Americans fighting? In Mr. Daoud's parlance, nearly all appeared
to be "Saddamists" - in other words, Iraqis whose main motive
is to fight against the occupation, rather than "terrorists", who
presumably come from outside to force local people into acts
of resistance against their will.

Despite the Iraqi interim government officially having ordered
the attack, military strategy is still being driven by a White House
obsessed with "smoking terrorists out of their holes". Fallujah
has been the victim of this misconception of what is happening
in Iraq, but other places will follow - perhaps Mosul, which was
reported yesterday to be partly under insurgent control, or Ramadi,
where many of the hardliners fled from Fallujah.

The US simply does not have enough forces to pacify the
whole of the Sunni center of Iraq at once, which explains why
Britain was asked to send the Black Watch north. "As soon as
we press down hard in one place, they pop up somewhere else,"
complained one officer, and his words were borne out by a rash
of small-scale attacks yesterday in places where US troops had
been thinned out for the assault on Fallujah.

The city was unquestionably the base for many of the car
bombers and fighters who have staged attacks across central
Iraq in recent months, but the main reason it became so was the
resentment caused by the previous attempt to win hearts and
minds by military means - the botched US assault in April. In
military terms this operation has been more successful, but
politically it will be just as disastrous as its predecessor, which
fuelled the present insurgency.

One of the main Sunni populist groups, the Iraqi Islamic Party,
has resigned from the Iraqi government in protest against the
Fallujah battle. "The American attack on our people in Fallujah
has led, and will lead, to more killings and genocide without
mercy from the Americans," said its leader, Mohsen Abdel-Hamid.

The Association of Muslim Scholars, an influential group of
Sunni clerics , is calling for a boycott of January's planned
elections, saying they will be held "over the corpses of those
killed in Fallujah and the blood of the wounded".

Even President Bush admits that violence is likely to increase
rather than decline as the election approaches. But as American
forces contemplate what is left of Fallujah, some might remember
the words of a US officer standing amid the ruins of Hue in Vietnam
a generation ago. "In order to save the city," he declared without
a hint of irony, "we had to destroy it."


(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is
distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior
interest in receiving the included information for research and
educational purposes. t r u t h o u t has no affiliation whatsoever
with the originator of this article nor is t r u t h o u t endorsed
or sponsored by the originator.)

(c) : t r u t h o u t 2004
|t r u t h o u t

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9) CHINA ROCKS THE GEOPOLITICAL BOAT
ASIA TIMES / Nov 6, 2004


TEHRAN - Speaking of business as unusual.
A mere two months ago, the news of
a China-Kazakhstan pipeline agreement,
worth US$3.5 billion, raised some
eyebrows in the world press, some hinting
that China's economic foreign policy may
be on the verge of a new leap forward.
A clue to the fact that such
anticipation may have totally understated
the case was last week's signing of a mega-gas
deal between Beijing and Tehran worth
$100 billion. Billed as the "deal of
century" by various commentators, this
agreement is likely to increase by
another $50 billion to $100 billion,
bringing the total close to $200 billion, when
a similar oil agreement, currently
being negotiated, is inked not too far from
now.


The gas deal entails the annual
export of some 10 million tons of Iranian
liquefied natural gas (LNG) for a
25-year period, as well as the participation,
by China's state oil company,
in such projects as exploration and drilling,
petrochemical and gas industries,
pipelines, services and the like. The export of
LNG requires special cargo ships,
however, and Iran is currently investing
several billion dollars adding to
its small LNG-equipped fleet.


Still, per the admission of the head
of the Iranian Tanker Co, Mohammad
Souri, Iran needed to purchase another
87 vessels by 2010, in addition to the 10
already purchased, in order to fulfill the
needs of its growing LNG market. Iran
has an estimated 26.6-trillion-cubic-
meter gas reservoir, the second-largest
in the world, about half of which is in
offshore zones and the other half
onshore.


It is perhaps too early to digest fully
the various economic, political and
even geostrategic implications of this
stunning development, widely considered
a major blow to the Bush administration's
economic sanctions on Iran and
particularly on Iran's energy sector,
notwithstanding the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act
(ILSA) penalizing foreign companies
daring to invest more than $20 million in
Iran's oil and gas industry.


While it is unclear what the scope
of China's direct investment in Iran's
energy sector will turn out to be, it
is fairly certain that China's
participation in the Yad Avaran field
alone will exceed the ILSA's ceiling; this field's
oil reservoir is estimated to be 17
billion barrels and is capable of producing
300 to 400 barrels per day. And this
is besides the giant South Pars field,
which Iran shares with Qatar, alone
possessing close to 8% of the world's gas
reserves. To open a parenthesis here,
until now Tehran has been complaining
that Qatar has been outpacing Iran in
exploiting its resource 6-1. In fact,
Iran's unhappiness over Qatar's
unbalanced access to the South Pars led to a
discrete warning by Iran's deputy oil
minister and, soon thereafter, Qatar complied
with Iran's request for a joint "technical
committee" that has yet to yield
any result.


For a United States increasingly pointing
at China as the next biggest
challenge to its Pax Americana, the Iran-
China energy cooperation cannot but be
interpreted as an ominous sign of emerging
new trends in an area considered vital
to US national interests. But, then again, this
cuts both ways, that is, the
deal should, logically speaking, stimulate
others who may still consider Iran
untrustworthy or too radical to enter into
big projects on a long term basis.
Iran's biggest foreign agreement prior
to this gas agreement with China was a
long-term $25 billion gas deal with
Turkey, which has encountered snags,
principally over the price, recently,
compared with Iran's various trade agreements
with Spain, Italy and others, typically
with a life-span of five to seven
years.


Thus some Iranian officials are hopeful
that the China deal can lead to a
fundamental rethinking of the risks of
doing business with Iran on the part of
European countries, India, Japan, and
even Russia. Concerning India, which
signed a memorandum of understanding
with Iran initially in 1993 for a
2,670-kilometer pipeline, with more than
700km traversing Pakistani territory, the Iran-Chi
na deal will undoubtedly give a greater
push to New Delhi to follow Beijing's
lead and thus make sure that the "peace
pipeline" is finally implemented. The
same applies, mutatis mutandis, to Russia,
which has as of late been dragging
its feet somewhat on Iran's nuclear
reactor, bandwagoning with the US and
Group of Eight (G8) countries on the
thorny issue of Iran's uranium-enrichment
program. The Russians must now factor
in the possibility of being supplanted by
China if they lose the confidence of
Tehran and appear willing to trade favors
with Washington over Iran. Russia's
Gazprom may now finally set aside its
stubborn resistance to the idea of
entering major joint ventures with Iran.


Iran appears more and more interested
to join the Shanghai Cooperation
Organization (SCO) and form a powerful
axis with its twin pillars, China and Russia,
as a counterweight to a US power
"unchained". The SCO comprises China,
Russia, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan,
Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan.


China, Russia and Iran share deep
misgivings about the perception of the
United States as a "benevolent hegemon"
and tend to see a "rogue superpower"
instead. Even short of joining forces
formally, the main outlines of such an axis
can be discerned from their convergence
of threat perception due to, among
other things, Russia's disquiet over the
post-September 11, 2001, US incursions in
its traditional Caucasus-Central Asian
"turf", and China's continuing unease
over the Korean Peninsula and Taiwan;
this is not to mention China's fixed
gaze at a "new Silk Road" allowing it
unfettered access to the Middle East and
Eurasia, this as part and parcel of what
is often billed as "the new great game"
in Eurasia. Indeed, what China's recent
deals with both Kazakhstan
(pertaining to Caspian energy) and Iran
(pertaining to Persian Gulf resources) signifies
is that the pundits had gotten it wrong
until now: the purview of the new
great game is not limited to the Central
Asia-Caspian Sea basin, but rather has a
broader, more integrated, purview
increasingly enveloping even the Persian
Gulf. Increasingly, the image of the
Islamic Republic of Iran as a sort of
frontline state in a post-Cold War global
lineup against US hegemony is becoming
prevalent among Chinese and Russian
foreign-policy thinkers.


For the moment, however, the Iran-Russia-
China axis is more a tissue of
think-tanks than full-fledged policy, and
the mere trade interdependence of the US
and China, as well as Russia's growing
energy ties to the US alone, not to
mention its weariness over any perceived
Chinese "overstretch", militate against
a grand alliance pitted against the Western
superpower. In fact, the Cold
War-type alliances are highly unlikely to
be replicated in the current milieu of
globalization and complex interdependence;
instead, what is likely to emerge in
the future are issue-focused or, for the
lack of a better word, issue-area
alliances whereby, to give an example,
the above-said axis may be inspired into
existence along geostrategic considerations
somewhat apart from purely
economic considerations.


Hence what the SCO means on the
security front and how significant it will be
hinges on a complex, and complicated,
set of factors that may eventually
culminate in its expansion, from the
current group of six, as well as greater,
alliance-like, cooperation. It is noteworthy
that in Central Asia-Caucasus, the
trend is toward security diversification and
even multipolarism, reflected in
the US and Russian bases not too far from
each other. In this multipolar
sub-order, neither the US is capable of
exerting hegemony, nor is Russia's
semi-hegemonic sway without competition.
In the Caspian Sea basin, for example,
Kazakhstan has opted to take part in
several distinct, and contrasting, security
networks, including the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization's Partnership for Peace
program, the Commonwealth of
Independent States' Collective Security
Organization, the SCO, and membership
in OSCE (Organization for Security and
Cooperation in Europe).


Kazakhstan is not, however, an exception,
but seemingly indicative of an
expanding new rule of the (security and
strategic) game played out throughout
Central Asia-Caucasus. Economically, both
Kazakhstan and Russia are members of the
Central Asia Economic Cooperation
Organization, and all the Central Asian
states are also members of the Economic
Cooperation Organization (ECO), which was
founded by the trio of Iran, Turkey and
Pakistan. Certain economic alliances
are, henceforth, taking shape, alongside
the budding security arrangements,
which have their own tempo, rationale
and security potential. Concerning the
latter, in 1998, the ECO embarked on
low security cooperation among its members
on drug trafficking and this may soon be
expanded to information-sharing on
terrorism. Also, Iran has also entered into
low security agreements with some of
its Persian Gulf neighbors, including Saudi
Arabia and Kuwait.


The SCO initially was established to
deal with border disputes and is now
well on its way to focusing on (Islamist)
terrorism, drug trafficking and
regional insecurity. Meanwhile, the US,
not to be outdone, has been sowing its own
bilateral military and security arrangements
with various regional countries
such as Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan
and Uzbekistan, as well as promoting
the Guuam Group, which includes
Azerbaijan and Georgia, formed alongside the
BTC (Baku-Tiblisi-Ceyhan) pipeline
as a counterweight to Russian influence.
Consequently, the overall picture that
emerges before us is, as stated above, a
unique multi-trend of military and
security multipolarism defying the logic of
Pax Americana. In this picture, Iran
represents one of the poles of attraction,
seeking its own sphere of influence by,
for instance, entering into a
military agreement with Turkmenistan
in 1994, and, simultaneously, exploring the
larger option of how to coalesce with
other powers in order to offset the
debilitating consequences of (post
-September 11) unbounded Americanization of regional
politics.


A glance at Chinese security narratives,
and it becomes patently obvious that
Beijing shares Iran's deep worries about
US unipolarism culminating in, as in
Afghanistan and Iraq, unilateral militarism.
Various advocates of US
preeminence, such as William Kristol, openly
write that the US should "work for the
fall of the Communist Party oligarchy in
China". Unhinged from the containment
of Soviet power, the roots of US unilateralism,
and its military manifestation
of "preemption", must be located in the logic
of unipolarism, thinly disguised
by the "coalition of the willing" in Iraq; the
latter is, in fact, as aptly
put by various critics of US foreign
policy, more like a coalition of the
coerced and bribed than anything else.


But, realistically speaking, what are
the prospects for any regional and or
continental realignment leading to
the erasure of US unipolarism,
notwithstanding the US military and
economic colossus bent on preventing,
on a doctrinal
level, the emergence of any challenger
to its global domination now or in the
future? The strategic debates in all three
countries, Russia, China and Iran,
feature similar concerns and question
marks. For one thing, all three have to
contend with the difficulty of sorting
the disjunctions between the different
sets of national interests, above all
economic, ideological and strategic
interests. This aside, a pertinent question
is who will win over Russia, Washington,
which pursues a coupling role with
Moscow vis-a-vis Beijing, or Beijing,
trying to wrest away Moscow from
Washington? For now, Russia does
not particularly
feel compelled to choose between
stark options, yet the situation may be
altered in China's direction in case
the present drift of US power incursions are
heightened in the future. The
answer to the above question
should be delegated

to the future. For now, however,
the quantum leap of China into the Middle
East and Caspian energy markets
has become a fait accompli, no matter how
disturbed its biggest trade partner,
the US, over its geopolitical ramifications.


Kaveh L Afrasiabi, PhD, is the author
of After Khomeini: New Directions in
Iran's Foreign Policy (Westview Press)
and "Iran's Foreign Policy Since 9/11",
Brown's Journal of World Affairs, co-
authored with former deputy foreign
minister Abbas Maleki, No 2, 2003.
He teaches political science at Tehran
University.


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