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Saturday, September 18, 2004
BAUAW NEWSLETTER-SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 2004
Don't forget the next Bay Area United Against War (BAUAW) meeting
coming up this Wednesday, September 22, 7:00 p.m., 1380 Valencia Street, between 24th & 25th Streets in S.F. ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 1) RALLY AGAINST RADIO FREQUENCY IDENTIFICATION (RFID) TECHNOLOGY AT THE SAN FRANCISCO PUBLIC LIBRARY Sunday, September 19, 2004 at 2:00 p.m. 2) FBI data sought in bid to free Indian activist By PHIL FAIRBANKS and MARK SOMMER News Staff Reporters 9/14/2004 http://www.buffalonews.com/editorial/20040914/1049110.asp 3) ANSWER Activist Meeting Tuesday, Sept. 21, 7pm 2489 Mission St. Room 30 (at 21st St.) Help us launch a new national campaign - the People's Anti-War Referendum  Vote No on War & Occupation! 4) US Soldiers Shoot First, No Questions Asked by Gethin Chamberlain BAGHDAD Published on Friday, September 17, 2004 by The Scotsman (Scotland) http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0917-25.htm 5) NEWS: Constitution be damned: CIA acting director opposes release of 1947-1970 CIA budget totals 6) Dozens more die in Iraq violence ·45 die in Falluja raids ·Baghdad car bomb kills 13 ·UK may send extra troops The Guardian 5pm update Friday September 17, 2004 http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1306807,00.html 7) From: No One is Illegal Montreal From the Family of the Late FAROUK ABDEL-MUHTI: A Statement of Solidarity for the Coalition Against the Deportation of Palestinian Refugees in Montreal on the eve of the September 18th STATELESS and DEPORTED Demonstration. Date: Fri, 17 Sep 2004 21:19:08 -0700 (PDT) 8) This Is Bush's Vietnam By BOB HERBERT OP-ED COLUMNIST ARLINGTON, Va. September 17, 2004 http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/17/opinion/17herbert.html 9) TERROR ON THE JOB According to Human Rights Watch 200,000 employees in the U.S. were fired in the last decade because of their union activities. Where is the "War on Corporate Terror"? Tidbit from: Howard Keylor 10) Subject: [ufpj-disc] RE: March Count From: "John Bostrom" Date: Fri, 17 Sep 2004 13:30:46 -0400 ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 1) RALLY AGAINST RADIO FREQUENCY IDENTIFICATION (RFID) TECHNOLOGY AT THE SAN FRANCISCO PUBLIC LIBRARY Sunday, September 19, 2004 at 2:00 p.m. Join the American Civil Liberties Union, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Library Users Association, San Francisco Neighborhood Antenna-Free Union and other opponents of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology at the San Francisco Public Library for a rally and informational picket line in front of the Main Library at Larkin & Grove Streets in San Francisco. The SF Public Library plans to spend $300,000 in the next fiscal year and $3 million over the next 6 years to replace its existing bar code system with RFID chips and wireless readers. RFID chips can be read anywhere without the knowledge or consent of the library user, even through a book bag, enabling anyone with access to RFID technology to identify and track the movement of library materials and users. The threats posed by RFID technology to Library user privacy are real, and the radiation emitted by portable and stationary wireless RFID readers has uncertain public health implications and should be avoided as a precautionary measure. If the $300,000 the Library is requesting for RFID is not approved by the Board of Supervisors, the money is designated to fund youth jobs at the Library instead. So come to the Main Library on Sunday, September 19 at 2:00 p.m., bring a friend and send a message to the Board of Supervisors: No to RFID at the SF Public Library! Yes to jobs for youth at the Library! See you on the 19th! ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 2) FBI data sought in bid to free Indian activist By PHIL FAIRBANKS and MARK SOMMER News Staff Reporters 9/14/2004 http://www.buffalonews.com/editorial/20040914/1049110.asp Leonard Peltier, 60, is serving two sentences of life imprisonment in the deaths of two FBI agents in 1975. Leonard Peltier's nearly 30-year quest for freedom brought his defense team to a Buffalo courtroom Monday seeking FBI documents it believes could lead to a new trial for the nationally known Indian activist convicted of murder. Peltier, sentenced to two terms of life imprisonment in the 1975 shooting deaths of two FBI agents in South Dakota, wants a local judge to order the release of 15 pages of documents, part of a nationwide effort aimed at proving that he was railroaded by the FBI. Long championed as a "political prisoner" by groups such as Amnesty International, Peltier is a member of the American Indian Movement. In the eyes of the federal government, he is a brutal killer who should never go free. "The FBI is hellbent on blocking the disclosure of this information and keeping Leonard Peltier in jail for the rest of his natural life," Michael Kuzma, a Buffalo lawyer and a member of Peltier's defense team, said in court Monday. At issue before U.S. District Judge William M. Skretny, who reserved decision Monday, are 15 pages of documents the FBI has withheld since 1975 on grounds of national security and protection of confidential sources. Peltier was not in court Monday, but his attorney argued that the FBI is withholding documents in order to cover up its misconduct, an allegation the government denies. "The FBI has acted in good faith in the processing of all these requests," Preeya M. Noronha, a U.S. Justice Department attorney, told Skretny. "There's no evidence that anything improper was done." Skretny took issue with Noronha's contention, reminding her that two federal appeals courts have criticized the FBI's conduct in the Peltier case. One panel of judges said the government's decision to withhold and intimidate witnesses should be "condemned." Peltier, who contends that he was framed by the government, has spent the last several years seeking FBI documents through the Freedom of Information Act. Earlier this year, the government acknowledged that more than 142,000 pages of documents pertaining to his case were never turned over to his attorneys. The catalyst for the Buffalo case is a heavily excised 1975 Teletype message from the Buffalo office of the FBI to then-FBI Director Clarence M. Kelley. Kuzma said the Teletype message indicates that a New York informant was trying to infiltrate Peltier's defense effort. Kelley later testified that the government used informants against the American Indian Movement, or AIM. Peltier's attorneys learned of the Teletype message after a FOIA request and a subsequent lawsuit against the FBI's Buffalo office pried loose 797 pages of documents - some partially blacked out - containing telex messages, articles, letters and other memorandums. "It appears a Buffalo source was trying to infiltrate the defense team in 1975," Kuzma said during an interview before the trial. "If we can show that had a destructive role or impact on the defense or the attorney-client relationship, it could blow the case open." The FBI tells a far different story. Nearly 30 years after FBI Special Agents Jack R. Coler and Ronald A. Williams were killed at the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, the agency insists that Peltier is guilty. "I stand behind the review of the (U.S.) Supreme Court that he is a convicted murderer," said Peter J. Ahearn, special agent in charge of the FBI's Buffalo office. Ahearn said he has continued to review material on the case through the years and has found no reason to believe that Peltier was innocent. Among FBI agents, it is a case that evokes great passion. Four years ago, about 500 active and retired agents held a march outside the White House to dissuade President Bill Clinton from granting clemency to Peltier. That view was echoed by then-FBI Director Louis J. Freeh in a public letter to the president. Despite the FBI's strong stance against a new trial, Peltier's lead attorney said the information they seek could have a potentially explosive impact on the case. "It would be grounds for a new trial, one which we'd relish because we know they couldn't prove Leonard did it," said Barry Bachrach. "It could even be grounds for an outright reversal." Allan Jamieson, a Cayuga Indian who lives in Buffalo and has tried to raise public awareness about Peltier, agrees. He sees the case as a symbol of the injustices committed by the U.S. government against Native Americans. He also wonders why information regarding Peltier can still be considered a matter of national security nearly 30 years later. "I don't understand how this information can be perceived as a threat at this point in time," Jamieson said. Peltier, 60, is serving his two terms of life in prison at Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary in Kansas. e-mail: pfairbanks@buffnews.com and msommer@buffnews.com ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 3) ANSWER Activist Meeting Tuesday, Sept. 21, 7pm 2489 Mission St. Room 30 (at 21st St.) Help us launch a new national campaign - the People's Anti-War Referendum  Vote No on War & Occupation! The U.S. elections give us no say on the critical issue of war and occupation. Rather, the big business candidates fight over who will spend more money on the Âwar on terrorism and who will send more troops to Iraq. Join the peopleÂs anti-war ballot, a national independent grassroots referendum to demonstrate and organize the breadth of opposition to the U.S. wars and occupations and to bring the troops home now. Unlike U.S. elections, our referendum doesnÂt discriminate by age, immigration status, or prison history. We are all affected by the U.S. policies of war and occupation, and we should have a say. When you vote in the PeopleÂs Anti-War Referendum, your name will not be sent to any branch of the government. Signatures will be collected and the results presented to the media just before the November election in a display of the strength of the opposition to the war. Join us this Tuesday at the ANSWER Activist Meeting to help organize this important new campaign, set-up street polls and tabling. We will also have a political update on the Middle East, a report on the Oct. 1 March Against Racism Discrimination in the Castro and the Oct. 16 March for Immigrant Rights. We will have break-out committees to work on these areas. Get involved! For more information, contact 415-821-6545 or answer@actionsf.org. To subscribe to the list, send a message to: ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 4) US Soldiers Shoot First, No Questions Asked by Gethin Chamberlain BAGHDAD Published on Friday, September 17, 2004 by The Scotsman (Scotland) http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0917-25.htm BAGHDAD - His name was Ahmed Hameed and he was 36 years old. He had taken the wrong turning up to the checkpoint on the July 14 Bridge which spans the Tigris on the south-eastern edge of what used to be known in Baghdad as the Green Zone, but which has now been renamed the International Zone. Now he lies in a body-bag a few yards away from the US army gun tower which opened fire on him as he tried to turn his moped around. Soldiers from the US Airborne surround him, those at the back peering over the shoulders of the ones in front to get a better view as the bag is unzipped. In the tower, the heavy .240-calibre machine-gun hangs limply on its mount, pointing at the ground. The gunner is leaning on the parapet, looking out across the city. Ahmed's head is turned away to one side, his mouth open, the blood which streaks his face already dry. His right hand is by his side, the left curled across his stomach. The fingers stop a few inches from the inch-wide hole just above his groin. Someone has tried to stem the bleeding from another hole in the top of his chest, but there was too much blood. It has soaked his T-shirt, which is pulled up to expose the wounds, and poured down his body, mingling with his sweat, leaving pale rivulets across the skin. Twenty yards away, his maroon Honda Spacy moped lies on its right-hand side in front of a concrete barrier. There is a sign painted on the barrier: it says "Do not enter or you will be shot", in English and Arabic. There is a small bullet entry hole in the top left-hand side of the seat, and a much larger exit hole on the right-hand side of the rear fairing. The bike must have been upright when the bullet struck, and almost sideways on to the gun tower. Petrol has leaked from the tank and on to the tarmac. Captain Mohammhad Mahde is taking in the details of the scene. Mahde is an officer in the Iraqi police service, based inside the International Zone. He bends low over Ahmed's body, pushing down his black nylon boxer shorts with the blue stripe around the waistband which poke out above his grey trousers, so that he can get a better look at the lower wound. "He was coming the wrong way," a US soldier is explaining to him, gesturing towards the end of the bridge's exit ramp away around the curve of the concrete wall on the right-hand side of the road looking south. "He didn't stop. They hit him and he got up, and they fired at him again. He got up again and started running away, and because he was running away they didn't shoot him. But then he just sort of collapsed." The body-bag is zipped closed. Mahde stands up and walks towards the moped, and the soldier follows. "We yelled at him to stop," he says. "He passed a few of the signs to stop, but he just kept going." Mahde walks past another concrete barrier, painted in English and Arabic with three signs: "Exit only", "Do not enter", and "No Stopping". There is no problem with the Arabic, he says. It is quite clear. At the foot of the exit ramp, a small crowd watches the soldiers and the policemen as they walk slowly towards them. This is the reason the soldiers called Mahde's police station; they wanted help to control the crowd. Mahde, though, wants to know what happened. The soldiers eye him warily, but no-one tries to stop him. Mahde pulls out a notebook, writes down a few things, asks the troops some more questions. He walks on to a thin patch of sand that has been deposited on the tarmac. It is damp in a couple of places, a slightly darker orange than the rest. There is a small bloodstain on the checkpoint side of the line of sand which has not been covered over. On the low concrete wall about three feet away there are splashes where blood has sprayed up, and a couple of flecks of flesh stick to the wall a foot or so closer to the gun tower. "They killed him here," he says. The soldiers say no. "The man got back here and collapsed," a captain says. "We just covered up the blood." Ahmed's shoes lie on the tarmac about four feet apart, between where his body now lies and the spot where he died. The left shoe is closer to the blood-stained sand, the right back towards the gun tower. They are brown leather, quite new, a picture of a stag and the name of the maker, the Dawara Company, embossed on the inner sole. On the bridge side of the final concrete barrier between the shoes and Mahde's body, there are four rough hollows where bullets struck. An American soldier points them out; he refers to them as splash marks. The call came in to the police station a little after 10am from a US captain in the Airborne. Dwight Murphy took it; he was sitting in Mahde's office at the time, chatting to the captain. Murphy is the deputy commander for support operations with the Civilian Police Assistance Training Team, the organisation set up by coalition forces to rebuild the Iraqi police service. They got into Mahde's police Land Cruiser, with its blue and white livery and blue and red flashing light, and drove to the bridge. When they reached it, there was a US Bradley armoured vehicle parked across the carriageway at the southern end, the checkpoint end. Its main cannon was trained on the approaching police car, as was the gun of the soldier in the turret. With the index finger of his right hand, the soldier made a horizontal circling gesture, then pointed back up the carriageway, indicating that the car should turn around and leave. Murphy held up his US identification card. The soldier repeated his gesture. The driver began to swing the vehicle around, but Murphy had taken out his mobile phone and was speaking to the captain who had called the police station. The car stopped. The soldier in the turret was speaking into his headset, his eyes still on the police car. He gestured the policemen forward. Murphy is crouched next to the sand, looking at the blood splashed up the wall. "He was probably shot back here where his body fell," he says. "Maybe he was afraid," Mahde said. "Maybe he had explosives? He lived in this city, he worked here, he knew this way. Why go here?" The two men walk slowly back towards the moped. "We haven't opened it up yet," one soldier tells them. One of the soldiers picks up the machine and rests it on its stand. The right-hand mirror has twisted round slightly, but there is no other obvious damage, save for the bullet holes. Another soldier has fetched a jemmy; he pokes it under the seat and leans down on it to pop open the lock. It takes a quarter of a minute, perhaps a little longer, before the lock gives. The soldier places the seat on the ground. Inside, there is nothing but a thin black plastic bag of the type used in some of the city's shops. Inside the bag are two sheets of paper. The soldier hands them to a captain, who looks at them briefly and hands them to Mahde. They are Ahmed's identity papers. There is nothing else in the bag. Mahde asks them to take the body to the morgue. The Americans do not like the idea. Why can't the body be collected by the morgue, they ask. Mahde says his men will take the body and the bike. He looks around him. "This guy made a mistake, but he didn't put the bike in that place or the shoes in that place," he says. "Are you done here?" the US captain asks. "Can we open the checkpoint again?" Mahde nods. They can, he says. He has no authority over the US soldiers, but he will make a report. He and Murphy start to walk back towards the police car. The US soldiers follow, grumbling among themselves. They do not understand what is happening. One can be heard complaining: "All the other bodies, they just put in the truck and took them away." (c) 2004 The Scotsman ### Common Dreams NewsCenter (c) Copyrighted 1997-2004 www.commondreams.org ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 5) NEWS: Constitution be damned: CIA acting director opposes release of 1947-1970 CIA budget totals [On page 12 of his recently published book, *The Sorrows of Empire* (Metropolitan Books, 2004), historian Chalmers Johnson writes: "A revolution would be required to bring the Pentagon back under democratic control, or to abolish the Central Intelligence Agency, or even to contemplate enforcing article 1, section 9, clause 7 of the Constitution: 'No money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law; and a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time.'" -- Steven Aftergood, of the Federation of American Scientists' Secrecy News project, has been engaged in a long-term project to have Article I, Section 9, Clause 7 respected by the CIA. Here's his latest report in an ongoing battle. --Mark] http://ufppc.org/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=1369 CIA REJECTS DISCLOSURE OF HISTORICAL BUDGET DATA By Steven Aftergood Secrecy News September 17, 2004 http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/secrecy/index.html Acting Director of Central Intelligence John E. McLaughlin told a federal court this week that releasing the amounts of historical CIA budgets from 1947 through 1970 would compromise intelligence methods. Mr. McLaughlin's statement was presented in opposition to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit brought by the Federation of American Scientists. "I have carefully considered the ramifications of releasing the total CIA budgets for fiscal years 1947-70 and a few budget numbers from other agencies for fiscal year 1947," he said in a sworn declaration. "I have concluded that publicly disclosing the intelligence budget information that plaintiff seeks would tend to reveal intelligence methods that, in the interest of maintaining an effective intelligence service, ought not be publicly revealed," he wrote. Acting DCI McLaughlin's insistence on preserving the secrecy of even half-century old budget figures contrasts with the recommendation of the 9/11 Commission that current and future intelligence agency budgets "should no longer be kept secret." DCI McLaughlin's September 14 declaration is posted here (1.25 MB PDF file): http://www.fas.org/sgp/foia/1947/mclaughlin.pdf In accordance with Attorney General Ashcroft's FOIA policy, the CIA's position on budget secrecy is being vigorously defended by the Department of Justice Office of Information and Privacy. See the defendant's motion for summary judgment here: http://www.fas.org/sgp/foia/1947/cia091504.pdf A reply from FAS is due on September 29. "We must do something about the problem of overclassification," said Secretary of State Colin Powell at a hearing of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee on September 13. "Today, the intelligence community routinely classifies information at higher levels and makes access more difficult than was the case even at the height of the Cold War." ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 6) Dozens more die in Iraq violence ·45 die in Falluja raids ·Baghdad car bomb kills 13 ·UK may send extra troops The Guardian 5pm update Friday September 17, 2004 http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1306807,00.html More than 50 people were killed today in separate incidents in Iraq, ending one of the bloodiest weeks since George Bush declared an end to the Iraq war just over 12 months ago. US strikes on militant targets in the city of Falluja killed 45 people and injured 27. Hours later at least 13 people died and 50 were wounded when a car bomber struck near a major police checkpoint in central Baghdad, the Iraqi health ministry and US military officials said. According to a statement by the US military, the strikes, which began last night, targeted a compound in Fazat Shnetir, about 12 miles south of the Sunni stronghold of Falluja, where militants loyal to the Jordanian-born al-Qaida ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi were gathering to plot attacks on US-led forces in Iraq. Militants who survived the strikes later sought refuge in near by villages, but US forces quickly broke off an offensive to hunt them down in an effort to avoid civilian casualties, the statement said. "The number of foreign fighters killed during the strike is estimated at approximately 60. The terrorists targeted in this strike were believed to be associated with recent bombing attacks and other terrorist activities throughout Iraq," the US military said. But a health ministry spokesman, Saad al-Amili, said at least 17 children and two women were among the wounded. Hospital officials in Falluja said women and children were also among the dead, but exact figures were not immediately available. Residents of Fazat Shnetir were seen digging graves today and burying the dead in groups of four. Doctors at Falluja general hospital struggled to cope with the wave of casualties, many of whom were transported in private cars as the ambulance service was overwhelmed. Relatives pounded their chests in grief and denounced the US while religious leaders switched on loudspeakers at the mosque to call on residents to donate blood and chanted "God is great." US forces have not patrolled inside Falluja since the end of a three-week siege that left hundreds dead. Insurgents have strengthened their grip since then, mounting regular attacks against US positions and military convoys on the town's outskirts. In Baghdad, the bomb exploded beside a line of police vehicles set up to seal off routes to nearby Haifa Street, where US and Iraqi forces had spent the morning raiding insurgent hideouts. The midday attack occurred on a busy market day, and officials said the number of casualties was expected to rise. As the death toll mounts in Iraq, Britain said today it was prepared to send more troops if needed to bolster security ahead of elections in January. "We will deploy those numbers of troops that are required given the situation. If it is necessary to put a few extra troops in to provide appropriate security for the elections we will do that," the defence secretary, Geoff Hoon, told reporters at a meeting of EU defence ministers in the Netherlands. ·The British engineer kidnapped by gunmen from his house in Baghdad was Kenneth Bigley, the Foreign Office confirmed today. Guardian Unlimited (c) Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004 ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 7) From: No One is Illegal Montreal From the Family of the Late FAROUK ABDEL-MUHTI: A Statement of Solidarity for the Coalition Against the Deportation of Palestinian Refugees in Montreal on the eve of the September 18th STATELESS and DEPORTED Demonstration. Date: Fri, 17 Sep 2004 21:19:08 -0700 (PDT) Below is a statement of solidarity from the family of the late Farouk Abdel-Muhti a stateless Palestinian refugee, who died in July 2004. With Farouk's passing the struggle for Palestinian liberation lost one of its leading fighters in the US. Farouk Adbel-Muhti was born in 1947 in Ramallah, a Palestinian city in the occupied West Bank of Jordan. Like many Palestinians, Farouk lived the uprooted life of a stateless refugee, traveling from country to country until finally settling in New York in the 1970s. He came to the attention of US immigration officials in the mid-1970s after overstaying his visa. An immigration judge ordered him deported, however, there was no way to carry out the deportation, since the West Bank was now controlled by Israel, which did not allow the return of people who left the Palestinian territories before the Israeli occupation of 1967. Farouk continued to live openly in the New York area, engaging in a number of public political activities, with a focus on the struggle for Palestinian liberation and issues relating to immigration and Latin America. In March 2002, Farouk began working regularly at Pacifica Radio station WBAI. He used his contacts to arrange interviews with Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. One month later, three New York police officers and an INS agent, came to his Queens apartment without a warrant. They claimed they wanted to ask Farouk some questions about September 11th. Farouk was detained on April 26, 2002 and jailed in various facilities around the country for two years. He was never charged with a crime. He was often held in solitary confinement, subjected to extensive interrogation, and often denied food. His health was failing but he remained handcuffed and shackled whenever he went to the health clinic. Two years after his detention, a US federal judge ordered Farouk to be deported, charged or released. He walked out of prison on April 12, 2004. Farouk died in July 2004 of a hear attack, after giving a speech in Philadelphia. In his last speech, Farouk called for unity among groups fighting for Palestinian liberation and social justice. His death came just three months after he was released from jail where he was detained for two years without charge. Statement of Solidarity with the Palestinian Refugees of Canada From the Family of the Late Farouk Abdel-Muhti: This statement is to express solidarity with the Palestinian refugees of Canada, on this very important occasion, the Montreal demonstration against the deportation of Palestinians from Canada, on the eve of the Sabra and Chatila massacres, as we approach the twenty-second anniversary of the heinous crimes committed against the Palestinian people by the Lebanese right-wing Christian militia, the Phalange, on the orders of Ariel Sharon, who gave the orders to enter the camp when the Palestine Liberation Organization had already left, to slaughter the innocent people in the camps. In this brutal act of genocide, more than three thousand unarmed Palestinian civilians, men, women, and children, including babies, were brutally massacred, their bodies dumped mostly in mass graves, while the world looked on in horror, but did nothing. Twenty-two years later, we see the sons and daughters of this generation still suffering, as war rages in Palestine, as Israel continues to practice ethnic cleansing against the Palestinian people, imprisoning them, demolishing their homes, and now building an apartheid wall that cuts deep into Palestinian lands, separating families from their lands, their livelihoods, and each other. Meanwhile, in Canada, Palestinian refugees who escaped the horrors and degradation of life in the refugee camps of Lebanon and throughout the world are now facing deportation from Canada, having committed no crime, but being Palestinian. These stateless Palestinians have truly inherited the experience of their parents, and are feeling the intense pain of being stateless refugees. It is for this reason that the world must realize the urgency of the Palestinians achieving their independence, in a Palestinian state of their own, with Jerusalem as its capital. The vulnerable position of the Palestinian deportees in Canada, in Lebanon, in the United States and all over the world obviates this fact and disproves any argument that the Palestinians can be "absorbed" into the polities of any other country, including Arab countries. In the meantime, however, the countries where they reside, such as Canada, have an obligation to accept the Palestinians, and to extend to them the rights and dignities that are extended to all their other citizens and residents, including granting them political asylum. Palestinian refugees of Canada, we share your pain. Our dear brother, Farouk Abdel-Muhti, who is now deceased, was also a stateless Palestinian. As such, he lived for thirty some odd years in the United States, with no serious problems until, after September 11th, he was picked up by immigration authorities, incarcerated for nearly two years, 8 months of which was spent in solitary confinement, tortured, beaten, withheld medication, belittled and called a terrorist, simply for being a Palestinian in the post-September 11th climate of paranoia and xenophobia in the United States. Our dear brother was ultimately released in April of this year, but the irreparable damage was already done, to his life and to ours. Farouk died exactly one hundred days after his release, weakened from the terrible treatment, food, and conditions he endured in the immigration jails of the United States, Allah yarhamouh! His only crime was being a stateless Palestinian. We are left to live with the tragic reality of this and other misfortunes which are largely a result of the unjust, inhuman and misguided policies directed at Arab and Muslim immigrants, especially Palestinians, since 9/11, by the Bush Administration in the United States, and by other governments. We see similar policies being implemented in Canada against immigrants, in what the Bush Administration is attempting to portray as a "global war on terror". But what do these immigrants, especially the Palestinians, have to do with this, being victims of the state terror and genocide inflicted upon them by the Zionist State and its war machine for the last 56 years? We must not let what happened to our brother Farouk, who fought tirelessly for the rights of workers and the oppressed all over the world, especially for his people, the Palestinians, happen to Palestinians in Canada, who have migrated there to seek a better life, and better opportunities, away from war-torn lands and squalid refugee camps. We must demand that this inhuman treatment of immigrants be stopped, once and for all. Our struggles are the same, and we send this statement of solidarity to express to you that we are behind you in your struggle, we feel your pain, and we say to you, you must continue to fight for justice until your human rights and your dignity is acknowledged, in Canada, in the United States, and in Palestine, where ultimately you will prevail, with the establishment of your own state, where you the Palestinians, not an occupying power where World-War Two era fascists and murderers masquerade as a government, will be free to determine your own destiny. We wish you peace and success, and offer you solidarity on this very special occasion, where you are taking your struggle to the streets and demanding your rights, letting the world know how unjustly you are being treated. May the struggle continue until you win! If Farouk were with us today, he would encourage you to keep going, to network with all of us, for us all to work together until we achieve social justice, human rights, equality, civil and political rights! We will see the phoenix rising from the ashes, if we remain steadfast in our fight to end oppression, racism, and imperialism, and to demand justice and rights for all peoples, regardless of their race, religion, or nationality. His spirit remains with us, and if we continue, we will win; our dignity, our independence and our inalienable right to be free! Venceremos! With Revolutionary Fervor and Congratulations! With Love and Solidarity! Long Live Palestine! Sharin Chiorazzo (the fiancée of Farouk Abdel-Muhti) and Tariq Abdel-Muhti (Farouk's Son) For more information, please see www.freefarouk.org, or e-mail us at freefarouk@yahoo.com or abufkheida@maktoob.com. Phone: (201) 951-6919, (212) 674-9499. ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 8) This Is Bush's Vietnam By BOB HERBERT OP-ED COLUMNIST ARLINGTON, Va. September 17, 2004 http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/17/opinion/17herbert.html The rows of simple white headstones in the broad expanses of brilliant green lawns are scrupulously arranged, and they seem to go on and on, endlessly, in every direction. It was impossible not to be moved. A soft September wind was the only sound. Beyond that was just the silence of history, and the collective memory of the lives lost in its service. Nearly 300,000 people are buried at Arlington National Cemetery, which is just across the Potomac from Washington. On Tuesday morning I visited the grave of Air Force Second Lt. Richard VandeGeer. The headstone tells us, as simply as possible, that he went to Vietnam, that he was born Jan. 11, 1948, and died May 15, 1975, and that he was awarded the Purple Heart. His mother, Diana VandeGeer, who is 75 now and lives in Florida, tells us that he loved to play soldier as a child, that he was a helicopter pilot in Vietnam and that she longs for him still. He would be 56 now, but to his mother he is forever a tall and handsome 27. Richard VandeGeer was not the last American serviceman to die in the Vietnam War, but he was close enough. He was part of the last group of Americans killed, and his name was the last of the more than 58,000 to be listed on the wall of the Vietnam Memorial in Washington. As I stood at his grave, I couldn't help but wonder how long it will take us to get to the last American combat death in Iraq. Lieutenant VandeGeer died heroically. He was the pilot of a CH-53A transport helicopter that was part of an effort to rescue crew members of the Mayaguez, an American merchant ship that was captured by the Khmer Rouge off the coast of Cambodia on May 12, 1975. The helicopter was shot down and half of the 26 men aboard, including Lieutenant VandeGeer, perished. (It was later learned that the crew of the Mayaguez had already been released.) The failed rescue operation, considered the last combat activity of the Vietnam War, came four years after John Kerry's famous question, "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?" Although he died bravely, Lieutenant VandeGeer's death was as senseless as those of the 58,000 who died before him in the fool's errand known as Vietnam. His remains were not recovered for 20 years - not until a joint operation by American and Cambodian authorities located the underwater helicopter wreckage in 1995. Positive identification, using the most advanced DNA technology, took another four years. Lieutenant VandeGeer was buried at Arlington in a private ceremony in 2000. The Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation put me in touch with the lieutenant's family. "I'm still angry that my son is gone," said Mrs. VandeGeer, who is divorced and lives alone in Cocoa Beach. "I'm his mother. I think about him every day." She said that while she will always be proud of her son, she believes he "died for nothing." Lieutenant VandeGeer's sister, Michelle, told me she can't think about her brother without recalling that the last time she saw him was on her wedding day, in May 1974. "He looked so handsome and confident," she said. "He wanted to change the world." Wars are all about chaos and catastrophes, death and suffering, and lifelong grief, which is why you should go to war only when it's absolutely unavoidable. Wars tear families apart as surely as they tear apart the flesh of those killed and wounded. Since we learned nothing from Vietnam, we are doomed to repeat its agony, this time in horrifying slow-motion in Iraq. Three more marines were killed yesterday in Iraq. Kidnappings are commonplace. The insurgency is growing and becoming more sophisticated, which means more deadly. Ordinary Iraqis are becoming ever more enraged at the U.S. When the newscaster David Brinkley, appalled by the carnage in Vietnam, asked Lyndon Johnson why he didn't just bring the troops home, Johnson replied, "I'm not going to be the first American president to lose a war." George W. Bush is now trapped as tightly in Iraq as Johnson was in Vietnam. The war is going badly. The president's own intelligence estimates are pessimistic. There is no plan to actually win the war in Iraq, and no willingness to concede defeat. I wonder who the last man or woman will be to die for this colossal mistake. Paul Krugman is on vacation. Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 9) TERROR ON THE JOB According to Human Rights Watch 200,000 employees in the U.S. were fired in the last decade because of their union activities. Where is the "War on Corporate Terror"? Tidbit from: Howard Keylor ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 10) Subject: [ufpj-disc] RE: March Count From: "John Bostrom" Date: Fri, 17 Sep 2004 13:30:46 -0400 Thank you, Bob, and whoever else is responsible, for taking the time to address this issue. This is the first time I've ever seen any major march organization dare to publish and its methods for arriving at its claimed of march numbers. The mere fact of doing that so is a plus for our credibility. And that's the real question here, our credibility. The often-repeated perception that "everyone always overestimates their march numbers" doesn't really reflect well on the validity or moral stature of what we're doing. The questions now are, how accurate are the methods we used, and can we improve on them to get more accurate numbers? The calculations and measurements used are certainly way better than simple wild guesstimates, but I would suggest that we can, and should, do much better. As for the basic calculation of numbers, there are three basic factors: duration, length, and density. Two of these were covered with actual verifiable measurements:: Duration: the elapsed time measured at 23rd Street. Front of the march: 11:36 AM to just after 1:00 PM or 1.5 hours. Front to end, 11:36 AM to 2:36 PM or 3 hours. Length: the length of the march was measured as 43 blocks. For density, however, we're relying solely on estimates: Density (1): a reported police estimate of 5000 people in a tightly packed block Density (2): a report from two observers at 23rd Street that "for the entire three hours the entire march was tightly packed." Everything else is calculation based on those factors. Length was doubled to 86 blocks based on the difference between duration measurements, 3 hours being twice 1.5 hours Then, applying duration, 86 x 5000 = 430,000. And the estimated ("very large") numbers of people who joined above 23rd Street were then added to get 500,000. This would be 70,00 people - a large estimate to say the least. There should be no problem with the fact that a large percentage of people left the march at 34th Street to go to Central Park. Those people should definitely be counted as participating in the march. But there are several dubious points about the basic data and calculation. Observers: Where exactly was or were the observation points on 23rd Street? That's a long stretch of street. Were the observers standing together at one point, or at different points? And why only at 23rd? Why not post observers every three blocks or so all along the route, have them take notes, count, or film? Length: How was "43 blocks" arrived at? All blocks are not the same. Distances along east-west Streets like 23rd and 34th are significantly greater (perhaps between two to three times as long) than those along north-south Avenues like Fifth and Seventh. Density (1): First, it's hard to believe we're relying on police estimates for our basic calculations. How do we know they aren't skewed? It's nice that they agree this time. but what about when they don't? Independently verifiable, science-based methods are much better. Further, which type of blocks are used in this 5000-person estimate? North-south blocks along Avenues, or east-west blocks along Streets? It's a major difference. Density (2) The entire calculation rests on the validity of this point, and unfortunately it's very seriously flawed. The density of "entire" march simply can't be generalized from any one observation point. The march was definitely packed like sardines from the point of origin at 11:30 all the way up to 23rd Street. But as soon as it turned the corner on 23rd, it started to thin out, and by the time it turned up Seventh, it was far, far thinner. At Eighteenth Street, where I stopped to rest and film from around 12:30 to 1:00, it got extremely spaced out and straggly, with frequent ten-yard holes all the way across the street, followed by less than dozen or so marchers spaced several yards apart But a tightly packed block of 5000 people at one point simply does not mean that the rest of the march is just as tightly packed. We can do much better. Actual counts of marchers passing several given observation points at key march locations would be much more accurate and verifiable. A single video camera at a given location could provide irrefutable, verifiable evidence. In fact, I believe CSPAN recorded the entire march at 34th and 7th. That tape could be analyzed. JB From: Bob Wing [ mailto:bobwing@sbcglobal.net ] Sent: Friday, September 17, 2004 10:53 AM To: John Bostrom; Shirley H. Young; dm.silver@verizon.net;ufpj- disc@yahoogroups.com; amyh@texnology.com; andrea Buffa Subject: March Count Dear All, I have been asked how we arrived at the 400,000-500,000 count of marchers on Aug. 29. I might start by saying that the NY Times, based on their observation, our estimate, as well as a late estimate of the police, accepted the 500,000 number. Here's how we came up with the number. 1. We had two people stationed at 23rd Street for the entire day. They report that the beginning of the march stepped off at 11:36 AM. They further report that the last people passed 23rd Street at 2:36 PM, exactly 3 hours after the first folks began, and they report that for the entire three hours the march was tightly packed. 2. The front of the march arrived at Union Square just after 1 PM, meaning it took them one and a half hours to march the route. Of course, the head of a march always takes longer than any other section of the march because it must constantly stop so as to avoid big gaps behind it. Plus we stopped a number of times specifically for photo ops. In other words, on average it took most of the march less than 1.5 hours to march the whole route. 3. From points 1 and 2, we deduce that the march was more than twice the length of the march route. The march route was approximately 43 blocks long. That means the march was at least 86 blocks and probably 5 to 10 more. The police estimate a packed block to be 5,000 people. From this alone, then, we can say the march was 400-500,000 people. 4. We know from personal experience that thousands of people joined the march above 23rd Street, meaning they never passed 23rd Street. We have no estimate of this factor, but it was very large. 5. The last marchers arrived at Union Square at 5:35 PM, almost 4-1/2 hours after the leaders of the march arrived. There was one disruption at Madison Square Garden that prolonged the end. But on the other side thousands of people left the march along 34th Street to go to Central Park. UNITED FOR PEACE & JUSTICE | 212-868-5545
Friday, September 17, 2004
BAUAW NEWSLETTER-FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2004
1) This announcement concerns the unprovoked
second arrest by MIT campus cops of Aimee Smith, a long time Palestine support activist. 2) U.S. Report to Say No WMD Found in Iraq WASHINGTON (Reuters) Thu Sep 16, 2004 11:00 PM ET http://www.reuters.com/ newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=6260752&src=eDialog/ GetContent§ion=news 3) GIs claim threat by Army Soldiers say they were told to re-enlist or face deployment to Iraq By Dick Foster, Rocky Mountain News COLORADO SPRINGS September 16, 2004 http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/state/article/ 0,1299,DRMN_21_3185596,00.html 4) March & Rally for Immigrants Rights Sat. October 16, 12noon Olympic and Broadway, Los Angeles 5) ADC Update 22 Years Later, Sabra and Shatila Remembered Washington DC, Sept 16 6) US may run out of guard and reserve troops for war on terrorism: report WASHINGTON (AFP) Wed Sep 15, 4:14 PM ET http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=afp/us_military_reserves ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 1) This announcement concerns the unprovoked second arrest by MIT campus cops of Aimee Smith, a long time Palestine support activist. MIT hires private police agency to investigate its own police abuses. MIT has hired Pinkerton Inc., a for-hire police agency, to investigate the second false arrest, by the same MIT police officer Joseph D'Amelio, of MIT alumna Aimee Smith (PhD '02). Aimee Smith was first falsely arrested by officer D'Amelio for handing out flyers on a public sidewalk before Commencement ceremonies on June 4, 2004. MIT subsequently dropped those charges. On August 25, the same officer again falsely arrested Aimee and attacked her after she discussed the First Amendment with three MIT police officers. The same day, Aimee filed a complaint with MIT against D'Amelio. MIT has claimed that they have brought in an "independent third-party investigator to examine the case." MIT has not stated how much they are paying the Pinkerton corporation, a private police agency with a history of violently suppressing union organizing and spying on political activists (see web links below) and now in the business of protecting the interests and investments of large companies. How can a private police agency, paid by MIT, be independent in its judgment of abuse by MIT police? Many Pinkerton employees are recruited from the ranks of the police and the FBI. The Pinkertons are known to cooperate closely with law enforcement agencies and sell intelligence on a range of groups, including political organizations. It is as if a private mercenary company were asked to investigate complaints about war crimes committed by a state army. The outcome of any report from Pinkerton is certain to be a whitewash. The MIT police, while paid by MIT, are deputized by the County of Middlesex and, therefore, have jurisdiction over the whole county. Nevertheless, any public (i.e. democratic) oversight of the MIT police is non-existent. Unlike the Cambridge police, there is no publicly accountable police over-sight board, made up of representatives from the citizenry, to investigate police misconduct. It is unacceptable that MIT has hired a private police agency to investigate abuses by its own police force. It is absurd that MIT claims that this investigation is being performed by an "independent third-party." Please write to President Vest and demand that a truly independent committee composed of people from the general public and not paid for by MIT, is assembled to investigate MIT police abuse. Furthermore, demand that MIT drop the charges of this second false arrest of Aimee Smith and that these charges be fully expunged from her record. Please cc peace-request@mit.edu on any correspondence with the MIT administration. For more information about the false arrests visit: http://web.mit.edu/justice also ask president Vest: ~ is it MIT policy to arrest someone for discussing First Amendment rights with MIT police officers? ~ Is it MIT policy to allow MIT police to arrest someone because they don't like what they're saying or because they have a personal dislike for them? ~ Why wasn't D'Amelio removed from the MIT police force the first time he abused his authority. ~ How long will the MIT administration continue to allow female members of its community to be threatened, bullied, harassed, and physically assaulted by a predominantly male campus police force? ~ When will MIT ensure that the MIT police force is subject to the Cambridge Police Review Board, as a first step to establishing a fully effective complaint/review process of the police at MIT? Please cc peace-request@mit.edu on any correspondence with the MIT administration. For more information about the false arrests visit: http://web.mit.edu/justice Also ask president Vest: ~ Is it MIT policy to arrest someone for discussing First Amendment rights with MIT police officers? ~ Is it MIT policy to allow MIT police to arrest someone because they don't like what they're saying or because they have a personal dislike for them? ~ Why wasn't D'Amelio removed from the MIT police force the first time he abused his authority. ~ How long will the MIT administration continue to allow female members of its community to be threatened, bullied, harassed, and physically assaulted by a predominantly male campus police force? ~ When will MIT ensure that the MIT police force is subject to the Cambridge Police Review Board, as a first step to establishing a fully effective complaint/review process of the police at MIT? Contact info President Charles Vest e-mail: cmvest@mit.edu phone: (617) 253-0148 address: 77 Mass Ave, Rm. 3-208 Cambridge MA, 02139 FAX: (617) 253-0036 [Goes to the Vice President's office across the hall. Label with "Please deliver immediately to president Charles Vest" and it should get to him. President's House on Memorial Drive contact info: FAX: (617) 253-3100 Provost Robert Brown e-mail: rab@mit.edu phone: (617) 253-4500 address: 77 Mass Ave, Rm. 3-208 Cambridge MA, 02139 FAX: (617) 253-8812 Chancellor Phillip Clay e-mail: plclay@mit.edu phone: (617) 253-6164 address: 77 Mass Ave, Rm 10-200 Cambridge MA, 02139 FAX: (617) 258-6261 Special assistant to the president Kirk Kolenbrander e-mail: kdk@mit.edu phone: (617)-253-3365 address: 77 Mass Ave, Rm 10-205 Cambridge MA, 02139 FAX: (617) 258-6261 Director of Security and Campus Police John DiFava e-mail: jdifava@mit.edu phone: (617) 252-1703 address: 77 Mass Ave, W31-114 Cambridge MA, 02139 FAX: (617) 253-8822 References on Pinkertons * Ward Churchill places the origins of the police state not with the founding of the FBI in 1913, but in 1852 with the creation of the Pinkerton Detective Agency. The Pinkerton Detective Agency was a private investigative organization hired by both the federal government and the leaders of private industry to investigate labor dissent. It is here that Churchill finds the first connection between industry and government, and all the necessary ingredients that ultimately led to the establishment of the FBI. * Pinkerton early strike breakers, planted evidence, etc. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/carnegie/sfeature/mh_blue.html * FBI to award Pinkerton for assistance this October http://www.ci-pinkerton.com/news/prConnelly9.26.html * Pinkerton boasts about intelligence gathering on political movements: http://www.nadir.org/nadir/initiativ/agp/free/9-11/0225paydirt.htm Political activists will be interested to know that Pinkerton Global Intelligence Services (PGIS) sells intelligence on a range of groups, including political organizations. Its website (www.ci-pinkerton.com/global/groupProfiles.html explains: "The Group Profiles provide a detailed overview of high-profile fringe organizations and terrorist groups. The Group Profiles highlight both global and domestic organizations. PGIS covers the following groups: politically-based, environmentalists, anti-globalists, anti-Western groups, extremist religious factions, recognized terrorists, among many others." Similar claims at the bottom of the following website: http://www.pinkerton-europe.com/business_intelligence_two.htm " Pinkerton is also able to provide specific information about a range of terrorist and activist groups which operate in the UK, Europe and worldwide." Announce mailing list Announce@onepalestine.org http://mail.onepalestine.org/mailman/listinfo/announce_onepalestine.org ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 2) U.S. Report to Say No WMD Found in Iraq WASHINGTON (Reuters) Thu Sep 16, 2004 11:00 PM ET http://www.reuters.com/ newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=6260752&src=eDialog/ GetContent§ion=news WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A draft report by the top U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq concludes no stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction were found, but there was evidence Saddam Hussein intended to resurrect weapons programs, U.S. government sources said on Thursday. Charles Duelfer, the CIA-appointed leader of the weapons hunt, was still finalizing the roughly 1,500 page-report, which was expected to say no stockpiles of biological or chemical weapons were found, the sources told Reuters. The perceived threat from weapons of mass destruction was the main justification used by the Bush administration for the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003 that toppled Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. Duelfer is expected to complete the report in the next several weeks. His predecessor, David Kay, said when he stepped down in January that no large stockpiles of biological and chemical weapons existed in Iraq when the United States went to war. Earlier this week, Secretary of State Colin Powell told lawmakers he now thought stockpiles of biological and chemical weapons would probably never be found. The most specific evidence of an illicit weapons program was uncovered in labs operated by the Iraqi Intelligence Service, which could have produced small quantities of chemical and biological agents, The New York Times reported on its Web site, citing government officials. The report will leave open the possibility that illicit weapons may have been moved to other countries, which has not been substantiated, the newspaper said. (c) Copyright Reuters 2004. ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 3) GIs claim threat by Army Soldiers say they were told to re-enlist or face deployment to Iraq By Dick Foster, Rocky Mountain News COLORADO SPRINGS September 16, 2004 http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/state/article/ 0,1299,DRMN_21_3185596,00.html COLORADO SPRINGS - Soldiers from a Fort Carson combat unit say they have been issued an ultimatum - re-enlist for three more years or be transferred to other units expected to deploy to Iraq. Hundreds of soldiers from the 3rd Brigade Combat Team were presented with that message and a re-enlistment form in a series of assemblies last Thursday, said two soldiers who spoke on condition of anonymity. The effort is part of a restructuring of the Army into smaller, more flexible forces that can deploy rapidly around the world. A Fort Carson spokesman confirmed the re-enlistment drive is under way and one of the soldiers provided the form to the Rocky Mountain News. An Army spokesmen denied, however, that soldiers who don't re-enlist with the brigade were threatened. The form, if signed, would bind the soldier to the 3rd Brigade until Dec. 31, 2007. The two soldiers said they were told that those who did not sign would be transferred out of the 3rd Brigade Combat Team. "They said if you refuse to re-enlist with the 3rd Brigade, we'll send you down to the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, which is going to Iraq for a year, and you can stay with them, or we'll send you to Korea, or to Fort Riley (in Kansas) where they're going to Iraq," said one of the soldiers, a sergeant. The second soldier, an enlisted man who was interviewed separately, essentially echoed that view. "They told us if we don't re-enlist, then we'd have to be reassigned. And where we're most needed is in units that are going back to Iraq in the next couple of months. So if you think you're getting out, you're not," he said. The brigade's presentation outraged many soldiers who are close to fulfilling their obligation and are looking forward to civilian life, the sergeant said. "We have a whole platoon who refuses to sign," he said. A Fort Carson spokesman said Wednesday that 3rd Brigade recruitment officers denied threatening the soldiers with Iraq duty. "I can only tell you what the retention officers told us: The soldiers were not being told they will go to Iraq, but they may go to Iraq," said the spokesman, who gave that explanation before being told later to direct all inquiries to the Pentagon. Sending soldiers to Iraq with less than one year of their enlistment remaining "would not be taken lightly," Lt. Col. Gerard Healy said from the Pentagon Wednesday. "We realize that we deal with people and with families, and that's got to be a factor," he said. "There's probably a lot of places on post where they could put those folks (who don't re-enlist) until their time expires. But I don't want to rule out the possibility that they could go to a unit that might deploy," said Healy. Under current Army practice, members of Iraq-bound units are "stop-lossed," meaning they could be retained in the unit for an entire year in Iraq, even if their active-duty enlistment expires. A recruiter told the sergeant that the Army would keep them "as long as they needed us." Extending a soldier's active duty is within Army authority, since the enlistment contract carries an eight-year obligation, even if a soldier signs for only three or four years of active duty. The 3rd Brigade recruiting effort is part of the Army's plan to restructure large divisions of more than 10,000 soldiers into smaller, more flexible, more numerous brigade- sized "Units of Action" of about 3,500 soldiers each. The Army envisions building each unit into a cohesive whole and staffing them with soldiers who will stay with the unit for longer periods of time, said John Pike, head of the defense analysis think tank Global Security. "They want these units to fight together and train together. They're basically trying to keep these brigades together throughout training and deployment, so I can understand why they would want to shed anybody who was not going to be there for the whole cycle," Pike said. But some soldiers presented with the re-enlistment message last week believe they've already done their duty and should not be penalized for choosing to leave. They deployed to Iraq for a year with the 3rd Brigade last April. "I don't want to go back to Iraq," said the sergeant. "I went through a lot of things for the Army that weren't necessary and were risky. Iraq has changed a lot of people.'' The enlisted soldier said the recruiters' message left him troubled, unable to sleep and "filled with dread." "For me, it wasn't about going back to Iraq. It's just the fact that I'm ready to get out of the Army," he said. Soldiers' choice at Fort Carson WHAT THE FORM SAID Â"Elect not to extend or re-enlist and understand that the soldier will be reassigned IAW (in accordance with) the needs of the Army by Department of the Army HRC (Human Resources Command) . . . or Fort Carson G1 (Personnel Office).'' WHAT IT MEANS ÂSoldiers who sign the letter are bound to the 3rd Brigade Combat Team until Dec. 31, 2007. ÂSoldiers who do not sign the letter might be transferred out of the brigade and possibly to Iraq. Copyright 2004, Rocky Mountain News. All Rights Reserved. ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 4) March & Rally for Immigrants Rights Sat. October 16, 12noon Olympic and Broadway, Los Angeles Speakers include Dolores Huerta Call to action on Immigrant Rights Nearly ten years ago, on October 16, 1994, the Latino immigrant community and its allies convened and held the largest ever mass march and rally by Latinos in the history of the United States. The main issue then was the movement to defeat Proposition 187, which aimed to deny basic human services and constitutional and labor rights to immigrants. That historic march united the Latino community and their allies like never before and unleashed a rise in the political consciousness of millions of people in California and throughout the rest of the country. To commemorate that historic march is important. We must also elevate the level of struggle to win full rights for undocumented workers and their families at this critical time. Broad unity is needed On October 16, 2004, everyone is invited to join the massive march and rally in downtown Los Angeles to demand full rights for undocumented workers, and to stop the raids and racism against immigrants. We seek broad unity to build this event. All progressive individuals and organizations who believe that the fight for immigrants' rights is an important one are welcome and encouraged to participate. A strong, united march and rally in downtown Los Angeles will demonstrate the incredible strength and resolve of the movement for immigrants' rights in the United States today. This call for a demonstration on October 16, 2004 was initiated two years ago by a pro-immigrant coalition led by Latino Movement USA Hermandad Mexicana Nacional on October 22, 2002, during the rally held at the Immigrant Rights March in downtown Los Angeles. With continuing violent attacks by vigilantes and racist groupings against immigrants, along the U.S.-Mexico border, on the rise; with mass terrorizing raids in predominantly Latino communities by border patrol agents, and other law enforcement units multiplying; with no end in sight to the mass arrests of Latino immigrants at U.S. airports; and with the prospect that this police terror campaign against immigrants may increase in the aftermath of the November Presidential election, the October 16 March and Rally represents a critical political test of how we all understand our respective roles and political responsibilities in the ongoing political battle to safeguard the human and labor rights of the weakest sector of the U.S. working class, the undocumented worker. Transportation and Flyers Contact 415-821-6545 or answer@actionsf.org for information regarding transportation from San Francisco to LA. To download flyers for the March for Immigrants Rights, go to www.answerla.org Youth Student Contingent If you are interested in joining the Youth Student A.N.S.W.E.R. Contingent in the March for Immigrants Rights, contact Silvia or Nathalie at 415-821-6545 or apriorchid@yahoo.com. Endorsers Organizations from around the country have endorsed this event, including the following sponsors: Latino Movement USA, Hermandad Mexicana Nacional, A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition, Asociacion Nacional de Salvadorenos Americanos, Alianza Hondurena de Los Angeles, Casa Nicaragua, Ecuadorians Residing Abroad, Frente Civico Zacatecano, Federacion de Clubes de Jalisco, Familias Unidas de Lynwood, Centro Azteca, Free Palestine Alliance, National Committee to Free the Cuban Five, Fuerza Revolucionaria Salvadorena, Dr. John Fernandez, Roosevelt High School, Apostolic Church, Jovenes Inc., Coalicion Latinoamericana, Moviemento Popular Inmigrante, Fundacion Pro-Inmigrante, Club Ancon, Jornaleros del Valle de San Gabriel, Union Sin Fronteras, National Network on Cuba (NNOC), California Congreso of U.S.- Mexican Women Voters, Casa del Sinaloense, Zacatecanos en Marcha, Federacion de Zacatecanos, American Arab Anti- Discrimination Committee (ADC), Palestinian American Women's Association (PAWA), and many more. To subscribe to the list, send a message to: To remove your address from the list, just send a message to the address in the ÂList-Unsubscribe'' header of any list message. If you haven't changed addresses since subscribing, you can also send a message to: For addition or removal of addresses, We'll send a confirmation message to that address. When you receive it, simply reply to it to complete the transaction. ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 5) ADC Update 22 Years Later, Sabra and Shatila Remembered Washington DC, Sept 16 Today, September 16, marks 22 years since of one of the bloodiest and most brutal massacres in recent history, the 1982 massacre of Palestinian refugees in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps. Twenty two years ago, shortly after the Israeli army seized control of West Beirut, Lebanon, right wing Phalangist militia forces, under the direction of Israeli forces, made their way into the Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila located on the outskirts of the city. Once in the camps the militias massacred hundreds of defenseless men, women and children. Israeli troops, who were in control of the area, allowed the militias into the camps, prevented the refugees from fleeing for their lives, and lit the night sky with a continuous series of flares as the killing raged for two days. The US had pulled its troops out of Beirut just days prior to the massacres, and had given a guarantee of protection to the residents of the refugee camps. Following massive outrage and protest from the international community as well as from Israeli citizens, the Israeli government formed The Kahan Commision of Inquiry. The Commission found that Israel was responsible for participating in the violence and recommended the dismissal of the Army Chief of Staff. Rafual Eitan. Then Defense Minister Ariel Sharon was also forced to resign after the Commission concluded that he bore personal responsibility for the massacre, and should never hold public office again. Sharon is now the Prime Minister of Israel. ADC President Mary Rose Oakar said, "We must take the time on September 16 to remember the victims of the horrific Sabra and Shatila massacre. The massacre is a reminder to us all of the tragedy of exile of Palestinian refugees who have been excluded from their homeland for more than half a century and their vulnerability as a stateless people. It underlines the necessity for a just settlement to the refugee issue based on the Right of Return, which is enshrined for all refugees in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Fourth Geneva Convention, and was specifically applied to the Palestinian refugees in UN Resolution 194." To learn more, see the BBC's documentary on the Sabra and Shatila massacre and also the court case against Ariel Sharon: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/audiovideo/programmes/panorama/1381328.stm http://indictsharon.net/massacres.shtml ADC DC Chapter Participating in Lebanon's 22nd Commemoration of the Sabra & Shatila Massacre The Washington, DC Chapter of the American-Arab Anti Discrimination Committee helped to coordinate and is part of a delegation participating in the 22nd Anniversary of the Sabra and Shatila massacre. Lebanese and Palestinian NGOs in Lebanon are hosting delegations from around the world from September 10 - 19. The nine-day tour provides the opportunity for a deeper understanding of Lebanon as a country, and provides the means to engage in dialogue with local Lebanese and Palestinian leaders and activists. Some itinerary highlights include: visiting the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps, participating in UNESCO events, meeting with the support committee regarding the case brought in Belgium against Ariel Sharon, and touring the area. For more information contact the ADC- Washington DC Area Chapter at adcdcarea@yahoo.com. ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 6) US may run out of guard and reserve troops for war on terrorism: report WASHINGTON (AFP) Wed Sep 15, 4:14 PM ET http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=afp/us_military_reserves WASHINGTON (AFP) - The US military may run out of national guard and reserve troops for the war on terrorism because of existing limits on involuntary mobilizations, a congressional watchdog agency warned in a report. Government Accountability Office (GAO) said the government has considered changing the policy to make members of the 1.2 million-strong guard and reserve subject to repeated involuntary mobilization so long as no single mobilization exceeds 24 consecutive months. In commenting on the report, however, the Department of Defense ( news -web sites ) (DOD) said it planned to keep its current approach. "Under DOD's current implementation of the authority, reserve component members can be involuntarily mobilized more than once, but involuntary mobilizations are limited to a cumulative total of 24 months," the report said. "If DOD's implementation of the partial mobilization authority restricts the cumulative time that reserve component forces can be mobilized, then it is possible that DOD will run out of forces," the report said. The guard and reserves are crucial to the US war effort because they include specialized units such as military police, intelligence and civil affairs that are in high demand but short supply in the active duty force. The Pentagon ( news -web sites ) also has turned to guard and reserve to ease the strain on active duty infantry divisions that have had to deploy repeatedly to Iraq ( news -web sites ). More than 47,600 members of the guard and reserve were serving in Iraq as of August 1, about a third of the 140,000-member US force there. When those who are deployed in Afghanistan ( news - web sites ) and rear areas are added, the total is in excess of 66,000, according to Pentagon figures. Since September 11, 2003, more than 335,000 guard and reserves have been involuntarily mobilized for active duty -- 234,000 from the army alone, according to the report. "The Department of Defense cannot currently meet its global commitments without sizeable participation from its national guard and reserve members," the GAO said in a cover letter to the report. The GAO said the Pentagon has projected it will continuously have about 100,000 to 150,000 reserve members mobilized over the next three to five years. The Pentagon considered increasing the pool of available guard and reserve troops by changing its mobilization policy. "Under such a revised implementation, DOD could have mobilized its reserve component forces for less than 24 consecutive months, sent them home for an unspecified period and then remobilized them, repeating this cycle indefinitely and providing an essentially unlimited flow of forces," the report said. Piecemeal policy changes already undertaken to increase the pool of available guard and reserve troops have created uncertainties among reservists that could affect retention, recruitment and the long-term viability of the reserves, the report noted. "There are already indications that some portions of the force are being stressed," it said. The army national guard, for instance, has failed to meet recruiting goals in 14 of 20 months from October 2002 through May 2004, the report said. It was 7,800 soldiers below its recruiting goal at the end of fiscal 2003. Copyright (c) 2004 Agence France Presse
Thursday, September 16, 2004
BAUAW NEWSLETTER, THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 2004
1) U.S. Intelligence Offers Gloomy Outlook for Iraq
By Tabassum Zakaria Thu Sep 16, 2004 09:44 AM ET WASHINGTON (Reuters) http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=6255423&src=eD ialog/GetContent§ion=news 2) PENTAGON NOT LISTING 17,000 WAR CASUALTIES United Press International September 15, 2004 http://washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/20040915-041621-5455r.htm 3) Iraq war was illegal and breached UN charter, says Annan Ewen MacAskill and Julian Borger in Washington The Guardian Thursday September 16, 2004 http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,5017264-103550,00.html 4) Far graver than Vietnam Most senior US military officers now believe the war on Iraq has turned into a disaster on an unprecedented scale Sidney Blumenthal Thursday September 16, 2004 The Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1305360,00.html 5) Two Americans and Briton Are Kidnapped by Rebels in Baghdad By EDWARD WONG BAGHDAD, Iraq September 16, 2004 http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/16/international/middleeast/16CND-IRAQ.html?h p 6) UPDATE on Hostages in Iraq Date: Thu, 16 Sep 2004 From: "Barbara Deutsch" 7) Torture for Profit Private contractors face legal action for crimes in Abu Ghraib by David Phinney , Special to CorpWatch September 15th, 2004 http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=11524 8) Intelligence Proposals Gain in Congress By PHILIP SHENON WASHINGTON, Sept. 15 http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/16/politics/16panel.html ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 1) U.S. Intelligence Offers Gloomy Outlook for Iraq By Tabassum Zakaria Thu Sep 16, 2004 09:44 AM ET WASHINGTON (Reuters) http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=6255423&src=eD ialog/GetContent§ion=news WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. intelligence report prepared for President Bush in July offered a gloomy outlook for Iraq through the end of 2005, with the worst scenario being a deterioration into civil war, a U.S. government official said on Thursday. The National Intelligence Estimate, which is a compilation of views from various intelligence agencies, predicted three possible scenarios from a tenuous stability to political fragmentation to the most negative assessment of civil war, the official told Reuters on condition of anonymity. "There doesn't seem to be much optimism," the official said. The New York Times first reported on the existence of the 50-page classified intelligence report, saying it had not appeared to alter the more optimistic tenor of the Bush administration's public statements on Iraq. Iraq has been gripped by an insurgency involving constant attacks on U.S. soldiers and Iraqi civilians and the kidnapping and beheading of foreigners. More than 1,000 American troops have died. The July estimate was initiated under former CIA Director George Tenet, who stepped down in July. The conclusions were reached before the recent worsening of Iraq's security situation. The previous National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq in October 2002 has been highly criticized for its assessments that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, when no large stockpiles have been found since the U.S. invasion in March 2003. The 2002 report was a key piece of intelligence used by the Bush administration in making its case for going to war. It was later criticized for not taking into account dissenting views from some intelligence agencies about the status of Iraq's banned weapons programs. National Intelligence Estimates are produced by the National Intelligence Council, which is like a government think tank that compiles assessments from various intelligence agencies. The National Intelligence Council reports to the CIA director in his dual role of director of central intelligence in which he has responsibility for overseeing the 15 intelligence agencies. (c) Copyright Reuters 2004. ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 2) PENTAGON NOT LISTING 17,000 WAR CASUALTIES United Press International September 15, 2004 http://washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/20040915-041621-5455r.htm Washington, DC -- The Pentagon has nearly 17,000 service members medically evacuated from Iraq and Afghanistan not listed on their public casualty reports. According to military data reviewed by United Press International those evacuees appear to fit the Pentagon's own definition of war casualties. The military has evacuated 16,765 individual service members from Iraq and Afghanistan for injuries and illnesses not directly related to combat, according to the U.S. Transportation Command, which is responsible for the medical evacuations. Most are from Operation Iraqi Freedom. But the Pentagon's public casualty reports, available at www.defenselink.mil, list only service members who died or were wounded in action, even though the Pentagon's own definition of a war casualty is: "Any person who is lost to the organization by having been declared dead, duty status -- whereabouts unknown, missing, ill, or injured." In addition to those evacuations, 32,684 veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan now out of the military sought medical attention from the Department of Veterans Affairs by July 22, according to VA reports obtained by UPI. The number of those visits to VA doctors that were related to war is unknown. ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 3) Iraq war was illegal and breached UN charter, says Annan Ewen MacAskill and Julian Borger in Washington The Guardian Thursday September 16, 2004 http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,5017264-103550,00.html The United Nations secretary general, Kofi Annan, declared explicitly for the first time last night that the US-led war on Iraq was illegal. Mr Annan said that the invasion was not sanctioned by the UN security council or in accordance with the UN's founding charter. In an interview with the BBC World Service broadcast last night, he was asked outright if the war was illegal. He replied: "Yes, if you wish." He then added unequivocally: "I have indicated it was not in conformity with the UN charter. From our point of view and from the charter point of view it was illegal." Mr Annan has until now kept a tactful silence and his intervention at this point undermines the argument pushed by Tony Blair that the war was legitimised by security council resolutions. Mr Annan also questioned whether it will be feasible on security grounds to go ahead with the first planned election in Iraq scheduled for January. "You cannot have credible elections if the security conditions continue as they are now," he said. His remarks come amid a marked deterioration of the situation on the ground, an upsurge of violence that has claimed 200 lives in four days and raised questions over the ability of the interim Iraqi government and the US-led coalition to maintain control over the country. They also come as Mr Blair is trying to put the controversy over the war behind him in the run-up to the conference season, a new parliamentary term and next year's probable general election. The UN chief had warned the US and its allies a week before the invasion in March 2003 that military action would violate the UN charter. But he has hitherto refrained from using the damning word "illegal". Both Mr Blair and the foreign secretary, Jack Straw, claim that Saddam Hussein was in breach of security council resolution 1441 passed late in 2002, and of previous resolutions calling on him to give up weapons of mass destruction. France and other countries claimed these were insufficient. No immediate comment was available from the White House late last night, but American officials have defended the war as an act of self-defence, allowed under the UN charter, in view of Saddam Hussein's supposed plans to build weapons of mass destruction. However, last September, Mr Annan issued a stern critique of the notion of pre-emptive self-defence, saying it would lead to a breakdown in international order. Mr Annan last night said that there should have been a second UN resolution specifically authorizing war against Iraq. Mr Blair and Mr Straw tried to secure this second resolution early in 2003 in the run-up to the war but were unable to convince a sceptical security council. Mr Annan said the security council had warned Iraq in resolution 1441 there would be "consequences" if it did not comply with its demands. But he said it should have been up to the council to determine what those consequences were. Guardian Unlimited (c) Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004 ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 4) Far graver than Vietnam Most senior US military officers now believe the war on Iraq has turned into a disaster on an unprecedented scale Sidney Blumenthal Thursday September 16, 2004 The Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1305360,00.html 'Bring them on!" President Bush challenged the early Iraqi insurgency in July of last year. Since then, 812 American soldiers have been killed and 6,290 wounded, according to the Pentagon. Almost every day, in campaign speeches, Bush speaks with bravado about how he is "winning" in Iraq. "Our strategy is succeeding," he boasted to the National Guard convention on Tuesday. But, according to the US military's leading strategists and prominent retired generals, Bush's war is already lost. Retired general William Odom, former head of the National Security Agency, told me: "Bush hasn't found the WMD. Al-Qaida, it's worse, he's lost on that front. That he's going to achieve a democracy there? That goal is lost, too. It's lost." He adds: "Right now, the course we're on, we're achieving Bin Laden's ends." Retired general Joseph Hoare, the former marine commandant and head of US Central Command, told me: "The idea that this is going to go the way these guys planned is ludicrous. There are no good options. We're conducting a campaign as though it were being conducted in Iowa, no sense of the realities on the ground. It's so unrealistic for anyone who knows that part of the world. The priorities are just all wrong." Jeffrey Record, professor of strategy at the Air War College, said: "I see no ray of light on the horizon at all. The worst case has become true. There's no analogy whatsoever between the situation in Iraq and the advantages we had after the second world war in Germany and Japan." W Andrew Terrill, professor at the Army War College's strategic studies institute - and the top expert on Iraq there - said: "I don't think that you can kill the insurgency". According to Terrill, the anti-US insurgency, centred in the Sunni triangle, and holding several cities and towns - including Fallujah - is expanding and becoming more capable as a consequence of US policy. "We have a growing, maturing insurgency group," he told me. "We see larger and more coordinated military attacks. They are getting better and they can self-regenerate. The idea there are x number of insurgents, and that when they're all dead we can get out is wrong. The insurgency has shown an ability to regenerate itself because there are people willing to fill the ranks of those who are killed. The political culture is more hostile to the US presence. The longer we stay, the more they are confirmed in that view." After the killing of four US contractors in Fallujah, the marines besieged the city for three weeks in April - the watershed event for the insurgency. "I think the president ordered the attack on Fallujah," said General Hoare. "I asked a three-star marine general who gave the order to go to Fallujah and he wouldn't tell me. I came to the conclusion that the order came directly from the White House." Then, just as suddenly, the order was rescinded, and Islamist radicals gained control, using the city as a base. "If you are a Muslim and the community is under occupation by a non-Islamic power it becomes a religious requirement to resist that occupation," Terrill explained. "Most Iraqis consider us occupiers, not liberators." He describes the religious imagery common now in Fallujah and the Sunni triangle: "There's talk of angels and the Prophet Mohammed coming down from heaven to lead the fighting, talk of martyrs whose bodies are glowing and emanating wonderful scents." "I see no exit," said Record. "We've been down that road before. It's called Vietnamisation. The idea that we're going to have an Iraqi force trained to defeat an enemy we can't defeat stretches the imagination. They will be tainted by their very association with the foreign occupier. In fact, we had more time and money in state building in Vietnam than in Iraq." General Odom said: "This is far graver than Vietnam. There wasn't as much at stake strategically, though in both cases we mindlessly went ahead with the war that was not constructive for US aims. But now we're in a region far more volatile, and we're in much worse shape with our allies." Terrill believes that any sustained US military offensive against the no-go areas "could become so controversial that members of the Iraqi government would feel compelled to resign". Thus, an attempted military solution would destroy the slightest remaining political legitimacy. "If we leave and there's no civil war, that's a victory." General Hoare believes from the information he has received that "a decision has been made" to attack Fallujah "after the first Tuesday in November. That's the cynical part of it - after the election. The signs are all there." He compares any such planned attack to the late Syrian dictator Hafez al-Asad's razing of the rebel city of Hama. "You could flatten it," said Hoare. "US military forces would prevail, casualties would be high, there would be inconclusive results with respect to the bad guys, their leadership would escape, and civilians would be caught in the middle. I hate that phrase collateral damage. And they talked about dancing in the street, a beacon for democracy." General Odom remarked that the tension between the Bush administration the senior military officers over Iraqi was worse than any he has ever seen with any previous government, including Vietnam. "I've never seen a significant majority believing this is a disaster. The two parties whose interests have been advanced have been the Iranians and al-Qaida. Bin Laden could argue with some cogency that our going into Iraq was the equivalent of the Germans in Stalingrad. They defeated themselves by pouring more in there. Tragic." ·Sidney Blumenthal, a former senior adviser to President Clinton, is Washington bureau chief of salon.com sidney_blumenthal@ yahoo.com ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 5) Two Americans and Briton Are Kidnapped by Rebels in Baghdad By EDWARD WONG BAGHDAD, Iraq September 16, 2004 http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/16/international/middleeast/16CND-IRAQ.html?h p BAGHDAD, Iraq, Sept. 16 - Insurgents kidnapped two American and one British contractor in a brazen dawn raid on their home in one of Baghdad's most upscale neighborhoods, underscoring the rapidly growing perils confronting foreign nationals in this war zone. The three men worked for the Gulf Services Company, based in the United Arab Emirates, and were believed to be involved in construction, said neighbors and an American embassy official. The company was operating in Iraq under the name of Al Khalij, said Col. Adnan Abdul- Rahman, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry. Neighbors said the men had received prior threats. The incident took place without a struggle and without shots being fired, neighbors said. The men were simply dragged from their homes in the Mansour neighborhood and put into one or two cars. The insurgents had head scarves swathed around their faces and at least one wore all black, though it was unclear whether they carried any guns, neighbors said. "Come on, get in, get in the car!" one of the kidnappers said, according to a 32-year-old neighbor who gave her name as Um Brahim. The abductions echoed those of two 29-year-old Italian women and two of their Iraqi co-workers on Sept. 7. In both cases, the hostage takers had no qualms about staging their raid during daylight hours in the heart of the capital, when witnesses would likely be roaming around. These incidents are quickly forcing changes to the way foreigners live and work here, with security advisors scrambling to boost the presence of armed guards at private homes or move residents into hotels. In short, the insurgents are succeeding in tightening the circle in which foreigners think they can safely operate, slowly squeezing in the edges until a single ice floe remains among turbulent swells. No group took immediate responsibility for the kidnappings today. No armed guards worked at the two-story concrete home in which the three victims lived, according to several neighbors. The three foreigners were clearly trying to maintain a low profile in the area. But as was the case with the Italian women, taking a soft approach to security ultimately left them vulnerable amid the rising hostilities. "I feel so sorry for what happened to them," said Um Brahim as she stood in her driveway, right next door to the victims' home. "They weren't working for a military company. It was a construction company." The raid unfolded at around 6 a.m., when a blackout prompted two of the victims to open the black metal gate of their home to turn on a large generator sitting outside a four-foot front wall surrounding the house. As the gate swung open, masked men rushed into the front yard and seized the foreigners, said Bahir Saleem, a student living on the block who said he spoke with several witnesses. The insurgents then took a third man from the house. Several neighbors said that up to two foreign Arabs usually lived in the house and were responsible for maintaining the generator and driving the Westerners around, but that they had left just a day or two earlier. One neighbor, Suham Moiyed, said a young boy emerged from the house across the street to help start the generator, since that house also received electricity from the machine, but that the kidnappers told the boy's mother to get him back into the house. The home, in which the Westerners had lived for about a year, is a drab building in a middle- to upper-class area that had no visible defenses. The wall around the house functions more as decoration than protection. Four white plastic chairs surround a circular table sit on the tiny front lawn. Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 6) UPDATE on Hostages in Iraq Date: Thu, 16 Sep 2004 From: "Barbara Deutsch" Last Friday, Sept. 10, I sent around a Petition for the Italian anti-war activists kidnapped in Iraq. I wrote that the kidnappers were "most likely in the pay of the CIA, and at the very least are doing the work of the U.S. government by kidnappings and executions directed against civilian anti-war activists." I received two comments from ostensibly radical professors who criticized my comments for being inaccurate and harmful to the cause. They focused blame on Moslem extremists. Below, I reprint an investigatory article from today's British "Guardian" newspaper by Naomi Klein and Jeremy Scahill which buttresses the claim I made, with specific evidence, such as: "The attackers were armed with AK-47s, shotguns, pistols with silencers and stun guns -- hardly the mujahideen's standard-issue rusty Kalashnikovs. Strangest of all is this detail: witnesses said that several attackers wore Iraqi National Guard uniforms and identified themselves as working for Ayad Allawi, the interim prime minister." There's lots more. Just about every Islamic group, including the leaders of the resistance in Iraq, have condemned this kidnapping of the leaders of the Italian antiwar movement and their fellow workers. I am amazed that some folks, despite their decades of education at elite universities, or most likely because of it, are unable to read through the lines and understand what is really happening in this world and who is behind the horror. Thank you Naomi Klein. Thank you Jeremy Scahill. And most of all, FREE SIMONA TORRETTA, SIMONA PARI, RAAD ALI ABDUL AZZIZ and MAHNOUZ BASSAM - Mitchel Cohen Brooklyn Greens/Green Party of NY Who seized Simona Torretta? This Iraqi kidnapping has the mark of an undercover police operation Naomi Klein and Jeremy Scahill Thursday September 16, 2004 The Guardian When Simona Torretta returned to Baghdad in March 2003, in the midst of the "shock and awe" aerial bombardment, her Iraqi friends greeted her by telling her she was nuts. "They were just so surprised to see me. They said, 'Why are you coming here? Go back to Italy. Are you crazy?'" But Torretta didn't go back. She stayed throughout the invasion, continuing the humanitarian work she began in 1996, when she first visited Iraq with her anti-sanctions NGO, A Bridge to Baghdad. When Baghdad fell, Torretta again opted to stay, this time to bring medicine and water to Iraqis suffering under occupation. Even after resistance fighters began targeting foreigners, and most foreign journalists and aid workers fled, Torretta again returned. "I cannot stay in Italy," the 29-year-old told a documentary film-maker. Today, Torretta's life is in danger, along with the lives of her fellow Italian aid worker Simona Pari, and their Iraqi colleagues Raad Ali Abdul Azziz and Mahnouz Bassam. Eight days ago, the four were snatched at gunpoint from their home/office in Baghdad and have not been heard from since. In the absence of direct communication from their abductors, political controversy swirls round the incident. Proponents of the war are using it to paint peaceniks as naive, blithely supporting a resistance that answers international solidarity with kidnappings and beheadings. Meanwhile, a growing number of Islamic leaders are hinting that the raid on A Bridge to Baghdad was not the work of mujahideen, but of foreign intelligence agencies out to discredit the resistance. Nothing about this kidnapping fits the pattern of other abductions. Most are opportunistic attacks on treacherous stretches of road. Torretta and her colleagues were coldly hunted down in their home. And while mujahideen in Iraq scrupulously hide their identities, making sure to wrap their faces in scarves, these kidnappers were bare-faced and clean-shaven, some in business suits. One assailant was addressed by the others as "sir". Kidnap victims have overwhelmingly been men, yet three of these four are women. Witnesses say the gunmen questioned staff in the building until the Simonas were identified by name, and that Mahnouz Bassam, an Iraqi woman, was dragged screaming by her headscarf, a shocking religious transgression for an attack supposedly carried out in the name of Islam. Most extraordinary was the size of the operation: rather than the usual three or four fighters, 20 armed men pulled up to the house in broad daylight, seemingly unconcerned about being caught. Only blocks from the heavily patrolled Green Zone, the whole operation went off with no interference from Iraqi police or US military - although Newsweek reported that "about 15 minutes afterwards, an American Humvee convoy passed hardly a block away". And then there were the weapons. The attackers were armed with AK-47s, shotguns, pistols with silencers and stun guns - hardly the mujahideen's standard-issue rusty Kalashnikovs. Strangest of all is this detail: witnesses said that several attackers wore Iraqi National Guard uniforms and identified themselves as working for Ayad Allawi, the interim prime minister. An Iraqi government spokesperson denied that Allawi's office was involved. But Sabah Kadhim, a spokesperson for the interior ministry, conceded that the kidnappers "were wearing military uniforms and flak jackets". So was this a kidnapping by the resistance or a covert police operation? Or was it something worse: a revival of Saddam's mukhabarat disappearances, when agents would arrest enemies of the regime, never to be heard from again? Who could have pulled off such a coordinated operation - and who stands to benefit from an attack on this anti-war NGO? On Monday, the Italian press began reporting on one possible answer. Sheikh Abdul Salam al-Kubaisi, from Iraq's leading Sunni cleric organisation, told reporters in Baghdad that he received a visit from Torretta and Pari the day before the kidnap. "They were scared," the cleric said. "They told me that someone threatened them." Asked who was behind the threats, al-Kubaisi replied: "We suspect some foreign intelligence." Blaming unpopular resistance attacks on CIA or Mossad conspiracies is idle chatter in Baghdad, but coming from Kubaisi, the claim carries unusual weight; he has ties with a range of resistance groups and has brokered the release of several hostages. Kubaisi's allegations have been widely reported in Arab media, as well as in Italy, but have been absent from the English-language press. Western journalists are loath to talk about spies for fear of being labelled conspiracy theorists. But spies and covert operations are not a conspiracy in Iraq; they are a daily reality. According to CIA deputy director James L Pavitt, "Baghdad is home to the largest CIA station since the Vietnam war", with 500 to 600 agents on the ground. Allawi himself is a lifelong spook who has worked with MI6, the CIA and the mukhabarat, specialising in removing enemies of the regime. A Bridge to Baghdad has been unapologetic in its opposition to the occupation regime. During the siege of Falluja in April, it coordinated risky humanitarian missions. US forces had sealed the road to Falluja and banished the press as they prepared to punish the entire city for the gruesome killings of four Blackwater mercenaries. In August, when US marines laid siege to Najaf, A Bridge to Baghdad again went where the occupation forces wanted no witnesses. And the day before their kidnapping, Torretta and Pari told Kubaisi that they were planning yet another high-risk mission to Falluja. In the eight days since their abduction, pleas for their release have crossed all geographical, religious and cultural lines. The Palestinian group Islamic Jihad, Hizbullah, the International Association of Islamic Scholars and several Iraqi resistance groups have all voiced outrage. A resistance group in Falluja said the kidnap suggests collaboration with foreign forces. Yet some voices are conspicuous by their absence: the White House and the office of Allawi. Neither has said a word. What we do know is this: if this hostage-taking ends in bloodshed, Washington, Rome and their Iraqi surrogates will be quick to use the tragedy to justify the brutal occupation - an occupation that Simona Torretta, Simona Pari, Raad Ali Abdul Azziz and Mahnouz Bassam risked their lives to oppose. And we will be left wondering whether that was the plan all along. · Jeremy Scahill is a reporter for the independent US radio/TV show Democracy Now; Naomi Klein is the author of No Logo and Fences and Windows jeremy@democracynow.org www.nologo.com http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1305523,00.html ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 7) Torture for Profit Private contractors face legal action for crimes in Abu Ghraib by David Phinney , Special to CorpWatch September 15th, 2004 http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=11524 Employees of two high-profile defense contractors are accused of involvement in close to one third of the torture and abuse incidents cited in a recent Army investigation of Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. In late August, following release of the report, Defense department officials turned over the names of six CACI International Inc. and Titan Corporation employees to the U.S. Justice department for possible prosecution. But efforts to hold private contract employees truly accountable may fall short due to untested laws on contractor accountability and a U.S. administration that critics say has repeatedly redefined torture in its 'war on terror' and in the war on Iraq. The 176-page Army report, produced under the direction of Maj. Gen. George R. Fay and Lt. Gen. Anthony R. Jones, graphically details 44 incidents of abuse taking place at Abu Ghraib involving military intelligence personnel and contractors. It confirms prior findings of torture including head blows and other physical assault, sodomy, rape, stripping prisoners of their clothing, forcing detainees to masturbate and perform sex acts, the use of unmuzzled dogs and other atrocities and abusive practices. Of the 44 documented incidents, from July 2003 to February 2004, interrogators employed by CACI International, Inc., of Arlington, Va., and translators working for Titan Corp. of San Diego are accused of being connected to 14. Army investigators found evidence that these contract employees violently assaulted prisoners, demanded that prisoners be forced into unauthorized stress positions and threatened prisoners with dogs. It also documents allegations of rape by one witness who told investigators of a civilian, believed to be a translator who was wearing a military uniform. The report asserts that 35 percent of the interrogators provided on contract by CACI "lacked formal military training as interrogators" for what the Pentagon considers a critical military function that should not be outsourced only in extreme and pressing situations. The report also claims that the Army failed to properly investigate the backgrounds of many of the contract employees. The day after the Fay/Jones report was made public August 24, Defense Department officials turned over the names of four CACI and Titan employees accused of active participation in the abuse. Also turned over for possible prosecution were two more employees accused of failing to report torture and abuse that they witnessed. From a variety of perspectives, "the use of contract interrogators and linguists at Abu Ghraib was problematic," the report finds. Leadership at the prison was "unprepared for the arrival of contract interrogators and had no training to fall back on in the management, control, and discipline of these personnel." It also says, "Several people indicated in their statements that that contractor personnel were 'supervising' government personnel or vice versa. [One] Sergeant indicated that CACI employees were in positions of authority, and appeared to be supervising government personnel." The report concludes. "It would appear that no effort to familiarize the ultimate user of the contracted services of the contract's terms and procedures was ever made." One CACI contractor, accused in the report of dragging a handcuffed prisoner and drinking alcohol at the prison, is cited as being belligerent to military command. At one point he is said to have protested: "I have been doing my job for 20 years and do not need a 20-year-old to tell me how to do my job." Both companies have regularly denied such allegations and a CACI internal investigation this summer found no wrongdoing on the part of its employees, a source familiar with the review said. And while the companies intend to aid government investigations of Abu Ghraib, the spokesmen also said the recent Army findings are far less damning than what was originally claimed when the prison scandal originally surfaced last spring. In a company statement CEO Jack London said "Nothing in the Fay report can be construed as CACI employees directing, participating in or even observing anything close to what we have all seen in the dozens of horrendous photos." London stopped short of an unequivocal defense of his employees. "Nonetheless, we are disappointed and disheartened by the news that any of our employees or former employees are alleged to have engaged in any improper or inappropriate behavior." Justice Justice department prosecutors say they are still determining how to proceed on the cases. But since both Justice and Defense have rewritten the definition of torture several times and because the Pentagon has yet to investigate the roles played by the two companies, actual prosecutions are uncertain. Meanwhile, private lawyers are waging two separate court battles claiming that the torture is far more brutal and widespread than what Pentagon investigators publicly acknowledge and that the companies involved should share the blame for the abusive treatment of detainees. Titan and CACI are named as defendants in a suit filed in Federal District Court in Washington, D.C. by Australian lawyer Michael Hourigan. He's suing under the Alien Tort Claims Act, on behalf of four former Abu Ghraib prisoners and the widow of one detainee who died in custody. The suit aims to determine what responsibility the contractors may have in the events at Abu Ghraib, says Atlanta attorney Roderick Edmond who is working with the plaintiffs. "People really were tortured and real people really did die," he says. "These corporations need to be held accountable if they were derelict in their responsibilities of training and supervision and their employees were involved with directing interrogation." CACI rejects and denies the allegations and denounces the suit as "malicious and farcical recitation of false statements and intentional distortions." A second suit, filed by the Center for Constitutional rights, alleges even wider pattern of torture and is brought under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, the 1970 law often used by prosecutors to go after organized crime, which imposes both criminal and civil liability. The suit, filed in Federal Court in San Diego, California alleges violations of the Geneva Conventions, 8th, 5th, and 14th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution as well as other U.S. and international laws. Prosecutions The Titan employees will be considered for prosecution under the still untested Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act. Passed in November 2000, the law permits prosecution in U.S. federal courts of Defense Department contractors who commit crimes while working with the military outside the United States. But the law applies only to crimes carrying a minimum one-year sentence and that may not include incidents of simple assault says Michael Nardotti Jr., a law partner at Patton Boggs in Washington in a May 11 interview with American Lawyer. "Suppose the behavior involves humiliating the detainee, or stripping him naked," said Nardotti, who served as judge advocate general of the Army from 1993 to 1997. "What crime would that constitute? You'd have to look at the whole list of federal offenses and find one that is punishable by more than one year." Alex Ward, a legal fellow for Amnesty International, agrees. "It's a very foggy area," he says. "But assuming that, at the very least, the worst of what the contractors did is true, I imagine that would be punishable." Interrogators employed by CACI pose a more complex problem for prosecutors. The company performed its interrogation work for the Army under a contract originally intended to provide information technology through the Interior Department. Because CACI was technically operating through Interior - and not the Defense Department - wrongdoing by CACI employees may be outside the jurisdiction of the untested Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act. Faced with that dilemma, a Justice Department task force under the U.S. Attorney's office for the Eastern District of Virginia is considering the U.S. criminal code covering torture for possible prosecution, says spokesperson, Frank Schultz. That statute, Title 18, amendment 2340a, defines torture as inflicting "severe physical or mental pain or suffering" and requires that "Whoever outside the United States commits or attempts to commit torture" may be fined or imprisoned for not more than 20 years. "That's part of what is being looked at right now," Shultz said. "It's the prosecutorial process." Defining torture That process may not go very far, says Scott Horton, an attorney who is president of the New York based International League of Human Rights. The group joined other human rights organizations in a May 7 letter to President Bush that claims that the patterns of torture and abuse at Abu Ghraib are widespread at other detention facilities in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. It requests that the president rein in those responsible and assure that the treatment of detainees is consistent with international humanitarian law. "We are talking about an administration and attorney general who have issued opinions saying that torture isn't torture, so it's difficult to believe they seriously intend to prosecute anyone," Horton says. "They have established a policy at the highest level to create an atmosphere of ambiguity." In August, 2002, Jay Bybee, head of the justice department's office of legal counsel wrote Alberto R Gonzales, the White House counsel. "Certain acts may be cruel, inhuman, or degrading, but still not produce pain and suffering of the requisite intensity to fall within [a legal] proscription against torture." Elisa Massimino, director of Human Rights First in the Washington, D.C., office, says these and other memos from the Justice Department, the White House and the Pentagon seek to bend the rules on torture. "The laws are clear," she says. "The only thing that became hazy is the administration." Calls for wider investigation On Sept. 8, 2004 eight retired generals and admirals joined Human Rights First in a call for an independent investigation of Abu Ghraib and other detention centers, saying that previous probes fall short in providing a comprehensive assessment of abuse or meaningful recommendations to address them. "The use of contractors for what is a military function is a huge issue," said retired Navy admiral, John Hutson, who served as the Navy's judge advocate general from 1997 to 2000 and joined in the call for an independent investigation. "It's a problem when contractors are inserted in the chain of command." The Fay report also points an accusing finger up the chain of command, claiming that senior officers in Iraq neglected to provide needed oversight or and lay out "clear, consistent guidance" for the treatment of detainees. Another investigation of Abu Ghraib led by former defense secretary James R. Schlesinger released Aug. 24 aimed even higher. It blames senior civilian and military leaders at the Pentagon for fostering confused guidance, poor planning and plodding response after problems at Abu Ghraib became known. While none of the dozen reports dealing with the treatment of detainees has found direct responsibility by CACI or Titan management for the events at Abu Ghraib, one investigation spearheaded by the General Services Administration (GSA) did review the CACI's interrogation task orders after the prison abuse began making headlines. Because the Army awarded these under a contract managed by the Interior Department for technology services, GSA determined that interrogation was clearly out of scope of the agreement's intent and could be possible grounds for debarring or suspending CACI from future government work. The GSA review also discovered that a CACI employee, Thomas Howard, took part in writing for the Army the very guidelines for the work (called in contract jargon a "statement of work" ) to be performed by CACI. After the review, GSA suspension and debarment official Joseph Neurauter said, in a July 7 letter to the company, that he would not take formal action against CACI. Still, Neurauter expressed concern that "CACI's possible role in preparing statements of work continues to be an open issue and potential conflict of interest." Neurauter requested further response from the company. Following further private discussions with GSA, CACI vowed to comply with federal acquisition regulations in the future. The Army then discontinued funneling the contract through Interior and wrote a new agreement with CACI to continue the interrogation work. "I do not feel that, at this time, it is necessary for me to take any formal action to protect the interests of the federal government," Neurauter concluded. The new contract, announced by CACI on August 10, is for a period of four months, worth $15.3 million, and has two optional extensions worth up to $3.8 million each, for a total value of $23 million. Meanwhile, the Fay/Jones report found that it remains unclear "who, if anyone, in Army contracting or legal channels approved the use" of the original Interior contract. Lawsuits may help investigations The civil suits against CACI and Titan may have more hope of shedding light on the role of the contractors than the GSA investigations. Among other things, the Center for Constitutional Rights lawsuit seeks to prove that CACI and Titan knowingly collaborated with the Defense Department in the prison abuse. Detroit attorney, Shereef Akeel, who is working on the lawsuit, says that he discovered that abuse and torture are widespread at the 23 U.S. detention facilities in Iraq. During a recent fact- finding trip, he visited with detainees, former prisoners and families who said they lost loved ones at the centers. "It is horrific and devastating," Akeel says, adding that the abuse begins when the military raids homes at night in search of suspected insurgents. "Families would be robbed. They are stripped of their dignity and property. The normal routine is a raid with translators carrying guns asking where the father is and where the gold is." Once at the facilities, Akeel says that detainees are subjected to brutality, rape and other forms of abuse. "This is torture for profit," he claims. "The government is there is to promote 'democracy' while companies have two competing masters - shareholders and the government - and they are there for profit." ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 8) Intelligence Proposals Gain in Congress By PHILIP SHENON WASHINGTON, Sept. 15 http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/16/politics/16panel.html WASHINGTON, Sept. 15 - The momentum behind creation of a new, powerful job of national intelligence director gained force on Wednesday with the introduction of a bipartisan Senate bill to grant sweeping budget authority to such an official and a simultaneous promise by House leaders to pass a related bill before going home this fall to campaign for re-election. The bill, introduced by the Republican and Democratic leaders of the Governmental Affairs Committee, would establish the post of national intelligence director and provide the director with control over most of the government's estimated $40 billion annual intelligence budget, including virtually complete authority over spending by the C.I.A., the National Security Agency and the intelligence programs of the F.B.I. and the Homeland Security Department. Creation of such a post was the central recommendation of the independent Sept. 11 commission, and the idea has been endorsed by President Bush over the initial objections of some senior aides. The Governmental Affairs Committee bill has been designated by Senate leaders as the chamber's chief legislative vehicle for responding to the commission's recommendations for overhauling the executive branch, and the bill's authors say it is has been packaged for quick adoption in the Senate, possibly as early as next week. Although House Republican leaders have been notably cooler than their Senate colleagues in their response to the commission's findings and at one time suggested that there would be no time to take up intelligence legislation before the November elections, they vowed on Wednesday that they would approve a related intelligence-overhaul bill before adjourning next month. "We will vote on a final bill before Congress adjourns in October," said the House majority leader, Representative Tom DeLay, Republican of Texas. Speaker J. Dennis Hastert said in a statement that the Republican leadership would introduce a "comprehensive bill early next week" with the goal of "having the bill on the House floor by late September." House leaders have been unwilling to discuss many of the details of their planned legislation, and members of the Sept. 11 commission and some lawmakers have said they fear that the House may try to water down the commission's main recommendations, creating a conflict with the Senate bill and derailing final approval. John Feehery, a spokesman for Mr. Hastert, said that while the speaker supported the idea of a national intelligence director, he was still uncertain how much budgetary and other power should be granted. "That's the big issue," Mr. Feehery said, "and it's a matter of negotiation not only with our committees but also with the White House." The Senate bill was introduced by Senators Susan Collins, the Maine Republican who is chairwoman of the Governmental Affairs Committee, and Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, the panel's ranking Democrat. Committee aides said that final mark-up of the bill was scheduled for next Tuesday and Wednesday, with the possibility of a final vote on the Senate floor days later. "We must transform our intelligence system to meet the threats of today and the future," Senator Collins said at a news conference to announce the bill. "We establish a national intelligence director with strong authority - strong budget authority, strong personnel authority." She said that if the intelligence director "did not have strong budget authority, we really would just be creating another level of bureaucracy." Senator Lieberman said the bill would produce "revolutionary changes" in the way the government gathered and shared intelligence. "Under our plan, when somebody asks, 'Who's in charge?' the question will not be met with blank stares and nonanswers, which greeted the 9/11 commission every time they asked somebody that question," Mr. Lieberman said. While the Senate bill differs in significant ways from some of the proposals made by the Sept. 11 commission - among other things, the bill would not have senior officials of the C.I.A., the F.B.I. and the Pentagon serve as deputies to the intelligence director - it was still welcomed by the bipartisan commission. In a joint statement, the commission chairman, Thomas H. Kean, a former Republican governor of New Jersey, and the vice chairman, Lee H. Hamilton, a former Democratic House member from Indiana and former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, welcomed the Senate bill, describing it as a "significant breakthrough" that "appears to incorporate some of the most important structural recommendations contained in our report." "We consider this legislation an important first step in moving our nation in a direction that will greatly increase the safety of the American people," they said. Their statement was released by their newly opened educational foundation, the 9/11 Public Discourse Project, which has been created to continue to lobby the White House and Congress on behalf of the commission's recommendations. Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company
Wednesday, September 15, 2004
BAUAW NEWSLETTER, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 2004
1) It's Worse Than You Think
As Americans Debate Vietnam, the U.S. Death Toll Tops 1,000 in Iraq. And the Insurgents are Still Getting Stronger by Scott Johnson and Babak Dehghanpisheh Published on Tuesday, September 14, 2004 by Newsweek http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0914-25.htm 2) The Dead End of ABB By Anthony Arnove From: "Cold Mountain, Cold Rivers" Subject: CMCR: Politics of Anybody But Bush Date: Tue, 14 Sep 2004 15:31:17 -0600 Z Magazine 3) Subject: NOV 19-21 - CLOSE THE SOA - Llamado a la accion - Call to Action From: "SOA Watch" Date: Tue, 14 Sep 2004 13:57:37 -0400 List-Id: School of the Americas Watch List-Subscribe: List-Archive: 4) Sharon hints that Arafat may be killed Chris McGreal in Jerusalem The Guardian Wednesday September 15, 2004 http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,5016122-103552,00.html 5) Headwaters Pepper Spray Trial Come and Witness the Trial The Federal Building is at 450 Golden Gate Ave. between Larkin and Polk Streets near the Civic Center Bart Station Judge Susan Illston's Courtroom is on the 19TH floor 6) Action Alert! Oil Spill in Russian Far East from: globalfinance@action.ran.org Date: September 13, 2004 7) In censoring Al-Jazeera Canada is conceding its moral high ground By OMAR ALGHABRA* Globe and Mail http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20040915.wjazeera15/ BNStory/Front/?query=Al-Jazeera 8) Canadian Bullets, Dead Iraqis by Ytzhak Tuesday September 14, 2004 montfu65@hotmail.com http://victoria.indymedia.org/news/2004/09/30644.php 9) Israel intensifies land seizures By Khalid Amayreh in the West Bank Tuesday 14 September 2004 http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/7A1982B9-EF9F-463E-BEE5- 88209C2078FA.htm ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 1) It's Worse Than You Think As Americans Debate Vietnam, the U.S. Death Toll Tops 1,000 in Iraq. And the Insurgents are Still Getting Stronger by Scott Johnson and Babak Dehghanpisheh Published on Tuesday, September 14, 2004 by Newsweek http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0914-25.htm BAGHDAD - Iraqis don't shock easily these days, but eyewitnesses could only blink in disbelief as they recounted last Tuesday's broad- daylight kidnappings in central Baghdad. At about 5 in the afternoon, on a quiet side street outside the Ibn Haitham hospital, a gang armed with pistols, AK-47s and pump-action shotguns raided a small house used by three Italian aid groups. The gunmen, none of them wearing masks, took orders from a smooth- shaven man in a gray suit; they called him "sir." When they drove off, the gunmen had four hostages: two local NGO employees-one of them a woman who was dragged out of the house by her headscarf-and two 29-year-old Italians, Simona Pari and Simona Torretta, both members of the antiwar group A Bridge to Baghdad. The whole job took less than 10 minutes. Not a shot was fired. About 15 minutes afterward, an American Humvee convoy passed hardly a block away-headed in the opposite direction. Sixteen months after the war's supposed end, Iraq's insurgency is spreading. Each successful demand by kidnappers has spawned more hostage-takings-to make Philippine troops go home, to stop Turkish truckers from hauling supplies into Iraq, to extort fat ransom payments from Kuwaitis. The few relief groups that remain in Iraq are talking seriously about leaving. U.S. forces have effectively ceded entire cities to the insurgents, and much of the country elsewhere is a battleground. Last week the total number of U.S. war dead in Iraq passed the 1,000 mark, reaching 1,007 by the end of Saturday. U.S. forces are working frantically to train Iraqis for the thankless job of maintaining public order. The aim is to boost Iraqi security forces from 95,000 to 200,000 by sometime next year. Then, using a mixture of force and diplomacy, the Americans plan to retake cities and install credible local forces. That's the hope, anyway. But the quality of new recruits is debatable. During recent street demonstrations in Najaf, police opened fire on crowds, killing and injuring dozens. The insurgents, meanwhile, are recruiting, too. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld once referred to America's foes in Iraq as "dead-enders," then the Pentagon maintained they probably numbered 5,000, and now senior military officials talk about "dozens of regional cells" that could call upon as many as 20,000 fighters. Yet U.S. officials publicly insist that Iraq will somehow hold national elections before the end of January. The appointed council currently acting as Iraq's government under interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi is to be replaced by an elected constitutional assembly-if the vote takes place. "I presume the election will be delayed," says the Iraqi Interior Ministry's chief spokesman, Sabah Kadhim. A senior Iraqi official sees no chance of January elections: "I'm convinced that it's not going to happen. It's just not realistic. How is it going to happen?" Some Iraqis worry that America will stick to its schedule despite all obstacles. "The Americans have created a series of fictional dates and events in order to delude themselves," says Ghassan Atiyya, director of the independent Iraq Foundation for Development and Democracy, who recently met with Allawi and American representatives to discuss the January agenda. "Badly prepared elections, rather than healing wounds, will open them." America has its own Election Day to worry about. For U.S. troops in Iraq, one especially sore point is the stateside public's obsession with the candidates' decades-old military service. "Stop talking about Vietnam," says one U.S. official who has spent time in the Sunni Triangle. "People should be debating this war, not that one." His point was not that America ought to walk away from Iraq. Hardly any U.S. personnel would call that a sane suggestion. But there's widespread agreement that Washington needs to rethink its objectives, and quickly. "We're dealing with a population that hovers between bare tolerance and outright hostility," says a senior U.S. diplomat in Baghdad. "This idea of a functioning democracy here is crazy. We thought that there would be a reprieve after sovereignty, but all hell is breaking loose." It's not only that U.S. casualty figures keep climbing. American counterinsurgency experts are noticing some disturbing trends in those statistics. The Defense Department counted 87 attacks per day on U.S. forces in August-the worst monthly average since Bush's flight-suited visit to the USS Abraham Lincoln in May 2003. Preliminary analysis of the July and August numbers also suggests that U.S. troops are being attacked across a wider area of Iraq than ever before. And the number of gunshot casualties apparently took a huge jump in August. Until then, explosive devices and shrapnel were the primary cause of combat injuries, typical of a "phase two" insurgency, where sudden ambushes are the rule. (Phase one is the recruitment phase, with most actions confined to sabotage. That's how things started in Iraq.) Bullet wounds would mean the insurgents are standing and fighting-a step up to phase three. Another ominous sign is the growing number of towns that U.S. troops simply avoid. A senior Defense official objects to calling them "no-go areas." "We could go into them any time we wanted," he argues. The preferred term is "insurgent enclaves." They're spreading. Counterinsurgency experts call it the "inkblot strategy": take control of several towns or villages and expand outward until the areas merge. The first city lost to the insurgents was Fallujah, in April. Now the list includes the Sunni Triangle cities of Ar Ramadi, Baqubah and Samarra, where power shifted back and forth between the insurgents and American-backed leaders last week. "There is no security force there (in Fallujah], no local government," says a senior U.S. military official in Baghdad. "We would get attacked constantly. Forget about it." U.S. military planners only wish they could. "What we see is a classic progression," says Andrew Krepinevich, author of the highly respected study "The Army and Vietnam." "What we also see is that the U.S. military is not trained or organized to fight insurgencies. That was the deliberate choice after Vietnam. Now we look to be paying the price." Americans aren't safe even on the outskirts of a city like Fallujah. Early last week a suicide bomber rammed his vehicle into two U.S. Humvees nine miles north of town on the four-lane concrete bypass called Highway 10. Seven Americans died. It was one of the deadliest blows against U.S. forces since June, when Iraqis formally resumed control of their government. As much as ordinary Iraqis may hate the insurgents, they blame the Americans for creating the whole mess. Three months ago Iraqi troops and U.S.-dominated "multinational forces" pulled out of Samarra, and insurgents took over the place immediately. "The day the MNF left, people celebrated in the streets," says Kadhim, the Interior spokesman. "But that same day, vans arrived in town and started shooting. They came from Fallujah and other places and they started blowing up houses." Local elders begged Allawi's government to send help. "The leaders of the tribes come to see us and they say, 'Really, we are scared, we don't like these people'," Kadhim continues. "But we just don't have the forces at the moment to help them." Last week negotiators reached a tentative peace deal, but it's not likely to survive long. The Iraqi National Guard is the only homegrown security force that people respect, and all available ING personnel are deployed elsewhere. Will Iraq's troubles get even worse? "The insurgency can certainly sustain what it's doing for a while," says a senior U.S. military official. Many educated Iraqis aren't waiting to find out. Applicants mobbed the courtyard of the Baghdad passport office last week, desperate for a chance to escape. Police fired shots in the air, trying to control the crowd. "Every day there is shooting, gunfire, people killed, headaches for lack of sleep," said Huda Hussein, 34, a Ph.D. in computer science who has spent the past year and a half looking for work. "I want to go to a calm place for a while." It's too bad for Iraq-and for America-that the insurgents don't share that wish. (c) Newsweek 2004 ### (c) Copyrighted 1997-2004 www.commondreams.org ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 2) The Dead End of ABB By Anthony Arnove From: "Cold Mountain, Cold Rivers" Subject: CMCR: Politics of Anybody But Bush Date: Tue, 14 Sep 2004 15:31:17 -0600 Z Magazine ABB -- Anybody But Bush -- is one of the most harmful slogans progressives have put forward in decades. The slogan tells John Kerry and the Democrats that they don't need to do anything to win our vote. As the satiric Onion newspaper joked, Kerry can safely run on a "one-point program": that he is not George Bush. But even that one-point program is in question. Kerry said he supports Bush's policies on Israel "100 percent," his tax cuts "98 percent," and the Patriot Act (which his aides boast he helped to write, in addition to having voted for it) "94 percent." On Iraq, as we now know, Kerry says he would have voted to authorize the invasion even if he knew that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction. Kerry's real argument with Bush is over how best to have run the invasion and occupation, not over its logic or morality. Kerry thinks he can oversee the "war on terror" more effectively, with more international support, and, as Arundhati Roy has noted in a recent speech, with "Indian and Pakistani soldiers to do the killing and dying in Iraq." As Ali Abunimah argued on Electronic Iraq web site on April 29, "What Kerry's plan boils down to then is this: he is more charming than Bush." ABB tells the Democrats that they can ignore the vibrant antiwar movement we have built over the past two years; that they can take workers, trade unionists, women, African Americans, Latinos, Native Americans, Asian Americans -- and anyone else who rejects Bush's policies --for granted. ABB also leads to apologetics for Kerry and the Democrats: the deliberate downplaying of their role in passing the Patriot Act, supporting the invasion of Iraq (and before that the brutal sanctions and the regular bombing of the country), and justifying wars in the name of humanitarianism. Perhaps worst of all, ABB creates a false sense of how change happens: at the ballot box and through the Democratic Party. In fact, history suggests the opposite: that we have achieved substantive change only when collectively acting outside "official" institutions to force politicians, whether Democrat or Republican, to meet our demands and to make concessions that they otherwise would not have made. This is not to say the left should call for a vote for Bush or that "things must get worse before they get better." That is a caricature of the argument against ABB. The truth is, we will have to wage many of the same battles regardless of who wins November 2: against the occupations of Iraq, Palestine, and Afghanistan, against the ongoing attack on the basic rights of workers, immigrants, and the poor in this country, and for abortion rights, for environmental protection, for civil rights. If Kerry wins, we can reasonably expect that we will also face some new challenges: many of the people who marched with us on February 15 and March 22, 2003, and last week in New York will tell us to "give Kerry a chance" and that we can't do better than what Kerry has on offer. Many liberal organizations will accept under Kerry what they otherwise would have opposed stridently under Bush. People say "this time will be different than when Clinton is elected," and that we won't get fooled again, but there's little reason to think that the dynamic of the Democrats' ability to co-opt and contain social movements will suddenly change, especially given the prevalence of ABB arguments that are sowing illusions about the kind of change a Kerry administration will bring. In reality, the Democrats are likely to keep shifting the goalposts to the right, allowing the Republicans to then beat their chests even harder and expose the Democrats, who have accepted their warmongering assumptions. On August 26, Todd Gitlin revealed the real dead end of the ABB position. In a debate with journalist and global justice activist Naomi Klein on Democracy Now!, Gitlin argued, "My position is that John Kerry is the possibility of restarting politics. Right now, we have no possibility of politics because we have a one-party state." If we have a one-party state, it is because the Democrats, with Kerry prominently among them, have not acted remotely as an opposition party. So this is hardly an argument for a Kerry vote. Rather, it suggests the need to support a third (or, more honestly, "second" party) effort, since the Democrats and Republicans are in effect two wings of the same corporate party. More importantly, contra Gitlin, politics did not stop with the election of George W. Bush, anymore than it stopped with the election of Ronald Reagan or Richard Nixon. Gitlin's argument is an insult to people who have been building opposition to racist attacks on immigrants, to the invasion and occupation of Iraq, to U.S. funding of Israel's apartheid wall and expansion of its settlements, and to the many social costs of the "war on terror" on home during the last three years. Gitlin also ignores the victories we have won under the Republicans historically and even under Bush: including victories against the death penalty (notably in Illinois, under Governor George Ryan, a Republican, and even at the level of the Supreme Court) and in restricting the scope of civil rights rollback attempted by this administration. It was under the Bush onslaught that the largest coordinated protest in human history took place, on February 15, 2003. Millions of people -- including military personnel and their families, and targeted groups such as Arabs, Muslims, and immigrants -- have stood up against intimidation to oppose war and occupation. History does not support the thesis that the Democrats are more open to pressure from below. They resisted the movement against the war in Vietnam every bit as viciously as the Republicans, escalating the war after running on a peace platform. Under Clinton, we saw the end of welfare, a severe rollback in worker's rights, a major spike in the number of people without any health insurance or underinsured, declining real wages, and the indiscriminate bombing of Iraq, Sudan, Yugoslavia, and Afghanistan. Much of the left was satisfied with the illusion of "access" to Clinton, actively undermining genuine mobilization against his agenda. And Kerry's program stands even to the right of Clinton. To those who suggest Kerry is just talking right to get elected, as many progressives have asserted (in a left version of faith-based politics), three questions must be asked. First, when has a politician ever talked right and governed left? The history of the Democrats is that they talk left, and govern right, a frightening prospect in Kerry's case. Second, why should we support a candidate whose election strategy is to chase Bush's social base, while ignoring the majority of people in the United States who now say they oppose the invasion of Iraq? And finally, to whom is Kerry accountable? Us, the antiwar movement, the social movements, or his backers on Wall Street, many of whom prefer to have the less provocative Kerry at the helm of U.S. imperialism than the bridge-burning Bush? Regardless of who you plan to vote for in November (if anyone at all), the assumptions behind ABB stand in the way of building movements that can bring about political change. We need to chart a course that looks beyond the election to long-term efforts that will necessarily have to be independent of -- and oppositional to -- the Democrats, as well as the Republicans. We can't do that while shilling for the Democrats, and letting them of the hook. Anthony Arnove is co-editor with Howard Zinn of Voices of a People's History of the United States, out October 1 from Seven Stories Press. -- Cold Mountain, Cold Rivers Working at the Crossroads of Human & Environmental Rights since 1990 PO Box 7941 Missoula, Montana USA 59807 phone: 406-728-0867 email: cmcr@wildrockies.org website: http://www.wildrockies.org/cmcr ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 3) Subject: NOV 19-21 - CLOSE THE SOA - Llamado a la accion - Call to Action From: "SOA Watch" Date: Tue, 14 Sep 2004 13:57:37 -0400 List-Id: School of the Americas Watch List-Subscribe: List-Archive: ** please forward widely ** please forward widely ** please forward widely ** (el español sigue) CALL TO ACTION: SHUT DOWN THE SCHOOL OF THE AMERICAS! NOVEMBER 19-21, 2004, FORT BENNING, GEORGIA The School of the Americas (SOA), renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation or WHINSEC, is a combat training school for Latin American security personnel located at Fort Benning, Georgia. Initially established in Panama in 1946, the SOA was kicked out of that country in 1984 under the terms of the Panama Canal Treaty. Former Panamanian President Jorge Illueca stated that the School of the Americas was the "biggest base for destabilization in Latin America." The SOA/WHINSEC, funded by US taxpayer money, has trained over 60,000 Latin American soldiers in such courses as counterinsurgency techniques, sniper training, commando and psychological warfare, military intelligence and interrogation tactics. For over a decade, students, religious, labor, veterans, human rights, and social and global justice groups have been converging every November at the gates of Fort Benning, Georgia to speak out in solidarity with the people of the Americas and to engage in nonviolent direct action. We will gather again this year on November 20 and 21, 2004 to continue together in the struggle until the School of the Americas is closed and the policies it represents are changed forever! This "School of Assassins," in the guise of promoting democracy, has graduated eleven Latin American dictators, including Manuel Noriega of Panama, Efrain Rios Montt of Guatemala, and Hugo Banzar Suárez of Bolivia. Graduates of the school have been consistently linked to human rights violations and to the suppression of popular movements in Central and South America of people demanding access to land, safer working conditions and control of their own natural resources. For decades, while supporting death squads, propping up dictators and actually overthrowing democratically elected leaders, the US government claimed it was bringing democracy to Latin America. We do not believe that you can bring about positive social change through the use of force. You cannot spread democracy through the barrel of a gun! WHAT CAN YOU DO? ** Come to Fort Benning this November! Teach-ins, trainings, and caucuses will begin on Friday, November 19. On Saturday and Sunday thousands will gather at the main gate of Fort Benning for rallies, music, speakers and nonviolent direct action. Check back at www.SOAW.org as plans unfold and various events are announced in more detail. ** Engage in Nonviolent Direct Action on Sunday, November 21st. Every year groups of people decide to take their message onto the base, publicly defying the laws which prevent political speech on military bases and making a bold call for the closure of the "School of Assassins." This year, we encourage people to come as individuals and affinity groups to take nonviolent direct action to help liberate us all from oppressive US foreign policy in Latin America and to close the SOA/WHINSEC. ** Organize In Your Community: organize nonviolent direct action trainings, talks about the SOA, video showings or other educational events in your community in the next two months. Write to your Members of Congress and ask them to support legislation to close the SOA/WHINSEC. Organize a bus, vans or car-pool to Georgia, publicize the vigil action in your region and invite others to join you. Discern together with family and friends and consider engaging in nonviolent civil resistance in November. For more information, educational resources, outreach materials such as fliers and videos, logistics and travel info and to get plugged into the November organizing, please call 202-234-3440 and visit www.SOAW.org. Resistance organizing costs money. To help SOA Watch cover the costs of November organizing click here: http://www.soaw.org/new/article.php?id=546. SEE YOU AT THE GATES OF FORT BENNING! * * Por favor difundir al máximo * * Por favor difundir al máximo * * LLAMADO A LA ACCIÃN:¡CERREMOS LA ESCUELA DE LAS AMÃRICAS! DEL 19 AL 21 DE NOVIEMBRE, 2004, FORT BENNING, GEORGIA La Escuela de las Américas (SOA por sus siglas en inglés), rebautizada como el Instituto de Cooperación para la Seguridad Hemisférica (WHINSEC, por sus siglas en inglés), es una escuela para entrenamiento de combate para personal de seguridad Latinoamericano situada en Fuerte Benning, Georgia. Establecida inicialmente en Panamá en el 1946, la SOA fue expulsada de dicho pais en el 1984 por el tratado del Canal de Panama. El anterior presidente Panameño, Jorge Illueca, declaró que la Escuela de las Americas era la "mayor base para la desetabilización en Latinoamérica." La SOA/WHINSEC, mantenida con el dinero de los impuestos del contribuyente estadounidense, ha entrenado a mas de 60.000 militares Latinoamericanos en cursos de técnicas de contrainsurgencia, entrenamiento de francotiradores, comandos de guerra psicológica, inteligencia militar y técnicas de interrogación. Durante más de una decada, grupos de estudiantes, religiosos, trabajadores, veteranos de guerra, asà como grupos que luchan por los derechos humanos y la justicia social se han reunido cada noviembre en las puertas de Fuerte Benning, Georgia para hablar claro y en solidaridad con los pueblos de las Américas y comprometerse en la acción directa y no-violenta. Nos reuniremos de nuevo este año, los 20 y 21 de noviembre de 2004 para continuar juntos nuestra lucha hasta el cierre de la Escuela de las Américas y hasta que la polÃtica que representa cambie para siempre! En "Escuela de Asesinos," con el pretexto de promover la democracia, se han graduado once dictadores Latinoamericanos, incluyendo a Manuel Noriega, de Panamá, Efrain Rios Montt, de Guatemala y Hugo Banzar Suaréz, de Bolivia. Los graduados de la escuela han estado repetidamente relacionados con violaciones de derechos humanos y la supresión de movimientos populares en América Central y del Sur, de gente pidiendo acceso a la tierra, condiciones de trabajo dignas y el control de sus propios recursos naturales. Durante decadas, el gobierno de los Estados Unidos, a la vez que mantenia escuadrones de la muerte, apoyaba a dictadores y deponia a lideres elegidos democráticamente, proclamaba estar trayendo la democracia a Latinoamérica. Nosotros no creemos que se pueda hacer un cambio social positivo con el uso de la violencia. ¡La democracia no se puede extender a punto de pistola! ¿Y Tà QUà PUEDES HACER? ** ¡Ven a Fuerte Benning este noviembre! Los entrenamientos y charlas empezarán el viernes 19 de Noviembre. El sábado y domingo nos reuniremos miles de personas en la entrada principal de Fuerte Benning para mitines, música, oradores y acción directa y no-violenta. Mira en www.SOAW.org el desarrollo de los planes y los diferentes eventos que se van anunciando. ** Participa en la acción directa y no-violenta del domingo, 21 de noviembre. Cada año grupos de personas, llevan su claro mensaje a la base, desafiando públicamente las leyes que prohÃben hablar de polÃtica en las bases militares y pidiendo valientemente el cierre definitivo de la "Escuela de Asesinos." Este año animamos a la gente a que venga individualmente y en grupos a participar en la acción directa y no-violenta para librarnos de la opresiva polÃtica exterior de EEUU en Latinoamérica y cerrar la SOA/WHINSEC. ** Haz algo en tu comunidad. Organiza entrenamientos de acción directa y no-violenta, charlas acerca de la SOA, videos u otros eventos educativos en tu comunidad durante los dos meses próximos. Escribe a tus congresistas y pÃdeles que apoyen las leyes para cerrar la SOA/WHINSEC. Organiza grupos de gente que compartan autobuses, camiones o coches hacia Georgia. Dá publicidad a esta vigÃlia en tu zona e invita a otros a unirse contigo. Discierne con tu familia y tus amigos y considerad el uniros a la resistencia civil y no-violenta de noviembre. Para obtener más información y material educativo como folletos, videos, información sobre logÃstica y viaje y para conectarte con la organización de este noviembre, ponte en contacto con SOA Watch llamando a 202-234-3440 y visitando a www.SOAW.org. Organizar la resistencia cuesta dinero. Para ayudar a cubrir los gastos de organización del SOA Watch de este noviembre, pulsa aquÃ: http://www.soaw.org/new/article.php?id=546. ¡NOS VEMOS EN LA ENTRADA DEL FUERTE BENNING! SOA Watch ~ PO Box 4566 ~ Washington DC 20017 ~ (202)234-3440 ~ www.soaw.org Search /RENEGADE/ for articles that mention the School of the Americas - http://fornits.com/renegade/peaars.cgi?keywords=School+Americas&how=all Search /RENEGADE/ for articles that mention human rights - http://fornits.com/renegade/peaars.cgi?keywords=human+rights&how=phrase /RENEGADE/ Search - GO TO: http://fornits.com/renegade/peaars.cgi? and just type in your topic. For differing results you may uncheck "article" and search on just "subject," etc. /RENEGADE/ also has "time-frame" in the search, so you can tailor your results that way, too. For more information about the School of the Americas and SOA Watch, see: http://www.soaw.org/ or send email to info@soaw.org ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 4) Sharon hints that Arafat may be killed Chris McGreal in Jerusalem The Guardian Wednesday September 15, 2004 http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,5016122-103552,00.html Ariel Sharon has threatened that Yasser Arafat will meet the same fate as Hamas leaders who were assassinated earlier this year by the Israeli military. In ambiguous comments to Israeli newspapers to mark the Jewish new year, the prime minister said he intends to force the Palestinian leader into exile. But he also hinted that Mr Arafat might be killed. Speaking to Ma'ariv newspaper, Mr Sharon made direct reference to the Hamas spiritual leader, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, who was assassinated by a missile in Gaza in March, and his successor as the Islamic resistance movement's leader, Abdel-Aziz al-Rantissi, who was killed by the Israelis the following month. "We operated against Ahmed Yassin and Abdel-Aziz al-Rantissi when we thought the time was suitable. On the matter of Arafat we'll operate in the same way, when we find the convenient and suitable time. One needs to find the time and to do what has to be done," said Mr Sharon. However, the prime minister told other newspapers that he would send Mr Arafat into exile. Sheikh Yassin and Mr al-Rantissi were both exiled from the occupied territories at one time. A prominent Palestinian minister, Saeb Erekat, said Mr Sharon's comments show that he intends "to kill President Arafat and to push the Palestinian people toward chaos". But the Israeli prime minister's son, Omri, a member of parliament, said that the possibility of assassination "does not exist" and that Israel should leave Mr Arafat "stuck" in his battered Ramallah compound. "If we do this foolishness and hit him, will an [alternative Palestinian leader] arise? No, he will be seen as your collaborator," Omri Sharon told members of the ruling Likud's central committee. In April, Mr Sharon backed away from a personal pledge to President Bush not to harm the Palestinian leader by saying that whoever kills Jews or orders their deaths "is a marked man". However, it is thought unlikely the prime minister intends to move against Mr Arafat in the near future. The threat may be timed to try to reassure critics on the far right that the government's plan to pull 7,500 Jews out of the Gaza strip, and a small number from a part of the West Bank, does not represent a weakening of its resolve to confront the Palestinian leadership. Mr Sharon's security cabinet yesterday approved steps to begin the Gaza pullout, including compensation payments to Jewish settlers of up to £280,000. The government is offering bonuses to settlers who agree to leave of their own accord in the hope of defusing resistance to the pullout. The government expects to spend £350m compensating settlers and a similar amount moving military installations and other infrastructure. Mr Sharon also rebuffed pressure from his finance minister and chief political rival, Binyamin Netanyahu, for a referendum on the withdrawal. Mr Netanyahu argues that a ballot would lend legitimacy to the "disengagement plan" and weaken claims by the settlers and the far right that Mr Sharon is acting undemocratically by ignoring a poll within his Likud party that rejected the pullout. Mr Netanyahu said that without a vote there could be an "explosion" of resistance by the settlers and their supporters. But the prime minister accused him of siding with the settlers. "The real intention is to delay implementation," said Mr Sharon. "If a minister thinks that we are facing an explosion, he needs to act with all his might to make sure that there is no explosion, so that no one might even contemplate that by means of threats of explosion a cabinet decision can be changed. Instead of stamping a seal of approval on those threats and capitulating to them, I would expect from him and the other ministers to express in the strongest terms possible their opposition to threats." The police said they were investigating death threats against Mr Sharon and officials responsible for implementing disengagement. Jerusalem's chief of police, Ilan Franco, said: "We have opened an intensive investigation regarding threats that have been received in recent days. The threats were to murder the prime minister and officials in the administration." The Israeli news service, YNet, quoted officials from the Shin Bet security service as saying they feared for Mr Sharon's safety and "would prefer for the prime minister to avoid leaving his office". · Masked gunmen shot dead an accused rapist on his way to court in the West Bank city of Ramallah yesterday. The shooting marked the second fatal attack in less than two months on detainees in the custody of Palestinian security forces. Palestinians have faced internal strife recently, stirred by militants complaining of corruption in the Palestinian security forces. The gunmen attacked the car in which Ramy Yaghmour and other detainees were travelling from the Palestinian special forces headquarters. Guardian Unlimited (c) Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004 ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 5) Headwaters Pepper Spray Trial Come and Witness the Trial The Federal Building is at 450 Golden Gate Ave. between Larkin and Polk Streets near the Civic Center Bart Station Judge Susan Illston's Courtroom is on the 19TH floor A group of non-violent forest defense activists in Humboldt County who were tortured with pepper spray by county sheriff's sued the county, the sheriff and his chief deputy, and the City of Eureka for using excessive force. A 1998 trial in San Francisco ended with a hung jury and then dismissal by the judge. After five years of appeals, the U. S. Supreme Court and the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals overruled the judge and ordered a new trial, which the judge then set for May 12, 2003 in Eureka, California. The 9th Circuit granted an emergency writ to remove the judge for apparent bias and canceled his relocation of the trial. Although the defendants have appealed once again to the Supreme Court to overturn that decision, our new judge set a new retrial date in San Francisco. The trial is going is on right now. We need you to come and witness the trial. A courtroom full of people who want pepper spray torture stopped can make a huge impact! Recent global events have illustrated that abuses spread when authorities decide certain groups and individuals don't deserve human rights protection. Shockingly, state officials have condoned these practices into guidelines for dealing with civil disobedience in California. This case could turn that around. ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 6) Action Alert! Oil Spill in Russian Far East from: globalfinance@action.ran.org Date: September 13, 2004 Dear Friend, On September 8 a ship ran aground on the shores of Sakhalin Island, in the Russian far east. The ship was operating dredging equipment for an offshore oil project, and spilled thousands of gallons of oil into the water, polluting the beaches of the coastal community of Kholmsk. Experts have warned that a similar or worse accident could occur in other pristine Sakhalin waters that are home to the world's last population of 100 Western Gray Whales. Credit Suisse First Boston is serving as financial advisor to this Shell Oil project even though it violates the terms of the Equator Principles, which it signed many months ago. "Shell has refused to adopt necessary oil spill prevention measures that would keep spills like this from happening," said David Gordon, Executive Director of Pacific Environment, a California-based environmental organization that is monitoring Sakhalin offshore oil development. "Now that the oil is in the water, it's too late to clean it up. The damage has been done. It is a tragedy for Sakhalin Island and especially for the people of Kholmsk." Take action today to tell Credit Suisse First Boston to withdraw funding for this egregious project and to adopt comprehensive environmental standards immediately to prevent this kind of tragedy from happening again. More Information about Sakhalin Island can be found at: http://www.pacificenvironment.org Take Action! 1. Raise your mouse: click the link below to send a fax to John Mack, CEO of Credit Suisse First Boston: http://action.ran.org/action/index.asp?step=2&item=21290&ms=Sakhalinalert 2. Raise your voice: Call Mr. Mack today at (212) 325-3630. Some suggested talking points are listed below. 3. Raise awareness: Forward this message to your friends. Ask them to call or send a letter online at: http://action.ran.org/action/index.asp?step=2&item=21290&ms=Sakhalinalert -Demand that Credit Suisse First Boston withdraw financial support immediately from the Sakhalin II project, which clearly violates the terms of the Equator Principles, to which it is a signatory. -Demand that Credit Suisse First Boston adopt comprehensive social and environmental standards for investment that meet or exceed industry best practices set by Citigroup and Bank of America earlier this year. Thanks for your support! For the Earth and for Justice, Dan and Ilyse The RAN Global Finance Team Sept 13, 2004 Peace, No War War is not the answer, for only love can conquer hate Not in our Name! And another world is possible! Information for antiwar movements, news across the World, please visit: http://www.PeaceNoWar.net Please Join PeaceNoWar Listserv, send e-mail to: peacenowar-subscribe@lists.riseup.net *Peace No War Network is an activist project of ActionLA Action for World Liberation Everyday! URL: http://www.ActionLA.org e-mail: Info@ActionLA.org Please join our ActionLA Listserv go to: http://lists.riseup.net/www/subscribe/actionla or send e-mail to: actionla-subscribe@lists.riseup.net *To Translate this page to Arabic, please visit ajeeb.com: http://tarjim.ajeeb.com/ajeeb/default.asp?lang=1 *To Translate this page to French, Spanish, German, Italian or Portuguese, please visit Systran: http://www.systransoft.com/ ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 7) In censoring Al-Jazeera Canada is conceding its moral high ground By OMAR ALGHABRA* Globe and Mail http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20040915.wjazeera15/ BNStory/Front/?query=Al-Jazeera On July 15, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission issued a conditional approval to the addition of the Arabic- language news channel Al-Jazeera for distribution by Canadian cable and satellite companies. The conditional provisions stipulated that cable carriers could "alter or curtail" the programming of Al-Jazeera to ensure that no "abusive comment" is broadcast. But no specific definition of "abusive" was provided. This has placed the onus on cable companies to act as censors. Most Canadians were perplexed by the harsh, ambiguous and unprecedented restrictions put forth by the CRTC decision. The controversy stirred a great deal of media attention at the time. Nearly all the editorials, commentaries and columnists agreed that the decision had amounted to unwarranted censorship. Cable companies have already declared their refusal to carry Al-Jazeera under those terms. "Cable companies do not want to be forced into the position of having to decide what is appropriate for Canadians to watch," said Canadian Cable Television Association president Michael Hennessy. "This sets a frightening precedent and virtually ensures that no distributor will ever carry this service in Canada." More than 500,000 Canadian Arabs are affected by the CRTC decision. They are being denied the right to information and news free of censorship in violation of Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: "Everyone has the right ..... to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers." The CRTC is effectively denying Canadian Arabs the opportunity to seek and receive information and news from and about the Arab world through Al-Jazeera. During the 15-month deliberation period before the decision was announced, some Canadian Jewish organizations argued that Al-Jazeera could spread hatred against Jews in Canada. In an attempt to address those concerns, the CRTC decided to give cable companies the unprecedented right to censor content - a responsibility usually reserved for federal and provincial regulatory bodies such as the Ontario Film Review Board. Considering that Al-Jazeera has never been viewed by most Canadians and regulatory bodies, claims against it have never been proved. In their claim, advocates of censoring Al-Jazeera failed to make the distinction between news reporting and editorial positions. They also failed to differentiate between politically controversial discussions or racial/religious hate propaganda. Al-Jazeera, now one of the most recognizable news organizations in the world, is arguably the most progressive civic institution in the Arab world. Its independence, professionalism and content have influenced the political landscape across the Arab region and around the world. This year, Al-Jazeera published a code of ethics governing news gathering and editorial policies, regulations that other equally professional and credible news organizations lack. The fact is, Al-Jazeera deals, on a daily basis, with one of the world's most dynamic and politically diverse regions. Controversial topics, provocative figures, underdeveloped political institutions and state-controlled media are elements that make up the reality of the Middle East. Al-Jazeera does more than any other institution to deal with complex issues facing that region by drawing attention to them and challenging common assumptions. It does more for the relationship among Jews, Arabs and Muslims than many of the "peace initiatives." It does this through interviews with officials, pundits and politicians from every side of the conflict, covering a wide range of opinions and viewpoints, thereby humanizing all sides. Israel, which Canadian Jewish organizations say is the recipient of much of Al-Jazeera criticism, has allowed the broadcast of Al-Jazeera in Israel with no restrictions. That being said, Al-Jazeera should be expected to comply with Canadian laws and norms and should not be given any advantages. The promotion of hate against any ethnic or religious group should not be tolerated. Should it be found that Al-Jazeera has contravened Canadian laws, there are legal processes in place to address such potential violations. The CRTC may not have intended to block the broadcasting of Al-Jazeera. But now that it is clear that this decision has led to the effective veto of its broadcast, the CRTC must reconsider the details of its ruling. Instead of expecting the cable companies to act as censors, the CRTC, as an objective body, should monitor Al-Jazeera programming and report on its observations to Canadians. If Al-Jazeera fails to meet the professional and ethical standards of Canadian broadcasting, its licence can be reviewed or revoked. Prejudging the leading Arabic-language news channel without due process has fed into much of the unfortunate stereotyping of Arabs that anything produced by Arabs is suspicious and questionable, an unintended consequence that should not be taken lightly. Canada is arguably one of the most tolerant, open and multicultural countries in the world. In censoring Al-Jazeera - and, therefore, not practising what it preaches - Canada is conceding its moral high ground. * Omar Alghabra is president of the Canadian Arab Federation. ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 8) Canadian Bullets, Dead Iraqis by Ytzhak Tuesday September 14, 2004 montfu65@hotmail.com http://victoria.indymedia.org/news/2004/09/30644.php Canadian Bullets, Dead Iraqis With up to 13,802 Iraqi civilian deaths to date, Canadians will now be providing one of the most basic necessities for the US occupation forces in Iraq: bullets. The Canadian company SNC Technologies Inc. (SNC TEC) is now part of a multinational consortium of small-caliber ammunition producers whose purpose is to supply between 300 million -500 million more bullets to occupation forces per year, and potentially for at least five years. Beyond Canada, General Dynamics, the US defence contractor, also awarded contracts to several small bullet suppliers - including Winchester, a unit of Olin Corporation and Israel Military Industries. Their also in discussion with several other international producers, including General Dynamics Santa Barbara Sistemas, Madrid, Spain in an effort to try to meet the ammunitions demand. Michael S. Wilson, president of General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems, said,"Our goal is to ensure maximum supply support for the U.S. armed forces in their war against terror." The high demand in bullets is in response to a recent U.S. Army market survey for a "Small-Caliber Ammunition Systems Integrator". The Financial Times reports that the US occupation forces "will need 300m to 500m more bullets a year for at least five years, or more than 1.5m a year for combat and training. And because the single army-owned, small-calibre ammunition factory in Lake City, Missouri, can produce only 1.2m bullets annually, the army is suddenly scrambling to get private defence contractors to help fill the gap." "We're using so much ammunition in Iraq there isn't enough capacity around," said Eric Hugel, a defence industry analyst at Sephens Inc. "They have to go internationally." The Financial Times also reports that the "bullet problem has its roots in a Pentagon effort to restock its depleted war material reserve. But it has been exacerbated by the ongoing operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, where rearguard and supply units have been thinly-stretched throughout the countryside, occasionally without active duty combat soldiers to protect them." Recently rejuvenated after the historic demonstrations in New York, where half a million people were unified in saying "No to the Bush agenda", a campaign focusing on these contracts could have a direct effect on saving the lives of Iraqis, and give traction to an again waking anti-war movement. For the international anti-war movement, which is struggling to live up to it's reputation as "the other super power", such contracts could provide important anti-war campaigns in our own nations, raising the social costs for the US, and other complicit countries, in waging war on Iraq. For Canada, long in denial about it's active participation in the US war on terror, the SNC Technologies contract should highlight the fact that Canada has not only provided previous military and diplomatic support for the war on terror, but is now literally, without doubt, providing the ammunition to kill Iraqis. As for the general structure of the contracts, General Dynamics reports that they will serve as the systems integrator responsible for supply chain management, with Winchester serving as a principal supplier of all calibers of ammunition, including 5.56mm, 7.62mm and Cal. 50 ammunitions. Israel Military Industries Ltd. currently produces ammunition to U.S. military specifications for each of the calibers being sought and will be relied upon to be a significant production partner on the team. SNC will also be a critical provider of select ammunition across all calibers being sought. For Canadians interested in SNC Technologies Inc., they are a developer and manufacturer of ammunitions and related defence products. Headquartered in Le Gardeur, Québec, their web site boasts of annual revenues of more than $ 266 million(CAD). SNC TEC is the sole Canadian producer of military ammunition and produces over 70% of conventional military ammunition used by the Canadian Department of National Defence. In addition, the company is also a current supplier to the Department of Defense of the United States for both small and large caliber products. Internationally, SNC TEC provides conventional ammunition, or components, to a large number of other countries across Europe, the Middle East, the Far East, as well as Australia and New Zealand (according to their web site, these include Belgium, Denmark, France, Holland, Greece, Italy, Sweden, the UK, UAE, Oman, Jordan and Kuwait, Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines). The company is wholly owned by the SNC-Lavalin Group. "The SNC Group, which began as a small engineering consulting firm in 1911, grew over the years into a leading group of engineering and construction companies. In 1992, it merged Lavalin engineering firm to form the SNC-Lavalin Group Inc." SNC-Lavalin Group has offices across Canada, in 30 other countries around the world, and are currently working in some 100 countries. SNC-Lavalin has annual revenues of about $ 3.3 billion (CAD). The Corporate headquarters are located in Montréal at : 455 René-Lévesque Blvd. West Montreal, Quebec Canada H2Z 1Z3 Telephone : (514) 393-1000 Fax : (514) 866-0795 Email : info@snclavalin.com Chris Spannos volunteers for ZNet, Vancouver Co-operative Radio and the Vancouver Participatory Economics Collective http://resist.ca/story/2004/9/12/11757/9360 resist.ca/story/2004/9/12/11757/9360 add your comments ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 9) Israel intensifies land seizures By Khalid Amayreh in the West Bank Tuesday 14 September 2004 http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/7A1982B9-EF9F-463E-BEE5- 88209C2078FA.htm Israel has stepped up annexation of Palestinian farms and fields in various parts of the West Bank, ignoring a landmark ruling by the International Court of Justice in the Hague. A decision by Israel's own High Court of Justice had likewise urged the Israeli Government to put an end to land seizures in the name of erecting the separation barrier. Yet on Tuesday Israeli soldiers guarding the bulldozers used to level Palestinian fields west of Hebron, fired teargas canisters at Palestinian and international protesters, injuring a number of youths. Hundreds of farmers and their children from the nearby villages of Dir Samet and Beit Awwa tried unsuccessfully to protect their olive groves from the onslaught of the bulldozers. Israeli soldiers scuffled with the farmers, many of them agitated at the sight of their life's investments being ground to dust before their eyes. Indifference Peace activists from countries as far as Sweden had turned up at the site to express solidarity with the Palestinians. One activist carried a placard that said: "Israeli army: the world is watching." But the Israeli soldiers on duty were no more responsive to the protests of the Palestinian farmers and foreign peace activists, than the rest of Israel has been to international condemnation of its annexation of Palestinian lands. One Israeli solder reportedly told a Palestinian farmer distraught over the destruction of his olive trees, "We do what we want ... nobody can tell us what we do". This correspondent saw thousands of mature olive trees either flattened by Israeli bulldozers or hacked down to prepare the ground for the construction of the separation barrier. The wall meanders deep into the West Bank, east of the former armistice line of 1949 that is considered by the bulk of the international community as the de facto border between Israel proper and the Palestinian territories. At gunpoint One farmer badly affected by the current wave of land seizures and orchard destruction is 70-year-old Abdullah Ahmed Salem Abu Kreifeh. He told Aljazeera.net, "You see, Sharon tells America and the world that he wants peace and good neighbourly relations with the Palestinians. "But look what he is doing to us. He is seizing our land at gunpoint, destroying our livelihood and pushing us towards violence and desperate acts." Abu Kreifeh said he and his relatives had gone to an Israeli court in an effort to stop the confiscation of his land but to no avail. "My son, what can you do when the judge is your enemy. You know their courts are rubberstamps in the hands of the army." Nearly two and a half months ago, the Israeli High Court instructed the state to create a "proportionality" between "security needs" and "Palestinian rights". The Sharon government said then it would heed the court's ruling. But the latest land grab in the western Hebron hills has cast fresh doubt on the government's sincerity. In early July, the World Court in Hague, in a non-binding ruling, underscored the illegality of the separation barrier and urged the Israeli Government to tear it down and compensate Palestinians affected by it. But Israel accused the court of being biased and rejected the verdict. Poll distraction Separately, on Monday an Israeli Government official held talks in Washington with two Bush administration officials, telling them that Israel was making efforts to "minimise hardships for the Palestinians". Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Dov Weisglass, who is Sharon's chief political adviser, is trying to obtain an "American understanding" of the Israeli position, namely the annexation of huge parts of the West Bank. Many Middle East experts believe the Bush administration's ability to say "no" to Israeli decisions at this point of time is greatly restricted by electoral exigencies, with the Republicans seeking to make a dent in the traditionally pro-Democratic Jewish constituency. The experts say Sharon may be taking full advantage of the situation by implementing his own agenda in the West Bank, namely annexing large chunks of Palestinian territory and unilaterally creating future borders between Israel and a truncated, rump Palestinian entity. Aljazeera
Tuesday, September 14, 2004
BAUAW NEWSLETTER, TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2004
1) Blast in Baghdad Rebel District Kills at Least 47
By Mariam Karouny and Luke Baker Tue Sep 14, 2004 09:32 AM ET BAGHDAD (Reuters) http://www.reuters.com/ newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=6231537&src=eDialog/ GetContent§ion=news 2) US missile attack kills 13 civilians in Iraq By Patrick Cockburn in Baghdad Independent Home News 13 September 2004 http://news.independent.co.uk/low_res/story.jsp?story=561021&host=3&dir=75 3) Voices in the Wilderness is following developments as closely as possible; background information and brief biographies w/photographs, and other mementos, of these extraordinary people affiliated with Bridges to Baghdad - two of whom were dear friends of Kathy Kelly and other Voices participants; -- also the petition can be found at Voices website soon as available. 4) Bush to Shift Iraq Funds to Boost Security By Adam Entous Mon Sep 13, 2004 08:44 PM ET HOLLAND, Mich. (Reuters) http://www.reuters.com/ newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=6224882&src=eDialog/ GetContent§ion=news 5) Tali Fahima, a Jewish peace activist, was sentenced today to 4 months of "administrative detention" by an Israeli court. The "emergency hour" legislation upon which this detention was carried out dates from the British mandate period - an excellent example of how Zionist colonialism is directed not aonly against the native Arab population but also against those Jews which dare to oppose the Israeli Apartheid regime. For more information see: http://oznik.com/news/040907.html http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,1298770,00.html What follows is the letter sent to Amnesty International and other civil rights organizations and media. 6) Excellent flash presentation that seriously questions what happened at the Pentagon that fateful day 911 http://pixla.px.cz/pentagon.swf 7) Frances Crowe, 2004: You have a Legal Right to be a Conscientious Objector http://www.traprockpeace.org/frances_crowe.html with description and links to audio of interview (both mp3 and RealAudio) 8) Why Bush May Well Be The Lesser Evil Elections, Alliances and Empire by Gabriel Kolko CounterPunch - Sept 13, 2004 http://www.counterpunch.org ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 1) Blast in Baghdad Rebel District Kills at Least 47 By Mariam Karouny and Luke Baker Tue Sep 14, 2004 09:32 AM ET BAGHDAD (Reuters) http://www.reuters.com/ newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=6231537&src=eDialog/ GetContent§ion=news BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A huge car bomb blast tore through a crowded market close to a Baghdad police headquarters building Tuesday, killing at least 47 people in the deadliest single attack in the Iraqi capital in six months. An Internet statement in the name of the Tawhid and Jihad group led by Jordanian al Qaeda ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi claimed responsibility for the blast, which it said was carried out by a suicide attacker. Washington says Zarqawi is its top enemy in Iraq and has put a $25 million price on his head. "With the grace of God, a lion from our martyrdom brigades was successful in striking a center for apostate police volunteers," said the statement, which could not be verified. The Health Ministry said 47 people were killed and 114 wounded. The Interior Ministry said at least one car bomb was used in the attack in Haifa street, a flashpoint area notorious as a stronghold of criminals and guerrillas. In a separate incident in the restive town of Baquba, northeast of Baghdad, gunmen opened fire on a police minibus. The town's police chief said 12 people were killed. Zarqawi's group also claimed responsibility for that attack. Guerrillas also blew up oil pipelines in northern Iraq, cutting northern oil exports and forcing a nearby power station to be shut down. The attack meant large areas of Iraq were without electricity from 3 a.m. onward. "ALL I SAW WAS BLOOD" The Baghdad blast caused carnage in the crowded market and streets near the police headquarters building. "I was standing there talking to my friend when suddenly all I saw was blood, and my friend lying dead," said an Iraqi man who gave his name as Zafer, speaking from his hospital bed with blood and scratches on his face and bandages on his stomach. Hospital workers hosed pools of blood from the floor. At the blast site, rescuers pulled bodies from mangled market stalls. The area was littered with shoes, clothes and body parts, as well as fruit and vegetables from the market. Bloodstained corpses lay on pavements strewn with chairs, glass and rubble from blown-out shopfronts. Dazed bystanders vainly checked bodies for signs of life. Smoke from blazing vehicles in the middle of the street billowed into the sky as fire crews tried to douse the flames. A huge crater was punched into the road. Ambulances with sirens wailing ferried the dead and wounded to hospital as U.S. helicopters buzzed overhead. Sunday, guerrillas mounted multiple car bomb and mortar attacks in central Baghdad, during a day of violence in which more than 100 people were killed across the country. Many of Sunday's casualties were also in Haifa Street, where U.S. troops have repeatedly clashed with guerrillas. Following Tuesday's bombing, U.S. troops again moved into Haifa Street and appeared to be readying for an assault. They told residents by loudspeaker to leave the area. Interior Minister Falah al-Naqib visited the site to condemn the perpetrators. "They are targeting the Iraqi people and they are trying to destroy Iraq. These powers won't stop the rebuilding of Iraq," he said. "There will be no space for the terrorists and the enemies of Iraq." SURGE IN VIOLENCE Near Mosul, gunmen opened fire on a U.S. patrol Tuesday, killing one soldier and wounding five, the U.S. military said. Since the invasion to oust Saddam Hussein last year, at least 762 U.S. troops have been killed in action. The total Pentagon death toll, including non-hostile deaths, is 1,013. Fighting has surged in Iraq over the last few days after U.S.-led forces launched a drive to pacify areas of the country under guerrilla control ahead of elections due in January. The American military has mounted several air strikes on Falluja, a city controlled by insurgents. It says the attacks have targeted militants loyal to Zarqawi, who they say are based in the city. U.S. forces have also launched an offensive in Tal Afar, a mainly Turkmen town close to the Syrian border in northern Iraq which it says has become a haven for foreign fighters. The Health Ministry has said at least 60 people were killed in fighting in Tal Afar over the past week. (c) Copyright Reuters 2004. ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 2) US missile attack kills 13 civilians in Iraq By Patrick Cockburn in Baghdad Independent Home News 13 September 2004 http://news.independent.co.uk/low_res/story.jsp?story=561021&host=3&dir=75 US missile attack kills 13 civilians in Iraq Andreas Whittam Smith: I know who I won't be voting for at the general election "I am a journalist. I'm dying, I'm dying," screamed Mazen al-Tumeizi, a correspondent for the Arabic television channel al-Arabiya, after shrapnel from a rocket fired by an American helicopter interrupted his live broadcast and slammed into his back. Twelve others were killed and 61 wounded by rockets from two US helicopters on Haifa Street in central Baghdad. They had fired into a crowd milling around a burning Bradley fighting vehicle that had been hit by a rocket or bomb hours before. It comes on one of Iraq's bloodiest days for weeks in which at least 110 people died in clashes around the country. The Health Ministry said the worst casualties were in Baghdad and in Tal Afar near the Syrian border, where 51 people died. "The helicopter fired on the Bradley to destroy it after it had been hit earlier and it was on fire," said Major Phil Smith of the 1st Cavalry Division. "It was for the safety of the people around it." Mr Tumeizi, a Palestinian, was the sixth Arab journalist to be killed by American troops since Baghdad was captured last year. The videotape of his last moments shows how Mr Tumeizi was killed during a live television broadcast, with the Bradley blazing in the distance and a crowd of young men celebrating its destruction, but it shows no reason why the helicopters should open fire. Many of those hit by the rockets in Haifa Street, in a tough neighbourhood of tower blocks notorious as a centre of resistance to the occupation, were on their way to work. "We are just ordinary workers. We are just trying to live," said Haidar Yahyiah, 23, sobbing with pain from a broken leg as he lay in bed in nearby Karkh hospital. He and others described how they had been woken by the sound of explosions in Haifa Street in the early dawn. They had been sleeping on the roofs because it is too hot in the Baghdad summer to sleep inside. They saw a vehicle on fire. But it was several hours later, at about 8am, that they sallied out. By then US troops had already removed four lightly wounded soldiers from the Bradley. Young men and children had swarmed over the vehicle, cheering triumphantly, waving black flags and setting it ablaze again. The US military said that a Kiowa, a light reconnaissance and attack helicopter, fired rockets at the Bradley to destroy weapons and ammunition on board. But it is evident from the al-Arabiya video that the rockets landed among people standing or walking far away from the Bradley. Hamid Ali Khadum was on his way to work when he was hit. "At first I thought I had just tripped over dead people but then I realised I was wounded myself," he said as he lay in Karkh hospital waiting for an operation on his heavily bandaged left leg. The rest of his body was peppered with shrapnel. A male nurse standing nearby said: "This happens not just in Haifa Street but in all Baghdad, and not just in Baghdad but in all Iraq." The slaughter in Haifa Street took place only a few hundred yards from the heavily defended International Zone (what used to be called the Green Zone) which houses the headquarters of the Iraqi government and its American ally. It is a measure of the military failure of the US occupation that it has failed to assume control of this Sunni Muslim neighbourhood in the heart of the capital. Early yesterday, insurgents fired more than a dozen rockets and mortars into the International Zone. The zone contains the US embassy and Saddam Hussein's Republican Palace. There was violence elsewhere in Baghdad. Colonel Alaa Bashir, the police chief of the Yarmouk district in west Baghdad, was killed by a bomb while on patrol. A suicide bomber blew himself up in a vehicle packed with explosives at the gates to Abu Ghraib prison _ he was the only one to die. A US plane attacked a machine-gun team from the Mehdi Army in their stronghold in Sadr City in east Baghdad. In Ramadi, a city controlled by insurgents west of Baghdad, 10 people were killed and 40 wounded in fighting, according to the local hospital. A US Humvee was also set ablaze, but casualties were unknown. Also in Middle East US missile attack kills 13 civilians in Iraq 'Nine killed' as US jets bomb Fallujah Turkey reacts with fury to massive US assault on northern Iraqi city US enter Samarrah during new push against insurgents Despair in Iraq over the forgotten victims of US invasion (c) 2004 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 3) Voices in the Wilderness is following developments as closely as possible; background information and brief biographies w/photographs, and other mementos, of these extraordinary people affiliated with Bridges to Baghdad - two of whom were dear friends of Kathy Kelly and other Voices participants; -- also the petition can be found at Voices website soon as available. Large manifestations have taken place in Iraq (including one of women and children) and in Italy where vigils as well have been conducted that may yet continue (Voices does not make accusations, but in many commentaries, one reads that no one stands to gain from these people's abduction, other than the US puppet govt. under former CIA assassin Allawi.) WRL, WRL West and UPJ both in the bay area and nationally are connected to the people being held hostage who have been opposing the occupation, as many of us opposed the sanctions, Gulf War I, and Saddam Hussein and his U.S. support in its day. Please, let's all do what we can, Jim Haber WRL West, San Francisco Begin forwarded message: From: "Hany Khalil" Date: September 13, 2004 11:16:27 PM PDT To: Subject: [UFPJ] Petition for Release of Italian/Iraqi Hostages Reply-To: hanykhalil@igc.org Dear UFPJ member group: The Italian and Iraqi hostages abducted on September 7th have not yet been released. As you may know, all four worked with Bridges to Baghdad, an Italian aid group that worked against the sanctions in the 90s and is a core member of the Occupation Watch Center, along with United for Peace and Justice and UFPJ member group Code Pink. It's important that we do what we can to convince their captors that these people stand against the occupation, not with it, and should be released. The petition calling for their release has not been posted at http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/freeourfriends . You can sign it directly online. We encourage your group to sign it ASAP. ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 4) Bush to Shift Iraq Funds to Boost Security By Adam Entous Mon Sep 13, 2004 08:44 PM ET HOLLAND, Mich. (Reuters) http://www.reuters.com/ newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=6224882&src=eDialog/ GetContent§ion=news HOLLAND, Mich. (Reuters) - Faced with mounting violence in Iraq, the Bush administration plans on Tuesday to propose shifting $3.46 billion from Iraqi water, power and other reconstruction projects to improve security, boost oil output and prepare for elections scheduled for January. Administration and congressional officials briefed on the plan said it cleared the way for President Bush, who was campaigning in Michigan, to forgive 95 percent of Iraq's prewar debts to the United States totaling about $4 billion. The changes, which will require congressional approval, reflect a realization within the administration that without better security, long-term rebuilding is impossible. Of the more than $18 billion approved for Iraq's reconstruction, only about $1 billion has been spent so far. "This is adjusting a plan in response to changing circumstances," said a U.S. official who asked not to be named. "One of the changing circumstances is the need to focus more urgently and more quickly on developing Iraqi security capability. Another is the need to accelerate employment of Iraqis." According to a document outlining the plan, a copy of which was seen by Reuters, the administration would shift $1.804 billion now earmarked for water, sewage and electricity projects to expand security forces. This would include adding 45,000 Iraqi police officers and 16,000 officials for border enforcement. Another $180 million would help plan for elections and strengthen local governments. The number of U.S. troops killed since the March 2003 invasion passed the 1,000 mark last week, while the number of wounded topped 7,000, and administration officials say the anti-U.S. insurgency may intensify in the months ahead. White House national security advisor Condoleezza Rice told CBS's "Face the Nation" on Sunday that "there will undoubtedly be violence up until the elections and probably even during the elections." Secretary of State Colin Powell added, "This insurgency isn't going to go away." In addition to the funds to bolster Iraqi security and election planning, the administration will shift $450 million from refined oil purchases to expand Iraq's oil capacity. The document said the funds would be used for "specifically targeted oil infrastructure projects that will increase Iraqi oil production by 650,000 barrels per day by mid-2005." The Bush administration wants to expand oil production and exports at the Kirkuk oil field, including building a new pipeline and improving facilities at Rumaylah oil field. A further $380 million would be used to boost economic development. Some of that money would also be handed out in resettlement aid to 300,000 Kurds. A separate $286 million would help expand job training programs. The administration would set aside $360 million to cover the "budget cost" of forgiving 95 percent of Iraqi debt to the United States. The figure represents the current estimated amount of the debt, largely run up during the 1980s. The administration is required to seek congressional approval for major changes in Iraq's reconstruction package, but congressional aides said the White House now wants to ease those restrictions. One aide complained that the administration was effectively seeking a "blank check" to spend the money with minimal oversight. Without authorization from Congress, the administration would only be able to shift $800 million of the requested funds, the document said. (Additional reporting by Anna Willard and Arshad Mohammed) (c) Copyright Reuters 2004. ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 5) Tali Fahima, a Jewish peace activist, was sentenced today to 4 months of "administrative detention" by an Israeli court. The "emergency hour" legislation upon which this detention was carried out dates from the British mandate period - an excellent example of how Zionist colonialism is directed not aonly against the native Arab population but also against those Jews which dare to oppose the Israeli Apartheid regime. For more information see: http://oznik.com/news/040907.html http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,1298770,00.html What follows is the letter sent to Amnesty International and other civil rights organizations and media. Call for Urgent Action: Tali Fahima under Administrative Detention At Sunday, September 5, 2004, Shaul Mofaz, the Israeli minister of defence, issued an order based on "secret evidence" to hold Ms. Tali Fahima (an Israeli peace activist) under administrative detention for four months. During the 28 days period before this order was issued Ms. Fahima had been under arrest without charges, her detention extended according to "secret inquiry material" that was not shown to the accused or to her defense lawyers, and was intensively interrogated by the GSS (Israeli General Security Service). This was the second detention of Ms. Fahima this year. On May 24, 2004 she was arrested and held for 6 days under GSS interrogation. On May 30 she was released without any charges, and sent to 4 days of house arrest. During the 28 days of interrogation Ms. Fahima was kept in a small cell without windows for 24 hours a day. She was forced to sleep on a mattress on the floor, the electricity light always on, and prevented from receiving any visit by family members, as well as writing or reading material. She was interrogated for 15 to 18 hours each day, forced to sit in an uneasy position with her hands cuffed behind her back. Most of the time the interrogators are lecturing Tali on politics in order to Âre-educate her, promising to convert her into Âa good Jewish girl (sic). Physical abuse is added to the philippics detailing the interrogators' racist, primitive and reactionary views on sex and politics. Some days before her detention, Tali received a phone call from a GSS agent that was involved in her previous detention and interrogation. He requested to meet her, informally, and mentioned that he knows she has difficulties finding a job. Following the advice of her lawyers, she refused to meet him. She was then told that she is going to pay a heavy price. Ms. Tali Fahima is a Jewish peace activist from Kiryat Gat - a peripheral workers' township some 50 km. south of Tel Aviv. She was brought up with two sisters by a single hard-working mother, and worked as a secretary at an advocate's office. Since the beginning of the Intifada, she had gradually begun to lose her confidence in the Israeli media. After intensive study of the political situation and conversations with Palestinians, she decided to see the facts with her own eyes, and visited the Jenin refugee camp - the well known target of past and present Israeli attacks and devastation. Her stay in the refugee camp shocked her. Ever since her visit in the Jenin refugee camp she became active in support of the refugees. She, together with a group of her friends, collected contributions in order to reopen a youth club in the camp, and kept contact with the camp's activists. Her humanitarian work with Jenin camp's children - trying to establish human solidarity between people in the harshest conditions - was highly praised even by the judge in the Israeli court that released her on May 30 after her first detention. Ms. Fahima was never engaged in any kind of violent activity. She is a peace activist, concentrating mainly in humanitarian work and public acts. At the end of 2003 Ms. Fahima declared on the Israeli media that she is ready to serve as a human shield for Mr. Zakariya Zbeida, a leading Jenin camp activist that has already escaped several Israeli assassination attempts. From that moment she, and her family, became victims of systematic harassment: She was fired from her job as a secretary and had great difficulties finding a job. She had to leave her flat and meanwhile stayed at the homes of relatives and friends. The Israeli media published information from "reliable" (and anonymous) sources which claimed that she is suspected of conspiracy to carry out a terror attack. A campaign of demonization is being waged through the media against Tali by the Israeli security services and politicians. The voice of the international community is indispensable in order to protect her freedom and personal security as well as those of her family, which is also continuously threatened. The only "crime" Tali is really guilty of is having broken the unwritten Apartheid laws of Israel, which forbid any Jew under the harshest penalties to meet the victims of Zionism in the refugee camps of the Occupied Territories and beyond. Personal information: Ms. Tali Fahima, Israeli ID no. 038292447, date of birth: 8.2.1976, female, single, secretary in advocateÂs office hometown: Kiryat Gat town in the south of Israel. ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 5) RNC Reportbacks The Ronald Reagan Home for the Criminally Insane had a great time annoying Republicans and entertaining New Yorkers and the press during the Republican National Circus. We have a bunch of photos and articles posted on our website that we hope you will enjoy. www.InsaneReagan.com www.InsaneReagan.com We will also be participating in two RNC reportbacks in San Francisco next weekend. Friday, September 17th Dolores Park 8:00- 10:00pm Indybay and Street Level TV are holding a guerilla film screening of footage from the RNC shot by Bay Area video guerillas and live reportbacks from activists. Sunday, September 19 Cellspace 2050 Bryant St. (between Mariposa+18th) 7:00- 10:00pm Direct Action to Stop the War (DASW) is throwing a reportback party that will include video, live music by David Rovics and Dave Lippman and activist testimonials on the joys of direct action and tell all tales of what went on behind the walls of Guantanamo on the Hudson. ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 6) Excellent flash presentation that seriously questions what happened at the Pentagon that fateful day 911 http://pixla.px.cz/pentagon.swf Ps, Clark webmaster http://2012AD.com/ http://hempevolution.org/ http://thebikehut.com/ http://viktervz.com/ http://caravida.com/ http://shuttlepro.net/ Remember you're the One! 911 inside job http://www.wtc7.net - http://www.physics911.org - http://www.911-strike.com http://www.oilempire.us - http://www.dieoff.org - http://www.peakoil.net http://bombsinsidewtc.dk - http://www.911review.com http://911research.wtc7.net/talks/towers/index.html http://www.globalresearch.ca -http://www.cooperativeresearch.org ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 7) Frances Crowe, 2004: You have a Legal Right to be a Conscientious Objector http://www.traprockpeace.org/frances_crowe.html with description and links to audio of interview (both mp3 and RealAudio) Frances Crowe, 2004: You have a Legal Right to be a Conscientious Objector Frances Crowe, now 85, is one of the founders of Traprock Peace Center. She answers questions for young people across the country, when Aaron Ford, a student at Greenfield Community College and Sunny Miller, Exec. Director of Traprock, sought out her depth of wisdom for this 2004 interview on conscientious objection. With clarity and compassion, Frances lays out the facts, one after another, informing young men and women today how to establish their human right to not participate in killing, and their legal right in the United States to not participate in war. Eighty-three percent of US survey respondents say they don't want a draft, but last year draft boards were asked to fill vacancies at the local level. Frances describes immediate steps young people and supportive friends and family can take. She urges established conscientious objectors to speak up, bringing news everywhere that: "Anyone who is conscientiously opposed to participating in any war facing them, on moral, ethical, philosophical or religious grounds, with the same degree of intensity as you would hold a religious belief, has a right not to be drafted." Frances explains that Dan Seeger helped establish this legal standard by taking his case all the way to the Supreme Court. Previously, only some with a religious objection to war were not pressed into military service. These are the four questions draft boards have traditionally asked. Writing your answers now helps you to get clear, and talking about your process may help others clarify their positions. 1. What do you object to about war now? What is the nature of your belief-- is your objection moral, philosophical, ethical or religous? 2. Where did those beliefs come from? What influenced you? 3. How is that objection showing up in your life? 4. Would you be willing to serve as a military medic? (Many would not, because the priority of military medicine is not to heal the wounded, but to get people back to fighting -- and killing -- as quickly as possible.) Frances asserts that young people have a duty to get clear about what it is about war they object to, (war now, not past wars) even as war propaganda is heavily funded, sweeps to find undocumented workers and threats of deportation intimidate many into signing up, and promises of money for college create tremendous pressure to submit to participating. Even though there is no place provided on draft registration cards, you can write in the margin, "I am a conscientious objector." Before you mail in your registration card, make a copy for yourself and date that by sending it to yourself, signed receipt requested. Leaving it sealed in the envelope helps create a paper trail of your history as a conscientious objector. Begin now to build a file where you can add poems, research papers, letters of recommendation, notes on conversations with family, soldiers, activists and clergy, or the music, movies, and cultural events that influence you to object to war. If the draft is instituted, you might have as little as 30 days to prepare to go before your local draft board. Exploring your conscience now or discussing your process in a group setting can support you as you develop clarity about your thinking and feeling. With the influence of Quaker tradition and feminist thinking, Frances Crowe began doing group draft counseling in the basement of her home in Northampton in groups and circles, in 1967, despite the refusal of a newspaper to print announcements. With neighbors she founded the Northampton Draft Information Center in 1968, which operated full-time until the draft ended. Young men, family members, young women and some active members of the military attended. In the first year alone, 2000 participated. During four years of thoughtful group discussions, no one decided to fake a physical or mental condition, cut off a finger, or leave for Canada. All were clear and empowered by positions and statements as conscientious objectors, as the misguided tragedies of the Vietnam war continued to unfold. Many went on to fruitful lives in healthcare, teaching or other public service. Crowe describes her own progression from working in a factory during World War II, to working for peace after the bombings of civilian populations in Tokyo, Dresden, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Now she works to reduce her reliance on oil - by car-pooling, riding the bus, walking to downtown and flying only in emergencies. Frances Crowe says she cannot pay for killing and has become a war tax refuser. The audio interview lasts 38 minutes, 32 seconds. It is followed by an Afterword (2 minutes) summarized here: Aaron: Is there anything I can do right away? Frances; Yes! Write to your draft board today. You can hand carry your letter to the post office, make a copy or two to keep, and mail one to yourself, return receipt requested. At the post office you can get the address of the selective service board, because draft registration goes on at every post office. This interview and the Afterword are offered to campus organizers and radio stations, or for use as a personal gift, as the fall 2004 school year begins. Please join us in celebrating 25 years of collaboration in a Neighbors Network to End War since Traprock Peace Center's founding in 1979. We appreciate neighborly wisdom, initiative and mutual support. This summary is printed and distributed by Traprock Peace Center 103a Keets Road, Deerfield, 01342. Tel: 413 773-7427 For more resources on why you object to war, see and hear about the unfolding tragedy of uranium weapons, at http://www.traprockpeace.org You can find many links to other groups, check the calendar, or post your meetings on conscientious objection on the calendar. For other resources on conscientious objection, see http://www.objector.org and http://www.nisbco.org For campus organizing see http://www.campusantiwar.net Sunny Miller Traprock Peace Center 103A Keets Road Deerfield, MA 01342 413-773-7427; Fax 413-773-7507 http://traprockpeace.org ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 8) Why Bush May Well Be The Lesser Evil Elections, Alliances and Empire by Gabriel Kolko CounterPunch - Sept 13, 2004 http://www.counterpunch.org Alliances have been a major cause of wars throughout modern history, removing inhibitions that might otherwise have caused Germany, France and countless nations to reflect much more cautiously before embarking on death and destruction. The dissolution of all alliances is a crucial precondition of a world without wars. The United States' strength, to an important extent, has rested on its ability to convince other nations that it was to their vital interests to see America prevail in its global role. With the loss of that ability there will be a fundamental change in the international system, a change whose implications and consequences may ultimately be as far-reaching as the dissolution of the Soviet bloc. The scope of America's world role is now far more dangerous and ambitious than when Communism existed, but it was fear of the USSR that alone gave NATO its raison d'etre and provided Washington with the justification for its global pretensions. Enemies have disappeared and new ones--many once former allies and congenial states--have taken their places. The United States, to a degree to which it is itself uncertain of, needs alliances. But even friendly nations are less likely than ever to be bound into complaisant "coalitions of the willing'. Nothing in President Bush's extraordinarily vague doctrine, promulgated on September 19, 2002, of fighting "preemptive" wars, unilaterally if necessary, was a fundamentally new departure. Since the 1890s, regardless of whether the Republicans or Democrats were in office, the U.S. has intervened in countless ways--sending in the Marines, installing and bolstering friendly tyrants--in the western hemisphere to determine the political destinies of innumerable southern nations. The Democratic Administration that established the United Nations explicitly regarded the hemisphere as the U.S. sphere of influence, and at the same time created the IMF and World Bank to police the world economy. Indeed, it was the Democratic Party that created most of the pillars of postwar American foreign policy, from the Truman Doctrine in 1947 and NATO through the institutionalization of the arms race and the core illusion that weapons and firepower are a solution to many of the world's political problems. So the Democrats share, in the name of a truly "bipartisan" consensus, equal responsibility for both the character and dilemmas of America's foreign strategy today. President Jimmy Carter initiated the Afghanistan adventure in July 1979, hoping to bog down the Soviets there as the Americans had been in Vietnam. And it was Carter who first encouraged Saddam Hussein to confront Iranian fundamentalism, a policy President Reagan continued. In his 2003 book The Roaring Nineties Joseph E. Stiglitz, chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisers from 1993 to 1997, argues that the Clinton Administration intensified the "hegemonic legacy" in the world economy, and Bush is just following along. The 1990s, Stiglitz writes, was "A decade of unparalleled American influence over the global economy" that Democratic financiers and fiscal conservatives in key posts defined, "in which one economic crisis seemed to follow another." The U.S. created trade barriers and gave large subsidies to its own agribusiness but countries in financial straits were advised and often compelled to cut spending and "adopt policies that were markedly different from those that we ourselves had adopted." The scale of domestic and global peculation by the Clinton and Bush administrations can be debated but they were enormous in both cases. In foreign and military affairs, both the Clinton and Bush administrations have suffered from the same procurement fetish, believing that expensive weapons are superior to realistic political strategies. The same illusions produced the Vietnam War--and disaster. Elegant strategies promising technological routes to victory have been with us since the late 1940s, but they are essentially public relations exercises intended to encourage more orders for arms manufacturers, justifications for bigger budgets for the rival military services. During the Clinton years the Pentagon continued to concoct grandiose strategies, demanding--and getting--new weapons to implement them. There are many ways to measure defense expenditures over time but--minor annual fluctuations notwithstanding--the consensus between the two parties on the Pentagon's budgets has flourished since 1945. In January 2000 Clinton added $115 billion to the Pentagon's five-year plan, far more than the Republicans were calling for. When Clinton left office the Pentagon had over a half trillion dollars in the major weapons procurement pipeline, not counting the ballistic missile defense systems, a pure boondoggle that cost over $71 billion by 1999. The dilemma, as both CIA and senior Clinton officials correctly warned, was that terrorists were more likely to strike the American homeland than some nation against which the military could retaliate. This fundamental disparity between hardware and reality has always existed and September 11, 2001 showed how vulnerable and weak the U.S. has become, a theme readers can explore in my book, Another Century of War? The war in Yugoslavia in the spring of 1999 brought to a head the future of NATO and the alliance, and especially Washington's deepening anxiety regarding Germany's possible independent role in Europe. Well before Bush took office, the Clinton Administration resolved never again to allow its allies to inhibit or define its strategy. Bush's policies, notwithstanding the brutal way in which they have been expressed or implemented, follow directly and logically from this crucial decision. NATO members' refusal to contribute the soldiers and equipment essential to end warlordism and allow fair elections to be held in Afghanistan (it sent five times as many troops to Kosovo in 1999), is the logic of America's bipartisan disdain for the alliance. But the world today is increasingly dangerous for the U. S. and communism's demise has called into fundamental question the core premises of the post-1945 alliance system. More nations have nuclear weapons and means of delivering them; destructive small arms are much more abundant (thanks to swelling American arms exports which grew from 32 percent of the world trade in 1987 to 43 percent in 1997); there are more local and civil wars than ever, especially in regions like Eastern Europe which had not experienced any for nearly a half-century; and there is terrorism--the poor and weak man's ultimate weapon--on a scale that has never existed. The political, economic, and cultural causes of instability and conflict are growing, and expensive weapons are irrelevant--save to the balance sheets of those who make them. So long as the future is to a large degree--to paraphrase Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld--"unknowable", it is not in the national interest of America's traditional allies to perpetuate the relationships created from 1945 to 1990. Through ineptness and a vague ideology of American power that acknowledges no limits on its global ambitions, the Bush Administration has lunged into unilateralist initiatives and adventurism that discount consultations with its friends, much less the United Nations. The outcome has been serious erosion of the alliance system upon which U.S. foreign policy from 1947 onwards was based. With the proliferation of destructive weaponry and growing political instability, the world is becoming increasingly dangerous--and so is membership in alliances. If Bush is reelected then the international order may be very different in 2008 than it is today, let alone 1999. Regardless of who is the next president, there is no reason to believe that objective assessments of the costs and consequences of its actions will significantly alter America's foreign policy priorities over the next four years. If the Democrats win they will attempt, in the name of "progressive internationalism", to reconstruct the alliance system as it existed before the Yugoslav war of 1999, when the Clinton Administration turned against the veto powers built into NATO's structure. There is important bipartisan support for resurrecting the Atlanticism that Bush is in the process of smashing, and it was best reflected in the Council on Foreign Relations' banal March 2004 report on the "transatlantic alliance", which Henry Kissinger helped direct and which both influential Republicans and Wall Street leaders endorsed. Traditional elites are desperate to see NATO and the Atlantic system restored to their old glory. Their vision, premised on the expansionist assumptions that have guided American foreign policy since 1945, was best articulated the same month in a book, The Choice: Global Domination or Global Leadership, by Zbigniew Brzezinski, who was Carter's National Security adviser. Brzezinski rejects the Bush Administration's counterproductive rhetoric that so alienates former and potential future allies. But he regards American power as central to stability in every part of world and his global vision no less ambitious than the Bush Administration's. He is for the U.S. maintaining "a comprehensive technological edge over all potential rivals" and calls for the transformation of "America's prevailing power into a co-optive hegemony--one in which leadership is exercised more through shared conviction with enduring allies than by assertive domination". Precisely because it is much more salable to past and potential allies, this traditional Democratic vision is far more dangerous than that of the inept, eccentric melange now guiding American foreign policy. But vice-president Richard Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and the neoconservatives and eclectic hawks in Bush's administration are oblivious to the consequences of their recommendations or to the way they shock America's overseas friends. Many of the President's key advisers possess aggressive, essentially academic geopolitical visions that assume overwhelming American military and economic power. Eccentric interpretations of Holy Scripture inspire yet others, including Bush himself. Most of these crusaders employ an amorphous nationalist AND MESSIANIC rhetoric that makes it impossible to predict exactly how Bush will mediate between very diverse, often quirky influences, though thus far he has favored advocates of wanton use of American military might throughout the world. No one close to the President acknowledges the limits of its power--limits that are political and, as Korea and Vietnam proved, military too. Kerry voted for many of Bush's key foreign and domestic measures and he is, at best, an indifferent candidate. His statements and interviews over the past months dealing with foreign affairs have mostly been both vague and incoherent, though he is explicitly and ardently pro-Israel and explicitly for regime-change in Venezuela. His policies on the Middle East are identical to Bush's and this alone will prevent the alliance with Europe from being reconstructed. On Iraq, even as violence there escalated and Kerry finally had a crucial issue with which to win the election, his position has been indistinguishable from the President's. "Until" an Iraqi armed force can replace it, Kerry wrote in the April 13 Washington Post, the American military has to stay in Iraq--"preferably helped by NATO." "No matter who is elected president in November, we will perservere in that mission" to build a stable, pluralistic Iraq--which, I must add, has never existed and is unlikely to emerge in the foreseeable future. "It is a matter of national honor and trust." He has promised to leave American troops in Iraq for his entire first term if necessary, but he is vague about their subsequent departure. Not even the scandal over the treatment of Iraqi prisoners evoked Kerry's criticism despite the fact it has profoundly alienated a politically decisive segment of the American public. His statements on domestic policy in favor of fiscal restraint and lower deficits, much less tax breaks for large corporations, are utterly lacking in voter appeal. Kerry is packaging himself as an economic conservative who is also strong on defense spending--a Clinton clone--because that is precisely how he feels. His advisers are the same investment bankers who helped Clinton get the nomination in 1992 and then raised the funds to help him get elected and then defined his economic policy. The most important of them is Robert Rubin, who became Treasury secretary, and he and his cronies are running the Kerry campaign and will also dictate his economic agenda should he win. These are the same men whom Stiglitz attacks as advocates of the rich and powerful. Kerry is, to his core, an ambitious patrician educated in elite schools and anything but a populist. He is neither articulate nor impressive as a candidate or as someone who is able to formulate an alternative to Bush's foreign and defense policies which themselves still have far more in common with Clinton's than they have differences. To be critical of Bush is scarcely justification for wishful thinking about Kerry, although every presidential election produces such illusions. Although the foreign and military policy goals of the Democrats and Republicans since 1947 have been essentially consensual, both in terms of objectives and the varied means--from covert to overt warfare--of attaining them, there have been significant differences in the way they were expressed. This was far less the case with Republican presidents and presidential candidates for most of the twentieth century, and men like Taft, Hoover, Eisenhower, or Nixon were very sedate by comparison to Reagan or the present rulers in Washington. But style can be important and inadvertently, the Bush administration's falsehoods, rudeness, and preemptory demands have begun to destroy an alliance system that for the world's peace should have been abolished long ago. In this context, it is far more likely that the nations allied with the U. S. in the past will be compelled to stress their own interests and go their own ways. The Democrats are far less likely to continue that exceedingly desirable process, a process ultimately much more condusive to peace in the world. They will perpetuate the same adventurism and opportunism that began generations ago and that Bush has merely built upon, the same dependence on military means to solve political crises, the same interference with every corner of the globe as if America has a divinely ordained mission to muck around with all the world's problems. The Democrats' greater finesse in justifying these policies is therefore more dangerous because they will be made to seem more credible and keep alive alliances that only reinforce the U.S.' refusal to acknowledge the limits of its power. In the longer run, Kerry's pursuit of these aggressive goals will lead eventually to a renewal of the dissolution of alliances, but in the short-run he will attempt to rebuild them and European leaders will find it considerably more difficult to refuse his demands than if Bush stays in power--and that is to be deplored. The Stakes For The World Critics of American foreign policy will not rule Washington after this election regardless of who wins. As dangerous as he is, Bush's reelection is much more likely to produce the continued destruction of the alliance system that is so crucial to American power in the long run. Facts in no way imply moral judgments if we merely identify them. One does not have to believe that "worse is better" but we have to consider candidly the foreign policy consequences of a renewal of Bush's mandate, not the least because it is likely. Bush's policies have managed to alienate innumerable nations. Even America's firmest allies--such as Britain, Australia, and Canada--are compelled to ask themselves if issuance of blank checks to Washington is in their national interest or if it undermines the tenure of parties in power. Foreign affairs, as the terrorism in Madrid dramatically showed in March, are too explosively volatile to permit uncritical endorsement of American policies and parties in power can pay dearly, as in Spain, where the people were always overwhelmingly opposed to entering the war and the ruling party snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. More important, in terms of cost and price, are the innumerable victims among the people. The nations that have supported the Iraq war enthusiastically, particularly Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, and Australia, have made their populations especially vulnerable to terrorism. They now have the expensive responsibility of trying to protect them. The Washington-based Pew Research Center report on public opinion released on March 16, 2004 showed that a large and rapidly increasing majority of the French, Germans, and even British want an independent European foreign policy, reaching 75 percent in France in March 2004 compared to 60 percent two years earlier. The U.S. "favorability rating" plunged to 38 percent in France and Germany. But even in Britain it fell from 75 to 58 percent and the proportion of Britain's population who supported the decision to go to war in Iraq dropped from 61 percent in May 2003 to 43 percent in March 2004. Blair's domestic credibility, after the Labour Party placed third in the June 10 local and European elections, is at its nadir. Right after the political debacle in Spain the president of Poland, where a growing majority of the people has always been opposed to sending troops to Iraq or keeping them there, complained that Washington "misled" him on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and hinted that Poland might withdraw its 2,400 troops from Iraq earlier than previously scheduled. In Italy, by last May 71 percent of the people favored withdrawing the 2,700 Italian troops in Iraq no later than June 30, and leaders of the main opposition have already declared they will withdraw them if they win the spring 2006 elections--a promise they and other antiwar parties in Britain and Spain used in the mid-June European Parliament elections to increase significantly their power. The issue now is whether nations like Poland, Italy, or The Netherlands can afford to isolate themselves from the major European powers and their own public opinion to remain a part of the increasingly quixotic and unilateralist American-led "coalition of the willing". The political liabilities of remaining staying close to Washington are obvious, the advantages non-existent. What has happened in Spain is a harbinger of the future, further isolating the American government in its adventures. Four more nations of the 30-some members of the "coalition of the willing" have already withdrawn their troops, and the Ukraine--with its 1,600 soldiers--will soon follow suit. The Bush Administration sought to unite nations behind the Iraq War with a gargantuan lie--that Hussein had "weapons of mass destruction" --and failed spectacularly. Meanwhile, terrorism is more robust than ever and its arguments have far more credibility in the Muslim world. The Iraq War energized Al Qaeda and has tied down America, dividing its alliances as never before. Conflict in Iraq may escalate, as it has since March, creating a protracted armed conflict with Shiites and Sunnis that could last many months, even years. Will the nations that have sent troops there keep them there indefinitely, as Washington is increasingly likely to ask them to do? Can the political leaders afford concession to insatiable American demands? Elsewhere, Washington opposes the major European nations on Iran, in part because the neoconservatives and realists within its own ranks are deeply divided, and the same is true of its relations with Japan, South Korea, and China on how to deal with North Korea. America's effort to assert its moral and ideological superiority, crucial elements in its postwar hegemony, is failing--badly. America's justification for its attack on Iraq compelled France and Germany to become far more independent on foreign policy, far earlier, than they had intended or were prepared to do. In a way that was inconceivable two years ago NATO's future role is now being questioned. Europe's future defense arrangements are today an open question but there will be some sort of European military force independent of NATO and American control. Germany and France strongly oppose the Bush doctrine of preemption. Tony Blair, however much he intends to continue acting as a proxy for the U.S. on military questions, must return Britain to the European project, and his willingness since late 2003 to emphasize his nation's role in Europe reflects political necessities. To do otherwise is to alienate his increasingly powerful neighbors and risk losing elections. Even more dangerous, the Bush Administration has managed to turn what was in the mid-1990s a blossoming cordial friendship with the former Soviet Union into an increasingly tense relationship. Despite a 1997 non-binding American pledge not to station substantial numbers of combat troops in the territories of new members, NATO last March incorporated seven East European nations and is now on Russia's very borders and Washington is in the process of establishing an undetermined but significant number of bases in the Caucasus and Central Asia. Russia has stated repeatedly that U.S. encirclement requires that it remain a military superpower and modernize its delivery systems so that it will be more than a match for the increasingly expensive and ambitious missile defense system and space weapons the Pentagon is now building. It has 5,286 nuclear warheads and 2,922 intercontinental missiles to deliver them. We now see a dangerous and costly renewal of the arms race. Because it regards America's ambitions in the former Soviet bloc as provocation, Russia threatened in February of this year to pull out of the crucial Conventional Forces in Europe treaty, which has yet to come into force. "I would like to remind the representatives of [NATO]", Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov told a security conference in Munich last February, "that with its expansion they are beginning to operate in the zone of vitally important interests of our country." By dint of its increasingly unilateral rampages, without U.N. authority, where Russia's veto power on the Security Council is, in Ivanov's wistful words-- one of the "major factors for ensuring global stability", the U.S. has made international relations "very dangerous." (See Wade Boese, "Russia, NATO at Loggerheads Over Military Bases," Arms Control Today, March 2004; Los Angeles Times, March 26, 2004. ) The question Washington's allies will ask themselves is whether their traditional alliances have far more risks than benefits--and if they are now necessary. In the case of China, Bush's key advisers publicly assigned the highest priority to confronting its burgeoning military and geopolitical power the moment they came to office. But China's military budget is growing rapidly--12 per cent this coming year--and the European Union wants to lift its 15-year old arms embargo and get a share of the enticingly large market. The Bush Administration, of course, is strongly resisting any relaxation of the export ban. Establishing bases on China's western borders is the logic of its ambitions. By installing bases in small or weak Eastern European and Central Asian nations the United States is not so much engaged in "power projection" against an amorphously defined terrorism as again confronting Russia and China in an open-ended context. Such confrontations may have profoundly serious and protracted consequences neither America's allies nor its own people have any inclination to support. Even some Pentagon analysts (see for example, Dr. Stephen J. Blank's "Toward a New U.S. Strategy in Asia," U.S. Army Strategic Studies Institute, February 24, 2004) have warned against this strategy because any American attempt to save failed states in the Caucasus or Central Asia, implicit in its new obligations, will risk exhausting what are ultimately its finite military resources. The political crisis now wracking Uzbekistan makes this fear very real. There is no way to predict what emergencies will arise or what these commitments entail, either for the U. S. or its allies, not the least because--as Iraq proved last year and Vietnam long before it--America's intelligence on the capabilities and intentions of possible enemies against which it blares its readiness to "preempt" is so utterly faulty. Without accurate information a state can believe and do anything, and this is the predicament the Bush Administration's allies are in. It is simply not to their national interest, much less to the political interests of those now in power or the security of their people, to pursue foreign policies based on a blind, uncritical acceptance of fictions or flamboyant adventurism premised on false premises and information. Such acceptance is far too open-ended, both in terms of potential time and in the political costs involved. If Bush is reelected, America's allies and friends will have to confront such stark choices, a process that will redefine and probably shatter existing alliances. Many nations, including the larger, powerful ones, will embark on independent, realistic foreign policies, and the dramatic events in Spain have reinforced this likelihood. But the United States will be more prudent, and the world will be far safer, only if it is constrained by a lack of allies and isolated. And that is happening.
Monday, September 13, 2004
BAUAW NEWSLETTER-MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 2004
BRING ALL THE TROOPS HOME NOW!
VOTE YES ON 'N'! Next BAUAW meeting: WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 7 p.m. 1380 VALENCIA STREET (BETWEEN 24TH & 25TH STREETS, SF) CHECK OUR NEWLY DESIGNED WEB SITE: www.bauaw.org ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 1) Please come! Please support! Please help spread the word! ATTENTION S.F. RESIDENTS OUT OF WORK: Save our youth! Stop gentrification that's driving Blacks out of S.F.! Win hundreds of long-term construction jobs! Come one come all to the Transportation Authority committee meeting Tuesday, Sept. 14, 10:30am Room 263, City Hall 2) The Struggle for Palestine: 4th Anniversary of the Intifada October 2nd 2004. Horace Mann Middle School - 3351 23rd Street, San Francisco *PLEASE FORWARD WIDELY* 3) In this message from A.N.S.W.E.R.: · The War at Home: Bayview- Hunters Point · Immigrant Rights March · March Against Racism & Discrimination 4) 9/11 Pollution 'Could Cause More Deaths Than Attack' Published on Sunday, September 12, 2004 by the lndependent/UK By Geoffrey Lean http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0912-01.htm 5) Bush team 'knew of abuse' at Guantánamo Oliver Burkeman in Washington Monday September 13, 2004 The Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/guantanamo/story/0,13743,1303105,00.html 6) 25 Reported Killed in U.S. Strike on Rebel Base in Falluja By TERENCE NEILAN September 13, 2004 http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/13/international/middleeast/13CND- IRAQ.html?hp 7) Ellsberg urges insiders to leak Iraq info By KATA KERTESZ ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER WASHINGTON Thursday, September 9, 2004 · Last updated 9:25 p.m. PT http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/ apwashington_story.asp?category=1152&slug=Ellsberg 8) ALERT: CFL ALERT: ASK YOUR REPRESENTATIVES TO STOP THE INDISCRIMINATE KILLING OF PALESTINIAN YOUTH. Date: Sun, 12 Sep 2004 From: Seham Fare SEND OUR PREWRITTEN LETTER NOW OR, WRITE YOUR OWN: http://www.cflweb.org/congress_merge_.htm ********************************* Citizens for Fair Legislation For Immediate Release September 12, 2004 ******************************** 9) Solidarity greetings to The Coalition Against the Deportation of Palestinian Refugees in Montreal, From Bay Area United Against War (BAUAW) www.bauaw.org We stand in full support of your two demands, 1. To stop the deportations of the Palestinian refugees from Canada 2. To grant them permanent residency on humanitarian and compassionate grounds 10) Preventive War: A Failed Doctrine September 12, 2004 http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/12/opinion/12sun1.html?hp 11) Iraq allowed to rearm Critics say embargo lift may worsen Iraq's security problems By CLAIRE SCHAEFFER-DUFFY National Catholic Reporter, September 10, 2004 www.natcath.org ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 1) Please come! Please support! Please help spread the word! ATTENTION S.F. RESIDENTS OUT OF WORK: Save our youth! Stop gentrification that's driving Blacks out of S.F.! Win hundreds of long-term construction jobs! Come one come all to the Transportation Authority committee meeting Tuesday, Sept. 14, 10:30am Room 263, City Hall One big Third St. Light Rail project remains to be built - and we're claiming it! Muni's $125 million maintenance barn at 26th & Illinois is our project! If we don't build it, nobody will! We demand: 1) On-the-job training in all trades 2) Enforcement of all hiring goals: 50% resident, 25.6% minority, 6.9% women Tell your Supervisors, NO MONEY FOR MUNI UNTIL THEY COMPLY! Last Thursday, 300 residents turned out for the Human Rights Commission meeting - Let's do it again and more so! For more information, call: Louise Williams, Citizens Out of Work, (415) 374-3993 Willie Ratcliff, SF Bay View & African American Contractors of SF, (415) 671-0789 ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 2) The Struggle for Palestine: 4th Anniversary of the Intifada October 2nd 2004. Horace Mann Middle School - 3351 23rd Street, San Francisco *PLEASE FORWARD WIDELY* The Justice in Palestine Coalition, a group of progressive organizations wh= o have come together to work for a free Palestine, is hosting a day-long conference to: 1. Educate ourselves and our allies, and deepen our knowledge & understanding of the struggle in Palestine. 2. Link the work of our individual organizations and strengthen our network= s and activism through discussion, debate, and collaborative planning. 3. Organize for future solidarity and develop concrete a concrete plan of action for the coming months. 4. Support the resistance in Palestine, and make links with others who are fighting against the US occupation of Iraq, and against US Imperialism around the world. The conference will include panels, workshops and cultural performances. A complete schedule of events is listed below. Please reply to this email to find out about the next meeting of Justice in= Palestine and help us build for this important event. ............ ** Program ** The Struggle for Palestine: 4th Anniversary of the Intifada October 2nd, 2004 9:00-9:30: Registration Morning Plenary Session: The Current Status of Resistance in Palestine workshops throughout the day include: -Continuations of Plenary: Status of Resistance -History of Palestine, The Nekbah and the Right of Return -Iraq and Palestine: 2 Struggles, One cause -Zionism -Women and Resistance -Direct Action: Skills Development -The Impact of Palestine on the US Elections -Political Prisoners, Here and in Palestine -Globalization in the Arab World -The Targets of Empire: Cuba, Venezuela, Haiti, Iran, Philippines, Africa -Arab World Solidarity/Resistance -US Solidarity Groups -Repression/Occupation in the US (patriot Act, profiling, attacks on civil liberties) Report Back From Workshops Closing Summation and the Future in Palestine Cultural Performances for more information: info@justiceinpalestine.net or visit www.justiceinpalestine.net ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 3) In this message from A.N.S.W.E.R.: · The War at Home: Bayview- Hunters Point · Immigrant Rights March · March Against Racism Discrimination A.N.S.W.E.R. Educational Forum: THE WAR AT HOME: BAYVIEW-HUNTERS POINT Tuesday, Sept. 14, 7pm San Francisco Womens Building 3543 18th St. between Valencia and Guerrero The Pentagon spends billions of dollars to wreak war and violence on poor people around the world and here dollars that are being taken straight from our communities which need it for housing, jobs, schools and healthcare. The Bayview-Hunters Point community of San Francisco is on of the hardest hit by the war at home. Join us to hear featured speaker Maurice Campbell from the Community First Coalition and find out about: · The Navy Shipyard toxic dump and PG power plant that are poisoning the community · Racist gentrification being carried out by big real estate developers · Ongoing police terror against the Bayview-Hunters Point community · How the community is building alliances and fighting back $3-$10 donation (no one turned away for lack of funds) Free childcare available, call to reserve. For more information, contact 415-821-6545. ---------- Immigrant Rights March Wednesday, Sept. 15, 5:30pm Gather at 16th and Mission St., march to 24th and Mission St. March to reclaim the Mission District for undocumented immigrants in response to IMF raids. Call 415-487-9203 for more information. ---------- March Against Racism Discrimination Save the Date: Friday, Oct. 1, 5pm A recent campaign to expose racism and discrimination at the S.F. Badlands bar in the Castro has resulted in community activism, widespread media coverage, and action on the part of the city's Human Rights Commission. A coalition of organizations - including Black Rap, And Castro For All, ANSWER, the Harvey Milk Democratic Club, the SF LGBT Pride Celebration Committee, GAPA, and others - have come together to plan a protest to raise awareness about racism and other forms of discrimination within the Lesbian, Gay, Bi Trans community in San Francisco. Save the date of Friday, October 1. It will include a march and rally, as well as a celebration of the potential for inclusion that we strive for our community to achieve. Details to follow. Please join in planning and gathering diverse people to this event. For more information call 415-821-6545 or email answer@actionsf.org. To subscribe to the list, send a message to: ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 4) 9/11 Pollution 'Could Cause More Deaths Than Attack' Published on Sunday, September 12, 2004 by the lndependent/UK By Geoffrey Lean http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0912-01.htm Up to 400,000 New Yorkers breathed in the most toxic polluting cloud ever recorded after the twin towers were brought down three years ago, but no proper effort has been made to find out how their health has been affected, according to an official report. The US government study provides the latest evidence of a systematic cover-up of the health toll from pollution after the 9/11 disaster, which doctors fear will cause more deaths than the attacks themselves. The Bush administration suppressed evidence of increasing danger and officially announced that the air around the felled buildings was "safe to breathe". Another report reveals that it has since failed at least a dozen times to correct its assurances, even when it became clear that people were becoming sick. The official report - sent to Congress last week by the US Government Accountability Office - says that between 250,000 and 400,000 people in lower Manhattan were exposed to the pollution on 11 September 2001. But it shows that the government has yet to make a comprehensive effort to study the effects on their health. And it reveals that there is no systematic effort to adequately monitor the well-being of those affected, give them physical examinations or provide treatment. Scientific studies have shown that the cloud of pulverized debris from the skyscrapers was uniquely dangerous. The US government's own figures show that it contained the highest levels of deadly dioxins ever recorded - about 1,500 times normal levels. Unprecedented levels of acids, sulphur, fine particles, heavy metals and other dangerous materials were also measured. Asbestos was found at 27 times acceptable levels, and scientists found about 400 organic alkanes, phthalates and polyaromatic hydrocarbons - many suspected of causing cancer and other long- term diseases. The site at Ground Zero went on smoldering, becoming what scientists describe as a "chemical factory", creating new dangerous substances. (c) 2004 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd. ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 5) Bush team 'knew of abuse' at Guantánamo Oliver Burkeman in Washington Monday September 13, 2004 The Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/guantanamo/story/0,13743,1303105,00.html Evidence of prisoner abuse and possible war crimes at Guantánamo Bay reached the highest levels of the Bush administration as early as autumn 2002, but Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary, chose to do nothing about it, according to a new investigation published exclusively in the Guardian today. The investigation, by the veteran journalist Seymour Hersh, quotes one former marine at the camp recalling sessions in which guards would "fuck with [detainees] as much as we could" by inflicting pain on them. The Bush administration repeatedly assured critics that inmates were granted recreation periods, but one Pentagon adviser told Hersh how, for some prisoners, they consisted of being left in straitjackets in intense sunlight with hoods over their heads. Hersh provides details of how President George Bush signed off on the establishment of a secret unit that was given advance approval to kill or capture and interrogate "high-value" suspects - considered by many to be in defiance of international law - an officially "unacknowledged= " programme that was eventually transferred wholesale from Guantánamo to the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Hersh, who broke the story of the My Lai massacre in the Vietnam war, makes his revelations in a new book, Chain of Command, which leaves senior figures in the Bush administration far more seriously implicated in the torture scandal than had been previously apparent. A CIA analyst visited Guantánamo in summer 2002 and returned "convinced that we were committing war crimes" and that "more than half the people there didn't belong there. He found people lying in their own faeces," a CIA source told Hersh. The analyst submitted a report to General John Gordon, an aide to Condoleezza Rice, Mr Bush's national security adviser. Gen Gordon was troubled, and, one former administration official told Hersh "that if the actions at Guantánamo ever became public, it'd be damaging to the president". Ms Rice saw the document by autumn of the same year, and called a high-level meeting at which she asked Mr Rumsfeld, to deal with the problem. But after he vowed to act, "the Pentagon went into a full-court stall", a former White House official is quoted as saying. "Why didn't Condi do more? She made the same mistake I made. She got the secretary of defence to say he's going to take care of it." The investigation further suggests that CIA and FBI staff had already witnessed incidents at Guantánamo just as extreme as those that would subsequently be alleged by freed inmates. A senior intelligence official told Hersh: "I was told [by FBI agents] that the military guards were slapping prisoners, stripping them, pouring cold water over them and making them stand until they got hypothermia." The secret "special access programme" facilitating much of the mistreatment of prisoners, widely held to have contravened the Geneva convention, was established following a direct order from the president. Hersh reports that a secret document signed by Mr Bush in February 2002 stated: "I determine that none of the provisions of Geneva apply to our conflict with al-Qaida in Afghanistan or elsewhere throughout the world." Hersh's book reports that an army officer communicated concerns over abuses at Abu Ghraib both to General John Abizaid, the US central command (Centcom) chief at the time, and his deputy, General Lance Smith. The officer told Hersh: "I said there are systematic abuses going on in the prisons. Abizaid didn't say a thing. He looked at me - beyond me, as if to say, 'Move on. I don't want to touch this.'" Centcom has disputed the allegation. In an interview with the Guardian, Hersh provided evidence that the administration sought to evade the issue: he said codenames of some programmes were changed within hours of his original story appearing, presumably to maintain their secrecy. In a statement, the Pentagon said Hersh's investigation "apparently contains many of the numerous unsubstantiated allegations and inaccuracies which he has made in the past based upon unnamed sources ... Thus far ... investigations have determined that no responsible official of the Department of Defence approved any programme that could conceivably have authorised or condoned the abuses seen at Abu Ghraib. If any of Mr Hersh's anonymous sources wish to come forward and offer evidence to the contrary, the department welcomes them to do so." Pressure has been building on the Pentagon over its detention policies after it emerged at a Congressional hearing last week that the administration is being accused of concealing up to 100 "ghost detainees" from the Red Cross, which must be granted access to prisoners of war and other detainees under the Geneva convention. Mr Rumsfeld told reporters on Friday he had approved the use of harsh interrogation measures, but that they had only been meant for Guantánamo. He said the measures ought to be contrasted with those of terrorists. "Does it rank up there with chopping someone's head off on television?" he asked. "It doesn't." Guardian Unlimited (c) Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004 ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 6) 25 Reported Killed in U.S. Strike on Rebel Base in Falluja By TERENCE NEILAN September 13, 2004 http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/13/international/middleeast/13CND- IRAQ.html?hp American warplanes made what the military called a precision strike on a meeting place of terrorists believed linked to Al Qaeda in the Sunni stronghold of Falluja today, killing an estimated 25 militants. The military said in a statement that the attack was on a base intelligence officers had confirmed was used by rebels loyal to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian militant believed by American officials to be Al Qaeda's most senior leader in Iraq. Americans have blamed Mr. Zarqawi for many of the suicide bombings in Baghdad and in other Iraqi cities. News agency reports from Falluja that the air strikes killed at least 16 civilians, including women and children, and that an ambulance was hit by a shell, killing the driver and six other occupants, were denied by a coalition press officer by telephone from Baghdad. "The U.S. military is confirming that we did not hit an ambulance and we did not hit a marketplace," the press officer, Sharon Walker, said, referring to news agency accounts. Ms. Walker said that the 25 deaths "of Zarqawi operatives or anti-Iraqi forces" were an "initial estimate," leaving open the possibility of more casualties. Today's attack was the latest in almost a week of American strikes against rebel positions in Falluja, located 35 miles west of Falluja. Despite the military's denial, witnesses said the bombing targeted the city's residential al-Shurta neighborhood, damaging buildings and raising clouds of black smoke, The Associated Press reported. Dr. Adel Khamis of the Falluja General Hospital told the news agency that at least 16 people were killed and 12 others wounded. The ambulance was hit by a shell, killing the driver, a paramedic and five patients inside the vehicle, another hospital official, Hamid Salaman, told The A.P. "The conditions here are miserable - an ambulance was bombed, three houses destroyed and men and women killed," the hospital's director, Rafayi Hayad al-Esawi, told Al-Jazeera television by telephone in a report posted on the satellite station's Web site. "The American Army has no morals." He added, "Shame on our government that cannot protect the people." Witnesses told The A.P. that American warplanes repeatedly swooped low over the city and that artillery units deployed on the outskirts of the city also opened fire. The explosions started at sunrise and continued for several hours. The military statement said the attack occurred at 6:07 this morning. One explosion went off in a marketplace in Falluja as the first vendors began to set up their stalls, wounding several people and shattering windows, witnesses told the news agency. American forces pulled out of Falluja in April after a three-week siege that left hundreds dead. The United States Marines have not patrolled inside Falluja since then, and Sunni insurgents have strengthened their hold on the city. In other violence today, three members of the Iraqi National Guard were killed, three were wounded and one was missing in action when their joint patrol with American forces from the First Brigade Combat Team was attacked by a vehicle containing an improvised explosive device, the military said. The attack took place on the road to Al Amashru, about 18 miles northeast of Al Hilla City. Today's attacks came a day after a surge in violence across Iraq. The A.P. reported that 78 people were killed Sunday, citing the Health Ministry and local authorities. Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 7) Ellsberg urges insiders to leak Iraq info By KATA KERTESZ ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER WASHINGTON Thursday, September 9, 2004 · Last updated 9:25 p.m. PT http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/ apwashington_story.asp?category=1152&slug=Ellsberg WASHINGTON -- Daniel Ellsberg, the former Defense Department official who leaked the Pentagon Papers during the Vietnam war, is urging government insiders to provide similar classified documents about the invasion of Iraq. Joined by other whistle-blowers and former government employees, Ellsberg said at a news conference Thursday that claims of government deception and lies have "little credibility" unless supported by documentary evidence, which often is available only in classified materials. In a memo to current government employees, Ellsberg and other former government officials said federal insiders owe a "higher allegiance" to the Constitution, the public and American soldiers in Iraq than to their government bosses. "A hundred forty-thousand Americans are risking their lives every day in Iraq for dubious purpose," the memo said. "Our country has urgent need of comparable moral courage from its public officials. Truth-telling is a patriotic and effective way to serve the nation. The time for speaking out is now." The memo acknowledged that whistle-blowers risk personal setbacks, such as losing their jobs, but urged them to act nonetheless. "You may save many Americans from being lied to death," it said. Sibel Edmonds, who was fired by the FBI after she alleged security lapses in the agency's translator program, said the government frequently over-classifies documents, including the investigation into her own case. Among the documents claimed to be wrongly classified are sections of reports from Army investigations into prisoner abuse in Iraq and Afghanistan, and supporting material for then-Army Gen. Eric Shinseki's February 2003 estimate that several hundred thousand troops would have to stay in Iraq after the war. Ellsberg was a special assistant to the assistant secretary of defense during the Vietnam War. He released the 7,000 page classified study to the Senate and 19 newspapers in 1971 and now leads the Truth Telling Project. On the Net: Truth Telling Project: www.truthtellingproject.org ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 8) ALERT: CFL ALERT: ASK YOUR REPRESENTATIVES TO STOP THE INDISCRIMINATE KILLING OF PALESTINIAN YOUTH. Date: Sun, 12 Sep 2004 From: Seham Fare SEND OUR PREWRITTEN LETTER NOW OR, WRITE YOUR OWN: http://www.cflweb.org/congress_merge_.htm ********************************* Citizens for Fair Legislation For Immediate Release September 12, 2004 ******************************** CFL ALERT: ASK YOUR REPRESENTATIVES TO STOP THE INDISCRIMINATE KILLING OF PALESTINIAN YOUTH. TALKING POINTS *On 9/11/04 Israelis slaughtered 18-year-old Muhammad al-Haq as he was walking home. An Israeli soldier manning a jeep ran over him repeatedly until he died. The vehicle then fled from the scene after killing Muhammed. Last year American citizens were horrified when our government refused to censure Israel after a soldier killed Rachel Corrie, a U.S. citizen in a manner that was eerily reminiscent of the way Muhammed al-Haq was killed. In that incident the soldier ran over and continued to back up over her body repeatedly with a CAT bulldozer. If our government had properly censured Israel over the death of Rachel Corrie, perhaps Muhammed would be alive today. In the past few months the Israelis have killed over 50 children between the ages of 2 months and 18 years without a single reprimand by this country. Contact your representatives, both Republicans and Democrats and urge them to stop looking the other way as Israel continues to murder and victimize Palestinian children daily. TALKING POINTS *Over 600 Palestinian children between the ages of two months and 18 years have been killed by the Israeli Defense Forces in the past three and a half years. Ask your representatives why they have remained silent while this slaughter has occurred. *Hundreds of Palestinian children are languishing in the territories because the Israeli government refuses to let them out of the country and into Jordan or Egypt to seek medical care. No other country in the world would be allowed to deliberately treat children in such an abusive manner, ask your representatives why they feel this is appropriate. *Israel will not allow the UN to move freely within the territories, as a result the UN has issued an emergency report earlier in the year stating that Palestinians living in the Israeli-occupied territories of Gaza and the West Bank are on the verge of a humanitarian catastrophe. The report also stated that 9 percent of Palestinian children under age 5 suffer from brain defects caused by malnutrition because of the occupation. *Tell your representatives that you feel Israeli action against Palestinian children is deplorable and that you feel that this government shares responsibility for the murder of over 600 Palestinian children, the starvation of an entire generation of Palestinian children and all other Israeli crimes that specifically target Palestinian children. None of these crimes against children could happen were it not for the tacit approval by the president of the United States and the U.S. Congress and Senate. Please choose the appropriate letter to send! (YOU MUST PICK A SUBJECT FROM THE DROP DOWN BAR) [After you enter your contact info the appropriate addresses are provided. Simply type, or send our prewritten letter and click send. Be sure to bookmark this page so you can send ONE LETTER EVERY DAY. We have prewritten letters for your convenience.] EMAIL AND OR CALL THE WHITE HOUSE WHITE HOUSE COMMENTS LINE: 202-456-1111 WHITE HOUSE SWITCHBOARD: 202-456-1414 WHITE HOUSE FAX: 202-456-2461 Citizens for Fair Legislation is a grassroots organization committed to encouraging a fair domestic and foreign policy with an emphasis on the US/Arab world. www.cflweb.org To learn more about John Kerry and his anti-human rights position on Palestinians, click here: http://cflweb.org/kerryonisrael.htm.htm ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 9) Solidarity greetings to The Coalition Against the Deportation of Palestinian Refugees in Montreal, From Bay Area United Against War (BAUAW) www.bauaw.org We stand in full support of your two demands, 1. To stop the deportations of the Palestinian refugees from Canada 2. To grant them permanent residency on humanitarian and compassionate grounds Please add us to your list of endorsers. We have forwarded your appeal to our list-serve. We join in solidarity with your struggle to resist illegal, racially and religiously motivated persecution of Palestinians in your country and ours. Especially those who stand up for their rights as free citizens of the world and as Palestinians being forced off their land by U.S.-funded Israeli Apartheid. We are working to end all U.S. aid to Israel! Tear down the Apartheid Wall! Demand the right of return of all Palestinians to their land! Stop the wars on Iraq and Afghanistan. Bring all U.S. and allied troops and corporations home now. Yours for peace and solidarity, Bonnie Weinstein, Bay Area United Against War ---------- Forwarded message- please pass along ---------- Date: Fri, 27 Aug 2004 19:42:20 -0700 (PDT) From: Palestinian Refugees - Montreal STATELESS & DEPORTED! A Popular Mobilization Against Deportation of Palestinians from Canada =>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=> SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 18th, 2004 Gathering Point: 2PM Corner Atwater & St. Catherine {metro Atwater} =>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=> From the Refugee Camps of Lebanon & Palestine to the Streets of Montreal! For more than one year Palestinian refugees in Montreal and throughout Canada have been struggling against deportation and fighting for their status. On September 18th, the Coalition Against the Deportation of Palestinian Refugees and their supporters are calling for your participation in a large-scale demonstration on the streets of Montreal. It is a critical time to show your solidarity with the Palestinian refugees, as many of the deportations are set to take place in the coming weeks and months. In Montreal, Palestinian refugees have already been forced by Immigration Canada to live underground or take sanctuary, such as Khalil Ayoub, 67 Nabih Ayoub, 69 and Therese Boulos Haddad, 62 who have been refugees all their lives, fleeing Palestine in 1948 to the refugee camps of Lebanon, and ultimately to Canada. The Ayoub family, confined to the basement of Notre-Dame de Grace Church, were forced to take sanctuary over 7 months ago to escape deportation. The September 18th demonstration in Montreal will also commemorate the thousands of Palestinian refugees who lost their lives in the 1982 massacre of Sabra and Chatila, during the Israeli invasion of Beirut. The Palestinian refugees facing deportation are the sons and daughters of the very same refugee camps, which suffered throughout the 15-year long Lebanese civil-war. They are the sons and daughters of Sabra & Chatila, Tel El Zaatar and Bourj El Barajneh, stateless refugees representing a history of displacement, which began in 1948. As we remember the massacre of Sabra & Chatila - one of the deepest wounds in the Palestinian consciousness - we will demonstrate in solidarity with the struggle of Palestinians here in Canada! We will march on the streets of Montreal within the context of a political campaign that has been waged throughout Canada during the past year in support of the Palestinian refugees facing deportation. Thousands of people throughout the country have participated in street demonstrations, and thousands more have pressured Citizenship & Immigration Canada in support of the refugees. Wide sections of society are standing in solidarity with the struggle against Palestinian deportations, including the Arab and Muslim community, self-organized immigrants and refugees, major labour unions, countless community groups, major political parties, faith based organizations and thousands of individuals from throughout the world. With this strong backing, we intend to intensify the struggle against Palestinian deportations this September. We must stand united in the struggle against the deportation of Palestinian refugees! Join us on the streets of Montreal on September 18th and throughout the month of September for a popular mobilization against the deportation of Palestinian refugees. Your support, solidarity and action is needed now! For more information or to get involved contact: The Coalition Against the Deportation of Palestinian Refugees in Montreal Phone: 514 591 3171 Email: refugees@riseup.net Web: http://refugees.resist.ca -> Below is the list of supporting organizations for the two demands of the Coalition Against the Deportation of Palestinian Refugees: 1. To stop the deportations of the Palestinian refugees from Canada 2. To grant them permanent residency on humanitarian and compassionate grounds QUÃBEC: Action Committee of Pakistani Refugees Against Racial Profiling, * Association québécoise des organismes de coopération internationale(AQOCI) * Alsuna Mosque * Alternatives, Montreal * Alternative Perspective Media, * AnNahda, Montreal * The Anti-Capitalist Convergence of Montreal (CLAC) * Association Générale Ãtudiante du Cégep du Vieux Montréal (AGECVM), * Association for the Taxation of Financial Transaction for the Aid of Citizens (ATTAC-Montreal), Montreal * Bête Noire (NEFAC), * Bloque Quebecois * Block the Empire/Bloquez l'Empire, * Comité d'action des sans-status Algériens (CASS), * Canadian Palestinian Foundation of Quebec (CPF-Q), * Canadian Federation of Students Quebec (CFS-Q), * Canadian Muslim Forum (CMF), * Canadian Muslims for Jerusalem (CMJ), * Center Femmes Verdun, Quebec * CKUT Radio, 90.3fm Montreal, * La Centrale des syndicats du Québec (CSQ), * Coalition justice pour Adil Charkaoui, * Collective Opposed to Police Brutality (COBP), * Comité Justice sociale des Soeurs Auxiliatrices, * Conseil central du Montréal métropolitain (CSN), * Conseil paroissial de pastorale, Communauté chrétienne Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, * Comité régional d'éducation pour le développement international de Lanaudière (CREDIL) * Council of Canadians * Dar Al-Arqam Mosque * Dragon Root Center for Gender Advocacy, * L'Entraide missionnaire, * Durzi Community of Quebec * El-Hedaya Lebanese Association * Fire Women & Trans of Colour Collective, * Forum des femmes de Montréal,* Freedom School, * ICQ Mosque * Indigenous Peoples Solidarity Movement (IPSM), * Iranian Women's Association of Montreal, * Iranian Women's Association of Montreal, * International Solidarity Movement (ISM), Montreal * Iraq Solidarity Project (ISP), * Jewish Alliance Against the Occupation, * Lebanese Islamic Center of Montreal (CIL), * Lebanese Communist Party in Montreal, * Lebanese Union of Montreal, * Libertas Legal Collective, * Ligue des droits et libertés, * McGill Radical Law Community, Medical Aid for Palestine (MAP), * MRAP-Québec (Mouvement contre le racisme et l'antisémitisme et pour la paix) * Muslim Council of Montreal (MCM) * L'Opération SalAMI * Palestinian & Jewish Unity (PAJU), * Parole Arabe, * Parti Marxist-Leninst Quebec * Quebec Public Interest Research Group (QPIRG) at Concordia, * Quebec Public Interest Research Group (QPIRG) at McGill * Rebel Desis * Regroupement des Organismes du Montréal Ethnique pour le Logement (ROMEL) * Solidairty for Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR) * South Asian Women's Community Center * Solidarité Union Coopération (SUCO) * Union des forces progressistes (UFP) * United Muslim Students Association * Voices of Conscience (OCVC) * Women in Black Montreal CANADA: Association of Palestinian Arab Canadians, Ottawa * Al-Awda - the Palestinian Right of Return Coalition, North America, * Anti-Capitalist Community Action Ottawa (ACA), Ottawa * Arab-Palestine Association-BC, Vancouver * Arab Palestine Association of Ontario, Toronto * Arab Student Collective (ASC) at the University of Toronto * Bloque Quebecois * Canadian Council for Refugees, Le Conseil canadien pour les réfugiés (CCR), * Canadian Friends of Sabeel, Ottawa * Canadian Arab Federation (CAF), * Canadian Palestinian Center, Ottawa * Canaanite Canadian Knowledge Center, Ottawa * Canadians for Equality and Peace for Palestinians (CEPPal), Edmonton * Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) Local 199, St Catharines and District * Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW), * Canadian Palestinian Congress, Toronto * Calgary Coalition for Peace & Anti-Racism * Canadian Council of Muslim Women * Direct Action Casework Ottawa (DACO), Ottawa * The Free Press, of Kitchener, Ontario * Human Concern International, Ottawa * International Socialists, Canada * International Solidarity Movement (ISM), Toronto * International ANSWER Coalition, NYC * International Action Center (IAC), * The Islamic Society of York Region * Kingston for Palestinian Human Rights, * Manitoba Islamic Association, * McMaster Students Against the Occupation, Hamilton * Muslim Student Association of the University of Alberta, Edmonton * Muslim Student Association at the University of Waterloo * New Democratic Party of Canada (NDP) * New Socialist Group, Toronto * The Near East Cultural and Educational Foundation, Toronto * Niagara Coalition for Peace, Niagara Region * Niagara Palestinian Association, Niagara * No One Is Illegal, Vancouver * No One is Illegal, Toronto * No One is Illegal, Montreal * NOWAR-PAIX, Ottawa * Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP), Toronto * Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP), Toronto * Ontario Public Interest Research Group (OPIRG) at Carleton, Ottawa * Palestine Solidairty Group, Vancouver * Project Threadbare Campaign, Toronto * STATUS Coalition, Toronto * Solidarity with Iraqi & Palestinian Children at Carleton, Ottawa * The Spot, Kitchener-Waterloo Youth Resource Center * Toronto Coalition to Stop the War, Toronto * Toronto Jewish Youth Against the Occupation, Toronto * United Holy Land Fund, Toronto * Women Against the Occupation, Canada INTERNATIONAL: Aidoun Group, Lebanon * Akka Charitable Association, Lebanon * Al-Awda Egypt, Cairo, Egypt * Al-Awda Club, Lebanon * Al-Awda - the Palestinian Right of Return Coalition, North America, * Al-Nadeem Center for the Rehabilitation of the Victims of Violence, Cairo, Egypt * Arab American Association, New York, * Arraby Charitable Association, Lebanon * Center for Women Activities, Lebanon * Coalition for the Human Rights of Immigrants (CHRI), New York * Committee for Charitable Works, Lebanon * The Coordination Forum of the NGO's Working Among the Palestinian Community, Lebanon * Deir Yassin Society of New York, * Desis Rising Up & Moving (DRUM) New York, * Direct Action Palestine, New York, * The East Jerusalem YMCA, Palestine * The Egyptian Organization for Human Rights, Egypt * The General Union of Palestinian Women, Lebanon * The General Union of Palestinian Workers, Lebanon * Immigrant Justice Solidarity Project (IJSP), New York, * International Solidarity Movement, Berkeley, * Islamic Association for Palestine in North America, * Jews Against The Occupation, New York, * A Jewish Voice for Peace, Oakland, * Justice for Palestinians, San Jose, * Khalsa Social Association, Lebanon * The March For Justice, International * Multi-Lingual Translators & Interpreters Group, Egypt * New England Committee to Defend Palestine, Boston * New York Committee to Defend Palestine, * New Jersey Solidarity - Activists for the Liberation of Palestine * Office of Palestinian Students Aid, Lebanon * The Organization of Palestinian Democratic Women, Lebanon * The Organization of Palestinian Democratic Youth, Lebanon * The Organization of Palestinian Human Rights, Lebanon * Palestinian Women Union, Egypt * Palestinian Students Committee, University of Wollongong, UAE * Palestinian Cultural Club, American University in Dubai, UAE * Reach Organization, Dubai, UAE Roots Association (Judhoor), Lebanon * School of Oriental & African Studies (SOAS) Palestine Society, London, UK * Students for Justice at San Jose State University, San Jose, USA * Tulkarem Club, Lebanon * Union of Palestinian Youth, Gaza, Palestine * Youth & Children Center, Chatila, Lebanon ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 10) Preventive War: A Failed Doctrine September 12, 2004 http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/12/opinion/12sun1.html?hp If facts mattered in American politics, the Bush-Cheney ticket would not be basing its re-election campaign on the fear-mongering contention that the surest defense against future terrorist attacks lies in the badly discredited doctrine of preventive war. Vice President Dick Cheney took this argument to a disgraceful low last week when he implied that electing John Kerry and returning to traditional American foreign policy values would invite a devastating new strike. So far, the preventive war doctrine has had one real test: the invasion of Iraq. Mr. Bush terrified millions of Americans into believing that forcibly changing the regime in Baghdad was the only way to keep Iraq's supposed stockpiles of unconventional weapons out of the hands of Al Qaeda. Then it turned out that there were no stockpiles and no operational links between Saddam Hussein's regime and Al Qaeda's anti-American terrorism. Meanwhile, America's longstanding defensive alliances were weakened and the bulk of America's ground combat troops tied down in Iraq for what now appears to be many years to come. If that is making this country safer, it is hard to see how. The real lesson is that America dangerously erodes its military and diplomatic defenses when it charges off unwisely after hypothetical enemies. Before the Iraq fiasco, American leaders rightly viewed war as a last resort, appropriate only when the nation's vital interests were actively threatened and reasonable diplomatic efforts had been exhausted. That view always left room for pre-emptive attacks; America is under no obligation to sit and wait, if it is clear that some enemy is actually preparing to strike first. But it correctly drew the line at preventive wars against potential foes who might, or might not, be thinking about doing something dangerous. As the administration's disastrous experience in Iraq amply demonstrates, that is still the wisest course and the one that keeps America most secure in an increasingly dangerous era. The terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, plainly ushered in a new era of catastrophic threats to the American homeland. If these are to be met effectively, major changes in national security policy will be required. But a shift toward preventive wars is not one of them. As the 9/11 commission report clearly established, international terrorist groups like Al Qaeda are highly mobile, self-financing and largely independent of traditional states. Governments that grant them sanctuary and facilities, like Afghanistan under the Taliban or Sudan, must face strong international pressure, including American military attack. Any attempt by the president and his surrogates to lump the invasion of Afghanistan into the category of preventive wars is plain wrong. In fact, the war in Iraq has undermined the important work that American forces are doing in Afghanistan by diverting soldiers, supplies and money. Al Qaeda has already declared war on the United States, and America needs to fight back relentlessly - in Afghanistan and through international efforts to capture terrorist leaders who function with forged passports and visas, safe houses and sleeper cells. That is why Mr. Cheney is also wrong to disparage law- enforcement cooperation with allies as an important weapon in this war. Instead, he promises more preventive, offensive wars against hypothetical dangers like Iraq. Besides estranging America from its main European and Asian allies, and leaving Washington looking like an aggressor to much of the Arab and Muslim world, these policies kill American soldiers and civilians in the countries attacked, and they threaten to tie down the Army and Marine divisions America needs to have available for responding to real threats in the dangerous decades ahead. Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* 11) Iraq allowed to rearm Critics say embargo lift may worsen Iraq's security problems By CLAIRE SCHAEFFER-DUFFY National Catholic Reporter, September 10, 2004 www.natcath.org Iraq, once restrained by some of the severest military sanctions, can now buy its own weapons thanks to a little-publicized provision of the United Nations Security Council that lifted a 14-year arms embargo on the country. The provision is included in a U.N. resolution, unanimously passed last June, legitimizing the new Iraqi interim government. The removal of the arms embargo, instituted to enable Iraq to refurbish its arsenal and take responsibility for its security needs, has turned the formerly weapons-deprived country into a seller's market for defense contractors. It has also drawn criticism from some analysts who question the wisdom of rearming a politically unstable country still occupied by the world's largest military power. "How much of this is a photo op? A way to whitewash the occupation by showing the world that we are allowing Iraq to rebuild its army? Any new [Iraqi] security force would still remain under U.S. control," said Frida Berrigan, a senior research associate with the Arms Trade Resource Center, a project of the World Policy Institute. The new U.N. provision is a formality. Iraq has technically been open to the arms trade since May 2003 when the country came under the governance of the Coalition Provisional Authority. According to the Asia Times, over the past year Iraq has purchased 50,000 handguns from the Austrian company Glock, 421 UAZ Hunter jeeps from Russia, "millions of dollars worth of armored cars from Brazil and Ukraine, along with AK-47 assault rifles, 9 mm pistols, military vehicles, fire control equipment and night vision devices." Asia Times also reported that the Coalition Provisional Authority, shortly before its transfer of power to the Iraqi interim government, negotiated contracts for six C-130 Hercules military transport aircraft, 16 Iroquois helicopters and a squadron of 16 low-flying, light reconnaissance aircraft, to be delivered by April 2005. Lockheed Martin, the world's largest arms exporter, manufactures the C-130. An ironic detail of the Iraq purchase is that Lockheed Martin products were used during U.S. bombing campaigns of the first Gulf War, which destroyed much of Iraq's air force. Cynical though it may be for a company to sell military aircraft to a country after it made a profit building the weapons that destroyed its aircraft, the practice is commonplace, according to Chatap Pratterjee, an investigative journalist for the online publication CorpWatch. "Weapons manufacturers will sell to anybody unless there is an arms embargo," he said. Free to buy, Iraq is unable to pay for its military hardware and currently relies on U.S. military aid. Congress has appropriated a little less than $3 billion for Iraq's security needs, $2 billion of which are earmarked for developing the country's new army, according to the report in the The National Interest. Chris Toensig, editor of the quarterly Middle East Report, said American funding of Iraqi weaponry is a continuation of U.S. policy in the Middle East. "The U.S. has been a large arms supplier in the region. This is one of the linchpins of strategic relationships -- = a way of trying to make sure the Iraq government remains dependent on the U.S.," he said. Several analysts pointed out that Iraq's lack of independent purchasing power has translated into a bias towards American companies for arms deals. "U.S. defense contractors consider the Iraqi military contracts their domain. The Glock deal was an anomaly and some people were upset by it. The sentiment expressed by some members of the American Congress was, 'How could an American company not get it?' " said Berrigan. "Obviously countries and defense industries are excited about lifting an arms embargo," said Rachel Stohl, a researcher with the Center for Defense Information. "But the policy is problematic because there has been no thorough inventory of Iraq's arsenals." Iraq is "awash in light weaponry," Stohl said. She believes importing arms will only exacerbate the security problems posed by the country's already overstocked and unregulated arsenal of small arms -- revolvers, rifles, pistols and the like. After Saddam Hussein's defeat, the Iraqi people found themselves in possession of at least 7 to 8 million small arms previously kept by security forces, according to the Small Arms Survey of 2004, a publication of the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva. The publication described Iraq as a country that "has become synonymous with gun violence." In an op-ed for the Los Angeles Times, Stohl estimated that small arms have killed "more than one third" of the U.S. soldiers who have died in Iraq since the end of major combat operations in May 2003, wounded thousands more, and wreaked havoc on the Iraqi population. "Uncounted Iraqi civilians have been killed, wounded, hreatened or terrorized by small arms," she wrote. With regard to replenishing Iraq's heavy conventional weaponry, Stohl asked, "Do they need to be spending a significant amount of money on new weapons? The threats they are facing are not going to be solved with tanks alone. What are the greatest needs of reconstruction? Is it military goods and services or is it roads and services?" But for Anthony Cordesman, national security analyst with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, lifting the arms embargo is the natural outcome of Iraq's sovereignty and should not be questioned, especially given the severity of the current nsurgency. Cordesman, who has sharply criticized the United States for not attending to the development of Iraq's security forces, admitted there are practical obstacles to Iraq's rearmament, including lack of money and the lack of a stable security force to absorb the arms. But he said the current insurgency necessitates that the new government have access to weapons. "If you cannot create effective security, you have no chance of creating a national government. For an Iraqi government to succeed it has to take this mission [of security] over. There is no question the insurgents are able to draw from a large cache of weapons left over from Hussein's regime. Suggesting Iraq should remain under an arms embargo is about as relevant as suggesting an arms embargo for the Spanish government when they were fighting the fascists during the Spanish Civil War," he said. Critics of the new U.N. provision disagree. They say Iraq's sovereignty is limited, if not superficial, overshadowed by the formidable presence of the U.S. military. "You are dealing with a country that is about to get seven large U.S. military bases," said George Lopez, director of Policy Studies and senior fellow at the Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies. "The only way to make this appear to be a not so visible occupation is to allow the Iraqis their own arsenal. It's like NATO basing in Germany at the height of the Cold War. They armed NATO and they armed Germany, and that's what you have here." Iraq has five major security forces: the Iraqi Police Service, the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps, the army, the border patrol and the Facilities Protection Services. Although the Pentagon has been successful in recruiting members of these forces (working security in Iraq is one of the few jobs that offers a regular paycheck), cultivating their allegiance to a central government has been more difficult. "In some instances, private contractors are training Iraqi military and police," Berrigan said. "Who's vetting these people? The security environment is so precarious that introducing a whole new set of armed individuals is adding a new layer of volatility to an already volatile region. At the same time water isn't clean." Berrigan said she is familiar with the argument that security must precede reconstruction but she sees Iraq's dilemma as a "chicken and egg kind of thing. The fact that there isn't electricity or plumbing fuels the resistance. It seems to me these projects come first. Security flows from basic needs being met," she said. Claire Schaeffer-Duffy is a freelance writer living in Worcester, Mass. National Catholic Reporter, September 10, 2004 www.natcath.org Since 1923 the War Resisters League has affirmed that war is a crime against humanity. We therefore are determined not to support any kind of war, international or civil, and to strive nonviolently for the removal of all the causes of war.
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